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“Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.7): From Marx to Alice

 

This page hosts our Waking Up Radio discussions beginning with the August 23, 2015 show. For our 'Reference' page that hosts other shows that examine the intersection of Marx with Alice Miller and includes the archival April 5, May 3, June 7, and August 9, 2015 shows. please visit: Reference Page for “Embracing Global Goals (Part 3.7): Segue to Alice". For a complete set of the pre-August 23, 2015 "Segue From Antisystemic Movements to Alice" shows, please visit: “Embracing Global Goals (Part 3.6): Segue to Alice"

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Please review (they are listed in the side-table) the January 11, 2015 through the February 8, 2015 shows in preparation for our subsequent shows. For our February 29, 2015 show there is a reading assignment:

 

Excerpts from “Hegemony and Antisystemic Movements,” by Giovanni Arrighi and “Prison Notebooks,” by Antonio Gramsci to be discussed in our (projected) April, 2015 “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3) Shows

 

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Please check out our “anti-coercion commercials” posted on YouTube. Art by Wassily Kandinsky (except in “Future Freedom” which presents “Freedom Sun” by David Sterenberg) and original music and beats by Thandiwe Satterwhite. The entire collection (including the most recent) can be found at: “Nascence Anti-coercion Commercials”:

 

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* “WUR of August 23, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.5): Segue From Antisystemic Movements… To Alice

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 19)

 

[“150823leadershipisfluid.mp3”:]

 

“The separation between leaders and workers which I had noticed at Geneva in the Temple Unique did not exist in the Jura Mountains. There were a number of men who were more intelligent, and especially more active than the others; but that was all.…” [What Peter observed is what I've observed too…: that 'leadership' is fluid… a result of many factors… that changes over the course of a lifetime… as we gain experience… as we absorb new information… Never is it fixed or given… – P.S.]…

We give our allegiance to the state because we have no other allegiance and we are communal beings and must plant our ‘solidarity’ somewhere. The state ensures we can have no other allegiance… the global-statesmen brook no challenges – these are not folks to whom we can entrust our earth… especially… the earth in us… the ‘ownership’ of which… once transferred to else but self… is lost. [From our September 4, 2014 commentary (in the menu under the title “Introducing Our Discussion of: Antisystemic Movements…”)]

August 18, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: What we discover… when we set our feet on that path to the truth… is that it's very well-trodden… many others have sought that fruit…

 

…and the insights we've found… they've been long-pondered too.

 

To reclaim our human energy… these are key: It is on the ground of ethics… and ethics only… that we can achieve our freedom successfully… and secondly… that we must step forward with confidence… with certainty… with an assurance of step of feet following deep prints… from our ancestors left… for our feet to find them…

I went first to Neuchatel, and then spent a week or so among the watchmakers in the Jura Mountains. I thus made my first acquaintance with that famous Jura Federation which for the next few years played an important part in the development of socialism, introducing into it the no-government, or anarchist, tendency.

 

In 1872 the Jura Federation was becoming a rebel against the authority of the general council of the International Workingmen's Association. The association was essentially a workingmen's movement, the workers understanding it as such and not as a political party. In east Belgium, for instance, they had introduced into the statutes a clause in virtue of which no one could be a member of a section unless employed in a manual trade; even foremen were excluded.

 

The workers were, moreover, federalist in principle. Each nation, each separate region, and even each local section had to be left free to develop on its own lines. But the middle-class revolutionists of the old school who had entered the International, imbued as they were with the notions of the centralized, pyramidal secret organizations of earlier times, had introduced the same notions into the Workingmen's Association. Besides the federal and national councils, a general council was nominated at London, to act as a sort of intermediary between the councils of the different nations. Marx and Engels were its leading spirits. It soon appeared, however, that the mere fact of having such a central body became a source of substantial inconvenience. The general council was not satisfied with playing the part of a correspondence bureau; it strove to govern the movement, to approve or to censure the action of the local federations and sections, and even of individual members. When the Commune insurrection began in Paris, – and “the leaders had only to follow,” without being able to say whereto they would be led within the next twenty-four hours, – the general council insisted upon directing the insurrection from London. It required daily reports about the events, gave orders, favored this and hampered that, and thus put in evidence the disadvantage of having a governing body, even within the association. The disadvantage became still more evident when, at a secret conference held in 1871, the general council, supported by a few delegates, decided to direct the forces of the association toward electoral agitation. It set people thinking about the evils of any government, however democratic its origin. This was the first spark of anarchism. The Jura Federation became the centre of opposition to the general council.

 

The separation between leaders and workers which I had noticed at Geneva in the Temple Unique did not exist in the Jura Mountains. There were a number of men who were more intelligent, and especially more active than the others; but that was all.… [What Peter observed is what I've observed too…: that 'leadership' is fluid… a result of many factors… that changes over the course of a lifetime… as we gain experience… as we absorb new information… Never is it fixed or given… – P.S.]

 

…From Neuchatel I went to Sonvilliers. In a little valley in the Jura hills there is a succession of small towns and villages, of which the French-speaking population was at that time entirely employed in the various branches of watchmaking; whole families used to work in small workshops.… [And… please… let us not be duped by the 'power'-guys attempts to make our 'decentralization' for us – let's reject their offer to design it… and assign it – with ironic tags like 'sharing economy' appended… – P.S.]

 

…The very organization of the watch trade, which permits men to know one another thoroughly and to work in their own houses, where they are free to talk, explains why the level of intellectual development in this population is higher than that of workers who spend all their life from early childhood in the factories. There is more independence and more originality among the petty trades' workers. But the absence of a division between the leaders and the masses in the Jura Federation was also the reason why there was not a question upon which every member of the federation would not strive to form his own independent opinion. Here I saw that the workers were not a mass that was being led and made subservient to the political ends of a few men; their leaders were simply their more active comrades, – initiators rather than leaders. The clearness of insight, the soundness of judgment, the capacity for disentangling complex social questions, which I noticed amongst these workers, especially the middle-aged ones, deeply impressed me; and I am firmly persuaded that if the Jura Federation has played a prominent part in the development of socialism, it is not only on account of the importance of the no-government and federalist ideas of which it was the champion, but also on account of the expression which was given to these ideas by the good sense of the Jura watchmakers. Without their aid, these conceptions might have remained mere abstractions for a long time. [And without you – to take note of them… and share them… with us… we who… in this moment… so need them – where would we be?… – P.S.]

 

[“150823watchmakersofjura.mp3”:]

 

“…the workers would have against them, not the rotten generation of aristocrats against whom the French peasants and republicans had to fight in the last century, – and even that fight was a desperate one, – but the middle classes…” […those 'classically-trained'… mission-imbued… newly minted and gleaming-fanatic… Plato's Tribesmen… – P.S.], which are far more powerful, intellectually and physically, and have at their service all the potent machinery of the modern state. However, I soon noticed that no revolution, whether peaceful or violent, had ever taken place without the new ideals having deeply penetrated into the very class whose economical and political privileges were to be assailed.…” [This is a revealing… a portentous… vantage from which to view our current situation… – has anyone taken it in?… – P.S.]

 

The theoretical aspects of anarchism, as they were then beginning to be expressed in the Jura Federation, especially by Bakunin; the criticisms of state socialism – the fear of an economic despotism, far more dangerous than the merely political despotism – which I heard formulated there; and the revolutionary character of the agitation, appealed strongly to my mind. But the equalitarian relations which I found in the Jura Mountains, the independence of thought and expression which I saw developing in the workers, and their unlimited devotion to the cause appealed far more strongly to my feelings; and when I came away from the mountains, after a week's stay with the watchmakers, my views upon socialism were settled. I was an anarchist.… (p. 281 – 7)

 

There was, however, one point which I did not accept without having given to it a great deal of thinking and many hours of my nights. I clearly saw that the immense change which would deliver everything that is necessary for life and production into the hands of society [I appreciate his use of this word 'society' in this context… acknowledging that we – the 99.999% – are everything… – P.S.] – be it the Folk State of the social democrats or the unions of freely associated groups, which the anarchist advocate – would imply a revolution far more profound than any of the revolutions which history had on record. Moreover, in such a revolution the workers would have against them, not the rotten generation of aristocrats against whom the French peasants and republicans had to fight in the last century, – and even that fight was a desperate one, – but the middle classes […those 'classically-trained'… mission-imbued… newly minted and gleaming-fanatic… Plato's Tribesmen… – P.S.], which are far more powerful, intellectually and physically, and have at their service all the potent machinery of the modern state. [And hasn't it just got exponentially worse than when he wrote those words?… with the power of our creativeness… our inventiveness… unfortunately used… devoted to… weapons of death placed in their hands… is that trajectory… that tendency… not obvious?… is it not clear how urgent is our situation right now?… how urgently we need to begin discussing an alternative (globally…) based in our ethical stance… not in some 'science' which is supposedly going to 'prove' that our future freedom is inevitable… no it is not… the folks who promoted that were also trained in this 'classically statist' manner… – P.S.] However, I soon noticed that no revolution, whether peaceful or violent, had ever taken place without the new ideals having deeply penetrated into the very class whose economical and political privileges were to be assailed. [Take note: all who may be listening to those agent provocateurs who want to pose a movement for global freedom as a matter of: “let's demonize some section of our 99.999%…” – listen… if they claim to be 'anarchists'… listen… to one of its founders speak… Is this not a revealing… a portentous… vantage from which to view our current situation… – has anyone taken it in?… how we… the 99.999% are doing on this score… because that tiny ten thousand – who operate the interstate system and work behind scenes to pull the strings of all the nation-state machineries – is really not the point… is insignificant… if we… the vast… vast everything… begin talking about it (but maybe we are talking about that one percent… The folk he's talking about may very well be that one percent… that the agents of the state encourage us to believe is the problem… So… it is that one percent that we need to think about as we listen to Kropotkin's words: those who are wealthy… but who aren't a member of that very exclusive tribe who have been trained to think of us as the cattle to keep herded… who have no 'nation' allegiance… who have only a 'tribe' allegiance… to 'rule'… to 'supremacy'… only… – P.S.] I had witnessed the abolition of serfdom in Russia, and I knew that if a consciousness of the injustice of their privileges had not spread widely within the serf-owners' class itself (as a consequence of the previous evolution and revolutions accomplished in Western Europe), the emancipation of the serfs would never have been accomplished as easily as it was accomplished in 1861. And I saw that the idea of emancipating the workers from the present wage-system was making headway amongst the middle classes themselves. The most ardent defenders of the present economical conditions had already abandoned the idea of right in defending their present privileges, – questions as to the opportuneness of such a change having already taken its place. [So… clearly… he's right… – we have to make our case… paint our global picture… show how we can all gleam authentic… how we… each one… show our brilliance… and that the global human society we make becomes a showcase of beauty mated with practicality and economy… simply because of that freedom-to-be-what-we-are that we embrace… – P.S.] They did not deny the desirability of some such change, they only asked whether the new economical organization advocated by the socialists would really be better than the present one; whether a society in which the workers would have a dominant voice would be able to manage production better than the individual capitalists actuated by mere considerations of self-interest manage it at the present time.

 

Besides, I began gradually to understand that revolutions – that is, periods of accelerated rapid evolution and rapid changes – are as much in the nature of human society as the slow evolution which incessantly goes on… And each time that such a period of accelerated evolution and reconstruction on a grand scale begins, civil war is liable to break out on a small or large scale. The question is, then, not so much how to avoid revolutions, as how to attain the greatest results with the most limited amount of civil war, the smallest number of victims, and a minimum of mutual embitterment. [I don't think that at this juncture… given what we understand now… given what we've learned from Karl Popper… and Alice Miller… and Martin Bernal… about the degree to which our containment is about the thoughts we have been systematically conditioned to think… and given the circumstance of the Internet and instantaneous global communication… that… in transmitting these new thoughts…it is really not a matter of any sort of violent conflict… it is a matter of those ideas taking root in enough hearts that believe in them… to work tirelessly to continue transmitting those ideas… the 'wave' that Gramsci talked about… the 'tenderness' that Gustav Landauer talked about… the softening of hearts… that is how we get a truly new social arrangement… in which all of us… every human being gets to live their gifts… gets to be free… – P.S.]

 

[“150823pariscommune.mp3”:]

 

“The question is,… that the oppressed part of society should obtain the clearest possible conception of what they intend to achieve, and how, and that they should be imbued with the enthusiasm which is necessary for that achievement; in that case they will be sure to attach to their cause the best and the freshest intellectual forces of the privileged class…” “When the workers became, in March, 1871, the masters of the great city, they did not attack the property rights vested in the middle classes. On the contrary, they took these rights under their protection… Having lived for two months in fear that the workers would make an assault upon their property rights, the rich men of France took upon them just the same revenge as if they had made the assault in reality.… If, then, – my conclusion was, – there are periods in human development when a conflict is unavoidable… let these conflicts take place not on the ground of vague aspirations, but upon definite issues; not upon secondary points… but upon broad ideas which inspire men by the grandness of the horizon which they bring into view…” The chief difficulty we face is not one of an overwhelming disproportion in resources… between we-the-ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine-percent… and the tiny-ten-thousand… but rather one of an overwhelming 'certainty'-disproportion between us… and 'the tiny ten' – and this because they have kept us busy working… surviving… and so unable to develop our thought… The chief difficulty we face… is that the 'power'-guys plan… they keep themselves hidden… What the spirit of freedom needed… the missing structural-supports in our successful strategy… was its solid ethical basis – our claim is not based on 'scientific legitimacy'… it is based on what we have always known: our right to be free… in our hearts we know this… that our gifts do not exist to be marketed… – its global-range… and the technological-backbone needed to support global-decentralization: an instantaneous electronic communication network… available now… for us to realize our ancestors' dreams – and our own.

 

[Kropotkin's objective was to so prepare us… so prepare our thoughts… that we could make sure the transition was as peaceful as possible… – P.S.] The question is, then, not so much how to avoid revolutions, as how to attain the greatest results with the most limited amount of civil war, the smallest number of victims, and a minimum of mutual embitterment. For that end there is only one means; namely, that the oppressed part of society should obtain the clearest possible conception of what they intend to achieve, and how, and that they should be imbued with the enthusiasm which is necessary for that achievement; in that case they will be sure to attach to their cause the best and the freshest intellectual forces of the privileged class.

 

The Commune of Paris was a terrible example of an outbreak with insufficiently determined ideals. When the workers became, in March, 1871, the masters of the great city, they did not attack the property rights vested in the middle classes. On the contrary, they took these rights under their protection. The leaders of the Commune covered the National Bank with their bodies, and notwithstanding the crisis which had paralyzed industry and the consequent absence of earnings for a mass of workers, they protected the rights of the owners of the factories, the trade establishments, and the dwelling-houses at Paris with their decrees. However, when the movement was crushed, no account was taken by the middle classes of the modesty of the communalistic claims of the insurgents. Having lived for two months in fear that the workers would make an assault upon their property rights, the rich men of France took upon them just the same revenge as if they had made the assault in reality. Nearly thirty thousand of them were slaughtered, as is known, – not in battle, but after they had lost the battle. If they had taken steps towards the socialization of property, the revenge could not have been more terrible.

 

If, then, – my conclusion was, – there are periods in human development when a conflict is unavoidable… let these conflicts take place not on the ground of vague aspirations, but upon definite issues [like the ownership of our bodies… – P.S.]; not upon secondary points… but upon broad ideas which inspire men by the grandness of the horizon which they bring into view. In this last case the conflict itself will depend much less upon the efficacy of firearms and guns than upon the force of the creative genius which will be brought into action in the work of reconstruction of Society. It will depend chiefly upon the constructive forces of Society taking for the moment a free course; upon the inspirations being of a higher standard and so winning more sympathy even from those who, as a class, are opposed to the change. The conflict, being thus engaged on larger issues, will purify the social atmosphere itself…

 

With these ideas I returned to Russia. (p. 289 – 292)

 

(Peter Kropotkin, Memoirs of a Revolutionist, written around 1898; a note by Nicolas Walter, who wrote the 'Introduction', reads: “…Kropotkin himself would have preferred the more neutral title Around One's Life (which was in fact used for the French edition); but he was overruled by his editors.”)

The chief difficulty we face is not one of an overwhelming disproportion in resources… between we-the-ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine-percent… and the tiny-ten-thousand… but rather one of an overwhelming 'certainty'-disproportion between us… and 'the tiny ten' – and this because they have kept us busy working… surviving… and so unable to develop our thought…

 

The tiny-ten-thousand know… have known for two and a half centuries… what they want: their own 'rule' fixed in place… we… beat-down and captured by our given ranks (and this as a global fixity…) their position continuously fed by young people bred to ensure their 'supremacy' is never questioned… ad infinitum…

 

The chief difficulty we face… is that the 'power'-guys plan… they organize… they act… in concert… act… attack… in secret… they keep themselves hidden… and they reinforce with each other a sense of legitimacy (and they control our thoughts… with the propaganda and the education system…) committing acts which an independent judgment would see as heinous…

 

…and existing trends suggest that that 'certainty'-disproportion will only get worse…

 

There is a noose called 'economic hardship' around the necks of we-hard-pressed-to-exist that is progressively tightening – and the escalating debt that comes from it increasingly constricts our options… as the interest accumulates in their pockets –

 

…our ability to achieve the freedom we long to see… and leave for the children… will not get any easier with more time passing…

 

What the spirit of freedom needed… the missing structural-supports in our successful strategy… was its solid ethical basis – our claim is not based on 'scientific legitimacy'… it is based on what we have always known: our right to be free… in our hearts we know this… that our gifts do not exist to be marketed… – its global-range… and the technological-backbone needed to support global-decentralization: an instantaneous electronic communication network… available now… for us to realize our ancestors' dreams – and our own.

 

It is imperative that our love… our tenderness… live in this time of transition… that we organize our core-'selves 'to reinforce and realize it.

 

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[Today’s reading: we continue the chapter “Poisonous Pedagogy” in… Alice Miller's For Your Own Good… When we left off… we were hearing from some of the 'child-rearing pedagogues': their recommendations for the complete suppression of feelings in children… – P.S.]

 

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* “WUR of August 23, 2015 Reading… continuing the chapter "Poisonous Pedagogy" in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good

 

[“150823picturetheworldwewant.mp3”:]

 

…and by the way… of course those who have exclusive hold on global-Authority conspire to keep it. It is time to get over our shock that they do heinous things in secret… and start talking about what we want. The vast majority of us understand that 'power' acts clandestine. Only the propped-up media-intermediaries demand proof of it – that is their function. Rather… what we need… as Kropotkin says… is “a clear conception of what global-society we want…” it ain't hard… we start with our own bodies: sleeping-in… connecting with those we want to connect with… force gone from our lives… It is for the 'work' of discussing and fleshing out and promulgating this picture… that 'core'-leadership is needed: those willing to put in a little extra energy… to get us to 'the flow'… break through the logjam of inertia … – P.S.)]

The infant must perceive order and discipline before he becomes conscious of them, [I imagine what the infant 'perceives' in this ostentatious display of false-sanctity is very like what that puppy of Samuel Butler's did: nothing at all… but… rather… felt shock and confusion… – P.S.] so that he will proceed to the stage of awakening consciousness with good habits already formed and his imperious physical egoism under control.… [“imperious physical egoism…” – i.e. those abilities in which the subjects excel over the tyrants (or 'statesmen'…) 'inciting' their obsession to suppress them – they hate that… being surpassed… because how can they appear to be 'gods' if they aren't supreme in all things?… And I do believe… they have used their secret weaponry against precisely such folk… unfortunately: our most beautiful Brothers and Sisters… who model hope… who inspire us with their brilliance… – P.S.]

 

Thus, the adult must instill obedience by the exercise of his power, this is done with a severe glance, a firm word, possibly by means of physical force (which curbs bad behavior although it is unable to produce good behavior) and by means of punishment. Punishment, however, need not primarily cause physical pain but can utilize withdrawal of kindness and of expressions of love, depending on the type or frequency of the disobedience. For example, for a more sensitive child who is being quarrelsome, this can mean removing him from his mother's lap, refusal of his father's hand or of the bedtime kiss, etc. Since the child's affection can be gained by expressions of love, this same affection can be made use of […now that's utilitarianism taken to its most hideous extreme… – P.S.] to make him more amenable to discipline. [We've pointed out that what Plato's Tribesmen do to us exposes their own sufferings unerringly… as infants. For instance… I've noticed they like to use what we love against us… just as their love for their parents was used against them… – P.S.]

 

…We have defined obedience as submission of the will to the legitimate will of another person.… [Under a system of 'class' – which today is totalitarian – who has the 'power' to say what are the 'rules' we must bend to… if not the few who by thievery and manipulation acquire the resources to monopolize 'decision-making' (a.k.a.… perpetuate into the future the instituted checks on our growth… individually and as 'a people'…) 'Legitimacy'… in a totalitarian 'order'… is a matter of “might makes right”…

(…and by the way… of course those who have exclusive hold on global-Authority conspire to keep it. It is time to get over our shock that they do heinous things in secret… and start talking about what we want. The vast majority of us understand that 'power' acts clandestine.. Only the propped-up media-intermediaries demand proof of it – that is their function. To engage in that diversion ['proving' hidden-'power' exists…] while our most-desperately abused Brothers and Sisters [and this does require that we have a global focus… because… sad to say… it does seem that there are enough folks in the U.S. who are willing to accept that deal… which each day gets worse and worse for us… but they plan to have us totally… tightly… under control before we (enough of us) really wake up – forced to enact 'cautionary' roles' in 'power's global 'Supremacy'-game… suffer that 'fate'… would provide an unseemly display of depravity. Rather… what we need… as Kropotkin says… is “a clear conception of what global-society we want…” it ain't hard… we start with our own bodies: sleeping-in… connecting with those we want to connect with… force gone from our lives… It is for the 'work' of discussing and fleshing out and promulgating this picture… that 'core'-leadership is needed: those willing to put in a little extra energy… to get us to 'the flow'… break through the logjam of inertia… – P.S.)]

[“150823totalitarianmirror.mp3”:]

 

“If treatment of this sort is carried through consistently enough and early enough, then all the requirements will have been met to enable a citizen to live in a dictatorship without minding it; he or she will even be able to feel a euphoric identification with it, as happened in the Hitler period… Just as in the symbiosis of the “diaper stage,” there is no separation here of subject and object. If the child learns to view corporal punishment as “a necessary measure” against “wrongdoers,” then as an adult he will attempt to protect himself from punishment by being obedient and will not hesitate to cooperate with the penal system. In a totalitarian state, which is a mirror of his upbringing, this citizen can also carry out any form of torture or persecution without having a guilty conscience. His “will” is completely identical with that of the government.… Our capacity to resist has nothing to do with our intelligence but with the degree of access to our true self.”

 

The will of the adult must be a fortress […again… the child has become the enemy… the threat… the opponent… – P.S.], inaccessible to duplicity or defiance and granting admittance only when obedience knocks at the gates. [Enzyklopadie… quoted in Rutschky]

When still in diapers, the child learns to knock at the gates of love with “obedience,” and unfortunately often does not unlearn this ever after:

…Turning now to the second major point, how to instill obedience, we begin by showing how this can be done at a very early age. Pedagogy correctly points out that even a baby in diapers has a will of his own and is to be treated accordingly. [Enzyklopadie…]

If treatment of this sort is carried through consistently enough and early enough, then all the requirements will have been met to enable a citizen to live in a dictatorship without minding it; he or she will even be able to feel a euphoric identification with it, as happened in the Hitler period:

…for the health and vitality of a political commonwealth owe just as much to the flourishing of obedience to law and authority as to the prudent use of energy of its leaders. Likewise in the family, in all matters of child-rearing, the will that gives orders and the one that carries them out must not be regarded as antagonistic; they are both the organic expression of what is actually a single will. [Enzyklopadie…] [It's in this light that we can best understand the guidance Bentham provides in his “logic of 'the will'” – attempting to make totalitarian control into a 'science'… – P.S.]

Just as in the symbiosis of the “diaper stage,” there is no separation here of subject and object. If the child learns to view corporal punishment as “a necessary measure” against “wrongdoers,” then as an adult he will attempt to protect himself from punishment by being obedient and will not hesitate to cooperate with the penal system. In a totalitarian state, which is a mirror of his upbringing, this citizen can also carry out any form of torture or persecution without having a guilty conscience. His “will” is completely identical with that of the government.

 

Now that we have seen how easy it is for intellectuals in a dictatorship to be corrupted, it would be a vestige of aristocratic snobbery to think that only “the uneducated masses” are susceptible to propaganda. Both Hitler and Stalin had a surprisingly large number of enthusiastic followers among intellectuals. Our capacity to resist has nothing to do with our intelligence but with the degree of access to our true self. Indeed, intelligence is capable of innumerable rationalizations when it comes to the matter of adaptation. Educators have always known this and have exploited it for their own purposes, as the following proverb suggests: “The clever person gives in, the stupid one balks.” For example, we read in a work on child raising by Grunewald (1899): “I have never yet found willfulness in an intellectually advanced or exceptionally gifted child” (quoted in Rutschky). [This is evidence… not of 'giftedness' in the child… but rather of the extent to which a child will… and so must… go… to capture the love of elusive parents… It is not lack of 'intelligence' that makes us balk… but rather a connection to an alternative allegiance… i.e., the earth… through our relations… – P.S.] Such a child can, in later life, exhibit extraordinary acuity in criticizing the ideologies of his opponents – and in puberty even the views by his own parents – because in these cases his intellectual powers can function without impairment. Only within a group – such as one consisting of adherents of an ideology or a theoretical school – that represents the early family situation will this person on occasion still display a naive submissiveness and uncritical attitude that completely belie his brilliance in other situations. Here, tragically, his early dependence upon tyrannical parents is preserved, a dependence that – in keeping with the program of “poisonous pedagogy” – goes undetected. This explains why Martin Heidegger, for example, who had no trouble in breaking with traditional philosophy and leaving behind the teachers of his adolescence, was not able to see the contradictions in Hitler's ideology that should have been obvious to someone of his intelligence. He responded to this ideology with an infantile fascination and devotion that brooked no criticism. [What distinguishes the groups (“core 'selves'”) that we form is our focus on becoming fully-developing individualities… through self- / soul-sufficiency… How else inoculate ourselves from the seductive pull – given our common experience (under 'class') of abandonment – of 'dependency'… i.e. returning to infancy in order to attempt (yet again…) to win love and acceptance… – P.S.]

 

In the tradition we are dealing with, it was considered obstinacy and was therefore frowned upon to have a will and mind of one's own. It is easy to understand that an intelligent child […unnecessary qualification…I've never met one who wasn't… – P.S.] would want to escape the punishments devised for those possessing these traits and that he or she could do so without any difficulty. What the child didn't realize was that escape came at a high price.

 

[“150823draculaunbound.mp3”:]

 

“He must arrange everything so that it be nature's doing and not his own, or at least so that this appear to be the case. The unpleasant occurrences in particular must not betray their origin if he is the one responsible for them.” The person actually benefiting from this manipulation must not be detected.… – A.M. [This 'theory'… applied politically – globally and nationally – provides the ideological expression… of hidden-'power'. Here's an illustration – in what follows let's consider the possibility that this “hidden 'power'” described by Weiller is not just the pattern… but the basis… of all such that grow out of it… under 'class'… We will be looking at events in France after the Revolution of 1789 – For our purposes… viewing from below… the actors on the political stage and their machinations are less important than the motive forces which generate them. What's interesting is that Karl Marx – whose The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte we will be quoting from at length – what's interesting is that Marx tells us this is his primary motive as well… identifying 'the class struggle' as the motive force… – P.S.]

 

–––

 

The father receives his powers from God (and from his own father). The teacher finds the soil already prepared for obedience, and the political leader has only to harvest what has been sown […time to recondition the soil… – P.S.]:

With the most forceful form of punishment, corporal chastisement, we come to the ultimate in punishment. Just as the rod serves as the symbol of parental discipline in the home, the stick is the primary emblem of school discipline. There was a time when the stick was the cure-all for any mischief in school as the rod was in the home. It is an age-old “indirect way of speaking from the soul,” common to all nations. What can be more obvious than the rule, “He who won't hear must be made to feel”? Pedagogical blows provide a forceful accompaniment to words and intensify their effect. The most direct and natural way of administering them is by that box on the ears, preceded by a strong pulling on the ear, which we still remember from our own youth. This is an unmistakable reminder of the existence of an organ of hearing and of its intended uses. It obviously has symbolic significance, as does a slap on the mouth, which is a reminder that there is an organ of speech and a warning to put it to better use.… The tried and true blow to the head and hair-pulling still convey a certain symbolism, too.…

 

Even truly Christian pedagogy, which takes a person as he is, not as he should be, cannot in principle renounce every form of corporal chastisement, for it is exactly the proper punishment for certain kinds of delinquency: it humiliates and upsets the child, affirms the necessity of bowing to a higher order and at the same time reveals paternal love in all its vigor… […“paternal love in all its vigor…” – what ironic words… given this is a 'love' stripped of its exuberance… – P.S.] We would be in complete sympathy if a conscientious teacher declared: I would rather not be a teacher at all than have to relinquish my prerogative of reaching for the ultima ratio of the stick when necessary.

 

…The father strikes his child and himself feels the smart, / Severity is a merit if you have a gentle heart,” writes the poet Ruckert. If the teacher is a true representative of the father, then he also knows how to display – with the stick when necessary – a love that is often purer and deeper than that of many a natural father. And although we call the child's heart a sinful one, we believe we may still say: The childish heart as a rule understands this love, even if not always at the moment. [Enzyklopadie… quoted in Rutschky]

As an adult, this child will often allow himself to be manipulated by various forms of propaganda since he is already used to having his “inclinations” manipulated and has never known anything else: […again… thought atrophies… or cannot take flight… under authoritarian oversight… – P.S.]

First and foremost, the educator must take care that these inclinations hostile and adverse to the higher will, instead of being awakened and nourished by early education (as so commonly occurs), be prevented by every possible means from developing or at least be eradicated as soon as possible.…

 

Whereas the child should be as little acquainted as possible with those inclinations unfavorable to his higher development, he should, on the other hand, be zealously and frequently introduced to all the rest or at least to their first buddings.

 

Therefore, let the educator instill in the child at an early age abundant and enduring inclinations of the better sort. Let him rouse him often and in divers ways to merriment, joyfulness, delight, hope, etc., but occasionally, although less frequently and more briefly, let him also encourage fear, sadness, and the like. He will have opportunity enough for this by virtue of the fact that, in the normal course of events, some of the child's manifold needs, not only of the body but also and primarily of the soul, are satisfied, that others are not, and that there are various combinations of both conditions. He must arrange everything so that it be nature's doing and not his own, or at least so that this appear to be the case. The unpleasant occurrences in particular must not betray their origin if he is the one responsible for them, [K. Weiller, “Toward a Theory of the Art of Education”), 1805, quoted in Rutschky)

The person actually benefiting from this manipulation must not be detected.… [This 'theory'… applied politically – globally and nationally – provides the ideological expression… of hidden-'power'. Here's an illustration – in what follows let's consider the possibility that this “hidden 'power'” described by Weiller is not just the pattern… but the basis… of all such that grow out of it… under 'class'.

 

We will be looking at events in France after the Revolution of 1789 – the event that initiated a wave of 'bourgeois' (the 'classically'-trained 'intellectual class' that is done with aristocratic pretensions…) revolt across Europe against the aristocracy and Napoleonic invasion… after which followed… in France… restoration of monarchy: Napoleon making himself emperor… followed by other monarchs… Napoleon's nephew using popular revolt and hunger for a republic to bring about a coup d'etat and strengthen the state (this is referred to as the Revolution of 1848…)

 

For our purposes… viewing from below… the actors on the political stage and their machinations are less important than the motive forces which generate them. What's interesting is that Karl Marx – whose The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte we will be quoting from at length – what's interesting is that Marx tells us this is his primary motive as well… identifying 'the class struggle' as the motive force: “I… demonstrate how the class struggle in France created circumstances and relationships that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity [the nephew… “Napoleon the Little”… to use Victor Hugo's phrase…] to play a hero's part…” But… what we will be considering… is that assigning motive power to theoretical abstractions is not the same as seeing the forces that motivate the humans hidden in… the abstractions – some of those humans are open and honest about their actions… some are not – but none of them… in our analysis… are abstractions. And let us never forget that in this period about which Marx writes there are folks busily implementing… the recommendations of Jeremy Bentham.

…by the beginning of the 19th century AD Germans were convinced that they were the 'intellectual instructors of mankind'. It was a self-assessment accepted by most 'progressive' Europeans and North Americans. German philosophy and education provided a middle way between bankrupt traditions and the French Revolution and atheism…

 

In France this Germanic trend is best represented by the popular philosopher and politician Victor Cousin, who flourished under the grand bourgeois, compromise regime of Louis Philippe. Cousin established French primary education on the Prussian model, and like Humboldt [in the wake of the French Revolution… “after the humiliation of the traditional government and its beloved army after their catastrophic defeat by Napoleon at Jena in 1806 (the Prussian monarchy turned to Humboldt to undertake reforms.) In 1809, among other reforms undertaken to face the French Revolutionary challenge, Humboldt was entrusted with the reorganization of the educational system. He based the new structure on Bildung (derived from his earlier sketch: 'On the Study of Antiquity and of the Greeks in Particular') which he believed would reanimate the German people after their crushing defeats.” (Martin Bernal, Black Athena, p. 283 – 4)] and like Humboldt, whom he greatly admired, he reserved a special place in the whole educational system for the Ancients, and for the Greeks in particular. (p. 318 – 9)

 

[August 23, 2015 show ends here.]

 

–––

 

* “WUR of August 30, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.5): Segue From Antisystemic Movements… To Alice

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 20)

Please forgive the self-indulgence. I lost my cat Iggy this week. He was such a good friend, I grieve that I was unable to protect him. My son took this video a few months back of him: “Iggy”:

[“150830iggyimissyou.mp3”:]

 

My son watched the child pretending to “lose control of the dog” over a month ago – practicing… as we now know… while singing “Hit the Road Jack”. You were such a good friend Iggy… You live in me… but you should have lived in your own skin… These sick folk know how to create sadness… that's the only thing they know how to create.

 

Sisters and Brothers: It's been unnaturally warm in the Bay Area… even at night… our figs once again are being fried and dropping into a sodden pink mess… the EMF-bombardment is intense… and they've killed my cat… Iggy… using a child and a pit bull as means… There is no way that it was an accident… so long as money buys acts I will suspect convenient deaths… They said… the one true thing they said… that a cat had hurt their dog when he was a puppy… That I believe… I believe he was brought in with the express purpose of killing Iggy… who had blossomed into a neighborhood ambassador… greeted people as I no longer could… as everyone is on the payroll in my neighborhood. My son watched the child pretending to “lose control of the dog” over a month ago – practicing… as we now know… while singing “Hit the Road Jack”. You were such a good friend Iggy… You live in me… but you should have lived in your own skin… These sick folk know how to create sadness… that's the only thing they know how to create.

 

–––

 

[“150830hiddenelimination.mp3”:]

 

Consider the reaction of the 'power'-guys – hidden 'power' – to the Paris Commune: 30,000 dead… to the Russian Revolution… how many millions dead across Europe in World War II… that ended the global mobilization for socialism? Do we see the trajectory? The 'global-state-statesmen' have been upping the body count exponentially in reaction to our global efforts to get free of them… and as their experience in secret repression has progressed… i.e.… their objective has been not just to eliminate dissent… but to eliminate dissent in such a way that we don't even know they did it… let alone be able to 'prove' it… to recognize this… is 'practical politics'… basing our strategy on an analysis of the actual conditions facing us… which includes the existence of hidden-'power' [or the 'global-shadow-state' if you prefer…] what hidden-'power' is doing to us… and our conditioned subservience…

 

August 24, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Last week we heard Kropotkin tell us that we must develop a clear picture of the world we want in order to excite our Brothers and Sisters about it. What's stopping us? Today we look at “hidden-'power'”… We ask “what do we mean by “hidden-'power'”?”… and “Why must we incorporate an understanding of it into our strategic planning to realize that developed picture of the world we want?”

 

In our Waking Up Radio show of December 7, 2014 we began the chapter in Antisystemic Movements titled “1968: The Great Rehearsal”…

 

Let's recall what our Good Three – Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein – said:

There have only been two world revolutions. One took place in 1848. The second took place in 1968. Both were historic failures. Both transformed the world. The fact that both were unplanned and therefore in a profound sense spontaneous explains both facts – the fact that they failed, and the fact that they transformed the world. We celebrate today July 14, 1789, or at least some people do. We celebrate November 7, 1917, or at least some people do. We do not celebrate 1848 or 1968. And yet the case can be made that these dates are as significant, perhaps even more significant, that the two that attract so much attention.

 

1848 was a revolution for popular sovereignty – both within the nation (down with autocracy) and of the nations (self-determination, the Volkerfruhling). 1848 was the revolution against the counterrevolution of 1815 (the Restoration, the Concert of Europe). It was a revolution “born at least as much of hopes as of discontents” (Namier: 1944, 4). It was certainly not the French Revolution the second time around. It represented rather an attempt both to fulfill its original hopes and to overcome its limitations. 1848 was, in a Hegelian sense, the sublation (Aufhebung) of 1789.

[‘Sublation’… says the dictionary… dates from the mid-19th century – probably just as Hegel was being seriously ‘sublated’ himself – comes from the Latin ‘sublat’ (‘taken away’)… from ‘sub’ (‘from below’)… and from the stem ‘tollere’ (‘take away’); and means: “to assimilate a smaller entity into a larger one…” – P.S.]

1848 was, in a Hegelian sense, the sublation (Aufhebung) of 1789.

 

The same was true of 1968. It too was born of hopes at least as much as discontents. It too was a revolution against the counterrevolution represented by the U.S. organization of its world hegemony as of 1945. It too was an attempt to fulfill the original goals of the Russian Revolution, while very much an effort to overcome the limitations of that revolution. It too therefore was a sublation, a sublation this time of 1917.

 

The parallel goes further. 1848 was a failure – a failure in France, a failure in the rest of Europe. [That depends on one's perspective… doesn't it?… we're going to be thinking more about whether that failure for us (success for global-'power') was by plan… – P.S.] So too was 1968. In both cases the bubble of popular enthusiasm and radical innovation was burst within a relatively short period. In both cases, however, the political ground-rules of the world-system were profoundly and irrevocably changed as a result of the revolution. It was 1848 which institutionalized the old left (using the term broadly). And it was 1968 that institutionalized the new social movements. Looking forward, 1848 was in this sense the great rehearsal for the Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution, for the Baku Congress and Bandoeng. 1968 was the rehearsal for what?

Consider the reaction of the 'power'-guys – hidden 'power' – to the Paris Commune: 30,000 dead… to the Russian Revolution… how many millions dead across Europe in World War II… that ended the global mobilization for socialism? Do we see the trajectory? The 'global-state-statesmen' have been upping the body count exponentially in reaction to our global efforts to get free of them… and as their experience in secret repression has progressed…

 

…i.e.… their objective has been not just to eliminate dissent… but to eliminate dissent in such a way that we don't even know they did it… let alone be able to 'prove' it…

(…to recognize this… is 'practical politics'… basing our strategy on an analysis of the actual conditions facing us… which includes the existence of hidden-'power' [or the 'global-shadow-state' if you prefer…] what hidden-'power' is doing to us… and our conditioned subservience…)

Moreover… when… from 'power's perspective… there are “too many people”… when they can't provide enough 'jobs'… and especially when… simultaneously… we are waking up – as tends to happen when off the job-intravene… i.e.… when one starts thinking authentically – what do they do?… think: World War II… only without the muss and fuss… because these are “natural disasters” they do to us.

 

[“150830beyondmarxisttheory.mp3”:]

 

…those truly responsible stay hidden from us… well out of view… and to blame those who do the dirty work is helping 'power' to carry out its vision… its mission… to keep us at each other's throats… so they can 'win'… which in their minds means keeping us forever under their thumb. But once we discuss what we want… their obsession with 'winning' becomes irrelevant… And it does not require that we convince all of us… all 99.999 percent… it just requires that enough of us begin 'painting that picture': that picture of the beauty that we are … and that we want… and start working together to spread that good news… to see a sufficient number gravitate to it… and want to help do it. But we have to be conscious of 'power's tactics for undermining that organization… in order to get through that serious… heavy-duty effort of 'power' to set it back… Point being: all the Marxists… Socialists… Anarchists… the entire 'Left'…out there… globally… is enough for us to get this job done… and if we need to go through this process of understanding why Marxist theory is not sufficient for the challenge before us today… – after all… he wasn't coping with EMF-weaponry (although… interestingly… what we'll be seeing in our reading of Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… is that he was there at the onset of the modern use of the tactic of 'agent provocateurs'…) We are at the point where it is patently clear that we need some new strategies and I think we've identified the correct ones here… based on an accurate analysis of the conditions we are in… and the opponent… and their strategies arrayed against us.…

 

“'Power' hides” in many ways – which we'll be exploring today – but another name for what this is… is: “the intersection between Marx and Alice”. Look for the web page with that name that I've created… hopefully 'it' will save my edits. It includes a few archival shows with discussions of Marx… because there is already… globally… an identified group of folks called 'the Left'… who could become that critical mass of folk pushing forward authentic discussions of… and authentic strategies for… how to get free… and I am arguing that it is critical that these folk step up… So… I'm thinking it's important to devote a sufficient amount of time to exploring why we have given our allegiance to Marxist theory… whether that is wise… why it has not served to free us at this juncture… when we have the Internet… and instantaneous communication… – this is why we devoted a considerable amount of time to a reading of Antisystemic Movements… because it did that analysis… and explained why Marxist theory is not enough right now… that we need some new strategies… – and with the Internet and instantaneous communication there is absolutely no (technological) reason… if we are accurately assessing conditions – our current situation – for us not to get free. It is simply about moving forward consciously: understanding what has undermined us up to now… so we can plan for that… But most importantly: it has to be a global vision – what our Good Three argued is that 'claim the state' is a failed strategy… it cannot work within a global interstate system… So we have to acknowledge that in our discussions and say: “we need a global vision…”; and… secondly… we have to acknowledge that 'the system' has perpetuated itself through what Marcuse called 'introjection'… by us being 'it'… and that it's time to stop playing into 'power's hands by doing its 'division work' for it… and saying that some sub-group of us is the problem – no… we are all in this together… we've all been conditioned to be obedient (that's what the coerced-work system requires…) and so we all have to together face this conditioning… this 'democratic introjection' as Marcuse said… and set aside our grief… set aside our bitterness… and recognize that the hands that cause the grief are our hands… is us… but that those truly responsible stay hidden from us… well out of view… and to blame those who do the dirty work is helping 'power' to carry out its vision… its mission… to keep us at each other's throats… so they can 'win'… which in their minds means keeping us forever under their thumb. But once we discuss what we want… their obsession with 'winning' becomes irrelevant… And it does not require that we convince all of us… all 99.999 percent… it just requires that enough of us begin 'painting that picture': that picture of the beauty that we are … and that we want… and start working together to spread that good news… to see a sufficient number gravitate to it… and want to help do it. But we have to be conscious of 'power's tactics for undermining that organization… in order to get through that serious… heavy-duty effort of 'power' to set it back…

 

Point being: all the Marxists… Socialists… Anarchists… the entire 'Left'…out there… globally… is enough for us to get this job done… and if we need to go through this process of understanding why Marxist theory is not sufficient for the challenge before us today… – after all… he wasn't coping with EMF-weaponry (although… interestingly… what we'll be seeing in our reading of Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… is that he was there at the onset of the modern use of the tactic of 'agent provocateurs'…) We are at the point where it is patently clear that we need some new strategies and I think we've identified the correct ones here… based on an accurate analysis of the conditions we are in… and the opponent… and their strategies arrayed against us.

 

[“150830makethemhunger.mp3”:]

 

…and then… while he sees the inevitability of a voracious 'machine' butting up against physical limits… and… therefore… the resulting immiseration of all of us (what our Good Three… and Claudia… termed “the pauperization of people on a world-scale…” – calling our attention to what it means for we-the-people to be stripped of dignity… a process von Werlhof thinks of as 'housewification'…) – he misses entirely the key aspect from which to view our dilemma of how to get free… that which must be overcome in order to feel certain that we are done… with 'the system'… and so a critical strategic focus: i.e.… our conditioned helplessness… and so… our obedience. And how to make us so… keep us so… if not by taking the advice of Townsend and Bentham… to “make us hunger…”

 

Now… some may argue that this intersection lies in the domain of 'alienation' – a concept much discussed among Marxists. In this space we call that place of intersection 'obedience'… and believe there's an important difference: one is the effect of a 'system'… the other… of the 'power'-guys conscious intention… planning… and inculcation in us… One acknowledges that the global-state-statesmen plan… organize… tirelessly to get the world they want… the other… doesn't. One… 'alienation'… separates us – it's an 'intellectual' concept – the other… 'obedience'… ties us together… because we are all of us trained to so be.

 

And there is also an intersection… in the abandonment of children… whether to 'work'… or imbued in poisoned relations – we 'alienate' them.

 

–––

 

Here are some excerpts from some archival shows that might be useful as stepping stones:

 

[“150405vonwerlhof.mp3”:]

 

“An alternative is possible only if we, men and women, succeed in getting back forever not simply the wage, but much more – namely the means of production: our bodies and our children, our houses and our land, our knowledge and our creativity, and the results of our labor. We want all this without continuing to depend on “central powers” like puppets, so that we can work for our own, autonomous existence…” [What happens to all the hard work that is done by our good-hearted folks from academia?… – P.S.] (From the April 5, 2015 Waking Up Radio show.)

 

[“150503talkaboutpower.mp3”:]

 

…so 'capitalism' is doomed (was doomed from its onset…) – Immanuel Wallerstein was simply telling the obvious truth… …can we please start talking about 'power'?… We are at that point. Marx is right… this is the most important thing for us to be thinking about: as our social… collective… concretized… existence… stands in vast quantity hierarchically over us… and runs us via automation and electronification… we ain't needed anymore… And… no more 'capitalism'… This is why I'm focusing on this issue of 'obedience' right now… it seems like 'the point'… this issue of 'obedience'… that Marx did not devote enough time to… the point we just made: that you cannot have the accumulation of the entire resources of the planet into this Tiny Few's hands… unless you've had… prior to this… the broad imposition of the habit of obedience… and Marx didn't have time to get to this… So we have to finish that work… Right? We have to talk about the other side of our twin-dilemma: the fact that we've internalized this mess… (From the May 3, 2015 Waking Up Radio show.)

 

[“150607whyweobey.mp3”:]

 

So this is very straight-forward… we obey because 'power' has studied… plotted… and planned… for millennia how to get us to obey – how to compel our obedience – as… without it… unless we internalize these limits… 'power' does not exist… Now… this 'theory' of 'why we obey' has been proven… by its successful implementation… generation after generation… is not in dispute… So why does the Left not incorporate it into its strategic planning? The answer… partly… is that 'Marxist theory' seemed to supersede the need to… seemed to render it moot…. There is an 'historicist' (to use Karl Popper's word…) bend in it… that says… 'society' develops in 'stages'… inevitably… and once 'the people' have sufficiently grown into their 'historical mission'… then comes our freedom… But… as Karl Popper shows… 'power' will always ensure this never happens… and… instead… we-the-people ourselves… must take our lives into our own hands…That being the case… what are the strategic implications of the theory of 'why we obey?… (From the June 7, 2015 Waking Up Radio show.)

 

[“150809dualisminmarx.mp3”:]

 

“It is [in Marx…] a practical dualism… The passages quoted indicate that although our feet have to be kept, as it were, on the firm ground of the material world, our heads – and Marx thought highly of human heads – are concerned with thoughts or ideas. In my opinion, Marxism and its influence cannot be appreciated unless we recognize this dualism.” – …this point of Popper's… as… were it thoroughly discussed… clarity around it could help unify us… given the large number of sincere Marxist-Socialists around the globe who could… and should… be providing leadership on the question of whether it is a rank-rooted 'science'… or 'ethics' – the ethical stance of our inherent human freedom… and our freedom alone… as we will hear Bakunin say… that must be “the sole creative principle and basis…” of our global human society… (From the August 9, 2015 Waking Up Radio show.)

 

–––

 

“There have only been two world revolutions. [Our Good Three said…] One took place in 1848. The second took place in 1968. Both were historic failures. Both transformed the world. The fact that both were unplanned and therefore in a profound sense spontaneous explains both facts – the fact that they failed, and the fact that they transformed the world.” – as our global transformation must be planned to escape the trap of trained agents… how we escape that trap… by means of careful planning… is what we've been focusing on in our shows that address the need for 'self' / 'soul'-sufficiency… individually and with our 'core selves'.

 

'Power's hidden planning has been its chief advantage – it knows what's going on while we don't.

 

What we'll be considering is the degree to which the fact that 'power' hides… when not located centrally in our theory of how we transition to freedom… distorts our analysis…

 

…considering Marx as our chief example… the key example… of this…

 

…arguing that what Marx concludes is skewed in a direction helpful to 'power'… but not to us… we who long for our freedom.

 

Marx sees the result – us… we-the-people… at each other's throats… these past two hundred years or so… – but not the plan to make us so (it was newly-minted then… after all…): its goal… range… and geographic scope… the ambition of its hidden actors…

 

…he sees the tool – the money lever – and mistakes it for the end… and without that 'end' of 'power' kept clearly in view… an 'end' for which he in some ways represented… his focus… as well as the resulting analysis… unintentionally misleads us…

 

…and then… while he sees the inevitability of a voracious 'machine' – 'power's unleashed Greed upon us and the earth (once generalized insecurity supplants our mutual aid practices… our empathic connectedness…) – butting up against physical limits… and… therefore… the resulting immiseration of all of us (what our Good Three… and Claudia… termed “the pauperization of people on a world-scale…” – calling our attention to what it means for we-the-people to be stripped of dignity… a process von Werlhof thinks of as 'housewification'…) – he misses entirely the key aspect from which to view our dilemma of how to get free… that which must be overcome in order to feel certain that we are done… with 'the system'… and so a critical strategic focus: i.e.… our conditioned helplessness… and so… our obedience.

 

And how to make us so… keep us so… if not by taking the advice of Townsend and Bentham… to “make us hunger…” (and this tactic is also mirrored in the poisonous pedagogy Alice exposes … In our August 16, 2015 show… Alice describes “the deep feelings of insecurity” that one of her patients was left with after a childhood of “making him hunger.”)

 

How ensure that we cannot feed ourselves? By controlling access to land… to food.

 

The 'plan' is so obvious… so basic… if it wasn't for 'power's strategy of keeping hidden… of wringing the last drop of 'wealth' from the planet… and us… and so controlling what gets funded… what thoughts get heard… what acts get done – and then pushing forward an alternative explanation: i.e. 'science'… in 'left'… 'right'… and so-called 'value-free' variations – all the 'disciplines' that train us in objectification and utilitarian ethics… and mistrust of what our bodies tell us.

 

(Further… we said last week that the chief difficulty we face is not an overwhelming 'resources-disproportion' vis-a-vis the 'rulers'… but an overwhelming 'certainty-disproportion'…

 

Today we'll be considering more deeply that 'certainty-disproportion'…)

 

[“150830endcycleofrule.mp3”:]

 

Today we'll be considering more deeply how that 'certainty-disproportion' got installed in us… Karl Popper explained it: Plato told the would-be 'masters'… there must be a clear line between them and us… for we-the-people to believe they are entitled to 'rule' us… “The great importance which Plato attaches to a philosophical education of the rulers must be explained by… reasons… purely political… The bringing up of that class is, therefore, the great preserving function of the sovereign, and a function which must continue as long as the state exists.” [This is key for us to understand for our strategic planning… that the strategies that have been tried heretofore have been worse than useless because they've continued the confusion… that… as long as 'power' continues to reproduce itself… it continues to exist… so what's key is our focusing on this… on structuring our resistance and our planning to get free such that it interferes with their ability to continue to reproduce themselves…

 

Today we'll be considering more deeply how that 'certainty-disproportion' got installed in us… Karl Popper explained it: Plato told the would-be 'masters'… there must be a clear line between them and us… for we-the-people to believe they are entitled to 'rule' us:

For a full justification of the demand that the philosophers should rule, we must therefore proceed to analyse the tasks connected with the city’s preservation.

 

We know from Plato’s sociological theories that the state, once established, will continue to be stable as long as there is no split in the unity of the master class. The bringing up of that class is, therefore, the great preserving function of the sovereign, and a function which must continue as long as the state exists. [This is key for us to understand for our strategic planning… that the strategies that have been tried heretofore have been worse than useless because they've continued the confusion… that… as long as 'power' continues to reproduce itself… it continues to exist… so what's key is our focusing on this… on structuring our resistance and our planning to get free such that it interferes with their ability to continue to reproduce themselves… You see… they can continue to bring up their children to believe that they are fulfilling an historic mission… but it's time for us to begin talking about… with ourselves… that that's happening… and that they can only maintain their control of us if we agree to internalize obedience… We have to take responsibility back for ourselves… and for our children… take responsibility for the thoughts that are put in our heads… – P.S.] The bringing up of that class is, therefore, the great preserving function of the sovereign, and a function which must continue as long as the state exists. How far does it justify the demand that a philosopher must rule?… The great importance which Plato attaches to a philosophical education of the rulers must be explained by… reasons… purely political. [And so consider as we read Marx analyze and present… almost as it was happening… events in France in 1848… consider that as he was taking in the events that were unfolding around him (in a temporal sense…) consider what he could not see… consider the fact that there were folk who deeply believed that it must be 'philosophers'… like Marx himself… who 'rule'… and it would have been really really helpful… obviously… if he could have thought about that… thought about the fact that there were folks who were taking Plato to heart… and using it to design a strategy that would tear our resistance apart… – P.S.]

 

The main reason I can see [for this belief that only 'philosophers' should rule…] is the need for increasing to the utmost the authority of the rulers.…

 

Thus Plato’s philosophical education has a definite political function. It puts a mark on the rulers, and it establishes a barrier between the rulers and the ruled. [This is that 'certainty-deficit' that I'm using this quote to illustrate… this is that 'certainty-deficit' that bothered me when I first started writing Waking Up… and then putting my writing up on the website… this 'certainty-deficit is what underlies what I've been terming 'waste' – the waste of our lives… of our children… of our earth… because we haven't believed that we are worthy… that we deserve to make the decisions… that we deserve to have control of our own bodies… deserve our own children even – we've turned our children over to these people… to these ten thousand guys… our children… to corrupt their minds… and fill them with lies… and it is on those lies that our brilliant young people 'work'… use their brilliance on lies – waste. So you see how correct Plato was… that so long as you can convince the subjects… by emphasizing the essential superiority… because they are 'philosophers'… of the 'rulers'… you can continue to 'rule'… and largely that's because we're communal beings… and we're cooperative… and if you rear us to believe that we're 'not good enough' – that 'worth' must be established in a rigged 'game'… – there… it all falls into place… So the main reason Karl Popper could see… for insisting that 'rulers' be 'philosophers' is “to increase to the utmost… the authority of the 'rulers'…” – P.S.] (This has remained a major function of ‘higher’ education down to our own time.) Platonic wisdom is acquired largely for the sake of establishing a permanent class rule. It can be described as political ‘medicine’, giving mystic powers to its possessors, the medicine-men. (Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, p. 147 – 8, quoted in “Revealing Division”, p. 10)

[“150830powersuppressionplan.mp3”:]

 

So… after you convince the people that we are nothing and they are 'all'… what comes? next… constant… incessant… suppression of this obvious plan (to make sure we hunger…” keep us from having any sense of security… either materially or spiritually… i.e. manufacture 'scarcity'… – make us believe we are not 'worthy'… and if we have to 'please' to eat… while simultaneously abandon all hope of being 'thinkers'… like those who 'rule' us… then they've got us trapped… pretty effectively… and so we have to get ourselves out of this trap… spread the good news that each one of us is imbued with limitless power… endless gifts from the earth and the ancestors… waiting to be developed… and this is the time we do this… so it's an exciting moment… once we get those discussions going… globally…

 

(And we have to talk about this… because up to now… those who have been privileged to have these discussions are in those very institutions of higher learning designed to teach them to believe that they are the only ones worthy of making the decisions… and that's obviously seductive… So as long as these discussions are confined to them… it's not going to go anywhere… is it?… It's very flattering to think that you are among an elite group of 'thinkers'… who serve your fellow men and women by doing the thinking for them… So these are discussions that we have to have among ourselves… we-the-people… we commoners… we who weren't reared with Plato and given a 'philosophical' education…)

 

So… after you convince the people that we are nothing and they are 'all'… what comes? next… constant… incessant… suppression of this obvious plan (to make sure we hunger…” keep us from having any sense of security… either materially or spiritually… i.e. manufacture 'scarcity'… – make us believe we are not 'worthy'… and if we have to 'please' to eat… while simultaneously abandon all hope of being 'thinkers'… like those who 'rule' us… then they've got us trapped… pretty effectively… and so we have to get ourselves out of this trap… spread the good news that each one of us is imbued with limitless power… endless gifts from the earth and the ancestors… waiting to be developed… and this is the time we do this… so it's an exciting moment… once we get those discussions going… globally… – and I do believe that it is in these areas of the world that have most been told that they are responsible for the innovation that keeps the global system chuggin' along… that are in need of waking up – of course each of us has unique challenges in this area… and they need to happen everywhere… these conversations… but perhaps the distance we need to go to get to that clarity is a little further… so we'd better get started…) suppression of this obvious plan… repression of what challenges them… suppressing the necessary ancestors… and of course keeping us busy busy busy with simple survival: the 'job'… eating… and not talking together about the insanity of it all – this accomplished by means of atomization and keeping existence difficult… by manufacturing scarcity (because the definition of us is 'abundance'… if we were to get 'power' off of us…)…

 

…if it wasn't for all this… we would have seen… and discussed the obvious… trusting what our bodies tell us.

 

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“Initiators rather than leaders…” said Kropotkin… is what we are when we reconceive our allegiance… and stand with our Brothers and Sisters… and the earth… and the ancestors who preserved the words (thoughts) we need… to get free…

 

…for we are recognizing that our chains are made of thoughts in our heads… and to voice suppressed thoughts is to be the note that strikes the resonant chord… the wolf who starts the howl…

 

…those who speak the truth of our inherent freedom as living things release the creative energy common to us all… so long kept penned… and then tapped by 'power' proprietarily… or bled… arbitrarily…

 

–––

 

To see the scope… the sweep of our human story under 'class' in broad view… from the vantage of the whole… is to avoid the puppet-show… in order to observe the construction of the arcade…

 

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[Today’s reading: we continue the chapter “Poisonous Pedagogy” in… Alice Miller's For Your Own Good… When we left off… we were hearing from some of the 'child-rearing pedagogues': their recommendations for the complete suppression of feelings in children… – P.S.]

