New Approaches to Old Questions

Dialectics Simplified

If we sum up capitalism as detrimental to society, and that a new society must emerge to benefit people instead exploit and oppress them, strategies must be developed to help people make the transformation. So since the principle of concentration defines capitalism, any dual and contending social system bases itself upon dilution.

Should capitalism concentrate wealth in as few hands as possible, then our social system must dilute it to benefit as many folks as possible. Where power has become concentrated, there must be methods and strategies for distributing power. If capitalism concentrates the class question, we must thoroly dilute class relations. If politics is economics concentrated, then a diluted political process must replace it. The tyranny of the few can overthrown for a society where all members have an equal stake.

To end this tyranny by the oligarchs, at least a handful of strategies can be proposed in answer to concentrated wealth and power. The time has come for society to seriously examine alternatives to capitalism.

Banks arose for the selfish act of concentrating wealth, so collectives and co-operatives can be built by workers to begin wealth distribution. By contrast, workers collectives exist as political units where people live and work in unity. A revolutionary party is a form of political collective, with democratic structures based upon the principle of volunteerism. Unions are supposed to function like collectives. The organizational structure of community centers, co-ops and other formations may operated along the lines of a collective.

The political component of any collective must have as its objective wealth dilution, plus the consolidation of all its members under revolutionary discipline.

A co-operative operates differently than a collective. Members of a co-operative do not have a formal tie to it, in many cases. The co-operative exists to serve as an outlet for merchants to sell their wares or for workers to have collective buying power. Childcare collectives for working mothers have been very successful. A collective may help individuals locate jobs or education or other services. co-ops have a more limited function than collectives, being organized most often around specific economic needs.

All membership in a co-operative or collective is voluntary and democratic. Rules are decided and those who refuse to follow them may face expulsion.

Community control of policing may be operated along the lines of a co-operative oversight body. This concept, of which the Black Panther Party was its most strident advocate, arose to dilute the political force which imposed itself upon the colonized black community.

Militaries, police forces, private security firms and other forces of armed men exist for the concentration of power. Concentrated power exists because a small class needs to exercise control over the masses. Workers  need no armed managers to force them to produce; but that is what society is coming to, with the growing economic crisis. Concentrated wealth and power represents the greatest threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everybody except the international financiers.

Diluting power by redistributing it thru society strips away the effects of systematic oppression, political repression, in reality. The mere fact that concentrated political power resides in the hands of an exclusive minority means that repression exists. Not just the potential for repression, but actual repression exists in all capitalist societies with standing armies and police forces. People currently refuse to rise up because they fear the murderous power of the State. This power can be deployed for whatever reason and at which ever time the power structure chooses. Society does not have to be in an uprising for this to happen.

Fascism maintained its grip on Argentina, Paraguay and Chile long after the revolutionary sectors had been subdued. Concentrated power has always violently expressed itself in colonial and neo-colonial zones. Without concentrated power, repression cannot take place. Concentrated power is, simply, repression itself.

How do people dilute political power, that is, how to strip it from the control of a bloodsucking, capitalist two-party system? This same two-party system has led the world economy directly to this seething crisis point. So by imposing term limits the masses can erode this power and the influence of the corporate financiers who back them. Build upon the outrage against the current Congress and other politicos. Demand term limits; even build work for a referendum.

This must be done. This way, new work can break ground for revolutionaries in the Left.

Dialectics is like mathematics: identify the problem, define, then solve for the correct answer. When the terms or problem appears complex, simplify it by breaking it down into sections. Identify, define and solve for each section, then apply the appropriate functions joining those sections together and solve for the entire problem.

For Imperialism, neo-colonialism provides the workaround for the concentrated class question but we have to recognize neo-colonialism as a redundant and moribund structure. What those outside the formal colonies call racism, what the white Left refers to as “superexploitation”, colonialism appears to have been vanquished. However, colonialism has merely acquired the face of the colonized, as Frantz Fanon explained in “Black Skins, White Mask”. The struggle to identify with the colonizer leads to an oppressive relationship over the colonized.

Organizers must attack the concentrated class question at its root. Which means splitting racist white workers by winning progressive and revolutionary white workers over to the anti-colonialist/anti-imperialist struggle. It means deepening the political education process. It means giving these workers the opportunity to blend with Africans, Chicanos and other colonized nationalities so that Internationalism may have a concrete shape.

