Sunday, November 02, 2008

The Gall of the Failed Ones

Everywhere it's the same. Everywhere you hear the same: financial capitalism has gone bankrupt. It has twisted our lives, it has betrayed us, it has stolen our wealth and turned it into void. If you pushed some people a bit, they would probably tell you that it eats children and is directly responsible for the eradication of dinosaurs.

Not that I disagree with some of the things that are being said out there, but who's saying that? Well, look around:

Darling W, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy...

All these men are the heroes and defenders of the same financial capitalism that has now showed us all it's a failure, and is threatening to take us with it down the drain. They all supported it, they all supported deregulation, and they all fought with everything they had anyone who dared think differently, and anyone who tried to warn of the danger we're now all too much aware of.

And beyond the grand speeches where W, Sarko or Brown tell us that they're going to control the banks, and restore regulation, save us all from the cataclysm, what do their actions tell us? Well, they tell us the truth that's hidden behind their oh so flamboyant words.

Sarko hasn't moved an inch from his positions. Jobless people will still be ousted from the protection system, the rich will still be exonrerated from taxes while the middle class continues to be the one that pays its taxes. The CEOs will regulate their own golden parachutes, there will be no law forbidding them.

In Belgium, the powerful CEOs corporation, the FEB, has the gall to threaten all the workers and the government: if there's a law regulating golden parachutes, then there will have to be deep cuts in the notices the employees have a right to when they're fired.

The speakers for all the rightwing parties, whose policies have always supported financial capitalism, now spew out words that belong to the left. They remember the name of Keynes, they remember concepts like using the state's power to help maintain the economy. They turn their back on rightwing neoliberal politics, they embrace policies they abhor, policies they insulted and spat upon yesterday without the smallest qualm. Without ever admitting that they were mistaken, that they misled people all these years. They blissfully turn coat in their speeches, making it seem they always thought that way, making it look like they're just doing what they have to do, oblivious to lies, coherence and decency.

And what's worth is: behind the strong words, the actions prove that nothing has changed: in France, huge sums of money have been poured into the banks (which is mandatory because we all stand on the other end of that line and if banks sink, we sink along with them, faster and harder) without insuring ANY MEANS OF CONTROL over the banks' actions and strategies--other than imprecations and other empty speeches delivered by the fake commander in chief, aka Nicolas "Napoleon" Sarkozy.

While the stocks were soaring, spearing through the sky, all the authorities kept howling for the incomes not to be raised, because nothing could get in the way of economic growth. Salaries couldn't be raised, it'd be impairing the companies, and hindering the system. People could simply be indebted, and it'd all turn out well, they'd be able to buy hordes of things they had no means of paying for, and everyone would be happy. We know where that particular idea led us. Now that everything is going bad, and the incomes haven't been properly raised offr years, now that the workers' unions demand this more than earned raise, the same authorites who keep barking that everything must be done to help people regain their trust in the systme and being once again able to buy stuff, well the same authorities say "ooooh, noooo, no raises, please, no hindering the poor system".

Conclusion: the CEOs keep their golden parachutes, the rich keep their tax cuts and other fiscal tricks to evade tax, the banks get the states' money (our money) without being controlled by the states who lent them the money, the politicians shoo the workers' union away for being baaaaaad people who don't understand how hard it is. Laws and decrees are passed to insure that all the social net dispositions are as hard to obtain as possible, and that people can be written off as soon as possible. And of course, we employees...

Well, we employees are screwed, as usual.

The powers-that-be keep on wanting to push the system that's eating our lives away.

And in the meantime, whenever they can spit on the left, they do. They claim the left's policies are old, obsolete, and lead nowhere.

But where have the right's, the neoliberal policies led us?

Down into the abyss.

So please, give me a break, people. You neoliberals are failures. Making riches out of the poverty of people, allowing them to get more and more indebted to compensate for their lack of income and their lack of social rights as goes the great swindling used in the US of A, is plain and simple suicide.

We know this now.

We know rightwing neoliberal policies are garbage.

So stop trying to mask your worthlessness by spitting on others. Your time is now past. It's time for a change.

I can only hope people remember that, wherever they are, and whenever they cast a vote.