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“Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future” (Part 1)

Please check out our latest “anti-coercion commercials.” Art by Wassily Kandinsky (except in “Future Freedom” which presents “Freedom Sun” by David Sterenberg) and original music by Thandiwe Satterwhite:

 

“We are asserting our common ownership of the earth… and as soon as we make our own bodies part of that goal…”

 

Please check out our latest (2014-10.04) “anti-coercion commercial”:

 

“Hannah Arendt had it wrong… it's not evil that's banal… it's obedience…”

 

Please check out our latest (2014-10.11) three “anti-coercion commercials”:

 

“When we give food to an animal… that has a universal meaning in the language of life… it means: ‘I want you to live.’ In the world I want… we don’t lie when we do that. So the only logical… realistic goal for us if we want to determine ourselves… if we want to live our gifts… is the ‘opposite of this… so our challenge now… is to define it…”

 

“…so we have a responsibility to our posterity… no less than to ourselves… to fight for and achieve the absolute prerequisite for living freely… i.e. living our dreams: freedom-leisure-happiness… based in universal individual freedom… premised on freedom from necessity… material abundance for all… not just for the few…”

 

“…and I know folks are doing that… they’re putting their own gifts first… over jobs… I’m just suggesting that we take the next step… of organizing around that truth…”

 

Please check out our latest (2014-10.23) three “anti-coercion commercials”:

 

“Organizational forms are mated to the task at hand… and what are our tasks… those of we-the-people… at this moment in the human story…”

 

“Remember… this ain’t about nobody forcing nobody… we don’t want your stuff… trust. That’s the point… there is abundance. But we need our global-interconnections to actually realize that possibility… that potential… if for no other reason than that ‘power’ has created so much havoc…”

 

“It seems to me what we’re talking about is a globally-interconnected network of villages… land gifted to folks who want to engage in this effort to design a future without force…”

 

Please check out our latest (2014-10.29) four “anti-coercion commercials”:

 

“…Returning to the article, ‘Discovering the Water Planet’… ‘each year we kill and discard globally… thirty million metric tons of accidentally-caught marine life….’ Now think if we ended work… Without force in our lives… we would live in harmony… we would ask of the earth only what we needed and give back more… because we give thanks… we have time to…”

 

“Why do we accept the limits imposed by ‘power’? Why do we tell ourselves we’re ‘making a dent in the system’ when we’re not even scratching it? And then… why do we tell ourselves making a dent… added to the dents of others… will eventually end it?… when they’re not aimed at the structural underpinnings?…”

 

“So much of our forward movement to freedom rests on language… on knowing exactly what we’re saying… because we’ve discussed the ‘meanings’ of things together… and have come to ‘certainty’ about them… such that we know exactly what we’re saying when we say it… and therefore… mean it…”

 

“Sisters and Brothers: I think we should talk continuously… perhaps in ‘Meet-Ups’… about the ‘opposite’ of ‘power’…”

 

Please check out our latest (2014-11.03) “anti-coercion commercials”:

 

“…he put his thought-process on hold. What we haven't sufficiently credited is that… that’s what ‘work’ does… not just what ‘work in the military’ does… that’s what ‘work overall’ does… it puts our thought-process on hold… and when we accept others telling us what our work is… we’re shown the most relevant meaning of George Eliot’s words: ‘our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds …’””

 

“Why aren’t we saying the goal for all of us to unite behind? What bothers me… is not… at base… money… it’s their control of our lives that bothers me. Money simply tokens this control… measures its degree… but keeping you and me from developing our full human possibilities… when there’s absolutely no need… no reason… beyond lust for supremacy… To do this signals a narcissistic depravity that would bring down all life in its wake… cares not a whit for planetary health… hears no counsel beyond the walls of its poor self… cannot its own… dis-owned self… hear… What is our goal?… if not to release our lives… all life… from this… death grip. I think we have to be concerned at this juncture… when all life is at risk… with the narrowing of goal implied by ‘nationalisms’… of whatever kind…”

 

Please check out our latest (2014-11.08) “anti-coercion commercials”:

 

“…this train called ‘class’… called ‘just sit back and enjoy the ride and let the big boys… the “important ones”… drive… is rolling downhill… and it’s got a speed to it… The story in which they ride our backs… that they call ‘Progress’… was written by ‘power’… who then strangles all other stories… cuts them off at the pass… as Plato instructed… It’s the fact that they had a story… a plan… that made them ‘powerful’… because it meant they had certainty… and could move forward with conviction… we cannot get free unless we deeply believe… that our happiness is the point… our reason -to-be… our babies come to show us that… and then we give them our backs… it’s time to trust those toothless smiles our babes give us… trust… the flight and song of birds… the lolling sound of the ‘useless’ waves… It’s time to trust that joy is our birthright… and must always be the core of the new story we write… the story that is ‘the opposite’ of ‘power’… It only takes a few to begin to make this world based in trusting our bodies’ truth… it putting that first… based in letting our joy live. It only takes a few… and others will come to it. It only takes a few… and we are already many… It’s not the earth we must save… it’s ourselves… just put that first… and the earth can take care of herself…”

 

“…Once upon a waiting future… empty bottom empty bottom… Once upon an empty bottom… future waiting… waiting… Once upon a waiting future… future… future… future…” Let’s talk. Let’s make a brief but thought-provoking moment… to engage discussion. Let’s discuss a world without coercion.

 

Please check out our latest (2014-11.15) three “anti-coercion commercials”:

 

“These cons – “people are violent…” “industry is ruthless…” “the security of the nation is threatened…” “‘global warming’ means we need ‘the state’… – are all presented to us as disparate… to encourage and reinforce our fragmentation – and deep confusion – when in truth all are weaves from the single thread of coercion… and all reflect the state’s need to seem legitimate… …and [relatedly…] its need to keep divisions – particularly hierarchical ones (are any not?) – well-sown between us. So certain ‘demographics’ – slotted categories of ‘class’-humans – will be presented as ‘more violent’ than others… while the middle ranks of ‘knowledge workers’ are reassured they don’t abandon their children – oh no… not them – because ‘studies show’ they ‘spend’ more time with their children than did their mothers – as if the hyper-scrutiny and over-management and deep training in hierarchy and ‘class’-service – ‘work’… it’s true… our parents were less dedicated to – as if this heightened surveillance and obedience-training they give their children were… somehow… not abandonment…. Remember that illustration from Alice Miller’s Prisoners of Childhood in which a young vacationing-couple are enjoying ice cream cones… while their toddler cried? Well, that’s what Alice Miller means by – one example at least of – ‘abandonment’. So let us not be duped by the propaganda over the airwaves… which is trying to implant in our minds a very literal meaning for that word. No. ‘Child abandonment’ is a broad category that includes ‘training your children to be obedient’…”

 

“I happened upon a journal entry (of 04.02.06) from 8 years ago in which I was pretty much resigned to my captive status… …resigned to not living my gifts… accepting their relinquishment… in exchange for an insecure… tenuous… always conditional ‘security’… and a bit of ‘entertainment’. My body knew I was being lied to… but I couldn’t see a way out of it… because there is no individual solution… not for an individual person… or an individual nation. We are one – all of us – being masticated or managed together… on that shifting plate. I use that metaphor a lot… and the last time I forgot… to attribute… and give thanks: Fame is fickle food… Upon a shifting plate… Whose table once a… Guest but not… The second time is set. Whose crumbs the crows inspect… And with ironic caw… Flap past it to the… Farmer’s corn – Men eat of it and die.” (Emily Dickinson, # 1659)

 

“During the Great Depression here in the U.S. folks were paid to travel across the South to gather from former captives their memories of captivity (and I hate that word ‘slave’… it assumes facts not in evidence: that there is such a thing. My use of it in my very first blog was to say: “if you apply that concept to one… apply it to everyone … we are all in the same boat…” Trust. We are all in Auschwitz. No matter what nice upholstery they give us for the particular cage we’re stuck in. And it’s simply ‘betrayal’ to pretend otherwise.) What if we started gathering our visions of freedom and good fellowship… and the ‘infrastructure’ that supports it… collecting these visions from each other globally?… information-gathering for founding a free… globally-consciously-interconnecting society… for a purpose that we have made – we-the-people… globally…”

 

Please check out our latest (2014-11.23) three “anti-coercion commercials”:

 

“Workable Plan…”

 

“Second Sun”

 

“There’s Fascists A’foot!…”

 

“What If We Flipped It?…”

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* “WUR of July 6th, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

 

But these shows will also float the hope that some among us will choose to be heroes… because the “circle of contempt” is ever-widening… and will not stop of its own… and unstopped will engulf the globe. It will ever-expand its scope until some of us determine… to be the ‘end’ it so needs to see.

 

Sisters and Brothers: We said last week that it could be helpful… as we sit down to plan… knowing that some among us are false agents… knowing that… to ward off despair… we must consider that to some extent we are all agents of the state… some with intent… some all unconscious. Today we will further consider that… there are two sides to ‘manifesting the state’: ‘betraying life’… and ‘being betrayed.’ They are inextricably inter-related… two sides of a single self-hate.

 

But we don’t start out as betrayers… we have to be so made… we all first… experience that hurt… of being betrayed. That is the crookedness from which all the misery subsequent… flowed… so it’s that experience we’ll try to expose… over the course of the next few shows.

 

But these shows will also float the hope that some among us will choose to be heroes… because the “circle of contempt” is ever-widening… and will not stop of its own… and unstopped will engulf the globe. It will ever-expand its scope until some of us determine… to be the ‘end’ it so needs to see.

 

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To our grieving Brothers and Sisters in Palestine… your courage shines as a beacon to us all… please… stay strong.

 

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June 30, 2014… Sister and Brother Commoners of Israel: Can the media representation of your thoughts be true?… can it really be that you are not considering the possibility that ‘the state’ itself orchestrated the killings of these three youth… and… again… were they peace activists? Were they such as those whose loss your authoritarian government would say, “Good riddance!” to? Here in the U.S. ‘the state’ in all its versions: official, shadow and global – as is the case with all ‘states’ – has ever been a Cronus… ruthlessly weeding out the youth they fear might one day pose a challenge to it. Weeding out recalcitrants is nothing new… these are old tactics… none of the ruses ‘power’ uses are new… this ain’t their first barbecue… and this ain’t the first time we’ve been screwed. How many times will we hear it before the vast majority of us use it as reply when states pull out the scam ‘Division’ from their pockets and present it to us yet again as valid: “States lie…” they lie… they lie… they will forever lie… because their lust is only to triumph… over us, first and foremost… and against each other. That is their nature.

 

What does our developed understanding of ‘the state’ mean in the day-to-day if we can’t see these scams coming… if enough of us do not raise our voices and align our interests with each other… with all commoner-humans… and the earth… and not these false notions of ‘success’ that too many of us yet believe ‘the state’ represents.

 

This ain’t the first time we’ve been screwed… and we’re learning a thing or two…

 

…like… if we don’t realize that ‘power is effective because they combine… and organize… and can guide us to our doom because they have a vision of the future… in which they rule from Mount Olympus… while we cringe in awe of such ‘majestus’… chutzpah… hubris…

 

…like… health of soul and body for all life calls on us to replicate their recipe for success… and flip the goal… and make it instead ‘Heart’s triumph… a celebration of good fellowship… and openness… instead of worship of these tiny wizened souls….

 

Know… we commoners can also combine… and organize… as commoners – across the false divides… and can guide our brothers and sisters to our future freedom… in which we live in good fellowship… because we have a vision of that future.

 

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July 2, 2014:

 

…and when I say “that ‘West’ that includes the ‘East’” I’m referring to the fact that there is a single mindset… born in conquest… a single mindset called ‘class’… that the globe is now entrapped in… And this singular mindset called ‘class’ is entirely an excrescence from the minds of ‘power’… entirely about how the few can hold the many in its sway… like hypnotists who hope to replace our will with their own. And Plato ever strove to close the loophole… to fix that necessary fatal flaw in this mindset of the soulless… by attempting to structurally nullify it: the inherent disunity of the ‘master class’.

 

I’ve come to believe that Alice Miller is right… we have to understand the psychology of abandonment… and its cycle of reproduction… because for those who only know of children being cherished – such places still exist… among the earth-connected – considered a gift… it may be difficult to believe that there truly is a mindset… so misanthropic… that it would unleash a host of horrors down upon their fellows… just to pretend… that they are ‘better than’… ‘the best’… even – and choose instead… to believe it’s just this ‘system’… with no intention… conscious actors… behind it. “It’s just ‘the system’” – and we’re going to be encouraged to think that… to be forever misled into fighting that… into trying to ‘fix’ that… instead of simply claiming what our bodies want… which is our lives back.

 

Put Alice Miller (who wrote For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence) together with John Boswell (who wrote The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe From Late Antiquity to the Renaissance) and there you have it… the answer to why and how we in the ‘West’ – that broader ‘West’ that includes the ‘East’ – got caught in this death-trap called ‘class’… that cycles us… each generation… deeper and deeper in it… despite the story that we’re told of ‘Progress’….

(…and when I say “that ‘West’ that includes the ‘East’” I’m referring to the fact that there is a single mindset… born in conquest… a single mindset called ‘class’… that the globe is now entrapped in. We have to see that this is a singular mindset from its inception in order to realize that we have to actively end it… because it’s circular… and self-reinforcing….

 

A few quotes might help illustrate this… help explain how and why it is that today… we’re confronted with… a single mind-set:

 

“Egyptian priesthoods had in fact appealed to conservative thinkers at least since the time when Plato had modeled his guardians on them.” (Martin Bernal, Black Athena, p. 25)

 

And Karl Popper believed the Egyptian caste system was “the result of conquests just as in India where every new wave of conquerors imposed a new caste on the old ones…” (The Open Society, Volume 1, p. 231)

 

“In [a passage in Timaeus] Plato tries to show a) that a class division very similar to that of the Republic was established in Athens at a very ancient period of its pre-historical development and b) that these institutions were clearly akin to the caste system of Egypt (whose arrested caste institutions he assumes to have derived from his ancient Athenian state). Thus Plato himself acknowledges by implication that the ideal ancient and perfect state of the Republic is a caste state. It is interesting that Crantor, first commentator on the Timaeus, reports, only two generations after Plato, that Plato had been accused of disserting the Athenian tradition, and of becoming a disciple of the Egyptians.” (The Open Society, Volume 1, p. 224)

 

And this singular mindset called ‘class’ is entirely an excrescence from the minds of ‘power’… entirely about how the few can hold the many in its sway… like hypnotists who hope to replace our will with their own. And Plato ever strove to close the loophole… to fix that necessary fatal flaw in this mindset of the soulless… by attempting to structurally nullify it: the inherent disunity of the ‘master class’.

 

“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, but otherwise mainly by the elimination of economic interests which may lead to disunity.” (The Open Society, Volume 1, p. 47 – 8)

 

And Popper goes on to discuss Plato’s longing for ‘communism’ [only for the ‘master class’ of course…] in which there would be common ownership of all possessions… including women and children.)

…I suspect a large measure (at least beyond the deep conditioning that we get in ‘power’-worship – and allegiance to ‘the state’…) of our inability to believe with what calculation the state acts… and that much of what we’re trained to perceive as ‘mere happenstance’… is instead the result of its extreme craft – is simply that we don’t understand the psychology of abandonment… But unless we discuss this obvious reality of manipulation (which has been ‘proven’ even to the craven requirements of ‘journalism’…) how can we see how and why we’re being manipulated… and intercept ‘power’s ‘replacement cycle’… in which enough youth are infected… each generation… with lies enough to perpetuate the madness… ad infinitum? – and… when do we-the-global-people go on the offensive… and establish a world in which Honesty can live?

 

So in this next segment, let’s ponder the psychology of it… the horror of segmentation… separation… division: first on them that were its first victims… the ‘original’ spawn of Plato’s Tribesmen… of Plato’s misanthropic guidance… and then of their descendants… who forced what happened to them… on us… and institutionalized it… created… a vicious “circle of contempt.”

 

This matters because a large measure… I suspect… at least beyond the deep conditioning that we get – in ‘power’-worship and allegiance to ‘the state’ – of our inability to believe with what calculation the state acts… and that much of what we’re trained to perceive as ‘mere happenstance’… is instead the result of its extreme craft – that it plots and plans… and considers contingencies – and let’s not forget that the lever of ‘the wage’ can compel whole armies of bought-brains to go to ‘work’ on it… to sit down and cook up scheme after scheme (“lets start another Holy War like the Crusades!” – they so need Division’s seeds planted among us continuously… almost all their devices are variations on this theme – “it happened before… why not make it seem… some are trying to do it again?”)

 

…that a large measure of our inability to believe that ‘democracy’ – official state ideology – is theatre (in addition to the pundit’s faithful service of misdirection…) and therefore that the truth lies hidden in the global-state’s secret actions… is simply that we don’t understand this psychology.

 

But unless we discuss this obvious reality of manipulation (which has been ‘proven’ even to the craven requirements of ‘journalism’…) how can we see how and why we’re being manipulated… and intercept ‘power’s ‘replacement cycle’… in which enough youth are infected… each generation… with lies enough to perpetuate the madness… ad infinitum?…

How is it that some imagine that the world can be hierarchically structured ‘economically’ but not ‘politically’?… or that it can be unitary ‘economically’ but not ‘politically’? And what are the consequences of intellectual dishonesty?… And what effect does Division [sown by false agents] have on sensitive folk – youth among them especially… if not to drive them to their ‘private gardens’ (‘art’) – the precisely intended effect… to nullify them… the possibility that their sensitive hearts could influence the cultural climate… the broader populace… But what Miklos shows us… in showing us how much he was needed… is that our sensitive souls must also be fire-hardened… We have no choice… the gift of life demands we give life in return. That is the deal…

 

(‘Journalism’ may acknowledge that to lie is the nature of states… but… “what do we do about it?” – beyond take money to ‘uncover’ the latest… and never question ‘the game’ – and… “when do we-the-global-people go on the offensive,… and establish a world in which Honesty can live?”… as to this… ‘journalism’ is silent… and self-delusional. They truly think that if they uncover a lie… among the vast sea of them that ‘power’ has generously provided… that they’re somehow “fighting the ‘good fight’” and so “part of the solution”… and blah… blah… blah…

 

Just today (July 2, 2014) I heard a Swedish politician say… when asked about the fact that Sweden was the Number Two guns trafficker in the world… supplies killing-means to hardcore-authoritarian regimes… that he would like to “see his country stop exporting arms to dictators…” referring to the ‘Swedish’ manufacturer, Saab. He spoke as if he didn’t see that the point of ‘force’ in the geopolitical scene… is to keep the world (economy) structured hierarchically (and on this point IMF Chief Christine Lagarde is likewise mum when she floats the nonsense about ‘inclusive capitalism’.) And of course the interviewer never asked “Why do you suppose those states employ such hard-core force with their captive-populace?…” and so the issue of keeping some folks pushed low in the hierarchy (this is called ‘politics’…) so their human energy can be extracted ‘cheaply’ (that’s called ‘economics’…) is never raised – or, rather… the unitary nature politically… as well as economically… of the global ‘system’… is never raised.

 

How is it that some imagine that the world can be hierarchically structured ‘economically’ but not ‘politically’?… or that it can be unitary ‘economically’ but not ‘politically’?

 

And what are the consequences of intellectual dishonesty? James Baldwin, at least, took the question seriously. He said:

For, intellectual activity, according to me, is, and must be, disinterested – the truth is a two-edged sword – and if one is not willing to be pierced by that sword, even to the extreme of dying on it, then all of one’s intellectual activity is a masturbatory delusion and a wicked and dangerous fraud. (James Baldwin, No Name In the Street, p. 31, quoted in Waking Up, p. 240)

And what effect does Division have?… and that’s what this show is about: overcoming the false divides. We all have to get on the same page globally… so we have to talk about this. It’s the key means of control… as cliché… and commonplace as that phrase is: “divide and conquer” – they’ll even put it on a bumper-sticker for us… along with “Question Authority”… and then tell us we have ‘free speech’. “See! See? There it is… the whole thing… the whole game… the whole secret… right there. You get to say it… you get to think it. Your state ain’t totalitarian.” Yeah… but we don’t get to come together every week and discuss the implications of it… together… we don’t get to hear our voices discussing that until we get to the solution… the obvious only solution: if Division is how we are kept ‘under control’… kept in harness… then it is only by overcoming that Division… on our own terms… globally… that we can get our freedom.

 

And what effect does Division [sown by false agents] have on sensitive folk… youth among them especially – and I say “especially” because it gets to the issue of passing this mess on to the next generation’? The effect is to coerce youth of heart to stay in the background… retreat to their ‘private gardens’ (‘art’)… the precisely intended effect… to nullify them… to nullify the possibility that their sensitive hearts could influence the cultural climate… the broader populace…

(I’m convinced this is a big part of the role of ‘agents’… to drive away the youth we need… precisely those who could take the lead… because they can believe in that world in which love… heart… is the driving force… rather than greed for ‘More!’

 

…and if Miklos shows us anything… it’s that we need the sensitive… for none could be more sensitive than he. But what he shows us additionally… in showing us how much he was needed… is that our sensitive souls must also be fire-hardened…. We must enter that fire that engulfs life and be steeled in it… to help our brothers and sisters successfully resist… end… the destruction. No matter how long it’s been licking at our feet… no matter the soul-hurts that continuously bleed. We have no choice… the gift of life demands we give life in return. That is the deal… no less for us… than any other singing… flying… swimming bit of earth.)

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As they gazed into Sophia’s pale thin face they had a clearer understanding of the sacred cause of all the peoples of the world: the endless struggle for freedom. They found that their own dreams and aspirations had been those of unknown races living in the distant past, separated from the present by the dark and bloody curtain of history. With their hearts and minds they made contact with the vast world, finding therein friends who were united in their firm resolve to establish justice on the earth, sanctifying this resolve with the suffering they endured and the blood they shed for the sake of a better life. A new sense of spiritual affinity with all peoples was kindled, and a new heart was born to the world – a heart pulsing with the ardent desire to know everything, to comprehend everything… “The day will come when the workers of all countries will rise up and say, ‘Enough! We have had our fill of such a life!’” said Sophia confidently. “Then the unsubstantial power of those who are strong only in their own greed [and lust for ‘power’ is greed of the worst kind… – P.S.] will crumble, the earth will slip from under their feet and they will be left with nothing to cling to…

 

June 25, 2014… Sisters and brothers: At the end of the June 22, 2014 show… as we read Chapter 37 of Miklos Nyiszli’s Auschwitz… I expressed the hope that the minute we’re free… we expose the clandestine planning – the motive force – behind the ‘facts’ of WWII… “Look at the freedom-loving folk who died in that war!” “Could the result – each nation ‘neatly’ ‘cleansed’ – have been the intention?” is what we asked. The question screams all the louder to be answered particularly when the facts of the matter are considered… that as ‘world war’ was unleashed upon us – we commoners of Europe – all the various peoples of Europe were ‘inter-mixing’ just fine… so well in fact… that folks across the manufactured divide of ‘nation’ (erected as a tactic of control…) were coming to consensus: “we don’t want to be ruled anymore.” Maxim Gorky’s Mother describes this ferment well.

Sophia told them about the struggle of the peoples of the whole world for their right to life, about the German peasant uprisings of long ago, the misery of the Irish, and the heroism of French workers in their frequent battles for freedom…

 

The woman’s voice was low and husky. It seemed to come out of the past, raising the hopes and inspiring the confidence of these men, who listened in silence to this tale of their brothers in other lands. As they gazed into Sophia’s pale thin face they had a clearer understanding of the sacred cause of all the peoples of the world: the endless struggle for freedom. They found that their own dreams and aspirations had been those of unknown races living in the distant past, separated from the present by the dark and bloody curtain of history. With their hearts and minds they made contact with the vast world, finding therein friends who were united in their firm resolve to establish justice on the earth, sanctifying this resolve with the suffering they endured and the blood they shed for the sake of a better life. A new sense of spiritual affinity with all peoples was kindled, and a new heart was born to the world – a heart pulsing with the ardent desire to know everything, to comprehend everything.

 

“The day will come when the workers of all countries will rise up and say, ‘Enough! We have had our fill of such a life!’” said Sophia confidently. “Then the unsubstantial power of those who are strong only in their own greed [and lust for ‘power’ is greed of the worst kind… – P.S.] Then the unsubstantial power of those who are strong only in their own greed will crumble, the earth will slip from under their feet and they will be left with nothing to cling to. (Maxim Gorky, Mother, Part II, Chapter VI)

The thoughts which the June 29, 2014 show (our ‘Miklos’ conclusion) germinated suggest… there’s more to be uncovered yet… from the horrific events of WWII… that we need… as we proceed… to the building of our future….

 

Fortunately… we have capable guidance: Keith Lowe’s Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II. On this page we’ll be considering together the lessons he’s gathered in three chapters of his work: Chapter 16… “Wartime Choices”, Chapter 17… “The Jewish Flight”, and Chapter 18… “The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukraine and Poland.”

 

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* July , 2014 Show: Chapter 16… “Wartime Choices”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[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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Given that states – almost by definition – target ‘others’… how does the term ‘the Nazis’… help us understand the actual forces at work that shape our lives…? Karl Popper’s gift in exposing the origins of totalitarian thinking in Plato… in the worship of ‘the state’… is a far more potent… for we commoners… way to see it… for achieving our freedom… ‘Nazi’ lets a lot of shadowy shadow-statesmen off the hook… And… how is it that we are always so easily played?… if not… as Alice Miller says… because the evils of the familial ‘statesmen’ get piled on our backs? These are literal burdens – obligations. How to return them… if not by seeing how they were originally placed? …which means we must have our absolutely necessary conversation… about ‘obedience’… discussion of which… decade after decade… has been suppressed…

 

The main concern of every government in the world – from the United States to China, from France to Russia to Brazil, not to speak of all the weaker governments on the world scene – has become the urgency of averting an uprising of unemployed workers joined by middle strata whose savings and pensions are disappearing…. (Immanuel Wallerstein, “Structural Crisis, Or Why Capitalists May No Longer Find Capitalism Rewarding”, Does Capitalism Have A Future?, p. 32)

 

“You should create such conditions… that they want to escape themselves.” Josef Stalin

Our shows examining Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, continue this discussion… of how and why… ‘power’ divides.

 

Part III: Ethnic Cleansing

 

Chapter 16… “Wartime Choices”

 

The Second World War was never merely a conflict over territory. It was also a war of race and ethnicity. Some of the defining events of the war had nothing to do with winning and maintaining physical ground, but with imposing one’s own ethnic stamp on ground already held.…

[…at whose behest?… as we just heard… from Maxim Gorky… in his documentation of the ferment across Europe that flowered in the Russian Revolution of 1905… we-the-people were beginning to look to each other for the solution to the problem of ‘rule’… ‘Division’ was never our agenda… – P.S.]

…The Jewish Holocaust, the ethnic cleansing of western Ukraine, the attempted genocide of Croatian Serbs: these were events that were pursued with a vigour every bit as ardent as the military war. A vast number of people – perhaps 10 million or more – were deliberately exterminated for no other reason than that they happened to belong to the wrong ethnic or racial group.

 

The problem for those pursuing this racial war was that it was not always easy to define a person’s race or ethnicity, particularly in eastern Europe where different communities were often inextricably intermingled. Jews who happened to have blond hair and blue eyes could slip through the net because they did not fit the Nazis’ preconceived racial stereotype. Gypsies could and did disguise themselves as members of other ethnic groups just by changing their clothes and their behaviour – as did Slovaks in Hungary, Bosniaks in Serbia, Romanians in Ukraine, and so on. The most common way of identifying one’s ethnic friends or enemies – the language they spoke – was not always an accurate guide either. Those who had grown up in mixed communities spoke several languages, and could switch between one and the next depending on whom they were speaking to – a skill that would save many lives during the darkest days of the war and its aftermath.

 

In an effort to categorize the population of Europe, the Nazis insisted…

[Kropotkin’s admonition… that we can’t trust the ‘power’-given… state-sanctioned… definitions that we’re given to work with – those that compose ‘history’… and are propagated in the media – is coming up for me here. Given that states – almost by definition – target ‘others’… how does the term ‘the Nazis’… help us understand the actual forces at work that shape our lives? (Keith Lowe uses the term in the literal – dictionary – sense: a member of the Party of National Socialists… but what I hope to show… is that Karl Popper’s gift in exposing the origins of totalitarian thinking in Plato… in the worship of ‘the state’… is a far more potent… for we commoners… way to see it… for achieving our freedom….) ‘Nazi’ lets a lot of shadowy shadow-statesmen off the hook… as well as being’ one of those ‘statist-we’s by which the evils of the statesmen are piled on our backs. How is it that we are always so easily played?… if not… as Alice Miller says… because the evils of the familial ‘statesmen’ get piled on our backs? These are literal burdens – obligations. How to return them… if not by seeing how they were originally placed?

 

…which means we must have our absolutely necessary conversation… about ‘obedience’… discussion of which… decade after decade… has been suppressed….

 

Because on the face of it… it makes no sense. Why should the soldiers of a state be made to pay… for what their ‘rulers’ ordered them to do?… when every state will insist… that upon all ‘liberties’ it bestows depend… absolute obedience… and unshakable military discipline?

 

…of course we know why that discussion of ‘obedience’ has been suppressed… but we must also admit… it’s easily suppressed… this discussion… because ‘hierarchy’ means we’re all invested in it to some degree (that it enmeshes us is key to its supremacy as a control tactic… we get insinuated in it… we get sucked in… we are made to be complicit…): bosses want obedience from their minions… parents ditto from their children – but we have to confront it nonetheless… because its relinquishment is our key… for releasing the energy we need to get free… to claim the human beings that we want to be… – I suspect… that V. Gordon Childe wrote these words half-ironically: “Once he begins to kill only the least amenable bulls or rams, he will have started selective breeding…” […which is what ‘power’ has been systematically doing… using the lever… the mechanism… of ‘the wage’… by determining who gets in those ‘educational’ institutions… and by determining what gets paid… we haven’t looked at it like that but we need to start to… that’s called breeding… weeding out the intractable…

 

Of course we know why that absolutely necessary discussion of ‘obedience’ has… decade after decade… been suppressed… because once that thread is pulled upon… the whole entrapment-scheme of ‘power’s comes undone –

 

…but we must also admit… it’s easily suppressed… this discussion… because ‘hierarchy’ means we’re all invested in it to some degree (that it enmeshes us is key to its supremacy as a control tactic… we get insinuated in it… we get sucked in… we are made to be complicit…): bosses want obedience from their minions… parents ditto from their children – but we have to confront it nonetheless… because its relinquishment is our key… for releasing the energy we need to get free… to claim the human beings that we want to be.

 

Because if (for ‘power’…) ‘obedience’ is key… both ‘breeding’ and ‘weeding’ become… for it… a necessity… and therefore destruction of human agency… while dishonesty and betrayal reign supreme.

 

‘Weeding’ out independent thought subjects all life – given the global nature of ‘the system’ – to the ‘logic’ of “one ‘will’”… the ‘will that ordains the ‘shaping’.

 

I suspect… that V. Gordon Childe wrote these words half-ironically… given what we learned about him from Martin Bernal (who wrote Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume 1: The Fabrication of [the story of] Ancient Greece, 1785 – 1985…): that he believed in ‘white supremacy’:

If he just realizes the advantage of having a group of such half-tamed beasts hanging around the fringes of his settlement as a reserve of game easily caught, he will be on the way to domestication.

 

Next he must exercise restraint and discrimination in using this reserve of meat. He must refrain from frightening the beasts unnecessarily or killing the youngest and tamest. Once he begins to kill only the shyest […and by ‘shyest’ he means the ones that are wary of humans… which they must ever be… until we clean up our act… and become fully human beings… who can choose… freedom… as the underlying premise of our lives… and for all life… – P.S.] and least amenable bulls or rams, he will have started selective breeding […which is what ‘power’ has been systematically doing… using the lever… the mechanism… of ‘the wage’… by determining who gets in those ‘educational’ institutions… and by determining what gets paid… we haven’t looked at it like that but we need to start to… that’s called breeding… weeding out the intractable… and then… ‘war’… to finish off the rest… if we have the audacity to not die early with all the bad food… and bad air… and unhygienic living conditions… – P.S.], eliminating untractable brutes, and consequently favouring the more docile. [And while they want us to be ‘tame’… ‘docile’… ‘passive’… if you read Modern Dictatorship by Diana Spearman – also quoted in Palmers’ Chat – you’ll see that the dictators emphasize… to distinguish themselves from the ‘human cattle’… the “development of ‘personality’” – this is one of the ways in which they feel they are ‘superior’ beings… members of the tribe of ‘super’ men and women. And in some recent encounters I’ve had with some folks who were pretty obviously inauthentic… it seemed that they were miming this… a kind of false ‘nihilistic’ ‘exuberance’… – P.S.] But he must also use his new opportunities of studying the life of the beasts at close range. He will thus learn about the processes of reproduction […this sounds a lot like Plato… “study the beasts at close range so you can control them better…” and it sounds like that wealthy citizen whose conversation (with Socrates) Xenophon recorded… that we discussed in a recent show – that said it all… this hasn’t changed for thousands and thousands of years – there is a singular mindset – and if it’s been going on for thousands of years… it is critical that we stop trying to ‘fix’ it… – P.S.] the animals’ needs of food and water. He must act upon his knowledge…. It can thus be imagined how with lapse of time a flock or a herd should have been bred that was not only tame, but actually dependent upon man. (V. Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself, p. 78 – 9, quoted in Palmers’ Chat: As We Take Our Earth Back, and discussed in the Waking Up Radio show of February 23, 2014: “…when you look at the key strategies for keeping the people asleep… none of them is official state ideology… yet all states depend on them to augment ‘patriotism’ when the official state ideology – be it ‘democracy’… or ‘communism’… or ‘socialism’ – wears thin…” and: “…‘Power’ hopes to ‘weed out’ dissent… and so we ‘intractable brutes’… we ones who refuse… ‘power’ wants to be rid of…” – and consider this as well… from our March 23, 2014 show: “‘Betrayal’ is the beginning… middle… and end of ‘class’. ‘Honesty’… honesty… is what we want…”)

…I’ve posted again three recent audio-files that I hope you’ll listen to in the context of today’s show… which say in sum… that ‘betrayal’ is the beginning… middle… and end of ‘class’… and that… honesty… is what we want…)

 

“Citizens, workers and toiling people! We will, in accordance with the principles of our Government, carry out a proper purge and establish order at least in our district. Therefore help us, you too, to make Vinohrady national and ours as soon as possible. These measures are only temporary, pending the deportation of all these people.…” – And… re: conscripted German labour: its use [in Czechoslovakia] “was not markedly different from what was going on in the rest of Europe, including Great Britain, where 110,000 German prisoners of war were still working at the beginning of 1948. […Is it not long past time for we commoners to insist… in discussions from the pundits who get on the airwaves… that they admit that work is at the core of everything? That’s it… and that is what we have to talk about until we’re free… that’s the only way all the other stuff happens. We gotta release our human energy… and then… trust… we’ll make the world a paradise… because that’s what we want… it ain’t rocket science to do it, either… all that we’ve learned about living sustainably is our creation – comes from our energy of creation and execution… from beginning to middle to end… – P.S.]

 

Consider this… from Lowe’s chapter on ‘unrestrained vengeance’… which shows that ‘obedience’ for us… and ‘duplicity’ for them is ‘power’s – the state’s – sine qua non:

The parts of Europe that saw the greatest levels of enmity towards German civilians were those where Germans and other nationalities lived side by side. The Czech capital of Prague was a paradigm case. Prague had been home to both Germans and Czechs for hundreds of years, and resentments between the two communities dated back to the time of the Austro-Hungarian empire. […And I believe that as long as we are under the regime of ‘scarcity’… there’s going to be divisions around that… but we didn’t create that… that is made intentionally as a control tactic… – P.S.] Not counting Vienna, Prague was the first foreign capital to be taken by the Nazis, and the last to be liberated – its Czech citizens therefore suffered the occupation longer than any in Europe. Many of them regarded their German neighbors as traitors who had paved the way for the German invasion in 1938….

 

It is difficult to say just how many Germans died in Czechoslovakia as a result of the chaotic events in the aftermath of the war, but the figure is certainly in the tens of thousands. The subject is still so controversial, and provokes such strong emotions on both sides, that all statistics relating to the number of deaths are contested. German sources name 18,889 people who died before and during the expulsions from Czechoslovakia, 5,596 of them violently – but these figures do not take into account those whose deaths went unrecorded…. The most reliable and impartial estimates have been compiled by the Czech historian Tomas Stanek, who cautiously suggests that between 24,000 and 40,000 Germans died as a direct result of their treatment during the postwar chaos in Czechoslovakia….

 

Stanek also gives figures for the numbers of Germans imprisoned in the aftermath of the war….

 

There is no doubt that some of these prisoners were guilty of the crimes that they were collectively blamed for….

 

In principle, this use of conscripted German labour was not markedly different from what was going on in the rest of Europe, including Great Britain, where 110,000 German prisoners of war were still working at the beginning of 1948. […Is it not long past time for we commoners to insist… in discussions from the pundits who get on the airwaves… that they admit that work is at the core of everything? That’s it… and that is what we have to talk about until we’re free… that’s the only way all the other stuff happens. We gotta release our human energy… and then… trust… we’ll make the world a paradise… because that’s what we want… it ain’t rocket science to do it, either… all that we’ve learned about living sustainably is our creation – comes from our energy of creation and execution… from beginning to middle to end… – P.S.] Indeed, the use of forced German labour was endorsed by the international agreements between the Big Three at Yalta and Potsdam. [I wonder if… once we’re free… we’ll uncover the true deal of how everybody got segregated in their individual nations… so… comprehensively… – P.S.] But whereas in Britain only military prisoners were used as forced labour, most of those conscripted in Czechoslovakia were civilians….

 

Forced labourers in Czechoslovakia were also routinely humiliated in ways that deliberately emulated the Nazi treatment of Jews. Thus they were made to wear swastikas, white armbands, or patches of material painted with the letter ‘N’ (for Nemec, meaning German)….

Lowe includes a translation of a poster (“the praesidium of the Local National Committee for Prague XII has decided to solve the questions of Germans, Hungarians and traitors as follows:…”) which a Czechoslovakian state district displayed in Prague, in June 1945. It concludes:

Citizens, workers and toiling people! We will, in accordance with the principles of our Government, carry out a proper purge and establish order at least in our district. Therefore help us, you too, to make Vinohrady national and ours as soon as possible. […so much for ‘the rule of law’…. There you have “‘democracy’ in action!”… I don’t think I want it… – P.S.]

 

These measures are only temporary, pending the deportation of all these people.

Lowe comments that “the Czech authorities wanted merely to expel Germans [and Hungarians], not to exterminate them. This, surely, constitutes a whole world of difference.” He then qualifies this by discussing extermination camps for Germans elsewhere…. My point is that… as Popper said… the ideology of ‘obedience’… of “worshipping ‘the state’” ever lurks in these organs of ‘power’… and not just in potential… but necessarily… by definition… under the class system.

 

And… as both Karl Popper and Martin Bernal show… there is a direct line to Plato… in the establishment of a (fabricated) ‘classical’ basis in order to institutionalize (fix in place… produce a consistent ‘product’… you might say…) ‘ruler’-‘education’… How can pundits on the Left who consider themselves spokespersons for the rest of us who don’t get access to the airwaves… who consider themselves “the voice of the voiceless…” how in the world can you go along with that? How in the world can you not see that certain voices have been suppressed? Our ancestors of heart [and Martin Bernal is still with us…] who we are endlessly in debt to… we don’t get to hear their voices… and we need them… we need to discuss their work… to get free… – …because… truly… I think about that a lot: what if Alice Miller hadn’t existed? And then I remember… one of the thoughts that I started out with… in writing Waking Up: “What difference does a book make?” Whoa… that question got answered for me in this odyssey I’ve been on. Mos def. Thank you… all of you… ancestors – who we need right now. Let’s don’t let them be disappeared anymore.

 

And… as both Karl Popper and Martin Bernal show… there is a direct line to Plato… in the establishment of a (fabricated) ‘classical’ basis in order to institutionalize (fix in place… produce a consistent ‘product’… you might say…) ‘ruler’-‘education’:

The Greeks were perceived as having transcended mundane chaos and being closer to the ineffable best. In some sense, then, they were themselves the human universal.

 

It was precisely this and their supposed transcendence of historical and linguistic laws that made the Greeks the central concern of Bildung…

[Earlier he writes: “It is precisely at this critical period – [the forty-year span between the French Revolution and ‘the establishment of Prussia as the dominant German state and the focus of all German nationalism…’] – that the new discipline of Philologie or Altertumswissenschaft (Science of Antiquity) was established as the pioneer discipline in the modern sense.” – p. 281… and: The development and widespread promotion of the new Altertumswissenschaft, which Wilhelm von Humboldt – ‘a Prussian aristocrat’ – put at the centre of his Bildung (educational formation)…” p. 282]

…through which the young leaders of Germany were to understand and remake themselves. It was for equivalent purposes that Altertumswissenschaft and Classics spread to the rest of Europe and its offshoots beyond: despite its scholarly trappings, its role in the ideological formation of the ruling class has continued to be more important than historical or linguistic enquiry. (Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume 1: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece, 1785 – 1985, p. 288)

Thank you Martin Bernal. And… trust… those folks we need… their reputations are going to be slyly undermined… they’ll take whatever discredit they can concoct and toss it on people. I know it was done to Karl Popper. I’m sure it was done to Alice Miller. How can pundits on the Left who consider themselves spokespersons for the rest of us who don’t get access to the airwaves… who consider themselves “the voice of the voiceless…” how in the world can you go along with that? How in the world can you not see that certain voices have been suppressed? Our ancestors of heart [and Martin Bernal is still with us…] who we are endlessly in debt to… we don’t get to hear their voices… and we need them… we need to discuss their work… to get free…. So… thank you Martin Bernal… Miklos Nyiszli… Karl Popper… Alice Miller… et al…. it’s a long list…

 

…because… truly… I think about that a lot: what if Alice Miller hadn’t existed? And then I remember… one of the thoughts that I started out with… in writing Waking Up: “What difference does a book make?” Whoa… that question got answered for me in this odyssey I’ve been on. Mos def. Thank you… all of you… ancestors – who we need right now. Let’s don’t let them be disappeared anymore.

 

And Martin Bernal… we still got him. Let’s thank him. Let’s have him on some of these pundit-shows to talk about Black Athena. Why have we never heard him? We can’t even hear Wallerstein! You see what I mean? What we are allowed to think is carefully censored… vetted… screened. Dangerous thoughts get screened out. Plato warned them on that… and they take it very serious.

 

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The story of ‘class’ is the story our being manipulated… played… by some faction of ‘power’ or another (all, however, operating with the same assumptions of their inherent superiority…) while we never see the source of our (manufactured) mutual antipathies.… And for those of us who have considered this question of… hate… the notion of the co-founder of the National Socialist Party – membership in which required ‘purity of the blood’ – having ‘Jewish blood’… does not come as a surprise… it’s an expected dynamic, in fact… this motivation called: “fear of not being good enough…” a motivation that is inherent in ‘the logic of class’…

 

It’s long-past time for us to question… to closely scrutinize the genesis… of all the ideologies of ‘Division’… with which we-the-people are indoctrinated. The story of ‘class’ is the story our being manipulated… played… by some faction of ‘power’ or another (all, however, operating with the same assumptions of their inherent superiority…) while we never see the source of our (manufactured) mutual antipathies….

 

Continuing with Chapter 16… “Wartime Choices” – P.S.]

In an effort to categorize the population of Europe, the Nazis insisted on issuing everyone with identity cards, coloured according to ethnicity. They created vast bureaucracies to classify entire populations by race. In Poland for example, a racial hierarchy was devised which put Reich Germans at the top, ethnic Germans next, then privileged minorities such as Ukrainians, followed by Poles, Gypsies and Jews. The classifications did not stop there. Ethnic Germans, for example, were broken down into further sub-categories: those who were so pure that they were eligible to join the Nazi Party, those who were pure enough for Reich citizenship, those who were tainted by Polish blood or Polish influences…

[Next week we’re going to delve more deeply into this issue of “purity of the blood”… and the question of why Hitler was so fixated on it. We’ll learn in reading For Your Own Good that Hitler’s grandfather was Jewish. And for those of us who have considered this question of… hate… the notion of the co-founder of the National Socialist Party – membership in which required ‘purity of the blood’ – having ‘Jewish blood’… does not come as a surprise… it’s an expected dynamic, in fact… this motivation called: “fear of not being good enough…” a motivation that is inherent in ‘the logic of class’… – P.S.]

 

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* “WUR of July 13th, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

 

And the fact that internalized obedience is structurally enforced (the state inside… the state out…) we must get clear on… and hopefully these shows will help with these discussions. We’ll ask: Why else suppress certain discussions?… and: Why else train ‘rulers’ to ‘rule’? You feel me? If this is the land that celebrates ‘equality’… why ensure that the tiny ‘some’ are trained to pretend they are ‘masters’?… why Bildung?… why differential education?… why training for ‘mastery’ in some… and others for subjection?… why ‘class’?…

 

July 7, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: We’ve been diving… with Alice Miller’s guidance… into the dark waters of ‘obedience’. Today we’ll be clearing away enough of the muck to see… the deep wounds of abandonment lurking there beneath. And by ‘abandonment’ I don’t just mean physically… as happened to Hitler’s father… but… perhaps most potently… psychically… as happened to Hitler… and to all of us under ‘class’… to a degree… due to a ‘system’ that converts human energy… into a commodity.

 

Commodification… the mindset of ‘eat or be eaten’…

 

…but it is a single mindset… behind ‘politics’ (‘conquest’… establishing the Republic…) and ‘economics’ (‘capitalism’… eating the earth…) under ‘class’…

 

…a single mindset… call it ‘class’… call it ‘conquest’… call it ‘power’… call it ‘Plato’s Abandoned Children’ determined to realize his vision…

 

…but their ‘unfelt imaginings’ (as Shakespeare termed it…) cannot be attained…

 

…so they’ve put us all…

 

…on a Death Train…

 

…time to get off… and find that Freedom one.

 

In this week’s East Bay Express, which I picked up yesterday (July 9, 2014), there is a piece by Sam Levin called, “The Fight To Develop West Oakland”… and on its first page there is an ‘imagining’ of a future version of an intersection I know well… because it’s the one… or near… from which we broadcast – we at Berkeley Liberation Radio –

 

…and in the imagining it’s a bustling place – unlike the sullen… concrete-dominated-yet-stubbornly-disobedient space it is now – no po’ folks in sight.

 

They want us gone. They don’t need us anymore. Simple as that.

 

So they are conquering the cities… these Tribesmen of Plato… and it ain’t about race per se…

 

…it’s about loyalty… happiness… and obedience… it’s about willingness to betray your brothers and sisters.

 

They want us happy slaves or gone…

 

…what else the motive force behind that… if not hate?… a hate millennia in the brewing down… a pure distillate…

 

…they can feel it… these Tribesmen… they can feel our looks of ‘gratitude’… they can feel the rich Egyptian cotton of their tunics lightly resting on their bodies… they can feel their meditative calm as they survey their ‘work’… padding about in their stringed-sandals… the dead clean streets that they made sterile…

 

…hate… a pure distillate….

 

Who can explain it if not Alice?

 

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And as we walk with Alice through her genesis of ‘hatred’… this swirling mass of ever-outward-spinning lack of empathy… let’s recall that another name for ‘hate’… is ‘ideology of ‘Division’…

 

…and that its ‘circle of contempt’… because globally -affixed by being made ‘systemic’… is an ever-widening ‘circle of Division’ – and an ever-widening ‘circle of despair’…

 

…when we don’t have each other for comfort…

 

…when we’re huddled in our narrow spaces and are denied access to a vast wide world that is authentic… even in our imagination… as Thought itself becomes forbidden… and as with all life… is under lockdown.

 

As we said in our June 22nd, 2014 show… if the truth can never be spoken… especially the reality of an internalized obedience that is enforced structurally… there is never any possibility of living our lives authentically.

 

And the fact that internalized obedience is structurally enforced (the state inside… the state out…) we must get clear on… and hopefully these shows will help with these discussions. We’ll ask: Why else suppress certain discussions?… and: Why else train ‘rulers’ to ‘rule’? You feel me? If this is the land that celebrates ‘equality’… why ensure that the tiny ‘some’ are trained to pretend they are ‘masters’?… why Bildung?… why differential education?… why training for ‘mastery’ in some… and others for subjection?… why ‘class’?

 

Plato’s longing for a world in which all life is nailed-in-place… with faces inclined up in awe to him… is paid for with untold oceans of self-hate…

 

…and it is a self-hate because rooted in an initial abandonment… which ‘the child’… ‘the subject’… necessarily explains… as his or her own deficiency… as ‘the parent’… or ‘the state’… in possession of all the means for existing… and therefore total agency… must be exempt from blame…

 

…and so ‘the child’… ‘the subject’… is cycled endlessly back to his first explanation…

 

…that palls all life… and shrouds her earliest beginnings….

 

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But… know this… the second you suggest… the mere hair’s-breadth-distance of notice you give of an interest in… gathering numbers to discuss these issues which have become my purpose… …I’m there.

 

July 9, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: I hesitate to say this because it in many ways sounds presumptuous… but when these pertinacious thoughts come… I tend to think I must share them.

 

I’ve just returned from buying food at the local grocery… and as sometimes occurs… I could sense subtle hints… a slowing of steps… an energy sent… of good fellowship…

 

…but my reaction these days… has shown me just how much in me has changed… after five years… of being targeted.

 

Now… you don’t know that that’s true… that since I’ve chosen as my work… to shine light brightly on the need… to end ‘power’… and reclaim our human energy… globally…

 

…a host of false folks have made me their focus…

 

…and as I’m flying solo these days…

 

…with no one to corroborate…

 

…you’ll have to take me on faith…

 

…and hopefully forgive… my lack of reaction to your goodness… in such moments… of chance encounter.

 

But… know this… the second you suggest… the mere hair’s-breadth-distance of notice you give of an interest in… gathering numbers to discuss these issues which have become my purpose…

 

…I’m there.

 

I’ve learned… whatever may be closeted in a heart is of no matter… if the result of our efforts… forwards our freedom.

 

Let the goal determine our actions. Let my actions to forward our freedom… prove me.

 

…the “Pentagon-funded social science research programme partnering with universities up and down the United States (and around the world…) sponsoring academic research to track…” but also… I would argue (recalling our Bentham…) to get social scientists to develop the rationale (i.e. the language… – because they’ve got the law in place… right?… but they need the logic…) it’s for the propaganda campaign to justify… clamping down… as on its face it makes no sense: “why would you say someone for ‘peace and non-violence’ is a ‘terrorist’?”…) to develop the rationale for designating all political dissent as ‘terrorism’… in potential. So they are roping in social science (an old… time-tested tactic of ‘power’…) to… as Bentham schooled them… “claim the lexicon”… develop the language that would allow them to do what they want. “‘Scientists’-in-service-to-the-state”: putting their brains at the disposal of a totalitarian system… what other system would require them to do that? – ‘criminal doctors’ Miklos termed them… calling them the most dangerous agents of the state… are we beginning to see his point? No greater threat than ‘scientists’ with brains and hearts for sale.

