Inside the rebellion in Greece

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Destroying the Western intellectual left

This is a post on the Dissident Voice forums, in reply to a James Keye article, here.

About Rove’s comment:

The elite are destroyers of the world. That is their role with respect to reality. They create nothing.

The vast majority of humans have little conscious connection to the elite. Their connection is with their family, friends, and co-workers and with the natural world. That’s where *creation* occurs, that’s where reality occurs, and real history occurs.

Instead of detailing THAT history, real history, most intellectuals detail the history of the elite, which is the history of the corruption of and destruction of real history.

The elite imagine themselves to be the real actors of the world and the intellectuals support this notion through either positive or constructive treatment of them, and no treatment at all of the non-elite.

James Keye says that the elite are the only ones who “do what they imagine”. This is the complete opposite of the truth – the elite are the only ones who *don’t* do what they imagine. No human being wants to destroy the world – only human beings who have divorced themselves from benevolence “want” to destroy the world.

Being a member of the elite is similar to being insane – noone really *wants* to be insane – it’s just that circumstances sometimes lead to such a thing, and make people think they desire it. The elite and the insane lead wonderful lives according to them and perverse lives according to those who experience them.

Take a look at common people (I don’t mean Americans, the rulers of the world) – they are very happy with their lives, remarkably happy given the travesties committed on them by the elite. Other than elite monstrosities, these people are getting exactly what they want.

It’s only the elite who are never happy, never satisfied – everyone else is often happy and often satisfied. It’s obvious who is doing what they want and who keeps doing things they hate, and then tries to perpetually correct their past actions.

It’s *only* the elite who are miserable. Even a starving young mother has a smile on her face as she looks at her child.

The elite bury their misery in power, wealth, and domination. With every destructive act they commit it rears it’s ugly head.

Real history is unexamined by the intellectuals who refuse to cover it, who believe that the Karl Roves of the world are more important than the starving mothers, or the bloated corpses, or the common people with their everyday lives.

Intellectuals constantly look for the unique, the “special”, the never-before-said, the vanguard, the original, the revolutionary, the “true”.

And in smiles, in conversation, in changing relationships, in embraces, in disagreement, in shared silence, nothing need be said, nothing can be said, according to the intellectuals, who scoff at such things and look to the Karl Roves of the world for something worthy of their critique.

In ignoring true reality intellectuals have helped build a propaganda system in conjunction with the elite whose purpose is to control reality.

Everyone smiles at their child. The intellectuals, regardless of their “political position” smile at Karl Rove. What a naughty boy he is. Now this naughty boy writes for a mainstream magazine. How dare they employ him! Don’t they know better? Don’t you see how we are trying to help you out by telling you this?

Smiles speak volumes. Volumes that cannot be written by the intellectuals, cannot be controlled by the intellectuals, and thus must be destroyed by the intellectuals.

To intellectuals, reality itself is a foreign language. Those intellectuals are xenophobic.

James Keye makes a fundamental error common to intellectual supporters of the elite – he believes that humans *want* to be members of the elite. The elite are few in number not because they are the cream of the crop of humans but because few humans want to descend to their level. Few humans want to destroy the world, but a few are willing to do so for personal profit. And unfortunately, at least with respect to the past several thousand years, that’s all it has taken.

Obama has achieved something for blacks in the same sense as a human achieves something when he becomes a devil.

According to intellectuals, Obama is a “success story”. That speaks volumes about Western intellectual leftism.

Those are more volumes that Western intellectuals have no interest in. Down the memory hole with it!

Obama will lead American blacks to imperial power and domination! Go Obama, Go Obama!

Most people achieve what they want. The history of the elite is the tragic history of the world. A history ONLY told by intellectuals.

Haven’t we had enough tragedy, or will only the death of the world be an end to it?

Only by freeing the global black is the American black free

The following is a reply of mine on Black Agenda Report, here.

Communist? Don’t be ridiculous.

