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“Embracing Global Goals (Part 3)": Includes excerpts from “Hegemony and Antisystemic Movements,” by Giovanni Arrighi and “Prison Notebooks,” by Antonio Gramsci

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I hope you'll check out the following excerpts in anticipation of our February 29, 2015 show.

 

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

 

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* “WUR of April 5th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 2):

[The spoken word of the following wordbeat is from the March 29, 2015 show:

 

““Can there be a broad… popular… movement for 'soul-sufficiency'? But there must be… for us to achieve our freedom. What would it look like? How would we know it?… if not by its goals… if not by its representing for all the world?… i.e., 'soul-sufficiency' necessarily means a design tied to others all over the world… necessarily has a global cast… taking on the challenge of consciously composing… a 'global symphony'… of all our voices…” “Laws for creations, For strong artists and leaders, for fresh broods of teachers and perfect literats for America, For noble savans and coming musicians. All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the compact truth of the world, There shall be no subject too pronounced – all works shall illustrate the divine law of indirections. What do you suppose creation is? What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior? What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but that man or woman is as good as God? And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself? And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally mean? And that you or any one must approach creations through such laws?.…” [Spoken word quotes Walt Whitman… and is from our March 29, 2015 radio broadcast.]

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Today’s show: “'Longing' Is the Taproot”

[“150405hiddenpower.mp3”:]

 

In abandoning our – we-the-people's – original understanding of the concept of 'the class struggle' as global social transformation… the professional Left abandoned us.… So we see from this… the importance of basing action on analysis… and of factoring into it… “hidden 'power'”. Because all our clear-headed theory otherwise… leading… as our Good Three do… to the global theater… will… time after time… get ship-wrecked on the rocky shoals of this strategic weapon…

 

[Sisters and Brothers… because edits to the "Embracing Global Goals (Part 2)" page no longer 'save'… I am posting the html text for this show on the: Excerpts from Arrighi and Gramsci page… but please also download the pdf form… available on the main 'Blog' section of the website… – P.S.]

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March 31, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: In abandoning our – we-the-people's – original understanding of the concept of 'the class struggle' as global social transformation… the professional Left abandoned us.

 

As for 'reason'… before… before my own up-close-and-personal experience with the shadow-global-state… I would have lain the cause at either Ignorance's or Intentional Misdirection's door… and it can fall to either… sure…

 

…but… now… I'd say… the cause should be placed… mainly… at the door of 'power's secret possession of… let's call it their 'EMF-strategy'… possession of a secret weapon – key to their need to stay hidden – so they may dispense with overt repression…

 

…for these things… and more… they want to keep their weapon (or family of weapons…) and keep it (and… particularly… the fact that it is being used against 'citizens'…)

 

…hidden…

 

…and their resources are effectively limitless.

 

So we see from this… the importance of basing action on analysis… and of factoring into it… “hidden 'power'”. Because all our clear-headed theory otherwise… leading… as our Good Three do… to the global theater… will… time after time… get ship-wrecked on the rocky shoals of this strategic weapon…

 

…time after time… will our clear-headed theorists… simply disappear from amongst us… while the false voices of the political pundits get pumped into our ears… ad infinitum…

(And… an aside: we are talking here about a massive secret played out in plain sight… as Shakespeare said: “seen in thought”… I don't know how many hundreds of folks are involved in just my tracking and monitoring alone… and one thing I've seen about this… is… 'power' uses a lot of the low-income… 'disposable'… I'm sure they consider them… I suspect 'power' keeps an accurate list and that its plans for them are not pleasant. We must never forget Miklos' lessons from Auschwitz.)

 

And another… as I've been forced to confront… perhaps more consciously than most… these 'assets' of the global-state… for over six years now: at the start of this journey into darkness – in which I nonetheless found love… and light – I would never have guessed the depths to which these 'power'-guys will go… the resources (which are infinite…) they will apply… to stop we-the-people from simply thinking. It is astonishing… no wonder it would never occur to us (and of course they count on this…) – they will put together teams just to study a subject's psychology… ferret out her vulnerabilities… plant agents in their way to fuel them… these perceived weaknesses… try to find whatever could be twisted into a false-skeleton with which they can construct a myth to say was closeted…

 

…point being: to say we are out-gunned is ludicrous understatement and we need each other to establish more clearly what is being done to us… and how to… not just move in it… but beyond it…

 

…and… what I've learned… is that we have to stay present… because it is when we lose consciousness (i.e. are asleep…) that they turn up the EMF-heat… and we have to be able to hear what our bodies are saying when they are experiencing that distress…

 

…please… let's talk about this.)

