Although stirrings of discontent are increasing and are world-wide, we still need to recognize the gravity of the situation. We are in real trouble and it's going to take more than taxing Wall Street to get out of it. We need to recognize that we have become dependent on a way of carrying out the business of surviving that we can no longer depend on. We need to recognize that we are under the imperial rule of the corporation; an entity that is far more toxic and dangerous than terrorists or psychopaths. It is not only toxic but its basis is utterly ethereal. It is ether that is based in straightforward exploitation. It is a system of incredible absurdities and contradictions.
There was a time not so long ago when it was generally believed that eventually, capitalism will get to all or most of the problems of deprivation. The trajectory was positive. No serious economist worth his or her salt would make that argument however. Serious economists will say that capitalism is not responsible for feeding the hungry or housing the poor. And they are correct.
We then must ask the question: Do we, as a society, let babies, children, mothers, the elderly, the disabled and so on suffer and even die due to material deprivation?
Like children in the 30s walking bare foot past closed shoe factories, factories sit idle in rust while millions are looking for work. Homes sit empty as millions of evicted homeowners no longer have a place to live. If an enterprise or activity can’t fortify investors wealth, it can’t happen. To suggest that this process is rational reflects a logic of stupefying myopia. To take it for granted smacks of hyper-dependency or addiction.
Our Collective Addiction
We have become dependent on capital derived from surplus value to survive and we are at its mercy. We are at the mercy of a simple formula (buy or make for x - sell for y), a formula that, like all formulas, has no mercy. It also has no substance. But we cannot seem to survive without it. The bad news is, we have to. The good news is, we can.
The fact that we have developed a mentality of dependence on surplus value capital as the only viable catalyst to get us out to work, to trade, to start an enterprise or to repair a bridge is a very serious problem.
We need to take responsibility for ourselves, our communities, and our nations. We have been relying on residual capital from underdeveloped hungry ghosts (investors) to feed us, clothe us, and house us. We have been reliant on an abstraction (surplus value) that, even in its glorious heyday, was heavily reliant on the plunder of the hinterland for resources and sweet Keynesian deals in the homeland. In other words, it never worked. And, even in its heyday, capitalism has been highly unstable. That is the nature of the beast and again, no economist will make the argument that liberal and unfettered capitalism is or can be a stable system of financial governance.
Like any addiction, the way to health is by first admitting that it is an addiction. To do so, we need to contemplate and discuss our dependence on capital. We need to ask ourselves tough questions:
-Can we open a factory without excess capital?
-Can we trade without it?
-Can we provide services to others without capital derived from taxes?
-Have our elected representatives, the politicians, been utterly subservient to the owners and controllers of surplus value?
- Are we so weak that we need to beg capitalists to invest in ways that will help us survive?
The Value of Work
We could have opened that factory and we could have let those children wear shoes. We can not only move into existing houses, we can build houses for everybody. We can provide medicine and food for every person that needs it. It is us that have been doing it all along and it has been the greed of HMOs and other vultures that have been wilfully killing people for profit. Capitalists don't make useful and necessary things that we need to survive. We do.
Our dependence is on a glorified middleman with zero social conscience. This middleman’s relations to the production process is not innate. If the middleman can make profit without the bother of employing human beings that fall ill, complain, need ‘benefits’ and so on, he or she will certainly do it as you or I would do it. And he is doing it all over the world. Playing and gambling with finance capital is far more exhilarating and profitable than running a grimy factory. As capitalism matures, and the possibility of squeezing a dime from a unit of human labour diminishes, the connection between capitalism and providing goods and services becomes more remote and untenable.
When we consider the unstable and illusory nature of capitalism and the fact that the actual provision of services is provided by us, the workers. And that each and every item we use, computers, cars, food and drugs, have been mined, shipped, manufactured, and delivered by us, the workers, we can see that the future is not only possible, it is fantastic. The possibilities are endless.
Each and every capitalist dollar can be traced back to its genesis; work. And all the wealth that exists and will exist is rightfully ours. Best of all, we can make as much as we want. We just need to get over our illusion of dependence on speculators, gamblers, and thieves.
Our Wealth is Our Work
Economists and politicians behave and speak as if wealth somehow emanates from the wealthy and makes its way down to the rest of us. In reality, everything we see and use begins in the ground and is made into useful products either by human hands or by natural processes. Exchange value (profit) is a simple matter of exploiting and taking ownership of that process. In fact, wealth flows from the bottom and is vacuumed to the upper echelons with increasingly efficient means.
The notion that marketing and profit grabbing will produce what is best for society is a precise and specific point we need to contemplate. For example, a given society may need more cancer research or health care or housing. The market suggests however that more profit can be made by producing cigarettes or guns. Very serious meetings decisions will be made to research and develop the production and sale of cigarettes and guns. Capitalism is very good at producing trinkets, shiny toys, and killer hamburgers.
Basic human needs are considered a nuisance from the point of view of investors and their governors; even when there’s a profit to be made. It is the self serving child with ‘getting the most stuff’ as his life’s goal that we have become dependent on. No wonder we are in serious trouble.
When we consider what can be done with labour power in terms of developing goods and services, we may then consider possibilities beyond the poor and short sighted rationality of the marginalists, popularly known today as neo-liberals. We might abandon the superstitious nonsense that the expansion and theft of the money value that is produced by labour as an indispensable ingredient to financial security and progress. In other words, we can afford to abandon the notion that exploitation, war, and theft are necessary evils for societies to function well. At that point, we may go beyond the tyranny of psychopathic greed and develop a sane, stable, and humane world.
When we really examine the situation, the capitalist class (and it is no exaggeration to label them the ruling class) can be seen to function merely as parasites. They don't even manage businesses. They simply play the grand casino and hire workers to manage it for them. Managers are not them; managers are us. As dispensable functionaries, they stand on the same precipice we all do. While a firm may replace an individual manager, the function itself is essential.
We are all in this together and we are the ones that make this world work. We can afford to rely on each other and we can afford to have confidence in ourselves. The ethereal monarch can take its rightful seat in the history of social and economic development and we may salute them all. But their time and usefulness has passed.
Creating Wealth
The semi socialist system of production (capitalism) and distribution (Keynesianism) has worked reasonably well in some situations. It is possible but not probable that we can return to Keynesian formulas to rescue our deteriorating standard of living. Social safety nets are being ripped to shreds because the diminishing rate of profit is forcing capitalists to squeeze wealth from every nook and cranny. They are in no mood to throw us any crumbs whatsoever. On the contrary.
We are getting to a point where we must take matters into our own hands. There are some elemental social and economic conditions and standards we need to adhere to. We cannot tolerate a condition where an individual's body may die due to deprivation. We certainly cannot tolerate conditions where whole collectives of individuals may die due to material deprivation. This condition is silent violence and it is class war. It is ongoing and it is getting worse.
To push back, to take back what is rightfully ours, we need to become politically alive. We need to not ask, but demand, a vast expansion of our public infrastructure. We need it to include service to the vital needs of each and every individual. And we, not them, can make that happen and make that work.
As towns and cities infrastructure is neglected and falling apart, we need to recognize that we, and not them, need to fix it. It is ours and it is our children's inheritance. Money does not fix bridges and roads, even if you believe deep down inside that it does, it is in fact real, tangible work that does it. Money is merely a catalyst. We can build it as elaborately and as beautifully as we wish. But it will not happen as long as politicians are in the pockets of corporations. And they certainly are.
We have enormous volumes of capital and latent capital (labour). We need a new catalyst.
At the end of the day we can blame capitalists and capitalism for the social and financial ills plaguing increasing numbers of individuals, communities, and nations. It isn't their fault. The ultra wealthy have merely secured themselves and their families in a system, a context, where they could conceivably fall into destitution. With enough wealth, they can rest assured they will be okay.
It is not a matter of blaming individuals, the problem is systemic and that is what needs to change.
Rather than blaming any individual or individuals, we can take responsibility for ourselves, our homes, and our communities and we can roll up our sleeves and get to work.
But before we can do that, we need to take control of our political and financial systems.
Ay. There's the rub.
This blog is an archive of articles I've published in MWC News, Indymedia, and on Newsgroups.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
Syntax of Fascism
The canaries are dropping dead. The rats are running for the surface. Something's amiss. The Western world has become highly unbalanced. And just beneath the surface is the unmistakable smell of fascism. Turn over a station, click the mouse, open a magazine and there it is. It is the language of fascism. Ostensibly, the language looks more or less innocuous. But then, the whiff grabs us.
The syntax of fascism isn’t about fascism proper. It is about the attitude of fascism. We must be careful we don’t lose sight of the broad strokes as authors of the syntax of fascism demand that we pay close attention to the details. They will say, this is not fascism or that is not fascism because it doesn’t meet this or that criteria. In the meantime, the caravan moves along and we, the little dogs bark with little or no effect.
It is a language, a way of defining the situation that normalizes public executions, torture, and the dropping of bombs on populations. It is this use of language and means of prioritizing and valuing that is the pernicious cancer that rots away at the principles of human rights, democracy, and freedom. The syntax of fascism is common and is contained within the archaic structures of feudalism. In its simplicity it states unequivocally that might makes right. The feudal world was built on yesterday’s equivalent of street gangs or mafia. Whoever was the most violent, whoever evokes the most fear, was he who was in power.
The Language of Enlightenment
The language of the enlightenment empowered reason as the arbiter of principles and laws. And it is this language that the United States of America is founded upon. It is the language of Thomas Paine, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Kant observed that the enlightenment would put an end to Monarchic and clerical arbitrary power. An informed and thinking population will demand that reason and principles are placed above the morbid and vicious rule of the dark regions of human emotion. Kant said of the enlightenment that it is the freedom for the individual to use his or her own intelligence. More broadly, it demanded rule of law. No longer would human beings be ruled by cruel and capricious whims of revenge, insecurity, fear, hatred, or xenophobia. Laws, societies, and individuals would stand on a foundation of rational principles. No individual or body would rise above rule of law.
The enlightenment was thought of as humanity moving forward, away from the horror and terror of the cowardice and immaturity of the feudal past toward true justice and equality before the law. It's primary ideological antithesis would be the Divine Right of Kings.
Enlightenment ideas had fit nicely with the emerging and growing hunger of capitalism. And capitalism would provide high octane, energizing and propelling the language of the enlightenment into legislation and into our homes. The emerging bourgeois classes had tangible and pragmatic reasons to cast aside the oppressive weight of superstition and tradition. Contractual rights as opposed to traditional or arbitrary power would feed into the increasing power of the capitalist classes and correspondingly reduce the right of Kings. The enlightenment was a key element to the capitalist revolution.
The general thrust was nothing new. Initiatives aimed at the establishment of free and egalitarian societies are as old as civilization. Prior to the enlightenment there have been countless dead-end revolutions whose goal it was to establish freedom, democracy, and egalitarian principles. Almost all have no legacy. These kind of movements were deemed terrorist or anti-monarch and ruthlessly obliterated.
The general thread of thinking known as the enlightenment were preceded by two principles that are foundational to the rational rule of law have survived and, similarly to enlightenment ideas, are vital to maintain the principles of a free and rational civilization. They are the "Great Writ" (habeas corpus) and the Magna Charta.
Habeas corpus empowers the courts to direct any authority that holds an individual in custody to show cause to the court why the individual's liberty is denied within a reasonable amount of time. If no substantial reason is provided, the individual must be set free. It is a fundamental guarantee of liberty and any free society should have no difficulty with anything as basic as habeas corpus.
The Magna Charta, written in 1215, also ensures that 'no free man shall be taken or imprisoned... except by judgement of his peers or by the law of the land'. It ensures that no man is above the law - including monarchs.
An Altered Trajectory
In the past decade or so, the United States and its subjects under NATO have skilfully changed the political syntax of the modern world. They are passing the boundary that separates free countries from autocracies and oligarchies in the dead of night. They do not deny that they are doing it; on the contrary. They do it while they scream at us to shut up; terrorists are about to strike. In fact, they use terrorist acts to justify the introduction of the language of fascism. Hitler did precisely the same thing with the fire at the Reichstag. The fire at the Reichstag was crucial to the establishment of Nazi Germany.
The latest example of this is Obama’s openly sneaking past the 60 day deadline that is required, by law, to obtain congressional approval for war with Libya. Amid Ron Paul’s protests, Obama walked silently by the deadline where his actions in Libya would have gained the legal seal of approval. Obama is breaking the law intentionally and showing open contempt for the rule of law. This, along with a pattern that has started in GW Bush’s Presidency, is an intentional policy and the goal is to change the overall definition of the state's power over rule of law. Its aim - to lift the state above the rule of law. It is easily done against larger than life terrorists, extremists, insurgents, and so on and the terms 'terrorist', 'extremist', and 'insurgent' and examples of the language of fascism.
Previous to the war against Libya, Obama has openly called for the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen (Al Awlaki) without the benefit of trial or charges or any sort of legal process. Obama made an attempt at assassinating him (killing two Yemeni citizens) one week after carrying out the extra judicial killing of Osama bin Laden. Political assassinations are currently auditioning for general acceptance. Gaddafi appears to be next in line. In each and every case the state carries out its transgression through a politically popular directive or operation. If there are complaints, they are easily ignored. After all, these people are terrorists and the state is making us safe from terrorism. The question that needs to be asked is; Who is making us safe from the state?
Prior to this, there has been whispered acknowledgment that the state may torture, utilize collective punishment, spy on citizens and generally ignore the fundamental precepts that have been the basis of modern common law and civil law. And from these bases the constitutional principles of all legal frameworks in the developed West find their footing. Without that footing, without that principled base, we have no logical basis of protection against arbitrary state power.
It is openly acknowledged and generally accepted that the President of the United States and the United States has a role in global governance. The United States may invade where it sees fit, ostensibly to correct a human rights violation or to install democracy. This acknowledgement must be observed through the lens that acknowledges the United States as a tool utilized for imperial and corporate conquest. The notion that the United States or any other nation has power over nation's sovereignty part and parcel of the syntax of fascism. To ruling elites, national sovereignty is treated with the same contempt as is the rule of law.
Children of Feudal Power
While rule of law and individual freedom are adhered to within the formal structures of the state, residual feudalism maintains some currency within the scope of social norms. Traditional ideas about women, gays, the church and so on maintain traditional adherents and followers. The counter culture revolution of the 60s and the mass movement of individuals from rural to urban centres have been devastating blows to traditional ideas. The cultural syntax of residual feudalism however, impacts everything from casual conversations to high level policy decisions in the most developed and modern societies. This syntax typically manifests from the right wing and as a general rule, the further to the right, the healthier the demon is. And it is this language, with all its assumptions, values, and beliefs that will be the fertilizer that will promote a flourishing and dangerous new display of fascistic rule.
Donald Trump in his recent scare (to run for President of the United States) openly stated that the United States should bomb them and take the oil. Who 'them' is, is not important. By 'them' he means anybody. And his suggestion would be repeated in barbershops around the country. The widespread acceptance of this very dangerous and violent mentality is similar to attitudes in Germany after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
We have evolved from feudal power where it was openly acknowledged that might makes right. Naked reliance on violence and fear is what legitimized the power of monarchs. The state was an openly violent and oppressive institution. Power rested in the hands of Kings that could make arbitrary decisions based on His own highly charged emotions like revenge, fear, or greed.
The Divine Right of Kings gave way to the power of parliament and the people. It empowered reason and we could all rest well knowing that reason, and not arbitrary violence, guarded our rights as human beings. Political action has been utilized, with rational law as a legitimizing base, to render many static feudal attitudes archaic. Thus, the liberal West has led the way in liberating women, gay people, and visible minorities from state oppression. And, in the West, social attitudes have been catching up to legislation that is based in rational law. The trajectory has been increasingly directed toward laws, followed by common attitudes, becoming increasingly rational. That basis has made us all sleep well at night knowing that the world has improved and has become far less violent and will continue to do so.
