The American proletariat will happen, eventually

This is a reply of mine, here.

America has pathetically weak leftist organizations. One reason for this is a lack of poverty, which is quickly being “fixed” by the criminal class. Another reason is that the population knows that the wealth of the criminal class, extracted largely from non-Americans, will trickle down to them, noting that 3 Billion people in the world “live” on $2 a day or less while the federal minimum wage in the US is $5.85, *per hour*. So the types of populist mass movements that many other countries have are utterly absent in the amoral commercial monocultural corrupt monstrosity otherwise known as American society.

It’s going to take a while for Americans to become impoverished enough to become organized enough to institute substantive political change. At least a decade, maybe much longer. What was previously called “social progress”, like the civil rights movement, was mostly meaningless, since it largely affected Americans, leaving the criminal class free (intentionally and with utter complicity) to ravage the rest of the world, passing the loot extracted from corpses and terrorized societies to “oppressed Americans”. Apparently corpses aren’t oppressed. This was the reason behind the timing of the King and Malcolm X murders – once they started gaining a global consciousness, thus raising the specter of *global* socialism, those “civil rights advocates”, those who want the blood money extracted from non-Americans to be passed from the criminal class to themselves, recognized the threat and dealt with it. The criminal class didn’t even have to get their hands dirty.

What might be called the “complicit class”, those not only of the bourgeois but of all Americans who want to keep the American criminal class’s exploited wealth within America (just more “equitably” distributed) makes up 98% or more of Americans. There is no “proletarian culture” because there is no proletariat in America. Blacks, who logically should make up the backbone of the American proletariat, have been led astray by garbage leaders whose sole purpose is to plead and beg the criminal class to spread out the criminal gains. This has robbed blacks of moral, intellectual, and political strength, and has led the American proletariat in general into an abyss.

Regardless of any of that, sufficient poverty will create a proletariat, just like it does in every other country. This is the primary reason for the huge number of poor imprisoned Americans. The ruling class wants to ensure that if an American proletariat develops it will do so behind bars and thus be utterly controlled. It may not stop there – there is nothing (certainly not “protesters”) to stop mass torture of US prisoners, and depending on the degree of fear of the ruling class we may well see that in the next decade.

Quote of the Day

I refuse to believe in a world in which I am unwilling to live.

The Anti-Chavistas

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Washington’s conflicting strategies on Iran

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Colombia: What did Interpol find in the laptops?

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Why there is no Left within the United States

The United States is a rich country. All countries with vibrant democratic lefts have an impoverished majority.

Also, the United States is a corrupt society. Even many of the poor have bourgeoisie values, as the United States is a rich country, and thus relatively speaking there is no “poor” in the US.

The primary reason for the rising rate of incarceration in the US is the elite’s prediction that the US will have a long-term economic decline alongside increased inequality, thus producing increased poverty, thus leading to a democratic society, thus leading to an empowered majority. They are attempting to preempt this inevitable movement through mass incarceration. They are exploiting the racism that they have carefully built by primarily targeting poor blacks (thus not raising the anger of racist whites (the vast majority of whites)) – but as the rate of poverty in the US increases state terrorism will more and more fall on the poor of all races. Whites who now point their finger at the “black criminals” will soon find themselves “criminals” as well.

How tragic it is that the left in America talks so much about “American poverty”, when billions of humans live in worse poverty than almost anyone does in the US. Tragic in the sense that this lack of education and conscience is exploited by the same forces that will further impoverish Americans. The sooner the American left joins a global socialist movement, the better off everyone will be. Right now most of the American left stands in starry-eyed wonder at the prospect of stealing from the criminal class – taking the blood money that the American criminal class extracted from non-Americans and passing it to the American poor. That’s what they call “social justice”. Billions of non-Americans most likely have another name for it.

Our ‘Managed Democracy’

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Riot Squads, Privatization, and the National Front: David Peace’s GB84

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Holy warriors in the US armed forces

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The World After Bush

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Mental Illness or Social Sickness?

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To Fire 5/18/08

I’ve been watching a Starcraft Tournament which is extremely entertaining. They also have a World of Warcraft Tournament.