 

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* “WUR of August 30, 2015 Reading… continuing the chapter "Poisonous Pedagogy" in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good

 

[“150830classisconcrete.mp3”:]

 

But… what we will be considering… is that assigning motive power to theoretical abstractions is not the same as seeing the forces that motivate the humans hidden in… the abstractions – some of those humans are open and honest about their actions… some are not – but none of them… in our analysis… are abstractions (and… I should add… not abstractions also because we are calling out 'class' as the problem… not 'capitalism'… 'capitalism' – that ideology – has been extremely useful for 'power'… but if we recognize that the problem is ten thousand years in the making… and that it is therefore based in relationships that we experience every day… that's very concrete…that's our bodies talking…

“The person actually benefiting from this manipulation must not be detected.…” […said our poisoned pedagogue about the manipulation of children (and… by the way… isn't it clear that this is how the 'power'-guys view us? – as 'children'…) – that this is clearly stated in their pedagogy that they give to parents to implement… in order to reproduce 'power'… both within the home… and within the nation… is significant… it shows there is a concerted plan across multiple social institutions… it shows they've done their homework… they've done their thinking… they've read their Plato… and they've got a strategy… and look at the numbers slaughtered as a result… is there any doubt they've been successful? They are indeed 'on top' of a lot of confusion… and suffering… and misery… So they have succeeded in staying hidden… as we aren't talking about it. And I'm arguing that this 'theory'… applied politically – globally and nationally – provides the ideological expression… of hidden-'power'… and that this “hidden 'power'” described by Weiller here is not just the pattern… but the basis… of all such that grow out of it… under 'class'…

 

To illustrate this point we'll be looking at events in France after the Revolution of 1789 – the event that initiated a wave of 'bourgeois' (the 'classically'-trained 'intellectual class' that is done with aristocratic pretensions…) revolt across Europe against the aristocracy and Napoleonic invasion… after which followed… in France… restoration of monarchy: Napoleon making himself emperor… followed by other monarchs… Napoleon's nephew using popular revolt and hunger for a republic to bring about a coup d'etat and strengthen the state (this is the December 2, 1851 aftermath to the Revolution of 1848 – the uprising against King Louis-Philippe…)

 

We view from below (arguing that we have been intentionally misled… by the 'power'-promoted professional leftists – generally advocates of the “fix the state” or “claim the state” so-called 'solution' – who encourage us to base our strategy for getting free on abstractions rather than in our lived experience of being captives…) the actors on the political stage and their machinations are less important than the motive forces which generate them. What's interesting… and we began this discussion last week… is that Karl Marx – whose The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte we will be quoting from at length – what's interesting is that Marx tells us this is his primary motive as well… identifying 'the class struggle' as the motive force: “I… demonstrate how the class struggle in France created circumstances and relationships that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity [the nephew… “Napoleon the Little”… to use Victor Hugo's phrase…] to play a hero's part…” But… what we will be considering… is that assigning motive power to theoretical abstractions is not the same as seeing the forces that motivate the humans hidden in… the abstractions – some of those humans are open and honest about their actions… some are not – but none of them… in our analysis… are abstractions (and… I should add… not abstractions also because we are calling out 'class' as the problem… not 'capitalism'… 'capitalism' – that ideology – has been extremely useful for 'power'… but if we recognize that the problem is ten thousand years in the making… and that it is therefore based in relationships that we experience every day… that's very concrete…that's our bodies talking…

 

[“150830rulebyphilosophy.mp3”:]

 

“In France this Germanic trend is best represented by the popular philosopher and politician Victor Cousin, who flourished under the grand bourgeois, compromise regime of Louis Philippe. Cousin established French primary education on the Prussian model, and like Humboldt [in the wake of the French Revolution… “after the humiliation of the traditional government and its beloved army after their catastrophic defeat by Napoleon at Jena in 1806 (the Prussian monarchy turned to Humboldt to undertake reforms.) In 1809, among other reforms undertaken to face the French Revolutionary challenge, Humboldt was entrusted with the reorganization of the educational system. He based the new structure on Bildung (derived from his earlier sketch: 'On the Study of Antiquity and of the Greeks in Particular') which he believed would reanimate the German people after their crushing defeats.” (Martin Bernal, Black Athena…“ …consider… that the second we recognize that the problem is 'class'… not 'capitalism'… “poof!”… those abstractions ['historical mission'… 'free competition'… 'unchained productive power'… 'economic development'… e.g.…] become obviously propaganda… we automatically get back on the right track… by that one thing alone… by recognizing that the problem is 'class'… not 'capitalism'… So… that tactic: the elevation of the few… the so-called 'philosophers'… – pushing forward the stance of a supposedly 'value-free' 'science'… – is the key propagandistic device… used to lure us from the side of 'life'… from our solid ethical stance that demands freedom as a right.…

 

And let us never forget that in this period about which Marx writes there are folks busily implementing… the recommendations of Jeremy Bentham… and establishing the 'classical heritage':

…by the beginning of the 19th century AD Germans were convinced that they were the 'intellectual instructors of mankind'. It was a self-assessment accepted by most 'progressive' Europeans and North Americans. German philosophy and education provided a middle way between bankrupt traditions and the French Revolution and atheism…

 

In France this Germanic trend is best represented by the popular philosopher and politician Victor Cousin, who flourished under the grand bourgeois, compromise regime of Louis Philippe. Cousin established French primary education on the Prussian model, and like Humboldt [in the wake of the French Revolution… “after the humiliation of the traditional government and its beloved army after their catastrophic defeat by Napoleon at Jena in 1806 (the Prussian monarchy turned to Humboldt to undertake reforms.) In 1809, among other reforms undertaken to face the French Revolutionary challenge, Humboldt was entrusted with the reorganization of the educational system. He based the new structure on Bildung (derived from his earlier sketch: 'On the Study of Antiquity and of the Greeks in Particular') which he believed would reanimate the German people after their crushing defeats.” (Martin Bernal, Black Athena, p. 283 – 4)] and like Humboldt, whom he greatly admired, he reserved a special place in the whole educational system for the Ancients, and for the Greeks in particular. (p. 318 – 9)

In what follows from Karl Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte can you count the abstractions that pose as actors?… for instance… 'historical mission'… 'free competition'… 'unchained productive power'… 'economic development' – and… consider… that the second we recognize that the problem is 'class'… not 'capitalism'… “poof!”… those abstractions become obviously propaganda… we automatically get back on the right track… by that one thing alone… by recognizing that the problem is 'class'… not 'capitalism'… And why does it matter? We have been arguing that the segmentation of life into the 'disciplines'… or objects of study for the objective mind – and… again… this gets back to what we just read from Karl Popper… the fact that that's the point of 'higher education': to create the illusion of a legitimate set of 'rulers'… because they have been trained in this philosophical education… and it is in fact a 'philosophical education' when you segment the world into categories… and proceed to establish the 'rulers'… the 'experts'… the extremely knowledgable… the supreme 'authorities'… in each of them – that's another way of saying “'the philosophers' of those disciplines are the ones entitled to have an opinion (to speak…) on them… we have sat back and deferred our leadership capacities… vested them… in those least worthy of them… So… that tactic: the elevation of the few… the so-called 'philosophers'… – pushing forward the stance of a supposedly 'value-free' 'science'… – is the key propagandistic device… used to lure us from the side of 'life'… from our solid ethical stance that demands freedom as a right.

Camille Desmoulins, Danton, Robespierre, Saint-Just, Napoleon, the heroes as well as the parties and the masses of the old French Revolution, performed the task of their time in Roman costume and with Roman phrases, the task of unchaining and setting up modern bourgeois society. The first ones knocked the feudal basis to pieces and mowed off the feudal heads which had grown on it. The other created inside France the conditions under which alone free competition could be developed, parceled landed property exploited, and the unchained industrial productive power of the nation employed; and beyond the French borders he everywhere swept the feudal institutions away, so far as was necessary to furnish bourgeois society in France with a suitable up-to-date environment on the European Continent. The new social formation once established, the antediluvian Colossi disappeared… bourgeois society in its sober reality had begotten its true interpreters and mouthpieces in the Says, Cousins, Royer-Collards, Benjamin Constants and Guizots; its real military leaders sat behind the office desks, and the hog-headed Louis XVIII was its political chief.… (p. 16)

 

[“150830powermakesitself.mp3”:]

 

I'm pondering how much time to devote… and why… to Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… because… although I was drawn to it… I have to be honest… I don't entirely know why. I mean… I've known that the aftermath to the French Revolution of 1789 is a critical moment in the history of 'class' (when a group of Plato-lovin' social-engineers decided to get busy…) – the moment of birth of the Tiny-Few: the birth of themselves as a conscious actor… And Marx (writing in 1852… almost as the events he describes were happening…) without being aware… had his eyes on their conception… And they “made themselves”… as V. Gordon Childe said (and I suspect he was in sympathy with these guys…): Man Makes Himself… they were “making”… literally… “themselves”… with their raw material – us and their children. So… they were taking the world in hand… and this is the moment in which this… incomparably honest person… Marx… captures and lays down for us… his observations… his thoughts… And if he's not seeing something… it's significant… and we need to ask ourselves… what?…

 

[I'm pondering how much time to devote… and why… to Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… because… although I was drawn to it… I have to be honest… I don't entirely know why. I mean… I've known that the aftermath to the French Revolution of 1789 is a critical moment in the history of 'class' (when a group of Plato-lovin' social-engineers decided to get busy…) – the moment of birth of the Tiny-Few: the birth of themselves as a conscious actor (as they act in concert and as a single entity… can we call them an 'it'?…) And Marx (writing in 1852… almost as the events he describes were happening…) without being aware… had his eyes on their unfolding… And they “made themselves”… as V. Gordon Childe said (and I suspect he was in sympathy with these guys…): Man Makes Himself… they were “making”… literally… “themselves”… with their raw material – us and their children. So… they were taking the world in hand… and this is the moment in which this… incomparably honest person… Marx… captures and lays down for us… his observations… his thoughts… And if he's not seeing something… it's significant… and we need to ask ourselves… what?… how to construct better lenses?… how to know what we're looking for? (how to understand the force of… and see… the constructed blindness of 'class'-conditioning?…) – as we commit ourselves to working together for a free future…

 

…and I didn't complete that thought: why take this time with Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… – I'm sure it gets back to that whole notion of a 'certainty-disproportion' between us and the so-called 'rulers'… – P.S.]

 

[August 30, 2015 show ends here.]

 

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* “WUR of September 6, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.5): Segue From Antisystemic Movements… To Alice

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 21)

 

[“150906onedayglobalgeneralstrike.mp3”:]

 

A one-day global General Strike… followed by another one… followed by another one… is the only way we can get free… We cannot get free working within the interstate system. What is the mechanism by which we organize it? We pick a day… May Day… say… and a year in advance everyone who claims to be a 'Marxist'… or a 'Socialist'… or a 'progressive'… or an 'Anarchist' – anyone who wants global human freedom… and not global totalitarianism (which is what we got in this 'class'-system because it admits no alternatives…) all who want this… commit… to using every means… network… connection… and medium to promote – with the express and clear goal of global freedom – a one-day global General Strike… But the second we start… trust… a battalion of false folks will descend on each one of us – and there is no business… non-profit or institution… public or private… that they have not infiltrated. We will need the strategies we've been discussing here to stay focused. (And if they pooh-pooh a global General Strike… that's a 'tell'… But the point is not to expose… the point is to stay focused… what is key for us (in beginning to move toward 'the global unity of we-commoners'…) is a process for clarifying our picture of the world we want: a world fit for the self-development of our gifts… based in our mutual-aid arrangements (“the organization is how we cooperate…”) and for that we need certainty – and therefore what is key… is keeping 'power' from undermining it – with agents… and with economic hardship…

 

September 2, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Should ten thousand guys decide for seven billion? No. So… how do we get free of them?

 

A one-day global General Strike… followed by another one… followed by another one… is the only way we can get free… We cannot get free working within the interstate system. What is the mechanism by which we organize it? We pick a day… May Day… say… and a year in advance everyone who claims to be a 'Marxist'… or a 'Socialist'… or a 'progressive'… or an 'Anarchist' – anyone who wants global human freedom… and not global totalitarianism (which is what we got in this 'class'-system because it admits no alternatives…) all who want this… commit… to using every means… network… connection… and medium to promote – with the express and clear goal of global freedom – a one-day global General Strike…

 

…and… to begin visioning it in concrete terms – like someone who works construction – and I don't mean in our 'jobs'… those energy-sinks they plug us into… there is no part of a coerced-work system that's not corrupted… utterly illegitimate. No… I mean as 'soul-sufficient' beings… as 'fully-developing individualities'.

 

Let's put on our coveralls Sisters and Brothers… put our hands into the rich soil of our relationships… and start feeding it with good… healthy… information: i.e.… we were born free… and we deserve to keep so… design a world for ourselves – every one of us – that ensures we can be so.

 

But the second we start… trust… a battalion of false folks will descend on each one of us – and there is no business… non-profit or institution… public or private… that they have not infiltrated. We will need the strategies we've been discussing here to stay focused. (And if they pooh-pooh a global General Strike… that's a 'tell'… But the point is not to expose… the point is to stay focused.)

 

We are recognizing that unless we see 'power' where it hides in that place it resides… of Zero-Consequences-For-Its-Actions… it can continue to undermine our ability to organize – by undermining our certainty – that we deserve to be free… that trust and love can exist between us… we commoners… globally… and that we have the ability… both spiritually and materially… to achieve it: our global freedom…

 

We asked ourselves some questions last week – “what do we mean by “hidden-'power'”?”… “how do we see hidden-'power'?”… and “why must we incorporate an understanding of it into our strategic planning?” – and I'm not sure we answered them… except the last one… by implication – by… citing as authority our Kropotkin… and the fact that what is key for us (in beginning to move toward 'the global unity of we-commoners'…) is a process for clarifying our picture of the world we want: a world fit for the self-development of our gifts… based in our mutual-aid arrangements (“the organization is how we cooperate…”) and for that we need certainty – and therefore what is key… is keeping 'power' from undermining it – with agents… and with economic hardship…

 

…a picture with which to excite our Brothers and Sisters just beginning to look around them… at the possibilities emerging with our proliferating discussions… freeing the thought process… thawing that original hope for a vital existence that hidden 'power' decimated with its successful systematic planning.

 

Through 'misdirection' ('philosophical education') and 'making us hunger'… along with constant media-bombardment… designed to keep us uncertain… (behind which 'power' hides – our opponent feels amorphous… it is 'the system' itself… designed to keep us uncertain… as we ourselves constitute it daily…) a worm was inserted into the fruit of our resistance…

 

[“150906skewedbydualism.mp3”:]

 

As Popper said… Marx's world-view was skewed by its dualism… its division between 'mind' and 'hand'… and in that division… 'Thought' always took precedence… and this 'Thought'… because not rooted in our deep earth-connectedness… sought… like 'power's… to rule 'earth'… subject it to 'Thought's authority – and especially the earth-in-us… for we are the raw material from… and by… which… “'Thought' (or 'History'… if you prefer) realizes itself…” and the Plato's Tribesmen – the 'power'-guys – 'make themselves.'

 

…and Marx could not see it…

 

As Popper said… Marx's was not “a radical form of materialism…” his world-view was skewed by its dualism… its division between 'mind' and 'hand'… and in that division… 'Thought' always took precedence… and this 'Thought'… because not rooted in our deep earth-connectedness… sought… like 'power's… to rule 'earth'… subject it to 'Thought's authority – and especially the earth-in-us… for we are the raw material from… and by… which… “'Thought' (or 'History'… if you prefer) realizes itself…” and the Plato's Tribesmen – the 'power'-guys – 'make themselves.'

 

Marx… like Bentham… views us with a 'benevolent' utilitarian lens: we exist to fulfill our 'historic mission'. And while he (unlike Bentham) encourages us to keep fighting for 'more'… a bigger slice – because according to his analysis (as we learned in our discussion of how the rate of profit falls as 'capitalism' 'develops' [“Marx concludes by saying that the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is “in every respect the most important law of modern political economy… It is from the historical standpoint the most important law.” (Capital, III)”…] it speeds up 'power's demise – he doesn't recognize that in accepting subject-status… for ourselves and our children… we've lost everything that matters.

 

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[“150906constitutiveorders.mp3”:]

 

The first shift implied that the market was no longer seen as enclosed within (or “embedded” in) each nation-state as an independent economic space, and that the world-economy was no longer conceived of as an interstate economy linking discrete national economic spaces. Rather, nation-states were seen as jurisdictional claims in a unitary world market. By effecting the socialization of labor on a world scale, the world market determined the most general context of the class contradictions and therefore of the class struggles of capitalist society, which Marx defined by its constitutive orders, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat: ['Earth-speak' would be: those 'power'-mad-few – and… by the way… while they tell themselves they want all the 'power' (resources) because they are the only ones 'qualified' to have it… they are all the more mad for believing that – these 'power'-mad-few are determined to ground all earth… but particularly the earth which is us… down into one placid unresisting material… on which they 'work'… made uniform in being made uniformly malleable to 'its' 'will'… – P.S.]

 

In their discussion [see the menu] in the “Introduction” to Antisystemic Movements: “Rethinking the Concepts of Class and Status-Group in a World Systems Perspective”… our Good Three noted important shifts in emphasis in Marx's concept and analysis of 'the state'… and 'the market'… from that which went before:

If we contrast [Adam Smith's and other classical economists'] analytical framework with that associated with Karl Marx’s critique of political economy…, we notice two consequential shifts of focus: a shift away from state-defined economic spaces to world-economic space on the one hand, and a shift away from the marketplace to the workplace on the other.

 

The first shift implied that the market was no longer seen as enclosed within (or “embedded” in) each nation-state as an independent economic space, and that the world-economy was no longer conceived of as an interstate economy linking discrete national economic spaces. Rather, nation-states were seen as jurisdictional claims in a unitary world market. By effecting the socialization of labor on a world scale, the world market determined the most general context of the class contradictions and therefore of the class struggles of capitalist society, which Marx defined by its constitutive orders, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat: ['Earth-speak' would be: those 'power'-mad-few – and… by the way… while they tell themselves they want all the 'power' (resources) because they are the only ones 'qualified' to have it… they are all the more mad for believing that – these 'power'-mad-few are determined to ground all earth… but particularly the earth which is us… down into one placid unresisting material… on which they 'work'… made uniform in being made uniformly malleable to 'its' 'will'… – P.S.]

[“150906innovationisus.mp3”:]

 

“…in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.” (The Communist Manifesto) […I am searching for a good metaphor to explain why that's a con… because it is we who do this… and yet 'power' that gets… takes… is given… the credit… and that con has been so embedded in our heads… primarily by the 'official' Left (the academics and pundits…) the professional Left has driven… with Marx's help… that notion into our heads that somehow without these 'power'-guys 'doing it' (forcing us…) we would not have been able to be innovative at all – that is so wrong… so backwards and upside-down… so twisted… I'm searching for a way so we can see that clearly… – P.S.]

 

The modern history of capital dates from the creation in the sixteenth century of a world-embracing commerce and world-embracing market. (Capital, Volume I)

 

This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages. (The Communist Manifesto) [This is what I mean by “unleashed 'Greed'”… But… stepping back… I am searching for a good metaphor to explain why that's a con… because it is we who do this… and yet 'power' that gets… takes… is given… the credit… and that con has been so embedded in our heads… primarily by the 'official' Left (the academics and pundits…) the professional Left has driven… with Marx's help… that notion into our heads that somehow without these 'power'-guys 'doing it' (forcing us…) we would not have been able to be innovative at all – that is so wrong… so backwards and upside-down… so twisted… I'm searching for a way so we can see that clearly… – P.S.]

This was not a mere matter of trade relations between sovereign states. Rather, the developing bourgeoisie…

…compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois modes of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeoisie themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. (The Communist Manifesto) [While recognizing the vampiric nature of 'power'… it seems Marx never felt any interest in the spiritual implications for we-the-people of this tendency of 'power' to turn us… into 'it' (that is that metaphor that was updated in the Matrix-series of films… in which the 'Mr. Smith' virus replicates by turning us into 'it'…) – P.S.]

The world so created was characterized by a highly stratified structure of domination and had more than market interests as subjective grounds for collective action:

Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West. (The Communist Manifesto)

Marx went looking for 'capital'… we – and Rosa and Kropotkin and Bakunin – are looking for 'power'. Marx is looking for 'laws' that capture the trajectory of the accumulation of 'capital'… in order to 'prove' that that trajectory ends in our freedom… (He needed to 'prove' it… isn't that suggestive of 'the abandoned child mindset'?… the need to seek approval… and the need to 'prove' that one is right… are intimately tied… and this is so alive all around us – because it's about 'class'… and it has been alive around us for ten thousand years: this need to 'prove' one's worth… and escape 'slave' status – that is the mindset from which we are freeing ourselves… right now… in this moment… I think it's worth a little extra effort to start these conversations. And I hope I've been of some help in providing some tools… some means… some ways into… the route… into these conversations… into the notion that it is time now to end ten thousand years of class… We gotta bring that up… because that's amazing… that is 'world historic'…)

 

[“150906nothingmoreexciting.mp3”:]

 

…to get 'force' off our backs and allow our gifts to grow and develop under their own agency and initiative… the guidance of the earth – nothing more exciting than that…

 

(To get 'force' off the backs of us… and allow our gifts to grow and develop under their own agency and initiative… the guidance of the earth – that world is going to be so amazingly interesting… to see each other… who we are really… not these poor-sad-distorted mutilations of ourselves… but us… nothing more exciting than that.)

 

[“150906powerinchildrearing.mp3”:]

 

…Hirschman saw a different trajectory: the 'evolution' of 'statecraft' – putting the hand that crafts… their acts… before the abstractions that 'Thought' creates… to legitimate those actions. Because 'explanation' in terms of 'inherent laws of development' is necessarily legitimization… What Hirschman found: a continuously renewed and strengthened attendance to Plato's dictum… “there must be no split in the unity of 'the master class'…” i.e.… the point then… now… and ever will be while it lasts: preserving 'class'… which means… 'herding the cattle'… Marx was looking for money and means… so to theorize how we-the-people would conquer them… thereby 'guaranteeing' our freedom… it wouldn't even occur to him to look for child-rearing activists… for a bunch of Humboldts and Cousins… installing the 'systems'… that would make us all – 'rulers' and 'ruled'… 'shepherds' and 'sheep' – obedient to… and lusting for… 'Authority'… – because that's how we got conquered… that's what we needed Marx's eyes on… not the stage… the theater… And so… in answer to the question: “why are we devoting time to an Eighteenth Brumaire reading?”… one answer… so we can get clearer… and all get on the same page and together… that we're wrestling with an entirely different animal from what Marx thought – so we need to not allow that weight of mistaken thinking to hold us down right now… it's time for us to take off… and we need to encourage each other in so doing…

 

…others… like Albert O. Hirschman… saw a different trajectory: the 'evolution' of 'statecraft' – putting the hand that crafts… their acts… before the abstractions that 'Thought' creates… to legitimate those actions. Because 'explanation' in terms of 'inherent laws of development' is necessarily legitimization.

 

What Hirschman found… a continuously renewed and strengthened attendance to Plato's dictum… “there must be no split in the unity of 'the master class'…” i.e.… the point then… now… and ever will be while it lasts: preserving 'class'… which means… 'herding the cattle'.

 

Marx was looking for money and means… so to theorize how we-the-people would conquer them… thereby 'guaranteeing' our freedom… it wouldn't even occur to him to look for child-rearing activists… for a bunch of Humboldts and Cousins… installing the 'systems'… that would make us all – 'rulers' and 'ruled'… 'shepherds' and 'sheep' – obedient to… and lusting for… 'Authority'… – because that's how we got conquered… that's what we needed Marx's eyes on… not the stage… the theater…

 

And so… in answer to the question we asked last week: “why are we devoting time to an Eighteenth Brumaire reading?”: one answer is because we want to know how Marx sees 'the state'… sees 'power'… so we can get clearer… and all get on the same page and together… that we're wrestling with an entirely different animal from what Marx thought – so we need to not allow that weight of mistaken thinking to hold us down right now… it's time for us to take off… and we need to encourage each other in so doing…

 

…but also… in order to see… that abstract theory – in and of itself… per se – is but 'the state' in hiding… in its ethereal haunt… from which it comes to corral our heads… as dictatorially as the bayonets press against our chests…

 

–––

 

[“150906itispowerthatisviolent.mp3”:]

 

…Hirschman ferrets out the seeds of the belief that emerged in late seventeenth century Europe… that 'the interests' might be able to tame 'the passions' (i.e.: the 'power'-guys tearing themselves to shreds… This absorbed Plato too… by the way… trying to figure out how to rein-in those 'power'-guys passions… And this would be a really good example of 'projection' if it weren't primarily political strategy: always telling us that we're the violent ones. What a con. It's just the opposite. It's their own rage they're trying to control… while telling us that we are the ones who are violent… and then create the conditions to ensure that that seems so… because caged animals under stress do lash out at each other… that does not mean that violence is inherent in our nature… far from it. Keep in mind as we read… that… as Adam Smith said… our voice is “little heard and less regarded…” that we have been [up to now] simply along for this wild ride of 'Mind-Deified'… beginning its stampling of the planet – long past time for us to be the ones who decide… We have the right to be happy – and we can only be authentically happy – within the core of our being – when we are free… We start out free and we need to stay free… “No coercion” is the world we make to serve us… a world in which we never dissemble – there is no need – only honesty can knit together our human communities):

 

So… are there 'laws' that govern 'accumulation'… and how is 'the accumulation of capital' different from 'the love of gain' per se? This is the question that absorbed Marx… But he was… as Popper said… someone who thought very highly of human heads… so he viewed from the money-side… the abstractions – he became fixated on… the curtain…

 

…others asked the same question… but from the aspect of 'power' standing naked… without the abstractions to conceal them. Albert O. Hirschman's The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph is divided into two parts. The first is titled: “How the Interests ['the love of gain'] were Called Upon to Counteract the Passions” [the vicious competition between the 'power'-guys for supremacy ('glory'… 'standing'… recognition… adulation… – Adam Smith (who also said that we-the-people – our voice – is “little heard and less regarded”…) Adam Smith noted this in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments… in which he said: “What is the end of avarice and ambition, of the pursuit of wealth, of power and preeminence?… From whence… arises the emulation which runs through all the different ranks of men and what are the advantages which we propose by that great purpose of human life which we call bettering our condition? To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and appreciation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it. It is the vanity, not the ease or the pleasure, which interests us.” – words admirably evidenced by Mussolini's “every hierarchy must culminate in a pinpoint…”] Is it not clear… this is the mindset… of abandonment?…

 

Part Two is titled: “How Economic Expansion was Expected to Improve the Political order”… which… in a sense is also Marx's conclusion.

 

The book opens with the question that absorbed… not just Marx… but all those struggling with the concept of 'freedom'… and what it means in a social arrangement defined by an endless scramble for place… rank… by those restless souls who were abandoned as children… and were consequently determined to 'prove' their 'worth'… and use us – our human energy – to do it…

 

…and then ferrets out the seeds of the belief that emerged in late seventeenth century Europe… that 'the interests' might be able to tame 'the passions' (i.e.: the 'power'-guys tearing themselves to shreds… This absorbed Plato too… by the way… trying to figure out how to rein-in those 'power'-guys passions… And this would be a really good example of 'projection' if it weren't primarily political strategy: always telling us that we're the violent ones. What a con. It's just the opposite. It's their own rage they're trying to control… while telling us that we are the ones who are violent… and then create the conditions to ensure that that seems so… because caged animals under stress do lash out at each other… that does not mean that violence is inherent in our nature… far from it. Keep in mind as we read… that… as Adam Smith said… our voice is “little heard and less regarded…” that we have been [up to now] simply along for this wild ride of 'Mind-Deified'… beginning its stampling of the planet – long past time for us to be the ones who decide… We have the right to be happy – and we can only be authentically happy – within the core of our being – when we are free… We start out free and we need to stay free… “No coercion” is the world we make to serve us… a world in which we never dissemble – there is no need – only honesty can knit together our human communities):

 

[“150906powerseeksreason.mp3”:]

 

“As happens frequently with concepts that are suddenly thrust to the center of the stage – class, elite, economic development, to name some more recent examples – interest appeared so self-evident a notion that nobody bothered to define it precisely. Nor did anyone explain the place it occupied in relation to the two categories that had dominated the analysis of human motivation since Plato, namely, the passions on the one hand [that's the 'power'-guys tearing themselves to shreds… – P.S.], and reason on the other [that's Plato and his fellow philosophers thinking they had to find a way to stop these guys from killing each other… – P.S.]”

At the beginning of the principle section of his famous essay [The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism], Max Weber asked: “Now, how could an activity, which was at best ethically tolerated, turn into a calling in the sense of Benjamin Franklin?” In other words: How did commercial, banking, and similar money-making pursuits become honorable at some point in the modern age after having stood condemned or despised as greed, love of lucre, and avarice for centuries past? (p. 9)

 

The idea of an opposition between interests and passions made its first appearance, to my knowledge with the previously noted work of Rohan, which is wholly concerned with rulers and statesmen. In subsequent decades the dichotomy was discussed by a number of English and French writers who applied it to human conduct in general.…

 

The infatuation with interest as a key to the understanding of human action carried over into the eighteenth century when Helvetius, in spite of his exaltation of the passions, proclaimed: “As the physical world is ruled by the laws of movement so is the moral universe ruled by laws of interest.”

 

As happens frequently with concepts that are suddenly thrust to the center of the stage – class, elite, economic development, to name some more recent examples – interest appeared so self-evident a notion that nobody bothered to define it precisely. Nor did anyone explain the place it occupied in relation to the two categories that had dominated the analysis of human motivation since Plato, namely, the passions on the one hand [that's the 'power'-guys tearing themselves to shreds… – P.S.], and reason on the other [that's Plato and his fellow philosophers thinking they had to find a way to stop these guys from killing each other… – P.S.]. But it is precisely against the background of this traditional dichotomy ['traditional dichotomy'… i.e.… within 'power' itself… I guess you could say 'the shepherds and the sheepdogs… or 'the philosopher-kings' and 'the shepherds'… or something like that… – P.S.] that the emergence of a third category in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century can be understood. Once passion was deemed destructive and reason ineffectual, the view that human action could be exhaustively described by attribution to either one or the other meant an exceedingly somber outlook for humanity. A message of hope was therefore conveyed by the wedging of interest in between the two traditional categories of human motivation. Interest was seen to partake in effect of the better nature of each, as the passion of self-love [giving yourself permission to accumulate… – P.S.] upgraded and contained by reason, and as reason given direction and force by that passion [of endless accumulation… – P.S.]. The resulting hybrid form of human action was considered exempt from both the destructiveness of passion and the ineffectuality of reason. No wonder that the doctrine of interest was received at the time as a veritable message of salvation. (p. 43 – 44)

 

–––

 

[I was planning to expand this fragment on Millar… but it would take up too much time… so… I will omit the following two paragraphs from the show… – P.S.]:

 

An explicit account of the historical reasons for which [the merchant and middle classes] not only come to exercise increasing political influence in general but are able to react to abuses of power by others through collective action was put forward by John Millar, another prominent member of the Scottish Enlightenment.

 

In a posthumous essay entitled “The Advancement of Manufactures, Commerce, and the Arts; and the Tendency of this Advancement to diffuse a Spirit of Liberty and Independence,” Millar states his subject as follows: “The spirit of liberty appears, in commercial countries, to depend chiefly upon two circumstances: first, the condition of the people relative to the distribution of property, and the means of subsistence: secondly, the facility with which the several members of society are enabled to associate and to act in concert with one another.” [Millar] shows how the advances of productivity in manufacturing and agriculture lead in both these branches to greater “personal independence, and to higher notions of general liberty.” (p. 88 – 9)

 

–––

[“[“150906tyrannyishere.mp3”:]”:]

 

Ferguson and Tocqueville's point: “…as long as not everyone is playing the “innocent” game of making money, the total absorption in it of most citizens leaves the few who play for the higher stakes of power freer than before to pursue their ambition. In this way social arrangements that substitute the interests for the passions as the guiding principle of human action for the many can have the side effect of killing the civic spirit and of thereby opening the door to tyranny.” A pregnant point to end on… a lot to ponder in it towards our discussion of “seeing 'power'” where it hides… because I believe he hit the nail on the head… While we have been kept busy simply surviving… the global-state-statesmen have been busy constructing a world in the image of their paterfamilias… Plato… who provided for them all 'rulers' needed… to keep us contained… “controlling the 'human cattle'” is the name of that game… But 'the cattle' are growing up aren't we?… and throwing off that pejorative and beginning to talk to each other despite the atomization… considering the possibility… that at long last… it has come to pass… that ten thousand years of 'class'… will very shortly be… in the past…

 

Hirschman goes on to explain that those consumed by the idea of 'statecraft'… by the project of 'managing' 'society' efficiently… grew attached to the notion of a 'delicate watch mechanism'… as a metaphor for a well-managed 'state'…

[Steuart] makes… a two-sided point: on the one hand, increasing wealth causes the statesman to have “so powerful an influence over the operations of a whole people… which in former ages, even under the most absolute governments was utterly unknown”; at the same time, however, “the sovereign power is extremely limited, in every arbitrary exercise of it.” The reason lies in the nature of the “complicated modern oeconomy,” which he also calls “the plan” or “the plan of 'economy”:

The power of a modern prince, let it be, by the constitution of his kingdom, ever so absolute, immediately becomes limited so soon as he establishes the plan of oeconomy which we are endeavouring to explain. If his authority formerly resembled the solidity and force of the wedge (which may indifferently be made use of, for splitting of timber, stones and other hard bodies, and which may be thrown aside and taken up again at pleasure), it will at length come to resemble the delicacy of the watch, which is good for no other purpose than to mark the progression of time, and which is immediately destroyed, if put to any other use, or touched with any but the gentlest hand.

 

A modern oeconomy, therefore, is the most effective bridle ever was invented against the folly of despotism. (p. 84 -5)

According to Ferguson and Tocqueville… economic expansion and the preoccupation with individual economic improvement that goes with it both cause the advance of the political arts ['statecraft'… the 'art' of controlling us… – P.S.] and can also be responsible for their deterioration […I suspect… that in the minds of these Plato's Tribesmen… 'wealth' (us and all earth not-us…) 'achieving' its apogee in their hands… would simultaneously be… the apogee of their 'statecraft'… – P.S.]. This thought was later taken up by Marx in his class analysis of the 1848 revolutions: from progressive, the political role of the bourgeoisie turned reactionary as these events unfolded. But the earlier formulations are, in a sense, richer, for they demonstrate that economic expansion is basically and simultaneously ambivalent in its political effects, whereas Marxist thought imposes a temporal sequence with the positive effects necessarily antedating the negative ones.…

 

…Ferguson and Tocqueville implicitly criticized the older tradition of thought that had seen in the pursuit of material interest a welcome alternative to the passionate scramble for glory and power. While not invoking the fallacy of composition, they put forward a rather similar point: as long as not everyone is playing the “innocent” game of making money, the total absorption in it of most citizens leaves the few who play for the higher stakes of power freer than before to pursue their ambition. In this way social arrangements that substitute the interests for the passions as the guiding principle of human action for the many can have the side effect of killing the civic spirit and of thereby opening the door to tyranny. (p. 124 – 5)

A pregnant point to end on… a lot to ponder in it towards our discussion of “seeing 'power'” where it hides… because I believe he hit the nail on the head… While we have been kept busy simply surviving… the global-state-statesmen have been busy constructing a world in the image of their paterfamilias… Plato… who provided for them all 'rulers' needed… to keep us contained… “controlling the 'human cattle'” is the name of that game… But 'the cattle' are growing up aren't we?… and throwing off that pejorative and beginning to talk to each other despite the atomization… considering the possibility… that at long last… it has come to pass… that ten thousand years of 'class'… will very shortly be… in the past…

 

[September 6, 2015 show ends here.]

 

–––

 

* “WUR of September 13, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.5): Segue From Antisystemic Movements… To Alice

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 22)

 

[“150913statecraftingclass.mp3”:]

 

“…the setting of ten, for example, as the ultimate age for such donations in some locales matches age distinctions for other forms of parental divestment, such as fostering or sale… Dynastic considerations might render children not only unwanted but dangerous: younger sons or siblings regularly challenged succession to the thrones of early medieval Europe, and children of second and third marriages represented threats to those of the first, and vice versa. The motif of the child destined to injure his parents, his family, or his kingdom, ubiquitous in ancient and medieval mythology and folklore, must to some extent reflect anxieties of this sort: “The fewer full-grown male relatives a king had around him, the easier he slept at night.” Abandoning such persons as children – through exposing, fosterage, or oblation – was certainly more humane than murdering them, sometimes resorted to in later ages.” (from John Boswell's important book: The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance)

 

[…before I forget… there's a question I've been meaning to ask about drones. Often I've noticed when my connection is blocked that a drone is hovering in the vicinity overhead… whether at the library… or outdoors at a location where I upload [I hear the hovering drones at home… but I don't upload at home anymore… I also hear it generally when I awake… and as it flies away…) – and what I want to know is… is a 'hovering' capability in a drone an expensive accessory? You see where I'm going: is it only military that has it?]

 

September 7, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: We are approaching our free future… Tell a cell-mate… a loved one… a friend… After an unimaginable bludgeoning of us and the planet… Ten thousand years of 'class'… is coming to an end…

 

Marcuse referred to this time we're in as 'the reversal'… a good way… in many ways… to think of it…

 

The way we're considering today is from the aspect of the word itself: 'class'. As Hirschman told us in our last show… it's a term that came suddenly upon us… which came not to be questioned:

As happens frequently with concepts that are suddenly thrust to the center of the stage – class, elite, economic development, to name some more recent examples – interest appeared so self-evident a notion that nobody bothered to define it precisely.

But though we are reversing from being classed (which necessarily means a hierarchical ordering… some group of folks imposing that idea on us…) I think it makes more sense to see this as returning to our original wholeness (at birth…) rather than to an earlier social arrangement – i.e.… we are inventing something altogether new… as never before have we been consciously a global “'community' of communities of fully-developing individualities.”

 

Marx's observations and 'thought' provide much insight into this question. Recall… for instance… the following comment of his from the August 30, 2015 show:

Camille Desmoulins, Danton, Robespierre, Saint-Just, Napoleon, the heroes as well as the parties and the masses of the old French Revolution, performed the task of their time in Roman costume and with Roman phrases, the task of unchaining and setting up modern bourgeois society. The first ones knocked the feudal basis to pieces and mowed off the feudal heads which had grown on it. The other created inside France the conditions under which alone free competition could be developed, parceled landed property exploited, and the unchained industrial productive power of the nation employed; and beyond the French borders he everywhere swept the feudal institutions away, so far as was necessary to furnish bourgeois society in France with a suitable up-to-date environment on the European Continent. [Recall that he's talking about a moment when the full horrors of the 'Industrial Revolution' were engulfing the English people… This is what he means by “up-to-date”… – P.S.] The new social formation once established, the antediluvian Colossi disappeared… bourgeois society in its sober reality had begotten its true interpreters and mouthpieces in the Says, Cousins, Royer-Collards, Benjamin Constants and Guizots; its real military leaders sat behind the office desks, and the hog-headed Louis XVIII was its political chief.… [So… 'new bosses' is what he's saying… new terms by which we may be eaten… – P.S.]

…and consider this in juxtaposition with the following linguistic observations – thinking in terms of the evolution of 'statecraft'…

 

…recalling that 'class' was an idea imposed on us…

 

…recalling that the 'thought' that gets preserved and handed down generally is the 'thought' that assists 'power' with that 'state-preservation' project… i.e. the 'thought' of the would-be social managers… who would see in Plato a mission calling out for their gifts… and in the French Revolution… a spur to action…

 

…'class' was imposed… by who?… and how?… we are asking today. For guidance I turned to Raymond Williams, who taught drama at Cambridge:

'Class' is an obviously difficult word, both in its range of meanings and in its complexity in that particular meaning where it describes a social division. The Latin word classis, a division according to property of the people of Rome, came into English in the late 16th century in its Latin form, with a plural classes or classies… But 'classis' was primarily used in explicit reference to Roman history, and was then extended, first as a term in church organization…

[…and John Boswell's important book: The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (1988) sheds light on this… sheds light on the innovators of Europe's intellectual life… he cites the monastery as the general destination for the abandoned children of the 'elite'. This practice was known as 'oblation'… an 'oblate' is “a thing presented or offered to God or a god…” – P.S.]:

 

As a formal system, oblation bore striking resemblances to other forms of abandonment, in terms of its social utility (e.g., in limiting the number of heirs [a point emphasized by Plato in the Republic… – P.S.] the conflicts it raised about irrevocability (much like imperial Roman struggles over the permanence of servile status) and even some very technical details: the setting of ten, for example, as the ultimate age for such donations in some locales matches age distinctions for other forms of parental divestment, such as fostering or sale. (p. 249)

 

Dynastic considerations might render children not only unwanted but dangerous: younger sons or siblings regularly challenged succession to the thrones of early medieval Europe, and children of second and third marriages represented threats to those of the first, and vice versa. The motif of the child destined to injure his parents, his family, or his kingdom, ubiquitous in ancient and medieval mythology and folklore, must to some extent reflect anxieties of this sort: “The fewer full-grown male relatives a king had around him, the easier he slept at night.” Abandoning such persons as children – through exposing, fosterage, or oblation – was certainly more humane than murdering them, sometimes resorted to in later ages. (p. 257 – 8)

 

[The daily life of oblates] was not greatly different from that of children in strict religious boarding schools in many ages, except that in addition to school and work, they had long and exacting liturgical duties throughout the day. By and large, the monastic daily regimen involved about four hours of liturgy, four of reading, six of work, six to eight hours of sleep (from about 5 P.M. To about 2 A.M.), and two to four hours for eating, hygiene, and other physical needs. Most oblates would have spent more time in school than at work. Children were required to eat standing, but were usually given more meat and fed more frequently than the adult monks (although the amounts and variety were still ascetic); in influential Carolingian commentaries a special diet is prescribed for each year of childhood. (p. 249 – 50)]

…and later as a general term for a division or group…

 

[“150913powerhidesmakesitself.mp3”:]

 

“The essential history of the introduction of 'class', as a word which would supersede older names for social divisions, relates to the increasing consciousness that social position is made rather than merely inherited…” [i.e.… the conscious awareness that there is a system… i.e.… signals that 'power' has retreated behind scenes… has gone into hiding… – P.S.]. “What was changing consciousness was… the new sense of a society or a particular 'social system' which actually created social divisions, including new kinds of division.” What these observations suggest – particularly in the context of our on-going theme of 'power' hiding itself in the aftermath of the French Revolution… in its determination to 'make-itself'… and the world… make mischief clandestine… according to the 'guidance' provided by Plato's Republic – is the emergence of a conscious strategy… among a self-identifying (self-creating?…) self-reflecting trans-national people… adopted with a missionary zeal… to make 'order' from 'mess'… using money and 'philosophical education'… and of course… us… we who make everything… as means. In order for them to 'make themselves'… they 'make us' simultaneously… – this is making the 'society' they want. This is why we've just been along for the ride… because consciousness is everything. Those who act with consciousness multiply their impact many many fold… This is one of the lessons 'power' has shown us that we need to begin taking to heart. ASAP.

 

…From the late 17th century the use of 'class' as a general word for a group or division became more and more common. What is then most difficult is that 'class' came to be used in this way about people as well as about plants and animals, but without social implications of the modern kind… Development of 'class' in its modern social sense, with relatively fixed names for particular classes ('lower class', 'upper class', 'working class' and so on) belongs essentially to the period between 1770 and 1840, which is also the period of the Industrial Revolution and its decisive reorganization of society.… [There's that abstract-actor again… concealing the existence of conscious human actors… – P.S.]

 

…The essential history of the introduction of 'class', as a word which would supersede older names for social divisions, relates to the increasing consciousness that social position is made rather than merely inherited [i.e.… the conscious awareness that there is a system… i.e.… signals that 'power' has retreated behind scenes… has gone into hiding… – P.S.]. All the older words, with their essential metaphors of standing, stepping and arranging in rows, belong to a society in which position was determined by birth… What was changing consciousness was… the new sense of a society or a particular 'social system' which actually created social divisions, including new kinds of division. This is quite explicit in one of the first clear uses, that of Madison in The Federalist (USA, c. 1787): moneyed and manufacturing interests “grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views”. Under the pressure of this awareness, greatly sharpened by the economic changes of the Industrial Revolution and the political conflicts of the American and French Revolutions, the new vocabulary of 'class' began to take over.…

 

…With this said, we can trace the formation of the newly specific class vocabulary. 'Lower classes' was used in 1772, and 'lowest classes' and 'lowest class' were common from the 1790s. These carry some of the marks of the transition, but do not complete it. More interesting because less dependent on an old general sense, in which the 'lower classes' would be not very different from the common 'people', is the new and increasingly self-conscious and self-used description of the 'middle classes.' This has precedents in 'men of a middle condition' (1716), 'the middle Station of Life', (Defoe, 1719), 'the Middling People of England,… generally Good-natured and Stout-hearted' (1718), 'the middling and lower classes,' (1789), Gisborne in 1795 wrote an 'Enquiry into the Duties of Men in the Higher Rank and Middle Classes of Society in Great Britain'.… 'Rank' was still used at least as often, as in James Mill (1820): 'the class which is universally described as both the most wise and the most virtuous part of the community, the middle rank' (Essay on Government), but here 'class' has already taken on a general social sense, used on its own. The swell of self-congratulatory description reached a temporary climax in Brougham's speech of 1831: 'by the people, I mean the middle classes, the wealth and intelligence of the country, the glory of the British name.'

 

There is a continuing curiosity in this development. 'Middle' belongs to a disposition between 'lower' and 'higher', in fact as an insertion between an increasingly insupportable 'high' and 'low.'… But clearly in Brougham, and very often since, the 'upper' or 'higher' part of the model virtually disappears, or, rather, awareness of a 'higher' class is assigned to a different dimension, that of a residual and respected but essentially displaced aristocracy. (Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, p. 51 - 4)

What these observations suggest – particularly in the context of our on-going theme of 'power' hiding itself in the aftermath of the French Revolution… in its determination to 'make-itself'… and the world… make mischief clandestine… according to the 'guidance' provided by Plato's Republic – is the emergence of a conscious strategy… among a self-identifying (self-creating?…) self-reflecting trans-national people… adopted with a missionary zeal… to make 'order' from 'mess'… using money and 'philosophical education'… and of course… us… we who make everything… as means. In order for them to 'make themselves'… they 'make us' simultaneously… – this is making the 'society' they want. This is why we've just been along for the ride… because consciousness is everything. Those who act with consciousness multiply their impact many many fold… This is one of the lessons 'power' has shown us that we need to begin taking to heart. ASAP.

 

[“150913starttheballrolling.mp3”:]

 

…and in the context of us being made into means… a 'class analysis'… is by definition 'historicist'… – and is not 'historicism'… in the examples Popper gives in The Open Society and that we are considering… a conscious tactic… and so necessarily social engineering?… i.e.… a conscious attempt to re-make 'society'… and to realize… impose… the vision of the few? – an imposing upon events a pattern… a mold… into which you make them fit – the primary political effect being… to train 'the people' to accept those new categories: 'class'… and 'economic development'. (Those are key tools that 'power' has used to make the world they want… and we're going to be considering that Marx unconsciously played a role in that…) So… I am encouraging us to start being 'bigger'… 'bolder'… and claiming what we want openly… saying what we want openly… standing with those who say this openly… to… e.g.… contact KPFA and say: “Why are we not talking about a one-day global General Strike?… Is it not true that 'power' is global?… There is this book called Antisystemic Movements by Giovanni Arrighi… Terence K. Hopkins… and Immanuel Wallerstein… which argues that we cannot get free except globally… and that we cannot get free working within the nation-state system… it is designed to contain us.”

 

They became 'social experimenters'… we… were made into the means…

 

…and in the context of us being made into means… a 'class analysis'… is by definition 'historicist'… – and is not 'historicism'… in the examples Popper gives in The Open Society and that we are considering… a conscious tactic… and so necessarily social engineering?… i.e.… a conscious attempt to re-make 'society'… and to realize… impose… the vision of the few? – an imposing upon events a pattern… a mold… into which you make them fit – the primary political effect being… to train 'the people' to accept those new categories: 'class'… and 'economic development'. (Those are key tools that 'power' has used to make the world they want… and we're going to be considering that Marx unconsciously played a role in that…)

 

A world shifted in that 'power'-defined space of 'forgetfulness' called “seizing and re-meaning – a new set of meanings and associations attendant upon – the thoughts we think…”

 

…yet another way 'power' hides: by claiming the turf of 'words'…

 

…so in the reversal… we take it back…

 

'Reversal' means… the 'world' once again shifting… from 'slave' back to 'human being'…

 

…and though it may seem that the millennia-long re-making of us… from human beings to 'slaves'… 'workers' and 'classes'…

 

…taking time to make… must take time to un-make… this is not so…

 

…our freedom is innate… a 'longing-to-burst-forth' held back by a barrage of words…

 

…thinking 'strategic' we see: our counter-barrage releases our freedom… and then… the calculus changes.

 

It's time we recognized and gave full weight to the fact… that words… our voices speaking them… not just 'matter'… but are everything… when it comes to our getting free…

 

…that and working together simultaneously… I've been pondering a lot the fact that I've been… in some respects… made singular… This is one of the things 'power' prides itself on: being able to craft and sculpt the reality it wants… well this is true on a macro and micro scale… So… for instance… by using the 'money-lever' they can cause it to seem to be that one person 'takes off'… another doesn't… And in my case what it has meant is an isolating effect as a result of a variety of small acts and measures… happening behind scenes – that is… their hands enacting them have been behind scenes… have made it such that I have been pretty much isolated. But I am one person – one person who is certain… and it shows the importance of 'certainty'… and it shows what a single person can do – I'm not trying to say I've done an enormous amount… but I've done some… and I've had help… no doubt… from the ancestors… and from good folk… many many I don't know… behind scenes… I'm sure… that the book Waking Up: Freeing Ourselves From Work… that there have been folks who've helped get it out… whether intentionally or no… they helped. So I've had help… and I am so grateful for that. But if two were to stand together and do this… you see the trouble that they've gone to isolate me… and to remove me from the planet… but it's difficult… because it has to seem 'accidental'… it has to seem 'natural'… and so… according to those terms… it's 'taken longer' than they certainly would want it to take… But those terms apply to whoever stands with me… So… I am encouraging us to start being 'bigger'… 'bolder'… and claiming what we want openly… saying what we want openly… standing with those who say this openly… to… e.g.… contact KPFA and say: “Why are we not talking about a one-day global General Strike?… Is it not true that 'power' is global?… There is this book called Antisystemic Movements by Giovanni Arrighi… Terence K. Hopkins… and Immanuel Wallerstein… which argues that we cannot get free except globally… and that we cannot get free working within the nation-state system… it is designed to contain us.”

 

“So… why not… KPFA… talk about the fact that we need to use the lever we got: our energy… and start the ball rolling…” May 1… a good day to start planning it for the following May.

 

You would have to be in my shoes… perhaps… to have certainty about this – though I know there are many folk who have walked this walk before me… and who know – to know that there is a serious attempt to install global totalitarianism… fascism 'cropping up' in individual nation-states… – is not by accident by any means. And the fact that these guys have their international planning mechanisms… and talk behind scenes… and that they move and forth between 'money'-positions and straight-up 'power' positions… is a key indicator of the fact that 'power' operates behind scenes… and that the 'nation-state'- means is theater… and that it is time for us to start taking each other much more seriously than we take that theater. We have the mechanism: the instantaneous communication (thanks to Nikola Tesla…) and the Internet… We know that Nikola Tesla intended instantaneous communication to be our means for freeing ourselves… He used the term 'global unity'… It's a good word. We cannot achieve it while these ten thousand guys who want to be gods are allowed to continue to manipulate our lives.

 

–––

 

[“150913bruceleesbody.mp3”:]

 

It gets back to the fact… again… to what I've experienced since Waking Up… these hidden folk have had to show themselves in order to attempt intimidation… In my shoes… from my vantage… folks would see… if you were in them… if you were seeing from my vantage you would see… they have been busy… and that the 'news'… so called… we are given… is created… is presented… is vetted… and to a degree that most of us would not believe on its face… the degree to which they simply 'off' the people that they find 'inconvenient'… none of us could ever have imagined… until you're walking in these shoes… – and we're going to read some quotes from Karl Popper that explain why that's the case: that they must seem to be a 'superior race'… and what they cannot demonstrate 'superiority in… they just eliminate the 'competition'… I remember seeing a documentary about the life of Bruce Lee after he died… in which an actor-friend… I think it was James Coburn… said that when he saw the body of Bruce Lee at the funeral… it didn't look like him… Well Brothers and Sisters… when I look at myself in the mirror after a night-time of being subjected to this EMF-barrage… bombardment… it don't even look like me anymore… the swollen-ness in my lower cheek… along the jaw-line… So… I have to think… I have to be suspicious… when someone who is other-worldly supreme in what he does – and… further… not in 'power's pocket… does not 'fit' with the picture of the top of the hierarchy that they want us to see… and… moreover… a man who wants us all to be powerful… and wants to help unite us across race and culture – that person is more than 'inconvenient'… that person is a direct threat. I don't want a world in which the 'reality' we are given is invented… is created… I want a world in which our children apply their magnificent gifts to what is authentic.

 

So what we are considering in this space… and what I have been led… come… to see… is that the suppression of political speech… is not just a tacked-on extra tactic from their tool-box of tactics for keeping us under control… no… it is key… because it is what we think that determines what we allow ourselves to do and be… so controlling what we can think… by controlling the words and the concepts we think in… has always been key… ever since 'class' began… and that's why you can find these tactics gift-wrapped and handed to 'power' from Plato… two thousand five hundred years ago…

 

So… that counter-barrage of our words… our thoughts… our key messages… is key… releases our freedom… releases our 'power'… – our words… our voices speaking them… not just matter… but are everything… when it comes to our getting free…

 

It gets back to the fact… again… to what I've experienced since writing Waking Up… these hidden folk have had to show themselves in order to attempt intimidation… In my shoes… from my vantage… folks would see… if you were in them… if you were seeing from my vantage you would see… they have been busy… and that the 'news'… so called… we are given… is created… is presented… is vetted… and to a degree that most of us would not believe on its face… the degree to which they simply 'off' the people that they find 'inconvenient'… none of us could ever have imagined… until you're walking in these shoes… – and we're going to read some quotes from Karl Popper that explain why that's the case: that they must seem to be a 'superior race'… and what they cannot demonstrate 'superiority in… they just eliminate the 'competition'… I remember seeing a documentary about the life of Bruce Lee after he died… in which an actor-friend… I think it was James Coburn… said that when he saw the body of Bruce Lee at the funeral… it didn't look like him… Well Brothers and Sisters… when I look at myself in the mirror after a night-time of being subjected to this EMF-barrage… bombardment… it don't even look like me anymore… the swollen-ness in my lower cheek… along the jaw-line… So… I have to think… I have to be suspicious… when someone who is other-worldly supreme in what he does – and… further… not in 'power's pocket… does not 'fit' with the picture of the top of the hierarchy that they want us to see… and… moreover… a man who wants us all to be powerful… and wants to help unite us across race and culture – that person is more than 'inconvenient'… that person is a direct threat.

 

I don't want a world in which the 'reality' we are given is invented… is created… I want a world in which our children apply their magnificent gifts to what is authentic.

 

I don't think we have – all of us globally – wrapped our minds around the fact that the control these new… self-made 'power'-guys want over us… is total…

 

Yet that is clearly what the facts show… clearly where the evidence tends: they want to define us… design us… from the thoughts we think on up… to see them as 'supreme beings'…

 

Recall how Hirschman termed them 'administrators'… and Marx notes this new breed leads from behind a desk… but never doubt for a moment that they still harbor hopes… for the throne.

 

–––

 

We are being turned into passive quiescent unresisting fuel for a totalitarian machine… Every one of us needs to be thinking furiously about how to turn that around… That's what the earth needs… that's what we need… that's what all life needs… for us to turn that around.

 

–––

 

[“150913mischiefmakers.mp3”:]

 

“My story… focuses instead on the reaction… by what is called today the intellectual, managerial, and administrative elite. That reaction was favorable, not because the money-making activities were approved in themselves, but because they were thought to have a most beneficial side effect: they kept the men who were engaged in them “out of mischief,” as it were, and had, more specifically, the virtue of imposing restraints on princely caprice, arbitrary government, and adventurous foreign policies.…” [And here we have another prime example of a suppressed book… as… with Hirschman's and Popper's help… had their words been discussed by we commoners… we would long since have seen the flaws in Marxism as an ideological tool to assist in our mobilization for freedom… and… clearly… these Plato's Tribesmen see themselves as the opposite of 'mischief-makers'… and therefore entitled to 'rule us… to see this is false… we need only look around us… look at the mess they have made of our common earth… – P.S.]

 

In what follows from Albert O. Hirschman's The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph… consider the turn-of-thought wrought by his argument.

But the idea that men pursuing their interests would be forever harmless was decisively given up only when the reality of capitalist development was in full view. As economic growth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries uprooted millions of people, impoverished numerous groups while enriching some, caused large-scale unemployment during cyclical depressions, and produced modern mass society, it became clear to a number of observers that those caught in these violent transformations would on occasion become passionate – passionately angry, fearful, resentful. There is no need to list here the names of those social scientists who recorded these developments and analyzed them under the terms of alienation, anomie, ressentiment, Vermassung, class struggle, and many others. It is precisely because we are under the influence of those analyses, and even more under the impact of cataclysmic events which we try to understand with their help, that the doctrine reviewed here has an air of unreality about it and, on superficial acquaintance, appears not to deserve to be taken seriously.… (p. 126 -7)

 

It is precisely because it strikes the contemporary mind as odd that it can throw some light on the still puzzling ideological circumstances of the rise of capitalism.

 

An obvious way of entering into this topic is to compare the account of the emergence of money-making as an honored occupation that has been presented in this essay with Weber's thesis on the Protestant ethic and with the debate around it. As was noted repeatedly in the previous pages, the expansion of commerce and industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been viewed here as being welcomed and promoted not by some marginal social groups, nor by an insurgent ideology, but by a current of opinion that arose right in the center of the “power structure” and the “establishment” of the time, out of the problems with which the prince and particularly his advisors and other concerned notables were grappling. [There we have it folk… this is a suppressed book – his argument… his analysis… his serious delving into this question… is invaluable for us… – P.S.] …promoted not by some marginal social groups, nor by an insurgent ideology, but by a current of opinion that arose right in the center of the “power structure” and the “establishment” of the time, out of the problems with which the prince and particularly his advisors [those abandoned children who grew up in those monasteries… that very literate bunch… who at age ten were 'alienated' from their royal and elite families… who therefore harbored deep feelings of not being appreciated or seen… or being 'not good enough'… perhaps?… and needing to 'prove' their worth?… by serving who?… the king… – that was that 'task' of childhood they never completed: their need to 'prove' they really were 'good enough' after all… – P.S.] – and other concerned notables were grappling. Ever since the end of the Middle Ages, and particularly as a result of the increasing frequency of war and civil war in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the search was on for a behavioral equivalent for religious precept, for new rules of conduct and devices that would impose much needed discipline and constraints on both rulers and ruled, and the expansion of commerce and industry was thought to hold much promise in this regard.

