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> > Accepting Engel's definition of The State as The Laws [that support the > interests of the ruling class] and the Armed Forces that defend them, the > class identity of the armed forces is central to the outcome of any class > struggle. This is well understood by people who live where putsches and coups are familiar; and the interests of one set of financial backers backing one set of colonels are replaced by another. Altho we may not recognize battles to determine which set will control the oil fields or diamond mines, or Information Tech consumer AND/OR labor markets as class struggles, they are(as is clear from Andrew grove's quote on a portside post just read) struggles between social groups with different relations to the means of production that determine the quantity AND quality of power human masses affected by them can exercise. How much power, how exercised, by how many? How 'bout lobbying for, or at least modest proposaling here that ANY American citizen be allowed to join the US Armed Forces and trained to serve as best they can in a second Reconstruction Reparation Army. Rather than Eco-in-name recyclers ripping off unemployed vets who rip out copper wires in abandoned homes where they crash, Rather than Green Prison Inc contracting for their convict labor processing hazardous materials, after they are arrested for burglary, why not loyal American soldiers with one thing in common -- they can't find work -- trained to reconstruct devastated neighborhoods in the US in order to work side by side with iraqis, afganis (isn't this what Pettreus advocates?) reconstructing theirs? It might even cost the taxpayers less than the contracting out to "war reconstruction frauds" like the Louis Berger Group that just paid $70.3 million in criminal and civil penalties for overbilling on their reconstruction work in afganistan, Iraq, and Sudan in a settlement that allows them to continue working on gov contracts (nyt 11/6/10 p A 9; google war reconstruction fraud nyt for URL) ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