The Elephant in the Room
The power of language maintains much of its power by its 'hidden in plain sight' yet subconscious assimilation of implicit meaning, valuing, and perspective. It has the power to change our minds while we are unaware of the overarching syntax and structural context. It is language that can deepen our collective acceptance of state power.
The genius that has plied you to buy Sham Wow or New and Improved Tide pales in comparison to the maestros that tell you what to think about and how to think about it. The syntax of fascism is bombarding you with 'enhanced interrogation', 'collateral damage', or 'extrajudicial killing'. The context of this is Tony Blair loudly proclaiming that 'radical Islam' is the greatest threat facing the world today. It is President Obama openly killing people that he deems enemies in cold blood without trial or due process. This is the backdrop to the Anders Brevik murders in Norway. These murders were encouraged by the climate of fear and xenophobia that has emerged, mostly against Muslims, since 9 11. He is, in effect, an expression of the American State Department. He is a parrot and a harbinger of things to come. It is written in the language. It is the language of patriotism, security, and xenophobia. It is the language of power, violence, and war. The menacing Jew of the 1930s has been replaced with today's radical Muslim.
Let's be clear. There is one nation leading the chorus and directing the speech of cowardice, hatred, and intolerance. And that nation is the United States of America. Throughout their political ranks and throughout their media, the over the top nationalism and patriotism has the rest of the world on edge. It is getting frightening.
In the name of their 'national security' they have increasingly used the language of fascism. The United States have reacted to their own fire at the Reichstag with utter contempt for their own Constitution. Instead of showing determination to not let a terrorist act change them, as they appear to be doing in Norway, the United States has shown, shamefully, all the bravado of a cornered rat. This is not America's finest hour.
A New Normal
One propaganda term that has been thrown around in recent years is ' the new normal'. It is designed to have us accept that things will be different from now on. The point is, we don't have to accept it.
The collapse of the robust American economy has been coming for some time now. The collapse of manufacturing has been intentional and planned. In the 1980s people began talking about free trade, about competing in the global marketplace, becoming lean and mean, about globalization. A new glossary was opened and we had to become accustomed to a myriad of new gimmick-like Orwellian terms. And there was significant 'blowback' culminating in the 'battle in Seattle'. The riots and protests in Seattle were not the manageable single issue protests authorities were used to. They were anti-capitalist protests. This was a major red flag in ruling circles.
The attacks on 9 11 seems to have changed that developing protest movement. Suddenly, somebody burned down the Reighstag. People were now suspect, especially Muslims. Everything became a threat to national security. It became dangerous to be anti-American, especially in America.
And since that time, the new normal has been a precipitous erosion of rights and freedoms in the Western world. Wedges are continually driven between the world we have become accustomed to; a world shaped through hundreds of years of wars, protests, and courageous politicians and citizens, a world that is the child of the enlightenment, and the world of arbitrary state power.
And as America demands more control and say over how other nations do our business, we need to consider to some extent we are all in the same boat. It isn't just a problem for American citizens. Canadian, Australian, British governments all toe the line as do the governments of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.
In the United States, while they wrestle with the mind boggling debt, they maintain over 800 military bases all over the world and the Department of Homeland Security has provided "$31 billion in grants since 2003 to state and local governments for homeland security and to improve their ability to find and protect against terrorists, including $3.8 billion in 2010. "
There is an old saying. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Or, just because a lot of crackpots thrive on conspiracy theories doesn't mean conspiracies don't exist.
The propaganda machine has been working overtime of late. We must maintain our capacity for critical reflection and thinking. We are entering uncharted waters. The last time they wore brown shirts, jackboots, and displayed swastikas. They spewed a specific kind of rhetoric. They appealed to certain kinds of fears.
This time it will not bear the exact signature of Mussolini or Adolph Hitler. In fact, it will be consciously displayed with different colours. But the fundamentals will remain. And those fundamentals are: state power over the rule of law, extreme nationalism, xenophobia, imperialism, systematic propaganda, state and corporate collusion, and endless war.
Throughout history there have been types and sub types of fascism ruling most of us. Monarchical power is a form of fascism. And the cancer has not been eradicated. It has been in remission. But there are some bad signs.
And let us not forget that those that perpetuate it are not necessarily bad people. They are merely speaking their mother tongue. They are still developing through feudal darkness. But our drive to freedom, justice, democracy, and equality has always prevented tyrants from fully exhaling. It is because you and me, like the generations of people that have lived and died before us, will always speak in the syntax of our mother tongue.
The syntax of fascism isn’t about fascism proper. It is about the attitude of fascism. We must be careful we don’t lose sight of the broad strokes as authors of the syntax of fascism demand that we pay close attention to the details. They will say, this is not fascism or that is not fascism because it doesn’t meet this or that criteria. In the meantime, the caravan moves along and we, the little dogs bark with little or no effect.
It is a language, a way of defining the situation that normalizes public executions, torture, and the dropping of bombs on populations. It is this use of language and means of prioritizing and valuing that is the pernicious cancer that rots away at the principles of human rights, democracy, and freedom. The syntax of fascism is common and is contained within the archaic structures of feudalism. In its simplicity it states unequivocally that might makes right. The feudal world was built on yesterday’s equivalent of street gangs or mafia. Whoever was the most violent, whoever evokes the most fear, was he who was in power.
The Language of Enlightenment
The language of the enlightenment empowered reason as the arbiter of principles and laws. And it is this language that the United States of America is founded upon. It is the language of Thomas Paine, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Kant observed that the enlightenment would put an end to Monarchic and clerical arbitrary power. An informed and thinking population will demand that reason and principles are placed above the morbid and vicious rule of the dark regions of human emotion. Kant said of the enlightenment that it is the freedom for the individual to use his or her own intelligence. More broadly, it demanded rule of law. No longer would human beings be ruled by cruel and capricious whims of revenge, insecurity, fear, hatred, or xenophobia. Laws, societies, and individuals would stand on a foundation of rational principles. No individual or body would rise above rule of law.
The enlightenment was thought of as humanity moving forward, away from the horror and terror of the cowardice and immaturity of the feudal past toward true justice and equality before the law. It's primary ideological antithesis would be the Divine Right of Kings.
Enlightenment ideas had fit nicely with the emerging and growing hunger of capitalism. And capitalism would provide high octane, energizing and propelling the language of the enlightenment into legislation and into our homes. The emerging bourgeois classes had tangible and pragmatic reasons to cast aside the oppressive weight of superstition and tradition. Contractual rights as opposed to traditional or arbitrary power would feed into the increasing power of the capitalist classes and correspondingly reduce the right of Kings. The enlightenment was a key element to the capitalist revolution.
The general thrust was nothing new. Initiatives aimed at the establishment of free and egalitarian societies are as old as civilization. Prior to the enlightenment there have been countless dead-end revolutions whose goal it was to establish freedom, democracy, and egalitarian principles. Almost all have no legacy. These kind of movements were deemed terrorist or anti-monarch and ruthlessly obliterated.
The general thread of thinking known as the enlightenment were preceded by two principles that are foundational to the rational rule of law have survived and, similarly to enlightenment ideas, are vital to maintain the principles of a free and rational civilization. They are the "Great Writ" (habeas corpus) and the Magna Charta.
Habeas corpus empowers the courts to direct any authority that holds an individual in custody to show cause to the court why the individual's liberty is denied within a reasonable amount of time. If no substantial reason is provided, the individual must be set free. It is a fundamental guarantee of liberty and any free society should have no difficulty with anything as basic as habeas corpus.
The Magna Charta, written in 1215, also ensures that 'no free man shall be taken or imprisoned... except by judgement of his peers or by the law of the land'. It ensures that no man is above the law - including monarchs.
An Altered Trajectory
In the past decade or so, the United States and its subjects under NATO have skilfully changed the political syntax of the modern world. They are passing the boundary that separates free countries from autocracies and oligarchies in the dead of night. They do not deny that they are doing it; on the contrary. They do it while they scream at us to shut up; terrorists are about to strike. In fact, they use terrorist acts to justify the introduction of the language of fascism. Hitler did precisely the same thing with the fire at the Reichstag. The fire at the Reichstag was crucial to the establishment of Nazi Germany.
The latest example of this is Obama’s openly sneaking past the 60 day deadline that is required, by law, to obtain congressional approval for war with Libya. Amid Ron Paul’s protests, Obama walked silently by the deadline where his actions in Libya would have gained the legal seal of approval. Obama is breaking the law intentionally and showing open contempt for the rule of law. This, along with a pattern that has started in GW Bush’s Presidency, is an intentional policy and the goal is to change the overall definition of the state's power over rule of law. Its aim - to lift the state above the rule of law. It is easily done against larger than life terrorists, extremists, insurgents, and so on and the terms 'terrorist', 'extremist', and 'insurgent' and examples of the language of fascism.
Previous to the war against Libya, Obama has openly called for the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen (Al Awlaki) without the benefit of trial or charges or any sort of legal process. Obama made an attempt at assassinating him (killing two Yemeni citizens) one week after carrying out the extra judicial killing of Osama bin Laden. Political assassinations are currently auditioning for general acceptance. Gaddafi appears to be next in line. In each and every case the state carries out its transgression through a politically popular directive or operation. If there are complaints, they are easily ignored. After all, these people are terrorists and the state is making us safe from terrorism. The question that needs to be asked is; Who is making us safe from the state?
Prior to this, there has been whispered acknowledgment that the state may torture, utilize collective punishment, spy on citizens and generally ignore the fundamental precepts that have been the basis of modern common law and civil law. And from these bases the constitutional principles of all legal frameworks in the developed West find their footing. Without that footing, without that principled base, we have no logical basis of protection against arbitrary state power.
It is openly acknowledged and generally accepted that the President of the United States and the United States has a role in global governance. The United States may invade where it sees fit, ostensibly to correct a human rights violation or to install democracy. This acknowledgement must be observed through the lens that acknowledges the United States as a tool utilized for imperial and corporate conquest. The notion that the United States or any other nation has power over nation's sovereignty part and parcel of the syntax of fascism. To ruling elites, national sovereignty is treated with the same contempt as is the rule of law.
Children of Feudal Power
While rule of law and individual freedom are adhered to within the formal structures of the state, residual feudalism maintains some currency within the scope of social norms. Traditional ideas about women, gays, the church and so on maintain traditional adherents and followers. The counter culture revolution of the 60s and the mass movement of individuals from rural to urban centres have been devastating blows to traditional ideas. The cultural syntax of residual feudalism however, impacts everything from casual conversations to high level policy decisions in the most developed and modern societies. This syntax typically manifests from the right wing and as a general rule, the further to the right, the healthier the demon is. And it is this language, with all its assumptions, values, and beliefs that will be the fertilizer that will promote a flourishing and dangerous new display of fascistic rule.
Donald Trump in his recent scare (to run for President of the United States) openly stated that the United States should bomb them and take the oil. Who 'them' is, is not important. By 'them' he means anybody. And his suggestion would be repeated in barbershops around the country. The widespread acceptance of this very dangerous and violent mentality is similar to attitudes in Germany after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
We have evolved from feudal power where it was openly acknowledged that might makes right. Naked reliance on violence and fear is what legitimized the power of monarchs. The state was an openly violent and oppressive institution. Power rested in the hands of Kings that could make arbitrary decisions based on His own highly charged emotions like revenge, fear, or greed.
The Divine Right of Kings gave way to the power of parliament and the people. It empowered reason and we could all rest well knowing that reason, and not arbitrary violence, guarded our rights as human beings. Political action has been utilized, with rational law as a legitimizing base, to render many static feudal attitudes archaic. Thus, the liberal West has led the way in liberating women, gay people, and visible minorities from state oppression. And, in the West, social attitudes have been catching up to legislation that is based in rational law. The trajectory has been increasingly directed toward laws, followed by common attitudes, becoming increasingly rational. That basis has made us all sleep well at night knowing that the world has improved and has become far less violent and will continue to do so.
The Elephant in the Room
The power of language maintains much of its power by its 'hidden in plain sight' yet subconscious assimilation of implicit meaning, valuing, and perspective. It has the power to change our minds while we are unaware of the overarching syntax and structural context. It is language that can deepen our collective acceptance of state power.
The genius that has plied you to buy Sham Wow or New and Improved Tide pales in comparison to the maestros that tell you what to think about and how to think about it. The syntax of fascism is bombarding you with 'enhanced interrogation', 'collateral damage', or 'extrajudicial killing'. The context of this is Tony Blair loudly proclaiming that 'radical Islam' is the greatest threat facing the world today. It is President Obama openly killing people that he deems enemies in cold blood without trial or due process. This is the backdrop to the Anders Brevik murders in Norway. These murders were encouraged by the climate of fear and xenophobia that has emerged, mostly against Muslims, since 9 11. He is, in effect, an expression of the American State Department. He is a parrot and a harbinger of things to come. It is written in the language. It is the language of patriotism, security, and xenophobia. It is the language of power, violence, and war. The menacing Jew of the 1930s has been replaced with today's radical Muslim.
Let's be clear. There is one nation leading the chorus and directing the speech of cowardice, hatred, and intolerance. And that nation is the United States of America. Throughout their political ranks and throughout their media, the over the top nationalism and patriotism has the rest of the world on edge. It is getting frightening.
In the name of their 'national security' they have increasingly used the language of fascism. The United States have reacted to their own fire at the Reichstag with utter contempt for their own Constitution. Instead of showing determination to not let a terrorist act change them, as they appear to be doing in Norway, the United States has shown, shamefully, all the bravado of a cornered rat. This is not America's finest hour.
A New Normal
One propaganda term that has been thrown around in recent years is ' the new normal'. It is designed to have us accept that things will be different from now on. The point is, we don't have to accept it.
The collapse of the robust American economy has been coming for some time now. The collapse of manufacturing has been intentional and planned. In the 1980s people began talking about free trade, about competing in the global marketplace, becoming lean and mean, about globalization. A new glossary was opened and we had to become accustomed to a myriad of new gimmick-like Orwellian terms. And there was significant 'blowback' culminating in the 'battle in Seattle'. The riots and protests in Seattle were not the manageable single issue protests authorities were used to. They were anti-capitalist protests. This was a major red flag in ruling circles.
The attacks on 9 11 seems to have changed that developing protest movement. Suddenly, somebody burned down the Reighstag. People were now suspect, especially Muslims. Everything became a threat to national security. It became dangerous to be anti-American, especially in America.
And since that time, the new normal has been a precipitous erosion of rights and freedoms in the Western world. Wedges are continually driven between the world we have become accustomed to; a world shaped through hundreds of years of wars, protests, and courageous politicians and citizens, a world that is the child of the enlightenment, and the world of arbitrary state power.
And as America demands more control and say over how other nations do our business, we need to consider to some extent we are all in the same boat. It isn't just a problem for American citizens. Canadian, Australian, British governments all toe the line as do the governments of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.
In the United States, while they wrestle with the mind boggling debt, they maintain over 800 military bases all over the world and the Department of Homeland Security has provided "$31 billion in grants since 2003 to state and local governments for homeland security and to improve their ability to find and protect against terrorists, including $3.8 billion in 2010. "
There is an old saying. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Or, just because a lot of crackpots thrive on conspiracy theories doesn't mean conspiracies don't exist.
The propaganda machine has been working overtime of late. We must maintain our capacity for critical reflection and thinking. We are entering uncharted waters. The last time they wore brown shirts, jackboots, and displayed swastikas. They spewed a specific kind of rhetoric. They appealed to certain kinds of fears.
This time it will not bear the exact signature of Mussolini or Adolph Hitler. In fact, it will be consciously displayed with different colours. But the fundamentals will remain. And those fundamentals are: state power over the rule of law, extreme nationalism, xenophobia, imperialism, systematic propaganda, state and corporate collusion, and endless war.
Throughout history there have been types and sub types of fascism ruling most of us. Monarchical power is a form of fascism. And the cancer has not been eradicated. It has been in remission. But there are some bad signs.