 

Weber and his followers as well as most of his critics were primarily interested in the psychological processes through which some groups of men became single-minded in the rational pursuit of capitalist accumulation. My story takes it for granted that some men became so impelled and focuses instead on the reaction to the new phenomenon by what is called today the intellectual, managerial, and administrative elite. That reaction was favorable, not because the money-making activities were approved in themselves, but because they were thought to have a most beneficial side effect: they kept the men who were engaged in them “out of mischief,” as it were, and had, more specifically, the virtue of imposing restraints on princely caprice, arbitrary government, and adventurous foreign policies.… [And here we have another prime example of a suppressed book… as… with Hirschman's and Popper's help… had their words been discussed by we commoners… we would long since have seen the flaws in Marxism as an ideological tool to assist in our mobilization for freedom… and… clearly… these Plato's Tribesmen see themselves as the opposite of 'mischief-makers'… and therefore entitled to 'rule us… to see this is false… we need only look around us… look at the mess they have made of our common earth… – P.S.]

–––

 

* “WUR of September 13, 2015 Reading… continuing our interlude: Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… before returning to the chapter "Poisonous Pedagogy" in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good

 

[“150913platosracistrepublic.mp3”:]

 

Whence this sudden obsession with taxonomy linked with 'historical progression'?… Martin Bernal ties it to the project to re-write the origins of 'classical civilization'.… But why?… “This racism pervaded the thought of Locke, Hume and other English thinkers. Their influence – and that of the new European explorers of other continents – was important at the university of Gottingen, founded in 1734 by George II, Elector of Hanover and King of England, and forming a cultural bridge between Britain and Germany. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first 'academic' work on human racial classification – which naturally put Whites, or to use his new term, 'Caucasians', at the head of the hierarchy – was written in the 1770s by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a professor at Gottingen…” [Here's another good example of 'power's m.o. (and fundamental dishonesty) from the get-go… it pawns its defects off on us – chief among them… its violence and racism… – and in 'exchange' seizes the credit for our innovation and creativeness… – P.S.]

 

[And as a 'Preface'… because The Eighteenth Brumaire has been hailed as a masterful… and prescient… example of 'class analysis'… I found myself asking… what makes a 'class analysis'?… and how can it be… when the ones constructing the key struggles that come to define us and have led to our defeat (up to now…) are in hiding? So let's think on that further… But I also want to give Marx's answer… from a letter at the back in which he says:

And now as to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production, 2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, 3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society. (From Marx's letter to J. Weydemeyer, March 5, 1852)

 

[What he did was to inject Hegel into our longing to be free. The Prussian king Frederick William did this before him… as we learned from Karl Popper… in response to the revolutionary nationalism that arose in Germany “as a reaction to the Napoleonic invasion…” His use of Hegel was very concrete… (Hegel was assigned the “urgent task [of] taming… the revolutionary nationalist religion. Hegel fulfilled this task in the spirit of Pareto’s advice 'to take advantage of sentiments, not wasting one’s energies in futile efforts to destroy them.' He tamed nationalism not by outspoken opposition but by transforming it into a well-disciplined Prussian authoritarianism…” [the full quote is in “Revealing Division”.) Hegel's service to Marx was in the realm of ideology.

 

Whence this sudden obsession with taxonomy linked with 'historical progression'? According to V. Gordon Childe (Man Makes Himself…) who cites a Professor Bury… “the ideal of progress was itself a novelty, entirely foreign to mediaeval or ancient writers on history…”

 

Martin Bernal ties it to the project to re-write the origins of 'classical civilization'.… But why?

By the middle of the 18th century… a number of Christian apologists were using the emerging paradigm of 'progress', with its presupposition that 'later is better', to promote the Greeks at the expense of the Egyptians. These strands of thought soon merged with two others that were becoming dominant at the same time: racism and Romanticism.… This racism pervaded the thought of Locke, Hume and other English thinkers. Their influence – and that of the new European explorers of other continents – was important at the university of Gottingen, founded in 1734 by George II, Elector of Hanover and King of England, and forming a cultural bridge between Britain and Germany. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first 'academic' work on human racial classification – which naturally put Whites, or to use his new term, 'Caucasians', at the head of the hierarchy – was written in the 1770s by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a professor at Gottingen.

 

The university pioneered the establishment of modern disciplinary scholarship.… By the end of the 18th century, 'progress' had become a dominant paradigm, dynamism and change were valued more than stability… [I would argue… however… that this 'value' was strictly utilitarian… i.e.… propagandistic… the budding social-engineers could not help but see… that the only way to realize Plato's dream… was to 'divest' us of our certainty… our security… our earth… – P.S.] (Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume 1: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785 – 1985, p. 27 – 8)

 

[Here's another good example of 'power's m.o. (and fundamental dishonesty) from the get-go… it pawns its defects off on us – chief among them… its violence and racism… – and in 'exchange' seizes the credit for our innovation and creativeness… – P.S.]

[“150913platostotalitarianobsession.mp3”:]

 

“Plato's best state is based on the most rigid class distinctions. It is a caste state. The problem of avoiding class war is solved, not by abolishing classes, but by giving the ruling class a superiority which cannot be challenged. As in Sparta, the ruling class alone is permitted to carry arms, it alone has any political or other rights, and it alone receives education, i.e, a specialized training in the art of keeping down its human sheep or its human cattle. (In fact, its overwhelming superiority disturbs Plato a little; he fears that its members 'may worry the sheep', instead of merely shearing them, and 'act as wolves rather than dogs'. This problem is considered later in the chapter.) As long as the ruling class is united, there can be no challenge to their authority, and consequently no class war.… The workers, tradesmen, etc., do not interest him at all, they are only human cattle whose sole function is to provide for the material needs of the ruling class.…” [Any doubt… from the above… that Plato's Tribesmen are salivating at seeing… in this moment… how close they are to realizing… this 'vision'?… – P.S.] …Since the ruling class alone has political power, including the power of keeping the number of the human cattle within such limits as to prevent them from becoming a danger […and we don't have to imagine their tactics in this regard… our whistleblower at DARPA [Leuren Moret…] has already said… they know how to “weaponize the energy in the environment…” create earthquakes and hurricanes and such… Let's not wait for hearings in Congress… before waking up… – P.S.]

 

…it is an obsession… moreover… that interweaves notions of 'perfection'… classification… ranking… and social engineering. It is an obsession…we will be arguing… sprung from the totalitarian… Platonic… obsession with designing the 'perfect' human… and designing the 'perfect' state.

 

There was… in response to 'the statesman's dilemma'… discussed by Hirschman… of the ineffectuality of 'reason' for reining-in the bloodletting of the 'rulers'… a gradually building reconsideration of the guidance provided by Plato… to understand the substance of which… no one better to assist… than Karl Popper:

If, as I believe, the philosophies of Plato as well as Heraclitus sprang from their social experience, especially from the experience of class war and from the abject feeling that their social world was going to pieces, then we can understand why the theory of Forms came to play such an important part in Plato's philosophy when he found that it was capable of explaining the trend towards degeneration. He must have welcomed it as the solution of a most mystifying riddle. While Heraclitus had been unable to pass a direct ethical condemnation upon the trend of the political development, Plato found, in his theory of Forms, the theoretical basis for a pessimistic judgement in Hesiod's vein.

 

But Plato's greatness as a sociologist does not lie in his general and abstract speculations about the law of social decay. It lies rather in the wealth and detail of his observations, and in the amazing acuteness of his sociological intuition. He saw things which had not been seen before him, and which were rediscovered only in our own time. As an example I may mention his theory of the primitive beginnings of society, of tribal patriarchy, and, in general, his attempt to outline the typical periods in the development of social life. Another example is Plato's sociological and economic historicism, his emphasis upon the economic background of the political life and the historical development; a theory revived by Marx under the name 'historical materialism'. A third example is Plato's most interesting law of political revolutions, according to which all revolutions presuppose a disunited ruling class (or 'elite'); a law which forms the basis of his analysis of the means of arresting political change and creating a social equilibrium, and which has been recently rediscovered by the theoreticians of totalitarianism, especially by Pareto.…

 

According to Plato, internal strife, class war, fomented by self-interest and especially material or economic self-interest, is the main force of 'social dynamics'. The Marxian formula 'The history of all hitherto existing societies is a history of class struggle' fits Plato's historicism nearly as well as that of Marx. (Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1: The Spell of Plato, p. 40 – 1)

It's worth considering that Marx shares with Bentham yet another quality… in addition to their fondness for a “'benevolent' utilitarianism” (discussed in our last show…) that being a reluctance to give credit… to Plato. Continuing with Popper:

I believe… that he made a serious attempt to reconstruct the ancient tribal forms of social life as well as he could. There is no reason to doubt this, especially since the attempt was, in a good number of its details, very successful. It could hardly be otherwise, since Plato arrived at his picture by an idealized description of the ancient tribal aristocracies of Crete and Sparta. With his acute sociological intuition he had seen that these forms were not only old, but petrified, arrested; that they were relics of a still older form. And he concluded that this still older form had been even more stable, more securely arrested. This very ancient and accordingly very good and very stable state he tried to reconstruct in such a way as to make clear how it had been kept free from disunion; how class war had been avoided, and how the influence of economic interests had been reduced to a minimum, and kept well under control. These are the main problems of Plato's reconstruction of the best state.

 

How does Plato solve the problem of avoiding class war? Had he been a progressivist, he might have hit on the idea of a classless, equalitarian society; for, as we can see for instance from his own parody of Athenian democracy, there were strong equalitarian tendencies at work in Athens. But he was not out to construct a state that might come, but a state that had been – the father of the Spartan state, which was certainly not a classless society. It was a slave state, and accordingly Plato's best state is based on the most rigid class distinctions. It is a caste state. The problem of avoiding class war is solved, not by abolishing classes, but by giving the ruling class a superiority which cannot be challenged. As in Sparta, the ruling class alone is permitted to carry arms, it alone has any political or other rights, and it alone receives education, i.e, a specialized training in the art of keeping down its human sheep or its human cattle. (In fact, its overwhelming superiority disturbs Plato a little; he fears that its members 'may worry the sheep', instead of merely shearing them, and 'act as wolves rather than dogs'. This problem is considered later in the chapter.) As long as the ruling class is united, there can be no challenge to their authority, and consequently no class war.

 

Plato distinguishes three classes in his best state, the guardians, their armed auxiliaries or warriors, and the working class. But actually there are only two castes, the military caste – the armed and educated rulers – and the unarmed and uneducated ruled, the human sheep; for the guardians are no separate caste, but merely old and wise warriors who have been promoted from the ranks of the auxiliaries. That Plato divides his ruling caste into two classes, the guardians and the auxiliaries, without elaborating similar subdivisions within the working class, is largely due to the fact that he is interested only in the rulers. The workers, tradesmen, etc., do not interest him at all, they are only human cattle whose sole function is to provide for the material needs of the ruling class.…

 

[Any doubt… from the above… that Plato's Tribesmen are salivating at seeing… in this moment… how close they are to realizing… this 'vision'?… – P.S.]

 

…Since the ruling class alone has political power…

 

[…for instance… can we dismiss such ruses as 'participatory budgeting' from our thinking?… refuse to be played at this stage in the advancement of their 'statecraft'… can we recall 'power' is global… and so… therefore… must our resistance be to it… and rather than be used… choose for ourselves our own future?… in which each individual one of us… lives their gifts… and shares them without coercion… without 'managers' deciding for us what world we 'want'?… – P.S.]

 

…Since the ruling class alone has political power, including the power of keeping the number of the human cattle within such limits as to prevent them from becoming a danger…

 

[…and we don't have to imagine their tactics in this regard… our whistleblower at DARPA [Leuren Moret…this issue also came up in our January 19, 2014 show… included in the pdf: “Miklos Nyiszli’s Lessons On 'Class'”] has already said… they know how to “weaponize the energy in the environment…” create earthquakes and hurricanes and such… Let's not wait for hearings in Congress… before waking up… – P.S.]

 

Since the ruling class alone has political power, including the power of keeping the number of the human cattle within such limits as to prevent them from becoming a danger, the whole problem of preserving the state is reduced to that of preserving the internal unity of the master class. How is this unity of the rulers preserved? By training and other psychological influences [see Alice Miller's For Your Own Good], but otherwise mainly by the elimination of economic interests which may lead to disunion. This economic abstinence is achieved and controlled by the introduction of communism, i.e. by the abolition of private property… This communism is confined to the ruling class, which alone must be kept free from disunion; quarrels among the ruled are not worthy of consideration. Since all property is common property, there must also be a common ownership of women and children.… Only a communist system which has room neither for great want nor for great wealth can reduce economic interests to a minimum, and guarantee the unity of the ruling class…

 

…In order that the ruling class may feel really united, that it should feel like one tribe, i.e. like one big family, pressure from without the class is as necessary as are the ties between the members of the class. This pressure can be secured by emphasizing and widening the gulf between the rulers and the ruled. The stronger the feeling that the ruled are a different and an altogether inferior race, the stronger will be the sense of unity among the rulers. (p. 45 – 9)

 

[So… do we see?… we… as a generality… must determine ourselves to be… fully-developing-individualities… as a two-sided political strategy for getting free – as the true power and beauty we show ourselves to be… robs 'power' of our use for its totalitarian machine… and forces 'power's children to re-think their conditioning… Together… both sides… stem the tide… of the functionaries… – P.S.]

 

I apologize for once again not getting to our Eighteenth Brumaire reading… but I think apprehending the broader context is needed to fully apprehend Marx's analysis – and 'Marxism' has so captured the time… energy… and resources of us on the Left… that it's really important that we take the time to think it through… as claiming those resources and that energy for what I think are more useful strategies… is what we want to do… We got the numbers – seven billion… – We got the critical mass – a bunch of us progressives… globally… once we discuss it… and get conscious and certain… We got the technology (thank you Nikola…) – the Internet and instantaneous communication – … We have everything we need… to call the question… and choose freedom… – May it be soon… – P.S.]

–––

 

[September 13, 2015 show ends here.]

 

–––

 

* “WUR of September 20, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.5): Segue From Antisystemic Movements… To Alice

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 23)

 

[“150920designbydualism.mp3”:]

 

…before we get started: according to a local weekly… the weapons-industry declined to present more EMF-weaponry at this year's Urban Shield “police war-games exposition”… They must be feeling the pressure of our questions… so let's please keep it on them Brothers and Sisters… Unless we display some solidarity on this question it will be hard to move ahead with assurance having forfeited the authentic turf before even getting well-underway… And forfeited other things as well… Sisters and Brothers: When we don't have an “authentic 'self'” – and we're reading Alice Miller so she can help us understand what that means – what do we have? Where does the authentic 'self' go? If we had been subjected to utilitarian child-rearing methods as infants and youth… in which… per 'Plato'… consciously or no… our parents with us were trying to design the 'perfect human'… early on we would come to believe that our worth was not clearly seen… that our parents needed 'proof'.

 

I'd just like to mention before we get started that… according to a local weekly… the weapons-industry declined to present more EMF-weaponry at this year's Urban Shield “police war-games exposition”… They must be feeling the pressure of our questions… so let's please keep it on them Brothers and Sisters… Unless we display some solidarity on this question it will be hard to move ahead with assurance having forfeited the authentic turf before even getting well-underway… And forfeited other things – meaning… by my experience… that even when – if you're targeted – these EMF-weapons don't kill you… their effect on a life can be debilitating: they've made mine a hellish minefield to negotiate. The only time I find relief is during my walk at Lakeshore Park at Lake Merritt because it's harder to target me there. But even there I've had to get there ever-earlier in the morning for that to be the case. This morning I got there at 4 AM and it was still crawling with agents – and I use that term loosely… It's just like Marx said… without the pejoratives… about the Society of December 10: anybody who can be bought is put into action… So… the low-income… students… out-of-'work'-anybodies…and no one wants to probe too deep into who's paying or why… is what I'm seeing… they just want food and a place to sleep (i.e.… the ability to pay their bills…) So what do we call this state of things… when we must obey… do heinous things… or starve?… if not “fascism on the back of a buck…”

 

September 15, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: When we don't have an “authentic 'self'” – and we're reading Alice Miller so she can help us understand what that means – what do we have? Where does the authentic 'self' go? If we had been subjected to utilitarian child-rearing methods as infants and youth… in which… per 'Plato'… consciously or no… our parents with us were trying to design the 'perfect human'… early on we would come to believe that our worth was not clearly seen… that our parents needed 'proof'.

 

If… as we pondered such questions… we were led to Hegel for answers to them… we might write something very like this:

Man as an objective, sensuous being is therefore a suffering being – and because he feels that he suffers, a passionate being. Passion is the essential force of man energetically bent on its object.

 

(But man is not merely a natural being: he is a human natural being. That is to say, he is a being for himself. Therefore he is a species-being, and has to confirm and manifest himself as such both in his being and in his knowing. Therefore, human objects are not natural objects as they immediately present themselves, and neither is human sense as it immediately is – as it is objectively – human sensibility, human objectivity. Neither nature objectively nor nature subjectively is directly given in a form adequate to the human being.) And as everything natural has to come into being, man too has his act of origin – history – which, however, is for him a known history, and hence as an act of origin it is a conscious self-transcending act of origin. History is the true natural history of man (on which more later).…

 

…The way in which consciousness is, and in which something is for it, is knowing. Knowing is its sole act. Something therefore comes to be for consciousness insofar as the latter knows this something. Knowing is its sole objective relation.

 

It, consciousness, then, knows the nullity of the object (i.e., knows the non-existence of the distinction between the object and itself, the non-existence of the object for it) because it knows the object as its self-alienation; that is, it knows itself – knows knowing as object – because the object is only the semblance of an object, a piece of mystification, which in its essence, however, is nothing else but knowing itself, which has confronted itself with itself and hence has confronted itself with a nullity – a something which has no objectivity outside the knowing. Or: knowing knows that in relating itself to an object it is only outside itself – that it only externalises itself; that it itself only appears to itself as an object – or that that which appears to it as an object is only itself.… (Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, p. 136 – 7), Progress Publishers edition)

 

[When I read that I cannot help but hear Virginia Woolf saying: “…there can be no doubt that to this segregation [of the worlds… of 'the self'…] we owe… all those meaningless but highly ingenious turnings and twistings into which the intellect ties itself when rid of the cares of the household and the family…”

 

…and the longer I ponder her words the deeper they become… as with other parts of her book Three Guineas… and I'm sure we'll be returning to them… they have a lot to say about our freedom… – P.S]

[“150920utilitarianfacets.mp3”:]

 

…we will be considering… is both what Marxists mean by 'bourgeois revolutions'… and constitutes the 'new' terms of our exploitation – the installation of “'the state'” in us – terms elaborated by Bentham and his adherents… and the poisonous 'child-corrupting' activists – the political goals of which Alice has exposed… A case can be made that by 'dualism' what we really mean is 'utilitarianism' – “putting 'the self' to work…” – as the brilliant infant readily perceives that this is what the poisoned parent is doing in regard to her or him: “Since the child's affection can be gained by expressions of love, this same affection can be made use of to make him more amenable to discipline…” consider to what degree the maxim “might makes right” expresses utilitarianism… and that both concepts underlie the “separation of 'the self'” (they discuss…) and that… further… in 'dualism' / 'utilitarianism'… is included not just “Might Makes Right”… which implies “'conquest' as raison d’être”… but also: “worth must be 'proven' / 'demonstrated' – and therefore 'performance'… 'abandonment / betrayal' – and the 'scarcity-mindset'… which underlies and… in theory… according to the propaganda… 'justifies' everything that 'power' does.

 

When Karl Popper said that we cannot truly apprehend Marx's contribution to our efforts to achieve global human freedom… without appreciating his 'thought's 'dualism'… what did he mean​? We'll be considering that question today… but also going further… beyond Popper's meaning to… what I hope we will agree will be… a deeper level: to the installation of 'the state' itself… especially… 'the-state-in-us'… beginning with the 'academic forefront' of folks with the 'dual' role of determining what constitutes 'thought'… and propagating – as the frontline troops for the installation of 'the state'… you could say – 'dualism' as the dominant 'mode of thought' in the world today…

 

…which… we will be considering… is both what Marxists mean by 'bourgeois revolutions'… and constitutes the 'new' terms of our exploitation – the installation of “'the state'” in us – terms elaborated by Bentham and his adherents… and the poisonous 'child-corrupting' activists – the political goals of which Alice has exposed.

 

A case can be made that by 'dualism' what we really mean is 'utilitarianism' – “putting 'the self' to work…” – as the brilliant infant readily perceives that this is what the poisoned parent is doing in regard to her or him: “Since the child's affection can be gained by expressions of love, this same affection can be made use of to make him more amenable to discipline…” (A poisonous pedagogue quoted in our August 23, 2015 show.)

 

In the following excerpts from previous shows consider to what degree the maxim “might makes right” expresses utilitarianism… and that both concepts underlie the “separation of 'the self'” (they discuss…) and that… further… in 'dualism' / 'utilitarianism'… is included not just “Might Makes Right”… which implies “'conquest' as raison d’être”… but also: “worth must be 'proven' / 'demonstrated' – and therefore 'performance'… 'abandonment / betrayal' – and the 'scarcity-mindset'… which underlies and… in theory… according to the propaganda… 'justifies' everything that 'power' does.

 

[“150920embraceourabundance.mp3”:]

 

…this is how they get us to betray our Brothers and Sisters… both within the nation-state and – what's really up – globally… because the propaganda that 'power' is putting out for us in the U.S. is to turn our backs on what is going on elsewhere… We're told: “things are going to get really rough… focus on the folks you love… get ready for… if not the apocalypse at least really difficult times… and just hang on and try to get through it… Well… I'm arguing that these are times for just the opposite… these are times for us to embrace our abundance… to realize that they are conning us… that… as soon as we embrace each other globally… we see… that we are everything… – that is abundance: we help each other… we release the power that's in each one of us… in each one of us that power is limitless… and we create everything we need… to be self-sufficient and happy… globally.

 

…moreover… that in the terms Popper uses for 'dualism': a split between 'the material' and 'the spiritual' (and we are encouraged by 'power' to believe… that the 'spiritual' 'side' of ourselves – the 'side' that marches off to Academe eager to please – is the more 'elevated'… much like 'ancient Greece'…) – that those terms are… practically speaking… names for 'slave' and 'free'… and that all of us – and this is since the inception of 'class' itself – are trying not to be in that 'slave' category… all of the control-mechanisms of 'power' are to remind us that unless we do 'x… y… and z' we're going to get stuck in that 'slave' category… that this is how they get us to betray our Brothers and Sisters… both within the nation-state and – what's really up – globally… because the propaganda that 'power' is putting out for us in the U.S. is to turn our backs on what is going on elsewhere… We're told: “things are going to get really rough… focus on the folks you love… get ready for… if not the apocalypse at least really difficult times… and just hang on and try to get through it… Well… I'm arguing that these are times for just the opposite… these are times for us to embrace our abundance… to realize that they are conning us… that… as soon as we embrace each other globally… we see… that we are everything… – that is abundance: we help each other… we release the power that's in each one of us… in each one of us that power is limitless… and we create everything we need… to be self-sufficient and happy… globally.

 

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[“130324twoworlds_1.mp3”:]

 

“What defines ‘class’? The mindset of “‘in’ and ‘out’” (Pt. 1): “But very little attention has yet been paid to the intellectual and spiritual effect of this division of duties [imposed by our totalitarian 'rulers'…] upon those who are enabled by it 'to forsake all worldly cares and studies.' Yet there can be no doubt that we owe to this segregation the immense elaboration of modern instruments and methods of war, the astonishing complexities of theology [into which category can there be any doubt now that Marx himself falls?… – P.S.]; the vast deposit of notes at the bottom of Greek, Latin and even English texts; the innumerable carvings, chasings, and unnecessary ornamentations of our common furniture and crockery; the myriad distinctions of Debrett and Burke; and all those meaningless but highly ingenious turnings and twistings into which the intellect ties itself when rid of 'the cares of the household and the family.' The emphasis which both priests and dictators place upon the necessity for two worlds is enough to prove that it is essential to their domination.” (Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas, p. 181, quoted during our March 24, 2013 Waking Up Radio show.)] (“While the root manifestation of totalitarian thinking… the root ideology of class is: “we are nothing and the state is all…” its core mindset is “the ‘citizen’-‘barbarian’ divide”… which Virginia Woolf and Alice Miller variously identified as the divide between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’… or those who are ‘big’ (important)… and those who are ‘small’ (unimportant)…”

 

[During the July 13th, 2014 show we talked about this ‘conquest’ of the heart… this… ‘subjection of the self’… – involving a transfer of ownership… and an abdication of responsibility… from ourselves to ‘the state’ (in one of its several guises… at one of its layered levels.) What returnees [from Nazi concentration camps] were forced to see… if only unconsciously… but never allowed to discuss… is something that we… these seventy years later… are also encouraged to not think about: that the totalitarian horror called “conquest of the self”… “submission to ‘rule’”… “obedience to the state”… is the problem – not just its ‘Nazi’ version.…] You see… for ‘power’ to exist… it’s critical for them that they not get ‘outed’… …but particularly… not get ‘outed’ to the children… the youth… the next generation… …because… otherwise… ‘the future’ is not seeded with ‘contempt’… self-betrayal… and would revert… to freedom…” – P.S. (From the July 20, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.)

 

[“140713classic.mp3”:]

 

“The ‘classical’ mindset of “Might Makes Right”… is inculcated in all future statesmen… as… you cannot manifest your vision of the Republic unless you’ve cultivated the human material willing to do it… willing to subjugate the true, authentic, self… And as this is a totalitarian system (mindset…) and therefore one we are all trained in… although in wildly divergent versions… these rules apply whether you’re Plato… or Hitler… or Bill Gates… or an underage member of a gang… …and it is only by leaving behind that state of mind… rejecting the rules and the game entirely… that ‘conquest’ is no longer your raison d’être… because you have chosen to represent… with consciousness… the ‘all’ of it…” [From the July 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

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[“150920regainingourcertainty.mp3”:]

 

…unfortunately our academic Brothers and Sisters… in their efforts to escape that 'slave' category… have done exactly what Virginia is pointing out… have overly-complicated things… and in that song-and-dance that they put out there for us to try to digest… try to figure out… untangle… in the course of all that we lose our ability to fight back… we lose our certainty… and that's what we're honing in on in recent shows: regaining the certainty we're born with – because we start out 'big'… and confident… and raring to go… and then we get blasted with all the confusing messages and the unhappiness that we see around us… and it sets us on a path… a lifetime course… to try to understand 'what is going on?'… That's what I mean by 'wasted life' – a sacrifice imposed by 'power' regardless of 'station' – all of us have our lives wasted when we are not allowed to confront the truth: the reality of what's going on with us… and with our Brothers and Sisters all over the world… This is a global system… and it's only when we confront that openly and honestly with each other that we begin to… in our living authentically… we begin to make of our lives what they were meant to be… growing our gifts as we're meant to… not as we've been conditioned to allow 'power' to use them… our gifts are for each other… for helping each other get 'bigger'… to release our energy… to get free of those who want to 'make use of' us and the planet… and to start realizing our inherent freedom.

 

And to my Marxist Brothers and Sisters… I would encourage you… because a lot of this is addressed to you… the messages and ideas I'm putting out there today… I'd encourage you to consider that this whole notion… from Hegel… of “stages of 'History'… of 'development'” is really just 'power's attempting to regain control of us…and then they set the academics to work to create some sort of 'scientific' justification – of their control… of their maintaining their 'power' – with this notion 'Progress'… I mean it's all really quite simple and basic… and unfortunately our academic Brothers and Sisters… in their efforts to escape that 'slave' category… have done exactly what Virginia is pointing out… have overly-complicated things (and they had an 'interest' in not seeing… which reinforced their conditioning to not see… hidden-'power'…) and in that song-and-dance that they put out there for us to try to digest… try to figure out… untangle… in the course of all that we lose our ability to fight back… we lose our certainty… and that's what we're honing in on in recent shows: regaining the certainty we're born with – because we start out 'big'… and confident… and raring to go… and then we get blasted with all the confusing messages and the unhappiness that we see around us… and it sets us on a path… a lifetime course… to try to understand 'what is going on?' That's what I mean by 'wasted life' – a sacrifice imposed by 'power' regardless of 'station' – all of us have our lives wasted when we are not allowed to confront the truth: the reality of what's going on with us… and with our Brothers and Sisters all over the world… This is a global system… and it's only when we confront that openly and honestly with each other that we begin to… in our living authentically… we begin to make of our lives what they were meant to be… growing our gifts as we're meant to… not as we've been conditioned to allow 'power' to use them… our gifts are for each other… for helping each other get 'bigger'… to release our energy… to get free of those who want to 'make use of' us and the planet… and to start realizing our inherent freedom.

 

We said that the control 'power' wants of us is total… that they want to design us from the thoughts we think on up… and that to do so they have claimed the turf of words: 'job'… 'class'… 'economic development'… 'worker'… – and that to get free we cannot use their terminology…

 

…but neither can we use the mindset expressed by such terms: utilitarianism… which has at its core the maxim: “might makes (says what is) – right…”

 

…and as we heard in the excerpt (posted with this show) from the July 13, 2014 broadcast… if the choice we are given… if our parents have internalized 'the state'… is to be a 'citizen' or a 'barbarian'… we will choose the former… as we must please our parents. 'Power' knows this. This is obvious. This is how 'power' stays hidden and can… [if you read ahead… we will be excerpting a piece from Wallerstein who has a lot to share on 'power's plan to…] reproduce itself over the generations…

 

…and this is how we are conquered before we're aware… aware that we're under assault.

 

–––

 

[“150920powerguysgetbusy.mp3”:]

 

“In 1809, among other reforms undertaken to face the French Revolutionary challenge, Humboldt was entrusted with the reorganization of the educational system. He based the new structure on Bildung (derived from his earlier sketch: 'On the Study of Antiquity and of the Greeks in Particular') which he believed would reanimate the German people after their crushing defeats.… It is possible that Humboldt originally intended this Bildung for the whole population. In the event, however, it became the stamp of the meritocratic elite… Hegel's argument that the Orient was the childhood of mankind and Greece its adolescence strongly resembles, of course, the views of the Young Hegelian Karl Marx.” [And the Wallerstein book I mentioned (The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914…) – published in 2011… is directly relevant to the subject matter we're now engaged with… which is: “What happened in the aftermath of the French Revolution? These 'power'-guys got busy. What did they do?”

 

Last week… with Popper's help… we were able to see that Marx's 'thought'… his reasoning… in many respects followed Plato's… While not tracing the correspondence in their thinking… Martin Bernal has noted Marx's affinity for Ancient Greece… a predilection for which was installed in every 'educated' European.

 

Recall Martin Bernal told us (we noted in our August 30, 2015 show… that in the wake of the French Revolution:

…after the humiliation of the traditional government and its beloved army after their catastrophic defeat by Napoleon at Jena in 1806… the Prussian monarchy turned to [W. von] Humboldt to undertake reforms.… In 1809, among other reforms undertaken to face the French Revolutionary challenge, Humboldt was entrusted with the reorganization of the educational system. He based the new structure on Bildung (derived from his earlier sketch: 'On the Study of Antiquity and of the Greeks in Particular') which he believed would reanimate the German people after their crushing defeats.…

 

It is possible that Humboldt originally intended this Bildung for the whole population. In the event, however, it became the stamp of the meritocratic elite.… (Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume 1: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785 – 1985, p. 282 – 5)

 

[And the Wallerstein book I mentioned (The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914…) – published in 2011… I'm still trying to decide how much of it to share – is directly relevant to the subject matter we're now engaged with… which is: “What happened in the aftermath of the French Revolution? These 'power'-guys got busy. What did they do?” So we're going to think through his take on it… after an adequate chunk of The Eighteenth Brumaire… – P.S.]

He quotes Hegel (1770 – 1831):

The name of Greece strikes home to the hearts of men of education in Europe, and more particularly is this so with us Germans… They [the Greeks] certainly received the substantial beginnings of their religion, culture… from Asia, Syria and Egypt; but they have so greatly obliterated the foreign nature of this origin, and it is so much changed, worked on, turned around and altogether made so different, that what they – as we – prize, know and love in it is essentially their own.

Bernal says that Hegel was “no doubt typical of his age…” and that Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) shared his beliefs about ancient Greece:

Hegel's argument that the Orient was the childhood of mankind and Greece its adolescence strongly resembles, of course, the views of the Young Hegelian Karl Marx. Marx argued that it was only in Greece that the individual had cut the umbilical cord from his community, and had changed from a Gattungswesen (species being) to a zoon politikon (political animal / city dweller). With his lifelong love for the country [Greece], he completely accepted the prevailing view that in every aspect of its civilization Greece was categorically different from – and superior to – all that had gone before. However, Marx went beyond this to claim… that Greece towered over its posterity. Such a claim then caused a problem, in that it made Greece go against the stream of progress. In an attempt to deal with this Marx wrote…: “In the case of the arts, it is well known that certain periods of their flowering are out of all proportion to the general development of society, hence also to the material foundation… For example, the Greeks as compared to the moderns or also Shakespeare.” He nevertheless saw the paradox that “in their world-epoch-making classical stature… certain… forms… of the arts are possible only at an underdeveloped stage of artistic development.” …Marx was… sufficiently aware of the Ancient Model to have to face the possibility that Greek mythology – hence art – did not come from Greek social relations but from Egypt. To accept this would, of course, make nonsense of his scheme. And he was living in an age when everybody felt in their bones that Greece was categorically apart from, and above, Egypt. Thus the destruction of the Ancient Model gave his generation a freedom on this question that was not available to Hegel. Marx was able to deny Egyptian influence on Greece outright. (Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume 1: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785 – 1985, p. 295 - 6)

[“150920whatmakesushappy.mp3”:]

 

“Marx loved freedom…” Popper told us… So do we all at base… It's how we arrive… and it's how we long to stay… Unconsciously we follow our body's longing for it as we attend to those around us for clues to the mystery of generalized unhappiness… (And I think some may dispute whether that's the case… whether there's generalized unhappiness… Certainly this is the case by my definition… which I see as 'earth-based'… and therefore authentic… that being: 'self-creation'… creating oneself – because we long to use our gifts… and that's what 'self-creation' means… it means we grow our gifts… and we see ourselves develop as we engage with all our relations: the ancestors… the earth… and our Brothers and Sisters… and we share with those… and in those… relationships… That makes us happy…

 

But this ideology of 'ancient Greece-elevation 'served a political function that continues to infect the thinking of those of us under 'class' to this day. It created a bifurcated condition for 'thought' itself… because 'class' is its basis and unstated assumption… to the degree that… to this day… to 'reverse' from 'class'… to the minds of many… is to 'reverse' from 'thinking' itself… as this dualism of 'thought' in itself suggests… a concept of 'freedom' that is largely contemplative… a positive premised on – requiring – a negative.

 

“Marx loved freedom…” Popper told us… So do we all at base… It's how we arrive… and it's how we long to stay… Unconsciously we follow our body's longing for it as we attend to those around us for clues to the mystery of generalized unhappiness…

(And I think some may dispute whether that's the case… whether there's generalized unhappiness… Certainly this is the case by my definition… which I see as 'earth-based'… and therefore authentic… that being: 'self-creation'… creating oneself – because we long to use our gifts… and that's what 'self-creation' means… it means we grow our gifts… and we see ourselves develop as we engage with all our relations: the ancestors… the earth… and our Brothers and Sisters… and we share with those… and in those… relationships… That makes us happy… And in those rare moments throughout the history of 'class' when we've done that – most recently with the Occupy Movement – when folk did not need to be told what to do… They showed up. As soon as a need was identified… someone stepped up. We know what to do… we have all we need… we are – all together – the physical manifestation of 'abundance'… What we do need… however… is 'power' off our backs. So we do have generalized unhappiness because we have a generalized condition… across the global 'class'-system… of having to put ourselves on the market… and turn our gifts over to the highest bidder… we are not allowed to grow them under our own self-directed power… which means 'not allowed to grow them'…)

The 'solution' on offer under a 'class'-system… is to 'prove' one's worth… and 'earn' the 'right' to be free from material compulsion. But generally in accepting those terms we miss the underlying utilitarianism… 'thought's dualism… and the hidden mindset of “Might Makes Right”… and the requirement that we betray ourselves… our children… and our Brothers and Sisters.

 

“Marx loved freedom… and under 'class'… 'power' has made certain… that 'freedom' is promoted as equivalent to 'freedom to think'… this… is the practical expression of the ideology of 'ancient Greece-elevation'… which 'justifies' abandonment (betrayal) and presents 'necessity' ('scarcity') as 'inevitability' – they erect all the misery they've done… since 'class' begun… on that lie.

 

–––

 

[“150920talkourselvesintofreedom.mp3”:]

 

It's time for us… whether we're ready to defend ourselves or not… to defend the children irregardless… and for us to start here in the U.S.: to use our “freedom of speech”… use our “right as a people to pursue happiness”… to push the limits of 'power's need to protect its seeming legitimacy… to speak up for the children. Two hundred years ago these Plato-lovin'-proto-Fascists devised a conscious strategy to confuse… corrupt… and condition… the children… We have to undo that damage. It is wrong for the brilliance of our children to be working on lies – we want to release their brilliance for the creation of our beautiful free future… for our freedom… When I read the following from a young student… the first thing that struck was that it illustrated well enough the typical psychological abuse our children are subjected to under 'class': forced to make of themselves an object that must perform… 'prove' its 'worth' by 'objective' criteria… the utilitarian mindset masks 'power'… misdirects our children's energy away from the true culprit… 'power' itself… to them'… to gain our freedom… move on from ten thousand years of 'class' (and these ten thousand guys who want to be gods…) we need only to disseminate widely… and especially to every youth we have access to… our discussions of hidden-'power'… the need for an alternative (to a 'class'-based… hierarchy-based…) global social arrangement…

 

And because everything – the results of all their malevolence – is erected on it – scarcity… they will ever be busy to try to make it so… ever be busy creating misery and hardship and divisions… and making it seem that we are at each other's throats by 'our nature' instead of by their design… by their orchestration and manipulation…

 

Martin Bernal has shown us how this utilitarian mindset – the mindset of 'making-use-of' the 'natural world… and especially the natural 'material' that is our children and ourselves – was intentionally created and promulgated via 'elite' universities. Alice Miller has shown us how 'power' established this mindset in the children of the 'elite' by means of the child-rearing pedagogues… thereby ensuring its reproduction into the future… hidden under the euphemism 'education':

Until the time he was four, I taught little Konrad four essentials: to pay attention, to obey, to behave himself, and to be moderate in his desires. [Salzmann (1796), quoted in Rutschky]

It's time for us… whether we're ready to defend ourselves or not… to defend the children irregardless…

 

…and for us to start here in the U.S.: to use our “freedom of speech”… use our “right as a people to pursue happiness”… to push the limits of 'power's need to protect its seeming legitimacy… to speak up for the children.

 

Two hundred years ago these Plato-lovin'-proto-Fascists devised a conscious strategy to confuse… corrupt… and condition… the children… We have to undo that damage. It is wrong for the brilliance of our children to be working on lies – we want to release their brilliance for the creation of our beautiful free future… for our freedom…

 

When I read the following from a young student… the first thing that struck was that it illustrated well enough the typical psychological abuse our children are subjected to under 'class': forced to make of themselves an object that must perform… 'prove' its 'worth' by 'objective' criteria:

I've been mulling over something that I just can't wrap my brain around for the last few months.… A) Attending a [prestigious] school… requires a great deal of hard work and intellect. We should be proud to go here. B) Members of marginalized populations… face… obstacles that their non-marginalized peers do not face, and these should be accounted for when considering any single person's achievements.… I completely believe both… I'm someone who, relatively speaking, won the birth-circumstance lottery. My married, supportive, American parents have been well-off as long as I've been alive.… But… how am I supposed to feel proud of my accomplishments, if the unfair advantages I've been given are totally beyond my control? (G. Haley Massara, “Two truths and a lie,” The Daily Californian, September 8, 2015)

But another way of saying this is to say that the utilitarian mindset masks 'power'… which here… we can see… has misdirected this young person's energy away from the true culprit… 'power' itself… to herself or himself. Typically… our children's energies rarely are allowed to view and work with 'the authentic'…

 

…which means their lives… typically… as with ours… are thrown away.

 

The name of the game… if you're 'power'… is duping the children… Children are thirsty for truth… hunger for the authentic…

 

…and so… to gain our freedom… move on from ten thousand years of 'class' (and these ten thousand guys who want to be gods…) we need only to disseminate widely… and especially to every youth we have access to… our discussions of hidden-'power'… the need for an alternative (to a 'class'-based… hierarchy-based…) global social arrangement – discussions that reside at the intersection of the insights provided by all the folk who 'out' 'power'… who expose hidden-'power': Karl Popper… Alice Miller… Peter Kropotkin… Albert O. Hirschman… Martin Bernal… John Boswell… Miklos Nyiszli… and our Good Three: Terence K. Hopkins… Giovanni Arrighi… and Immanuel Wallerstein – and I hope that the form these discussions take here… the tools provided on the Nascence website… prove useful too.

 

No violence… no weapons beyond the 'weapon' of truth… are needed for us to gain our free future… all we need do… is get these suppressed discussions to the youth… and to each other too. It doesn't matter if you agree with the analysis… all that matters is that you value free… open… discussion…

 

…the earth – the earth in us – will do the rest… Just as Fromm said… it's about faith in our Brothers and Sisters.

 

–––

 

* “WUR of September 20, 2015 Reading… continuing our interlude: Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… before returning to the chapter "Poisonous Pedagogy" in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good

 

[“150920marxsutilitarianism.mp3”:]

 

…recall that we're on the look-out for hidden-'power' in the utilitarian-mindset… and consider as well the implications of this 'utilitarian' / 'Might Makes Right' / 'scarcity'-mindset thinking on Marx himself… and on his resulting theory… consider that he followed Plato's thinking (as Popper has shown us he did) further… in the equalitarian direction Popper suggested… and asked: “What leads to divisions in human society?”… and answered: “…an insufficiency materially…” Hence: “…there must be 'the development of the productive forces…'”…except… his 'proof' had the opposite effect: it misled the self-proclaimed 'leaders' of 'the people' to believe that 'history' required them to harness our energy… 'benevolently'… 'for the greatest good for the greatest number'… delivering us into the hands of Bentham… into the hands of the 'power'-guys… now securely ensconced in their private place of hiding… from which they plot and plan their malevolence… dressed up as 'benevolence'…

 

…and recall as we read that we're on the look-out for hidden-'power'… which exists in the creation of 'scarcity' (making us hunger…) in the fostering of divisions… in the widening of the gap between 'the elite' and the rest of us… and in the installation of the 'utilitarian' propaganda – the 'make-use-of-the-natural-world'-mindset…

 

…and consider as well the implications of this 'utilitarian' / 'Might Makes Right' / 'scarcity'-mindset thinking on Marx himself… and on his resulting theory… consider that he followed Plato's thinking (as Popper has shown us he did) further… in the equalitarian direction Popper suggested… and asked: “What leads to divisions in human society?”… and answered: “…an insufficiency materially…” Hence: “…there must be 'the development of the productive forces…'” and… given that “Might Makes Right”… these 'forces' must be in the hands of we-the-people… and… given his (no doubt – it also is the mindset of 'class'…) experience of abandonment… the inevitability of this outcome must be 'proven'… and so conclusively that it will inspire we-the-people to hurry ourselves to it…

 

…except… his 'proof' had the opposite effect: it misled the self-proclaimed 'leaders' of 'the people' to believe that 'history' required them to harness our energy… 'benevolently'… 'for the greatest good for the greatest number'… delivering us into the hands of Bentham… into the hands of the 'power'-guys… now securely ensconced in their private place of hiding… from which they plot and plan their malevolence… dressed up as 'benevolence'… – P.S.]

[“150920gramscipointsout.mp3”:]

 

Gramsci says that the transforming force (transforming to a free future…) comes from a strong 'economic capacity' that's being artificially held back… (among other things) this calls attention to the spiraling-consumption pattern of 'accumulation'… which is also the effect of its totalitarian nature… requiring ever-more (all) “to come in…” – eating ever more until the resources of the planet are effectively tapped-out… and… if their propagandistic control and superiority in arms is sufficient… to then start winnowing our numbers… I believe that's what they've been busy doing… clandestinely: 'winnowing our numbers'… Brothers and Sisters… it is time for us to reclaim responsibility for our lives… to start these conversations in groups together… under the aegis of our right as a people to determine what makes us happy… We do… each other… being together… is what makes us happy… growing our gifts freely is what makes us happy…

 

[Returning to the Eighteenth Brumaire:]

 

Finally, in its struggle against the [1848] revolution [in France], the parliamentary republic found itself compelled to strengthen, along with the repressive measures, the resources and centralization of governmental power. All revolutions perfected this machine instead of smashing it. The parties that contended in turn for domination regarded the possession of this huge state edifice as the principle spoils of the victor. [Remove the abstract actors and what are we left with?: 'power' will ever… so long as 'class' exists… be determined to control us (which is why the state keeps getting stronger and stronger…) and should we resist… to clamp down ever harder on us… Antonio Gramsci… speaking in the language of 'class'… explains why this is so… why… as our Good Three have shown us… the 'strategy' 'claim the state' can never be a strategy we embrace to achieve global freedom (the only kind that is authentic…) First he says that the transforming force (transforming to a free future…) comes from a strong 'economic capacity' that's being artificially held back… i.e. from outside the existing “economic world of a specific system of production [utilitarianism…]” then he says: “The problem can be formulated as follows: since the State is the concrete form of a productive world and since the intellectuals are the social element from which the governing personnel is drawn, the intellectual who is not firmly anchored to a strong economic group will tend to present the State as an absolute; in this way the function of the intellectuals is itself conceived of as absolute and pre-eminent, and their historical existence and dignity are abstractly rationalised.” (from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, written from February, 1929 onwards, Gramsci died in 1937…) He seems to be saying – presupposing 'production' as the basis of the social-system – that 'the future' is seeded with the economic activity that exists outside the 'mainstream' of economic activity… acknowledging that is… that 'the state' is introjected (as Marcuse said…) in us… and only those outside of it – e.g. the earth-connected ('peasants') – can be truly 'radical'… i.e. not see 'the state' as an absolute… or 'intellectuals' as 'absolute and pre-eminent'… because they are still self-sufficient – not tolerating 'managers'. But this only calls attention to the spiraling-consumption pattern of 'accumulation'… which is also the effect of its totalitarian nature… requiring ever-more (all) “to come in…” – eating ever more until the resources of the planet are effectively tapped-out…

 

…and… if their propagandistic control and superiority in arms is sufficient… to then start winnowing our numbers… I believe that's what they've been busy doing… clandestinely: 'winnowing our numbers'… Brothers and Sisters… it is time for us to reclaim responsibility for our lives… to start these conversations in groups together… under the aegis of our right as a people to determine what makes us happy… We do… each other… being together… is what makes us happy… growing our gifts freely is what makes us happy… You make me happy… – P.S.]

 

–––

 

[September 20, 2015 show ends here.]

 

–––

 

* “WUR of September 27, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.5): Segue From Antisystemic Movements… To Alice

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 24)

 

[“150927contemptisalltheyknow.mp3”:]

 

I think it's time to start calling this global-state 'fascist'. Not just because of the continuously building body-count and looming ocean-death… etc.… etc.… but also because they hate it… these Plato's Tribesmen… hate the thought that even Plato might – at this point – say they're 'wolves' (apologies to our righteous wolf-friends…) instead of 'dogs' (ditto…) For these folk it's all about 'obedience-training' (the flip-side of 'conquest'… Alice calls this dynamic the 'cycle of contempt'…) – that's what they got… that's all they know… So they hate all things natural (earth-grown…) because we will not obey.… But we cannot grow our gifts… and then share them without coercion… we cannot become 'big'… being obedient… and 'power' so sets things… that if you choose to be 'big'… and particularly if what you want is for others to be 'big'… and you help them to do it… as Coleen did… you will be targeted…

 

September 22, 2015… Drones in the sky!… [Human] drones on the ground!… The fascist global-state is all around!…

 

(I counted at least five arrayed around me each time I tried to approach my car after my walk in the early morning [the 4:30 AM hour…] at Lakeshore Park this past Tuesday… apparently determined that I get hammered that morning… after saying during the last show that it was hard for them to target me there…

 

…and… now something else… as I write this [on Saturday, September 26th…] I've just seen… in the space of one week… my fourth license plate with the word fragment 'MEM'. Now in what I'm about to say you have to understand that… because they know words are my thing… in the past… these… people… these 'power'-guy henchmen… have put license plates [on separate cars] with the same word in my face for me to see. For a while it was 'RIP' ['rest in peace'…] 'COW' was a favorite… 'MEM' is suggestive of 'Memnon' who was the son of the goddess of the dawn… and who came to the aid of Troy and was killed… I think it's a warning – one of their endless attempts at intimidation I suspect… but I must call attention to it. So please… keep my son in your heart… help me preserve him…)

 

When I wrote the description that follows yesterday at 3:30 AM I'd just returned home from an upload with a swollen head (and chest… and… etc.… – even though I'd 'cleared mucus' before I left…) I could feel the growing pressure and swelling as I drove so I'd pulled over… doused the lights… leaned over and looked to my right… and there it was flying low in the sky: flashing lights floating near by… the hovering drone… which then proceeded on… leaving me with these blended feelings that have become my home.

 

I think it's time to start calling this global-state 'fascist'. Not just because of the continuously building body-count and looming ocean-death… etc.… etc.… but also because they hate it… these Plato's Tribesmen… hate the thought that even Plato might – at this point – say they're 'wolves' (apologies to our righteous wolf-friends…) instead of 'dogs' (ditto…) For these folk it's all about 'obedience-training' (the flip-side of 'conquest'… Alice calls this dynamic the 'cycle of contempt'…) – that's what they got… that's all they know… So they hate all things natural (earth-grown…) because we will not obey. Their precept “make them hunger…” is just “make them obey…” alternatively phrased. It explains their vision of 'the Republic' – in which all things obey – it explains everything they do… everything they've done… for the last two hundred years.

 

But we cannot grow our gifts… and then share them without coercion… we cannot become 'big'… being obedient… and 'power' so sets things… that if you choose to be 'big'… and particularly if what you want is for others to be 'big'… and you help them to do it… as Coleen did… you will be targeted…

 

–––

 

[“150927coleengragen.mp3”:]

 

Coleen Gragen… the woman who started Hand To Hand Martial Arts Center in Oakland, California… has been coming up for me… partly… I think… because my son is still training with folks connected to it… and we've been having intense conversations about what a martial arts practice would be that was relevant to the current threat facing our global humanity… a threat that has engulfed the planet.… How would a martial arts practice address that threat?… “…the demand to state the concrete alternatives is justified… Negative thinking [i.e.: a world based on 'freedom' (non-coercion) is the opposite of a world based on 'coercion'…] draws whatever force it may have from its empirical basis: the actual human condition in the given society, and the “given” possibilities to transcend this condition, to enlarge the realm of freedom. In this sense, negative thinking is by virtue of its own internal concepts “positive”: oriented toward, and comprehending a future which is “contained” in the present…” (Marcuse)… we all carry within us the potential… to 'be it'… be… that inherent freedom…

 

Coleen Gragen… the woman who started Hand To Hand Martial Arts Center in Oakland, California… has been coming up for me… partly… I think… because my son is still training with folks connected to it… and we've been having intense conversations about what a martial arts practice would be that was relevant to the current threat facing our global humanity… a threat that has engulfed the planet.

 

How would a martial arts practice address that threat?

 

And it seemed Coleen was standing there looking at me.

 

I think about her a lot. Now that I'm receiving this 'punishment' for speaking out about this 'global-elite'… I see… there is zero-chance they didn't also 'punish' Coleen. I see her last ten to twelve years (at least) differently through this current lens: the inevitability of agents crawling through her life… her school… doing their Iago-act… planting despair in people's heads… the 'Lyme disease' she came down with… then… her decision to buy land and get out of Oakland… the heavy weight that always seemed to be on her…

 

So… what 'school of martial arts' can confront this threat?… You see… Coleen thought about such questions as this… as: how to make the martial arts relevant… relevant to the real threats to our existence… as humans. Given that we are one world now… given… as Popper said… we are here to defend the 'weak' from the 'strong' (granting that such terms vary by vantage… as well as over the course of our lives… while clearly identifying these ten thousand guys as fiendish predators… fixed immutables of 'class'… who dissolve only with 'class' itself…)

 

So… what would such a school look like? It would embrace all humanity… it would embrace tenderness… But… as Marcuse said… we have a responsibility to be concrete in this matter:

But the very scope and effectiveness of the democratic introjection [i.e. the internalization of 'the state'… which in practical terms means the incorporation of 'utilitarianism' in one's mental frames… – P.S.] have suppressed the historical subject, the agent of revolution: free people are not in need of liberation [what he means by that is that we have been trained to think we're 'free'… if we're in that 'privileged' category… – P.S.], and the oppressed [who are under no illusions… – P.S.] are not strong enough to liberate themselves. These conditions redefine the concept of Utopia: liberation is the most realistic, the most concrete of all historical possibilities [because our bodies want it… – P.S.] and at the same time the most rationally and effectively repressed – the most abstract and remote possibility [to deeply-obedience-trained minds… – P.S.]. (Eros and Civilization, p. xv)

 

We are still confronted with the demand to state the “concrete alternative.” The demand is meaningless if it asks for a blueprint of the specific institutions and relationships which would be those of the new society: they cannot be determined a priori; they will develop, in trial and error, as the new society develops…. However, the questions cannot be brushed aside by saying that what matters today is the destruction of the old, of the powers that be, making way for the emergence of the new….

 

But the demand to state the concrete alternatives is justified… Negative thinking [i.e.: a world based on 'freedom' (non-coercion) is the opposite of a world based on 'coercion' (force)… – P.S.] draws whatever force it may have from its empirical basis: the actual human condition in the given society, and the “given” possibilities to transcend this condition, to enlarge the realm of freedom. In this sense, negative thinking is by virtue of its own internal concepts “positive”: oriented toward, and comprehending a future which is “contained” in the present. (Herbert Marcuse, (Herbert Marcuse, “An Essay on Liberation,” p. 86 – 7)

I quibbled with Marcuse a bit… in “Beginning Again”… over the phrase 'future contained in the present'… not seeing what he did then… that that future exists in every un-('class'-)trained infant… and that we all carry within us the potential… to 'be it'… be… that inherent freedom…

 

–––

 

[“150927coleencouragecreativity.mp3”:]

 

“There are problems 'power' can't figure out… because it can't see that we're not cattle. What Terence Hopkins sees quite clearly… is that this is 'power's vulnerability… Firstly… that states will want their sovereignty because the people they sit on will ever want to be free [i.e. to grow our gifts continuously…] and will ever push back against the walls… the limits of our captivity… until they fall… If… instead of 'economic growth' we heard 'transfers of the wealth of our common earth…' we might begin to see beyond the present system of death… to the future of our creation… based in our abundance…” …we… are a 'creative element' artificially held back… and an intentional suppression requires an intentional summoning… a 'bringing forth' of our energy… consciously… This is what Coleen was doing.

 

In the March 22, 2015 show… we considered the words of Gramsci… that we ended with last week… from the perspective of 'voice'… and suppressed creativity – themes derived from our translation of Gramsci into 'earth-speak'. I suggested that by the phrase 'economic group'… we should hear the words 'creative element': “our love and joy seized and directed to serve… 'the system' – us… striving to sing our songs…” – that… in the language of 'power'… our creativity is simply an 'economic quality'…

 

…a 'creative element' artificially held back… which is what the second excerpt addresses… from the November 25, 2012 broadcast.

[“150322gramsci_3.mp3”:]

 

“I'm asking us to consider… hear… by those words ('economic group'…) that in earth-speak… this means 'the creative element' – our love and joy seized and directed to serve… 'the system' – us… striving to sing our songs… In the language of 'power' these are 'economic' qualities… So when Gramsci says… if a 'intellectual' is not firmly anchored… in that song… he's anchored elsewhere… What he's struggling with here is this issue of 'authentic leadership'…” [From the March 22, 2015 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

[“121125cantfig.mp3”:]

 

“There are problems 'power' can't figure out… because it can't see that we're not cattle. What Terence Hopkins sees quite clearly… is that this is 'power's vulnerability… Firstly… that states will want their sovereignty because the people they sit on will ever want to be free [i.e. to grow our gifts continuously…] and will ever push back against the walls… the limits of our captivity… until they fall… If… instead of 'economic growth' we heard 'transfers of the wealth of our common earth…' we might begin to see beyond the present system of death… to the future of our creation… based in our abundance…” [From the November 25, 2012 Waking Up Radio show.]

…and see that an intentional suppression requires an intentional summoning… a 'bringing forth' of our energy… consciously. This is what Coleen was doing.

 

[“150927transformingforce.mp3”:]

 

I want to consider more deeply Gramsci's observation that the 'transforming force' (transforming to a free future…) in this global social arrangement called 'class' – an arrangement long-since drained of vitality… an arrangement already dead… needing now but our act of burying – comes from a strong 'economic capacity' that's being artificially held back… us.

 

Back in March I heard those words of Gramsci as being about the question of 'authentic leadership'… which they are I think… but… now that we've exposed Marx's (unconscious) utilitarianism… I hear more today… I hear it reproduced here… in the assumption of 'conquest'… of “Might Makes Right”… in the focus on “the conquest of 'production'” as the locus of our freedom. 'Voice'… 'song'… and their suppression… are there… I think… but as an unacknowledged background melody.

 

And although I still hear in the words 'economic capacity' the words 'creative force': that from which comes our ability to live – that being ultimately the earth… and we-the-people in that 'earth' being key…

 

…today… I want to consider more deeply… what was acknowledged back in March as our 'silencing' (our lack of a voice individually and as 'a people') but not developed: that a 'make-use-of' (utilitarian) mindset… the primacy of 'production'… for 'power'… of 'accumulation'… stifles as it consumes…

 

…i.e. I want to consider more deeply Gramsci's observation that the 'transforming force' (transforming to a free future…) in this global social arrangement called 'class' – an arrangement long-since drained of vitality… an arrangement already dead… needing now but our act of burying – comes from a strong 'economic capacity' that's being artificially held back… us.

 

–––

 

[“150927imaginefreedhumanenergy.mp3”:]

 

I ask you to please imagine that world in which every human being has access to their full capacity… their full power as a living thing – as a free… uncoerced… living thing… it was waiting for this moment… for this technology: “the conditions have changed…” and we must base our thinking on these changed conditions. We have instantaneous communication… we have the Internet… we have the means to organize a one-day global General Strike… almost over night… over and over until we get our freedom… These are new conditions. We are that elephant who can now look down and see that that chain is gone… and that it's time to walk free… It's time for us to act on that new information…] So… these are folk… in Seven Samurai… inexperienced with confronting 'power'… who seek the help of 'artists' – students of life's pulsations – in order to get 'power' off their backs… [we have to work together to do that… we have to see how 'the system' reproduces itself so we can thoughtfully de-commission it… starve it of our energy… as we grow our free future… which… I'm arguing… is about creating our happiness… which gives us a lever here in the U.S. Artists! – musicians… actors… Marxists… martial artists (and in this circumstance we must all become 'martial' artists… we are at war…) – must start us down the path to the restoration of souls…

 

And I feel that deeply… thanks to Coleen… I see the frustration she felt… because I feel it myself now… to see our Brothers and Sisters not tapping into that energy… that source… Because I've been through that process and know it… I have certainty… I have faith in my Sisters and Brothers… and so I ask you to please imagine that world in which every human being has access to their full capacity… their full power as a living thing – as a free… uncoerced… living thing…

 

'Artists' are students of energy – because that's what we're talking about here… energy… having access to our energy…

(…and that's… perhaps the most stark difference… in some respects… between those who have tapped into true power… and those who worship this false 'power'… the 'power' to 'command' others… to cause harm… to destroy… the 'power' that makes them obsessed with turning their Brothers and Sisters into puppets: that contrast being then… when you've tapped into true power… it's just the opposite… you want every human being to be fully powerful… that's what you want… more than anything… that's what you want. Because we can't have a world truly premised on freedom if that is not the case… That's what I see now… That's what Bruce Lee saw…)

'Artists' are students of energy – studious attendants to the pulsations of life – to which they seek to become sensitive receptors… and for which to be tender advocates…

 

So when we say that “we are all artists”… it simply means that that is our inherent capacity.