We’ve seen repercussions of the food crisis recently. Rice prices are up 35% here. Pasta is up 40%. This is a kind of regressive tax, as is the big hike in the gas price. It warms my heart to know that through my purchases I’m helping some agro-business CEO buy his 2nd yacht. Don’t you know how much he’s looking forward to another vacation in Rio?

What are you doing this summer?

I’m reading Black Faces, White Masks by Fritz Fanon. It’s very good although a political and economic approach is more useful than it’s psychological one.

I enjoy Mondays since I have the day off from work and can go to the Notre Dame library to read. I may expand my Notre Dame reading to some work days as well in the near future.

What are you reading now?

Take care.

Capitalism – a terrorist ideology

A reply to Don Hawkins from Dissident Voice:

“You know are very good at bullshit. These bullshit artists know full well the problems we all face and it looks to me have decided to go out in style. Think of this as kind of a war. In just a few years it is going to be very hard for these artists of bullshit to keep the game going because most people will only have to open there front door to see climate change for real.”

Unfortunately you’re way off base. Here’s the way this will likely play out:

The right will deny global warming or downplay it’s effect until such time as it ensures it’s profitability. The point is not to “go out in style” but, as always, to exploit. The problem for the right is that it currently doesn’t understand how to exploit global warming. It’s vision for how to profit from it is too weak, the risk too high. So it’s best political move is to deny and downplay.

Beware the day the right accepts global warming, for their acceptance ensures the world’s catastrophe. Assuming the right remains in power,  once global warming can be profited from it’s fulfillment becomes inevitable.

The right doesn’t see itself going out at all. It will live an isolated, amoral, insular lifestyle within it’s gated communities while the world perishes. Millions will die, maybe billions, it doesn’t matter (to them), as long as enough remain alive so that profits and their continuation as the ruling class continues.

Global warming may be a very good thing indeed for the right. A devastated population is a malleable, controllable, slavish one. Who can fight for higher wages when daily survival is a struggle?

Global warming is the 3rd in the grand terror events constructed by the right. The second was nuclear holocaust. The first was genocide. The threat of nuclear annihilation terrorized the world’s population. Hence the world became easy to control, hence the world descended into fascism, which the United States is now experiencing overtly. That’s the most important reason the right will never dismantle nuclear weapons. And that’s the most important reason the right will never solve global warming, or stop committing genocides. Capitalism is a terrorist ideology, and it’s found some very useful methods. Meanwhile, the left, telling itself how global warming will finally bring down capitalism, will itself encourage global warming (by “fighting” ineffectively against it) as a means of capitalism’s destruction, underestimating capitalism’s resiliency.

It is only those people outside this framework who can save the world. Only by directly destroying capitalism (in a hands-on, creative endeavor rather than “protesting” against it) will all terrorist ideologies end and humanity be strengthened and perpetuated.

Slavoj Zizek – Democracy Now Interview

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

To Recognize Israel

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Classic series – Rats on Cocaine

Episode 1 – Late

Episode 2 – Paranoid

Episode 3 – Narc

Episode 4 – Maze

Episode 5 – Pregnant

Episode 6 – Strawberry

Episode 7 – Bug

Episode 8 – Shock

Episode 9 – Fight

On self-interest, capitalism, and survival of the fittest – a reply to Clinton Callahan

Clinton Callahan’s words are in italics:

“One might ask if the weak point of our society has been our tolerance of psychopathic behavior? Our disbelief that someone could seem like an intelligent leader and still be acting deceptively on their own behalf without conscience? Or is it merely ignorance?”

The weak point is that psychopathic behavior is explained away – most commonly as “self-interest” – corporations explain away their actions as “profitable”. Individuals explain their actions as “feeding their family”. In this sense the mob boss, the CEO, and the factory worker have the same motivation.

In other words, self-interest is a justification for just about anything short of criminal. And since worshipers of self-interest write the laws in the first place, not a whole lot is criminal.

For example, because Americans need to “feed their families” much of the 3rd world is malnourished and dies of disease and starvation. This can either be called psychopathy or it can be called self-interest.

The secondary weak point is that a psychopathic system is one of centralized power and hence of controlled wealth. Thus it’s one that feeds greed – in a democratic system there isn’t much way to “get ahead”. In a criminal hierarchy it is possible to gain great wealth. It’s the same difference reflected in capitalism vs. socialism.