And let us not forget that those that perpetuate it are not necessarily bad people. They are merely speaking their mother tongue. They are still developing through feudal darkness. But our drive to freedom, justice, democracy, and equality has always prevented tyrants from fully exhaling. It is because you and me, like the generations of people that have lived and died before us, will always speak in the syntax of our mother tongue.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Workers of the World Unite...
'The more things change, the more they remain the same'. This rather hokey expression seems almost prophetic nowadays. In the past few decades homes have been equipped with technology that would be inconceivable a generation ago. It has illuminated and connected every corner of the globe. And yet, there are 18 million empty homes in the United States of America while 3.5 million are homeless. That works out to about 5 empty homes for every homeless person. Manufacturing plants rust as millions remain unemployed. The stock market is soaring, billionaires are making billions, and there isn't enough money to pay teachers.
The analysis of Karl Marx, believed archaic and irrelevant only a few short years ago, have again become highly relevant. Our social and economic conditions, for all the bluster and noise of the 20th century, are fundamentally unchanged from where they were in the 1800s.
The 20th century was a time of optimism. The American dream was validated. The radicalism of the previous century was forgotten after World War 2. Radicals like Karl Marx were proven to be wrong. Since 2008 however, the jury has reconvened. And in that jury box we come cannot help but be impressed. Consider, for an example, these two quotes from the Communist Manifesto, written 1848:
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
And...
Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes.
If Marx were alive today, if he were witness to the struggles through Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and America he would not be surprised. He saw it coming. He saw it coming because he understood the nature of capitalism.
While we may not want to run out and join our local band of communists, we may want to reconsider many of the observations that were relevant in the 19th century not only from Marx, but from others. Strangely enough, for all the progress we have made over the past century, we seem to be back, more or less, where we started from.
Social Democracy
Through the latter part of the 20th century, the belief that we were on the right track was widespread. It seemed the sky was the limit. That the energy of private capitalism would eventually float all boats. This success depended greatly on the influence of Fabian Socialism.
In Canada, progressive voters tend to vote for the New Democratic Party. In the UK, they vote Labour and in the USA, they vote Democrat. Fabian principles represented by social democratic policies pushed for universal medical care, state pensions, adequate social assistance and so on. Tremendous gains have been made and unions helped ensure that workers were paid decent wages. This all contributed to vastly increased demand for goods and services and in turn, manufacturing firms thrived.
Since the 1980s small business owners would parrot the ideological madness of right wing predators, unwittingly taking part in their own demise. Globalization, cuts to social services, cuts in union wages were all initiatives they supported. Used like useful idiots, they too fell victim to the ravages of monopoly capitalism and its concomitant neo-liberal ideology. They didn't know it, but the social democrats (aka socialists) they decried were their collective meal ticket. The attack has been especially virulent in the USA where the term 'socialism' has become unequivocally pejorative.
Austerity budgets are turning social progress back to 1930s levels, rendering the gains made by unions and progressive social democrats over the decades, void. Three decades of cries to 'get lean and mean' in the New World Order's race to the bottom has resulted in the middle class getting lean and the billionaire class meaner than ever.
Utterly Powerless
We now live in a time of ruthless, predatory capitalism. It takes no prisoners and when it does, it tortures them. Since the 1980s workers have faced stark choices. Threats to move manufacturing abroad have actually been promises. Unions have become crippled and powerless.
The influence of social democratic idealism has been relegated to non economic issues. For example, social democrats may still make progress in terms of women's and minority rights or other types of soft liberal legislation but when it comes to anything related to money, the soft left is powerless. While the Governor of Wisconsin rapes the workers, and while workers are under attack in every corner of the Western world, the elites maintain and increase their wealth and power. The stock market thrives while the people on the street suffer. And the war on the working class is just beginning.
The two pillars of working class strength, strong unions and public spending, have been reduced to ineffective shadows of their former selves. The social democratic response is limited to asking for more, for a larger piece of the pie. That is because the fundamental ideology of social democratic movements and parties are reformist. The aim is to reform capitalism; to redistribute wealth. In the past this objective has been met in some places more so than in others. And if we learn anything from history, we know that you don't 'ask' the billionaire class for anything. You demand and you are prepared to back your demands, or stay home.
Today, unions are powerless because the bosses have become radical and right wing to the extreme. The only principles they adhere to beyond cold pragmaticism are cold and calculating neo liberal policies, policies that boldly proclaim, it's every man for himself. Sink or swim. They would rather ship jobs away or close shop than negotiate. Social democratic political parties merely parrot the wishes and policies of the private sector. If social democrats want to strengthen the safety net, a powerful assault from the right, from bond rating agencies and even the IMF will efficiently put them down.
The Growth of Monopolism
The ideology that best serves the monstrosity that is monopolism is neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism was proclaimed the New World Order by disciples such as Reagan, Thatcher, the Bushes, and fascists like Pinochet in Chile. And it has been followed to the letter by 'new labour' and other so called moderate Western governments.
Neo-liberalism isn't in fact neo (or new). It is essentially the doctrine of laissez faire economics; the doctrine that suggests that the market is self correcting if governments would stop meddling. It abhors social programs and public infrastructure. It is rehashed classical economics. It is worth noting that when the crisis of 2008 occurred, those same neo liberal ideologues that caused the crises in the first place saw nothing wrong with socialism for the ultra wealthy.
Neo liberal policies have been devastating for developing countries. Enforced by the IMF and the World Bank, they ensure easy pickings for the vultures. Loans are conditional on the recipient nations adherence to widespread privatization, further impoverishing those that need aid.
There is nothing stable about capitalism. To survive, it needs constant growth. It is a virus and a virulent one at that. It has exploited the post industrial world and is no longer satisfied with the terms of exploitation. It has naturally gone where it can get the most bang for its buck.
The old and cozy arrangement where business would invest to the satisfaction of local politicians and in turn receive favourable treatment in terms of taxes, standards, regulations, and subsidies isn't enough. Now they are coming for the social safety net. They will scour the meat from every bone before they are through with us. They are salivating at the profits that could be made if they could privatize Canadian and European public health care. They will privatize those programs, it is only a matter of time.
Class War
The fight back is just beginning. The people of Wisconsin, North Africa and the Middle East have been the first to stand up in this immense struggle; a struggle we cannot afford to lose. We are locked in and there is no turning back. The virus is pernicious and can't be reformed. That ship has sailed. Who or whatever within that system is humane or soft will perish. A CEO that may decide to increase wages or offer better benefits will be thrown to the wolves and with good reason. If they don't, a more ruthless and efficient enterprise will destroy us.
We live in interesting times. Whether we want to or not, we are in a fight for our lives. We need to be clear about that and we need to understand, the enemy does not respect weakness. They have not a wisp of fear. They believe we are powerless. And that will be their fatal mistake.
The time has come to organize general strikes from Beijing to Mumbai, from Al Jubayl to Tel Aviv, from Wisconsin to Lima and from London to Moscow.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
The analysis of Karl Marx, believed archaic and irrelevant only a few short years ago, have again become highly relevant. Our social and economic conditions, for all the bluster and noise of the 20th century, are fundamentally unchanged from where they were in the 1800s.
The 20th century was a time of optimism. The American dream was validated. The radicalism of the previous century was forgotten after World War 2. Radicals like Karl Marx were proven to be wrong. Since 2008 however, the jury has reconvened. And in that jury box we come cannot help but be impressed. Consider, for an example, these two quotes from the Communist Manifesto, written 1848:
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
And...
Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes.
If Marx were alive today, if he were witness to the struggles through Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and America he would not be surprised. He saw it coming. He saw it coming because he understood the nature of capitalism.
While we may not want to run out and join our local band of communists, we may want to reconsider many of the observations that were relevant in the 19th century not only from Marx, but from others. Strangely enough, for all the progress we have made over the past century, we seem to be back, more or less, where we started from.
Social Democracy
Through the latter part of the 20th century, the belief that we were on the right track was widespread. It seemed the sky was the limit. That the energy of private capitalism would eventually float all boats. This success depended greatly on the influence of Fabian Socialism.
In Canada, progressive voters tend to vote for the New Democratic Party. In the UK, they vote Labour and in the USA, they vote Democrat. Fabian principles represented by social democratic policies pushed for universal medical care, state pensions, adequate social assistance and so on. Tremendous gains have been made and unions helped ensure that workers were paid decent wages. This all contributed to vastly increased demand for goods and services and in turn, manufacturing firms thrived.
Since the 1980s small business owners would parrot the ideological madness of right wing predators, unwittingly taking part in their own demise. Globalization, cuts to social services, cuts in union wages were all initiatives they supported. Used like useful idiots, they too fell victim to the ravages of monopoly capitalism and its concomitant neo-liberal ideology. They didn't know it, but the social democrats (aka socialists) they decried were their collective meal ticket. The attack has been especially virulent in the USA where the term 'socialism' has become unequivocally pejorative.
Austerity budgets are turning social progress back to 1930s levels, rendering the gains made by unions and progressive social democrats over the decades, void. Three decades of cries to 'get lean and mean' in the New World Order's race to the bottom has resulted in the middle class getting lean and the billionaire class meaner than ever.
Utterly Powerless
We now live in a time of ruthless, predatory capitalism. It takes no prisoners and when it does, it tortures them. Since the 1980s workers have faced stark choices. Threats to move manufacturing abroad have actually been promises. Unions have become crippled and powerless.
The influence of social democratic idealism has been relegated to non economic issues. For example, social democrats may still make progress in terms of women's and minority rights or other types of soft liberal legislation but when it comes to anything related to money, the soft left is powerless. While the Governor of Wisconsin rapes the workers, and while workers are under attack in every corner of the Western world, the elites maintain and increase their wealth and power. The stock market thrives while the people on the street suffer. And the war on the working class is just beginning.
The two pillars of working class strength, strong unions and public spending, have been reduced to ineffective shadows of their former selves. The social democratic response is limited to asking for more, for a larger piece of the pie. That is because the fundamental ideology of social democratic movements and parties are reformist. The aim is to reform capitalism; to redistribute wealth. In the past this objective has been met in some places more so than in others. And if we learn anything from history, we know that you don't 'ask' the billionaire class for anything. You demand and you are prepared to back your demands, or stay home.
Today, unions are powerless because the bosses have become radical and right wing to the extreme. The only principles they adhere to beyond cold pragmaticism are cold and calculating neo liberal policies, policies that boldly proclaim, it's every man
The Growth of Monopolism
The ideology that best serves the monstrosity that is monopolism is neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism was proclaimed the New World Order by disciples such as Reagan, Thatcher, the Bushes, and fascists like Pinochet in Chile. And it has been followed to the letter by 'new labour' and other so called moderate Western governments.
Neo-liberalism isn't in fact neo (or new). It is essentially the doctrine of laissez faire economics; the doctrine that suggests that the market is self correcting if governments would stop meddling. It abhors social programs and public infrastructure. It is rehashed classical economics. It is worth noting that when the crisis of 2008 occurred, those same neo liberal ideologues that caused the crises in the first place saw nothing wrong with socialism for the ultra wealthy.
Neo liberal policies have been devastating for developing countries. Enforced by the IMF and the World Bank, they ensure easy pickings for the vultures. Loans are conditional on the recipient nations adherence to widespread privatization, further impoverishing those that need aid.
There is nothing stable about capitalism. To survive, it needs constant growth. It is a virus and a virulent one at that. It has exploited the post industrial world and is no longer satisfied with the terms of exploitation. It has naturally gone where it can get the most bang for its buck.
The old and cozy arrangement where business would invest to the satisfaction of local politicians and in turn receive favourable treatment in terms of taxes, standards, regulations, and subsidies isn't enough. Now they are coming for the social safety net. They will scour the meat from every bone before they are through with us. They are salivating at the profits that could be made if they could privatize Canadian and European public health care. They will privatize those programs, it is only a matter of time.
Class War
The fight back is just beginning. The people of Wisconsin, North Africa and the Middle East have been the first to stand up in this immense struggle; a struggle we cannot afford to lose. We are locked in and there is no turning back. The virus is pernicious and can't be reformed. That ship has sailed. Who or whatever within that system is humane or soft will perish. A CEO that may decide to increase wages or offer better benefits will be thrown to the wolves and with good reason. If they don't, a more ruthless and efficient enterprise will destroy us.
We live in interesting times. Whether we want to or not, we are in a fight for our lives. We need to be clear about that and we need to understand, the enemy does not respect weakness. They have not a wisp of fear. They believe we are powerless. And that will be their fatal mistake.
The time has come to organize general strikes from Beijing to Mumbai, from Al Jubayl to Tel Aviv, from Wisconsin to Lima and from London to Moscow.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Social Mutations and Global Strain
There is nothing natural about much of the social and economic realities we struggle with. We can't conflate what is natural with what we have gotten used to. The social and economic order has been artificially altered for centuries for the convenience and pleasure of his majesty. Currently 'his majesty' is Barack Obama, the figurehead leading the Empire. Artificial contortions can only be maintained so long and eventually, something's got to give.
We are witnessing numerous fractures due to ongoing conditions of artificial social tension. North Africa and Middle Eastern States that have been carved up, artificially, by Western powers, whose populations have long been repressed are now demanding an end to the contrived dictatorships that have held them down. They want nothing more than a modicum of normalcy. They want their kids to be happy.
Western powers have a long history of creating conditions of arbitrary boundaries, malevolent alliances, and methods of turning local populations against each other. It is hard to think of a place, including places in close proximity to the core of empires that have not been victims of quite arbitrary social gerrymandering based on nothing more than cultural or religious differences. Even within national boundaries of the empire, people have been artificially pitted against each other. This was enforced and wilful favouritism to one group over another enhanced acrimonious relations. In most places on the globe, divide and conquer strategies ignited conflicts between people that had previously got along living in close proximity to each other.
What is happening today has been happening for a long, long time.
Class Strain
Historically, empires have favoured their own home team. They have been swayed by notions of patriotism and loyalty to some extent. Those of us that have lived within the belly of the beast, inside the Empire's hegemony have received favoured treatment until quite recently. To some extent, we have been a privileged class even if we were poor and unemployed. To be unemployed and poor north of the Rio Grande is nothing like being poor south of the Rio Grande. That is but one of many divisions that have set working class populations apart from each other. As a whole, we have turned a blind eye to the murderous rampages unleashed by politicians with the odd exception; like Vietnam. Generally, we gave the ruling classes a wide berth. The general consensus was, they know what they're doing and whatever it is they do, we're getting something out of it. Our standard of living legitimized them no matter how cruel and treacherous they were to people in the so called, third world.
But then came globalization and now that consensus is rapidly changing. The ruling classes and their political henchmen began to flirt with the Chinese, the Mexicans, and other third world populations. Those of us that read Marx knew they would. Like thieves in the night they silently and efficiently dismantled the manufacturing plants and stole them from under us. They took them to places where they could manufacture for less money. If we didn't see working class people in the third world as brothers and sisters before, we will now. Let's hope they forgive us.
We might want to look at the glass as half full. We might think for a moment, 'globalization will bring the people in the third world up to the standard of living we have become accustomed to'. A glimpse of our current situation shows that in fact, the glass really is half empty. Its only 'half full' for the banksters and corporations. Our current trajectory has non aboriginal North Americans entering, for the first time, the third world. It's a class thing. The original inhabitants of North America currently live in third world conditions in many areas.