A great deal of work lay ahead, and the answers cannot be formulated by any one person or group. Yet a push in the right direction is necessary. We need all the components of society to make this transformation. In this time of crisis, we have a little space to accomplish this work, but the urgency of the hour must be impressed upon everybody interested in finding a solution.

Power to the People!
Pamberi ne Chimurenga!

WHO CONTROLS YOU: Breaking down the mythmakers

“Illuminati”, or ‘the Trouble with Negroes?’

In the African community, the round table discussions on the Illuminati convey typical misconceptions which portray the elephant as too big to slay. In a piece of info that has been rehashed thousands of times, Prof Griff (below) tells us the Illuminati are supposed to be twelve families/corporations that control the world. However, straight from the onset this view is rife with holes. Which does not mean that twelve families do not control the world! But that is not the primary problem we face as Africans, nor does the “analysis” of the Illuminati tell us what the main problem in society is with them people.

Because if the solution is in melanin, those of us who have melanin need do nothing, our skin color will take over. Which is not to say that I am not proud to be Black, but THAT is a state of mind and not so much a natural essence. Feeding into Griff’s circular illogic can only deepen the pathology for Africans and anybody else who wants to be liberated from Imperialism. Not only that, Griff sums up by posing a number of goofball, half-baked questions that lead us even further away from solutions:

[…] IF THE POPE PULLED DOWN HIS PANTS AND BENT OVER, WOULD SO-CALLED “BLACK” PEOPLE ACTUALLY KISS HIS UNNATURAL WRINKLED ASS?

WHY WOULD SO-CALLED “BLACK” PEOPLE CALL THE POPEHOLY FATHER WHEN THEY DO NOT KNOW HIM FROM A SALTINE CRACKER/KRACKER?

DO WE DELUSIONALLY THINK THAT THE POPE IS DOPE ON A ROPE?

HAVE WE LOST OUR DAMNED MINDS?

Based on these assumptions, we see that the class theory of racist confrontation offers the correct approach towards understanding our relationship to Europe, America and to Africa. The color theory lacks a dialectical, multifaceted attack on the daily problems facing African people anywhere. It might fix the problem for a preacher or a lecturer or a hip hop artist who has something to sell. But the color theory has no problem-solving capacity for blacks laboring under the gun in DR Congo, for the slums in Soweto, for the families oppressed by the oil companies in the Niger Delta. It cannot help Africans in Somalia where white power accuses them of piracy whilst dumping nuclear, chemical and household waste off their coasts. The color theory will not combat AIDS/HIV. Melanin, a chemical within the skin that has fascinating properties, will not automatically fix that problem. We, as human beings, cannot reduce our experience to the properties of any particular substance, biological or otherwise. Our complexities and composition are so much more than that. So how the hell do the color theory advocates think up this nonsense, as if anyone other than a psychiatrist should care to kno.

Them Illuminati bloodsuckers, first of all, are not illuminated nor enlightened and we who are struggling to transform our conditions have absolutely no business referring to them that way. So we must break down the mystification process, which by calling them the “Illuminati” only contributes towards portraying this herd of beasts as too big and too ferocious to slay, and encourages us to accept slavery because that is our place. Griff’s indignation about the pope touches upon this, tho it doesn’t transform our consciousness in a revolutionary way.

In fact, we have little business approaching any question of exploitation and oppression without a class analysis. The class analysis of the Vietnamese helped them defeat both French and US imperialism. It was the class analysis of FRELIMO in Mozambique and PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau which helped Africans defeat Portuguese colonialism. The founder of revolutionary Pan Africanism,  Kwame Nkrumah, left us a class analysis. Every successful anti-colonial, anti-imperialist movement of the Twentieth Century had a class analysis based upon dialectics, Internationalism, and building a community of resistance. (For more on revolutionaries and their movements, see “THREE!”) If Griff has accomplished more than those human beings have in fighting against the white power system, then I will gladly adopt his theory and use it to liberate 900 million Africans thru out the Americas and our beloved Motherland. If not, Professor Griff needs to check his pimp game at the curb!

Hence, what is the problem with the analysis that attributes power to the Illuminati?  We do not get to see Prof Griff say that the capitalist system is wrong. Info that you cannot use has no use. Capitalism is based upon the concentration of wealth and power into as few hands as possible. So that is the second error in this analysis, after Griff immediately begins mystifying this group of parasites by telling us how the Pope’s insignia adds up to some absurd number of the devil (666). Steve Bantu Biko once stated that the mind of the oppressed is the most formidable weapon in the hands of the oppressor, and Griff leads us directly back into the hands of the Imperialists by addressing some fable about a future woven from nearly two thousand years ago and applying it to a religious officer.

