Freedom has a price. It is a price that we have been willing to pay for hundreds of years in most Western societies. The cost is a certain degree of necessary anxiety as a result of the unpredictable nature of disparate human impulses.
When the citizens and leaders of a society become jittery and fearful enough, they tend to sell their freedom for safety from the unknown and unpredictable. In societies that have cowed to fear, you may be stoned to death for committing adultery, you may be sanctioned for ‘extremist’ views, or you may be put to death for a crime you have not committed. That is a problem with a secure society. It is, after all, a myth. The upside is that all the trains tend to run on time.
To live in a free society we must tolerate known criminals living in our midst. We must tolerate all sorts of political and philosophical opinions that are an affront to our sensibilities. We have to accept the fact that anything can happen. Many unpleasant possibilities are plausible, even the possibility of being killed. But that’s life. Security is a myth and if we take a look around, if we take a look at what happens when societies give in to fear, we can see what happens. Those societies become tyrannical nightmares.
There is a border, a clear and distinct line that we cannot cross. We must prosecute a crime AFTER the individual has acted. And no nation can act against another preemptively.
That means that we cannot prosecute pedophiles that are likely to harm children before they act. Instead, we have to be awake and aware and take steps to protect them ourselves. The state cannot do it. We cannot prosecute those that will likely murder their spouse before they act. We have to act to protect ourselves and our loved ones. The state cannot do it. In free societies we have always endured this precarious situation. But we have done it.
But now all that is changing and what it may mean for us is a future of having to endure the iron shackles of an arbitrary and brutal state apparatus. We have to ask ourselves if we are that cowardly. Are we timid and fearful to the point that we allow the terrorists that slaughtered the people in the twin towers to take away our freedom?
They seem to be winning the war that Bush had boldly declared against terrorism. Not so much in the sense that they are managing to create enough carnage and fear in Iraq to be party to the complete terrorizing of that society as much as the effect they are having on American society. This also spills over into British, Canadian, Australian and many other societies.
Coincidentally, and fortunately for the terrorists of both stripes (the Arab terrorists and the American terrorists) there were two bombings in London just prior to a vote in the US House of Representatives on renewal of the misnamed and potentially fascistic Patriot Act. Following hours of intense debate they voted 257-171 to permanently extend 14 of 16 provisions that had a four year sunset. The remaining two provisions were given a ten year lease on life. This would not have happened without the London bombings. You'd almost think the Mid-Eastren and Western neo cons were working together. One provision is to permit "roving wiretaps" and the other will allow the state to search individuals library and medical records.
If it is the long term plan of the terrorists to destroy individual freedom in the West, they are doing a bang up job. Unfortunately, they are on the same page in this regard as the neo cons that are pushing this cancerous virus against the spirit of freedom through the media, through legislation and through the minds of the timid and fearful fools that buy into this fearful bullshit.
On this political front, we may have to make uncomfortable bedfellows. There are some conservatives that are vehemently passionate about individual liberty, some liberals and socialists as well. On this matter, we should be prepared to drop the guns we tend to hold at one another's heads and work together against the conservatives, liberals and socialists, that don't give a flying fuck about individual liberty and especially the terrorists and neo cons that are working to destroy it.
This blog is an archive of articles I've published in MWC News, Indymedia, and on Newsgroups.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Thursday, July 21, 2005
The Withering Away of the Quasi-Socialist State
‘Socialism proper’ is when the wealth of society is in the hands of the commons or the public as opposed to a particular individual or individuals. Quasi-socialism is piece-meal socialism embedded in capitalist societies. Examples of this are workers unions, social programs, the public ownership of roads and parks, or anything else that gives the working class and the public in general a greater degree of power.
Quasi-socialism has been deeply implanted in Western European and North American countries. Without it a society is always precariously teetering according to the whims of the economy. As a result, the people that live in that society are also precariously teetering between survival and death. Each day people starve to death in a world where there is enough for everybody.
Imagine the world where there is no quasi-socialism. A world where capitalism is completely unfettered and little or no social programs are in place. This is the situation in many countries around the world and it is a situation that capitalism tends toward through time.
In this situation a worker must sell his or her time to a business owner in order to eat, to buy health care and medicine, to feed the children, to buy electricity and so on. Without money the individual has no freedom, none whatsoever. He or she is not even free to access these basic necessities. Money is required to survive and without it, you don't. For the citizen and her children to be free of the stalking grim reaper she must surrender her time and labour to a business owner and produce wealth or provide services to that business owner. There is absolutely no freedom in this situation. It is a situation of wage-slavery. The choice is simple and stark. Either sell your time to a capitalist or die. So, obviously, the citizen sells his or her time to a capitalist.
While that worker is employed by the business owner, he or she is completely subject to the whims and arbitrary decisions of the boss. The owner might decide to have sex with the worker and may demand it. The choices the worker has at that point is to give in to the owners demands or face malnourishment or worse. The boss might discover that the worker is gay or may find out that the worker is of the wrong religion or has friends that are Black and for that reason, the owner fires the worker. The main point is that one individual has discretionary and arbitrary power over another. When that condition exists and it is a matter of survival and the choice is submission or survival, there is not a trace of freedom.
The agreed upon conditions could be ignored by the owner but the worker will be forced to comply and then some. For instance, the owner may decide that the worker should work several extra hours a day for free. I have lived in a country where workers worked six days a week and an additional two hours per day for the bosses for no pay. This was the expectation. Even at that, the bosses would notice who left first. Firings were arbitrary and came without warning and the threat was ominous. The oppression was ubiquitous for workers but the owners seemed to be having a good time.
A firing doesn’t mean the same thing where there is no social safety net. The sense of fear emanating from workers in that situation is palpable, especially when the boss is around.
Consider the contrast; in societies where unions have taken hold and where social programs have been developed, the standard of living is quite comfortable for most. In societies where unbridled capitalism exists, the standard of living is generally poor. This is because the more wealth is distributed among the population, the more demand there is for goods and services. But aside from those macro-economic considerations, there is the consideration of freedom. There is the consideration that one person, or one class of persons, has arbitrary power and control over others. This situation is completely unacceptable and it is a human rights issue.
So the choice is obvious. Unbridled capitalism is a set-up for abuse; a set-up for abject slavery and tyranny. The only acceptable conditions for capitalism are conditions where workers have a decent measure of power and economic freedom. That means that they have choices within and outside the workplace. That means that they are free to organize unions and that if they are unemployed, they are still free to make choices, to eat, to avail themselves of telephones and transportation and medical care. That means that an adequate social safety net is in place.
The problem is that capitalism has significant built in contradictions. And what that means for workers is that capitalism and capitalist states as a whole will become more austere as capitalism matures. The bangles and decorations at its edges are beginning to disappear. Universal health care, welfare, unemployment insurance, and the whole social safety net has started to rot and many people are falling through. They have landed on the sidewalks of the cities and they hold their hands out begging for spare change. They are doing so because they have lost their freedom to eat, to live in a home or to ride a bus. Whole families are homeless and the capitalist world is slipping into a foreboding future.
The big question is whether the withering away of the quasi-socialist state is irrevocable. Has capitalism grown to a point of no return or can we resurrect the ghost of John Maynard Keynes? Can the capitalists afford to throw us a few scraps? We must not forget however that while we in the West enjoyed the blessings of the marriage between J.M. Keynes and Henry Ford, people continued to starve to death in many parts of the world. Now capitalists are moving their shops there, to where the labour is cheap. Their need and desire to throw scraps to workers in the West has diminished.
In the near future we may lose our tax base for social programs. Maybe we will be forced to nationalize some of the profit making industries to pay for schools, hospitals and doctors. We can’t do without them. Or maybe we’ll have to take the whole socialism thing a few steps further than that.
Quasi-socialism has been deeply implanted in Western European and North American countries. Without it a society is always precariously teetering according to the whims of the economy. As a result, the people that live in that society are also precariously teetering between survival and death. Each day people starve to death in a world where there is enough for everybody.
Imagine the world where there is no quasi-socialism. A world where capitalism is completely unfettered and little or no social programs are in place. This is the situation in many countries around the world and it is a situation that capitalism tends toward through time.
In this situation a worker must sell his or her time to a business owner in order to eat, to buy health care and medicine, to feed the children, to buy electricity and so on. Without money the individual has no freedom, none whatsoever. He or she is not even free to access these basic necessities. Money is required to survive and without it, you don't. For the citizen and her children to be free of the stalking grim reaper she must surrender her time and labour to a business owner and produce wealth or provide services to that business owner. There is absolutely no freedom in this situation. It is a situation of wage-slavery. The choice is simple and stark. Either sell your time to a capitalist or die. So, obviously, the citizen sells his or her time to a capitalist.
While that worker is employed by the business owner, he or she is completely subject to the whims and arbitrary decisions of the boss. The owner might decide to have sex with the worker and may demand it. The choices the worker has at that point is to give in to the owners demands or face malnourishment or worse. The boss might discover that the worker is gay or may find out that the worker is of the wrong religion or has friends that are Black and for that reason, the owner fires the worker. The main point is that one individual has discretionary and arbitrary power over another. When that condition exists and it is a matter of survival and the choice is submission or survival, there is not a trace of freedom.
The agreed upon conditions could be ignored by the owner but the worker will be forced to comply and then some. For instance, the owner may decide that the worker should work several extra hours a day for free. I have lived in a country where workers worked six days a week and an additional two hours per day for the bosses for no pay. This was the expectation. Even at that, the bosses would notice who left first. Firings were arbitrary and came without warning and the threat was ominous. The oppression was ubiquitous for workers but the owners seemed to be having a good time.
A firing doesn’t mean the same thing where there is no social safety net. The sense of fear emanating from workers in that situation is palpable, especially when the boss is around.
Consider the contrast; in societies where unions have taken hold and where social programs have been developed, the standard of living is quite comfortable for most. In societies where unbridled capitalism exists, the standard of living is generally poor. This is because the more wealth is distributed among the population, the more demand there is for goods and services. But aside from those macro-economic considerations, there is the consideration of freedom. There is the consideration that one person, or one class of persons, has arbitrary power and control over others. This situation is completely unacceptable and it is a human rights issue.
So the choice is obvious. Unbridled capitalism is a set-up for abuse; a set-up for abject slavery and tyranny. The only acceptable conditions for capitalism are conditions where workers have a decent measure of power and economic freedom. That means that they have choices within and outside the workplace. That means that they are free to organize unions and that if they are unemployed, they are still free to make choices, to eat, to avail themselves of telephones and transportation and medical care. That means that an adequate social safety net is in place.
The problem is that capitalism has significant built in contradictions. And what that means for workers is that capitalism and capitalist states as a whole will become more austere as capitalism matures. The bangles and decorations at its edges are beginning to disappear. Universal health care, welfare, unemployment insurance, and the whole social safety net has started to rot and many people are falling through. They have landed on the sidewalks of the cities and they hold their hands out begging for spare change. They are doing so because they have lost their freedom to eat, to live in a home or to ride a bus. Whole families are homeless and the capitalist world is slipping into a foreboding future.
The big question is whether the withering away of the quasi-socialist state is irrevocable. Has capitalism grown to a point of no return or can we resurrect the ghost of John Maynard Keynes? Can the capitalists afford to throw us a few scraps? We must not forget however that while we in the West enjoyed the blessings of the marriage between J.M. Keynes and Henry Ford, people continued to starve to death in many parts of the world. Now capitalists are moving their shops there, to where the labour is cheap. Their need and desire to throw scraps to workers in the West has diminished.
In the near future we may lose our tax base for social programs. Maybe we will be forced to nationalize some of the profit making industries to pay for schools, hospitals and doctors. We can’t do without them. Or maybe we’ll have to take the whole socialism thing a few steps further than that.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Magical Mysterious 1967
In 1966 our morals, behaviour, and values were similar to those of 1956, or 1946, or even 1826 for that matter. But in 1967 something suddenly shifted. In 1966 there was a mood of innocence and certainty. Young people used colloquial expressions like ‘swell’, ‘neat’, or ‘lady’. They dressed conservatively and wore their hair short. They fought for God and country and they were patriotic.
In 1967 it was as if somebody pulled a switch. Young people suddenly grew their hair long. They suddenly opposed war and they refused to carry guns. And they dropped their guns and they began to drop LSD. The language of youth changed dramatically. Youth spoke pejoratively of “the establishment” which generally meant not only the state and the private sector, but traditional ways of thinking and doing things. Suddenly everybody knew who Timothy Leary, Alan Ginsberg and Aldous Huxley were.
In 1967 the Western world swung into full social upheaval. The anti-war movement exploded in living colour, the civil rights movement became emboldened as did the women’s liberation movement and many other movements of protest and change. The rug was pulled out from beneath Lyndon Johnson and John Calvin and parents everywhere.
The times suddenly had a very anarchistic and rebellious feel to them. It seemed to be an anarchistic rebellion that emerged out of nowhere. People began to set up communes and there was explicit talk of socialism, communism, and revolution not only in America, but throughout Europe as well. In America there was the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers and various other organized groups of revolutionaries. But as anarchistic and socialistic as it might have seemed, in fact it was the full social completion of the capitalist revolution that began so very long ago. The modes of production had changed but the people didn’t – until now. It was the final act of the capitalist revolution and it contained within it the energy and vision of socialism.
As our material conditions change so do we. But not easily if the nature of the last paradigm was a palpable solidity and continuity. The forces of inertia were well developed in the mentality of stoic and 'proper' feudal society. This served to retard the natural flow of psychological change and as a result social change was ostensibly held back. Meanwhile, changes in technology, the processes of production and the relationships within the capitalistic sphere continued to march to the beat of the drum of progress. As a result the values and processes at the workplace developed strain against the traditional values and mores of the average household.
The utopian world of ideas and morality cannot withstand the practical considerations of human needs and the very tangible reality of production and distribution. The caricature may hold for a time but will perish if there is any practical compulsion to expel it. Sometimes it happens slowly and incrementally and sometimes they meet a swift and abrupt end. That is what happened in 1967. As a result, people that formed their world view prior to that stand ideologically opposed to those that came of age at that time or later. It was commonly referred to in the 60’s and 70’s as the generation gap.
The modern capitalist world had become, previous to 1967, reliant on the empiricism of the scientific method. This implicit assumption was contained within the capitalist paradigm and it was subversive to and would be the death blow for religious and beliefs and the power of the church.
Capitalism also usurped the power and privilege of nobility as the power of merchants and industrial capitalists grew. Traditional and arbitrary power gave way to rational laws and principles where it became theoretically possible for individual inhabitants of the lower classes to rise through the social mobility granted by free enterprise. Legal principles now would be legitimated through reasonable observations and logical processes.
Capitalism also granted greater personal freedom to each individual. The binds of the old social order were broken. Not only did social mobility become possible, but the rigidity of morality and the social rules of patriarchy and religious piety had now lost their grounding and legitimacy.
In this climate of freedom from the binds of feudalism, a wealth of ambition and inventions found its way to the market. New ways of producing, hustling wares, and managing industry were developed. Capitalism developed tools to reduce the drudgery of work at the workplace and in the home. An explosion of commodities flooded the capitalist world making life far more enjoyable that previous generations could have even imagined.
But as late as 1966 this psychological transformation had not taken hold within most households. Most of the population lived in the world of Norman Rockwell. World views emanating from the pulpit and from parents and grandparents help preserve the old social order. Change was threatening to those with the comfort of habit and ideological solidity. They barely noticed the great demographic shift taking place as people left the countryside and moved into cities. But even in the cities, the extent of popular rebellion was restricted to good boys like Elvis and Jimmy Dean. The Western world was stuck in the comfort of knowing one’s place. There was good and there was evil. The known was good and the foriegn was evil. There were proper folks and immodest outcasts. The social order was holding.
In the background however there was Alan Ginsberg and the Beats. There was the emerging civil rights movement and there were Marxists, feminists and anarchists lurking about. Women and minorities were demanding equality and although these voices seemed silent in the mainstream, they all made their contribution to the cultural revolution of the sixties.
While it marked the coming of age for full scale capitalist society, it was energized by the radicalism of socialism. The thrust and energy of the 60s was based in the strain that existed between the forces of production and the inertia of wholesome conservativism. The individualist liberating qualities of capitalism were empowered with a growing hunger for for collective liberation, all qualities that are born of the liberations and inequities of capitalism. This incendiary concoction didn't burn, it exploded. The sympathies of socialism were explicitly expressed while the free expression itself was a manifestation of now widely accepted social freedom of capitalist society.
The acrimony that is so apparent and seems so natural between capitalism and socialism is rooted in a similar conservative bent to the old school crackers. But the nature of capitalism is that of a shape shifter. Capitalism is inherently revolutionary and its own revolution against itself is programmed into the software. Socialism is a natural and necessary child of capitalism.
Wealth is based on the difference between the time worked by a worker that is equal to his or her wages, and the extra time the worker produces. That extra time has value and it is surplus value. This is the basis of the wealth of capitalists. Although capitalism carries with it a greater degree of freedom than serfdom, the reality is not freedom in any practical sense, except for the lords of capital; ergo, the germination of revolutionary energy. Workers are free, yes, but at the same time they are not. And as capitalism matures, the strain between those that own and control and those that are owned and controlled increases necessarily.