If you had considered the ruling elites to be loyal to Americans, Canadians, or any other 'White country', a look at history shows that our standard of living was not as much a gift from the ruling elites as it was the result of long and hard struggles against them. It was also a conspiracy of sorts to dampen revolutionary sentiments. It was a very real fear. John Maynard Keynes exposed that fear when he spoke of the possibility of revolution within the heart of the Empire and the need to subvert it with redistribution mechanisms. Keynes was vehemently anti-communist. He said, "the class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie". He understood that the artificial social and financial strain that is a necessary condition to maintain wealth and power for the privileged few could give way to the citizenry taking control of the both the wealth of the land and the state. He worried, as did others, of the outcome that could result if this were to occur. To alleviate it, it was necessary to spend in order to develop healthy public infrastructure, especially when the going got rough. Keynes polices were a pressure relief valve. Between Keynesianism and intense unions battles, our standard of living had become the envy of the world and the reality of tension between the classes was out of sight - out of mind.
Building Tension
Since the 1980s, politicians, the media, and various collaborators with the ruling elites have managed to hide the increasing and latent enmity between the classes within the Empire's hegemony. They continue to do this as the strain increases to alarming proportions.
In the 1980s they began to dismantle manufacturing plants to send them abroad. That is when the politicians and mainstream media beat the free trade drum the hardest. The neo liberal economists said, in unison, America had been protectionist long enough, it's time to compete globally, to expand global markets. While the Empire's domestic leftists were screaming bloody murder, investors were making a killing.
As the capacity to squeeze a dime from a unit of labour diminished, the manufacturing heart of the Empire was contracted out . The catch phrase, 'what's good for GM is good for America' turned out to be a lie. Neither GM nor any other corporation has a patriotic bone in its ethereal body. Corporations are simple money making machines. It doesn't care how or where it does it. Those most loyal to the whole American dream must feel betrayed.
The whole thing was an artificial situation in the first place. There never was anything natural about the vast gap between the people of Tijuana and the people of San Diego. It was simply one more spurious division between people of what is in reality, the same working class. The fact that we were favoured by the hegemonic rulers does not change the reality that we all have far more in common with each other than we do with members of the ruling class. However, our realities are substantially different. It needs to be acknowledged that we have historically turned away from the plight of our brothers and sisters in the periphery of the American hegemony. Life for workers is very different, depending on what side of the Rio Grande you live on. But that is changing and it is changing fast. It is a matter of time when we all live in the same miserable circumstances.
The Empire has abandoned us after all the wars we fought for them, after all the wealth we created for them and after all the apologies we voiced on their behalf. In many ways, we had it coming. We should learn to be careful about the kind of scum we crawl in bed with.
While financial bubbles maintained an artificial economy, they only managed to hide the underlying rot beneath it. The bubble burst and the rot was exposed. And in spite of the fact that shocking and utterly soulless criminal behaviour was exposed, the criminals themselves were granted huge financial gifts from future taxpayers. The fact that the tax base has evaporated seems beside the point.
Currently, we hear the fantastic news that cars sales are up; which seems a mystery since jobs and decent wages have disappeared. Underneath the good news, again, we see they continue to try to maintain artificial economics and in so doing, they defy reality and increase strain. They can't keep kicking the can down the road forever. Subprime lending, quantitative easing and all the magic tricks and illusions they can come up with cannot defy reality. It's all over the place. And even though they continue, they can't change reality. Their latest magic trick is yet one more sub-prime scam. The same bubble strategy that caused the 2008 shock, is back. This time they are financing auto sales. The same slippery machinations are used to bury the risky credit and to repackage it as bonds.
In the USA, the jobs picture is improving, the recovery is taking hold, you might argue. The good news is that in February of 2011, 192,000 new jobs were created.
Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and past editor for the Wall Street Journal, points out:
"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 152,000 of the jobs or 79% are in private services, consisting of: 11,700 jobs in wholesale trade, 22,000 in transportation and warehousing, 36,400 in administration and waste services (of which 15,500 are temporary help services), and 36,200 in ambulatory health care services and nursing and residential care facilities. Entertainment, waitresses and bartenders accounted for 20,000. Repair and maintenance, laundry services, and membership associations accounted for 14,000."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23541
Roberts goes on to suggest that not only are the calculations way off but according to statistician, John Williams, "the reported gain was overstated by about 230,000 jobs. In other words, about 38,000 jobs were lost in February."
The Empire
The Empire is constantly trying to create and maintain artificial social and economic mutations, straining her resources to the breaking point. Empires have historically put out enormous resources into plundering the periphery through the use of military or manipulative techniques. The USA is no exception and as Empires go, America outdoes all previous empires in its scope and greed. The United States of America outspends all other nations on the planet on its military, it's so called national security interests. (In fact it is class security they worry about.) They have over 700 military bases around the globe and have their fingers in the business in every country on the planet, including those that don't want them, like Cuba.
There was a time when we, the working classes within the hegemony, could turn a blind eye to all the harm the Empire had been doing, all over the planet. But now they have slotted the lot of us in the third world category. It is now more appropriate for us to refer to ourselves as 'working class' as opposed to, middle class. We need to make friends with reality.
They will try turn our attention to immigrants. They will do their utmost to have us wage war on each other. It is in their interests for us not to recognize them as the enemy. History shows this strategy works. Today however, we have the internet. We are getting quite familiar with each other. We cannot allow this tension to be reduced to mindless chauvinism and xenophobia. It is class war. That is reality.
And in reality, it is the labour of workers that has build their empires and wealth. Each and every dime the banksters own has either come from either the past toil of workers or the promise of future labour. We hold all the cards and we simply don't realise it. The war party and the capitalists that direct the politicians are nothing more than parasites. They owe us everything and give us nothing.
It is clear that the time has come for us to recognize that the working class is one. That whether we are workers in Iraq, Palestine, Israel, China or Wisconsin, we are all in this together. To quote anonymous wisdom on a famous poster, "Class consciousness is knowing which side of the fence you're on. Class analysis is figuring out who is there with you".
We are witnessing numerous fractures due to ongoing conditions of artificial social tension. North Africa and Middle Eastern States that have been carved up, artificially, by Western powers, whose populations have long been repressed are now demanding an end to the contrived dictatorships that have held them down. They want nothing more than a modicum of normalcy. They want their kids to be happy.
Western powers have a long history of creating conditions of arbitrary boundaries, malevolent alliances, and methods of turning local populations against each other. It is hard to think of a place, including places in close proximity to the core of empires that have not been victims of quite arbitrary social gerrymandering based on nothing more than cultural or religious differences. Even within national boundaries of the empire, people have been artificially pitted against each other. This was enforced and wilful favouritism to one group over another enhanced acrimonious relations. In most places on the globe, divide and conquer strategies ignited conflicts between people that had previously got along living in close proximity to each other.
What is happening today has been happening for a long, long time.
Class Strain
Historically, empires have favoured their own home team. They have been swayed by notions of patriotism and loyalty to some extent. Those of us that have lived within the belly of the beast, inside the Empire's hegemony have received favoured treatment until quite recently. To some extent, we have been a privileged class even if we were poor and unemployed. To be unemployed and poor north of the Rio Grande is nothing like being poor south of the Rio Grande. That is but one of many divisions that have set working class populations apart from each other. As a whole, we have turned a blind eye to the murderous rampages unleashed by politicians with the odd exception; like Vietnam. Generally, we gave the ruling classes a wide berth. The general consensus was, they know what they're doing and whatever it is they do, we're getting something out of it. Our standard of living legitimized them no matter how cruel and treacherous they were to people in the so called, third world.
But then came globalization and now that consensus is rapidly changing. The ruling classes and their political henchmen began to flirt with the Chinese, the Mexicans, and other third world populations. Those of us that read Marx knew they would. Like thieves in the night they silently and efficiently dismantled the manufacturing plants and stole them from under us. They took them to places where they could manufacture for less money. If we didn't see working class people in the third world as brothers and sisters before, we will now. Let's hope they forgive us.
We might want to look at the glass as half full. We might think for a moment, 'globalization will bring the people in the third world up to the standard of living we have become accustomed to'. A glimpse of our current situation shows that in fact, the glass really is half empty. Its only 'half full' for the banksters and corporations. Our current trajectory has non aboriginal North Americans entering, for the first time, the third world. It's a class thing. The original inhabitants of North America currently live in third world conditions in many areas.
If you had considered the ruling elites to be loyal to Americans, Canadians, or any other 'White country', a look at history shows that our standard of living was not as much a gift from the ruling elites as it was the result of long and hard struggles against them. It was also a conspiracy of sorts to dampen revolutionary sentiments. It was a very real fear. John Maynard Keynes exposed that fear when he spoke of the possibility of revolution within the heart of the Empire and the need to subvert it with redistribution mechanisms. Keynes was vehemently anti-communist. He said, "the class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie". He understood that the artificial social and financial strain that is a necessary condition to maintain wealth and power for the privileged few could give way to the citizenry taking control of the both the wealth of the land and the state. He worried, as did others, of the outcome that could result if this were to occur. To alleviate it, it was necessary to spend in order to develop healthy public infrastructure, especially when the going got rough. Keynes polices were a pressure relief valve. Between Keynesianism and intense unions battles, our standard of living had become the envy of the world and the reality of tension between the classes was out of sight - out of mind.
Building Tension
Since the 1980s, politicians, the media, and various collaborators with the ruling elites have managed to hide the increasing and latent enmity between the classes within the Empire's hegemony. They continue to do this as the strain increases to alarming proportions.
In the 1980s they began to dismantle manufacturing plants to send them abroad. That is when the politicians and mainstream media beat the free trade drum the hardest. The neo liberal economists said, in unison, America had been protectionist long enough, it's time to compete globally, to expand global markets. While the Empire's domestic leftists were screaming bloody murder, investors were making a killing.
As the capacity to squeeze a dime from a unit of labour diminished, the manufacturing heart of the Empire was contracted out . The catch phrase, 'what's good for GM is good for America' turned out to be a lie. Neither GM nor any other corporation has a patriotic bone in its ethereal body. Corporations are simple money making machines. It doesn't care how or where it does it. Those most loyal to the whole American dream must feel betrayed.
The whole thing was an artificial situation in the first place. There never was anything natural about the vast gap between the people of Tijuana and the people of San Diego. It was simply one more spurious division between people of what is in reality, the same working class. The fact that we were favoured by the hegemonic rulers does not change the reality that we all have far more in common with each other than we do with members of the ruling class. However, our realities are substantially different. It needs to be acknowledged that we have historically turned away from the plight of our brothers and sisters in the periphery of the American hegemony. Life for workers is very different, depending on what side of the Rio Grande you live on. But that is changing and it is changing fast. It is a matter of time when we all live in the same miserable circumstances.
The Empire has abandoned us after all the wars we fought for them, after all the wealth we created for them and after all the apologies we voiced on their behalf. In many ways, we had it coming. We should learn to be careful about the kind of scum we crawl in bed with.
While financial bubbles maintained an artificial economy, they only managed to hide the underlying rot beneath it. The bubble burst and the rot was exposed. And in spite of the fact that shocking and utterly soulless criminal behaviour was exposed, the criminals themselves were granted huge financial gifts from future taxpayers. The fact that the tax base has evaporated seems beside the point.
Currently, we hear the fantastic news that cars sales are up; which seems a mystery since jobs and decent wages have disappeared. Underneath the good news, again, we see they continue to try to maintain artificial economics and in so doing, they defy reality and increase strain. They can't keep kicking the can down the road forever. Subprime lending, quantitative easing and all the magic tricks and illusions they can come up with cannot defy reality. It's all over the place. And even though they continue, they can't change reality. Their latest magic trick is yet one more sub-prime scam. The same bubble strategy that caused the 2008 shock, is back. This time they are financing auto sales. The same slippery machinations are used to bury the risky credit and to repackage it as bonds.
In the USA, the jobs picture is improving, the recovery is taking hold, you might argue. The good news is that in February of 2011, 192,000 new jobs were created.
Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and past editor for the Wall Street Journal, points out:
"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 152,000 of the jobs or 79% are in private services, consisting of: 11,700 jobs in wholesale trade, 22,000 in transportation and warehousing, 36,400 in administration and waste services (of which 15,500 are temporary help services), and 36,200 in ambulatory health care services and nursing and residential care facilities. Entertainment, waitresses and bartenders accounted for 20,000. Repair and maintenance, laundry services, and membership associations accounted for 14,000."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23541
Roberts goes on to suggest that not only are the calculations way off but according to statistician, John Williams, "the reported gain was overstated by about 230,000 jobs. In other words, about 38,000 jobs were lost in February."
The Empire
The Empire is constantly trying to create and maintain artificial social and economic mutations, straining her resources to the breaking point. Empires have historically put out enormous resources into plundering the periphery through the use of military or manipulative techniques. The USA is no exception and as Empires go, America outdoes all previous empires in its scope and greed. The United States of America outspends all other nations on the planet on its military, it's so called national security interests. (In fact it is class security they worry about.) They have over 700 military bases around the globe and have their fingers in the business in every country on the planet, including those that don't want them, like Cuba.
There was a time when we, the working classes within the hegemony, could turn a blind eye to all the harm the Empire had been doing, all over the planet. But now they have slotted the lot of us in the third world category. It is now more appropriate for us to refer to ourselves as 'working class' as opposed to, middle class. We need to make friends with reality.
They will try turn our attention to immigrants. They will do their utmost to have us wage war on each other. It is in their interests for us not to recognize them as the enemy. History shows this strategy works. Today however, we have the internet. We are getting quite familiar with each other. We cannot allow this tension to be reduced to mindless chauvinism and xenophobia. It is class war. That is reality.
And in reality, it is the labour of workers that has build their empires and wealth. Each and every dime the banksters own has either come from either the past toil of workers or the promise of future labour. We hold all the cards and we simply don't realise it. The war party and the capitalists that direct the politicians are nothing more than parasites. They owe us everything and give us nothing.
It is clear that the time has come for us to recognize that the working class is one. That whether we are workers in Iraq, Palestine, Israel, China or Wisconsin, we are all in this together. To quote anonymous wisdom on a famous poster, "Class consciousness is knowing which side of the fence you're on. Class analysis is figuring out who is there with you".
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
The Real Wikileaks Exposé
The reaction to Julian Assange and Wikileaks by the American Empire and its cowardly minions may say more about the true nature of the Empire than what will be revealed in the leaked cables. They have managed to succeed in conveniently arresting Aassange on spurious allegations. They are calling for censorship and they are literally calling for Assange’s head. They are showing their hidden fascistic nature.
The problem with Assange from the point of view of the Empire is that he isn’t controlled. And worse, he is disobedient. Assange however hasn’t done anything that the Guardian and scores of other news outlets have done. They have reported what Assange has gathered and reported to them. The actions of Assange and the Guardian et al are essentially the same.
The reaction to Assange’s willingness to act without permission or approval is more telling than the leaks themselves. For some unknown reason, the Swedish state, Pay Pal, Amazon and many entities including governments, private companies, and individuals, have acted to strangle Assange and Wikileaks. It would be perfect irony if somebody managed to leak the communications between the American state and these servile organizations.
The psychological, social, and financial stranglehold on Assange is not only abusive to Assange and Wikileaks but it is a message to everybody else. It is the same message that is conveyed through acts of collective punishment against Palestinian, Iraqi, and Afghan populations. And that message is; don’t disobey the Empire.
The Real Crime
Assange has been derided in media all over the planet as a rapist. This is a charge that will taint his character for the rest of his days. And what is his alleged crime? He is alleged to have had sex without a condom. And for that INTERPOL has placed Assange on its list of ‘Most Wanted’. This is clearly a matter of abusing legal frameworks for political purposes. The incident has diminished INTERPOL and the Swedish state.
According to Melbourne barrister James D. Catlin, who acted for Julian Assange in London in October, over three quarters of media articles about Assange are about rape. Today, that percentage is likely higher. And according to Catlin, "There is no suggestion of drugs nor identity concealment. Far from it. Both women boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for."
And according to Catlin, "Apparently having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape. That is the basis for a reinstitution of rape charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity."
The Swedish state took aim at Assange first for his publication of the Collateral Murder video in April. They are undoubtedly talking direction from the angry Americans that are salivating for his blood.
