Why We Play

As Franz Kafka gazes upon the bleak gray desert of the real and J.R.R. Tolkien constructs his alternate reality, climate scientists inform us that humanity has a matter of decades left before mass destruction unless we can seize political control of the world away from concentrated capital and it’s banking and corporate affiliates. The goal of these latter forces is to hold onto political control long enough for technology to develop to allow them (not us, of course) to escape the earth, and preferably to then maximize the exploitation of their new homeland.

In this context of the real there exists a serious, if usually undeclared, debate between gamers of despair and gamers of hope. Gamers of despair view games as an escape from the desert of the real, as offering the last possibility of lush, green, nubile paradise prior to human extinction. Gamers of hope view games as the only form of art which can save the world, by enabling new human psychologies and interactions which are then “brought back” from virtual into traditional reality.

Opposition to games like Call of Duty is one salvo in this ongoing debate – military shooters offer the fantasy of power over life and death, of waves after waves of murder in order to achieve personal security (to maintain one’s own existence). The question of how one can morally murder thousands in order to preserve a single life is not addressed, in the same sense as it’s not addressed in Invasion U.S.A. or (preferably) not addressed within zionism. That 80% of mainstream games feature killing as a primary mode of gameplay tells us a lot about the ideological position of the game industry.

Gamers of hope can also be described as gamers of ignorance, as there’s nearly no understanding of how exactly games are going to save the world. Gamers of despair are fueled from this weakness.

As gamers of hope view games as having the potential to save the world, we are “addicted” to games, in the same sense that Superman is addicted to helping people. All humans are “addicted” to doing what’s right. Hope is a hell of a drug.

The Bradley Manning 35 page document

In court recently Bradley Manning read a 35 page document detailing the reasons he released the lowly classified military information to Wikileaks. Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights reports that his group is attempting to get this document released to the public.

Thoughts on the Sunday May 20, 2012 Chicago Anti-NATO rally, march, and protest

I arrived shortly after 9 AM on the Southshore train from South Bend, IN and stepped out from the Van Buren St. train exit onto Michigan Ave. amid many young, carefully arranged, packaged, and produced, affluent Chicagoans. This should have given me an idea what I was in for. I traveled northeast where meticulous parks shook hands with meticulous skyscrapers, where fashionable people walked with fashionable dogs. A giant opulent fountain looked out upon a shining blue expanse of water, dotted with boats which were undoubtedly fashionable if I had only paid more attention.

I was looked upon when anyone bothered as so much meat – perhaps adequate as a fillet but a poor one, and clearly not up to their ravenous but oh-so-delicate tastes in any case.

A line of media vehicles, big bulky and shining white, dominated one side of the street. Police hulked about in studious calm.

At the rally and subsequently there were four main contingents of participants – angry, young, middle class people fearing for their (material) future, progressives, anarchists, and people who show up at sexy large social gatherings to mingle. Although not ever spoken about on any news service I frequent, the latter group may well be the most populous. Note that “poor people” is not one of the groups, which is the big problem. This was a largely white, middle class (by middle class I mean people who are globally speaking very, very wealthy) gathering. This was therefore not at all a populist gathering, therefore not a revolutionary gathering, despite much rhetoric given during the gathering to the contrary.

Not much more need be said about it. The police occasionally tried to look intimidating but mostly were just bored, and hotter than the rest of us in their padded armor and helmets in the mid to high 80s degree heat and sun. The march stopped before we got to the poor side of town.

Walking the streets of Chicago after the event I saw far more poor people than I did during the event that opposes (or ostensibly opposes) an institution that dominates and oppresses poor people around the world and at home. Chicago is an utterly racially segregated city, with black and white separations between the white (wealthy) part of town, the black part of town, the Chinese part of town.

And another segregation – between poor people and “revolutionary” activists.

Anyone looking to seriously create revolution in the world rather than just having something sexy to put on their life’s resume needs to be part of a movement comprised largely of poor people. That’s the only logical possibility for where a revolution can come from.

Jimmy Cayne, George W. Bush, and saving the world

Jimmy Cayne received $500 Million in salary and bonuses from 2000-2008. This wealth, none of which was under threat regardless of what happened to Bear Stearns (despite the fact that the bonuses derived largely from ridiculously risky speculation which fueled the crash), along with the subconscious understanding that the insane machinations of high finance would inevitably lead to a collapse and the expectation that his bank was also “too big to fail”, perhaps was why he was able to maintain a level of composure during the Bear Stearns meltdown.