 

(Our freedom… the only thing to talk about now…

 

[…and on this tip… I must interject a word of thanks to Marie Choi for bringing to us… the words of a man who offered encouragement… a rare event from pundits… when he concluded the interview by saying (I paraphrase… but I’ll include the mp3 below so you can listen for yourself…): “as the breakdown of the old paradigm of a tiny few who control all the resources of the earth (including us…) is breaking down… a new one… premised on decentralization is growing in all spheres of life…” This thought… with its focus on the global ‘system’… I’ve only heard Wallerstein… using different language… express… twice over the airwaves… many years separate… so… as I say… hearing it again… even stripped-down-bare… was encouragement.

 

I’ll share his main points below… only touching the surface of them now… and invite you to evaluate them for yourselves… I’m sure we’ll return to them in future. The interview is with a columnist from The Guardian, Nafeez Ahmed, here’s the gist of what he said (although these words are from his website):

Over the last two weeks, I've authored a series of investigative Guardian articles connecting up the increasing propensity of the national security system […and in the interview it’s clear that he’s talking about the global state ‘system’… – P.S.] to criminalise political dissent with the growing recognition of environmental, economic and energy crises. My latest post follows up those somewhat disturbing stories with an immensely powerful and positive vision for ‘open source everything’, articulated by former senior CIA spy Robert David Steele, widely recognised in the international intelligence community as the pioneer of the practice of Open Source Intelligence.

 

The first piece in this series focuses on the US. The story investigates how a little-known Pentagon-funded social science research programme partnering with universities up and down the United States (and around the world) is sponsoring academic research to track the danger of new threats […obviously he’s talking from perspective of the state… – P.S.]in an age of uncertainty due to new risks. Most prominent in this programme is the tendency of the research to view all political dissent as a source of potential terrorism. Social science is being co-opted to develop innovative new research, analytical and data-mining tools that can be mobilised quickly in field operations to track peaceful activists, social movements, and NGOs.

[…the “Pentagon-funded social science research programme partnering with universities up and down the United States (and around the world…) sponsoring academic research to track…” but also… I would argue (recalling our Bentham…) to get social scientists to develop the rationale (i.e. the language… – because they’ve got the law in place… right?… but they need the logic…) it’s for the propaganda campaign to justify… clamping down… as on its face it makes no sense: “why would you say someone for ‘peace and non-violence’ is a ‘terrorist’?”…) to develop the rationale for designating all political dissent as ‘terrorism’… in potential. So they are roping in social science (an old… time-tested tactic of ‘power’…) to… as Bentham schooled them… “claim the lexicon”… develop the language that would allow them to do what they want. “‘Scientists’-in-service-to-the-state”: putting their brains at the disposal of a totalitarian system… what other system would require them to do that? – ‘criminal doctors’ Miklos termed them… calling them the most dangerous agents of the state… are we beginning to see his point? No greater threat than ‘scientists’ with brains and hearts for sale.

 

We can’t see into a heart… but we can evaluate strategy… “Revolution is overthrow – the complete reversal of the status quo ante”… says Mr. Steele […which we know ain’t so… we’ve been schooled better… from Shaw… to Hugo… to De Tocqueville…. The only thing that can bring reversal is evolution of the human spirit: embracing ‘the all’… No. ‘Revolution’ don’t bring ‘reversal’… ‘revolution’ brings justification for the state to clamp down. It wants that. But when we know where we want to go – numbers demanding ‘freedom-leisure-happiness’ – that’s not ‘revolution’… that’s an evolution of the human soul… as Christopher Fry told… “the longest stride of soul men ever took…” that’s what that is… And we can work backwards from that goal – that requires numbers… that requires a transformation of the human heart… that requires working with our brothers and sisters… and getting these discussions going so that we’re all thinking about them… because it’s clear that that’s what we want – we just have to get clear that it’s possible – we all want force… coercion… off of us… – P.S.]

 

Ahmed then says that they’re doing the same thing in Britain: – P.S.]

The second story extends this investigation to the UK, highlighting how Britain's major research councils have been co-opted by Ministry of Defence and related UK government officials, once again with a view to fund research which is demonstrably concerned with generating information that can be operationally useful for government defence priorities, as opposed to supporting the sort of sound, critical and independent scholarship so sorely needed in the social sciences (and particularly in social science research on government counter-terrorism policies). As with the US case, analysis of little-known official government planning documents demonstrates that the Ministry of Defence’s thinking in response to the convergence of major global environmental, energy and economic crises is increasingly regressive. Lacking a holistic, systemic and causal approach to gauging the nature of these crises, the MoD ends up projecting anti-capitalist activists, black and ethnic minority groups, immigrants, Muslim minorities, and Muslim-majority populations abroad all as potential security threats to the integrity of the functioning of global capitalism.

 

The third story in this series is an extended interview with Robert Steele, former CIA case officer and co-founder of the US Marine Corps Intelligence Command, where he was civilian deputy director. (Nafeez Ahmed, “Mass surveillance, political dissent, and the coming open source revolution,” from his website: Nafeez Ahmed website)

He seems real… Mr. Ahmed… by which I mean authentic… although delving a bit more into his articles I must admit… I felt a warning flash to read that an ex-CIA agent who’s found ‘religion’ latched onto him… and I also must admit to a little prejudice (and the more I read from this ex-agent the more I think it’s warranted…): i.e., generally… the apple don’t fall too far from the tree… and what I’ve read so far from Mr. Steele, sounds a lot like an attempt to co-opt the language that we’re trying to develop here. We can’t see into a heart… but we can evaluate strategy. So it don’t matter that false folks try to hide among us… hearts are not what we’re here to evaluate… but rather strategy.that requires numbers… that requires a transformation of the human heart… that requires working with our brothers and sisters… and getting these discussions going so that we’re all thinking about them… because it’s clear that that’s what we want – we just have to get clear that it’s possible – we all want force… coercion… off of us [and not as a result of the state ‘designing’ us to be compliant… but as a result of the awakened hearts and minds of all of us re-designing our global society… without class… without rank… without the pressure of ‘necessity’… without coercion of any kind.] When Mr. Steele says… in response to questions from Nafeez Ahmed:

What about the claim that the US is on the brink of revolution?

 

So… he’s explaining why the state is worried… that it tracks these ‘factors’ – and I trust that… as an ex-CIA agent… he is representing these ‘factors’ accurately… that these are, in fact, the factors that the state is tracking to see if it’s losing control of us… and I believe it’s true: the state is worried about that.… I think we’ll see if we delve more deeply… that his ‘solution’ is vastly disproportionate to the problem. He proposes to reverse ten thousand years of hierarchy and rank… with a facelift for the ‘intelligence services’… using us – our “billions of brains”… that favorite phrase from the folks at MIT he adopts as well – to do it. This is but a make-over of that on-going effort… a second attempt (or maybe a fifth or a sixth…) to foist a ‘Digital Athens’ on us – only “open and transparent!” (which means we voluntarily sign up…) so we can feel good about it: about ‘helping’ our ‘parent’ (the state…) So we can see here… with this example… why it’s so important that we not think of ‘the state’ as something ‘out there’. This is what Alice Miller is trying to get us to see… otherwise… ‘power’ will be able to mobilize that unseen ‘state’… in every ‘citizen’…. This is why ‘power’ is afraid of Alice Miller… because inevitably she prompts that discussion…

 

“Revolution is overthrow – the complete reversal of the status quo ante […which we know ain’t so… we’ve been schooled better… from Shaw… to Hugo… to De Tocqueville…. The only thing that can bring reversal is evolution of the human spirit: embracing ‘the all’… otherwise you get back where you started…. No. ‘Revolution’ don’t bring ‘reversal’… ‘revolution’ brings justification for the state to clamp down. It wants that. But when we know where we want to go – numbers demanding ‘freedom-leisure-happiness’ – that’s not ‘revolution’… that’s an evolution of the human soul… as Christopher Fry told… “the longest stride of soul men ever took…” that’s what that is… – P.S.] We are at the end of centuries of what Lionel Tiger calls ‘The Manufacture of Evil,’[…‘evil’… that’s the word applied to Hitler… but I would suggest…that instead of ‘evil’… that we talk about ‘a soul dominated by hate’… and then ask where that hate comes from… because ‘evil’ don’t get us nowhere… because it sounds innate – that’s why they use it… – P.S.] in which merchant banks led by the City of London have conspired with captive governments to concentrate wealth and commoditise everything including humans. What revolution means in practical terms is that balance has been lost and the status quo ante is unsustainable. There are two ‘stops’ on greed to the nth degree: the first is the carrying capacity of Earth, and the second is human sensibility. […if he were talking about “‘greed for ‘power’” then he would have to talk about how that ‘human sensibility’ gets manufactured in the hearts of ‘citizens’… and then we’re into the internalization of ‘the state’… – P.S.] We are now at a point where both stops are activating.”

 

[At this point there is a graphic with the caption: “Robert Steele’s preconditions for revolution. Former CIA officer’s matrix on the preconditions for revolution.”]

 

It’s not just the US, he adds.

 

“The preconditions of revolution exist in the UK, and most western countries. The number of active pre-conditions is quite stunning, from elite isolation to concentrated wealth to inadequate socialisation […what do you suppose that means?… too many of us without ‘sufficient’ internalized discipline?… – P.S.] and education, to concentrated land holdings to loss of authority […the issue of ‘definitions’ is coming up here. Until we are clear on what people mean with the words they use… we don’t know whether they’re representing for the state… or representing for us… because if ‘education’ is ‘inadequate’ from the perspective of the state… that means that we are inadequately trained in ‘obedience’ – and this is a ‘tell’… by the way… a pundit not acknowledging the issue of ‘obedience’… – P.S.] to repression of new technologies especially in relation to energy, to the atrophy of the public sector and spread of corruption, to media dishonesty, to mass unemployment of young men and on and on and on.”

[So… he’s explaining why the state is worried… that it tracks these ‘factors’ – and I trust that… as an ex-CIA agent… he is representing these ‘factors’ accurately… that these are, in fact, the factors that the state is tracking to see if it’s losing control of us… and I believe it’s true: the state is worried about that.

 

I think we’ll see if we delve more deeply… that his ‘solution’ is vastly disproportionate to the problem. He proposes to reverse ten thousand years of hierarchy and rank… with a facelift for the ‘intelligence services’… using us – our “billions of brains”… that favorite phrase from the folks at MIT he adopts as well – to do it. This is but a make-over of that on-going effort… a second attempt (or maybe a fifth or a sixth…) to foist a ‘Digital Athens’ on us – only “open and transparent!” (which means we voluntarily sign up…) so we can feel good about it: about ‘helping’ our ‘parent’ (the state…)

 

…but what about our brothers and sisters stuck in less ‘prosperous’ lands? “Not so fast!” I think he’d council… “first let’s get past this current… overly-active… generation….”

 

So we can see here… with this example… why it’s so important that we not think of ‘the state’ as something ‘out there’. This is what Alice Miller is trying to get us to see… otherwise… ‘power’ will be able to mobilize that unseen ‘state’… in every ‘citizen’…. This is why ‘power’ is afraid of Alice Miller… because inevitably she prompts that discussion: that ‘the state’ is us… and so as we get together and talk about that… and dismantle that in us… they can’t yank our chains… and con us anymore – we can see through that… – P.S.]

So why isn't it happening yet?

 

“Preconditions are not the same as precipitants. We are waiting for our Tunisian fruit seller. The public will endure great repression, especially when most media outlets and schools are actively aiding the repressive meme of ‘you are helpless, this is the order of things.’ When we have a scandal so powerful that it cannot be ignored by the average Briton or American, we will have a revolution that overturns the corrupt political systems in both countries, and perhaps puts many banks out of business. Vaclav Havel calls this ‘The Power of the Powerless.’ One spark, one massive fire.”

 

But we need more than revolution, in the sense of overthrow, to effect change, surely. How does your manifesto for ‘open source everything’ fit into this?

 

“The west has pursued an industrialisation path that allows for the privatisation of wealth from the commons, along with the criminalisation of commons rights of the public, as well as the externalisation of all true costs. Never mind that fracking produces earthquakes and poisons aquifers – corrupt politicians at local, state or province, and national levels are all too happy to take money for looking the other way. Our entire commercial, diplomatic, and informational systems are now cancerous. When trade treaties have secret sections – or are entirely secret – one can be certain the public is being screwed and the secrecy is an attempt to avoid accountability. Secrecy enables corruption. So also does an inattentive public enable corruption.”

 

Is this a crisis of capitalism, then? Does capitalism need to end for us to resolve these problems? And if so, how?

 

“Predatory capitalism […that he doesn’t call for the disassembling of states – let alone ‘the state’ in us… – is not the only ‘tell’… he also tries… like Christine Lagarde… to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ‘capitalism’… – P.S.] is based on the privatisation of profit and the externalisation of cost. It is an extension of the fencing of the commons, of enclosures, along with the criminalisation of prior common customs and rights. What we need is a system that fully accounts for all costs. Whether we call that capitalism or not is irrelevant to me. But doing so would fundamentally transform the dynamic of present day capitalism, by making capital open source. For example, and as calculated by my colleague JZ Liszkiewicz, a white cotton T-shirt contains roughly 570 gallons of water, 11 to 29 gallons of fuel, and a number of toxins and emissions including pesticides, diesel exhaust, and heavy metals and other volatile compounds – it also generally includes child labor. Accounting for those costs […which of course no company is going to do… because if they did all of us would start sewing again… using the vast accumulated means of already existing fabrics… in rich supply in ‘Western’ countries… – P.S.] and their real social, human and environmental impacts has totally different implications for how we should organise production and consumption than current predatory capitalism.” (Nafeez Ahmed interview with Robert David Steele, “Ex CIA spy: The man who trained more than 66 countries in open source methods calls for re-invention of intelligence to re-engineer Earth,” from the website: “The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1%”

…when he says that, “the end of centuries of what Lionel Tiger calls ‘The Manufacture of Evil,’ in which merchant banks led by the City of London have conspired with captive governments to concentrate wealth and commoditise everything including humans…” he gives us many ‘tells’. States are referred to as ‘captives’ of ‘the banks’… this is the ruse statesmen use of hiding behind ‘capitalism’…. Moreover… is Mr. Steele proposing to end that commodification / privatization of life? No.

…but the interview with Marie Choi focuses on the US Department of Defense “Minerva Research Initiative: partnerships with universities. Here it is: “Conversation between Nafeez Ahmed and Marie Choi” [this is the first 30 minutes… although the second half was powerful in a different way…]

…we’ve been thousands of years in harness… time to put us first… and all the other favorite foci of folks who feel me – they want healthy oceans too – fold into this… please… into freedom for global humanity… let’s all stand together… please… otherwise we’ll be divided yet again… between those who are ‘fixing the problems’ (otherwise known as ‘the intelligentsia’… i.e. partners with the state) and the rest designated the objects of ‘management’ (the targeted outsider-subjects of the state….)

 

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So we’ve been trying to develop techniques for bridging the false divisions… and learning how to distinguish false strategies from true (partly in order to nullify the otherwise soul-wounding ‘work’ of agents of state – we-of-good-heart have been too easily sucked into the phony distractions and ‘dilemmas’ ‘power’ can invent ad infinitum – Strategy helps us get past all that [we’ll be discussing this further next week…] – if we work backwards from the goal… like they do. Our goal – ‘freedom-leisure-happiness’ has to be Number One: we’re representing for everyone… for folks stuck in jobs they cannot spare a second from… who are just in survival-mode. So any of us righteous folks with any leeway in terms of time… have to be righteous with it. And… again… this ain’t about downing anyone… it’s about being down for those who can’t speak: the non-human animals… the oceans… our brothers and sisters stuck in hardcore totalitarian regimes – that has to be kept front and center in our thoughts always…)

 

In recent weeks these shows have attempted to hone in on techniques for bridging the false divisions… and then… on the flip side… on being able to see how and why ‘power’ divides… so that we can resist getting ‘played’ by the state…

 

(…you know? You try to deal with Mr. Steele and find… another one in line… right behind him. It’s us that has to change… because ‘power’ is determined to keep manipulating our need to try to change this mess (made by ‘class’…) for the better. They know that’s what we want. They know that we’ve got the ‘heart’ to do it… and they want to control it – that ‘heart’ – and we don’t need anyone to ‘manage’ us at this juncture… we never did, but now we have the means to talk to each other… and organize together… move on… together… not under the management of states… but by unity: solidarity…)

 

So we’ve been trying to develop techniques for bridging the false divisions… and learning how to distinguish false strategies from true (partly in order to nullify the otherwise soul-wounding ‘work’ of agents of state –

 

(…and another interjection: there is nothing too petty for these folks to do if it distracts us… this is what we have to really get clear on too… because a lot of us think, “well, no… nobody would be that petty… to intentionally waste our time at a meeting…” or whatever…. We-of-good-heart have been too easily sucked into the phony distractions and ‘dilemmas’ ‘power’ can invent ad infinitum – at every layer of our efforts to end manufactured ‘crises’ by gaining control of our lives and world – as we cooperatively rush down the side-tracks to try to ‘help’ someone planted for the purpose. Strategy helps us get past all that [we’ll be discussing this further next week…] – if we work backwards from the goal… like they do. Our goal – ‘freedom-leisure-happiness’ has to be Number One: we’re representing for everyone… for folks stuck in jobs they cannot spare a second from… who are just in survival-mode. So any of us righteous folks with any leeway in terms of time… have to be righteous with it. And… again… this ain’t about downing anyone… it’s about being down for those who can’t speak: the non-human animals… the oceans… our brothers and sisters stuck in hardcore totalitarian regimes – that has to be kept front and center in our thoughts always…. Our key strategy – Bentham’s Number One ‘Strategic Verity’ – is to stay focused: keep our eyes on the prize at all times…)

 

So we’ve been trying to develop techniques for bridging the false divisions… and learning how to distinguish false strategies from true (partly in order to nullify the otherwise soul-wounding ‘work’ of agents of state – which internalization of [‘the state’] we are all actively engaged in disassembling within ourselves…)

 

…and begin to see… that it’s not a ‘system’ (as Alice Miller has been trying to show us… though her focus was on unconscious actors…) that we are wrestling with… but living humans… and… in the case of ‘power’…conscious actors… who operate all clandestine.

 

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’… and would revert…

 

…to freedom.

 

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…

 

As Kissinger says… the matter for statesmen is defining the future. This is the substance and motive of their every action….

 

And how impose your vision of the future on the globe… if not by mastery of the ‘arts’ of ‘conquest’?…

 

‘Conquest’ is the goal… set (given…) by ‘rule’…

 

…and the goal determines the steps to achieve it –

 

– work backwards from the goal – …

 

…and the goal in plainest terms… for which it was necessary to invent their ‘educational formation’ (because they’re crafting ‘will’…) in terms most basic… is conquest: first ‘conquest’… ‘mastery’ (‘subjection’…) of the self… which sets the pattern for all subsequent ‘conquest’… ‘mastery’ (‘subjection’…)

 

…which requires ‘Division’: separation from your brothers and sisters… and from yourself… your true, authentic, self…

 

…which requires obedience: ‘subjection of the self.’

 

Separation from the true self sets the pattern for all subsequent ‘Division’… ‘conquest’.

 

Conquest is the core and raison d’être of this mindset.

 

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…

 

…but to be inculcated successfully…

 

…it must be justified (as ‘Division’ is not an earth-given sense…)

 

…hence Bildung (‘educational formation’ for ‘rulers’…) and Altertumswissenschaft (Science of Antiquity)… the cloak of self-deception ‘rulers’ wear which… through an initiation of linear rigors… they ‘earn’ the ‘right’ to…

 

…and how… if you are ‘Mastery’s student… how ‘prove’ you are not deficient… and deserve your cloak… unless you make yourself exempt from conquest?

 

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.

 

The opposite of ‘conquest’… is embracing… representing for… “the ‘all’”….

 

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…and I’m more and more believing that representing for “the ‘all’” is a critical… criteria… determinant… distinguishing characteristic… for us to start talking about and seeing more clearly… in order to clearly see… a false strategy. We’ll go more into this next week… maybe using Mr. Steele as an example…

 

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…the state that we-the-global-people must disassemble… is a totalitarian… global… autarky… defined as: “economic independence or self-sufficiency; a country, state, or society that is economically independent…” (‘power’ has ever been… will ever be… resistant… to the notion of any leashes put on it… these statesmen intend to prove their ‘mastery’… by proving themselves ‘exempt’… from ‘conquest’… and to do that… they ever grow… their war chests… so they can operate clandestine… which makes the project of ‘journalism’… non-strategic… for getting us our freedom….)

 

Yesterday (July 8, 2014), I listened to Julian Assange say that part of the explanation for how Wikileaks was able to assist Edward Snowden get to Russia so successfully… was that they were small and sleek… while ‘the state’ must act through cumbersome bureaucracies…

 

…and a note of alarm rose in me….

 

Was ‘Nazi’-Germany clumsy and slow in the conception and execution of orders?

 

No.

 

And neither are the shadow-state-global-statesmen…

 

…the state that we-the-global-people must disassemble.

 

Do not be deceived… that state does not operate through clumsy bureaucracies…

 

…that state is a totalitarian… global… autarchy… or… autarky… defined as: “economic independence or self-sufficiency; a country, state, or society that is economically independent…” (‘power’ has ever been… will ever be… resistant… to the notion of any leashes put on it… these statesmen intend to prove their ‘mastery’… by proving themselves ‘exempt’… from ‘conquest’… and to do that… they ever grow… their war chests… so they can operate clandestine… which makes the project of ‘journalism’… non-strategic… for getting us our freedom….)

 

(And while we’re on this tip… of clandestine geopolitics… please don’t dismiss – at least without first considering it [and without considering particularly… the role of the U.S. state in achieving this global totalitarian vision – I’ve been pondering whether discussing De Tocqueville might be the best route into that conversation: of whether these global-state-shadow statesmen see the U.S. state as having an ‘historic mission’… or ‘destiny’… to be ‘the one’ that does this… realize Plato’s vision globally…] – the possibility that a lot of the pumped-up ‘news’ today… is about re-taking the office of the U.S. presidency (and setting back our Global Awakening… that goes without saying…) and that the hands at the pump are very determined… to put one of their own in the ‘say-so-seat’… and they are definitely scared… of Hilary…. So… while getting free… globally… must be our Number One priority… if these fascist-friendly folks are chomping at the bit… maybe Hilary can stand in the way of it… [although again… let’s make it a moot question…])

 

Let’s recall our Modern Dictatorship:

Dictatorship is an expedient that readily occurs to people’s minds when the country [and think ‘world’ now… they’re trying to install this on a ‘world’ scale… hierarchically-arranged of course… but think ‘world’… – P.S.] is disturbed by troubles which are in reality superficial […if you are paying to make something happen… I’d call that ‘superficial’ because all you have to do is just stop paying… and it’s gone… that’s pretty superficial… – P.S.] and which could be removed by administrative reforms […or clandestine nods and winks… – P.S.]. Inefficient government tends to weaken the psychological resistance to dictatorship by depriving democracy of most of its advantages. A corrupt and incompetent Parliament and Civil Service […and boy did Bush et al…. and co.… infiltrate the Civil Service deep… the global-statesmen think long… and they know… that even if they don’t plant their favorite son in the ‘say-so’ seat… their agents can leave an enduring legacy… create many problems… for that person who unaccountably got in that seat despite all their efforts to rig the machines… they got their back-up plans… they got their ‘Plan B’…. Diana Spearman had their number… – P.S.] can produce conditions which seem as tyrannous to the ordinary citizen as the rule of the most ruthless autocrat. (Diana Spearman, Modern Dictatorship, p. 41-2)

All… or most… media is theater… sometimes with folks unaware they’re playing a role… So the folks with the deep pockets… play both ends… from ‘creating the events’… to ‘reporting’ on them… a perfect circle of manipulation… They’re afraid of Hilary because they know the position is hers for the asking… they’re afraid of Hilary because… like Barack… she understands ‘power’… and this will sound too facile… and in some ways is… but there’s truth in it… that if you’re a parent and pay attention to your child at all… you can understand ‘power’ well enough… if you’ve done ‘work’… as they say… on yourself… or even better… on ‘class’… because these Plato’s Tribesmen are all abandoned children… and as Popper said… we can see this in their tactics…

 

‘Power’ can make the trains run on time… adios the crazies they put on line… get the fuel flowing… the bread baking… etc. etc…. and then remind us-on-the-edge-of-starvation, “ain’t it good to eat again?”… like they reminded our brothers and sisters in Tunisia…

 

All… or most… media is theater… sometimes with folks unaware they’re playing a role. Just yesterday, for example… I heard repeated the refrain, “Obama has deported more immigrants than any other administration…” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heart that stock phrase of late… on the ‘Left’ end of the political spectrum… always from the professional ‘progressives’. It took a caller to finally say that the data on which this so-called ‘news’ was based… was baked.

 

We’re also being told – and again… what we’re told is what they want us to think… not actually what is happening [and by ‘told’… I’m referring to the orchestrated media campaign in which the same message is repeated multiply in various forums…] – that “Obama has the lowest approval ratings of his presidency… because ‘the people’ think he’s not forceful enough in foreign policy…” that… “he’s letting things get out of control…”

 

…so the folks with the deep pockets… play both ends… from ‘creating the events’… to ‘reporting’ on them… a perfect circle of manipulation…

 

They’re afraid of Hilary because they know the position is hers for the asking… they’re afraid of Hilary because… like Barack… she understands ‘power’… and this will sound too facile… and in some ways is… but there’s truth in it… that if you’re a parent and pay attention to your child at all… you can understand ‘power’ well enough… if you’ve done ‘work’… as they say… on yourself… or even better… on ‘class’… because these Plato’s Tribesmen are all abandoned children… and as Popper said… we can see this in their tactics.

 

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There is a single mind-set – call it ‘class’… call it ‘conquest’ – embedded in all class-institutions – whether you deem them ‘political’… or ‘economic’… …and it is that mind-set… – or ‘ideology of ‘Division’ – …we must… with consciousness… reject…

 

There is a single mind-set – call it ‘class’… call it ‘conquest’ – embedded in all class-institutions – whether you deem them ‘political’… or ‘economic’…

 

…and it is that mind-set…

 

– or ‘ideology of ‘Division’ –

 

…we must… with consciousness… reject…

 

…to move on as a global-‘One’ –

 

– it’s goal and product is self-perpetuation –

 

…or put another way…

 

…it’s goal and product then…

 

…is hate…

 

…to keep us tearing at each other…

 

…instead of working together…

 

…to disassemble…

 

…the state.

 

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“The example of Hitler’s childhood allows us to study the genesis of a hatred whose consequences caused the suffering of millions…. On the basis of available documents, we can easily gain an impression of the atmosphere in which Adolf Hitler grew up. The family structure could well be characterized as the prototype of a totalitarian regime… Whatever the truth actually was, a fourfold disgrace weighed upon Alois [Adolf Hitler's father]: being poor, being illegitimate, being separated from his real mother at the age of five, and having Jewish blood…”

 

Continuing with our reading of… and commentary on the lessons from… three chapters of Keith Lowe’s Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II: Chapter 16… “Wartime Choices”, Chapter 17… “The Jewish Flight”, and Chapter 18… “The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukraine and Poland.”

 

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In For Your Own Good, Alice Miller writes:

The example of Hitler’s childhood allows us to study the genesis of a hatred whose consequences caused the suffering of millions….

 

On the basis of available documents, we can easily gain an impression of the atmosphere in which Adolf Hitler grew up. The family structure could well be characterized as the prototype of a totalitarian regime. Its sole, undisputed, often brutal ruler is the father. The wife and children are totally subservient to his will, his moods, and his whims; they must accept humiliation and injustice unquestioningly and gratefully. Obedience is their primary rule of conduct. The mother, to be sure, has her own sphere of authority in the household, where she rules over the children when the father is not at home; this means that she can to some extent take out on those weaker than herself the humiliation she has suffered. In the totalitarian state, a similar function is assigned to the security police. They are the overseers of the slaves, although they are slaves themselves, carrying out the dictator’s wishes, serving as his deputies in his absence, instilling fear in his name, meting out punishment, assuming the guise of the rulers of the oppressed.

 

Within this family structure, the children are the oppressed. If they have younger…

[…and she goes on to describe the hierarchy within the authoritarian family… which all families are… to a degree… under ‘class’… because none of us can escape the hierarchical structuring of the broader society… achieved by means of the world market… and its ranking… by quantifying… all commodities… not least of which being… us… we… human beings… i.e…. we must work to eat… – P.S.]

This hierarchy, which can be observed in the way concentration camps were organized (with their ranking of guards, etc.) and which is legitimized by “poisonous pedagogy,” is probably still maintained in many families today. The possible consequences for a sensitive child can be traced in detail in the case of Adolf Hitler.

 

In his biography of Adolf Hitler, Joachim Fest has this to say about Alois Hitler’s [Adolf Hitler's father] background and his life before Adolf was born:

 

At House No. 13 in Strones, the home of Johann Trummelschlager, an unmarried servant girl by the name of Maria Anna Schicklgruber gave birth to a child on June 7, 1837. That same day the child was baptized Alois. In the registry of births in Dollersheim parish the space for the name of the child’s father was left blank. Nor was this changed five years later when the mother married the unemployed journeyman miller Johann George Hiedler. That same year she turned her son over to her husband’s brother, Johann Nepomuk Huttler, a farmer in Spital – presumably because she thought she could not raise the child properly. At any rate the Hiedlers, the story has it, were so impoverished that “ultimately they did not even have a bed left and slept in a cattle trough.”

 

These two brothers are two of the presumptive fathers of Alois Schicklgruber…. The third possibility, according to a rather wild story that nevertheless comes from one of Hitler’s closer associates, is a Graz Jew named Frankenberger in whose household Maria Anna Schicklgruber is said to have been working when she became pregnant…. (Joachim Fest, Hitler, quoted in Alice Miller’s For Your Own Good)

It should be added that, after the birth of her son, Maria Schicklgruber [Hitler’s grandmother] received child support for fourteen years from the Jewish business man referred to by Fest. Fest does not quote verbatim the account of Hans Frank, Hitler’s lawyer for many years, in the Hitler biography of 1973, but he does in his earlier book, The Face of the Third Reich, which first appeared in 1963..

Hitler’s father was the illegitimate child of a cook named Schickelgruber [sic] from Leonding, near Linz, employed in a household in Graz…. The cook, Adolf Hitler’s grandmother, was working for a Jewish family named Frankenberger when she gave birth to her child [This should read “when she became pregnant” – J.F.]. At that time – this happened in the 1830s – Frankenberger paid Schickelgruber on behalf of his son [who presumably had made the cook pregnant – A.M.], then about nineteen, a paternity allowance from the time of her child’s birth up to his fourteenth year. There was also a correspondence over the years between the Frankenbergers and Hitler’s grandmother, the general tenor of which was the unexpressed common knowledge of the correspondents that Schickelgruber’s child had been conceived in circumstances which rendered the Frankenbergers liable to pay a paternity allowance…. (Joachim Fest, The Face of the Third Reich, quoted in Alice Miller’sFor Your Own Good)

Whatever the truth actually was, a fourfold disgrace weighed upon Alois: being poor, being illegitimate, being separated from his real mother at the age of five, and having Jewish blood… (Alice Miller, For Your Own Good))

 

During the February 16th radio show… we gave thanks for Karl Popper’s showing us the exact parallels between Plato’s totalitarian ‘philosophical’ legacy and fascist ideology… the only significant difference within it being… it seems to me… in the degree of ‘manipulativeness’… or calculation… in the motives of those who wield them: the difference between the calculation of ‘rule’ (Plato) versus the relative sincerity of those trapped in the cons of class – in the ideological tools provided by Plato – who then themselves become tools for ‘power’ in its efforts to reshape the world in the image of Plato’s Republic…

 

In Chapter XI of Mein Kampf on “Nation and Race”, Hitler writes:

Just as little as Nature desires a mating between weaker individuals and stronger ones, far less she desires the mixing of a higher race with a lower one, as in this case her entire work of higher breeding, which has perhaps taken hundreds of thousands of years, would tumble at one blow.

[During the February 16th radio show [Part 47 of our Miklos reading: “There’s (one of many) an interesting passage in Popper on this: ‘Plato introduces his Myth of Blood and Soil with the blunt admission that it is a fraud. “Well then,” says the Socrates of the Republic [i.e. Plato’s straw-stuffed manikin…”] we gave thanks for Karl Popper’s showing us the exact parallels between Plato’s totalitarian ‘philosophical’ legacy and fascist ideology… the only significant difference within it being… it seems to me… in the degree of ‘manipulativeness’… or calculation… in the motives of those who wield them: the difference between the calculation of ‘rule’ (Plato) versus the relative sincerity of those trapped in the cons of class – in the ideological tools provided by Plato – who then themselves become tools for ‘power’ in its efforts to reshape the world in the image of Plato’s Republic…

 

‘Power’ has long used these ideological tools for misdirecting our anger at the indignities of class – the fury or despair so many of us feel at our gifts being ignored… unwanted… and trashed – diverting the rage away from them… and onto other commoners….

 

In Worse Than Slavery, David M. Oshinsky provides numerous examples both of the unity of business and state in manipulating this rage… and determined resistance against this intentional misdirection. One of countless examples of the former is his chapter on Mississippi governor James Vardaman who (as Hitler later was to do – and it would be worth more detailed discussion of the influence of the racism in the United States on totalitarianisms elsewhere… other versions of it…) “campaigned… as the champion of common whites…”: “Never before in the history of this Commonwealth were its white people confronted with so grave a problem as that which confronts it today,” he said, speaking in 1904. He was backed up by local media and the wealthy. Dr. Robert Shufeldt, a Southern army officer wrote that Blacks were “deteriorating morally every day. It is their nature, and they cannot possible rid themselves of that, any more than skunks and polecats can cast away their abominable scent glands and the outrageous odor they emit…”

 

What unfolded was an orchestrated campaign… after which… the horror of lynchings increased… it became a family affair… ‘outings’… that whole families would attend… to watch the brutal… ritualized… torture, mutilation and killing… of other human beings…. Continuing with Adolf Hitler… – P.S.]

“The result of any crossing, in brief, is always the following: […it remains to be seen… but I suspect… that the insanity of ‘absolute loyalty and obedience’ far outweighs today… the insanity of ‘blood purity’ – following Plato’s advice to temper ‘the ideal’ with ‘the possible’… – P.S.]” – …when we ask, “What is the role of ‘division’ in a class system?…” we can answer with: “it is formative…”……knowing then… it’s centrality to ‘power’s self-justification and ‘future-vision’… of ‘perfection’… – ‘conquest’ and ‘division’… possess an essential identity – hierarchy achieves these things effortlessly… keeps us dancing on a string… effortlessly… keeps us at each other’s throats… effortlessly… so long as we have no independent means… which have now… all been gathered into the hands of the few… which each decade grow even fewer still (those hands who hold the resources of the globe…) until… what Mussolini said finally sinks in… that “every hierarchy culminates in a pinpoint…” – Is it clear to us that this entire mess is insane – an insanity inherent in the dynamic of ‘class’?

 

Historical experience offers countless proofs of this. It shows with terrible clarity that with any mixing of the blood of the Aryan with lower races the result was the end of the culture-bearer. North America, the population of which consists for the greatest part of Germanic elements which mix only very little with the lower, colored races displays a humanity and a culture different from those of Central and South America, where chiefly the Romanic immigrants have sometimes mixed with the aborigines on a large scale. By this example alone one may clearly and distinctly recognize the influence of the race mixture. The Germanic of the North American continent, who has remained pure and less intermixed, has become the master of that continent, he will remain so until he, too, falls victim to the shame of blood-mixing.

 

The result of any crossing, in brief, is always the following: […it remains to be seen… but I suspect… that the insanity of ‘absolute loyalty and obedience’ far outweighs today… the insanity of ‘blood purity’ – following Plato’s advice to temper ‘the ideal’ with ‘the possible’… – P.S.] (a) Lowering of the standard of the higher race, (b) Physical and mental regression, and, with it, the beginning of a slowly but steadily progressive lingering illness. […I think they’re trying to do this artificially… these are abandoned children… they stack the deck… they create the ‘reality’ they want – and it is a misanthropic vision… we have to start substituting that with our righteous… loving one… – P.S.]

 

To bring about such a development means nothing less than sinning against the will of the Eternal Creator.

 

This action, then, is also rewarded as a sin.

 

Man, by trying to resist this iron logic of Nature, becomes entangled in a fight against the principles to which alone he, too, owes his existence as a human being. Thus his attack is bound to lead to his own doom. (Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Chapter XI, “Nation and Race”)

[Returning now to Lowe’s point that: “The Second World War was never merely a conflict over territory…” that “it was also a war of race and ethnicity…” after having considered Miklos’ words… and Plato’s… and Karl Popper’s… and Alice Miller’s… and the testimony of Governor Vardaman, Dr. Shufeldt, and Adolph Hitler…

 

…and as we ask “what is the interrelationship… between ‘power’ (or ‘conquest’…) and ‘division’…

 

…knowing as we do… that the history of ‘class’… of ‘power’… is a history of ‘divide and conquer’…

 

…when we ask, “What is the role of ‘division’ in a class system?…” we can answer with: “it is formative…”

 

…knowing then… it’s centrality to ‘power’s self-justification and ‘future-vision’… of ‘perfection’…

 

…could it be… always remembering Plato’s legacy… from two thousand four hundred years ago… and John Boswell’s presenting the history of all those children of abandonment… over the millennia… whose energy was sucked on without stint in countless monasteries… and the systematic pressure placed… by the peculiar institution of slavery… on every commoner caught in its gravity… the relentless pressure to perform that we experience today as all too ‘normal’…

 

…that ‘conquest’ and ‘division’… possess an essential unity… identity… a singular reality… of relentless pressure to ‘prove’ one’s worth… and rise above… and endlessly pursue ‘perfection’…

 

…hierarchy achieves these things effortlessly… keeps us dancing on a string… effortlessly… keeps us at each other’s throats… effortlessly… so long as we have no independent means… which have now… all been gathered into the hands of the few… which each decade grow even fewer still (those hands who hold the resources of the globe…) until… what Mussolini said finally sinks in… that “every hierarchy culminates in a pinpoint…”

 

…this is the global game of ‘Supremacy’… of ‘Conquest of Spirit’… ruthlessly played… bitterly fought… callously taught… to children… never crediting what monsters get made… in Plato’s name….

 

Is it clear to us that this entire mess is insane – an insanity inherent in the dynamic of ‘class’?

 

–––

 

* “WUR of July 20th, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

 

In Waking Up I said the first thing we have to do is see reality – we’re still in the midst of that process… When the Israeli state takes the same stance… towards ‘its’ trapped populace – including their own citizens – as the ‘Nazis’ did… toward its captives… of what use is ‘Nazi’ to us? And saying this is not to call attention to some ‘unconscious’ psychological reenactment… but to call attention to the singularity of ‘power’… We’re going to be returning to this theme of ‘seeing reality’… and the particular aspect we’re looking at today… is journalism…

 

In Waking Up I said the first thing we have to do is see reality – we’re still in the midst of that process…

 

July 19, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: When the Israeli state takes the same stance… towards ‘its’ trapped populace – including their own citizens – as the ‘Nazis’ did… toward its captives… of what use is ‘Nazi’ to us? And saying this is not to call attention to some ‘unconscious’ psychological reenactment… but to call attention to the singularity of ‘power’…

(…we’re given so many words… so many versions… of this single totalitarian mindset – another instance of ‘divide and conquer’ – when… if we were in control of the definitions… to facilitate our getting free… we’d show their essential unity… and call them ‘power’…)

…which will ever and always demand… until we refuse to let them… absolute obedience in ‘its’ ‘captives’. So there’s no mystery in the Israeli state blowing up the bedridden and helpless babies… as with ‘power’ everywhere they serve only their illusions… and for them, ‘soul-loss’ has no meaning… for them ‘all’ is ‘proving’ ‘mastery’… and will beat us until we are ‘obedient’. Our obedience for them is non-negotiable… for without our bowed backs… how can they be ‘masters’? (…and play ‘god’ with the ‘Big Boys’?)

 

We’re going to be returning to this theme of ‘seeing reality’… and the particular aspect we’re looking at today… is journalism.

 

–––

 

In a sense… the failure of ‘journalism’ is at the heart of it: this argument’s culmination… because the wound of our atomization is at the heart of ‘power’s strategy of containment… and we look to the ‘communal voice’… the ‘historical consensus’… to heal it… Because we need to know each other’s thoughts to develop them… theirs and ours… it’s a mutual process. We need to hear each other’s thoughts confirmed… to know what we are… what stuff we’re made of. Media literally is the medium… under conditions of atomization… by which we know ourselves… because we are communal beings… artificially kept small…

 

July 15, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: I’ve been pondering again the seeming happenstance of the present of Nafeez Ahmed… and… through him… Mr. Steele. Particularly as I see media as more or less theater… and ‘journalism’ as ‘power’s tool for planting its latest propaganda – the ‘stories’ (messages) that reinforce its ‘legitimacy’… and therefore its existence.

 

Because there is a sense in which the argument… the alternative perspective… that this website and these radio discussions have been fleshing out… bulking up… so that it stands clearly enough to be considered against the… despite the… enormous weight of ‘what-is’… the logic and anti-ethics of ‘class’…

 

…there is a sense in which this argument culminates in this ‘debut’ of Mr. Steele into our ‘progressive’ discussions…

 

…there is a sense in which shining light on this event completes a circuit of our ‘logic’… a logic of balance and of inter-relationship – of meeting ‘vision’ with ‘vision’… determination with determination –

 

…a ‘logic’ of the fundamental unity… and inherent freedom… of all life –

 

…a ‘logic’ of continuous connection across time and space… despite the energy-clog called ‘class’ (which ‘journalism’ conspires with…) – which is now clearing… at a rate which… to save suffering and death… our active involvement must hasten.

 

All of the main ‘pieces’ of our ‘argument’ – the ‘call to action’ issued by convening these discussions –

 

…and in particular of our ‘culminating logic’ – the completed ‘logic-circuit’ for reachieving balance… on which we made the case for there being ‘only one way’ for human beings to get free: we have to claim each other – and I mean globally – or ‘power’ will claim us… we have to overcome our atomization… in thought and action –

 

…and all of the ‘pieces’ of the argument are represented in this ‘debut-event’ I’m calling ‘Mr. Steele’… who is attempting to mobilize that unseen ‘state’ within… the ‘citizen’.

 

In a sense… the failure of ‘journalism’ is at the heart of it: this argument’s culmination… because the wound of our atomization is at the heart of ‘power’s strategy of containment… and we look to the ‘communal voice’… the ‘historical consensus’… to heal it…

 

…‘journalism’ (as short-hand for ‘the media’…) has been – or so we’ve thought – in recent times our best hope – we-the-people’s – for overcoming false divisions… and so for… somehow… standing up to ‘power’. (Because we need to know each other’s thoughts to develop them… theirs and ours… it’s a mutual process. We need to hear each other’s thoughts confirmed… to know what we are… what stuff we’re made of. Media literally is the medium… under conditions of atomization… by which we know ourselves… because we are communal beings… artificially kept small…)

 

I didn’t start this journey focusing on ‘the pundits’… and this came to be a focus of my argument as much intuitively as through a process of analysis… like a knot you finger in your hair half-absent-minded… you try to work it loose because you know it’s not supposed to be there… but of course analysis – because earth-based – readily stood by this judgment.

 

Now… an ‘energy-clog’ (its complicity with ‘class’ renders its equivalency with ‘class’…) is not how most would view the project of rummaging about in the flecks of skin ‘power’ sheds… as it stomps about our lives… in the countless million forms it takes in countless spaces… and trying… based on them – even as the dust-mites devour this detritus… and the wind takes the rest – to piece together ‘stories’ of what made them… and the ‘theories’ formed themselves as myriad as the inventive minds who worry over them…

 

…

 

…absent ‘scarcity’… and absent ‘power’s energetic efforts to sow divides… and keep us separate… we get along just fine… but there was no one to say to them: “would fighting exist in the midst of abundance… an abundance every human being made and shared in… without coercion?”… and: “isn’t ‘power’ global?… are not the forces that limit every life in this class system global in scope?” and: “does it really make sense to try to grapple with these forces stuck in the narrow box of ‘nation’?” and: “doesn’t ‘rule’ dog all of our lives by keeping us divided… which means… obviously… that we must all come together… and show solidarity?” and: “what future do we want?… not just for ourselves… but for all humans?”… Some might say journalists in war zones are akin to Miklos Nyiszli: that they bear witness… and that we need to know… we who watch in safety and comfort… we need to know how much our brothers and sisters suffer… at the hands of the sociopaths called ‘statesmen’ – Recall what Miklos said… he acted as a doctor… not a ‘journalist’… and like him… we must bring hope to our fellows – this needs to be ‘Organizing 101’: hope is key to our even beginning to see reality… otherwise we have only the dulled empathy that comes from atrocity after atrocity shown… with no solution (we have to start pointing the light to the way out: undoing the atomization… the divides….)

 

A few hours back I listened to some very young-sounding men and women… debate the question of whether Iraq should continue to exist… and whether Kurds should form a separate nation… and whether Muslims of all sects could live together…

 

…and most seemed to think… despite the weight of centuries arguing that human beings… all want the same things… to live in peace and good fellowship… and… absent ‘scarcity’… and absent ‘power’s energetic efforts to sow divides… and keep us separate… get along just fine…

 

…and there was no one to say to them: “would fighting exist in the midst of abundance… an abundance every human being made and shared in… without coercion?”… and: “isn’t ‘power’ global?… are not the forces that limit every life in this class system global in scope?” and: “does it really make sense to try to grapple with these forces stuck in the narrow box of ‘nation’?” and: “doesn’t ‘rule’ dog all of our lives by keeping us divided… which means… obviously… that we must all come together… and show solidarity?” and: “what future do we want?… not just for ourselves… but for all humans?”

 

And there was one courageous woman who kept insisting she was a human being first and foremost… and wanted this: you could feel her… wanted all to see that good fellowship was a real possibility.

 

But there was no one to ask: “what stands in the way of it?… of good fellowship?”… no one to help them get to the root of the problem.

 

Now that was ‘journalism’.

 

Ah… you may say… but not ‘journalism’ at its best. Would not “‘journalism’ at its best” be represented by the delving of Nafeez Ahmed?… because it reveals a ‘power’-strategy initiative for suppressing us (the ‘Minerva Research Initiative’… funded by the U.S. Department of Defense…)? for derailing dissent?… and gives us a ‘heads-up’ which tells us… what?… that ‘power’ plans.

 

But say… ‘journalism’ steps back and probes again… this time not in ‘facts’… but in Reason… and asks, “what is the point of this ‘power’-strategy?”… and perhaps ‘journalism’ would see then the tailoring of ‘power’s on-going propagandistic planting (within the media… i.e. making use of ‘journalism’ itself…) in the minds of ‘the people’…

 

…that is to say: ‘power’s strategic efforts ever focus on controlling the thinking… of the vast majority… so… obviously… if only because of the consequences of not… perhaps some of us should be aiming at… encouraging our brothers and sisters to consider… “what is ‘power’s ‘opposite’?”…. Instead… we’re encouraged to gravitate to these tiny enclaves of supposed ‘righteousness’… and sneer at the vast majority… and claim our ‘specialness’… as Plato showed ‘power’ they could get us to do: thousands of years we’ve been manipulated like that… and… true… its taken the use of a mighty load of agents to stimulate that process… but we can actively counter both manipulations – so that we can counter ‘power’s manipulation of the discourse… the thoughts out there generally… as we’re each of us stuck in our narrow spaces and we have to start hearing our reality confirmed in order to build that ‘opposite’ to ‘power’.

 

And this assumes the tools we need for honoring our bodies’ truth already exist… and we simply need to come together to talk about this.

 

Or some might say ‘the best’ of ‘journalism’ is represented by those who risk their lives to ‘prove’ states lie… or document the suffering those states try to hide. Or some claim journalists in war zones are akin to Miklos Nyiszli: that they bear witness… and that we need to know… we who watch in safety and comfort… we need to know how much our brothers and sisters suffer… at the hands of the sociopaths called ‘statesmen’ –

 

…but it’s not enough… this… ‘documentation’… not adequate to true representation.

 

Recall what Miklos said… he acted as a doctor… not a ‘journalist’… and like him… we must bring hope to our fellows – this needs to be ‘Organizing 101’: hope is key to our even beginning to see reality… otherwise we have only the dulled empathy that comes from atrocity after atrocity shown… with no solution (we have to start pointing the light to the way out: undoing the atomization… the divides….)

 

Hope comes when we become the bridge to each other’s thoughts… so we can hear we share a common truth… a common longing… shared purpose… and mutual concern.

 

It is not acceptable for those who could affect this… to allow the hearts and minds of our fellows to remain ‘power’s sole province and plaything.

 

–––

 

I found myself still with that phrase ‘mutual concern’… “…No one cares about us…” – how else could the state pretend to be our daddy?…

 

I found myself still with that phrase ‘mutual concern’…

 

–––

 

“…Minerva did her best and the result was a marvel, but Arachne’s work, finished at the same moment, was in no way inferior. The goddess in a fury of anger slit the web from top to bottom and beat the girl around the head with her shuttle…”. – Now that’s ‘power’. Ovid had their number. He knew… none better… what states do… when you speak the truth… and particularly the truth that they are no better… they are not ‘gods’… but mean hoarders of means to beat us until we say they are.

 

Perhaps the best-known story about Minerva as Minerva (she’s considered the Roman equivalent of Athena…) comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses… but… to save typing… let’s let our favorite modern teller of timeless tales, Edith Hamilton, give us her short version. She titled the story, “Arachne”:

The fate of this maiden was another example of the danger of claiming equality with the gods in anything whatsoever. Minerva was the weaver among the Olympians as Vulcan was the smith. Quite naturally she considered the stuffs she wove unapproachable for fineness and beauty, and she was outraged when she heard that a simple peasant girl named Arachne declared her own work to be superior. The goddess went forthwith to the hut where the maiden lived and challenged her to a contest. Arachne accepted. Both set up their looms and stretched the warp upon them. Then they went to work. Heaps of skeins of beautiful threads colored like the rainbow lay beside each, and threads of gold and silver too. Minerva did her best and the result was a marvel, but Arachne’s work, finished at the same moment, was in no way inferior. The goddess in a fury of anger slit the web from top to bottom and beat the girl around the head with her shuttle. Arachne, disgraced and mortified and furiously angry, hanged herself. Then a little repentance entered Minerva’s heart. She lifted the body from the noose and sprinkled it with a magic liquid. Arachne was changed into a spider, and her skill in weaving was left to her. (Edith Hamilton, retelling Ovid, in Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, 1940, p. 288)

Now that’s ‘power’. Ovid had their number. He knew… none better… what states do… when you speak the truth… and particularly the truth that they are no better… they are not ‘gods’… but mean hoarders of means to beat us until we say they are.