The worker in feudal times had, in some ways, more independence that the wage worker of modern capitalism. He devoted some of his earned wealth to the lord that he served but maintained his own field and animals. Craftsmen produced wealth directly with their hands and enjoyed a measure of independence. But the modern worker in the modern workplace has become an alienated tool of socialized production and is valued in these terms. He must sell his time to one capitalist or another or face destitution. The modern worker finds himself in a state of social anarchy in the world of work, commodity production, and distribution. Who knows what is going to sell, what will shut down or what the future will bring? Previously, there was binding security.
Capitalism does not contain within it the inertia, security, and solidity that feudal systems had and for that reason, there is always an undercurrent of change and anarchy.
This situation results in societies that are under the constant strain of conflict and upheaval. The shackles of religion and tradition have been broken. The conflict between the new master, the capitalist, and the serf-like wage worker, percolates continuously. The strain between the increasing difficulty gaining profit from a unit of work and the diminishing standard of living for the average wage slave impregnate all societies with the seeds of socialism. And in an ironic twist, it was these seeds of socialism, the resultant dissatisfaction with capitalism that burst forth in 1967 to result in the full expression of capitalist liberation.
Capitalism has socialized the forces of production. And as it matures and grows, the utility of the individual capitalist diminishes. Their role becomes nothing more than that of a gambler at a casino. Managers of corporations must find ways to squeeze profit out of increasing difficult circumstances. It becomes their job to cut wages, to appropriate as much wealth as possible for and to the great casino. What is in the interests of the casino players and managers is directly opposed to the interests of workers and consumers as well as the general public.
The next social upheaval will come and it will be fundamentally different that the one that began in 1967. 1967 marked the beginning of a wholesale acceptance of individual freedom from the shackles of residual feudalism. This residue had to be purged from the psychology of the new generation.
There is no way to predict when it will come or what it will mean to the way we do things and our common values. We can only try to make educated guesses. History has a way of unfolding with twists and turns that seem written by a madman.
In 1960 or even in 1966 it would have been impossible to predict what was about to happen. The next upheaval could come at any time. The changeover from the age of kings and lords to the age of the bourgeoisie happened incrementally and the explosion of rebellion occured late and well into its adolescence.
Socialism will be born of a big bang. It is a birth that will require explicit revolutionary energy. The timing and the details are impossible to predict. But there is no doubting that it will come. It’s in the cards.
In 1967 it was as if somebody pulled a switch. Young people suddenly grew their hair long. They suddenly opposed war and they refused to carry guns. And they dropped their guns and they began to drop LSD. The language of youth changed dramatically. Youth spoke pejoratively of “the establishment” which generally meant not only the state and the private sector, but traditional ways of thinking and doing things. Suddenly everybody knew who Timothy Leary, Alan Ginsberg and Aldous Huxley were.
In 1967 the Western world swung into full social upheaval. The anti-war movement exploded in living colour, the civil rights movement became emboldened as did the women’s liberation movement and many other movements of protest and change. The rug was pulled out from beneath Lyndon Johnson and John Calvin and parents everywhere.
The times suddenly had a very anarchistic and rebellious feel to them. It seemed to be an anarchistic rebellion that emerged out of nowhere. People began to set up communes and there was explicit talk of socialism, communism, and revolution not only in America, but throughout Europe as well. In America there was the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers and various other organized groups of revolutionaries. But as anarchistic and socialistic as it might have seemed, in fact it was the full social completion of the capitalist revolution that began so very long ago. The modes of production had changed but the people didn’t – until now. It was the final act of the capitalist revolution and it contained within it the energy and vision of socialism.
As our material conditions change so do we. But not easily if the nature of the last paradigm was a palpable solidity and continuity. The forces of inertia were well developed in the mentality of stoic and 'proper' feudal society. This served to retard the natural flow of psychological change and as a result social change was ostensibly held back. Meanwhile, changes in technology, the processes of production and the relationships within the capitalistic sphere continued to march to the beat of the drum of progress. As a result the values and processes at the workplace developed strain against the traditional values and mores of the average household.
The utopian world of ideas and morality cannot withstand the practical considerations of human needs and the very tangible reality of production and distribution. The caricature may hold for a time but will perish if there is any practical compulsion to expel it. Sometimes it happens slowly and incrementally and sometimes they meet a swift and abrupt end. That is what happened in 1967. As a result, people that formed their world view prior to that stand ideologically opposed to those that came of age at that time or later. It was commonly referred to in the 60’s and 70’s as the generation gap.
The modern capitalist world had become, previous to 1967, reliant on the empiricism of the scientific method. This implicit assumption was contained within the capitalist paradigm and it was subversive to and would be the death blow for religious and beliefs and the power of the church.
Capitalism also usurped the power and privilege of nobility as the power of merchants and industrial capitalists grew. Traditional and arbitrary power gave way to rational laws and principles where it became theoretically possible for individual inhabitants of the lower classes to rise through the social mobility granted by free enterprise. Legal principles now would be legitimated through reasonable observations and logical processes.
Capitalism also granted greater personal freedom to each individual. The binds of the old social order were broken. Not only did social mobility become possible, but the rigidity of morality and the social rules of patriarchy and religious piety had now lost their grounding and legitimacy.
In this climate of freedom from the binds of feudalism, a wealth of ambition and inventions found its way to the market. New ways of producing, hustling wares, and managing industry were developed. Capitalism developed tools to reduce the drudgery of work at the workplace and in the home. An explosion of commodities flooded the capitalist world making life far more enjoyable that previous generations could have even imagined.
But as late as 1966 this psychological transformation had not taken hold within most households. Most of the population lived in the world of Norman Rockwell. World views emanating from the pulpit and from parents and grandparents help preserve the old social order. Change was threatening to those with the comfort of habit and ideological solidity. They barely noticed the great demographic shift taking place as people left the countryside and moved into cities. But even in the cities, the extent of popular rebellion was restricted to good boys like Elvis and Jimmy Dean. The Western world was stuck in the comfort of knowing one’s place. There was good and there was evil. The known was good and the foriegn was evil. There were proper folks and immodest outcasts. The social order was holding.
In the background however there was Alan Ginsberg and the Beats. There was the emerging civil rights movement and there were Marxists, feminists and anarchists lurking about. Women and minorities were demanding equality and although these voices seemed silent in the mainstream, they all made their contribution to the cultural revolution of the sixties.
While it marked the coming of age for full scale capitalist society, it was energized by the radicalism of socialism. The thrust and energy of the 60s was based in the strain that existed between the forces of production and the inertia of wholesome conservativism. The individualist liberating qualities of capitalism were empowered with a growing hunger for for collective liberation, all qualities that are born of the liberations and inequities of capitalism. This incendiary concoction didn't burn, it exploded. The sympathies of socialism were explicitly expressed while the free expression itself was a manifestation of now widely accepted social freedom of capitalist society.
The acrimony that is so apparent and seems so natural between capitalism and socialism is rooted in a similar conservative bent to the old school crackers. But the nature of capitalism is that of a shape shifter. Capitalism is inherently revolutionary and its own revolution against itself is programmed into the software. Socialism is a natural and necessary child of capitalism.
Wealth is based on the difference between the time worked by a worker that is equal to his or her wages, and the extra time the worker produces. That extra time has value and it is surplus value. This is the basis of the wealth of capitalists. Although capitalism carries with it a greater degree of freedom than serfdom, the reality is not freedom in any practical sense, except for the lords of capital; ergo, the germination of revolutionary energy. Workers are free, yes, but at the same time they are not. And as capitalism matures, the strain between those that own and control and those that are owned and controlled increases necessarily.
The worker in feudal times had, in some ways, more independence that the wage worker of modern capitalism. He devoted some of his earned wealth to the lord that he served but maintained his own field and animals. Craftsmen produced wealth directly with their hands and enjoyed a measure of independence. But the modern worker in the modern workplace has become an alienated tool of socialized production and is valued in these terms. He must sell his time to one capitalist or another or face destitution. The modern worker finds himself in a state of social anarchy in the world of work, commodity production, and distribution. Who knows what is going to sell, what will shut down or what the future will bring? Previously, there was binding security.
Capitalism does not contain within it the inertia, security, and solidity that feudal systems had and for that reason, there is always an undercurrent of change and anarchy.
This situation results in societies that are under the constant strain of conflict and upheaval. The shackles of religion and tradition have been broken. The conflict between the new master, the capitalist, and the serf-like wage worker, percolates continuously. The strain between the increasing difficulty gaining profit from a unit of work and the diminishing standard of living for the average wage slave impregnate all societies with the seeds of socialism. And in an ironic twist, it was these seeds of socialism, the resultant dissatisfaction with capitalism that burst forth in 1967 to result in the full expression of capitalist liberation.
Capitalism has socialized the forces of production. And as it matures and grows, the utility of the individual capitalist diminishes. Their role becomes nothing more than that of a gambler at a casino. Managers of corporations must find ways to squeeze profit out of increasing difficult circumstances. It becomes their job to cut wages, to appropriate as much wealth as possible for and to the great casino. What is in the interests of the casino players and managers is directly opposed to the interests of workers and consumers as well as the general public.
The next social upheaval will come and it will be fundamentally different that the one that began in 1967. 1967 marked the beginning of a wholesale acceptance of individual freedom from the shackles of residual feudalism. This residue had to be purged from the psychology of the new generation.
There is no way to predict when it will come or what it will mean to the way we do things and our common values. We can only try to make educated guesses. History has a way of unfolding with twists and turns that seem written by a madman.
In 1960 or even in 1966 it would have been impossible to predict what was about to happen. The next upheaval could come at any time. The changeover from the age of kings and lords to the age of the bourgeoisie happened incrementally and the explosion of rebellion occured late and well into its adolescence.
Socialism will be born of a big bang. It is a birth that will require explicit revolutionary energy. The timing and the details are impossible to predict. But there is no doubting that it will come. It’s in the cards.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Insidious Karma
The elder Bush's bullet, aimed several decades ago at Phillip Agee, missed and it will likely strike Karl Rove right between the eyes. Looks good on him.
As a teen I read Agee's book, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary" in utter fascination. I could never look at the government of the USA the same way again.
Dubya's daddy, George H. Bush was director of the CIA before he became El Presidente and he aimed a bullet toward the agile Agee and missed. He got the Intelligence Identities Protection Act passed into law with the intent of nailing Phillip Agee, or anybody like him, to the cross.
In 2003 the shadowy Robert Novak wrote, "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."
It looks like Bush's close advisor and friend, Karl Rove, is the one that let that cat out of the bag and Rove may be the one struck by the bullet aimed at Agee so long ago.
Strange isn't it? Bush senior takes a shot at Phillip Agree two decades ago and the bullet seems to be headed for Bush Junior's right hand man, Karl Rove.
Karma is rarely instant but it's gonna get you. It's gonna knock you right on the head.
As a teen I read Agee's book, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary" in utter fascination. I could never look at the government of the USA the same way again.
Dubya's daddy, George H. Bush was director of the CIA before he became El Presidente and he aimed a bullet toward the agile Agee and missed. He got the Intelligence Identities Protection Act passed into law with the intent of nailing Phillip Agee, or anybody like him, to the cross.
In 2003 the shadowy Robert Novak wrote, "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."
It looks like Bush's close advisor and friend, Karl Rove, is the one that let that cat out of the bag and Rove may be the one struck by the bullet aimed at Agee so long ago.
Strange isn't it? Bush senior takes a shot at Phillip Agree two decades ago and the bullet seems to be headed for Bush Junior's right hand man, Karl Rove.
Karma is rarely instant but it's gonna get you. It's gonna knock you right on the head.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Don’t Blame Bush
George W. Bush has taken on the appearance of something not natural, something supernatural, since he became president. Prior to his ascension he was just a bumbling fool. Sure he was cavalier with the gallows, but a bumbling fool nonetheless. Now he has become Satan to many horrified innocent bystanders.
But we can’t blame Bush.
During the last presidential campaign John Kerry was sounding more hawkish than Bush and his cabal of demons. And really, do you believe that if Kerry had won the election things would be any different in Iraq? It is likely that even if the Democrats had won the first election that by now Iraq would have been invaded.
This all depends on who is really in control. While it is true that the GOP is top heavy with oil billionaires, it is also true that the billionaires that dictate policy to the Republicans also tell the Democrats what to do. The lines of control are more convoluted than Halliburton and Cheney.
Here we come to the heart of a very important question. The question is; who really controls the American State? That is, who is in the shadows? Who is behind closed doors when the really big decisions are made? Who is it that tells Bush what to do?
Another interesting question is why this question is apparently completely off the radar as far as the mainstream media is concerned.
What seems to be happening recently would likely be happening if the marriage between the American state and the private sector was almost complete. Previously, American politicians held a modicum of political power but were heavily influenced by the business class. It may have shifted, apparently subtly, that the business class has taken full control of political decision making. The effects are not so subtle.
We might turn our attention to the question of who profits directly from war. If we peruse the who’s who in the war party (Boeing, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Halliburton, etc.) we begin to get a picture that is bigger than partisan politics.
According to John Kenneth Galbraith, “In 2003, close to half the total US government discretionary expenditure was used for military purposes. A large part was for weapons procurement or development. Nuclear-powered submarines run to billions of dollars, individual planes to tens of millions each.
Galbraith explains further that weapons profiteers provide politicians with plans and designs for new weaponry that will provide good jobs and salaries for politicians constituencies and the privateers themselves will make a killing. What Galbraith does not explain, at least in this particular article (Corporate Power) is that this type of spending is immensely wasteful. It is really corporate welfare and it is not very useful to the general public.
And so here we have it; the dictatorship of the bourgeoise. They are seeming benevolent monarchs and they provide us with oodles of material goods whether we like them or not. In fact, they spend billions convincing us that our measure as a human being is gauged by the car we drive, our PC, our home and our gadgets. And we swallow it all, hook, line and sinker. They divert our collective attention away from the starving masses that live outside the tent of American hegemony. People that starve directly as a result of capitalsim. People in Haiti for instance. They divert our attention away from the 40 million plus Americans that have no heatlth insurance. They divert our attention away from the carnage and massive slaughter that is going on in Iraq. A slaughter that is aimed at keeping the hegemony healthy and our trinkets flowing. And to hell with the people that have to survive on this planet two hundred years from now – party on Wayne.
American foreign policy is shaped and dictated by the corporations that run the American state and so is a good deal of domestic policy. So called free trade agreements also give these very same corporate managers a handle and a great deal of leverage on domestic policies in other countries as well. It is corporate managers or their representatives behind those closed doors that pull Bush’s strings and they would be attaching the very same strings to John Kerry if he were president. The figurehead really doesn’t matter at this point.
It looks as if we're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy. Concentration camps, torture, pre-emptive war, the spitting on the Geneva Conventions, the cavalier disregard for spirit of the American Constitution and so on have Americans bewildered and non-Americans in awe. Bush has said that 9-11 will change everything. In this case, he was almost telling the truth. The recent exposure of the nature of the American state may have been helped along by 9-11. It was not caused by it however.
We can look forward to the privatization of all that is public in the future. We can look forward to unabashed corporate control of domestic policy not only in the USA, but everywhere. Because if we look into the nature of capitalism, it grows in one direction.
When that all happens, the dictatorship of the bourgeoise will be complete.
But we can’t blame Bush.
During the last presidential campaign John Kerry was sounding more hawkish than Bush and his cabal of demons. And really, do you believe that if Kerry had won the election things would be any different in Iraq? It is likely that even if the Democrats had won the first election that by now Iraq would have been invaded.
This all depends on who is really in control. While it is true that the GOP is top heavy with oil billionaires, it is also true that the billionaires that dictate policy to the Republicans also tell the Democrats what to do. The lines of control are more convoluted than Halliburton and Cheney.
Here we come to the heart of a very important question. The question is; who really controls the American State? That is, who is in the shadows? Who is behind closed doors when the really big decisions are made? Who is it that tells Bush what to do?
Another interesting question is why this question is apparently completely off the radar as far as the mainstream media is concerned.
What seems to be happening recently would likely be happening if the marriage between the American state and the private sector was almost complete. Previously, American politicians held a modicum of political power but were heavily influenced by the business class. It may have shifted, apparently subtly, that the business class has taken full control of political decision making. The effects are not so subtle.
We might turn our attention to the question of who profits directly from war. If we peruse the who’s who in the war party (Boeing, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Halliburton, etc.) we begin to get a picture that is bigger than partisan politics.
According to John Kenneth Galbraith, “In 2003, close to half the total US government discretionary expenditure was used for military purposes. A large part was for weapons procurement or development. Nuclear-powered submarines run to billions of dollars, individual planes to tens of millions each.
Galbraith explains further that weapons profiteers provide politicians with plans and designs for new weaponry that will provide good jobs and salaries for politicians constituencies and the privateers themselves will make a killing. What Galbraith does not explain, at least in this particular article (Corporate Power) is that this type of spending is immensely wasteful. It is really corporate welfare and it is not very useful to the general public.