He became upset not when Bear Stearns was shown to be a disastrous corporation, but rather when Bear Stearns wasn’t bailed out. That’s interesting – imagine if you’ve been working at a job for some time and are doing terribly, as a result your company crashes and you only become upset when you don’t receive corporate socialist assistance. How curious it is that when Oprah talks about “personal responsibility” she never points the finger at corporations or their leadership, rather always at the very people hurt most BY corporations. I’m sure the fact that she herself is wealthier than most CEOs has nothing to do with it.

It’s reminiscent of George W. Bush maintaining so much composure during the Twin Towers disaster. Why shouldn’t he be composed? – he expected to exploit the disaster, not be harmed by it. Of course, Ronald Reagan would have had the decency to pretend to be shaken up – I’m sure the fact that Reagan worship became so prevalent during the Bush II years has nothing to do with the incident.

People often ask me “Is something wrong with you?”

Two much more pertinent questions for them to ask are “Is something wrong with me?” and “Is something wrong with the world?” I, after all, am unimportant.

While they ask “Is something wrong with you?” the clock is ticking on the life of the world. We live in a society of insane Neros, all fiddling while the world burns. Is it any wonder that I appear troubled? I’ve noticed that my trouble eases somewhat whenever I do something particularly useful in saving the world or when I witness such a thing done by another. But trouble is irrelevant – all consolation is shunned, such as, let’s say, ice cream. We will all be troubled until we solve our problems.

I don’t so much care whether or not civilization survives – it’s still an unanswered question whether civilization has any value. I care very much however about how much damage is done to humanity during the fall of civilization. Proponents of global warming believe that if civilization falls humanity should go with it – hence the apocalyptic fantasies and the desire to increase global warming. It’s a myth that there are people who believe global warming doesn’t exist – it’s politically expedient for them to believe that they believe that since they would be socially outcast (or worse) if they claimed to want to increase global warming.

There’s a debate we are not brave enough to have – the debate over whether the world should be saved.

The Century of the Self

video.google.com/videosearch?q=the+century+of+the+self+part+1&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

 

video.google.com/videosearch?q=the+century+of+the+self+part+2&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

 

video.google.com/videosearch?q=the+century+of+the+self+part+3&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

 

video.google.com/videosearch?q=the+century+of+the+self+part+4&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

The result is that nothing changes

As the West finished exploring the world in the 18th and 19th centuries it realized there was little left to exploit. It could fight within itself – a depressing option. Under these terms of an end of world expansionism it’s main goal became how to best maintain it’s system of world domination.

With the “3rd world” largely controlled and confidently held in control, the ruling class turned to “it’s own” citizens – the Western populace. This populace was no longer required to do anything – the end of world expansionism by the West marks the end of the desire for an active and able populace – the age of the rational individual was over.

The New Age which began in the 19th century and in which we are still living requires the individual to be useless. This uselessness is achieved in many ways – one is through bureaucracy and totalitarianism, as detailed in Brave New World, 1984, The Trial, and elsewhere. Another is through the use of trivia and distractions to socially render human useless – discussing sports scores for example, or watching TV, playing video games, etc. propagandistically termed “entertaining” the purpose of which is to remove the Western populace from having political effect.

Yet another method is psychological/physiological torture and control – the purpose of advertising is to control human wants. The purpose of pharmaceuticals is not to cure illness but to allow people to get sick safely – one can indulge in depression and then simply take an anti-depressant – indulge in fatty foods and take a diet pill.

The Western populace doesn’t mind any of this – it is literally bought off – the supposedly “poor people” of the West are actually part of the global middle class, while the “middle class” of the West are very wealthy on a global scale. The Western populace sees their utter uselessness as human beings, their degradation, their becoming a simple vessel for capitalist consumption, as merely the price paid for a life of ease and luxury. They look at the 3rd world and see the alternative for themself should they become “uppity”.

Corporations are the primary tool of this New Age, their power growing vastly during the 20th and 21st centuries. They are the rulers of the world, not governments.

One of the social outcomes of this new age is a complete loss of self-discipline. Any problem capitalism can fix and the individual is useless anyway – the logical conclusion as manufactured by the ruling class is that one must give in to despair and let consumer goods be the hope.

Self-deluded journalists and Nixon’s/GWB’s real crime

(Taken from an email to a friend):

Most journalists are not aware of their corruption – my argument does not require them to not be concerned about their reputation nor to attempt to hide or subvert the truth. Gary Webb, the journalist I mentioned to you in Ann Arbor, saw “the truth” about journalism and it drove him to commit suicide. He’s a typical example of the self-delusion of journalists regarding the honor of their profession. Most journalists have defense mechanisms in place which prevent them from traveling down the road Webb did which would result in their disillusionment.