If we understand capitalism as a class system and break it down, we kno the pope is a capitalist. The US prez is a capitalist, the bankers are capitalists, the politicians are capitalists, the industrialists are capitalists. Therefore the civil institutions like churches, community centers, and other formations are generally capitalist, particularly if they receive large monies from capitalist donors. So the pope is a bloodsucking capitalist, yes, Professor Griff.

People instinctively kno the Imperialists’ most important formation includes the State, presently a public system that exists to maintain POWER for private interests. The modern capitalist State operates along several parameters, that is, guidelines that remain in place as long as emergency measures are not required. Democracy, for instance, gives people consent over their oppression and exploitation. They can always be blamed for the government that they choose, despite the fact that the capitalist political system offers them no alternatives. Yet once the State is removed, that is, any group of bodies powerful enuf to topple the State by revolution or reaction will themselves be in charge of society and no Illuminati, Pope or other entity will be able to stand if that group in power so chooses.

Because modern society is a vast interwoven social fabric that stretches across the globe. Our genuine alternatives begin by building collectives. A collective exists as a non-capitalist social formation. It competes with capitalism and is not typically integrated into it. It stresses the importance of people instead of capital. People are not social capital, they are not resources, they are people. Humanity. This is how we understand each other thru the concept of humanness, or Ubuntu.

Now the so-called Illuminati control capitalism, a system based upon the private accumulation of collectively-produced wealth. The Illuminati represent a syndicate that stands above other capitalist formations and aims to control them. Most people do not even understand how these respectable gangsters operate their syndicates, cartels, trusts and monopolies for private power and control. But they are capitalists, and nothing else.

In this respect they do not differ from, say, Louis Farrakhan or Russell Simmons or “the first black president of the free world”. The difference here is the amount of power and control they possess. As Musaveni and Paul Kagame acquire increasing power, Imperialism admits them to the club. Still, tho, such negroes remain simply well-paid yet abject flunkies for Imperialism.

Therefore we may ascertain that the problem with negroes concerns their relationship to the African liberation struggle. This difference separates a negro from a black man or woman. You cannot tell by the outside appearance. You cannot tell thru a conversation. You can only discern the difference thru the outcomes we produce within struggle. Politically Acquired Ideological Defiency Syndrome (PAIDS) leads us to believe everything except the correct theory in our quest for liberation.

A negro has PAIDS and serves Imperialism. A negro does not believe any other system will ever exist in our lifetimes. On that basis, a negro will never work for the Revolution. A negro may try to convince you that capitalism is forever, that it cannot be destroyed, and that nothing better can possibly exist: PAIDS. Therefore, negroes will work for Imperialism under any circumstances, and will work against the liberation movement in one way or another. They will show us how wealth is important, how it is important to have money and bling; and perhaps feed our resentment of white people because they have more amounts of money and bling. Yet, because of PAIDS, a negro cannot possibly be for revolution, for the end of capitalism.

PAIDS is the trouble with negroes, with negro thinking that lacks a class analysis, and the trouble with any leader who starves the whole tribe rather than slaying the behemoth, because some of us may die in the struggle. But for revolutionaries from Jamal Al Amin and Mumia Abu-Jamal to Amilcar Cabral and Tookie Williams, it is a price worth paying to feed a people starving for liberation. So you have PAIDS, or are you a revolutionary thinker and organizer? That is the question.

========================

Iskandar Langalibalele to alikabdul

show details 2:18 AM (11 hours ago)

Reply

Ali, you have to check out the documentary “Zeitgeist”. It gives a more comprehensive, scientific breakdown of the “Illuminati” and its relationship to banking and the ongoing capitalist economic crises.

One of the things which concerns me is “actionable” information/intelligence. My email gets flooded with this type of info, but I don’t kno a single somebody who in onto this tip who is working to build a revolution. F’instance, there is no agitational component. What does Prof Griff suggest we do? What does anybody talking about the Illuminati suggest? That is the $800 billion question. Not the Jews. Not the Illuminati. Not the Bohemian Club. All these forces behave as parts of a broad ensemble working in concert to maintain a system of ownership and control that you may learn about in any basic Marxist type political education process.