And so here we have it; the dictatorship of the bourgeoise. They are seeming benevolent monarchs and they provide us with oodles of material goods whether we like them or not. In fact, they spend billions convincing us that our measure as a human being is gauged by the car we drive, our PC, our home and our gadgets. And we swallow it all, hook, line and sinker. They divert our collective attention away from the starving masses that live outside the tent of American hegemony. People that starve directly as a result of capitalsim. People in Haiti for instance. They divert our attention away from the 40 million plus Americans that have no heatlth insurance. They divert our attention away from the carnage and massive slaughter that is going on in Iraq. A slaughter that is aimed at keeping the hegemony healthy and our trinkets flowing. And to hell with the people that have to survive on this planet two hundred years from now – party on Wayne.
American foreign policy is shaped and dictated by the corporations that run the American state and so is a good deal of domestic policy. So called free trade agreements also give these very same corporate managers a handle and a great deal of leverage on domestic policies in other countries as well. It is corporate managers or their representatives behind those closed doors that pull Bush’s strings and they would be attaching the very same strings to John Kerry if he were president. The figurehead really doesn’t matter at this point.
It looks as if we're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy. Concentration camps, torture, pre-emptive war, the spitting on the Geneva Conventions, the cavalier disregard for spirit of the American Constitution and so on have Americans bewildered and non-Americans in awe. Bush has said that 9-11 will change everything. In this case, he was almost telling the truth. The recent exposure of the nature of the American state may have been helped along by 9-11. It was not caused by it however.
We can look forward to the privatization of all that is public in the future. We can look forward to unabashed corporate control of domestic policy not only in the USA, but everywhere. Because if we look into the nature of capitalism, it grows in one direction.
When that all happens, the dictatorship of the bourgeoise will be complete.
Monday, July 11, 2005
The Myth of Freedom
What does the word 'socialism' conjure up? Does it bring to mind gulags, barbed wire, ugly concrete walls, death to dissidents, oppression and rigid control by a jackboot state apparatus? It should bring these things up as well as many more ugly images. If it doesn't, you have not been properly indocterinated. You better be careful, you might not be in the box.
For the moment, let us step outside of our collective indocterination and take a peek at what freedom is and what it could be.
Perhaps the greatest propaganda victory of capitalists over socialists during the so called cold war has been the success of the notion that capitalism equals freedom and socialism inevitably results in totalitarianism. The capitalists had willing accomplices; socialist farces making socialist faces. Country Joe Stalin and the Chairman that crushed Tibet were the people with the power. To be fair, they put together some impressive socialist polices. But a tyrannical dictator cannot be a socialist any more than a Christian can be a capitalist.
If we examine freedom and socialism and capitalism, we can see that there is nothing to suggest that socialism is oppressive and capitalism is liberating. The principles of socialism suggest otherwise as does the fundamentals of capitalism. Capitalism is inherently oppressive and socialism is inherently liberating.
The real freedom within the framework of capitalism is the freedom to oppress others; to own and control the life of another human being. The boss of an employee cannot own the worker or control a worker during his or her off hours but while he or she is at work, he owns and controls that person. And as capitalism matures and the terms of exploitation sharpen, the notion that the worker is free during his off work time becomes less clear. Some bosses demand that the worker is available through a phone call or submit to drug and alcohol screening. Workers rights are eroding and corporate power is expanding.
The worker's choice may be to quit - and then the choices are to work for another owner or face the ultimate state of oppression; poverty. And people in poverty have no choices or, in other words, no freedom.
In capitalist societies, freedom is granted through class, money, and power. Socialism holds the promise of freedom for everybody. The freedom to exploit or to be a tyrant however, vanishes. And if that is not socialism to you, it doesn't matter. It is socialism and anything less isn't. Freedom for all may seem like a dream now but it will be living material reality in the future.
More realistically and more now, the big dream of freedom is to strike it rich. It may be unfair to describe lotteries as ‘idiot tax’ because for most, it’s the only way out. Win big and suddenly we are catapulted into the realms of the gods and the beautiful people. No longer do we worry about the oppression of wage slavery, our kids future, lack of choices, destitution, Kraft Dinner - again - and so on. Because now we have joined the ranks of the idle rich and rich people are free to do what they want when they want to do it. They have so much money that their money magnetizes more money by simply existing. What a dream, what a beautiful life.
On the other hand many poor people are not even free to get food and medicine for their kids. Many poor people are starving and have no home. To not have choices is not to be free. The equation is simple: The more money you have, the more freedom you have.
‘But at least it isn’t the Gulag of Kim Jung Il’, will be the inevitable response from those that see in shades of black and white. ‘At least it isn’t the Berlin Wall’. This is true. But reality is not quite that simple. It may not be Kim Jung Il but it is Haiti and Honduras and it is Canada and America.
The fact remains that millions have suffered under well intentioned socialist revolutions. There is a very real and tragic history behind the association between socialism and totalitarianism. In each and every case, whenever a socialist revolution has occurred, the socialist state has had to defend itself against attacks from outside agitators as well as terrorists from within that were bent on the overthrow of the revolution. When we consider the reaction of the USA to the terrorist attacks on 9-11 and the extent of the paranoia that followed, we can then consider the paranoia of a smaller state that has the USA hell bent on overthrowing it.
It would be crude to suggest that the tyrants of socialism are solely the spawn of the Great Satan however. While it might be argued that Stalin was not a socialist in the proper sense of the word, the fact is that he grew to take power and became the dictator of an intended socialist state. But Stalin and the rest of the infamous dictators of socialist states have grown out of the rigidity and tyranny of feudalism. They held crude and primitive ideas about power, people, and leadership. In other words, they had not been refined into the liberalism that the relative freedom of capitalism can percolate. They believed that people had to be whipped into submission with brutal force.
This is not socialism however. Socialism requires that the working class control society. If any dictator or central committee have control, it is a gross perversion. Socialism is necessarily democratic and if it isn't, then it isn't 'social'.
Modern liberal capitalist democracies tend to contain within them the liberating tendencies of socialism. We see examples of it in the rational basis of our legal principles. That is, authority is based in rationality as opposed to emotion, tradition, or charisma. We see it in the demands for civil rights, in the demands for gender equality, for workers rights, gay rights and so on. These tendencies are the tendencies of socialism but within the framework of capitalism, they are merely liberalism. That is, we see single issue yuppies fighting the good fight while they step over the homeless and treat them as a nuisance. Liberalism hints at socialism, but it ain’t the real deal. It is about liberation for my self or my people – the rest can go to hell.
Freedom cannot exist under capitalism except for those that have wealth and power. The bottom line is that we must sell our labour in order to live and in that process, we give up our freedom. The person that hires us can fire us. He has that power. And that power grants him control of me and you. He can fire us on a whim. As a result we live under the oppression of that person or organization. We feel that pressure in the presence of the bosses. If he (they) gets the notion, he can fire any employee arbitrarily. He might find out you are gay, or that you have a Black boyfriend and then the jig is up. The gay hating racist prick will fire you for incompetence or insubordination – or something. The point here is that one person has an unacceptable degree of power over another.
Without money we have no freedom in capitalist society because we have no choices. We cannot house ourselves or our family, we cannot eat and we cannot go anywhere or own anything. So, we sell ourselves to the boss.
Capitalism also requires control outside the workplace and to maintain that control they rely on the power of the monopoly and the power of the state. One example of the controlling nature of capitalism is the existence of copyright laws. Copyright laws are about control and control for profit. The capitalist state is rife with such laws and restrictions to control goods and information to allow the ‘lawful’ owners to make us pay. It is in the interests of capitalists to take control of all commodities and to reduce their availablility. They make us, the inmates of their madhouse, pay for insurance, electricity, communications, all the vital necessities of life and as a result, they have control of us. The wealth flows from us, to them and the only way to make the flow stream laterally or downward, is through sweat and subservience.
But what about pensions? What about unemployment insurance? What about free health care and social assistance? These are examples of freedom aren’t they? Are these not examples of having choices without being required to sell our souls?
The fact is, these are piece meal examples of socialism that exist in many modern capitalist societies. These are the results of the countless struggles carried out by socialists and agitators of the past. Take a look and you will see that what is humane in society, what is decent and what is good for people is always socialism.
What do we see from the other side? We see oil billionaires lying to wage war in Iraq. We see capitalist states invading country after country to maintian the supply to addicts. We see scores of workers thrown out of work when the capitalists can make more profit by shifting locations. We see the rich and their political minions doing their utmost to cut social programs, privatize health care, and generally make life as miserable as possible for the rest of us. The reason is that what's good for us is not good for them and vice versa. This is one of the fundamental problems with capitalism and that is why they (the capitalist class and their puppets) can be so bizarrely inhumane.
We ask ourselves why they keep wanting more and more. Surely five mansions and enough wealth to last for a thousand generations is enough. We may also ask ourselves why they seem to want to exclude everybody else from their grand party.
Power is intoxicating and they are addicted to it. The ego can also get quite drunk on the status they enjoy. But the real substantial effect of wealth is freedom and the ultra wealthy have not only tasted freedom, they swim in it. They have it exclusively and that leads them to believe that freedom is a zero sum game. But there is no reason to suggest that freedom is a limited commodity. We can all be free.
For the moment, let us step outside of our collective indocterination and take a peek at what freedom is and what it could be.
Perhaps the greatest propaganda victory of capitalists over socialists during the so called cold war has been the success of the notion that capitalism equals freedom and socialism inevitably results in totalitarianism. The capitalists had willing accomplices; socialist farces making socialist faces. Country Joe Stalin and the Chairman that crushed Tibet were the people with the power. To be fair, they put together some impressive socialist polices. But a tyrannical dictator cannot be a socialist any more than a Christian can be a capitalist.
If we examine freedom and socialism and capitalism, we can see that there is nothing to suggest that socialism is oppressive and capitalism is liberating. The principles of socialism suggest otherwise as does the fundamentals of capitalism. Capitalism is inherently oppressive and socialism is inherently liberating.
The real freedom within the framework of capitalism is the freedom to oppress others; to own and control the life of another human being. The boss of an employee cannot own the worker or control a worker during his or her off hours but while he or she is at work, he owns and controls that person. And as capitalism matures and the terms of exploitation sharpen, the notion that the worker is free during his off work time becomes less clear. Some bosses demand that the worker is available through a phone call or submit to drug and alcohol screening. Workers rights are eroding and corporate power is expanding.
The worker's choice may be to quit - and then the choices are to work for another owner or face the ultimate state of oppression; poverty. And people in poverty have no choices or, in other words, no freedom.
In capitalist societies, freedom is granted through class, money, and power. Socialism holds the promise of freedom for everybody. The freedom to exploit or to be a tyrant however, vanishes. And if that is not socialism to you, it doesn't matter. It is socialism and anything less isn't. Freedom for all may seem like a dream now but it will be living material reality in the future.
More realistically and more now, the big dream of freedom is to strike it rich. It may be unfair to describe lotteries as ‘idiot tax’ because for most, it’s the only way out. Win big and suddenly we are catapulted into the realms of the gods and the beautiful people. No longer do we worry about the oppression of wage slavery, our kids future, lack of choices, destitution, Kraft Dinner - again - and so on. Because now we have joined the ranks of the idle rich and rich people are free to do what they want when they want to do it. They have so much money that their money magnetizes more money by simply existing. What a dream, what a beautiful life.
On the other hand many poor people are not even free to get food and medicine for their kids. Many poor people are starving and have no home. To not have choices is not to be free. The equation is simple: The more money you have, the more freedom you have.
‘But at least it isn’t the Gulag of Kim Jung Il’, will be the inevitable response from those that see in shades of black and white. ‘At least it isn’t the Berlin Wall’. This is true. But reality is not quite that simple. It may not be Kim Jung Il but it is Haiti and Honduras and it is Canada and America.
The fact remains that millions have suffered under well intentioned socialist revolutions. There is a very real and tragic history behind the association between socialism and totalitarianism. In each and every case, whenever a socialist revolution has occurred, the socialist state has had to defend itself against attacks from outside agitators as well as terrorists from within that were bent on the overthrow of the revolution. When we consider the reaction of the USA to the terrorist attacks on 9-11 and the extent of the paranoia that followed, we can then consider the paranoia of a smaller state that has the USA hell bent on overthrowing it.
It would be crude to suggest that the tyrants of socialism are solely the spawn of the Great Satan however. While it might be argued that Stalin was not a socialist in the proper sense of the word, the fact is that he grew to take power and became the dictator of an intended socialist state. But Stalin and the rest of the infamous dictators of socialist states have grown out of the rigidity and tyranny of feudalism. They held crude and primitive ideas about power, people, and leadership. In other words, they had not been refined into the liberalism that the relative freedom of capitalism can percolate. They believed that people had to be whipped into submission with brutal force.
This is not socialism however. Socialism requires that the working class control society. If any dictator or central committee have control, it is a gross perversion. Socialism is necessarily democratic and if it isn't, then it isn't 'social'.
Modern liberal capitalist democracies tend to contain within them the liberating tendencies of socialism. We see examples of it in the rational basis of our legal principles. That is, authority is based in rationality as opposed to emotion, tradition, or charisma. We see it in the demands for civil rights, in the demands for gender equality, for workers rights, gay rights and so on. These tendencies are the tendencies of socialism but within the framework of capitalism, they are merely liberalism. That is, we see single issue yuppies fighting the good fight while they step over the homeless and treat them as a nuisance. Liberalism hints at socialism, but it ain’t the real deal. It is about liberation for my self or my people – the rest can go to hell.
Freedom cannot exist under capitalism except for those that have wealth and power. The bottom line is that we must sell our labour in order to live and in that process, we give up our freedom. The person that hires us can fire us. He has that power. And that power grants him control of me and you. He can fire us on a whim. As a result we live under the oppression of that person or organization. We feel that pressure in the presence of the bosses. If he (they) gets the notion, he can fire any employee arbitrarily. He might find out you are gay, or that you have a Black boyfriend and then the jig is up. The gay hating racist prick will fire you for incompetence or insubordination – or something. The point here is that one person has an unacceptable degree of power over another.
Without money we have no freedom in capitalist society because we have no choices. We cannot house ourselves or our family, we cannot eat and we cannot go anywhere or own anything. So, we sell ourselves to the boss.
Capitalism also requires control outside the workplace and to maintain that control they rely on the power of the monopoly and the power of the state. One example of the controlling nature of capitalism is the existence of copyright laws. Copyright laws are about control and control for profit. The capitalist state is rife with such laws and restrictions to control goods and information to allow the ‘lawful’ owners to make us pay. It is in the interests of capitalists to take control of all commodities and to reduce their availablility. They make us, the inmates of their madhouse, pay for insurance, electricity, communications, all the vital necessities of life and as a result, they have control of us. The wealth flows from us, to them and the only way to make the flow stream laterally or downward, is through sweat and subservience.
But what about pensions? What about unemployment insurance? What about free health care and social assistance? These are examples of freedom aren’t they? Are these not examples of having choices without being required to sell our souls?
The fact is, these are piece meal examples of socialism that exist in many modern capitalist societies. These are the results of the countless struggles carried out by socialists and agitators of the past. Take a look and you will see that what is humane in society, what is decent and what is good for people is always socialism.
What do we see from the other side? We see oil billionaires lying to wage war in Iraq. We see capitalist states invading country after country to maintian the supply to addicts. We see scores of workers thrown out of work when the capitalists can make more profit by shifting locations. We see the rich and their political minions doing their utmost to cut social programs, privatize health care, and generally make life as miserable as possible for the rest of us. The reason is that what's good for us is not good for them and vice versa. This is one of the fundamental problems with capitalism and that is why they (the capitalist class and their puppets) can be so bizarrely inhumane.
We ask ourselves why they keep wanting more and more. Surely five mansions and enough wealth to last for a thousand generations is enough. We may also ask ourselves why they seem to want to exclude everybody else from their grand party.
Power is intoxicating and they are addicted to it. The ego can also get quite drunk on the status they enjoy. But the real substantial effect of wealth is freedom and the ultra wealthy have not only tasted freedom, they swim in it. They have it exclusively and that leads them to believe that freedom is a zero sum game. But there is no reason to suggest that freedom is a limited commodity. We can all be free.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
The Principles of Socialism
Socialism must be based in natural human needs, wants, and human development.
It is natural that parents care for the needs of their children. As children grow, they develop from self centered need gratification to community connection, which is a fundamental human need. Community connection proceeds from the service of the self to the self to the service to others. Service to others may mean at one level, service to the individual’s own children and family or it may extend to working in the community to meet the needs of others.
This developmental process should be the basis of socialist development because it is natural to human beings. Socialist principles should never be based on principles that are alien to the natural inclinations of human beings.
We are born with nothing but needs and if we die of old age, we die with nothing but needs. Through the process of life, we will optimally develop if we proceed through self centered need gratification and expand our perspective to the needs of others. Through self centeredness, children learn to appreciate the wants and needs of human beings. As we grow and if we have children, we learn that their needs are more important than our own. If we don’t have children, we still learn that the needs of other people are more important than our own through other means besides parenting.
Human adult happiness can be achieved through one thing only. It is achieved when we genuinely place the needs, happiness and well being of other people above our own. The human individual that is stuck in selfishness is truly important from a socialist point of view because he is suffering more than more developed human beings. And from the socialist point of view, who suffers most is most important.