Who creates the reputation of journalists? Surely not people like me – people like their bosses do – people like their co-workers. People like their willing readers.

Journalists are self-deluded. They are self-deluded in order to continue to maintain (and perhaps “improve”) their imperial lifestyles, which they could not do if they accepted facts about the world into their conscience. So tens of thousands of corpses per day created by the economic system the West invented and rules – irrelevant or “reinterpreted”. So mountains of corpses in Iraq and Afghanistan caused by imperial invasion and occupation – the same. So corporate totalitarian rule – laughed at.

Examine racism for a moment. Racism isn’t inherent in humanity – noone is born a racist. The primary point of racism is to lubricate the passage of colonization and imperialism. So for example the indigenous Americans the white settlers planned to exterminate were “Savages, horrifically uncivilized”, and therefore justified in being exterminated. Blacks from Africa imported for chattel slave labor, likewise. This is the exact reason why during imperial wars the enemy is given derogatory names (like kike, limey, gook, hajji) but then those names are forgotten and they return to their previous names when they are no longer being violently stolen from (just tacitly so).

Take a look at the Bush Administration for a moment. This is only the 2nd administration in history (Nixon’s being the first) to recognize on a level approaching consciousness it’s own deep corruption. Both administrations were punished for this terrible social blasphemy with extremely low poll numbers and Nixon’s impeachment. Though curiously, an examination of the actual effects of each administration places Reagan as arguably the worst president in modern history, and Clinton fares little better. Yet because Reagan was oblivious, optimistic, and smiled a whole lot, he’s applauded. Applauded by many of the same people who believe they are journalists crusading for the truth. If a president appears to be corrupt he sends the wrong message to the people.

This is why there is endless video mocking George W. Bush for his various verbal games and silly antics. It’s quite ok to destroy the world in imperial fashion, as Reagan and Clinton also did – the real crime is to know you’re doing it.

The American people are addicted to the elite

This is a reply to Max Shields from Dissident Voice. His words are in italics.

“Brian K. yes, the US “democracy” is a tactic to provide un-democracy.

Look, even in the old Empire England, the Prime Minister has to go face to face, same level, against his/her opposition. Here, we perch the POTUS on a pedestal, looking down talking AT the crowd who routinely applauds every inane thing he says. NO disagreement from the mob.

We call that the “democratic process”.”

It’s a whole lot worse than that, to extend this psychological and sociological situation.

Most regular Americans believe that the elite are better than they are. Better in one or more ways – either smarter, wiser, more capable, stronger, sexier, or some other trait they deem positive. So in addition to an enslavement caused by a continued desire for imperial benefits, it’s also caused by a belief in inferiority.

Once inferiority is ingrained, and it is deeply ingrained in the American psyche, truth *becomes* what the elite say it is, in the same sense that a God-fearing Christian’s truth is what God says it is, or what God’s supposed representative (such as the Pope) says it is.

I’ve been examining regular Americans closely for the past year, after spending a few years examining the American elite (with a particular focus on the Neocons). Americans are deeply propagandized – they are beholden to television and movies to a degree which even the left underestimates. One reason they are propagandized is not the high quality of the propaganda – for the most part it’s mediocre. They are propagandized because they are desperate and in despair, and believe themselves to have little capability to improve their lives. So they turn to corporate media, even while knowing it’s *intended* to harm them, because, like God, there is a HOPE that their corporate masters will save them. It is precisely the decline in religion that allowed the modern propaganda state to gain power, not the quality of it’s propaganda. God has been splintered and replaced by various demi-gods – one is Bill O’Reilly. Another Rush Limbaugh. Another Jon Stewart.

The movie “They Live!” makes one terrible mistake. It assumes that after the aliens are revealed the humans will rebel. In the real world the humans already know about the elite. They already know the television is intended to harm them. They already know the elite lie or make up the truth or tell the truth depending on what serves their purpose.

The people go on supporting these harmful institutions for the same reason every slave sincerely smiles at his master – he hopes to placate him. He hopes to *change* him. He hopes to receive a pat on the head instead of the end of a whip.

American culture is about obedience, and in tough times instead of rebelling American culture is about more *determined* obedience.

Americans have seen the alien, and embraced it. That was John Carpenter’s mistake.

At work I often turn the television off. I hate that poison and want to spare myself and others from it. It’s turned back on within a few minutes, never with an angry look but often with a sad one.

The people know it’s poison. But they also know that only their corporate masters can save them. They know very well that I can’t do a damn thing other than turn the TV off.

Examine the culture of addiction and you find something which causes both pleasure (brief and fleeting) and pain (lasting). Then examine the elite’s effect on the people, with their “hits” of distraction followed by the lasting pain of slavery.