Assange is being harassed and defamed for his Wikileaks activity. Nobody doubts this. Even the most naive apologist for the American state knows it. There are those on the political right that openly opine that this brutal behaviour by the state is a positive development. In the heat of the moment they are in a panic. They are attacking free speech and freedom of the press. When the dust settles on this fiasco, those calling for Assange's head will be ridiculed and diminished. They will know how Assange is feeling today; or maybe that is too generous an assessment of the political and psychological health of the Empire's servants.
The Quislings
If there was any doubt that mainstream media operate as propaganda tools for the Empire, their reactions to this episode should put them to rest. And this episode informs us who does and who does not believe in governments being accountable. Many have shown that they believe the state should have the freedom to act arbitrarily and with impunity. These are very dangerous sentiments and they go against the principles of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.
The fact that the legal process of any country is used as a convenient political tool by the Empire should ring alarm bells. And the spectacle of mainstream media panicking because somebody has the courage to do the job they should be doing (exposing the crimes of a murderous Empire) is a more significant story that the leaks. The servile marching to the Empire's beat we witness from the Swedish state, Amazon, PayPal, and many others may tell us more about the Empire than the leaks themselves. These bizarre and surreal reactions to Wikileaks and Assange have exposed the cowards of the Empire for what they are.
What the state deems secret or classified are very often actions that either border on criminality or actions that are criminal. There is no doubt as to why they want, for instance, the Collateral Murder video kept under wraps.
As many of us cringe, the cheerleaders for the state behave no differently that the quislings that have supported fascistic types of state rule throughout history. These people and the state are clearly our enemies.
What is truly frightening is the obvious power the American state has in controlling nations, companies, and individuals.
The cloak of rational law, free speech, freedom of the press, and democracy has fallen to the ground.
The problem with Assange from the point of view of the Empire is that he isn’t controlled. And worse, he is disobedient. Assange however hasn’t done anything that the Guardian and scores of other news outlets have done. They have reported what Assange has gathered and reported to them. The actions of Assange and the Guardian et al are essentially the same.
The reaction to Assange’s willingness to act without permission or approval is more telling than the leaks themselves. For some unknown reason, the Swedish state, Pay Pal, Amazon and many entities including governments, private companies, and individuals, have acted to strangle Assange and Wikileaks. It would be perfect irony if somebody managed to leak the communications between the American state and these servile organizations.
The psychological, social, and financial stranglehold on Assange is not only abusive to Assange and Wikileaks but it is a message to everybody else. It is the same message that is conveyed through acts of collective punishment against Palestinian, Iraqi, and Afghan populations. And that message is; don’t disobey the Empire.
The Real Crime
Assange has been derided in media all over the planet as a rapist. This is a charge that will taint his character for the rest of his days. And what is his alleged crime? He is alleged to have had sex without a condom. And for that INTERPOL has placed Assange on its list of ‘Most Wanted’. This is clearly a matter of abusing legal frameworks for political purposes. The incident has diminished INTERPOL and the Swedish state.
According to Melbourne barrister James D. Catlin, who acted for Julian Assange in London in October, over three quarters of media articles about Assange are about rape. Today, that percentage is likely higher. And according to Catlin, "There is no suggestion of drugs nor identity concealment. Far from it. Both women boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for."
And according to Catlin, "Apparently having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape. That is the basis for a reinstitution of rape charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity."
The Swedish state took aim at Assange first for his publication of the Collateral Murder video in April. They are undoubtedly talking direction from the angry Americans that are salivating for his blood.
Assange is being harassed and defamed for his Wikileaks activity. Nobody doubts this. Even the most naive apologist for the American state knows it. There are those on the political right that openly opine that this brutal behaviour by the state is a positive development. In the heat of the moment they are in a panic. They are attacking free speech and freedom of the press. When the dust settles on this fiasco, those calling for Assange's head will be ridiculed and diminished. They will know how Assange is feeling today; or maybe that is too generous an assessment of the political and psychological health of the Empire's servants.
The Quislings
If there was any doubt that mainstream media operate as propaganda tools for the Empire, their reactions to this episode should put them to rest. And this episode informs us who does and who does not believe in governments being accountable. Many have shown that they believe the state should have the freedom to act arbitrarily and with impunity. These are very dangerous sentiments and they go against the principles of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.
The fact that the legal process of any country is used as a convenient political tool by the Empire should ring alarm bells. And the spectacle of mainstream media panicking because somebody has the courage to do the job they should be doing (exposing the crimes of a murderous Empire) is a more significant story that the leaks. The servile marching to the Empire's beat we witness from the Swedish state, Amazon, PayPal, and many others may tell us more about the Empire than the leaks themselves. These bizarre and surreal reactions to Wikileaks and Assange have exposed the cowards of the Empire for what they are.
What the state deems secret or classified are very often actions that either border on criminality or actions that are criminal. There is no doubt as to why they want, for instance, the Collateral Murder video kept under wraps.
As many of us cringe, the cheerleaders for the state behave no differently that the quislings that have supported fascistic types of state rule throughout history. These people and the state are clearly our enemies.
What is truly frightening is the obvious power the American state has in controlling nations, companies, and individuals.
The cloak of rational law, free speech, freedom of the press, and democracy has fallen to the ground.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Collateral Damage: The Children of Iraq
We are generally cognizant of the impact that war has on soldiers. We know of old veterans of World War 2, the Korean war, the war in Vietnam and so on. They used to be 'shell shocked', now they suffer the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Veterans deal with the horrors of war in many cases until the day they die. War is hell!
But what about the children that have been invaded? They lived through the horror. If soldiers are traumatized for the rest of their lives from taking part in the initiative to wage war, what about those that have war come to them, inside their town, neighbourhood, and home? Children, utterly helpless and trembling in fear; What about them?
According to a Washington Post article by Sudarsan Raghavan, "Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes, half of them children, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. Many are being killed inside their sanctuaries -- at playgrounds, on soccer fields and in schools. Criminals are routinely kidnapping children for ransom as lawlessness goes unchecked. Violence has orphaned tens of thousands."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062501952.html
"UNICEF officials estimate that tens of thousands children lost one or both parents to the conflict in the past year. If trends continue, they expect the numbers to rise this year, said Claire Hajaj, a UNICEF spokesperson in Amman, Jordan."
This is one of a myriad of the consequences of war. Children suffering the agony of losing parents may not gather a lot of sympathy, especially in the West. But, like many of the effects of violence, they do not bleed and they do not explode; they may not be salient to us. The effects of war on children however, are not only crippling to the children, the legacy may come home to roost for generations to come.
Consider for a moment, the psychological impact that the war/occupation has and will continue to have on the children of Iraq.
Attachment Theory
As the Raghaven article states, many thousands of Iraqi children have been orphaned by war.
In the 1950s, John Bowlby developed the study into the subject of human attachment. Bowlby found that the quality of attachment to a primary caregiver to be a profound element in healthy human development. His studies and the groundbreaking work of Mary Ainsworth, who developed the famous "strange situation" studies have enlightened our understanding of the importance of attachment. Previous to this, many professional and learned doctors held beliefs that would suggest that coddling babies may be detrimental to them. We now know this to be not only erroneous, but that loving contact is vital to healthy development.
Since Bowlby's time, attachment research has been key in our understanding of human needs. Attachment research has focused on healthy parenting practices, on the pathological aspects of poor attachment including the connection between profoundly disrupted attachment and psychopathology. Attachment research has also shed light on adult relationship patterns, spousal violence dynamics, and many other related areas. Perhaps the most enlightening aspect of attachment research is the effects of attachment on brain development.
According to DJ Seigel in an article entitled "The Developing Mind: How relationships and the Brain interact to shape who we are" (New York: Guilford Press): "In childhood, particularly the first two years of life, attachment relationships help the immature brain use the mature functions of the parent’s brain to develop important capacities related to interpersonal functioning. The infant’s relationship with his/her attachment figures facilitates experience-dependent neural pathways to develop, particularly in the frontal lobes where the aforementioned capacities are wired into the developing brain."
Optimal development of these neural pathways is crucial. Children that are affected by insecure attachment may suffer from poor affect regulation, poor capacity for empathy, control issues, a propensity to violence, abnormal speech patterns, cognitive dysfunction, poor impulse control, a low capacity for future attachment, poor social skills, lack of conscience, inadequate verbal intelligence development, and a general incapacity to develop anything but superficial relations with others. Attachment disordered individuals may be more prone to developing addiction problems, mental health problems, and they may be more prone to deviant behaviour and consequently, criminal behaviour.
The outcomes for children that are taken into the protective services of the state in developed countries are not good in many cases. Attachment disorders and other social and psychological problems may have a lasting and undesirable result for many of the children in this unfortunate situation. Children in foster homes do normally have a primary attachment figure they can bond with however and in many cases the outcomes are positive. Their plight pales in comparison to children that are taken into orphanages where the logistics and practicality of attaching to a primary caregiver are remote. Most of these children that have been orphaned in Iraq, do not have a bright future.
The reality of having no adult to care for them is only part of their story. What may be even more significant is the effects of growing up in constant and sporadic violence.
Effects of War on the Brain
Violence has a profound impact on the human brain and particularly, the developing human brain. Brain development runs sequentially, from primitive regulation at the brainstem (which develop first) to highly complex functions in the frontal cortex.
Within the context of this ongoing development, the more a general neural system is activated, the more the brain develops a neural representation to the environment. Through this process, the well developed higher functions of the cortical system increases capacity to moderate frustration, impulsivity, and aggressive urges. Loss of function of higher brain activity of cortical function from an accident or a stroke may result in the victim being unable to regulate frustration, impulsivity, and aggression.
As the brain grows, poor development of lower area brain functions in the brain stem and the mid-brain areas will compromise optimal development of the higher functions of the cortex. Without this internalized adult (cortical functions) achieving full development, the victim will be at the mercy of his or her primitive urges. The ratio of activity between the lower functioning part of the brain and the, impulse mediating higher part, dictates the brains ability to curb anti-social impulses.
In a research article entitled "Incubated in terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the Cycle of Violence"
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0FEdy77QtvwJ:www.batteredmotherscustodyconference.org/INCUBATED_IN_TERROR.doc+perry+%2Bincubated+in+terror&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
Bruce Perry states, "In the developing brain, undifferentiated neural systems are critically dependent upon sets of environmental and micro-environmental cues (eg. neurotransmitters, cellular adhesion molecules, neurohormones, amino acids, ions) in order for them to appropriately organize from their undifferentiated, immature forms. Lack, or disruption of these critical cues can result in abnormal neuronal division...". These molecular cues depend on the experiences of the developing child. If that child happens to be growing up in a war, that will obviously impact this development.
Some stages of this development of the growing brain are more critical than others. According to Perry, "Disruptions of experience dependent neurochemical signals during these periods may lead to major abnormalities or deficits in neurodevelopment, some of which may not be reversible. " Disruptions of critical cues may result from "extremes of experience". Experiences that affect the development of the lower areas (brainstem and mid-brain) "...necessarily alter the development of limbic and cortical areas because critical signals these areas depend on for normal organization originate in these lower brain areas."
Early childhood development is key to a healthy and promising future. Children's vulnerabilities need to be protected and events that disrupt this development (domestic violence, war) need to be removed from the child or the child needs to be removed from the violence. The age of the child is a key consideration. For instance, a 12 year old can easily go several weeks without a hug. For an infant, this would have a profound and lasting impact. The developmental needs of children need to be considered when we assess the impact of war and violence on its victims.
Overdevelopment of the stress response apparatus in the brain, as a result of continual state of hyper-vigilance, "will result in an altered cortical modulation ratio and a predisposition to act in an aggressive, impulsive, behavioural reactive fashion." (Perry)
Children growing in an environment like this will develop a consistent focus on non verbal cues. In all cases, children take cues from their primary caregiver. In Iraq and Afghanistan, parents are often enduring horror as well. Their fear penetrates the psyche of their children. Moreover, their children know that this means that they cannot be protected; that death may come at any moment. They live with the reality of bombs exploding, gun shots, screams and so on. A child born into this situation will be affected one way or another.
Children born into violence "are characterized by persistent physiological hyper arousal and hyperactivity. They are observed to have increased muscle tone, frequently a low-grade increase in temperature, an increase startle response, profound sleep disturbances, affect regulation problems, and generalized anxiety." (Perry)
Children exposed to chronic neuro-developmental trauma are often diagnosed to have ADHD due to their constant state of hyper-vigilance. The effects may be mitigated when the episodes of violence are predictable. When that condition is in place, the children do not have to be constantly hyper-vigilant. For instance, if they know the bombs will drop every Friday afternoon and no other time, they can relax to some extent on the other days. But if the violence is sporadic, then they are in a constant state of hyper-arousal. And in that state, their brain is affected by the constant release of cortisol, a hormone that will calm you or I in a stressful situation. Cortisol on an ongoing basis however, in a developing brain, may contribute to further poor development.
A study led by Dr. Michael DeBellis, Director of the Developmental Traumatology Labratory at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center of children with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (part 1 in the May 15, 1999, issue of Biological Psychiatry) suggests that chemical changes in the brain of hyper-vigilant children disrupt or alter developmental processes.
Eighteen abused children with PTSD were compared with 10 children with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and 24 controls. Fifteen of the PTSD group had been sexually abused, and 11 of those children had also witnessed domestic violence. The average age of onset for sexual abuse was 4 years, with an average duration of two years. The average onset for witnessing domestic violence was 2 years, with an average duration of five years before disclosure, according to DeBellis.
The PTSD group had higher levels of the catecholamine neurotransmitters norepinephrine, dopamine, and epinephrine than the group with GAD and higher levels of cortisol than healthy controls.
The longer duration of abuse corresponded with increased levels of the catecholamine neurotransmitters and cortisol in the PTSD group and severity of PTSD symptoms, according to DeBellis. "Symptoms of hyperarousal, intrusive thoughts, and avoidance were associated with increased levels of norepinephrine, dopamine, and cortisol, according to the study."
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/37/1/23.full
“Results of animal studies suggested that higher levels of catecholamines and cortisol may adversely affect brain development through accelerated loss of neurons, delays in myelination, or abnormalities in developmentally appropriate pruning of neurons,” said DeBellis.
Mission Accomplished
Iraq has been destroyed and continues to be destroyed in America's efforts to secure control of the sea of oil that lies beneath the ground. One of the many pretexts to sell the war was that getting rid of Saddam was worth it. Another sales pitch was that bringing the Iraqi people into the warm bosom of democracy and Western life makes war worth the effort. Not even the most naive war hawk makes these arguments any more. It was about oil and the geo chessboard that America needs to control.
Iraq is a destroyed nation. The people of Iraq have endured eight years of war and ten years of crippling sanctions before that. Sanctions that did not touch Saddam Hussein but killed and injured many thousands of Iraqis. During the war the people have endured terror by American forces. They have also endured the terror of sectarian violence that have swept Iraq since the American invasion. They continue to endure massive social upheaval and unemployment, the crippling of utilities and sources of vital needs such as water, electricity, and medicine. Families have experienced night raids, unpredictable and frequent explosions of violence, arbitrary imprisonment and torture of Iraqis.
The infrastructure is destroyed. It can be fixed, replaced, and rebuilt. America however, has destroyed the people of Iraq. That cannot be fixed or replaced. There is nothing America can do to fix what they have broken. And the effects of this war will live on for years, decades, and generations. There will be ongoing violence and Iraqis will be the perpetrators. They will be blamed for their violence as individuals who are violent. Nobody will trace a line back to the war. Children will do poorly in school. The child will be deemed 'slow' and nobody will trace it back to the war. Young men will strap suicide vests on their bodies and blow Westerners to bits. They will be called terrorists.
How much of the vast oil wealth of that nation will be utilized to help the people that continue to suffer from this terror unleashed on them by the United States of America?