One problem with the capitalist stage of social development has been that those same individuals that suffer in the cage of selfishness that deserve our compassion, have taken complete control of our societies. It is as if the children have taken control of the household.
Capitalist societies must be put on notice. Legislation must be pushed through capitalist parliaments that if capitalist control of government does not serve the needs of the people, then socialist control of government will take place. In other words, the adults will take control of the household.
Criteria should be developed with this in mind. That is, criteria that measures human misery. Should human misery fall below a certain level on quantitative and qualitative measures, then socialists will replace capitalistic lawmakers on national and preferably international levels and form a revolutionary new socialist government with the following principles as its foundation.
That society functions on the bases of the needs of the community.
That the needs of the community are assessed with the most needy individual deemed as the highest priority.
The needs of the public are deemed the highest priority.
Production is based on the needs of the community.
Distribution and trade is based on the needs of the community.
Ownership and control of natural resources is in the hands of the community.
Ownership and control of the wealth created by labour rests in the hands of the community.
Ownership and control of the community rests in the hands of all members of the community.
Community leadership is based on service to the needs of the community.
Socialist societies will be fundamentally different in one single fundamental respect at first; that the ownership and control of natural resources rests in the hands of the community.
Socialist societies will evolve through achieving ownership and control of industry placed first in the hands of nation based community control. Control will devolve to the local community as expediently as is practical.
The process of transformation from the private sphere to the public sphere is accomplished through cooperation and agreement wherever possible.
Early socialist societies will maintain the same institutions, businesses, infrastructure, and liberal legal principles as late capitalist societies. The legal principles that are contrary to socialist principles will be abolished.
The institutions created through private ownership be initially maintained and assessed for value to the community.
Where capitalistic incentives are needed for under-developed individuals and communities, the community will hold strict control over production, trade, and the relationship between private bosses and workers.
Where capitalistic incentives are needed for under-developed individuals or communities, the coercive nature and threat posed by those individuals and communities is openly and frankly discussed in public forums.
Practical steps are taken to prevent those same individuals from manipulating wealth and community control for their own benefit.
In all cases where capitalist incentive mechanisms are needed, they will be on a temporary basis.
In all cases where capitalist incentive mechanisms are needed, workers will be organized in democracy based unions outside of the control of the owners.
Control of both natural resources and industry will devolve to the community where industries are located.
That trade between communities is coordinated and based on community needs.
Individuals work is not forced.
Individuals should work in accordance with the needs of the community.
Work direction is based in community needs.
Work initiative is based in crass goal achievement for those in lower stages of psychological development.
Work initiatives are based in self centered needs for youth with the recognition that self centeredness is valuable and necessary for youth to develop.
Control of work is based in the individual’s willingness and ability to take initiative and ownership of the problem of community needs.
Workers that carry out, facilitate and coordinate trade between communities are included and welcomed while they are away from their home community.
Communities will assist other communities where trade or production development is difficult or slow. Trade should focus on the needs of the community but also on the needs of foreign communities.
State control of criminality will evolve toward social and community control.
State control of all institutions will evolve toward community control.
State control will evolve toward community control; community control will evolve toward family control and toward no control. Individual emancipation from state coercion is a fundamental goal of socialism.
Socialist societies will develop toward the abolition of the state.
The socialist state will adhere to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of media, and people will not require payment for information. Information will be free and unfettered.
Repressive state forces will be in formed only in the case where tyranny and oppression must be curtailed. Authority, whether it is the authority of a parent or a teacher or police, will never be abused. If it is abused, the authority will be removed by the state from the individual, the body or organization.
Discrimination against human beings will be eliminated through education and in severe cases of organized hate, through legal sanctions that are aimed against tyranny.
The education of educators and medical professionals will be a priority in all communities. These skills and resources will be shared and developed according to need.
Vital needs shall never require a charge of money. This includes and is not restricted to housing, food, medicine, medical care, or anything else where its absence may result in the death of an individual.
Technological development will be enhanced through the development of community awards and grants and through the development of incentives to individuals and communities.
******************************
The great sweep of history, from the communism of hunter gatherer societies to early tribal societies and all its developments to late tribal societies to early feudal societies and its developments to late feudal societies to early capitalist societies and through those developments we now emerge, seated within the historical context of late capitalism; aware of the sweep of history.
It has become increasingly obvious that capitalism has developed and has become not capitalism but monopolism. The state and private business are married and stand over and above societies. These powers have control of the societies and the individuals in them and together, they form an oppressive and alienating force.
The time is coming where we, the individuals that are members of various societies, must take the initiative to move from late capitalism to early socialism. Early socialism should and will look like late capitalism but at that point, we will have switched tracks. Our trajectory will have changed and we will be on the road to the abolition of the state, the complete abolition of capitalism, and the abolition of barbarism.
It is natural that parents care for the needs of their children. As children grow, they develop from self centered need gratification to community connection, which is a fundamental human need. Community connection proceeds from the service of the self to the self to the service to others. Service to others may mean at one level, service to the individual’s own children and family or it may extend to working in the community to meet the needs of others.
This developmental process should be the basis of socialist development because it is natural to human beings. Socialist principles should never be based on principles that are alien to the natural inclinations of human beings.
We are born with nothing but needs and if we die of old age, we die with nothing but needs. Through the process of life, we will optimally develop if we proceed through self centered need gratification and expand our perspective to the needs of others. Through self centeredness, children learn to appreciate the wants and needs of human beings. As we grow and if we have children, we learn that their needs are more important than our own. If we don’t have children, we still learn that the needs of other people are more important than our own through other means besides parenting.
Human adult happiness can be achieved through one thing only. It is achieved when we genuinely place the needs, happiness and well being of other people above our own. The human individual that is stuck in selfishness is truly important from a socialist point of view because he is suffering more than more developed human beings. And from the socialist point of view, who suffers most is most important.
One problem with the capitalist stage of social development has been that those same individuals that suffer in the cage of selfishness that deserve our compassion, have taken complete control of our societies. It is as if the children have taken control of the household.
Capitalist societies must be put on notice. Legislation must be pushed through capitalist parliaments that if capitalist control of government does not serve the needs of the people, then socialist control of government will take place. In other words, the adults will take control of the household.
Criteria should be developed with this in mind. That is, criteria that measures human misery. Should human misery fall below a certain level on quantitative and qualitative measures, then socialists will replace capitalistic lawmakers on national and preferably international levels and form a revolutionary new socialist government with the following principles as its foundation.
That society functions on the bases of the needs of the community.
That the needs of the community are assessed with the most needy individual deemed as the highest priority.
The needs of the public are deemed the highest priority.
Production is based on the needs of the community.
Distribution and trade is based on the needs of the community.
Ownership and control of natural resources is in the hands of the community.
Ownership and control of the wealth created by labour rests in the hands of the community.
Ownership and control of the community rests in the hands of all members of the community.
Community leadership is based on service to the needs of the community.
Socialist societies will be fundamentally different in one single fundamental respect at first; that the ownership and control of natural resources rests in the hands of the community.
Socialist societies will evolve through achieving ownership and control of industry placed first in the hands of nation based community control. Control will devolve to the local community as expediently as is practical.
The process of transformation from the private sphere to the public sphere is accomplished through cooperation and agreement wherever possible.
Early socialist societies will maintain the same institutions, businesses, infrastructure, and liberal legal principles as late capitalist societies. The legal principles that are contrary to socialist principles will be abolished.
The institutions created through private ownership be initially maintained and assessed for value to the community.
Where capitalistic incentives are needed for under-developed individuals and communities, the community will hold strict control over production, trade, and the relationship between private bosses and workers.
Where capitalistic incentives are needed for under-developed individuals or communities, the coercive nature and threat posed by those individuals and communities is openly and frankly discussed in public forums.
Practical steps are taken to prevent those same individuals from manipulating wealth and community control for their own benefit.
In all cases where capitalist incentive mechanisms are needed, they will be on a temporary basis.
In all cases where capitalist incentive mechanisms are needed, workers will be organized in democracy based unions outside of the control of the owners.
Control of both natural resources and industry will devolve to the community where industries are located.
That trade between communities is coordinated and based on community needs.
Individuals work is not forced.
Individuals should work in accordance with the needs of the community.
Work direction is based in community needs.
Work initiative is based in crass goal achievement for those in lower stages of psychological development.
Work initiatives are based in self centered needs for youth with the recognition that self centeredness is valuable and necessary for youth to develop.
Control of work is based in the individual’s willingness and ability to take initiative and ownership of the problem of community needs.
Workers that carry out, facilitate and coordinate trade between communities are included and welcomed while they are away from their home community.
Communities will assist other communities where trade or production development is difficult or slow. Trade should focus on the needs of the community but also on the needs of foreign communities.
State control of criminality will evolve toward social and community control.
State control of all institutions will evolve toward community control.
State control will evolve toward community control; community control will evolve toward family control and toward no control. Individual emancipation from state coercion is a fundamental goal of socialism.
Socialist societies will develop toward the abolition of the state.
The socialist state will adhere to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of media, and people will not require payment for information. Information will be free and unfettered.
Repressive state forces will be in formed only in the case where tyranny and oppression must be curtailed. Authority, whether it is the authority of a parent or a teacher or police, will never be abused. If it is abused, the authority will be removed by the state from the individual, the body or organization.
Discrimination against human beings will be eliminated through education and in severe cases of organized hate, through legal sanctions that are aimed against tyranny.
The education of educators and medical professionals will be a priority in all communities. These skills and resources will be shared and developed according to need.
Vital needs shall never require a charge of money. This includes and is not restricted to housing, food, medicine, medical care, or anything else where its absence may result in the death of an individual.
Technological development will be enhanced through the development of community awards and grants and through the development of incentives to individuals and communities.
******************************
The great sweep of history, from the communism of hunter gatherer societies to early tribal societies and all its developments to late tribal societies to early feudal societies and its developments to late feudal societies to early capitalist societies and through those developments we now emerge, seated within the historical context of late capitalism; aware of the sweep of history.
It has become increasingly obvious that capitalism has developed and has become not capitalism but monopolism. The state and private business are married and stand over and above societies. These powers have control of the societies and the individuals in them and together, they form an oppressive and alienating force.
The time is coming where we, the individuals that are members of various societies, must take the initiative to move from late capitalism to early socialism. Early socialism should and will look like late capitalism but at that point, we will have switched tracks. Our trajectory will have changed and we will be on the road to the abolition of the state, the complete abolition of capitalism, and the abolition of barbarism.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Experimenting from Nova Scotia to Nazi Germany
The death of a prostitute, a homeless person, or an average Joe does not seem to have much of an impact. But the death of a middle class student in Aruba seems to be big news. There isn’t much doubt that human beings are valued and de-valued according to social class, perceived morality, and perceived exchange value.
Eugenics is a system of ostracization or sterilization aimed at preventing undesirable human beings from breeding and creating more undesirables. This was the spirit in Nazi Germany with the mass genocide of people they considered to be undesirable. The Nazis also carried out the practice of eugenics with the spirit of the master race in mind.
When we consider the fact that we are moving in that direction through time and that we are increasingly placing value on human beings depending on a very judgmental, classist, and racist pecking order, we should remind ourselves of how dangerous facism can be. We should also be aware of how dangerous liberal do-goodism can be because there is no shortage of these often phoney charity minded and reform minded do gooders. Just as surely as liberal do-gooders can rationalize their aim for a ubiquitous and rightious middle class, the Nazis could rationalize their aims for a master race. Both sentiments are dangerous and have the same sinister designs.
Here are excerpts of an article on eugenics derived from research done by the author, Stephen Ellis. There are also links to take you to articles in a recent issue of Shunpiking Magazine:
~excerpts~
(Lifted from Shunpiking Magazine)
'Modern science has it well in hand':Nova Scotia's 'experiment' in eugenics
By STEPHEN ELLIS*
30 April 2004Canadian Legal HistoryDalhousie University
"Behold ye simple moron,He does not give a damn,I'd hate to be a moron,Ye Gods! Perhaps I am."The Medical Society of Nova Scotia
HALIFAX, NS -- IT WAS sixteen years before those fateful days in May, 1945 when the consequences of the German eugenics movement and the Nazi program of Josef Mengele could no loner be denied.
On the occasion of the founding of the Brookside Training School in Nova Scotia, Dr. Samuel H. Prince, noted social reformer and mental hygiene society president, exemplified the tireless commitment of many of his generation of progressive activists. Progressives of this period agitated for a better world, one where science, humanism and Christian values would play a large part. There were many evils to be overcome in the early part of the twentieth century, tuberculosis, influenza, among others, and more and more, people were putting their faith in science as a way to cure society's ills.
For middle-class progressives, however, no phenomenon matched in gravity the type of danger the existence of "feeble-minded" people represented in Nova Scotia. And on this November day in 1929, the campaign against the blight of "feeblemindedness" had for the most part reached a successful conclusion: a publicly-funded institution had been established to ensure this "most pernicious element" was eliminated from the arteries of the nation.
--------------------------------------------------
Boiled down, eugenics is the notion that the quality of the human race can be improved through selective breeding. It is based on the assumption that individual traits are passed through heredity. Francis Galton first popularised this form of determinism in 1865:
If a twentieth part of the costs and pains were spent in measures for the improvement of the human race that is spent on the improvement of the breed of horses and cattle, what a galaxy of genius might we not create! We might introduce prophets and high priests of civilization into the world as surely as we can propagate idiots by mating cretins. Men and women of the present day are, to those we might hope to bring into existence, what the pariah dogs of the streets of an Eastern town are to our own highly-bred varieties.
-----------------------------------------------
Maude Merrill in a 1922 article in the Dalhousie Review reflected well the tenor of the time:
The Nams, the Kallikaks, the Zeros and the rest of the innumerable tribes of Ishmaelites, unearthed in our insatiable thirst for the truth about heredity, have abundantly proved that certain mental traits are characteristic of generation after generation of the same stock. ... The social significance of inferior mental capacity is strikingly apparent in its intimate relation to all forms of anti-social conduct.
Alexander P. Reid, Dean of the Dalhousie Faculty of Medicine from 1868 to 1875 and Superintendent of the Nova Scotia Hospital for the Insane, was typical in many respects of the middle-class professionals of his time. His faith in eugenics was unwavering:
Eugenics steps forward as the guide that can safely pilot it [society] to the safe harbours of health, wealth and desirable possibilities ... and points out the means by which the undesirable recession in race propagation can be controlled, nay, eliminated. F.C.S. Schiller, humanist philosopher and founder of the English Eugenics Society, laid out the basics of the eugenic doctrine in an essay for the Dalhousie Review:
The license society allows at present to the criminal, the insane and the feeble-minded to multiply at pleasure, and to have their worse than worthless offspring cared for at the public expense, or rather, at the expense of those who feel too heavily taxed to produce children that would yield better returns to the community ... The gist may be stated in a single sentence. Society, as at present organized, wastes its good material and extirpates its better stocks, while it recruits itself from its inferior elements. It does this unconsciously and unintentionally, but at a growing rate.
As faith in nineteenth-century liberalism declined, social Darwinist ideas guaranteeing "survival of the fittest' ensured that eugenics was planted in very fertile soil. The belief in the right to be "well-born" had literally swept the world. In the United States sterilization laws were enacted in as many as thirty-one states and became the inspiration of the later Nazi eugenic campaign in Germany.
Canada, too, took up arms against the foe from within. Alberta's sterilization laws remained on the books until 1972. In its forty-four years, Alberta's Sexual Sterilization Act had authorized four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-eight sterilizations, and was directed disproportionately at women, and people of aboriginal and Eastern European descent.
----------------------------------------------------------
Eugenics as social policy: Canada
History has now provided ample evidence that eugenics was far from a passing fancy in Canada. Some of this country's most prominent social reformers were quite naturally believers in the need for eugenic measures to protect the nation against racial degeneration. People like J.S. Woodsworth, Tommy Douglas, Charlene Whitton, Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung and Agnes McPhail, among many others attest to the fact that far from being the preserve of a fringe group, eugenic ideas were mainstream.
The medical profession in particular took an early interest in the need to combat "race suicide" in Canada.
In a piece read before the American Medico-Psychological Association in 1900, Dr. James Russell of the Hamilton Asylum opined that while there were many processes that aimed to "destroy the moral and intellectual fibre of the race," the elevated status of the Anglo-Saxon race would not be undermined. Speaking in less than subtle metaphors, Dr. Russell painted the picture thus:
The immense virility of the Anglo-Saxon race, like that sturdy oak, may resist the encroachments of the canker worm for generations, but unless purge and purified of the disease it will at last crumble and decay.
No individual was more prominent in the campaign against "mental defectives" than public health crusader Dr. Helen MacMurchy. Next to successful campaigns on such vital issues as birth control and infant mortality, MacMurchy saw dealing with the problem of the "feeble-minded" as a national priority. With a rather disconcerting mix of compassion and cold-heartedness, MacMurchy in her 1920 book The Almosts: A Study of the Feeble-Minded viewed the problem in this way:
It is the age of true democracy that will not only give every one justice, but will redeem the wastes products of humanity and give the mental defective all the chance he needs to develop his gifts and all the protection he needs to keep away from him evils and temptations that he never will be grown up enough to resist, and that society cannot afford to let him fall victim to.