There’s a world of difference between global class consciousness and American class consciousness. The former treats every human being in the world equally – the latter treats every human being in the United States equally. The United States is the most powerful criminal society in the world – so the difference between the two consciousnesses is vast.
BAR’s main focus is on the oppression and mistreatment of American blacks (and other American poor). Yes, they have secondary focuses on the rest of the world. But if BAR wants to solve the problems derived from capitalism, problems which ultimately come home to roost for American blacks, they need to primarily look outside the US – they need to examine the primary victims of capitalism, who are NOT American blacks.
While American blacks struggle to remain out of prison, employed, and finally to join the oppressive bourgeoisie class (which they call “success”), global blacks struggle to not starve to death, they struggle to not suffer debilitating diseases, to not lose their homes or spouses or children to imperial wars – to not lose their communities – to gain some measure, any measure, of control over their lives.
It’s not an either-or choice. I’m not saying ignore American blacks because others suffer more. I’m saying that the problems of capitalism, capitalism itself, isn’t threatened by a focus on American blacks as the victims, which is why Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were only killed after their transition towards global socialism.
It’s like someone who tries to attack the mob by causing the mob boss to pay higher wages to the mob underlings. This does not threaten the mob boss – it only annoys him.
However, if the REAL victims of the mob boss – the community around him that he degrades – the decent people – are secured and boosted in their power, the mob boss can be destroyed.
Unless BAR wants to bring down the global capitalist system, the most they can do is transfer money from the American capitalists to the American workers – the same thing that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Jeremiah Wright are trying to do. Meanwhile, the true victims of America, including those blacks in the Motherland of Africa, will continue to suffer horribly, and to a degree that American blacks have never and will never experience.
Only when the Mob Boss is destroyed is the Mob Underling able to live again as a moral creature, instead of a creature who calls “success” his entry into the ranks of imperial bourgeois dominators of the world.
Until Africa is liberated, until Asia is liberated, until Europe is liberated, until the Middle East is liberated, America is enslaved.

Leftist Campaign Issues

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Real Utopia-Left Forum ’08: Jessica Azulay 8/11

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Conversation: Expropriation vs. Dismantlement of the State, and more

This is a conversation between Mad Dog and myself. The statements in italics are from Mad Dog.

I agree with you that the Libertarian Right wants to dismantle the state, although they would probably not like the results that follow.

The Libertarian Left does not want to (immediately) dismantle the state. It wants to expropriate the state. After the state has been expropriated (the power structure changed to put the people in control of it) then the state in hiearchical-form can be dismantled as a bottom-up power structure takes its place.

The Libertarian Right wants immediate dismantlement because they don’t want any bottom-up power structure at all. They want whatever power structure emerges out of the “free market”, which is the same power structure that exists right now in the United States. So I guess the Libertarian Right position is that whenever government gets too corrupt, it’s done away with, slowly forms again, gets corrupted, and then is done away with in a kind of revolutionary cycle.

In that case, where would Ron Paul fit in? He specifically said that he would want to make every possible effort to save things like social security and other benefits programs, at least for the time being, BUT give people the option of opting out, which they do not have now.

People can’t opt out of Social Security because that would kill the program. The Neocons would love to get rid of Social Security (privatize it) and you can compare that to Ron Paul’s position, which is another example of the similarity in the Neoconservative and Libertarian Right positions.

As far as where Ron Paul fits in to expropriation vs. dismantlement, seemingly fully on the dismantlement side. He talks about getting rid of a lot of government agencies. He would have a lot of fights against the corporate sector so it’s hard to say what the effect of a Paul presidency would be and since he would find it easy to implement policies that the Neocon/corporate sector liked he could certainly get through a lot of privatization of government functions.

The left is myopic in their support of Paul’s foreign policy. This is another area where he would have a lot of battles to fight but assuming he had some success the military budget would be slashed and the military would be used in strictly a defensive capacity. Although the left barely knows it (due to lack of imagination if anything) they would prefer America’s military to be used as a global peacekeeping force, in additional to having sufficient forces for defense. Meaning, lets say a genocide is taking place somewhere. The left would want to send the military to end the genocide (assuming political intervention didn’t work). Ron Paul places such a large emphasis on “military strictly for defense” that assuming he keeps his word he would not allow American troops to end the killing. If this happens I would politely remind those leftists who support Paul of their bad selection.