And in the USA, tears flow on the anniversary of 9 11. It is presented as the most devastating act of terror or war in living memory. Families have lost loved ones and those loved ones cannot be replaced. However, the people of New York and Washington can recover. Most of their daily reality is unaffected by the attacks. The attacks came and they ended.
How much attention do we place on Iraq's 9 11? An ongoing terrorist attack that lasted eight years and continues to kill, maim, and terrorize. An attack that killed many thousands of Iraqis and has adversely affected the lives of millions. An attack that will be endured by the people of Iraq for generations.
A thorough analysis of the impact war has had on the people of Iraq needs to be carried out. It will only be then when the American government can make reparations to that country. The people of the United States of America, and specifically, the American government owe the people of Iraq far more than they can ever pay, but one way or another, they will pay. These things have a way of coming home to roost.
But what about the children that have been invaded? They lived through the horror. If soldiers are traumatized for the rest of their lives from taking part in the initiative to wage war, what about those that have war come to them, inside their town, neighbourhood, and home? Children, utterly helpless and trembling in fear; What about them?
According to a Washington Post article by Sudarsan Raghavan, "Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes, half of them children, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. Many are being killed inside their sanctuaries -- at playgrounds, on soccer fields and in schools. Criminals are routinely kidnapping children for ransom as lawlessness goes unchecked. Violence has orphaned tens of thousands."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062501952.html
"UNICEF officials estimate that tens of thousands children lost one or both parents to the conflict in the past year. If trends continue, they expect the numbers to rise this year, said Claire Hajaj, a UNICEF spokesperson in Amman, Jordan."
This is one of a myriad of the consequences of war. Children suffering the agony of losing parents may not gather a lot of sympathy, especially in the West. But, like many of the effects of violence, they do not bleed and they do not explode; they may not be salient to us. The effects of war on children however, are not only crippling to the children, the legacy may come home to roost for generations to come.
Consider for a moment, the psychological impact that the war/occupation has and will continue to have on the children of Iraq.
Attachment Theory
As the Raghaven article states, many thousands of Iraqi children have been orphaned by war.
In the 1950s, John Bowlby developed the study into the subject of human attachment. Bowlby found that the quality of attachment to a primary caregiver to be a profound element in healthy human development. His studies and the groundbreaking work of Mary Ainsworth, who developed the famous "strange situation" studies have enlightened our understanding of the importance of attachment. Previous to this, many professional and learned doctors held beliefs that would suggest that coddling babies may be detrimental to them. We now know this to be not only erroneous, but that loving contact is vital to healthy development.
Since Bowlby's time, attachment research has been key in our understanding of human needs. Attachment research has focused on healthy parenting practices, on the pathological aspects of poor attachment including the connection between profoundly disrupted attachment and psychopathology. Attachment research has also shed light on adult relationship patterns, spousal violence dynamics, and many other related areas. Perhaps the most enlightening aspect of attachment research is the effects of attachment on brain development.
According to DJ Seigel in an article entitled "The Developing Mind: How relationships and the Brain interact to shape who we are" (New York: Guilford Press): "In childhood, particularly the first two years of life, attachment relationships help the immature brain use the mature functions of the parent’s brain to develop important capacities related to interpersonal functioning. The infant’s relationship with his/her attachment figures facilitates experience-dependent neural pathways to develop, particularly in the frontal lobes where the aforementioned capacities are wired into the developing brain."
Optimal development of these neural pathways is crucial. Children that are affected by insecure attachment may suffer from poor affect regulation, poor capacity for empathy, control issues, a propensity to violence, abnormal speech patterns, cognitive dysfunction, poor impulse control, a low capacity for future attachment, poor social skills, lack of conscience, inadequate verbal intelligence development, and a general incapacity to develop anything but superficial relations with others. Attachment disordered individuals may be more prone to developing addiction problems, mental health problems, and they may be more prone to deviant behaviour and consequently, criminal behaviour.
The outcomes for children that are taken into the protective services of the state in developed countries are not good in many cases. Attachment disorders and other social and psychological problems may have a lasting and undesirable result for many of the children in this unfortunate situation. Children in foster homes do normally have a primary attachment figure they can bond with however and in many cases the outcomes are positive. Their plight pales in comparison to children that are taken into orphanages where the logistics and practicality of attaching to a primary caregiver are remote. Most of these children that have been orphaned in Iraq, do not have a bright future.
The reality of having no adult to care for them is only part of their story. What may be even more significant is the effects of growing up in constant and sporadic violence.
Effects of War on the Brain
Violence has a profound impact on the human brain and particularly, the developing human brain. Brain development runs sequentially, from primitive regulation at the brainstem (which develop first) to highly complex functions in the frontal cortex.
Within the context of this ongoing development, the more a general neural system is activated, the more the brain develops a neural representation to the environment. Through this process, the well developed higher functions of the cortical system increases capacity to moderate frustration, impulsivity, and aggressive urges. Loss of function of higher brain activity of cortical function from an accident or a stroke may result in the victim being unable to regulate frustration, impulsivity, and aggression.
As the brain grows, poor development of lower area brain functions in the brain stem and the mid-brain areas will compromise optimal development of the higher functions of the cortex. Without this internalized adult (cortical functions) achieving full development, the victim will be at the mercy of his or her primitive urges. The ratio of activity between the lower functioning part of the brain and the, impulse mediating higher part, dictates the brains ability to curb anti-social impulses.
In a research article entitled "Incubated in terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the Cycle of Violence"
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0FEdy77QtvwJ:www.batteredmotherscustodyconference.org/INCUBATED_IN_TERROR.doc+perry+%2Bincubated+in+terror&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
Bruce Perry states, "In the developing brain, undifferentiated neural systems are critically dependent upon sets of environmental and micro-environmental cues (eg. neurotransmitters, cellular adhesion molecules, neurohormones, amino acids, ions) in order for them to appropriately organize from their undifferentiated, immature forms. Lack, or disruption of these critical cues can result in abnormal neuronal division...". These molecular cues depend on the experiences of the developing child. If that child happens to be growing up in a war, that will obviously impact this development.
Some stages of this development of the growing brain are more critical than others. According to Perry, "Disruptions of experience dependent neurochemical signals during these periods may lead to major abnormalities or deficits in neurodevelopment, some of which may not be reversible. " Disruptions of critical cues may result from "extremes of experience". Experiences that affect the development of the lower areas (brainstem and mid-brain) "...necessarily alter the development of limbic and cortical areas because critical signals these areas depend on for normal organization originate in these lower brain areas."
Early childhood development is key to a healthy and promising future. Children's vulnerabilities need to be protected and events that disrupt this development (domestic violence, war) need to be removed from the child or the child needs to be removed from the violence. The age of the child is a key consideration. For instance, a 12 year old can easily go several weeks without a hug. For an infant, this would have a profound and lasting impact. The developmental needs of children need to be considered when we assess the impact of war and violence on its victims.
Overdevelopment of the stress response apparatus in the brain, as a result of continual state of hyper-vigilance, "will result in an altered cortical modulation ratio and a predisposition to act in an aggressive, impulsive, behavioural reactive fashion." (Perry)
Children growing in an environment like this will develop a consistent focus on non verbal cues. In all cases, children take cues from their primary caregiver. In Iraq and Afghanistan, parents are often enduring horror as well. Their fear penetrates the psyche of their children. Moreover, their children know that this means that they cannot be protected; that death may come at any moment. They live with the reality of bombs exploding, gun shots, screams and so on. A child born into this situation will be affected one way or another.
Children born into violence "are characterized by persistent physiological hyper arousal and hyperactivity. They are observed to have increased muscle tone, frequently a low-grade increase in temperature, an increase startle response, profound sleep disturbances, affect regulation problems, and generalized anxiety." (Perry)
Children exposed to chronic neuro-developmental trauma are often diagnosed to have ADHD due to their constant state of hyper-vigilance. The effects may be mitigated when the episodes of violence are predictable. When that condition is in place, the children do not have to be constantly hyper-vigilant. For instance, if they know the bombs will drop every Friday afternoon and no other time, they can relax to some extent on the other days. But if the violence is sporadic, then they are in a constant state of hyper-arousal. And in that state, their brain is affected by the constant release of cortisol, a hormone that will calm you or I in a stressful situation. Cortisol on an ongoing basis however, in a developing brain, may contribute to further poor development.
A study led by Dr. Michael DeBellis, Director of the Developmental Traumatology Labratory at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center of children with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (part 1 in the May 15, 1999, issue of Biological Psychiatry) suggests that chemical changes in the brain of hyper-vigilant children disrupt or alter developmental processes.
Eighteen abused children with PTSD were compared with 10 children with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and 24 controls. Fifteen of the PTSD group had been sexually abused, and 11 of those children had also witnessed domestic violence. The average age of onset for sexual abuse was 4 years, with an average duration of two years. The average onset for witnessing domestic violence was 2 years, with an average duration of five years before disclosure, according to DeBellis.
The PTSD group had higher levels of the catecholamine neurotransmitters norepinephrine, dopamine, and epinephrine than the group with GAD and higher levels of cortisol than healthy controls.
The longer duration of abuse corresponded with increased levels of the catecholamine neurotransmitters and cortisol in the PTSD group and severity of PTSD symptoms, according to DeBellis. "Symptoms of hyperarousal, intrusive thoughts, and avoidance were associated with increased levels of norepinephrine, dopamine, and cortisol, according to the study."
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/37/1/23.full
“Results of animal studies suggested that higher levels of catecholamines and cortisol may adversely affect brain development through accelerated loss of neurons, delays in myelination, or abnormalities in developmentally appropriate pruning of neurons,” said DeBellis.
Mission Accomplished
Iraq has been destroyed and continues to be destroyed in America's efforts to secure control of the sea of oil that lies beneath the ground. One of the many pretexts to sell the war was that getting rid of Saddam was worth it. Another sales pitch was that bringing the Iraqi people into the warm bosom of democracy and Western life makes war worth the effort. Not even the most naive war hawk makes these arguments any more. It was about oil and the geo chessboard that America needs to control.
Iraq is a destroyed nation. The people of Iraq have endured eight years of war and ten years of crippling sanctions before that. Sanctions that did not touch Saddam Hussein but killed and injured many thousands of Iraqis. During the war the people have endured terror by American forces. They have also endured the terror of sectarian violence that have swept Iraq since the American invasion. They continue to endure massive social upheaval and unemployment, the crippling of utilities and sources of vital needs such as water, electricity, and medicine. Families have experienced night raids, unpredictable and frequent explosions of violence, arbitrary imprisonment and torture of Iraqis.
The infrastructure is destroyed. It can be fixed, replaced, and rebuilt. America however, has destroyed the people of Iraq. That cannot be fixed or replaced. There is nothing America can do to fix what they have broken. And the effects of this war will live on for years, decades, and generations. There will be ongoing violence and Iraqis will be the perpetrators. They will be blamed for their violence as individuals who are violent. Nobody will trace a line back to the war. Children will do poorly in school. The child will be deemed 'slow' and nobody will trace it back to the war. Young men will strap suicide vests on their bodies and blow Westerners to bits. They will be called terrorists.
How much of the vast oil wealth of that nation will be utilized to help the people that continue to suffer from this terror unleashed on them by the United States of America?
And in the USA, tears flow on the anniversary of 9 11. It is presented as the most devastating act of terror or war in living memory. Families have lost loved ones and those loved ones cannot be replaced. However, the people of New York and Washington can recover. Most of their daily reality is unaffected by the attacks. The attacks came and they ended.
How much attention do we place on Iraq's 9 11? An ongoing terrorist attack that lasted eight years and continues to kill, maim, and terrorize. An attack that killed many thousands of Iraqis and has adversely affected the lives of millions. An attack that will be endured by the people of Iraq for generations.
A thorough analysis of the impact war has had on the people of Iraq needs to be carried out. It will only be then when the American government can make reparations to that country. The people of the United States of America, and specifically, the American government owe the people of Iraq far more than they can ever pay, but one way or another, they will pay. These things have a way of coming home to roost.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Mainstream Bullshit
The media have a responsibility and that responsibility is to inform us of what’s going on. If a nuclear power plant is at risk of spreading nuclear death two miles from our town, it is the responsibility of the media to let us know that the danger exists and why it exists. To a certain extent, we put our trust in them. It is a social contract. They are there to informs us, to warn us, to let us know what's going on. Who, what, where, when, and why; all the information we need regarding the forces that impact us in our daily lives is delivered on our doorsteps, it comes in through the cable. We sleep well knowing that no midnight asteroid is about to send us back to the stone age.
But can we? At this point, trusting mainstream media is not a rational or intelligent choice to make. You may have noticed. They are not always honest. They have lied by saying things that are not true, by not saying things that are true, and very often through spinning bullshit, which is slightly different than lying. Sometimes bullshit is worse than lies. It’s not that they have done so several times, or even often. It’s that they do it all the time and they do it consistently.
Economic Lies
Economists have been lying and continue to lie through a critical time as the world economy becomes increasingly volatile and we become vulnerable to financial devastation. At this point in time the media and countless so-called economists have lulled faithful believers with a pack of lies. They have done it in 2008 and 2009 and they continue with the same lies and backward analysis in 2010. The same economists, experts, and corporate shills that have led us to the doors of the economic slaughterhouse are portrayed as gurus that have the holy grail of economic wisdom and direction. They are the same shysters, criminals, and corporate shills that have orchestrated the biggest sell out in history.
When Wall street falters, they get excited. When Main Street slides into the Third World, they barely notice. While America shivers over burning barrels, Obama fiddles in blissful ignorance; he seems a sort of 'let them eat cake' monarch. A reporter recently asked Obama about his efforts to curb poverty in America. Obama's reply could have come from the mouth of any imbecile or stooge that just walked out of any neo-liberal seminar. Obama said, " the most important anti-poverty effort is growing the economy… It’s more important than any program we could set up. It’s more important than any transfer payment we could have.” Which is code for saying that the ruling class is the filter through which all spending must pass through. And it is implied, in all this, that wealth emanates from the ruling class to the working classes and not the other way around. Will mainstream media even mention this or anything close? The short answer is 'no'.
They are defining and will increasingly define poverty as 'the New Normal'. And as America swirls down the toilet of depression, mainstream media bubbles along with cautious optimism that the stock market will continue to score enormous profits for the ruling class. Not once will they notice that what is good for Wall Street is bad for Main Street. To mention this class dichotomy is incorrect, politically.
War Lies
Even the most serious proponent of the substance and integrity of mainstream media would have to admit, when it comes to war, that the Pentagon, the President of the United States, and mainstream media make Orwell's 1948 imagination seem prophetic. In 2010, doublespeak is expected and as you will read below, the infrastructure for constant surveillance is under construction. War is peace. What's good is bad and what's bad is good. The Iraq war ended but today, alternative media are reporting that American and Iraqi troops killed at least eight civilians in Fallujah, Iraq. American has no intention of leaving. It is just one more pack of lies. There is no end to the examples of doublespeak and outright lies that fill today's media.
If you maintain a watch with war news stories collectors, like Anti War.com, you will see that atrocities happen in Afghanistan with sickening regularity. Civilians are killed by unmanned robots (drones) or NATO forces but mainstream media doesn't report it or, if they do, they present it as just one more 'whoops' moment. American gangsters are running loose in uniform in Afghanistan and kill with impunity. A band of GI Joes has recently been found to have been cutting body parts off Afghan civilians they had killed for sport and had been keeping them for trophies. It was barely mentioned in mainstream media but you'd have to look for it. Imagine, for a moment, how the story would play if this was done by Cubans or Iranians. Do you think they'd notice?
The Americans have been bombing civilian populations in Pakistan with increasing regularity. In the past two days, according to Jason Ditz reporting for Anti-war.com, American drones have killed 37 people, one of which may belong to the Haqqani Network, yet another group on that long list of enemies. The other victims are reported to be civilians or, people that have not conclusively been linked to the group.