 

We cannot… please… at this juncture… after Miklos’ long-suffering to help us see… claim we are perplexed when the Israeli state bombs civilian targets. Saying this… is how journalists ‘represent’.

 

–––

 

We really need… some kind of communal work space… where we can share [non-ATT-dependant-] access to the Internet [and other media tools…] – because… speaking selfishly… it’s getting seriously difficult just to get online… So… any authentic folks in the Bay Area who want to collaborate… please get in touch… we have to create a safe alternative space for we who realize that it is only by creating that global response to ‘power’… that we can usher in freedom… to start connecting…

 

–––

 

…the sides are so unbalanced – the grotesquerie it means that we allow it… given our in theory decisive numbers – it’s horrific to contemplate… that these bred-monsters have been playing… toying… with us for who knows how many centuries… And on the scale of a life… to look back and think… that most of what we just accept as unaccountable chance… is rather… these abandoned children having a laugh…

 

In Revealing Division I wrote that:

A war is being waged…

…on one side consciously…

…on the other…

…not…

…for the hearts and minds…

…of the populace…

I might write that differently today… because with one side all unconscious there is no ‘battle’… just manipulation…

 

…but… we commoners know there is a war on us… we simply have no adequate representation… among the pundits (and in that word I include ‘academics’….)

 

So while ‘power’ wields Steele axes and Minervas to bludgeon our thoughts… and keep hope for freedom on the chopping block…

 

…while ‘power’ plants its propaganda non-stop… and keeps us mutually-betraying… with its manipulation…

 

…while ‘power’s every act is strategic… while their plotting and planning leash countless academics…

 

…all we-the-people have is the wan attempt to follow their moves… with ‘journalism’…

 

…the sides are so unbalanced – the grotesquerie it means that we allow it… given our in theory decisive numbers – it’s horrific to contemplate… that these bred-monsters have been playing… toying… with us for who knows how many centuries.

 

And on the scale of a life… to look back and think… that most of what we just accept as unaccountable chance… is rather… these abandoned children having a laugh.

 

What’s the strategy behind ‘journalism’?… or ‘progressivism’? This question may rest at the crux of the matter of ‘representation’… of speaking for that and those… ‘the system’ does not reward […so the relevant… but never discussed issue… is: that the will and ‘heart’… to start ‘power’s ‘opposite’… does not receive a paycheck to do it….] The lack of strategy is key for us to discuss… because for those who ‘rule’… their every move is strategic… So… what’s our strategy?… I really want to hear that conversation… we need the back and forth in taboo discussions… to develop our thought… we need to hear discussed that the constant lies… the never knowing who anyone is… is not what we are as humans…

 

‘Culminating logic’…

 

This is the ‘culmination’… of our alternative ‘logic’ – for which I needed Alice Miller, Miklos Nyiszli, and Karl Popper. It was the ‘totalitarianism’ piece I didn’t see clearly when I wrote Waking Up: i.e., not just the degree to which ‘power’ is determined to achieve absolute control of us… but how far along they actually are with this project… so we hear over the airwaves the continuous reiteration… that all is chance and happenstance… when the opposite is what we have – and with Steele… as we’ll see… we have the necessary result of ‘power’s totalitarian trajectory. ‘Power’ is going for a total hold on us… so here comes Steele… using our own words as bait… hoping to lure us into ‘power’s ‘open-source-prison…’ It’s numbers that change things. So how do we affect numbers if we don’t have a strategy?… and how can we have a strategy if we don’t know where we want to go?… and how can we know where we want to go if we don’t start talking about it?… with each other… ‘Power’ is happy to tell us where we want to go… they got the future all planned out for us: it’s those “billions of brains” that MIT can tap into… so they can computerize ‘human creativity’… and dispense with us altogether…

 

What’s the strategy behind ‘journalism’?… or ‘progressivism’? This question may rest at the crux of the matter of ‘representation’… of speaking for that and those… ‘the system’ does not reward. The lack of strategy is key for us to discuss… because for those who ‘rule’… their every move is strategic.

 

(It’s numbers that change things. So how do we affect numbers if we don’t have a strategy?… and how can we have a strategy if we don’t know where we want to go?… and how can we know where we want to go if we don’t start talking about it?… with each other… ‘Power’ is happy to tell us where we want to go… they got the future all planned out for us: it’s those “billions of brains” that MIT can tap into… so they can computerize ‘human creativity’… and dispense with us altogether… Who knows how far exactly… the mindset of abandonment can go… Let’s make it moot. Let’s finally go for what we want.)

 

“Oh but that would be ‘activism’…” said a voice I heard over the airwaves just yesterday… “no place for that in ‘journalism’.”

 

Is it ‘activism’ to speak suppressed truth to youth when all else they hear are lies?

 

So to one side is given all the powers of persuasion – and the lever of the wage – with the next generation… backed by the concentrated means of the planet… ‘free’ to do just as it pleases toward planning and crafting the world it wants.

 

While to the other is given ladders to climb… walls to vault… and tearing at each other’s throats.

 

…I’ve been trying to help we-on-the-Left see… both that ‘power’ plans… and… that it acts strategically… and that it can be strategic… because it has a vision… a vision, moreover, that is totalitarian…

 

(…we have to start talking about this – we’ll talk more about it next week… asking the question: “is it clear that ‘class’ is totalitarian?” and… if we face that fact… “are we finally ready to start planning a global alternative to it?…”)

 

…and that we have no strategy… because ‘power’ has ever been able to ‘play’ our ‘inner-state’.

 

(See… that’s what gets broken down… that ‘inner state’… when we start talking with each other and create the alternative to that… that ‘voice of authority’ from ‘the state’… instead we create our own earth-based authority… that voice we allow to speak…)

 

This is the ‘culmination’… of our alternative ‘logic’ – for which I needed Alice Miller, Miklos Nyiszli, and Karl Popper. It was the ‘totalitarianism’ piece I didn’t see clearly when I wrote Waking Up: i.e., not just the degree to which ‘power’ is determined to achieve absolute control of us… but actually how far along they are with this project…

 

…so we hear over the airwaves the continuous reiteration… that all is chance and happenstance… when the opposite is what we have – and with Steele… as we’ll see… we have the necessary result of ‘power’s totalitarian trajectory.

 

The only thing that can save us is… to overcome the false divisions… and see how the state is playing us…

 

…and the only way to overcome the divisions… and see how we’re being played… is to see ‘the state’ in us… so that we can resist the state’s attempts at mobilization (a.k.a. ‘nationalisms’… ‘patriotisms’… ‘planet-and-civilization-saving-heroisms’…)

 

–––

 

Moreover… while ‘power’ wants control of the globe… the ‘Supremacy’ game is more than mere ‘politics’… read: ‘global-governance’… but rather… its ‘global’ ambition extends to its mission… they cannot let go their obsession… with ‘Perfection’… the ‘Republic’ is not just garden and stone… grandeur and roads… if slaves are to worship them… it must be peopled with… ‘supermen’ and ‘superwomen’ (and this is the hook with which many naive young people are snookered…) (So you see why they stack the deck… you see why they want us to be debased to ourselves… So they ever and always stack the deck… and try… to eliminate early those among us who represent for commoners… who shine…. The ‘power’-guys are all ‘Minervas’… they don’t want any competition from we commoners in that ‘shining’ Department…. They want to appear to be ‘gods’…)

 

A ‘logic of unity’…

 

…for while ‘power’ is constantly inserting folks like Mr. Steele into our progressive discussions (along with possibly honest brokers who represent for the state because they know no other way to think…)

 

…constantly using tactics of manipulation… non-stop propaganda…

 

…only we can be authentic… can honor life and our true natures.

 

We will be devoting time – perhaps even over several shows – to peeling back the layers of lies in the con Steele calls “Open Source Intelligence”… particularly as… our analysis of it also illustrates ‘power’s focus on and continuous use of its ‘balkanization’-tactic-of-control… which Lowe also exposes in the aftermath of WWII.

 

–––

 

Last week we said that the role of ‘division’ in a class system is formative… because ‘class’ begins in abandonment… an abandonment of the longing for freedom and good fellowship with our fellow humans (honoring our nature… our earth-given gifts…) – and abandonment of wholeness… of the self… of the human community….

 

That was the price. But what was purchased? The “Pursuit of ‘Knowledge-Infinite’” –

 

– and this gets us back to Mr. Steele and his “billions of brains”… and that Plato admonition to “temper the ideal with the possible”.

 

Why is the state so determined to define us?… is the question many of us arrive at as young people once we start pondering the question of coercion in our lives (and this is discussed in Waking Up….)

 

Why is it so set on harnessing our energy?

 

Why the fixation on exclusive decision-making?

 

Why the endless… endless… manipulation? We are good… why can’t they see that? (we wonder as children….)

 

And now that the price-tag of containment is soaring… the costs of ‘coercion’ no longer ‘sustainable’…

 

…in walks ‘Steele’ (and I’m using him and his initiative as an emblem for all of them.)

 

Moreover… while ‘power’ wants control of the globe… the ‘Supremacy’ game is more than mere ‘politics’… read: ‘global-governance’…

 

…but rather… its ‘global’ ambition extends to its mission…

 

…they cannot let go their obsession… with ‘Perfection’…

 

…the ‘Republic’ is not just garden and stone… grandeur and roads…

 

…if slaves are to worship them… it must be peopled with… ‘supermen’ and ‘superwomen’ (and this is the hook with which many naive young people are snookered….)

 

(So you see why they stack the deck… you see why they want us to be debased to ourselves… So they ever and always stack the deck… and try… to eliminate early those among us who represent for commoners… who shine…. The ‘power’-guys are all ‘Minervas’… they don’t want any competition from we commoners in that ‘shining’ Department…. They want to appear to be ‘gods’…. So there’s no need to wonder why they take away our shining stars… And they’ve figured out ways to get rid of people without necessarily killing them…)

 

And perhaps Popper’s words finally sunk in… that unique gifts cannot be predicted or manufactured… and they may then defer their ‘depopulation gambits’…

 

…because they are determined to acquire ‘Knowledge-Infinite’.

 

And in walks Steele.

 

–––

 

Our brothers and sisters in Gaza… in Syria… in South Africa… in Iraq… in Nigeria… Honduras… in China and Russia… in Indonesia and Bangladesh… and here in the U.S. – we want this horror to stop. When will the Privileged Intermediaries use that privilege to organize a one-day global General Strike… for planning a future beyond states and statesmen… force and coercion… beyond the pressure of necessity… beyond manufactured ‘scarcity’… a future that allows every human being to be self-determining… a day of planning… the ‘opposite’ of ‘power’.

 

Once… when I was hawking books… I had a conversation with a man who vehemently disagreed with my suggesting… in Unpacking Democracy… that Sebastian De Grazia’s more concrete focus on ‘work’… was strategically preferable to Erich Fromm’s focus on ‘alienation’. He was a Fromm-devotee and was angry with me. And here again… Alice brings the bridge… and the healing… by showing us how it is that the external structure – of ‘class’ of ‘force’ of ‘manufactured scarcity’ – is mirrored within.

 

So Fromm is right… we have no self-developed ‘will’… agency has been denied us from an early age. And he’s right – and this is what the man I met appreciated that I at that point had not been provided the certainty on – in calling our attention to the totalitarian hold of ‘power’ on our thoughts.

 

…and Sebastian De Grazia is right… the state-created and enforced pressure of necessity (manufactured ‘scarcity’…) removes any possibility of a self-developed ‘will’… because that project requires resources that the state refuses to provide.

 

And while this seems like a closed-loop of control… it only seems so. (I wrote Waking Up to show that there are no material or technological barriers to our being free – defined as ‘freedom from necessity’… as De Grazia advised – only ‘political’ ones.) Hence the relentless propaganda to keep our thoughts within boundaries ‘power’ can effectively police… which explains why Steele et al. raid progressive language (‘reclaiming the commons’… ‘tribalism… ‘communal sharing’… the focus on ‘openness’ and ‘honesty’…) it’s critical for them to ‘own’ the language… impose the definitions…

 

–––

 

Our brothers and sisters in Gaza… in Syria… in South Africa… in Iraq… in Nigeria… Honduras… in China and Russia… in Indonesia and Bangladesh… and here in the U.S….

 

…we want this horror to stop.

 

When will the Privileged Intermediaries use that privilege to organize a one-day global General Strike… for planning a future beyond states and statesmen… force and coercion… beyond the pressure of necessity… beyond manufactured ‘scarcity’…

 

…a future that allows every human being to be self-determining…

 

…a day of planning…

 

…the ‘opposite’ of ‘power’.

 

–––

 

Sisters and Brothers… how distinguish true from false… in ‘political’ discourse? As part of our analysis of Mr. Steele please listen again to the words of Kropotkin:

 

“We know from our own bodies… our own hearts… that what turns us on we give willingly… we know in our hearts that coercion is not needed for us to collaborate together… cooperate together… to create beauty and harmony on earth. It's simply been our separation from each other that has led us to doubt that the same heart beats in all human beings. We have been systematically turned against each other. (Kropotkin excerpt, Part 1)…”

 

–––

 

* “WUR of July 27th, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

…all those who still know… have fun with… and trust… their brothers and sisters… across false divisions… will necessarily be… a threat to a system of ‘class’ imposed globally (which demands absolute defense of division by ‘rank’ – which includes by definition the divide ‘citizen’ - ‘barbarian’ – to preserve the ‘security’ of ‘rule’ [and that will always be what they mean by ‘national security’…]

 

(It so happened… I didn’t ‘work’ on this page for a couple days – I was otherwise engaged – and when I came back to it… the paragraph-arrangement had shifted… which… by itself is less suggestive [I already knew my files were being messed with…] than their apparent sense that they could do this without my correcting it [which ‘fits’ as my ‘experience’ of late… has been rather intense….] I mention this… apropos of hope… that our discussion of these issues… broaden in scope – our understanding of the ‘inner-state’ proliferate – because we got a world of folks who simply do what they’re told… and that can only shift… with broad discussions of it.)

July 22, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: I’ve said this before… so forgive the repetition… but what makes Muslims with faith in fellowship a threat (to ‘power’…) is ‘numbers’ plus ‘communal traditions’ (which source… an alternative allegiance to the state….)

 

Moreover… all those who still know… have fun with… and trust… their brothers and sisters… across false divisions… will necessarily be… a threat to a system of ‘class’ imposed globally (which demands absolute defense of division by ‘rank’ – which includes by definition the divide ‘citizen’ - ‘barbarian’ – to preserve the ‘security’ of ‘rule’ [and that will always be what they mean by ‘national security’…])

 

…so our brothers and sisters with faith in fellowship will be a threat… because within them burns a love that’s broad and generous….

 

It’s no surprise, then, that marauding slaughterers are paid by shadow-global-statesmen to try to kill that ‘heart’… to destroy its capacity for broad mutual caring… whether it beats in Iraq or Palestine or Nigeria…

One day we’ll talk about the idiocy of a group claiming it inhabits the world of the Crusades… I want a whole human world that’s free of deceit… that’s what we deserve… that’s what’s meant to be…

 

(…and what an abomination… the words I heard today… from the Israeli state… claiming it and ISIS were not compatriots… co-slaves and devotees in the brutal worship of ‘supremacy’ [notice how ISIS reinforces ‘the-state-in-us’…])

Let’s take a moment… we who are raised to believe in ‘class’… to examine our hearts… and then ask…

 

…how can we reclaim what was wounded and buried… at such an early age?

 

A world premised on ‘big empathy’… ‘big generosity’… and ‘big love’ is possible… but we have to have the structures that support it… which is the discussion that we never have… when ‘power’ plays its trump card and says: “See how violent you guys are… how untrustworthy….” ‘Power’ structures the world to fit the propaganda that we can only exist… if ‘it’… provides ‘order’…. So they set it up such that it seems to only work… by ‘rank’… by rigid control… of us.… When we have a world that’s structured by us… it’ll be structured honest….

 

And by this I’m not trying to suggest… a turn to individual healing… but rather… a turn towards trying to create… local community debate… on how to end… false divisions (and plan the transition…) with the goal of being able to set our human feet… in an honest global society… one fit for honest humans… using our full gifts (including ‘big empathy’… ‘big generosity’… and ‘big love’….)

(The world we deserve… premised on respecting the earth and the gifts she gives us… on using those gifts (self-directed…) – that’s honest. A world premised on ‘big empathy’… ‘big generosity’… and ‘big love’ is possible… but we have to have the structures that support it… which is the discussion that we never have… when ‘power’ plays its trump card and says: “See how violent you guys are… how untrustworthy….” ‘Power’ structures the world to fit the propaganda that we can only exist… if ‘it’… provides ‘order’…. So they set it up such that it seems to only work… by ‘rank’… by rigid control… of us.

 

When we have a world that’s structured by us… it’ll be structured honest…. Institutions of coercion won’t be needed. We are good of heart… but we’ve been conditioned to believe… that there’s not enough… and then they keep us atomized… and there we go…)

We… as commoners… have been expelled from the arena of ‘planning the structure’… particularly globally… but there is no reason we should accept this exclusion… and every reason to ignore it…. Whatever role you play in the ‘Matrix’… our responsibility today is to tie us together… bind us tight… expose… that our own debasement (and it is ‘debasement’ when we sell our gifts to the highest bidder…) and those of others across the globe are inextricably inter- linked…

 

…and we can’t do that… unless we see… and feel the injustice of… ‘class’… which we would… if we weren’t trained… by loving hands… to not… to not see it as ‘injustice’. We have to break that cycle.

 

And how do we see our allegiance to the state in us?… how do we see our internalized obedience?… how do we see that we’ve been trained to equate ‘allegiance to the state’ with ‘civilization’… and, as parents… how do we stop doing this to our children?…

 

…if we don’t talk about it?

 

So you see the centrality of focusing on the pundits… who may or may not be of good heart: we have to talk about it. And there has to be a way… even for those paid not to… to start… little by little… pushing these conversations onto the airwaves.

We have to begin the discussions… of how do we transition… to freedom… after being in this millennia-long experiment with this ‘cult’ called ‘class’… in which we all collectively pretend that our so-called ‘leaders’ are superior to us… Each one of us was born with the same ‘stuff’… in each one of us the potential in us is limitless… and to accept some of us being trained to be low… others trained to control the ones who are trained to be low… is nuts…

 

(We have to begin the discussions… of how do we transition… to freedom… after being in this millennia-long experiment with this ‘cult’ called ‘class’… in which we all collectively pretend that our so-called ‘leaders’ are superior to us… Each one of us was born with the same ‘stuff’… in each one of us the potential in us is limitless… and to accept some of us being trained to be low… others trained to control the ones who are trained to be low… is nuts…)

Is it clear that a system of coerced work forces us to abandon our children?… How can children identify with those the state targets [i.e. have empathy for their brothers and sisters…] if no one has empathy for them? When we let the state define ‘worth’ (which is what a system of coerced work does…) we’re pushing our children down the road of ‘Betrayal’… and toward losing a critical capacity we need to be human beings. But how can we challenge this training unless we talk about it? So you see how… necessarily… any longing to get free must confront this blockage… called: the journalists… the academics… the pundits… who monopolize (define) debate… and don’t allow discussion of… the internalization of obedience… as ‘the state’ in us.

 

(Is it clear that a system of coerced work forces us to do this to our children? – and that we have to focus on the children… because they are the means for ‘the system’s reproduction – a system in which other people give us our ‘marching orders’?…. How can children identify with those the state targets – i.e. have empathy for their brothers and sisters –if no one has empathy for them… as parents not available to help children make sense of ‘targeting’ are also not there to give – and so to model to their children – empathy… – and this makes of them… material for the state to work on… because children (under ‘class’) are so starved for recognition – they get ‘played’ by the state – the least little bit they’re given buys their loyalty… because they’re given something they didn’t get and they don’t get and they need. ‘Power’ knows that. They know how to create loyalty. We discussed this when we looked at the words of Xenophon. These are old… these tactics. And when pundits don’t talk about the fact that we’re trapped in a mindset that we’re ready to move beyond… they’re part of the system of control….

 

When we let the state define ‘worth’ (which is what a system of coerced work does…) we’re pushing our children down the road of ‘Betrayal’… and toward losing a critical capacity we need to be human beings.

 

As we read Lowe’s account of the lack of empathy returning Jews encountered… in the aftermath of World War II… we’ll be revisiting the words of Karl Popper, Alice Miller, and Virginia Woolf to help us make sense of it. What Popper shows us about ourselves [under ‘class’] is our deeply-entrenched ‘power-worship’… Alice Miller then explains how we are taught it as children… while Virginia exposes the broad ‘class’-societal uses to which this mindset is put. These are the two great anti-spiritual veins that states depend on… to make us believe they are legitimate… and so to maintain their existence: instilled obedience… and ‘power’-worship. Alice will be explaining how it is that parents teach [unconsciously] “…the relativity of values based upon one’s position of power….” So it’s not just that “…the winners write the history…” they write our souls as well… in order to get us to worship them.)

But how can we challenge this training unless we talk about it? So you see how… necessarily… any longing to get free must confront this blockage… called: the journalists… the academics… the pundits… who monopolize (define) debate… and don’t allow discussion of… the internalization of obedience… as ‘the state’ in us.

 

–––

 

…and I am more and more convinced that this whole ‘introduction’ of Mr. Steele –‘Mafia-style’: arm around him… warm words that say: “He's OK… This is my friend. He's one of us… You can trust him…” – was orchestrated…. Because in this world of deep duplicity we need some means of figuring out “Who can we trust?” The resulting demoralization is one of the reasons they’ve crafted it to be so dishonest…

 

This week’s show will consider again two recent pieces by Nafeez Ahmed: “Defence officials prepare to fight the poor, activists and minorities (and commies): The self-defeating logic of militarised social science targets anti-capitalist ‘extremists’ in the new ‘age of uncertainty’” … and:

 

(…and I am more and more convinced that this whole ‘introduction’ of Mr. Steele –‘Mafia-style’: arm around him… warm words that say: “He's OK… This is my friend. He's one of us… You can trust him…” – was orchestrated…. Because in this world of deep duplicity we need some means of figuring out “Who can we trust?” The resulting demoralization is one of the reasons they’ve crafted it to be so dishonest…)

 

“The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1% - ex CIA spy: The man who trained more than 66 countries in open source methods calls for re-invention of intelligence to re-engineer Earth.”

 

…do we believe a global system of ‘class’ means ‘civilization’? How do we-commoners achieve greater clarity on this? …and the truth we never hear is that we need each other to learn ‘to care’… and that it’s only in caring that we can be fully human… and the terms of ‘eat-or-be-eaten’ (and these are the terms whether your angle on ‘the system’ is ‘political’ or ‘economic’…) do not allow this.

 

We first considered Nafeez Ahmed’s “heads-up!” during the July 13, 2014 show – in an appreciation of his highlighting the fact that the existing global ‘system’ – and I believe that for we-commoners… it only makes sense to call it ‘class’ – is breaking down… and that there has been a ‘robust’ response in what is called the ‘core’ nations (he focuses on the U.S. and the U.K….) to preserve what I’m sure they would call: ‘civilization’.

 

“But do we call it this?”… is a key question… and “is whatever-it-is coterminous with ‘class’”?… is another… and “how do we-commoners achieve greater clarity on this… when the word ‘class’ is never spoken of as defining of ‘the global-system’… the basic ‘paradigm’ into which we pound our lives… which we do by training… not by leaning… not by seeking what makes us happy.

 

We have been living our lives by rote response to a training based in fear and coercion… so of course over its course… we but descend into confusion… because the truth we never hear is that we need each other to learn ‘to care’… and that it’s only in caring that we can be fully human… and the terms of ‘eat-or-be-eaten’ (and these are the terms whether your angle on ‘the system’ is ‘political’ or ‘economic’…) do not allow this.

 

These two pieces present an interesting juxtaposition, I think: ‘doom-and-gloom’… followed by ‘upbeat’… a tactic ‘power’ in all its guises gravitates to… a pattern in which ‘the beating’… is followed by ‘the Honeymoon… the ‘grim cop’ leaves… the ‘friendly face’ comes… we know these actors… but who are the audience?

 

–––

 

I just listened to an interview with a man who is an editor of the works of Rosa Luxemburg. The dynamics of ‘class’ – the politics of ‘who matters’… of ‘insiders-and-outsiders’… of ‘fear of the hoard’ – dominated almost all aspects of this discussion (to say nothing of the fact that it was butting up against the state – that great defender and reproducer of ‘class’ – that got her killed…) but was never called out as such… as defining…

 

“Who matters?” is another way of asking the question.

 

I just listened to an interview with a man who is an editor of the works of Rosa Luxemburg. The dynamics of ‘class’ – the politics of ‘who matters’… of ‘insiders-and-outsiders’… of ‘fear of the hoard’ – dominated almost all aspects of this discussion (to say nothing of the fact that it was butting up against the state – that great defender and reproducer of ‘class’ – that got her killed…) but was never called out as such… as defining.

 

She was ignored at first by the German intelligentsia because she was a Pole… and so… a ‘nobody’… ‘the Russians’ were ‘backward’… the ‘Germans’ were not… so obviously they couldn’t have a ‘revolution’… and of course no ‘revolution’ without a ‘vanguard’… because the commoners must be given their instructions…

 

…and the conversation closed by praising her ‘prescience’… in criticizing Lenin for being so authoritarian towards… the common folk…

 

…because she could see – even back then – that you can’t have ‘revolution’… without broad… ‘democratic’… participation…

 

And no one said: “but how can a state carve out a different path… in a world premised on ‘supremacy’… and ‘conquest’?… on ‘eat-or-be-eaten’… and what do you call that state of things if not ‘totalitarian’? (can we see why they choose instead… to buff up the notion of ‘capitalism’… both the word and the ideology?)

 

–––

 

“…Today’s capitalism…”, he argues, “…is inherently predatory and destructive…” […this is called projecting and isolating all the evils of ‘class’ into this one pocket of ‘make-use-of’ illogic… and then… ‘the state’ is cleansed of all those bad vibes… opens its arms to welcome us back to the fold… we together wag our finger at the bad-boy-capitalists… and say “…we don't care that you own or control all the resources of the earth… because we're sharing knowledge… nah nah nah nah…” He’s selling us a mirage… I hope we don’t buy… – P.S.]

 

Nafeez Ahmed concludes his article on the UK’s ‘Research’ initiative to rope in academics… to legitimate the definition of ‘dissent’ as ‘threat to civilization’…

(…which… by the way… appeals to the ‘insiders’ to turn their backs on the ‘outsiders’… stimulates the fear in the fearful privileged ‘core’… who have internalized ‘the state’… by telling them who they should be scared of… and why… and reminding them who and what it is with which they should identify… ally… get in bed with…)

…by saying the problem isn’t ‘the state’… but rather ‘capitalism’ (we have a whole pack of Left pundits in the U.S. disseminating the same message….) Their intentions are good… he tells us… they’re just misguided.

 

And on that wistful note… whom should he behold?

 

Hark! In walks Steele…

 

…and wasn’t I just saying that ‘stimulating hope’ is ‘Organizing 101’?… but of course I was speaking about hope for an authentic solution… an actual exit from millennia-long entrapment.

 

But wait… Steele says this is so for his ‘open source manifesto’: “Transparency, Truth and Trust…” will finally rid us, he says… of the dominance of predatory natures.

 

Ahmed… is on board:

Steele’s book is a must-read, a powerful yet still pragmatic roadmap to a new civilisational paradigm… an unrelenting critique of the prevailing global order… a comprehensive vision of hope…

 

“We are at the end of a five-thousand-year-plus historical process during which human society grew in scale while it abandoned the early indigenous wisdom councils and communal decision-making,” he writes in The Open Source Everything Manifesto. “Power was centralised in the hands of increasingly specialised ‘elites’ and ‘experts’ who not only failed to achieve all they promised but used secrecy and the control of information to deceive the public into allowing them to retain power over community resources that they ultimately looted.” [Doesn’t this sound like the plot of the next Iron Man movie?… – P.S.]

[…and here we briskly leap… away from ‘elites’… and solidly land… in ‘capitalism’…

…and with the villain established… Steele grows expansive… – P.S.]

Today’s capitalism, he argues, is inherently predatory and destructive… […this is called projecting and isolating all the evils of ‘class’ into this one pocket of ‘make-use-of’ illogic… and then… ‘the state’ is cleansed of all those bad vibes… opens its arms to welcome us back to the fold… we together wag our finger at the bad-boy-capitalists… and say “…we don't care that you own or control all the resources of the earth… because we're sharing knowledge… nah nah nah nah…” – P.S.] Open source everything, in this context, offers us the chance to build on what we’ve learned through industrialisation, to learn from our mistakes, and catalyse the re-opening of the commons [Don’t be deceived… he’s not talking about those 3,000 vacant lots in Oakland… – P.S.], in the process breaking the grip of defunct power structures and enabling the possibility of prosperity for all. […As long as they control the definition of ‘prosperity’… and we buy it… Let’s don’t buy it… He’s selling us a mirage… I hope we don’t buy… – P.S.]

 

“…The wealth of networks, the wealth of knowledge, revolutionary wealth…” says Steele [This is the modern version of “when they came… we had the land and they had the Bible… when they left… we had the Bible and they had the land….” The modern version is about giving us a new Bible (they… ‘power’… at least have taken these words of Victor Hugo seriously: “…No vacuum in the human heart…” even if we on the Left have yet to do so…), and re-ensuring their lock… on the land… – P.S.] - “…all can create a nonzero win-win Earth that works for one hundred percent of humanity.” […He means that it will ensure that all of humanity works for them… – P.S.] “…This is the ‘utopia’ that Buckminster Fuller foresaw, now within our reach.” […These folks have no shame… Aidos left… and must come again… – P.S.]

 

“Sharing, not secrecy, is the means by which we realise such a lofty destiny as well as create infinite wealth. The wealth of networks, the wealth of knowledge, revolutionary wealth […This is the modern version of “when they came… we had the land and they had the Bible… when they left… we had the Bible and they had the land….” The modern version is about giving us a new Bible (they… ‘power’… at least have taken these words of Victor Hugo seriously: “…No vacuum in the human heart…” even if we on the Left have yet to do so…), and re-ensuring their lock… on the land… – P.S.] - all can create a nonzero win-win Earth that works for one hundred percent of humanity. […He means that it will ensure that all of humanity works for them… – P.S.] This is the ‘utopia’ that Buckminster Fuller foresaw, now within our reach.” […These folks have no shame… Aidos left… and must come again… – P.S.]

 

The goal, he concludes, is to reject:

 

“…concentrated illicitly aggregated and largely phantom wealth in favor of community wealth defined by community knowledge, community sharing of information, and community definition of truth derived in transparency and authenticity […Because they create – i.e. define the definitions of – all of that… so they can open it all up. They made it… it’s manufactured… – it’s all false… and so… gladly… ‘open and transparent’. You can see the falseness – a vast horizon of it – for days and days: nothing but nothing but ‘false’… – P.S.], the latter being the ultimate arbiter of shared wealth.”

This would almost be funny… if it weren’t so hideous. His solution… he says… is: “lay back… and think of England…” (the ‘rape’ analogy… is coming up for a lot of us these days… in numerous contexts…)

 

‘A new civilizational paradigm’ is how Ahmed characterizes it… any Kropotkin in it?… “No…” I’m sure he’d say… “this is ‘pragmatic.’”

 

(But there is some Kropotkin in it… as we’ll see next week. Kropotkin is too rich and influential a repository of thought… for future-planning… for ‘power’ not to rip off… and attempt to co-opt….)

 

So… ‘the goal’ is for we-commoners to see… that all those concentrated means…

(…recall… Ahmed himself said: “Given that a tightly-knit network of just 147 of the world's most powerful companies own and control the bulk of the world's productive assets, this is virtually a defence manifesto for the 1% (or, perhaps more accurately, the 0.1%)…” Try .0001%… those ten thousand guys… each racing to be… ‘the pinpoint of the hierarchy’…)

…is a mirage… that we should just ‘let go’ of… and rather… sit back and smell… ‘true wealth’… –

 

…or maybe that’s something else.

 

–––

 

* “WUR of August 3rd, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

The Global-State’s Wet-Dream (as imagined by Mr. Steele): From Whom Much Is Taken… Nothing Will Be Given… Except the Pater-State’s Warm Thanks…

 

(What do you think… does this look like ‘Freedom’? In the April 27, 2014 show we argued that “‘power’ is well aware of what ‘good life’ looks like… there’s no mystery about it… we all want the same things… they just want it all for them… and none for us…” but for we-the-global-people to give this good-life – freedom-leisure-happiness – to each other… we need mutual trust.

 

But instead of we-the-global-people having mutual trust… we have the state saying, “put your trust in us… we have good intentions…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…it’s important that we see what’s going on… see ‘power’s tactics – which are as old as ‘class’ – from the vantage of the whole… and recognize that the cons they give to us are ‘carrots’… and that our less ‘privileged’ (if you can call ‘betrayal’ by that name…) our less ‘privileged’ brothers and sisters get the stick… get the hunger… get the violence. ‘Power’ will use every tactic in this moment to divide us… because this Global Awakening is occurring at a time when we have the tools to end ‘power’… and design for ourselves the good life we all want. No one can do this for us but ourselves… and certainly not the state…

 

Sisters and Brothers: In recent shows we’ve been taking a look at a current attempt of ‘power’… in the UK and US… to hypnotize us… deputize our spirits… and ride our backs… with our seeming permission: once again the attempt at substitution… empty words and hollow phrases… for the land… new leashes… for our freedom. But it’s important that we see what’s going on… see ‘power’s tactics – which are as old as ‘class’ – from the vantage of the whole… and recognize that the cons they give to us are ‘carrots’… and that our less ‘privileged’ (if you can call ‘betrayal’ by that name…) our less ‘privileged’ brothers and sisters get the stick… get the hunger… get the violence. ‘Power’ will use every tactic in this moment to divide us… because this Global Awakening is occurring at a time when we have the tools to end ‘power’… and design for ourselves the good life we all want. No one can do this for us but ourselves… and certainly not the state.

 

What did Shakespeare say? “God grant I never prove so fond [foolish] as to trust [‘power’] on its own bond, or a dog that seems a’sleeping, or a keeper with my freedom.” That just about sums it up. For millennia we have been trusting our freedom… with a keeper.

 

You see… all of us… over the millennia… have been trying to create our own little mini-‘worlds’ within the horror that ‘power’ creates globally. But slavery of every sort (including the one that compels us to find ‘jobs’…) Auschwitz… and ocean-death… shows us where that path of least resistance… along which we bury our heads in the sand… leads.

 

And we can no longer tolerate the illusion that we can sanguinely vest our power in states.

 

But let’s never forget what Göring… on the edge of death… said… he told the truth… he had no axes left:

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

 

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

 

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

(Hermann Göring in an interview with Gilbert in Göring’s jail cell during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (18 April 1946, from Wikiquote)

We have yet to talk about those words. That’s not by accident.

 

–––

 

A world chock-full of the living-dead… is what Plato’s Tribe has in store for us. For what are humans with unrealized dreams – unfelt imaginings, as Shakespeare put it – but the living dead? And what else can it mean… when children try to realize their parents’ dead dreams… but being vampire-bit? …we have to remove this baggage from the children… to allow them to choose freedom. The state manifests the baggage of millennia… in it is trapped the suppressed dreams of the people. Isn’t that the source of all the vampire… zombie… imagery that recurs over the centuries?… a generation-after-generation sense… that we’re living in the ‘night of the living dead’…

 

July 29, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: In our last show we raised the question, “How do we transition to freedom?”

 

This key question is the point of all our discussions… all raise the hope that we will join in the birthing… of a new world… beyond class… beyond structurally imposed and enforced stagnation and immaturity for the vast majority…

 

…‘immaturity’ because we are compelled to be dependent… compelled to self-limit… compelled to relinquish our gifts…

 

…and this ‘social arrangement’ cannot continue if we are to honor our commitments to life… to each other… and to a healthy planet.

 

I just listened to a group of Israeli ‘citizens’ debate the actions of their government…

(…and could it be exampled more horrifically – outside of the Weimar Republic – what we’re seeing in Gaza… the catastrophe it means… when people get in bed with governments? The Israeli state also illustrates what it means when ‘the fathers’ ‘bestow’ on the children the responsibility to realize their unmet dreams. [We need a long talk about this one… and we need Alice Miller for that conversation.]

 

A world chock-full of the living-dead… is what Plato’s Tribe has in store for us. For what are humans with unrealized dreams – unfelt imaginings, as Shakespeare put it – but the living dead? And what else can it mean… when children try to realize their parents’ dead dreams… but being vampire-bit?

 

So we have a responsibility to our posterity… no less than to ourselves… to fight for and achieve the absolute prerequisite for living freely – i.e. living our dreams – freedom-leisure-happiness based in universal individual freedom… premised on freedom from necessity: material abundance for all… not just for the few.

 

And this is a leisure that exists… in full understanding of what supports it: no more confusion to pass on to subsequent generations.

 

Kropotkin would argue… and I would agree… that into ‘the state’ is projected (and reposited…) all the power which is ours by provenance. ‘Rule by the few’… ‘class’… the maintenance of privilege… takes the energy of our unrealized dreams and uses it to fashion its own – while telling us it’s ours. The global-state-statesmen know what they want. But what do we want? And what are we willing to do… to get it?)

…and the words that were supportive… sounded like repetitions from ‘officialdom’… which included the dispiriting statistic that 96 percent of the populace stood with them. And the woman who dissented said her safety had been threatened… and that she’d never go back to Israel… because its atmosphere was so jingoistic… as if a Weimar in the making.

 

The vampire bit… and the poison coursing through transformed a broad love… into its opposite.

(By the by… almost as if in reply to a challenge posed here… I’ve heard repeated defenses of late from the progressive airwaves… using the example of the mendacity of the Israeli state… to highlight the importance of… what this media does… in exposing the truth of life for the Palestinians. As if… there’s some contradiction… between telling a narrow truth… and telling it in its authentic context… one, moreover, which… while delving in the muck… points the way out of it. Yes… we do want ‘facts’ beyond the propaganda of governments… but how does the incremental increase in the ‘knowledge’ of the punditry… slowly… mounting generationally… affect the vast majority? – who require from us a plan… to escape material entrapment… the trap called ‘manufactured scarcity’… called ‘stuck-in-hierarchy’… called ‘being a slave to necessity’? This is what needs to be put on the table: do we want to escape this mess called ‘class’?)

(In upcoming shows we’ll continue to examine… with the help of Kropotkin… the possibilities and risks of this decision-moment… between ‘Authority’ and freedom. As humans – young and old – who care about a healthy planet… and a healthy future for subsequent generations… we want to remove from the children… the weight of the fathers’ ‘baggage’… their ‘unfelt imaginations’… to allow them to choose freedom. The state manifests the baggage of millennia… in it is trapped the suppressed dreams of the people. Isn’t that the source of all the vampire… zombie… imagery that recurs over the centuries?… a generation-after-generation sense… that we’re living in the ‘night of the living dead’…)

 

–––

 

“Those that much covet are with gain so fond… 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, and such griefs sustain, That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.” – We are structurally trapped in this mindset…

 

Until we think ‘globally’… by seeing from the vantage of the whole – ‘globally’, in both senses of the word – we can’t be strategic.

 

E.g., the professional Left tends to think of its ‘work’ in the abstract… as increasing – either quantitatively or qualitatively – ‘Knowledge’ or ‘Information’ (or ‘supportive thoughts for Humanity’… as a mental exercise… no ‘heart… all ‘mind’.) If the result of its efforts can be described in those words, I suspect the pundit finds a sufficient contribution has been made to justify its superior position. Pundits never would and never could make freeing their sisters and brothers from the soul-crushing… mind-numbing narrowness of ‘the wage’… their responsibility… because they aren’t paid to – not in their job description. And moreover – with the exception of those whose means are independent (and even with these… as Alice explains… there’s an internalized leash… called ‘early childhood training’…) – generally they’re trapped too… so why should they care about me and you. So the pundit can care about the ‘narrow’… but not the ‘big’… ‘you’ in the abstract… but not ‘you’ in the global-trap. This is what the structure itself ordains.

 

So ‘the structure’ sets the terms – those tacit international arrangements, call them ‘statist’, those arrangements for preserving ‘rule’… ‘class’… ‘order’… ‘control of the masses’ – ‘the structure’ determines ‘all’… and they who keep the structure set in place… ultimately… are the statesmen of the ‘global-state’.

 

How was it that we ever imagined that ‘wage’-given-function – which narrows the focus and scope of agency… and concern… reducing us, in some sense… to ‘robots’ – how was it that we thought that ‘the wage’ could result in anything but something totalitarian?… as aggregated means will necessarily use this means to continuously aggregate ‘bias’… in thinking – in multitudinous ways… but primarily through ‘education’ and media – to preserve its advantage… and so the existing state of things. What else would those with disproportionate means (which ‘the wage’ is a signifier of… stands for… represents… as defining of ‘class’…) – what else would they do with this tool called ‘the wage’… but use it as lever to return their advantage again?… i.e. make more means… and so… more disparity… ever widening gaps in access to the planet.

 

I was listening to a discussion of Seattle’s phased-in $15 an hour minimum wage… and a ‘Milton Friedman’-type guy said, “Let the market determine value…” and that phrase feels suggestive of that ‘power’-guiding maxim from Mussolini: “someone has to be the pinpoint of the hierarchy… why not me?”

 

But it also reminds me of the lines from Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece:

Those that much covet are with gain so fond

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, and such griefs sustain,

…That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.

We are structurally trapped in this mindset.

 

The abandoned child will forever need ‘proof’ that he is worthy… or… better yet… ‘supreme’…. ‘Proof’ can only exist… for this mindset… with tangible ‘evidence’… either in those mounting digits… or in mounting means to play the global game of ‘Supremacy’. ‘Value’ is set… by controlling access to the determination of it… whether by controlling ‘the market’… or by controlling the minds that ‘the market’ buys. “Yes!” says our man with the market-fetish, “I have proof!… and it’s ‘objective’! – independent of what I did or didn’t get when I was small… and helpless. Now… I am… ‘really worth something’… ‘grand’ indeed among my contemporaries! You might even say my importance… is ‘world-historic!’”

 

It’s not about greed for money… but lust for ‘power’.

 

–––

 

…in response to my saying that the problem we face is ‘class’… is ‘power’… is ‘rank’… she said: “well it does organize things…” – and many of us think the same… we may not state it so bluntly… or may use slightly different language… like: “well, the alternative might be worse…” (heard that from a progressive woman…) – worse for who? As always there’s that ‘intermediary’ rank that is intentionally privileged so that they will unconsciously support what… otherwise… they could not help but see… is a disaster for everybody… But even as the noise of drones is all that fills our ears… “the thunder is the thunder of the floes…” the ‘upstart Spring’ is here… and what seems to be… when viewed narrowly… disappears into a vast and pregnant sea of hope… when viewed with global scope…

 

‘Totalitarian’ but means “no alternative to it”… “a single pattern of thought (‘hierarchy’) impressed across all social institutions…” – which ‘power’ disguises (per Bentham’s advice… and Plato before him…) in our seeming assent… because we’re never allowed to think about… any alternative to it.

 

This mindset of ‘abandonment’ is a totalitarian whole… whatever it targets to fill its Abyss… whatever the currency it uses as measurement… there is a single abyss of soullessness.

 

And they’ve created a world in their own image… a world of rigid hierarchical control… of mutual mistrust… of forced extraction… everything we see is the opposite of freedom…

 

…which depends on mutual trust between us…

 

…so when they destroy that… they destroy freedom. (I recently read about two separate instances here in the U.S…. of attempts to militarize the citizens… we’ll talk more about this.)

 

When Kropotkin said (and citing it, by the way, as a known adage – tell me we haven’t been de-skilled…) that “freedom is still the best answer to the problems of freedom…” what did he mean by that?

 

I think this is a useful in-road to our discussion of ‘class’… and breaking the nut of its so-called equivalence… with ‘progress’… or ‘civilization’.

 

When I was hawking books a woman said to me – in a manner that suggested she’d already given it due consideration… and had come to some certainty about it – in response to my saying that the problem we face is ‘class’… is ‘power’… is ‘rank’: “well it does organize things…”

 

…and many of us think the same… we may not state it so bluntly… or may use slightly different language… like: “well, the alternative might be worse…” (heard that from a progressive woman…) – worse for who? As always there’s that ‘intermediary’ rank that is intentionally privileged so that they will unconsciously support what… otherwise… they could not help but see… is a disaster for everybody.

 

So… many of us think the same… can’t imagine… as Kropotkin can… how anything happens… without ‘class’… without ‘rank’… without bullies and bullied… ‘masters’ and ‘slaves’….

 

Moreover… as we said last week… our being forced to a narrow function “the structure itself ordains…” which could understandably make us fear… the trap has no escape….

 

But even as the noise of drones is all that fills our ears…

 

…recall…

 

“…the thunder is the thunder of the floes…” the ‘upstart Spring’ is here…

 

…and what seems to be… when viewed narrowly… disappears into a vast and pregnant sea of hope… when viewed with global scope….

 

The structure is breaking down.

 

They plant their ‘Steeles’ to intercept the many many of us who can’t…

 

…be given narrow instructions….

 

–––

 

The ‘system’ of ranking was a devastating experiment… born of unformed minds with an all-consuming obsession and an all-consuming fear… of ‘not-being-good-enough’… and this all-consuming fear clung to its all-consuming mission… to ‘order’ the planet… and ‘prove’ it was ‘the best’… and so we were punished… for a love broad and generous… with a cruelty intended to make us believe… that to hold to a love… that was broad and generous… was to ask for a beating… and to be cursed as ‘weak’… and this punishment by Fear… its effect so vampiric… its purpose a ‘proof’ to salve a few damaged souls… in consuming ever more of us… now threatens the planet… now threatens our birthright… by making us versions of them. So what we’re talking about here… the whole point of these discussions… is that to be part of our global transition… to freedom… we cannot remain anymore… as children.…

 

Brothers and Sisters: we must start listening again… first and foremost to the earth… but I want to focus our attention for a minute… on what flies above us… listen to the skies… hear the drones… they constant fly… all over Berkeley… and not she alone… and while they rush to think up ‘commercial’ uses for them… so as to desensitize us to their presence… never forget their primary purpose is surveillance… what does this tell us we should do in this moment?… if not organize with our brothers and sisters to the concept that we have the right… as global human beings… to say that ‘happiness’ means freedom from necessity and universal leisure established globally.

 

In the July 20, 2014 show we said that “Steele was the necessary result of a totalitarian trajectory…

 

…by which, I don’t mean that the global-state-system of ‘class’ is on a trajectory toward totalitarianism. No. What I’m trying to suggest is that a totalitarian system (which I believe ‘class’ is by definition…) takes a necessary path (and Polanyi… using other language… is nonetheless describing the same underlying reality by calling our attention to the cycles of ‘power’-encroachment on… abrogation… usurpation… of… our – we-the-people’s – stuff [spiritual… material… our mental turf…] followed by our ‘fight-back’ to reclaim it…)

 

…but what’s never said…

 

…is that we always get tricked with a substitution…

 

…the Bible for the land…

 

…flowery phrases for the earth that made us…

 

…which is what Steele is doing here.

 

In order to not be vulnerable to the dynamics of the con… we have to have no need for whatever ‘power’ is selling… we have to be self-creating… generating.

 

–––

 

Point being: keeping our thought ‘safe’ for states… keeps it small.

 

The ‘system’ of ranking was a devastating experiment… born of unformed minds with an all-consuming obsession and an all-consuming fear… of ‘not-being-good-enough’…

 

…and this all-consuming fear clung to its all-consuming mission… to ‘order’ the planet… and ‘prove’ it was ‘the best’…

 

…and it did this by learning how to bully the rest of us… who held to a love that was broad and generous… and souls shaped in security… knew not how to resist.

 

…and so we were punished… for a love broad and generous… with a cruelty intended to make us believe… that to hold to a love… that was broad and generous… was to ask for a beating… and to be cursed as ‘weak’…

 

…and this punishment by Fear… its effect so vampiric… its purpose a ‘proof’ to salve a few damaged souls… in consuming ever more of us… now threatens the planet… now threatens our birthright… by making us versions of them.

 

So what we’re talking about here… the whole point of these discussions… is that to be part of our global transition… to freedom… we cannot remain anymore… as children.

 

–––

Continuing with Chapter 16… “Wartime Choices”:

 

“The fascist obsession with racial purity, not only in those areas occupied by Germany but elsewhere too, had a huge impact on European attitudes. It made people aware of race in a way they never had been before…” …we really need to talk more about the degree to which ‘Fascism’ was influenced by ‘slavery’ in the U.S.…. Remember W.E.B. DuBois words that the problem of the twentieth century in the U.S. was the problem of the color line? Well… it became the global problem of the twentieth century. ‘Divide and conquer’ is the problem of the last five millennia… the problem for us to solve… to move beyond ‘class’… – P.S.

 

In an effort to categorize the population of Europe, the Nazis insisted on issuing everyone with identity cards, coloured according to ethnicity. They created vast bureaucracies to classify entire populations by race. In Poland for example, a racial hierarchy was devised which put Reich Germans at the top, ethnic Germans next, then privileged minorities such as Ukrainians, followed by Poles, Gypsies and Jews. The classifications did not stop there. Ethnic Germans, for example, were broken down into further sub-categories: those who were so pure that they were eligible to join the Nazi Party, those who were pure enough for Reich citizenship, those who were tainted by Polish blood or Polish influences, and finally those Poles who were to be considered as ethnically German only because of their physical appearance or way of life.

 

Those who did not have their ethnicity chosen for them had to make the decision for themselves. This was not always easy. Many people had multiple options, either because they had mixed-race parents or grandparents or because they saw no contradiction in being simultaneously, say, Polish by birth, Lithuanian by nationality and German by ethnicity. When forced to make a choice, their decision was often naively random at best, perhaps inspired by a parent, a spouse, or even a friend. The more calculating chose an identity according to what benefits it might offer. Claiming German ethnicity, for example, could confer exemption from labour round-ups and eligibility for special rations and tax breaks….

[Again… this is the ‘work’ of ‘statesmen’… in possession of a ‘vision’… of ‘perfection’… i.e. slaves to illusions… made insane with lies…. And I hope we see… thanks to Alice Miller’s gentle and dedicated teaching… that the insanity has but become more extreme… to the degree it disappears into ‘normalcy’… – P.S.]

On the other hand, it could also mean liability for military conscription: the decision sometimes boiled down to whether the Russian front was preferable to a slave-labour camp.

 

The choices that people made regarding their ethnicity would have implications far beyond the end of the war. While hostilities in Europe officially ended in May 1945, the various conflicts over race and ethnicity continued for months, sometimes years, afterwards. Sometimes these conflicts were intensely local, even personal – people in small towns and villages knew the ethnicity of their neighbours, and acted accordingly. Increasingly, however, the conflict would be conducted on a regional, or even a national level. In the aftermath of the war entire populations would be expelled from areas where they had lived for centuries – purely on the basis of what was written on their wartime identity cards.

 

The fascist obsession with racial purity, not only in those areas occupied by Germany but elsewhere too, had a huge impact on European attitudes. It made people aware of race in a way they never had been before. It obliged people to take sides, where they wanted to or not. And, in communities that had lived side by side more or less peacefully for centuries, it made race into a problem – indeed, it elevated it to the problem – that needed solving.