The most important thing about the Paul candidacy is that it’s almost entirely internet-fueled. I’m going to pay close attention to Paul’s numbers in the primaries which will tell me the baseline expectation for non-corporate candidates in 2012. If Paul can stay around 10% then maybe in 2012 with a big internet push for someone they can finish at 15%, or 20%, and maybe start to worry corporate America. Once enough momentum happens it gets a lot easier to elect someone who better represents the people.

“People can’t opt out of Social Security because that would kill the program. The Neocons would love to get rid of Social Security (privatize it) and you can compare that to Ron Paul’s position, which is another example of the similarity in the Neoconservative and Libertarian Right positions. ”

There are some important differences between what Ron Paul and the NeoConservatives feel on the matter of Social Security.

1. Bush and pals want to give the social security accounts to some corporation. Ron Paul wants Social Security to remain in the hands of government. Huge difference right there.
2. Other major difference between Neocons and Paul on Social Security: Paul would give you a choice of having or not. The Neocons have no such intention. Yes, it may seem like that there will be fewer funds. But factor in that Ron Paul would save money in other ways, as well as place holds on the collected funds, so that they would not be immediately wasted. Are you aware that Social Security was originally started as an insurance program, which was supposed to hold on to the funds? Years later, the politicians spend the money for social security immediately, effectively betraying its role as a trust.

3. May I suggest you read what Ron Paul actually wrote about social security?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul215.html
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/social-security/
http://drronpaul2008.blogspot.com/2007/12/ron-paul-on-social-security.html

You may be correct about Paul having a very difficult time against the corporate sector, but why would it be any different for Kucinich?

Foreign Policy? I strongly believe that he would have a much easier time with that, as the President is commander in chief, and has absolute power to end wars and bring troops home. The president’s power overrides anyone else’s on this matter.

“Ron Paul places such a large emphasis on “military strictly for defense” that assuming he keeps his word he would not allow American troops to end the killing. If this happens I would politely remind those leftists who support Paul of their bad selection.”

I’m not sure I know what you mean by this. Are you saying that the ‘Just War’ theory is wrong, and that we should have pre-emptive war?

On the Drug War, he may or may not be able to end it outright, but he would have the granted power to give pardons to all non-violent drug offenders, without any real obstacles in his way here.

I certainly do appreciate you considering his ideas carefully.

“You may be correct about Paul having a very difficult time against the corporate sector, but why would it be any different for Kucinich?”

It would be more difficult for Kucinich, since he doesn’t hold as many positions that align with the corporate sector (such as privatization). I’d love to see a president who spends 4 or 8 years fighting the corporate sector. That would engage the public tremendously.

With respect to social security, I don’t see that it makes much difference whether the funds are there or not. The funds can always be pulled from somewhere else. Only if the country goes effectively bankrupt will it matter, and at that point social security seems like the least of the problems.

“3. May I suggest you read what Ron Paul actually wrote about social security?”

The degree to which social security is a problem is an invented issue by the right (mostly the Neocons, or so I thought). It if ever becomes a problem the government can subsidize it. It”s not even potentially a problem until 2045, if the data produced in 2005 is still accurate. My preferred candidate’s position is to either leave social security alone or to subsidize it (find some way to extend the 2045 problem date). Anything else (choice to privatize, full privatization) is bad, since the former hastens it’s end and the latter ends it outright. I’ll take your word for what Ron Paul’s position on social security is.

“Foreign Policy? I strongly believe that he would have a much easier time with that, as the President is commander in chief, and has absolute power to end wars and bring troops home. The president’s power overrides anyone else’s on this matter.”

Most American wars America does not fight. America sells the weapons and others do the killing. Without the weapons from the U.S. there would be many fewer weapons, much less killing, and then the U.S. could apply international pressure on whatever seller (Britain for example) stepped up as the weapons supplier. Instead of the U.S. supplying Israel with billions of dollars a year in arms it fights against the sale of all types of arms for all countries in the Middle East (as well as everywhere else in the world) and requires through international pressure enforced by a true global peacekeeping force (one backed up by military force, unlike what the UN has at the moment) that all governments in the world use their militaries for strictly defensive purposes. Once the role of the U.S. becomes a promoter of bottom-up democracy around the world, it becomes easy for militaries to be used in that fashion, since the people of the world nearly always want their militaries used strictly defensively.

