| Volume 6, #14 | February 27, 2002 | POLITICS WITH BITE! | CONTACT | HELP | 
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Backtalk ETS! encourages comments, feedback, tips, corrections, and info! Please keep them as concise as possible so we can print as many different voices as possible: ETS!, P.O. Box 85541, Seattle WA 98145, or e-mail ets@scn.org. Alternative RipoffsTo Eat the State!,The issue I'm informing you about isn't local or national. It's from San Francisco--specifically, Alternative Tentacles/Jello Biafra vs. the three other ex-Dead Kennedys members. The other ex-band members have filed a lawsuit against A.T. and Jello over "not promoting the Dead Kennedys." This all came after Jello declined to allow a DK song to be played on a Levi's TV commercial. (Info is available at www.alternativetentacles.com.) The ex-members are doing a "revival" tour. They are playing at the Ballard Fire House March 8th and Jimmy Z's (Everett) March 9th. Ticket Bastard isn't informing people that Jello's not part of any of this or the reissues of albums on a different label. I just want people to know that the ex-band members are trying to exploit Dead Kennedys to the fullest and put Alternative Tentacles out of business, while selling stolen CDs. Also, there's an A.T. Defense Fund if anyone is interested. This is not legit DK. The ex-band members are flushing all of the fundamental principles of the band down the toilet. We must help A.T./Jello out! He's the reason I care in the first place. Thanks -- Rhea Rainwater, Gold Bar WA Argentina ReduxDear ETS!,Thank you for your reportage of the recent events in Argentina (Troy Skeels, "An Anti-IMF Revolution"). While I disagree with Troy's main thesis, this is a genuine crisis in which the masses of people have shaped the course of events. After all the empty, revolutionary anti-Starbuck's idiocy we so often hear in the US and Europe, it is refreshing to see people fighting over something meaningful. Argentina's enemy is herself. There may be some class basis to this, but nowhere does Troy mention the dirty legacy of Peronism. Peronism and the State of Siege have been the norm of Argentine politics for two generations. The War for the Malvinas that the generals lost pushed Argentina into a serious inflationary crisis. Why? The greed of the West? The evil British Royal Family, or the late Aldo Moro? Or the consequences of subsidizing the Peronist state sector? I don't know if any of you have ever dated someone who just couldn't figure out credit cards. (I have.) For years, Argentina has been squandering its early wealth. Taxes are not collected; the economy is full of phantom jobs. There is endemic corruption. Dollarization helped Argentina stop hyperinflation, and provided breathing space for civilian rule. But the bloated Peronist state, already bankrupt, proved untouchable. The current crisis emerged as a consequence of Argentina's participation in the Mercosur trading bloc, dominated by Brazil. When Brazil chose to devalue its currency (in the wake of the Mexican crisis of the late '90s), Argentina was caught between a rock and a hard place (the dollar and the real). For some time now, Argentina's many bankrupt states have been paying their employees in scrip, as no money was available. (Think 1830s banking in Mississippi, etc.) No sector of the Argentine ruling classes has had the guts to deal with this ever-deepening fiscal crisis. They just open another credit card and max it out, but that scenario has a smash-up at the end. The dollar remains popular in Argentina among all classes. But handing more money to these rulers is merely throwing good money after bad. One can only be amazed that the IMF is not following such a stupid course. The rage that has erupted on the streets of Buenos Aires is directed internally at the Argentine ruling classes and their largest party, the Peronists. The revolving Presidential door is operated by Peronist officials running for cover, trying to hide from responsibility for national bankruptcy. We are free to disagree over foreign investment: I do not advocate autarchy. The foreign investment that flooded into Argentina in the '90s brought modernization to various sectors of its economy, and it stabilized a post-dictatorship democracy--hence, the widespread corruption. The whole logic of joining Mercosur was to leverage Argentina's existing [Peronist] industrial infrastructure for entry to the much larger Brazilian market; this was an Argentine policy, not the result of IMF diktat. The impoverishment of the Argentine middle class is the legacy of Peronism. The Mussolini-style merger of the unions and the State that it created has been of no use to the workers and agricultural laborers of that country. Only New Zealand and Chile are farther from world markets, and Argentina has been hammered by the Brazilian "miracle" (which I will place in quotes to draw attention to the different interpretations we all attach to that word). In Argentine Spanish, "Menem" means bad luck (or a curse), and we all know Mr. Menem has been accused of gun-running. The Peronists are no better. The civil disorder is tragic, and the poverty is heart-wrenching. The Paris of South America is a mere nostalgic concept; the better comparison might be with Caracas. Venezuela is slipping into a typical Latin American bourgeois totalitarianism. Whither