 

The Akira Kurosawa film Seven Samurai is a useful tool… I think… for exploring… in group discussion… this process (…and I would love to participate in a group discussion of this film… please keep me in mind if you organize one…)

 

…as well as a metaphor for the monumental challenge before us…

 

…for what could be more monumental than the suppression of our energy as a collective humanity for millennia… and our now… finally… overcoming it: the theft of our souls… and our now… finally… recovering them…

 

(…in the film… earth-connected folk [but under conditions of 'class'… under compulsion – and to get beyond 'class' requires a global effort… i.e.… it was waiting for this moment… for this technology: “the conditions have changed…” and we must base our thinking on these changed conditions. We have instantaneous communication… we have the Internet… we have the means to organize a one-day global General Strike… almost over night… over and over until we get our freedom… These are new conditions. We are that elephant who can now look down and see that that chain is gone… and that it's time to walk free… It's time for us to act on that new information…] So… these are folk… in Seven Samurai… inexperienced with confronting 'power'… who seek the help of 'artists' – students of life's pulsations – in order to get 'power' off their backs… [we have to work together to do that…])

 

In this word 'energy' we see the crux of our containment… as well as our strategy for getting free.

 

When the bifurcation of humanity is the premise for (what we're told is…) 'thought' – that there must be 'slaves' for it to exist… one side-effect… when we find we cannot think (authentically… and our body… if only unconsciously… feels the distinction…) is fear that we will never escape that 'slave' category…

 

…so here is yet another circular trap (another way 'power' hides…) the source for an intentionally constructed 'repetition compulsion' (to use Alice's language…) in which our lack of thought and resulting fear mutually reinforce – and 'power' hides in our self-blame…

 

…never discussed is… as we've said… that a bifurcated condition for 'thought' destroys authentic thought…

 

…never discussed is the stifling effect on thought of separating us…

 

…never discussed is our wasted energy in fear… confusion… and the endless repetition of compulsions…

 

This matters because we have to see how 'the system' reproduces itself so we can thoughtfully de-commission it… starve it of our energy… as we grow our free future… which… I'm arguing… is about creating our happiness… which gives us a lever here in the U.S.

 

If the 'martial arts' exist to defend the 'weak'… help all we can get 'big'… and to therefore establish happiness… this… within a global system of 'class'… will cause the artists who practice it to clash… with global-'power'… which cannot exist if we do not forfeit authentic lives… our full gifts… our happiness.

 

But… if we do not… choose to defend the 'weak'… help all we can get 'big'… and to therefore establish happiness – what will become of us?

 

Artists! – musicians… actors… Marxists… martial artists (and in this circumstance we must all become 'martial' artists… we are at war…) – must start us down the path to the restoration of souls…

 

We are at war… do not doubt it… a war to preserve the human being… a war to establish a free humanity…

 

…in the establishment of the conditions that allow for our self-creation as global-humans… and in so doing… our happiness.

 

It is the global perspective – unifying across nation – that is critical (I don't know of any contemporary but Bruce Lee who was actively trying to do this… bring us together across the false divisions… – then again… please forgive my being remiss in failing to mention Martin Luther King… Bob Marley… John Coltrane… to name three of the most glaring omissions… Sly… Michael Jackson – but I guess what I was getting at… was having a clear sense of how to do it: 'fully developing individualities'… with a global perspective… in defense of the 'weak'… in determined opposition to bullies… to the 'power'-guys… the global-state-statesmen… this requires organization…)

 

[“150927criticaldiscussions.mp3”:]

 

'Defending the weak' must be a global motive as… with the resources of the planet tapped out… nation-states hunkering down… 'improving conditions' in one's small piece of the planet is no threat to 'power'… on the contrary… that's 'prettying up' 'power's mess… while leaving their control of us unaffected… they want our eyes narrowly focused. So we broaden out… with our voices and acts… we fight back… we claim the world… joining hands with others of like-minds… we're open-tribes… a school… bringing… creatively presenting… the 'taboo' (for 'power'…) discussions: What would it mean to live our lives without coercion? What would it mean to be a 'fully-developing individuality'?… to be 'self-creating'? What would a society… a global “'community of communities'… of 'fully-developing individualities'” look like? How do we link hands – link our practice – globally? As we flesh out that picture of a world based in non-coercion… how do we share that developing picture with others around the world… and exchange ideas? …dedicating our practice to freeing human energy globally…

 

'Defending the weak' must be a global motive as… with the resources of the planet tapped out… nation-states hunkering down… 'improving conditions' in one's small piece of the planet is no threat to 'power'… on the contrary… that's 'prettying up' 'power's mess… while leaving their control of us unaffected… they want our eyes narrowly focused.

 

So we broaden out… with our voices and acts… we fight back… we claim the world… joining hands with others of like-minds… we're open-tribes… a school… bringing… creatively presenting… the 'taboo' (for 'power'…) discussions:

 

• Are we all artists?

 

• Is claiming our 'art'… being it… about claiming our 'wholeness'?… mind… body… and spirit?

 

• Does it not then require listening to your body?

 

• If you say you're a person who 'listens to her body'… what does that mean?

 

• What does it mean to be fully alive?

 

• Should our energy… as human beings… as living things… be compelled by the state or the market?

 

• How does our practice expand our human energy? Is it limitless? Is it held back by the current 'system'?

 

• Why is 'decision-making' disproportionately allocated… in the current 'system'?

 

• Why is there 'hierarchy' in the existing global-system? (Staying focused on the global-setting avoids the inevitable attempts by the global-state-statesmen to derail this discussion with irrelevant side-issues.)

 

• Why 'class'?

 

• Why is there coercion?

 

• What are the forms coercion takes in our lives?

 

• What would it mean to live our lives without coercion?

 

• What would it mean to be a 'fully-developing individuality'?… to be 'self-creating'?

 

• Do we need each other – globally – to be 'fully-developing'?

 

• What would a society… a global “'community of communities'… of 'fully-developing individualities'” look like?

 

• How do we link hands – link our practice – globally?

 

• As we flesh out that picture of a world based in non-coercion… how do we share that developing picture with others around the world… and exchange ideas?

 

…dedicating our practice to freeing human energy globally…

 

[“150927towakefolkup.mp3”:]

 

…and I know this was the path that Coleen was on… and Bruce Lee… and Socrates: “What is needed to wake folk up?”… you know?… and so I look at my own experience – and I asked this question in Waking Up… “Why was the martial arts not enough?”… and I'm more and more convinced that we have the answer now… that there are these missing pieces that have to be integrated wholistically in our practice: awareness that there is a 'war' on full-developing individualities… awareness of 'hidden-power'… pieces that we have to dedicate our practice to freeing human energy globally – that we have to consciously incorporate…

 

…and this is exciting… this should make us all feel very hopeful… because this is what we all want and 'power' cannot offer this as a perk… it is hella exciting seeing one's energy grow and expand under one's own initiative… under only the sway of the earth growing through and in us… that is hella exciting… once you embark on that process. And I'm really seriously trying to figure out… why a 'martial arts per se' practice has to be augmented… and I know this was the path that Coleen was on… and Bruce Lee… and Socrates: “What is needed to wake folk up?”… you know?… and so I look at my own experience – and I asked this question in Waking Up… “Why was the martial arts not enough?”… and I'm more and more convinced that we have the answer now… that there are these missing pieces that have to be integrated wholistically in our practice: awareness that there is a 'war' on full-developing individualities… awareness of 'hidden-power'… that we have to dedicate our practice to freeing human energy globally – pieces that we have to consciously incorporate…

 

–––

 

* “WUR of September 27, 2015 Reading… continuing our interlude: Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… before returning to the chapter "Poisonous Pedagogy" in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good

[“150927firstfullstride.mp3”:]

 

Keep in mind as we read that we're seeing the first full-stride of these new-born 'power'-guys… hidden from even Marx's discerning eye – and let's not ignore that suppressed conversation: “why is 'decision-making' disproportionately allocated?”… – P.S.] “After the first revolution had transformed the peasants from semi-villeins into freeholders, Napoleon confirmed and regulated the conditions on which they could exploit undisturbed the soil of France which had only just fallen to their lot and slake their youthful passion for property. But what is now causing the ruin of the French peasant is his small holding itself […now that strikes me as a really twisted way to describe it… this is the same tactic we saw in the 'foreclosure crisis'… and in every scheme of 'power' to transfer wealth massively… “cause indebtedness and strip us of what little we have…” – P.S.], the division of the land, the form of property which Napoleon consolidated in France. It is precisely the material conditions which made the feudal peasant a small-holding peasant and Napoleon an emperor. Two generations have sufficed to produce the inevitable result: progressive deterioration of agriculture, progressive indebtedness of the agriculturist.…”

 

…now… from the contemplation of a future without coercion… we traverse the centuries and take a jarring journey into the past… prepare yourselves to be pushed into the cattle-car and silenced… we are now entering a space in which only the bullies (behind scenes…) and the managers (of us… we-the-'cattle'…) are allowed to speak (wait a minute… not so jarring… this is our current reality…) Keep in mind as we read that we're seeing the first full-stride of these new-born 'power'-guys… hidden from even Marx's discerning eye – and let's not ignore that suppressed conversation: “why is 'decision-making' disproportionately allocated?”… – P.S.]:

But under the absolute monarchy, during the first Revolution, under Napoleon, bureaucracy was only the means of preparing the class rule of the bourgeoisie. Under the Restoration, under Louis Philippe, under the parliamentary republic, it was the instrument of the ruling class, however much it strove for power of its own.

 

Only under the second Bonaparte does the state seem to have made itself completely independent… Bonaparte represents a class, and the most numerous class of French society at that, the small-holding peasants… [If so… he did a damn poor job of it… truly incompetent… unless we conclude… that the man was a buffoon… But 'History' proved otherwise… Rather… let us consider that this could be… an example of hidden-'power'… planning behind scenes… never revealing the intention… to create 'scarcity'… – P.S.]

 

But let there be no misunderstanding. The Bonaparte dynasty represents not the revolutionary, but the conservative peasant… the peasant who wants to consolidate [his] holding… [but] the three years' rigorous rule of the parliamentary republic had freed a part of the French peasants from the Napoleonic illusion and had revolutionized them… but the bourgeoisie violently repressed them, as often as they set themselves in motion…

 

After the first revolution had transformed the peasants from semi-villeins into freeholders, Napoleon confirmed and regulated the conditions on which they could exploit undisturbed the soil of France which had only just fallen to their lot and slake their youthful passion for property. But what is now causing the ruin of the French peasant is his small holding itself […now that strikes me as a really twisted way to describe it… this is the same tactic we saw in the 'foreclosure crisis'… and in every scheme of 'power' to transfer wealth massively… “cause indebtedness and strip us of what little we have…” – P.S.], the division of the land, the form of property which Napoleon consolidated in France. It is precisely the material conditions which made the feudal peasant a small-holding peasant and Napoleon an emperor. Two generations have sufficed to produce the inevitable result: progressive deterioration of agriculture, progressive indebtedness of the agriculturist. The “Napoleonic” form of property, which at the beginning of the nineteenth century was the condition for the liberation and enrichment of the French country folk, has developed […'power' hides in the passive tone… – P.S.] in the course of this century into the law of their enslavement and pauperization. And precisely this law is the first of the “idees napoleoniennes” [“an allusion to Louis Bonaparte's Book Des idees napoleoniennes, published in Paris in 1839.” (editor)] which the second Bonaparte has to uphold.…

 

The economic development of small-holding property […again… in the words 'economic development' let's hear instead… 'transfers of the wealth of our common earth… – P.S.] has radically changed the relation of the peasants to the other classes of society. Under Napoleon, the fragmentation of the land in the countryside supplemented free competition […'power' hides in the ideology of 'economic development'… in the economic propaganda… – P.S.] and the beginning of big industry in the towns. The peasant class was the ubiquitous protest against the landed aristocracy which had just been overthrown. The roots that small-holding property struck in French soil deprived feudalism of all nutriment. Its landmarks formed the natural fortifications of the bourgeoisie against any surprise attack on the part of its old overlords.…

 

[“150927wehavebeenstripped.mp3”:]

 

“But in the course of the nineteenth century the feudal lords were replaced by urban usurers; the feudal obligation that went with the land was replaced by the mortgage; aristocratic landed property was replaced by bourgeois capital. The small holding of the peasant is now only the pretext that allows the capitalist to draw profits, interest and rent from the soil, while leaving it to the tiller of the soil himself to see how he can extract his wages.” [There we have it… that tactic hasn't changed since… This is called “make them hunger”… “strip their ability to be self-sufficient… strip their access to land – it has not changed since… this conscious tactic to destroy our ability to live… except by going hat-in-hand to them… So what do you think lies at the end of it? It ain't a pretty picture. They decide who lives… who dies… They decide if there's 'too many of us 'or not… and they decide what happens to those they consider 'superfluous'… They decide – those ten thousand guys.… Are we ready to start talking about it?… and then organizing…for our freedom? We have the means. It is possible. Our thinking has to catch up with the technology. We can get free…We simply have to begin discussing it… meeting together and picturing it… visualizing it…

 

…But in the course of the nineteenth century the feudal lords were replaced by urban usurers; the feudal obligation that went with the land was replaced by the mortgage; aristocratic landed property was replaced by bourgeois capital. The small holding of the peasant is now only the pretext that allows the capitalist to draw profits, interest and rent from the soil, while leaving it to the tiller of the soil himself to see how he can extract his wages.… [There we have it… that tactic hasn't changed since… This is called “make them hunger”… “strip their ability to be self-sufficient… strip their access to land – it has not changed since… this conscious tactic to destroy our ability to live… except by going hat-in-hand to them… that's what they want… they are determined to get it. Do we understand that this is a war for our very existence as free humans? You can see the tactic then… it hasn't changed a bit… it is on-going… it has accelerated… So what do you think lies at the end of it? It ain't a pretty picture. They decide who lives… who dies… They decide if there's 'too many of us 'or not… and they decide what happens to those they consider 'superfluous'… They decide – those ten thousand guys. Are we ready to take this serious? Are we ready to start talking about it?… and then organizing…for our freedom? We have the means. It is possible. Our thinking has to catch up with the technology. We can get free…We simply have to begin discussing it… meeting together and picturing it… visualizing it… We're going to be talking more about this… – P.S.]

 

[“150927peasantbloodsucked.mp3”:]

 

“The mortgage debt burdening the soil of France imposes on the French peasantry payment of an amount of interest equal to the annual interest on the entire British national debt. Small-holding property, in this enslavement by capital to which its development inevitably pushes forward […this attribution to an imposed scarcity (i.e.… a result born of force… coercion) of some 'natural' inherent 'development' and an 'historical role' – proposing the existence of 'inevitable' 'economic laws' that produce it… is doing 'power's work for it… weaving the curtain that 'power' stands behind… – P.S.], has transformed the mass of the French nation into troglodytes.…”

 

…The mortgage debt burdening the soil of France imposes on the French peasantry payment of an amount of interest equal to the annual interest on the entire British national debt. Small-holding property, in this enslavement by capital to which its development inevitably pushes forward […this attribution to an imposed scarcity (i.e.… a result born of force… coercion) of some 'natural' inherent 'development' and an 'historical role' – proposing the existence of 'inevitable' 'economic laws' that produce it… is doing 'power's work for it… weaving the curtain that 'power' stands behind… – P.S.], has transformed the mass of the French nation into troglodytes. Sixteen million peasants (including women and children) dwell in hovels, a large number of which have but one opening, others only two and the most favoured only three. And windows are to a house what the five senses are to the head. The bourgeois order, which at the beginning of the century set the state to stand guard over the newly arisen small holding and manured it with laurels, has become a vampire that sucks out its blood and brains and throws it into the alchemistic cauldron of capital. The Code Napoleon is now nothing but a codex of distraints, forced sales and compulsory auctions. To the four million (including children, etc.) officially recognized paupers, vagabonds, criminals and prostitutes in France must be added five million who hover on the margin of existence and either have their haunts in the countryside itself or, with their rags and their children, continually desert the countryside for the towns and the towns for the countryside. The interests of the peasants, therefore, are no longer, as under Napoleon, in accord with, but in opposition to the interests of the bourgeoisie, to capital. Hence the peasants find their natural ally and leader in the urban proletariat, whose task is the overthrow of the bourgeois order. But strong and unlimited government – and this is the second “idee napoleonienne,” which the second Napoleon has to carry out – is called upon to defend this “material” order by force. This “ordre materiel” also serves as the catchword in all of Bonaparte's proclamations against the rebellious peasants.…

 

One sees: all “idees napoleoniennes” are ideas of the undeveloped small holding in the freshness of its youth; for the small holding that has outlived its day they are an absurdity. They are only the hallucinations of its death struggle, words that are transformed into phrases, spirits transformed into ghosts. But the parody of the empire [des Imperialismus] was necessary to free the mass of the French nation from the weight of tradition […translation into 'earth-speak': “disconnect the earth-connected – and so soul / self-sufficient – from their earth-connectedness… in order to force them into a dependent relation to 'power'… subject to its 'grand' objectives… – P.S.] and to work out in pure form the opposition between the state power and society. With the progressive undermining of small-holding property, the state structure erected upon it collapses. The centralization of the state that modern society requires arises only on the ruins of the military-bureaucratic government machinery which was forged in opposition to feudalism. [Now that we have lived this… “state centralization”… now that we have seen what it means to have 'consent' imposed by the elimination of all other options… we must begin challenging this assumption of the inevitability – because ordained by 'History' – of 'power's appropriation of our planet… – P.S.]

 

[“150927disordersavesorder.mp3”:]

 

I've been pondering in what sense The Eighteenth Brumaire is 'class analysis'… and for whom it represents… as the word 'class' itself serves 'power' as both ideological tool and weapon… depending on one's relationship to 'Plato's Tribesmen'… i.e.… that it's reality is prescribed by those with the 'power' to do so… and we-the-people have been silenced……and as those who speak 'officially'… speak 'falsely'… and their public presentation is only so much 'role-playing'… – why does Marx take their speech for what they really think?

 

The condition of the French peasants provides us with the answer to the riddle of the general elections of December 20 and 21, which bore the second Bonaparte up Mount Sinai, not to receive laws, but to give them.

 

Manifestly the bourgeoisie had now no choice but to elect Bonaparte… Only… disorder [can save] order!

 

[I've been pondering in what sense The Eighteenth Brumaire is 'class analysis'… and for whom it represents… as the word 'class' itself serves 'power' as both ideological tool and weapon… depending on one's relationship to 'Plato's Tribesmen'… i.e.… that it's reality is prescribed by those with the 'power' to do so… and we-the-people have been silenced…

 

…and as those who speak 'officially'… speak 'falsely'… and their public presentation is only so much 'role-playing'… – why does Marx take their speech for what they really think?… – P.S.]

 

As the executive authority which has made itself an independent power, Bonaparte feels it to be his mission to safeguard “bourgeois order.” But the strength of this bourgeois order lies in the middle class. He looks on himself, therefore, as the representative of the middle class and issues decrees in this sense. Nevertheless, he is somebody solely due to the fact that he has broken the political power of this middle class and daily breaks it anew. Consequently, he looks on himself as the adversary of the political and literary power of the middle class. But by protecting its material power, he generates its political power anew. The cause must accordingly be kept alive; but the effect, where it manifests itself, must be done away with. But this cannot pass off without slight confusions of cause and effect, since in their interaction both lose their distinguishing features.…As against the bourgeoisie, Bonaparte looks on himself, at the same time, as the representative of the peasants and of the people in general, who wants to make the lower classes of the people happy within the frame of bourgeois society.… But, above all, Bonaparte looks on himself as the chief of the Society of December 10, as the representative of the lumpenproletariat to which he himself, his entourage, his government and his army belong, and whose prime consideration is to benefit itself and draw California lottery prizes from the state treasury. And he vindicates his position as chief of the Society of December 10 with decrees, without decrees and despite decrees.

 

This contradictory task of the man explains the contradictions of his government, the confused groping about which seeks now to win, now to humiliate first one class and then another and arrays all of them uniformly against him, whose practical uncertainty forms a highly comical contrast to the imperious, categorical style of the government decrees, a style which is faithfully copied from the Uncle.

 

Industry and trade, hence the business affairs of the middle class, are to prosper in hothouse fashion under the strong government. The grant of innumerable railway concessions. But the Bonapartist lumpenproletariat is to enrich itself. The initiated play tripotage [hanky-panky] on the bourse with the railway concessions.… Leonine agreement of the Bank with the government. The people are to be given employment. Initiation of public works.… Dissolution of actual workers' associations, but promises of miracles of association in the future. The peasants are to be helped. Mortgage banks that expedite their getting into debt and accelerate the concentration of property. But these banks are to be used to make money out of the confiscated estates of the House of Orleans. No capitalist wants to agree to this condition, which is not in the decree, and the mortgage bank remains a mere decree, etc. etc.

 

Bonaparte would like to appear as the patriarchal benefactor of all classes. But he cannot give to one class without taking from another. Just as at the time of the Fronde it was said of the Duke of Guise that he was the most obligeant man in France because he had turned all his estates into his partisans' obligations to him, so Bonaparte would fain be the most obligeant man in France and turn all the property, all the labour of France into a personal obligation to himself. He would like to steal the whole of France in order to be able to make a present of her to France or, rather, in order to be able to buy France anew with French money, for as the chief of the Society of December 10 he must needs buy what ought to belong to him. And all the state institutions, the Senate, the Council of State, the legislative body, the Legion of Honour, the soldiers' medals, the washhouses, the public works, the railways, the etat major [General Staff] of the National Guard to the exclusion of privates, and the confiscated estates of the House of Orleans – all become parts of the institution of purchase. Every place in the army and in the government machine becomes a means of purchase. But the most important feature of this process, whereby France is taken in order to give to her, is the percentages that find their way into the pockets of the head and the members of the Society of December 10 during the turnover.…

 

[The shadow-state needs shadow-troops… with shadow-orders… that they execute…When 'power' wants to operate 'extra-legally'… they convene impromptu 'December 10' societies… – P.S.]

 

–––

 

[September 27, 2015 show ends here.]

 

–––

 

* “WUR of October 4, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.5): Segue From Antisystemic Movements… To Alice

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 25)

 

[“151004tofillagap.mp3”:]

 

 

They kill the folks who owe them no allegiance… who grow their gifts despite… not because of… them… they kill our biggest spirits… who by their very physical existence show… we need no state… Seven billion on a leash? Is that not obscene?… when we could be free?… when all we have to do is stand with the earth… meet with our Brothers and Sisters… discuss a future without coercion… and get 'big' in the course of it… 'Power' can't offer it as a perk… agents can't stop it.

 

September 29, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Is it clear that we cannot 'grow' ourselves unless we're starting with an authentic 'self'? And that recovering our authentic 'self' is key to becoming 'fully developing individualities'?

 

In Waking Up I asked why the martial arts wasn't sufficient for recovering that original person:

[Juan was] right of course… ['work' does steal our physical vitality…] But the theft goes beyond that – though, believe me, I’m not making light of the sacrifice of our physical health to the god of profit. [Of course now… with the benefit of Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies… joined with Alice Miller… Martin Bernal… Albert O. Hirschman… Terence K. Hopkins… and John Boswell… I see the sacrifice was given to ten thousand global-state-statesmen…]

 

But I’d lost track of my whole self before I went into the trades, and that’s a question to look at too. When did I lose myself, and how?

 

And wasn’t there a sense in which helping to install the electrical in various buildings helped me reclaim some lost bits? I’d tried before, with martial arts – why wasn’t that enough? (from the section “Listening to Our Bodies Is Sacrosanct” in the chapter “The Two Winds” in Waking Up: Freeing Ourselves From Work, p. 88)

Back when I was engaged in it I saw my martial arts practice as being about “claiming my body…” after feeling 'disconnected' from it… as being about 'living comfortably in my own skin' after years of feeling 'awkward'… and 'insufficient'. The martial arts… perhaps… would help me over those 'hang-ups'…”

 

But what did Emily tell us?

To fill a Gap • Insert the Thing that caused it – • Block it up • With Other – and ‘twill yawn the more – • You cannot solder an Abyss • With Air

We might modify it to say…: To recover a Theft • Confront the one that took it – • Look for it • With Others – and its loss ‘twill ache the more – • You cannot solder an Abyss • With Air

 

Waking Up was about 'doing the analysis' that explains our lack of freedom… so that we could become certain… both about who or what is sitting on us… and how to get out from under it or them. Since writing it I've gained more information that augments the analysis… more confirmation of the strength of it… more certainty about the need to act on it…

 

We've done the analysis… I think it's accurate… but if you need a double-check… look at who and what they suppress… They kill the folks who owe them no allegiance… who grow their gifts despite… not because of… them… they kill our biggest spirits… who by their very physical existence show… we need no state. We have watched this happen again and again… it's been pointed out to us by numerous ancestors. And we can either choose to stand with them… become ourselves self- and soul-sufficient… choose freedom and happiness for ourselves and our Brothers and Sisters and the planet… or stand with those ten thousand lording it over us… killing whoever they choose without repercussions.

 

Seven billion on a leash? Is that not obscene?… when we could be free?… when all we have to do is stand with the earth… meet with our Brothers and Sisters… discuss a future without coercion… and get 'big' in the course of it…

 

'Power' can't offer it as a perk… agents can't stop it.

 

–––

 

[“151004pursuehappinessasapeople.mp3”:]

 

This 'self-organization' of 'power' is called “'the state' and all its institutions” – making it a totalitarian system – the key function of which is to prevent us… we-the-people… from similarly organizing to pursue our… authentic – because it honors the ancestors… the earth… and each other… as source – self-creation… simultaneously as individuals and as a people… our authentic happiness. (On the one hand… we have the codified right here in the U.S. to… as a people… pursue happiness… on the other… the state… by definition… disallows our pursuit of happiness because it disallows our formation into a people… …which… arguably… we have a responsibility to do: not only have we been benefiting from the 'excess-suppression' and squeezing of our Sisters and Brothers elsewhere [in non-'core' 'states'…] but simultaneous with that debt we have greater leverage… which we must start utilizing.) 'The state' is an absolutely essential mechanism of management for 'power' – management of our inherent drive to self-creation (happiness…) because 'power' cannot exist if we do not forfeit our earth-given gift of self-development… individual and collective… And 'the state' is warring on precisely these: on fully-developing individualities… to seek to become which… is the most radical political act under 'class' – there is no other way to our freedom…

 

'Power' organizes itself as 'power' to pursue its self-creation ('happiness'…) – a hobbled and false 'self-creation'… true… but… in forming themselves into a conscious group they can pursue their collective aggrandizement… which they tell themselves… in violation and contempt of the earth… is 'happiness'. And despite being in our debt for everything they get… they elevate themselves – in their minds – into being the source of it…

 

This 'self-organization' of 'power' is called “'the state' and all its institutions” – making it a totalitarian system – the key function of which is to prevent us… we-the-people… from similarly organizing to pursue our… authentic – because it honors the ancestors… the earth… and each other… as source – self-creation… simultaneously as individuals and as a people… our authentic happiness.

 

(On the one hand… we have the codified right here in the U.S. to… as a people… pursue happiness… on the other… the state… by definition… disallows our pursuit of happiness because it disallows our formation into a people…

 

…which… arguably… we have a responsibility to do: not only have we been benefiting from the 'excess-suppression' and squeezing of our Sisters and Brothers elsewhere [in non-'core' 'states'…] but simultaneous with that debt we have greater leverage… which we must start utilizing.)

 

'The state' is an absolutely essential mechanism of management for 'power' – management of our inherent drive to self-creation (happiness…) because 'power' cannot exist if we do not forfeit our earth-given gift of self-development… individual and collective… and yet… the circumstances must be so finessed… that it seems we do not forfeit it… else 'power' loses its carefully crafted legitimacy… and their game is up.

 

So they provide us with 'education'… schools in which to 'grow our gifts'… but only in the directions 'power' tells us are 'appropriate'… 'fit'… make sense… given… 'the system' on which 'education' is premised. Once again we confront the circularity of 'the system'… the inherent totalitarianism.

 

But it is a dangerous pass for 'power' – when we strive to grow our gifts – and so a dangerous one for us… They make it so… particularly when numbers of us are doing it… in some sense – in some sense of a budding and building consciousness – together. They have amassed weapons and propaganda mechanisms for this moment… this moment when… globally… we would finally get that 'the state' exists to repress… not assist… 'the people' – that is what it was designed for… that is why it exists… and it will fulfill that function no matter what we 'think' about it.

 

Yet it is only by becoming 'a people' that we can challenge it… and here in the U.S. we have the legal leverage to accomplish this without the state being able to use overt repression against it… for to do so would completely de-legitimate it. But our ability to claim that necessary identity: our organization into 'a people' – necessary in order to check 'power's ruthlessness – has been… as Marcuse said… effectively repressed… requiring an opposite education… new information… new teachers who model what it means to be 'fully-developing' – so that this is a quality of our 'aliveness' that we are not willing to forfeit anymore. And 'the state' is warring on precisely these: on fully-developing individualities… to seek to become which… is the most radical political act under 'class'.

 

A dangerous pass… but there's no getting around it.

 

Knowing this… knowing that there is no other way to our freedom… will allow us to stop procrastinating and get on with it… get this 'job' done… we know we must… our survival as human beings who are fully-developing… requires it.

 

–––

 

[“151004recoveringouroriginalself.mp3”:]

 

We have stuck with the theme of “outing 'hidden-power'” because it's hard to fight an opponent that you can't see (this obviously has relevance for their use of EMF-weaponry – and their attachment to them – all utilized completely without legal authority [they sure interfere with our right as a people to pursue happiness…]) …we are the opposite of them…: they want to force everyone to stay small so they can seem big… we want to create the conditions so that everyone can be big – own their own gifts… develop and share them without coercion… so that the beauty we create together will dazzle us… we have faith in our Brothers and Sisters… Our first allegiance is to life… and in its restoration to health lies our purpose. We have to seek our place in the story of “life regaining its freedom…” Our original… authentic …'self'… provides the key to our gaining that path… so we start there… in recovering it… and we seek help from the ancestors… the earth… and each other… in order to do that…

 

We have stuck with the theme of “outing 'hidden-power'” because it's hard to fight an opponent that you can't see (this obviously has relevance for their use of EMF-weaponry – and their attachment to them – all utilized completely without legal authority [they sure interfere with our right as a people to pursue happiness…] and we have to start talking about it. I say this at times to folks on the street: “They got EMF weapons that can take out ships. What do you think they do to people who dissent? Can we really accept a world where there is no dissent?… in which we must obey or else be targeted?… with weaponry that we can say nothing about?… be 'punished'? And what would that make us?… effectively 'slaves'…”)

 

…we are the opposite of them…: they want to force everyone to stay small so they can seem big…

 

…we want to create the conditions so that everyone can be big – own their own gifts… develop and share them without coercion… so that the beauty we create together will dazzle us… we have faith in our Brothers and Sisters…

 

'Martial arts' practice is supposed to be tied to a larger purpose… beyond individual physical and spiritual development… it is tied to righting wrongs… and the bigger the wrong addressed… the bigger the 'martial artist'. Let's set 'belts' aside and look wide… look at the massive wrong being done to life… to its health and vitality… We cannot pretend this is not the first priority for all of us… when life itself is at risk.

 

For all of us… what expresses our deepest connection to each other is this first allegiance… to life (there's a key piece of our new education to make sure we pass on to each other and the children: our first allegiance is to life…)

 

…and in its restoration to health lies our purpose.

 

We have to seek our place in the story of “life regaining its freedom…”

 

…we all have a place in it.

 

Our original… authentic …'self'… provides the key to our gaining that path…

 

…so we start there… in recovering it…

 

…and we seek help from the ancestors… the earth… and each other… in order to do that…

 

The first step is of course wanting to… wanting to recover our original… true… 'self'…

 

…but we'll have to assume that at some point… due to some set of 'right' circumstances… each one of us who has experienced that loss will want to recover that of which we were robbed…

 

We must have faith in our Brothers and Sisters.

 

–––

 

[“151004thechainsaregone.mp3”:]

 

…we are at the moment where we can literally organize a 'world evolution'… – it is time for us to move on… ten thousand years of 'class' is more than enough… and the moment we have the means to move on we have to… that's our responsibility to life… it is no accident that the earth's ecosystems… its biodiversity… the health of its oceans… our air and water contaminated… This is not by accident… that they want us struggling to actually breathe… that we're looking at famines and hunger and droughts a'plenty… This is called the wages of… not 'greed' but rather… a hubris scaled beyond belief… beyond the comprehension of most of us… So… we all… must… in this moment… become 'martial artists'… and the terms have changed… we have new terms of engagement with 'power'… The chains are gone… we just haven't been discussing it so the word hasn't been passed on…

 

Interestingly… there's a really good illustration of precisely what a 'martial arts' practice ('martial arts' in quotes – I'm arguing that all the arts in this moment are going to have to become 'martial'… that is to say… must engage in this struggle – we are being warred on… and so we all have to step up… and take a stand for our very existence as 'fully-developing humans'…) what a martial arts practice must be to confront global-'power' in the most recent Slingshot… our local anarchist newspaper… It sheds light on many of our current themes: having 'faith in our Brothers and Sisters'… incorporating into planning and strategy the new terms of our engagement with 'power' (and by that I mean that we can communicate instantaneously… that we have the Internet… the fact that we can organize a one-day global General Strike almost overnight… when before that would never have been… our Good Three talked about there being… up to now… two 'world revolutions'… well we are at the moment where we can literally organize a 'world evolution'… – it is time for us to move on… ten thousand years of 'class' is more than enough… and the moment we have the means to move on we have to… that's our responsibility to life… it is no accident that the earth's ecosystems… its biodiversity… the health of its oceans… our air and water contaminated… This is not by accident… that they want us struggling to actually breathe… that we're looking at famines and hunger and droughts a'plenty… This is called the wages of… not 'greed' but rather… a hubris scaled beyond belief… beyond the comprehension of most of us… So… we all… must… in this moment… become 'martial artists'… and the terms have changed… we have new terms of engagement with 'power'… The chains are gone… we just haven't been discussing it so the word hasn't been passed on…)

 

[“151004zapatistamartialarts.mp3”:]

 

“…[a teacher from Tuxtia] asks what people think of the Zapatistas. I reply that when I was younger, 6 or 10 years ago, everyone on the left talked about the Zapatistas, but it seems to be less in fashion now. 'You know, I think everybody looks at movements in other countries for how they relate to your own. When the talk was about globalization…' [and isn't it interesting how 'the talk' is no longer about 'the world'… no longer about 'class struggle'… because remember our Good Three reminded us that the concept 'class struggle' is by definition… because 'power' is global… a global endeavor… but that got 'lost' along the way… so… these things just 'pass in and out of fashion'… Well… how is it that something as major as our existence as free humans becomes 'out of fashion'?] “It's all about producing healthy and pure food, remembering that man and woman are equal, education of the children [recall in a recent show our comment that the front line assault from 'power' on us was being conducted… as Marx wrote… right under his nose… that it simply would not occur to him… to look for the 'power'-guys offensive on us… among child-rearing activists…], and resolving conflicts with each other…”

 

…and this article shows us a concrete example of the 'martial arts' practice we must design… confronting the hard questions… creating a practice that cannot be undermined by agents [and we've talked about why that is in previous shows but we're going to revisit and get a little clearer on that question of why it is that the practice we design cannot be undermined by agents… and we're going to be discussing in a minute how that has been their favorite tactic… Marx attributes this tactic to Louis Bonaparte…]:

Trekking back from the bathrooms [the author is in “Oventik, a Zapatista town that is having their annual Festival del los Caracoles, their Snail or Spiral Festival”…], she [a teacher from Tuxtia, the capital of Chiapas, Mexico…] asks what people think of the Zapatistas. I reply that when I was younger, 6 or 10 years ago, everyone on the left talked about the Zapatistas, but it seems to be less in fashion now. “You know, I think everybody looks at movements in other countries for how they relate to your own. When the talk was about globalization [and isn't it interesting how 'the talk' is no longer about 'the world'… no longer about 'class struggle'… because remember our Good Three reminded us that the concept 'class struggle' is by definition… because 'power' is global… a global endeavor… but that got 'lost' along the way… so… these things just 'pass in and out of fashion'… Well… how is it that something as major as our existence as free humans becomes 'out of fashion'?… – P.S.], the Zapatistas offered a vision of an alternative. In the last year, the big fight is against police violence in the cities, violence against bla–”

 

And I am hushed as two lines of masked men and women march past us, a solemn procession.

 

“Who are they?” I whisper after they pass.

 

“The Clandestine Committee,” they proceed through the crowd to the front of the stage. There is a speech. Despite the military concentration just down the road… the speaker doesn't talk about the glorious resistance of fighting, martyrs, or the brutality of the evil government. It's all about producing healthy and pure food, remembering that man and woman are equal, education of the children [recall in a recent show our comment that the front line assault from 'power' on us was being conducted… as Marx wrote… right under his nose… that it simply would not occur to him… to look for the 'power'-guys offensive on us… among child-rearing activists… changing the terms of engagement – that was their major 'changing the terms of engagement'… with us – but has that not been supremely effective for them?… this brainwashing technique called “get the parents to do the work for you…” and then 'power' doesn't have to worry about this problem of 'disobedience'… if you can get the parents to train the children to be obedient to authority… there you are… 'easy-peazy-lemon-squeezy' (love that film… Attack the Block…) they knocked us silly with that technique and we didn't even know… we didn't even notice – not by accident… our attention always gets diverted once we start seeing the truth… they bring out some pundits to get us chasing some illusory problem… 'Power' has arrived at the realization that the best way to control dissent is to give us the 'movement' to get involved in: “here… this is the safe one…” – you can tell the ones that 'power' didn't create that are challenging to 'power'… they're gone… Well we have to do better… now that we see what's going on… – P.S.], and resolving conflicts with each other.…

 

[“151004somethingnewforthechildren.mp3”:]

 

[So the speaker from the Clandestine Committee isn't interested in talking about the 'glory' of fighting… the speaker wants to talk about life… about the glory of creating something new for the children – that's what we need to be focused on… that's what 'power' doesn't want us focused on…] “I think about the difference between the Zapatistas and radical folks in the US. Radical rhetoric and imagery from anti-government folks usually focus on the glory of resistance and struggle, crowds in the street and cop cars on fire, as the important thing, the exciting thing. In contrast, Zapatistas see the real work, the important thing, as growing their own food, raising their children, living together. They are willing to engage in armed struggle to defend this autonomy from a government they feel has no legitimacy, but that's not what they want to devote their energy toward.… Their autonomy is due both to their own unbending will, and international pressure that keeps the Mexican military from slaughtering them wholesale…” The challenge we face is not lack of courage but lack of certainty. Certainty is what we get when we recover the 'self' that is authentic… which is why Alice – her deepest argument that child-rearing under 'class' is totalitarian – is suppressed… and why it's important we incorporate her into our discussions… into our new education that we design for each other.

 

[So the speaker from the Clandestine Committee isn't interested in talking about the 'glory' of fighting… the speaker wants to talk about life… about the glory of creating something new for the children – that's what we need to be focused on… that's what 'power' doesn't want us focused on…

 

…and the last piece of their focus was 'resolving conflicts with each other'… and that ties directly into our discussions of making what we do 'agent-proof'… – P.S.]

 

Then the music starts and the basketball court and beyond becomes a dance floor. The Zapatistas don't drink alcohol. This was a controversial decision that was pushed through by Zapatista women, partly because of alcohol's associations with violence and sexual assault. In this crowd of over a thousand, I see no conflicts all night, and I'm amazed at how giddy and ridiculous I feel without alcohol, how light I feel without having to fend off drunken guys. There are still hundreds of couples dancing when the last band wraps up at 3 AM.

 

In between dancing, people eat and drink coffee. Zapatistas are used to foreigners coming through, and they're comfortable and confident talking. The ones I spoke to had absolutely no interest in our demonstrations, our revolts, our publications. All they ask me is “And what food projects do you have? And what of the education of your children? They are not incredibly impressed by my replies.

 

I think about the difference between the Zapatistas and radical folks in the US. Radical rhetoric and imagery from anti-government folks usually focus on the glory of resistance and struggle, crowds in the street and cop cars on fire, as the important thing, the exciting thing.

 

In contrast, Zapatistas see the real work, the important thing, as growing their own food, raising their children, living together. They are willing to engage in armed struggle to defend this autonomy from a government they feel has no legitimacy, but that's not what they want to devote their energy toward.… Their autonomy is due both to their own unbending will, and international pressure that keeps the Mexican military from slaughtering them wholesale.

 

The Zapatistas are alive and well.

 

I can't copy them, as I am not, and can never be, tied to a piece of land in the way that they are. And I wouldn't want to, as I'm lazy and the thought of being so enmeshed with my extended family makes me nauseous.… (Wolverine de Cleyre, “Alive and Well: A Visit to Zapatista Territory”, Slingshot, Fall, 2015)

The challenge we face is not lack of courage but lack of certainty. Certainty is what we get when we recover the 'self' that is authentic… which is why Alice – her deepest argument that child-rearing under 'class' is totalitarian – is suppressed… and why it's important we incorporate her into our discussions… into our new education that we design for each other.

 

The guidance just received from our Sister and Brother Zapatistas… via Wolverine (and props to Wolverine… for capturing – consciously and otherwise – all the most relevant issues so succinctly…) Zapatista guidance would be to include in our practice: self-sufficiency provision… education redesign… reclaiming our bodies… not relinquishing our children… securing international support and co-planning…

 

…i.e.… they model our path forward (and allow us to understand why such mobilizations as the Black Panthers… MOVE… and the Occupy Movement had – from the perspective of 'power' – to be destroyed.)

 

But what of Wolverine's last point… that she is a traveler… that she wants no constraints on her? That must be incorporated too. That is our future: no coercion.

 

–––

 

* “WUR of October 4, 2015 Reading… continuing our interlude: Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… before returning to the chapter "Poisonous Pedagogy" in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good

 

[“151004decembertensociety1.mp3”:]

 

“This society dates from the year 1849.” [And let's not forget… from our 'Good Three's analysis… that 1848 was the first world revolution…] “In his Society of December 10, he assembles ten thousand rascally fellows, who are to play the part of the people, as Nick Bottom that of the lion. At a moment when the bourgeoisie itself played the most complete comedy, but in the most serious manner in the world, without infringing any of the pedantic conditions of French dramatic etiquette, and was itself half deceived, half convinced of the solemnity of its own performance of state, the adventurer, who took the comedy as plain comedy, was bound to win.” [And that's an astute observation about 'power': those folks… in our case ten thousand global-guys… who take the comedy as comedy are bound to win over those (we-the-people) who are not able to wrestle with the real conditions that are determining things…

 

[We are reading excerpts from Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… and Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914, in order to see the origins of the 'modern' bureaucratic nation-state in the fixed determination of 'statesmen' to repress us… we-the-people… It is a new invention (we might even call it an 'intervention'…) and as long as it sits on us… we cannot grow into our infinite expansiveness.

 

Today Marx shows us a 'power'-tactic that… once grasped… they never let go of. He gives Louis Bonaparte credit for its invention. (I don't know if that's been confirmed since then…) Last week we introduced it with these words: The shadow-state needs shadow-troops… with shadow-orders… that they execute…When 'power' wants to operate 'extra-legally'… they convene impromptu 'December 10' societies. Earlier in the book Marx describes the Society of December 10 in this way… – P.S.]:

This society dates from the year 1849. [And let's not forget… from our 'Good Three's analysis… that 1848 was the first world revolution… We'll delve more into this when we read our excerpt from Wallerstein's most recent… – P.S.] On the pretext of founding a benevolent society, the lumpenproletariat [an ugly word… Marx's unfortunate use of which fits with his utilitarianism… – P.S.] of Paris had been organized into secret sections, each section being led by Bonapartist agents, with a Bonapartist general at the head of the whole. Alongside decayed roues with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaus [procurers], brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ-grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars – in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French term la boheme; from this kindred element Bonaparte formed the core of the Society of December 10. [They don't fit neatly into the notion of 'class' do they?… but they had to impose that on us… We'll get back to that whole question… – P.S.] A “benevolent society” – in so far as, like Bonaparte, all its members felt the need of benefitting themselves at the expense of the labouring nation. This Bonaparte, who constitutes himself chief of the lumpenproletariat, who here alone rediscovers in mass form the interests which he personally pursues, who recognizes in this scum, offal, refuse of all classes the only class upon which he can base himself unconditionally, is the real Bonaparte, the Bonaparte sans phrases [“without the BS…” – P.S.]. An old crafty roue, he conceives the historical life of the nations and their performances of state as comedy in the most vulgar sense, as a masquerade where the grand costumes, words and postures merely serve to make the pettiest knavery.… In his Society of December 10, he assembles ten thousand rascally fellows, who are to play the part of the people, as Nick Bottom that of the lion. At a moment when the bourgeoisie itself played the most complete comedy, but in the most serious manner in the world, without infringing any of the pedantic conditions of French dramatic etiquette, and was itself half deceived, half convinced of the solemnity of its own performance of state, the adventurer, who took the comedy as plain comedy, was bound to win. [And that's an astute observation about 'power': those folks… in our case ten thousand global-guys… who take the comedy as comedy are bound to win over those (we-the-people) who are not able to wrestle with the real conditions that are determining things… – P.S.]

 

[“151004decembertensociety2.mp3”:]

 

Take this drama to the world stage and you have hidden-'power' today – just think 'ISIS' and drug cartels… 'Boko Haram' and infiltrators-of-police-forces… agent provocateurs of all sorts… etc.… – or in my micro-micro situation: students and the 'low-income'… including immigrants and formerly-incarcerated… and I suppose some bored Plato's Tribesmen-sympathizers eager for action… for the human-weaponry Marx names… – plotting and planning behind scenes (they live to scheme – it's the only way they can feel smarter than everyone else… and they definitely need to feel smarter than everyone else…) while keeping us… not just ignorant of their actions – that goes without saying – but… as Marx says… ignorant of the play… ignorant that there is a play going on… oblivious that we are the puppets… while the hidden 'adventurers' as Marx termed them – and is that not a good word to use… to describe Plato's Tribe?… out to deceive the world while designing the global-stage as a House of Horrors – hand us sentences drenched in blood… our own… and the blood of our Brothers and Sisters… [It may be… it's worth our consideration certainly… that Marx has alighted here… unwittingly (as he could not see the aftermath… as we have…) at a moment of initiation – of the almost-but-one first generation Plato's Tribesmen… first fruit if not First Cause – of the plan to re-invent and realize… Plato's Vision and Handbook… Because … it seems to me… this is not buffoonery… but 'hidden-power' cracking its knuckles… experimenting… and readying itself… for 'play' on a larger stage…

 

[Take this drama to the world stage and you have hidden-'power' today – just think 'ISIS' and drug cartels… 'Boko Haram' and infiltrators-of-police-forces (how easy is it to create havoc… you just stick your agents in there… and you immediately create the opinions that you want… manipulate people in the direction that you want… Aren't we tired of this?… this endless manipulation of us?… Are we not ready to create authentic… honest… lives… and a world that is what it appears to be… so that our children can grow up in it honestly?…) agent provocateurs of all sorts… etc.… – or in my micro-micro situation: students and the 'low-income'… immigrants and formerly-incarcerated (they've accumulated a whole bunch of folk… and if they've done that here… they've done that other places as well… So they have utilized this tactic … this 'Society of December 10' tactic… it has to be a global tactic – I'm curious if others have noticed this tactic utilized around the world… See… this is why we need to organize a One-Day-Global-General-Strike'… not just to organize a One-Day-Global General Strike… but to begin a process of sharing knowledge and information about the tactics 'power' uses… so that we can share knowledge and information about the successful ways to confront those tactics… you know?… I have never heard discussed this tactic… and yet it is clearly one that they have used over and over with great success…) So… they throw in a whole bunch of folk: including their 'trainees' – the 'students' they're snowing… and by 'their students' I mean their 'Plato-lovin'-proto-fascist' duped-and-snowed children… and some… I imagine… older 'Tribesmen'… Plato's Tribesmen-sympathizers eager for action… for the human-weaponry Marx names… – plotting and planning behind scenes (they live to scheme – it's the only way they can feel smarter than everyone else… and they definitely need to feel smarter than everyone else…) while keeping us… not just ignorant of their actions – that goes without saying – but… as Marx says… ignorant of the play… ignorant that there is a play going on… oblivious that we are the puppets… while the hidden 'adventurers' as Marx termed them – and is that not a good word to use… to describe Plato's Tribe?… out to deceive the world while designing the global-stage as a House of Horrors – hand us sentences drenched in blood… our own… and the blood of our Brothers and Sisters… – P.S.]

 

…Only when he has eliminated his solemn opponent, when he himself now takes his imperial role seriously and under the Napoleonic mask imagines he is the real Napoleon, does he become the victim of his own conceptions of the world, the serious buffoon who no longer takes world history for a comedy but his comedy for world history.…

 

[It may be… it's worth our consideration certainly… that Marx has alighted here… unwittingly (as he could not see the aftermath… as we have…) at a moment of initiation – of the almost-but-one first generation Plato's Tribesmen… first fruit if not First Cause – of the plan to re-invent and realize… Plato's Vision and Handbook… Because … it seems to me… this is not buffoonery… but 'hidden-power' cracking its knuckles… experimenting… and readying itself… for 'play' on a larger stage…

 

[“151004preparationforlaunch.mp3”:]

 

“When Louis Napoleon made his coup d'etat on December 2, 1851, the primary objective was to repress the left. The secondary objective was, however, to constrain the ability of conservative forces to act other than through him. One can, if one wants, emphasize the Caesarist – the so-called Bonapartist – element in the regime. If one does, however, one risks missing the degree to which the outcome of the repression, which was both real and effective, was that of a centrist regime, oriented to capitalist expansion, constructing a liberal compromise – one led not by a classical liberal but by an enlightened conservative.” [If… as is the argument here… 'power' has gone shadow… to pursue a vision on the down-low… views accumulation as means (as Hirschman has helped us to see…) to realize this dream… then Napoleon the Nephew may be helping to launch that vessel…]

 

…it also may be helpful to quickly glance… at the broader context that time (and Immanuel Wallerstein's analysis…) has enhanced… in anticipation of our further look… into Immanuel's book:

 

“The tide – that is, the European revolution of 1848 – as all such great happenings, was made up of a mixture of movements and objectives. In France, it consisted essentially of the joining together of Europe's 'first great proletarian insurrection' (Tilly, 1971, 228) with the acute discontent of the left liberals who shared John Stuart Mill's view of the conservatization of the July Monarchy.…

 

“…The uprising of February 1848 illuminated the hopes of a 'social republic,' a vague socialist utopia that would provide jobs to the unemployed and liberation to all those who suffered indignities and inequalities. Everyone put forward their claims: the 'artisans'… the peasants… the women… the slaves… (p. 89)

 

“…The liberals acted in 1848 just as they had in 1830. Dismayed by a regime that had become too rigid, too illiberal, they rose up and quickly won the day. Then, dismayed by the possibility that the lower strata would be able to take advantage of the situation and push things too far [and this illustrates… again… that… to win our freedom… we have to trust our Brothers and Sisters (and… nullify the effect of agents…) have faith that all of us want the same things… ultimately: we want to be big… we want to grow our gifts… and we need to trust that in each other… – P.S.], they renewed their links with the political groups they had just ousted from power, because 'the enemy, at present, is on the left' (Palmade, 1961, 255). When Louis Napoleon made his coup d'etat on December 2, 1851, the primary objective was to repress the left. The secondary objective was, however, to constrain the ability of conservative forces to act other than through him. One can, if one wants, emphasize the Caesarist – the so-called Bonapartist – element in the regime. If one does, however, one risks missing the degree to which the outcome of the repression, which was both real and effective, was that of a centrist regime, oriented to capitalist expansion, constructing a liberal compromise – one led not by a classical liberal but by an enlightened conservative.” (Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914, p. 91 – 2)

 

If… as is the argument here… 'power' has gone shadow… to pursue a vision on the down-low… views accumulation as means (as Hirschman has helped us to see…) to realize this dream… then Napoleon the Nephew may be helping to launch that vessel… Continuing with The Eighteenth Brumaire… What follows should sound familiar to us… I thought of George Bush (the Lesser)'s (first) run for President… – P.S.]

 

What the national ateliers were for the socialist workers, what the Gardes mobile were for the bourgeois republicans, the Society of December 10 was for Bonaparte, the party fighting force peculiar to him. On his journeys the detachments of this society packing the railways had to improvise a public for him, stage public enthusiasm, roar vive l”Empereur, insult and thrash republicans, of course, under the protection of the police. On his return journeys to Paris they had to form the advance guard, forestall counter-demonstrations or disperse them. [This is what we see in every mobilization on the Left that has any ability to challenge 'power' to any degree: they mobilize the counter-demonstrations… they make sure they infiltrate our demonstrations with folks who claim they need this ability to smash windows because… 'whatever-whatever'… some peculiar rationale that no one believes… but which the media then makes sure gets distributed ad infinitum… and make sure that becomes the last image folks have of what happened… and that any kind of righteous cause gets suppressed… is never discussed… – P.S.] The Society of December 10 belonged to him, it was his work, his very own idea. Whatever else he appropriates is put into his hands by the force of circumstances; whatever else he does, the circumstance do for him or he is content to copy from the deeds of others. But Bonaparte with official phrases about order, religion, family and property in public, before the citizens, and with the secret society of the Schufterles and Spiegelbergs [a note at the back reads: “characters in Schiller's drama Die Rauber (The Robbers), who plunder and murder unimpeded by any moral scruples.…”], the society of disorder, prostitution and theft, behind him – that is Bonaparte himself as original author, and the history of the Society of December 10 is his own history.…

 

[This cannot be the first use of this tactic… is it Machiavellian?… the 'Bonaparte's are Italian… – P.S.]

 

…Now it happened by way of exception that people's representatives belonging to the party of Order came under the cudgels of the Decembrists. Still more, Yon, the Police Commissioner assigned to the National Assembly and charged with watching over its safety, acting on the deposition of a certain Alais, advised the Permanent Commission that a section of the Decembrists had decided to assassinate General Changarnier and Dupin, the President of the National Assembly, and had already designated the individuals who were to perpetuate the deed.… One comprehends the terror of M. Dupin. A parliamentary enquiry into the Society of December 10, that is, the profanation of the Bonapartist secret world, seemed inevitable. Just before the meeting of the National Assembly Bonaparte providently disbanded his society, naturally only on paper, for in a detailed manner at the end of 1851 Police Prefect Carlier still sought in vain to move him to really break up the Decembrists.

 

The Society of December 10 was to remain the private army of Bonaparte until he succeeded in transforming the public army into a Society of December 10. Bonaparte made the first attempt at this shortly after the adjournment of the National Assembly, and precisely with the money just wrested from it. As a fatalist, he lives in the conviction that there are certain higher powers which man, and the soldier in particular, cannot withstand. Among these powers he counts, first and foremost, cigars and champagne, cold poultry and garlic sausage. Accordingly, to begin with, he treats officers and non-commissioned officers in his Elysee apartments to cigars and champagne, to cold poultry and garlic sausage. On October 3 he repeats this manoeuvre with the mass of the troops at the St. Maur review, and on October 10 the same manoeuvre on a still larger scale at the Satory army parade. The Uncle remembered the campaigns of Alexander in Asia, the Nephew the triumphal marches of Bacchus in the same land. Alexander was a demigod, to be sure, but Bacchus was a god and moreover the tutelary deity of the Society of December 10.

 

–––

 

[October 4, 2015 show ends here.]

 

–––

 

* “WUR of October 11, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.5): Segue From Antisystemic Movements… To Alice

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 26)

 

[“151011endgametime.mp3”:]

 

Our argument here is that to successfully organize to design a global alternative to the regime of 'class'… reclaiming our human energy globally… we have to address the actual conditions that 'power' has used to defeat our organization: agent infiltration… and EMF (electro-magnetic-force) weapons… These actual conditions then become assumptions of our activism… and only focuses of it in the sense of (in the case of agents) structuring our practice to eliminate the possibility of agents undermining it… and… (in the case of EMF weapons) to protect ourselves against them… …and… we need discussion: various venues and platforms for propagating it… particularly in neighborhoods… using the tools above just mentioned (more on this next week…) (When I talk about 'agent infiltration' I'm not talking just about 'movements'… I'm talking about into all aspects of our existence under class… This is something they have been preparing for… this 'end-game-time' when the resources run out [which they read as “too many people…] and as 'stewards' of Plato's dream – the Republic – they follow that playbook pretty carefully… and Plato advised them: “You've got to manage the population… don't allow it to get so large such that it threatens your rule…”)

 

October 6, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Our argument here is that to successfully organize to design a global alternative to the regime of 'class'… reclaiming our human energy globally… we have to address the actual conditions that 'power' has used to defeat our organization: agent infiltration… and EMF (electro-magnetic-force) weapons… These actual conditions then become assumptions of our activism… and only focuses of it in the sense of (in the case of agents) structuring our practice to eliminate the possibility of agents undermining it… and… (in the case of EMF weapons) to protect ourselves against them…

 

…protection against EMF-weapons means doctors willing to be 'Miklos'… tracing the physiological effects of these various weapons on our bodies… devising tests that confirm them (at times I taste metal… so is there a 'saliva-test'?…) helping to document their existence…

 

…and it means folks who can design low-cost detection devices… and others with means to help disseminate them…

 

…it means folks willing to create the online mechanisms for organizing global General Strikes… as well as to counter attempts to suppress them…

 

…and… we need discussion: various venues and platforms for propagating it… particularly in neighborhoods… using the tools above just mentioned (more on this next week…) (When I talk about 'agent infiltration' I'm not talking just about 'movements'… I'm talking about into all aspects of our existence under class… This is something they have been preparing for… this 'end-game-time' when the resources run out [which they read as “too many people…”] and as 'stewards' of Plato's dream – the Republic – they follow that playbook pretty carefully… and Plato advised them: “You've got to manage the population… don't allow it to get so large such that it threatens your rule…” Point being: they are organizing in our communities… and I'm not just talking about on the level of infiltration of the media and the arts… which are obvious because those are the thoughts that occupy folks' heads – that's the front-line there – but I'm talking about buying up land and real estate in areas where there had been progressive movements… and being the ones that write those 'letters to the editor'… They are actively involved in crafting public opinion… and we haven't talked about that… We have to… those are barriers that have to be addressed… barriers to our believing that we deserve our freedom…)

 

…and we must urge ourselves on despite what seems like a world set against it… acknowledging that it's very challenging to confront a global set of 'rulers' who stay hidden.