Dr. MacMurchy was a fervent advocate of the forcible segregation and sterilization of mental defectives and claimed that society would pay dearly in "expense, crime, immorality, crime and national degeneration" if these "unfortunates" were allowed to reproduce. Mentally defective children become mentally-defective men and women -- mentally defective paupers and criminals ... then the community must be protected from the feeble-minded and the feeble-minded must be protected from many in the community who would lead them into evil ways.
--------------------------------------------------------
The mental hygiene movement in Nova Scotia
The politics of eugenics (or mental hygiene, as it become known) had equally erstwhile proponents in the province of Nova Scotia. As early as 1890, Alexander P. Reid in a paper read before the Nova Scotia Institute of Natural Science, viewed the danger the feeble-minded posed in alarmist terms:
These "ulcerous and diseased outgrowths on society" whose affliction is "sixty to eighty per cent" inherited will pass away with sufficient effort.
Speaking of the "tyranny of defective organization," Dr. Reid remarked, "There are many congenital defects, but crime, idiocy and insanity are the most potent for ill in the culture of the race, and will society not interfere to protect its successors when they cannot help themselves?
" In an article written in 1913 entitled "Eugenics", Reid speaks in terms eerily reminiscent of the later Nazi campaign against the Jews:
[M]ust society continue to be oppressed by this increasing mass of expensive and worthless humanity ... Were these ideas carried out the whole lot of irresponsibles, imbeciles and criminals would be eliminated in two generations, and some States are now on the high road for this termination ... if we cannot reach perfection let us get as near as we can.
Loyal to the idea, Reid reiterated that the source of the "problem" must dealt with conclusively: "The disciple of Eugenics is thus given a sound basis upon which to construct practical work and formulate laws which can in time eliminate the undesirable elements of society." Lamenting the fact that the Nova Scotian public remained unfavourable to the recourse of sterilization, Reid settled for segregation: "Let us place all the feeble-minded under such restraint that procreation be prevented."
Probably the most active member of the medical community in Nova Scotia to take on the "problem" of the feeble-minded was Dr. W.H. Hattie, Medical Superintendent from 1898 to 1914 and Provincial Health Officer from 1914 to 1922. In an article called "The Prevention of Insanity", Dr. Hattie's analysis mirrors that of others engaged in this battle: "The average imbecile is not of much use as a citizen. He is usually at least in some degree extra-social if not anti-social. But he is capable of procreating his kind." State intervention, according to Hattie, was also necessary to ensure couples were "properly" paired. With respect to the feeble-minded:
More than mere suasion is necessary to any measure of success, however, and there is good sense in the efforts which some lawmakers are putting forth to prevent promiscuous marrying and to place some restrictions on the marriage of the unfit.
Seven years later in an article of the same title, Hattie developed on his idea of the type of "suasion" necessary. In the event the deemed defective demonstrated any sexual impulse, the state must intervene:
When there is evident defect, particularly if any tendency to eroticism is manifest, the safety of the community, as well as of the unfortunate individual, demands segregation in a suitable institution. This costs more than sterilization or the lethal chamber, but does less violence to sentiment. Some authorities, as Archibald R. Douglas, of the Royal Albert Institution, assert that the imbecile is a much more potent agent in producing racial deterioration than the lunatic. I doubt if we have any more pressing need in Canada today than the proper provision for the feeble-minded members of our country, particularly those who are still sexually competent.
In an article entitled "The Physician's Part in Preventing Mental Disorder", Dr. Hattie repeated the mantra of the mental hygiene movement:
The so-called lesser grades of mental defect are perhaps really those of paramount importance, for these are accountable for a very large share of the criminality and immortality and delinquency and pauperism which cost us so dearly, and it is these lesser defects which are most likely to be passed on from generation to generation. The problem then is many-sided, and bears so intimately upon national efficiency and national progress that we cannot afford to disregard it.
Echoing the apocalyptic tone of his contemporaries across the continent, Hattie warns of a national emergency; only the fittest will survive on the national and international stage:
Canada is faced today with a situation not less perilous that that involved in accepting the challenge of the Hun. We have entered upon a period of competition such as never before dreamed of. Our place among the nations depends upon our ability to meet this competition, and this in turn depends upon the physical, mental and moral qualities of our people.
---------------------------------------------------------
I. A movement is born - The Halifax Local Council of Women
In one of the very few references to Nova Scotia, McLaren in his work points out that Canada's first eugenical movement was formed in 1908 in Nova Scotia in the form of the League for the Protection of the Feeble-Minded. True as this may be, organized agitation in support of eugenic measures in Nova Scotia was taken on by the Halifax Council of Women (HCW) at least a full decade earlier. And given the boundless energy and influence of such women as Mrs. J.C. Mackintosh, Mrs. Charles Archibald, and later, Mrs. Agnes Dennis, the dubious honour rightly goes to the HCW.
-----------------------------------------
II. The Nova Scotia League for the Protection of the Feeble-Minded
The group with the well-meaning name was formed on June 3, 1908, no doubt at the inspired instigation of the HCW. The League for the Protection of the Feeble-Minded, with the Lieutenant-Governor of the province, J.C. Tory, as its honourary president brought together people from many walks of life to carry out this vital social task. Dr. William H. Hattie, Ernest H. Blois, Sir Frederick Fraser, Judge Wallace, Archbishop McCarthy, Agnes Dennis, Eliza Ritchie, Mrs. F.H. Sexton of the I.O.D.E., and Dr. Frank Woodbury. Later, as the Nova Scotia Society for Mental Hygiene, it would involve such personalities as A.H. MacKay, Superintendent of Education, and Dr. Samuel H. Prince, founder of the Maritime School of Social Work, Kings College professor and prominent social reformer.
---------------------------------------------------
III. The Murray and Rhodes governments respond
On two separate occasions, in 1916 and again in 1926, the Nova Scotia Legislature saw fit to organize royal commissions to investigate the nature of the social danger facing Nova Scotians. Interestingly, both inquiries found that the social, moral and economic welfare of the province was "gravely menaced" and that immediate steps had to be taken to "limit the multiplication of this unfortunate class". Moreover, both commissions concluded that sterilization as a method of selective breeding, though effective, offended popular sentiment. Instead, the more "cost effective" method of segregation was preferred; "defective" boys would be required to learn a trade so as to become a productive member of society and "defective" girls would be kept in care until the child-bearing years have passed.
Both inquires drew the same conclusions about the societal impact on the "unwatched" mental defect:
We may reasonably assume that this condition is responsible for a very considerable share of the pauperism, illegitimacy, vice, and crime which exist in our province, and we are aware that the defect is one which is singularly prone to be transmitted from parent to child. It would, therefore, seem reasonable that from the economic, as well as from the moral and sociological points of view, a strong effort should be made to limit the multiplication of this unfortunate class.
---------------------------------------------
IV. Legislation
In 1927, the Rhodes government moved quickly to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission, and, by so doing, became one of Canada's few governments to give eugenic doctrine a legislative form. Bills 64, 70 and 84 were all enacted to amend the Children's Protection, Poor Relief and Education Acts, respectively. Also, Bill 174 was enacted to establish the only "training school" east of Orillia, Ontario.
----------------------------------------
Conclusion
It is not difficult to imagine the pride that comes with having finally achieved what one has dreamed of for decades. Speaking at an annual meeting of the Nova Scotia Society for Mental Hygiene the day before the cornerstone was laid, Dr. Prince was glowing in his appraisal:
We are turning a new page in our book of golden days. There is a spell upon us and about us, which is more than the spell of autumn. It is like the night before Christmas. It is like the denouement of a beautiful story. For at last all is in readiness for the silver trowel, when a few hours hence there shall be well and truly laid the corner stone of the new Brookside school, which to bring into being this society was born.
As the history of eugenic social policy has demonstrated, one person's beautiful story is always someone else's nightmare. Hundreds of "worse than worthless" children were herded into this institution to save the rest of society from ruin. Not one of their names is known. Compounding the problem is the fact that this disturbing chapter of our history has all but disappeared from the history books, if it was ever there in the first place.
Where there is oppression, there are always victims. The scapegoats in this eugenic crusade were the children. In fact, it is likely that thousands of children passed through the doors of the Brookside Training School, branded with the stigma of mental defect and treated as the "waste products" they were perceived to be. One thing is certain: Nova Scotia must atone for the violence committed against these helpless children.
Disturbing still is the fact that by the time Alberta, British Columbia and Nova Scotia had drawn up legislation to eradicate mental defectives from society, eugenics as a scientific doctrine had largely been discredited. By 1926, one of the main architects of the Nova Scotian eugenics movement, Ernest H. Blois, in a paper read before the Annual Conference of Children's Aid Societies drops the following bombshell:
[W]e were told once that most crimes, sexual immorality, especially among females, and evil in many forms were due largely to feeble-mindedness. This we now know to be untrue, but nevertheless, in dealing with these particular forms of vice and crime, feeble-mindedness is one, and in some cases a very large factor in a very complex problem.
Yet, he still argued for their incarceration. One of the conclusions from the 1926 Royal Commission included the incredible statement, "too little is known regarding the hereditary nature of feeble-mindedness". They, too, argued for confinement. How the eugenic argument survived without its main theoretical support remains a mystery.
A look at the historical facts from across the continent shows that eugenics left no territory untouched. It was perhaps a movement that seemed impeccable in its logic and unstoppable in momentum. After all was said and done, the victims paid the price and the "progressives" went on with their lives as if nothing had happened. [102]
Link to Full Article:
http://www.shunpiking.com/ol0207/0207-SE-eug-NS.htm
Link to Shunpiking Magazine featuring more articles on Eugenics in the May-June 2005 Issue. This Magazine is well worth perusing for interesting and well researched artiles:
http://www.shunpiking.com/
Eugenics is a system of ostracization or sterilization aimed at preventing undesirable human beings from breeding and creating more undesirables. This was the spirit in Nazi Germany with the mass genocide of people they considered to be undesirable. The Nazis also carried out the practice of eugenics with the spirit of the master race in mind.
When we consider the fact that we are moving in that direction through time and that we are increasingly placing value on human beings depending on a very judgmental, classist, and racist pecking order, we should remind ourselves of how dangerous facism can be. We should also be aware of how dangerous liberal do-goodism can be because there is no shortage of these often phoney charity minded and reform minded do gooders. Just as surely as liberal do-gooders can rationalize their aim for a ubiquitous and rightious middle class, the Nazis could rationalize their aims for a master race. Both sentiments are dangerous and have the same sinister designs.
Here are excerpts of an article on eugenics derived from research done by the author, Stephen Ellis. There are also links to take you to articles in a recent issue of Shunpiking Magazine:
~excerpts~
(Lifted from Shunpiking Magazine)
'Modern science has it well in hand':Nova Scotia's 'experiment' in eugenics
By STEPHEN ELLIS*
30 April 2004Canadian Legal HistoryDalhousie University
"Behold ye simple moron,He does not give a damn,I'd hate to be a moron,Ye Gods! Perhaps I am."The Medical Society of Nova Scotia
HALIFAX, NS -- IT WAS sixteen years before those fateful days in May, 1945 when the consequences of the German eugenics movement and the Nazi program of Josef Mengele could no loner be denied.
On the occasion of the founding of the Brookside Training School in Nova Scotia, Dr. Samuel H. Prince, noted social reformer and mental hygiene society president, exemplified the tireless commitment of many of his generation of progressive activists. Progressives of this period agitated for a better world, one where science, humanism and Christian values would play a large part. There were many evils to be overcome in the early part of the twentieth century, tuberculosis, influenza, among others, and more and more, people were putting their faith in science as a way to cure society's ills.
For middle-class progressives, however, no phenomenon matched in gravity the type of danger the existence of "feeble-minded" people represented in Nova Scotia. And on this November day in 1929, the campaign against the blight of "feeblemindedness" had for the most part reached a successful conclusion: a publicly-funded institution had been established to ensure this "most pernicious element" was eliminated from the arteries of the nation.
--------------------------------------------------
Boiled down, eugenics is the notion that the quality of the human race can be improved through selective breeding. It is based on the assumption that individual traits are passed through heredity. Francis Galton first popularised this form of determinism in 1865:
If a twentieth part of the costs and pains were spent in measures for the improvement of the human race that is spent on the improvement of the breed of horses and cattle, what a galaxy of genius might we not create! We might introduce prophets and high priests of civilization into the world as surely as we can propagate idiots by mating cretins. Men and women of the present day are, to those we might hope to bring into existence, what the pariah dogs of the streets of an Eastern town are to our own highly-bred varieties.
-----------------------------------------------
Maude Merrill in a 1922 article in the Dalhousie Review reflected well the tenor of the time:
The Nams, the Kallikaks, the Zeros and the rest of the innumerable tribes of Ishmaelites, unearthed in our insatiable thirst for the truth about heredity, have abundantly proved that certain mental traits are characteristic of generation after generation of the same stock. ... The social significance of inferior mental capacity is strikingly apparent in its intimate relation to all forms of anti-social conduct.
Alexander P. Reid, Dean of the Dalhousie Faculty of Medicine from 1868 to 1875 and Superintendent of the Nova Scotia Hospital for the Insane, was typical in many respects of the middle-class professionals of his time. His faith in eugenics was unwavering:
Eugenics steps forward as the guide that can safely pilot it [society] to the safe harbours of health, wealth and desirable possibilities ... and points out the means by which the undesirable recession in race propagation can be controlled, nay, eliminated. F.C.S. Schiller, humanist philosopher and founder of the English Eugenics Society, laid out the basics of the eugenic doctrine in an essay for the Dalhousie Review:
The license society allows at present to the criminal, the insane and the feeble-minded to multiply at pleasure, and to have their worse than worthless offspring cared for at the public expense, or rather, at the expense of those who feel too heavily taxed to produce children that would yield better returns to the community ... The gist may be stated in a single sentence. Society, as at present organized, wastes its good material and extirpates its better stocks, while it recruits itself from its inferior elements. It does this unconsciously and unintentionally, but at a growing rate.
As faith in nineteenth-century liberalism declined, social Darwinist ideas guaranteeing "survival of the fittest' ensured that eugenics was planted in very fertile soil. The belief in the right to be "well-born" had literally swept the world. In the United States sterilization laws were enacted in as many as thirty-one states and became the inspiration of the later Nazi eugenic campaign in Germany.
Canada, too, took up arms against the foe from within. Alberta's sterilization laws remained on the books until 1972. In its forty-four years, Alberta's Sexual Sterilization Act had authorized four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-eight sterilizations, and was directed disproportionately at women, and people of aboriginal and Eastern European descent.
----------------------------------------------------------
Eugenics as social policy: Canada
History has now provided ample evidence that eugenics was far from a passing fancy in Canada. Some of this country's most prominent social reformers were quite naturally believers in the need for eugenic measures to protect the nation against racial degeneration. People like J.S. Woodsworth, Tommy Douglas, Charlene Whitton, Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung and Agnes McPhail, among many others attest to the fact that far from being the preserve of a fringe group, eugenic ideas were mainstream.
The medical profession in particular took an early interest in the need to combat "race suicide" in Canada.
In a piece read before the American Medico-Psychological Association in 1900, Dr. James Russell of the Hamilton Asylum opined that while there were many processes that aimed to "destroy the moral and intellectual fibre of the race," the elevated status of the Anglo-Saxon race would not be undermined. Speaking in less than subtle metaphors, Dr. Russell painted the picture thus:
The immense virility of the Anglo-Saxon race, like that sturdy oak, may resist the encroachments of the canker worm for generations, but unless purge and purified of the disease it will at last crumble and decay.
No individual was more prominent in the campaign against "mental defectives" than public health crusader Dr. Helen MacMurchy. Next to successful campaigns on such vital issues as birth control and infant mortality, MacMurchy saw dealing with the problem of the "feeble-minded" as a national priority. With a rather disconcerting mix of compassion and cold-heartedness, MacMurchy in her 1920 book The Almosts: A Study of the Feeble-Minded viewed the problem in this way:
It is the age of true democracy that will not only give every one justice, but will redeem the wastes products of humanity and give the mental defective all the chance he needs to develop his gifts and all the protection he needs to keep away from him evils and temptations that he never will be grown up enough to resist, and that society cannot afford to let him fall victim to.
Dr. MacMurchy was a fervent advocate of the forcible segregation and sterilization of mental defectives and claimed that society would pay dearly in "expense, crime, immorality, crime and national degeneration" if these "unfortunates" were allowed to reproduce. Mentally defective children become mentally-defective men and women -- mentally defective paupers and criminals ... then the community must be protected from the feeble-minded and the feeble-minded must be protected from many in the community who would lead them into evil ways.
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The mental hygiene movement in Nova Scotia
The politics of eugenics (or mental hygiene, as it become known) had equally erstwhile proponents in the province of Nova Scotia. As early as 1890, Alexander P. Reid in a paper read before the Nova Scotia Institute of Natural Science, viewed the danger the feeble-minded posed in alarmist terms:
These "ulcerous and diseased outgrowths on society" whose affliction is "sixty to eighty per cent" inherited will pass away with sufficient effort.
Speaking of the "tyranny of defective organization," Dr. Reid remarked, "There are many congenital defects, but crime, idiocy and insanity are the most potent for ill in the culture of the race, and will society not interfere to protect its successors when they cannot help themselves?