For every problem there is supposed to be a solution, and people who are not solution-oriented cannot possibly build a movement based upon international African unity or any form of anti-imperialism. I say this repeatedly because of the volume of indiscriminate fact-based literature that fills my email. A math problem must be posed in such a way as to yield a solution. Same with astronomy, chemistry, sociology, psychology. So we have to ask how do we DEMYSTIFY the Illuminati; the type of info supplied by Prof Griff does not do that. In fact, it seems to make them bigger than life.

Can we solve any problem by featuring it as bigger than life, or do we stop calling these people the “Illuminati” and give them a name that defines them scientifically in their relationship to the resto of society: the bourgeoisie, the capitalists, the Imperialists. For me, the Illuminati do not exist as a class but a subgroup within a class, like a club. We aint talking about no fucking clubs, we are talking about a SYSTEM! The Imperialists run a system; the capitalists run a system and there is no Illuminati system. That is only bullshit to take the focus off of CAPITALISM! The bourgeoisie (capitalists) exists and poses a problem for us that we can only solve thru the revolutionary process.

As I kno you are an anarchist, you prolly don’t buy any of this. Anarchism is not a scientific theory; it is based in the petty bourgeoisie; it is a theory based upon principles that are not revolutionary or scientific. Anarchists do not have democratic-centralism nor criticism/self-criticism; you have anarchism. Anarchists do not submit to political unity, a party line, solidarity and coalition building; they submit only to anarchism. It is an ineffective method of organization because it is ANARCHISM. Hence, your understanding is petty bourgeois, middle class; anarchism is derivative of a class that mediates the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the workers; the middle class ameliorates this struggle, it defuses this struggle, and therefore cannot concoct a single permanent answer to the problem that Imperialism poses for the vast majority of the masses. I say this not to insult you, but from a dialectical historical viewpoint. There will never ever be an anarchist revolution. Anarchy is not revolution; it is anarchy.

Iskandar

– Show quoted text –

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Ali K A to mumiamustlive, J, me

show details 6:40 PM (18 hours ago)

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Here is something very powerful. Check it out.. Scroll down and check out everything.

Ali Khalid

— On Sun, 2/15/09, Professor Griff <7thoctave@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Professor Griff <7thoctave@gmail.com>
Subject: [SOA] WHO CONTROLS YOU?
To:[deleted]

Date: Sunday, February 15, 2009, 5:35 AM

Note: VICARIUS FILII DEI – “Vicar of Son of God” (Title of the Pope)

V-5………………..F-0………………..D-500

I-1……………….. I-1………………….E-0

C-100……………L-50……………….I-1

A-0……………….I-0………………….501

R-0……………… I-0

I-1………………..53

U or V-5

S-0

112

112 plus(+) 53 plus(+) 501 equals(=) “666”

The Pope is known to previously have used and displayed these exact words on his ill-gotten crown. He then rapidly removed these words when the people caught on to the hidden symbolic meaning of the words.

* * * End of Note * * *

HIERARCHY OF DARKNESS (EVIL)

Vatican of Rome, Italy

|

Jesuits

____________ _________ _________ ______|__ _________ _________ _________ ______

| | | | | | |

Illuminati | Council on Foreign Relations | International Bankers | The Mafia |

| | | |

The Club of Rome The Opus Dei The Masons New Age Movement

Extra Food For Thought:

1. “The Catholic church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence. She is a greater possessor of material riches than any other single institution, corporation, bank, giant trust, government or state of the whole globe. The Pope, as the visible ruler of this immense amassment of wealth, is consequently the richest individual in the twentieth century. No one can realistically assess how much he is worth in terms of billions of dollars.”

(“The Vatican Billions” by Avro Manhattan)

2. The POPE can abolish any law in the United States. (Elements of Ecclesiastical Law Vol.1 53-54) 25. A 1040 form is for tribute paid to Britain. (IRS Publication 6209); see also Public Law 88-243 and 88-244 (December 1963).

3. The POPE claims to own the entire planet through the laws of conquest and discovery. (Papal Bulls of 1455 and 1493). With these same “Wicked” Papal Bulls, the POPE has ordered the inhumane genocide and enslavement of millions of people.

4. The Pope’s laws are obligatory on everyone. (Bened. XIV., De Syn. Dioec, lib, ix., c. vii., n. 4. Prati, 1844)(Syllabus, prop 28, 29, 44). The POPE has delusionally declared that he is the “Vicar of Christ” on this Natural Earth.