 

[“151011theftofourgreatness.mp3”:]

 

Perhaps the most useful (strategic) way of thinking about hidden-'power' (as we neither know nor care who the ten thousand 'power'-guys are exactly…) is as a series of suppressions… or thefts… i.e.… the effects of these busy-as-bees-global-misanthropists: what has been taken from us – our 'selves'… most fundamentally – that must be recovered for us to have certainty about the need to defend it… the recovered self… the authentic. (More and more of us today are seeing that it is this individual 'self' that we have to have allegiance to… in order to want the bigger societal vision that allows that individual self to flourish… We can't want that global alternative if we don't desperately want this jewel… this gem… this treasure… which is ourselves… our individual 'self'… to be able to flourish and expand limitlessly… And we want the 'authentic' – that's key… – as we can't expand limitlessly unless we have a world… designed by us… which is honest…)

 

Perhaps the most useful (strategic) way of thinking about hidden-'power' (as we neither know nor care who the ten thousand 'power'-guys are exactly…) is as a series of suppressions… or thefts… i.e.… the effects of these busy-as-bees-global-misanthropists: what has been taken from us – our 'selves'… most fundamentally – that must be recovered for us to have certainty about the need to defend it… the recovered self… the authentic. (More and more of us today are seeing that it is this individual 'self' that we have to have allegiance to… in order to want the bigger societal vision that allows that individual self to flourish… We can't want that global alternative if we don't desperately want this jewel… this gem… this treasure… which is ourselves… our individual 'self'… to be able to flourish and expand limitlessly… And we want the 'authentic' – that's key… – as we can't expand limitlessly unless we have a world… designed by us… which is honest…)

 

We have been synthesizing and advancing our ancestors' gifts… coming to (our own) terms with what has happened to us… What is this 'history' that we're given? If not a 'history' of our suppression? What does this 'history' mean… for us?… if not the theft of our greatness? (and we need to ponder this… the reality that each human being possesses the seed of 'greatness'… and that has been suppressed massively… across the millennia – which is why it is going to be a dazzling thing to see those seeds sprout and bear fruit – that's our future…)

 

[“151011wearenotworkers.mp3”:]

 

“We are human beings… not 'workers'…” What is this 'history' that we're given? If not a 'history' of our suppression? What does this 'history' mean… for us?… if not the theft of our greatness?… leaving us with a dangerous (for 'power'…) pack of unanswered questions… that we set aside when we decide to 'fit'… into 'the system'… into one of those 'roles' those ten thousand guys have created for us…

 

What is this 'history' that we're given? If not a 'history' of our suppression? What does this 'history' mean… for us?… if not the theft of our greatness?… leaving us with a dangerous (for 'power'…) pack of unanswered questions… that we set aside when we decide to 'fit'… into 'the system'… into one of those 'roles' those ten thousand guys have created for us…

 

[“151011followingourquestions.mp3”:]

 

…from infancy up… 'force' never felt right… provoked unease… and unanswered questions… stimulated discord… put us at odds with the very ones we must learn from… and this process was for us… various… Our determination… despite this early silencing… to “follow our questions” is the re-education process… it is the 'pursuit of happiness'… as… to solve long-buried riddles not only gives us satisfaction… but peace… it is restorative of calm… to finally find ourselves on a true path… the path that leads to a reincorporation of all the true power of which we were systematically robbed. “Following our questions” begins by writing them down… taking them seriously… it means never being without our notebooks…

 

…but when we revisit that 'pack' with new information – a sun opening the darkness – we are born anew (an expression unfortunately already [multiply] claimed… but no less apt for that…)

 

I've found that the process of regaining our original 'selves' is as many-faceted as that of losing it – another expression of the 'class'-system's inherent totalitarianism… We didn't lose our 'self' all at once… it was a many-layered theft… a series of multiple suppressions – which is what makes its recovery so challenging… and so inevitable once we embark on the path of seeking it… which is the path of 'following-our-questions'… For each of us those questions vary somewhat – though they are uniformly sourced in 'power's thrust to ensnare us in a 'web of obligation' (and of course initially it is our parents who do this… ) –

 

…from infancy up… 'force' never felt right… provoked unease… and unanswered questions… stimulated discord… put us at odds with the very ones we must learn from… and this process was for us… various…

 

…but for each of us (under 'class'…) our search for answers got interrupted. We cannot battle long when 'the world' confirms as 'right' a massive 'wrong'…

 

Our determination… despite this early silencing… to “follow our questions” is the re-education process… it is the 'pursuit of happiness'… as… to solve long-buried riddles not only gives us satisfaction… but peace… it is restorative of calm… to finally find ourselves on a true path… the path that leads to a reincorporation of all the true power of which we were systematically robbed.

 

“Following our questions” begins by writing them down… taking them seriously… it means never being without our notebooks…

 

And just as 'power's need to divide us (from ourselves and from each other…) is the source of our unanswered questions under 'class'… recovering our lost connections with all our relations… and particularly with our Brothers and Sisters… is the source of our freedom…

 

This process is much more contagious than 'power'-worship… the earth bends us to her… once we attend to her (the circularity of 'power's propaganda is an attempt to put itself in the way of… and to replicate… this effect…) and…

 

…as Walter Lundquist (quoted in Waking Up, p. 80) said: “Once you wake up the human animal you can’t put it back to sleep again.”

 

–––

 

[“151011derangeddreamofthepowermad.mp3”:]

 

We have been collectively enacting the fantasies of the deranged. It's long past time for us to live authentic lives. Karl Popper has reminded us that 'the state' is a recent invention… coterminous with the 'birth'… the 'self-creation'… of the global-state-statesmen… these self-same 'power'-mad Few… …and we said that it is only by self-creating ourselves into 'a people' here in the U.S.… that we can confront global-'power'… confront the 'logic' and the repressive machinery of 'the state'… and this is confirmed by Kropotkin when he says that “mutual aid leads to mutual confidence… which is the first condition for courage…” The key to the successful organizing of ourselves into groups… 'core-selves'… and broader associations around the implementation of specific plans… lies in the open acknowledgement of the tactics 'power' uses to destroy 'solidarity' (which is an embedded goal in whatever we do.)

 

'Martial artists' in this moment… I've been arguing we must be… as 'power' wars on us incessantly when we claim our right to be fully-developing individualities… i.e.… pursue our happiness collectively… This 'project' requires us to resist 'power's totalitarian ethics… its utilitarian 'morality'.

 

But what we haven't discussed is the degree to which… our freedom is an intervention in… unconscious patterns of these global-'statesmen'… Plato's Tribesmen…

 

…patterns that they have no ability to see… let alone alter…

 

…and that these patterns mean… they cannot feel remorse or empathy… they cannot feel anything… though they long for a sense of absolute safety…

 

…and their dream… is a world… not just machine-like… but run by… machines.

 

Their need for what they think of as absolute 'safety' explains their obsession with social fabrication… with being the 'architect' of what… under 'class'… is called 'reality' – though it is anything but…

 

We are trying to be authentic in a world of 'class'… a world therefore false by definition… but… in addition… we are trying to be authentic in a world which they… these Sad-Abandoned-Children-Made-Misanthropists… who hide their faces from us… while claiming global-provenance… are actively trying to make more inauthentic by the minute…

 

(…and I'm more and more convinced… that this daily invention and dissemination of more falseness… ever-deeper lies… while done to achieve their obvious end of increasing divisions between us – we-the-people – is also done just to keep us disoriented… dispirited… off our centers… never knowing what anything is [and this is… of course… what was done to them… as children…])

 

Brothers and Sisters… this charade is not worthy of us… being forced to live out the 'Power'-mad Few's experience of abandonment… as if we were but shadows in a dream… the dream of a diseased mind.

 

We have been collectively enacting the fantasies of the deranged.

 

It's long past time for us to live authentic lives.

 

Karl Popper has reminded us that 'the state' is a recent invention… coterminous with the 'birth'… the 'self-creation'… of the global-state-statesmen… these self-same 'power'-mad Few…

 

…and we said that it is only by self-creating ourselves into 'a people' here in the U.S.… that we can confront global-'power'… confront the 'logic' and the repressive machinery of 'the state'… and this is confirmed by Kropotkin when he says that “mutual aid leads to mutual confidence… which is the first condition for courage…”

 

The key to the successful organizing of ourselves into groups… 'core-selves'… and broader associations around the implementation of specific plans… lies in the open acknowledgement of the tactics 'power' uses to destroy 'solidarity' (which is an embedded goal in whatever we do.)

 

What we're doing is showing that there is an authentic way to engage with 'power' – eschewing the phony routes it provides…

 

Once we see their penchant for orchestration… recognize that they own the media… we cannot help but also see that almost all the 'news' we get has some element of fabrication or craft… as controlling what we think is (for their sense of 'security'… their 'rule'…) everything.

 

–––

 

[“151011sleepingmonsterawakes.mp3”:]

 

“The state must be self-sufficient. It must aim at economic autarchy ['economic independence… self-sufficiency…]; for otherwise the rulers would either be dependent upon traders, or become traders themselves. The first of these alternatives would undermine their power, the second their unity and the stability of the state.” [And here we are in debt to Hirschman… who explains the way in which the 'modern'… self-created… 'power'-guys implemented this injunction… by monopolizing the financial mechanisms… access to credit. And so… we see… the sleeping monster Plato… awoke in the minds of these sick folks… and from the seed of his flights of fancy and careless jokes… was built… millennia later… a massive yoke…]

 

Alice Miller explains the roots of totalitarianism – the disease we have been discussing – in child-rearing under the regime of 'class'. Karl Popper exposes the roots of totalitarianism… and 'collective utility' – its ideological justification – in Plato…

 

In the key elements of Plato's – and the totalitarian's – political programme that Popper identifies (in what follows…) do we not recognize our current reality? – clearly… these post-French Revolution… self-invented global-'rulers' have followed Plato's guidance carefully. Let's ask ourselves what their adherence to this program… the imposition of these ideas on us – and the suppressed synthesis of Karl Popper… Martin Bernal… his exposure of Bildung… and Gottingen… Albert O. Hirschman… who clarifies their broad political strategy… and Alice Miller… who explains how it was accomplished with 'child-rearing'… confirms both the imposition… and the conscious intention behind it – has meant for the scope of the human spirit… what it has meant for us to be assigned [by the market or otherwise…] our functions… what it has meant for our common earth that we have allowed such tiny spirits to ravage her. So here's Plato's political program:

“(A) The strict division of the classes; i.e. the ruling class consisting of herdsmen and watchdogs must be strictly separated from the human cattle. [This goal was achieved by its being embedded in an 'objective' 'education system' – i.e. by means of 'educational' screening (a 'system' which provides them with a comforting self-justification: they tell themselves they identify and promote 'the best' of 'the best'…) – the pretence of 'objectivity' helps to conceal its absence… is in keeping with their need to stay hidden… to escape detection… to hide the hand behind the plans to capture and command the mystery of our human energy… – P.S.]

 

“(B) The identification of the fate of the state with that of the ruling class; the exclusive interest in this class, and in its unity; and subservient to this unity, the rigid rules for breeding and educating this class, and the strict supervision and collectivization of the interests of its members.

 

“From these principle elements, others can be derived, for instance the following:

 

“(C) The ruling class has a monopoly of things like military virtues and training, and of the right to carry arms and to receive education of any kind [and recall we said last week (the October 4, 2015 show) that 'the state' is “the self-organization of 'power'”… – P.S.]; but it is excluded from any participation in economic activities, and especially from earning money. [I would argue that utilizing 'accumulation' as a political strategy… i.e. its use as a stratagem… they see as distinct from pursuing money for its own sake… – P.S.]

 

“(D) There must be a censorship of all intellectual activities of the ruling class, and a continual propaganda aiming at moulding and unifying their minds. All innovation in education, legislation, and religion must be prevented or suppressed.

 

“(E) The state must be self-sufficient. It must aim at economic autarchy ['economic independence… self-sufficiency…]; for otherwise the rulers would either be dependent upon traders, or become traders themselves. The first of these alternatives would undermine their power, the second their unity and the stability of the state.” [And here we are in debt to Hirschman… who explains the way in which the 'modern'… self-created… 'power'-guys implemented this injunction… by monopolizing the financial mechanisms… access to credit. And so… we see… the sleeping monster Plato… awoke in the minds of these sick folks… and from the seed of his flights of fancy and careless jokes… was built… millennia later… a massive yoke… – P.S.] (The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, p. 86 – 7)

[“151011disposedofinsecret.mp3”:]

 

“As to my translation, Shorey puts it a little differently; I shall quote from his translation (the italics are mine) also the preceding sentence (referring to infanticide): '…the offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other sort who are born defective, they [the rulers] will properly dispose of in secret, so that no one will know what has become of them. “That is the condition,” he said, “of preserving the purity of the guardian's breed.”') It must have seemed like a dream come true… manna from heaven… these EMF (electro-magnetic-force) weapons… to the 'power'-mad Plato's Tribesmen… confirmation that they were 'meant' to 'rule'… But could they get people to do it?… administer 'shocks' to fellow 'citizens'… How many of our loved ones… in the years subsequent… have they killed? You know folks who have had these weapons used against them. I suspect that almost all of us in urban areas know someone who was targeted… “disposed of in secret…” as Plato authorized 'rulers' to do: eliminate the 'unneeded”… the elderly… the homeless… the disobedient… those with 'heart'… those who care about their Brothers and Sisters. These weapons… after all… would 'have' to be tested… and 'the deficient' needed to go… a 'perfect' conjoining of streams of Necessity… …all of us have lost folk… without knowing it – and those targeted wouldn't know either… because the symptoms are misdiagnosed as 'strokes'… 'heart attacks'… congestive heart failure… various cancers… and Alzheimer's…

 

And what practice is key to the totalitarian creed… to 'collective utility'? – where does it begin… if not in child-alienation?… the practice Plato recommended: child abandonment…

(Popper was attacked for this translation: “'The race of the guardians must be kept pure', says Plato (in defence of infanticide) when developing the racialist argument that we breed animals with great care while neglecting our own race, an argument which has been repeated ever since.”

 

His reply: “Is my translation wrong? Or my assertion that this has been, ever since Plato, the main argument of racialists and breeders of the master race? Or are the guardians not the masters of Plato's best city?

 

“As to my translation, Shorey puts it a little differently; I shall quote from his translation (the italics are mine) also the preceding sentence (referring to infanticide): '…the offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other sort who are born defective, they [the rulers] will properly dispose of in secret, so that no one will know what has become of them. “That is the condition,” he said, “of preserving the purity of the guardian's breed.”') (The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, p. 337 – 8)

And it seems to me… there is a direct line from that command… to the centuries… millennia… that follow… of child-abandonment under 'class' (this is the subject of John Boswell's The Kindness of Strangers: the Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance…)

 

…and… again… we see in their use of EMF [electro-magnetic-force] weaponry… with which we are “disposed of in secret…” what (historically) was done to them.

 

It must have seemed like a dream come true… manna from heaven… these EMF (electro-magnetic-force) weapons… to the 'power'-mad Plato's Tribesmen… confirmation that they were 'meant' to 'rule'… But could they get people to do it?… administer 'shocks' to fellow 'citizens'… those the 'power'-mad (on Plato's authority…) label 'deficient' – 'unneeded'… 'superfluous'… deleterious to the herd… upsetting them… interfering with the plans of 'the chosen' – and target for elimination…

 

…and an experiment at Yale (one of the hubs for the propagation of the 'new master class' ideology…) in 1961 answered the question: yes they could (there's a film out now about that question… called The Experimenter…)

 

How many of our loved ones… in the years subsequent… have they killed? You know folks who have had these weapons used against them. I suspect that almost all of us in urban areas know someone who was targeted… “disposed of in secret…” as Plato authorized 'rulers' to do: eliminate the 'unneeded”… the elderly… the homeless… the disobedient… those with 'heart'… those who care about their Brothers and Sisters. These weapons… after all… would 'have' to be tested… and 'the deficient' needed to go… a 'perfect' conjoining of streams of Necessity…

 

…all of us have lost folk… without knowing it – and those targeted wouldn't know either… because the symptoms are misdiagnosed as 'strokes'… 'heart disease'… congestive heart failure… and Alzheimer's…

 

The cost of accommodating ourselves to 'the false' has come home… we dare not tarry long in deciding to act… now we know… now we know that the world is waiting for us accept the mantle of our 'greater freedom'… bought with their blood and suffering… and… now we know… with our own.

 

–––

[“151011lossofthemothersaffection.mp3”:]

 

How much damage has this one man… Plato… done? It is incalculable… but one thing is certain… it is on his authority that the abandoned-children-who-would-be-gods have contaminated society with the glorification of their own fundamental dishonesty… their obsession with hiding… and lying: “The contrast between the Platonic and the Socratic creed is even greater than I have shown so far… Plato's complete break with anything resembling Socrates' intellectualism is nowhere more obvious than in the place where he twice expresses his hope that even the rulers themselves, at least after a few generations, might be induced to believe his greatest propaganda lie; I mean his racialism, his Myth of Blood and Soil, known as the Myth of the Metals in Man and of the Earthborn. Here we see that Plato's utilitarian and totalitarian principles overrule everything, even the ruler's privilege of knowing and of demanding to be told, the truth…” and in this compulsive need of 'power's to lie… to stay hidden… to punish the 'disobedient'… and eliminate the 'unneeded' (or merely 'deficient'…) we see a key 'repetition compulsion.' They – these ten thousand die-hard misanthropists – have been afraid of us and afraid of us and afraid of us for… – let's say for the sake of convenience – two and a half centuries… ever since the French Revolution… they have projected all of their fear of the unknown onto us. This is… for our purposes… perhaps their most devastating repetition compulsion… …but it is derived from another… more basic… one: their need to 'win' affection… to 'prove' they deserve our attention… because they are 'the best'… this is the key side-effect… of abandonment… of loss of the mother's affection.

 

(And what is the thrust of almost every TV-show my son watches?: “Killing people's not so bad… it's all relative… morally-neutral even… it all depends on 'context'…” [on what 'the state' – which is in all of us… i.e. the 'utilitarian mindset' – feels is needed… Read: “Morality is nothing but political hygiene…” Karl Popper noted a half century or so ago. He was talking about Plato… but Plato lives… in the global-state-statesmen…] This is a new development… designed to dull our sensibilities… make us more like them… so they'll feel safer… safe from any threat of challenge…)

And what is the mindset inherent in the totalitarian creed… and its defining practice of child-alienation?: dualism ('collective utility'…) the deification of 'Mind'… contempt for 'the material'… the real… the concrete… for what Marx (with the ancient Greeks…) would call 'Necessity' – into which category… necessarily… their children… and ours… were placed – all for the sake of the 'idea' of the 'Perfect State'… that state that manifests… expresses… and elevates 'the best'… from which striving to 'achieve' the goal of the most 'perfect' human being… arises… identified as supreme… the 'philosopher-king'.

 

How much damage has this one man… Plato… done? It is incalculable… but one thing is certain… it is on his authority that the abandoned-children-who-would-be-gods have contaminated society with the glorification of their own fundamental dishonesty… their obsession with hiding… and lying:

The contrast between the Platonic and the Socratic creed is even greater than I have shown so far. Plato, I have said, followed Socrates in his definition of the philosopher. “Whom do you call true philosophers? – Those who love truth,” we read in the Republic. But he himself is not quite truthful when he makes this statement. He does not really believe in it, for he bluntly declares in other places that it is one of the royal privileges of the sovereign to make full use of lies and deceit: “It is the business of the rulers of the city, if it is anybody's, to tell lies, deceiving both its enemies and its own citizens for the benefit of the city; and no one else must touch this privilege.”

 

“For the benefit of the city”, says Plato. Again we find the appeal to the principle of collective utility is the ultimate ethical consideration. Totalitarian morality overrides everything, even the definition, the Idea, of the philosopher. It need hardly be mentioned that, by the same principle of political expediency, the ruled are to be forced to tell the truth. “If the ruler catches anyone else in a lie… then he will punish him for introducing a practice which injures and endangers the city…” Only in this slightly unexpected sense are the Platonic rulers – the philosopher-kings – lovers of truth.

 

Plato illustrates this application of his principle of collective utility to the problem of truthfulness by the example of the physician. The example is well chosen, since Plato likes to visualize his political mission as one of the healer or saviour of the sick body of society.…

 

…What kind of lies has Plato in mind when he exhorts his rulers to use strong medicine? Crossman rightly emphasizes that Plato means “propaganda, the technique of controlling the behaviour of… the bulk of the ruled majority.” Certainly, Plato had these first in his mind; but when Crossman suggests that the propaganda lies were only intended for the consumption of the ruled, while the rulers should be a fully enlightened intelligentsia, then I cannot agree. I think, rather, that Plato's complete break with anything resembling Socrates' intellectualism is nowhere more obvious than in the place where he twice expresses his hope that even the rulers themselves, at least after a few generations, might be induced to believe his greatest propaganda lie; I mean his racialism, his Myth of Blood and Soil, known as the Myth of the Metals in Man and of the Earthborn. Here we see that Plato's utilitarian and totalitarian principles overrule everything, even the ruler's privilege of knowing and of demanding to be told, the truth. The motive of Plato's wish that the rulers themselves should believe in the propaganda lie is his hope of increasing its wholesome effect, i.e. of strengthening the rule of the master race, and ultimately, of arresting all political change. (The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, p. 138 –140)

…and in this compulsive need of 'power's to lie… to stay hidden… to punish the 'disobedient'… and eliminate the 'unneeded' (or merely 'deficient'…) we see a key 'repetition compulsion.' They – these ten thousand die-hard misanthropists – have been afraid of us and afraid of us and afraid of us for… – let's say for the sake of convenience – two and a half centuries… ever since the French Revolution… they have projected all of their fear of the unknown onto us. This is… for our purposes… perhaps their most devastating repetition compulsion…

 

…but it is derived from another… more basic… one: their need to 'win' affection… to 'prove' they deserve our attention… because they are 'the best'…

 

…this is the key side-effect… of abandonment… of loss of the mother's affection.

 

–––

 

[Apologies… this portion of the show I unfortunately neglected to read… please look for it next week…]

 

We are reclaiming our authentic selves… and in order to do that we need support… we need others similarly focused on the development of 'self / soul-sufficiency' – individually – as well as our development… collectively… into 'a people' able to advance our right to pursue happiness…

 

…so we must confront the barriers to our doing these things… – all of these barriers being in essence one: “hidden-'power'”… 'power' in one of its many guises. And I think there is some advantage… some ways in which it may be helpful… for us to understand where they came from… these Plato-worshippers… how they think… the kinds of things they do to destroy our hope (and why…)

 

…that it is important for us to see what they will… inevitably… try to do… in order to prevent it from happening.

 

What are the kinds of things they will want to do… to undermine our solidarity?… and how do we withstand such attempts?

 

The Zapatistas use 'conflict resolution' to ensure there is no erosion of group cohesion… which is… I think… useful guidance… something we also must design…

 

…but of a particular kind.

 

–––

 

* “WUR of October 11, 2015 Reading… continuing our interlude: excerpts from Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… and Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914… before returning to the chapter "Poisonous Pedagogy" in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good

 

[“151011theaterforrevolution.mp3”:]

 

“The political housemaids of France are sweeping away the glowing lava of the revolution with old brooms and wrangle with one another while they do their work.” [Now that's astute political analysis… Do we have a press… of any kind… that independent of 'power'… or its utilitarian mindset… today? Moreover… we see that no one is deceived… not even for a moment… the performance is so seen…]

 

[We are reading excerpts from Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… and Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914, in order to see the origins of the 'modern' bureaucratic nation-state in the fixed determination of 'statesmen' to repress us… we-the-people… It is a new invention… with no less devastating effects for being so. And so long as it lasts… it – these global-'statesmen' – will forestall our growth… our right to express our infinite expansiveness… – P.S.].

 

After the review of October 3, the Permanent Commission summoned War Minister d'Hautpoul. He promised that these breaches of discipline should not recur. We know how on October 10 Bonaparte kept d'Hautpoul's word. As Commander-in-Chief of the Paris army, Changarnier had commanded at both reviews. He, at once a member of the Permanent Commission, chief of the National Guard, the “saviour” of January 29 and June 13, the “bulwark of society,” the candidate of the party of Order for presidential honours, the suspected Monk of two monarchies, had hitherto never acknowledged himself as the subordinate of the War Minister, had always openly derided the republican Constitution and had pursued Bonaparte with an ambiguous lordly protection. Now he was consumed with zeal for discipline against the War Minister and for the Constitution against Bonaparte. While on October 10 a section of the calvary raised the shout: “Vive Napoleon! Vivent les saucissons!” [“Hurrah for Napoleon! Hurrah for the sausages!”] Changarnier arranged that at least the infantry marching past under the command of his friend Neumayer should preserve an icy silence. As a punishment, the War Minister relieved General Neumayer of his post in Paris at Bonaparte's instigation, on the pretext of appointing him commanding general of the fourteenth and fifteenth military divisions. Neumayer refused this exchange of posts and so had to resign. Changarnier, for his part, published an order of the day on November 2, in which he forbade the troops to indulge in political outcries or demonstrations of any kind while under arms. The Elysee newspapers attacked Changarnier; the papers of the party of Order attacked Bonaparte; the Permanent Commission held repeated secret sessions in which it was repeatedly proposed to declare the country in danger; the army seemed divided into two hostile camps, with two hostile general staffs, one in the Elysee, where Bonaparte resided, the other in the Tuileries, the quarters of Changarnier. It seemed that only the meeting of the National Assembly was needed to give the signal for battle. The French public judged this friction between Bonaparte and Changarnier like that English journalist who characterized it in the following words:

 

“The political housemaids of France are sweeping away the glowing lava of the revolution with old brooms and wrangle with one another while they do their work.” [Now that's astute political analysis… Do we have a press… of any kind… that independent of 'power'… or its utilitarian mindset… today? Moreover… we see that no one is deceived… not even for a moment… the performance is so seen… – P.S.]

 

–––

 

[October 11, 2015 show ends here.]

 

–––

* “WUR of October 18, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.5): Segue From Antisystemic Movements… To Alice

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 27)

 

[“151018theworldwemakeishonest.mp3”:]

 

We are reclaiming our authentic selves… and in order to do that we need support… we need others similarly focused on the development of 'self / soul-sufficiency' – individually – as well as on our development… collectively… into 'a people' able to advance our right to pursue happiness… What's unique about this moment… different from any other time when our ancestors fought for freedom… unique in the history of 'class'… is that we are in the 'end-game'… the time when all 'power's lies are exposed… our internalization of them pulled out and examined… and we decide where our allegiances lie… whether with the Zapatistas… with all the struggling earth-connected… with the oceans and all life… or with these ten thousand 'power'-guys – a 'teaching'-moment we might say… when we chip away at the numbers of folks willing to serve a dying system… and increase our own… those of us who choose 'life'… choose 'self / soul-sufficiency'… and choose our right as 'a people' to grow our own gifts without coercion… our right to pursue happiness… …so we must confront and discuss the barriers before us… – all of these barriers being in essence one: “hidden-'power'”… And I think there is some advantage… some ways in which it may be helpful… for us to understand where they came from… these Plato-worshippers – it is important to see 'power's destructive tactics… in order to move around them. What are the kinds of things they will want to do… to undermine our solidarity?… and how do we withstand such attempts?

 

October 12, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: We are reclaiming our authentic selves… and in order to do that we need support… we need others similarly focused on the development of 'self / soul-sufficiency' – individually – as well as on our development… collectively… into 'a people' able to advance our right to pursue happiness… initially here in the U.S.… where it is codified in the Declaration of Independence… and then as a right (defined as the right to own and grow our own gifts… 'self-creation') advanced for all of our Brothers and Sisters globally….

 

What's unique about this moment… different from any other time when our ancestors fought for freedom… unique in the history of 'class'… is that we are in the 'end-game'… the time when all 'power's lies are exposed… our internalization of them pulled out and examined… and we decide where our allegiances lie… whether with the Zapatistas… with all the struggling earth-connected… with the oceans and all life… or with these ten thousand 'power'-guys – a 'teaching'-moment we might say… when we chip away at the numbers of folks willing to serve a dying system… and increase our own… those of us who choose 'life'… choose 'self / soul-sufficiency'… and choose our right as 'a people' to grow our own gifts without coercion… our right to pursue happiness…

 

…so we must confront and discuss the barriers before us… – all of these barriers being in essence one: “hidden-'power'”… 'power' in any of its many guises. And I think there is some advantage… some ways in which it may be helpful… for us to understand where they came from… these Plato-worshippers – and we are reading excerpts from Karl Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire… and Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914… and Alice Miller's For Your Own Good… to help us do that – and to understand how they think… and hence the kinds of things they do to destroy our hope (and why they are so determined to do them…)

 

…that it is important for us to see the kinds of tactics they will use… inevitably… to try to undermine solidarity (in whatever ways we are able to build it …) – as well as the psychological dynamics at play that prevent them from remembering their early experience of abuse… and resulting loss of authentic feeling… loss of their authentic 'self'… their early resistance to the coercive pressure to obey authority (known euphemistically as 'child-rearing' under 'class'…) which means that appeals to their compassion or reason are useless –

 

…it is important to see 'power's destructive tactics… in order to move around them.

 

What are the kinds of things they will want to do… to undermine our solidarity?… and how do we withstand such attempts?

 

Clearly… 'self-preservation' (in a short-term… narrow sense… or… rather… we should say: 'special privilege-preservation') propels their obsession with clandestine tactics: their dedicated focus on knowing what we think… their grim determination to prevent our organizing successfully on our own behalf – these have been obsessions of 'power' from Day One… since 'class' begun.

 

The Zapatistas use 'conflict resolution' to ensure there is no erosion of group cohesion… which is… I think… useful guidance… something we also must design…

 

…but of a kind crafted to our particular challenges… those being the fact that: the process of digestion by 'the state' is on-going… continuously wears on us – attempts to break down our carefully crafted alternative allegiances… our self-sufficiency knowledges are meager compared to the Zapatistas… as is our understanding of the earth as the source of authentic thought – its concepts and language (this is one of their most key gifts that they have shared with us…) we have not yet created autonomous – physical and otherwise – structures… that necessarily question the 'legitimacy' of 'the state… and we have no land or communal living arrangements…

 

On the other hand… we possess… technological advantages – tools – that allow us to organize globally – that allow us to be more outward-focused in our allegiance… identity… vision… and planning…

 

…particularly as we begin with some understandings… some premises… as far as I know not available to the Zapatistas… for instance… a clearer understanding of the motives of 'power'… that their motives are totalitarian… not pecuniary (i.e.… that the problem is 'class'… not 'capitalism'…) and so the 'power'-guys' assaults on us they view – through their own totalitarian-utilitarian lens – as 'necessary'… 'for the greater good'… We know that they cannot be moved by 'reason' (and this is not to suggest that the Zapatistas think they can…) as the global-statesmen believe they possess 'reason' of a 'higher order'… We understand they tend to genocide – open and otherwise – and EMF-weapons to control (limit) the population… as well as – particularly in regions targeted to be 'low-end' on the 'status-continuum' – prodding us on to 'war'… to 'self'-annihilation (useful as well for their propaganda purposes in the 'higher-end' regions…) when we become too threatening to them. I.e.… with the Zapatistas… we understand that we represent for 'humanity' itself… but we also have to accept the responsibility attendant upon our location in the belly of the beast… the wider 'legal' space we inhabit… to actively organize for the freedom of the human being globally… after ten thousand years of 'class'.

 

–––

 

[“151018adronefreezone.mp3”:]

 

The question we will be exploring with our organization… is whether the degree of our understanding… the complete nakedness of 'power' – its origins and intentions – itself provides protection from its agents… No one… in that setting… will want to out themselves as 'agent' by attempting to sow seeds of dissension and stress… no matter how subtly they go about it… ultimately where we're moving… is to extract agreements from the state to allow us to exist autonomously within it… as Zapatistas do – only without the constant threat of annihilation by the state hanging over our heads – a transitional (to generalized human freedom) legal framework establishing our right as a people to pursue happiness… to be replicated in other regions globally – that we inter-link with. This claiming of this right… we will be arguing… means that we need a little oasis… except from taxes… building codes… and surveillance – a 'drone-free-zone'! – to identify the conditions for the pursuit of human happiness.

 

Agents of the global-state will not necessarily try to manufacture discord among us on matters of 'policy' (although this could happen… it's less likely when participation in a group is premised on one's desire to free human energy globally… I suppose… in theory… disagreements could arise on the level of 'political strategy'… but not on overall goal…)

 

…much more likely is their 'Iago'-act… their 'he-say-she-say' song-and-dance… all that 'ear-whispering'… to get tears flowing…

 

If someone is paid to lie and try to create unhappiness unbeknownst… while all the while wearing the mask of benevolence… their 'put-upon-long-suffering-saint' robe… manifesting a character on whom we could not bear to heap our mistrust or accusation… someone we would never think is anything but what they seem…

 

…if such a one has infiltrated our 'association'… our 'heart-and-soul-in-communal-whole'… and tears have started to flow… what did we say in a previous show?… we bring our troubled mind to the group for restorative calm… The fact that we are keeping our eye on the problem of infiltration… the fact that the problem… our reality… is named – that alone is huge.

 

Recall: everyone who's there is aspiring to be a 'martial artist in the defense of a free humanity'… which means they are on the path of 'self-soul-sufficiency'… – that which is restorative of authentic life… the true 'self'… – that is our personal aspiration… and that is what we attempt to model for each other.

 

Into this setting… insert 'he-say-she-say'…

 

…in that setting… the 'spoutings-of-tears' flow into discussions of hidden-'power': 'the state in us'…

 

…i.e.… the 'conflict resolution' itself should teach… should voice suppressed thoughts… The question we will be exploring with our organization… is whether the degree of our understanding… the complete nakedness of 'power' – its origins and intentions – itself provides protection from its agents… No one… in that setting… will want to out themselves as 'agent' by attempting to sow seeds of dissension and stress… no matter how subtly they go about it…

 

We want to create circumstances… conditions… in which it makes no sense for them to even try to infiltrate… this advances our cause of 'honesty' already… because ultimately where we're moving… is to extract agreements from the state to allow us to exist autonomously within it… as Zapatistas do – only without the constant threat of annihilation by the state hanging over our heads – a transitional (to generalized human freedom) legal framework establishing our right as a people to pursue happiness… to be replicated in other regions globally – that we inter-link with. This claiming of this right… we will be arguing… means that we need a little oasis… except from taxes… building codes… and surveillance – a 'drone-free-zone'! – to identify the conditions for the pursuit of human happiness. We need to create these spaces… and 'the political will' allows it. That is why education with the broader community is key… because we all want this. We don't want anybody's 'stuff'… the earth is abundant… we want our freedom… we want our space apart from all the coercion of the 'class'-system… and we want to have free and open discussions. They say that is possible… under 'class'… it's never been true… as we'll read when we explore Kropotkin.

 

[“151018mediacraftedthoughts.mp3”:]

 

……as… the continuous manipulation of our thoughts is the name of 'power's game – they have been laser-like focused on that since Bentham pulled their coat… The global-statesmen own the media… its results they must own as well… When it comes to the crafting of public opinion… the result is the intention. What is the main U.S. media-crafted message of late?… “racism is rising in the United States.” Intended result: divisions grow… hope erodes… retreat of critique into exclusive identities… 'power' is left in control. ('Division' is the name of 'power's game Brothers and Sisters… 'unity' must be… 'solidarity' must be… our watchword… Let's have discussions of that… of how to get to a future without coercion: every single one of us… regardless of false division that 'class' has created for us… every single one of us wants that.)

 

I thought of trying to use an 'actual' (in quotes because in all vetted media products there is an element of craft…) situation… but it's proving difficult. I'm referring to a story in the East Bay Express of October 7 – 13, 2015 (“Racial Profiling Via Nextdoor.com”…) in which an online community networking site is being flooded with subtly racist posts – and the folks who complain are the ones kicked off the site or punished in some other way… But it's a terrible example to use because we would never put our intercommunications into the hands of a third party – in this case… a company – that would be a set-up for being messed with… a set-up for 'power's attempts to manipulate us…

 

…as… the continuous manipulation of our thoughts is the name of 'power's game – they have been laser-like focused on that since Bentham pulled their coat.

 

The global-statesmen own the media… its results they must own as well… When it comes to the crafting of public opinion… the result is the intention. What is the main U.S. media-crafted message of late?… “racism is rising in the United States.” Intended result: divisions grow… hope erodes… retreat of critique into exclusive identities… 'power' is left in control.

 

('Division' is the name of 'power's game Brothers and Sisters… 'unity' must be… 'solidarity' must be… our watchword… Let's have discussions of that… of how to get to a future without coercion: every single one of us… regardless of false division that 'class' has created for us… every single one of us wants that.)

 

–––

 

[“151018economyasideology.mp3”:]

 

So… we're going to be looking at an authentic way to understand what's called 'the economy'… exploring the ideological nature of the one we're told is the only one that can provide… allows us to survive… …as well as examining the character of our education work with the broader community… Both of these things require that we confront the notion of 'the economy' in more depth… exploring this ideological quality… the fact that while it is posed to us as essential to life itself… it actually means 'destroying the earth'… which is why 'the system' is dying… and 'they' – the global-state-statesmen – are trying to impose a harder form of coerced work (as well as reduce our numbers by clandestine means…) on us globally… before enough of us can wake up and work together to create our sensible alternative to coercion and death: that being… freedom and life… for every human being…

 

Please consider again the following excerpt from our commentary on the first chapter of Antisystemic Movements (the entire commentary is shared on this webpage – it's listed in the menu…) as well as from our March 9, 2014 show.

 

In upcoming shows… with Peter Kropotkin's help – and I'm posting on the 'Blog' page with the upcoming show draft pdf another pdf file with some of Kropotkin's thoughts on 'the economy' and 'the state'… I'm typing and posting text daily and changing the draft number as I do… we'll be (starting next week) focusing more on concretizing the vision we have of our alternative global social arrangement… based on non-coercion… and Kropotkin has a lot to say to help us with this – we will be laying out what will likely be (some of) the basic structural supports of the self-sufficiency framework for our freedom…

 

So… we're going to be looking at an authentic way to understand what's called 'the economy'… exploring the ideological nature of the one we're told is the only one that can provide… allows us to survive…

 

…as well as examining the character of our education work with the broader community…

 

Both of these things require that we confront the notion of 'the economy' in more depth… exploring this ideological quality… the fact that while it is posed to us as essential to life itself… it actually means 'destroying the earth'… which is why 'the system' is dying… and 'they' – the global-state-statesmen – are trying to impose a harder form of coerced work (as well as reduce our numbers by clandestine means…) on us globally… before enough of us can wake up and work together to create our sensible alternative to coercion and death: that being… freedom and life… for every human being…

 

So please listen again to the argument in this excerpt… we will be… in future shows… returning to it:

All to say… consider this… that ‘war’ is not to reinvigorate dead markets… but to suppress our uprisings against injustice. In the Waking Up Radio show of March 9th, 2014 we said that…

[“140309econtool.mp3”:]

 

“The machinations of states is theater… with two tightly interwoven objectives: first… 'work steadily to conquer the people… according to “the laws” of hierarchy… i.e.… ensuring there are “winners” and “losers”…' This is key overall strategy… And by the way… when we said that “the responsibility of 'the intellectual' is to stand with the people and renounce the privilege of standing apart…” – this is not a national project… a national Left is useless… it effectively means you stand with 'power'… agree to its terms… agree to betray your Brothers and Sisters who happen to be the designated 'losers'… globally speaking… So… ensuring that there are “winners” and “losers” is key strategy both for maintaining the undergirding ideology “merit rises” – the notion that there's some legitimate reason in this gross unfairness – behind the hideousness – and it's necessary for maintaining 'power's invisibility – the notion that there's just these “natural forces” at play… And… according to the “laws of PR-chest-pounding-posturing”… this must be on-going… And the second key objective: 'play the game of “Supremacy” successfully… using quantifying means to keep score… – otherwise known as “the economy”… while maintaining the chest-pounding to draw from the people the requisite energy…' We've said that the definition of “the economy” that's most authentic is “eating the earth…” controlling the resources of the planet… the most key one strategically being us… But… looking at Europe before the spread of fascism across it… 'socialism'… which in the people's minds simply meant 'freedom'… sweeping across Europe… 'infecting' the colonies even… So… that resource which is absolutely key was at risk of being lost… So 'economy' geared up… for 'destroying' is also 'consuming': removing resources from our use… so 'eating the earth' can be destroying the earth by means of war… or destroying the earth by means of what's called 'growing the economy'… 'development'. The book Savage Continent (by Keith Lowe) provides prodigious illustration of resources being removed from our use… and…turned back over to ‘power’… Keith Lowe describes… an orgy of destructiveness. This systematic attack on ‘economic life’ was itself the ‘economic system’ working at a clip (because the point is privatization: atomization plus privatization equals control of us… manufactured ‘scarcity’…) racing at a pace unequaled since… The ‘economic system’ is not ‘capitalism’…. It’s called ‘power’… and they invent a tool called ‘the economy’ to keep us confused… War is an expression of this ‘economic system’… and ‘the economy’ is war by other means… i.e…. it’s about controlling the energy of the majority… the goal being… to beat us into submission… and… in the ‘normal’ course of events… overt violence is (as Solozzo said…) “too expensive…” in terms of maintaining legitimacy… as a means of controlling. And so they ‘normally’ rely on Bentham… whose Panoptic guidance says: “wage war by other means… i.e. be ‘economic’… and ‘efficient’….” “Let the weight of scarcity weigh on their minds…” Bentham advised.…” [From the March 9, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

What could be more 'realistic' than a social arrangement that the vast billions of us want?

 

[“151018thebillionsofuswantfreedom.mp3”:]

 

These opposite operating premises for our lives when our human energy is free… must also be the premises of our working together collaboratively… and to participate means with these premises we agree: no coercion…; we are reclaiming our 'not-lost-but-waiting-for-us' gifts… – that requires a lot of independence… that requires a lot of quiet time… to listen under conditions free of coercion… coercion is what silenced our authentic thought process when we were infants… so we need to trust in each other… and in the possibility of freedom – no coercion…; hidden-global-'power' (its clandestine agents and EMF-weapons) is ever-engaged in an attempt to undermine our efforts (infiltration is inevitable and we must ensure our planning design is such that we move toward our goal regardless of agent-action… and should that agent in our midst mime EMF-weapon-victimization… I think the way we have to handle that is to have an agreement that… the only ways we can help that person is to support their de-toxification needs however we can… and through consistent education in the broader community in order to create sufficient public awareness that pressure will build on legislators to force the state functionaries involved to disclose what weapons they have and to testify under oath as to their use… – but we cannot make the victimization of one among us the focus of our work together in any other sense… because it absorbs too much energy…); the principle of 'utility' must be applied to our actions… i.e. we must ask of everything we do: “how does this further the goal?”… The vast… vast… billions of us want to be free of coercion in our lives and world… want to strengthen our empathy… we don't want to lose our humanity… We just want to see our way out from under 'the boot'… out of 'power's obsessive vise-like hold on our throats… We want to believe in our free future… and need a realistic sense of hope… and nothing could be more 'realistic' than a social arrangement that the vast billions of us want. The only thing that has gotten in the way of us having the world we want… based in non-coercion… is not being able to talk to each other globally… not being able to organize globally – well now we can.

 

This system is designed to keep us atomized – separate from each other – and deeply insecure (which is what we are necessarily when we are cut off from each other…)

 

Rather than have our health and happiness crushed in the jaws of 'the system'… we can resist both pressures – loss of each other… and loss of security – by coming together and planning collaboratively…

 

So we've been discussing how to make safe spaces for our doing that… identifying the premises of our cooperative planning…

 

I've gathered excerpts from previous shows in which we begin the discussion of this question… the premises of our working together. I hope you will listen again to them.

 

Back in April there were five premises we identified as key:

[“150412newworldpremises.mp3”:]

 

…consider how completely absorbing is the project of founding a new world on a fresh foundation… based in premises that are opposite to the 'logic' of 'rule': non-commercial… non-utilitarian… our right to develop our earth-gifts without force being applied to this process (continuous growth…) …a project therefore… with clear 'terms of engagement'… with clear terms for our coming together… rooted in the understanding that we are… first… reclaiming our 'lost' gifts (which are not lost… are always there… waiting… to be re-ignited…) second… that we are… each one of us… the axis that turns the wheel. There can be no more ceding… giving up… relinquishing… our power… our leadership capacities… to some supposed possessor of 'higher knowledge'. This has been 'power's principle con for millennia…. Third… agreement that it is our responsibility to… literally… reclaim the world. And… fourth… all of our creative projects must be 'inclined' toward our future – our future together uncoerced… And there is a fifth: our projects acknowledge the existence of hidden-'power'… we need safe spaces that are safe in every sense… 'safe houses' all over the world working on this… on ending 'class' and making our interrelations with each other…and with the earth… healthy. [From the April 12, 2015 Waking Up Radio show.]

Then… in May… we said that:

[“150510safedesign.mp3”:]

 

…reclaiming our human energy globally is based in… …“reclaiming our 'within'…” …and how do we do that if not by coming together in discussion – with a dual purpose of understanding: global-'power'… and 'internalized discipline' / the inauthentic (false) self – i.e., in order to upend… both of them… …and while there will be inevitable infiltration… if we 'do our planning' of these spaces right… we can nullify that tactic… What makes a space 'safe'?… safe for the envisioning and building of a new world without coercion? Put practically: no agents… no infiltration. But… as that's not possible… is there a way to design a space… a project… such that the very act of participation in it… builds it… moves it toward its goals… What helps to realize the goal of a world premised on individual self- and soul-sufficiency? Let's slightly modify Kropotkin's guidance: he told us that “freedom is always the best solution to the problem of gaining our freedom…” If we want a world with no coercion… a space that's 'safe' would also be premised on the absence of coercion… beyond fundamental agreement on the end-goal as the purpose of our participation… [From the May 10, 2015 Waking Up Radio show.]

Then… in June…:

[“150614livingouropposite.mp3”:]

 

The first broad element of safety… we must admit the existence of global-'power'… we must admit that the problem is coercion… a coerced-work system… not our Brothers and Sisters… that so long as our human energy is on the market… we are kept cattle to be priced… fatted… and slaughtered at the whim of the global-state-statesmen… Second… we must recognize that every human being under 'class' has questions that they harbored as infants… which remain within them… and which must be addressed… for us to get our freedom… questions that manifest… and Alice Miller shows us this… a coerced-work system's dependence on our obedience… an obedience that must be sown in us… by means of coercion… as infants… and reinforced by all social institutions… which makes it deeply totalitarian… My son gave me a good name for this: “Total Immersion Coercion”… Third… unbound time… Fourth… attention is given… we develop our capacity to listen… Fifth: learning is constant (so you see these points are the opposite of what we got… and that's the point… what we want is the opposite of what we got… and so we have to start living that opposite… in our spaces that we make for ourselves…). [From the June 14, 2015 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

[“150614practicalpolitics.mp3”:]

 

In our May 10th, 2015 show we asked… “is there a way to design a space… a project… such that the very act of participation in it… builds it… moves it toward its goals?…” and we emphasized the absence of coercion as a key element of this design… This quest is the opposite of Bentham's: a design so welcoming of freedom that even agents are accepted. But how realistic an expectation is this? How has agent-disruption worked in the past? Generally… folks are planted to influence / manipulate actions… thoughts… and emotions… such that the goal is never reached… the effort effectively derailed. Does our clear focus on the main goal of freeing human energy globally make it 'agent-destructiveness-proof'? We are getting to the nut… of the problem of our gaining our freedom… 'practical politics'… It's time to plan realistically for the 'power' we know exists out there… But how do we hold onto our tenderness (which is… after all… required of us to grow our souls…) in circumstances of constant attempts to destroy us?… our mutual support in knowing this is happening is key… and a huge advance… a treasure without measure… over previous activist generations… [From the June 14, 2015 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

[“150614thedesignprovesitself.mp3”:]

 

…and… on questioning the utility of whatever we do… asking always the question: “how does this action further the goal?” – the 'principle of utility' applied to establishing the soul's free expansion in a realm of its own creation.… because if the beast we're wrestling with is totalitarian… it necessarily starts in child-rearing… So this first step …then… which needs to be taken… is withdrawing our children (and ourselves… in time… with each other's help) from 'the system'… (…and I've thought a lot about that about how when my energy was claimed by the 'wage-work-system' I could not do what I'm doing now… and I'm really pondering that… the difficulty of that… particularly as I take these walks and I see the numbers of folks who have no choice but to participate in what I think of as a 'high-tech-lynching'… To see the ease with which 'power' can… commandeer our human energy and turn us against each other…) [From the June 14, 2015 Waking Up Radio show.]

–––

 

We've said that one of the ways 'power' will attempt to mess with our heads (for that is their objective…) and create unhappiness… is by dropping hurtful comments in our ears…

 

…but there are other forms of manipulation to cause group disunity: draining finances… draining energy… singling one person out for EMF-battery and thereby isolating them physically…

 

…and in the area of our work in the community… or wherever there is a community-interface… we are also vulnerable (exposed) to agent-action… in their conscious misrepresentation of our objectives and messages (I saw this a lot with the Occupy Movement here locally… the agents would be the ones to smash windows and then… afterwards… be the ones to grab the microphone whenever the press came around… to justify it… or to in some other way convey a negative impression of the Occupiers…) It is not acceptable to allow folks who misrepresent us to get on the air in order to do that…

 

…clarity on the purpose and content of our education – our continuing to deepen our understanding of both of these things – is therefore key…

 

…it's essential that whatever we say grows true power: voices suppressed thoughts… asks the questions that we suppressed as children… exposes the lies of the system… and serves our reconnection with the ancestors… the earth… and each other.

 

In the end… we must trust both in the practices we put in place to strengthen group cohesion… and the power of the education we do with the broader community.

 

A summing-up in a broad sense of our thoughts… on creating 'safe spaces'… from previous shows might be helpful: a useful metaphor for our global collaborative effort to envision and organize for a new social arrangement based on opposite premises (opposite to 'class'…) is 'distributed generation' – that is… we honor our diversity and independence in the creative work we do around the globe… These opposite operating premises for our lives when our human energy is free… must also be the premises of our working together collaboratively… and to participate means with these premises we agree: no coercion…; we are reclaiming our 'not-lost-but-waiting-for-us' gifts… – that requires a lot of independence… that requires a lot of quiet time… to listen under conditions free of coercion… coercion is what silenced our authentic thought process when we were infants… so we need to trust in each other… and in the possibility of freedom – no coercion…; also… each one of us is the axis that turns the wheel (no more ceding of our power to others…); it is our responsibility to reclaim the world from the system of 'class'…; our creative work together inclines toward our free future…; hidden-global-'power' (its clandestine agents and EMF-weapons) is ever-engaged in an attempt to undermine our efforts (infiltration is inevitable and we must ensure our planning design is such that we move toward our goal regardless of agent-action… and should that agent in our midst mime EMF-weapon-victimization… I think the way we have to handle that is to have an agreement that we know that some one among us will likely get targeted… and that the only ways we can help that person is to support their de-toxification needs however we can… and through consistent education in the broader community in order to create sufficient public awareness that pressure will build on legislators to force the state functionaries involved to disclose what weapons they have and to testify under oath as to their use… – but we cannot make the victimization of one among us the focus of our work together in any other sense… because it absorbs too much energy…); every human being under 'class' harbors questions they suppressed as infants – questions which must be invited in our planning and education work… as these questions draw us onto our unique path of freeing the earth from the system of 'class'; – the principle of 'utility' must be applied to our actions… i.e. we must ask of everything we do: “how does this further the goal?”

 

The vast… vast… billions of us want to be free of coercion in our lives and world… want to strengthen our empathy… we don't want to lose our humanity… We just want to see our way out from under 'the boot'… out of 'power's obsessive vise-like hold on our throats… We want to believe in our free future… and need a realistic sense of hope…

 

…and nothing could be more 'realistic' than a social arrangement that the vast billions of us want. The only thing that has gotten in the way of us having the world we want… based in non-coercion… is not being able to talk to each other globally… not being able to organize globally – well now we can.

 

These are phenomenal times… we are living in an altogether new moment… facing phenomenal challenges…

 

…and fresh conditions for our resistance… learning as we go… how to invent… at long last… the world we want.

 

–––

 

* “WUR of October 18, 2015 Reading… continuing our interlude: excerpts from Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… and Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914… before returning to the chapter "Poisonous Pedagogy" in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good

 

[“151018bonaparterollsincentralism.mp3”:]

 

“Above all things, France demands tranquility…” “Bonaparte had with his own hand sacrificed the scapegoats on the altar of the country. He had blunted the edge of the expected collision. Finally, the party of Order itself anxiously sought to avoid, to mitigate, to gloss over any decisive conflict with the executive power. For fear of losing their conquests over the revolution, they allowed their rival to carry off the fruits thereof.… “Above all things, France demands tranquillity.” Bonaparte demanded, therefore, that he be left in peace to do as he liked and the parliamentary party was paralyzed by a double fear, by the fear of again evoking revolutionary unrest and by the fear of itself appearing a the instigator of unrest in the eyes of its own class, in the eyes of the bourgeoisie.…”

 

Meanwhile, Bonaparte hastened to remove the War Minister, d'Hautpoul, to pack him off in all haste to Algiers and to appoint General Schramm War Minister in his place. On November 12, he sent to the National Assembly a message of American prolixity ['prolix': “(of speech or writing)… using or containing too many words; tediously lengthy… – P.S.], overloaded with detail, redolent of order, desirous of reconciliation, constitutionally acquiescent, treating of all and sundry but not of the questions brulantes [burning questions] of the moment. As if in passing he made the remark that according to the express provisions of the Constitution the President alone could dispense of [administer] the army. The message closed with the following words of great solemnity:

 

“Above all things, France demands tranquility… But bound by an oath, I shall keep within the narrow limits that it has set for me… As far as I am concerned… elected by the people and owing my power to it alone, I shall always bow to its lawfully expressed will. Should you resolve at this session on a revision of the Constitution, a Constituent Assembly will regulate the position of the executive power. If not, then the people will solemnly pronounce its decision in 1852. But whatever the solutions of the future may be, let us come to an understanding, so that passion, surprise or violence may never decide the destiny of a great nation… What occupies my attention, above all, is not who will rule France in 1852, but how to employ the time which remains at my disposal so that the intervening period may pass by without agitation or disturbance. I have opened my heart to you with sincerity; you will answer by frankness with your trust, my good endeavours with your cooperation, and God will do the rest.”

 

The respectable, hypocritically moderate, virtuously commonplace language of the bourgeoisie reveals its deepest meaning in the mouth of the autocrat of the Society of December 10 and the picnic hero of St. Maur and Satory.

 

The burgraves of the party of Order did not delude themselves for a moment concerning the trust that this opening of the heart deserved. About oaths they had long been blasé; they numbered in their midst veterans and virtuosos of political perjury. Nor had they failed to hear the passage about the army. They observed with annoyance that in its discursive enumeration of lately enacted laws the message passed over the most important law, the elector law, in studied silence, and, moreover, in the event of there being no revision of the Constitution, left the election of the President in 1852 to the people. The electoral law was the leaden ball chained to the feet of the party of Order, which prevented it from walking and so much the more from storming forward! Moreover, by the official disbandment of the Society of December 10 and the dismissal of the War Minister d'Hautpoul, Bonaparte had with his own hand sacrificed the scapegoats on the altar of the country. He had blunted the edge of the expected collision. Finally, the party of Order itself anxiously sought to avoid, to mitigate, to gloss over any decisive conflict with the executive power. For fear of losing their conquests over the revolution, they allowed their rival to carry off the fruits thereof. “Above all things, France demands tranquillity.” This was what the party of Order had cried to the revolution since February [1848], this was what Bonaparte's message cried to the party of Order. “Above all things, France demands tranquillity.” [“The people will choose totalitarianism over chaos…” we are told Plato said… – P.S.] Bonaparte committed acts that aimed at usurpation, but the party of Order committed “unrest” if it raised a row about these acts and construed them hypochondriacally. The sausages of Satory were quiet as mice when no one spoke of them. “Above all things, France demands tranquillity.” Bonaparte demanded, therefore, that he be left in peace to do as he liked and the parliamentary party was paralyzed by a double fear, by the fear of again evoking revolutionary unrest and by the fear of itself appearing a the instigator of unrest in the eyes of its own class, in the eyes of the bourgeoisie.… (p. 75 – 81)

 

[“151018economiccraftofclass.mp3”:]

 

As we think about the form of state that was put in place in the aftermath of the French Revolution from a world-systems perspective… let's not forget what Marx showed us about the deeply clandestine nature of its 'politics'. While 'power' ('class') has always operated through clandestine action… what makes the current crop of 'power'-mad unique is their conscious crafting of 'class'… the conscious implementation of a totalitarian vision… using their interpretation of the Republic as their inspiration. This is what Kropotkin is noticing when he says: “Furthermore, the State (state-justice, state-church, state-army) and capitalism are, in our opinion, inseparable concepts. In history these institutions developed side by side, mutually supporting and re-enforcing each other. They are bound together, not by a mere coincidence of contemporaneous development, but by the bond of cause and effect, effect and cause. Such was the origin of the State; such was its history; and such is its present essence… Consequently, to imagine that capitalism may be abolished while the State is maintained, and with the aid of the State… is really too childish. A new form of economic organization will necessarily require a new form of political structure…”

 

[I think we have a sense now of the Society of December 10… Before returning to the conclusion of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte… and from there to Alice… let's step back and view events from the perspective of the 'world-system'… In the September 13, 2015 show…we asked about the word 'class'… sought the origins of its current use… used as an ideological weapon of the 'global-state-statesmen' against we-the-people… and as an ideological tool to indoctrinate their children… Since then I've found Immanuel Wallerstein's answer… in his 2011 book… The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914… which is very relevant to this discussion… and in particular the chapter… “The Liberal State and Class Conflict, 1830 – 1875”… some excerpts of which follow. As we think about the form of state that was put in place in the aftermath of the French Revolution from a world-systems perspective… let's not forget what Marx showed us about the deeply clandestine nature of its 'politics'. While 'power' ('class') has always operated through clandestine action… what makes the current crop of 'power'-mad unique is their conscious crafting of 'class'… the conscious implementation of a totalitarian vision… using their interpretation of the Republic as their inspiration. This is what Kropotkin is noticing when he says:

 

“Furthermore, the State (state-justice, state-church, state-army) and capitalism are, in our opinion, inseparable concepts. In history these institutions developed side by side, mutually supporting and re-enforcing each other. They are bound together, not by a mere coincidence of contemporaneous development, but by the bond of cause and effect, effect and cause. Such was the origin of the State; such was its history; and such is its present essence… Consequently, to imagine that capitalism may be abolished while the State is maintained, and with the aid of the State… is really too childish. A new form of economic organization will necessarily require a new form of political structure. “(Peter Kropotkin, From “Modern Science and Anarchism”… which I'm typing up and posting as a pdf that you can download from the 'Blog' page of the Nascence…) – P.S.]:

 

–––

 

[October 18, 2015 show ends here.]

 

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* “WUR of October 25, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.7): Segue From Marx… To Alice

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 28)

 

[“151025economyofhonoring.mp3”:]

 

What we want is to structure our relations authentically… such that we can honor that to which we owe our lives and exuberance… our joy… Life begets life… whatever is given is returned – that is the 'economy' of honoring our relations and our gifts… of mutual interdependence… It does not waste – because there is no 'waste'… as we feed only that which lives… and when life is fed… it gives back in like… Feeding death makes more death… like a poison that in time travels through all life's intertwinings… freezing that which moves till all is still.