In another very disturbing development, the American state is carrying out the extrajudicial execution of an American named Anwar al Awlaki who they allege is a terrorist. The individual case itself is alarming enough. The fact that it re-defines the scope of power of the American state however, is the real issue. Have mainstream media noticed? Currently, for mainstream media, the issue is about how to fight the legal battle against this bizarre development in American law. If they can kill their own citizens above the rule of law, we have entered a horrific new reality.
Then there is the sheer danger consequential to slaughtering, terrorizing and destroying whole nations. Media have the responsibility to let us know how badly the USA, the UK, Canada and all the other NATO participants have destroyed the cultures, livelihoods, and lives of the people they so routinely and mindlessly murder and maim. It is the same as the nuclear plant analogy. There will be consequences for us all. There will be future 9 11s and worse. And it will happen because of what we are doing now. If our tax dollars are in the service of whipping up hate around the world against us, we should know.
The media have been portraying the ongoing atrocities as an aberration; maybe it was rogue soldiers, maybe it was poor communication, maybe the victims were human shields. Victims are dismissed as 'collateral damage'. What will not be discussed is the ugly and likely possibility that these victims are victims of collective punishment.
A dark and sinister reality had emerged within the American dream. Mainstream media isn't reporting it; they are the maestros. The only objective views of this 'new normal/World Order' will be here in alternative media and if you indulge in reading or watching what you are reading at the moment (MWC News), chances are you have not swallowed the kool aid.
The State
Mainstream media is not just a simple money pig. It is much more than that. With the marriage of the corporation and the state fully consummated, it is natural for the corporate media to mouth the interests of both. Mainstream media has become a tool employed by those that want to tell you that the Western world needs to, more than anything else, shore up its security. In a similar vein to Hitler’s fire in the Reichstag, the billionaires that run the White House want us to be terrified. They want a to funnel billions of tax dollars into their own pockets through the sale of weapons systems. As a result we have seen nine years of talking heads discuss, in very serious tones, the need for security. We are in a new age, we are told. We are threatened by Muslim extremists. If you can remember the 60s, 70s or even well before then, you will know that terrorism or guerrilla warfare has been around a long, long time and there is nothing new or more sinister today than there was in 1970. Terrorism is another word for guerrilla warfare which is naturally adopted by those with little or no power.
This thrust is more threatening to freedom than we may notice at first. In a free society, the threat of danger is always present. It's part of the social contract. Criminals run free until they have actually committed the crime; that's the price of living in a free society.
Hyping ubiquitous threats has muted opposition to the construction of a massive, although unseen, state apparatus in the United States that would shame the USSR in its heyday. The Washington Post, to its credit, has recently reported vague parameters on the growing American state apparatus. In an article entitled "Top Secret America" Dana Priest and William Arkin report that the American government has created a massive underworld that "has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work."
Here is an excerpt from the article: "These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
The investigation's other findings include:
* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space."
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/
Kudos to the Washington Post. Given the magnitude of the story however, it is almost hidden from view. Where are the talking heads? The hyped up concern about a Soviet style neighbour watching neighbour reality emerging in the USA?
The common narrative is not aimed to challenge this kind of ominous development. Instead, it is to continue to cry for the need for more security and less freedom. The story line shouts the need for an iron state apparatus.
Corporate media is becoming synonymous with state media, much like Pravda of the old USSR. Corporate media don't just make money and parrot the wishes and plans of the ruling class. They also strive to indoctrinate and shape the rabble into a uniform and docile mass of petty chauvinism.
Ruling Class Media
The term, 'ruling class' has not been in common usage except for that band of serious Marxists selling papers at the university. However, there is no better description for the class that run government. They rule and they rule because they belong to those that are wealthy enough to tell politicians what to do. They are, properly, the ruling class.
They have their own specific interests and those interests happen to be against the interests of the rest of us. These interests include selling weapons, controlling resources, and dominating each and every corner of the world. Those munitions/oil billionaires that set the tone, the content, and the agenda for the media they also own and control. A small-town newspaper does not have the resources to hire investigative journalists and they pick up the main stories from the newswire. Those newswire stories are fed through the filters of the corporate media. Here, Noam Chomsky explains who sets the content and the agenda for the mainstream:
“The New York Times and CBS, for example. Well, first of all, they are major, very profitable, corporations. Furthermore, most of them are either linked to, or outright owned by, much bigger corporations, like General Electric, Westinghouse, and so on. They are way up at the top of the power structure of the private economy which is a very tyrannical structure. Corporations are basically tyrannies, hierarchic, controlled from above. If you don't like what they are doing you get out. The major media are just part of that system.”
Chomsky also makes the point that the media has a specific motive and that motive is the audience itself. That is why news stories are very short and their patterns are quite simplistic. Short attention grabbing sound bites or pleasing optics are important. Content is also important but not in the way it should be. The main thrust of the business is not to inform, the business is about grabbing an audience and people are the product. Chomsky continues:
"Take the New York Times. It’s a corporation and sells a product. The product is audiences. They don’t make money when you buy the newspaper. They are happy to put it on the worldwide web for free. They actually lose money when you buy the newspaper. But the audience is the product. The product is privileged people, just like the people who are writing the newspapers, you know, top-level decision-making people in society. You have to sell a product to a market, and the market is, of course, advertisers (that is, other businesses). Whether it is television or newspapers, or whatever, they are selling audiences. Corporations sell audiences to other corporations. In the case of the elite media, it’s big businesses."
(Lifted from: http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9710-mainstream-media.html)
But there is more to this than selling audiences. You will notice that the media will make certain issues relevant and important. They will spin them out in a seamless drum beat to the corporate party line and with each other, sometimes word for word. For example, in the 90s the ruling class wanted to cut social programs in the USA and in Canada. The deficit was the 'terrorist threat' of the time. Right wing think tanks and bond rating agencies like Moody’s of New York suddenly had a lot to say about how societies are governed and how tax money is spent. You may argue; but the deficit was a real problem at the time and it has returned. Notice however that when tax dollars are spent on weapons systems, the media does not make an issue of the deficit. It is rarely mentioned, if at all. That is because those that control the media are the same people that profit from building weapons systems.
According to Peter Phillips, “The eleven largest or most influential media corporations in the United States are General Electric Company (NBC), Viacom Inc. (cable), The Walt Disney Company (ABC), Time Warner Inc.(CNN), Westinghouse Electric Corporation (CBS), The News Corporation Ltd. (Fox), Gannett Co. Inc., Knight-Ridder Inc., New York Times Co., Washington Post Co., and the Times Mirror Co. These eleven major broadcast and print media corporations now represent a major portion of the news information systems in the United states. For many people their entire source of news and information comes from these eleven corporations."
(Source:http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media/Media%20Censor_ProjCensor.html)
General Electric is in the business of making battlefield computer systems. Their director, former senator Sam Nunn (who also directs Chevron/Texaco) isn’t likely to promote journalists that research his connections or to report any stories that work against the interests of NBC. He is not likely to be happy about his reporters making anti war statements either.
Steve Mizrach points out, “Opinion in our society must be carefully shaped and molded within certain careful boundaries: those who transgress those boundaries are libel to wind up "extremists," "ideologues," "fanatics," or "agitators. Now that dissidents in the U.S. can no longer be labelled 'fellow travellers' of the Moscow-run Commie conspiracy, the task has become more urgent. And how is it that consent, that most valuable of social products, is manufactured?”
(Source: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media/Consent_AmerStyle.html)
Mizrach points out that the following tactics are employed by what we may regard, realistically, as the enemy; that is, mainstream media. They mould opinion particularly on Sunday talk shows by parading the opinions of sycophants that are the mouthpieces that have been schooled within the hallowed halls of the university of corporate indoctrination.
These are bolstered by spin doctors, or, PR devils. “PR managers, known as "spin doctors" when working in government, are able to carefully craft speeches and advertisements which evoke powerful images in the American psyche, frequently using "power words" such as freedom, fairness, liberty, justice, and peacekeeping for policies which dominate, discriminate, imprison, exploit, and terrorize much of the rest of the world.” (Mizrach)
Mizrach also points out the real purpose of public opinion polls is not so much to measure public opinion as it is to shape it. They also employ academics and think tanks to shape and mould public opinion.
Together, these tools are used against us. They are more threatening an enemy to the citizens of Western nations than an army of bin Ladens. They are used not only to shape public opinion. They are used to lie to us and to indoctrinate the impressionable and the young.
Class War
Non Americans look upon our American brothers and sisters and what they have served up on a daily basis under a disguise called 'news'. We watched in incredulity as the American health care debate raged. The word socialist, we discovered, is a dirty word in America. Ignorant to a fault, the politicians and the media spun lies and distortions with wide eyed enthusiasm as if the rest of the world wasn't watching. It looked like a Jerry Springer show, a pitiful crowd of beaten down as angry victims proudly showing their own ignorance to the world, utterly oblivious. But that is not America, it is a fraction of America and we find the same backward and angry lumpen attitudes everywhere. The difference is, in the USA, it is cultivated.
It should be obvious by now that we are on the losing side of a very aggressive class war. The ruling elites have the clear advantage. They are waging war on the rest of us and we, as a collective, are only dimly aware that its happening. CNN, Fox, and CTV are not telling. A large part of that ignorance is a result of their slick packaging and their endless supply of Presidents, Prime Ministers, and sexy stories. They are very good at slick visuals and clever sound bites. Their whole focus is on the packaging, the face. They have their reputation and influence. They have paid reporters that are on the scene. They have very little in terms of substance. For that, you turn to us; to alternative media.
It is hard for us to actually recognize them as our enemy. They have such pretty smiles and they tell such human and touching stories. But don't ever forget; these useful idiots are aiming to impoverish you, to strip away your rights. It's happening. They callously disregard the suffering of 'collaterals'. They tell you that they are ensuring that you are 'secure' by whipping up hate all over the planet. The stunned mouthpieces don't even know they are doing it. Some of the worst war crimes in living memory are enabled by these treacherous talking heads. They are taking part in the ultimate economic betrayal of America and the rest of the post-industrial world. They protect the ruling class and work for the benefit of that class against you and me. They are certainly our enemy. What is vital is that you and I recognize this. We can't fight back as long as we allow ourselves to be lulled by the likes of Jerry Springer and CNN.
For our part, we have MWC News, Counterpunch, Democracy Now, and a large choice of alternative media outlets to seek out pertinent news, honest opinions, and insightful analysis. The internet is a genie let out of a bottle. This fluid and democratic flow of information is the blessing of this uncontrolled machine that sits before you. The corporations do not own or control this. They certainly have an advantage but on this front, our fight has just begun. We need to expand, to develop better tools and a wider audience. We need to fight back. Together we stand on the front lines. Recognize it.
But can we? At this point, trusting mainstream media is not a rational or intelligent choice to make. You may have noticed. They are not always honest. They have lied by saying things that are not true, by not saying things that are true, and very often through spinning bullshit, which is slightly different than lying. Sometimes bullshit is worse than lies. It’s not that they have done so several times, or even often. It’s that they do it all the time and they do it consistently.
Economic Lies
Economists have been lying and continue to lie through a critical time as the world economy becomes increasingly volatile and we become vulnerable to financial devastation. At this point in time the media and countless so-called economists have lulled faithful believers with a pack of lies. They have done it in 2008 and 2009 and they continue with the same lies and backward analysis in 2010. The same economists, experts, and corporate shills that have led us to the doors of the economic slaughterhouse are portrayed as gurus that have the holy grail of economic wisdom and direction. They are the same shysters, criminals, and corporate shills that have orchestrated the biggest sell out in history.
When Wall street falters, they get excited. When Main Street slides into the Third World, they barely notice. While America shivers over burning barrels, Obama fiddles in blissful ignorance; he seems a sort of 'let them eat cake' monarch. A reporter recently asked Obama about his efforts to curb poverty in America. Obama's reply could have come from the mouth of any imbecile or stooge that just walked out of any neo-liberal seminar. Obama said, " the most important anti-poverty effort is growing the economy… It’s more important than any program we could set up. It’s more important than any transfer payment we could have.” Which is code for saying that the ruling class is the filter through which all spending must pass through. And it is implied, in all this, that wealth emanates from the ruling class to the working classes and not the other way around. Will mainstream media even mention this or anything close? The short answer is 'no'.
They are defining and will increasingly define poverty as 'the New Normal'. And as America swirls down the toilet of depression, mainstream media bubbles along with cautious optimism that the stock market will continue to score enormous profits for the ruling class. Not once will they notice that what is good for Wall Street is bad for Main Street. To mention this class dichotomy is incorrect, politically.
War Lies
Even the most serious proponent of the substance and integrity of mainstream media would have to admit, when it comes to war, that the Pentagon, the President of the United States, and mainstream media make Orwell's 1948 imagination seem prophetic. In 2010, doublespeak is expected and as you will read below, the infrastructure for constant surveillance is under construction. War is peace. What's good is bad and what's bad is good. The Iraq war ended but today, alternative media are reporting that American and Iraqi troops killed at least eight civilians in Fallujah, Iraq. American has no intention of leaving. It is just one more pack of lies. There is no end to the examples of doublespeak and outright lies that fill today's media.
If you maintain a watch with war news stories collectors, like Anti War.com, you will see that atrocities happen in Afghanistan with sickening regularity. Civilians are killed by unmanned robots (drones) or NATO forces but mainstream media doesn't report it or, if they do, they present it as just one more 'whoops' moment. American gangsters are running loose in uniform in Afghanistan and kill with impunity. A band of GI Joes has recently been found to have been cutting body parts off Afghan civilians they had killed for sport and had been keeping them for trophies. It was barely mentioned in mainstream media but you'd have to look for it. Imagine, for a moment, how the story would play if this was done by Cubans or Iranians. Do you think they'd notice?
The Americans have been bombing civilian populations in Pakistan with increasing regularity. In the past two days, according to Jason Ditz reporting for Anti-war.com, American drones have killed 37 people, one of which may belong to the Haqqani Network, yet another group on that long list of enemies. The other victims are reported to be civilians or, people that have not conclusively been linked to the group.
In another very disturbing development, the American state is carrying out the extrajudicial execution of an American named Anwar al Awlaki who they allege is a terrorist. The individual case itself is alarming enough. The fact that it re-defines the scope of power of the American state however, is the real issue. Have mainstream media noticed? Currently, for mainstream media, the issue is about how to fight the legal battle against this bizarre development in American law. If they can kill their own citizens above the rule of law, we have entered a horrific new reality.
Then there is the sheer danger consequential to slaughtering, terrorizing and destroying whole nations. Media have the responsibility to let us know how badly the USA, the UK, Canada and all the other NATO participants have destroyed the cultures, livelihoods, and lives of the people they so routinely and mindlessly murder and maim. It is the same as the nuclear plant analogy. There will be consequences for us all. There will be future 9 11s and worse. And it will happen because of what we are doing now. If our tax dollars are in the service of whipping up hate around the world against us, we should know.
The media have been portraying the ongoing atrocities as an aberration; maybe it was rogue soldiers, maybe it was poor communication, maybe the victims were human shields. Victims are dismissed as 'collateral damage'. What will not be discussed is the ugly and likely possibility that these victims are victims of collective punishment.
A dark and sinister reality had emerged within the American dream. Mainstream media isn't reporting it; they are the maestros. The only objective views of this 'new normal/World Order' will be here in alternative media and if you indulge in reading or watching what you are reading at the moment (MWC News), chances are you have not swallowed the kool aid.
The State
Mainstream media is not just a simple money pig. It is much more than that. With the marriage of the corporation and the state fully consummated, it is natural for the corporate media to mouth the interests of both. Mainstream media has become a tool employed by those that want to tell you that the Western world needs to, more than anything else, shore up its security. In a similar vein to Hitler’s fire in the Reichstag, the billionaires that run the White House want us to be terrified. They want a to funnel billions of tax dollars into their own pockets through the sale of weapons systems. As a result we have seen nine years of talking heads discuss, in very serious tones, the need for security. We are in a new age, we are told. We are threatened by Muslim extremists. If you can remember the 60s, 70s or even well before then, you will know that terrorism or guerrilla warfare has been around a long, long time and there is nothing new or more sinister today than there was in 1970. Terrorism is another word for guerrilla warfare which is naturally adopted by those with little or no power.