5. The POPE’s recent visit to the White House signified the re-newing of Bush’s faith to Catholic and the loyal allegiance and supportive alignment with and to the Vatican and the “New World Order” Agenda.

6. The present 2008-2009 so-called Financial Crisis (which will lead to a calculated Recession/Depressio n) is also a fabricated lie and untruth. This Economic Meltdown has been cleverly orchestrated and strategically manipulated by the International Bankers of this World. The rich is about to get richer, the middle class is on their way to becoming poor, and the poor is on their way to being turned into Green Eggs and Ham (Soilent Green).

“Economic Crisis have been produced by us for the goyim (slaves) by no other means than the withdrawal of money from circulation. “ – Protocols of Zion –20

7. On December 23, 1913-The U.S. Congress, late at night with only a small cadre of supporters present, passed the “Un-Constitutional” Federal Reserve Act, surrendering the creation and management of the nation’s currency into the hands of a cartel of a private group of mostly foreign “International” Bankers. It only took 20 years to bankrupt the nation and the people of The United States. In the year 1933, the United States went into a public debt insolvency – better known as Bankruptcy.

8. The Federal Reserve is not Federal. They are no more FEDERAL than Federal Express Inc. On May 23, 1933, U.S. Congressman Louis T. McFadden brought formal charges against the board of governors of the Federal Reserve Banking System, The Comptroller of the currency and the Secretary of the United States for acts of Conspiracy, Fraud, Unlawful Conversion, and Treason along with articles of impeachment being referred to the judiciary committee. The Federal Reserve was allowed in on the American People by a U.S. Senator named Nelson Aldrich who was supposedly bribed to make it all happen. This Traitorous/Treasono us “U.S. Senator” is said to have been a “Rothschild” Agent.

9. The bulk of ownership of the Federal Reserve System is held by certain International Banking Interests. The names of these International Banking Interests are:

ROTHSCHILD BANK OF LONDON

ROTHSCHILD BANK OF BERLIN

WARBURG BANK OF HAMBURG

WARBURG BANK OF AMSTERDAM

LAZARD BROTHERS OF PARIS

ISRAEL MOSES SEIF BANKS OF ITALY

CHASE MANHATTAN BANK OF NEW YORK

GOLDMAN SACHS OF NEW YORK

LEHMAN BROTHERS OF NEW YORK

KUHN LOEB BANK OF NEW YORK

10. The family name Rothschild is adopted from two (2) German words “ROTH” and “SCHILD” which means “RED SHIELD”. Amschel Mayer Bauer Sr. was a Zionist Goldsmith. Over the door of his shop in Germany, he placed as his shop sign of business a RED SHIELD. The Zionists in Eastern Europe, who belonged to the revolutionary movement based on terrorism, had also adopted the Red Flag as their emblem because it represents “Red Blood”. Mayer Rothschild’s real name is Amschel Mayer Bauer, Jr. but later adopted the name “ROTHSCHILD” .

11. In the approximate year of 1770, a syndicate of International Bankers led by Mayer Rothschild started the “Illuminati“, a SATANIC Cult designed to subvert society. According to Edith Starr Miller, the Rothschild syndicate included so-called Jewish/Zionist finaciers such as Daniel Itzig, Friedlander, the Goldsmids and Moses Mocatta (Search and Reference a book entitled “Occult Theocracy” p. 184). According to Miller, the goals of the Illuminati (Communism and the New World Order) were the destruction of Christianity, Monarchies, Nation-States, the abolition of family ties and marriage by means of promoting homosexuality and promiscuity; the end of inheritance and private property; and the suppression of any collective identity in the spurious name of “Universal Human Brotherhood” (for example: “Diversity”) – p. 185 of the same book “Occult Theocracy”.

Questions for Thought?

WHY DOES THE POPE BOW DOWN AND PRAY TO A “MELANINATED” (SO-CALLED “BLACK’ MADONNA) BUT MAKE WAR AND ORDER PAPAL BULLS FOR THE INHUEMANE SLAUGHTERING OF COUNTLESS NATIVE “MELANINATED” PEOPLES???

WHY HAS HE FORCEFULLY HI-JACKED THE WEALTH AND RESOURCES FROM THE “NATURAL” ABORIGINAL PEOPLES OF THIS NATURAL EARTH?