 

[In our musical tribute to “love triumphing over global-'power'” we also gave thanks for Aretha Franklin. The unwanted attention I have received as a result of my speaking out about the need for us to reclaim our human energy and become “fully-developing individualities” has opened my eyes to the 'commonness' of punishment at the hands of the 'power'-mad… It is unlikely in the extreme that I would be harassed but not she… with her off-the-chart gifts and large audience… and a whole lot of 'heart' – I am so grateful for her strength… her model of perseverance… and her heart – heart… is our wealth… the wealth we must amass to get to our free future. Thank you Sister.]

How Kropotkin Would Define the Authentic 'Economy' of a Free Global Humanity: “Political economy… ought to occupy with respect to human societies a place in science similar to that held by physiology in relation to plants and animals. It must become the physiology of society. It should aim at studying the needs of society and the various means, both hitherto used and available under the present state of scientific knowledge, for their satisfaction. It should try to analyze how far the present means are expedient and satisfactory, economic or wasteful; and then… concern itself with the discovery of means for the satisfaction of these needs with the smallest possible waste of labor and with the greatest benefit to mankind in general.…” (From “Modern Science and Anarchism”)

October 20, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Now this is just common sense isn't it? I am certain that as we begin planning our new global social arrangement… premised on non-coercion and the limitless development of our gifts… we will find that most of what we come up with… is just common sense.

 

'Power' believes it has…by means of its 'political-economy'… 'organized' the world for us… into more-or-less nice… neat… packages… and that their acts manifest a “'higher' 'Reason'” that the rest of us… not being trained 'philosophers'… cannot possibly grasp… as… we are too trapped in the 'world of mere appearance'… in the mundane and gross 'material'… while they are embodiments of the supremely 'spiritual'… the purest 'Logic'… a crystalline (if opaque to the untrained) 'dialectics'.

 

And so… they… with the speed of their severity… of their ruthless conviction… applied their 'logic' to us… 'ruled' and 'ranked' us… applied these means… this scheme… to everything… according to their needs… for realizing their paterfamilias' dream… of the Republic – all life was to be ruled by this 'logic'… all life was to be fit into a category… a 'class'… with a quantity attached…

 

No matter that wherever they 'worked' their 'logic'… joyous freedom was supplanted by unhappiness… an unhappiness that spread 'round the world like a virus… the unhappiness that comes when life is forced to fit into their 'concept' of it…

 

We look at the earth and see that which feeds us… guides our feet… bears our stories… pilgrims with us… moors us when we come to her to sleep…

 

…but those who worship 'power' don't see these things… but rather only 'qualities' of their own invention… that either 'fit'… or 'don't fit'… into their 'concept' of it… that either submit without protest… or submit with punishment.

 

–––

 

What we want is to structure our relations authentically… such that we can honor that to which we owe our lives and exuberance… our joy… Life begets life… whatever is given is returned – that is the 'economy' of honoring our relations and our gifts… of mutual interdependence… It does not waste – because there is no 'waste'… as we feed only that which lives… and when life is fed… it gives back in like… Feeding death makes more death… like a poison that in time travels through all life's intertwinings… freezing that which moves till all is still.

 

It is an illness… this restless need to rule over us… an atrophied… frozen… thought process that cannot reverence life. These are people who want the earth trashed – no matter what pretty words they put in their months against this – because then we can no longer… in relation with our earth… be self-sufficient. Profligacy… waste… works for them because it results in eventual material hardship for us… forces us to come to their terms… forces us to come begging to them. This is the sum total of all our efforts when subject to the 'power'-mad. This is where their 'economy' leads us inevitably: to material hardship… to cages and leashes

 

[“151025wearetruewealth.mp3”:]

 

We don't need 'the economy' to live… just the opposite… Rather… both within and beyond 'economics'… it is the opposite 'end' they have in mind for us… because they think we are too 'numerous'… as they have no 'jobs' to give… no ways for us to serve them… It's time for us to plan our alternative to 'the system'… Think of all the luxuries we used to have but have no more because our lives are not our own… we have no time (a.k.a. our lives…) to do them for each other: all our homemade you-fill-in-the-blank… our body-loving-massages… our walks… and time unbounded with ourselves… …we are true wealth… we know this… but we're made to forget… by all that 'busyness' they give… to 'occupy' our heads… and stop our thinking… close our eyes… …except… now they can't provide the 'jobs' in sufficient number to accomplish this… and so resumes our thought process… and so we start to see again.

 

Self-Sufficiency outside their 'economic' regimen thrives – exposes the lie that 'the economy' provides (which is why it then gets targeted by the 'power'-guys…)

 

We don't need 'the economy' to live… just the opposite… Rather… both within and beyond 'economics'… it is the opposite 'end' they have in mind for us… because they think we are too 'numerous'… as they have no 'jobs' to give… no ways for us to serve them…

 

It's time for us to plan our alternative to 'the system'…

 

Think of all the luxuries we used to have but have no more because our lives are not our own… we have no time (a.k.a. our lives…) to do them for each other: all our homemade you-fill-in-the-blank… our body-loving-massages… our walks… and time unbounded with ourselves…

 

…we are true wealth… we know this… but we're made to forget… by all that 'busyness' they give… to 'occupy' our heads… and stop our thinking… close our eyes…

 

…except… now they can't provide the 'jobs' in sufficient number to accomplish this…

 

…and so resumes our thought process… and so we start to see again.

 

We are true wealth… we do luxurious things with those we love naturally…

 

…and in freedom… 'those we love' expands continuously – yet another luxury we give… in freedom.

 

The Internet of course was made precisely for this moment… to tie us closer together… to speed our reunion… and to speed all the interconnections of Freedom… ensuring there is no 'want' in its 'kingdom'…

 

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These thoughts we're thinking now… these freedom-thoughts… are not new thoughts (under 'class'…) Kropotkin and many others show us this… but what's different now from our earlier attempts to get our freedom… is that we see how we've been misled… by this whole notion of a 'Progress' derived from the lie of 'Mind-deification'…

 

They've used up all their cons… this time we'll get our freedom…

 

…but we have to start discussing it… we have to embed our new understanding in the broader population…

 

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“[Plato] twice expresses his hope that even the rulers themselves, at least after a few generations, might be induced to believe his greatest propaganda lie; I mean his racialism, his Myth of Blood and Soil, known as the Myth of the Metals in Man and of the Earthborn. Here we see that Plato's utilitarian and totalitarian principles overrule everything, even the ruler's privilege of knowing and of demanding to be told, the truth…” We have been trapped by people trapped in their deeply-implanted misconceptions… who have become like robots… function on 'automatic' – they cannot be reasoned with (and I'm talking about these global-state-statesmen… not those who do their bidding out of some form of compulsion…) …but as we… one by one… begin having our broad globe-encompassing discussions… planning how to inaugurate a new social arrangement… on the fresh premises of non-coercion and the full development of our gifts through self-creation… the very range and depth of our vision… the fact that we see the world itself as our province… will be… for these 'power'-guys… deeply disturbing… profoundly unnerving… …as the very act of our discussions breaks their hold on us… for if 'thought' – broad and all-embracing – is not their exclusive province… then their sense of themselves is shaken… their entire 'philosophy' mistaken…

 

It was important to these Plato's Tribesmen that we believe in their supposed 'superiority'… for myriad reasons intertwined… but a significant one we see… distinct from their need to establish their 'rule's legitimacy:

 

…they need themselves to believe it… Recall what Popper said in our radio show of October 11, 2015 – and I have to say… I cannot read this without getting the chills… on the one hand… by the horrors wrought by this one man Plato… and on the other… by the chilling thought of how much depended… on Popper:

…What kind of lies has Plato in mind when he exhorts his rulers to use strong medicine? Crossman rightly emphasizes that Plato means “propaganda, the technique of controlling the behaviour of… the bulk of the ruled majority.” Certainly, Plato had these first in his mind; but when Crossman suggests that the propaganda lies were only intended for the consumption of the ruled, while the rulers should be a fully enlightened intelligentsia, then I cannot agree. I think, rather, that Plato's complete break with anything resembling Socrates' intellectualism is nowhere more obvious than in the place where he twice expresses his hope that even the rulers themselves, at least after a few generations, might be induced to believe his greatest propaganda lie; I mean his racialism, his Myth of Blood and Soil, known as the Myth of the Metals in Man and of the Earthborn. Here we see that Plato's utilitarian and totalitarian principles overrule everything, even the ruler's privilege of knowing and of demanding to be told, the truth. The motive of Plato's wish that the rulers themselves should believe in the propaganda lie is his hope of increasing its wholesome effect, i.e. of strengthening the rule of the master race, and ultimately, of arresting all political change. (The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, p. 138 –140)

We have been trapped by people trapped in their deeply-implanted misconceptions… who have become like robots… function on 'automatic' – they cannot be reasoned with (and I'm talking about these global-state-statesmen… not those who do their bidding out of some form of compulsion…)

 

…but as we… one by one… begin having our broad globe-encompassing discussions… planning how to inaugurate a new social arrangement… on the fresh premises of non-coercion and the full development of our gifts through self-creation… the very range and depth of our vision… the fact that we see the world itself as our province… will be… for these 'power'-guys… deeply disturbing… profoundly unnerving…

 

…as the very act of our discussions breaks their hold on us… for if 'thought' – broad and all-embracing – is not their exclusive province… then their sense of themselves is shaken… their entire 'philosophy' mistaken…

 

…and as we free ourselves… we un-make them… “command exists but with obedience…”

 

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* “WUR of October 25, 2015 Reading… continuing our interlude: excerpts from Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… and Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914… before returning to the chapter "Poisonous Pedagogy" in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good

 

[“151025theindividualprogressofeach.mp3”:]

 

…let's take in what Popper just said… that what these 'power'-mad folk did… was to lie to their children (as they were once lied to….) As they were inculcated with Plato's philosophy… it wasn't presented to 'their children' (who extend beyond their biological children…) as propaganda that was created to cement their rule in place… no… it was presented to them as real… as actual… that they were actually in possession of a 'higher dialectical knowledge'… that the rest of the populace could not understand… they were actually taught to believe that…. “We seek progress in the fullest emancipation of the individual from the authority of the State; in the greatest development of individual initiative and in the limitation of all the governmental functions, but surely not in their extension. The march forward in political institutions appears to us to consist in abolishing in the first place the State authority which has fixed itself upon society and which now tries to extend its functions more and more; and in the second place, in allowing the broadest possible development for the principle of free agreement, and in acknowledging the independence of all possible associations formed for definite ends, embracing in their federations the whole of society.” Let's think more about the implications of Kropotkin's words [for our discussion next week] for the physical design of our new world based on non-coercion and the full development of our gifts. On the individual progress of each… as a broad social endowment… depends progress overall.

[And let's take in what Popper just said… that what these 'power'-mad folk did… was to lie to their children (as they were once lied to….) As they were inculcated with Plato's philosophy… it wasn't presented to 'their children' (who extend beyond their biological children…) as propaganda that was created to cement their rule in place… no… it was presented to them as real… as actual… that they were actually in possession of a 'higher dialectical knowledge'… that the rest of the populace could not understand… they were actually taught to believe that – this is why I say they cannot be reasoned with… it is so deeply embedded in their psyches… this notion that they are superior beings – but it is irrelevant because it's such a tiny number of folks… but they have amassed massive means… because they have been planning… they work together – it shows the power of working together: it's our turn now… now that we see that con… see the game… see their deep psychological disturbance… so that there's no mystery why the earth is in such trouble right now… why there's been such massive genocide and destruction of the planet… there's really no mystery about it once we understand there's conscious planning behind it: they deeply have contempt for their Brothers and Sisters… to say the least.]

 

[We are reading excerpts from Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… and Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914, in order to see the origins of the 'modern' 'centralist' bureaucratic nation-state in the fixed determination of 'statesmen' to repress us… we-the-people… It is a new invention… the 'nation-state'… with no less devastating effects for being so. And so long as it lasts… it – these global-'statesmen' – will forestall our growth… our right to express our infinite expansiveness… It's important that we get clear… as we design our education work with the broader community… on this notion of 'progress'… given that it is their core propaganda: it's the 'power'-guys raison d'etre and self-justification. Let's keep in mind Kropotkin's carefully thought-through (his life-long practice of carefully thinking-through…) analysis – I encourage folks to download the Kropotkin pdf I'm posting to the 'Blog' page (the draft number changes as I correct errors and add more of his text…) Recall he said (and this shows – the whole essay from which this was excerpted… “Modern Science and Anarchism”… shows – that he was very much attuned to the propaganda they would use to control us: the two principle ones being Bentham's “greatest happiness principle”… and the “'power' delivers 'progress” ideology – and that he was attuned as well to there being a possible tool here in the U.S in our right as a people to pursue happiness…):

We seek progress in the fullest emancipation of the individual from the authority of the State; in the greatest development of individual initiative and in the limitation of all the governmental functions, but surely not in their extension. The march forward in political institutions appears to us to consist in abolishing in the first place the State authority which has fixed itself upon society and which now tries to extend its functions more and more; and in the second place, in allowing the broadest possible development for the principle of free agreement, and in acknowledging the independence of all possible associations formed for definite ends, embracing in their federations the whole of society. The life of society itself we understand, not as something complete and rigid, but as something never perfect – something ever striving for new forms, and ever changing these forms in accordance with the needs of time. This is what life is in nature.

 

Such a conception of human progress and of what we think desirable in the future (what, in our opinion, can increase the sum of happiness) leads us inevitably to our own special tactics in the struggle. It induces us to strive for the greatest possible development of personal initiative in every individual and group, and to secure unity of action, not through discipline, but through the unity of aims and the mutual confidence which never fail to develop when a great number of persons have consciously embraced some common idea.

Let's think more about the implications of Kropotkin's words [for our discussion next week] for the physical design of our new world based on non-coercion and the full development of our gifts. As we think more about them I believe its truth will become obvious (as well as why the 'power'-mad use the tactic of 'infiltration'… to destroy our mutual confidence…) On the individual progress of each… as a broad social endowment… depends progress overall. There is no 'progress' unless there is the self-development of our gifts as individuals… which cannot happen while the state is sucking on them… sitting on them… on us… It's been a hundred-years-plus since we were given these words by Kropotkin… and the Left has been missing in action and intentionally suppressed… it's time for each one of us to assume the leadership… – P.S.].

[“151025cloakofliberalism.mp3”:]

 

“Practical liberals… shied away from political democracy… The social discontents, revolutionary movements, and the socialist ideologues of the post-Napoleonic era intensified this dilemma [of relying upon the majority to carry out the dictates of reason] […and there… embedded in that off-hand remark… is the core… key… almost originating propaganda piece of 'class': that you cannot rely on the majority to deliver a society that is optimal for everyone… that only a tiny few who are in possession of the philosophical wisdom of Plato can do that for us… Before continuing it would be helpful to understand clearly what Wallerstein means by 'liberalism.' The following quote should help clarify how he is using the term 'liberal'… and 'liberalism' – which… I'm encouraging us to consider… refers to a new strategy and tactics… invented post French-Revolution… by folks with a Plato-allegiance… determined to supplant the old aristocrats… because they believed they had a better plan… to suppress us… we-the-people… “liberals sought to propagate their views and intrude the logic of their views within all social institutions…” – [and that of course is the definition of totalitarianism – and why… my whole life… has that never been said – out loud – so we can start discussing it?… as well as the fact that they have succeeded in their ambition… thanks to the poisoned pedagogues that Alice discusses… and the use of war to slaughter the opposition and beat us into submission… – P.S.]

 

“The Liberal State and Class Conflict, 1830 – 1875”, Chapter 3 in Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914… (page 77 – 141)

 

During the first half of the nineteenth century, socialism as a concept was still not separate from “bourgeois democracy” as a concept or, as Labrousse (1949b, 7) says, “Jacobinism and socialism remained muddled in political life.” In some sense, it probably remained for at least a century thereafter that a full distinction of the two concepts did not exist. Nonetheless, liberalism (which seems to me a better locution than “bourgeois democracy”) and socialism began to have diverging trajectories as political options after 1830. Indeed, as Hobsbawm (1962, 284) argues:

Practical liberals… shied away from political democracy… The social discontents, revolutionary movements, and the socialist ideologues of the post-Napoleonic era intensified this dilemma [of relying upon the majority to carry out the dictates of reason] […and there… embedded in that off-hand remark… is the core… key… almost originating propaganda piece of 'class': that you cannot rely on the majority to deliver a society that is optimal for everyone… that only a tiny few who are in possession of the philosophical wisdom of Plato can do that for us… – P.S.] and the 1830 Revolution made it acute. Liberalism and democracy appeared to be adversaries rather than allies.

 

[Before continuing it would be helpful to understand clearly what Wallerstein means by 'liberalism.' The following quote from the opening chapter (p. 5 - 6) of this book by Wallerstein should help clarify how he is using the term 'liberal'… and 'liberalism' – which… I'm encouraging us to consider… refers to a new strategy and tactics… invented post French-Revolution… by folks with a Plato-allegiance… determined to supplant the old aristocrats… because they believed they had a better plan… to suppress us… we-the-people:

 

“Liberalism started ideological life on the left of the political spectrum, or at least on the center-left. [From the little I've digested thus far from this book by Wallerstein… he uses 'liberals' as I use 'Plato's Tribesmen'… the 'power'-guys… post-French Revolution… We shall have to consider whether that comparison is accurate as we go along… but if there is any correspondence at all… to apply the term 'left' to these guys… in any sense of the word… from where I sit… invalidates it… and 'left ideology' is a concept specific to 'bourgeois democracy'… as… under 'class'… there has never been a time when we-the-people did not produce 'ideologies' of freedom… – P.S.] Liberalism defined itself as the opposite of conservatism [and by 'conservatism' he means I assume attachment to the old aristocratic privileges and values… – P.S.], on the basis of what might be called a “consciousness of being modern” (Minogue, 1963, 3). Liberalism proclaimed itself universalist. Sure of themselves and of the truth of this new world-view of modernity, liberals sought to propagate their views and intrude the logic of their views within all social institutions [and that of course is the definition of totalitarianism – and why… my whole life… has that never been said – out loud – so we can start discussing it?… as well as the fact that they have succeeded in their ambition… thanks to the poisoned pedagogues that Alice discusses… and the use of war to slaughter the opposition and beat us into submission… – P.S.], […intrude their views into all social institutions…] thereby ridding the world of the “irrational” leftovers of the past. To do this, they had to fight conservative ideologues, whom they saw as obsessed with fear of “free men” – men liberated from the false idols of tradition. [This sugary spin is their originating propaganda… their 'origin myth' and self-justification… – P.S.]

 

“Liberals believed, however, that progress, even though it was inevitable, could not be achieved without some human effort, without a political program. [And here we give thanks again for Popper's explanation of 'historicism' – “story leading reality” – and how it keys into their belief in totalitarian social engineering… – P.S.] Liberal ideology was thus the belief that, in order for history [i.e. in order for the thoughts in their head to live… – P.S.] to follow its natural course, it was necessary to engage in conscious, continual, intelligent reformism, in full awareness that “time was the universal friend, which would inevitably bring greater happiness to ever greater numbers” (Schapiro, 1949, 13). [Straight-up Hegel (on 'History' and collateral misery) and Bentham of course (his 'greatest happiness' principle…) who at least was honest… but these guys can absolutely not be taken at their word – not these guys… with their 'lordly lies' and their training as infants to keep secrets. Secrecy is their watchword… hiding their m.o.… public presentation necessarily the dissemination of propaganda… – P.S.]

 

[“151025optimaltotalitarianism.mp3”:]

 

“In short, liberals were those who wished to control the pace of change so that it occurred at what they considered to be an optimal speed. But could one really know what is the optimal speed?…” [And how is the ideology that we-the-people must have 'Reason' imposed on us… and… that 'reality' must be so constructed as to force us to 'progress'… anything but totalitarian? – P.S.]

 

“…To be sure, the center is merely an abstraction, and a rhetorical device. One can always locate oneself in central position simply by defining the extremes as one wishes. Liberals are those who decided to do this as their basic political strategy. [I.e.… they decided it was time… to employ a 'lordly lie'… – P.S.] Faced with the normality of change, liberals would claim a position between the conservatives – that is, the right, who wanted to slow down the pace of normal change as much as possible – and the “democrats” (or radicals or socialists or revolutionaries) – that is, the left, who wanted to speed it up as much as possible. [And how is the ideology that we-the-people must have 'Reason' imposed on us… and… that 'reality' must be so constructed as to force us to 'progress'… anything but totalitarian? – P.S.] In short, liberals were those who wished to control the pace of change so that it occurred at what they considered to be an optimal speed. But could one really know what is the optimal speed? Yes, said the liberals, and their metastrategy was precisely geared to achieving this end.” (p. 5 - 6)

 

[What I want to know is… what happened to the language 'world bourgeoisie'… 'world elite'… 'world right'… the “managers of the status quo…” of Antisystemic Movements – true… he uses 'world right' in his chapter of Does Capitalism Have A Future?… which is more straight-forward… and states their totalitarian ambition more baldly… perhaps we will discover the answer in the course of our reading…

 

[“151025totalitarianstrategy.mp3”:]

 

…these guys don't just want to be kings… what they lust for is divinity… and Guizot et all-the-rest-of-his-fellow-Tribesmen had hit upon a strategy that… down the road… would bring them to that first step… on the throne. Albert O. Hirschman ties Guizot's proclamation “'Enrichissez-vous!' as a model of conduct for the citizen…” (p. 122) to this calculation: “…those who observed money-making activities from a distance and with some disdain… [nonetheless derived comfort from the thought that when] the 'lower orders,' or the 'great mob of mankind,' have only interests to pursue [they] have little time or taste for the passions [revolution].” He makes the case effectively… and what Wallerstein documents here backs him up… that 'accumulation' was encouraged intentionally by “the few who play for the higher stakes of power” as a conscious strategy to keep 'the mob' too busy simply surviving to bother 'their betters' with thoughts of getting free… This is old strategy… but… once… with the help of Plato's propaganda-playbook – his political strategy handbook – the Republic… once a small but very organized group decided to orient the whole of society around it… they altered decisively… to their advantage… the terms of engagement with we-the-people…i.e.…it became something different when resurrected as a totalitarian vision…

 

[Returning to Chapter 3… “The Liberal State and Class Conflict, 1830 – 1875”… – P.S.]:

The concept of class and class conflict was not a contribution of socialist ideologues, much less of Karl Marx. It is a Saint-Simonian idea, developed and pursued by Guizot as part of the liberal project. Saint-Simon's view of the class structure in the modern industrial world was that there were three classes: the property owners, the propertyless, and the savants [It seems to me a clear debt here to Plato… – P.S.]. He saw the class conflict between the “industrials” (those who work) and the idlers as a transitional phase, to be superseded by a harmonious society […and another debt here… to Bentham… as well as to Plato… – P.S.] of productive industrial classes under the aegis of the savants […the 'philosopher-kings'… – P.S.], a meritocratic vision in which the old aristocracy of birth would be replaced by an aristocracy of talent (Manuel, 1956; Iggers, 1958b). For Guizot, the concept of class was an essential element in his efforts to “legitimate the political aspirations of the bourgeoisie” (Fossert, 1955, 60).

 

But in 1830, Guizot and his friends succeeded, as they were simultaneously succeeding in Great Britain, in establishing a form of middle-class rule “as a permanent juste milieu or golden mean between the extremes of revolution and reaction” (Starzinger, 1965, viii). The Chamber of Deputies on August 7, 1830, suppressed the Preamble to the Charter of 1814 “as wounding the national dignity by appearing to grant to Frenchmen rights which belong to them essentially” [That's the kind of sleazy underhanded move that the 'power'-guys of today have learned to polish smooth… – P.S.] (Collins, 1970, 90). The liberals politically and the grande bourgeoisie socially had at last won their droit de cite. [Wallerstein's note (partially) reads: “Both L'homme (1960, 36) and Pouthas (1962, 258) speak of the substitution of one class for the other as the dominant force…”] [Except… these guys don't just want to be kings… what they lust for is divinity… and Guizot et all-the-rest-of-his-fellow-Tribesmen had hit upon a strategy that… down the road… would bring them to that first step… on the throne. Albert O. Hirschman ties Guizot's proclamation “'Enrichissez-vous!' as a model of conduct for the citizen…” (p. 122) to this calculation: “…those who observed money-making activities from a distance and with some disdain… [nonetheless derived comfort from the thought that when] the 'lower orders,' or the 'great mob of mankind,' have only interests to pursue [they] have little time or taste for the passions [revolution] (p. 125, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph).” He makes the case effectively… and what Wallerstein documents here backs him up… that 'accumulation' was encouraged intentionally by “the few who play for the higher stakes of power” as a conscious strategy to keep 'the mob' too busy simply surviving to bother 'their betters' with thoughts of getting free… This is old strategy… but… once… with the help of Plato's propaganda-playbook – his political strategy handbook – the Republic… once a small but very organized group decided to orient the whole of society around it… they altered decisively… to their advantage… the terms of engagement with we-the-people…i.e.…it became something different when resurrected as a totalitarian vision… – P.S.]

 

[“151025platoupdated.mp3”:]

 

…when we note… the hierarchical ordering systematically promulgated… imposed… by these totalitarian social engineers in Plato's mold… we shouldn't forget what Plato said to 'rule' of his day and beyond… 'if you want to “win”… then… the gulf must be widened… between the “rulers” and the “ruled”'… “the stronger the feeling that the ruled are a different and altogether inferior race, the stronger will be the sense of unity among the rulers.” That it is Plato-updated that imbues these self-proclaimed 'liberals' with such self-righteous fervor and conviction I think there is no doubt… and we should note as well (as we have before) that when we agree to self-limit ourselves by keeping to the narrow categories imposed by self-appointed global-'rulers'… it means the atrophy of 'thought' itself. What a bunch of nut-cases 'rule' our world… these 'power'-mad few… simply because they have amassed the means to impose on us their sick world-view… It's time (long past…) for us to amass our 'means' too…

 

Since, in addition, this coincided with a period of accelerating economic and social change, the most urgent problems facing France and Great Britain had now become the “social problems” of industrialism, and especially those of the “new proletariat, the horrors of uncontrolled break-neck urbanization” (Hobsbawm, 1962, 207). Class conflict would therefore come to mean something different from what Saint-Simon and Guizot had had in mind. The Revolution of 1830 itself came at a moment of particular economic difficulty for the workers (high unemployment, unusually high wheat prices). It provided evidence of the utility of political uprising and served to stimulate workers' consciousness, a sense of having common interest “solely as proletarians,” a sense of the “dignity of the worker” (Festy, 1908, 330). The liberals perceived this change immediately. Thiers said in a statement to the Chamber of Deputies: “The day after the Revolution of July, we saw our duty to moderate it. In effect it was no longer liberty, but order which was in danger” (cited in Bezucha, 1974, 137).

 

The next few years were to see worker unrest of a new intensity and quality in both France and Great Britain. It has been increasingly noted in the literature on strikes and workers' unrest how much of this activity was that of “artisans” as opposed to “workers.” Although the line is not always as clear as some seem to think, in general those referred to as “artisans” had more technical skills, higher real income, and more workplace autonomy than other kinds of workers. Many of these “artisans” were members of organizations that had been in existence long before the nineteenth century, and which functioned to advance the welfare of their members through social support and mutual help. The organizations were hierarchical and built around rituals.

 

These organizations were the only ones permitted at all in the periods when trade-union organization had been strictly forbidden, and then only under the careful surveillance of the authorities. In the changing political situation after 1830, however, even mutual aid societies began to take on new roles, as See (1951, 2:199) pointed out: “Many of these societies served… to hide veritable resistance organizations, hostile to the employers; by creating auxiliary monetary reserves (bourses auxiliaires), they created funds to support the unemployed and strikers.” Thus it could be, as Stearns (1965, 371 – 372) has argued, that such “artisans” were more likely to engage in strike action at this time than the “factory workers,” who, being in an even weaker position, were “almost totally quiescent.” [While Wallerstein – in his use of quotation marks with the 'class' designations – acknowledges the fluidity of the categories into which we are put… for ease of analysis in Academe… and to facilitate 'power's planning… The critique in this space goes further. You recall during the September 27, 2015 show… my comment that 'class' categorizations have no valid use for us… exist… rather… to serve 'power's ideological purposes… So when we note… the hierarchical ordering systematically promulgated… imposed… by these totalitarian social engineers in Plato's mold… we shouldn't forget what Plato said to 'rule' of his day and beyond… 'if you want to “win”… then… the gulf must be widened… between the “rulers” and the “ruled”'… “the stronger the feeling that the ruled are a different and altogether inferior race, the stronger will be the sense of unity among the rulers. We arrive in this way at the fundamental principle, announced only [by Plato] after some hesitation, that there must be no mingling between the classes…” (Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, p. 48 – 9). That it is Plato-updated that imbues these self-proclaimed 'liberals' with such self-righteous fervor and conviction I think there is no doubt… and we should note as well (as we have before) that when we agree to self-limit ourselves by keeping to the narrow categories imposed by self-appointed global-'rulers'… it means the atrophy of 'thought' itself. What a bunch of nut-cases 'rule' our world… these 'power'-mad few… simply because they have amassed the means to impose on us their sick world-view… It's time (long past…) for us to amass our 'means' too… – P.S.]

 

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[October 25, 2015 show ends here.]

 

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* “WUR of November 1, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.7): Segue From Marx… To Alice

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 29)

 

[“151101individualenergyasbasis.mp3”:]

 

The 'state' that Kropotkin writes of is now – 'power'-produced-propagandistic-promulgations notwithstanding – a global state… we are… in a 'political' sense… one tribe… we have been made physically so (though spiritually we have always… necessarily… been so…) through the structural interconnections we have created… created while on leash… but for our Freedom-time… when there would be no leashes… when we allow “the broadest possible development for the principle of free agreement, and [acknowledge] the independence of all possible associations formed for definite ends, embracing in their federations the whole of society…” the whole of the globe…

 

October 26, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: What if we planned our next social arrangement from the stance of being continuously-developing global humans? What would that stance mean for planning?

 

What does it mean to claim the planet?… if not to work together with a global tribe to ensure that wherever we are on the planet we work to realize our vision of the world we want: us unbounded… human energy free… moving unconstrainedly… with freed capacity to realize our visions in the world.

 

The Internet makes is possible for us to have direct relations with each other. Let's think about what that means.

 

One thing it means is that honesty is furthered automatically… once 'power' is off our backs.

 

There are some things we can say for certain about the 'political organization' of freedom: that it is decentralized… that its basic unit will be the individual…

 

…now that may sound peculiar to the 'class'-trained human… but recall what Kropotkin thought about our 'association' under conditions of freedom:

The march forward in political institutions appears to us to consist in abolishing in the first place the State authority which has fixed itself upon society and which now tries to extend its functions more and more; and in the second place, in allowing the broadest possible development for the principle of free agreement, and in acknowledging the independence of all possible associations formed for definite ends, embracing in their federations the whole of society. The life of society itself we understand, not as something complete and rigid, but as something never perfect – something ever striving for new forms, and ever changing these forms in accordance with the needs of time. This is what life is in nature.

The 'state' that Kropotkin writes of is now – 'power'-produced-propagandistic-promulgations notwithstanding – a global state… we are… in a 'political' sense… one tribe… we have been made physically so (though spiritually we have always… necessarily… been so…) through the structural interconnections we have created… created while on leash… but for our Freedom-time… when there would be no leashes… when we allow “the broadest possible development for the principle of free agreement, and [acknowledge] the independence of all possible associations formed for definite ends, embracing in their federations the whole of society…” the whole of the globe.

 

So… let's consider what ends… what purposes… we will likely have… in freedom and in transition to freedom… for which we form our associations.

 

[“151101eachoneprecious.mp3”:]

 

Let's assume for a minute that our basic needs are met… because of the circumstances of 'overproduction' in the existing ('class'-) system… and because we help each other build Earthships (a structure built into the earth that I wrote about in Waking Up… in balance with the earth… oriented optimally to maintain a constant 70 degree temperature… that supports our self-sufficiency by growing its own food… generating its own electricity… 'fries' the owners' excrement which can then be used to fertilize the plants growing in it…) – a structure that uses discarded automobile tires and aluminum cans as wall insulation… a structure the primary cost of which is our labor……what purposes beyond meeting basic needs – those basic needs met by the voluntary associations just discussed – would we have?

 

Let's assume for a minute that our basic needs are met… because of the circumstances of 'overproduction' in the existing ('class'-) system… and because we help each other build Earthships (a structure built into the earth that I wrote about in Waking Up… in balance with the earth… oriented optimally to maintain a constant 70 degree temperature… that supports our self-sufficiency by growing its own food… generating its own electricity… 'fries' the owners' excrement which can then be used to fertilize the plants growing in it…) – a structure that uses discarded automobile tires and aluminum cans as wall insulation… a structure the primary cost of which is our labor…

 

Let's assume further… that those involved currently in the circulation of society's necessities – those who do the actual shipping of goods around the world… continue doing this for the transition… on a strictly volunteer basis…

 

…and let's assume this likewise for the communications networks and energy grids…

 

…and that we use the Internet to identify needs and wants and bottlenecks around the globe…

 

…then…

 

Each one of us individually has what he or she needs… because of Earthships and related self-sufficiency technologies (I'm thinking specifically of David Blume's argument in Alcohol Can Be A Gas!, (info@permaculture.com):

It’s become a sort of heresy to talk about alcohol fuel or any form of alternative energy as a viable way out of our energy dilemma…. Rest assured, there is enough land to produce solar energy in many forms, including alcohol, for a world that makes energy-efficient design a priority. We can have a large cooperative cellulose distillery operation in each county, producing ethanol and biomass electricity to keep our essential services running. We can have small integrated farms that produce fuel, food, and building materials. We can eat well on locally produced food and locally processed products. We can even cogenerate our electricity and hot water at our homes using our cars running on alcohol in a pinch…

(I'm posting a pdf of our “Miklos Nyiszli’s Lessons On Class”: April 13, 2014 Show. [It was as I was uploading the audio for this April 13, 2014 show to the 'Miklos Nyiszli Page' that the 'Adobe' software I was using stopped working… and I had to figure out how to continue editing my website pages 'manually' – in html – so the audio files never got added to that page. Some of them I posted to the 'Miklos Nyiszli – Part 2' Page but because their posting was scattered… I've decided to post them here… as well as on the 'Missing Audio Files Page' Page…] During this show David Blume's book was discussed within the very context we're fleshing out today: the world we want and how to start planning for it – I hope you'll download and read it… and listen to the audio… as preparation for our upcoming show):

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[“140413manageus.mp3”:]

 

“In Founding & Realizing A Test-Site… we noted – or rather De Tocqueville does – that this is a long historical process (much longer than he discusses…) coterminous with ‘class’… and that it was with the French Revolution that the dutiful sons of ‘rule’ finally got what Plato was trying to teach them… that the only way to successfully… to permanently… sit on the people is: if they (‘power’… the philosopher-king-global-statesmen…) unite… while we (the people) are systematically riven (by them…) by divisions… and – and this is equally important – they cannot successfully sit on us… and thereby maintain their ‘superior’ position… unless the development of our thought-process is prevented. Just as ‘power’ was slow to grasp Plato (it took the French Revolution and Bentham to accomplish it…) ‘power’ has been likewise slow to ‘get’ De Tocqueville – or maybe just slow to accept his message… that we-the-people will never stop pushing to use our gifts… and that they must ‘manage’ it – this longing (preferably… for ‘power’… in the way that Bentham said – and De Tocqueville heartily endorsed: “get them to internalize ‘discipline’…” [and – going beyond this – De Tocqueville praised the U.S. way of de-centralizing our – we-the-people’s – management… because it makes the state seem non-totalitarian.])” [From the April 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

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[“140413powterms.mp3”:]

 

“Yet the consumption of the planet… and the advance of the Internet… occurring at once… pose an unmeetable challenge for ‘power’.… When De Tocqueville describes ‘democracy’ as an irresistible force he’s but noting that we human beings are determined to grow our gifts… to get ‘big’… and use our leadership (capacities.) This is the earth speaking in us. So what can ‘power’ do about it? What it does is to… simultaneously (again following Plato’s guidance…) rank us… teach us to deify ‘mind’… equate ‘mind’ with growing our gifts… while only allowing some to devote their lives to this ‘mind-worship’… and… if all else fails… try to orchestrate a way to make us (the broad populace…) feel we’re growing our gifts… our leadership (a quality… again… inherent in every human being… by virtue of our being living things.) So… ‘leadership’ is in all of us… and as the Piper’s price (his blood-lust of consumption of the planet’s resources…) has now fallen due… is weighing on us… ‘power’ has three choices… which in its desperation it unleashes all at once: first… appeals to nationalism… by creating external threats – the threat of war; second… population-reduction… by unleashing catastrophic events; third… buy-off the former ‘better-offs’… the ones it used to placate with jobs… with offers to let them use their ‘leadership’…. (And now that I’ve delved a bit into ‘Campaign Sic-Rifkin-On-’Em’… I have to admit a fourth option… though it’s really an amalgam of all of them… but for convenience let’s call it “re-energize ‘capitalism’”.) Which is the proper context… I think… for making sense of this series of over-lapping orchestrations that we’ve been witnessing… from ‘power’s bought-and-paid-for media. This is what ‘power’ does… when it unleashes significant propaganda. It throws it at us from every angle… using multiple pundits but with single messages… variously stated… employing inter-linking… mutually-reinforcing… terms and concepts – all designed to paint a clear picture… of the future ‘power’ wants us to want (while always controlling the definitions): “local economies”… “worker-owned businesses or cooperatives’… “‘democratic’ economics”… ‘self-sufficiency’ (of course what they call ‘self-sufficiency’ isn’t ‘individual self-sufficiency’…” [From the April 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

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[“140413planetprop.mp3”:]

 

“And perhaps the most telling fact dropped along the way is that: youth today can’t be bought with a wage… they want their ‘work’ to also be a contribution… they want their ‘work’ to be socially significant… probably because… the earth is in the throes of consumption… and the Internet has brought us all closer… and they care about their brothers and sisters…. So… ‘power’ asks itself… “how to control them?”… “how to manage this matter of shrinking resources… and swelling numbers of humans who no longer want to be ‘factors of production’?”… “how to push back into boxes the growing numbers who are determined to get out of them?” If not by controlling the menu of options available to them? (It’s not about ‘saving the planet’. There’s an element in the emphasis on climate change disruption which is propagandistic… in the sense that… once again… we’re not supposed to care about ourselves… Let’s not be suckered at this juncture… not just because our freedom is long overdue… but also because it’s only us – out of the boxes and out of harness – who can truly brings things back into balance… because it’s our being used… our energy being stolen… which is the major imbalance that is the root of the problem.)” [From the April 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

–––

 

[“140413questions.mp3”:]

 

“What about all that ‘legacy-disparity’? While the youth are building the ‘healing economy’… (there… I grant you a new term to try to co-opt… go ahead… fill it with empty content…) Isn’t what’s needed that we-the-people free our souls of ‘obedience’? …the current terms of ‘governance’ disallow ‘all of us’ making the decisions… and rather, as Spearman said, ever tend us toward totalitarianism. How is this so-called ‘new’ vision not “the subordination of the individual to the collective purpose…”? as Diana Spearman described ‘dictatorship’? ‘Power’ must end for our world to be based on reverence… instead of obedience.” [From the April 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

–––

 

[“140413pilot.mp3”:]

 

“The more I probe this latest thrust… from ‘power’s ‘Shape the Future’ Project… in which they make use of Jeremy Rifkin (I listened to an interview with him yesterday… promoting his latest book…) particularly as there’s quite a pile of spokesmen now stacked up (Venus… Zeitgeist… Thrive… the MIT guys… the pop-economists asking us to help save ‘capitalism’… or 'the economy' – we're always supposed to put that first – all the ‘visionary thinkers’ telling us what our future will be…) the more it seems to me… we need strategy sessions… ‘planning-ins’ (‘Planning-ins’ to launch our transition… ‘PILOTs’…) Because… truly… we must somehow make our voices louder… somehow get our priorities out there… those of us who want to move forward an alternative for popular discussion… demonstrate to our brothers and sisters that ‘power’s plans are being met with an alternative…. This cannot be only an academic discussion. …seeing this… a strong sense of urgency in me surges… that says: we on the Left… that is, those of us who admit that ‘power’ is not engaged in ‘objective’ ‘scholarship’… but is deadly committed to its ‘future-vision’… we have to start talking about how to challenge it… meet it with an alternative vision that is not elitist… but rather is ‘power’s opposite.” [From the April 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

–––

 

[“140413coreofvis.mp3”:]

 

“We learned from Sebastian de Grazia that ‘power’ has known for decades that ‘wage work’ is an antiquated system… and that it doesn’t need us on leash anymore. It’s long past time for us to figure out how to have our time back – that’s the only way we can be happy…. So we have this right… here in the U.S…. to plan freedom… and it’s just so completely reasonable to say “let’s have a test site… – just the folks who want to… we’re not trying to impose nothing on nobody. We just want whoever is interested… we need a sufficient little bit of land… we want to use all this amazing knowledge [Michael Reynolds’ Earthship… David Blume’s de-centralization of energy production… e.g… each village having it’s own energy co-op…] that people are putting on the table because they want all of us to be free [globally….] So this is reasonable. There’s no reason aside from ‘power’ nakedly exposing itself why this shouldn’t be… a test site…” [From the April 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

–––

 

[“140413freeuscrit.mp3”:]

 

“David Blume… argues that de-centralized production of alcohol… from a variety of plant sources… could allow all humans to be energy self-sufficient… “Rest assured, there is enough land to produce solar energy in many forms, including alcohol, for a world that makes energy-efficient design a priority. We can have a large cooperative cellulose distillery operation in each county, producing ethanol and biomass electricity to keep our essential services running. We can have small integrated farms that produce fuel, food, and building materials. We can eat well on locally produced food and locally processed products. We can even cogenerate our electricity and hot water at our homes using our cars running on alcohol in a pinch…” [From the April 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

–––

 

[“140413telegraph.mp3”:]

 

“The parade of ‘power’s prognosticators are revealing of their plans for us. But I’ve yet to hear our commensurate response – i.e. one global in scope… that penetrates the deep social relations of class (as ‘power’s does implicitly… never inviting discussion of course…) and attempts to enlist global humanity in this massive ‘transition’ project. Now that’s largely a matter of our not having our own public media commons… our own shared public discussion space… our own shared voices to echo throughout our day to counter ‘power’s. But that we must figure out how to create such spaces could not be clearer.… “Immanuel Wallerstein explains the rationale for predicting the breakdown of the capitalist system. Over the next three or four decades capitalists of the world, overcrowding the global markets and hard pressed on all sides by the social and ecological costs of doing business, may find it simply impossible to make their usual investment decisions.” […he will be arguing that the sine qua non of ‘capitalism’ as a world system is not wage labor… or production for exchange and profit… or the class struggle… or the ‘free market’… but rather the endless accumulation of capital… which Rosa Luxemburg told us a hundred years ago… So this historical situation will ultimately reach its systemic limitations… – P.S.]” [From the April 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

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[“140413rapist.mp3”:]

 

“As with all ‘power’s propaganda about ‘the future’… it uses the declarative voice. It brooks no challenge… no counter vision… and certainly no squawking from mere commoners. This is ‘Big Boys Business’ is what he’s saying… the ‘Big Boys Game’… the exclusive province of the Global Players… So we’re told what we’re going to get – and it’s an appalling vision… all this “billions of sensors” business has always been ‘power’s longing: total surveillance of us and all life. But it’s not what we want. Where are the healthy, happy babies in this vision? Where is the limitless time? Where is the boundless roving and the spanning of seas to explore new things? When ‘power’ salivates about how it can monitor the entire planet from it’s Control Room atop the Panopticon… and waxes poetic about how we also should want it… should passionately wish to contribute our small bit to the “billions of brains” working on Total Surveillance… what it’s lusting for is the end of our efforts to even try to be independent… the achievement of their deep longing that we will end all resistance… and become passionately ‘self-regulating’… eagerly offer our allegiance… so what ‘power’ most wants is for us to turn our backs on our brothers and sisters. Where they keep in place the harshest regimes live the people they plan will feed the more ‘privileged’ sectors of the global economy. But they don’t want us thinking about that. They want us to keep to our given tasks… and be obedient. (And… and I’ve said this before but it’s not being discussed… ‘power’ wants to control the so-called ‘knowledge resources’: ‘Knowledge Infinite’… for which they’ve always lusted.)” [From the April 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

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[“140413corpcover.mp3”:]

 

“…he thoughtfully leaves the dire predictions to the end… when he says: Extreme storms and floods… Droughts are proliferating everywhere… The impact on agriculture in the Middle East and North Africa over the next four decades because of climate change is equally alarming… Is it any wonder they’re pushing so hard to create an ‘economy’ based on ‘cooperation’ (for us…) to get us to give generously of our time… and… willingly… continue to let them direct our lives. And every good fairy tale needs a villain… would it surprise you to learn it’s corporations?…‘power’s traditional cover – the facade global-‘power’ apparently cannot do without… “‘scarcity’ is self-justifying”… and if imposed universally reduces the need for economic ideology… ‘capitalism’s ideological function… in this stage of the game… is less about providing motivation – or legitimization and justification of ‘rule’ – and now almost exclusively about providing ‘power’ with needed cover… i.e. shielding its totalitarian planning from public scrutiny… and trying to get we-the-people on ‘it’s side… And who is the only player strong enough to do battle with this villain? – the evil corporations – well, ‘the state’ of course… only Daddy has sufficient resources… we-the-people are way out of our league… we must go back to our bedtime stories… and let the Big Boys lead. He tells us there’s an ‘epic struggle’ going on… and I agree… but of course his is not the ‘epic struggle’ that I see…” [From the April 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

–––

[“151101personalexpansionisthebasis.mp3”:]

 

Given that we will be free from Necessity and once again in possession of ourselves… our gifts… our time… our lives… given that we are global-humans… what are the conditions we need to establish to support our freedom… our need to explore our affinities and expand our possibilities limitlessly?… these form the purposes for which we need associations… Consider: if we are to manifest (in the words of Kropotkin) “the fullest development of individuality…” “the greatest possible development of personal initiative in every individual and group, and to secure unity of action, not through discipline, but through unity of aims and mutual confidence…” – we need the globe for that. Think of our biggest spirits… our brightest lights… each of them embraced the globe in their hearts… actions… and minds. This does not negate village life… just the opposite… it infuses it with the incalculable richness of our personal expansiveness…

 

Given that we will be free from Necessity and once again in possession of ourselves… our gifts… our time… our lives…

 

…given that we are global-humans… what are the conditions we need to establish to support our freedom… our need to explore our affinities and expand our possibilities limitlessly?… these form the purposes for which we need associations…

 

Recall: this is a new world now… a world designed especially to maximize freedom… endless exploration… and happiness for every human being… there is no need to compete for access to resources… no need to keep score… to rank our contributions or consumptions… we work together around specific needs cooperatively… voluntarily… each person beautifies as far as they can reach and discusses with others when they want to do more…

 

We do not attempt to coerce each other's energy… the education we design for ourselves is such that we are very sensitive to issues of coercion in all aspects of society… but particularly in childrearing… as we see it as our responsibility to support the inherent freedom and self-creative capacities of our children.

 

Consider: if we are to manifest (in the words of Kropotkin) “the fullest development of individuality…” “the greatest possible development of personal initiative in every individual and group, and to secure unity of action, not through discipline, but through unity of aims and mutual confidence…” – we need the globe for that. Think of our biggest spirits… our brightest lights… each of them embraced the globe in their hearts… actions… and minds. This does not negate village life… just the opposite… it infuses it with the incalculable richness of our personal expansiveness…

 

…our global associations and rich personal investigations do not negate village life… our communalism… – it just means that the village is not a unit of political organization.

 

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[“151101wewanttobefullyalive.mp3”:]

 

People in organizations like this… and good hearted folk in Academia… believe they are working for we-the-people… perhaps even advancing the cause of our freedom… and in rare cases… as with Popper… our Good Three… Alice… and Bernal… they are indeed… but they have to have a 'global' (i.e. affecting all humanity…) political objective in order to do that… they have to know what they are dealing with… (This is key… I've been thinking a lot about this… about how many good… good-hearted folk who believed in working with their Brothers and Sisters… and helping us to transform ourselves from within… lost their lives for want of knowing about these clandestine operators with their clandestine plans… and their belief in sculpting the reality they want… and eliminating those they consider 'unfit' from it… and… ultimately that's every single one of us… because with the exception of themselves… they believe the elderly are no longer needed… I would suspect that they even see themselves as 'humanitarians'…) Most folks don't need to see the history of it… the trajectory 'Plato – Hegel – Bentham – Guizot'… disseminated through the elite universities to the next-generation-global-state-statesmen… to be moved to action in the cause of freedom… most folk may be curious about how these stunted souls merged their isolated smallness into a confederated One Stunted Smallness in time… but the sense of urgency that leads to action seeds in love… love for our last-gasping great gifts… We want to be fully alive… we want our gifts to grow… and we need to see that it's possible… that is the longing we reach out to and support in our Brothers and Sisters… as we build this movement…

 

A recent solicitation from an organization that challenges the abusiveness of big corporations boasts among their achievements progress in these policy arenas: an amendment to overturn Citizens United and related Supreme Court decisions… environmental regulation… “workers' rights”… globalization… corporate welfare… etc.

 

People in organizations like this… and good hearted folk in Academia… believe they are working for we-the-people… perhaps even advancing the cause of our freedom… and in rare cases… as with Popper… our Good Three… Alice… and Bernal… they are indeed…

 

…but they have to have a 'global' (i.e. affecting all humanity…) political objective in order to do that… they have to know what they are dealing with… that there is an organized global resistance to our achieving our freedom…

(This is key… I've been thinking a lot about this… about how many good… good-hearted folk who believed in working with their Brothers and Sisters… and helping us to transform ourselves from within… lost their lives for want of knowing about these clandestine operators with their clandestine plans… and their belief in sculpting the reality they want… and eliminating those they consider 'unfit' from it… and… ultimately that's every single one of us… because with the exception of themselves… they believe the elderly are no longer needed… I would suspect that they even see themselves as 'humanitarians'…)

But while outing 'hidden power' 'historically' – for this is the good work that they do – helping us see where they came from… these 'power'-guys… the critical work of de-mystification… is important… it's not key to building numbers…

 

Most folks don't need to see the history of it… the trajectory 'Plato – Hegel – Bentham – Guizot'… disseminated through the elite universities to the next-generation-global-state-statesmen… to be moved to action in the cause of freedom…

 

…most folk may be curious about how these stunted souls merged their isolated smallness into a confederated One Stunted Smallness in time… but the sense of urgency that leads to action seeds in love… love for our last-gasping great gifts… from the earth and the ancestors… in ourselves and in our Brothers and Sisters…

 

We want our gifts to live… our souls to be 'big'… to be fully alive in dynamic interaction with all living things… without being smacked down by stunted souls who feel threatened when they see it…

 

…able to do so because they've stolen our earth's common resources… and converted them into a gun at our backs.

 

We want to be fully alive… we want our gifts to grow… and we need to see that it's possible…

 

…that is the longing we reach out to and support in our Brothers and Sisters… as we build this movement.

 

–––

 

* “WUR of November 1, 2015 Reading… continuing our interlude: excerpts from Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… and Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914… before returning to the chapter "Poisonous Pedagogy" in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good

 

[“151101classunmakesus.mp3”:]

 

…it is a new invention… the 'nation-state' (and we can un-make it…) an invention of self-conscious global-state-statesmen… a construction requiring that we remain as children… dependent on the 'adult' for our existence… yet… never before has this construction been as vulnerable as today to our interventions toward its de-legitimization… due to the Internet… This means that our discussions with the broader community will have some degree multiplied the impact… as ever was before… …and we are reading Wallerstein to help us get clear… as we design our education work with the broader community… on this notion of 'progress'… given that it is their – these 'power'-guys' – core propaganda… their raison d'etre and self-justification… Immanuel Wallerstein is showing us (particularly with Alice Miller's additional light…) how the notion of 'progress' is indeed but the notion of 'class'… – the con that 'progress' increases as 'class' deepens (by means of 'education'…) trained in us by our parents when we're infants – and from thence to 'society'… globally… Each one of us is precious and unique… and before the 'statesmen' can throw us away like garbage… by manufacturing war… disease… and scarcity (this being the reality of their 'progress'…) we must first throw ourselves away…

[We are reading excerpts from Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire… and Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914, in order to see the origins of the 'modern' 'centralist' bureaucratic nation-state in the fixed determination of 'statesmen' to repress us… we-the-people… in order to see that it is a new invention… the 'nation-state' (and we can un-make it…) an invention of self-conscious global-state-statesmen… a construction requiring that we remain as children… dependent on the 'adult' for our existence (this is where Kropotkin is at… giving us a good shake… and a clear historical analysis… to explain how 'power' tamed us – I hope you'll check out the pdf…)

 

…yet… never before has this construction been as vulnerable as today to our interventions toward its de-legitimization… due to the Internet… This means that our discussions with the broader community will have some degree multiplied the impact… as ever was before…

 

…and we are reading Wallerstein to help us get clear… as we design our education work with the broader community… on this notion of 'progress'… given that it is their – these 'power'-guys' – core propaganda… their raison d'etre and self-justification… Immanuel Wallerstein is showing us (particularly with Alice Miller's additional light…) how the notion of 'progress' is indeed but the notion of 'class'… crafted for slick installation in our heads – the con that 'progress' increases as 'class' deepens (by means of 'education'…) trained in us by our parents when we're infants – and from thence to 'society'… globally…

 

…it is in the light of our potential for the infinite expansion of our gifts that we need to view Guizot's tactic of our categorization… society's fragmentation… see it as conscious political strategy to destroy the power of self-developing individualities…

 

…for it is as individualities that we claim our bodies.

 

Each one of us is precious and unique… and before the 'statesmen' can throw us away like garbage… by manufacturing war… disease… and scarcity (this being the reality of their 'progress'…) we must first throw ourselves away…

 

This took time. It was not our natural inclination… naturally we are 'big'… the more we grow our gifts the more we resist the notion… and it had been our habit… to pass this capacity on to our children… so 'power' decided it must be broken – this expression of… and capacity for… our gifts' continuous growth – broken with… the propaganda of 'class'… and 'progress'… or: “'class' equals 'progress'”… – P.S.]:

The distinction made by many scholars between artisans and factory workers seems to be asserted primarily on the basis of differing workplace organization. But in fact the artisans were usually in “workshops,” which were not all that different in structure and even social organization from the rather small “factories” that existed in this era. I suspect the real difference was in the social origins of the two groups of workers. The “artisans” were males, and males who came for the most part from the immediate area. The “factory workers” were largely either women and children (Bezucha, 1974, 35) or “migrants,” which included both those who came from rural communities and workers speaking another language.

 

The most dramatic expression of protest by the “artisans” was that of the canuts of Lyon, first in 1831 and then in 1834. The struggles began right after the July Revolution, and included machine destruction and eviction of “foreign” workers. The background to this was an eighteenth-century militancy of journeymen, which had erupted in 1786 in the so-called tuppenny riot (emeute de deux sous), in which the journeymen sought to obtain a fixed minimum rate for finished cloth. The ongoing turmoil continued up to the French Revolution and the enactment of the Loi Le Chapelier. Bezucha (1974, 46) concludes that “the French Revolution, in fact, broke the momentum created prior to 1789 and may have retarded the development of a workers' movement in Lyon.” In the years between 1789 and 1830, however, the relatively stable system of the compagnon had been replaced by a more “fluid one of piece-work laborers” (Bezucha, 1974, 46)

 

Levasseur (1904, 2:6) asks the questions, Why Lyon? Why 1831? His answer is that Lyon was living off a luxury industry, silk, which made it more “sensitive… to economic crises and political turmoil.” The immediate issue, as in 1786, was a minimum wage, which had been agreed to by the prefect but subsequently revoked by the central government. The first strike was relatively nonpolitical. But discontent continued. There was a strike in Paris in 1832. The atmosphere was more and more politicized, partly by the dissatisfaction of the working classes with the politics of the July Monarchy, partly (at least in Lyon) by the agitation of the Italian nationalist forces. Mazzini's aide-de-camp, General Romorino, was often in Lyon recruiting persons for their attempts to liberate Savoy and Piedmont (Bezucha, 1974, 122). On February 14, 1834, a general strike was called. It did not succeed. The local Republican party was divided in its attitude. A repressive law caused a further reaction by the workers in April, an uprising in which some three hundred were killed. This attempt came to be viewed as a “landmark in the history of the European working class” (Bezucha, 1974, 124). This time the repression by the authorities was definitive. There was a “monster trial” in 1835, which the government used “to get rid of the republicans.” Faced with the beginnings of a serious class struggle by the urban working class, the liberal state initially reacted as repressively as did its predecessors.

 

The story was not very different in Great Britain. The moral equivalent of the July Revolution was the Reform Bill of 1832. Great Britain did not know “three glorious days” of “revolution.” Instead, there was a parliamentary battle in which the revolution was “voted” in, on the crucial second reading in 1831, by a single vote.

 

When, despite this, the bill was defeated in committee. Parliament was dissolved, and a pro-reform Parliament elected. At the time there was great awareness of events in France, and the possibilities of “worse” happening. Macaulay's speech on March 2, 1831, in favor of reform makes clear the reasoning of those who advocated it:

Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve… Renew the youth of the State. Save property divided against itself. Save the multitude, endangered by its own ungovernable passions. Save the aristocracy, endangered by its own unpopular power. Save the greatest, and fairest, and most highly civilised country that ever existed, from calamities that may in a few days sweep away all the rich heritage of so many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible. The time is short. If this Bill should be rejected, I pray to God that none of those who concur in rejecting it ever remember their votes with unavailing remorse, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion of ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of social orders.

Macaulay's argument was heard. And, exactly as in France, once the middle strata had won their droit de cite, attention turned immediately to containing the claims of the working classes. Chartism, “much the most important movement of working men” (Evans, 1983, 215) and a continuation of the old radical reform movement, was contemporaneous with and strongest during the great industrial depression from 1837 to 1843. It gained considerable notoriety and seemed a real menace to the authorities for several years. A large part of Chartist ranks were drawn from members of trade societies. But it also had support from middle-class radicals (Rowe, 1967, 85). The Chartist movement existed simultaneously with, and was in direct rivalry with, the free-trade movement of the Anti-Corn Law League. Halevy (1947, 9) raises the specter of a potential for “civil war.” Briggs (1959, 312) speaks of the two movements as representing “a contrast between two segments of a divided society.” Gash (1965, 2) says of the “Movement” (“a phrase borrowed from Continental politics”) that it “had an undeniable air of class war.…

 

[“151101theresultistheintention.mp3”:]

 

“The internal problems of Great Britain and France never became large enough that those powers could not concentrate attention on the geopolitics of the world-system. [And I'm certain it was pretty obvious to them that therein lay the 'solution' to their 'internal problems'… – P.S.] The July Revolution, repeated and confirmed by the independence of Belgium and the Reform Act of 1832, was to have an immediate effect on Europe. Whereas the relations of Great Britain and France between 1815 and 1830 had been correct, and those countries often found themselves on similar sides of world issues, the heritage of the two-century struggle for hegemony continued to ensure enough mutual suspicion to preserve a degree of distance. The July Revolution overcame that, affecting even the Tory government of Wellington before the Reform Bill was enacted Europe now entered the era of the entente cordiale, a marriage perhaps not of love but certainly of reason, one that would survive all subsequent quarrels until at least 1945.” [And in our Savage Continent readings we suggest that “when 'power' remains hidden… the result is the intention”: WWII destroyed our growing global movement for freedom… – P.S.]

