Touching the Federal Reserve Nerve

In a rather desperate attempt to appear relevant, the Federal Reserve just published a report on the threats climate change presents to the economy. It provides insight into a mindset thoroughly colonized by capitalist ideology. One can only imagine the amount of time and money a group of elite experts put into their research in order to come up with this statement:

"The growing number of studies and emerging innovations in climate resilience and adaptation financing"- ok, stop right there, nine years to avoid runaway, self reinforcing feedback loops, 402 ppm atmospheric co2 concentration, emissions steadily increasing and they are now getting around to studying adaptation "financing"? - "is setting the stage for developing a comprehensive system"- stop again and consider; at this moment of crisis they are "studying financing" which will someday "set the stage" for later "developing a system"; in other words they have barely started thinking about it- "a set of standardized products, services, practices and tools- that is able to overcome key barriers and to take advantage of opportunities posed by climate change."

So. As soon as they study financing mechanisms some capitalist will come up with "standardized" bullshit to overcome the threat climate chaos poses to profit accumulation. This catastrophe is an "opportunity" if you only look at it through a pathological lens.

Melting arctic and sea level rise? No worries: "At some point in the next 20 to 30 years" says one of the reports expert authors (CEO of Realty Capital Corp.), "there may be a threat to the availability of the 30 year mortgage in various vulnerable and highly exposed areas." This is how insanely out of touch elites are. To ward off any socialist Green New Deal tendencies one editor, a Harvard faculty member stresses: "the private sector must assume a greater role in preparing for the effects of climate change. The private sector has always adapted. One either adapts to new markets, products or services, or they go out of business."

But what happens when the ecosystem "goes out of business"? There is simply no way for these kinds of people to understand the implications or as David Byrne wrote: "As things fell apart nobody paid much attention."

Prairie Propaganda

Driving across the great corn belt of America- eastern South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa- I decided to tune into some local radio. I found a station that was listing the recent funerals, birthdays and anniversaries for the region of small towns and isolated farm families scattered along the rolling, black dirt country. They mentioned all the surviving family members. There were only three birthdays and one silver anniversary. Really local radio.

Then it was time to reinforce ideological narratives so we heard from the "Farm Report" on the danger of foreign agricultural subsidies. How competitor countries prop up their farm economy giving them an unfair advantage, but maybe more importantly, hurting capitalism by not letting the weak fall by the wayside and letting the superior producers thrive through the miracle of the marketplace. Of course the "Farm Report" never mentioned the massive subsidies US agriculture has always received. There was also considerable irony in the fact I was driving through miles and miles of flooded farm land whose owners received billions in federal emergency aid.

Then came the ads for Round-up Ready herbicide, the modern "system" of weed control for industrial ag production. No mention of all those toxic chemicals being washed off the flooded fields out to the ocean where they create massive "dead-zones". Then came the "report" on how ethanol was making America energy independent and how the farmer selflessly fed America and on and on in this continuous ad for American capitalism. I wondered: who exactly produced all this propaganda? Who pays for it?

I stopped for breakfast at a diner in Iowa where I got to sit in front of the ubiquitous television tuned to FOX "news". Hannity had a panel of "experts" talking about the threat to our freedom and way of life posed by the radical leftists. Large farmers in over-alls and camo hats sat sipping coffee and joking with the large waitresses. Like their fields, they are thoroughly inundated with conservative messaging through a concerted, coordinated corporate propaganda program. pretty impressive if you think about it.

Not Soon Enough

In an essay titled The End of Capitalism is Already Starting, Eillie Anzilotti optimistically agrees with Marxist economist Richard Wolff that the growth in cooperative workplaces signals a threat to capitalism's hegemony. I wish I could agree. Even if the number of cooperatives was significant ( which the article admits it really isn't) this trend is a reform which Capital can absorb without any loss of legitimacy. Plus the fact, by the time this loss of accumulation/ political power/ ideological reproduction that coops represent becomes a serious problem, the climate emergency will have thrown the system into crisis which coops can't escape..

Neither climate nor ecological breakdown is mentioned in the piece at all. Wolff places all his emphasis on " the smaller waves and shifts in the way things are done that signal true change." I couldn't disagree more. Capital is incredibly adaptive and fluid and it is only major ruptures or upheaval that threaten its continuity.Ecological breakdown- its early manifestations such as we are witnessing- and the threat of runaway feedback loops- is that rupture. The metabolic rift is the contradiction capital cannot overcome. Why would Wolff ignore it?

A cooperatively organized enterprise still has to compete in a global market. It can appeal to a niche consumer who values the ethic but that is a luxury. Poor people buy the cheap shit (I am and I do). Wolff and the DSA and Jacobin and socialists in general are looking to a re-vitalized workers movement to challenge capital. I wouldn't hold my breath...

I'm Sorry

I can't help it, I love Trump. He is the most unbelievable combination of Dr. Strangelove and Rodney Dangerfield in Caddy Shack and the performance is something historians will puzzle over for decades ( about all we have left, unfortunately, otherwise they would puzzle for centuries).

He comes to Bushwood Country Club honking his horn and flashing his wad in the most crass, unflinching, un-reflexive style humanly possible, like every great comic letting you feel like you are special in being let in on the joke. While obliterating the "elite", those who look down on you and condescend to you. Bill Maher is a poser when it comes to high-level political un-correctness.

He has also mastered a coded language so powerful in its ability to select between those who "get it" ( your in group) and those at whom it is aimed (elites). Speaking to a group of young black supporters from the conservative group Turning Point, he goes "off script" and says, referring to their female leader: "“I’m not allowed to say it any more, but she’s also beautiful,” Trump said, arms outstretched, palms open, as the room erupted in laughter. “It’s true. Under the MeToo generation we’re not allowed to say it. So all of you young brilliant guys, never, ever call a woman beautiful, please.

“You’re not allowed to do it and I’ve kept doing it and I’ve never been told by that woman never to do it.”

This is code for: snowflakes get all bent over a little pussy grabbing but we know women like it. It's what we guys learned to laugh along with in the locker room if we didn't want to get singled out. This is what Dangerfield's stand up was all about. The young blacks know if they grin along they may get introduced to Kanye West or other black entrepreneurs and they can network and make connections like they learned to do in the capitalist "Locker room".