DID THE POPE DIABOLICALLY ORDER THE DEATH OF A “FULLY-MELANINATED” SO-CALLED BLACK HUE-MAN NAMED YASHUA (Also known As JESUS CHRIST)?

DOES BARACK AND MICHELLE OBAMA ALSO HOLD THEIR ALLEGIANCE TO AND SECRETLY SERVE THE POPE? AND IS THIS WHO THEY ALSO WANT US TO SERVE?

IF THE POPE PULLED DOWN HIS PANTS AND BENT OVER, WOULD SO-CALLED “BLACK” PEOPLE ACTUALLY KISS HIS UNNATURAL WRINKLED ASS?

WHY WOULD SO-CALLED “BLACK” PEOPLE CALL THE POPEHOLY FATHER WHEN THEY DO NOT KNOW HIM FROM A SALTINE CRACKER/KRACKER?

DO WE DELUSIONALLY THINK THAT THE POPE IS DOPE ON A ROPE?

HAVE WE LOST OUR DAMNED MINDS?

I PERSONALLY WOULD NOT TRUST THIS SHADY CHARACTER WITH A CHOCOLATE COVERED CHEESE-STICK OR A DILL PICKLE DIPPED IN PEANUT BUTTER.

AIN’T NO HOPE IN THE “PALE-FACE” POPE !!! (MELANIN IS KING)

WHO DO “YOU” SERVE?

—
professorgriff@ hdqtrz.com

www.myspace. com/xminista

http://www.youtube. com/professorgri ff

www.myspace. com/professorgri ffofpublicenemy

http://livinginblac k.ning.com/ profile­/ProfessorGriff

Asante sana

Black Workers in the Financial Rip Off Game

Bail Out or Hand Out: White Supremacy in Crisis

The basic misconception about the so-called financial meltdown is that an overextended credit regime caused the problem. This simplification dumbs down the public response to what is really taking place. To understand this, we can ask a few questions. Like, why are retail prices on big ticket items such as plasma televisions, Cadillacs, etc. falling? In a crisis, prices are expected to rise due to inflation, yet the dollar has become stronger. Then, why are the banks, the highest level of business organization, claiming to be in trouble, when we see financial institutions all over the country either buying up assets or being bought. What is happening to the labor movement, and why hasn’t it taken the offensive defending the interests of working people?

To comprehend the “financial meltdown”, we must understand the history of those who engineered it. While the so-called crisis began in the Eighties, the tone for its demolishing effects was set in the Bush 43 administration. This trend was set with the rewarding of no-bid contracts to defense industry specialists, and a Washington political clique run by cronyism and the Texas mafia.

People must accept the view there is no real “bail out” of the finance industry. It is a government hand out so that the big capitalists can concentrate liquidity and thereby control the world economy. By concentrating liquidity, (remember, “Cash is king”) they strengthen the dollar’s purchasing power because it has become scarce. This has a weakening effect on other currencies. If there were a financial meltdown, inflation would have hit the dollar bill. But the American consumer is not being afflicted by inflation. In fact, prices on many consumer goods have plummeted. The dollar has become very strong in the wake of the so-called meltdown. So we can dismiss the idea of a crisis deriving from “overextended credit” as a culprit. So the economists and other financial experts who discuss the problem as deriving from a stressed out credit regime are deceiving the masses.

The extensive credit regime emerged because a process was needed to give workers the illusion of having attained middle class status. This went hand-in-hand with a strategy to weaken the labor movement, which had made the working class strong and kept the neo-conservative trend a marginal, at best, political movement.

Credit permitted people who had only dreamt of ever owning a home the ability to finally have that aspiration within their grasp. It allowed poor people to buy cars; credit extended folks an opportunity to buy furniture, education, electronics and other comforts of life. Credit also invented a new redline. The redline was originally the line drawn up during redistricting, which political parties had used to gerrymander black districts, thereby diluting black political power. Another form of the gerrymander was at-large elections that did not recognize districts. These practices effectively prevented black representation in public office. Redlining also became a practice, outlawed during the Seventies yet rarely enforced, which the banks used to deny loans to blacks and other colonized workers.

The adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) became the new redline. The ARM is a piece of work used to rip off consumers in the housing market. When credit rates hovered between 4.5% and 5.5%, black folks who had been shut out of the housing market due to any number of circumstances, did not have access to normal credit instruments. The ARM appeared to be a turning point in creating a friendly relationship between banks and the black community. However, the problem with the ARM is that after a period of time, say four to seven years, a prevailing high interest rate would lock in and become the defining feature of the mortgage package. So an ARM originally purchased at 5.5% in 1995 may rise to an 11% rate in 2000. That jeopardized many homeowners.