The issue is not “bringing the troops home”, although avoiding the further destruction of an entire generation of young Americans is undoubtedly an excellent thing. We’ve already shattered the future of the country as it is. The issue is the size of the militarized part of the American corporate sector (militarized private industry) as well as the size of the militarized part of the American public sector (taxpayer dollars for militarization). The most important issue is not the effect of war on American troops but the effect of war on the world. Ron Paul talks about not using taxpayer dollars to fund wars of empire, a statement that most everyone, including everyone on the left, fully supports. I have not heard him breathe a single word however about the private funding of wars of empire. The American empire is not an empire of government, but one of the elite, which is a composite of the rich, the well-connected, the corporate, as well as the government.

As you’re aware (because I told you if for no other reason) half of the troops under the direction of the U.S. government in Iraq are private contractors. So if we “bring the troops home” by which is meant the troops being paid by taxpayers, what happens to the private contractors? What happens to the militaries of other countries who with American arms can slaughter people just as easily as American troops, and with a lot less objection by a propagandized domestic population that cares only about “bringing the troops home”?

This is the effect of propaganda once again, and why “bringing the troops home” is a propaganda tool. The elite set “bringing the troops home” as the alternative to the present state of affairs because they know that wars, whether the one in Iraq or any other, can easily continue after the troops are brought home. So the idea (if it comes to that) is that they make a big show of “bringing the troops home”, hopefully silence the “anti-war” American population, and the wars can continue (albeit somewhat less aggressively, since troops directly under the control of the US government are taken out of the equation).

So to conclude on this issue, there are two budgets that are important. The taxpayer budget for military purposes, and the private sector “budget” for military purposes. Both of them need to be severely reduced, and apply to only defensive purposes as well as defending other people in the world (true defense, not destroying some country because it might at some point in some future embark on some war of aggression).

“I’m not sure I know what you mean by this. Are you saying that the ‘Just War’ theory is wrong, and that we should have pre-emptive war?”

‘Just War’ is propaganda designed to make it easier for empires to conduct wars of aggression and genocide. It’s like when the West imposes cultural genocide through “missionaries spreading the Christian faith”. That’s called “just” because it brings the West to “the primitives”.

Where Ron Paul and the left differ is on the use of taxpayer troops outside of the country. Ron Paul, at least if his words are to be taken seriously, would not send American troops to stop genocides or other killings as long as those killings do not involve Americans. Much of the left supports using the power of the American economy (a power that is dwindling) to take part in an international effort (including the military) to stop oppression and violence worldwide.

“On the Drug War, he may or may not be able to end it outright, but he would have the granted power to give pardons to all non-violent drug offenders, without any real obstacles in his way here.”

We need a complete overhaul of the prison system and a close examination of the justice system.

“I certainly do appreciate you considering his ideas carefully.”

It’s not very relevant to me. The Libertarian Right has no significant power base, no real potential for such. Ron Paul only looks appealing to people who detest the corporatist candidates and who think of themselves as responsible citizens unlike “those leftists”.

As America’s economy collapses, the population will shift to the left (even further than they already are, like what happened in South America following terroristic neoliberal rule), and America will either become a police state (a more oppressive one than currently) or a democracy (or perhaps more likely, a police state and then a democracy). Either way, the Libertarian Right has no future in America, at least until the country stabilizes and gains some measure of economic well-being for it’s citizens. That’s going to take quite a while, given the interests of the people running this country (into the ground). This is partially why I say that the Neoconservatives are socialists – just look at what a few decades of Milton Friedman’s ideology did to the people of South America – it turned them all into leftists (except the few who profit from the ideology). The best way to make someone oppose an ideology is to offer them some bad rulership using that ideology. Every capitalist in the world should have been outraged at neoliberalism and fighting against it – instead almost noone was and that’s why capitalism itself is in such danger today. Why didn’t they fight against it? is the big question. Some think it was out of tremendous devotion to capitalism… I think it was out of devotion to socialism, such devotion that they would run capitalism into the ground in order to arrive there. Or maybe capitalism itself breeds such selfishness that it’s impossible for a capitalist to support capitalism, so like a machine with no engineer it eventually grinds itself into dust.