Argentina? Frank Patten, via e-mail T.S. replies from Oaxaca: During the last couple of years a small minority of hundreds of thousands of people have been continuously protesting IMF mandated austerity measures, corporate piracy, and a corrupt neo-liberal political and economic system--what you apparently characterize as "empty, revolutionary anti-Starbuck's idiocy." What makes the current situation different is that the broad middle class finally woke up and joined the radicals in the streets. Too bad they woke up too late to do any real good. I considered mentioning Peronism in my articles but decided it was largely irrelevant under the circumstances. Half a century after its peak and nearly 30 years after Juan Peron's death, "Peronism" is an empty label politicians use to invoke the heroic past. While I'm sure vestigial "Peronist" institutions survive, Argentina has spent the last decade as the world's most enthusiastic practitioner of neo-liberal economics. Blaming "Peronism" is the Argentinian variation on the standard IMF line used whenever one of its projects goes horribly awry--it's never the IMF's fault, it's always the fault of those inefficiently backward debtor nations. (Or, as your analogy has it, those ditzy blonde countries that just can't figure out credit cards). But invoking demon "Peronism" still doesn't exonerate the IMF, which obviously knew but didn't care that they were throwing our money down a (Peronist) rat hole. Knowing how broken and corrupt the (Peronist) Argentine system was, the IMF was doubly cynical, since obviously the poor and middle class would have to pay back with interest what was stolen and squandered by the rich and powerful (Peronists). What pushed Argentina into bankruptcy was the wholesale looting of resources and development funds by corrupt politicians and their corporate cronies with the IMF as willing accomplice. The IMF didn't keep extending credit to Argentina out of its sense of compassion, but because it was seen as benefiting US-based corporations and investors. The present, US-run IMF hard line doesn't have anything to do with fixing the problem it helped create; it's just a callous attempt to cut its losses no matter who starves. None of the problems you call "Peronist" are unique to Argentina, but exist in debtor and creditor nations alike. Perpetual "state of siege?" How about 50 years of "Cold War" and of course our new war on "terrorism"? A "bloated" state and "phantom jobs?" Just look at US military spending and multi-billion dollar weapon systems that don't work. You mention "taxes that aren't collected," which pretty much describes corporate America, except that their hand-picked cronies no longer even bother to assess such taxes. As for "endemic corruption," Enron/White House collusion is only one of many examples. What's Peron got to do with it? Finally, I don't know the IMF's specific policy on Argentina's joining Mercosur, but I have been under the impression that the IMF promotes "trade liberalization" in general. If I'm wrong on this then perhaps we can expect the IMF to come out strongly against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (and WTO, NAFTA, et al.), as bad for the economies of its debtor nations like Argentina. I won't hold my breath. ETS!, I'm tardily commenting on two statements in Troy Skeels' Argentina article from the January 2 issue. Troy quotes the new government's finance minister, "No banking system in the world can pay out in cash all its deposits." Troy then comments, "At least not and have some left over for the bankers." As much as I detest the multinational abuses that have wrecked what was once one of the world's best-working economies, I think that the finance minister is right, at least as far as the single quoted sentence goes. That's why the New Deal in the USA created federal deposit insurance for the protection of the small depositor. Banks don't take cash and just leave it in a vault; if they did, they couldn't pay interest (which is why it's a ripoff when many banks nowadays have stopped paying interest). I think that "It's a Wonderful Life" explains it correctly. Troy also writes, "The new currency will be free floating, raising the almost certain prospect of currency devaluation, wiping out people's savings while vastly increasing their personal debts, with massive inflation to follow." When there's inflation, debtors benefit. That's why homeowners do well when paying their mortgages; the dollars are worth less when they're paid back. And it's why banks, and Alan Greenspan who does their bidding, hate inflation. So the "massive inflation to follow" would vastly decrease Argentinians' debts. Billy Kreuter, Seattle T.S. again: I didn't mean to imply that money deposited in a bank was simply collecting lint in the pockets of bankers. Of course the money is invested (quite lucratively) by the banks, and they don't necessarily have the cash on hand to pay everyone if the money is all demanded at once. The money being loaned out hasn't disappeared, it still exists and by golly it is still making profits for the bankers. That money ought to at least be making some profits for the people who actually own it and who have clearly asked for it back. Once folks ask for their cash and the bank doesn't have it to give they cease being "depositors," and become "creditors." Instead of simply