The Crisis is far from over

I just read Andrew Gavin Marshall's latest article at Global Research: Debt Dynamite Dominoes: The Coming Financial Catastrophe.

And I fear he's way too correct in his evaluation.

Some paragraphs at the beginning are really descriptive of what awaits to the still too quiet citizens (every day more like denizens in fact) of the so-called Western World:

When the crisis is over, the middle classes of the western world will have been liquidated of their economic, political and social status. The global economy will have gone through the greatest consolidation of industry and banking in world history leading to a system in which only a few corporations and banks control the global economy and its resources; governments will have lost that right. The people of the western world will be treated by the financial oligarchs as they have treated the ‘global South’ and in particular, Africa; they will remove our social structures and foundations so that we become entirely subservient to their dominance over the economic and political structures of our society.

This is where we stand today, and is the road on which we travel.

The western world has been plundered into poverty, a process long underway, but with the unfolding of the crisis, will be rapidly accelerated. As our societies collapse in on themselves, the governments will protect the banks and multinationals. When the people go out into the streets, as they invariably do and will, the government will not come to their aid, but will come with police and military forces to crush the protests and oppress the people. The social foundations will collapse with the economy, and the state will clamp down to prevent the people from constructing a new one.

The road to recovery is far from here. When the crisis has come to an end, the world we know will have changed dramatically. No one ever grows up in the world they were born into; everything is always changing. Now is no exception. The only difference is, that we are about to go through the most rapid changes the world has seen thus far.

This is a truth as big as the Burj Khalifa, the babel tower of Dubai's debacle. This is where we stand now.

But the article has a lot more substance than this "apocalyptic", yet too real, forecast. Marshall dwells on the many facets of the ongoing crisis, from the ineffective bailouts and "stimulus packages" China's "vote of no confidence" to US debt (Japan is now the largest US bondholder) and the failed economies of Europe (Iceland, Latvia, Greece, etc.). It also goes to criticize those who say that some economic policies are "socialist": they are nothing but fascist economics, which is designed to make the rich richer at the expense of the workers and even the middle classes.

But, of course, the greatest threat ahead is US debt, which is the usual case of overstretching empires (cf. Spain under the Habsburgs). This means that somehow the hegemonic power held by the USA must (at least in what regards to capitalist interest) pass to some other institution. Something like a global totalitarian empire, oddly enough inspired in the successful Chinese model of capitalism, he thinks. In other words: globalized fascism, the triumph of Hitler long after his death and, again oddly enough, under Zionist leadership.

The fear of a Marxist renaissance is not absent from such totalitarian plans:

In 2007, the British Defense Ministry released a report in which they analyzed future trends in the world. It stated in regards to social problems, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx.”

This, notice, is not too different from the concept of the Social Worker, predicted by Marx and reclaimed by Negri. The term "middle classes" is surely misleading in this context but anyhow they will not exist anymore soon, thanks to Goldman Sachs and co.

In this sense, Marshall reminds us that none of the highly controversial plans to impose martial law and suppress civil rights in the USA have been revoked by the Obama administration.

The last paragraphs are an appeal to fight back at global level and build truly worthy world in which we, as well as the future generations, can live with dignity and freedom:

The people of the world must pursue and work for peace and justice on a global scale: economically, politically, socially, scientifically, artistically, and personally. It’s asking a lot, but it’s our only option. We need to have ‘hope’, a word often strewn around with little intent to the point where it has come to represent failed expectations. We need hope in ourselves, in our ability to throw off the shackles that bind us and in our diversity and creativity construct a new world that will benefit all.

No one knows what this world would look like, or how exactly to get there, least of all myself. What we do know is what it doesn’t look like, and what road to steer clear of. The time has come to retake our rightful place as the commanders of our own lives. It must be freedom for all, or freedom for none. This is our world, and we have been given the gift of the human mind and critical thought, which no other living being can rightfully boast; what a shame it would be to waste it.

Sure, what a shame!