This thrust is more threatening to freedom than we may notice at first. In a free society, the threat of danger is always present. It's part of the social contract. Criminals run free until they have actually committed the crime; that's the price of living in a free society.
Hyping ubiquitous threats has muted opposition to the construction of a massive, although unseen, state apparatus in the United States that would shame the USSR in its heyday. The Washington Post, to its credit, has recently reported vague parameters on the growing American state apparatus. In an article entitled "Top Secret America" Dana Priest and William Arkin report that the American government has created a massive underworld that "has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work."
Here is an excerpt from the article: "These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
The investigation's other findings include:
* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space."
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/
Kudos to the Washington Post. Given the magnitude of the story however, it is almost hidden from view. Where are the talking heads? The hyped up concern about a Soviet style neighbour watching neighbour reality emerging in the USA?
The common narrative is not aimed to challenge this kind of ominous development. Instead, it is to continue to cry for the need for more security and less freedom. The story line shouts the need for an iron state apparatus.
Corporate media is becoming synonymous with state media, much like Pravda of the old USSR. Corporate media don't just make money and parrot the wishes and plans of the ruling class. They also strive to indoctrinate and shape the rabble into a uniform and docile mass of petty chauvinism.
Ruling Class Media
The term, 'ruling class' has not been in common usage except for that band of serious Marxists selling papers at the university. However, there is no better description for the class that run government. They rule and they rule because they belong to those that are wealthy enough to tell politicians what to do. They are, properly, the ruling class.
They have their own specific interests and those interests happen to be against the interests of the rest of us. These interests include selling weapons, controlling resources, and dominating each and every corner of the world. Those munitions/oil billionaires that set the tone, the content, and the agenda for the media they also own and control. A small-town newspaper does not have the resources to hire investigative journalists and they pick up the main stories from the newswire. Those newswire stories are fed through the filters of the corporate media. Here, Noam Chomsky explains who sets the content and the agenda for the mainstream:
“The New York Times and CBS, for example. Well, first of all, they are major, very profitable, corporations. Furthermore, most of them are either linked to, or outright owned by, much bigger corporations, like General Electric, Westinghouse, and so on. They are way up at the top of the power structure of the private economy which is a very tyrannical structure. Corporations are basically tyrannies, hierarchic, controlled from above. If you don't like what they are doing you get out. The major media are just part of that system.”
Chomsky also makes the point that the media has a specific motive and that motive is the audience itself. That is why news stories are very short and their patterns are quite simplistic. Short attention grabbing sound bites or pleasing optics are important. Content is also important but not in the way it should be. The main thrust of the business is not to inform, the business is about grabbing an audience and people are the product. Chomsky continues:
"Take the New York Times. It’s a corporation and sells a product. The product is audiences. They don’t make money when you buy the newspaper. They are happy to put it on the worldwide web for free. They actually lose money when you buy the newspaper. But the audience is the product. The product is privileged people, just like the people who are writing the newspapers, you know, top-level decision-making people in society. You have to sell a product to a market, and the market is, of course, advertisers (that is, other businesses). Whether it is television or newspapers, or whatever, they are selling audiences. Corporations sell audiences to other corporations. In the case of the elite media, it’s big businesses."
(Lifted from: http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9710-mainstream-media.html)
But there is more to this than selling audiences. You will notice that the media will make certain issues relevant and important. They will spin them out in a seamless drum beat to the corporate party line and with each other, sometimes word for word. For example, in the 90s the ruling class wanted to cut social programs in the USA and in Canada. The deficit was the 'terrorist threat' of the time. Right wing think tanks and bond rating agencies like Moody’s of New York suddenly had a lot to say about how societies are governed and how tax money is spent. You may argue; but the deficit was a real problem at the time and it has returned. Notice however that when tax dollars are spent on weapons systems, the media does not make an issue of the deficit. It is rarely mentioned, if at all. That is because those that control the media are the same people that profit from building weapons systems.
According to Peter Phillips, “The eleven largest or most influential media corporations in the United States are General Electric Company (NBC), Viacom Inc. (cable), The Walt Disney Company (ABC), Time Warner Inc.(CNN), Westinghouse Electric Corporation (CBS), The News Corporation Ltd. (Fox), Gannett Co. Inc., Knight-Ridder Inc., New York Times Co., Washington Post Co., and the Times Mirror Co. These eleven major broadcast and print media corporations now represent a major portion of the news information systems in the United states. For many people their entire source of news and information comes from these eleven corporations."
(Source:http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media/Media%20Censor_ProjCensor.html)
General Electric is in the business of making battlefield computer systems. Their director, former senator Sam Nunn (who also directs Chevron/Texaco) isn’t likely to promote journalists that research his connections or to report any stories that work against the interests of NBC. He is not likely to be happy about his reporters making anti war statements either.
Steve Mizrach points out, “Opinion in our society must be carefully shaped and molded within certain careful boundaries: those who transgress those boundaries are libel to wind up "extremists," "ideologues," "fanatics," or "agitators. Now that dissidents in the U.S. can no longer be labelled 'fellow travellers' of the Moscow-run Commie conspiracy, the task has become more urgent. And how is it that consent, that most valuable of social products, is manufactured?”
(Source: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media/Consent_AmerStyle.html)
Mizrach points out that the following tactics are employed by what we may regard, realistically, as the enemy; that is, mainstream media. They mould opinion particularly on Sunday talk shows by parading the opinions of sycophants that are the mouthpieces that have been schooled within the hallowed halls of the university of corporate indoctrination.
These are bolstered by spin doctors, or, PR devils. “PR managers, known as "spin doctors" when working in government, are able to carefully craft speeches and advertisements which evoke powerful images in the American psyche, frequently using "power words" such as freedom, fairness, liberty, justice, and peacekeeping for policies which dominate, discriminate, imprison, exploit, and terrorize much of the rest of the world.” (Mizrach)
Mizrach also points out the real purpose of public opinion polls is not so much to measure public opinion as it is to shape it. They also employ academics and think tanks to shape and mould public opinion.
Together, these tools are used against us. They are more threatening an enemy to the citizens of Western nations than an army of bin Ladens. They are used not only to shape public opinion. They are used to lie to us and to indoctrinate the impressionable and the young.
Class War
Non Americans look upon our American brothers and sisters and what they have served up on a daily basis under a disguise called 'news'. We watched in incredulity as the American health care debate raged. The word socialist, we discovered, is a dirty word in America. Ignorant to a fault, the politicians and the media spun lies and distortions with wide eyed enthusiasm as if the rest of the world wasn't watching. It looked like a Jerry Springer show, a pitiful crowd of beaten down as angry victims proudly showing their own ignorance to the world, utterly oblivious. But that is not America, it is a fraction of America and we find the same backward and angry lumpen attitudes everywhere. The difference is, in the USA, it is cultivated.
It should be obvious by now that we are on the losing side of a very aggressive class war. The ruling elites have the clear advantage. They are waging war on the rest of us and we, as a collective, are only dimly aware that its happening. CNN, Fox, and CTV are not telling. A large part of that ignorance is a result of their slick packaging and their endless supply of Presidents, Prime Ministers, and sexy stories. They are very good at slick visuals and clever sound bites. Their whole focus is on the packaging, the face. They have their reputation and influence. They have paid reporters that are on the scene. They have very little in terms of substance. For that, you turn to us; to alternative media.
It is hard for us to actually recognize them as our enemy. They have such pretty smiles and they tell such human and touching stories. But don't ever forget; these useful idiots are aiming to impoverish you, to strip away your rights. It's happening. They callously disregard the suffering of 'collaterals'. They tell you that they are ensuring that you are 'secure' by whipping up hate all over the planet. The stunned mouthpieces don't even know they are doing it. Some of the worst war crimes in living memory are enabled by these treacherous talking heads. They are taking part in the ultimate economic betrayal of America and the rest of the post-industrial world. They protect the ruling class and work for the benefit of that class against you and me. They are certainly our enemy. What is vital is that you and I recognize this. We can't fight back as long as we allow ourselves to be lulled by the likes of Jerry Springer and CNN.
For our part, we have MWC News, Counterpunch, Democracy Now, and a large choice of alternative media outlets to seek out pertinent news, honest opinions, and insightful analysis. The internet is a genie let out of a bottle. This fluid and democratic flow of information is the blessing of this uncontrolled machine that sits before you. The corporations do not own or control this. They certainly have an advantage but on this front, our fight has just begun. We need to expand, to develop better tools and a wider audience. We need to fight back. Together we stand on the front lines. Recognize it.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Uncle Sam Wants You
I ran oligarchic British rule from America. I replaced it with rule "of, by, and for" the people.
I am not a man. I am the soul of America. I am the spirit of 'We the People'.
I want you, the good people of America, to recognize me. I am dying.
I want you to demand freedom of speech; all speech.
I want you to demand freedom of religion; all religions.
I want you to demand the end of wars for plunder and profit.
I want you to never invade or dominate the people of foreign lands. I want you to never stoop to the level of cowardly and aggressive tyrant; to not defend yourself unless you are actually under attack.
I want you to recognize that the greatest threat to freedom is the timid and cowardly need to wrap our nation within a bubble of security. I want you to burn the Patriot Act and anything that looks like it.
I want you to demand and use freedom of assembly; to protest and organize.
I want you to demand that the state not arrest or detain or harass anybody unless they are involved in an identified crime.
I want you to demand that no person is deprived of life, liberty, or property, without fair opportunity to defend himself.
I want you to demand that all people are granted their natural liberty unless a fair trial deems them a threat to others.
We are no longer a bastion of justice; a standard other nations aim to be. The State is raising itself above rule of law. We are losing governance by rule of law and giving way to a state of arbitrary lawlessness and laws of convenience. The Spirit of America has not only been corrupted. It is being been savagely ripped to shreds. America is its own nemesis.
I want you, the people of America, to be under full volitional control of your labour and your resources. This is where prosperity is born and this is where it flourishes. To be prosperous again, 'we the people' must resume control of our wealth. Our nation has been commandeered by privateers; privateers that have sold our wealth and our birthright for fast profit. Our wealth and prosperity, our work ethic, has been replaced by an ethos that worships scheming and manipulating for individual gain.
Don't despair. My Spirit is not dead. It is immortal. And it is not limited to or owned by America. It is fundamental to human beings everywhere and always has been. It is the spirit of humanity. It is as unstoppable as life itself.
It is here: " True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is there: "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." - Noam Chomsky
It is everywhere: " When there is state there can be no freedom, but when there is freedom there will be no state. -Vladimir Lenin
Saturday, May 29, 2010
The $1,000,000,000.00 Photo Op
The G 20 and G8 meetings in Toronto and Huntsville, Ontario, scheduled for late June will cost Canadian taxpayers one billion dollars.
These meetings happen regularly and one thing they have in common is that nothing ever comes out of them. They are completely useless. Real Politik happens behind closed doors with lawyers and lobbyists. It does not happen at G 20 meetings. This is all aimed to spoon feed innocent bystanders enough pabulum to keep us docile.
And what of the Bay Street neighbourhood where the representatives of the ruling class will meet? It is, naturally, at the centre of where our twit masters do their business. The fact that it is our masters that have multiple financial crisis mounting on top of an archaic economic system might suggest their quisling political clowns and puppets should just hide. But no, they are paid good money to take it on the chin and take it on the chin they will.
The bourgeoisie have screwed us all and they are putting the iron state apparatus in place to ensure we learn out humble station. Working classes in the represented eight and twenty countries are not happy and those in economic hinterlands are starting to mix Molotov cocktails. There are hints of class warfare as one class batters and rapes the other.
As it is American workers can't find jobs while car manufacturing plants rust away. Scores are homeless while families have no place to sleep.
The twit class have sold the jobs away to squeeze that extra bit of profit for themselves. Jobs that North Americans and Europeans used to believe to be their rightful inheritance; a legacy of hard work and vision. All that is now dust and the 'leaders' will spell out the belt tightening measures that we must endure to ensure those that are too big to fall, don't. The large Bay Street banks at the centre of the G 20 meeting area may be more then tempting targets for anarchists and fed up citizens.
But One Billion dollars?
Just because billion sounds something like million, they are nowhere close. A billion is astronomical. A million seconds would take about 11 or 12 days to pass. A billion seconds would take 32 years.
A trillion, which is a number we hear regarding bailouts to the rich, would take 32,000 years.
So, in the case of numbers, don't let your intuition inform you. Let energetic logic inform you if you want to understand the nature of the situation we are all in at the moment.
Conveniently, a bank was recently fire bombed in Ottawa providing ammunition for the state to spare no expense for security. In 2007, police dressed as protesters were filmed trying to whip demonstrators into a violent frenzy during a North American leaders summit in Quebec.
Increasingly, since 2001, Western democratic states have incrementally notched their fascistic posture to the point they think nothing of arresting people with no charges, putting a bounty on the head of undesirables, and generally raising themselves (the state) above the rule of law. Corporations and the state have consummated their marriage in the most disgusting public porn display in history.
Prior to 2001 anti-capitalist protests were becoming common and no doubt, concerning. The state did react with brutality; as states naturally do. But nowadays we are sailing uncharted waters. Anything can happen.
These meetings happen regularly and one thing they have in common is that nothing ever comes out of them. They are completely useless. Real Politik happens behind closed doors with lawyers and lobbyists. It does not happen at G 20 meetings. This is all aimed to spoon feed innocent bystanders enough pabulum to keep us docile.
And what of the Bay Street neighbourhood where the representatives of the ruling class will meet? It is, naturally, at the centre of where our twit masters do their business. The fact that it is our masters that have multiple financial crisis mounting on top of an archaic economic system might suggest their quisling political clowns and puppets should just hide. But no, they are paid good money to take it on the chin and take it on the chin they will.
The bourgeoisie have screwed us all and they are putting the iron state apparatus in place to ensure we learn out humble station. Working classes in the represented eight and twenty countries are not happy and those in economic hinterlands are starting to mix Molotov cocktails. There are hints of class warfare as one class batters and rapes the other.
As it is American workers can't find jobs while car manufacturing plants rust away. Scores are homeless while families have no place to sleep.
The twit class have sold the jobs away to squeeze that extra bit of profit for themselves. Jobs that North Americans and Europeans used to believe to be their rightful inheritance; a legacy of hard work and vision. All that is now dust and the 'leaders' will spell out the belt tightening measures that we must endure to ensure those that are too big to fall, don't. The large Bay Street banks at the centre of the G 20 meeting area may be more then tempting targets for anarchists and fed up citizens.
But One Billion dollars?
Just because billion sounds something like million, they are nowhere close. A billion is astronomical. A million seconds would take about 11 or 12 days to pass. A billion seconds would take 32 years.
A trillion, which is a number we hear regarding bailouts to the rich, would take 32,000 years.
So, in the case of numbers, don't let your intuition inform you. Let energetic logic inform you if you want to understand the nature of the situation we are all in at the moment.
Conveniently, a bank was recently fire bombed in Ottawa providing ammunition for the state to spare no expense for security. In 2007, police dressed as protesters were filmed trying to whip demonstrators into a violent frenzy during a North American leaders summit in Quebec.
Increasingly, since 2001, Western democratic states have incrementally notched their fascistic posture to the point they think nothing of arresting people with no charges, putting a bounty on the head of undesirables, and generally raising themselves (the state) above the rule of law. Corporations and the state have consummated their marriage in the most disgusting public porn display in history.
Prior to 2001 anti-capitalist protests were becoming common and no doubt, concerning. The state did react with brutality; as states naturally do. But nowadays we are sailing uncharted waters. Anything can happen.
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