[…we really need to talk more about the degree to which ‘Fascism’ was influenced by ‘slavery’ in the U.S.…. Remember W.E.B. DuBois words that the problem of the twentieth century in the U.S. was the problem of the color line? Well… it became the global problem of the twentieth century. ‘Divide and conquer’ is the problem of the last five millennia… the problem for us to solve… to move beyond ‘class’… – P.S.]

As the war had taught people, some of the solutions could be radical, and final.

 

–––

 

* Chapter 17… “The Jewish Flight”

 

“At the beginning of May 1945, an eighteen-year-old Polish Jew named Roman Halter was liberated by the Russians. He and two other Jews had been hiding with a German couple near Dresden who had taken them in after they escaped from a death march. Having survived various labour camps, including Auschwitz. Having survived various labour camps, including Auschwitz, he was weak and emaciated – but he was alive, and knew himself to be extremely lucky… He had not been traveling long when he came across one of his Russian liberators… Unfortunately, as he would find out, his fraternal feelings were not reciprocated… The memory of that meeting would haunt Halter for the rest of his life. Its meaning was ominous. Despite their shared experience as victims of the Germans, and despite Halter’s spontaneous offer of friendship, this nameless Russian had treated him exactly as an SS officer might have done… Despite all that the Jews had suffered, in many areas anti-Semitism would increase after the war… the task of permanently clearing their communities of Jews, which even the Nazis had failed to do, would be finished off by local people.”

 

At the beginning of May 1945, an eighteen-year-old Polish Jew named Roman Halter was liberated by the Russians. He and two other Jews had been hiding with a German couple near Dresden who had taken them in after they escaped from a death march. Having survived various labour camps, including Auschwitz…

[“We climbed into the cars and, after an all-night wait, began to move. The trip lasted five days. I did not count the number of comrades who froze to death, but only 1,500 of us reached our destination, the Mauthausen KZ. Some of the missing 500 were not dead, however, for there were a few who, taking advantage of a propitious occasion, fled the convoy and perhaps escaped.” Miklos Nyiszli’s Auschwitz, Chapter 36) – P.S.]

…Having survived various labour camps, including Auschwitz, he was weak and emaciated – but he was alive, and knew himself to be extremely lucky.

 

The day after his liberation, Halter said goodbye to the couple who had sheltered him. He wanted desperately to find out if anyone else in his family had survived the Holocaust, so he acquired himself a bicycle, tied to the handlebars a few glass jars of preserved meat that he had found in a deserted farmstead and set off on the road back to Poland.

 

He had not been traveling long when he came across one of his Russian liberators, who was driving a motorbike. Halter was enormously grateful to the Russians for rescuing him. He thought of them as friends to the Jews, liberators, ‘good people’ – he even spoke a little Russian himself, which he still remembered from his childhood. Unfortunately, as he would find out, his fraternal feelings were not reciprocated.

I was pleased to see him… I still remembered the Russian words which I had learned from my parents. ‘Ruski, ja cie lublu!’ I said (‘Russian, I love you’), and then added, ‘Zdrastvite towarisz’ (Hello friend’). He looked at me strangely and began speaking Russian very fast. I smile and said in Polish that I was unable to understand him. He looked me up and down. Then he looked at my bike and said, ‘Dawaj czasy’ (‘Give me watches’). I understood that. He pulled up his shirt sleeves and showed me his forearms full of watches and then repeated the two words again. ‘Dawaj czasy.’

 

I glanced at his eyes, they were stern and cold. I began speaking to him in Polish. I said that I hadn’t got watches and showed him both my thin forearms. He pointed to the bulging blanket fixed to my bike’s crossbar and said something in Russian. I went up and took out one jar and handed it to him. ‘Mieso,’ I said. ‘Towarisz, mieso’ (‘Comrade, meat’). The meat was visible through the glass. He looked at it and then at me. ‘Towarisz, you have it, please take it and enjoy it.’

 

He lifted the glass jar and held it above his head for a second or so and then smashed it on to the ground. The glass and the meat spattered in all directions. I looked at the Russian soldier and fear entered my heart. What could I say to make him leave me alone? I felt momentarily numb. ‘Lower your trousers,’ he said in his language. I stood there shaken and didn’t quite know what he meant. He repeated his command and by gestures showed me what he wanted me to do.

 

…I put my bike carefully on the ground so as not to break the glass jars in the pouch and began lowering my trousers. ‘Why is he making me do this?’ I thought. Perhaps he thinks that I carry a belt with watches around my waist. I must tell him that I am not a German who just speaks Polish. So, as I was lowering my trousers and showing him that I am without belt or watches around my waist, I slowly told him in Polish that I am a Jew. I knew the word ‘Ivrei’. ‘Ja Ivrei,’ I repeated. ‘Ja Ivrei, ja towarisz’ (‘I am a Jew, I am a comrade’).

 

I stood before him now naked from my waist down, although my instinct told me not to take off my good lace-up boots in case he took them and left me bare-footed. I could not reach Chodecz bare-footed. So I let my trousers and pants hang over my socks and boots. I glanced at his eyes again. There was a look of contempt in them as he was viewing the exposed part of my body. I saw in them a killer’s void.

 

He took out his revolver from his holster, pointed at my head and pulled the trigger. There was a loud click. Without a word to me he kick-started his motorbike and drove off. I stood there for a time with my trousers and pants down and looked at him disappearing into the distance. (Roman Halter, letter to Martin Gilbert in The Boys, p. 266 – 8)

The memory of that meeting would haunt Halter for the rest of his life. Its meaning was ominous. Despite their shared experience as victims of the Germans, and despite Halter’s spontaneous offer of friendship, this nameless Russian had treated him exactly as an SS officer might have done: first establishing that he was Jewish by checking to see if he were circumcised, and then putting a gun to his head. Whether Halter’s life had been saved by the gun jamming, or merely a lack of ammunition, he would never know.

 

In the months to come such scenes would be repeated across Europe. Jews of all nationalities would discover that the end of German rule did not mean the end of persecution. Far from it. Despite all that the Jews had suffered, in many areas anti-Semitism would increase after the war. Violence against Jews would resurface everywhere – even in places that had never been occupied, such as Britain. In some parts of Europe this violence would be final and definitive: the task of permanently clearing their communities of Jews, which even the Nazis had failed to do, would be finished off by local people.

 

As Alice Miller said… ‘Empathy’s death feeds and seeds an on-going ‘circle of contempt’… only broken when we see and understand how it has been kept going. In the chapter of her book – For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence – called “Poisonous Pedagogy”, Alice Miller opens the section titled “The ‘Sacred’ Values of Child-Rearing” with a quote from Adolf Hitler: “It also gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them.”… Alice writes: “People who have grown up within the value system of ‘poisonous pedagogy’… will say that I am displaying a naïve optimism and have no idea just how bad children can be. Such reproaches would come as no surprise, for the reasons behind them are all too familiar to me.”

 

The Choice to Return Home

 

In the aftermath of the war, European Jews began to turn their thoughts to the lessons that could be learned from what they had just experienced. Some Jewish thinkers believed that the Holocaust had been possible only because Jews had made themselves too conspicuous before and during the war. They argued that the only way to avoid the possibility of a similar catastrophe in the future was to make themselves invisible, by assimilating completely into the various countries in which they lived.

 

Zionists, however, claimed that this was nonsense: even well-assimilated Jews had been winkled out by Hitler’s henchmen and murdered along with all the others. They argued that the only way to ensure their safety was to leave Europe altogether and set up their own state.

[…and given that its Plato-rooted vision of ‘global order’ is the inspiration and self-justification of global-statesmen… it is very easy to imagine that their dollars… and clandestine encouragement… and behind-scenes machinations… all went towards this intention… – P.S.]

A third group thought that either of these approaches was effectively an admission of defeat. They believed it their duty to return to their countries of origin and try to rebuild their communities as best they could.

[…I can also easily imagine that this would be Miklos’ position… – P.S.]

The vast majority of Europe’s surviving Jews initially tended to agree with this last view – not out of any particular ideology, but simply because they had spent their years of exile and incarceration daydreaming about the possibility of returning home. Most realized, intellectually if not emotionally, that the communities they had left behind no longer existed. But the majority of Jews returned anyway, partly out of an emotional attachment to their home towns and villages, and partly out of a desire to reconstruct the only version of normality they had ever known. Whether they continued to nurture these hopes after they arrived depended a great deal on the welcome they received.

 

From a Jewish point of view, Europe was a confusing place after the war. Much had changed since the defeat of Germany, but much had also remained the same. On the one hand the organizations dedicated to persecuting Jews had been replaced by organizations dedicated to helping them. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was bringing in millions of dollars worth of food, medicine and clothing, and was helping to rebuild synagogues and Jewish cultural centres across the continent. Non-Jewish aid agencies such as UNRRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration] and the Red Cross were also providing targeted help, such as the establishment of exclusively Jewish DP [Displaced Persons] camps…

[And we’re going to make a slight detour in order to explore the wider psychic terrain the returning displaced faced:

 

“According to an UNRRA study into the psychological problems of displaced persons it was quite normal for DPs to exhibit ‘lawless aggressiveness’, along with a host of other psychological problems, including a sense of unworthiness… bitterness and touchiness’. A high proportion of DPs showed signs of extreme cynicism: ‘nothing that is done even by helpful people is regarded as genuine or sincere’.” Savage Continent, p. 49. As Alice Miller said… ‘Empathy’s death feeds and seeds an on-going ‘circle of contempt’… only broken when we see and understand how it has been kept going. In the chapter of her book – For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence – called “Poisonous Pedagogy”, Alice Miller opens the section titled “The ‘Sacred’ Values of Child-Rearing” with a quote from Adolf Hitler: “It also gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them.”

 

Alice writes:

People who have grown up within the value system of “poisonous pedagogy” and have remained untouched by psychoanalytic insights will probably respond to my antipedagogic position with either conscious anxiety or intellectual rejection. They will reproach me for being indifferent to “sacred” values or will say that I am displaying a naïve optimism and have no idea just how bad children can be. Such reproaches would come as no surprise, for the reasons behind them are all too familiar to me. Nevertheless, I would like to comment on the question of indifference to values.

 

Alice writes: “It is clear from the foregoing that a relativity of traditional moral values is an intrinsic part of this system: in the last analysis, our status and degree of power determine whether our actions are judged to be good or bad. This same principle prevails throughout the whole world [of ‘class’…]. The strong person dictates the verdict, and the victor in a war will sooner or later be applauded, regardless of the crimes that have been committed on the road to victory.” Alice is explaining… how that ‘worship-of-power’ ‘instinct’… that Karl Popper speaks of… came to be.

 

Every pedagogue accepts as a foregone conclusion that it is wrong to tell a lie, to hurt or offend another human being, and to respond in kind to parental cruelty instead of showing understanding for the good intentions involved, etc. On the other hand, it is considered admirable and right for a child to tell the truth, to be grateful for the parents’ intentions and overlook the cruelty of their actions, to accept the parents’ ideas but still be able to express his or her own ideas independently and above all not to be difficult when it comes to what is expected of him or her. In order to teach the child these almost universal values [I would say ‘values of class’… of ‘power’… – P.S.], which are rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, among others, adults believe they must sometimes resort to lying, deception, cruelty mistreatment, and to subjecting the child to humiliation.…

 

[Let me repeat that: in order to teach the child these ‘values of class’… of ‘power’… adults believe that sometimes you have to lie… to deceive… be cruel… and subject the child to humiliation… – P.S.]

 

It is clear from the foregoing that a relativity of traditional moral values is an intrinsic part of this system: in the last analysis, our status and degree of power determine whether our actions are judged to be good or bad. This same principle prevails throughout the whole world [of ‘class’…]. The strong person dictates the verdict, and the victor in a war will sooner or later be applauded, regardless of the crimes that have been committed on the road to victory.

 

[Remember how Popper put it?:

What people have in mind when they speak of the history of mankind is, rather, the history of the Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires, and so on, down to our own day. In other words: They speak about the history of mankind, but what they mean, and what they have learned about in school, is the history of political power…. This is elevated into the history of the world. But this, I hold, is an offence against every decent conception of mankind. It is hardly better than to treat the history of embezzlement or of robbery or of poisoning as the history of mankind. For the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including, it is true, some of the attempt to suppress them). This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as its heroes….

 

…what really happens within the realm of human lives is hardly ever touched upon by this cruel and at the same time childish affair. The life of the forgotten, of the unknown individual man; his sorrows and his joys, his suffering and death, this is the real content of human experience down the ages… all the history which exists, our history of the Great and the Powerful, is at best a shallow comedy; it is the opera buffa played by the powers behind reality… It is what one of our worst instincts, the idolatrous worship of power, of success, has led us to believe to be real. (Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx and the Aftermath, p. 270 – 272)

…well… Alice is explaining… how that ‘worship-of-power’ ‘instinct’… came to be. Next week we continue with Alice Miller… – P.S.]

–––

 

* “WUR of August 10th, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

When you understand the theory… of what makes healthy beings… it’s obvious what we need… and what our future must be.… And of course here in the U.S. there is no lack of land… resources… knowledge… with which we could provide for ourselves. The barriers we face in meeting our shelter, food, and good fellowship needs… are not technological or material… they are solely about preserving the regime of ‘rule’… of ‘rank’… of ‘control of the many by the few’…

 

01.16.12 – 01.17.12:

 

When you understand the theory…

…of what makes healthy beings…

…it’s obvious what we need…

…and what our future must be.

 

Our future’s made of sylvan musicking…

…sky-watching and meditating…

…it’s made of gardens we work commonly…

…and dance and song and poetry…

…it’s made of restoring our ancestors to their rightful roles…

…in their proper stories…

…it’s made of continuous community re-design…

…

…and helping our neighbors world-wide…

…it’s made of time alone with the earth…

…and sharing each others burdens.

 

(From: “Getting To Our Future Freedom: The ‘There’ – Addendum”

August 5th, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: There are some threads… that need to be inter-woven… to help us see the tapestry of our future freedom. In recent shows we’ve been arguing that:

 

• …the structure of the world of global-class supports ‘rank’… but not freedom…. Now… this is obvious, right? Here’s one example from an infinite number (until it isn’t…):

Disadvantaged groups in China have been dubbed a variety of names… Recently, the new word “rat tribe” has surfaced… people who live in cellars or underground air raid shelters. These places do not receive any sunlight and are hot, humid, and fetid. Nobody pays attention to these “second-class citizens” who share a room with rats.

 

The tragic condition of these groups is caused by high housing costs and the effects of the household registration… or “hukou” system [which] classifies people in China according to where they were born. Those born in the countryside face legal restrictions on working in the cities. The household registration system prohibits immigrants from the countryside from being eligible for social welfare or for their children to attend schools.

 

In addition, city-dwellers have for a long time held certain prejudices about these groups. They believe those peasants chose to drop farm work and come to cities simply to seek wealth and out of a vanity not consistent with their origins.

 

People also believe […and I think we can trace the source of all the prejudices… so effective in keeping us separated… back to the state… how else can statesmen get our labor cheap… unless it gets all of us to help mutually demoralize and demean? – P.S.] college graduates who are not from the cities continue to cling to first-tier cities merely to satisfy their craving for something out of reach. However, the reality is that these migrant workers have endured tremendous hardship and have done great work developing and building the cities. College graduates who see the bustling cities as their dream are replenishing the vitality and diversity of the cities.

 

The authorities have not only failed to provide [shelter]… they have also abandoned them to the prejudices of society. They suffer from invisible pressure and inequality.

 

While limited housing resources might not be able to meet the housing needs of a sudden influx of migrants, China has many “ghost towns” – overdeveloped urban areas that have remained uninhabited for a long time…

 

The authorities could at least… […there we go… begging again… – P.S.] (“‘Rat Tribe’ Lives in Shadows of China’s Cities,” Epoch Times, July 24 – 30, 2014)

And of course here in the U.S. there is no lack of land… resources… knowledge… with which we could provide for ourselves. The barriers we face in meeting our shelter, food, and good fellowship needs… are not technological or material… they are solely about preserving the regime of ‘rule’… of ‘rank’… of ‘control of the many by the few’…

 

…this transition is seen in ‘the whole’… because our future is ‘the whole’… and is necessarily seen best, then, through that lens. ‘Power hides in fragmentation. If it can get us stuck in studying fragments… it can have its way with the overall structure… it’s quite obvious that ‘the market’s main function… is to rank us… by assigning values to us… to render as ‘science’ the ranking imposed by ‘rule’. Since its inception, ‘rule’ has been trying to figure out how to ‘disappear’ itself into seeming ‘natural law’… the so-called ‘natural order of things’… which conveniently elevates trashing the earth (‘capitalism’… ‘economic development’… total privatization of the planet…) into a patriotic imperative.… (‘economic development’…is anyone else incensed by this way of describing the rape of the planet?… appalled at the notion of celebrating that the last bit of our common inheritance is being extracted and placed in private hands?) …so… seeing all this… exposes the absence of any meaningful ‘democracy’… because the ‘mental’ ‘deck’ is stacked… to prevent any questioning of it… of ‘class’… [This is discussed in the booklet The Violence of ‘Class’…]

 

…and I’m under no illusion that I’m the only one thinking this… just the opposite. This week I went down and signed up at ‘Berkeley Community Media’ with the intention of finding new ways to spread these messages… and the woman behind the desk (or at the computer station…) already knew that the problem was ‘class’… ‘power’… not ‘capitalism’. But I do have the luxury of giving it my almost exclusive focus.

 

• …‘seeing from the vantage of the whole’ helps us see the transition to freedom… – when stuck in the box called ‘nation-state’… or ‘rank’ it can be difficult to see this movement away from it. And in the most straight-forward sense… this transition is seen in ‘the whole’… because our future is ‘the whole’… and is necessarily seen best, then, through that lens.

 

‘Power hides in fragmentation. If it can get us stuck in studying fragments… it can have its way with the overall structure.

 

• …seeing our deep conditioning by which we accept unquestioningly the commodification of human energy (the point of which… we have argued… is to rank us… by assigning values to us…

…it’s quite obvious that this is ‘the market’s main function… to render as ‘science’ the ranking imposed by ‘rule’. Since its inception, ‘rule’ has been trying to figure out how to ‘disappear’ itself into seeming ‘natural law’… the so-called ‘natural order of things’. It did this first with the invention of ‘the gods’… as Plato’s Uncle Critias said… then… since… it’s tried to hide in ‘science’… which invented ‘stages of History’ (atop which it placed the rulers – who formerly served on Mount Olympus…) which conveniently elevated trashing the earth (‘capitalism’… ‘economic development’… total privatization of the planet…) into a patriotic imperative.

 

(This week I listened appalled to a pundit applaud the ‘fact’ that the ‘fastest growing economies’ are in Africa – is anyone else incensed by this way of describing the rape of the planet?… appalled at the notion of celebrating that the last bit of our common inheritance is being extracted and placed in private hands?)

 

The whole con ‘march of civilization’ is core propaganda that states use to dispossess us of the land… regiment us to ‘ranks’… and ensure that the ‘lower’ we go… the closer to earth-reverence we go… the more vigorous ‘power’s attempts will be to isolate and strip us of any value (as validated by ‘the market’… i.e. ‘scientific authority’…) as it is we on the bottom ‘power’ has always most feared – and of course the key ‘class’ for ‘power’… to run their whole scam is… if they can finagle it… a rank of ‘permanently degraded’…)

…so… seeing all this… exposes the absence of any meaningful ‘democracy’… because the ‘mental’ ‘deck’ is stacked… to prevent any questioning of it… of ‘class’… [This is discussed in the booklet The Violence of ‘Class’… which argues that we cannot give our ‘consent’ to be governed if our judgment has been kept intentionally impaired.]

 

“…Atropos has come with her shears… the time of ‘rule’ has full-run… the time of individualities has now begun…” – we’re ready to grow up… they’re not ready to let go… so that means we have to come together with our brothers and sisters… and face reality – that the world we are searching for is the one we make which is based on values that the earth affirms… i.e. the values that are not relative… (‘power’ has a lock on the media… they have accumulated the resources for this moment – they know resources are finite… their day-to-day ain’t consumed in survival issues… they’ve had beaucoup time to plan for this moment… that’s why we must not waste our time trying to ‘fix’ something designed to contain us… time is of the essence… we have to ‘give back’ for all those ‘conveniences’ bought with blood… we have to give back for the fact that we have this rhetoric… this ideology… of ‘democracy’ that ‘power’ is not yet prepared to see de-legitimized. So we have to use that advantage that was purchased by all of our brothers and sisters globally…)

 

• …there are the two great anti-spiritual veins that states depend on… to make us believe they are legitimate… and so to maintain their existence: instilled obedience… and ‘power’-worship… and Alice showed us [and her explanation will be developed further today…] how it is that parents teach [unconsciously] “…the relativity of values based upon one’s position of power….” [and we argued that the implication of this is that it’s not just that “…the winners write the history…” – but that they write our souls as well…]

 

• …Alice will be arguing today – expressing a thought likewise implied by George Sand and Miklos Nyiszli and Leo Tolstoi and Antiphon (and he some two thousand five hundred years ago… [discussed on the Waking Up Radio show of October 27, 2013 – which argued that “…we can’t grow up as a global humanity while letting the few lead…” and that for ‘power’… “…Atropos has come with her shears… the time of ‘rule’ has full-run… the time of individualities has now begun…”]) – we’re ready to grow up… they’re not ready to let go… so that means we have to come together with our brothers and sisters… and face reality – that the world we are searching for is the one we make which is based on values that the earth affirms… i.e. the values that are not relative…

 

• …and as the need for this new world we never hear spoken over the airwaves… (‘power’ has a lock on the media… they have accumulated the resources for this moment – they know resources are finite… their day-to-day ain’t consumed in survival issues… they’ve had beaucoup time to plan for this moment… that’s why we must not waste our time trying to ‘fix’ something designed to contain us… time is of the essence… our brothers and sisters and our plant and non-human-animal friends are waiting on us… depending on us… we here in the U.S. have some room to maneuver… that’s not true most places… so we have to ‘give back’ for all those ‘conveniences’ bought with blood… we have to give back for the fact that we have this rhetoric… this ideology… of ‘democracy’ that ‘power’ is not yet prepared to see de-legitimized. So we have to use that advantage that was purchased by all of our brothers and sisters globally…)

 

…and as the need for this new world we never hear spoken over the airwaves… there is a critical need… therefore… to break free… of those voices… and to develop our own…

 

“Freedom is still the best answer to the problems of freedom…” – what better base-meaning of this than that the earth teaches us best? As Mrs. Trotter used to say: “bought sense is better than taught sense….” It’s ‘force’ that is the culprit. ‘power’ – is what ‘the state’ means… and getting free of ‘power’ is how we advance the species.” (That’s our ‘work’ right now… to get free of ‘power’… all of us globally….)

 

• …“Freedom is still the best answer to the problems of freedom…” – what better base-meaning of this than that the earth teaches us best? As Mrs. Trotter used to say: “bought sense is better than taught sense….”

(This message is key in the novel by Johanna Spyri… the story of Heidi… whose Grandfather refuses to let the child leave the mountain to go to school. “What are you going to make of the child?” says the disapproving Pastor. “Nothing,” the Grandfather replies, [Great answer… as that’s the problem right there… a system that tries to make of our children what ‘it’ needs to perpetuate its regime of control… ‘its’ obsession with striving ever for ‘perfection’… in its sad need to feel ‘supreme’. The truth is… we are born whole… and it takes a lot of concentrated energy to destroy that… and so… when we reclaim our lives… the energy released… is gonna be an amazing thing to see… and feel… and be in…. It’s time to begin…] “she grows and thrives with the goats and the birds. She is well enough with them […and that’s an understatement… they are models of what is true… and honest… – P.S.], she learns no harm from them.” I was thinking of this when I listened to a group of pundits discuss how to get youth engaged in electoral politics… apparently in response to a request from a state Supreme Court Justice… who was bothered that the youth she or he encountered were ‘unaware’ that the judiciary was ‘independent’… – and I thought… “‘independent’ of what?… of ‘power’? Certainly not… this – ‘power’ – is what ‘the state’ means… and getting free of ‘power’ is how we advance the species.” (That’s our ‘work’ right now… to get free of ‘power’… all of us globally….) All institutions under ‘class’ are in some sense ‘departments of state’… of ‘power’… exist to reinforce the legitimacy of ‘rule’. So the ‘learning’ we get from it… is inherently dishonest.

 

So here we have one state (in the earlier example of China…) denying ‘its’ degraded rank access to ‘education’… and another demanding all youth be ‘officially’ lied to…

 

Aren’t we sick of it? Aren’t we tired of getting jerked around by these arrogant folks? Who says we are ‘the state’s possession… to do with as it pleases?

 

It’s ‘force’ that is the culprit.

 

And while generalized human freedom must be premised on individual freedom from necessity – from the rule of compulsion in our lives – this doesn’t mean the collapse of sharing into a multiplicity of individual small (and arbitrary) tyrannies. We naturally congregate and share our knowledge… and we have the technology now to do it globally (that’s why we can get free… we couldn’t do it before… Tesla was absolutely right in his analysis. So all that’s required now is our discussions… breaking the ‘mind-lock’ of a totalitarian mindset of ‘Abandonment’ – we needed Alice Miller to see this….) So Heidi on her mountain has the whole world with her goat shed… and can decide what she wants to learn from it… as well as from her Falknis [Falcon’s nest]… and her Schwanli and her Barli.

 

And while generalized human freedom must be premised on individual freedom from necessity – from the rule of compulsion in our lives –

(…the only way the Grandfather in that story could be ‘free’… that is to say… could create himself…

 

…but I shouldn’t use the word ‘free’… because you ain’t free when you’re in the midst of a global reality based in compulsion… based in force… and in the story of Heidi it’s clear that he wasn’t really free… because ‘power’ can do with him as it pleases…

 

…and a lot of us… just like the Grandfather… try to figure out how to hang onto ourselves in the midst of a system built on slavery… on coercion… on forcing people into the roles… the ranks… that ‘power’ needs to perpetuate itself… and we all… just like him… try to figure out an individual solution… but it doesn’t work like that when you’re in a system… that’s what ‘system’ means: circular… self-reinforcing social relations of it… totalitarian… take it global… it’s real totalitarian then.)

And while generalized human freedom must be premised on individual freedom from necessity – from the rule of compulsion in our lives – this doesn’t mean the collapse of sharing into a multiplicity of individual small (and arbitrary) tyrannies. We naturally congregate and share our knowledge… and we have the technology now to do it globally (that’s why we can get free… we couldn’t do it before… Tesla was absolutely right in his analysis. So all that’s required now is our discussions… breaking the ‘mind-lock’ of a totalitarian mindset of ‘Abandonment’ – we needed Alice Miller to see this….) So Heidi on her mountain has the whole world with her goat shed… and can decide what she wants to learn from it… as well as from her Falknis [Falcon’s nest]… and her Schwanli and her Barli. She can laugh with a friend in Afghanistan every morning… and watch the high cliff-snow afire in evening light announce the coming night – once force is gone from our lives.)

…and we’ve argued that the alternative to a world based in the values that the earth affirms… is vampirism: not fully living – living the dreams… thinking the thoughts… of others – not ourselves – being cut off from our own root leads… under ‘class’… under ‘power’… to burdening the children with the unrealized dreams of ‘rule’ – leaving them ‘vampire-bit’… and this… ‘night of the living dead’-nightmare we’re living… exposes the lie… that ‘class’ equals ‘civilization’… …rather… it is the earth… that is ‘civilizing’…

 

• …For our discussion of the false notion that ‘class’ equals ‘civilization’… “Freedom is still the best answer to the problems of freedom…” means that it is only the values that the earth affirms (i.e. that affirm our connections to the earth…) that support happiness (living our body’s truth: self-creation… – which is why we said… during the Waking Up Radio show of September 22, 2013 that: “‘happiness’ is self-creation… because if you continuously thwart the efforts of a living thing to live its biological inheritance… it will be unhappy… that’s simply the way of it… of life…”)

 

• …and we’ve argued that the alternative to a world based in the values that the earth affirms… is vampirism: not fully living – living the dreams… thinking the thoughts… of others – not ourselves – being cut off from our own root leads… under ‘class’… under ‘power’… to burdening the children with the unrealized dreams of ‘rule’ – leaving them ‘vampire-bit’…

 

• …and this… ‘night of the living dead’-nightmare we’re living… exposes the lie… that ‘class’ equals ‘civilization’…

 

• …rather…it is the earth… that is ‘civilizing’….

 

Choosing freedom… therefore… is choosing the earth… is choosing the course of civility and creativity… for our global humanity.

 

–––

 

But living in the ‘Upstart Spring’ means many things: us reclaiming… ‘power’ rushing to appear that it ordained it… this shift that’s being made… towards wholeness… among some formerly privileged… discovering the joy in feeling the earth in one’s hands… of learning a craft…. And really ‘power’ can do nothing else but pretend to license us to solve its ‘over-consumption’ problems for it… but even so… it will never willingly let go… and pushes its ‘scientists’ ever more ruthlessly to layer even higher its divide. And so we’re seeing: the last stand for ‘power’.

 

I’ve been thinking about that phrase I heard Wallerstein say: “‘Power’ (although he said ‘U.S.’… I say ‘power’…) ‘power’ is a wounded tiger, not a paper one…” – but it’s not a metaphor-precise because it can’t capture what makes this moment so dynamic: the breakdown of categories. These thoughts came to me as I was re-reading “What is ‘Freedom’? & Popper quote – 1” in “Getting To Our Future Freedom”… in which I quote Popper saying, in essence, that the fatal flaw in Marxism was its viewing ‘nature’ as this object to conquer (straight-up ‘Abandonment-mindset’…) and its relegation of ‘we-who-use-our-hands’ to ‘mere’ ‘subjects’ of it… saying that being actually subjugated to states was a vast improvement over our viewing ourselves as… not ‘subject-to’ but as… earth….

 

And in that piece I wrote that all my life “…when the possibility of a world of shared work and responsibility was thrown into the room for discussion, someone would invariably ask, ‘But who will do the dirty work?’”

 

But living in the ‘Upstart Spring’ means many things: us reclaiming… ‘power’ rushing to appear that it ordained it… this shift that’s being made… towards wholeness… among some formerly privileged… discovering the joy in feeling the earth in one’s hands… of learning a craft…. And really ‘power’ can do nothing else but pretend to license us to solve its ‘over-consumption’ problems for it…

 

…but even so… it will never willingly let go… and pushes its ‘scientists’ ever more ruthlessly to layer even higher its divide. And so we’re seeing: the last stand for ‘power’.

 

So the wounded tiger image is fit for helping us see the danger of this moment… the damage that extends as far as we allow it… for we have the tools to stop it now… if we fold our moves together… in every nation tend together toward planning leisure… and away from Authority… once we prioritize Solidarity… and refuse to be ‘the state’.

 

–––

 

There is a hunger for the earth that rages hidden in we captives… its fulfillment is our destination and our due… we will not stop till we attain it… name it ‘freedom’… but it means ‘no leashes on us… no more blindly following.’ That hunger is for our humanness… the earth in us… being fully human – no difference. What a con that they dared call what they give us ‘civilization’… and kept us worrying so about survival that we never had the time to think about it… for the most cursory examination of the matter would expose its falseness.

 

I see a lot of young squirrels get killed by cars because their bodies actually think they were born to be squirrels… and not urban ninja warriors… and they survive (as a species…) and so do we… but what is lost… in settling for the opposite of health? – in our case… our humanity.

 

I recall Kropotkin saying that he’d read in ancient texts of gorillas that were gregarious. They will one day again be fully gorillas… if we decide now to be fully human.

 

There is a hunger for the earth that rages hidden in we captives… its fulfillment is our destination and our due… we will not stop till we attain it… name it ‘freedom’… but it means ‘no leashes on us… no more blindly following.’ That hunger is for our humanness… the earth in us… being fully human – no difference. What a con that they dared call what they give us ‘civilization’… and kept us worrying so about survival that we never had the time to think about it… for the most cursory examination of the matter would expose its falseness.

 

It’s time to reclaim… ourselves and our reality… as a global-‘One’. The rule of the half-dead-few and settling for what the half-dead choose for us… is done.

 

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Alice Miller explains how the ‘worship-of-power’ ‘instinct’… that Karl Popper writes about… is rooted in a relativity of values… never stated openly to the child… but which nonetheless is the primary lesson children learn under ‘class’. The child learns… in addition to ‘might makes right’… that hypocrisy is never to be questioned… that the society she lives in is fundamentally dishonest… and that words mean nothing. So this is what we got… a system of ‘class’ – the central concept for which… that dominates the child’s earliest beginnings… is the ‘child-barbarian’… and the ‘ruler-parent’ – a system of ‘class’ that is through-and-through dishonest. She writes that our survival depends on the values that are not ‘relative’: “…respect for those weaker than ourselves – including, of course, the child – and respect for life and its laws, without which all creativity would be stifled. Every brand of Fascism lacks this respect, causing psychic death and castrating the soul with the aid of its ideology. Among all the leading figures of the Third Reich. I have not been able to find a single one who did not have a strict and rigid upbringing. Shouldn’t that give us a great deal of food for thought?”

 

Continuing with Chapter 17… “The Jewish Flight”… and our Alice Miller commentary… – P.S.]

 

[Looking deeper into the pit of inter-commoner violence… the mutual betrayal that has devastated our hopes for solidarity… last week we turned to Alice Miller… who explains how the ‘worship-of-power’ ‘instinct’… that Karl Popper writes about… is rooted in a relativity of values… never stated openly to the child… but which nonetheless is the primary lesson children learn under ‘class’. The child learns… in addition to ‘might makes right’… that hypocrisy is never to be questioned… that the society she lives in is fundamentally dishonest… and that words mean nothing.

 

So this is what we got… a system of ‘class’ – the central concept for which… that dominates the child’s earliest beginnings… is the ‘child-barbarian’… and the ‘ruler-parent’ – a system of ‘class’ that is through-and-through dishonest.

 

Continuing with Alice Miller… she has just made the point that in order to teach the child the ‘values of class’… of ‘power’… adults subject children to lying… deception… cruelty… and humiliation… – P.S.]

It is clear from the foregoing that a relativity of traditional moral values is an intrinsic part of this system: in the last analysis, our status and degree of power determine whether our actions are judged to be good or bad. This same principle prevails throughout the whole world [of ‘class’…]. The strong person dictates the verdict, and the victor in a war will sooner or later be applauded, regardless of the crimes that have been committed on the road to victory.

 

To these well-known examples of the relativity of values based upon one’s position of power, I should like to add another, stemming from a psychoanalytic perspective. In our zeal to dictate to our children the rules of behavior referred to above, we forget that it is not always possible to tell the truth without hurting someone at the same time […although I would add… that once we have ‘power’ off our backs… their teeth out of our psyches… we’ll be much sturdier beings… – P.S.], to show gratitude one does not feel without lying, or to overlook parents’ cruelty and still become an autonomous human being who can exercise independent critical judgment…. [T]here certainly are values I do not have to relativize. Our chances of survival probably depend, in the long run, on the practice of these values, among which are respect for those weaker than ourselves – including, of course, the child – and respect for life and its laws, without which all creativity would be stifled. Every brand of Fascism lacks this respect, causing psychic death and castrating the soul with the aid of its ideology. Among all the leading figures of the Third Reich. I have not been able to find a single one who did not have a strict and rigid upbringing. Shouldn’t that give us a great deal of food for thought?

 

Those who were permitted to react appropriately throughout their childhood – i.e., with anger – to the pain, wrongs, and denial inflicted upon them either consciously or unconsciously will retain this ability to react appropriately in later life too. When someone wounds them as adults, they will be able to recognize and express this verbally. But they will not feel the need to lash out in response. This need arises only for people who must always be on their guard to keep the dam that restrains their feelings from breaking. For if this dam breaks, everything becomes unpredictable. Thus, it is understandable that some of these people, fearing unpredictable consequences, will shrink from spontaneous reaction; the others will experience occasional outbursts of inexplicable rage directed against substitute objects or will resort repeatedly to violent behavior such as murder or acts of terrorism. A person who can understand and integrate his anger as part of himself will not become violent. He has the need to strike out at others only if he is thoroughly unable to understand his rage, if he was not permitted to become familiar with this feeling as a small child, was never able to experience it as a part of himself because such a thing was totally unthinkable in his surroundings. (Alice Miller’s For Your Own Good, p. 63 – 5)

“…On returning home, therefore, what Jews required more than anything else was reassurance. If they were to be able to pick up their lives once more they should be given more than just food and shelter and medical care, most of which was generally provided along the same lines as it was to other returnees. What they needed was to be welcomed… the experience of most was somewhat different…”: extreme cruelty… how do you make sense of this… without Alice?

 

… Non-Jewish aid agencies such as UNRRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration] and the Red Cross were also providing targeted help, such as the establishment of exclusively Jewish DP [Displaced Persons] camps and the tracing of friends and family members. Even the new national governments had made a start at changing attitudes towards Jews, for example by repealing all anti-Jewish legislation.

 

On the other hand, years of Nazi propaganda could not be overturned in a matter of weeks or months, and open anti-Semitism still existed everywhere. Sometimes this expressed itself in ways that are quite shocking. [I believe we needed Alice Miller to understand that it wasn’t just “years of Nazi propaganda…” but millennia of training in the ideology of ‘citizen-barbarian’… – P.S.] Jews who returned to the Greek city of Thessaloniki in 1945, for example, were sometimes greeted with, ‘Ah, you survived?’ or even, ‘What a pity you were not made into soap.’ In Eindhoven, Jewish repatriates were confronted by an official who registered them with the words, ‘Not another Jew, they must have forgotten to gas you.’ In the German cities of Garmisch and Memmingen, cinema newsreels that mentioned the death of 6 million Jews provoked shouts of “They didn’t kill enough of them!” followed by deafening applause.

 

The greatest fear of returning Jews was that, for all the measures being put in place by governments and aid agencies, the real issue of deep-rooted anti-Semitism would never disappear. [What about the deep-rooted training in ‘might makes right’… which parents… unconsciously… subject all children in the global-class-system to?… – P.S.] Experience had taught them that neither democracy nor apparent equality of rights, nor even their own patriotism was a guarantee against persecution. Their greatest challenge was not to treat every small incident as ‘the sign of a future explosion’ or proof that ‘a new mass murder is being prepared’. If they were to manage this, they needed help from the communities they were rejoining.

 

On returning home, therefore, what Jews required more than anything else was reassurance. If they were to be able to pick up their lives once more they should be given more than just food and shelter and medical care, most of which was generally provided along the same lines as it was to other returnees. What they needed was to be welcomed.

 

Some Jews, like Primo Levi, did indeed return to ‘friends full of life, the warmth of secure meals, the solidity of daily work, the liberating joy of recounting my story’. There were many stories of Jews being reunited, as if by a miracle, with loved ones; of compassion from strangers who spontaneously provided them with food or shelter, or who listened to their stories. Unfortunately, however, such storied are not quite as common as they should have been, and the experience of most was somewhat different.

 

–––

* “WUR of August 17th, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

 

People paid to police know they’ve been infiltrated… know they’ve got folks among them paid to provoke the people… so let’s craft our language to speak to those stuck in that… and are resistant to it… but don’t know what to do about it. What this means… 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 this… is force and coercion… and when we manifest force and coercion… we manifest the state.… I’m planning a series of anti-coercion ‘commercials’ for public-access TV here in Berkeley, a draft of one I’ve posted on the space for this show. These discussions are important because… as we speak… ‘power’ is rushing to claim our lexicon of solidarity… and… as it’s always done in the past… remake of the door to our freedom… just another trap.

 

August 14th, 2014… To our honest Brothers and Sisters in Ferguson…and those who stand with you… on that tip we’ve been following of late… of no longer remaining children… i.e. acting as subjects of ‘state’… it’s important that when we’re bombarded with ‘media interpretation’… we learn how to automatically translate… into ‘the-global-people-stand-united-for-global-freedom’.

 

Reducing our fellow-commoners stuck in jobs… to categories like ‘the cops’… or likewise commoners in resistance… to terms like ‘the demonstrators’ – without acknowledging that both are stuck in vulnerability to the hidden hand of ‘power’ – doesn’t work… for growing our absolutely necessary solidarity.

 

People paid to police know they’ve been infiltrated… know they’ve got folks among them paid to provoke the people… so let’s craft our language to speak to those stuck in that… and are resistant to it… but don’t know what to do about it.

 

And we know too… or best start to… that our building solidarity will be met… messed with… by people paid to devastate it.

 

What this means… 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 this… is force and coercion… and when we manifest force and coercion… we manifest the state.

 

–––

 

 

[“stateinus” video: “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?”]

 

–––

 

I’m planning a series of anti-coercion ‘commercials’ for public-access TV here in Berkeley, a draft of one I’ve posted on the space for this show.

 

We need these discussions because… as we speak… ‘power’ is rushing to claim our lexicon of solidarity… and… as it’s always done in the past… remake of the door to our freedom… just another trap. We need a long… on-going… discussion on how to distinguish false from true ‘solidarity’… with the ancestors… the earth… and each other. These thoughts come in the wake of Ferguson… and in response to a new propaganda thrust intended to… as always… deflect dissent… by telling us… “just give us your trust”… and in this case… with the argument: “…because we’re all there is…” …and when I turned the dial away… there was the voice of Donny Hathaway… If Auschwitz showed us anything… it’s that we live amongst monstrous lies all unbeknownst…

 

We need these discussions because… as we speak… ‘power’ is rushing to claim our lexicon of solidarity… and… as it’s always done in the past… remake of the door to our freedom… just another trap.

 

We need a long… on-going… discussion on how to distinguish false from true ‘solidarity’… with the ancestors… the earth… and each other. These thoughts come in the wake of Ferguson… and in response to a new propaganda thrust intended to… as always… deflect dissent… by telling us… “just give us your trust”… and in this case… with the argument: “…because we’re all there is…”

 

This past Friday I listened to a interview with Aquil Basheer… recently made director of an organization called “A Better LA”… who’s written a book called Peace in the Hood: Working With Gang Members to End the Violence… and as I’m hoping to help develop here a deeper understanding of ‘violence’… following Alice Miller’s guidance… I followed up and found the following policy piece… which we’ll discuss next week. I hope you’ll have time to read it… critically… because I see it as pretty insidious propaganda. It’s from the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs… it’s called: “The Moral Operating System of a Global City: Los Angeles” by Michael Ignatieff.

 

And as you read please consider again some of the thoughts from our May 18, 2014 show: This, then, may be the key distinguishing quality: minimally… does it recognize our inherent need to be free – and this holds across the political spectrum… as we see in the contrast between Alice Miller and Jeremy Bentham – it’s a matter of whether one respects that need… or fears it… but if it’s acknowledged… it’s honest…

 

–––

 

But some additional thoughts come… in the wake of the death of Robin Williams… after listening to a truly reprehensible commentary on it… from a woman who offered her ‘remote diagnosis’ of him – and this was as a ‘news’ segment on a progressive station… unsurprisingly…

 

…and when I turned the dial away… there was the voice of Donny Hathaway… his densely-layered tones that vibrate in such a way that only he knows… driving home the point that we don’t know all of what goes on…

 

If Auschwitz showed us anything… it’s that we live amongst monstrous lies all unbeknownst…. And Michael Jackson’s death also told us that there are criminal doctors… as Miklos said… paid to do and say things that betray their oath – it’s called the lever of ‘the wage’… palm-greasing in various ways. What we’re told could be all there is… but I kinda doubt it… given the media-bombardment….

 

And by-the-by… I find the use of this label ‘power’ loves: ‘manic-depressive’… truly despicable. It’s always used against folks full of life and love… and yet who are grieving on some level that they live in a death-worshipping system… based on betrayal.

 

–––

 

“…What art welcomes her followers more gladly, inviting him to come and take whatever he wants? What art entertains strangers more generously?… What other art yields more seemly first-fruits for the gods, or gives occasion for more crowded festivals?… ” [Do you feel your future here in hearing these words? Do you feel what we deserve? You see… this isn’t the ‘agrarian life’ that we’ve been accustomed to think of: full of festivals… and song and dance and luxury. That’s our future. There is enough for all… and Socrates is saying that… two thousand five hundred years ago – and here we are still… being lied to… told there ‘isn’t enough’. The vast… vast… 99.999% ‘must continue’ to sacrifice their lives… their health… their happiness… so this .0001% can continue to live in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed. Two thousand five hundred years ago… Socrates tried to pull ‘power’s coat… and yet here we are still singing their same sad tune… these abandoned children… who have accumulated and accumulated and accumulated to ‘prove’ they are ‘like gods’… compared to the rest of us…. This isn’t fair… it isn’t right… and it’s not meant to continue. We have to begin these discussions… – P.S.]

 

August 12th, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: Thanks to Alice Miller… we can now advance our accurate understanding of ‘economy’… of ‘the market’… beyond where we left it last Fall (and this does relate – as we’ll delve into more deeply next week – to our understanding of violence… which has been advanced simultaneously… again thanks to Alice Miller) as summarized in the “…Waking Up Radio show of September 22, 2013 …” – in which we said that: “…the economy (under ‘class’) is essentially a ‘value’-assigning set of practices… conventions…” –

 

Please listen again to that excerpt from the September 22, 2013 show… we’ll be revisiting the thoughts from that entire show this Sunday.

 

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When Charlotte Brontë wrote this:

I like to think my own thoughts; I had great pleasure in reading a few books, but not many: preferring always those on whose style or sentiment the writer’s individual nature was plainly stamped; flagging inevitably over characterless books, however clever and meritorious: perceiving well that, as far as my own mind was concerned, God had limited its powers and its action – thankful, I trust, for the gift bestowed, but unambitious of higher endowments, not restlessly eager after higher culture.

…she was being over-modest.

 

Last week we said that it is the earth that is ‘civilizing’… and that we need… not just her company… but to know that she is our best teacher… if we intend to use our full endowment as living things… and particularly as human beings… who might, perhaps, be sole possessors of the gift of ‘long-sight’… of representing for the ‘all of it’… by seeing from the vantage of the whole.

 

Charlotte welcomed… and cherished… her full endowment (to the degree class society would allow it…) from the earth – there is no ‘higher’ one – and in those who lost or disavowed it… she recognized a dishonest… or bankrupt… actor.

 

So it is… this disavowment… this trumpeting of bankruptcy as a ‘higher endowment’… with believers in ‘economics’. But it was not always so. Socrates said… or so Xenophon wrote… in his Oeconomicus:

“Now I tell you this,” continued Socrates, “because even the wealthiest cannot hold aloof from husbandry…. For, in the first place, the earth yields to cultivators the food by which men live; she yields besides the luxuries they enjoy. Secondly, she supplies all the things with which they decorate altars and statues and themselves, along with most pleasant sights and scents…. What art rewards the labourer more generously? What art welcomes her followers more gladly, inviting him to come and take whatever he wants? What art entertains strangers more generously? Where is there greater facility for passing the winter comforted by generous fire and warm baths, than on a farm? Where is it pleasanter to spend the summer enjoying the cool waters and breezes and shade, than in the country? What other art yields more seemly first-fruits for the gods, or gives occasion for more crowded festivals?…

[Do you feel your future here in hearing these words? Do you feel what we deserve? You see… this isn’t the ‘agrarian life’ that we’ve been accustomed to think of: this is full of festivals… and song and dance and luxury. That’s our future. There is enough for all… and Socrates is saying that… two thousand five hundred years ago – and here we are still… being lied to… told there ‘isn’t enough’. The vast… vast… 99.999% ‘must continue’ to sacrifice their lives… their health… their happiness… so this .0001% can continue to live in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed. Two thousand five hundred years ago… Socrates tried to pull ‘power’s coat… and yet here we are still singing their same sad tune… these abandoned children… who have accumulated and accumulated and accumulated to ‘prove’ they are ‘like gods’… compared to the rest of us…. This isn’t fair… it isn’t right… and it’s not meant to continue. We have to begin these discussions… – P.S.]

 

So Ischomachus’ question is: “How to increase profit from the earth… as ever-increasing profit is the signifier of…” – he presents his logic-steps… that lead inevitably to: recognition of a man of ‘genius’… while Socrates’ question is Shakespeare’s: “Why are you not happy?” And the logic of the two never came together… as they are opposite mindsets. And in the pursuit of his question… Ischomachus came to some conclusions ‘power’ continued to worry over the centuries… worries them still… and will… till we reclaim our lives… his logic fell on this: “How do you instill obedience in subjects?… so that I can extract from them ‘the best’ of what they can give?” What was seen and stated clearly in the ancient world – and which has since been intentionally obscured… thanks to the ‘middle ranks’ – is that the true point of ‘economics’ is getting us to obey.

 

“…What art is dearer to servants, or pleasanter to a wife, or more delightful to children, or more agreeable to friends? To me indeed it seems strange, if any free man has come by a possession pleasanter than this […and this is Shakespeare's point… “this is what we all possess… the earth she is generous… why don’t you feel it?… why don’t you see it?… Why?” This question has been our preoccupation… we commoners… over and over and over… “Why did you want to steal our happiness? Why? The earth is generous… she gives as freely to you as to me…. Why do you want to make sure I don’t have any of it? Why?” We need Alice Miller to answer that question… – P.S.] To me indeed it seems strange, if any free man has come by a possession pleasanter than this, or has found out an occupation pleasanter than this or more useful for winning a livelihood.

 

“Yet again, the earth willingly teaches righteousness to those who can learn; for the better she is served, the more good things she gives in return […ain’t that the truth… and these few .0001% haven’t served her very well, have they? Which side are we on? When will we get on the side of the earth, our Mother… our Grandmother?… When?… – P.S.].… It has been nobly said that husbandry is the mother and nurse of all the other arts. For when husbandry flourishes, all the other arts are in good fettle…

 

[…the wealthy citizen agrees: – P.S.]

 

“Didn’t I tell you just now that farming is the noblest art for this among other reasons, because it is the easiest to learn?… Agriculture is such a humane, gentle art that you have but to see her and listen to her, and she at once makes you understand her. She herself gives you many lessons in the best way of treating her. For instance, the vine climbs the nearest tree, and so teaches you that she wants support. And when her clusters are yet tender, she spreads her leaves about them, and teaches you to shade the exposed parts from the sun’s rays during that period. But when it is now time for her grapes to be sweetened by the sun, she sheds her leaves, teaching you to strip her and ripen her fruit. And thanks to her teeming fertility, she shows some mellow clusters while she carries others yet sour, so saying to you: Pluck my grapes as men pluck figs, – choose the luscious ones as they come.”

 

[Then Socrates asks:] “How is it then, Ischomachus, if the operations of husbandry are so easy to learn and all alike know what must needs be done, that all have not the same fortune? How is it that some farmers live in abundance and have more than they want, while others cannot get the bare necessities of life, and even run into debt?”

