Archive for July, 2008
Big Media Steals 5,100 Digital TV Channels
July 31, 2008There is no left in America
July 26, 2008The United States, like all other imperialist societies, is a criminal society. Virtually the entire population is criminal. Normality in such a society is criminal. “Normality” is acquiescence, complicity with that society. We don’t need to turn on the TV or visit the local corporate multinational headquarters to see criminals – just look in the mirror.
Hitler was sexy – the blood flowed in great quantity. But Hitler killed far less and enslaved a fraction of what America has managed. How many books are written about the German people and how few are written about the American people. Mirrors are never in fashion.
I am a criminal. That is to say, I happily accept the benefits of imperialism – benefits that lead me to gain in an hour what 2 billion workers in the world gain in a week. Benefits that lead me, a “poor” person in America, to comforts and a diet rich in protein while many starve and many more barely subsist on cheap carbohydrates.
I am a criminal precisely because I want a happy life and I’m not willing to give up that rich life so that others may live. So I eat my protein, I watch my movies, I am “frugal”, and I congratulate myself as do so many others on my “moral superiority” to the mob bosses of America, the capitalists. That’s little consolation to a typical global citizen whose son just died from war or starvation due to American domination and exploitation of his economy.
It’s this gazing at the elite, this comparison of the “moral American” to monsters like George Bush, that is the undoing of the left. The left simply will not come to grips with the fact that the United States is an imperial society, TOP TO BOTTOM.
The left pontificates on the “failure of the left in America”, thinking of every reason but the true one – there is no left in America. There’s no left because the “far left” is made up of people like me, who refuse to give up their imperial benefits and thus maintain complicity with the imperial regime. So we endlessly talk and talk and talk about what we’d like the world to be like while actually not wanting the world to be like that at all.
As Henry Louis-Gates said, (paraphrased) – “I’m not giving up MY money”.
A quote from San Francisco mayor Willie Brown
July 24, 2008“I say to people who are poverty-stricken, I know how much you love San Francisco, but, because of the nature of cost of living here, you are better off being poverty-stricken where the cost of living is not so great.”
The American people are complicit in the coming police state
July 14, 2008This is the article I’m replying to, as well as the initial quotation.
“So the question is how much money is being spent to promote each of the competing belief systems.”
Billions are spent to promote corporate and ruling class propaganda. Billions more are spent to “educate” children in ruling class “truths” and values. Millions are spent to promote truth. It’s no wonder that truth itself is under attack and in jeopardy of becoming extinct (at least within American culture, which is a kind of global ruling class culture).
A Dark Ages of the future will rise when truth becomes extinct within the ruling class.
Capitalist – “A simple question here – what’s more profitable – truth or propaganda? Don’t my shareholders deserve the best?”
When truth is seen as “just another ideology” humanity is in great peril. Perhaps it already is.
Articles like this one from Drolette are unfortunate, because they assume the bumper-stickered military man is ignorant. In truth he’s merely following his own interests – he accepts the imperial propaganda because he’s an imperialist. Truth has nothing to do with it. It’s not the bumper-stickered man who’s ignorant – it’s Drolette who clings to the comforting belief that if only the military man would “see the light” he would change his beliefs.
This type of ignorance is likewise reflected in Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter With Kansas?”. Frank makes a critical error of not recognizing that America is an imperial society. The poor people of America benefit from imperial atrocities committed abroad, and must suffer homeland pains in order to receive imperial benefits. This is precisely why so many black Americans remain in America versus leaving the society that crushed their ancestors under chattel slavery and crushes them under wage slavery. The imperial benefits of living in America, even for the worst off, are enormous.
Noam Chomsky’s “advances in democracy” leading to a rise of the American middle class in the post-WWII era is only part of the story, and it’s a relatively minor part. The biggest reason for the rise of the middle class in America was America’s imperialism – it’s criminal extortion, exploitation, and utter rape of much of the rest of the world. Rape is profitable, as every warrior in history understands, and this profit can be distributed, and was distributed in America from the rapists (American capitalists) to those who support them (the American people).
Most of the poor in America want imperialism and whatever necessitates it – including a possible police state at home – in order to continue receiving imperial benefits.
Recent readings
July 9, 2008The Colonizer and the Colonized, Thought and Language, and Waging Peace are all very good. Next up are Promoting Polyarchy, Realizing hope: life beyond capitalism, Essays on Ideology, and On War.
To Fire 7/7/08
July 7, 2008I downloaded a free trial of World of Warcraft and am playing some. The only restriction I’ve found so far is no ability to buy or sell at the auction house. It would be cool if we could play together with low-level characters. I prefer playing a tank (warrior) nowadays. I’m available most early to mid evenings (Pacific time). Are you in a Qt3 guild?
I’m headed to Ann Arbor July 19-21 to visit a college friend. He says he doesn’t want to talk politics all the time ;).
I saw Wall-E last week which was very good although it had the usual Disney problems. I’m seeing The Dark Knight on opening night which is getting many very good reviews.
Is your summer going well? We’ve had many nice sunny days here, with only occasional excessive heat.
We're in Our World Now 