sequestering people's own money the banks ought to at least provide collateral, like maybe ownership shares in the bank itself. The depositors would be free to sell their shares or hold them for future redemption when funds were available, meanwhile sharing in the bank's profits. Maybe these new shareholders could even get together to vote on new bank policies while they are all together at the barricades. I realize this suggestion will probably be dismissed as ridiculous and as obvious evidence I don't understand how the world really works. Of course in the real world many of these "Argentine" banks are really giant multinational concerns like Citibank who of course have way more deposits at their disposal than just those from Argentines. At what point is "banking collapse," simply a euphemism for "a slight downturn in profits?" As an indication of the Argentine government's actual priorities, the banks did in fact manage to cash out some of their depositors in December even after the emergency freeze. According to reports in the Latin American press, around 100 of Argentina's elite politicians, bankers, and generals were allowed to withdraw all of their funds (totaling billions of dollars--it's rough, living on a public servant's salary) and take them out of the country. This includes many of the architects of Argentina's current crisis. As for inflation, you are indeed correct that a loan in dollars that's paid back with inflated dollars works out in favor of the debtor. But in Argentina's case many people had bank accounts in dollars (and the peso itself was tied to the dollar). Subsequently the accounts of ordinary folks have all been converted to pesos by government decree with the peso immediately losing half its value in relation to the dollar. Meanwhile many loans remain dollarized. And the more inflated the peso becomes the more pesos it takes to be worth a dollar. All of which leaves your average unemployed Argentine depositor/debtor in the streets manning burning barricades and pissed as hell. And they're still pissed no matter how many ways the proper authorities (whose money is now safely ensconced in Swiss or Caymen Island banks) try to explain that it is all necessary to "save" the economy and, of course, for the own good of all. The real error in my statement about having "some left over for the bankers," is that the words "some" and "left over" don't adequately describe the hog-wild pillaging that the bankers and their government bodyguards are actually engaged in. Regulate Greed!ETS!,It is time to regulate greed. I naively hoped that the disclosures in the early 1990s confirming the preying of our tobacco companies on our children would motivate our society to raise the broader question of the need to regulate the systemic greed in our harsh capitalist system. The "buyer beware" and "survival of the fittest" economic and social systems dominate every aspect of our local and global existence. From the allocation of our resources to the superiority of profits and property rights above human rights, there has been a diappointing and fatal lack of questioning of this unjust model of control and domination. I am again hopeful that the Enron disclosures and the impending questions throughout the corporate community regarding aggressive and misleading accounting practices will finally motivate more people to understand the importance of achieving "balance" between profits and humanity. There has been an important debate for the past 20 years regarding the balance between the environment and profits and its time to include human sustainability in this critical discussion as well. The impending extinction of two billion people deserves some attention. Dan Merkle, Seattle Green Propaganda?Dear Editor;Despite my admiration for your fine paper, I'm a little disappointed in the choice of headline for Michael Shank's recent piece: "Logging Threatens Seattle's Drinking Water." I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with putting the powerline through, but nowhere in the entire piece does Shank even mention what the threat to drinking water might be; let alone discuss it or analyze it. All I can imagine is that ideological bias overcame the normal editorial practice of choosing titles which are explained by the articles. That's disappointing. The only fact I could glean was "we don't want it," without even a clearly delineated reason why not. A more appropriate title would've been: "Some Residents Opposed to BPA Powerline Plan" ...or something along those lines. As far as what the article did cover, it's simply astonishing to see "green" activists squalling about eminent domain. They're the #1 advocates of eminent domain today! At least, where it means forcing some poor SOB farmer or forest-dweller off their land to make a "wildlife corridor"...which will, of course, later be drilled or logged by whoever's buying the gov-for-sale that year. See: ANWR. See: Escalante. See:... Why do I get the feeling that propaganda-fed greens don't want to Eat the State!, but only get control of it for their corp/state herders? --Anonymous, via e-mail (because I don't need my office blown up or my children injured by warped eco-national-socialists; i.e. Nazis; as accurate an appellation as any I've seen for these sad, manipulated people.) |
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