One historical and fundamental reason why Africans, why we black folks, had been shut out of the housing market was because a racist government agency known as Housing and Urban Development (HUD) tied up houses in black neighborhoods and refused to sell them for forty years. This effectively prevented a positive trend from transpiring, as the numerous community residents who had tried to buy those houses and rehab their own neighborhoods over that period were stopped cold. When the housing bubble hit, HUD sold these houses to deep pocket developers. So the government counterinsurgency against the black community collaborated with finance in a Sixties Era agency, reputedly formed to assist urban areas, to set up this current situation. These practices guaranteed than unemployment, drugs, health issues, crime and other problems would remain concentrated in the black community. So without government acquiescence in this and other areas, the credit regime could not have been imposed.

During this self-same forty year period, illegal redlining simultaneously prevailed without effective enforcement. However, a few other points must be stressed to give a more complete picture of the role credit has played. This has been explained in previous essays. The pundits have lied about credit having been overextended, thereby causing the so-called financial meltdown. Credit became a trend following the Savings and Loans scandals of the Eighties and early Nineties. Today, many banks supposedly are surviving thru drug money laundering and other illegal activities. Yet that was the cause of the S&L crisis, wherein over 600 institutions went out of business and the FDIC covered their savings. Not one person was prosecuted. No major investigations were started, revealing another case of government collaboration with the finance sector. What did happen, a huge amount of liquidity (cash) became concentrated in the hands of movers and shakers in the financial sector. Remember, concentration of wealth for private ownership and control is the major feature of capitalism.

Following the S&L scandals, another scam arose to rob the working classes. This was the stock-based retirement plan. Now, investment portfolios are not made for the working class. They do not exist for the middle class, for the most part. Anyone watching a PGA tournament can get an idea what investment capital looks like: $250k to spend in the money market. Otherwise don’t pick up the phone.

But to get their hands on lots of easy money to build million dollar portfolios, investment bankers brought in human resource managers and other people to sell workers on stock-based retirement plans. These plans, conveniently packaged in the form of 401ks, KEOGHs and IRAs, might be worth $50 to $200 per month per worker. Hence, multiply that by the number of workers who bit, and it became a tidy bit of change. Add to that retirement packages put together by unions, guilds and other bodies, and the financiers were getting totals in the tens of millions every month. So when organizations like Enron, MCI-Worldcom, Tyco, and others went under, they dragged all those stock-based retirement plans with them. For instance, the Pennsylvania Teachers Retirement Fund lost $55 million in Enron alone.

Workers’ money placed in stock-based plans is money taken out of circulation. That is money which a worker will never see, will never spend, and amounts to nothing more than a gift to the rich. That money is not being used on anything which benefits the working class; in fact, that money is being concentrated in the hands of a class at war with the working class. Since cash had begun to dry up, it became necessary to extend credit to further concentrate ever more liquidity into the hands of the bourgeoisie. The credit system was expanded so that all Americans had access to credit who wanted it. This forced people in hoc to the bank to work at a pace that actually deprived them of the very things which makes life worth living; statistically, people in this country work harder at longer hours and for more days in the year than in any other industrialized nation. The people who value freedom so preciously have given it up to the credit system.

The analysis of the nation’s economic “pundits” seems to be the prevailing opinion without any significant challenge from either the Left or the unions, even while unemployment rises and wages are being cut. We have to challenge the notion that a financial meltdown has hit the banks. We have to show how the financial institutions have created one scenario after another to concentrate greater amounts of capital in their hands. It is important to expose that the dollar is strong because the financiers have hoarded it; they have locked up liquidity and made it tough for the masses of people. Yet they are not suffering, and the system of credit is just another regime imposed upon a duped working class.

We also have to break white working collaboration with the ruling class. The white worker no longer has any stake in the concentrated class question, aka racism. When the white worker commits national suicide and unites with the workers of the world, that will bring about the end of capitalism. Yet black and Latino workers in the US do not have time to wait for that break thru. We have to deepen our solidarity, work together to build an internationalist movement, and fight against Imperialism. Say no the the bail outs! Defend the rights of our African and Latino communities! Power to the People!