 

…The internal problems of Great Britain and France never became large enough that those powers could not concentrate attention on the geopolitics of the world-system. [And I'm certain it was pretty obvious to them that therein lay the 'solution' to their 'internal problems'… – P.S.] The July Revolution, repeated and confirmed by the independence of Belgium and the Reform Act of 1832, was to have an immediate effect on Europe. Whereas the relations of Great Britain and France between 1815 and 1830 had been correct, and those countries often found themselves on similar sides of world issues, the heritage of the two-century struggle for hegemony continued to ensure enough mutual suspicion to preserve a degree of distance. The July Revolution overcame that, affecting even the Tory government of Wellington before the Reform Bill was enacted Europe now entered the era of the entente cordiale, a marriage perhaps not of love but certainly of reason, one that would survive all subsequent quarrels until at least 1945. [And in our Savage Continent readings we suggest that “when 'power' remains hidden… the result is the intention”: WWII destroyed our growing global movement for freedom… – P.S.] The term itself was probably coined by Palmerston in 1831, although it did not come into official use until 1842 (Guyot, 1926, 220; Halevy, 1950, 3:73, n. 1). The geopolitical basis of the alliance was clear, “As a Liberal power, France was [after the July Revolution] in the nature of things the ally of Liberal England” (Halevy, 1950, 3:73). Great Britain could now pursue with greater ease its containment of absolutism in Europe and expand the circle of liberal states (Guyot, 1926, 88, 117)

 

But there were further motives. Great Britain and France faced the same internal problems, and even if France was not yet ready to embrace the free-trade nostrums of Great Britain, the entente cordiale seemed “in the eyes of democrats and socialists” as an “alliance of capitals” that was a “fait accompli” (Guyot, 1926, 302). Was this so wrong? Indeed, the two effects were not separate. In pressuring other powers to follow their example, Great Britain and France, with the entente cordiale, “discouraged the international revolutionary propaganda which counted on the divisions among the powers” (Guichen, 1917, 424 – 425).

 

Furthermore, 1830 launched a pattern that would discourage such propaganda even further. For France at least, 1830 served to restore France to a sense of world centrality and nationalist pride. It was not Guizot but the French socialist Louis Blanc (1844, 4:143 – 144) who would write:

The July Revolution… was more than the denouement of a struggle against the Church and royalty; it was the expression of national sentiment that had been excessively repressed by the treaties of 1815. We were determined to shake off the yoke of these treaties and restore the European equilibrium.

One of the curious facts to note about the July Revolution was what happened in Algeria. Charles X's launching of the imperial venture had made Great britain most unhappy, and Louis XVIII was ready to sacrifice it to appease the British. When, however, the French restrained themselves from direct intervention in Belgium, they felt they had done their share of pleasing the British, and simply continued the occupation, this time without British protest. One reason clearly was its effect on worker unrest within France. The “floating” population of Paris, the potential revolutionaries, were being encouraged to settle in Algeria. Indeed, in 1838 Leon Blondel, a high civil servant in Algeria, could say with some confidence: “Africa is an element of order in France” (cited in Tudesq, 1964, 2:815).

 

The liberal states thus combined legitimating the political role of the middle classes (and thereby receiving from them legitimation in turn) and internal repression of working-class discontent with an entente cordiale between themselves to ensure their dominance in the geopolitical arena. This seemed to work at first. But it was fragile, as the European revolution of 1848 was to demonstrate. More would have to be done to secure a stable political framework for the capitalist world-economy in the post-1789 situation. [And… again… as Hirschman suggests… a lot of megalomaniacal scheming can be hidden 'neath the ideology of 'an economy' that never stops eating… because of some supposed 'inherent logic of accumulation'… and that is the angle we have been pursuing here… we believe that these tiny tiny Few are motivated not by greed but… as De Tocqueville prophesied… by lust for 'power'… they want to be the only game in town… when it comes to defining what the world is… when we are all 'locked up' and 'safely disposed of'… when they no longer have to worry about us because they have machines [animate and inanimate… living and not…] handling it all… and us in fear of literally being annihilated – that's the point of having secret weaponry…– P.S.]

 

…The conservatization of the French regime contrasted with what was happening in the other liberal states. A liberal pope, Pius IX, had been elected in 1846, to the dismay of Metternich (Bury, 1948, 425). If Belgium remained “calm” in 1848, “it was because it had made its revolution, peacefully, in 1847. (Dhondt, 1949, 124) Similarly, the liberals and radicals had won their internal struggle against the Sonderbund in Switzerland in 1847, with the diplomatic support of the British but amid French hesitation (Halperin, 1948, 1:157). Indeed, this was a moment of temporary breakdown of the entente cordiale. At home, the British had handled well the chartist challenge at the same time that Sir Robert Peel was steering through the Repeal of the Corn Laws [“Materially the repeal of the Corn Laws would protect the poorer classes in time of scarcity against any disastrous rise in food prices. Morally, it gave them assurances that, unenfranchised though most of them were, their welfare was an object of concern to an aristocratic Government and Parliament” (Gash, 1977, 97)], such that the “specter of Communism” passed them by as well. The crisis of 1847 “provoked no revolutionary disturbance” (Halevy, 1947, 181), although the Irish had to pay the price for this [the Irish potato famine occurred just at the time of the debate on the Corn Laws… that the Irish famine became a ploy in the intra-Conservative political game is clear from Clark's account of repeal: “The traditional remedy for famine was to suspend the Corn Laws and open the ports. But Peel told his Cabinet that if he did this (in the case of Ireland at this time) he could not promise to reimpose them, and a majority in the Cabinet felt they could not support him in this policy on these terms. He therefore retired, but the Whigs could not, or would not, form a government. Peel therefore returned to office at the Queen's request (and) repealed the Corn Laws himself.”)]

 

[“151101progressunmakesus.mp3”:]

 

“No government can now expect to be permanent unless it guarantees progress as well as order; nor can it continue really to secure order, unless it promotes progress.” [It certainly seems the global-state-statesmen have taken this advice to heart… although modified to say: “seem to guarantee 'progress'…” that message is drummed into all school-children and every other 'class'-bound human… across the globe – an associated set of messages actually: “not everyone is smart…” “the system identifies and rewards the 'smart ones'…” “the 'really smart' are busy making our lives easier…” “'the system' works hard to provide you with 'the good life' but you must do your part too… and keep your skills marketable… because 'science' is developing so fast… if you don't you could fall through the cracks (and of course that would be your fault…”) – these are just a few of 'the system's key messages about 'progress'… – P.S.]

 

Nonetheless, the weakening of the liberal project in France, one of the two pillar states, provided enough tinder for the revolutionary flame to be ignited throughout the nonliberal [meaning “non-'bourgeois'”] parts of Europe. To be sure, Metternich and the Austrians blamed the British, accused of being too liberal, for the uprisings, but the blame is more legitimately placed at the feet of the French, who got cold feet and were not liberal enough. John Stuart Mill (1849, 7) was very severe on Louis-Philippe in assessing the causes of the February 1848 uprising in Paris, which was the beginning of the 1848 European revolutions:

No government can now expect to be permanent unless it guarantees progress as well as order; nor can it continue really to secure order, unless it promotes progress. [It certainly seems the global-state-statesmen have taken this advice to heart… although modified to say: “seem to guarantee 'progress'…” that message is drummed into all school-children and every other 'class'-bound human… across the globe – an associated set of messages actually: “not everyone is smart…” “the system identifies and rewards the 'smart ones'…” “the 'really smart' are busy making our lives easier…” “'the system' works hard to provide you with 'the good life' but you must do your part too… and keep your skills marketable… because 'science' is developing so fast… if you don't you could fall through the cracks (and of course that would be your fault…”) – these are just a few of 'the system's key messages about 'progress'… – P.S.]

 

[“151101enlightenedrepression.mp3”:]

 

“The uprising of February 1848 illuminated the hopes of a 'social republic,' a vague socialist utopia that would provide jobs to the unemployed and liberation to all those who suffered indignities and inequalities. Everyone put forward their claims: the “artisans,” who sought to restore their privileges and their mode of production; the peasants, who sought to reestablish traditional rights of collective usage; the women, who sought the extension of “universal” suffrage to include them; the slaves, who sought abolition. The pendulum was beginning to swing too far, and in June the forces of order under General Cavaignac reined in the unruly dangerous classes… Cavaignac could repress; he could not relegitimize the state.… When Louis Napoleon made his coup d'eat on December 2, 1851, the primary objective was to repress the left… the outcome of the repression, which was both real and effective, was that of a centrist regime, oriented to capitalist expansion, constructing a liberal compromise – one led not by a classical liberal but by an enlightened conservative.”

 

…It can go on as yet, with only a little of the spirit of improvement; while reformers have even a remote hope of effecting their objects through the existing system, they are generally willing to bear with it. But when there is no hope at all; when the institutions themselves seem to oppose an unyielding barrier to the program of improvement, the advance of tide heaps itself up behind them till it bears them down.

The tide – that is, the European revolution of 1848 – as all such great happenings, was made up of a mixture of movements and objectives. In France, it consisted essentially of the joining together of Europe's 'first great proletarian insurrection' (Tilly, 1971, 228) with the acute discontent of the left liberals who shared John Stuart Mill's view of the conservatization of the July Monarchy. Elsewhere in Europe, instates that were not as yet committed to liberalism, there were no proletarian insurrections; rather, there were liberal uprisings combined with nationalist uprisings. Two situations, with two solutions: Louis Napoleon handled the first; Palmerston, the rest.

 

The uprising of February 1848 illuminated the hopes of a 'social republic,' a vague socialist utopia that would provide jobs to the unemployed and liberation to all those who suffered indignities and inequalities. Everyone put forward their claims: the “artisans,” who sought to restore their privileges and their mode of production; the peasants, who sought to reestablish traditional rights of collective usage; the women, who sought the extension of “universal” suffrage to include them; the slaves, who sought abolition. The pendulum was beginning to swing too far, and in June the forces of order under General Cavaignac reined in the unruly dangerous classes. “Pitiful provisional government!” cried Labrousse (1948,2) “It feared the social revolution as much as it did the counter-revolution.”

 

Cavaignac could repress; he could not relegitimize the state. Nor could the monarchs return; they had exhausted their credit. Into this void stepped Louis Napoleon, who sought to re-create a liberal, orderly, modern state and who, as Zeldin (1958, 6) puts it so well, “was not elected because he was [the] candidate [of the Party of Order], but… was their candidate because they saw he was bound to win.” But what did Louis Napoleon represent? He represented, first of all, the Napoleonic tradition, which combined the legacy of the French Revolution, a commitment to scientific and industrial progress, and nationalism. During the 1840s, Louis Napoleon had been a sharp critic of the July Monarchy because he felt that, by distancing itself from progressive liberalism, it was “building on sand and would surely tumble.” And, unlike Guizot, he was aware that “with proper safeguards a democratic regime could be established without threatening the stability of the country.”

 

–––

 

The liberals acted in 1848 just as they had in 1830. Dismayed by a regime that had become too rigid, too illiberal, they rose up and quickly won the day. Then, dismayed by the possibility that the lower strata would be able to take advantage of the situation and push things too far, they renewed their links with the political groups they had just ousted from power, because 'the enemy, at present, is on the left' (Palmade, 1961, 255). When Louis Napoleon made his coup d'eat on December 2, 1851, the primary objective was to repress the left. The secondary objective was, however, to constrain the ability of conservative forces to act other than through him. One can, if one wants, emphasize the Caesarist – the so-called Bonapartist – element in the regime. If one does, however, one risks missing the degree to which the outcome of the repression, which was both real and effective, was that of a centrist regime, oriented to capitalist expansion, constructing a liberal compromise – one led not by a classical liberal but by an enlightened conservative.” (Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914, p. 77 – 92)

 

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[November 1, 2015 show ends here.]

 

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* “WUR of November 8, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.7): Segue From Marx… To Alice

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 30)

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[This is a new word-beat.]:

 

[“151027powerisarapist.mp3”:]

 

“…what it’s lusting for is the end of our efforts to even try to be independent… the achievement of their deep longing that we will end all resistance… and become passionately ‘self-regulating’… eagerly offer our allegiance… (Doesn't that sound like the dynamic of the rapist?… Over the ages of 'class'… 'power' is 'power' is 'power'.) [Here's the relevant paragraph from that story of Lucian's that I bungled… called “Lucius the Ass”: “When we got back, we came upon the old woman dangling at the end of a cord from a rock; obviously she had been so terrified of what her masters would do to her for letting the girl get away that she hung herself and strangled to death. The bandits, admiring the crone's consideration for their feelings, cut her down and heaved her over the cliff, cord and all. Then they tied the girl up, left her inside, and sat down to dinner and a long session with the bottle.” (On the back of the collection of his satires it reads: “Lucian, born in Syria in the second century A.D., came to Greece at an early age and mastered its language and literature. He took up law, left it for public speaking, then turned to full-time writing… A master of the vivid scene, Lucian used his pungent style to ridicule the tyrants, prophets, waning gods, and hypocrite philosophers of his own day and the centuries preceding him.” [Selected Satires of Lucian, translated by Lionel Casson]) [From the April 13, 2014 Waking Up Radio show.]

 

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[“151108slaverybylaw_1.mp3”:]

 

And while the invention of the global-state… the global interstate-system… made 'class' consciously…intentionally… totalitarian (i.e. no matter how we turn and twist… chafing at the bars and bits… no matter how we struggle against it… in the end we find… our cage awaits us… This is accomplished as Peter Kropotkin helps us see… by means of words only: “We are so perverted by an education which from infancy seeks to kill in us the spirit of revolt, and to develop that of submission to authority; we are so perverted by this existence under the ferrule [a metal encircling band] of a law, which regulates every event in life – our birth, our education, our development, our love, our friendship – that, if this state of things continues, we shall lose all initiative, all habit of thinking for ourselves. Our society seems no longer able to understand that it is possible to exist otherwise than under the reign of law, elaborated by a representative government and administered by a handful of rulers.” (Peter Kropotkin)

 

November 3, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Peter Kropotkin begins his essay “Law and Authority” bemoaning our loss of a sense of agency… our increasing passivity… with the deepening Authority of the State… And while the invention of the global-state… the global interstate-system… made 'class' consciously…intentionally… totalitarian (i.e. no matter how we turn and twist… chafing at the bars and bits… no matter how we struggle against it… in the end we find… our cage awaits us… This is accomplished as Peter Kropotkin helps us see… by means of words only…

 

(…and a whole lot of violence…it isn't my intent… to trivialize the mind-boggling extent of it… their violence…)

 

…and by keeping us so 'busy'… and so separated… that we never get to develop our thought process…

 

Let's listen for a moment to the words of Peter Kropotkin:

We are so perverted by an education which from infancy seeks to kill in us the spirit of revolt, and to develop that of submission to authority; we are so perverted by this existence under the ferrule [a metal encircling band] of a law, which regulates every event in life – our birth, our education, our development, our love, our friendship – that, if this state of things continues, we shall lose all initiative, all habit of thinking for ourselves. Our society seems no longer able to understand that it is possible to exist otherwise than under the reign of law, elaborated by a representative government and administered by a handful of rulers. And even when it has gone so far as to emancipate itself from the thralldom, its first care has been to reconstitute it immediately. “The Year 1 of Liberty” has never lasted more than a day, for after proclaiming it men put themselves the very next morning under the yoke of law and authority.…

 

The confused mass of rules of conduct called law, which has been bequeathed to us by slavery, serfdom, feudalism, and royalty, has taken the place of those stone monsters, before whom human victims used to be immolated…

 

This new worship has been established with especial success since the rise to supreme power of the middle class – since the great French Revolution. Under the ancient regime, men spoke little of laws; unless, indeed, it were, with Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire, to oppose them to royal caprice. Obedience to the good pleasure of the king and his lackeys was compulsory on pain of hanging or imprisonment. But during and after the revolutions, when the lawyers rose to power, they did their best to strengthen the principle upon which their ascendancy depended. The middle class at once accepted it as a dyke to dam up the popular torrent. The priestly crew hastened to sanctify it, to save their bark from foundering amid the breakers. Finally the people received it as an improvement upon the arbitrary authority and violence of the past.…

 

Relatively speaking, law is a product of modern times. For ages and ages mankind lived without any written law, even that graved in symbols upon the entrance stones of a temple. During that period, human relations were simply regulated by customs, habits and usages, made sacred by constant repetition, and acquired by each person in childhood, exactly as he learned how to obtain his food by hunting, cattle-raising, or agriculture.…

 

Such was law; and it has maintained its two-fold character to this day. Its origin is the desire of the ruling class to give permanence to customs imposed by themselves for their own advantage. Its character is the skilful commingling of customs useful to society, customs which have no need of law to insure respect, with other customs useful only to rulers, injurious to the mass of the people, and maintained only by the fear of punishment.…

 

[“151108lawofresistance_2.mp3”:]

 

(I love that Nikola Tesla placed his work to establish instantaneous global communication in the context of its bringing about the unity of men and women globally… and …though not saying so directly… implied that 'power' can manipulate us if we cannot talk to each other directly… share our thoughts directly…) “Law, in its quality of guarantee of the results of pillage, slavery and exploitation, has followed the same phases of development as capital.” (Peter Kropotkin)

 

[I love that Nikola Tesla placed his work to establish instantaneous global communication in the context of its bringing about the unity of men and women globally… and …though not saying so directly… implied that 'power' can manipulate us if we cannot talk to each other directly… share our thoughts directly… – P.S.]

 

The history of the genesis of capital has already been told by socialists many times. They have described how it was born of war and pillage, of slavery and serfdom, of modern fraud and exploitation. They have shown how it is nourished by the blood of the worker, and how little by little it has conquered the whole world. The same story, concerning the genesis and development of law has yet to be told.…

 

Law, in its quality of guarantee of the results of pillage, slavery and exploitation, has followed the same phases of development as capital. Twin brother and sister, they have advanced hand in hand, sustaining one another with the suffering of mankind. In every country in Europe their history is approximately the same. It has differed only in detail; the main facts are alike; and to glance at the development of law in France or Germany is to know its essential traits and its phases of development in most of the European nations.…

 

[“151108protectionofexploitation_3.mp3”:]

 

“Thus the protection of exploitation directly by laws on property, and indirectly by the maintenance of the State is both the spirit and the substance of our modern codes, and the one function of our costly legislative machinery. But it is time we gave up being satisfied with mere phrases, and learned to appreciate their real significance. The law, which on its first appearance presented itself as a compendium of customs useful for the preservation of society, is now perceived to be nothing but an instrument for the maintenance of exploitation and the domination of the toiling masses…” (Peter Kropotkin)

 

It will perhaps be objected that during the last fifty years, a good many liberal laws have been enacted. But if these laws are analyzed, it will be discovered that this liberal legislation consists in the repeal of the laws bequeathed to us by the barbarism of preceding centuries. Every liberal law, every radical program, may be summed up in these words, – abolition of laws grown irksome to the middle-class itself, and return and extension to all citizens of liberties enjoyed by the townships of the twelfth century. The abolition of capital punishment, trial by jury for all “crimes” (there was a more liberal jury in the twelfth century), the election of magistrates, the right of bringing public officials to trial, the abolition of standing armies, free instruction, etc., everything that is pointed out as an invention of modern liberalism, is but a return to the freedom which existed before church and king had laid hands upon every manifestation of human life.

 

Thus the protection of exploitation directly by laws on property, and indirectly by the maintenance of the State is both the spirit and the substance of our modern codes, and the one function of our costly legislative machinery. But it is time we gave up being satisfied with mere phrases, and learned to appreciate their real significance. The law, which on its first appearance presented itself as a compendium of customs useful for the preservation of society, is now perceived to be nothing but an instrument for the maintenance of exploitation and the domination of the toiling masses by rich idlers. At the present day its civilizing mission is nil; it has but one object, – to bolster up exploitation.

 

This is what is told us by history as to the development of law. Is it in virtue of this history that we are called upon to respect it? Certainly not. It has no more title to respect than capital, the fruit of pillage. And the first duty of the revolution will be to make a bonfire of all existing laws as it will of all titles to property. (Peter Kropotkin, from “Law and Authority”, Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, edited by Roger N. Baldwin)

 

[And what did Shakespeare tell us?… what do we know in our hearts?… about true wealth?… And the cost of coveting the false?: “Those that much covet are with gain so fond [foolish]… that what they have not – that which they possess – they scatter and unloose it from their bond, and so by hoping more they have but less, or gaining more, the profit of excess… is but to surfeit [waste], and such griefs sustain, that they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.” (The Rape of Lucrece)]

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[“151108usbiggetsourfreedom_4.mp3”:]

 

…we are honing in on a strategy… and perhaps a short way of summarizing it is that we… each one… must be leaders – that's what it means to say that the basic unit of political organization in our freedom and in our transition to freedom is the individual – no more surrendering our leadership capacities to others… each one of us has to get 'big'… doing so immediately overpowers a system based on coercion and force – it extends their resources too thin… and very shortly then they're ready to cut a 'deal'… And we have to understand… that there are no 'deals' cut when it comes to our freedom. Just like you can't be 'a little bit pregnant'… we can't be 'a little bit free'… It is all or nothing… and we are in the end-game… we are in the time where if we don't claim our freedom then we are setting our children up for chains and leashes… and constant fear… I have got this: these folk only feel safe if we are obviously afraid of them… if we are not afraid of them they don't feel safe… and so then they will 'up' the force… 'up' the coercion… 'up' the clandestine violence. You do the math… where does that lead?… that endless escalation from their endless fear?

 

Two things stand out as necessary next steps… both from what we just heard… as well as from the progression of our analysis: the need to redesign education… create an education for us… for free humans… and the need to find some means of reaching our Sisters and Brothers… some means of making these public discussions…

 

(Getting suppressed thoughts out into the open air plants seeds… and no one can know where those seeds go… how they might grow… and 'power' don't want those seeds out there… which means that we absolutely must get those seeds out there. I'm thinking of compiling some of these suppressed thoughts in rhyme… which could perhaps be used for a public poetry reading… but voicing suppressed thoughts is not 'nothing'… it's way-something…

 

I said as the show began that we are honing in on a strategy… and perhaps a short way of summarizing it is that we… each one… must be leaders – that's what it means to say that the basic unit of political organization in our freedom and in our transition to freedom is the individual – no more surrendering our leadership capacities to others… each one of us has to get 'big'… doing so immediately overpowers a system based on coercion and force – it extends their resources too thin… and very shortly then they're ready to cut a 'deal'… And we have to understand… that there are no 'deals' cut when it comes to our freedom. Just like you can't be 'a little bit pregnant'… we can't be 'a little bit free'… It is all or nothing… and we are in the end-game… we are in the time where if we don't claim our freedom then we are setting our children up for chains and leashes… and constant fear… I have got this: these folk only feel safe if we are obviously afraid of them… if we are not afraid of them they don't feel safe… and so then they will 'up' the force… 'up' the coercion… 'up' the clandestine violence. You do the math… where does that lead?… that endless escalation from their endless fear? It ends with our necks in a noose… or our bodies in chains… and that is not a legacy we can leave for our children… or for us… we can do this now… that's what the technology means… it's simply a matter of spreading that good news far and wide… not just planting those seeds… but growing them.

 

[“151108believeinourgifts_5.mp3”:]

 

The hard work and common sense of our ancestors who long for generalized human freedom (globally) has been suppressed. All states (who participate in the interstate system… whose statesmen want to be 'global players'…) do this – and do this in collaboration – this 'work' of ensuring that the vast many cannot develop our thought… cannot see the obvious: that ten thousand guys who want to be gods must not be allowed to decide for seven billion… must not be allowed to coerce our human energy for purposes which… as Peter says… all end with the object of keeping us as children… dependent on them… ad infinitum…

 

Peter wrote those words over a hundred years ago… those words of encouragement and love… and he wasn't alone… obviously… many many good folks labored long so that we could believe in our right to live free… and see the steps we need to take to realize that right –

 

…it isn't because the work of establishing… not just the viability and the 'rationality' (no waste…) but the morality of everyone designing the social arrangement we create on the common earth we live on… it isn't because that work hasn't been done that we are stuck under 'power's thumb… its because we've been denied access to them… to the ancestors who long for our freedom.

 

The hard work and common sense of our ancestors who long for generalized human freedom (globally) has been suppressed. All states (who participate in the interstate system… whose statesmen want to be 'global players'…) do this – and do this in collaboration – this 'work' of ensuring that the vast many cannot develop our thought… cannot see the obvious: that ten thousand guys who want to be gods must not be allowed to decide for seven billion… must not be allowed to coerce our human energy for purposes which… as Peter says… all end with the object of keeping us as children… dependent on them… ad infinitum…

 

And what of our last-gasping-great-gifts?… the myriad expressions of our common greatness that only live in freedom… when will be finally believe in them?

 

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[“151108tortureasagame_6.mp3”:]

 

(Last week I said that my house feels like a prison… I forgot to add “where they torture you every second…” I think sometimes about these people who do this… who torture their Brothers and Sisters… and I have to think they must be children… teenagers… who have no experience of life… who have no ability to think what they're doing through… – we'll be talking about that: their use of children to do these things… and I say 'children' because I'm sure they're encouraged to think of what they do as a computer game – they're trying to turn everything into a 'game' so that we don't take our lives seriously anymore… or anyone else's… – I imagine these 'children' are sitting in front of a computer screen somewhere and the people they do this do aren't real… You see?… only a child can be satisfied with just fulfilling the task and getting their reward of 'candy'… At some point… the thought process… even in these trained to be obedient… must start to kick in… and I wonder what they do with folk at that point…)

 

The education we design must have an ethical basis. What is that ethical basis?

 

My son has been absorbed of late with the martial arts exercise called 'sticky hands'. It came up most recently in a discussion we were having about 'power's tactics… In particular… how 'power' identifies what it concludes are the 'leaders' – 'leaders' in claiming an alternative (to 'power'…) set of allegiances – in order to eliminate these 'leaders' and substitute suitable replacements of their own creation. (Perhaps we should call this 'the Invasion of the Body-Snatchers' tactic.) Now it could take years for even a single replacement… but our guys… these Plato-worshipping deep-schemers… don't mind… they see themselves as weighty 'thinkers'… capable of a degree of intricacy of planning beyond the ken of we-mere-commoners…

 

(Last week I said that my house feels like a prison… I forgot to add “where they torture you every second…” I think sometimes about these people who do this… who torture their Brothers and Sisters… and I have to think they must be children… teenagers… who have no experience of life… who have no ability to think what they're doing through… – we'll be talking about that: their use of children to do these things… and I say 'children' because I'm sure they're encouraged to think of what they do as a computer game – they're trying to turn everything into a 'game' so that we don't take our lives seriously anymore… or anyone else's… – I imagine these 'children' are sitting in front of a computer screen somewhere and the people they do this do aren't real… You see?… only a child can be satisfied with just fulfilling the task and getting their reward of 'candy'… At some point… the thought process… even in these trained to be obedient… must start to kick in… and I wonder what they do with folk at that point…)

 

[“151108childrensrighttotheirfeelings_7.mp3”:]

 

…which brings us back to 'sticky hands'… and the result of our analysis: the need to redesign education… create an education for us… for free humans… and then… find ways to disseminate it… …both derive from the priority of re-engaging our thought process – the thought process of all of us here in the U.S.… and throughout the world of 'class' – by causing that which is not seen (or the sight of which has been suppressed…) to be seen… We are seeing (in our readings) how that thought process got shut down… in our individual lives… and historically… This priority of re-engaging our thought process can be expressed in multiple ways… we could describe it as 'breaking a spell'… or establishing a 'new ethics' in a world of our self-conscious creation – based in our children's right to their feelings… their right to honor their bodies' voice… and follow its guidance… honor its living manifestation of love… …our children's feelings provide 'right guidance'… to follow which… is their inherent right of self-creation. Our children deserve… we deserve… to live their… our… gifts freely… without coercion… The Talking Tree – both the book and the CD are intended as tools for a process of helping children see and believe in the authentic… the true… their feelings… the root… the ethical basis of our future.)

 

…and as long as they have their EMF-ace-in-the-hole… their secret weapons… they are supremely confident that they will ultimately 'win'… i.e. the replacement is successfully slipped in… be it into a 'job' or some other 'position'. You can imagine how it works: the 'wrong' person won't let go?… pound electrical-magnetic waves into them until they cry 'Uncle'… leave to seek medical treatment… or in some other sense retire to their private garden.

 

They infiltrate… they manipulate… they identify key leadership… for study (mimicking…) and eventual elimination… How do we see this while it's happening?… intervene and prevent its denouement… support those who are targeted? There are people both in my life and in public life who… now that this electro-magnetic wave 'technique' is being done to me (revealed because I took to my vehicle and they were obliged to follow me…) who I know absolutely this was done to. But only now that I am targeted am I able to recognize it in others… many of whom died from its application. What can we do to prevent this?… hang on to our very-needed resources for our resistance? There's a man and a woman right now that I'm concerned about… because they are in the 'at-risk' population: they model gentle loving strength… tenderness… and they work with children (and this is particularly a dangerous situation for Black men [which the man is…] as the would-be-gods plan a different role for them… in the 'Republic'…) and both are experiencing physical symptoms.

 

This has been their conscious strategy – in the sense of being pursued relentlessly – for some decades (although 'power' has… since its inception… been determined to eliminate the opposition… 'weed out' the 'intractable brutes'… or those who don't 'fit' with their categorization…) So it should not surprise us when influential existing organizations – 'influential' in terms of influencing thought… or possessing a mission to defend we-the-people) when existing organizations provide false guidance… or fail to provide that defense… by doing the obvious: mobilize us with a vision of a future in which we live freely…

 

…which brings us back to 'sticky hands'… and the result of our analysis: the need to redesign education… create an education for us… for free humans… and then… find ways to disseminate it…

 

…both derive from the priority of re-engaging our thought process – the thought process of all of us here in the U.S.… and throughout the world of 'class' – by causing that which is not seen (or the sight of which has been suppressed…) to be seen…

 

We are seeing (in our readings) how that thought process got shut down… in our individual lives… and historically…

 

This priority of re-engaging our thought process can be expressed in multiple ways… we could describe it as 'breaking a spell'… or establishing a 'new ethics' in a world of our self-conscious creation – based in our children's right to their feelings… their right to honor their bodies' voice… and follow its guidance… honor its living manifestation of love…

 

…our children's feelings provide 'right guidance'… to follow which… is their inherent right of self-creation. Our children deserve… we deserve… to live their… our… gifts freely… without coercion…

(And toward this end… I put together a suggested 'guidance' for 'working with' elementary-school-age children… with objectives you will see as you read it [please forgive the bureaucratic language in it but it's meant as a tool for 'teachers' – those who provide guidance to our children – of any bent…] I'm posting 'Part 1' here and on the 'Blog' page as a pdf… it's a simple one-page document… called: “Understanding Feelings and the Historical Roots of Violence”, Part 1: - Suggested Guidance” (pdf file). 'Part 2' is a discussion of The Talking Tree – both the book and the CD [there's more info on the 'Tools' page about them… and you can download the mp3 there… or follow a link to the posted YouTube slideshow of it…] they are intended as tools for a process of helping children see and believe in the authentic… the true… their feelings… the root… the ethical basis of our future.)

[“151108raiseupcoleenslove_8.mp3”:]

 

(I'm hoping to obtain video of Coleen Gragen… the woman who started Hand to Hand Martial Arts Center in Oakland… singing this song that she wrote: “Facing fear… raise up love… raise up love… Facing fear… raise up love…” – and also video of Coleen in motion – to share… because it strikes me that they tried to silence her voice… and I find it to be… necessary… in this moment… to raise her love… an enormous love.)

 

We are seeing… that the would-be-gods-in-charge want none of this… and in sum… do not want us to live our love… because love – concern about our Brothers and Sisters… poses a direct threat to their Authority: it is an opposing allegiance.

 

Each generation is tempted by this 'threat' (from 'power's perspective…) to a 'power'-allegiance… and must (from 'power's perspective…) be conquered. 'Sticky hands' describes both the strategy they use to accomplish this… and… once we become conscious… our 're-engaging thought' response to it: i.e.… our resistance.

 

'Sticky hands' is an exercise done in the martial arts with a partner…

 

(I'm hoping to obtain video of Coleen Gragen… the woman who started Hand to Hand Martial Arts Center in Oakland… singing this song that she wrote: “Facing fear… raise up love… raise up love… Facing fear… raise up love…” – and also video of Coleen in motion – to share… because it strikes me that they tried to silence her voice… and I find it to be… necessary… in this moment… to raise her love… an enormous love.)

 

[“151108walkingwiththedead_9.mp3”:]

 

Harrison Sims… died of 'congestive heart failure'… I know they did this to… He is the man I think of when I say those words: “a gentle Black man”… none more gentle… I fear for the psychic safety of his son… because I know they've done their homework on him… keep tabs on him… insinuate false folks around him… because that's their m.o.… that's what they do… I've learned in the course of the past six years… that's what they do… I had no idea… which is why it works… no one has any idea… until they find themselves in the crosshairs… and usually those people don't last too long… It is really important that we start mobilizing… these folk are so deadly serious… and so damaged… and it's difficult for us to believe that such folk exist because we tend to judge others by ourselves… but I've learned they definitely do exist… They are a shadow-state… they operate as a shadow-state with enormous resources… and absolutely no rules… no rules apply… they do what they want… and they are supremely obsessed with knowing what we think… at all times… in particular those who are challenging their world-view with another… putting another way out there… or simply just… as we've been doing here… returning to discussion suppressed ancestors that they don't want discussed…

 

(Harrison Sims… died of 'congestive heart failure'… I know they did this to… He is the man I think of when I say those words: “a gentle Black man”… none more gentle… I fear for the psychic safety of his son… because I know they've done their homework on him… keep tabs on him… insinuate false folks around him… because that's their m.o.… that's what they do… I've learned in the course of the past six years… that's what they do… I had no idea… which is why it works… no one has any idea… until they find themselves in the crosshairs… and usually those people don't last too long… It is really important that we start mobilizing… these folk are so deadly serious… and so damaged… and it's difficult for us to believe that such folk exist because we tend to judge others by ourselves… but I've learned they definitely do exist… They are a shadow-state… they operate as a shadow-state with enormous resources… and absolutely no rules… no rules apply… they do what they want… and they are supremely obsessed with knowing what we think… at all times… in particular those who are challenging their world-view with another… putting another way out there… or simply just… as we've been doing here… returning to discussion suppressed ancestors that they don't want discussed… It really surprised me how little it takes for them to get 'upset'… and then orchestrate like a military campaign against it… It is so surreal… they get away with it… no one believes it.

 

I apologize for being so emotional today. Please check out The Talking Tree… I wrote it as a resource… please let me know if you find it to be so.)

 

[“151108cultivatedchildrenofpower_10.mp3”:]

 

How can the Miniscule Few control the Vastness of Us?… is the question that 'occupied' Jeremy Bentham… and the 'Panopticon' was the answer he presented to statesmen… a prison design which… you'll recall… kept us from working together and developing our thought… as it required us to not 'see' each other… but rather to only look up. But to control us globally – the seven billion of us – required more than just hierarchical organization. And so the 'solution' 'power' settled upon was to intentionally multiply its 'children'… a simple matter when the structure of 'class' rests on the basis of child abandonment… how easy it was to lure our lost children with the message lodged in them of their 'specialness'. These cultivated children span the globe… and 'Sticky Hands” is their m.o. The strategy illustrates perfectly how trained intention 'bests' the uninitiated… manipulates the honest… and as a bonus sows despair and mistrust… when eventually we conclude we don't know what's true… and what isn't. (There was a likely illustration of this strategy this week here in Berkeley… at Berkeley High School…)

 

'Sticky hands' is an exercise done in the martial arts with a partner in which (in my son's words) “the object is to stay connected to your partner from your wrist to your forearm… and… with your partner… move your arms around while staying connected. It's almost like a dance but the object is to get inside your partner's defense… without forcing or muscling your way in… in order to either off-balance their center line or touch their center line – you're 'working with' your partner's energy… 'staying connected' means there is a sense of 'ebb and flow'… a 'following' and 'leading' at any given moment… The object is always to get inside their defense and off-balance their center-line… but what is 'success' changes depending on the partner and what you are exploring in each other's energy. Sometimes it can be a lesson in seeing where that person will take you. It's essential to have an open curious mind about what is going on with yourself and with your partner.”

 

But it cannot be an exercise for mutual benefit… if one of the partners is ignorant of it… assumes that the people around him or her are honest… when actually some of those people view him or her as a subject… as a 'sheep' to be herded… manipulated… because this is how their mentors taught them to view us… and to see themselves as our 'shepherds.'

 

How can the Miniscule Few control the Vastness of Us?… is the question that 'occupied' Jeremy Bentham… and the 'Panopticon' was the answer he presented to statesmen… a prison design which… you'll recall… kept us from working together and developing our thought… as it required us to not 'see' each other… but rather to only look up.

 

But to control us globally – the seven billion of us – required more than just hierarchical organization. And so the 'solution' 'power' settled upon was to intentionally multiply its 'children'… a simple matter when the structure of 'class' rests on the basis of child abandonment… how easy it was to lure our lost children with the message lodged in them of their 'specialness'.

 

These cultivated children span the globe… and 'Sticky Hands” is their m.o. The strategy illustrates perfectly how trained intention 'bests' the uninitiated… manipulates the honest… and as a bonus sows despair and mistrust… when eventually we conclude we don't know what's true… and what isn't.

 

Taking the Panopticon global meant its decentralization… Every statesman… no matter how lowly placed in the hierarchy of states… is expected to keep his (or her) 'Panopticon' in order… regularly inspect the cells for chinks… ensure there are no confabs between inmates…

 

…but the practical means of achieving this… in the absence of a physical structure… is 'Sticky hands' – all those 'hands' ('agents') are there to hold our eyes… keep our focus… give us our ideas… and ultimately to lead us.

 

As we become people 'knowledgeable about energy'… as our awareness grows about the 'Sticky hands' strategy… we become aware that we are being guided to an end not of our choosing… and we can decide how we will reply.

 

Handing our lives over to a 'system' so it can 'make use of' us for purposes not of our creation… drains our energy off uselessly – so far as 'the people's priorities' are concerned: love… beauty… balance… sharing… honesty… caring… self-creation… tenderness… empathy… independence… deep understanding of all life… mutual aid and respect… health… wholeness… cooperativeness… continuous growth of our gifts… good fellowship…

 

…as far as these things are concerned… we… our energy… gets burned… thrown away… sucked into the service of opposite ends to what we would intend… were we consciously demanding that our priorities live.

 

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[November 8, 2015 show ends here… we didn't get to the reading in this show.]

 

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* “WUR of November 15, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3.7): Segue From Marx… To Alice

 

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Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 31)

 

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[“151115_1.mp3”:]

 

November 10, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: I admit to a dream… I don't mean our free future… for that is certainty… each one of us becoming 'big' ends this system… withers 'the state in us…'

 

…no… the dream I see is all of us singing… “Facing fear… raise up love…” a song written by Sifu Coleen Gragen… the martial arts teacher who has been coming up for me of late. When my son mentioned that one of her students… Kate Hobbs – a woman who is one of my son's teachers – sang a song that Coleen used to sing a lot at demonstrations around the time she founded Hand to Hand Martial Arts Center in Oakland, California… I wanted to hear it… so I went to see Kate with my recorder and she was kind enough to let me record her singing it… the one verse she's committed to memory:

Facing fear… raise up love… raise up love…

Facing fear… raise up love…

Raise up love for women and children…

Raise up love for the homeless and the poor…

Raise up love for human rights…

…for all people…

Raise up love… put an end to war…

Facing fear… raise up love… raise up love…

Facing fear… raise up love…

 

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Here is the recording of Kate Hobbs singing Coleen's song:

 

[“151105katesingsraiseup_edit.mp3”:]

 

“Facing fear… raise up love… raise up love… Facing fear… raise up love… Raise up love for women and children… Raise up love for the homeless and the poor… Raise up love for human rights… …for all people… Raise up love… put an end to war… Facing fear… raise up love… raise up love… Facing fear… raise up love…” (Kate Hobbs singing “Raise Up Love”, recorded at her home on November 5, 2015)

 

Here is what we know: “Facing fear… raise up love… raise up love… Facing fear… raise up love…” (Thandiwe's word-beat of Kate singing Coleen Gragen's song, posted to the November 15, 2015 Waking Up Radio show).

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* “WUR of November 15, 2015 Reading… continuing our interlude: excerpts from Karl Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte… by Karl Marx… and Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914… before returning to the chapter "Poisonous Pedagogy" in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good

[“151115.mp3”:]

 

'Progress' has been equated with the deepening of 'class' – which… practically speaking… means… 'let the statesmen lead'… But having seen the horrors unleashed by leaving our earth in the hands of heart-and-thought-dead very-stuck-in their-abandonment… adult abandoned children… having seen that they are leading us to on-going-lost-gifts… dying oceans… displaced populations… and early deaths that they 'profit' by with their 'investments'… we must… each one of us… claim our gifts of leadership… and meld them with love… to preserve ourselves… our earth… our expansiveness… and establish an honest world for our children…

 

What Marx will be calling our attention to… as did Wallerstein a couple weeks back (and will again today…) is a very aggressive use of this new tool – the centralized state – to hammer in the new script for 'ruling us': a retooled machinery of 'law' designed to insinuate 'discipline' (obedience) throughout and within all aspects of our lives… by means of its installation in the 'new'… 'modern'… totalitarian… centralized… global… nation-state… For while the 'traditional' weapon of 'power'… a whole lot of violence… had 'worked' for them for millennia… it's cost was great… and the new crop of 'power'-mad… thought they had a better plan. Recall our poisoned pedagogue (I paraphrase): “Force can compel the behavior… but not the will… of another.” Or… as Wallerstein said: “Cavaignac could repress; he could not relegitimize the state…” and while they – the 'power'-guys – initially thought this through openly (per Bentham's advice to fling your ideas wide so they could get discussed … tried… and revised…) with their conditioned belief in secrecy and subterfuge… they hid in the shadows… where they've been ever since…

 

Returning now to the conclusion of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx… after which… we take a step back… with Wallerstein as guide… to see that this is a world they – the 'power'-guys – were determined to organize… – P.S.]

Bonaparte would like to appear as the patriarchal benefactor of all classes. But he cannot give to one class without taking from another. Just as at the time of the Fronde it was said of the Duke of Guise that he was the most obligeant man in France because he had turned all his estates into his partisans' obligations to him, so Bonaparte would fain be the most obligeant man in France and turn all the property, all the labour of France into a personal obligation to himself. He would like to steal the whole of France in order to be able to make a present of her to France or, rather, in order to be able to buy France anew with French money, for as the chief of the Society of December 10 he must needs buy what ought to belong to him. And all the state institutions, the Senate, the Council of State, the legislative body, the Legion of Honour, the soldiers' medals, the washhouses, the public works, the railways, the etat major [General Staff] of the National Guard to the exclusion of privates, and the confiscated estates of the House of Orleans – all become parts of the institution of purchase. Every place in the army and in the government machine becomes a means of purchase. But the most important feature of this process, whereby France is taken in order to give to her, is the percentages that find their way into the pockets of the head and the members of the Society of December 10 during the turnover. The witticism with which Countess L., the mistress of M. de Morny, characterized the 4 of the Orleans estates: “C'est le premier vol de l'aigle” [“It is the first flight (theft) of the eagle”] is applicable to every flight of this eagle, which is more like a raven [I resent that! The raven is most regal… – P.S ]. He himself and his adherents call out to one another daily like that Italian Carthusian admonishing the miser who, with boastful display, counted up the goods on which he could yet live for years to come: “Tu fai conto sopra i beni, bisogna prima far il conto sopra gli anni.” [“Thou countest thy goods, thou shouldst first count thy years.”] Lest they make a mistake in the years, they count the minutes. A bunch of blokes push their way forward to the court, into the ministries, to the head of the administration and the army, a crowd of the best of whom it must be said that no one knows whence he comes, a noisy, disreputable, rapacious boheme that crawls into gallooned coats with the same grotesque dignity as the high dignitaries of Soulouque. One can visualize clearly this upper stratum of the Society of December 10, if one reflects that Veron-Crevel [In his work, Cousine Bette, Balzac delineates the thoroughly dissolute Parisian philistine in Crevel, a character which he draws after the model of Dr. Veron, the proprietor of the Constitutionnel ('a French bourgeois daily')] is its preacher of morals and Granier de Cassagnac its thinker. When Guizot, at the time of his ministry, utilized this Granier on a hole-and-corner newspaper against the dynastic opposition, he used to boast of him with the quip: “C'est le roi des droles,” “he is the king of buffoons.” One would do wrong to recall the Regency or Louis XV in connection with Louis Bonaparte's court and clique. For “often already, France has experienced a government of homme entretenus” [kept men].

 

Driven by the contradictory demands of his situation and being at the same time, like a conjurer, under the necessity of keeping the public gaze fixed on himself, as Napoleon's substitute, by springing constant surprises, that is to say, under the necessity of executing a coup d'etat en miniature every day, Bonaparte throws the entire bourgeois economy into confusion, violates everything that seemed inviolable to the Revolution of 1848, makes some tolerant of revolution, others desirous of revolution, and produces actual anarchy in the name of order, while at the same time stripping its halo from the entire state machine, profanes it and makes it at once loathsome and ridiculous. The cult of the Holy Tunic of Treves [“a Catholic relic preserved in the Treves Cathedral, alleged to be a holy vestment taken from Christ while he was suffering death. It was regarded by pilgrims as an object of veneration.”] he duplicates at Paris in the cult of the Napoleonic imperial mantle. But when the imperial mantle finally falls on the shoulders of Louis Bonaparte, the bronze statue of Napoleon will crash from the top of the Vendome Column. (Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, p. 133 – 135)

 

[Because our – that is… we-the-people's – understanding of 'historical' events is generally through the lens of the 'educational system' of (premised on) 'class'… designed to reinforce the 'logic' of 'rule' (consciously or unconsciously…) which 'logic'… we are now seeing… is embedded in the utilitarian mindset… a.k.a. 'dualism'… on which 'thought' itself is premised – under 'class' – how do we 'make' authentic 'sense' of the blow-by-blow 'class'-sanctioned ('system'-stamped-legitimate) historical descriptions we are given?

 

What does this 'history' mean… for us?… what are we to make of it?

 

Let's return to this question after considering the broader world-systems context provided by Immanuel Wallerstein – this will be his view further into the same chapter (“The Liberal State and Class Conflict”) we've been excerpting. Two things stand out… one: “the supremacy game” the 'power'-guys are engaged in with each other… experimenting with their new toy… the 'powerful'… bureaucratic… nation-state – and two: their self-creation as 'global-state-statesmen'… with a common vision and purpose… inventing… as the key structural means for accomplishing this… an interstate 'mechanism' to ensure our – that is… we-the-people's – suppression… A question we should ask ourselves… I think… is… why… even in the analyses of those who have our interests in mind… these obvious motives of 'power' are not the starting point of these analyses… and why rather our advocates help legitimate these unmistakable motives by employing the ideology of 'economic development'? Wherever we stand on this issue… there needs to be discussion… – P.S.]:

The 1850s marked the high point of growth in British exports. The export of cotton piece goods “just about doubled” in the decade, actually increasing even the rate of growth, which, Hobsbawm argues (1975, 30 – 31), provided “invaluable [political] breathing-space.” Cotton textiles were still central to British wealth, but this was the period in which metals and machinery moved to the fore as the leading industry, and with them the emergence of “bigger industrial units all along the line” (Clapham, 1932, 2:114). Great Britain was clearly on the road to becoming an industrial state. “The course was set” (Clapham, 1932, 2:22). For Great Britain, these were “buoyant years,” in which her economic dominance of the world-economy went “virtually unchallenged” and in which the new world of industry “seemed less like a volcano and more like a cornucopia (Coleman, 1973, 7 – 8). Great Britain was comfortably hegemonic, but also complacently so, not always feeling she had to watch over every fluctuation of the world-economy.

 

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Yet, we should not exaggerate. The voyage was “not half over.” Agriculture remained “by very far the greatest of [Great Britain's] industries” (Clapham, 1932, 2:22). Church (1975, 76) believes that calling this period the “mid-Victorian boom” must be severely qualified.” Yes, there was a price rise, business expansion, and an improved standard of living, but the growth rate in production was not all that big, and 1858 saw the most profound downward business cycle of the century. Like all economic leaders, Great Britain was preparing its own fall. It was resistant to innovation. It was in 1856 that Bessemer first read his paper on his use of air blasts to make quality steel more inexpensively, but his ideas would not be widely adopted until the Kondratieff B-phase. The expansion of the world-economy was bringing in its wake further industrialization in the United States and various parts of Europe, making Great Britain's competitive position “steadily more difficult,” particularly because these countries indicated, with the significant exception of France, that they had “no intention of following Britain's example” in adopting free trade (Schlote, 1952, 43). Indeed, Great Britain itself would eventually sour on free trade.

 

In this midcentury British glow, France seemed initially at a disadvantage because of the turmoil of 1848. Once again, its revolutions seemed to be hurting its economic development. But this time only most briefly, because the political solution to the turmoil – the populist authoritarianism of the Second Empire – served to resolve some of the political tensions precisely because this regime had made itself, as none had done before, the proponent and propellant of a leap forward of French economic structures, thereby consolidating the liberal core of the world system.

 

The economic indicators were clear: Foreign trade tripled (Palmade, 1961, 193). The production of the means of production grew relative to the production of consumable goods (Markovitch, 1966, 322). There was a boom not only in domestic investment but also in foreign investment, such that by 1867 net income from external investments exceeded net export of capital. For Cameron (1961, 79), this meant that France had become “a 'mature' creditor nation.” And French public finances had become, along with those of Great Britain, “solid.” The public subscription to government loans “demonstrated the strength of savings and the abundance of capital which existed in the two countries” (Gille, 1967, 280). In short, this was a time of economic glory for France as well as for Great Britain. This was “to the benefit, if not the credit, of the Second Empire,” but, as Palmade (1961, 127, 129) insists, “the externally favorable situation fell to a government firmly committed to taking advantage of it.”

 

Furthermore, it was a government that thought governmental action was essential to this economic expansion, one that did not consider, in the words of Napoleon III [Louis Bonaparte], that state action was a “necessary ulcer” but rather that it was “the benevolent motor of any social organism.” The intention nonetheless was to promote private enterprise thereby. Although the “primary concern” of the government was to “create as many [economic] activities as possible,” still the government wished to “avoid this grievous tendency of the state to engage in activities which private individuals can do as well as or better than it can.” Furthermore, the public works program of the government was directed not merely to aid industry, but to shore up the agricultural sector. And behind this practice – “a precursor of technocratic Gaullist modernization” – was the objective of combating “political instability and class conflict (Magraw, 1985, 159), crucial for a regime that had emerged in the crucible of the Revolution of 1848.

 

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This is where the famous Saint-Simonian link comes in. Actually, we should talk of the post-Saint-Simonians, those who had emerged out of the pseudoreligious phase under Enfantin and who retained only the “radical” spirit of Saint-Simon – rigorously modernist, technocratic, reformist, ultimately neither “socialist” nor “conservative” (as some have claimed) but essentially “liberal” in spirit, as became most clear in the Second Empire. It was liberal in spirit because it combined the two key features of liberalism: economic development linked to social amelioration. [And by 'social amelioration'… recall… he's referring to the continuous provision of 'progress' to 'the people'… and the maintenance of 'order' – i.e. a 'social contract' dependent on being able to rape the earth elsewhere… i.e.… dependent on 'the colonies'… – P.S.] For liberals, the two are obverse [“corresponding to something else as its opposite or counterpart…” I would say that one implies the other… – P.S.] sides of the same coin. The Saint-Simonians affirmed “the primacy of the economic over the political sphere” (Blanchard, 1956, 60). But they also argued, in the 1831 formula of Isaac Pereire, that economic progress would bring about “an amelioration of the lot of the largest and poorest strata” (cited in Plessis, 1973, 86). This is of course why Napoleon III and the Saint-Simonians were “made for each other” (Weill, 1913, 391 – 92). To be sure, the Saint-Simonians were “about the only intellectual group available to [Napoleon]” (Boon, 1936, 85). But also vice versa: the modernist sector of the bourgeoisie, the true liberals, “needed [Napoleon] to liberate themselves from the timidities of the well-to-do” (Agulhon, 1973, 234), who had dominated the Party of Order in the July Monarchy. This is why Guerard (1943, chap. 9) called Napoleon III “Saint-Simon on horseback.”

 

It is in this period as well that banks came into their own as key agents of national economic development. In this, too, the credit must go to the post-Saint-Simonians (such as the brothers Pereire), who were “the first to realize the role of stimulus and coordinator that banks could play in economic life” (Chlepner, 1926, 15). But the story predates the brothers Pereire. From at least 1815 on, the biggest banks – notably the Rothschilds and the Barings – shifted their emphasis to long-term loans, first in negotiating and promoting loans to governments and second in sustaining large private enterprises. Since, as Landes (1956, 210 – 212) notes, were these banks to show “too voracious an appetite,” they could be undercut by competitors, they tended to form cartels. The Rothschilds in particular found their best profits in a tacit link with the Holy Alliance [“In September 1815, the three monarchs of the 'east' (Austria, Prussia, and Russia) signed the document that became known as the Holy Alliance – the pledge to work together to maintain the status quo in Europe, if necessary by intervention in countries threatened by revolution. Great Britain did not join the signatories.” p. 42… – P.S.] and were thus able to locate themselves in the principal money markets, which at that time were “more markets of demand than centers of money supply” (Gille, 1965, 98). Furthermore, the “favorite gambit” of the Rothschilds – the short-term emergency loan to a government in difficulty – was not necessarily an aid to national self-sufficiency. Cameron (1957b, 556) argues that such governments “rarely ever regained [their] independence” and compares the practice to a “habit-forming drug.” [And we… of course… immediately think of 'payday lending'… which comparison succinctly expresses the downward trajectory of 'the system'… its urgent sense that they must develop lock-down techniques to use on us that are guaranteed effective… before we get… globally… that their jig is up… and that it is for us imperative that we begin designing our alternative… – P.S.]

 

The need, of course, was for more locally controlled sources of credit. Chlepner (1926, 19) reminds us that, before the Credit Mobilier of the brothers Pereire, there were “predecessors” in Belgium – most notably the Societe Generale, founded by King William in 1822. It was, however, only after Belgium marked its independence in 1831 with the enthronement of Leopold I that the bank became a major actor in economic development, primarily in the construction of railways. If this bank and the rival Banque de Belgique, founded in 1835, both went into relative hibernation after the financial crisis of 1838, they were even harder hit by the Anglo-French economic crisis of 1846 – 1847. With this in the background, February 1848 led to fear of revolution, fear of the loss of independence, and a “veritable financial panic” (Chlepner, 1926, 238; see also 1931), which caused the state to come to the aid of the bank and end the period of agitation. Belgium thus was able to avoid the revolutionary upsurge and could then move to a more truly liberal system, eliminating the semiofficial character of the Societe Generale in 1851.…

 

The banking controversies in Great Britain, previously discussed, created a situation in which the banks were unable to play a direct role in promoting economic growth. These controversies culminated in the Bank Act of 1844, whose objective, from Peel's point of view, was primarily to “make more solid the foundations of the gold standard” and secondarily to remove the use of gold as an internal political weapon (Fetter, 1965, 192). Perhaps Great Britain could afford, better than other countries, not to have a banking policy that would promote economic growth. Cameron (1961, 58 – 59) calls this “inefficient” but notes that “paradoxically,… the very obstacles placed in the way of a rational banking and monetary system stimulated the private sector to introduce the financial innovations necessary for realization of the full benefits of technical innovation in industry.”

 

What the British state had promoted by its failures – an adequate supply of credit for the midcentury economic expansion – the French state under Napoleon III wold create deliberately. The decree of February, 1852 authorizing the formation of mortgage banks, the Credit Foncier of Emile Pereire being one of the first, provided the financial underpinning for the reconstruction of Paris by Haussmann. “From a laggard, France became a leader and innovator in mortgage credit” (Cameron, 1961, 129). The Rothschilds were not happy. James de Rothschild argued that this change in structure would concentrate too much power in untried hands. It seems a case of the pot calling the kettle black. In any case, the rise of the great corporate banks of the Second Empire took the monopoly away from what had been called the haute banque, a “powerful group of private (unincorporated) bankers” (Cameron, 1953, 462). But the haute banque had not provided sufficient credit to French business enterprises.

 

Toward the end of the Second Empire, in 1867, the largest of the new banks, Credit Mobilier, failed. The Rothschilds, however, were still there, and are still there today. Nonetheless, the liberal state, by its intervention, had changed the worldwide credit structure of modern capitalism: “The banking system of every nation in Continental Europe bore the imprint of French influence” (Cameron, 1961, 203). The creation of larger numbers of banks oriented to the international market may have diminished the power of the haute banque. This was not necessarily a great virtue for the weaker state structures in tight financial situations. Jenks (1927, 273) discusses the perverse effect of greater competition in the field of loans to governments [The more complicated it reads… the more hidden the scheming… What it sounds like is the creation of a – at broadest view – a two-tiered banking system in which the weaker banks got used to extend the internationalization of debt… in order to subject all nations to the new totalitarian regimen… – P.S.]:

Competition simply augmented the risks of marketing the loan in the face of efforts of the unsuccessful banker to cry it down.… What the competition did encourage, however, was the pressing of more money upon frequently “bewildered” borrowers.… In a word, the loan business was monopolescent.

 

The collapse of Credit Mobilier gives credence to this analysis. It formed part of a sequence that led to the drying up of loans to weak governments and hence the accentuation of what was to become the Great Depression after 1873.

 

The liberals had achieved what they had hoped to achieve in midcentury. The long upswing of the world-economy and the actions of the governments of the core zone – in particular, of Great Britain and France – secured a steady process of worldwide relocations., until at least the end of the twentieth century century. We may call this the “strong market,: one of the three pillars of the liberal world order that was to be the great achievement of the capitalist world-economy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But there were two further pillars for a liberal world order: the strong state, and the strong interstate system. It is to the process of securing them that we now turn.

 

The absolute monarchies had not been strong states. Absolutism was merely the scaffolding within which weak states sought to become stronger. It would only be in the post-1789 world-system's atmosphere of normal change and popular sovereignty that one could build truly strong states – that is, states with an adequate bureaucratic structure and a reasonable degree of popular acquiescence (which in wartime could be converted into passionate patriotism).… [This strikes me as upside-down…

 

[This might be a good moment to revisit our earlier question:

 

“Two things stand out… one: “the supremacy game” the 'power'-guys are engaged in with each other… experimenting with their new toy… the 'powerful'… bureaucratic… nation-state – and two: their self-creation as 'global-state-statesmen'… with a common vision and purpose… inventing… as the key structural means for accomplishing this… an interstate 'mechanism' to ensure our – that is… we-the-people's – suppression… A question we should ask ourselves… I think… is… why… even in the analyses of those who have our interests in mind… these obvious motives of 'power' are not the starting point of these analyses… and why… rather… our advocates help legitimate… and obscure… these unmistakable motives by employing the ideology of 'economic development'?”