The conversation ends in Socrates’ interesting unstated question, “but why are you never happy?… never ‘satisfied’?” (As Karl Popper says… Socrates saw as his purpose… authentic education… he was a clarified embodiment of Mrs. Trotter’s adage: “Bought sense is better than taught sense.” He wanted to generate thought… help truth… through some mysterious synthesis more like alchemy… bloom in the mind… under the influence of his stimulus.)

 

…and that mindset of structurally-embedded unhappiness… now come to be called that of ‘the West’… embedded in ‘the state’ in abstract… in its institutions… and in those restless… ever-seeking-“that-much-covet”… who are “with gain so fond”… longing for “what they have not – that which they possess…” who are ‘the state’s manifestations…

 

…that mindset of ‘class’ encountered wholeness in earth-connectedness… and never stopped till they stripped it of happiness…

 

So Ischomachus’ question is: “How to increase profit from the earth… as ever-increasing profit is the signifier of…” – he presents his logic-steps… that lead inevitably to: recognition of a man of ‘genius’…

 

…while Socrates’ question is Shakespeare’s: “Why are you not happy?”

 

And the logic of the two never came together… as they are opposite mindsets.

 

And in the pursuit of his question… Ischomachus came to some conclusions ‘power’ continued to worry over the centuries… worries them still… and will… till we reclaim our lives… his logic fell on this: “How do you instill obedience in subjects?… so that I can extract from them ‘the best’ of what they can give?”

 

What was seen and stated clearly in the ancient world – and which has since been intentionally obscured… thanks to the ‘middle ranks’ – is that the true point of ‘economics’ is getting us to obey.

 

–––

 

…the main point is assigning values to us… not things… the things are merely used for that purpose… we’ve been looking at the world upside-down… with the ‘help’ of the middle ranks… the academics… the pundits… the journalists… the ‘experts’ and ‘intellectuals’… who can smash essential wholeness into a thousand million fragments and go to work on each one… creating ‘disciplines’… and then tell us that if we don’t understand their language then that means we have no right to an opinion on anything: “Go back to work!” – we see how that con works now, right? It really ain’t complicated… it’s about bullies and bullied. It really is that basic. What does confuse and complicate things is when we internalize that bullyishness and become the state – that’s what requires our attention right now… and I haven’t noticed too many academics and pundits helping us with that one…

 

During the September 22, 2013 show when we talked about ‘the market’ as a ‘value-assigning’ mechanism… we gave thanks that Marilyn Waring (and Joan Robinson before her) clearly pointed to the concept of ‘value’ as key to the rulers’ main con…

 

…but what they didn’t see clearly – and mostly neither did we – is that the main point is assigning values to us… not things… the things are merely used for that purpose… we’ve been looking at the world upside-down…

(…with the ‘help’ of the middle ranks… the academics… the pundits… the journalists… the ‘experts’ and ‘intellectuals’… who can smash essential wholeness into a thousand million fragments and go to work on each one… creating ‘disciplines’… and then tell us that if we don’t understand their language then that means we have no right to an opinion on anything: “Go back to work!” – we see how that con works now, right? It really ain’t complicated… it’s about bullies and bullied. It really is that basic. What does confuse and complicate things is when we internalize that bullyishness and become the state – that’s what requires our attention right now… and I haven’t noticed too many academics and pundits helping us with that one….)

So ‘value’ is key to the main con: keeping us working – and because our definition of ‘value’… how we see ‘value’… gets set early… we need Alice Miller. And if the key concept in economics is value… that key concept must be internalized early for the system to reproduce itself… for us to be ‘governable’: because if we value… above all else… she who gave us our gifts… how can they demand our obedience?… our allegiance? And if we valued she-who-gives-us-our-gifts above all else… would we abandon our children when they most want us there with them – they who are the most immediate spokespersons for the earth when they come into our lives… would we turn our backs on them… if we gave the earth her due allegiance… before all else? And if we did give these babies our full attention… could the system reproduce itself? So you see the centrality of Alice… you see why she’s been kept from us… and why we have to bring her back into our discussions. We need her… to clarify our understanding of the word ‘economics’.

 

So ‘value’ is key to the main con: keeping us working – and we’ve been looking at the world upside-down… or in reverse… or in false light…

 

…because the few who keep us straining in our yokes… have learned the carrots and the threats that keep us there.

 

All of the threads we discussed last week… that we need to more clearly see this transition we’re in… to freedom… in a sense come together in this word ‘value’…. Bentham told us: “he who owns the lexicon rules the world…” but honing in on the ‘world of class’s most critical concept… we would add: “he who defines ‘value’ keeps possession of it… that world.”

 

And as the true point of ‘economics’ is enforcing or inspiring our obedience… we need Alice Miller to clarify our understanding of this word. (Do you see what I’m getting at here? Because it is, in fact, as Bentham said, a mindset that gets taught early: our definition of ‘value’… how we see ‘value’… gets set early – so we need Alice Miller. And if the key concept in economics – and I don’t think there’s any controversy about it – is value… that key concept must be internalized early for the system to reproduce itself… for us to be ‘governable’: because if we value… above all else… she who gave us our gifts… how can they demand our obedience?… our allegiance? And if we valued she-who-gives-us-our-gifts above all else… would we abandon our children when they most want us there with them – they who are the most immediate spokespersons for the earth when they come into our lives… would we turn our backs on them… if we gave the earth her due allegiance… before all else? And if we did give these babies our full attention… could the system reproduce itself? So you see the centrality of Alice… you see why she’s been kept from us… and why we have to bring her back into our discussions. We need her… to clarify our understanding of the word ‘economics’.)

 

In the audio-blog: “…the economy (under ‘class’) is essentially a ‘value’-assigning set of practices… conventions…” we said that ‘the economy’ was not the only value-assigning mechanism… and we named as an adjunct one ‘education’… but now… with Alice Miller’s help we’re seeing… that the main one is called ‘parenting’… for here… as in the word ‘value’… ‘economy’ and ‘coercion’ likewise come together… and we… as living things… don’t like to be forced… Everything about our lives in a class system is coerced… and as we don’t like it: “anger unvented becomes pain… unspoken becomes rage… released… becomes violence… cha-cha-cha…” …and so decade after decade the problem of ‘violence’ is freshly presented to each new generation as a puzzle and told, “get busy solving the problem…” as if Marlon Riggs never wrote… as if Alice never wrote… as if her analysis and Marlon’s very concise and on-the-money explanation shouldn’t be where we start in understanding the manufactured ‘problem’ of ‘violence.’… So the threads for seeing this transition come together in seeing what Alice taught us: that under the regime of ‘class’… at birth all value is stripped from us… we become value-less… until ‘the market’ assigns a value to us…

 

In the audio-blog mentioned above (“…the economy (under ‘class’) is essentially a ‘value’-assigning set of practices… conventions…”) we said that ‘the economy’ was not the only value-assigning mechanism… and we named as an adjunct one ‘education’… but now… with Alice Miller’s help we’re seeing… that the main one is called ‘parenting’… for here… as in the word ‘value’… ‘economy’ and ‘coercion’ likewise come together… and we… as living things… don’t like to be forced – your body tells you that every second – when will we begin talking about, and trusting, that?… that it’s right… we don’t like to be forced. But what are we from Day One?… under the regime of the class-system… through the medium of the parent… who is the ‘delegate’, as Bentham told ‘rulers’ to ensure… we are forced. Everything about our lives in a class system is coerced… and as we don’t like it: “anger unvented becomes pain… unspoken becomes rage… released… becomes violence… cha-cha-cha…”

 

…and so decade after decade the problem of ‘violence’ is freshly presented to each new generation as a puzzle and told, “get busy solving the problem…” as if Marlon Riggs never wrote… as if Alice never wrote… as if her analysis and Marlon’s very concise and on-the-money explanation shouldn’t be where we start in understanding the manufactured ‘problem’ of ‘violence.’

 

…we’re the ones who teach our children they’re not born whole – we do that… that’s the point of that first ‘non-coercion commercial’ I put up on this page… we do that… and then… we, as children, are encouraged, as Alice said… to find substitute objects for our anger… we never get to the authentic source of that anger: which is force…

 

…we’re the ones who teach our children they’re not born whole… that they have no ‘wealth’… unless it’s earned.

 

So the threads for seeing this transition come together in seeing what Alice taught us: that under the regime of ‘class’… at birth all value is stripped from us… we become value-less… until ‘the market’ assigns a value to us…

 

…as children we come to see this clearly… and hasten to increase our value in relation to others immediately… that’s real obvious… and children feel that… that there’s no love and support when they’re forced out into that heartless dog-eat-dog competition that parents are encouraged to think is “good for your child…” – that’s called ‘reinforcing the system for them… for the global-state-statesmen’…

 

…children hasten to increase their value in relation to others… so that they can be ‘of service’ to the state… and be recognized as having ‘value’ – “what they have not… that which they possess…” but they will be told they don’t… by us.

 

Under the regime of ‘rule’… the global-state-statesmen (those who participate in the global race for ‘supremacy’…) can only control us (feel safe…) if they assign us our ‘values.’ What did Plato say? “Nothing is more important than this: no one should be without a leader…” Everybody gotta be on a leash… so they can feel safe.

 

The ‘stuff’ but evidences… testifies to… indicates… symbolizes… signals… our rank.

 

So the whole crafted world of ‘class’ is compressed in this concept – ‘value’ – because… like a bad seed that reproduces itself infinitely… sending its shoots and roots into everything… there is nothing that it doesn’t infect… this concept.

 

–––

 

Continuing with Chapter 17… “The Jewish Flight”… – P.S.]

The Return: Holland

 

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 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.… Alice Miller saw that even when we tell ourselves that we’re ‘bettering the world’… when we haven’t addressed our disconnection from earth… we’re thinking thoughts given us… they aren’t based in the earth beneath us…. When we’re divorced from ‘the all’… the earth… all life… we are by definition servants of the state… and our focus on self-‘perfection’… or ‘transformation’… is ultimately ‘perfection of our service to the state’. While the state is in place… we can’t serve each other and the earth. We can’t serve the state and the earth… we have to choose. We can’t serve two ‘masters’.

 

Of the 110,000 Dutch Jews who were deported to concentration camps during the war, only about 5,000 returned. They were amongst the 71,564 displaced Dutch people who returned to Holland in 1945, most of them en route to Amsterdam. On arrival in the city’s central station they were interviewed, registered, and given ration cards and clothing coupons. Sometimes they were given advice on where to stay, or where to find help, but sometimes the desks of the various aid agencies were unattended. The official welcome was efficient, but cold: no flags or flowers, no brass bands, just a series of desks and questions followed by a swift dispatch outside into the streets of the city centre.

[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 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.

 

Although extreme ‘Nazi’ virulence… brought the poison to the surface and compelled its examination – exposed ‘obedience’ as the poison – over time… that examination has been suppressed. We owe Alice Miller quite a debt… for her incontrovertible analysis.

 

The point made in the April 21, 2013 audio blog on Alice Miller [“Alice Miller's message boils down to… the root ideology of class: “we are nothing and the state is all…”]:

I believe her message boils down to this: “We are nothing and the state is all…” – that may be the root ideology of ‘class’… and this key ideology hides even behind notions of self-transformation… and ultimately… ‘perfection’. Alice Miller saw that even when we tell ourselves that we’re ‘bettering the world’… when we haven’t addressed our disconnection from earth… we’re thinking thoughts given us… they aren’t based in the earth beneath us…. It’s not true. (They don’t stand straight. They’re crooked.) When we’re divorced from ‘the all’… the earth… all life… we are by definition servants of the state… – and we’ve advanced that understanding since then to say ‘we are manifestations of the state’ – and our focus on self-‘perfection’… or ‘transformation’… is ultimately ‘perfection of our service to the state’.

 

While the state is in place… we can’t serve each other and the earth. We can’t serve two ‘masters’. We can’t serve the state and the earth… we have to choose.

…and this ‘service’ to the state – this notion that we are nothing and the state is all –is put succinctly by Goering this way: “It is not I who live, but the Fuhrer who lives in me….” What Alice Miller is helping us see… is that our children… and we… are subjected to this same totalitarian conditioning… at every point in the prism… prison… of ‘class’… …“Right from the beginning there were subtle distinctions made between returnees. It was not the Jews who were discriminated against, however, but those returnees who were deemed to be collaborators.” 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).

 

…and this ‘service’ to the state – this notion that we are nothing and the state is all –is put succinctly by Goering this way: “It is not I who live, but the Fuhrer who lives in me….” What Alice Miller is helping us see… is that our children… and we… are subjected to this same totalitarian conditioning… at every point in the prism… prison… of ‘class’… – P.S.]

Right from the beginning there were subtle distinctions made between returnees. It was not the Jews who were discriminated against, however, but those returnees who were deemed to be collaborators. People who had worked in Germany as volunteers (vrijwilligers) had their repatriation cards stamped with a V: they were then refused a welcome food parcel and food coupons, and shunned by virtually every institution they came into contact with thereafter.

 

Of the others, the onvrijwillig, the only people to be greeted with any kind of fanfare were those who were deemed to have been part of the Resistance. The benefits for Resistance members were immediate. They were often sent to special convalescent centres located in luxurious settings, including a wing of Queen Wilhelmina’s palace. They were lauded in the press, in the government, and in the streets. ‘If you came from the resistance, everything was possible!’ claimed one former Resistance member, Karel de Vries. ‘You could ask for and get money from anyone. All building materials, for example, were scarce and difficult to get, but if you said, “This is for resistance fighters returning from concentration camps,” well, then it was fine, immediately!’ Later they were even awarded a special pension in recognition of their Resistance activities.

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). This is discussed in the March 24, 2013 audio blog on this core mindset [“What defines ‘class’? The mindset of “‘in’ and ‘out’” (Pt. 1)…”]

 

What we’re seeing here is yet another manifestation of it… – P.S.]

“‘Where there should have been pity, I encountered the dry, difficult to approach, repellent, amorphous mass known as officialdom.’ While other returnees had communities to welcome them and to fall back on, many Jews had no one – not even family … It was not only ‘officialdom’ that ignored these facts. Ordinary people also tended to be quite astonishingly insensitive.” [Once again… we need Alice to come to terms with that… – P.S.]

 

It quickly became obvious to returning Jews that the only distinction that the Dutch were interested in was the difference between collaborators and resisters. [One represented ‘success’… the ‘winners’… the ‘big’… ‘defense of the state’… the other… not at all… – P.S.] All other categories, including Jews, were simply lumped together as one. This was by no means unique to Holland. When Italian deportees were returned to Italy, they too were all lumped together as ‘political prisoners’, regardless of whether they had been Jews, forced labourers or prisoners of war. Likewise, French returnees were also put together as a single group – indeed, in most popular histories of the period today they still are. This was not discrimination against Jews as such, but it was almost as bad: it was an attempt to ignore them altogether. As one Dutch camp survivor put it, ‘Where there should have been pity, I encountered the dry, difficult to approach, repellent, amorphous mass known as officialdom.’

 

There were many reasons why the Dutch authorities did not give returning Jews the specific help they needed and deserved. To begin with, they took their lead from the Allies, specifically the British, whose official policy was not to treat Jews as a distinct category. Jews made up only a small proportion of the returnees, and so were not regarded as a priority. The authorities also had to prepare for the return in something of a rush, since Holland was one of the last countries in Europe to be liberated.

[The problem runs deeper… as both Alice and Popper said… runs to the two great anti-spiritual veins that states depend on… to make us believe they are legitimate… and so to maintain their existence: instilled obedience… and ‘power’-worship. Recall how Alice put it: “…the relativity of values based upon one’s position of power…” In this case… to suggest that ‘statesmen’ – or we commoners who mimic them or follow their lead – could care about the powerless… or that folks in a state of extreme demoralization (European commoners in the aftermath WWII…) could somehow demand of their states what they never would do… is not just a non sequitur… it’s a long doomed flight of decrepit fancy… – P.S.]

If they had thought about the situation more carefully […the state… he’s saying… as is the case today… we have good-hearted folks who believe that it’s just a matter… on the part of ‘power’… of ‘ignorance. Next week we’ll continue thinking about that… as many would read that policy piece from the Carnegie Council as coming from a ‘good-hearted place’… – P.S.] they would have seen that Jews, more than any other group, were entitled to special treatment – on both moral and humanitarian grounds. They had certainly endured incomparably more suffering than any other group in Dutch society: of the 210,000 Dutch casualties of the Second World War half had been Jewish – and this despite the fact that Jews had only made up just over 1.5 per cent of the prewar population. In most areas the community had been entirely wiped out, and even in Amsterdam only a small fraction had survived. While other returnees had communities to welcome them and to fall back on, many Jews had no one – not even family.

 

It was not only ‘officialdom’ that ignored these facts. Ordinary people also tended to be quite astonishingly insensitive. The historian Dienke Hondius has gathered together a whole series of examples showing the attitude of ordinary Dutch people to returning Jews. For example, Rita Koopman was greeted by a former acquaintance with the words, ‘You’re lucky you weren’t here. We suffered such hunger!’ When Ab Caransa returned to his former job he was denied an advance from his employer on the grounds that in Auschwitz, ‘You had a roof over your head and food the whole time!’ Most Jews did not try to explain the horrors they had been through but, like Gerhard Durlacher, merely ‘bought acceptance’ by listening to the stories of others and maintaining a ‘discreet silence’ about their own plight. ‘People didn’t understand,’ explains another Dutch Jew, ‘or else they didn’t believe you.’

 

Many of these comments were born of pure ignorance. Unlike in eastern Europe, where the Holocaust took place right under the noses of the people, in the west many were completely unaware of what had happened to the Jews after they had been deported. [Thanks to Miklos’ gift we see with what obsessiveness… with what total determination… the Reich leaders tried to suppress any news from the ‘camps’ getting out… so we saw that from the inside-out – where that complete ignorance came from… – P.S.] Before the films from the concentration camps were released, stories of industrial mass-murder were often dismissed as exaggerations; but even after the films had been shown in cinemas there was a complete lack of understanding of what they actually meant to the people who had survived.

 

[Once again… we need Alice to come to terms with that… – P.S.]

 

–––

* “WUR of August 24th, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

 

‘Power’ is rushing… as we argued last week… to claim the language of ‘solidarity’… and because we’re facing a totalitarian reality… our unity (because we are one singular humanity…) is being attacked on all fronts… and that we need the counter-thoughts – a language of unity – to withstand the barrage of divisiveness… and fight back…. This is critical… as our global freedom will not simply fall in our laps… does not manifest by happenstance… and we have a well-armed and determined opponent – and I mean ‘well-armed’ in broadly entrenched propagandistic conditioning. So we need more means for spreading these thoughts – this language of solidarity that works for us.… [And] I’ve become certain that standing with our brothers and sisters without homes is not just ‘right’… but strategically important [and when I say ‘standing with’ I mean making that issue the focus of one of our key strategies… which is land… – reconnecting with the earth… creating enough good will… wherever we are on the earth… from among the local populace… to demand… land… and that means land free from unnecessary building codes…

 

Sisters and Brothers: In this show I’m hoping to encourage us to see… that because we’re facing a totalitarian reality… our unity (because we are one singular humanity…) is being attacked on all fronts… and that we need the counter-thoughts – a language of unity – to withstand the barrage of divisiveness… and fight back…. This is critical… as our global freedom will not simply fall in our laps… does not manifest by happenstance… and we have a well-armed and determined opponent – and I mean ‘well-armed’ in broadly entrenched propagandistic conditioning. So we need more means for spreading these thoughts – this language of solidarity that works for us.

 

But…

 

August 18th, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: ‘Power’ is rushing… as we argued last week… to claim the language of ‘solidarity’… to name for us what it means… before we become firmly set… through our discussions of it… on claiming each other globally… and the earth generally… as ‘allegiance-the-first’…

 

…and the issue is challenging for us… because ‘betrayal’ is class-society’s underlying premise…

 

…both historically… and in the life of each one of us.

 

“Anger unvented…” we said last week… “gets directed…” Alice said… “toward substitute objects…”

 

…now there’s a lot compressed and compounded in those words…

 

…how to begin?

 

…how can we-the-global-people begin defining ‘solidarity’?

 

…when ‘power’ gives us our communal voice (in controlling education and media…)

 

…when mutual-betrayal is structurally-mandated… by means of atomization and classification…

 

…when we haven’t figured out practice-the-first for showing solidarity with our own children…

 

…when the mindset of ‘class’ is all we have… when we’re trained to think in artificial categories…

 

…and we can’t grow up like that…

 

(…a couple items in the most recent… “Welcome Freshmen!” edition of the UC-Berkeley student paper (August 21, 2014) serve to illustrate: one… which presents itself as all fluff and nonsense… i.e. tries to pretend the effect is not serious… says, inviting students to join in the good-humored fun… and play the ‘game’ of Classification. It’s called, “People You Will Meet At Berkeley” and then presents a dozen or so ‘fun labels’… so that in-coming students can immediately jump into the ‘game’ of judging and ranking their brothers and sisters. Another… under the heading “Research and Ideas” is titled, “Campus Study Profiles White, Lower-Middle-Class Students”… this one is particularly poisonous. It highlights the ‘work’ of a doctoral student who has come up with her own additional ‘system’ of classifying “white, lower-middle class, high school girls” to ‘enrich’ the ‘standard’ ‘class’ rankings: “lower-middle class getting-by girls”… “upper-middle-class overachievers”… and “lower-class nowhere kids.” As we said last week, children waste not a minute trying to ‘get ahead’… by ruthlessly stomping over their brothers and sisters…)

 

…and then… when we do begin to break through the categories…

 

…‘power’ extends its hand and says, “include me too or you’re being ‘divisive’”…

 

In other words… there’s a few conversations that need to happen… and we need the language to have them in… before we can even consider… how to stand up to ‘power’s propaganda…

 

…so that when ‘power’ extends its hand (as it does with Mr. Steele and Mr. Ignatieff…) we can reply: “if you truly don’t want us to be divided… if you truly stand against ‘division’… then you should support all people being self-sufficient… which requires reconnecting with the earth… and making our own decisions… and designing multiple ‘communal-living experiments’…

(…case in point: San Jose is clearing out yet another ‘homeless encampment’. I’ve become certain that standing with our brothers and sisters without homes is not just ‘right’… but strategically important [and when I say ‘standing with’ I mean making that issue the focus of one of our key strategies… which is land… – reconnecting with the earth… creating enough good will… wherever we are on the earth… from among the local populace… to demand… land… and that means land free from unnecessary building codes… (and this is discussed in Waking Up… with the Earthship…) so that we can all pull together…. “Let us try… if you’re sincere. You know you’ll blow those millions and millions on ‘homeless services’ to perpetuate the problem… but when we come up with an actual alternative: land that is communally owned in perpetuity… there's silence in response…”]

 

I more and more think Waking Up is the practical guide I intended it to be… but with one significant exception: I hadn’t thought at all about ‘power’s tactic of infiltration… phony folks peppered among us… but… boy… have I been forced to since. So we have to go into our planning for an encampment… thinking in advance about ‘agent-effects-reducing’ tactics… which again… being rooted in our values: no leaders… no division… no coercion (and I’m suggesting we use that word instead of ‘violence’…) based in earth-connectedness [i.e. reverence…] suggests that we get clear on this issue of ‘solidarity’… [And] youth are the targets (of both carrots and threats…) because in them the future is planted… This is a discussion that… my entire life… I’ve never heard on the Left. We’re led to think that this insanity just perpetuates itself… of itself. We’re never encouraged to think that… given that the vast vast vast vast majority don’t want this mess… how come we always end up with it? They plan it that way… intentionally… and Popper was trying to point this out…

 

(…so I’ve become certain that standing with our brothers and sisters without homes is the strategically important thing to do… – and I wrote about this in Waking Up… which I more and more think is the practical guide I intended it to be… with one significant exception: I hadn’t thought at all about ‘power’s tactic of infiltration… phony folks peppered among us… but… boy… have I been forced to since. So we have to go into our planning for an encampment… thinking in advance about ‘agent-effects-reducing’ tactics… which again… being rooted in our values: no leaders… no division… no coercion (and I’m suggesting we use that word instead of ‘violence’…) based in earth-connectedness [i.e. reverence…] suggests that we get clear on this issue of ‘solidarity’…

 

…and while I’m on this tip… let me say this: Berkeley Community Media has been closed all week for ‘housekeeping’… and programming the new computers that arrived… coincidentally it seems… with me – so I haven’t been able to do anything else on my anti-coercion ‘commercials’… but I know what my next one will be… that flows naturally from this hellish week ‘power’ has delivered to me. It’s this: “Hannah Arendt had it wrong… it’s not ‘evil’ that’s banal… it’s obedience…”

 

Training in obedience goes hand-in-hand with lack of empathy… deep soul-loss… and authoritarianism [reliance on coercion….] So our claiming our wholeness will be met… by a whole army of lost-souls against it… but on that I say this: don’t lose heart… the ones who are paid dissolve with the paychecks… and the others… the bullies… dissolve with the turn of events… Recall: the ‘opposite’ of those longing for generalized human freedom… is only .0001%

 

…and Understand: youth are the targets (of both carrots and threats…) because in them the future is planted. This is a discussion that… my entire life… I’ve never heard on the Left. We’re led to think that this insanity just perpetuates itself… of itself. We’re never encouraged to think that… given that the vast vast vast vast majority don’t want this mess… how come we always end up with it? They plan it that way… intentionally… and Popper was trying to point this out… he said that’s the point of ‘higher education’. And those folks who are allowed access to the airwaves who give us our ‘communal voice’… they ain’t complaining. It feels good to be part of that ‘elite’ I suppose. (I wouldn’t know.) So you see the stakes involved… in ensuring youth are well-caught… in the Panopticon… that their eyes are claimed by ‘power’.

 

Threat: intense ultra-low-frequency radio wave targeted weaponry (that deliver an enhanced wave stream – we’re not talking about the frequencies that go to your radio, OK?…) and by the way… where are the Congressional hearings on weapons that can be used secretly?… i.e. invisibly… and domestically at that – DARPA doesn’t deny these weapons exist – when… as Miklos said… it is secrecy in killing that is so devastating to any pretense of fairness – no one is talking about the totalitarian effect… of being able to kill or disable in secret…

 

Last week we said that ‘power’s learned the incentives and the threats. Threat: intense ultra-low-frequency radio wave targeted weaponry (that deliver an enhanced wave stream – we’re not talking about the frequencies that go to your radio, OK?…) that cause serious physical distress… and over time may lead you to believe… you must be suffering from some rare disease… Voila!… you disappear into self-care…

 

…and by the way… where are the Congressional hearings on weapons that can be used secretly?… i.e. invisibly… and domestically at that – DARPA doesn’t deny these weapons exist – when… as Miklos said… it is secrecy in killing that is so devastating to any pretense of fairness – no one is talking about the totalitarian effect… of being able to kill or disable in secret…

 

[Youth: if you’re experiencing the nausea… the ear-ringing… the mucus-build-up (although this voluminous clear mucus… associated with extreme head pressure… just started this year – before that there was ‘itchiness’ in various places at various times on my body. I recall reading a while back in a popcorn news summary mag that… the military… or its research arm… experimented with this low-frequency wave weaponry on cats… causing them to lick themselves uncontrollably… I’m sure that gave these abandoned children quite a laugh…) the pressure in chest and head… the shortness of breath: pool your information…

(…we’ve talked in recent shows about this issue of ‘weeding out’ ‘the disobedient’… and we aren’t talking about what it means for them to have this technology…combined with the objective of ‘weeding out’ dissent… literally – people scratch their heads over the Israeli state killing children… all states do this… recognize that it saves energy… it’s ‘energy-efficient’: this is how these folks think. So… parents out there!… if you want to protect your… ‘rowdy’ youth!… if you don’t want them to become targets… let’s start talking about this. Because these states have this power… and we are living in a fantasy world if we don’t think they’re using it… for their purposes. That’s what ‘power’ is… that’s what it means. It means: “we don’t want no challenges… we don’t want no ‘back-talk’ from the hired help… please, go back to what we tell you to do….” That’s what ‘power’ means. So we have to start having authentic discussions about this… not the pap we get on the airwaves… which is designed to get us to give ‘power’ our allegiance… to shift our allegiance from the earth… to them… our sense of who we owe for our existence…)

…share your knowledge and experience with palliatives… and as long as it’s food… from the earth… and organic… try them to facilitate your body’s healing. It’s not easy… but we must do it. Not fun… but it must be done… because the alternative is too hideous…]

 

Incentive: “your fathers need your help” (and you know children are big-hearted… they want to do what’s right and that’s why ‘power’ rushes to claim their eyes first… after they’ve assured themselves that the parents are going to train these children in obedience… get them well-prepped… in accepting authoritarian discipline – internalized discipline…) “they didn’t know… they were ignorant… they still don’t see… help them please… to realize the promise of ‘democracy’!… we’ll give you book deals… and academic posts… we’ll give you media attention… and that most-prized ‘recognition’!…”……when… if we as parents had bestowed this gift… our children wouldn’t be so vulnerable to offers of it…)

 

Incentive: “your fathers need your help” (and you know children are big-hearted… they want to do what’s right and that’s why ‘power’ rushes to claim their eyes first… after they’ve assured themselves that the parents are going to train these children in obedience… get them well-prepped… in accepting authoritarian discipline – internalized discipline…) “they didn’t know… they were ignorant… they still don’t see… help them please… to realize the promise of ‘democracy’!… we’ll give you book deals… and academic posts… we’ll give you media attention… and that most-prized ‘recognition’!…”

 

…when… if we as parents had bestowed this gift… our children wouldn’t be so vulnerable to offers of it…)

And as… atomized and stripped of our authentic relations… trained from Day One in the state’s legitimating ideology… and as ‘power’ knows well Victor Hugo’s admonition (“no vacuum in the human heart…”) a lot of us still respond to ‘power’s appeal to our hearts… still believe their claims of ‘ignorance’… In Beginning Again we said:

Sanity (‘health’)… comes from mutual aid… and [so] the systematic setting of our children on a path to ‘win,’ in a competition with their brothers and sisters, serves ‘power’ very well… but not our children… or any of us.

 

But when will we have the courage to say this… to admit… what is obvious but never said… in ‘allowable’ discussion? Instead we’re told to ‘fix’.

–––

 

…the poisonous dealings of the adult world with children – focused on instilling ‘obedience’ – which outright lies in its actual speech… and never admits that “might makes right” is what’s being taught tacitly… makes them especially vulnerable to the state’s paternalistic promptings… to the appeal of its rhetoric and its official ideology… these bullies – who’ve destroyed the planet ‘for us’… and then tell us to ‘help them’ ‘fix’ it… these bullies who’ve made all the decisions that we have to live with…keeping us ‘small’… never developing our own gifts… that is so wrong, I don’t have words for it… so wrong – any other issue aside… that alone should be enough… to get us on that global megaphone… organizing with our brothers and sisters everywhere on the planet to end this mess… this is not why we were given our gifts… to put them at the service of these megalomaniacs… these bullies… these global-state-statesmen… who think they are the ‘elect’…

 

Language is key – which is why they police it… how can we get clear without it? – if we teach youth the wrong ‘language of resistance’… we on the Left… they’re in for a lifetime of confusion…

 

…particularly as…

…as parents we’ve abandoned them (to the job…)

 

…the earth (which teaches countervailing values) is denied them…

 

…the poisonous dealings of the adult world with children – focused on instilling ‘obedience’ – which outright lies in its actual speech… and never admits that “might makes right” is what’s being taught tacitly… makes them especially vulnerable to the state’s paternalistic promptings… to the appeal of its rhetoric and its official ideology –

– which brings us to Mr. Ignatieff [see last week’s show for the link…] the Canadian statesmen and scholar from Harvard… whose policy piece we’ll be examining next week…

 

Last week we went through a process to show that the point of ‘the economy’ was to get us to obey… and in numerous previous shows we said the same was so for ‘the state’… that… as Bentham said (who labored long to teach this to ‘statesmen’…) the point of both great arms of ‘control’ was to get us to bend… to accept ‘direction’… accept that “work is our inevitable condition” – to ensure that we are ‘governable’….

 

And to get their ‘work’ done… these bullies – who’ve destroyed the planet ‘for us’… and then tell us to ‘help them’ ‘fix’ it… these bullies who’ve made all the decisions that we have to live with…keeping us ‘small’… never developing our own gifts… that is so wrong, I don’t have words for it… so wrong – any other issue aside… that alone should be enough… to get us on that global megaphone… organizing with our brothers and sisters everywhere on the planet to end this mess… this is not why we were given our gifts… to put them at the service of these megalomaniacs… these bullies… these global-state-statesmen… who think they are the ‘elect’… and we are just ‘the cattle’ to milk… and suck on… until we’re sent to the slaughterhouse…. To get their ‘work’ done… all of this hideous misery… was done… was considered ‘acceptable’… by them.

 

And to get their ‘work’ done… these bullies need mechanisms… the police… as a collective body… is one of them (although not necessarily individual officers….) Bullies obey one rule: “whoever is strongest… rules…”

 

…the bias exists regardless of the theories of the notions we’re taught about it… exists despite all the theoretical ‘counterweights’ that are theoretically applied to it… otherwise it wouldn’t be a ‘bias’ – you either remove it or it grows… simple physics. – Point being: we talk nonsensically… absent clearer thinking… absent seeing reality… and absent the language to think in…

 

…so what is the notion of ‘the police’… behind a call to end its brutality… when isn’t it true that “he who owns the piper calls the tune…”? but this isn’t what we’re taught in school… and therein lies the problem: we start out with (intentionally planted…) false notions.

 

Once I was in a job and someone said, “we’re all equal here…” and an older head said… “right… but some of us are more ‘equal’ than others…”

 

…which disproportion but grows and grows over time… as simple physics shows with all biasing… as the bias exists regardless of the theories of the notions we’re taught about it… exists despite all the theoretical ‘counterweights’ that are theoretically applied to it… otherwise it wouldn’t be a ‘bias’ – you either remove it or it grows… simple physics. (And look around us, folks… you don’t have to be as old as me to see that that bias has been growing exponentially [and… typing these words… it occurs… that all this ‘propaganda chat’ of late about a bias being ‘implicit’ may be to shift how we think of it – this word ‘bias’ – away from physical… material… disproportion in who owns the weight of the world… to some immaterial notion… for which ‘physics’ don’t apply…])

 

Point being: we talk nonsensically… absent clearer thinking… absent seeing reality… and absent the language to think in.

(…I knew this as I was writing Waking Up… because I wrote about it… but I didn’t know it… the way I know it now – you know?… deeply… deeply… get it. We can’t do anything if we can’t talk about it… it doesn’t exist if we don’t talk about it… that’s the source… the cause… that’s the reason behind the media silence… on issues which seem obvious… when we ponder them quietly… alone with the earth…)

And parents rarely – if ever – teach… because they want their children to ‘succeed’ (that’s always been ‘power’s ace in the hole…) that ‘democracy’ is rhetoric – ideology… not reality….

(…well… that’s an exaggeration… you can’t grow up being one of the targets… you can’t grow up being put in one of those ‘nobody’ boxes… you know there ain’t ‘democracy’ if you’re being boxed like that… told… that you’re that… but… take heart… Emily Dickinson was one of them, too… what did she say?… “I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – Too?” Let’s stand together… all of us ‘nobodies’… all seven billion of us…)

Youth… children… are brilliant… they pick up immediately the ‘disconnect’… the lies that parents speak… and so as young people we learn that words mean nothing… and we generally want to believe in something… and because of the atomization… and the suppression of even just talking… about the need for thinking authentically – and to consider that for language to be useful for the people it must reflect that… authentic reality – we are then easily led to think that there are these ‘imperfections’ in the scheme… that the rulers simply don’t see… and then we’re off and running… through a lifetime of confused ‘helping’… helping them enslave us better.

 

So you see… why ‘power’ is determined to keep young people from waking up… early.

 

–––

 

So… how is “just walk that road and see where it goes…” – I mean I understand what they’re saying on some level… because I said something very similar in Waking Up… that: “one step leads to the next step leads to the next step…” but I wasn’t saying, “just see where it goes…” I was saying: “you know where it’s going… we got to get there… it’s called Freedom… and we gonna havta help each other… for real… for sure…. But we gotta know that’s where we’re going… and we gotta know it’s global… and we gotta know it means ‘leisure for all’…

 

I just listened to some folks (Friday, August 22, 2014…) who’d written a book about “horizontal forms of organization”… and the “language of horizontalism”… and how they are seeing them… these things… in resistance actions all over the world… post-2010. And as this matter of language… and solidarity… and vision… is up for me… I listened… actively.

 

They began with a parable about mutual aid: the necessity of helping each other if we want to move forward… which concluded with this message: “Only by walking the long road can we find where the long road takes us.” But isn’t this a version of Michael Moore’s concluding-message: “just do something… anything… and trust…” (Because he said he was done after the ‘capitalism’ one… because he discovered he was repeating the same message: “Just Get Busy… Do Something… Anything…” “Write your Congressperson… Complain… Get Involved.” Actually his main advice was “Run For Office.” I bet a whole bunch of young people heard that one… who were coming out of ‘Occupy’… “Run for office if you want to change things. Are you even registered?” This is called “Herding Young People Back Into The Trap”… and… from ‘power’s perspective… hopefully nullifying their effect for their entire lives….)

 

So… how is “just walk that road and see where it goes…” – I mean I understand what they’re saying on some level… because I said something very similar in Waking Up… that: “one step leads to the next step leads to the next step…” but I wasn’t saying, “just see where it goes…” I was saying: “you know where it’s going… we got to get there… it’s called Freedom… and we gonna havta help each other… for real… for sure…. But we gotta know that’s where we’re going… and we gotta know it’s global… and we gotta know it means ‘leisure for all’…

 

Gaps in strategy are the holes in the boat that sink it… and with the stakes as high as they are today… a leaky strategy is just not good enough – it’s not good enough to have no clear vision… not good enough to have no clear theory… not good enough to not admit there is a very organized global ‘power’ that stands opposite… not good enough to have no plan to address it. …The interview ended in fact exactly on that… on ‘power’s reaction – and it is that reaction which now requires our full attention… “the big danger is war…” And one of the folks interviewed – the gentleman – knows that… referenced the fact that WWII accomplished (for ‘power’) precisely this destruction of our unity…. And what on earth would make us think they can’t do that again? Truly?… when we haven’t confronted how it happened in the first place? And I’m talking ‘obedience training’… I’m talking ‘falling along in line with the state’… I’m talking Goering’s words: ‘the state can always get the people to go along… to do what it wants it to do.’ He told us the truth. Has that changed? So what makes us think they aren’t moving us down that same road?…

 

…and owning the bodies we walk around in… if we don’t know that… they’re gonna stick some little ‘detours’ on that road… and we’re gonna find ourselves back in the trap… cuz we didn’t know where we were going…

 

Gaps in strategy are the holes in the boat that sink it… and with the stakes as high as they are today (they couldn’t get much higher right now… because ‘power’ knows… they either shut down our ability to use these global communication tools for organizing a global alternative… and get us in permanent lock-down – the options are we either use these tools… or get used to ‘Endless Night Of The Living Dead’… and that’s unacceptable…) a leaky strategy is just not good enough – it’s not good enough to have no clear vision… not good enough to have no clear theory… not good enough to not admit there is a very organized global ‘power’ that stands opposite… not good enough to have no plan to address it.

 

The interview ended in fact exactly on that… on ‘power’s reaction – and it is that reaction which now requires our full attention. And one of the folks interviewed – the gentleman – knows that… referenced the fact that WWII accomplished (for ‘power’) precisely this destruction of our unity…. And what on earth would make us think they can’t do that again? Truly?… when we haven’t confronted how it happened in the first place? And I’m talking ‘obedience training’… I’m talking ‘falling along in line with the state’… I’m talking Goering’s words: ‘the state can always get the people to go along… to do what it wants it to do.’ He told us the truth. Has that changed? So what makes us think they aren’t moving us down that same road?… that they aren’t moving apace… to accomplish that same agenda: destroy our growing unity.

 

One said… and I so agree… and wanted to hear this discussed fully… that “the big danger is war…”

 

…we have all the necessary information to begin to move to our future freedom… but we don’t have the means to discuss it publicly… in big forums… so that we can build this movement bigger… and get on the same page… and fold our actions together. You see… whatever you call these ‘horizontal’ actions… whether it’s in Greece, or Spain, or Argentina… all I’m saying is “plug it into a global goal of freedom… support each other… step by step move forward together… I agree with them on that… but how is that being done if we don’t have a single vision… and I don’t mean a specific… a particular… I’m talking broad… like ‘power’ does… they know what they want… they want to be in charge… they want ‘class’ rigidly in place – and we want freedom from that. We have to be clear… that we want to end ‘class’. And if we aren’t clear… why aren’t we talking about it? Where are the discussions in these horizontal actions about that?…

 

(And when you’re looking at war… I thought… you’re looking at ‘power’ – nobody else wants it… as Goering said.)

(…we have all the necessary information to begin to move to our future freedom… but we don’t have the means to discuss it publicly… in big forums… so that we can build this movement bigger… and get on the same page… and fold our actions together. You see… whatever you call these ‘horizontal’ actions… whether it’s in Greece, or Spain, or Argentina… all I’m saying is “plug it into a global goal of freedom… support each other… step by step move forward together… I agree with them on that… but how is that being done if we don’t have a single vision… and I don’t mean a specific… a particular… I’m talking broad… like ‘power’ does… they know what they want… they want to be in charge… they want ‘class’ rigidly in place – and we want freedom from that. We have to be clear… that we want to end ‘class’. And if we aren’t clear… why aren’t we talking about it? Where are the discussions in these horizontal actions about that?…)

And if conflict can always check our actions… the issue is what are we going to do about it? ‘Divide and conquer’ has always been ‘power’s chief strategy… and we’ve never figured out how to reply effectively… Why is no one talking about that?… that conflict only exists because they’ve made resources scarce… intentionally… by privatizing it and creating a global economy… to do just that. Why don’t we challenge the propaganda that conflicts are somehow inherent in human nature?… as opposed to structurally induced and enforced and reproduced…) We have to take the long view [see from ‘the vantage of the whole’] to create something new… ‘power’ wants us being ‘particular’… focused narrow on our tribe… because it leaves the long view to them… free to set the overall conditions – and it is only by changing them… the overall conditions… by going on the offensive – claiming a global initiative – that we can establish generalized human freedom…. …

 

And if conflict can always check our actions… the issue is what are we going to do about it? ‘Divide and conquer’ has always been ‘power’s chief strategy… and we’ve never figured out how to reply effectively.

 

Analysis… language… and theory is key… for us to make sense of what happens to us in class society.

 

He went on: “it’s spreading. We shouldn’t forget that WWII put a brake on the building global popular solidarity across Europe of the early 20th century…”

(…boy did it ever… that’s why we’re reading Keith Lowe’s Savage Continent – that was a manufactured savagery… why is no one talking about that?… that conflict only exists because they’ve made resources scarce… intentionally… by privatizing it and creating a global economy… to do just that. Why don’t we challenge the propaganda that conflicts are somehow inherent in human nature?… as opposed to structurally induced and enforced and reproduced…)

…and his partner replied… with a nonchalance I found horrifying: “…that’s what makes this a revolutionary moment… but we shouldn’t think of it as “‘society’ in movement”… but rather: “societies in movement”…

 

…and this takes us right to: the lack of analysis…

 

“Taking the long road” is not “taking the long view” (seeing from ‘the vantage of the whole’… which is what these shows have been advocating…) – by any means. Our gift of ‘long sight’… perhaps unique to us as humans… requires that we represent for ‘the all of it’… and become seasoned thereby to resist… the lure of ‘the particular’….

 

We have to take the long view to create something new… ‘power’ wants us being ‘particular’… focused narrow on our tribe… because it leaves the long view to them… free to set the overall conditions – and it is only by changing them… the overall conditions… by going on the offensive – claiming a global initiative – that we can establish generalized human freedom….

 

Our fates – all peoples globally – are inter-linked… our goal is the same… and so our thinking and planning and all our strategizing must reflect a thinking-through… the ‘long-view’.

 

But in numerous of its policy pieces (e.g. that we reviewed from the Yale Globalization Center…) isn’t ‘power’ making the same case?… that for the sake of ‘the all’… the great ‘global good’… we-the-people should lessen our allegiance to particular ‘nation-states’? But the issue is… under whose aegis?

 

–––

 

* “WUR of August 31st, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

 

…regarding this need for us to “take the long view”… or “see from the ‘vantage of the whole’”… and focus on the overall conditions (that establish ‘class’ as a global… i.e. totalitarian system…) and therefore the need for us to develop, claim and use actively… a language of solidarity (with ourselves… with the earth…) to counter ‘power’s language of division (dressed up and presented as… using empty phrases that connote… ‘solidarity’…) – without it we can’t take that “longest stride of soul” Christopher Fry spoke of… – prescient man… well… I think ‘prescience’ is just ‘paying attention’…

 

[August 31, 2014: Back at the library again. I’ll add the missing text from this segment later. Thanks for your patience. – P.S.]

 

[August 24, 2014 addendum: The audio files for the August 24 show will be somewhat delayed – now… this was an acute situation… but there’s a chronic one too: i.e. my ATT Internet connection is routinely interrupted… which means getting these files up… takes twice as long (at least) as it’s supposed to. Anyway… my son was out of town (and with him the machine I use to upload from the recorder, ever since the data was wiped clean as I attempted to upload to my machine that time…) which… I suspect… is why the ‘wave attack’ has been particularly rigorous… and… by the by… has anyone heard of a wave bombardment hurting fruit? Figs have been melting into a rotting red (really more a ‘hot-pink’) mess from the fig tree at the back these past couple weeks… with a stink that offends my cat mightily. I’ve never seen such… in our twenty years’ relationship…. It’s almost as if these immature figs were cooked… or irradiated…. When they hit the deck they explode into a fugue of pinkness.]

 

–––

 

The goal of ‘power’ has ever been… since Bentham… to get us to be self-regulating. This is the point of ‘weeding out’ dissent.[This is discussed in the following audio-blog from the January 13, 2013 Waking Up Radio show: “If we can be made obedient, ‘the system’ can be ‘self-regulating’…”] Coercion costs too much… particularly for an arrogant bunch who’ve been so… profligate…. To a hammer every problem is a nail?… well… to a vampire all blood must be sucked… as of yesterday, OK?… their appetite knows no bottom… knows no bounds… so sucked they have… and now the dry husks litter the planet… and our Earth has been pushed past all tolerance…

 

…the Vampire puts on its ‘urgent’ face… and says ‘we’ must learn restraint…

…‘we’ have biases…

…‘we’ have greed…

…‘we’ have lived beyond our means…

…then the Vampire’s pose becomes fatherly… as he speaks to the children to whom he’s bequeathed the cities…

…“police yourselves…” says he… “or be policed…

…“the times are such you must defer to Authority…

…“if you don’t want cities plagued by violence…

…“if you don’t want desperate Battles of Necessity…

…“if you don’t want conflict over meeting basic needs…

…and if you do want peace and love and harmony…

…“accept the fact that…

…“a strong hand is needed…”

 

To understand ‘power’ in this present moment… let’s put on our ‘management hats’… and the Ignatieff piece can help illustrate what I mean… because embedded in it… I believe… is both the vision of the world they – the global-state-statesmen – want… and their assessment of the current geopolitical moment… and so… the challenge to that vision.

 

–––

 

August 24th, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: What came up for me at the end of the August 24th show… which focused on the need for us to “take the long view”… or “see from the ‘vantage of the whole’”… and focus on the overall conditions (that establish ‘class’ as a global… i.e. totalitarian system…) and therefore the need for us to develop, claim and use actively… a language of solidarity (with ourselves… with the earth…) to counter ‘power’s language of division (dressed up and presented as… using empty phrases that connote… ‘solidarity’…) because without it we can’t “take the long view” (and without taking the long view… we can’t grow ‘big’ enough to do this thing that needs to be done… take… that “longest stride of soul” Christopher Fry spoke of… – prescient man… well… I think ‘prescience’ is just ‘paying attention’…)

 

…and by ‘the state’ I mean the hidden ‘global-statesmen’ – because not every ‘head of state’… as we saw with Hugo Chavez… is a ‘global-state-statesman’ in the sense that they are trying to install totalitarianism globally… hard-core… lock-down… ‘no escape’ for real… because they’ve figured out how to neutralize the advantages that we have with instantaneous global communication – we don’t want that… no we do not… …so it is these ‘global-statesmen’ who cause the policies of nations to ever bend – and they can make this seem effortless by their manipulation of the financial instruments at their disposal… they control what gets done by controlling ‘credit’ – … toward totalitarianism… the practical definition of which might be: “the people are ‘happy’ with their various [assigned] conditions… whatever they might be. Some… like the pundits etc… are already there… snugly ensconced in their privileged assignment…

 

…so what came up for me (and we’ll be seeing this as we consider the words of Nelson Peery…) is that… as the state consciously fragments us…

(…and by ‘the state’ I mean the hidden ‘global-statesmen’ – because not every ‘head of state’… as we saw with Hugo Chavez… is a ‘global-state-statesman’ in the sense that they are trying to install totalitarianism globally… hard-core… lock-down… ‘no escape’ for real… because they’ve figured out how to neutralize the advantages that we have with instantaneous global communication – we don’t want that… no we do not…

 

…so it is these ‘global-statesmen’ who cause the policies of nations to ever bend – and they can make this seem effortless by their manipulation of the financial instruments at their disposal… they control what gets done by controlling ‘credit’ – … toward totalitarianism… the practical definition of which might be: “the people are ‘happy’ with their various [assigned] conditions… whatever they might be. Some… like the pundits etc… are already there… snugly ensconced in their privileged assignment…)

…is that… as the state consciously fragments us… and designs specific conditioning for we various fragments (perhaps we should ask the UC doctoral student to chop us out some new ones… ‘sheep’ and ‘sheepdog’ does not capture the deep complicity… I mean… complexity… of our expanded and ‘advanced’ system of class…) which thereby means… not only that we’re battling propaganda endlessly… but that even as we’re battling propaganda… we’re reinforcing the divisions…

(…this is a development of the argument in the blog I wrote (Blog 48) called, “The Responsibility of ‘The Intellectual’” (Parts 1 and 2), in which I said that:

…if solidarity must be our watchword – across time, culture and nation…

…before we can begin anew, we have some housekeeping chores to do…

…on behalf of all those misused, maligned, dismissed, dissed, abused and refused…

…pushed to the fringes…told we’re irrelevant…

[…it’s not happenstance that some are privileged in the global-state system and some aren’t… so I’m really hoping that very soon a critical mass of us who recognize that our (relatively) privileged position was paid for with the blood of those that ‘power’ is rushing to establish in a degraded (material) status that they can’t escape from… and it is time for us to stop being complacent about that… as if to say: “well, that’s just what happened, then, huh? We got this stuff…” – and… as we read Keith Lowe we’ll see that this exact same mindset confronted Jews returning from the concentration camps: “well, I’m sorry, that’s just what happened, then. I know that you had owned that stuff… but look… see… it’s ours now…” – we here in the ‘privileged’ ‘West’ have been acting exactly like that… acting as if the products priced cheap… because of the suffering in Africa… the suffering in Asia… and in Central and South America… that their being pounded down low is something that happened in the ‘ago’… – we cannot accept that injustice anymore… now that we can see the root of it… see where it came from…. So we got some housekeeping chores…]

…and told that if we dare presume to ‘think’ it must be in the prescribed categories which cast our enslavement in the first place…

…and continue to circumscribe our existence…

…and because most self-described ‘intellectuals’ or ‘pundits’ have no experience in the trades, they imagine that we down-here-on-the-ground hardly ‘think’ at all –

 

But what this was saying… in addition to: “‘the system’ (of the global-state) uses ‘the thinkers’ as self-validation / legitimization…” is that the ‘modern’ language of ‘classification’… of ‘specialization’… is itself the key tactic of control… of containment – among other things… it fragments critique: we can’t combine our efforts using it… and if there is no challenge to the ‘overall’ – the terms which require that we forfeit our souls (for we cannot hold onto them when they’re put out for hire… when we cannot honor the authentic voice of the earth…) those terms… are not touched at all… [Rather…] “Gentlemen, let us honor the artist, let us thank him, let us drink his health![for…] it was he who abolished that small, pedantic, narrow-grooved school teaching which made of an aspiring student a galley-slave, and he who allowed freedom in the choice of subject of study according to one’s pleasure and inclination, and so facilitated development…”

 

– imagine us as passive imbibers of received propaganda.