Here’s an example of capitalism at work – food speculators have recently murdered thousands of people, probably millions, by using the free market to buy up staple foodstuffs, restricting effective supply and increasing the price which poor people pay, thus restricting their consumption, leading to in many cases their death. If murder is criminal these speculators would either be behind bars or sentenced to the death penalty. But only *physical* murder is considered criminal (and not always such, depending on the degree of power of the murderer – GWB and the Neocons for example are immune from prosecution regardless of the death count) – ALL other forms of murder are quite acceptable, even lauded by such publications as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Economic murder such as was done and is being done by speculators is called “good business” or “survival of the fittest” or “profitable” or whatever term is used next week.

Bear in mind that under Darwin’s conception the definition of “fit” is “what survives”. That is to say, if you murder your neighbor and survive (get away with it) you are fit and your neighbor is unfit. Psychopaths are merely following Darwin’s logic.

Darwin introduced the conception of fitness as a competitive historical reality. That is to say, he who controls life and death controls fitness itself. “Fitness” is seen as a historical end-in-itself. Modern war in part is about defining who is “fit” for the rest of history.

Enormous Oil Profits and Abject Poverty in Nigeria

Part 1

Part 2

Stopping ruling class monstrosities

This is a response to a post on Dissident Voice, here.

It’s going to be stopped in the same way every other vast criminal system is stopped – by massive populist organizing. Either the American people are going to join political groups that cause systemic change in political institutions or they are going to live in a fascist state with increased global and domestic terror and poverty. The 3rd option is that America is destroyed through war (terrorist strikes are a form of war), the multinationals and attached ruling class relocate with most of their wealth intact, and they continue the imperialist project from a new geographic center. A greatly weakened America would then start a rebuilding process possibly in a democratic fashion, if for no other reason than that there are not vast taxpayer dollars for the ruling class to steal thus there’s much less resistance to democracy.

The problem, even in this “good case scenario”, is that the world is hardly more democratic than America. So if America becomes relatively democratic, similar to much of South America today, they become subject to imperialist control from sources of elite power in Europe or Asia. So the only real solution, the only lasting solution, the “final solution”, is for a global democratic movement, unifying local movements, that takes democratic control of ALL global political institutions, in particular institutions of wealthy countries. While such a movement has started, it needs to be much, much stronger to have any effect on global politics. If, say, even 10% of Americans joined such a movement, it would gain tremendous strength and momentum.

Part of the problem is that even progressive sites like this aren’t filled by people who want global democracy, which is global socialism. Most progressives in America want wealth redistribution only *within* America – to take the blood money obtained by the American ruling class from exploiting non-Americans and redistribute it to “poor” Americans, nevermind that “poor Americans” are wealthy compared to the average person in the world. That is to say, 95% or more of Americans who congratulate themselves on being “good people” are in fact simply trying to get the criminal’s money transferred to himself. Stealing second-hand.

The percentage of Americans who want global democracy is probably 2-3% tops. More would want it but are apolitical. Therefore America is politically useless on the global democratic scene, far weaker than many South American countries and probably weaker than 90% of all countries.

America’s role in the world from a progressive standpoint is to provide money and a whole lot of condescension and holier-than-thou while “helping” poor people. Meanwhile at home they “fight” the criminal class to get money transferred to themselves for “justice” and “equality” and so that apparently they can continue to “help” poor people who they have contempt for in the same way as does the criminal class itself.

The first solution is for progressive America to face the reality of what it is and to realize that nothing can be done in America until progressives reform their own morality. Sites like this prove that instead of that project progressives prefer to complain about how bad the actions of other people are.

FBI Loses National Security Letter Case Against Internet Archive

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Indymedia Presents Episode 300

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Book Recommendations – A Lexicon of Terror and We Make this Road by Walking

These are both excellent books – the first is about Argentina’s totalitarian regime of the 1970s/1980s and the latter is about educational methodology.