" In an article written in 1913 entitled "Eugenics", Reid speaks in terms eerily reminiscent of the later Nazi campaign against the Jews:
[M]ust society continue to be oppressed by this increasing mass of expensive and worthless humanity ... Were these ideas carried out the whole lot of irresponsibles, imbeciles and criminals would be eliminated in two generations, and some States are now on the high road for this termination ... if we cannot reach perfection let us get as near as we can.
Loyal to the idea, Reid reiterated that the source of the "problem" must dealt with conclusively: "The disciple of Eugenics is thus given a sound basis upon which to construct practical work and formulate laws which can in time eliminate the undesirable elements of society." Lamenting the fact that the Nova Scotian public remained unfavourable to the recourse of sterilization, Reid settled for segregation: "Let us place all the feeble-minded under such restraint that procreation be prevented."
Probably the most active member of the medical community in Nova Scotia to take on the "problem" of the feeble-minded was Dr. W.H. Hattie, Medical Superintendent from 1898 to 1914 and Provincial Health Officer from 1914 to 1922. In an article called "The Prevention of Insanity", Dr. Hattie's analysis mirrors that of others engaged in this battle: "The average imbecile is not of much use as a citizen. He is usually at least in some degree extra-social if not anti-social. But he is capable of procreating his kind." State intervention, according to Hattie, was also necessary to ensure couples were "properly" paired. With respect to the feeble-minded:
More than mere suasion is necessary to any measure of success, however, and there is good sense in the efforts which some lawmakers are putting forth to prevent promiscuous marrying and to place some restrictions on the marriage of the unfit.
Seven years later in an article of the same title, Hattie developed on his idea of the type of "suasion" necessary. In the event the deemed defective demonstrated any sexual impulse, the state must intervene:
When there is evident defect, particularly if any tendency to eroticism is manifest, the safety of the community, as well as of the unfortunate individual, demands segregation in a suitable institution. This costs more than sterilization or the lethal chamber, but does less violence to sentiment. Some authorities, as Archibald R. Douglas, of the Royal Albert Institution, assert that the imbecile is a much more potent agent in producing racial deterioration than the lunatic. I doubt if we have any more pressing need in Canada today than the proper provision for the feeble-minded members of our country, particularly those who are still sexually competent.
In an article entitled "The Physician's Part in Preventing Mental Disorder", Dr. Hattie repeated the mantra of the mental hygiene movement:
The so-called lesser grades of mental defect are perhaps really those of paramount importance, for these are accountable for a very large share of the criminality and immortality and delinquency and pauperism which cost us so dearly, and it is these lesser defects which are most likely to be passed on from generation to generation. The problem then is many-sided, and bears so intimately upon national efficiency and national progress that we cannot afford to disregard it.
Echoing the apocalyptic tone of his contemporaries across the continent, Hattie warns of a national emergency; only the fittest will survive on the national and international stage:
Canada is faced today with a situation not less perilous that that involved in accepting the challenge of the Hun. We have entered upon a period of competition such as never before dreamed of. Our place among the nations depends upon our ability to meet this competition, and this in turn depends upon the physical, mental and moral qualities of our people.
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I. A movement is born - The Halifax Local Council of Women
In one of the very few references to Nova Scotia, McLaren in his work points out that Canada's first eugenical movement was formed in 1908 in Nova Scotia in the form of the League for the Protection of the Feeble-Minded. True as this may be, organized agitation in support of eugenic measures in Nova Scotia was taken on by the Halifax Council of Women (HCW) at least a full decade earlier. And given the boundless energy and influence of such women as Mrs. J.C. Mackintosh, Mrs. Charles Archibald, and later, Mrs. Agnes Dennis, the dubious honour rightly goes to the HCW.
-----------------------------------------
II. The Nova Scotia League for the Protection of the Feeble-Minded
The group with the well-meaning name was formed on June 3, 1908, no doubt at the inspired instigation of the HCW. The League for the Protection of the Feeble-Minded, with the Lieutenant-Governor of the province, J.C. Tory, as its honourary president brought together people from many walks of life to carry out this vital social task. Dr. William H. Hattie, Ernest H. Blois, Sir Frederick Fraser, Judge Wallace, Archbishop McCarthy, Agnes Dennis, Eliza Ritchie, Mrs. F.H. Sexton of the I.O.D.E., and Dr. Frank Woodbury. Later, as the Nova Scotia Society for Mental Hygiene, it would involve such personalities as A.H. MacKay, Superintendent of Education, and Dr. Samuel H. Prince, founder of the Maritime School of Social Work, Kings College professor and prominent social reformer.
---------------------------------------------------
III. The Murray and Rhodes governments respond
On two separate occasions, in 1916 and again in 1926, the Nova Scotia Legislature saw fit to organize royal commissions to investigate the nature of the social danger facing Nova Scotians. Interestingly, both inquiries found that the social, moral and economic welfare of the province was "gravely menaced" and that immediate steps had to be taken to "limit the multiplication of this unfortunate class". Moreover, both commissions concluded that sterilization as a method of selective breeding, though effective, offended popular sentiment. Instead, the more "cost effective" method of segregation was preferred; "defective" boys would be required to learn a trade so as to become a productive member of society and "defective" girls would be kept in care until the child-bearing years have passed.
Both inquires drew the same conclusions about the societal impact on the "unwatched" mental defect:
We may reasonably assume that this condition is responsible for a very considerable share of the pauperism, illegitimacy, vice, and crime which exist in our province, and we are aware that the defect is one which is singularly prone to be transmitted from parent to child. It would, therefore, seem reasonable that from the economic, as well as from the moral and sociological points of view, a strong effort should be made to limit the multiplication of this unfortunate class.
---------------------------------------------
IV. Legislation
In 1927, the Rhodes government moved quickly to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission, and, by so doing, became one of Canada's few governments to give eugenic doctrine a legislative form. Bills 64, 70 and 84 were all enacted to amend the Children's Protection, Poor Relief and Education Acts, respectively. Also, Bill 174 was enacted to establish the only "training school" east of Orillia, Ontario.
----------------------------------------
Conclusion
It is not difficult to imagine the pride that comes with having finally achieved what one has dreamed of for decades. Speaking at an annual meeting of the Nova Scotia Society for Mental Hygiene the day before the cornerstone was laid, Dr. Prince was glowing in his appraisal:
We are turning a new page in our book of golden days. There is a spell upon us and about us, which is more than the spell of autumn. It is like the night before Christmas. It is like the denouement of a beautiful story. For at last all is in readiness for the silver trowel, when a few hours hence there shall be well and truly laid the corner stone of the new Brookside school, which to bring into being this society was born.
As the history of eugenic social policy has demonstrated, one person's beautiful story is always someone else's nightmare. Hundreds of "worse than worthless" children were herded into this institution to save the rest of society from ruin. Not one of their names is known. Compounding the problem is the fact that this disturbing chapter of our history has all but disappeared from the history books, if it was ever there in the first place.
Where there is oppression, there are always victims. The scapegoats in this eugenic crusade were the children. In fact, it is likely that thousands of children passed through the doors of the Brookside Training School, branded with the stigma of mental defect and treated as the "waste products" they were perceived to be. One thing is certain: Nova Scotia must atone for the violence committed against these helpless children.
Disturbing still is the fact that by the time Alberta, British Columbia and Nova Scotia had drawn up legislation to eradicate mental defectives from society, eugenics as a scientific doctrine had largely been discredited. By 1926, one of the main architects of the Nova Scotian eugenics movement, Ernest H. Blois, in a paper read before the Annual Conference of Children's Aid Societies drops the following bombshell:
[W]e were told once that most crimes, sexual immorality, especially among females, and evil in many forms were due largely to feeble-mindedness. This we now know to be untrue, but nevertheless, in dealing with these particular forms of vice and crime, feeble-mindedness is one, and in some cases a very large factor in a very complex problem.
Yet, he still argued for their incarceration. One of the conclusions from the 1926 Royal Commission included the incredible statement, "too little is known regarding the hereditary nature of feeble-mindedness". They, too, argued for confinement. How the eugenic argument survived without its main theoretical support remains a mystery.
A look at the historical facts from across the continent shows that eugenics left no territory untouched. It was perhaps a movement that seemed impeccable in its logic and unstoppable in momentum. After all was said and done, the victims paid the price and the "progressives" went on with their lives as if nothing had happened. [102]
Link to Full Article:
http://www.shunpiking.com/ol0207/0207-SE-eug-NS.htm
Link to Shunpiking Magazine featuring more articles on Eugenics in the May-June 2005 Issue. This Magazine is well worth perusing for interesting and well researched artiles:
http://www.shunpiking.com/
Monday, June 20, 2005
The Monster of Suburbia
Isn’t it a strange irony that we want our kids to live a life that we really don’t respect? We cajole them into living a life that we would view with contempt if we were to look at it from a distance.
We want them to never face danger, or insecurity, or any of the rough edges of life. We want to build a bubble, a fortress for them, so that they get whatever is best in this world and avoid all that is bad. In some respects, this situation has been created and manufactured en masse. It is called the suburbs.
But when we think about it, the people we respect are those that have lived life to the fullest. We respect people that have faced adversity, danger, and challenges. We mostly respect those that have done it and have come out healthy. But we also respect those that have had it rough and have been defeated into addictions, suicide or cynical anger and aggression. What we don’t respect is the spoiled child and especially the spoiled child that has never had that situation challenged or corrected; the spoiled child that is no longer a child.
The mythical story of the Buddha comes to mind here. The Buddha was a prince born into wealth and his father made sure that he was never exposed to the rough edges of life. He lived in his palace and when he grew up, he was given many wives and servants. His father was insistent that he never leave the castle. But one day he did leave and when he was out there (out here) he came across a sick person, an old person, and a corpse. When he returned he asked his father; “What’s the meaning of this?” His father had tried to protect him from reality. He then went out and became an ascetic and found that he could not find the meaning there. He eventually found the meaning of Reality between the extremes while meditating under a tree at Deer Park.
We have created a whole class of little princes and princesses or rather, spoiled children that have been artificially immunized from Reality. They have grown up watching television and playing video games. They are creatures of the suburbs. They don’t know about sickness, death, or old age not so much because they have never been exposed to it, but more because they have become detached from the side of reality that is icky. They have learned that the world is really soft after all and that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. They have lived with the material comforts of relative wealth and the psychological protection that goes with avoiding all that is unpleasant.
With these protections securely in place, they can look at sickness, old age and death with complete indifference. That happens to them because they deserve it. What’s really important after all is that it will never happen to me. They can watch war on the news and starvation all over the world and be completely and utter unaffected by it. This is partially because they have become accustomed to the belief that they are somehow special, they are God’s chosen people, and also because they live it a ‘virtual’ world.
Another word for this virtual world is alienation.
This is not to suggest that all creatures of the suburbs are like this. It is likely a continuum we are all on. But there definitely has emerged a type, a class of middle class creature that stands on it's own. What is concerning is the pervasiveness of this condition and our ability to ignore it.
These folks are glib and charming. In their own way they are intelligent and most importantly, apparently intelligent. Many are completely indifferent to politics but may play up charity or partisian politics with future gain and games in mind. They are very aware of public perception and are skilled at playing up to it. They have no feeling whatsoever about the plight of others and always write off the misfortune of others as ‘their’ fault. It is the fault of the particular individual, the victim, of whatever calamity. They comfort themselves with the knowledge that ‘I’ have made all the right moves and ‘I’ have the right ethics. I am somehow blessed. This is partially the result of overprotection but more importantly, it is the result the alienation that only capitalism can manufacture. That is, the belief that the value of the human being is based in his or her exchange value. Use value means nothing. In other words, in this world presentation and status symbols are everything. Substance means nothing. It is more important to have material possessions and status than it is to genuinely love somebody.
Although many creatures of comfort are warm, loving and genuine people, the fact remains that we all know that the content of this essay is true as much as we might wish otherwise. We may want to look away but maybe that is part of the problem. Maybe that's the crux of the problem.
This really has to be turned around.
On a large scale we have to stop buying into the idea that rich people are more valuable than ordinary people. They are not; au contraire.
On a personal level, if you know these people or if you are one of these people, point yourself, or them, in the direction of Deer Park. You better do it because sickness, old age, and death will happen to you and your video games will not help you.
They are not even helping you now.
We want them to never face danger, or insecurity, or any of the rough edges of life. We want to build a bubble, a fortress for them, so that they get whatever is best in this world and avoid all that is bad. In some respects, this situation has been created and manufactured en masse. It is called the suburbs.
But when we think about it, the people we respect are those that have lived life to the fullest. We respect people that have faced adversity, danger, and challenges. We mostly respect those that have done it and have come out healthy. But we also respect those that have had it rough and have been defeated into addictions, suicide or cynical anger and aggression. What we don’t respect is the spoiled child and especially the spoiled child that has never had that situation challenged or corrected; the spoiled child that is no longer a child.
The mythical story of the Buddha comes to mind here. The Buddha was a prince born into wealth and his father made sure that he was never exposed to the rough edges of life. He lived in his palace and when he grew up, he was given many wives and servants. His father was insistent that he never leave the castle. But one day he did leave and when he was out there (out here) he came across a sick person, an old person, and a corpse. When he returned he asked his father; “What’s the meaning of this?” His father had tried to protect him from reality. He then went out and became an ascetic and found that he could not find the meaning there. He eventually found the meaning of Reality between the extremes while meditating under a tree at Deer Park.
We have created a whole class of little princes and princesses or rather, spoiled children that have been artificially immunized from Reality. They have grown up watching television and playing video games. They are creatures of the suburbs. They don’t know about sickness, death, or old age not so much because they have never been exposed to it, but more because they have become detached from the side of reality that is icky. They have learned that the world is really soft after all and that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. They have lived with the material comforts of relative wealth and the psychological protection that goes with avoiding all that is unpleasant.
With these protections securely in place, they can look at sickness, old age and death with complete indifference. That happens to them because they deserve it. What’s really important after all is that it will never happen to me. They can watch war on the news and starvation all over the world and be completely and utter unaffected by it. This is partially because they have become accustomed to the belief that they are somehow special, they are God’s chosen people, and also because they live it a ‘virtual’ world.
Another word for this virtual world is alienation.
This is not to suggest that all creatures of the suburbs are like this. It is likely a continuum we are all on. But there definitely has emerged a type, a class of middle class creature that stands on it's own. What is concerning is the pervasiveness of this condition and our ability to ignore it.
These folks are glib and charming. In their own way they are intelligent and most importantly, apparently intelligent. Many are completely indifferent to politics but may play up charity or partisian politics with future gain and games in mind. They are very aware of public perception and are skilled at playing up to it. They have no feeling whatsoever about the plight of others and always write off the misfortune of others as ‘their’ fault. It is the fault of the particular individual, the victim, of whatever calamity. They comfort themselves with the knowledge that ‘I’ have made all the right moves and ‘I’ have the right ethics. I am somehow blessed. This is partially the result of overprotection but more importantly, it is the result the alienation that only capitalism can manufacture. That is, the belief that the value of the human being is based in his or her exchange value. Use value means nothing. In other words, in this world presentation and status symbols are everything. Substance means nothing. It is more important to have material possessions and status than it is to genuinely love somebody.
Although many creatures of comfort are warm, loving and genuine people, the fact remains that we all know that the content of this essay is true as much as we might wish otherwise. We may want to look away but maybe that is part of the problem. Maybe that's the crux of the problem.
This really has to be turned around.
On a large scale we have to stop buying into the idea that rich people are more valuable than ordinary people. They are not; au contraire.
On a personal level, if you know these people or if you are one of these people, point yourself, or them, in the direction of Deer Park. You better do it because sickness, old age, and death will happen to you and your video games will not help you.
They are not even helping you now.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Bush Fires
The Big Bush has a lot little Bush fires sparking all around him. Here’s a few of them:
Bush fires here:
-The Downing Street Memo: The cowardly American press is finally paying some attention to it. This one is volatile and could burn him down.
-A Gallup poll found that about 6 in 10 Americans advocated a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. A slow spreading fire and it will consume Bush, the GOP, and the chicken-hawks.
-Recruitment is next to impossible as young Americans are refusing to strap on suicide vests for oil billionaires. Bush will try to put it out with a draft – like a hydra’s head lopped off, America will be in flames.
-The politicians in America are finally finding enough courage to call for a pull out from Iraq. A resolution was introduced by both Democrat and GOP Reps calling for an exist strategy from the meat grinder.
Bush fires there:
-The Sunnis are killing the Shiites in Iraq and the Shiites are killing Sunnis. And the Kurds are kidnapping Sunnis; a bit of a conundrum; a bit of a Bush fire. It is Bush’s fire.
-The elected reps in Iraq have refused to disband their local militias, thumbing their noses at the Big Bush. These sparks could go ablaze anytime.
-Clerics have been wrestling control of the Iraqi State from American puppets like the Chalabis and the Allawis. Once they see the religious writing on the wall, they might not be the dutiful puppets the Big Bush is counting on.
-Iraqi soldiers are openly defiant to their American masters and will often turn away from danger and walk away en masse.
-Iraqi soldiers are seen as untrainable by American soldiers. Both sides despise each other and don’t trust each other.