 

It’s worth a thought that the opposite may be true. At the least the pundits are misinformed. Folks who work with their hands understand the importance of ignoring the surface and looking behind.

 

“If everything was clean on the surface, it certainly wasn’t underneath! ” (Emile Zola, Germinal)

 

Mental workers, on the other hand, too often take the shiny surface…

…’democracy,’ ‘technology,’ ‘innovation,’ ‘science,’ ‘experts,’ ‘professionals,’ ‘managers,’ ‘engineers’ –

– these categories of thought that exclude (by definition) everyday folks the pundits take at face value.

…this explains why pundits need the inspiration of “the grassroots” –

– academia squelches independent thought (authentic thought)…the capacity to reason…

 

…and if the pundits’ poverty of thought was the only cost…

…derived from this mindset so mindlessly internalized…

…then “the system’s” strokes of pitiable folks…

…who need to believe in their supposed ‘superiority’…

…would be merely a joke.

But, unfortunately, this “joke’s” on us all…

…cuz…

…When the “mind-worker” sets him or herself up as “thinker”… she automatically reproduces the system he says he wants to move beyond. Because until we are living that world – in which conception and execution are once again merged, the act of conception, whether you will it or not, is used by the system as self-validation…)

But what this was saying… in addition to: “‘the system’ (of the global-state) uses ‘the thinkers’ as self-validation / legitimization / justification…” is that the ‘modern’ language of ‘classification’… of ‘specialization’… is itself the key tactic of control… of containment – among other things… it fragments critique: we can’t combine our efforts using it… and if there is no challenge to the ‘overall’ – the terms which require that we forfeit our souls (for we cannot hold onto them when they’re put out for hire… when we cannot honor the authentic voice of the earth…) those terms… are not touched at all.

 

Folks battle within their learned halls – but never take on the ‘overall’. And Popper would certainly second Nikola Tesla. “Tesla believed that the walls between disciplines would eventually fall, because nature is a whole that encourages wholes. He once said that it was a great day when:” (quote is from: Waking Up: Freeing Ourselves From Work)

The artist felt the desire of becoming a physician, an electrician, an engineer or mechanician or – whatnot – a mathematician or a financier; for it was he who wrought all these wonders and grandeur we are witnessing. It was he who abolished that small, pedantic, narrow-grooved school teaching which made of an aspiring student a galley-slave, and he who allowed freedom in the choice of subject of study according to one’s pleasure and inclination, and so facilitated development…men who look far above earthly things, whose banner is Excelsior! Gentlemen, let us honor the artist, let us thank him, let us drink his health! (Nikola Tesla, Collected Papers, Vol. 2, A-102-3)

…and as controlling us with ‘divide and conquer’ is key for ‘power’… the propaganda it designs must claim our eyes… reinforce ‘class’ divides (and by ‘class divides’ I mean all of them… all the ’isms…) and keep ‘power’ hidden at the same time… …here’s an example of what I mean about ‘power’ hiding:… Now… as a ‘Professor of Law’ I’m sure he’s read Jeremy Bentham… and all that he wrote (for ‘power’) on how to control us… by manipulating our ‘unconscious’… so why didn’t he mention it? Bentham’s constant question: “How can the few control the many?” (while always telling themselves, as Alice Miller pointed out, that it was “for our own good”), he answered by saying: by controlling what we can think, which he believed he’d created the ‘science’ of… to which he gave the name: “the logic of the will.” But the Professor didn’t want us to see… the hidden actor who is consciously shaping our sensibilities… and creating the structures that ensure their reproduction… Rather… look at where he’s directing our eyes: away from the state…

 

When multiple layers of discrete – often contradictory – propaganda enfold us – because of the fragmentation of our wholeness into ‘the disciplines’ (which are there to ‘discipline’ us…) – and when reacting to them we reinforce the divisions… ‘power’s hold tightens on us…

 

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… in some sense validates the system…

(Nelson Peery says something similar:

 

“Racism cannot be fought with anti-racism. It has to be fought with practical political activity unity. Radicals are quick to say that race is a myth, but then they accommodate it by fighting against it as if it were a real thing. The practical fight for unit where there is economic equality is the way to deal with this myth.

 

“A few years ago, a white off-duty cop murdered a black homeless man. The homeless man had attempted to wash the cop’s windshield, the cop objected and words were exchanged. The cop got his revolver out of ht trunk of the car and murdered the man. Most people immediately raised it as a racial murder. The homeless and their advocates objected and demanded that the crime be placed on class, rather than on racial lines. A white homeless person is also subject to murder, and knows it.” (Nelson Peery, The Future Is Up To Us: A Revolutionary Talking Politics With the American People (2001), p. 112)

…and just as we (‘we-the-global-people’…) have been smashed into a thousand-thousand fragments… each with designer-propaganda for it… ‘the state’ is even more widely splintered and distributed… it is everywhere and us… and so, therefore, is its propaganda – its opportunities to divide us… we are being fragmented simultaneously in multiple ways everywhere… continuously… every day…

 

…and as controlling us with ‘divide and conquer’ is key for ‘power’… the propaganda it designs must claim our eyes… reinforce ‘class’ divides… and keep ‘power’ hidden at the same time…

(…here’s an example of what I mean about ‘power’ hiding: today (August 26, 2014 – and… suggesting a coordinated campaign… I heard this message repeated again by a different pundit… who also cited Harvard and Pew as pushing this notion of ‘implicit bias’… and add in too the East Bay Express article [mentioned below] on Pew… and… as I typed last week’s words… it occurred… that all this ‘propaganda chat’ of late about a bias being ‘implicit’ may be to shift how we think of it – this word ‘bias’ – away from physical… material… disproportion in who owns the weight of the world… to some immaterial notion… for which ‘physics’ don’t apply…] I listened to an interview with an either duplicitous or tricky Professor of Law… which began with the bait that his concern was the structural underpinnings of ‘race’… but ‘structure’ turned out to be our ‘unconscious biases’… which… he told us encouragingly… we should all hasten to begin ‘unlearning’….

 

Now… as a ‘Professor of Law’ I’m sure he’s read Jeremy Bentham… and all that he wrote (for ‘power’) on how to control us… by manipulating our ‘unconscious’… so why didn’t he mention it?

Bentham’s constant question: “How can the few control the many?” (while always telling themselves, as Alice Miller pointed out, that it was “for our own good”), he answered by saying: by controlling what we can think, which he believed he’d created the ‘science’ of… to which he gave the name: “the logic of the will.”

 

The specific question that preoccupied Bentham was, “How do you control popular opinion such that people will give their obedience, and ‘governance’ can occur?” He said that ‘the people’ will believe a thing with certainty only if that thing is “confirmed by the reputed perceptions of all other men without exception” (Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence). He went on to say that as long as there is this degree of control (that is to say, total control) of our thoughts, ‘power’ can even make us believe that which is contrary to physical reality and to our physical nature as living things – particularly, our need to be free.

 

But ‘power’ must stay hidden to exist. It cannot seem to be about intentionally impairing our judgment… though in controlling what we can think, it is quite clearly doing this. And Bentham showed them how.

 

‘Power’s lexicon… or you could call it, “the moral universe of ‘class’”… is premised on an intentional ‘re-crafting’, by controlling what we can think, essentially impairing our judgment.

 

Government exists, or so the story goes, by the informed consent of the governed. But what when, as Bentham advised, consent is intentionally manipulated? is intentionally kept ill-informed… akin, perhaps, to the planned intoxication… of a rape victim? (“The Violence of Class” , March, 2013)

But the Professor didn’t want us to see… the hidden actor who is consciously shaping our sensibilities… and creating the structures that ensure their reproduction… Rather… look at where he’s directing our eyes: away from the state…

(…and by the way… while in previous years our local progressive station has repeatedly aired… documentaries about the creation of an ‘insidious’ advertising industry… created specifically to manipulate and shape our unconscious and control our thought… but they have never talked about the role of the state in controlling our thought by manipulating and shaping our unconscious – and that’s key. When our eyes are diverted away from the state… that’s not by accident… the ‘statesmen’ teach each other Bentham – we never hear that over the airwaves: the intentional crafting of us by states… as advised… by Bentham. So… the Professor directs our eyes away from the state and to we-the-people –this is what the media… academia… always does – that’s why they use the word ‘violence’ instead of ‘coercion’: when the word ‘coercion’ is used… our eyes are right on the state… because it’s created conflict… necessity… by manufacturing ‘scarcity’.

…so he directs our eyes away from the state and to us. And look how ‘power’ uses everything for its purposes: if our understanding is growing about unconscious manipulation… shield ‘power’ from our consideration and place the onus square on us… on we-the-people…)

But the point of all the propaganda… is to maintain control of the discussions… to keep us from embracing global goals… scope and action… i.e. to keep us from unifying across the false divisions… from becoming global actors… free to tackle the overall conditions… But the point of the propaganda more specifically… the point of the ‘divide and conquer’ strategy… the point of conditioning us to view ‘classification’ unquestioningly… is to get us to accept – locally, but especially now globally – a permanently degraded ‘class’ whose condition… is made to seem (to everyone else and to ‘them’…) as ‘just’ given their (manufactured) disposition.… But what’s key… in our existing terms of instantaneous communication… is that it must seem ‘legitimate’… or ‘natural’… as with so-called ‘natural disasters’… like the drought and famine and desperate need ‘power’ is manufacturing [under the cover of ‘global warming’…] for our brothers and sisters in Central and South America… in Asia… in Africa…

 

…and when the propaganda propagates to match the fragments… ‘divide and conquer’ tactics have a multiplier effect… as we tend to stay within our castes even as we challenge our containment…

 

…so… for instance… asking Tolstoi’s question of all crafted productions, “who is it for?”… we have one reply when the production is ‘Steele’ or ‘Ignatieff’… and another when we consider an academic treatise… and another again when ‘the media’ says “steer clear of the ‘Occupy’ encampments”… and still another when it begins “national conversations.”

 

But the point of all the propaganda… is to maintain control of the discussions… to keep us from embracing global goals… scope and action… i.e. to keep us from unifying across the false divisions… from becoming global actors… free to tackle the overall conditions…

 

…the point of all ‘power’s propaganda, then… is to keep us from taking that big perspective… and it does this by means of ‘atomization’… and by claiming our attention – getting us to engage with it. And so even if we challenge its ‘divide and conquer’ embedded message… even if we recognize ‘power’s hidden hand in it… we’re still giving it our attention… and so being fragmented (perhaps most importantly… within ourselves…) and diverted from taking responsibility for ‘the all of it’… diverted from ‘the long view’… and from getting ‘big’… and from then doing what ‘power’ has done ever since they were conscious Tribesmen… which is to make our every move be about realizing our vision… our vision of a free global humanity.

 

But the point of the propaganda more specifically… the point of the ‘divide and conquer’ strategy… the point of conditioning us to view ‘classification’ unquestioningly… is to get us to accept – locally, but especially now globally – a permanently degraded ‘class’ whose condition… is made to seem (to everyone else and to ‘them’…) as ‘just’ given their (manufactured) disposition.

(And Keith Lowe talks about this in his section on “Moral Destruction” – which we’ll hopefully get to today – a degraded caste… slaves…. How else can a system of ‘class’ function? But what’s key… in our existing terms of instantaneous communication… is that it must seem ‘legitimate’… or ‘natural’… as with so-called ‘natural disasters’… like the drought and famine and desperate need ‘power’ is manufacturing [under the cover of ‘global warming’…] for our brothers and sisters in Central and South America… in Asia… in Africa.)

–––

 

…apologies in advance to Mr. Peery for not reading his work completely… reading has been made challenging for me these days – but it ain’t about my own physical health… unmediated… un-messed-with… trust… I am being messed with… Once… I heard this man on “This American Life”… an Apple employee, I believe… and the theme of the show was “love at first sight”… and he told this amazing story of this relationship – hearing it… you had to believe… there is indeed… mystery… but… what he began with… in telling his story… was what I was most interested in… but the interviewer dropped it like a hot potato. The Apple-guy said that he had to move constantly… to not be in pain… and I’d never heard anyone else say this… and I was relating to him when he said that… about that need to keep moving…. And I wondered if he’d been made a target. I have to wonder because of what I’m experiencing… and I know it’s a risk to put it out there like this…. That’s what ‘power’ does… it uses what it does to you… against you. I recall Miklos saying that… just telling the truth would get him accused of lying or exaggerating… just telling the truth. But I’m totally with Zora on this [and I know he is too]: “I don’t have to lie… because truth is a letter from courage…”

 

So how do we get clear on these necessary questions… of language… focus… and destination… and of seeing ‘power’ behind things – embedding ‘Division’ structurally – so we can finally get to the next step of coordinated global action… that builds in size over time… along with the growth of our certainty – how accomplish this… when our attention is trapped in all the propaganda?

 

How do we develop the necessary solidarity when we’re being riven constantly?

 

And interestingly… some books came into my possession the week of August 18th that bear on these present discussions mightily… on these issues of ‘language’… and ‘solidarity’… and ‘perspective’… and ‘vision’… on ‘theory’… and ‘strategy’… and ‘tactical decisions’…

 

Someone who saw some commonalities in our messages… sent me a book – no note… but, hey… that’s OK – the book was gift enough. It’s called The Future Is Up To Us: A Revolutionary Talking Politics With the American People (2001)… by Nelson Peery… and because there are such similarities in our emphasis on ‘seeing reality’… and on seeing ‘power’ clearly… on vision… as well as in subject… allegiance… heart… and goal – while differences in language (and by this I mean the lexicon: language of the earth – our Mother Tongue – versus Marxist…) in theory… analysis and conclusions… comparing more closely our two arguments could help shed light on these just-named issues.

 

Here’s a taste so show what I mean… (apologies in advance to Mr. Peery for not reading his work completely… reading has been made challenging for me these days – but it ain’t about my own physical health… unmediated… un-messed-with… trust… I am being messed with… this is a story I hope to tell one day…) recall it’s written in 2001… which shows real clarity in thinking… and strength in his analysis (I’m sure these things didn’t escape ‘power’s notice… and I have to say when I read the blurb on the back about his life and how he traveled around a lot… I wondered if that decision was motivated just by the incentive of getting out there and meeting folks… or whether there was some ‘push’ to it…. Once… I heard this man on “This American Life”… an Apple employee, I believe… and the theme of the show was “love at first sight”… and he told this amazing story of this relationship – hearing it… you had to believe… there is indeed… mystery… but… what he began with… in telling his story… was what I was most interested in… but the interviewer dropped it like a hot potato. The Apple-guy said that he had to move constantly… to not be in pain… and I’d never heard anyone else say this… and I was relating to him when he said that… about that need to keep moving…. And I wondered if he’d been made a target. I have to wonder because of what I’m experiencing… and I know it’s a risk to put it out there like this…. That’s what ‘power’ does… it uses what it does to you… against you. I recall Miklos saying that… just telling the truth would get him accused of lying or exaggerating… just telling the truth. But I’m totally with Zora on this [and I know he is too]: “I don’t have to lie… because truth is a letter from courage…”):

“Things are much more serious than the average person thinks or realizes or that the media lets people know. The reality is that no matter how much you are talking about the expansion of the economy, the poor are getting much poorer. The poverty is spreading in this country [the U.S.]. The wealth is consolidating at such a rapid rate that even the wealthy are beginning to say, “We can’t do this. We can’t become a nation of have’s and have-not’s.” The stability of America has always rested upon that huge section of the population that had just enough to give them the hope that they were going to get some more. So long as they had that hope, they wouldn’t change the system for love nor money no matter how hard they were hurting. They weren’t going to change the system because they believed there was a golden egg up there somewhere. They were the ones who stabilized America. …you can deny that the bear is scratching at the back door all you want, but when the door goes down and the bear comes into your house, you are going to have to deal with it.” So it seems… we could almost as well have deemed our “Wallerstein ‘Heads Up!’” on ‘capitalism’s demise… a ‘Heads Up!’ from Peery…

 

Things are much more serious than the average person thinks or realizes or that the media lets people know. The reality is that no matter how much you are talking about the expansion of the economy, the poor are getting much poorer. The poverty is spreading in this country [the U.S.]. The wealth is consolidating at such a rapid rate that even the wealthy are beginning to say, “We can’t do this. We can’t become a nation of have’s and have-not’s.” The stability of America has always rested upon that huge section of the population that had just enough to give them the hope that they were going to get some more. So long as they had that hope, they wouldn’t change the system for love nor money no matter how hard they were hurting. They weren’t going to change the system because they believed there was a golden egg up there somewhere. They were the ones who stabilized America.

 

[…and that is wonderfully expressed… concise and clear… a clarity we needed and didn’t hear… – P.S.]

 

All of us have seen the magazines that speak frankly to the bourgeoisie, seen the articles that point to the danger of this polarization of wealth and poverty continuing. It’s one thing as long as you can say that poverty is colored and it’s related to lack of industrious, Protestant habits. [And today… this song and dance is a global scam… – P.S.] When you have the poverty spreading out, people look at one another and say, “You know, it’s not true this is a black problem, or a brown problem. It’s a problem of a growing section of society.” Now, the problem becomes how do you stop it? (p. 104)

 

[He uses a great analogy…: – P.S.]

 

As long as people see this new class [what was then called a new ‘underclass’… and which he’s arguing is a ‘new revolutionary class’] as black and inner city, nobody is going to do anything about it. They may study it and write books about it, but they aren’t going to attempt to solve the problem. The actual problem, of course, is the growing poverty of American whites. The ruling class put them into a state of denial and the white poor jointed in the attack against their fundamental interests. As the old story goes, you can deny that the bear is scratching at the back door all you want, but when the door goes down and the bear comes into your house, you are going to have to deal with it. The rust belt is the bear. The similarities between the inner city black and the people in these semi-rural, one horse industry towns that now have no way to make their living are undeniable. Sometimes whole towns, often 60% of a town, are on welfare in this belt of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. (p. 101)

 

[So it seems… we could almost as well have deemed our “Wallerstein ‘Heads Up!’” on ‘capitalism’s demise… a ‘Heads Up!’ from Peery… excepting that… unlike Wallerstein he doesn’t place the cause squarely in ‘power’s global profligacy… its ruthless squandering of the resources of the planet… but rather in ‘innovation’ and automation. But what we argued in our critique of the Collins piece in Does Capitalism Have A Future?… is that ‘power’ hopes to solve its ‘overproduction’ problems… with totalitarianism… – P.S.]

 

“This scramble, the polarization of wealth and poverty that’s so rampant in the western world and especially in the United States, is going to continue. The process is not only continuing, it is necessarily accelerating.… It won’t go away and we are heading for a very, very dangerous situation in the United States. The capitalists are calculating that, in the final analysis, if they can’t handle this then they have to let the police handle it.” [And I don’t hear this discussion: “do we really want this to be about ‘us vs. the police’?” Isn’t that just playing into ‘power’s hands? When are we going to talk about that? How do we avoid getting trapped by that tactic? Because… ultimately… we want the police to stand with us. I remember when I went down to one of the Occupy Oakland marches following the destruction of the encampment… and I had to turn around early and retrace my steps down the middle of the street… and there was a long row of police cars coming towards me… following in the wake of the march… re-opening the street little by little behind the march… and they were passing me by on either side…and they were all in a good mood… their windows were down… it was a warm day… and I looked at one and said, “You know… one day… you’re going to be marching with us.” And he laughed. We have to trust that. – P.S.]

 

This scramble, the polarization of wealth and poverty that’s so rampant in the western world and especially in the United States, is going to continue. We can look forward to what that means. It means that little by little, the poor and propertyless are going to recognize themselves as poor and propertyless. We have to help them understand that. We have to help them understand that they are part of a new class. The objective conditions for us doing that are becoming more and more favorable and there is no force on the face of the earth that can stop it…. The process is not only continuing, it is necessarily accelerating. It won’t go away and we are heading for a very, very dangerous situation in the United States. The capitalists are calculating that, in the final analysis, if they can’t handle this then they have to let the police handle it. (p. 105)

 

[And we’ll be returning next week… to this issue of what to do about this ‘power’-tactic of getting us to make ‘the police’ our focus… which ‘rulers’ have used across (class-) time (which we’ll see as we talk about it…) whenever the people awake from their sleep. Recall: the ‘refusal’ of Russian soldiers to shoot us down in the streets… restored ‘heart’… restored ‘hope’… turned the tide to the people. (This is discussed in the Waking Up Radio show of July 21, 2013… included in the pdf: “Reclaiming Our Leadership (Volume 1” (pdf file).]

 

[And I don’t hear this discussion: “do we really want this to be about ‘us vs. the police’?” Isn’t that just playing into ‘power’s hands? When are we going to talk about that? How do we avoid getting trapped by that tactic? Because… ultimately… we want the police to stand with us. I remember when I went down to one of the Occupy Oakland marches following the destruction of the encampment… and I had to turn around early and retrace my steps down the middle of the street… and there was a long row of police cars coming towards me… following in the wake of the march… re-opening the street little by little behind the march… and they were passing me by on either side…and they were all in a good mood… their windows were down… it was a warm day… and I looked at one and said, “You know… one day… you’re going to be marching with us.” And he laughed. We have to trust that. – P.S.]

 

“This situation has continued along its line of march. Once a process gets started you can’t will it to change. It has to run its course.… They can’t turn it around, nobody has ever turned anything around. Every time I hear this phrase, ‘we can turn it around’, I start laughing. You ever heard of a freight train turning around? It’s going to run its course…. We are heading for a very serious, very difficult time. It’s going to happen as an eruption, it’s going to be very wide spread, and the result is going to be a real drive towards fascist reorganization of the state… The ruling class is moving to implement a fascist rule because they have no other choice…” [this is called ‘seeing reality’… this is one of those ‘Gotta Get Solozzo’ moments (from The Godfather) – the so-called ‘rulers’ have no other choice if they are going to be ‘rulers’… which means that we have to act… and it has to be globally… – P.S.]. Mr. Peery uses a Marxist analysis and language and… I think it’s true to say… ‘world-view’… which you could say is the source of the accuracy of his predictions… but the test of the strength of a theory doesn’t rest on its predictive power alone. There is a single underlying reality… which… if you base your thinking in at least some of that reality… it will point you someways true. But the part of reality missing… is what Marcuse called ‘the democratic introjection’… and Alice called ‘poisonous pedagogy’… and what’s also missing… is what Popper wanted us to see: that there are a few mis-trained men… who are making that reality… and that we also are being ‘made’ by them… not by so-called ‘market forces’.– P.S.]

 

[Contrast Peery’s… heart… based in on-the-ground-love… for we commoners… with the official propaganda… cited in the most recent East Bay Express (August 20 – 26, 2014), “Ferguson, Sanford, and Oakland”: “According to a survey released earlier this week by the Pew Research Center…” which informs us that there is a deep divide between black and white…” The language of ‘science’… in the official voices… has ever been used to attempt to create what it purports to ‘objectively’ report. And it’s worth considering… that the language of ‘science’ breaks up the rhythmic quality of language as the people made it… keeps us on the defensive… and from our power (we’ve been arguing that ‘words’ are how we claim the world…. He concludes:) – P.S.]

 

This situation has continued along its line of march. Once a process gets started you can’t will it to change. It has to run its course. The capitalists cannot halt the downsizing and the development of a whole new class of people, of workers, throw away workers and part-time workers. They can’t put a stop to it because they are beginning to see that it’s not a very good thing to do. They can’t turn it around, nobody has ever turned anything around. Every time I hear this phrase, ‘we can turn it around’, I start laughing. You ever heard of a freight train turning around? It’s going to run its course…. We are heading for a very serious, very difficult time. It’s going to happen as an eruption, it’s going to be very wide spread, and the result is going to be a real drive towards fascist reorganization of the state. (p. 107)

 

[…And… without doubt… this is exactly where we are today… – P.S.]

 

The ruling class is moving to implement a fascist rule because they have no other choice. […this is called ‘seeing reality’… this is one of those ‘Gotta Get Solozzo’ moments (from The Godfather) – the so-called ‘rulers’ have no other choice if they are going to be ‘rulers’… which means that we have to act… and it has to be globally… – P.S.] They will take advantage of whatever will allow them to maintain their power and their privilege. But their constituency isn’t very big. (p. 133)

 

[…Numbers… it’s that which the earth is turning our eyes to see: we are everything…. – P.S.]

 

Now, what do we need? We need a very large mass party, a very large organization… a small party, no matter how high its level… cannot accomplish the task we laid out for ourselves. (p. 141)

 

[…Now… this is an important discussion… because I don’t think a mass party is what we need… and not just because of this problem of infiltration… and ‘power’s skill in disruption and causing conflict (to say nothing of its skill in causing harm clandestinely…) – we’ll be returning to this question again… of ‘mass organization’… ‘for’ and ‘against’… – P.S.]

Mr. Peery uses a Marxist analysis and language and… I think it’s true to say… ‘world-view’… which you could say is the source of the accuracy of his predictions… but the test of the strength of a theory doesn’t rest on its predictive power alone. There is a single underlying reality… which… if you base your thinking in at least some of that reality… it will point you someways true. But the part of reality missing… is what Marcuse called ‘the democratic introjection’… and Alice called ‘poisonous pedagogy’…

 

…and what’s also missing… is what Popper wanted us to see: that there are a few mis-trained men… who are making that reality… and that we also are being ‘made’ by them… not by so-called ‘market forces’..

 

So the real test is: does it lead us to a future that we… all of us together globally… determine… does it expose the underpinnings of ‘class’… and show how to end it… end hierarchy… the rule of the few… manufactured scarcity (the source of all the manufactured conflicts….) Does it inform effective strategy for achieving generalized human leisure?

 

It’s important that we see how the game is played… the actual game… called: “claim their eyes… so that we can hide…” called: “keep them scrambling and at each other’s throats… in competition for artificially-made-scarce resources…” else we can’t begin to see our way out. We have been trying to ‘beat them at their own game’… i.e. ‘prove’ we are ‘smarter’ (‘prove our worth’… our ‘value’ in the market… essentially…) – but the very act of trying means we’ve lost… because that’s how their game works… imagine a fly trying to be more ‘skillful’ in the web.

 

And perhaps most of all… to be useful… in these times… after the repeated loony attempts of ‘power’ to install their fantasy of ‘Ancient Greece’… after millennia of treating ourselves and each other as if we were commodities… after endless war… after Auschwitz… what we most need from theory… is for it to explain clearly to us… why we obey. For only when that spell is broken are we free to design a new way. ‘Smart’ has never been the question… the question is our broken hearts… and the answer to “why?”… is our atomization… which busted up our relations into a thousand-thousand fragments… condemning us to perpetual disorientation… robbing us of our bearings. We no longer know who we are. But we are still living things… we are still earth… there is within us authentic life… that listens… that waits… and hopes… like Tennyson’s rose: “There has fallen a splendid tear… From the passion-flower at the gate.” Tennyson’s Maud is like our Freedom… we will never relinquish her.… The earth must be our ‘lingua franca’… we are all her sons and daughters… we are all supported by her broad back… and we can’t grow ‘big’ until we remember that.

 

We’re all afraid we’re not ‘smart enough’. And while this lack of certainty is expressed in ‘market’ form… particular as to place and rank… underneath it is a single insecurity… that all of us experience… globally… because ‘class’ is a totalitarian whole… enforced by the global market… which is set up to make us insecure.

 

And perhaps most of all… to be useful… in these times… after the repeated loony attempts of ‘power’ to install their fantasy of ‘Ancient Greece’… after millennia of treating ourselves and each other as if we were commodities… after endless war… after Auschwitz… what we most need from theory… is for it to explain clearly to us… why we obey. For only when that spell is broken are we free to design a new way.

 

‘Smart’ has never been the question… the question is our broken hearts… and the answer to “why?”… is our atomization… which busted up our relations into a thousand-thousand fragments… condemning us to perpetual disorientation… robbing us of our bearings. We no longer know who we are.

 

And for each fragment ‘power’ has designed propaganda just for it. We truly are living in a ‘designer-world’… so totally-not-of-our-making… we’ve lost interest in taking our absolutely due and necessary… responsibility.

 

But we are still living things… we are still earth… there is within us authentic life… that listens… that waits… and hopes… like Tennyson’s rose:

There has fallen a splendid tear

From the passion-flower at the gate.

She is coming, my dove, my dear;

She is coming, my life, my fate;

The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;

And the white rose weeps, “She is late;”

The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;”

And the lily whispers, “I wait,”

 

She is coming, my own, my sweet;

Were it ever so airy a tread,

My heart would hear her and beat,

Were it earth in an earthy bed;

My dust would hear her and beat,

Had I lain for a century dead;

Would start and tremble under her feet,

And blossom in purple and red.

(I only know that fragment… thanks to George Eliot… who loved it…)

 

…his Maud is like our Freedom… we will never relinquish her.

 

The question of ‘language’ is… in some sense… the question of what sounds the right note to make the great bell tremble:

How will you know the pitch of that great bell

Too large for you to stir? Let but a flute

Play ’neath the fine-mixed metal: listen close

Till the right note flows forth, a silvery rill:

Then shall the huge bell tremble – then the mass

With myriad waves concurrent shall respond

In low soft unison.

(George Eliot)

The earth must be our ‘lingua franca’… we are all her sons and daughters… we are all supported by her broad back… and we can’t grow ‘big’ until we remember that.

 

–––

 

“But isn’t that a good thing? Look what [rock-throwing agents] did… it brought a whole lot of media attention on an issue that was otherwise absent.” (Now why do you suppose ‘power’ would want to do that?) And this is an on-going question that we certainly heard during the Occupy movement.… When Mr. Peery tells us that the Bear at the door must inevitably be faced… he’s not sufficiently crediting the atomization… and how desperately we need “our own things”… as Ntozake said… to stand against the state (I mean… the very name she took… made Ntozake a target…) We must never forget that media is theater… art – as in… artifice… craft – and Tolstoi said… that when presented with a piece of art production we should ask: “For whom is this being done?” And while he simply wanted us to become more conscious artists… for us the question is… pure politics. Underneath all media in our ‘designer-world’ lies: “divide and conquer”… and a larger scheme… that hides….

 

This week I also listened to an interviewer ask a man incensed at bottle-throwing-agent-infiltration of protest in Ferguson, Missouri: “But isn’t that a good thing? Look what it did… it brought a whole lot of media attention on an issue that was otherwise absent.” (Now why do you suppose ‘power’ would want to do that?) And this is an on-going question that we certainly heard during the Occupy movement. In what language can we answer it? Why is Marxism not the right language?… the right note?

 

(And isn’t ‘horizontalism’ but another angle on the Marxist perspective?… is there not a child-like quality to both? Magical thinking: that whatever one does… or doesn’t do… the desired event will happen – either because of ‘inevitable market forces’… or ‘the inevitable force of the people…’

 

Magical thinking festooned with jargon… with invented categories puffed up on phantom calories – treated as real by their inventors.)

 

When Mr. Peery tells us that the Bear at the door must inevitably be faced… he’s not sufficiently crediting the atomization… and how desperately we need “our own things”… as Ntozake said… to stand against the state (I mean… the very name she took… made Ntozake a target…)

 

We must never forget that media is theater… art – as in… artifice… craft – and Tolstoi said… that when presented with a piece of art production we should ask: “For whom is this being done?” And while he simply wanted us to become more conscious artists… for us the question is… pure politics. Underneath all media in our ‘designer-world’ lies: “divide and conquer”… and a larger scheme… that hides….

 

–––

 

* “WUR of September 7th, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

 

The new page that I’ve put up, which I’m calling, “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Building Global Actions”… will begin by hosting a couple (at least so far) a couple academic discussions from over thirty years ago. The first is an essay from a book titled Antisystemic Movements… by Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein. This essay, called “Rethinking the Concepts of Class and Status-Group in a World Systems Perspective”, was presented at a conference in 1982.

 

September 4th, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: Once… when I was hawking books… a man replied to my usual spiel about ‘power’ being global… and that it can’t be settled nation-state by nation-state… by saying, “Believe me, we know. There’s a lot of discussion about this right now.”

 

I was surprised… and thought he must mean on the Internet… and it could be that’s all he meant… but now I suspect he largely means… in the Halls of Academe… because that’s the source of this ‘thought’ that reasoning leads to… because it’s true.

 

The new page that I’ve put up, which I’m calling, “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”… will begin by hosting a couple (at least so far) a couple academic discussions from over thirty years ago. The first is an essay from a book titled Antisystemic Movements… by Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein. This essay, called “Rethinking the Concepts of Class and Status-Group in a World Systems Perspective”, was presented at a conference in 1982.

 

…and this is my challenge to those of you in academia – and not just those studying Left or progressive ‘thinking’… but also you scientists… who are realizing, I think… that the ‘bargain’ you’ve made with ‘power’ is a false one… the bargain that says: “you let me do my research… and I’ll leave the running of the world to you…” a ‘deal’ which meant leaving “the ‘running’ of my brothers and sisters… the using of them… the manipulation and consumption of them… as well as of the resources under their feet… to you… so that I can continue to not care about what you do.”… These thoughts come to mind because of an article about the astronomers at UC – Berkeley… upset because the ‘powers-that-be’ have decided to shut down the Lick Telescope… and forbid student access to the one they’re building in Hawaii… ‘Class’ is deepening around us as we speak… and all of us see it… feel it – there’s numerous illustrations of it. This is called ‘stratification’… but it’s not by accident… it’s by design.… So I wondered when I read this piece by von Werlhof… the academics who delve into these issues that are of immediate and pressing relevance for all of us – and nothing could be more pressing than looming… or in-fact-installed totalitarian rule of us… there’s a lot of resistance to certain discussions happening… a lot of suppression. So the progressive airwaves right now are not the progressive airwaves that we need. So we have to figure out a way to either make them have the conversations we need… or get them out there in some other way…

 

The second, from that same decade, alerted – not we commoners… who, then? –

(…and this is my challenge to those of you in academia – and not just those studying Left or progressive ‘thinking’… but also you scientists… who are realizing, I think… that the ‘bargain’ you’ve made with ‘power’ is a false one… the bargain that says: “you let me do my research… you let me be unfettered from thinking about anything but what I want to do… and I’ll focus just on that… and leave the running of the world to you…” a ‘deal’ which meant leaving “the ‘running’ of my brothers and sisters… the using of them… the manipulation and consumption of them… as well as of the resources under their feet… to you… so that I can continue to not care about what you do.”

 

That was a false ‘bargain’. And these thoughts come to mind because of an article in The Daily Californian of September 2, 2014 [“Facing a Waning Future” by Virgie Hoban] about the astronomers at UC – Berkeley upset because the ‘powers-that-be’ have decided to shut down the Lick Telescope [“The Lick Observatory, which houses the refractor, faces closure, as the UC Office of the President announced it would withdraw all of its funding from the observatory by 2018 in order to direct more resource to the university’s new $1.3 million Thirty Meter Telescope… in Hawaii… currently under construction… Under the plan… students and postdoctoral researchers will lose the ability to be principal investigators of telescope proposals (and will be) prohibited from applying for time at [the telescopes in Hawaii…]” which the students coming up could learn on. They were allowed to touch it… and instead they’re trying to make that an exclusive privilege of the gray hairs… the suits… those who have – as Plato advised – proven their loyalty to ‘power’ [Plato warned against letting young people think until they too become ‘suits’… and then can be entrusted with the keys to ‘the good stuff’….]

 

‘Class’ is deepening around us as we speak… and all of us see it… feel it – there’s numerous illustrations of it. This is called ‘stratification’… but it’s not by accident… it’s by design. So… by design… we have to join hands together… and refuse those false divisions… and say, “we all deserve that same ‘good stuff’… we all got the same equal access to the earth… we are all equally powerful… and rich in innumerable gifts….”

 

So I wondered when I read this piece by von Werlhof… the academics who delve into these issues that are of immediate and pressing relevance for all of us – and nothing could be more pressing than looming… or in-fact-installed totalitarian rule of us… and answering the question, “how do we get out of it?”… and “what do we think about this choice between ‘authority’ and ‘freedom’?”… and “what kind of world do we want?”– all of these issues that are for all of us to discuss happen within the narrow Halls of Academe. And I challenge those of you walking those halls to look within your hearts and ask of yourselves, “Am I doing enough to put these vital discussions for determining our future out into the world… so that we can all work on them together?” It does require all of us pushing hard right now… because there’s a lot of resistance to certain discussions happening… a lot of suppression. So the progressive airwaves right now are not the progressive airwaves that we need. So we have to figure out a way to either make them have the conversations we need… or get them out there in some other way. We have to figure this out.)

…Claudia von Werlhof writes: “…small peasants, seasonal agricultural laborers, petty traders and petty service people, producers and sellers of self-produced commodities, prostitutes and part-time wage laborers, contract- and home-workers… all occupy all the roles that will gradually come to constitute the norm in our [i.e. ‘the Western’…] countries, too…. It reveals to us the ‘vision of the future’ and the real character of our mode of production. More explicitly, here, too, our economy will become ‘femalized’, ‘feminized’, ‘marginalized’, ‘naturalized’, or ‘housewifized’; only one thing will it not become – proletarianized.” ‘Housework’… she said… will become “the model of work.” Scrape off the ‘environmental consciousness’ / ‘moral economy’ facade from the ‘Left – Right consensus’ that Nader et al. are pushing… hoping to con us into thinking… a la Richard Wolff… that ‘we’ can ‘reform’ ‘capitalism’… or ‘the economy’… or whatever… transform ‘it’ into something ‘we’ ‘own’… something ‘moral’… and ‘inclusive’… and ‘sustainable’… and ‘local’… So we’re going to be spending some time with the ‘thought’ of Marx… because we need all hands on deck… and the allegiance of a lot of progressive folk to ‘Marxist’ thinking is something we have to discuss… and move past – and ask: “Is Marxism the language we need to move forward to our future?… What I’m asking us to consider… is that the result is the actual… and conscious… intention: our atomization… and I would add that… intimately linked with that… if not just the flip side of it: “total privatization of the resources of the planet…” – those things are necessarily coupled together in order to manufacture ‘scarcity’: the illusion that there’s not enough… which keeps us at each other’s throats… which keeps us in harness… which keeps us living in fear…

 

– that “the Third World is coming to us….” This piece is called “The Proletarian Is Dead; Long Live the Housewife?” …by Claudia von Werlhof. She writes: “…small peasants, seasonal agricultural laborers, petty traders and petty service people, producers and sellers of self-produced commodities, prostitutes and part-time wage laborers, contract- and home-workers… all occupy all the roles that will gradually come to constitute the norm in our [i.e. ‘the Western’…] countries, too…. It reveals to us the ‘vision of the future’ and the real character of our mode of production. More explicitly, here, too, our economy will become ‘femalized’, ‘feminized’, ‘marginalized’, ‘naturalized’, or ‘housewifized’; only one thing will it not become – proletarianized.” ‘Housework’… she said… will become “the model of work.”

 

Scrape off the ‘environmental consciousness’ / ‘moral economy’ facade from the ‘Left – Right consensus’ that Nader et al. are pushing… hoping to con us into thinking… a la Richard Wolff… that ‘we’ can ‘reform’ ‘capitalism’… or ‘the economy’… or whatever… transform ‘it’ into something ‘we’ ‘own’… something ‘moral’… and ‘inclusive’… and ‘sustainable’… and ‘local’…

 

…dissolve the saccharine pap from the media hype and what are we left with?… if not exactly what von Werlhof describes.

 

The first essay shows us… drawing on Marx… the conversion of human individuality into amorphous ‘energy’ by means of ‘the market’.

(So we’re going to be spending some time with the ‘thought’ of Marx… because we need all hands on deck… and the allegiance of a lot of progressive folk to ‘Marxist’ thinking is something we have to discuss… and move past – and last week’s show… in looking at the Nelson Peery book, The Future Is Up To Us… partly began this discussion… well… we’re going to be continuing to delve into that question: “Is Marxism the language we need to move forward to our future?)

What Lowe shows… as does von Werlhof… is that this is also accomplished by war. In extremis ‘power’ turns to war.

 

What I’m asking us to consider… is that the result is the actual… and conscious… intention: our atomization… and I would add that… intimately linked with that… if not just the flip side of it: “total privatization of the resources of the planet…” – those things are necessarily coupled together in order to manufacture ‘scarcity’: the illusion that there’s not enough… which keeps us at each other’s throats… which keeps us in harness… which keeps us living in fear…. These are questions that have… not just ‘advanced’ beyond Marx’s era… but reveal, rather, that ‘Marxist thought’ began with the wrong premises: the notion of a hierarchical arrangement by which ‘we’ ‘progress’ through ‘history’… and that those of us connected to the earth… represent some ‘earlier stage’…. This was a faulty premise… which fostered a division… a hurt… a wound… that we’ve been struggling to heal ever since… and are in the midst of healing right now – begin with false premises… end with false conclusions.

 

And another faulty premise: the division between ‘intellectual’ and ‘manual’ labor… which Marx… and the era itself… bought into. Considering yourself ‘civilized’ required betrayal of your brothers and sisters. We’re at a point now when we can see that clearly… when we couldn’t before…

 

So let’s think about it… consider that the ultimate purpose of the police is… if all other means fail… to maintain… enforce… that ‘absolutely-necessary-for-‘power’-to-exist’ atomization of ‘we-the-people’ – it’s the Panopticon… that model… consciously installed. This is why I’m grateful to Bentham: ‘power’ cannot claim ignorance… cannot claim that our ‘atomization’ ‘just happened’… they know and have known – and when we unearth these tomes from Claudia von Werlhof and Terence Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein and Giovanni Arrighi and realize… these folks are allowed to develop this thinking on the Left so that ‘power’ can be assured it’s not missing anything. Unconsciously… folks in Academe are serving ‘power’… because it ain’t getting to us… that’s the truth we have to face. They are producing this work for ‘power’ so that it can reassure itself that it hasn’t missed anything: it gives ‘power’ the ‘Heads up!’ So they’ve had… not just thirty years – because these aren’t new thoughts – they’ve had many many decades… if not longer… to plan for the moment when the finite resources of the planet can no longer support this illusion of “States Providing for ‘The People’”.… It fears… these folks… our amassing in the service of our own interests… on our own terms… …‘fear of us’… the true ‘motive force’ behind ‘capitalism’… behind Fascism… behind ‘democratization’… behind ‘civilization’… …the true ‘motive force’ that drives what’s called ‘progress’: the ‘logic’… and ‘paradigm’… of ‘class’.

 

And what I’m asking us to consider as well… is that… if ‘solidarity’ is our watchword… if ‘rule’ is maintained over us by falsely-made divisions… we cannot uncritically single out ‘intermediary buffers’ and place on them the responsibility for the harm this system does… because… if we look into our hearts we’ll see that it’s not just the police who cause harm… it’s all of us… particularly we who are parents. And because it’s not talked about or sanctioned – it doesn’t bring any negative consequences (that require those actions be checked…) to parents to humiliate or hurt ‘their’ child… rob their souls… in a sense… stifle them for sure – then it’s made to seem that it doesn’t exist. And all the unconscious rage that we feel at that having happened to us easily gets placed on substitute objects… on other ‘buffers’… on other representatives of ‘authority’. So… let’s start these discussions… and let’s not buy into the tactic of ‘power’ to get us to direct our rage at the police… which is all I hear over the progressive airwaves. Again… the challenge is for us to figure out how to have our own ‘airwaves’… some kind of way.

 

So let’s think about it… consider that the ultimate purpose of the police is… if all other means fail… to maintain… enforce… that ‘absolutely-necessary-for-‘power’-to-exist’ atomization of ‘we-the-people’ – it’s the Panopticon… that model… consciously installed. This is why I’m grateful to Bentham: ‘power’ cannot claim ignorance… cannot claim that our ‘atomization’ ‘just happened’… they know and have known – and when we unearth these tomes from Claudia von Werlhof and Terence Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein and Giovanni Arrighi and realize… these folks are allowed to develop this thinking on the Left so that ‘power’ can be assured it’s not missing anything. Unconsciously… folks in Academe are serving ‘power’… because it ain’t getting to us… that’s the truth we have to face. They are producing this work for ‘power’ so that it can reassure itself that it hasn’t missed anything: it gives ‘power’ the ‘Heads up!’ So they’ve had… not just thirty years – because these aren’t new thoughts – they’ve had many many decades… if not longer… to plan for the moment when the finite resources of the planet can no longer support this illusion of “States Providing for ‘The People’”. We’re at that moment where we’re going to be bombarded with a lot of cons… with the objective of keeping us dancing as fast and unfocused as possible… so ‘power’ can ‘figure out’… what Academia doesn’t have any answers for for them yet…. And we are going to be that answer. We’re going to answer the question with our own bodies… with our practice. The answer is: “You can’t do this… you cannot maintain your privilege… anymore. You cannot speak for us. You cannot ‘rule’ the planet. You cannot destroy the oceans. You cannot destroy our lives. You cannot put us in harness and limit our possibilities. You cannot dictate what we can and cannot be.” We are defined by each other when we live in harmony. We grow up together… and as we grow up… we heal the earth… the earth is allowed to be what she needs to be.

 

So… the whole point of the atomization… the whole point of the privatization… and the manufacture of endless cons like ‘the economy’… is to keep us confused… is to maintain control of us… to keep us ‘herded’ and working… for them… not questioning our ‘assignments’… the roles given by those so-called ‘above’ us.

 

It fears… these folks… our amassing in the service of our own interests… on our own terms…

 

…‘fear of us’… the true ‘motive force’ behind ‘capitalism’… behind Fascism… behind ‘democratization’… behind ‘civilization’…

 

…the true ‘motive force’ that drives what’s called ‘progress’: the ‘logic’… and ‘paradigm’… of ‘class’.

 

–––

 

Continuing with Chapter 17 of Keith Lowe’s Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II… “The Jewish Flight”… – P.S.]

…because we know how these folks work: hidden… clandestine… behind scenes – we will not see the intermediary steps from the pocketbooks to ISIS but it exists – when you see ‘war’… you see ‘power’: they have nothing but interest in dividing us all right now… keeping us despairing… that is their Number One priority: forestall our Global Awakening. If we had been talking abut supporting each other’s confrontations with their states… would the Egyptian Revolution have been… devastated… destroyed… turned back… undermined?… or would it then have been able to move to… a piece of the global evolution… of humanity? We have to have each other’s backs. And we-the-people are discussing this… I know it… whether it happens over the airwaves or not… which means ‘power’ knows it too… because they always keep their ear to the ground……

 

More important than people’s ignorance, however, was the sense of discomfort that such stories inevitably provoked. According to Frank Keizer, people in Holland reacted to his story of incarceration at Theresienstadt by saying, ‘I don’t want to know. That’s all over now; be glad you survived.’ Jews who returned to other countries reported similar reactions. In France too, according to Auschwitz survivor Alexandre Kohn, ‘there was a general indifference’, and Jews were urged to draw a line under their experiences. In Hungary returning Jews were beaten if they dared to suggest that they had suffered more than their Christian neighbours. Even in America, Jewish survivors who immigrated were often treated with impatience: ‘the war was over: “enough already!”’

 

One must remember that ordinary Europeans had also suffered terribly during the war, particularly in the final year – but there was at least some comfort in the thought that they had all been through it together. After the liberation the whole continent began constructing myths of unity in adversity.

[Now that we have a better understanding of the role of the media in constructing and establishing… for the state… the ‘historical consensus’… the ‘communal voice’… because we’re communal beings and we need that referencing one to each other… we need to know what others are thinking… and yet we’ve been atomized. How does the state handle that? By providing this false ‘communal voice’ called ‘the media – an inauthentic voice and an inauthentic consensus –

 

…and we have a better understanding as well of the effect of internalized obedience (established early on in our lives under ‘class’…) in rating high ‘success’… the ‘winners’… in reinforcing ‘power’-worship… as Alice Miller and Karl Popper have shown us… questions arise in reading this about the steps involved, more precisely, in creating these myths…

 

(…because we know how these folks work: hidden… clandestine… behind scenes – we will not see the intermediary steps from the pocketbooks to ISIS but it exists – when you see ‘war’… you see ‘power’: they have nothing but interest in dividing us all right now… keeping us despairing… that is their Number One priority: forestall our Global Awakening. If we had been talking abut supporting each other’s confrontations with their states… would the Egyptian Revolution have been… devastated… destroyed… turned back… undermined?… or would it then have been able to move to… a piece of the global evolution… of humanity? We have to have each other’s backs. And we-the-people are discussing this… I know it… whether it happens over the airwaves or not… which means ‘power’ knows it too… because they always keep their ear to the ground…)

 

So what were those intermediary steps that established these myths? And we have questions about this reaffirmed and strengthened nationalist sentiment… reestablished, I suspect, on the ‘comfortable’ (for the state) ground… of lack of tolerance for dissent in regard to it… – P.S.]

These myths suited pretty much everybody, from former collaborators who wanted a chance to be brought back into the fold, to an exhausted public that was eager to put the war behind them, to the politicians who wanted to rebuild a sense of national pride. Even at an international level, the idea that all the different peoples of Europe had suffered together under Nazism was a convenient way to rebuild a common sense of brotherhood between battered nations. [And to get the ‘new consensus’ rolling… the ‘new consensus’ under ‘power’s terms… – P.S.] But the presence of the Jews made a mockery of such myths. Not only had they suffered much, much more than everyone else, but none of the other groups had come to their aid: the comfortable thought that Europeans had been ‘all in it together’ was demonstrably untrue.

[…the uncomfortable thought… that ‘the-state-in-us’ is the ultimate root of the success of state-manipulation of us… is critical for us to start to discuss… – P.S.]

Here perhaps is the key to why the plight of returning Jews was so commonly ignored in the aftermath of the war, not only in Holland but all over western Europe. While stories of resistance gave people the chance to feel good about themselves, and reassure themselves that they too had produced their fair share of heroes, the stories of the Jews had the opposite effect. They were a reminder of former failings at every level of society. Their very presence was enough to create discomfort, as though they might at any moment reveal an embarrassing secret. It was far easier, therefore, simply to pretend that what had befallen the Jews was really just the same as what had happened to everyone else. Far from being welcomed, they were ignored, sidelined, silenced.

