Spot the the theme

From Marx and Coca Cola, he reports that Senate Republicans killed the Car maker bailout because: "This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it."

Who said the class war was dead? The same theme emerges over at electoral vote:"A striking pattern has emerged in the fight over bailing out the big three automobile companies. Senators from the north are for it and senators from the south are against it. Why? It turns out there are assembly plants in both the North and the South. The ones in the North are owned by American companies and are highly unionized; the ones in the South are owned by foreign (mostly Japanese) companies and are not unionized. Hourly pay in northern and southern ones is comparable but benefits are much better in the North. Southern senators who oppose the bailout don't really object to the government interfering with private industry and don't really even mind a government-appointed car czar running the companies. The sticking point is that they want to break the unions and force union members to take cuts in pay and benefits to bring them down to the level that the workers in the South get."

Over at Dave's Part young master Osler notes the drive is now on over here for paycuts, and hopes that Unions will resist. Of course, we know that unions are powerless in the face of unemployment, and with a stagnant pool of around two million to start with, when it grows to (fingers crossed against) 5 million, there'll be fuck all we can do. I'm afraid it's political action or nothing.

To be clear, I noted Charlies reproduction schemas and disportionality as being the means of analysing crisis - I noted that only destroying capital really gets us out of the mess, but hammering wages might enable some firms to survive. It would be counter productive because, like pump priming it leaves the root cause intact, but it would help some capitalists maybe to the disadvantage of others. Certainly, they'll try it, because the only alternative is suicide - that's the point of crisis, that in trying to save themselves, capitalists make it worse for themselves (and for us).

To the ballot boxes, mes braves, to take up cudgels against the crisis that is capitalism.