Mothers Betrayed

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General Petraeus: Zionism’s Military Poodle

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How the psychological industry is built on mass media and propaganda

This is a reply to an email. My reply is in regular print, the quote of the person I’m replying to is in italics.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, but what I think I understand I disagree with. It sounds like you’re saying that many people who are suffering psychologically are actually, although they don’t recognize it, suffering from all the cruelty going on in the world that it’s beyond their control to stop. It would be pretty easy to empirically evaluate this thesis (perhaps it’s already been done). I think many more people suffer from “real” psychological problems such as manic-depression or from “real-world” problems like drug or alcohol abuse.

I very much doubt that anyone has evaluated that thesis – your stance on this matter is the status quo one. Very little of reality is ever evaluated. Systems of power have no interest in evaluation unless it serves their purpose. You said it quite well yourself in the mid ’90s when you commented about how much time was spent developing video games (unreality) – what is advertising and propaganda if not un-reality? How much time is spent on that versus analyzing truth? The Neoconservative mantra is “We create reality”. That is to say, their mantra is “Our propaganda becomes your truth”.

My thesis is based on the observation that “psychological abnormality” increased greatly during the 20th century, to the point where a shrink is on every streetcorner and the pharmaceutical industry is a behemoth.

By “real” psychological problems I assume you believe there to be primarily a genetic basis for the problems. If I’m correct about a great rise in psychological problems in the 20th century there cannot be a genetic basis for it, since the genetic profiles in question changed very little over such a short time span.

An argument against my position is that there are not more psychological problems than there used to be – it’s just that what used to be non-diagnosed now has been given a label – so what used to be a “normal” or an “unlabeled” human now might be called a “manic-depressive”.

My argument is that psychological profiles, including what are deemed “problems”, are primarily caused by the environment. My argument identifies several factors as providing major psychological and social traumas which result in “psychological abnormality”. After listing these factors I will explain why the 20th century is unique and why the problems of past centuries did not have the same psychological results.

One is the schizophrenic factor of a populace which simultaneously applauds freedom while engaging in imperialism. This factor accelerated in the mid 20th century when much of the third world gained a measure of independence.

The twin terrors of constant threats of nuclear annihilation and global environmental collapse (which boil down to the same thing) cause a kind of darkness and perpetual depression.

Massive endemic propaganda and schizophrenic doublethink, as outlined by Orwell.

More schizophrenia – support for corporations (unaccountable private tyrannies – command economies like mini-versions of the communist state) and simultaneously support for democracy.

The military-industrial complex and the notion of “perpetual war for perpetual peace”.

It’s funny how we have no problem identifying elements specific to the 20th century in some ways (like pertaining to culture) but somehow can’t quite grasp that psychology is also derived from the environment.

Propaganda derives from the rise of mass media and the public relations industry, which only became systematized by the elite in the early 20th century. Propaganda directly targets the mind – seeking to colonize it with disinformation and irrational directives. Somehow, though, the status quo position, such as outlined by yourself, which is allied with this propaganda, doesn’t seem to understand that propaganda affects psychology.

Prior to the 20th century, the major projection of power was done by force. Psychology is fairly irrelevant when facing a gun. With the “civilizing” of the state in the 20th century it switched to propaganda as the primary means of control of the populace – therefore psychological control – therefore psychological resistance by the populace – therefore psychological problems deriving from the battle over control of the mind.

Take the example of Argentina in the 1970s. This culture had perhaps the highest per capita rate of psychologists/psychiatrists in the world. It was also a fascist state which tortured and terrorized it’s citizens – and in terms of propaganda was neo-nazi. The mass media state churns out psychological victims who are then serviced by the psychology industry. It’s no surprise at all that the psychology industry and the mass media industry rose to prominence at the same time.

The role of psychologists is to control the interpretation of psychic victims – to say that “it’s all in your head” and that talking, coming to “realizations” which never have to do with the state (usually have to do with the family and/or personal traumas), and/or use of drugs is the solution. Of course the state doesn’t pay the fee despite causing the event – the fee goes to people who are accredited by the state itself (through the educational system).

There is a kind of comfort in your position. Humans always blame something they can attack – the ruling class is nearly immune from attack and therefore can’t possibly be the problem, according to the logic of comfort and convenience. However, if enough humans recognize the truth of my evaluation they will find that the ruling class can indeed be attacked, and perhaps fatally.