 

“Thus, through a combination of confiscation, plunder, theft and resale the property of Jews was dispersed all over the town. In larger cities like Budapest the confusion often rendered it impossible for returning Jews to trace their property. But in a small town like Kunmadaras finding one’s property was not difficult – it was getting the new owners to return it that was the problem.” – […who benefits when we’re turned against each other?… is a question seldom asked… …quite often… the face behind the mask… the hidden hand… …will wear the word ‘power’… when Truth finally owns the hour… – P.S.]

 

The Fight over Jewish Property

 

Sometimes there were darker reasons why the Jews were not welcomed home. In the aftermath of the war there was a joke doing the rounds in Hungary. It went something like this: A Jew who survived the camps returned to Budapest, where he ran into a Christian friend. ‘How are you?’ the friend inquired. ‘Don’t even ask,’ the Jew replied. ‘I have returned from the camp, and now I have nothing except the clothes you are wearing.’

 

The same joke could have been told in virtually any city in eastern Europe – plus a good many in the west – and it would have been understood. The plunder of Jewish property during the war had taken place in every country, and at every level of society. The comprehensive nature of this plundering was sometimes quite astounding. In the old Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, for example, the houses were stripped of everything right down to the wooden window and door frames. In Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, Jewish land and property was often divided up amongst the poor. Sometimes people did not even wait until the Jews had gone. There are examples in Poland of acquaintances approaching Jews during the war with the words, ‘Since you are going to die anyway, why should someone else get your boots? Why not give them to me so I will remember you?’

 

When handfuls of Jews began to come home after the war, their property was sometimes returned to them without any fuss – but this tended to be the exception rather than the rule. The historiography of this period in Europe is littered with stories of Jews trying, and failing, to get back what was rightfully theirs. Neighbors and friends who had promised to look after valuable items for Jews while they were away frequently refused to return them: in the intervening years they had come to regard them as their own. Villagers who had farmed Jewish land during the war saw no reason why returning Jews should benefit from the fruits of their labours. Christians who had been granted empty apartments by the wartime authorities considered those apartments rightfully theirs, and they had papers to prove it. All these people tended to regard Jews with varying degrees of resentment, and cursed their luck that, of all the Jews that had ‘disappeared’ during the war, theirs had to be the ones who came back.

 

A good example of how Jewish property ended up being dispersed during the war – and the frightening consequences this could have – occurred in Hungary, in the small town of Kunmadaras. At the beginning of the war 250 Jews had lived here, out of a population of about 8,000. All had been deported in April 1944 – some to Auschwitz, some to Austria – and only seventy-three of these unfortunates survived. While they were away their property was ‘confiscated’ by local officials, who used it firstly to enrich themselves, but also to distribute to the poor. Some homes and businesses were looted wholesale by the community, with the implicit blessing of the authorities. Others were taken over by the various armies that passed through, and items of furniture and so on were dispersed amongst the local community. When the Red Army arrived they in turn plundered the homes of the upper and middle classes, where many of the more valuable items had ended up. Some of the property they acquired was used to barter for food, or simply abandoned when they moved on, and thus – by a circuitous route – it found its way into the possession of local peasants. To complete this tangled web, the incoming Communists also requisitioned property for their own use or for the good of the Party, and this too was occasionally traded locally.

 

Thus, through a combination of confiscation, plunder, theft and resale the property of Jews was dispersed all over the town. In larger cities like Budapest the confusion often rendered it impossible for returning Jews to trace their property. But in a small town like Kunmadaras finding one’s property was not difficult – it was getting the new owners to return it that was the problem. Some people refused outright, and thereafter regarded the presence of the Jews as both a reproach and a potential threat. Others were ordered to return property by the police, but even those who complied voluntarily did so reluctantly, and were resentful ever after. The poor felt especially aggrieved, particularly if they were forced to return property to previously wealthier Jews. ‘When the Jews returned they had nothing,’ said one Kunmadaras woman when interviewed by a local newspaper, ‘but now they are eating white bread and even though I plough the fields with my nose, I still have nothing.’

 

Through the winter and spring of 1946 a tense, anti-Semitic atmosphere began to build in Kunmadaras. It came to a head towards the end of May when a group of women attacked a Jewish egg vendor named Ferenc Kuti at the Kunmadaras market, and smashed all the eggs on his stand. The woman who led the attack was Eszter Toth Kabai, who invoked blood libel to justify her actions – that is, the ancient myth that Jews sacrificed Christian children in their rituals. Absurd rumors had been circulating the region that Jews had been abducting and killing children…

[…who benefits when we’re turned against each other?… is a question seldom asked…

…quite often… the face behind the mask… the hidden hand…

…will wear the word ‘power’… when Truth finally owns the hour… – P.S.]

“The real motive behind the rioting, however, appears to have been to loot Jewish property.…” – […this is obviously very familiar to we Black folk in the U.S.… in race riot after race riot… that was the underlying point… and don’t forget… that this ‘model’… this fascistic ‘model’… started right here in the U.S… I’m not saying it didn’t have European precedents… but… in terms of proximity in time… there’s a close connection there… – P.S.]

 

Absurd rumors had been circulating the region that Jews had been abducting and killing children, and then selling ‘sausage made from human flesh’. As she beat Kuti with her wooden shoe, Kabai began shouting, ‘My sister’s child has been taken away by the Jews.’ Some of the other, non-Jewish stall holders came to Kuti’s aid, but when they too were attacked Kuti abandoned his stall and fled home.

 

Kuti’s house quickly became surrounded by a mob. For a while the crowd refrained from entering because they were afraid he might have a gun. But when the police went in and discovered that he was in fact unarmed – and made the mistake […and we know… it only takes one… paid to make ‘mistakes’… to set back hope… and bolster the myth… that we need the ‘pater-state’ to hold at bay… our mutual-rending limb-from-limb… to intercede in our ‘squabbles’… like ‘daddy’ with ‘the children’… to keep ‘the peace’… – P.S.] of announcing this to the crowd – the rabble surged inside. Kuti apparently begged the intruders for mercy but was killed by a man named Balazs Kalman, who beat him to death with an iron bar, shouting ‘I’ll give you sausages made out of the flesh of Hungarian children!’

 

The attack on Ferenc Kuti marked the beginning of a pogrom in which at least one other Jew was murdered, and fifteen more seriously injured. Jewish homes were broken into and plundered, and Jewish shops were also looted. The rumours of child abduction and blood libel were invoked again and again during the pogrom, and rioters were heard to shout a variety of slogans along the lines of, ‘We must beat the Jews because they will steal our children!’ The real motive behind the rioting, however, appears to have been to loot Jewish property.…

[…this is obviously very familiar to we Black folk in the U.S.… in race riot after race riot… that was the underlying point… and don’t forget… that this ‘model’… this fascistic ‘model’… started right here in the U.S… I’m not saying it didn’t have European precedents… but… in terms of proximity in time… there’s a close connection there… – P.S.]

“When considering stories like these, two things become immediately apparent. Firstly it appears that the moral landscape of Europe had become every bit as unrecognizable as the physical landscape.” – [How much hidden planning lurked behind this unraveling?… And today… are we not seeing similar scheming… beyond simple greed… to debase the first children of our Mother Africa?… and I’m not the only one to wonder how it was… how it could be… that the Ebola virus… which never before had erupted in a multitude of places across Central Africa simultaneously. Is it really hard to understand why our brothers and sisters in the affected regions are suspicious? The circumstances are suspicious… particularly when they’re viewed… as we’re going to see… in the context of a massive land-grab… for the fertile land of Africa. And as we said last week… a ‘class’ system requires a debased class… I was having a conversation with my son the other day… “How come?” I said. “Everyone is seeing this creeping (or in-fact-installed…) totalitarianism… why are we so complacent in the face of it?” And then I remembered: you know… when I was working… all you got in front of you is the ‘To-Do’ list… and you get invested in that little created (artificial… inauthentic…) ‘reality’ we’re made to make for ourselves… we get invested in it… and being captured in ‘manufactured scarcity’ is a similar thing – i.e. it keeps our sight narrowly on ‘survival’ – you can only see to the bills that got to be paid. But there’s a difference… when you’re outside ‘the wage’… and we got half the population – one way or another… today… in this so-called ‘Western’ world – who are outside the wage. ‘Half’… or more… Now that means… we are no longer captured by the ‘To-Do’ list… we’re able to look around us… not just straight-ahead… not just to that carrot in front of our face… our peripheral vision is kickin’-in… and we’re beginning to think beyond what is needed for ‘the job’. We’re beginning to think authentically… – P.S.]

 

…The real motive behind the rioting, however, appears to have been to loot Jewish property. When the crowd broke into a clothes shop they demanded the return of three children who were supposedly imprisoned there – but rather than look for the missing children they immediately began helping themselves to the stock of clothes. One Jewish woman, a Mrs. Rosenberg, was attacked by a woman called Sara Kerepesi, who bore her a special grudge because she had been forced by the courts to return Mrs. Rosenberg’s belongings to her after the war. Mrs. Rosenberg remembered her attacker shouting, while beating her, ‘This is for the eiderdown!’

[In an earlier chapter called “Moral Destruction”, Lowe quotes Alan Moorehead, a war correspondent: “In the whole list of sordid human vices none I think were overlooked in Naples during those first few months. What we were witnessing in fact was the moral collapse of a people. They had no pride any more, or any dignity. The animal struggle for existence governed everything. Food. That was the only thing that mattered. Food for the children. Food for yourself. Food at the cost of any abasement and depravity. And after food a little warmth and shelter.” Lowe then writes:

What Moorehead recognized was that food was no longer just a physical issue but a moral one. Across Europe millions of starving people were willing to sacrifice all moral values for the sake of their next meal. Indeed, years of scarcity had changed the very nature of food. What in Britain was regarded as an everyday right had become in the rest of Europe an expression of power, so that a British soldier was able to say of the German woman who slept with him, shopped for him and mended his clothes, ‘She was just like my slave.’

 

When considering stories like these, two things become immediately apparent. Firstly it appears that the moral landscape of Europe had become every bit as unrecognizable as the physical landscape. Those who had grown used to living amidst ruins no longer saw anything unusual about the rubble that surrounded them – likewise for many of Europe’s women after the war there was no longer anything unusual about having to sell one’s body for food. It was left to those coming from outside continental Europe to express surprise at the wreckage they were witnessing. (Keith Lowe, p. 43)

How much hidden planning lurked behind this unraveling?… And today… are we not seeing similar scheming… beyond simple greed… to debase the first children of our Mother Africa?… and I’m not the only one to wonder how it was… how it could be… that the Ebola virus… which never before had erupted in a multitude of places across Central Africa simultaneously. Is it really hard to understand why our brothers and sisters in the affected regions are suspicious? The circumstances are suspicious… particularly when they’re viewed… as we’re going to see… in the context of a massive land-grab… for the fertile land of Africa. And as we said last week… a ‘class’ system requires a debased class… and ‘power’ has had many-millennia of experience learning how to create a debased class. And this history Lowe records is an illustration of what happens with extreme ‘manufactured scarcity’: you can grab those short hairs and make us do what you want… – ‘food’… the all-consuming value. Its acquisition becomes the priority when you manufacture scarcity.

 

This is the world we are seeing being made… around us today… and we cannot say we don’t see it happening.

 

I was having a conversation with my son the other day… and I’m like a broken record on these themes… on the decision-point we are occupying… between ‘Authority’… and ‘Freedom’. “How come?” I said. “Everyone is seeing this creeping (or in-fact-installed…) totalitarianism… why are we so complacent in the face of it?” And then I remembered: you know… when I was working… all you got in front of you is the ‘To-Do’ list… and you get invested in that little created (artificial… inauthentic…) ‘reality’ we’re made to make for ourselves… we get invested in it… it’s almost like a reflection of us – ‘power’ knows this. So I’m not judgmental about it… being in that job is ‘tunnel-vision’… you can only see what’s right ahead…

 

…and being captured in ‘manufactured scarcity’ is a similar thing – i.e. it keeps our sight narrowly on ‘survival’ – you can only see to the bills that got to be paid. But there’s a difference… when you’re outside ‘the wage’… and we got half the population – one way or another… today… in this so-called ‘Western’ world – who are outside the wage. ‘Half’… or more… Now that means… we are no longer captured by the ‘To-Do’ list… we’re able to look around us… not just straight-ahead… not just to that carrot in front of our face… our peripheral vision is kickin’-in… and we’re beginning to think beyond what is needed for ‘the job’. We’re beginning to think authentically… as human beings… feeling ourselves as living things on the earth… creates a different thought process… creates a sense of common purpose… of common fate… of all of us on the planet. We share the same earth. We see what ‘power’ is rushing to do apace… and we cannot… now that we have the means… let them debase anybody – ourselves or anyone else… – P.S.]

“…the local authorities had a vested interest in making sure that Jews who returned after the war were driven away again. Such examples can be found in almost every European country.” – [Bridging the systematically fostered false divisions… requires that we systematically foster a global language of solidarity… – P.S.]

 

What happened at Kunmadaras is a particularly violent example of a phenomenon seen all over Europe in the aftermath of the war. It was not only returning Jews who had trouble regaining and retaining their property – but the anti-Semitism that existed throughout the continent made them much more vulnerable than any other group. In other parts of Hungary the courts ruled that horses and other livestock plundered from Jewish farms should remain with those who had ‘saved’ them. In Italy the authorities not only hesitated to return Jewish businesses to their rightful owners, but then tried to charge a ‘management fee’ for ‘looking after’ them during the war. In Poland, any ‘abandoned’ property formerly owned by Jews was taken into local authority control – in other words, the local authorities had a vested interest in making sure that Jews who returned after the war were driven away again. Such examples can be found in almost every European country.

 

Jews had been fair game during the war, and their property regarded as a resource that could be shared by everyone. It is quite clear that many people, and some governments, still viewed them the same way once the war was ended.

 

–––

* “WUR of September 14th, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

“And it’s oh! but I’m longing for my ain folk, Tho’ they be but lowly, poor, and plain folk: I am far beyond the sea, But my heart will ever be At home in dear old Scotland, wi’ my ain folk…” – […this is a shout-out to our Brothers and Sisters in Scotland… who… in keeping with… in connection with… your earth… in protecting it… and resisting the pressure of the global-statesmen… (the ‘serious men’… as Kissinger calls them…) know this: in taking this first important step… we step… study… assess… with you… your lessons learned inform all nations… – P.S.]

 

My Ain Folk

By Wilfrid Mills

 

Far from home I wander;

But still my thoughts return

To my ain folk o’er yonder,

In the sheiling by the burn.

I see the cosy ingle,

And the mist abune the brae:

And joy and sadness mingle,

As I list some old-world lay.

 

And it’s oh! but I’m longing for my ain folk,

Tho’ they be but lowly, poor, and plain folk:

I am far beyond the sea,

But my heart will ever be

At home in dear old Scotland, wi’ my ain folk!

 

O’ their absent ain they’re telling –

The old folk by the fire:

And I mark the swift tears welling,

As the ruddy flame leaps high’r.

How the mither would caress me

Were I but by her side:

Now she prays that Heav’n will bless me,

Tho’ the stormy seas divide.

 

A bonnie lass is greeting,

Tho’ she strives to stay the tears:

Ah! sweet will be our meeting

After many weary years.;

Soon my fond arms shall enfold ye,

As I call you ever mine –

Still abides the love I told ye

In the days of auld lang syne.

 

And it’s oh! but I’m longing for my ain folk,

Tho’ they be but lowly, poor, and plain folk:

I am far beyond the sea,

But my heart will ever be…

…at home in dear old Scotland, wi’ my ain folk!

 

–––

 

[You don’t have to know every word to feel… the earth-connection – and as George Eliot said… “feeling’s a kind of knowledge…”

 

…is not the loss of earth our greatest wound? – as earth is all… including us? –

 

…so to regain our souls we must…

 

…regain our earth-connection…

 

…this is a shout-out to our Brothers and Sisters in Scotland… who… in keeping with… in connection with… your earth… in protecting it… and resisting the pressure of the global-statesmen… (the ‘serious men’… as Kissinger calls them…) know this: in taking this first important step… we step… study… assess… with you… your lessons learned inform all nations… – P.S.]

In our show this week… and probably for a few more… I’d like to return to the question raised by our ‘conversation’ with Nelson Peery: “What are the organizational forms of our resistance… and of the new social arrangements we create?” (We really gotta start thinking this through… otherwise we’re treading water… doing what all the previous generations have already tried unsuccessfully to do… because it’s pretty obvious… every day… every second… that we don’t take our lives back… things get worse.)

 

September 9th, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: When Joel Bakan interviewed Ira Jackson, “a former Boston banker and head of the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Center for Business and Government at Harvard…” as part of his research for his book (or film), The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power – the Harvard ‘éminence grise’ said… according to Mr. Bakan… “that the problem with capitalism is that…

…we have a global theology without morality, without a Bible.” [And that’s dangerous, he warns –] we’re not going to be able to exist in a global context if we are the bastards of our business. Capitalism needs the moral equivalent of the Communist Manifesto, a manifesto for capitalism.

…a few eye-blinks later – or… when they but turned around… – they had such a book… although its authors protested much too much… that it was a manifesto, in fact, for us… for we-the-people. I’m referring to the book Empire, by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. One of the blurbs on the back reads: “…What Hardt and Negri offer is nothing less than a rewriting of The Communist Manifesto for our time…” said Slavoj Zizek. (He discreetly didn’t mention whose ‘manifesto’ it is.)

 

Drawing heavily on Spinoza… and Hegel… Hardt and Negri made the official proclamation: revolution was no longer needed… it had arrived… when we blinked our eyes.

 

But their search for ‘heart’ went unrequited… so instead they rummaged in their ‘Bin of Recyclables’… where ‘power’ keeps its best propaganda… they unearthed some choice bits… in the hopes that if washed up fresh… they could get us to hang ourselves with it.

 

But… that tattered old find called ‘Objectified Mind’ proved too rank to claim any takers… and now ‘power’ thinks… that because we blinked… they can con us into seeing them… as planetary ‘saviors’….

 

In our show this week… and probably for a few more… I’d like to return to the question raised by our ‘conversation’ with Nelson Peery: “What are the organizational forms of our resistance… and of the new social arrangements we create?”

(We really gotta start thinking this through… otherwise we’re treading water… doing what all the previous generations have already tried unsuccessfully to do… because it’s pretty obvious… every day… every second… that we don’t take our lives back… things get worse.)

The problem is ‘power’s ability to shift popular opinion against us… by its agents’ use of violence and other anti-social behaviors… I think you know the sort of thing I mean – whatever would provoke a ‘yuck’ in ‘power’s audience. But then… we’ve never talked openly about these tactics… in the context of freeing all humans from our bondage – with that as the goal: ending coerced work – the people would know that ‘power’s duplicity and ruthlessness in order to stop it… has no bounds… ‘power’s reaction will provoke further thought and discussion… particularly if we are shepherding it.

 

For millennia… those who possessed a public voice – who claimed to speak for ‘the people’ – never trusted the people… posted… by their actions… their belief… that the problem was… in fact… us… and not aggregated and concentrated ‘power’… arrayed against us.

 

And this was evidenced by their allegiance to… and reproduction of… organizational forms for monitoring and managing we-the-people – a tendency fostered (predictably) by ‘power’… by means of its network of agents. So… no doubt… it’s a knotty problem we have before us. (This was looked at to a degree in previous shows where we noted the impossibility of ‘revolution in a single state’… as ‘power’ is a global reality.) The problem is ‘power’s ability to shift popular opinion against us… by its agents’ use of violence and other anti-social behaviors… I think you know the sort of thing I mean – whatever would provoke a ‘yuck’ in ‘power’s audience. But then… we’ve never talked openly about these tactics… in the context of freeing all humans from our bondage – with that as the goal: ending coerced work – the people would know that ‘power’s duplicity and ruthlessness in order to stop it… has no bounds… ‘power’s reaction will provoke further thought and discussion… particularly if we are shepherding it.

 

Is it clear that calling for the end of coerced work brings us all together?… provokes deep thought about the world we live in. Is it clear that that’s the tactic – not ‘tactic’: that’s the vision… that’s the goal… that’s everything… that’s us-that-must-be-embraced… to deal with these agents – not just because they can’t say that… and so can’t effectively hide among us… they cannot join that… and then if they tried to do that and then provoked violence… it would simultaneously provoke deep thinking… because every single one of us who is not among the ranks of ‘power’ and their minions wants our time back… Sound that bell!… play that note… and just as George Eliot said… we will respond… in low… soft… unison.

 

Is it clear that calling for the end of coerced work brings us all together?… provokes deep thought about the world we live in. Is it clear that that’s the tactic – not ‘tactic’: that’s the vision… that’s the goal… that’s everything… that’s us-that-must-be-embraced… to deal with these agents – not just because they can’t say that… and so can’t effectively hide among us… they cannot join that… and then if they tried to do that and then provoked violence… it would simultaneously provoke deep thinking… because every single one of us who is not among the ranks of ‘power’ and their minions wants our time back… and the mere suggestion of it as a possibility provokes deep thought… deep reflection… that’s why there’s such intense suppression of that very thought… because it leads us deeper into this constructed ‘reality’ of ‘force’… structuring our lives: “Is it really possible… for me to have my time back? I get it… there’s enormous wealth… I get it it’s been aggregated in the hands of the few… but… if it were shared fairly… would it really mean… leisure?… self-determination of the energy we possess?… we decide what to do with it?… we follow our heart’s guidance? Is that possible?…” All of these thoughts… suppressed at such an early age that we’ve forgotten we had them… are within every single one of us. Sound that bell!… play that note… and just as George Eliot said… we will respond… in low… soft… unison.

 

–––

 

What the book Empire shows us is ‘power’ struggling with the notion of ‘nation-state’. It was a work in progress interrupted by the overwhelming answer of the World Social Forum in 2001 – 2… the thoughtful responses it inspired – those discussions – are still relevant today… and will be… till we reclaim our lives. One such response I’ll be posting on the “Embracing Global Goals…” page. I’m hoping I can find it online so I don’t have to retype it… so I can reduce time in front of this machine…. Sitting at the computer… I feel like a sitting duck… that it makes me an easier target – and I know you can’t know that what I’m saying is so… you would have to start saying these things… and then find yourself hounded all night long… and we don’t want a lot of folk to have to go through that – and it doesn’t require us to go through that to recognize that we have to start these conversations… for us to want to re-take our lives back… our energy back. It was an ethical issue for me when I wrote Waking Up… It’s been quite a journey… I didn’t anticipate it at all… but embarking on it is truly eye-opening because you realize… and I’ve said this before… that nothing is what you thought… you begin to see similar suffering that you didn’t recognize as such… in folk… who were going through… this… essentially… and couldn’t talk about it. So we need to end this practice of secrecy in the state’s management of dissent.

 

Finding the book Empire was like discovering I had an evil twin. Hardt and Negri employ a kind of ‘language of unity’… using the word ‘Empire’ seemingly as I do ‘power’… but while I use the term ‘power’ to personalize… to help us grapple with the global-statesmen’s skill in hiding… Hardt’s and Negri’s use of their term is exactly opposite… to help the ‘power’-guys hide… and hide – as is their habit – in an abstract concept…

(…‘their skill in hiding’: we haven’t talked about how critical that is for ‘power’s success… but we will… and probably sooner… but certainly when we turn to that new page on “Embracing Global Goals, Vision and Actions…” …and it’s more than a ‘strategy’… it’s everything… everything depends for them on being able to hide… to pretend that it’s ‘we’ (the people) who do all these things to ourselves…)

…and they… as I do… say we are a ‘Global One’… but for me this is our material reality… while they present our ‘oneness’ as a gift of ‘power’… and ask we give the global-statesmen our thanks… and our allegiance.

 

What the book Empire shows us is ‘power’ struggling with the notion of ‘nation-state’. It was a work in progress interrupted by the overwhelming answer of the World Social Forum in 2001 – 2… a minor set-back by their lights… ‘power’ but blinked… it would never cross their minds… to pause for an instant… in their forward momentum toward their vision. They’ve been trained to think they have a world to make… and ignorant children to put in their place. So a world rising was just a ‘minor’ inconvenience.

 

And so the thoughtful responses the book Empire inspired – those discussions – are still relevant today… and will be… till we reclaim our lives.

[…I’ll be posting the following article on the “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” page. I’m hoping I can find it online so I don’t have to retype it… so I can reduce time in front of this machine…. Sitting at the computer… I feel like a sitting duck… that it makes me an easier target – and I know you can’t know that what I’m saying is so… you would have to start saying these things… and then find yourself hounded all night long… and we don’t want a lot of folk to have to go through that – we want to start these conversations – and it doesn’t require us to go through that to recognize that we have to start these conversations… for us to want to re-take our lives back… our energy back. It was an ethical issue for me when I wrote Waking Up… before any of the reaction that I received from ‘power’ happened… before any of that started… I had certainty. It was an ethical question for me. My whole life long I didn’t like it… I didn’t like having to put myself on the market. It never felt right. And it took me going to the ancestors… sitting with the earth… and to finally start trusting my own body – that’s all it requires… is for us to begin trusting what our bodies say… and then talking about it with our brothers and sisters. So… it’s hard being in front of that machine… every time I try to just upload to my own website the internet connection either doesn’t come… or I have to wait and wait and wait… and I’m sitting… feeling more and more ill… then I got to get away from it and do my healing on myself… I mean… it’s quite a journey… I didn’t anticipate it at all… but embarking on it is truly eye-opening because you realize… and I’ve said this before… that nothing is what you thought… you begin to see similar suffering that you didn’t recognize as such… in folk… who were going through… this… essentially… and couldn’t talk about it. So we need to end this practice of secrecy in the state’s management of dissent. We’ll be talking about that in a second… – P.S.]

 

…and the man was kind enough to send on the note that I sent to him – the notice of this book, Waking Up, appearing – and he included me in the distribution… and he said in it, “This is somebody who actually thinks we can still resist…” and I was surprised when I read that… I mean… I wasn’t completely naïve… I had done some thinking about the dilemma that we’re in… but it surprised me, nonetheless… I truly was surprised by the reaction to the book on so many different levels…. It was an education… a total education. And now I’m realizing that it’s a blessing… partly thanks to Miklos Nyiszli… maybe all thanks to Miklos Nyiszli… because he showed me – and he understood this very clearly… he never said this explicitly… rather… he showed it by what he did. What he showed was that… you can’t heal a wound… until you expose it… and probe it… fully… and clean out all the contamination.

 

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.

 

[When I was first sending out Waking Up: Freeing Ourselves From Work – as I’ve said before, I sent out some 6,000 emails asking if the person would like to receive it… I used email addresses of folks in non-profit organizations that seemed to be doing good things… and public figures on the Left that I assumed to be of good heart – in one organization I contacted (I think they were managing a library for the works of C.L.R. James…) and the man was kind enough to send on the note that I sent to him – the notice of this book, Waking Up, appearing – and he included me in the distribution… and he said in it, “This is somebody who actually thinks we can still resist…” and I was surprised when I read that… I mean… I wasn’t completely naïve… I had done some thinking about the dilemma that we’re in… but it surprised me, nonetheless… I truly was surprised by the reaction to the book on so many different levels…. It was an education… a total education. And now I’m realizing that it’s a blessing… partly thanks to Miklos Nyiszli… maybe all thanks to Miklos Nyiszli… because he showed me – and he understood this very clearly… he never said this explicitly… rather… he showed it by what he did. What he showed was that… you can’t heal a wound… until you expose it… and probe it… fully… and clean out all the contamination. And I’ve realized, after writing Waking Up and bringing down this amazing… this massive response – and you don’t know that that’s true… but it is. And that was a poison that I had not thought about… and had not been examined… and now we’re doing that… all together… because if it happened to me… it’s happened over and over and over… because I’m a ‘nobody’…. I remember listening to – getting angry about it in fact – to Ralph Nader… in a surreptitious way… attack Bernie Sanders… accusing him of being ‘standoffish’… and I’m realizing that this is a tactic they use: first they hound people (and I’m talking ‘public figures’… my situation is unusual…) – and I thought, “I bet this has happened to him.” And I know many will say, “she’s jumping to conclusions…” but there are people with ‘heart’ out there – people who can’t be bought – even in the public world… and I suspect Mr. Sanders is one of them… and they don’t want those folks on the planet… if they have any ability to reach out to their brothers and sisters at all… – P.S.]

 

“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. (Ellen Meiksins Wood, “A Manifesto for Global Capitalism?”)

 

[I will be posting the entire article on the page: “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”… – P.S.]

But poses of nonchalance aside… the waking up of the indigenous has them shaken… these ‘power’-guys… 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’.)

 

–––

 

…and so I want to put it out to you – doesn’t the military’s capability to kill invisibly constitute a ‘health risk’?… it’s certainly a ‘peace of mind’-risk… Do we really think they don’t use that to try to eliminate dissent?… If power can exercise a lethal weapon to further its objectives and not be held accountable they will do it every time. Look at Auschwitz! – Should we allow the state to possess such means?… And how would they ‘test’ it? Believe me… they want to know what their toys can do. These are abandoned children. Remember that incident of a mass shooting… in the military, I believe, and the shooter claimed he was being targeted with radio waves… and the incident was used to debunk the notion of radio wave weaponry…

 

I’ve been asking us to consider that… for the most part… the ‘reasoning’ process on the Left… when it comes to prescriptions for resistance… is ‘magical’. For instance, after listening, on September 11, 2014, to one Left pundit tell his audience in a solemn voice that if ‘we don’t start hitting the streets’… ‘start committing civil disobedience’… to stop global warming… we’re not living up to our responsibility to our children. And the host thanked him for “giving us a dose of much-needed reality…” but this was not a dose of ‘reality’… this was a dose of ‘fantasy’ posed as ‘strategy.’

 

Earlier that same morning I listened to a real dose of ‘much-needed reality’. I hope you will listen too:

 

Interview with Joel Moskowitz – “The Health Effects of Microwave Radiation” (…and doesn’t the military’s capability to kill and disable invisibly… a weapon designed “to disable soldiers on the battlefield”… as Mr. Moskowitz says… doesn’t this constitute a ‘health risk’ too? Consider how powerful that radiation-hit… that ‘energy-stream’… is – most likely coupled with their technology to ‘weaponize’ energy in the environment – and should we allow the state to possess such means? Let’s not forget what Miklos returned from the demon-pit to tell us: that we must never allow killing in secret… and never doubt they’re using it to do this. The military of course believes that it uses these weapons ‘appropriately’… ‘responsibly’ even… to ‘protect’ us from the ‘enemies of the state’ – and while I know they believe they’re doing what’s best for ‘the state’… they aren’t asking – are we asking? – “am I doing what’s best for humanity?”… because we weren’t given this life to protect states… we were given it to protect life… and the entrenched institutions of ‘class’… of which states are one… are the opposite of life.).

 

And so… again… doesn’t the military’s capability to kill invisibly constitute a ‘health risk’?… it’s certainly a ‘peace of mind’-risk… Do we really think they don’t use that to try to eliminate dissent?… If power can exercise a lethal weapon to further its objectives and not be held accountable they will do it every time. Look at Auschwitz! – Should we allow the state to possess such means?… And how would they ‘test’ it? Believe me… they want to know what their toys can do. These are abandoned children. Remember that incident of a mass shooting… in the military, I believe, and the shooter claimed he was being targeted with radio waves… and the incident was used to debunk the notion of radio wave weaponry…

 

If they can get away with it… they do it. So what do we do about that? How do we-the-people start disarming the state? That’s part of these upcoming conversations… – and while I know they believe they’re doing what’s best for ‘the state’… they aren’t asking – are we asking? – “am I doing what’s best for humanity?”… because we weren’t given this life to protect states… we were given it to protect life… and the entrenched institutions of ‘class’… of which states are one – until we reverse them – are the opposite of life.

 

If they can get away with it… they do it. So what do we do about that? How do we-the-people start disarming the state? That’s part of these upcoming conversations.

 

Let’s not forget what Miklos returned from the demon-pit to tell us: that we must never allow killing in secret… and never doubt they’re using it to do this. The military of course believes that it uses these weapons ‘appropriately’… ‘responsibly’ even… to ‘protect’ us from the ‘enemies of the state’ – and while I know they believe they’re doing what’s best for ‘the state’… they aren’t asking – are we asking? – “am I doing what’s best for humanity?”… because we weren’t given this life to protect states… we were given it to protect life… and the entrenched institutions of ‘class’… of which states are one – until we reverse them – are the opposite of life.)

 

I want to thank Brian Edwards Tiekert for hosting this interview… and of course Mr. Moskowitz for his courage – courage in calling our attention to the use of wave radiation as a weapon… courage in representing for all life… not just humans.

 

‘Reality’ is… we have put our children’s lives and health at risk without a peep… ‘reality’ is… to ourselves we’ve done the same… ‘reality’ is… we have been forced to accept an insecure existence… by making scarce the means for building confidence… assurance… grit… to resist the pressure of ‘power’s unrelenting certainty that they ‘know what’s best’.

 

‘Class’ – or rather our acceptance of it – is what does this… keeps our eyes focused on a narrow frame… fearful that we dare not hope for more than what we’re given… fearful that we cannot claim our ‘bigness’… that to try will bring down punishment upon us.

(…and by ‘what we’re given’… I mean our ‘designated slice of narrowed existence’… our particular assignments… within which we’re both allowed and encouraged to do ‘clean-up exercises’… improve conditions… make things ‘fairer’… etc…. but we must never lift our eyes above it… and question the overall terms… the notion of ‘dispersement’…)

 

‘Power’s sense of ‘appropriate’ aesthetics is upset…

…when anyone “not-designated-‘serious’”…

…attempts to be ‘big’… to widen his vision…

…to encompass the ‘all-of-it’…

…to take responsibility for that vast incipiency brewing…

…beyond her so-called ‘station’.

Organizational forms are mated to the task(s) at hand. And what are our tasks?… those of we-the-people?… at this moment in our human story when global-statesmen are armed with such hubris as to imagine the minute fraction that constitutes them should ‘manage’ and manipulate seven billion… despite having thus far brought us to the brink of annihilation –our main task is breaking free of ‘power’… from its multi-layered lock-down on our spirits and our bodies… and in particular our task is to support our vision of freedom being carried forward to a future won for all of us… globally… i.e., to support each other across ‘national’ divides.… “What did that ‘teenage-Richard’ need?” …“another path… an alternative to the hierarchy… to the competition… to ‘power’… to ‘class’ – an alternative way of seeing… and being in… the world. Well, this is no less true of ‘nations’.… It can only be… that to win our freedom… we must bring about the state’s systematic ‘dismantlement’ in the form in which it currently exists… Marcuse called it ‘the reversal’. We need an international campaign to plan ‘the reversal’ of the global authoritarian-state-system… in order to redirect its resources toward universal ‘freedom-leisure-happiness’. We here in the U.S. must take the lead… and begin the discussions about the manner of ‘repurposing’ its accumulated resources – which are but the accumulation of our sweat… and blood… and love – in conjunction and cooperation and harmony with… our brothers and sisters of all nations…

 

Organizational forms are mated to the task(s) at hand. And what are our tasks?… those of we-the-people?… at this moment in our human story when global-statesmen are armed with such hubris as to imagine the minute fraction that constitutes them should ‘manage’ and manipulate seven billion… despite having thus far brought us to the brink of annihilation… while spreading the propaganda that preserving the same system of class that has brought us to it… matters more than the health of the planet.

(I mean you have noticed… as I have… I know… the contortions that ‘power’ will twist itself – and ‘logic’ – into in order to pretend that the straight solution is somehow not the one we want… the amazing hoops that we’re supposed to jump through to protect their status and privilege. When… but claim the obvious solution: “release us from bondage!”… and everything falls simply… and quietly… and peacefully… into place.)

Let’s let Kissinger speak for his tribe: “The world without balance of power is an arbitrary world,” says he… and so… to ensure its (our) predictability… we must let the ‘serious men’ continue to hammer us into the order they… quite arbitrarily by the way… ‘negotiate’… in order to keep we seven billions trapped in their sway… and only for that reason… as nothing could be more ‘arbitrary’ that the inter-play of these damned children of Abandonment.

 

So our main task is breaking free of ‘power’… from its multi-layered lock-down on our spirits and our bodies… and in particular our task is to support our vision of freedom being carried forward to a future won for all of us… globally… i.e., to support each other across ‘national’ divides.

 

Popper has pointed out… and Terence Hopkins following him… that ‘nationalism’ – as ideology – has harbored both idealistic passion… a love for our cooperative mutual interest… on the one hand… and hate… on the other. And we determine… the preponderance of the people… what it can be – as is true for the definition of ‘the nation’ itself.

 

But what it cannot be… and represent for the claims of all humanity… and carry us to our freedom globally… is a bone we attempt to wrest from ‘power’s teeth.

 

It can only be… that to win our freedom… we must bring about the state’s systematic ‘dismantlement’ in the form in which it currently exists… which is but a complex of mechanisms for monitoring… managing… and manipulating the people… i.e. for our containment. This is the ‘power’ that Kissinger speaks of that must be ‘balanced’… and this is the system of ‘class’ which must be dismantled. Marcuse called it ‘the reversal’. We need an international campaign to plan ‘the reversal’ of the global authoritarian-state-system… in order to redirect its resources toward universal ‘freedom-leisure-happiness’.

 

In our show which we called “Richard Aoki and the abandonment of our children – pt. 1””… when my son essentially asked, “What did that ‘teenage-Richard’ need?” I answered, “another path… an alternative to the hierarchy… to the competition… to ‘power’… to ‘class’ – an alternative way of seeing… and being in… the world. Well, this is no less true of ‘nations’. In Palmers’ Chat we said that what was missing from Karl Popper’s analysis that affected its accuracy was ‘world systems theory’ [which is precisely what Terence Hopkins added… synthesizing and advancing the gift…] – he didn’t take account of ‘power’ being global. So… making of ‘the nation’ an entity that undergirds the ‘opposite’ of ‘power’ is a transition that nations must do hand-in-hand together… and they can’t do that… unless we here in the U.S. carve the path… create a model… set a viable standard.

 

We here in the U.S. must take the lead… and begin the discussions about ‘the state’s transmogrification into its opposite… about the manner of ‘repurposing’ its accumulated resources – which are but the accumulation of our sweat… and blood… and love – in conjunction and cooperation and harmony with… our brothers and sisters of all nations.

 

We claim the land for all… not some… all… not some – for the each in all… and for the all… in each one.

 

–––

 

* “WUR of September 21st, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

 

“Wi’ plenty o’ sic trees, I trow, The warld would live in peace, man; The sword would help to mak a plough, The din o’ war would cease, man. Like brethren in a common cause, We’d on each other smile, man; And equal rights and equal laws Wad gladden every isle, man.”

 

[I am so sick… of these folks messin’ with my text… man. (And that’s the least of it.)]

 

[And… to have to go to the Library… to add to my own website… as I’m forced to do right now… is the pits… man. (And that’s the least of it.)]

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

(From “The Second Coming, ” by W. B. Yeats)

A brief shout-out to Troy Anthony Davis… and to your sister… Martina… thank you… such good people… taken from us… stolen from our midst… with malice… in service of a vision so ignoble… that all life weeps to hear of it.

 

September 19th, 2014… and a ‘thank-you’ as well to the people of Scotland… who ignition-boosted the necessary discussion of whether and how ‘reclaiming the nation’ can be a global action… i.e. a ‘turning-away’ from… a ‘shaking-off’ of… the rule of the global-state-statesmen. We will be continuing to develop our understanding of the role of the nation-state’ in the transition to freedom.

 

And on that tip… let’s recall the words of your countryman… an excerpt from “The Tree of Liberty” (‘ken’ means ‘know’… ‘wae worth’ means ‘cursed be’… and ‘loon’ means ‘rascal’ or ‘rogue’… ‘shoon’ means ‘shoes’… ‘syne’ means ‘then’…):

Heard ye o’ the tree o’ France,

I watna what’s the name o’t;

Around it a’ the patriots dance,

Weel Europe kens the fame o’t.

It stands where ance the Bastile stood,

A prison built by kings, man.

 

Upo’ this tree there grows sic fruit,

Its virtues a’ can tell, man;

It raises man aboon the brute,

It maks him ken himsel, man.

Gif ance the peasant taste a bit,

He’s greater than a lord, man,

An’ wi’ the beggar shares a mite

O’ a’ he can afford, man….

 

But vicious folks aye hate to see

The works o’ Virtue thrive, man;

The courtly vermin’s banned the tree,

And grat to see it thrive, man;…

 

For Freedom, standing by the tree,

Her sons did loudly ca’, man;

She sang a sang o’ liberty,

Which pleased them ane and a’, man….

 

Let Britain boast her hardy oak,

Her poplar and her pine, man,

Auld Britain ance could crack her joke,

And o’er her neighbours shine, man.

But seek the forest round and round,

And soon ’twill be agreed, man,

That sic a tree can not be found,

’Twixt London and the Tweed, man.

 

Without this tree, alake this life

Is but a vale o’ woe, man;

A scene o’ sorrow mixed wi’ strife,

Nae real joys we know, man.

We labour soon, we labour late,

To feed the titled knave, man;

And a’ the comfort we’re to get

Is that ayont the grave, man.

 

Wi’ plenty o’ sic trees, I trow,

The warld would live in peace, man;

The sword would help to mak a plough,

The din o’ war would cease, man.

Like brethren in a common cause,

We’d on each other smile, man;

And equal rights and equal laws

Wad gladden every isle, man.

 

Wae worth the loon wha wadna eat

Sic halesome dainty cheer, man;

I’d gie my shoon frae aff my feet,

To taste sic fruit, I swear, man.

Syne let us pray, auld England may

Sure plant this far-famed tree, man;

And blithe we’ll sing, and hail the day

That gave us liberty, man.

(Robert Burns, Born Alloway, Ayrshire, 25 January 1759; Died Dumfries, 21 July 1796)

 

Europe was leveled at the whim of ‘global statesmen’… and it was we… the people… as always… who rebuilt it. We stolen Africans received blows for payment for all our creative force… but we gave more anyway… just to watch it stolen too and credit never given… we know the ways of ‘power’… it’s time we are reacquainted with true power… with our own creative energy.

 

Let’s ponder this part particularly: “Wi’ plenty o’ sic trees, I trow, The warld would live in peace, man; The sword would help to mak a plough, The din o’ war would cease, man. Like brethren in a common cause, We’d on each other smile, man; And equal rights and equal laws Wad gladden every isle, man.”

 

Now… this strikes me as guidance… how ’bout you? We’ll be returning to it very soon.

September 17th, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: To carve one’s own path… determine one’s own destiny… is worth… everything. We come into this constructed unreality – an ‘unreality’ as unreal as… to the falcon…the cage and the leash – that mirrors the souls of ‘the global-statesmen’… and it takes us many moons of trudging through their dark deeds and chopping their thick lies from our faces to finally see their hidden hand that holds the strings… and… looking up… see it is their tears of laughter from watching us fall and scramble on each other that is moistening the earth with poison… and not the healing rain.

 

No wonder nothing grows!

 

“Things fall apart… the center cannot hold…” and so do we wonder at ‘power’s panic when the people rise and say they want a different way… that war and competition and nothing being what it seems has sucked dry our earth… and us… and now we see if we want something different… we must work tirelessly to get it… so our children… and all life… can live free. We know we can do this. We-the-people… and the earth… are the creative energy… the builders… the inventors… the generous sharers of knowledge. It is not we who cause the devastation… but it is always we who re-build after it.

 

Europe was leveled at the whim of ‘global statesmen’… and it was we… the people… as always… who rebuilt it. We stolen Africans received blows for payment for all our creative force… but we gave more anyway… just to watch it stolen too and credit never given…

 

…we know the ways of ‘power’…

 

… it’s time we are reacquainted with true power… with our own creative energy.

 

…it will be us… we-the-people… who invent and install the communications network that doesn’t hurt us (what a concept!)

 

Our health has been destroyed by devious men who designed a communications system to ensure we all die early… but… it will be us… we-the-people… who invent and install the alternative… a communications network that doesn’t hurt us. Far from we being ‘arbitrary’ – as Kissinger suggests we are… unleashed from ‘power’s bonds – it is the restlessness of the global-statesmen… with an abyss of neediness for a soul… that is ruthlessly ‘arbitrary’.

 

–––

 

It’s time that we start talking about ‘the state’ in realistic terms – all of us together – and understand that ‘the state’s ‘role’ is to constantly put before our eyes the ‘reasons why we need it’… the reasons why we must be as children before it… and sacrifice our humanity in order to preserve ‘it’. You know their favored refrains: “people are violent…” “industry is ruthless…” “the security of the nation is threatened…” and the latest: “global warming (which we caused…) will mean catastrophic events… yet another reason why you need us!”… ‘power’ has all the cards: for example… regarding sexual assault on campuses. The university has all the cards… it sets women up (and I’m speaking particularly as regards elite institutions… and recalling The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper on the living presence of Plato’s ‘thought’… still bedeviling us after all these years… embodied in the global-statesmen…) as perks for the future global-state-statesmen… and for privileged men in general. Despite ‘power’s rhetoric to the contrary… despite the righteous language of the official policy… if it exists… those who have an exclusive monopoly on decision-making… on ‘power’… want it there.

 

It’s time that we start talking about ‘the state’ in realistic terms – all of us together – and understand that ‘the state’s ‘role’ is to constantly put before our eyes the ‘reasons why we need it’… the reasons why we must be as children before it… and sacrifice our humanity in order to preserve ‘it’. You know their favored refrains: “people are violent…” “industry is ruthless…” “the security of the nation is threatened…” and the latest: “global warming (which we caused…) will mean catastrophic events… yet another reason why you need us!”

(…we’ve been ‘treated’ to numerous illustrations of all four of late… as is to be expected… with the world awake….

 

On ‘violence’… and the implications of ‘the state’ claiming it as its exclusive privilege: it’s interesting to contrast the pap in the media… with what follows from Terence Hopkins [whose essay we’re examining on the page, “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Building Global Actions”…]

 

…i.e. the merest glance at the matter reveals ‘the state’ as culprit… as source of all the violence…

 

…the state has all the cards: for example… as I walked into the station there was a “Democracy Now” segment playing on sexual assault on campuses. The university has all the cards… it sets women up (and I’m speaking particularly as regards elite institutions… and recalling The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper on the living presence of Plato’s ‘thought’… still bedeviling us after all these years… embodied in the global-statesmen…) as perks for the future global-state-statesmen… and for privileged men in general. Despite ‘power’s rhetoric to the contrary… despite the righteous language of the official policy… if it exists… those who have an exclusive monopoly on decision-making… on ‘power’… want it there.

 

…the state has all the cards… it establishes the regime… the conditions… of scarcity… it sets the terms in opposition to our nature – our biological inheritance of mutual aid – and raises before our eyes our violent reaction to it… to the state’s terms of coercion… both tangible and tacit… as we strive to survive… under them. And to add insult to injury… the state then sets us up as culprit… even as it unleashes its violence upon us… ‘Coercion’ encompasses all ‘violence’ – it’s the more accurate term to use… so let’s substitute it.… Robert Burns reminds us that it is precisely such ‘prerogatives’ of ‘the state’ that are the source of all violence.… ‘Power’ has had the ‘Heads Up!’ on this ‘problem’ of the ‘nation-state’ – And we need to recall that staying ahead of us… of we-the-people… is all they devote their time to – i.e. to planning… anticipating… projecting… from a global perspective. Terence Hopkins points this out as well in quoting Adam Smith… saying that it’s only [using my terminology here…] it’s only ‘power’ that cares about the ‘overall’… the broad picture… it’s only ‘power’ that sees from ‘the vantage of the whole’… and therefore plans… and therefore has nothing but time – because they have the resources… and the scope – to think long. So… we have to really claim that ‘big’ space… in order to challenge ‘power’…. We’ll being talking more about this.

 

…the state has all the cards… it establishes the regime… the conditions… of scarcity… it sets the terms in opposition to our nature – our biological inheritance of mutual aid – and raises before our eyes our violent reaction to it… to the state’s terms of coercion… both tangible and tacit… as we strive to survive… under them. And to add insult to injury… the state then sets us up as culprit… even as it unleashes its violence upon us.

 

‘Coercion’ encompasses all ‘violence’ – it’s the more accurate term to use… so let’s substitute it – just doing that one thing expands our thinking: ‘coercion’ is in every nook and cranny of our lives… ‘compulsion’ is in every phrase they train us with. When we start thinking in terms of ‘coercion’… ‘compulsion’… ‘force’ – how broadly and deeply ‘coercion’ infects our lives – we’ll see that there’s no aspect of our lives that isn’t dogged by it. So let’s use ‘coercion’.

 

In this quote from Terence Hopkins (below) he reminds us that ‘the state’ gets to say what is ‘legitimate violence’… Robert Burns reminds us that it is precisely such ‘prerogatives’ of ‘the state’ that are the source of all violence.

Moreover, even at the theoretical level, the shift of [Marx’s] focus away from the noisy sphere of political economy [in Class Struggles in France, 1848 – 1850] 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.…

(So we see here… that Terence Hopkins… in writing these words in 1982… had given ‘power’ a two-decade-lead [the book Empire… their opening salvo to try to claim the initiative on the issue… appeared in 2000…] at the least… a ‘Heads Up!’ on this ‘problem’ of the ‘nation-state’. And we need to recall that staying ahead of us… of we-the-people… is all they devote their time to – i.e. to planning… anticipating… projecting… from a global perspective. Terence Hopkins points this out as well in quoting Adam Smith… saying that it’s only [using my terminology here…] it’s only ‘power’ that cares about the ‘overall’… the broad picture… it’s only ‘power’ that sees from ‘the vantage of the whole’… and therefore plans… and therefore has nothing but time – because they have the resources… and the scope – to think long. So… we have to really claim that ‘big’ space… in order to challenge ‘power’…. We’ll being talking more about this.

 

So ‘power’ has had the ‘Heads Up’ on the ‘nation-state-as-problematic’ for at least since Terence Hopkins pulled their coat… so it makes this ‘debut’ of the book Empire… in 2000… twenty years later… seem less than ‘monumental’.)

 

…“asymptote: a line that continually approaches a given curve but does not meet it at any finite distance. From the Greek ‘not falling together’…”] “…In outlining this tendency, however, Marx was only defining the situation 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.” […to which I replied (in my mind…): “Within the mindset of ‘class’… we commoners can never become ‘the leading class’… unless… we can re-define ‘the nation’… to our advantage… unless we can re-claim ‘the state’ from the global-statesmen – (and it could well be that this is what they meant – Marx and Engels – and precisely what the Bible meant… and Burns… and all good people: that while we are nations… we are of one blood…)

…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”, in Antisystemic Movements)

 

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)

[…to which I replied (in my mind…): “Within the mindset of ‘class’… we commoners can never become ‘the leading class’… surely this is obvious? Is there any part of ‘hierarchy’ we’re unclear on? But what is less obvious…

(…and it could well be that this is what they meant – Marx and Engels – and precisely what the Bible meant… and Burns… and all good people: that while we are nations… we are of one blood…)

So… the issue of ‘the nation-state’… is a question that’s being raised right now… thanks to the people of Scotland… the people of Tunisia… the people of Egypt… and the people of Ukraine… – and there’s a line-up going on right now of other folks who are… scratching their heads and rubbing their chins… and wondering… “how can we do this given the global-state-statesmen?”… that’s the challenge… and we’re going to be pondering that – all of us… as a collective humanity… as we get our freedom. Because there is a way we do this… – perhaps the distinction we need to be making in our lexicon: a distinction between ‘the state’… and ‘nations’: that ‘the state’ is not… and will never be… the way we can achieve our freedom… We have to be certain of this to proceed… so let’s get these conversations going… but then the question whose presence this begs is: “what is?”…. These are the questions we should all be thinking through in coming weeks.