The American people are addicted to the elite. According to them, the elite are their only hope.

The same relationship is found in abusive marriages. The woman hates the abuse, but can’t leave the abuser due to insecurity and fear of being alone. So the woman hopes that things will get better, and placates and “makes her husband happy” whenever she can.

And so the American people hope that Barack Obama will save them.

This is the reality in modern America we need to deal with.

Why the Zionists are committing a *slow* genocide of the Palestinians

This is a reply to David from Dissident Voice. His words are in italics:

“yet if genocide was their goal shouldn’t they have already easily entirely ethnically cleansed the defenseless Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. After all Israel is efficient, ruthless and cunning, why are they taking so long to complete a genocide if this is their true goal?”

Precisely because they are efficient, ruthless, and cunning.

The project of Zionism is not just about the extermination and driving out of the Palestinians – it’s doing so without upsetting the global community and their own people. It’s this latter part which leads them to complex machinations and a very slow genocide.

The problem is not killing all the Palestinians. That’s easy. The problem is getting away with the crime. Zionists are building a political reality in the world so that they are successful in that world *during* and especially AFTER they’ve annihilated the Palestinians.

Any criminal can tell you that committing a crime is easy. It’s evading detection and capture that’s difficult.

An important question for Zionists has long been: “How will the world view us after the Palestinians are gone?”

Zionists examined America – examined how through American media and long-term economic domination America built a positive global image, despite the country being built on native American burial grounds and corpses with American settler weapons embedded. Zionists use the same propaganda tools and media manipulation as their father figure does.

It wants the same results, and very well might get them unless they are stopped.

This is the real reason America supports Zionism – not out of some pro-Jew or anti-Arab bias but because there is a deep recognition of the imitation by Zionists of American settlers – it’s PATRIOTISM among Americans, including much of the American left, that causes Americans to fade away with a sigh at Zionist atrocities. How can they destroy this monstrosity, when their very homes, their economic well-being, their global status, is built in the same way?

This is the fundamental success of the Zionist concept. Zionists are merely Americans, version 2. Oh brave new world…

Inside the rebellion in Greece

Link

A Conversation between Michael Albert and Noam Chomsky

Link

The Destruction of Marxism

This is a reply to Timber on Dissident Voice. Timber’s words are in italics.

“You could also ask why so many poor people choose to participate in the exploitation of other poor people around the world by wearing Nike sweatshop apparel or by shopping at WalMart. I’m sorry to say it, but I think a lot of them just don’t care.”

No – it’s that downtrodden people enjoy lording over those even lower than themselves – the vast majority of people in the world are both below someone else and above someone else. By wearing the work of terrible slave labor they can constantly remind themselves that there are people in the world of a lower social caste than themselves – sweatshop apparel is a status symbol.

The poor of the world are by and large not more moral than the rich. They simply have less power and thus less ability to fuck things up.

This is how capitalism works – divide and conquer. It creates innumerable striations of social classes – one populous class of which is mini-lords who either directly control bottom-feeding slaves or who have some access to the output of low slaves (poor Americans wearing sweatshop gear).

The vast majority of Americans support worldwide slavery because ALL Americans, even indigenous Americans living in concentration camps (reservations) are mini-lords, who reap imperial benefits derived from slaves lower on the power rung than themselves.

This is the truth about abuse that few on the left have come to terms with – the abused become abusers themselves (think Zionists as a result of the Holocaust in their treatment of Palestinians) in order to paper-over their own feelings of impotence. Jews were impotent during the Holocaust so they are “potent” now, and Walmart shoppers are impotent in the social construct of America so they are “potent” with respect to sweatshop workers.

Marxists are deluded in that they treat the world as a dual construct of capitalists/workers. This utter travesty of extreme over-simplification has mind-fucked the left into abandoning the world’s poor – since they treat all workers equally, as “slaves of capitalism”.

Many of the supposedly downtrodden workers are mini-lords, with slaves below them who toil endlessly to provide benefits to themselves. Low slaves in Africa and Asia serve the needs of their “poor” masters in America, Western Europe and Japan, personified by a member of the “working class” wearing Nike apparel.

The global power structure is not capitalist/worker – it’s a ladder with many rungs. Unless you’re on the very top or the very bottom, you’re BOTH a slave and a master.

Marxism and it’s many “errors” have prevented the overthrow of capitalism. Marxism is a belief held by masters who pretend to be slaves. Anyone serious about destroying capitalism has had just about enough of that.

Marxism supports capitalism since it’s constituency (First world workers) benefits from it – the output of low slaves feeds their material well-being.