Bush fires everywhere:
-Kim Jung Il is flirting with Rho without Bush’s permission.
-Hugo Chavez refuses to be controlled by the USA.
-Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina are all talking to Chavez behind Bush’s back.
-Increasing trade is helping Cuba out of its economic isolation.
-Amnesty International has called America’s concentration camps, The Gulags of our time.
-The Sandinistas in Nicaragua are re-awakening.
And then there’s Musharraf, Palestine, Afghanistan, bin Laden, Uzbekistan, and there’s Bolton, Rumsfield, Cheney, and there is Bush himself. And there’s the internet, Counterpunch, Democracy Now, Indymedia, and socialists, and peaceniks, and Chomsky and Moore and millions of unknown subversives - like you and me.
In the future there is the Geneva Convention, The American Constitution, and The Hague.
The forecast for Mr. Bush looks like this. It’s gonna be hot.
Pass the matches around.
Bush fires here:
-The Downing Street Memo: The cowardly American press is finally paying some attention to it. This one is volatile and could burn him down.
-A Gallup poll found that about 6 in 10 Americans advocated a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. A slow spreading fire and it will consume Bush, the GOP, and the chicken-hawks.
-Recruitment is next to impossible as young Americans are refusing to strap on suicide vests for oil billionaires. Bush will try to put it out with a draft – like a hydra’s head lopped off, America will be in flames.
-The politicians in America are finally finding enough courage to call for a pull out from Iraq. A resolution was introduced by both Democrat and GOP Reps calling for an exist strategy from the meat grinder.
Bush fires there:
-The Sunnis are killing the Shiites in Iraq and the Shiites are killing Sunnis. And the Kurds are kidnapping Sunnis; a bit of a conundrum; a bit of a Bush fire. It is Bush’s fire.
-The elected reps in Iraq have refused to disband their local militias, thumbing their noses at the Big Bush. These sparks could go ablaze anytime.
-Clerics have been wrestling control of the Iraqi State from American puppets like the Chalabis and the Allawis. Once they see the religious writing on the wall, they might not be the dutiful puppets the Big Bush is counting on.
-Iraqi soldiers are openly defiant to their American masters and will often turn away from danger and walk away en masse.
-Iraqi soldiers are seen as untrainable by American soldiers. Both sides despise each other and don’t trust each other.
Bush fires everywhere:
-Kim Jung Il is flirting with Rho without Bush’s permission.
-Hugo Chavez refuses to be controlled by the USA.
-Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina are all talking to Chavez behind Bush’s back.
-Increasing trade is helping Cuba out of its economic isolation.
-Amnesty International has called America’s concentration camps, The Gulags of our time.
-The Sandinistas in Nicaragua are re-awakening.
And then there’s Musharraf, Palestine, Afghanistan, bin Laden, Uzbekistan, and there’s Bolton, Rumsfield, Cheney, and there is Bush himself. And there’s the internet, Counterpunch, Democracy Now, Indymedia, and socialists, and peaceniks, and Chomsky and Moore and millions of unknown subversives - like you and me.
In the future there is the Geneva Convention, The American Constitution, and The Hague.
The forecast for Mr. Bush looks like this. It’s gonna be hot.
Pass the matches around.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Class Act
Various jurisdictions in Canada have passed or are contemplating passing laws to forbid poor people from panhandling. In B.C. they have an act called "The Safe Streets Act" and generally, they are similar or will be similar to this one. It is aimed at curbing the liberty of panhandlers to prevent them from asking for money. The name implies that they present a danger to the people they do ask for spare change.
In the mid 80’s governments everywhere threw people out of mental hospitals with the promise that they would supply money for community care. That was a promise that was broken. And now that they have done this, they are worried that those who are panhandling are neglected mentally ill people and present a danger to pedestrians. That’s how karma works. If you kill little animals, little animals will give you the creeps. If you kill poor people, poor people will give you the creeps.
But poor people are simply that – poor people. Panhandlers are youth fleeing abuse, people that cannot find work, people with addiction problems, people with neglected mental health problems and generally, people that have been victimized one way or another.
These anti-panhandler laws are offensive on many levels.
The most obvious is that the people that want to pass these laws are the same people that are responsible for the massive homelessness problem; a problem that emerged in the mid-eighties. They are offended by the reality of the poverty that exists in the midst of their affluence. They would prefer to get rid of them and sweep them away from their blissful shopping trips. They find homeless people offensive – again, the karma thing.
Secondly, it is offensive to any person that believes in freedom.
These people are trying to create a class of untouchables in the developed world. The same legal freedoms and principles that work for everybody else do not apply to poor people. If they did, then salespeople could not approach people in any way to sell their wares. Asking for spare change is considerably more honest and less of a hassle than dealing with most salespeople.
But this is not about the act of soliciting. It is about class. It is a class act. And it is a violation of the basic rights of the poor.
Here is an act that would be similar to other laws passed in various provinces and states:
BILL 71 -- 2004
SAFE STREETS ACT
HER MAJESTY, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia, enacts as follows:
Definition
1 In this Act, "solicit" means to communicate, in person, using the spoken, written or printed word, a gesture or another means, for the purpose of receiving money or another thing of value, regardless of whether consideration is offered or provided in return.
2 (1) A person commits an offence if the person solicits in a manner that would cause a reasonable person to be concerned for the solicited person's safety or security, including threatening the person solicited with physical harm, by word, gesture or other means.
(2) A person commits an offence if the person engages, in a manner that would cause a reasonable person to be concerned for the solicited person's safety or security, in one or more of the following activities during a solicitation or after the solicited person responds or fails to respond to the solicitation:
(a) obstructing the path of the solicited person;
(b) using abusive language;
(c) proceeding behind or alongside or ahead of the solicited person;
(d) physically approaching, as a member of a group of 2 or more persons, the solicited person;
(e) continuing to solicit the person.
Solicitation of captive audience prohibited
3 (1) In this section:
"commercial passenger vehicle" means a motor vehicle operated on a roadway by or on behalf of a person who charges or collects compensation for the transportation of passengers in that motor vehicle, and includes a vehicle operated by or on behalf of the British Columbia Transit Authority or the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority to provide a regularly scheduled public passenger transportation service;
"roadway" means a highway, road, street, lane or right of way, including the shoulder of any of them, that is improved, designed or ordinarily used by the general public for the passage of vehicles;
"vehicle" includes non-motorized vehicles.
(2) Subject to subsection (3), a person commits an offence who does any of the following:
(a) solicits a person who is using, waiting to use, or departing from a device commonly referred to as an automated teller machine;
(b) solicits a person who is using, or waiting to use, a pay telephone or a public toilet facility;
(c) solicits a person who is waiting at a place that is marked, by use of a sign or otherwise, as a place where a commercial passenger vehicle regularly stops to pick up or disembark passengers;
(d) solicits a person who is in, on or disembarking from a commercial passenger vehicle;
(e) solicits a person who is in the process of getting in, out of, on or off of a vehicle or who is in a parking lot.
(3) No offence is committed under subsection (2) if the person soliciting is 5 metres or more from the following:
(a) in the case of subsection (2) (a) to (c), the automated teller machine, pay telephone, public toilet facility entrance or commercial passenger vehicle marker, as applicable;
(b) in the case of subsection (2) (d) or (e), the commercial passenger vehicle or vehicle, as applicable.
(4) A person commits an offence if the person, while on a roadway, solicits a person who is in or on a stopped, standing or parked vehicle.
And this is an excerpt from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
We cannot, as a society, grant freedoms to some and remove them from others because some people might consider them creepy or unsightly. It is they that are creepy and unsightly.
In a free society, we have to preserve universal principles of freedom for everybody. We cannot arbitrarily remove some freedoms for some people we deem to be less than human.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states the following:
15.
(1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
Racism, nationalism, religion, gender and disability are not grounds for discrimination. Maybe those that want to make panhandling illegal would argue in front of the Supreme Court of Canada that a person’s social or economic class is not covered under the Charter. But more than likely they will argue that it is specifically “aggressive” panhandling that they are concerned about. There is a myriad of laws that already protect us from aggression. In fact, it is panhandling that they want to stop, but they use ‘aggression’ as a mechanism to give their hate and classist karma an air of legitimacy.
This is an important struggle for people that are destitute. It is also important to those that are not. It is about fundamental freedom and it is about classism. It is a struggle that has to be fought on legal grounds and these laws should be taken to the Supreme Court. It is also a political struggle and it is the front line of our ongoing class war; the war that is never acknowledged by the classes that are oppressed.
We have a responsibility to help out people that are destitute. Give them money if you can and DON'T ask them whether they will use it to buy booze or drugs. Some people do this and it is not only paternalistic and elitist; it is hateful and mean. Assuming the person asking for money is an adult, it is just one more kick in the head to treat that person like a child. It is similar to kicking a person when they are down.
But we also have a responsibility to help poor people out on a collective basis. That is, we need to fight for housing and social programs that are needed to combat homelessness, and the multitude of problems that accompany it.
In the mid 80’s governments everywhere threw people out of mental hospitals with the promise that they would supply money for community care. That was a promise that was broken. And now that they have done this, they are worried that those who are panhandling are neglected mentally ill people and present a danger to pedestrians. That’s how karma works. If you kill little animals, little animals will give you the creeps. If you kill poor people, poor people will give you the creeps.
But poor people are simply that – poor people. Panhandlers are youth fleeing abuse, people that cannot find work, people with addiction problems, people with neglected mental health problems and generally, people that have been victimized one way or another.
These anti-panhandler laws are offensive on many levels.
The most obvious is that the people that want to pass these laws are the same people that are responsible for the massive homelessness problem; a problem that emerged in the mid-eighties. They are offended by the reality of the poverty that exists in the midst of their affluence. They would prefer to get rid of them and sweep them away from their blissful shopping trips. They find homeless people offensive – again, the karma thing.
Secondly, it is offensive to any person that believes in freedom.
These people are trying to create a class of untouchables in the developed world. The same legal freedoms and principles that work for everybody else do not apply to poor people. If they did, then salespeople could not approach people in any way to sell their wares. Asking for spare change is considerably more honest and less of a hassle than dealing with most salespeople.
But this is not about the act of soliciting. It is about class. It is a class act. And it is a violation of the basic rights of the poor.
Here is an act that would be similar to other laws passed in various provinces and states:
BILL 71 -- 2004
SAFE STREETS ACT
HER MAJESTY, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia, enacts as follows:
Definition
1 In this Act, "solicit" means to communicate, in person, using the spoken, written or printed word, a gesture or another means, for the purpose of receiving money or another thing of value, regardless of whether consideration is offered or provided in return.
2 (1) A person commits an offence if the person solicits in a manner that would cause a reasonable person to be concerned for the solicited person's safety or security, including threatening the person solicited with physical harm, by word, gesture or other means.
(2) A person commits an offence if the person engages, in a manner that would cause a reasonable person to be concerned for the solicited person's safety or security, in one or more of the following activities during a solicitation or after the solicited person responds or fails to respond to the solicitation:
(a) obstructing the path of the solicited person;
(b) using abusive language;
(c) proceeding behind or alongside or ahead of the solicited person;
(d) physically approaching, as a member of a group of 2 or more persons, the solicited person;
(e) continuing to solicit the person.
Solicitation of captive audience prohibited
3 (1) In this section:
"commercial passenger vehicle" means a motor vehicle operated on a roadway by or on behalf of a person who charges or collects compensation for the transportation of passengers in that motor vehicle, and includes a vehicle operated by or on behalf of the British Columbia Transit Authority or the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority to provide a regularly scheduled public passenger transportation service;
"roadway" means a highway, road, street, lane or right of way, including the shoulder of any of them, that is improved, designed or ordinarily used by the general public for the passage of vehicles;
"vehicle" includes non-motorized vehicles.
(2) Subject to subsection (3), a person commits an offence who does any of the following:
(a) solicits a person who is using, waiting to use, or departing from a device commonly referred to as an automated teller machine;
(b) solicits a person who is using, or waiting to use, a pay telephone or a public toilet facility;
(c) solicits a person who is waiting at a place that is marked, by use of a sign or otherwise, as a place where a commercial passenger vehicle regularly stops to pick up or disembark passengers;
(d) solicits a person who is in, on or disembarking from a commercial passenger vehicle;
(e) solicits a person who is in the process of getting in, out of, on or off of a vehicle or who is in a parking lot.
(3) No offence is committed under subsection (2) if the person soliciting is 5 metres or more from the following:
(a) in the case of subsection (2) (a) to (c), the automated teller machine, pay telephone, public toilet facility entrance or commercial passenger vehicle marker, as applicable;
(b) in the case of subsection (2) (d) or (e), the commercial passenger vehicle or vehicle, as applicable.
(4) A person commits an offence if the person, while on a roadway, solicits a person who is in or on a stopped, standing or parked vehicle.
And this is an excerpt from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
We cannot, as a society, grant freedoms to some and remove them from others because some people might consider them creepy or unsightly. It is they that are creepy and unsightly.
In a free society, we have to preserve universal principles of freedom for everybody. We cannot arbitrarily remove some freedoms for some people we deem to be less than human.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states the following:
15.
(1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
Racism, nationalism, religion, gender and disability are not grounds for discrimination. Maybe those that want to make panhandling illegal would argue in front of the Supreme Court of Canada that a person’s social or economic class is not covered under the Charter. But more than likely they will argue that it is specifically “aggressive” panhandling that they are concerned about. There is a myriad of laws that already protect us from aggression. In fact, it is panhandling that they want to stop, but they use ‘aggression’ as a mechanism to give their hate and classist karma an air of legitimacy.
This is an important struggle for people that are destitute. It is also important to those that are not. It is about fundamental freedom and it is about classism. It is a struggle that has to be fought on legal grounds and these laws should be taken to the Supreme Court. It is also a political struggle and it is the front line of our ongoing class war; the war that is never acknowledged by the classes that are oppressed.
We have a responsibility to help out people that are destitute. Give them money if you can and DON'T ask them whether they will use it to buy booze or drugs. Some people do this and it is not only paternalistic and elitist; it is hateful and mean. Assuming the person asking for money is an adult, it is just one more kick in the head to treat that person like a child. It is similar to kicking a person when they are down.
But we also have a responsibility to help poor people out on a collective basis. That is, we need to fight for housing and social programs that are needed to combat homelessness, and the multitude of problems that accompany it.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Silent Violence
When we think of violence, we generally think of war, or revolution, or shooting or some sort of physical brutality. But as you read this, children, women and men all over the world are dying because they can’t access or are not free to get what they need to survive. They are dying because they don’t have the money to get the food or the medicine or medical attention they need.
When we ignore the plight of people in need we are committing an act of silent violence. There are people in our communities that are elderly, poor, and disabled that live and die in unbearable misery because they can’t access what they need. It is held back from them because – they can’t pay for it.
When we ignore people’s human needs we are committing an act of violence; a sin of omission. It is silent and unseen, so we can go to bed and concentrate on our mundane tasks for tomorrow. We can’t see the children that are hungry or the elderly person that is in pain. They have needs but – who cares?
What is it that people need? Ask somebody living in a totalitarian nightmare, they might say freedom. Ask somebody else living in the slums of India, they might say food. A poor person with an inexplicable pain in the USA might say heath care. The notion of humans needs is slippery and it may seem subjective. There are some things that we can describe objectively as basic human needs but this is no easy task.
The needs of Torontonians are different in many respects to the needs of hunter gatherers in the Amazon. As societies change and evolve, so do needs.
The discussion about individual and community needs is inexorably tied into the discussion about a free society. Our fetish of individualism costs the health of the collective. If we ignore either the freedom of the individual or the health of the whole, we will be vulnurable. There is a dialectic between the two that we have always been participating in and we always will. Too much focus on one will compromise the well being of the other.
Many people agree that freedom is a fundamental need. That is, freedom for all members of society. But this statement is often nothing more than an abstract idea. In real terms, freedom is predicated on economic and social security. If people can’t access needs that are vital for survival, the discussion about freedom is nothing more than mindless bullshit. When people are not free to access food, shelter, and medical care, the issue of freedom of speech or the freedom to practice some exotic religion is meaningless.
To achieve freedom for all we first need to achieve basic security for all. That is, people need freedom from police and state interference if citizens act to feed children or get medicine for those that are sick. But ultimately, the state and the police are there to protect profit and the rights and freedoms of the profit makers.
If it is impossible to legally acquire food or medicine for your children or yourself, then you are not free. The person that can walk into the store and pick up what he or she needs and walk out with it, is free. He may have to sell the most of his waking time to a capitalist to do it, but he has a measure of freedom those that are deprived do not have. From a capitalistic viewpoint, this discussion gets uncomfortable at this point.
It may be argued that vital needs define human needs and apart from that, you could put them in the ‘wants’ category. But this crude definition of basic needs is not sufficient. Wheelchairs for those that need them may not be vital in any strict sense, but they are basic needs nonetheless. To tell an individual that cannot walk and is deprived of a wheelchair that he or she is free is a cruel insult. Not providing these essentials is a social sin of omission. Assessing needs for individuals and communities requires constant reassessment. For an individual to access what is needed to fulfill her or his potential, the obstacles to access whatever is needed must be removed.
