Under capitalism, competition causes the rate of profit to drop, and for goods to be overproduced. This is when the business cycle dips, and we experience recessions and depressions.

To restore the rate of profit and force the cycle up again, capitalists have several methods including financial speculation and deliberate waste. Plus they must destroy excess capital, usually through wars. (This is to lower the ratio of fixed production costs to variable costs like labor — so acts like cutting wages to make profits go up again has more of an effect).

During the current dip we have seen a frenzy of financial speculation, waste, and wars. In the process of destroying excess capital to save capitalism, there is always contention among capitalists: whose capital will be destroyed? No one wants it to be their own. When this conflict becomes acute, it can be resolved antagonistically, by fighting it out.

At the moment, the capital of a British oil company, the fourth largest corporation in the world, is being destroyed. BP was allowed to create this destructive situation by the US government. Most people assume it must have been due to greed, negligence and short-sightedness.

But what if it wasn’t? Could this, actually, be war in another form (since the usual war-fighting resources are stretched very thin right now) — the deliberate facilitation of destruction of British-based capital by representatives of US-based capital?

That would explain why Obama isn’t doing anything about it.

Among the headlines on commondreams.org earlier this week, I spotted this: “If There Was Ever a Moment to Seize,” by Bill McKibben. For one wild second I thought — wow, McKibben sees the revolutionary potential in this crisis and is finally going to encourage people to rise up and overthrow the maniacs killing the planet!!!

But that was not, of course, the case. Instead of asking *us* to seize the moment, he is asking *Obama* to do so. He wants Obama to be the leader of a people’s movement for sustainability.

Um… I think Obama is already very busy being the leader of the ecocidal, murderous capitalist class that runs this country.