Here’s a nice catchphrase: the Libertarian Right is justice for the middle class. What do you think is going to happen to the Libertarian Right when there is no more middle class in America?

If you really want to promote the Libertarian Right, you support policies that increase the size of the middle class in America. I agree with people who believe that Ron Paul will have a much more beneficial effect on the middle class than any corporatist candidate. A Kucinich presidency would have an even better effect economically on the middle class, although the middle class (largely white) prefers Paul’s positions on immigration, abortion, etc. hence making him “their candidate”.

A Christmas Cage

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America the Enslaved

The system is not corrupt
Corruption implies dirt that is covering an otherwise clean thing
All corruption requires is a shower
Our system is wrong to the core
It’s called a democracy when the slaves choose who uses the whip
The problem is that someone uses the whip
The problem is that citizens are gunned down by cops with no accountability
The problem is that people are jailed for smoking a joint while the president doesn’t lose his job for creating mass poverty and mass murder
Presidents always create mass poverty and mass murder – that’s why the elite pick them
Some just go too far, kill too many, impoverish too many – impoverish the wrong people, so they are deemed bad
But the presidential institution is rarely challenged, representative government is rarely challenged
Instead the “good” people try to give the system a shower
And then wonder why the same problems happen all over again

My Message to the Young (And Not So Young)

The greatest lie you’ll ever be told is that your soul is inside your body
Trapped there, unable to be free, unable to be shared
Only free upon your death, so godspeed your death

You’ll find your soul out there, manufactured from love
And hope, and despair, and your greatest longing
It is the deluded who are afraid, they who protect their souls at all costs
It is they for whom the “truth” that self-preservation is an inalienable prerogative was invented

If you’re a soul-seeker you’re a path-forger
You can drop off a cliff at any time, so watch your step
They who can barely breathe and never walk will call you a coward
And evil, and many other things
So good life to you as you walk always questioning

Zapatistas, Companeros

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Total Exploitation – Them and You

Everyone in America is the result of exploitation
Good people in America serve an important purpose
To provide a public relations front to the world
Noam Chomsky is the ultimate false-front export
His message is that the American government is so liberal and tolerant that they allow him to speak
Dance, Chomsky, Dance

Who can estimate to what extent America is protected from attack because of the goodness of it’s people?
Who can estimate how the American people are exploited by the elite into providing a voice while the elite provide the silent abuse?
Freedom of Speech is for them to hear flowery nothings while they receive slavery and starvation
It’s for them to smile while their elite are being controlled by Washington
You can say anything you want only so long as your words have little positive impact – once they do more you are silenced
Everything is control. Noam Chomsky is encouraged as a PR mouthpiece unless things get out of the US government’s control
While the elite rules there will always be exploitation

Even if you’re poor in America you’re affluent
The American government is too confident still to allow Americans to starve, although that’s changing fast
Other people receive bomb blasts – you do not
They are raped by multinationals – you are not
They work in sweatshops – you do not
They live a life of large terror and small hopes – now you do
Welcome to the world that your elite created, Americans

Autonomous Education

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Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona

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Lenin on the rise of the state

“The state is the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises when, where, and to the extent that class antagonisms objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that class antagonisms are irreconcilable.”

A symptom of a police state

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A quote from Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”

Page 420 provides a classic:

“A few voices continued to insist that the real war was inside each nation: Dwight Macdonald’s wartime magazine Politics presented, in early 1945, an article by the French worker-philosopher Simone Weil:

Whether the mask is labeled Fascism, Democracy, or Dictatorship of the Proletariat, our great adversary remains the Apparatus – the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier or the battlelines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers’ enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this Apparatus, and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.”