People in Toronto need heat in the winter. They also need telephones and transportation. As technology and social structures change, people’s needs change. Kids in Toronto also need the means to attend that school trip, running shoes for gym and numerous things that kids in the Amazon do not need.
Realistically, we have to move beyond providing food and shelter and then hoping for the best. For people to develop and grow to their potential, the obstacles to growth must be removed. If we don't provide these apparently non-vital needs, social problems grow dramatically. And so, we have what we might regard as the needs of the community. Neglecting these could mean significant sickness in the community and even death for individuals within the community.
Even if we look at this problem in cold, pragmatic terms, we have to pay serious attention to the needs of the community. If we don’t pay attention to them, we then pay for jails and rehabilitation programs such as drug rehab or halfway houses. The per diem for a stay in jail changes from place to place, but it is always very expensive. The stupid selfish approach results in spending more money on jails than on education. When that happens, we know we’ve collectively screwed up.
By being stingy on the front end, we spend much more on the other end. Simply reacting to crisis after they occur is not an intelligent social strategy. Proactive intervention is not only less costly. It also makes for a better society for all of us to live in. Silent violence has very strange and very ugly, expensive karma.
In the face of this reality, we watch as soldiers slaughter people in the name of freedom. Violent war that is an oil grab by the very people that refuse to feed the poor. And they will say, we are fighting for freedom and democracy. The word “freedom” has been so perverted in this case that it is nothing but empty rhetoric.
Needs must be addressed on a collective basis. Perhaps most importantly, any society must take care of its material production needs. This includes production, processes of exchange, distribution and so on. We need to produce before we can consume. We also need to distribute adequately for everybody to consume adequately. Another basic need is reproduction needs. That is, any society must provide pre-natal care, birthing care and it must address the developmental needs of children. Daycare and parental education are frequently neglected on a community level. Ignoring these needs is, as we can see, very expensive for both the affected individual and the wider community.
We are often encouraged to resent paying taxes for social programs by right wing ideologues. But working class people or middle class people are often a single accident away from reliance on social services to provide for them. A person may get whacked on the head and as a result is brain damaged or physically disabled. Very few people are immune from having to rely on the state or community for their vital and other basic needs. People that have this misfortune and are not covered by insurance or if their insurance company finds a way out of paying the bills may be shocked to find out how barbaric and cold social welfare systems can be.
It is worth noticing that many people that resent paying for social programs and generally resent paying taxes rarely if ever say that they resent that 30 to 40% of our tax dollars go to pay interest on the public debt. That is roughly equivalent to what is paid to fund education or health care (in Canada). The actual percentage that goes to feed people on welfare is far less.
The extremists argue that people that need wheelchairs or food should fend for themselves or rely on the whims of philanthropy. This is another way of saying that the needs of the poor and disadvantaged is not our collective responsibility. This extreme of selfishness and callous individualism has become the mantra of the extreme right which is parroted by the numbing mindlessness of the bubble gum media.
The neo conservatives would spend a million dollars to kill somebody before they’d spend five bucks to feed somebody. This seems to be an outrageous statement but it also seems to be true. There is not a whimper about the billions spent on the war in Iraq by the extremists on the right but they are always ready to pounce on any increase in social spending. The extreme-right in the USA, Canada, Europe or anywhere else seems to applaud and scream in unison. They are eerily similar - cultlike.
We need to stand up for freedom for everybody. Not some vague notion about marking an ‘x’ every four years for some self centered quisling, but real freedom. That means freedom FROM hunger and preventable sickness and freedom TO enjoy the simple pleasures of life. That means that we have to stand alongside those that do not have real freedom and against those that have so much freedom it is obscene and it has become dangerous for the rest of us.
When we ignore the plight of people in need we are committing an act of silent violence. There are people in our communities that are elderly, poor, and disabled that live and die in unbearable misery because they can’t access what they need. It is held back from them because – they can’t pay for it.
When we ignore people’s human needs we are committing an act of violence; a sin of omission. It is silent and unseen, so we can go to bed and concentrate on our mundane tasks for tomorrow. We can’t see the children that are hungry or the elderly person that is in pain. They have needs but – who cares?
What is it that people need? Ask somebody living in a totalitarian nightmare, they might say freedom. Ask somebody else living in the slums of India, they might say food. A poor person with an inexplicable pain in the USA might say heath care. The notion of humans needs is slippery and it may seem subjective. There are some things that we can describe objectively as basic human needs but this is no easy task.
The needs of Torontonians are different in many respects to the needs of hunter gatherers in the Amazon. As societies change and evolve, so do needs.
The discussion about individual and community needs is inexorably tied into the discussion about a free society. Our fetish of individualism costs the health of the collective. If we ignore either the freedom of the individual or the health of the whole, we will be vulnurable. There is a dialectic between the two that we have always been participating in and we always will. Too much focus on one will compromise the well being of the other.
Many people agree that freedom is a fundamental need. That is, freedom for all members of society. But this statement is often nothing more than an abstract idea. In real terms, freedom is predicated on economic and social security. If people can’t access needs that are vital for survival, the discussion about freedom is nothing more than mindless bullshit. When people are not free to access food, shelter, and medical care, the issue of freedom of speech or the freedom to practice some exotic religion is meaningless.
To achieve freedom for all we first need to achieve basic security for all. That is, people need freedom from police and state interference if citizens act to feed children or get medicine for those that are sick. But ultimately, the state and the police are there to protect profit and the rights and freedoms of the profit makers.
If it is impossible to legally acquire food or medicine for your children or yourself, then you are not free. The person that can walk into the store and pick up what he or she needs and walk out with it, is free. He may have to sell the most of his waking time to a capitalist to do it, but he has a measure of freedom those that are deprived do not have. From a capitalistic viewpoint, this discussion gets uncomfortable at this point.
It may be argued that vital needs define human needs and apart from that, you could put them in the ‘wants’ category. But this crude definition of basic needs is not sufficient. Wheelchairs for those that need them may not be vital in any strict sense, but they are basic needs nonetheless. To tell an individual that cannot walk and is deprived of a wheelchair that he or she is free is a cruel insult. Not providing these essentials is a social sin of omission. Assessing needs for individuals and communities requires constant reassessment. For an individual to access what is needed to fulfill her or his potential, the obstacles to access whatever is needed must be removed.
People in Toronto need heat in the winter. They also need telephones and transportation. As technology and social structures change, people’s needs change. Kids in Toronto also need the means to attend that school trip, running shoes for gym and numerous things that kids in the Amazon do not need.
Realistically, we have to move beyond providing food and shelter and then hoping for the best. For people to develop and grow to their potential, the obstacles to growth must be removed. If we don't provide these apparently non-vital needs, social problems grow dramatically. And so, we have what we might regard as the needs of the community. Neglecting these could mean significant sickness in the community and even death for individuals within the community.
Even if we look at this problem in cold, pragmatic terms, we have to pay serious attention to the needs of the community. If we don’t pay attention to them, we then pay for jails and rehabilitation programs such as drug rehab or halfway houses. The per diem for a stay in jail changes from place to place, but it is always very expensive. The stupid selfish approach results in spending more money on jails than on education. When that happens, we know we’ve collectively screwed up.
By being stingy on the front end, we spend much more on the other end. Simply reacting to crisis after they occur is not an intelligent social strategy. Proactive intervention is not only less costly. It also makes for a better society for all of us to live in. Silent violence has very strange and very ugly, expensive karma.
In the face of this reality, we watch as soldiers slaughter people in the name of freedom. Violent war that is an oil grab by the very people that refuse to feed the poor. And they will say, we are fighting for freedom and democracy. The word “freedom” has been so perverted in this case that it is nothing but empty rhetoric.
Needs must be addressed on a collective basis. Perhaps most importantly, any society must take care of its material production needs. This includes production, processes of exchange, distribution and so on. We need to produce before we can consume. We also need to distribute adequately for everybody to consume adequately. Another basic need is reproduction needs. That is, any society must provide pre-natal care, birthing care and it must address the developmental needs of children. Daycare and parental education are frequently neglected on a community level. Ignoring these needs is, as we can see, very expensive for both the affected individual and the wider community.
We are often encouraged to resent paying taxes for social programs by right wing ideologues. But working class people or middle class people are often a single accident away from reliance on social services to provide for them. A person may get whacked on the head and as a result is brain damaged or physically disabled. Very few people are immune from having to rely on the state or community for their vital and other basic needs. People that have this misfortune and are not covered by insurance or if their insurance company finds a way out of paying the bills may be shocked to find out how barbaric and cold social welfare systems can be.
It is worth noticing that many people that resent paying for social programs and generally resent paying taxes rarely if ever say that they resent that 30 to 40% of our tax dollars go to pay interest on the public debt. That is roughly equivalent to what is paid to fund education or health care (in Canada). The actual percentage that goes to feed people on welfare is far less.
The extremists argue that people that need wheelchairs or food should fend for themselves or rely on the whims of philanthropy. This is another way of saying that the needs of the poor and disadvantaged is not our collective responsibility. This extreme of selfishness and callous individualism has become the mantra of the extreme right which is parroted by the numbing mindlessness of the bubble gum media.
The neo conservatives would spend a million dollars to kill somebody before they’d spend five bucks to feed somebody. This seems to be an outrageous statement but it also seems to be true. There is not a whimper about the billions spent on the war in Iraq by the extremists on the right but they are always ready to pounce on any increase in social spending. The extreme-right in the USA, Canada, Europe or anywhere else seems to applaud and scream in unison. They are eerily similar - cultlike.
We need to stand up for freedom for everybody. Not some vague notion about marking an ‘x’ every four years for some self centered quisling, but real freedom. That means freedom FROM hunger and preventable sickness and freedom TO enjoy the simple pleasures of life. That means that we have to stand alongside those that do not have real freedom and against those that have so much freedom it is obscene and it has become dangerous for the rest of us.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
June 11 is a little known holiday in the mining towns of Cape Breton. In these towns it is known as Davis Day. Here, there is a history of conflict between miners and the coal company. The coal company enjoyed complete and unquestioned support from the Canadian state and the Prime Minister, a slave to the crystal ball named MacKenzie King. This local history is rife with revolutionary passion and bloody struggles between miners, steelworkers and capitalist tyranny.
It is a history that is sufficiently shameful that few, if any, students have learned about it in school. This history is spelled out in the town square of the town of New Waterford under the title, “Standing the Gaff”, and under a statue of a man named William Davis. This title is a defiant reference to a comment made by mine vice president, J.E. McLurg, and is often attributed to his boss, BESCO President Roy Wolvin, known locally as Roy the Wolf. He said of the striking miners, “They won’t stand the gaff”.
He was referring of course, to starvation.
The reason for the holiday is because William Davis was one of three coal miners that was shot on June 11, 1925 at New Waterford Lake by a gang of goons/company police. William Davis died of his wounds. This ‘police’ force was supported by and worked with the Canadian military.
In the 1920’s the miners went on strike as a result of wage cuts. The mine owners had cut their meager wages. Before the cuts, 90% of wages went to food and rent for the average miner and datal employees spent more on food and rent than they earned.
During the strikes the Canadian military were dispatched to Cape Breton equipped with guns, bayonets and machine guns. On June 11, 1925, miners decided to reconnect power to the town from the power plant. In the neighbouring town, Glace Bay, the soldiers placed a machine gun on the steps of a church and defied the miners of Glace Bay to cross a line. The miners from Glace Bay were marching to help their brothers in New Waterford.
These sadistic goons routinely rode on horseback through the streets of New Waterford terrorizing the people. Most of these goons were recruited from outside of Cape Breton where the ideological bent and character of the people was less militant.
These paid goons were beholden to their bosses who wanted the power and water cut off to the people of the New Waterford area. They had to take on the miners and Cape Bretoners being what they are, soon had the quisling company goons terrified. They began to panic and in the violence, they began shooting, jumping in New Waterford Lake and trying to escape on horseback. Many of these cowards were pulled off the horses and beaten by the miners. A local priest had to intervene to save the life of one of these men who was in the hands of the miners.
The miners were understandably angry. The company controlled their water and had cut the supply. They were there to take back the water and to take back the electricity to make life somewhat less unbearable than it had been for them and their families.
The leader of the union was a native of Scotland who had been politically seasoned in his native land. His name was J.B. McLaughlin. McLaughlin was a firey leader who understood the nature of capitalism. He had gained a good deal of his education from the brutality he had witnessed before he had come to Canada.
McLaughlin was eventually thrown into the penitentary for reporting on an incident he witnessed in nearby Whitney Pier where he watched the soldiers beat women and men in the streets. The Steel Workers there were on strike against the same ruthless privateers that owned and ruled the industry and the people of Cape Breton Island. He was convicted on trumped up charges of siditious libel and sentenced to two years in the penetentary. The real reason for his imprisonment was that he represented a threat to not only the mine owners, but to the capitalist system in Canada. They were afraid that he would become an MP (a member of Parliament). McLaughlin said, "Under capitalism the working class has but two courses to follow: crawl – or fight."
A significant part of this history was the power of the Company Store and the control that it had won for the owners (Besco) - over the miners. Many contemporary Cape Bretoners grew up in company houses and back in the day, the miners owed their wages, and as the song says, their souls, to the Company Store.
A significant part of this history was the power of the Company Store and the control that it had won for the owners (Besco) - over the miners. Many contemporary Cape Bretoners grew up in company houses and back in the day, the miners owed their wages, and as the song says, their souls, to the Company Store.
They would work all week in the dangerous coal mines deep beneath the ocean and at the end of the week the company would "check off" all that was owed. The miners often had little or nothing to show for their work because they were so hoplessly indebted to the company. The company controlled everything. The check off deducted medical bills, water, rent, food, the tools the miners needed to do their jobs; pretty much all the necessities of life. The company however did not gain control over the air the people had to breathe but the steel plant was and still is responsible for Cape Bretoners having the highest cancer rates in Canada.
Miners burned company coal to heat their company homes. They clothed their children and bought their food at the company store. They drank company water and used company electricity.
The struggles in Cape Breton against capitalist tyranny were struggles for basic subsistence and human dignity.The essential problem was that the capitalists had control of everything.
Now Paul Wolfowitz is president of the World Bank. The World Bank and the IMF operate in essentially the same way as the company store did. If you want to understand what's going on in the world today, ask a Cape Bretoner - preferably an old one, about the Company Store. What the neo-cons are doing to the working classes and the poor in the world has been done to Cape Bretoners a few generations ago.
Paul Wolfowitz is in charge of economic policy for about one hundred countries that are struggling to survive economically. His right wing neo con policies have proven to be disastrous for the working class and their methods of strangulation are similar to the old company store on Cape Breton Island. Essentially the idea is to take control of the vital necessities of life and force the people into wage slavery to pay for them.
Paul Wolfowitz is in charge of economic policy for about one hundred countries that are struggling to survive economically. His right wing neo con policies have proven to be disastrous for the working class and their methods of strangulation are similar to the old company store on Cape Breton Island. Essentially the idea is to take control of the vital necessities of life and force the people into wage slavery to pay for them.
The World Bank has pushed hard for privatization, even of the water, and Wolfowitz presided over the most extreme privatization binge in history in the embattled and now destroyed nation of Iraq. This neo con tyranny is a very real crisis for the poor and the workers of countries under the rule of the of the World Bank. The World Bank will put an extra strong effort into modernizing developing countries through what they will call free market policies (which in fact are always controlled) and they will privatize the water, the medicine, the electricity - everything. The air may remain free but it will be deadly if the neo cons have their way.
The history of Cape Breton Island as well as many other oppressed regions of the world should not be hidden from school children. It is a history that repeats itself and a history that will continue to repeat itself until we have the courage to put a stop to it. The marriage of the capitalist state to private capital is far more complete now in 2005 than it was in 1925.
Unfortunately, the mindset and the mass media fall heavily under the spell of the wolves that prey upon the innocent. Roy the Wolf terrorized Cape Bretoners in the 1920's and now Paul the Wolf is doing the same thing on a much larger scale.
The history of Cape Breton Island as well as many other oppressed regions of the world should not be hidden from school children. It is a history that repeats itself and a history that will continue to repeat itself until we have the courage to put a stop to it. The marriage of the capitalist state to private capital is far more complete now in 2005 than it was in 1925.
Unfortunately, the mindset and the mass media fall heavily under the spell of the wolves that prey upon the innocent. Roy the Wolf terrorized Cape Bretoners in the 1920's and now Paul the Wolf is doing the same thing on a much larger scale.
It is up to the contributors to Indymedia, Usenet, and the internet in general to present the truth to those that have not heard it. The wolves do not have control of it, at least not yet.
We have a lot of work to do.
***********************************
I believe in education for action. I believe in telling children the truth about the history of the world, that it does not consist of the history of kings, or lords or cabinets. It consists of the history of the mass of the workers, a thing that is not taught in the schools. I believe in telling children how to measure value, a thing that is not taught in any school. – J.B. McLachlan
I believe in education for action. I believe in telling children the truth about the history of the world, that it does not consist of the history of kings, or lords or cabinets. It consists of the history of the mass of the workers, a thing that is not taught in the schools. I believe in telling children how to measure value, a thing that is not taught in any school. – J.B. McLachlan
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