 

So… the issue of ‘the nation-state’… is a question that’s being raised right now… thanks to the people of Scotland… the people of Tunisia… the people of Egypt… and the people of Ukraine… – and there’s a line-up going on right now of other folks who are… scratching their heads and rubbing their chins… and wondering… “how can we do this given the global-state-statesmen?”… that’s the challenge… and we’re going to be pondering that – all of us… as a collective humanity… as we get our freedom. Because there is a way we do this… and it could be simply a matter of ‘semantics’… in a sense [and certainly one… of us claiming the ‘lexicon’….] We are nations… and we are of one blood… so… whether we can redefine ‘the nation’ to our advantage… as part of our determined efforts to reclaim our ‘nations’ [perhaps in a ‘Biblical’ sense…] from the global-statesmen – could that be what we are seeing this week (of September 15, 2014…) in the independence vote of the Scottish people?… were they voting on ‘the transition’… a piece of it?… on taking the first of the intermediate steps… to freedom?…” Does the stance implied in these questions contradict what we concluded in the May 4, 2014 show… that:

• The ‘state’ has been captured by the ‘global economy’ and it cannot be claimed by ‘the people’…

 

• The ‘state’ cannot survive the expansion of our individualities (you can feel that happening today… we are… all of us… growing in our thinking… in our claiming… in our expression of what we feel is our due as living things… in our willingness to represent for more… for ‘all of it’…)

 

We have arrived at the point in our human story when we can conclusively say that ‘the state’ is not – and perhaps that’s the distinction we need to be making in our lexicon: a distinction between ‘the state’… and ‘nations’ – that ‘the state’ is not… and will never be… the way we can achieve our freedom… we have to be certain of this to proceed… so let’s get these conversations going… but then the question whose presence this begs is: “what is?”…. These are the questions we should all be thinking through in coming weeks.

 

(Please listen again to that discussion: “‘Statesmen’ assume for themselves exclusively the prerogative of shaping the future… why is this never discussed?…”)]

…our work then… is to first get clear with our brothers and sisters that these things – “people are violent…” “industry is ruthless…” “the security of the nation is threatened…” “‘global warming’ means we need ‘the state’…” – are cons… ruses… …and then… present the alternative.… When I asked during the last show, “How do we-the-people start disarming the state?”… I’m not sure I was properly understood. By ‘disarm’ I simply mean the General Strike – of all the people. Now that takes some planning… and it takes fleshing out so clearly in our minds the alternative… that we can make it real to the minds of our brothers and sisters. We have to know what we want… and we have to know that ‘the pundits’ – the official ‘spokespersons’… whose voices ‘own’ the public ‘discourse-space’ – don’t speak for us… and will never call for this… which means we must seek congregation… of our bodies and our thoughts… so we can move the question… of ‘vision’… of what we want… “As coerced work is the basis of the class system… leisure must be the basis of its opposite… All who want to see ‘freedom-leisure-happiness’ for our future are encouraged to set up similar planning processes everywhere…” Now… that’s but ‘life longing for itself’…that’s living… not ‘building an organization’… and growth flows from it. We have to demonstrate to our fellows the earth’s abundance…

 

These cons – “people are violent…” “industry is ruthless…” “the security of the nation is threatened…” “‘global warming’ means we need ‘the state’… – are all presented to us as disparate… to encourage and reinforce our fragmentation – and deep confusion – when in truth all are weaves from the single thread of coercion… and all reflect the state’s need to seem legitimate…

 

…and [relatedly…] its need to keep divisions – particularly hierarchical ones (are any not?) – well-sown between us. So certain ‘demographics’ – slotted categories of ‘class’-humans – will be presented as ‘more violent’ than others… while the middle ranks of ‘knowledge workers’ are reassured they don’t abandon their children – oh no… not them – because ‘studies show’ they ‘spend’ more time with their children than did their mothers – as if the hyper-scrutiny and over-management and deep training in hierarchy and ‘class’-service – ‘work’… it’s true… our parents were less dedicated to – as if this heightened surveillance and obedience-training they give their children were… somehow… not abandonment…. Remember that illustration from Alice Miller’s Prisoners of Childhood in which a young vacationing-couple are enjoying ice cream cones… while their toddler cried? Well, that’s what Alice Miller means by – one example at least of – ‘abandonment’. So let us not be duped by the propaganda over the airwaves… which is trying to implant in our minds a very literal meaning for that word. No. ‘Child abandonment’ is a broad category that includes ‘training your children to be obedient’…)

…our work then… is to first get clear with our brothers and sisters that these things – “people are violent…” “industry is ruthless…” “the security of the nation is threatened…” “‘global warming’ means we need ‘the state’…” – are cons… ruses…

 

…and then… present the alternative.

 

When I asked during the last show, “How do we-the-people start disarming the state?”… I’m not sure I was properly understood. By ‘disarm’ I simply mean the General Strike – of all the people. Now that takes some planning… and it takes fleshing out so clearly in our minds the alternative… that we can make it real to the minds of our brothers and sisters.

 

We have to know what we want… and we have to know that ‘the pundits’ – the official ‘spokespersons’… whose voices ‘own’ the public ‘discourse-space’ – don’t speak for us… and will never call for this… which means we must seek congregation… of our bodies and our thoughts… so we can move the question… of ‘vision’… of what we want. These conclusions come from our analysis… as well as from experience.

 

On ‘congregation’ around ‘vision’… around defining goals that look beyond this system: it’s pretty low-risk… on the face of it – at least in terms of popular opinion (is it clear that if we’ve lost popular opinion… we’ve lost the battle?… this is the ‘risk’ I mean…) in terms of the vast majority seeing it as a ‘project’ that is legitimate… to simply say “we want to co-exist… and serve as a hot-house for the design of it: a free future. Recall the “Five Steps to Freedom”… also from our May 4, 2014 show: “As coerced work is the basis of the class system… leisure must be the basis of its opposite… All who want to see ‘freedom-leisure-happiness’ for our future are encouraged to set up similar planning processes everywhere…”

 

But the very first step is naming it – Absolute Leisure For All – claiming it… putting the message in our bodies and our minds that we deserve it. Let’s probe the resistance: “why do we feel we don’t deserve it? why do we feel we can’t do it?” Let’s get past the hollow fear so we can see it…

 

…then we work our asses off to realize it… each one asking of our bodies that they do this thing… each one asking of each other… nothing… only trusting that the earth will take them as they watch our model… and guide them true…

 

…we join hands around that vision… and we… each one… do what we’re called upon to do by our earth’s guidance…

 

…and we share our ideas for how to build our numbers… and we get behind the things our bodies tell us to – after giving consideration of them its due.

 

Now… that’s but ‘life longing for itself’…that’s living… not ‘building an organization’… and growth flows from it.

 

We have to demonstrate to our fellows the earth’s abundance…

 

…and the only way to do that… is with land…

 

…and the only way to get land… is with numbers.

 

“Absolute Leisure For All!” – “not possible!”?… they say?

 

…release the land then try… if you can… to say it again.

 

We want our time back… a.k.a…. our lives.

 

–––

 

Continuing with Chapter 17 of Keith Lowe’s Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II… “The Jewish Flight”… – P.S.]

 

–––

“Even agricultural farmland is an object of competition as acrid Arabia and crowded China fight to acquire rights to fertile Africa…” – …the scramble for rank… for place… in a hierarchy (with our earth gnawed to the bone…) leaves little room for concern about those on the bottom…. Only we-the-people can save our Mother-lands… our birthright… our origins… our integral souls… – The suffering Lowe describes is not just a future-projection… as I write these words on August 2, 2014… it’s happening right now in many places. And I personally believe that ‘moral degradation’ is precisely what the Israeli state hopes to achieve with the Palestinians (their own degraded state, of course, they do not see.) These are old tactics of ‘power’ towards people whose backs remain unbowed: “make them experience suffering… have them hunger…” says ‘power’, “then they’ll come around… Let’s consider this as we look where Hunger lives… and the probable plans of ‘power’ for them. Are we really willing to tolerate this?… this rending of our incipient global human fellowship?

 

Jews as Capitalists, Jews as Communists

 

The pogrom at Kunmadaras was only one of many such incidents that took place across Hungary in the immediate postwar years. Anti-Semitic violence including the looting of homes and shops (for example, in the mining town of Ozd), lynchings and murders (as in Miskolc), and the burning down of Jewish buildings such as synagogues (as in Mako). Alongside the violence, Jews were obliged to suffer all the usual forms of non-violent anti-Semitism: discrimination, intimidation, verbal abuse and so on. The level of racial hatred was so high, and so universal, that it clearly cannot be explained away as a mere squabble over property. Something much deeper was going on.

 

To begin with, the people who indulged in such excesses were often themselves suffering from unbearable hardship. The economy of the whole region was close to meltdown in 1946, but it was especially bad in Hungary, where the rat of inflation reportedly rose to a peak of 158,496 per cent per day. In his memoirs, the writer Gyorgy Faludy gives an indication of what this meant to ordinary people: when his publisher printed a new edition of one of his books in 1946 Faludy was paid 300 billion pengos – an amount that in 1938 would have been equivalent to around 60 billion US dollars. And yet, after collecting this bounty he was obliged to race directly to the market, knowing that the money would have devalued by at least 90 per cent by the time he go there. He spent the entire amount on just a single chicken, two litres of olive oil and a handful of vegetables. Inflation like this had a devastating effect on the lives of ordinary people, who were obliged to barter possessions for food. Workers often relied on the meals they received in the factory canteens, because their wages were effectively worthless. Eventually some employers abandoned money altogether and began paying their workers in food.

[On the page “Our hands – we-the-people’s – are full… when we join them together…” (the June 8th, 2014 Discussion), we began a consideration of the Craig Calhoun chapter in Does Capitalism Have A Future?, called “What Threatens Capitalism Now?” In it he writes: “…a host of new competitions for scarce resources will shape the near future and pose challenges to capital as well as to states and human societies. Energy is basic. Minerals are needed for modern technologies. Water is in short and unpredictable supply and often polluted. Even agricultural farmland is an object of competition as acrid Arabia and crowded China fight to acquire rights to fertile Africa….” I think we should consider my comment: “…the scramble for rank… for place… in a hierarchy (with our earth gnawed to the bone…) leaves little room for concern about those on the bottom…. Only we-the-people can save our Mother-lands… our birthright… our origins… our integral souls…” – in the light of what Lowe and Miklos have had to say… and what we’ve seeing around us today.

 

The suffering Lowe describes is not just a future-projection… as I write these words on August 2, 2014… it’s happening right now in many places. And I personally believe that ‘moral degradation’ is precisely what the Israeli state hopes to achieve with the Palestinians (their own degraded state, of course, they do not see.) These are old tactics of ‘power’ towards people whose backs remain unbowed: “make them experience suffering… have them hunger…” says ‘power’, “then they’ll come around…”

 

Let’s consider this as we look where Hunger lives… and the probable plans of ‘power’ for them. Are we really willing to tolerate this?… this rending of our incipient global human fellowship?… – P.S.]

The blame for this state of affairs was, generally speaking, aimed at two groups of people. Firstly, the Soviets were blamed – for the destruction they had wrought, for their widespread looting and for the punitive sums they had demanded in reparation for the war. The Communists were guilty by association, and in the minds of the people the Communists were almost universally regarded as Jews….

[Are we surprised that the global-state-statesmen remain hidden when responsibility for hunger – or public prejudices – is being determined?… – P.S.]

The Communists were guilty by association, and in the minds of the people the Communists were almost universally regarded as Jews. This was not unique to Hungary – the Communist Party was regarded as the ‘party of the Jews’ across eastern Europe, and not entirely without justification. But since the Communists were widely hated, this did not reflect well on the Jews. For example, when the Jewish leader of the Communist Party, Matyas Rakosi, came to Miskolc to deliver a speech on the economic situation, graffiti appeared […ah yes… the anonymous hand of division… such an ever-present actor… urging violence… greasing palms to sow seeds of hate… agent-provocatating… wherever ‘power’ fears we’re bridging false-divides… there… behind its agents ‘power’ hides… – P.S.] graffiti appeared on the factory walls calling him ‘the king of the Jews’ and the man who ‘sold the country to the Russians’.

 

“The Communists, who were keen to shake off their image as ‘the party of the Jew’, saw this latter stereotype as an opportunity to win some much-needed popularity. In the summer of 1946 they began to make speeches against the black market which condemned Jews in veiled terms as ‘speculators’. When they printed posters about the subject, these ‘speculators’ were depicted with exaggerated Semitic features: in fact, there was very little difference between these posters and the images of ‘Jewish parasites’ from the Nazi era. There is even compelling evidence that the Communists orchestrated the lynching of Jews in Miskolc, as an experiment in directing popular anger…” – [Let’s always keep with us… as part of our analysis… our expanded understanding of violence… thanks to Alice Miller. Recall her words: “in the last analysis, our status and degree of power determine whether our actions are judged to be good or bad…” …and… Recall Stalin’s words… representing for ‘power’ of all nations: “You should create such conditions… that they want to escape themselves.” – whenever and wherever a people will not submit… whenever and wherever there is land that is rich and the global-state-statesmen lust for it… these words are on their tongues… – P.S.]

 

The second group of people to be blamed for the desperate economic situation in Hungary were the black marketers and speculators who hoarded foodstuffs in the hope of driving up prices. Popular opinion also considered these people Jewish. When the women of Kunmadaras started beating up the Jewish egg vendor in the market place, for example, one of the accusations they hurled at him was that he was charging excessively high prices for his eggs. Jews everywhere were accused of over charging customers, exploiting the economic disaster, and hoarding food and gold. Such claims appealed to a stereotype that was centuries old – the Jew as miser.

 

The Communists, who were keen to shake off their image as ‘the party of the Jew’, saw this latter stereotype as an opportunity to win some much-needed popularity. In the summer of 1946 they began to make speeches against the black market which condemned Jews in veiled terms as ‘speculators’. When they printed posters about the subject, these ‘speculators’ were depicted with exaggerated Semitic features: in fact, there was very little difference between these posters and the images of ‘Jewish parasites’ from the Nazi era. There is even compelling evidence that the Communists orchestrated the lynching of Jews in Miskolc, as an experiment in directing popular anger.

[Let’s always keep with us… as part of our analysis… our expanded understanding of violence… thanks to Alice Miller. Recall her words (discussed in both the August 3 and 10, 2014 Waking Up Radio shows): “that a relativity of traditional moral values is an intrinsic part of this system: in the last analysis, our status and degree of power determine whether our actions are judged to be good or bad. This same principle prevails throughout the whole world [of ‘class’…]. The strong person dictates the verdict, and the victor in a war will sooner or later be applauded, regardless of the crimes that have been committed on the road to victory…” this is the core content of ‘class-bound’ childrearing practices… – P.S.]

In the political and economic turmoil of 1946, Jews in Hungary had very few places to turn. Mor Reinchardt, a Jew from Janoshalma, summed up their plight in a letter to the president of the Hungarian Jewish Bureau that August:

Regrettably, following the events in Miskolc and other similar occurrences it is obvious that Jews are hated equally by the Communist Party and the Smallholders Party. The slogan and posters of one say ‘Death to the Communists and the Jews’ and the slogans and posters of the other say ‘Death to the Smallholders and the Jews!’ Jews are universally hated and all political parties are ready to annihilate every one, whether guilty or innocent… In my view there is no other possibility but to seek protection from the occupying forces. We need to seek their help. Here – that is in Hungary – it is impossible for a Jew to exist….

 

[Recall Stalin’s words… representing for ‘power’ of all nations: “You should create such conditions… that they want to escape themselves.” – whenever and wherever a people will not submit… whenever and wherever there is land that is rich and the global-state-statesmen lust for it… these words are on their tongues… – P.S.]

 

…Here – that is in Hungary – it is impossible for a Jew to exist. Therefore, we need to leave. We need to emigrate. We need to petition the Soviet military authorities to allow us to leave the country… and while the emigration takes place… the Red Army should continue to occupy the country in order to afford us their protection.

This letter is a perfect expression of the sentiments held by hundreds of thousands of Jews all across Europe, who believed the continent would never again be a safe place for them to live.

 

–––

* “WUR of September 28th, 2014… “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future”

 

Peace and Love… to our Brothers and Sisters standing against the coercion – the global-totalitarian ambitions – of their states: in Russia… and… facing China… in Hong Kong…

 

September 26th, 2014… Peace and Love… to our Brothers and Sisters standing against the coercion – the global-totalitarian ambitions – of their states: in Russia… the thousands courageously marching to oppose these ambitions expressed…in Putin’s attempt to eliminate the threat it sees… in a Ukraine conceived revolutionarily…

 

…and to the thousands in Hong Kong… standing strong… down for the long-haul… putting your bodies on the line… deciding to Occupy… there walks our future… hand-in-hand… a heart that beats ‘opposite’ to ‘power’… that brings ‘peace’ and ‘love’… for ourselves… and for all who are to come….

 

We celebrate your courage… we mark your examples – the lessons we all-of-us together learn… as we make our similar plans. Thank you…

 

…and thank you to all who forge their strength in peace and love… to those we don’t hear of… may all-of-us… very soon… make our plans in unison.

 

The point of ‘states’ (from the perspective of ‘power’…) is to subject us to the ‘global economy’ (for ‘global economy’ read: “total control of ‘power’…”) if a state doesn’t do this… as is the case in revolutionary uprisings of the people… they are proclaimed ‘failed’… and ruthlessly destroyed (and… by the way… in that light… the accomplishment of Fidel… of Hugo… is breathtaking… but of course these guys… these ‘power’-guys ain’t done yet… till we make it so….) But the point of ‘nations’ (from the perspective of ‘we-the-people’ – and expressed most strongly in those revolutionary moments – is to further our humanity.… We are united in our determination to thrive in the endless expansion of our individualities.

 

September 23rd, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: This poor beleaguered narrator… she of the battered wits… body-intentionally-sickened-to-nauseousness – not that I’m making excuses, mind… my wits never could cut through dense stuff at first blush –

 

…this is an abashed request for a replay of Terence Hopkin’s ‘asymptote’ analysis…

 

…because I think it’s an important discussion… that I… ‘fumbled’… stumbled on… with maximum clumsiosity…

 

…because… if a proper understanding of it could bring us together… what could be more important than that?

 

It’s almost as if we’re all coming together around this question…

 

…of ‘the nation’…

 

…as our ‘self-definition’… as against the ‘global-state’.

 

Popper’s fear of ‘tribe’ dissolves in it… as it can survive… welcome… and thrive in… the expansion of our individualities…

 

…at last…

 

…Marx and Popper shake hands… and as well come in… the anarchists…. with Nikola standing by… and the earth-connected presiding….

 

What Terence Hopkins is saying – and we’ll set aside whether he’s also saying that Marx argues this as well – is that the terms according to which the global ‘economic system’ ‘works’ tend toward (among other things… like… we-the-people would add… the destruction of the planet…) tend to make the ‘nation-state’ obsolete – i.e., we-the-people are controlled effectively both by ‘the wage’… and the ‘global economy’…

 

The point of ‘states’ (from the perspective of ‘power’…) is to subject us to the ‘global economy’ (for ‘global economy’ read: “total control of ‘power’…”) if a state doesn’t do this… as is the case in revolutionary uprisings of the people… they are proclaimed ‘failed’… and ruthlessly destroyed (and… by the way… in that light… the accomplishment of Fidel… of Hugo… is breathtaking… but of course these guys… these ‘power’-guys ain’t done yet… till we make it so….) But the point of ‘nations’ (from the perspective of ‘we-the-people’ – and expressed most strongly in those revolutionary moments – is to further our humanity.

 

The ‘asymptote’: the tendency toward the abolition of ‘the nation-state’… is simultaneously the tendency toward the total domination of ‘power’ – and necessarily then means something different for them (‘power’…) than for us…

 

…in a sense… this moment is the struggle for the outing… exposition… and explosion…

 

…the smashing of…

 

…the ‘asymptote’: the vampire-destination that’s been clawing at us… for millennia – forcing us on this wild ride to total subjection to ‘Authority’… to ‘power’…

 

– Marx… Popper… Kropotkin… and Martin… Nikola… Zora… Fannie and Malcolm… Bob and Gorky… and all earth-connected globally… all our relations… and all our love… tends us to… the same ocean….

 

We are united in our rejection of ‘the asymptote’.

 

We are united in our determination to thrive in the endless expansion of our individualities.

 

‘Thought’ used the tools at hand… to craft what it thought to be the best path (away… from the ‘asymptote…) but we… with Nikola’s gift in hand… can see from a higher vantage… see that the possibility now exists… to fully realize Nikola’s gift (no half-measures… no mincing steps…) in distributed… and endlessly generative… and absolutely self-determined… human energy.

 

The calculus today is not the same as that our ancestors faced… when we look at the Ellen Meiksins Wood piece (“A Manifesto for Global Capitalism?”…) – we’ll discuss the need for global planning and action beginning with coordinated withdrawal from this ‘system’… leading to the General Strike… we’ll discuss ‘strategy’… and the importance of claiming ‘leisure’ as the goal… not ‘ownership of the means of production’… – but basically what I mean is that… not only have the stakes become ‘total’ – a predictable outcome of the unchecked voraciousness of ‘power’… – but today ‘power’ as a conscious actor directing events to an outcome it intends… the fact that ‘power’ is conscious and harbors totalitarian aims can be plainly seen… the fact that the ‘power’-guys… the global-statesmen are organized… and make things bend to a (planned) set of limited possibilities for the vast majority… while, on the other hand, our inheritance as ‘life’ is open-ended… and our self-directed energy is needed to restore the earth to health and balance… and we see… that to honor that health… that life… that balance… we must fight for possession… not of a ‘system’… but of ourselves – i.e. we can see that the practice of keeping we-the-people leashed… at a moment when doing so condemns all life to misery – that that is the ‘system’ that must be ended… When ‘the structure’ does not allow us to be human beings – compels self-violation… and the betrayal of life – then we have… not just the right… but the responsibility to abolish it. By definition we cannot pursue ‘happiness’ if we cannot pursue our humanity… and manufactured scarcity compels – in compelling our submission to those who monopolize the means – manufactured scarcity compels the violation of our humanity…

 

The calculus today is not the same as that our ancestors faced…

(…we’ll discuss this further when we look at the Ellen Meiksins Wood piece [“A Manifesto for Global Capitalism?”… posted on the page: “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”…] – we’ll discuss the need for global planning and action beginning with coordinated withdrawal from this ‘system’… leading to the General Strike… we’ll discuss ‘strategy’… and the importance of claiming ‘leisure’ as the goal… not ‘ownership of the means of production’… – but basically what I mean is that… not only have the stakes become ‘total’ – a predictable outcome of the unchecked voraciousness of ‘power’… – but today ‘power’ as a conscious actor directing events to an outcome it intends… that is to say… the fact that ‘power’ is conscious and harbors totalitarian aims can be plainly seen… the fact that the ‘power’-guys… the global-statesmen are organized… and make things bend to a (planned) set of limited possibilities for the vast majority… while, on the other hand, our inheritance as ‘life’ is open-ended… and our self-directed energy is needed to restore the earth to health and balance… and we see… that to honor that health… that life… that balance… we must fight for possession… not of a ‘system’… but of ourselves – i.e. we can see that the practice of keeping we-the-people leashed… at a moment when doing so condemns all life to misery – that that is the ‘system’ that must be ended…

 

…and of course today we have the means to do it….

 

When ‘the structure’ does not allow us to be human beings – compels self-violation… and the betrayal of life – then we have… not just the right… but the responsibility to abolish it. By definition we cannot pursue ‘happiness’ if we cannot pursue our humanity… and manufactured scarcity compels – in compelling our submission to those who monopolize the means – manufactured scarcity compels the violation of our humanity…)

…today we stand… at a different vantage… and the further out you go… i.e. from ‘local’ to ‘global’… and as we grow up… and see from the vantage of ‘the whole’… the vista opens to a free future… a future that’s fundamentally different. We’ll see this in that quote I think… about the ‘asymptote’… particularly if we first consider some earlier show-excerpts that ask some relevant questions about the hidden assumptions – this ‘asymptote’-business being one – that structure… govern… our lives

 

The calculus today is not the same as that our ancestors faced… today we stand… at a different vantage… and the further out you go… i.e. from ‘local’ to ‘global’… and as we grow up… and see from the vantage of ‘the whole’… the vista opens to a free future…

 

…a future that is the ‘opposite’ of ‘power’.

 

–––

 

Viewed authentically… ‘from the vantage of the whole’ – ‘the whole’ including we soon-to-be-free humans… granted, now but an incipiency – this ‘asymptote’-business is akin to treading water (when ‘power’ stays hidden – so we must not let them…) stuck in… ‘power’s ‘unfelt imaginations’ (as Shakespeare termed it….)

 

We have… until now… allowed the ‘power-guys’ to ‘fine-tune’ us to their fantasies… make adjustments to our human capacities… to make certain… we’d make no progress to… a future that’s fundamentally different. We’ll see this in that quote I think… about the ‘asymptote’… particularly if we first consider some earlier show-excerpts that ask some relevant questions about the hidden assumptions – this ‘asymptote’-business being one – that structure… govern… our lives:

 

–––

 

Excerpts from the Waking Up Radio show of February 24, 2013: “On ‘giving ourselves permission to move on’: do we need to talk about ‘the division between mental and manual labor’?” (Part 1); and: “On ‘giving ourselves permission to move on’” (Part 2).

 

Part 1:

‘Power’s semantic games with the notion ‘nation-state’ – as are ultimately all ‘power’s moves – are in response to our onward pressure to be free. I’ve argued that the technology and the necessary strategy for us to succeed leads to the ‘distributed generation’ of our power… our earth-given power. ‘Power’… the would-be ‘philosopher-kings’… sees this… and so wants to develop more nimble control mechanisms… so it’s floating this notion of ‘regions’ being where the ‘smart’ people want to be (which is what we see in China, by the way, which is interesting….) ‘Power’ does not want us to unify… because they know that it’s only by us unifying… globally… that we can reclaim our earth… including the earth that is our bodies.

 

And… the ‘division between mental and manual labor’ is in fact a version of… ‘hierarchy’… of the notion of a ‘citizen-barbarian’ divide – the notion that we have to make ‘our’ state ‘the best’… our allegiance then ‘automatically’ gets shifted to the so-called ‘philosopher-kings’…

 

…that it is only by ‘seeing from the vantage of the whole’ (and probably flipping it – what we’ve been told…) that we begin to develop the hope… the conversations… the thoughts… that will rapidly… once they start in a big way… move us on to our future…

Part 2:

…so… we have to begin understanding that it is a global reality of ‘rule’. Every nation-state is in a battle to maintain control of its citizenry… and to keep our focus narrowly… initially on the ‘nation-state’… and then ultimately on ‘regions’… where we can be more easily controlled. It is only from ‘the vantage of the whole’ that the truth may be known.

 

And so… what is our goal? We have to always… always… ask ourselves that question… and be honest in answering… because once you’re forced to state it… you can then ‘play it back’… play back your strategy: “OK, how does that strategy lead to that goal?” – and then talk about it with our brothers and sisters so that it can be tested. It is only by testing these notions that we can move forward… in developing sophisticated strategies.

 

So… returning to this notion of the division between mental and manual labor… I believe that it is a key barrier to our… giving ourselves permission… but that we are in a different moment where we can. When Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation we needed the permission of the voice of Authority. Those states and peoples under the thumb of the Soviet Union suddenly saw their horizons expand when Gorbachev allowed it – the ‘voice of Authority’ again… and even [He Qinglian, the author of the February 14 – 20, 2013 Epoch Times article] is hoping for a Gorbachev… someone who can lead the Chinese people to have the confidence that they can resist in a big enough sense – joining hands across regions – and end this repressive regime.

 

So what stands in our way? Is it in fact unrealistic for us to believe that we can begin talking about ending millennia-long ‘rule of the few’… and is it necessary for us to start talking about the notion of a ‘division between mental and manual labor’… in order for us to believe it’s possible… for us to move on? – because it’s not going to be anyone in authority giving us permission this time. It is only by our growing up… internally. This has to be through our own development as human beings… because if it’s not… it gets hijacked back into ‘power’s game… because if it can be given… it can be taken away… but if we claim it… it’s ours.

Excerpt from the Waking Up Radio show of March 3, 2013: “…the manual-mental divide (or, rather, our unconscious belief in it…) plugged into the ‘citizen-barbarian’ division (our belief in the necessity of ‘the state’…) is the motive force that turns ‘power’s key coin of control: ‘violence is inherent in our nature’… and ‘labor is our inevitable lot…’”

Last week we said that the manual-mental divide (or, rather, our unconscious belief in the manual-mental divide…) plugged into the ‘citizen-barbarian’ division (our belief in the necessity of ‘the state’… or, rather, its physical infra-structure [although thanks to Alice Miller… we now have a more fully developed understanding of ‘the state’… and recognize that our unconscious allegiance to our parents is inextricably interwoven in that belief…]) is the motive force that turns ‘power’s key coin of control: ‘violence is inherent in our nature’… and ‘labor is our inevitable lot’…

 

…this means the force is double-edged… as we learned from Bentham. One end is in the physical world… the material constructs of the state… and the other within: our internalization of discipline.

 

Another name for this key myth is “the necessity of ‘rule’”… which assumes… and manifests… the ‘division between mental and manual labor’ – the key expression for ‘rule’ (of this division) being… the division between ‘citizen-barbarian’.

 

Now Bentham is certain that we must be driven… and once ‘power’ got fully behind him it made them incredibly effective. Coercion for Bentham is a given… in his moral universe… and there is no other way to drive ‘the people’ to [his definition of…] ‘happiness’… because of our ‘class’ position… or because of our alleged ‘violence’… our ‘passion’… and so… to be ‘passion-less’… in Bentham’s world… dominated by centuries of tyrannical bloodletting by, and of, those who claimed the sword of ‘rule’… was a virtue… equated with the “rule of ‘Reason’”…

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The notion of an ‘asymptote’ – perhaps it’s fair to call it “the Marxian notion of the asymptote” – is a manifestation of the main one: that ‘power’ must have (in their minds) discretionary control of our energy… in order to – I’m sure they rationalize to themselves – ‘move us’ collectively forward as a species – the notion that our energy must ever be at their disposal… to direct as they wish. And we get taught this in the education system so we believe it… Parents! I’m putting a challenge out to you. If we want to have powerful young people… if we want to rear powerful children… we cannot unquestioningly subject our children to these hidden assumptions. We have to talk about them. We want our children to be big… not reared to be servants of an – ultimately – hardcore totalitarian ‘system’ – right now it’s ‘softcore’. We are not here to serve a ‘state’. We are here to serve life.

 

We said… in the February 24, 2013 show… that in prior systemic shifts (using the examples of Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation… and Gorbachev announcing the dismantlement of the Soviet Union…) we-the-people ‘needed’… and sought… ‘permission to step into larger versions of ourselves. We called this a belief in “the necessity of ‘rule’”… and tagged it a specie of the larger misconception of a ‘necessary’… artificial distinction… artificial division… between so-called ‘mental’ and so-called ‘manual’ labor.

 

To move on… beyond ‘class’… I believe we must confront these base and hidden-in-plain-sight assumptions – expressions… and constitutive… of the ‘class’ imperative. The notion of an ‘asymptote’ – perhaps it’s fair to call it “the Marxian notion of the asymptote” (we’ll come to greater clarity on that when we together review Terence Hopkins’s piece that I’m posting on the “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” page… but I have a feeling Terry was being generous in his crediting…) – is a manifestation of the main one: that ‘power’ must have (in their minds) discretionary control of our energy… in order to – I’m sure they rationalize to themselves – ‘move us’ collectively forward as a species… the notion that our energy must ever be at their disposal… to direct as they wish. And we get taught this in the education system so we believe it…

…Parents! I’m putting a challenge out to you. If we want to have powerful young people… if we want to rear powerful children… we cannot unquestioningly subject our children to these hidden assumptions. We have to talk about them. We want our children to be big… not reared to be servants of an – ultimately – hardcore totalitarian ‘system’ – right now it’s ‘softcore’. We are not here to serve a ‘state’. We are here to serve life.

So in this light let’s consider the connection between our inculcated assumption about a supposed ‘mental-manual divide’ – and I’m saying ‘inculcated’ because, how can they direct us unless we believe in that divide?… believe that the mental act of direction must be a specialized function… believe it to be cut off… and distinct from… our act of execution… and believe their ‘minds’ to be ‘superior’? In this light ‘the asymptote’ we’re calling ‘Marxian’ reveals supreme hubris… millennia in the making.

 

Let’s read that quote again:

…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’…”] approach in the very long run. The farther the class struggle was from the projected asymptote…

[…and… again… that ‘projected asymptote’ is ‘total control of us’: the destination. Popper called such mental traps ‘historicist’: “story leading ‘reality’”… leading… in particular… us… to the future ‘power’ wants… – P.S.]

…The farther the class struggle was from the projected asymptote, the more it would take on a political / national character.…

[…i.e. the more we resisted… the farther from us we kept that destination. We have to deepen our understanding of ‘claiming the nation’… and what that means… and how it relates to our global goal… scope… and action. Because… remember what we just said: “states exist… in the minds of ‘power’ to subject us to the ‘global economy’… which is just their mechanism for keeping us contained… controlled. I believe that’s what’s behind their destruction of rural communities… their destruction of what they call ‘traditional life’ – our ability to be self-sufficient – is to subject us to them… make us dependent… on them… on ‘power’. We have to go ‘hat-in-hand’ always… to them. And when there is resistance to that… then the state is deemed no longer ‘legitimate’… as we see with the punishment meted out to Haiti and Cuba… Somalia… Rwanda… Ukraine… Egypt… Tunisia. So… they will call a state that tries to squeeze itself out from under the thumb of global-‘power’ a ‘failed state’… because it refuses to submit – and then find somebody who can rein the folk back in. So… there is ‘the state’ that’s subjected to the global economy… there is the ‘failed state’ that is being punished by ‘power’… and then there is the hierarchical layering of nations… because you gotta have ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ – Denmark right up there at the top… they get to have a much nicer life up there… and they get to be Exhibit ‘A’ to ‘prove’ there is such a thing as ‘democracy’. And then imagine the horror of England… at Scotland wanting its independence… or Spain at Catalonia wanting its independence. What to do with ‘insider’ nations who don’t want to be under the thumb of the ‘global-economy’? This is a longer discussion that we’re going to return to when we look at the “Embracing Global Goals” discussion of ‘the nation’… and the ‘nation-state… – P.S.]

 

…we-the-people use (or try to…) use ‘nation’ defensively… means… we refuse to be dragged to a world in which we are utterly stripped and naked… defenseless… against global-‘power’. And we have clung to this defensive position from long habit… and long training… without Nikola’s gift to open the broader world to us… and the inertia of this massive mistake called ‘class’ keeps moving us along as captives… towards the destination ‘power’ wants… it has taken us through earth devastation… and the loss of our souls… and we go along… trained as we are to obey… to follow… to wait… for the ‘leaders’… the ‘smart ones’ (self-proclaimed…) to give us our instructions…

 

So we struggle… within our various states… to expand the limits established for us… and the ideology of ‘the nation’ has been used both to resist the impositions of ‘power’… and in populist demands for freedom. Karl Popper brought this up in telling the story of how the king of Prussia brought in the ‘philosopher’ Hegel to help him suppress an up-swelling of nationalist fervor that was revolutionary in aim and sentiment… expressive of resistance to ‘power’s claims on our bodies (an excerpt on this event is included in the book Revealing Division.) So the definition of ‘nation’ varies depending on who defines it. When it’s defined by us it can lead to a global ‘joining of hands’… of all nations.

 

In the meantime… as the ‘global economy’ tries to force… compel… everyone to ‘come in’… our resistance to the ‘asymptotical tendency’ of ‘power’ toward total domination by ‘power’ (defining us totally…) means that we-the-people use (or try to…) use ‘nation’ defensively… to protect ourselves from global-‘power’… – P.S.]

…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”, in Antisystemic Movements)

[…in earth terms this means: we-the-people use (or try to…) use ‘nation’ defensively… means… we refuse to be dragged to a world in which we are utterly stripped and naked… defenseless… against global-‘power’. And we have clung to this defensive position from long habit… and long training… without Nikola’s gift to open the broader world to us… and the inertia of this massive mistake called ‘class’ keeps moving us along as captives… towards the destination ‘power’ wants… it has taken us through earth devastation… and the loss of our souls… and we go along… trained as we are to obey… to follow… to wait… for the ‘leaders’… the ‘smart ones’ (self-proclaimed…) to give us our instructions…

 

…“‘Story leading ‘reality’” means: “‘the smart ones’ – or rather the ones who claim that designation – ‘make’ ‘history’… amass the resources to make the world they want.

 

They hoarded all the certainty… as Platonov said… because only they claimed the ‘all’… looked long… took the whole world in view… its shaping seized proprietarily… the world perceived as ‘its’ to make…

 

…but all that’s changed.

 

‘Power’ hopes to get past this current awakening generation… let’s make certain… that don’t happen… – P.S.]

–––

 

Continuing with Chapter 17 of Keith Lowe’s Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II… “The Jewish Flight”… – P.S.]

 

–––

“…The most famous postwar pogrom, however – and easily the worst – occurred at Kielce in southern-central Poland. It began on the morning of 4 July 1946, after an eight-year-old boy named Henryk Blaszczyk falsely accused a local Jew of abducting him and imprisoning him in the basement of the Jewish Committee’s building at 7 Planty Street.…” – [It’s worth considering the words of Adam Smith in this regard: “…As for the wage-earner… 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.” The system of ‘class’ – premised on ‘abandonment’… its subjects… kidnapped-all… whose ‘unconscious’ it’s easy to see latching onto that theme – has since its inception ever made us the fodder for those ‘higher up’ the ladder… who make use of us in service of their ‘higher’ schemes…. Our discussions… of ‘the state-in-us’ have been suppressed… and the only way to exorcise the systematically-laid false divisions… is to start them… – P.S.]

 

The Kielce Pogrom

 

If anti-Semitism in Hungary was bad after the war, it was even worse in Poland. In the summer of 1945, having survived a series of Nazi labour camps, sixteen-year-old Ben Helfgott and his cousin traveled back to Poland from Theresienstadt. While they were changing trains at Czestochowa, however, they were stopped by two armed and uniformed Poles who asked for their papers. They examined the documents, then told the boys to come with them to the police station for a routine check. The pair had no reason to suspect that anything was wrong, and so followed them into the city. For a while Helfgott tried to make conversation with the strangers, but then one of the men turned to him violently and said, ‘Shut your fucking mouth, you fucking Jew.’ The boys knew immediately that they were in trouble.

 

The men did not take them to a police station but to a dark apartment, where they were made to open their suitcases. After taking everything they could find of value, the men took them back out into the night, again claiming that they were going to the police station. The boys no longer believed them, of course, but since the men were armed they had no choice but to comply. They were led to a derelict and deserted area of town, where the two men drew their revolvers and told the boys to walk towards the nearest wall. Ben Helfgott immediately started pleading with them, appealing to their patriotism, exclaiming that they were all fellow Poles who had suffered together during the war, and should be helping each other now that the war was over. Eventually one of the men took pity on them, saying to his partner, ‘Let’s leave them. They’re only boys.’ So they put away their revolvers, laughed, and walked away, leaving the cousins to find their own way back to the railway station.

 

Poland was easily the most dangerous country for Jews after the war. At least 500 Jews were murdered by Poles between the German surrender and the summer of 1946, and most historians put the figure at around 1,500. It is impossible to be sure because individual incidents like the one described by Ben Helfgott were rarely reported, and even more rarely recorded – even when they resulted in murder. Jews were thrown from trains. They were robbed of their possessions and taken to the forests to be shot. Letters were sent to Jews by local nationalist groups warning them to get out or be killed. Corpses were left with notes in their pockets reading, ‘This will be the fate of all surviving Jews.’

 

As in Hungary, the ancient calumny of blood libel was invoked again and again. In Rzeszow there were rumours that ‘Jews who needed blood after returning from the camps’ were performing ritual murders. These murders supposedly included the killing of a nine-year-old girl named Bronislawa Mendon, whose ‘blood was sucked out for ritual purposes’ in June 1945. During the riot that followed these rumours several Jews were beaten up, Jewish properties were looted, and one or two Jews possibly also killed. In Krakow a full-blown pogrom broke out after stories circulated that a Christian child had been killed inside a synagogue. Polish police and militiamen were amongst a mob that descended upon the synagogue and pursued Jews through the town. In the resulting violence dozens of Jews were wounded, and possibly as many as five were killed. Those Jews who ended up at hospital were beaten again, while nurses looked on and called them ‘Jewish scum’ who ‘should be shot.’

[Stalin’s words represented for the global-state-statesmen of the period… who then… as now… direct events quietly behind scenes… today… as then… we have our full measure of hate-full ideologies of Division… some a whisper in an ear… some with the bait of acquisition… some wage-driven… slip-shady sliding beneath ‘proof’… as to origin… of pot and spoon…

 

…but… now… we know full well the shady-ways of ‘power’… and we know this globally… and we have begun the discussions of how to move beyond them… as we’re learning how ‘power’s ‘introjection’ (Marcuse’s word…)-trick happens… thanks to Alice… – P.S.]

The most famous postwar pogrom, however – and easily the worst – occurred at Kielce in southern-central Poland. It began on the morning of 4 July 1946, after an eight-year-old boy named Henryk Blaszczyk falsely accused a local Jew of abducting him and imprisoning him in the basement of the Jewish Committee’s building at 7 Planty Street. The particular Jew accused by the boy was immediately arrested and beaten up. A lynch mob was assembled to break into the building and rescue the other children who were supposedly being held there, waiting to be ritually sacrificed. Rumours quickly spread throughout the community that children were being kidnapped, and that the Jews had ‘killed a Christian child’. Attempts by the head of the Jewish Community to calm things down fell upon deaf ears.

[It’s worth considering the words of Adam Smith in this regard (discussed on the page “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”…): “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.” The system of ‘class’ – premised on ‘abandonment’… its subjects… kidnapped-all… whose ‘unconscious’ it’s easy to see latching onto that theme – has since its inception ever made us the fodder for those ‘higher up’ the ladder… who make use of us in service of their ‘higher’ schemes…. Our discussions… of ‘the state-in-us’ have been suppressed… and the only way to exorcise the systematically-laid false divisions… is to start them… – P.S.]

“The Interior Minister, Jakub Berman, who was himself Jewish, was informed of the pogrom while it was still going on, but also rejected suggestions that radical measures should be taken to stop the mob. Thus even the highest authority in the land proved himself unable, or unwilling, to help. Just as in Hungary, the Polish Communists – even the ones who were Jewish – were keen to distance themselves from any possible association with the Jews…”

 

When the police came to search the building in question an hour later, they discovered that it did not contain any Christian children – in fact it did not even have a basement. They told the boy off for lying and sent him home, but the damage had already been done. By now a crowd had gathered outside the building, which began to throw stones at the windows. Shortly afterwards more than a hundred soldiers arrived, supposedly to re-establish order – but after a gun was fired (it is unclear by whom) these soldiers joined policemen in storming the building, grabbing hold of men and women they found there and forcing them out into the arms of the baying mob outside.

 

Baruch Dorfman was on the third floor of the building, where he and a group of twenty others had barricaded themselves in a room.

But they started shooting at us through the door, and they wounded one person, who later died from the injuries. They broke in. These were soldiers in uniform and a few civilians. I was wounded then. They ordered us to go outside. They formed a double row. In the staircase there were already civilians and also women. Soldiers hit us with rifle butts. Civilians, men and women, also beat us. I was wearing a uniformlike vest, perhaps that’s why they did not hit me then. We came down to the square. Others who were brought out with me were stabbed with bayonets and shot at. We were pelted with stones. Even then nothing happened to me. I moved across the square to an exit, but I must have had such a facial expression that they recognized that I was a Jew who’d been taken out of the building, because one civilian screamed, ‘A Jew!’ And only then did they attack me. Stones flew at me, I was hit with rifle butts, I fell and lost consciousness. Periodically I regained consciousness; then they hit me again with stones and rifle butts. One wanted to shoot me when I was lying on the ground but I heard somebody else say, ‘Don’t shoot, he’ll croak anyway.’ I fainted again. When I came to, somebody was pulling me by the legs and threw me onto a truck. This was some other military, because I woke up in a hospital in Kielce.

Some witnesses remember Jews being thrown from the windows onto the street below. The head of the Jewish Committee was shot in the back while he was phoning for help. Later, when 600 workers from the Ludwikow foundry arrived shortly after midday, some fifteen or twenty Jews were beaten to death with iron bars. Others were stoned, or shot by policemen or soldiers. The list of dead included three Jewish soldiers who had won the highest combat decorations fighting for Poland, and also two ordinary Poles who had apparently been mistaken for Jews. Also killed that day were a pregnant mother and a woman who had been shot along with her newborn baby. In total, forty-two Jews were killed at Kielce, and as many as eighty others injured. A further thirty or so were killed in related assaults on the local railways.

 

The striking thing about this massacre was the fact that the entire community had taken part, not only men but also women; not only civilians but also policemen, militiamen and soldiers – the very people who were supposed to be keeping law and order. The racist myth of blood libel had been invoked, but the Catholic Church did nothing to refute this myth, or to denounce pogroms. Indeed, the Cardinal-Primate of Poland, August Hlond, claimed that the massacre had not been racially motivated, and that, in any case, if there was some anti-Semitism in society this was largely the fault of ‘Jews who today occupy leading positions in Poland’s government’.

 

Local and national Communist leaders responded a little more helpfully – by prosecuting some of the main participants and by providing protection and a special train to take the wounded away to Lodz – but on the day itself they remained mute. The reason given by the local party secretary was that he ‘didn’t want people to be saying that the [Party] is a defender of Jews’. The Interior Minister, Jakub Berman, who was himself Jewish, was informed of the pogrom while it was still going on, but also rejected suggestions that radical measures should be taken to stop the mob. Thus even the highest authority in the land proved himself unable, or unwilling, to help. Just as in Hungary, the Polish Communists – even the ones who were Jewish – were keen to distance themselves from any possible association with the Jews.

 

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Beginning with the October 5, 2014 Waking Up Radio Show, these discussions will continue on the page “Keith Lowe Lessons From Savage Continent… For Building Our Future” (Part 2)

“09.29.14 Note to my Sisters & Brothers…”

 

…please check out our latest “anti-coercion commercial”:

 

“We are asserting our common ownership of the earth… and as soon as we make our own bodies part of that goal…”

 

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The Flight

 

The reaction to the anti-Semitic violence in eastern Europe was dramatic. Many survivors who had gone back to Poland after the war now returned to Germany on the grounds that it was safer in the country that had originally persecuted them than it was at home. The stories they told dissuaded others from making the same journey. ‘Whatever you do, don’t go back to Poland,’ was the advice given to Michael Etkind. ‘The Poles are killing all the Jews returning from the camps.’ Harry Balsam was told the same thing: ‘They said that we must be mad to want to go back as they were still killing Jews in Poland… They told us the Poles were doing what the Germans could not manage, and that they had been lucky to come out alive.’ As early as October, 1945, Joseph Levine of the Joint Distribution Committee was writing to New York that ‘everyone reports murder and pillage by the Poles and that all the Jews want to get out of Poland.’

 

Fortunately for many Polish Jews, and indeed Jews from several other countries in eastern Europe, an escape route had been set up for them. In the aftermath of the war, groups of determined Jews had set up an organization called Brichah (‘Flight’), which had begun to secure a whole series of safe houses, methods of transport and unofficial border crossing points in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania. At first they had been a very clandestine organization, smuggling truckloads of Jews across borders by bribing guards with money and alcohol, but by 1946 they had attained a semi-official status amongst the governments of eastern Europe. In May that year the Prime Minister of Poland, Edward Osobka-Morawski, stated openly that his government would not stand in the way of Jews who wished to emigrate to Palestine – an assertion he repeated after the Kielce pogrom. In the aftermath of the pogrom, a former border crossing point was negotiated between one of the commanders of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Yitzhak ‘Antek’ Zuckerman, and the Polish Defence Minister Marian Spychalski. Other prominent people associated with Brichah organized similar border crossings with the Hungarians, the Romanians and the American authorities in Germany, and the Czechs agreed to supply special trains for the transport of Jewish refugees across the country.

 

The numbers of Jews fleeing westwards were significant, but they increased dramatically in the aftermath of the Kielce pogrom. In May 1946 Brichah organized the flight of 3,502 people from Poland. This rose to approximately 8,000 in June. But in July, after the pogrom, the figures more than doubled to 19,000, and then almost doubled again to 35,346 in August, before falling back to 12,379 in September. These figures do not include the 10 – 20,000 who fled Poland by other means, including putting themselves in the hands of private speculators and smugglers. In addition, the Joint Distribution Committee in Bratislava reported that some 14,000 Hungarian Jews had fled through Czechoslovakia in the three months after Kielce. In total, between 90,000 and 95,000 Jewish refugees are thought to have fled from eastern Europe in July, August and September 1946.

 

The total number of Jews who fled west in the two years after the end of the war is probably in the region of 200,000 from Poland, 18,000 from Hungary, 19,000 from Romania, and perhaps a further 18,000 from Czechoslovakia – although most of this last group were forced out not because they were Jewish but because the Czechs considered them German. When one also factors in the 40,000 or so Jews who fled the same countries in the years 1948 – 50, we reach a grand total of almost 300,000 people who were forced to leave their countries because of anti-Semitic persecution. This is, if anything, a slightly conservative estimate.

[A world was being crafted… do any doubt it?… doubt the existence… of those quiet conferences… deciding how to re-package us discretely… much more ‘neatly’…much less threatening… than had been our budding… unity…. Do any doubt the accelerating machine called ‘total privatization of everything’ has called the question: “We must successfully confront… and overcome… the dark legacy of mutual mistrust that’s been planted in our midst by ‘power’…” Do any doubt… we’re doing it? – P.S.]

 

 

 

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* Chapter 18… “The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukraine and Poland”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Francisco Goya’s Third of May, (1808, Portion)]

 

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The Jews were not the only people to be chased out of their home towns in the aftermath of the war. Nor were they the only ones to suffer violence from mobs, policemen and armed militias…

 

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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 …”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[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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* “TBA, 2014 Show …”

 

 

* “TBA, 2014 Show …”

 

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* “TBA, 2014 Show …”

 

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* “TBA, 2014 Show …”

 

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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