S.Artesian

FAQ–answers to questions raised, and not, at the Insurgent Notes meeting

Q1. What does Trump represent?

A1. Trump, not to be confused with the Trampps of the dance classic “Disco Inferno,” represents a wave of international reaction triggered by insufficient levels of profitability since 2008, and by the very modest improvements made since the trough of the Great Recession. Trump represents the “big clawback” of revenues that capital imagines it can grasp through the liquidation of regulations, restraints, protections; through the arbitrage of the inefficiencies and irrationality of markets; inefficiencies and irrationality made so much more acute, and fungible, by the disruption, disorder, shock that is the trading on the Trump brand.

A true man for the times, Trump exudes inefficiency and irrationality from every pore. He’s got more inefficiency and irrationality in his little finger, his little finger s , than entire branches of the military.

That’s entertainment, but not just entertainment. Nixon had his “madman act,” the pissed-off petit-bourgeois with the launch codes. Nixon was neurotic. Trump is the spoiled brat; not neurotic, pathological. He doesn’t recall that it’s an act. He thinks he’s entitled.

Q2. Are there other examples of the international nature of this reaction?

A2. Sure thing–Brazil, with the impeachment and expulsion of Rousseff, triggered in part by the collapse of oil and commodity prices; Argentina with the election of Macri; Peru and Venezuela; France, Le Pen; Italy, the success of the 5 Star movement, and the growth of the Northern League; Greece, with Syriza’s capitulation to the Troika; Hungary, Poland, Austria, Holland, Turkey, the UK, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea.

Q3. Does Trump embody a rupture with some sort of prior “neo-liberal consensus?”

A3. Precisely to the degree that he represents its ultimate issue, its culmination, which is its self-disruption. For 40 years, we’ve known that the ideological pretenses of the bourgeoisie and its “free-market theoreticians” were covers, excuses, for attacking living standards, for rolling back racial equality, for glorifying the propagation of poverty, for looting, liquidation, and larceny. After a 40 year gestation, “neo-liberalism,” that is to say modern capitalism has delivered its 70 year-old expert in the virtues of selfishness, somebody eager to push aside Alan Greenspan so he can grab Ayn Rand by the crotch.

Q4. Is Trump, and are Trump supporters racist?

A4. Hmmh….let’s see, if we regard racism as function of power over labor, intensifying the exploitation and oppression of sections of the laboring population by classifying that section on the basis of some amalgam of “shared characteristics,” yeah, they qualify as racist. Threatening and intimidating Muslims and Hispanics, that qualifies under the definition. And let’s not forget the physical attacks upon persons of color by Trump supporters at various political assemblies. Yeah, I think it’s safe to say, Trump supporters, as distinct from Trump voters, are racist, no matter what the results in Macomb County, Michigan were in the 2008 and 2012 general elections.

Q5. What about the apparent confusion in the White House, the so-called “chaos”? And the so-called “splits” within the ruling class and its institutions over Trump?

A5. Confusion is fundamental to property flipping, asset-stripping, block busting, and hedge-fund trading. And make no mistake, these hedge-fund scummers/scammers, raider/traders are on-board Trump’s SS Leviathan and anticipate the cruise of cruises.

The confusion in the administration, its apparent lack of coordination, its basic incompetence is real all right. These are people capable only of taking advantage of the vulnerable, disadvantaged, misdirected. That’s what they’ve done all their lives, that’s all they know how to do. They are truly incompetent, and that’s their skill. Wreckers one, wreckers all.

As for “splits” in the “state,” or the “deep state,” or the ruling class, or between the legislative and the executive, or the judicial and the executive, really… who cares? Besides Global Research and RT? Doesn’t matter what splits there are or are not. The needs of accumulation, the obstacles to accumulation are driving this dissembling and decrepit juggernaut.

Q6. Is Trump, or are those around Trump, you know… the “f” word?

A6. You mean “fuckers”? They’re fuckers all right. You mean “fascists”? More or less, tending towards, inclined to, as conditions develop, certainly close to……..

Fascism has different expressions in different circumstances, but all the expressions share an underlying “corporatist” ideology that proclaims, and enforces with vengeance, a so-called unity of classes under the state. All fascist movements are amalgams serving capital, explicitly supported by some sections of the bourgeoisie, tacitly tolerated by others, “distasteful” but necessary to others of the class, and even horrifying to other sections.

Doesn’t make much of a difference– the bourgeoisie in its “revolutionary” incarnation– say the US Civil War, depended on the petty bourgeoisie– the free farmers of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin; artisans and shopkeepers of Massachusetts. In its counter-revolutionary incarnation, the bourgeoisie also and always depends on the petty bourgeoisie– particularly the distressed, sloughed off, layers– to do the heavy lifting; the hard working of smashing all the obsolete institutions and pulverizing independent working class organization.

There is no doubt that there is an amalgam, a convergence of rightists and fascists around Trump, with “radical” and “conservative” elements rubbing shoulders, picking pockets, etc. Isn’t sorted yet. When the US economy staggers a bit more under the weight of all these traders and hedge-funders, then we’ll start hearing the demands for purging the Trump regime of its agents of “non-productive” capital.

Then comes the attacks on the “usurious” bankers who have betrayed the sacred obligation to “national capital,” to volk capitalism.

If that happens, we’ll have very little time to reach a minimum safe distance.

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February 6, 2017