The Rocky Syndrome

This is a theory about the underlying motivations of the Neoconservatives. The Neoconservatives are an American political cult that rose to power in the latter days of Vietnam and have only just begun to wane. It features very cynical and aggressive political moves, such as the establishment of “think tanks” to control perspectives, the use of “talking points” to control thought, total loyalty to other Neoconservatives, and a degree of absurd rhetoric not seen before in political history. The story of the Neoconservatives begins in World War II.

Nazi Germany directly or indirectly led to the deaths of tens of millions of people, several million of which were German Jews. The German people, Jews and otherwise, did little to stop the atrocities. Hitler was very popular and resistance was sparse, lacked capital, and was largely ineffectual.

This began a spiritual project of redeeming humanity for it’s failure to resist Nazism. After a period of fear and triviality in the 1950s, the 1960s saw the rise of leftists and a straightforward hope and expectation of democratic reality. During this decade what would later become the Neoconservatives were Marxists and Trotskyists. Israel under Zionist ideology was a socialist state (for Jews only). Neoconservatism is substantially Jewish due to it’s original ties to understanding WWII and the Nazism process of exterminating Jews.

What The Rocky Syndrome does is to reinterpret and challenge the notion of a “shift to the right” of the Neoconservatives following the fall of the American New Left of the 1960s.

The hippie culture of the 1960s was naive and straightforward. They believed that democratic reality would emerge out of natural human willingness and desire, especially if culture was directed in that way. Hence “free love”.

The Neoconservatives saw the fall of that movement as an indicator that, once again, humanity had failed. Humans could not be brought to democracy in straightforward, direct fashion, just as humans could not oppose fascism directly.

This led the Neoconservatives not toward a new political direction, but toward a new method of achieving what humanity could not achieve in either WWII or during the 1960s.

The Neoconservatives took themselves underground.

In the Rocky series of movies, Rocky leads a hard-scrabble life. He trains, and trains, using a poor man’s facilities, and finally is ready for his big bout. But even after all of that training, he gets in a ring with a man who is bigger, richer, and stronger. And Rocky is beaten to a pulp. He’s beaten (WWII human failure), and beaten (fall of the 1960s left), but finally just when all hope is lost and he seems to be gone he explodes in a manic flurry of punches, through a bloody haze, and defeats Goliath.

Langston Hughes speaks of this process:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Rocky’s dream deferred finally exploded. The question for the Neoconservatives became, how do we create Rocky? As Rocky is the American people, how do we create the American people such that they explode?

And their answer was obvious – beat the Americans to a pulp. Humanity had failed in WWII and during the 1960s because it was insufficiently devastated, insufficiently bloodied, insufficiently despairing. Therefore the Neoconservatives set out to remake America in order to save humanity.

The Neoconservatives then not just “moved to the right”, but became far rightists. They established totalitarian political control, abolished much of the welfare state, even went so far as to develop a sneer in order to enrage the populace. They use outlandish rhetoric and even more outlandish behavior. Rhetoric is very useful since it can enrage the populace without them actually *doing* anything against the populace.

The Neoconservatives are playing a very high stakes game of poker. They need to be competent enough to inspire great fear and incompetent enough to ensure their own ultimate failure. Only through both will their underlying motive reach it’s success.

They are playing out the movie Rocky from twin perspectives – Goliath and the director. They need to make sure the American people are traumatized and enraged but also make sure they don’t overdo it. As Nietzsche says, “What does not kill me only makes me stronger”. With every blow from the Neoconservatives, the American people are made stronger. Or so they hope.

Underlying the Neoconservatives is the feeling that they are deeply misunderstood, and in that respect they are correct.

George Orwell provides the means for the destruction of the Neoconservatives. Orwell denies the value both of schizophrenia (which forms the basis for the twin perspectives and seemingly opposite desires of the Neocons) and of torture as a means of self-improvement, both of which were supported by Nietzsche.
This whole thing is very ironic.

In the latter days of Vietnam Americans started officially using torture, thinking that only through embracing the “dark side” could they prevail. The inverted move from straightforward democratic movement to reactionary democratic movement (creating democracy through forcing a revolution) was a corollary to this “dark side” activity.

P-MAS in Paraguay: Young Socialists Build a New Party from the Ground Up

Link

US tries to create an ‘iron curtain’ around Russia

Link

Naomi Klein on disaster capitalism

Link

US missile deals enrages Russia

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

There is no left in America

The 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”.

The American people are complicit in the coming police state

Link

This 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.

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.

The World According to Monsanto

Link

Who’s to blame for price of oil?

Link

In the Land of the Master Chess Player

Link

Obama and a United South America

Link

Senate hearings interrupted to stop testimony

Link