 

Elsewhere on this webpage [listed in the menu] we posted comments on Chapter 1 of our Good Three's Antisystemic Movements… “Rethinking the Concepts of Class and Status-Group in a World Systems Perspective”:

 

All to say… consider this… that ‘war’ is not to reinvigorate dead markets… but to suppress our uprisings against injustice. In the Waking Up Radio show of March 9th, 2014 we said that…

[“140309econtool.mp3”:]

 

“The machinations of states is theater… with two tightly interwoven objectives: first… 'work steadily to conquer the people… according to “the laws” of hierarchy… i.e.… ensuring there are “winners” and “losers”…' This is key overall strategy… And by the way… when we said that “the responsibility of 'the intellectual' is to stand with the people and renounce the privilege of standing apart…” – this is not a national project… a national Left is useless… it effectively means you stand with 'power'… agree to its terms… agree to betray your Brothers and Sisters who happen to be the designated 'losers'… globally speaking… So… ensuring that there are “winners” and “losers” is key strategy both for maintaining the undergirding ideology “merit rises” – the notion that there's some legitimate reason in this gross unfairness – behind the hideousness – and it's necessary for maintaining 'power's invisibility – the notion that there's just these “natural forces” at play… And… according to the “laws of PR-chest-pounding-posturing”… this must be on-going… And the second key objective: 'play the game of “Supremacy” successfully… using quantifying means to keep score… – otherwise known as “the economy”… while maintaining the chest-pounding to draw from the people the requisite energy…' We've said that the definition of “the economy” that's most authentic is “eating the earth…” controlling the resources of the planet… the most key one strategically being us… But… looking at Europe before the spread of fascism across it… 'socialism'… which in the people's minds simply meant 'freedom'… sweeping across Europe… 'infecting' the colonies even… So… that resource which is absolutely key was at risk of being lost… So 'economy' geared up… for 'destroying' is also 'consuming': removing resources from our use… so 'eating the earth' can be destroying the earth by means of war… or destroying the earth by means of what's called 'growing the economy'… 'development'. The book Savage Continent (by Keith Lowe) provides prodigious illustration of resources being removed from our use… and…turned back over to ‘power’… Keith Lowe describes… an orgy of destructiveness. This systematic attack on ‘economic life’ was itself the ‘economic system’ working at a clip (because the point is privatization: atomization plus privatization equals control of us… manufactured ‘scarcity’…) racing at a pace unequaled since… The ‘economic system’ is not ‘capitalism’…. It’s called ‘power’… and they invent a tool called ‘the economy’ to keep us confused… War is an expression of this ‘economic system’… and ‘the economy’ is war by other means… i.e…. it’s about controlling the energy of the majority… the goal being… to beat us into submission… and… in the ‘normal’ course of events… overt violence is (as Solozzo said…) “too expensive…” in terms of maintaining legitimacy… as a means of controlling. And so they ‘normally’ rely on Bentham… whose Panoptic guidance says: “wage war by other means… i.e. be ‘economic’… and ‘efficient’….” “Let the weight of scarcity weigh on their minds…” Bentham advised.…” [From the March 9, 2014 Waking Up Radio show… and discussed as well during the October 18, 2015 show.]

 

But when the people arise… ‘economy’… ‘efficiency’… and all that jazz… flies out the door…

 

…and in walks war.

 

‘Economy’ is just a tool… like any other technology.

 

So ‘war’ is always war on us… whether they spill our guts with guns… or markets.

 

The economy is just war by other means… and war is the profligate failure of ‘breeding’… to control the energy of the majority (the true point of the ‘education’ we’re all given.)

 

What they (the ‘power’-guys…) hate most… is resistance. What they love most… is obedience – (From our commentary on Chapter 1 in Antisystemic Movements… “Rethinking the Concepts of Class and Status-Group in a World Systems Perspective”) – P.S.]

…The absolute monarchies had not been strong states. Absolutism was merely the scaffolding within which weak states sought to become stronger. It would only be in the post-1789 world-system's atmosphere of normal change and popular sovereignty that one could build truly strong states – that is, states with an adequate bureaucratic structure and a reasonable degree of popular acquiescence (which in wartime could be converted into passionate patriotism). And it was the liberals, and only the liberals, who could construct such states in the core zones of the world-system. Bureaucratic growth was the essential pendant of economic growth, at least of economic growth at the scale that capitalists now hoped for and that was not technologically possible.

 

Of course, the construction of a strong bureaucratic state was a long process that had begun in the late fifteenth century. Resistance to such construction is what we really mean when we refer to an ancien regime, which of course existed quite as much in Great Britain as in France, as indeed it did throughout Europe and most of the world. What we may call generically Colbertism was the attempt to overcome this resistance by taking real power from the local level and concentrating it in the hands of the monarch. It was at best partially successful. Jacobinism was nothing but Colbertism with a republican face. It died in its original form in 1815. After 1815, it would be liberalism that took up the battle to create a strong state. Whereas Colbertism and Jacobinism had been brutally frank about their intentions, the fact that liberals refused to acknowledge that building the strong state was their intention – in many ways, their priority […'power' had gone undercover… where they remain to this day… and may they so remain even when we have reclaimed our lives from them… – P.S.] – was perhaps precisely why they were able to succeed better than the Colbertists and the Jacobins. Indeed, they succeeded so well that the enlightened conservatives took up this same objective, largely effacing in the process any ideological distinction between themselves and the liberals.

 

Of course, there are many reasons why capitalists find strong states useful. One is to help them accumulate capital; a second is to guarantee this capital [I much prefer the way Kropotkin puts it: “The State was established for the precise purpose of imposing the rule of the landowners, the employers of industry, the warrior class, and the clergy upon the peasants on the land and the artisans in the city. And the rich perfectly well know that if the machinery of the State ceased to protect them, their power over the laboring classes would be gone immediately.” – Precisely… to impose 'rule' by the Infinitesimal Few… but not for simple 'gain'… but rather to make of Society… a 'Perfect Order'… a mission they use to excuse an unimaginable hubris… and brutality… – P.S.]. But after 1848, capitalists fully realized, if they had not before, that only the strong state – that is, the reformist state – could buffer them against the winds of worker discontent. Pereire put his finger on it: “The 'strong' state became the welfare state of large-scale (grand) capitalism” (cited in Bouvier, 1967, 166). Of course, “welfare state” here has a double connotation – the welfare of the working classes to be sure, but the welfare of the capitalists as well.

 

We think of Victorian Great Britain as the locus of antistatism in its heyday, and it is quite true that “in general, [most Englishmen] were suspicious of the State and of centralization” at this time (Burn, 1964, 226). But in the jostle of conflicting interests between those (largely the “liberals”) who wanted the state to cease propping up the agricultural interests and those (largely the “conservatives”) who were inclined to favor local and more traditional authority, combining it with a rhetoric of social concern for the poor, it was easy for the latter to find compensation for every victory of free commerce by pushing forward some project of state intervention in industry. Brebner calls it the “mid-century dance… like a minuet”: parliamentary reform in 1832, the first Factory Act in 1833; Peel's budget in 1841; the Mines Act in 1842; Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846; the Ten Hours Bill in 1847. “The one common characteristic [of the political initiatives of 1825 – 1870] is the consistent readiness of interested groups to use the state for collectivist interests (Brebner, 1948, 64, 70).

 

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Before 1848 much of the argument among the middle classes for state social reform had been based on “widespread philanthropic enthusiasm and the uneasy conscience… at the spectacle of the poverty in which the workers were condemned to live” (Halevy, 1947, 218). However, the revolutions of 1848, which Britons could not help but feel they had averted by the beginnings of social intervention, added to mere guilt a sense of the political importance of reformist legislation. Thus it was that, at the very height of the classical age of English liberalism, “the growth of the central government was staggering” (Katznelson, 1985, 274) These foundations of modern government may have been, as Evans (1983, 285) said, “laid in the teeth of a gale.” But Gladstonian liberalism was “a restless, reforming creed” (Southgate, 1965, 324), albeit without the least semblance of any commitment to economic equality.

 

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The origins of Gladstonian reformism were in Benthamism, as we have seen [Wallerstein's note on this are quotes from Coates (1950, 358): “It was by the unrestricted use of the legislative power of the state that Bentham sought to effect his reforms…” and Checkland (1964, 411): “Benthamism meant identifying the urgent tasks of society and prescribing the means for their discharge: it meant specific legislation, with inspectors in the field and administrators in centralized offices. It meant Members of Parliament who thought, as Bentham did, in terms of 'agenda'.” Wallerstein adds: Between 1852 and 1867, this agenda included the police force, prisons, endowed schools, doctors, and veterinary medicine – all regulated and promoted by the state. See Burn (1964, 167 – 226)]. The result was the so-called administrative revolution, which transformed the functions of the state in the direction of a “new and more or less conscious Fabianism” (MacDonagh, 1958, 60). Bit by bit, “the disciples of Smith and Ricardo [came to promote a series of] social reforms which brought a strong paternalistic state” (Roberts, 1958, 335). And then, in the last twist, English liberalism redefined in this fashion “found a complementary expression in the Conservative Party which… actually realized certain Liberal principles which the other… was in danger of obscuring” (Ruggiero, 1959, 135).

 

The situation in France was remarkably similar. There, too, laissez-faire had become “the dominant watchword.” But there, too, “practice was rather different from theory.” And there, too, “those in power were conscious of the industrial factor in the world struggle for preponderance, peaceful but then tending to become warlike” (Leon, 1960, 182). And there, too, the nineteenth century was the century in which the strong state was constructed. To be sure, this creation had been and would continue to be a continuous process – from Richelieu to Colbert to the Jacobins to Napoleon to the monarchies censitaires to the Second Empire to the Third Republic to the Fifth. But in many ways the Second Empire marked a crucial step forward. Or perhaps the way to put it is that the Second Empire marked the locking in of the structure by laying the basis for popular acquiescence. Louis Napoleon was able to do this because, as Guizot (cited in Pouthas, 1983, 144) said, with what sounds like grudging admiration, he incarnated at one and the same time “national glory, a revolutionary guarantee, and the principle of order.”

 

What Napoleon III instituted was a welfare-state principle from the top down. The Second Republic had brought the “social question” to the fore of the agenda, arguing that the sovereignty of all the people contrasted with, was belied by, the “tragic inferiority in the conditions of some of the people.” From this observation, two conclusions seemed possible: a definition of popular sovereignty that would lead to “unlimited political power,” or an “absolute rejection of political authorities (pouvoir) that risked making society “ungovernable” (Donzelot, 1984, 67. 70). Bonapartism represented the former definition, without ever forgetting that it had to use the power to provide a response to the “social question.”

 

In his first decade in power, Napoleon III represented reestablished order, used the state to build public works [it unfortunately validates 'power's position when we accept – and employ uncritically ourselves – 'power's definitions and world-view… In this instance what is implied by Wallerstein's use of the word 'order'… particularly associated as it is with what we are told is 'economic development'… plants the impression that it is 'power' that is 'innovative'… 'creative'… and energetic… while we… so the story goes… best serve ourselves by serving them… – P.S] used the state to build public works and modernize the banking system, and concluded the 1860 free-trade treaty with Great Britain. In this period, Napoleon III was primarily concerned with creating an “environment favourable to industrial capitalists,” and therefore one in which the working class was “held in check” (Kemp, 1971, 181). Once this was assured, he would then turn to integrating the working classes into the political process. He became quite popular with the workers in the years after 1858. They were years of great prosperity, years of political reform, years in which France was supporting oppressed nationalities in Italy and elsewhere. A pro-Bonapartist workers' group came into existence (Kulstein, 1962, 373 -375; also 1964). In this atmosphere, there was a growing competition among republicans, royalists, and Prince Napoleon for the favor of the workers. They were all encouraging cooperatives on the grounds that such organizations were not “incompatible with the free economy in which they all believed” (Plamenatz, 1952, 126).

 

In various ways, Napoleon III sought to “become closer to the new social left” (Duverger, 1967, 156) In 1864, he legalized trade unions and strikes, which consisted, in the words of Henri See (1951, 2: 342), “an act of major importance in the social history of France,” Indeed, the regime used its attempt to “ameliorate the conditions of the workers and the needy” as a central theme of its propaganda, boasting of its “cradle to the grave” assistance to the needy (Kulstein, 1969, 95, 99). What Napoleon III, as the first among the “democratic Bonapartists,” sought was a program [the operative words here are “giving them”… i.e. we have been stripped of “our own things”… our own earth beneath our feet – our own earth-given capacities of sharing and-regeneration… and without them we must go… hat-in-hand… to the statesmen… who in this instance… taking the lead of the new Napoleon… condescend… since we are bootless (made so by them) – … to be gracious… – P.S.] What Napoleon III, as the first among the “democratic Bonapartists,” sought was a program that would “render the masses conservative… by giving them something to conserve” (Zeldin, 1958, 50). In this way, he made it possible to complete the project of transforming France into a liberal state – a project that would be consecrated in the constitution of 1875. Furthermore, France was not only a liberal state but a national state, and it was France that had sealed the identification of the two in nineteenth century Europe.

 

 

(Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914, p. 102 – 119

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(Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789 – 1914, p. 102 – 119

 

 

 

 

… – P.S.]

[Returning to Alice… and skipping ahead…]

 

In the three scenes that follow, we see vivid examples of how the principles described above can be put into practice. I quote these passages at such length in order to give the reader an idea of the atmosphere these children (i.e., if not we ourselves, then at least our parents) breathed in daily. This material helps us to understand how neuroses develop. They are not caused by an external event but by repression of the innumerable psychological factors making up the child's daily life that the child is never capable of describing because he or she doesn't know that things can be any other way. [The totalitarian state – which is what we got today… must be systematically replaced… with new thoughts… – P.S.]

Until the time he was four, I taught little Konrad four essentials: to pay attention, to obey, to behave himself, and to be moderate in his desires.

 

The first I accomplished by continually showing him all kinds of animal, flowers, and other wonders of nature and by explaining pictures to him: the second by constantly making him, whenever he was in my presence, do things at my bidding; the third by inviting children to come play with him from time to time when I was present, and whenever a quarrel arose, I carefully determined who had started it and removed the culprit from the game for a time; the fourth I taught him by often denying him something he asked for with great agitation. Once, for example, I cut up a honeycomb and brought a large dishful into the room. “Honey! Honey!” he cried joyfully. “Father, give me some honey,” pulled his chair to the table, sat down, and waited for me to spread a few rolls with honey for him. I didn't do it but set the honey before him and said: “I'm not going to given you any honey yet; first we will plant some peas in the garden; then, when that is done, we will enjoy a roll with honey together.” He looked first at me, then at the honey, whereupon he went to the garden with me. Also, when serving food, I always arranged it so that he was the last one served. For example, my parents and little Christel were eating with us once, and we had rice pudding, which he especially liked. “Pudding!” he cried joyfully, embracing his mother. “Yes,” I said, “it's rice pudding. Little Konrad shall have some, too. First the big people shall have some, and afterwards the little people. Here, Grandmother, is some pudding for you. Here, Grandfather, is some for you, too! Here, Mother, is some for you. This is for Father, this for Christel, and this? Whom do you think this is for?” “Onrad,” he responded joyfully. He did not find this arrangement unjust, and I saved myself all the vexation parents have who give their children the first portion of whatever is brought to the table. [Salzmann (1796), quoted in Rutschky]

The “little people” sit quietly at the table and wait. This need not be demeaning. It all depends on the adult's intention – and here the adult in question shows unabashedly how much he enjoys his power and his bigness at the expense of the little ones.

 

Something similar occurs in the next story, in which telling a lie is the only possible way for the child to read in privacy:

A lie is something dishonorable. It is recognized as such even by those who tell one, and there probably isn't a single liar who has any self-respect. But someone who doesn't respect himself doesn't respect others either, and the liar thus finds himself excluded from human society to a certain extent.…

 

 

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* “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”: Introducing Our Discussion of: Antisystemic Movements… by Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein.

 

September 4th, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: In the WUR show of August 31, 2014 we argued that most of the ‘thought’ on the Left is ‘magical’… because based in and on a notion of ‘reality’ from which critical bits are extruded: ‘the democratic introjection’ (as Marcuse put it…) or ‘poisonous pedagogy’ (as Alice Miller put it…) – or ‘the state in us’ (as I’m putting it…) – and what’s also missing is an accurate understanding (as to source and aims) of ‘power’ as a conscious actor… i.e. with a clear vision and goal – an ‘original’ as their mentor Plato might put it – a model ever before their eyes that they use to sculpt… or pound… us into the shape they want. In short… what’s missing is the ‘theory’ of why we obey.

(We give our allegiance to the state because we have no other allegiance and we are communal beings and must plant our ‘solidarity’ somewhere. The state ensures we can have no other allegiance… the global-statesmen brook no challenges – these are not folks to whom we can entrust our earth… especially… the earth in us… the ‘ownership’ of which… once transferred to else but self… is lost.)

We can’t move forward until we confront our obedience. Here’s a mini-video – first in a series of ‘non-coercion commercials’ that I’m planning – that presents the concept:

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…or visit the video on you tube:

 

“Children are disappearing. Is it really just the state that’s robbing our children of their youth?… or is it also the state… in us?”

 

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But… I believe… ‘the state within’… and ‘the global state’ that ‘power’ is unfolding apace… must be confronted simultaneously… that confronting one confronts the other ‘naturally’… because the one is but the micro of the larger ‘death’… and ‘life’ is ‘life’… and cannot be split… is one continuous whole.

 

What this means… as we said in an earlier show… is that it’s critical that we – across all the false categories – start bulking up our solidarity… with the ancestors… the earth… and each other. And we’re going to be continuing to argue in upcoming shows… that the opposite of solidarity… is force and coercion… and that when we manifest force and coercion… we manifest the state… and when we oppose force and coercion… we oppose the state.

 

To help us think this through we will be reading together the first chapter of Antisystemic Movements… by Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein; followed by “The Proletarian Is Dead; Long Live the Housewife?” by Claudia von Werlhof, and then “A Manifesto for Global Capital?” by Ellen Meiksins Wood.

 

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* “Introduction” to Antisystemic Movements

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sergei Konionkov’s To Those Who Fell Fighting for the Cause of Peace and the Brotherhood of Nations (1918) (…floating in a Goya sky… “as Peace should still her wheaten garland wear… (Hamlet, V. 2.41)]

 

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The concept of antisystemic movements is one which presumes an analytic perspective about a system. The system referred to here is the world-system of historical capitalism which, we argue, has given rise to a set of anti-systemic movements. It is the contours of this process that we are proposing to outline here. We are in search of the system-wide structural processes that have produced certain kinds of movements and which have simultaneously formed the constraints within which such movements have operated.

 

The movements have had their own mode of self-description. This self-description emerged largely out of categories that were formulated or crystallized in the nineteenth-century capitalist world-economy. Class and status-group were the two key concepts that justified these movements, explained their origins and their objectives, and indeed indicated the boundaries of their organizational networks.

 

The contemporary dilemmas of these movements are part and parcel of the same problem as the dilemmas of the concepts of class and status-group. That is why we felt that we could not analyze the movements, either historically or prospectively, without first rethinking these two concepts from a world-systems perspective.

 

We shall not repeat in this introduction the arguments that are to be found in the articles. We would merely like to suggest that if the structural processes that gave birth to these movements have been world-scale from the beginning, the organizational responses hitherto have been predominantly at the level of the various states. It is because we believe that new organizational responses will begin to surface that will be more world-scale that we think it urgent, not only for theory but for praxis, to reexamine the patterns and the degree of success of the world-system’s antisystemic movements heretofore.

[…“urgent… for praxis…” perhaps I’ve been too closeted in my personal journey… but I don’t believe there is today in academia any such concept of itself… as ‘urgently’ moving to help ‘praxis’ along… I don’t believe that… in general… it thinks much about we-cattle at all… – P.S.]

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* “Rethinking the Concepts of Class and Status-Group in a World Systems Perspective”

(…begins by revisiting The Wealth of Nations….)

 

This essay was presented at the IVth Colloquium of the annual International Colloquia on the World-Economy, sponsored by the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations; the Maison des Sciences de L’Homme; and the Starnberger Institut zur Erforschung Globalen Strukturen, Entwicklungen, und Krisen… in New Delhi, January 4 – 6, 1982.)

In his well-known but often neglected conclusion to Book I of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith defined the interests of “the three great, original and constituent orders of every civilized society,” that is, those who live by rent, those who live by wages, and those who live by profit….

[…“he who owns the lexicon rules the world…” truly… truly… we have been effectively penned… by definition… told… that the very existence of ‘civilization’ depends… on our being trapped… strapped… booted… leashed… bound to ploughs… and beat… – P.S.]

…His argument was that the interests of the first two orders coincide with the general interest of society because, according to his analysis, the real value of both rents and wages rises with the prosperity and falls with the economic decline of society. The interests of profit earners, on the other hand, are different from, and even opposite to, such general social interest, because to widen the market and narrow the competition are always in the interest of merchants and manufacturers. And, while to “widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; …to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens.”

 

Profit-earners not only have an interest contrary to the general one. They also have a better knowledge of their interest and a greater power and determination in pursuing it than those who live by either rent or wages….

[…perspective and scope of ‘interest’… I’ve never heard discussed… that the (constructed) structure itself places some… to ‘look long’… ‘think big’… and places us to see… and be… the opposite… never discussed (outside of Virginia Woolf…) is what it means that it’s only the miniscule few… who take responsibility for ‘the all’ of things… globally… and how this disproportion in ‘interest’… skews the very ‘quality’ of ‘humanity’ to suit the soul’s damage of the tiny few… – P.S.]

…The indolence of landowners, “which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind which is the necessary in order to foresee and understand the consequences of any public regulation.” As for the wage-earner, “he is incapable either of comprehending the general social interest, or of understanding its connection with his own.” Moreover, in the public deliberation, “his voice is little heard and less regarded, except upon some particular occasions, when his clamour is animated, set on, and supported by his employers, not for his, but their own particular purposes.”

[…as I read these words… the singularity of this present moment we are in… in which we finally can move… together… to a world that reflects our interests… we… whose energy has been… ‘historically’… ‘set on’ and used for other people’s purposes… the few… who ‘little hear and less regard’ our voices…. His words are true: we’ve never spoken before in our true voices… as our true voices need our true world to speak true. As we seek… as we see… as we speak… as we become… we bring into being… the world we need… to clarify our voices into that perfect harmony our souls have been seeking… for so long… – P.S.]

…Profit-earners, on the other hand, particularly those who employ the largest amount of capital, draw to themselves by their wealth the greatest share of the public consideration. Moreover, since during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have a more acute understanding of their particular interest than the other orders of society.

 

The Wealth of Nations being a work of legislation, the purpose of this “class analysis” was to warn the sovereign against the dangers involved in following the advice and yielding to the pressures of merchants and master manufacturers. As the head of the national household, he should instead strengthen the rule of the market over civil society [i.e. allow ‘competition’ to exist… – P.S.], thereby achieving the double objective of a more efficient public administration and a greater well-being of the nation.

 

It is not our purpose here to assess the soundness of the advice given by Smith to the national householder or of the substantive analysis on which it was based. Rather, we want to point out those aspects of his analysis that can be considered as paradigmatic of political economy and that we can find duplicated in contemporary class analysis.

[…implicit… in drawing this equation between ‘political economy’ and ‘class analysis’… that runs clearly through The Wealth of Nations… is the heretofore undisguised thought… that humans-made-‘citizens’ have no ‘legitimate’ claim to existence… apart from our service to the state… following the ‘order’ to which we are assigned…. Now… confronting this fact – the fact that we tell ourselves… by our obedience… the very thing that Goering said of himself: “It is not I who live, but the [state] who lives in me…” – in broad, public discussions… signals the advance of humanity itself… – P.S.]

First, the tripartite social order of which he spoke was a predicate of a particular kind of society; that defined by the territorial reach of a definite sovereign or state. These were the states of Europe as they had been and were being formed within mutually exclusive domains operating within an interstate system.

 

Second, his social orders (or classes) were defined on the basis of property relations. The ownership of land, of capital, and of labor-power define his three great orders of society. Among the proprietors of capital, what some today would call a “fraction” of capital (merchants and master manufacturers) is singled out for special treatment in view of its political-economic power, of its greater self-awareness of its own interests, and of the opposition of its interests to the general social well-being.

 

Third, the interests of each of the social orders / classes were identified with its market situation; that is, both their competitive opportunities in relations to each other as classes (and of individuals within each class to each other), and the costs and benefits to each of them of monopoly power within markets, understood as restriction of entry. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith limited the subjective ground of collective action by a class to these market interests. Monopoly power in the product as well as in factor markets was traced back to the creation of tolerance of restrictions to entry on the part of the sovereign / state.

 

Fourth, market relations were defined within or between national economic spaces. Class conflicts and alignments were thus limited to struggles within each state for influence / control over its policies. The unit of analysis, in other words, was the nation-state, which determined both the context and the object of class contradictions.

 

Fifth, a “relative autonomy” of state actions in relation to class interests and powers was presupposed. The enactment of laws and regulations by the state was continuously traced to the powers and influence of particular classes or “fractions” thereof. But the sovereign was assumed to be in a position to distance himself from any particular interest to promote some form of general interest, reflecting and / or generating a consensus for this general interest.

 

If we contrast this analytical framework with that associated with Karl Marx’s critique of political economy (that is, of Smith and other classical economists), we notice two consequential shifts of focus: a shift away from state-defined economic spaces to world-economic space on the one hand, and a shift away from the marketplace to the workplace on the other.

 

The first shift implied that the market was no longer seen as enclosed within (or “embedded” in) each nation-state as an independent economic space, and that the world-economy was no longer conceived of as an interstate economy linking discrete national economic spaces. Rather, nation-states were seen as jurisdictional claims in a unitary world market. By effecting the socialization of labor on a world scale, the world market determined the most general context of the class contradictions and therefore of the class struggles of capitalist society, which Marx defined by its constitutive orders, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat:

The modern history of capital dates from the creation in the sixteenth century of a world-embracing commerce and world-embracing market. (Capital, Volume I)

 

This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages. (The Communist Manifesto)

This was not a mere matter of trade relations between sovereign states. Rather, the developing bourgeoisie…

…compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois modes of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeoisie themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. (The Communist Manifesto)

The world so created was characterized by a highly stratified structure of domination and had more than market interests as subjective grounds for collective action:

Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West. (The Communist Manifesto)

The second shift implied that the antagonism between the two great classes into which, according to Marx, bourgeois society as a whole tends to split, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, was no longer traced to relations in the product or factor markets but to relations in production. In order to define the interests of the nation and of its component classes, Smith took leave of the pin factory whose scenario opens The Wealth of Nations to follow the interplay of supply and demand in the marketplace, and of class interest in the national political arena. Marx, in his critique of political economy took us in the opposite direction. We take leave not of the shopfloor but of the noisy sphere of the market place (and, we may add, of the political arena) “where everything takes place on the surface and in view of all men,” and follow the owner of the means of production and the possessor of labor power “into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there stares us in the face ‘No admittance except on business.’” (Capital, Volume I) In this hidden abode of production, Marx discovered two quite contradictory tendencies that implied two quite different scenarios of class struggle and social transformation.

 

The first was the one generally emphasized in Marxist literature after Marx: even if we assume that in the marketplace the relationship between the owners of the means of production and the owners of labor-power appears as a relationship between equals, in the sense that the commodities they bring to the market tend to exchange at their full cost of production / reproduction (which, of course, is not always or even normally the case),…

[…and of course… as Polanyi reminded us… human energy is not… can not be… a ‘commodity’… i.e. it is not ‘produced for exchange in the market…’ and that applying this term to the earth and us… is a fiction…

 

…and of course… as Bentham reminded ‘rulers’… fictions can be enforced as real… by the state… but what a toll it takes… this living lives premised on lies… on our souls… – P.S.]

…the relationship would still be a fundamentally unequal one. This is so because of the longer-run effects of capitalist production on the relative value and the relative bargaining power of capital and labor. Capitalist production, that is, is seen as a process that tends to reduce the value of labor-power (its real costs of reproduction) and simultaneously to undermine the bargaining power of its possessors, so that the advantages of the reduction of labor’s costs of reproduction tend to accrue entirely to capital.

…but are not these “longer-run effects of capitalist production”… the ever-increasing disparity in relative ‘power’… and so in ‘relative bargaining power’… a function of ‘political’ ‘power’ – ‘the state’ as the tool of ‘power’? – and never… in reality… of ‘capitalist production’… at least if we use that word to suggest an effect of ‘market laws’… – P.S.]

This tendency obviously poses problems of realization of the growing mass of surplus labor that capital appropriates in production. These problems periodically manifest themselves in crises of overproduction that are overcome on the one hand…

…by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented. (The Communist Manifesto)

 

[…Kropotkin’s words… about seeing ‘history’ with fresh eyes – once they’re open… (“Petr understood that ‘power’ selectively passes down the ‘stories’ that further its mission, and that, “Ere long history will have to be re-written on new lines….” we said in the Waking Up Radio show of February 23rd, 2014…) – is never more relevant than when we’re looking at what’s called ‘the economy’…

 

…i.e. could it be that Marx… who wrote so forcefully about taking the world away from ‘philosophy’ and setting it on its feet again… was likewise viewing things falsely?… Adam Smith’s words – their full import – have never been taken to heart: we commoners have been “little heard and less regarded….” The whole point of ‘class’… is to establish (irrevocably… soon… they hope…) that we ‘don’t matter’… so why would any of its ‘thinkers’ – whose allegiance is to ‘Thought’… or so they might imagine – consider it worthwhile to try to see the world from the eyes of those who ‘can’t put two sentences together’?… who are ‘mere matter’… to the mind of ‘Thought’… to be used to advance… a ‘bigger’ agenda that they could ‘never understand’.

 

All to say… consider this… that ‘war’ is not to reinvigorate dead markets… but to suppress our uprisings against injustice. In the Waking Up Radio show of March 9th, 2014 we said that…

The book Savage Continent provides prodigious illustration of resources being removed from our use… and…turned back over to ‘power’… He describes… an orgy of destructiveness. This systematic attack on ‘economic life’ was itself the ‘economic system’ working at a clip (because the point is privatization: atomization plus privatization equals control of us… manufactured ‘scarcity’…) racing at a pace unequaled since… The ‘economic system’ is not ‘capitalism’…. It’s called ‘power’… and they invent a tool called ‘the economy’ to keep us confused… War is an expression of this ‘economic system’… and ‘the economy’ is war by other means… i.e…. it’s about controlling the energy of the majority… the goal being… to beat us into submission… and… in the ‘normal’ course of events… overt violence is (as Solozzo said…) “too expensive…” in terms of maintaining legitimacy… as a means of controlling. And so they ‘normally’ rely on Bentham… whose Panoptic guidance says: “wage war by other means… i.e. be ‘economic’… and ‘efficient’….” “Let the weight of scarcity weigh on their minds…” Bentham advised.

 

But when the people arise… ‘economy’… ‘efficiency’… and all that jazz… flies out the door…

 

…and in walks war.

 

‘Economy’ is just a tool… like any other technology.

 

So ‘war’ is always war on us… whether they spill our guts with guns… or markets.

 

The economy is just war by other means… and war is the profligate failure of ‘breeding’… to control the energy of the majority (the true point of the ‘education’ we’re all given.)

 

What they (the ‘power’-guys…) hate most… is resistance. What they love most… is obedience –

Further… can we finally now be honest about those “means whereby crises are prevented”? When Marx and Engels say ‘overproduction crises’ are only ‘solved’ by digging ever deeper ‘power’s grave… that is to say… by eating ever more “means whereby crises are prevented”… those ‘means’ are the earth and us… where ‘conquest’ – the raison d’être of ‘class’ – mowed right over us…. As our authors said: “the structural processes that gave birth to [resistance] have been world-scale from the beginning…” – and our ‘place’ in the structure has always been premised on the privileging or suffering of those ‘higher up’ or ‘low’…

 

What happened to us was not ‘economic’… but rather deeply ‘psychological’… – P.S.]

It would seem from the above that the unequal relation between labor and capital, continuously reproduced and enhanced in the workplace, leads capital either to self-destruction in the marketplace or to a greater development of the world-economy, both extensively (incorporations) and intensively. Given a finite globe, the more thorough this development, the greater the self-destructiveness of capital.

 

In this scenario labor plays no role in precipitating capitalist crises except in a negative sense; it is its growing subordination in the workplace, and consequent weakening of bargaining power in the marketplace, that are ultimately responsible for the outbreak of the “epidemic of overproduction,” as Marx called it. Labor, or its social personification, the proletariat, plays an active role only in transforming the self-destructiveness of capital into political revolution. The increasing precariousness of working and living conditions induces proletarians to form combinations against the bourgeoisie.

Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers….

 

This organization of the proletarians into a class, and consequently into a political party, is continuously being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier….

 

Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all times, with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for its help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. (The Communist Manifesto)

Alongside this scenario, however, as we indicated, Marx suggested another one, quite distinct in its unfolding. Both in the Manifesto and in Capital we are told that, along with the growing mass of misery, oppression, and degradation, the strength of the working class grows too, not so much as a result of political organization aimed at counteracting its structural weakness, but rather as a result of the very process of capitalist production.

Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital… grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation, but with this too grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. (Capital, Volume I)

 

The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage labor. Wage labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. (The Communist Manifesto)

Here, therefore, the strengthening of labor in the workplace is the cause of the crisis of capital.

 

As we know, Marx never managed to reconcile these two contradictory tendencies that he discovered in the abode of production, let alone to work out fully and systematically all their implications for the analysis of class contradictions in capitalist society. Instead, Marx, in some of his historical writings, and many followers in their theoretical writings, gave up the critique of political economy and reverted to the Smithian paradigm of class analysis, reviving rather than carrying out the critique of political economy.

 

In the case of Marx, this retreat is most evident in his writings on the class struggle in France, in which class interests were defined in terms of a national political-economic space, and what goes on in the abode of production simply does not come into the picture at all. Obviously, Marx himself thought that the shift of focus he was advancing to analyze the overall, long-term tendencies of capitalist society had a limited relevance for the concrete analysis of a concrete instance of class struggle at a relatively low state of development of such tendencies.

[Let’s pause and recap… perhaps slightly translate (for our purposes…): Marx saw two (contradictory) ‘tendencies’ as inherent in the ‘process’ of capital accumulation (or ‘production’…): first… the unequal ‘power’ relation between those who “put ‘capital’ to work”… and we-who-do-the-work… is a bias that but increases over time… because ‘power’ uses its ‘power’ advantage to drive our bargaining position ever lower (‘cheapen its costs of labor’…) resulting in our increasing ‘immiseration’…

 

(…time-out to vent a suppressed rant… I am looking at a red line under ‘immiseration’… that is a politically-motivated red line… as are the lines under ‘commodification’… ‘commodify’… and ‘ain’t’… the rest will have to wait…)

 

…continuing… resulting in our increasing ‘immiseration’ over time… and… even though this results eventually in a ‘crisis of overproduction’ for ‘capital’… also referred to as a ‘crisis of realization’ – i.e., no one to buy its ‘stuff’ – this is not by our – we commoners’ – action or plan… as we are politically-weak paupers.

 

(But… I would argue… it’s also not “by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself…” – ‘power’ hides in so-called ‘economic forces’… there is absolutely no ‘objective reason’ why ‘the state’… in theory… could not undo the bias… except for the one we’re all trained in… of ‘might makes right’…. ‘Power’… ‘rule’… are not inevitable… though they are made by the few to seem so.).

 

However… despite our increasing pauperization… Marx prophesied our growing strength due to our increasing numbers and organization in ‘the abode of production’ (neglecting to consider that ‘society’ overall… was modeled on the design of the Panopticon.) Still… given that the scope… frame… and audience… for these two respective ‘analyses’ are different… it’s hard for me to see them as ‘contradictory tendencies’.

 

What I see as the pressing need for us… for all of us (globally)… is getting on the same page… which means we need to come to some agreement… as to what these “overall, long-term tendencies of capitalist society…” are… exactly… – P.S.]

Moreover, even at the theoretical level, the shift of focus away from the noisy sphere of political economy did not imply any belittlement of the nation-state as the main locus of political power, that is, of the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence over a given territory. This power embodied in nation-states, whatever its origins, could obviously be used, and has indeed generally been used, simultaneously in two directions: as an aggressive / defensive instrument of intra-capitalist competition in the world-economy, and as an aggressive / defensive instrument of class struggle in national locales. True, the growing density and connectedness of world-economic networks on the one hand, and the displacement of class contradictions from the marketplace to the workplace on the other, would ultimately make nation-states “obsolete” from both points of view. In outlining this tendency, however, Marx was only defining the situation that the capitalist world-economy would asymptotically [“asymptote: a line that continually approaches a given curve but does not meet it at any finite distance. From the Greek ‘not falling together’…”] …that the capitalist world-economy would asymptotically approach in the very long run. The farther the class struggle was from the projected asymptote, the more it would take on a political / national character. Even the proletariat, the class which in his view had neither country nor nationality, had first of all to wage a national struggle.

Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word. (The Communist Manifesto)

 

[Our intent… in examining ‘Marxism’… is… in translating it into terms that unify us globally – into ‘earth’-terms… as we all feel the same earth under our toes – to show that the path to freedom does not lie down a ‘Marxist’ road. This is not an easy task. ‘Marxism’ has claimed the energies of the Left for so long… its ‘intellectualism’ has such a cachet about it – it’s a language hard to learn… and a certain pride attaches to those who labored long to learn it… it’s acquisition then being such… that few who have it… are willing to relinquish it.

 

Nonetheless… I believe ours is a worthwhile project – this effort of ‘translation – ‘necessary’ even… perhaps… but I must say I’m not fully convinced… as simply trusting our bodies… should be sufficient….

 

But as we read this together… I ask that we keep in mind… what was discussed in the Waking Up Radio show of August 31, 2014… that… “the ‘modern’ language of ‘classification’… of ‘specialization’… of ‘ranking’ as to ‘historical stage’… and certainly as to ‘class’… is itself the key tactic of control… of containment… so it’s not just that when we’re trying to ‘win’ (play ‘power’s game…) that we’re snuggled up close and sucked right in… but even when we challenge its propaganda… because engaging with it hardens our chains… and in some sense validates the system….”

 

Reminding us of this caution is reminding us of the central problem: we’re told ‘civilization’ itself depends on our enslavement… we’re told Thought itself requires the categories ‘power’ provides… the key one being ‘class’. With the benefit of hindsight we could reply to Marx’s idea that “the proletariat must rise to be the leading class of the nation…” by saying that it has no empirical basis…

 

but it’s intent was polemical… not analytical…

 

…but when we reject the terms themselves… how reply? Why argue with false premises… except that so many still believe in them?

 

Within the mindset of ‘class’… we commoners can never become ‘the leading class’… surely this is obvious?

 

But what is less so… is whether we can re-define ‘the nation’… to our advantage… whether we can re-claim ‘the state’ from the global-statesmen – is that’s what’s happening this very moment (September 18, 2014) as the Scottish people vote on independence?… the transition?… a piece of it?… the first of the intermediate steps… to freedom?…. We will return to this question… – P.S.]

Marx’s empirical retreat into political economy did not, however, entail a corresponding retreat at the theoretical level. It simply implied a recognition of the distance separating the historical circumstances of nineteenth-century Europe from the asymptotic circumstances projected in the Manifesto and in Capital.

[But this assumes a ‘logic’ to ‘history’ that ‘it’ does not possess… – P.S.]

Far more than this was implicit in the retreat into / revival of political economy by Marxists after Marx, however. The most striking characteristic of the theories of finance and monopoly capital, of imperialism, and of state capitalism, synthesized in canonical form by Lenin, is that they take us back to the noisy sphere of political economic relations. Their main concerns are the forms of capitalist competition, and the class contradictions identified are those defined in terms of market interests and state power. However much such formulations may or may not be justified in terms of the political strategies of the time, we are concerned here with their elevation by epigones [“…a less distinguished follower or imitator of someone, esp. an artist of philosopher…” “from the Greek ‘epigonoi’: ‘those born afterward’…”] into theoretical advances rather than pragmatic retreats from Marx’s critique of Smithian political economy.

 

This theoretical retreat into political economy had some justification in the tendencies that came to characterize the capitalist world-economy around the turn of the century. The growing unity of the world market presupposed by Marx’s paradigmatic shift began to be undermined by the re-emergence of state protectionist / mercantilist policies. These policies increasingly transferred world capitalist competition from the realm of relations among enterprises to the realm of relations among states. As a consequence, war and national / imperial autarky [“…economic independence or self-sufficiency in a country, state, or society…”] came to the fore and in pragmatic terms shaped the scenario of the world-economy. Connected with this tendency, the high concentration and centralization of capital, characteristic of most of the new leading / core sectors of economic activity, led to a resurgence of practices, often backed by state power, that restricted competition within the national / imperial segments into which the world-economy was splitting. States thus returned to the forefront of world-economic life, and monopoly in and through the sovereign became once again the central issue around which conflicts and alignments among classes and fractions thereof revolved. This situation, which has broadly characterized the first half of the twentieth century, undoubtedly warranted a revival of political economy as the most relevant theoretical framework for the short- or medium-term analysis of class contradictions and conflicts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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* “The Proletarian Is Dead; Long Live the Housewife?” …by Claudia von Werlhof

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Francisco Goya’s Third of May, (1808, Portion)]

 

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If We Have Understood Housework, Then We Have Understood the Economy

 

Housework is a phenomenon that is most difficult to understand, but if we have understood housework, then we have understood everything. But this requires (and this requirement is still unfulfilled) that we do not view housework too narrowly or use it in a restricted sense, and that we relate it and indeed apply it to nothing less than the whole economy – in fact, to the world-economy. Only then will the explosive character and the significance of the so-called women’s question become recognizable in its generality. The women’s question is the most general – and not the most special – of all social questions, because all others are contained in it;…

[…because she’s putting them in it… – P.S.]

…because it, in contrast to all the questions to date, leaves no one out. This claim reflects not conceit, or arrogance; on the contrary, it reflects something inherent in the functioning of our society itself. For our society itself has created an historically unique (to date) situation, namely the situation that the women are always “the one below”. But only from below, hence at the bottom of the cask, can the whole be seen as the whole. Nothing is more important – actually nothing is more vitally necessary – than to support this tendency of analysis “from below.”

[…I agree… but what’s even more ‘below’ than women?… look beneath your feet… notice then… as we dissolve to dust… there is no difference… – P.S.]

The Connection between the World Economic Crisis and War danger: War Economy

 

The reasons that a really general theory of society and corresponding policy are necessary are nothing less than the currently beginning world economic crisis and the danger of war that is threatening us. I wonder more and more why this time no connection is being seen between crisis and war. In any case, the topic has not been raised up to now, not even in the rather broad peace movement in the Federal Republic of Germany, which is strange, because this connection has otherwise always been the subject matter of discussion. But today people are concerned only with moral or military-technological arguments. Why don’t people simply ask, “how come there now is suddenly a danger of war? The east-west conflict is actually nothing new!” Or, “What does it mean, we must tighten our belts? What has happened to the economic miracle for which we sweated a whole life long? What have you done with that?” These simple and fundamental questions of war and crisis are simply missing, at least in the public discussion. Why?

 

The answer is at first very simple: If there is a worldwide economic crisis, then it means that everywhere economic changes will take place. But can these be implemented without the application of violence?

[…is it clear that ‘power’ counts on suppressing the key discussions… to prevent our thought’s development from one generation to the next… to keep us treading water… while they continuously move… systematically… toward their dream’s installation… their fantasy of statis (how does Kissinger put it?… I listened to him yesterday – September 9, 2014 – hawking his book by the same name: World Order…) – P.S.]

Recently a German politician himself used the term “war economy”, and it is a kind of war economy towards which we are proceeding. I do not know what he meant by that, but I think that surely there is some objective background for this statement. To me it appears that changes in the world-economy are proceeding at full speed and are beginning to be noticeable more and more clearly also in the Western industrial nations. What is involved is not merely a cyclical crisis or a moderate structural change, but the beginning of a totally new phase of capitalist development, and nobody knows how it will look. It is characterized by the fact (which is exactly what is of primary importance) that it more or less does away with “free” wage labor. With this development, simultaneously, democracy, human rights, equality, freedom, and brotherhood are also called into question, not to speak of emancipation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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* “A Manifesto for Global Capitalism?”, by Ellen Meiksins Wood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[From John Boswell’s The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe From Late Antiquity To The Renaissance]

 

(During the May 18, 2014 show, we finally remembered to add Alice Miller and Jeremy Bentham to the “puzzle pieces” we needed to see what ‘power’s plans are… and in the May 25, 2014 show we remembered John Boswell… for his The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe: From Late Antiquity To The Renaissance….)

 

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A capitalist manifesto

 

Imagine a manifesto for global capital, written by a guru of globalization. Its object would be to present a picture of the world in which opposition to globalization and to capitalism itself would be futile, a world in which the best we can do is go with the flow, lie back and think of Nike.

 

[We first considered these words of Ellen Meiksins Wood during the Waking Up Radio show of September 14, 2014:

 

“What would be the essential propositions of such a [capitalist] manifesto?… the nation-state has become a fiction… supranational institutions as the WTO and the IMF to facilitate capital flows, and the movements of labour… problems will be solved not by resistance to global capital, not by less globalization, but, on the contrary, by more…” – and I have to say… the perspicacity of Terence Hopkins is impressive. Recall our quote from him in Palmers’ Chat… in which he placed his finger on the key problem ‘power’ faces – in their determination to arrest our building confidence… and attempt to yet again meet it with suppression – which is… the use of the nation-state as a tool wielded from ‘below’ – Scotland… is the present case in point… and… the on-going uprising of the Indigenous… ditto… (We’re going to be thinking deeply… in upcoming shows… about this question of the ‘nation-state’.)

 

What would be the essential propositions of such a manifesto? It would probably begin by insisting that the globalization of capital and the integration of the global economy have so transformed the world that the nation-state has become a fiction, as capital flows have far outreached the borders and the powers of the state. The world is now essentially ruled by the impersonal laws of the global market. To the extent that capital flows, and the movements of labour, still require some regulation, we may need such supranational institutions as the WTO and the IMF. But their role is to facilitate, not to dominate. To be sure, there are still a few flaws in the system, such as the disparity between rich and poor. But such problems will be solved not by resistance to global capital, not by less globalization, but, on the contrary, by more. Those who resist the relentless movement of capitalist globalization are doing much more harm than good.

 

We can come back in a moment to challenging this picture of the world. But let us first ask this: if the purpose of this analysis is to discourage opposition, at what point in the argument is resistance to global capital most effectively disabled? Of course, the general lesson we are supposed to draw from it is that capitalist globalization is an irresistible force and that opposition to what is practically a law of nature is futile and counterproductive. But an even more significant element in the argument is that it denies that there is any concentration of power in the global economy.

[Exactly… ‘power’ must hide to exist… Bentham schooled them well on this… and Plato (implicitly…) before him ( ‘power’ is ‘power’ is ‘power’…) – P.S.]

Either power is an inappropriate category in defining the globalized world, or power is so diffuse and immaterial that it might as well not exist at all. In either case, there is no target for opposition.

[Precisely the point of all of ‘power’s ‘modern’ propaganda – and what elaborately crafted propaganda Empire was… which should flatter the folks it was trying to convince… – P.S.]

In this respect, the manifesto would be the equivalent on a global scale of much older ‘pluralist’ arguments in political science, challenged by Marxist theories of the state way back in the 1970s. According to that old liberal orthodoxy, there were no concentrations of class power in the liberal democratic state, only an infinite diffusion of countervailing powers throughout society. Now, we are told, even the state itself is effectively powerless, and political domination, no less than class rule, is a thing of the past. All political forces and organizational forms once designed to challenge the power of capital at the level of the state are even more irrelevant than they were in an earlier pluralist world, as irrelevant as the nation-state itself.

 

Such a manifesto would seem to imply that there is no effective possibility of opposition. The diffusion of power in capitalism has, to be sure, always presented a problem for oppositional forces. It has never been as easy to trace the class power of capital to a visible source as it was in pre-capitalist societies, where the capacity of economic exploitation rested on ‘extra-economic’ political and military powers. In capitalism, not only are the ‘economic’ and the ‘political’ separated, but the impersonal forces of ‘the market’ do much of capital’s work. Nonetheless, as long as there was some identity between national states and national economies, struggles against capital could be directed not only against specific employers ‘at the point of production’ but also against the capitalist class at a point of concentration in the state.

[And now – post-World Social Forum… post-‘Occupy’… – we see ‘power’ trying to hide… no longer in ‘strong’ industries… or ‘strong’ states… but in ‘strong’ individuals… ‘talent’ that seems ‘by nature’ to have got that way (i.e., ‘strong’…) – P.S.]

It was, in fact, the essence of Marxist critiques of pluralist theories that the state did indeed constitute a point of concentration of capitalist power. But even if the state did once represent such a concentration of power and hence also a target of opposition, in today’s globalized world, we are told, such possibilities of opposition no longer exist. What good are struggles at the point of production, when capital is organized in huge, transnational corporation? What good are political struggles when the nation-state is dead?

 

If it is really true that capitalist power is now a mystical force, immanent in the world and completely disembodied [she is using the language of… and restating the argument of… the book Empire… – P.S.], everywhere and nowhere, it is the end of anti-capitalist struggle. Of course, the most sensible thing would be to embrace this ubiquitous force. But, in any case, resistance is futile. No amount of whistling in the dark about the insurrectional energies generated by globalization can change the fact that for us the game is over. The only opposition available to us is symbolic gesture and spectacle…

[Does this shoe fit… the massive protest against the inaction of the global-statesmen in the face of global warming… that we just witnessed on September 21, 2014 in New York City? (I’m writing this on September 23, 2014…) I’ve heard nothing to suggest otherwise… – P.S.]

…or the internal refusal that gives a kind of spiritual freedom to the prisoner in chains. If there really is no material point at which the power of capital can be challenged, and with all forms of political action effectively disabled, the rule of capital is complete and eternal.

[And of course recent events… from the election of Barack… to the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt… to the Occupy Movement… to Ukraine… and the massive scale and the deep… diffuse… forms of resistance occurring globally… in this moment… show otherwise… – P.S.]

This counsel of surrender would be the message of a manifesto on behalf of global capital. It is also, like it or not, the message of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire. This monumental and ambitious book has been read by supporters and critics alike as a relatively optimistic manifesto for oppositional forces in the globalized world. It has been praised as an eloquent voice for anti-capitalist movements. But for all its insistence on the possibilities of insurrection and the power of the ‘multitude’, it is much less persuasive as a call to opposition than as an argument for the futility of oppositional politics; and it has rather more to say abut the irrelevance of old oppositional struggles and forces than about the possibilities of new ones.

 

“In this smooth space of Empire,” Hardt and Negri tell us, “there is no place of power – it is both everywhere and nowhere. Empire is an outopia or really a non-place.” What does this mean for the possibilities of opposition? We are told – in sweeping generalities – that, precisely because the power of Empire is everywhere and nowhere, “the virtual center of Empire can be attacked from any point.” What precisely this means remains unclear. But, as the argument proceeds, it is difficult to see what kind of opposition it allows, apart from spontaneous gestures on the part of an inchoate ‘multitude’, which, instead of resisting the processes of globalization, can somehow reorganize them toward new ends – though by what means and to what effect (apart from creating new ‘subjectivities’) remains a mystery.

[For each new generation… ‘power’ but redesigns its old cons. Just as she pointed out the basic equivalency between Empire’s key message and that “of much older ‘pluralist’ arguments in political science, challenged by Marxist theories of the state way back in the 1970s…” so too can we see in this pseudo-optimism in non-resistance (“…instead of resisting the processes of globalization, [we’re supposed to] somehow reorganize them toward new ends…”) the false encouragement of pseudo-resistance of Mr. Steele (discussed in the Waking Up Radio show of July 27th, 2014… – P.S.]

We are told in rather more concrete terms what kinds of opposition are not possible. Political movements and organized working-class struggle are fruitless, especially local and national struggles (Hardt and Negri are very critical of anti-capitalist movements that focus on such struggles), because their traditional targets no longer exist. The simple fact is that, since there is no locus of power, there can be no real counter-power.

The idea of counter-power and the idea of resistance against modern sovereignty in general thus becomes less and less possible…. A new type of resistance would have to be found that would be adequate to the dimensions of the new sovereignty…. Today, too, we can see that traditional forms of resistance, such as the institutional workers’ organizations developed through the major part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have begun to lose their power. (quote from Empire)

[It’s interesting to contrast the shrouding effect of Hardt and Negri’s false pronouncements with the invigorating effect of Terence Hopkin’s… in his examination of Marx on this same issue:

 

“True, the growing density and connectedness of world-economic networks on the one hand, and the displacement of class contradictions from the marketplace to the workplace on the other, would ultimately make nation-states “obsolete” from both points of view. In outlining this tendency, however, Marx was only defining the situation that the capitalist world-economy would asymptotically [“asymptote: a line that continually approaches a given curve but does not meet it at any finite distance. From the Greek ‘not falling together’…”] …that the capitalist world-economy would asymptotically approach in the very long run. The farther the class struggle was from the projected asymptote, the more it would take on a political / national character. Even the proletariat, the class which in his view had neither country nor nationality, had first of all to wage a national struggle.” (Terence Hopkins, “Rethinking the Concepts of Class and Status-Group in a World Systems Perspective”)

 

(Discussed in the Waking Up Radio show of September 21, 2014 – “…Even the proletariat, the class which in his view had neither country nor nationality, had first of all to wage a national struggle.…” “Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word…” – and is planned for discussion during the September 28th, 2014 show as well…) – P.S.]

And so on. For all Empire’s lofty sentiments about new forms of contestation, this will be music to the ears of global capital. We are left with a mystical force opposed, if at all, by immaterial resistance.

 

But let us at least grant that Empire has its heart in the right place. Unlike our putative manifesto for global capital, it really does intend to celebrate, not to deny, the possibilities of contestation. The trouble is that its analysis of Empire denies us any such hope, no less effectively than the globalization manifesto does, and in alarmingly similar terms.

[…a ‘manifesto’ that robs us of our hope for freedom… cannot have its ‘heart in the right place’… because it has no heart – that we can see this is not just because we have the benefit of hindsight… that we’ve seen the World Social Forums… seen ‘Occupy’ catch fire globally… tied to massive and on-going anti-privatization mobilizations… seen one-third of the population of Egypt in the streets… seen… the beginning of the fulfillment of Nikola Tesla’s prophesy: that once we can communicate instantaneously with each other globally… we can no longer be lied to about each other – as easily – and global unity becomes a goal that’s achievable… if we can ‘disarm’ the global-state-statesmen…

 

…it is the absence of Plato’s Tribesmen in one’s analysis… that limits its effectiveness – and which would… in this case… have allowed us to see the propagandistic thrust of the argument – to recognize that the result: our demoralization… was in fact… the intention – and therefore to state unequivocally… the absence of ‘heart’ of Hardt and Negri – this book did not ‘achieve’ ‘celebrity’-status by accident… – P.S.]

The problem begins with the very first premise on which the whole argument of Empire is based. “Our basic hypothesis,” write Hardt and Negri, “is that sovereignty has taken a new form, composed of a series of national and supranational organisms united under a single logic of rule. This new global form of sovereignty is what we call Empire.” Its primary symptom is “the declining sovereignty of nation-states and their increasing inability to regulate economic and cultural exchanges.” This does not mean that sovereignty has disappeared together with the nation-state. It has simply changed its character. With the growth of transnational corporations, and global networks of production and circulation, “which have undermined the powers of nation-states, state functions and constitutional elements have effectively been displaced to other levels and domains.”

 

There is, of course, an important point here – which many other commentators have also made – about the ‘internationalization’ of the state: that nation-states, like other institutions in the global system, are now responding not simply to the demands of national capital but to the ‘logic’ and requirement of global capital. Although we should not underestimate the persistence of national capital and, for that matter, the roots of transnational capital within it, this is certainly a point worth making. It does not require us to assume that the nation-state is effectively dying; and I have even heard Michael Hardt explain, in a public lecture, that globalization did not exclude the nation-state. The point, he insisted, was simply that the state was now subsumed in the logic of Empire.

 

That said, the essential argument of Empire is something else: at the very least, it requires us to accept that there is an inverse relation between the degree of globalization and the importance of the nation-state. And herein lies the problem, because surely the critical point about the ‘internationalization’ of the state is that the nation-state is useful to global capital not to the extent that it is unable> to “regulate economic and cultural exchanges.” On the contrary, it is useful precisely because it can intervene in the global economy and, indeed, remains the single most effective means of intervention. The essence of globalization is not the declining capacity but the unique ability of nation-states to organize the world for global capital. This reality, and global capital’s inescapable need for territorial states to make possible its navigation of the world economy, is lost in the argument of Empire.

 

The book even seems indifferent to the coercive power concentrated in the state. That indifference is reflected in a conception of ‘sovereignty’ that allows Hardt and Negri to speak of the transfer of sovereign power away from the state, even though (a point on which Empire remains silent) it remains the dominant instrument of coercive force.

 

The first premise of Empire’s argument, then, is that the movements of sovereignty are parallel and conjoined with the movements of the economy, the networks of production and circulation. Give or take the odd time-lag or failure of synchronization, the two go hand-in-hand, so that the more global the economy becomes, the more global, too, will be the reach of sovereignty.

 

This account of the connection between the economic and political moments of capitalism displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the system works. The consequence of this misunderstanding is that Empire never confronts the realities of power or the possibilities of ‘counter-power’ in the world of global capitalism. This, in fact, is the most striking characteristic of the book: that, while purporting to be a study of power in the new world of global capitalism, its argument depends on evading the issue of power.

 

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Economic hegemony and political sovereignty

 

Capitalism is distinctive among all social forms in its capacity to extend its dominion beyond the limits of political authority, by purely ‘economic’ means….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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* “TBA, 2014 Show …”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[From Jean-Leon Gerome’s The Slave Market, (early 1860s)]

 

(During the May 18, 2014 show, we finally remembered to add Alice Miller and Jeremy Bentham to the “puzzle pieces” we needed to see what ‘power’s plans are… and in the May 25, 2014 show we remembered John Boswell… for his The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe: From Late Antiquity To The Renaissance….)

 

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* “TBA, 2014 Show …”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[From John Boswell’s The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe From Late Antiquity To The Renaissance]

 

(During the May 18, 2014 show, we finally remembered to add Alice Miller and Jeremy Bentham to the “puzzle pieces” we needed to see what ‘power’s plans are… and in the May 25, 2014 show we remembered John Boswell… for his The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe: From Late Antiquity To The Renaissance….)

 

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* “TBA, 2014 Show …”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Francisco Goya’s Third of May, (1808)]

 

 

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Thandiwe's Word:

ithedawn@gmail.com

...on the challenge of beginning to create the alternative:

 

“The imagination has to be stimulated – that imaginative part of ourselves that manifests our dreams, through that fire, that passion, that is our art. Asking questions stimulates that process of figuring out, visualizing, and manifesting what we want. But we need each other's help in order to do that – to manifest our power – and we've been cut off from helping each other.”

 

 

 

© Nas2EndWork (the NEW)

http://www.nas2endwork.org