 

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[“150405passion.mp3”:]

 

Can we fall in love with ourselves as we discover each other's voices?… we asked in a recent show… longing for what we are… longing to see it live… …and what we are… is passionate… deeply… expansively… voraciously… passionate: we want our passion – and real passion 'power' fears as it can't be predicted or controlled… real passion… which is but our full human capacity rising in us – to live… Longing… hope… and of course determination… these are the qualities that fuel our movement. Aren't they the taproot of solidarity?

 

This World is not Conclusion.

A Species stands beyond –

Invisible, as Music –

But positive, as Sound –

It beckons, and it baffles –

Philosophy – don’t know –

And through a Riddle, at the last –

Sagacity, must go – …

Emily Dickinson)

(# 501)

This is Shakespeare's (and Whitman's… and all our “for-this-moment-of-'class'-dissolution-ancestors-of-heart's”…) point: “the heart has reasons that Reason knows not of…”

 

…which returns us… ever returns us… to this question of passion… and longing……

[Isn't this a perfect expression of 'longing'?:

Wynton Marsalis' and Eric Clapton's “Layla”.

Can we fall in love with ourselves as we discover each other's voices?… we asked in a recent show… longing for what we are… longing to see it live…

 

……and what we are… is passionate… deeply… expansively… voraciously… passionate: we want our passion – and real passion 'power' fears as it can't be predicted or controlled… real passion… which is but our full human capacity rising in us – to live.

 

It is a powerful force… It's called 'the earth': “life's longing for itself…” (this reaction to suppression is also what Alice Miller talks about in Prisoners of Childhood…)

 

…and I can speak on this first-hand. I was at risk of losing my love… I know this by the contrast… as it builds… as it grows… because I've never felt such longing as this… so weak you can barely speak… longing comes from the core of our being… longing for our voices to meet… to see ourselves – our passion – reflected back…

 

Walt Whitman expresses this with these lines: “The untold want by life and land ne'er granted, Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.”

 

And Zora… with these: “She had been getting ready for her great journey to the horizons in search of people; it was important to all the world that she should find them and they find her…” (Their Eyes Were Watching God)

 

Longing… hope… and of course determination… these are the qualities that fuel our movement. Aren't they the taproot of solidarity?

 

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[“150405mothertongue.mp3”:]

 

We are in the moment of “coming to terms” with the mission of fulfilling our ancestors' vision… in realizing this transition to a world established consciously… by all of us. Our Good Three have been arguing that we need a new way of conceptualizing and describing this challenge… but we've had that language… held in trust for us… by the earth-connected: it is the language of truth and beauty… the language of our Grandmother Earth… our mother-tongue… which we have been systematically kept from seeing… or trusting… when we do. Our great ones of heart who speak it… are there for us to turn to now… when we need unshakeable authority… for mutually inter-linking our efforts globally.

 

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!

Were I with thee

Wild Nights should be

Our luxury!

 

Futile – the Winds –

To a Heart in port –

Done with the Compass –

Done with the Chart!

 

Rowing in Eden –

Ah, the Sea!

Might I but moor – Tonight –

In Thee!

 

(# 249)

…longing returns us…

 

…to that which is given to us… not by 'systems' – invented to convert passion into units of exchange… units of energy (never forget… it is our creative energy behind everything…) – but by… and from… the earth itself… the source of our inherent freedom…

 

It is this inherent freedom… this earth beneath our feet… and in our bodies – earth-given and -driven… what we're calling the quality of being 'soul-sufficient' – for which we long…

 

…and to achieve it… as a species… we have to work together… globally…

 

…and to work together we must agree on the meanings of things… have common definitions… possess a lingua franca…

 

…which we have… in our mother-tongue…

This is my letter to the World

That never wrote to Me –

The simple News that Nature told –

With tender Majesty

 

Her Message is committed

To Hands I cannot see –

For love of Her – Sweet – countrymen

Judge tenderly – of Me

 

(# 441)

…and so… circularly… destination is also means:

 

…we have to re-greet… explore… play with… become free with… our mother-tongue of freedom.

 

How do we re-learn it? Who speaks it?… if not our ancestors-of-heart… our living earth-connected… the indigenous… and the artists… those on the path of continuous growth… committed to its re-learning – despite state-suppression – through this project of becoming 'soul-sufficient'.

Much Madness is divinest Sense –

To a discerning Eye –

Much Sense – the starkest Madness –

'Tis the Majority

In this, as All, prevail –

Assent – and you are sane –

Demur – you're straightway dangerous –

And handled with a Chain –

 

(# 435)

We are in the moment of “coming to terms” with the mission of fulfilling our ancestors' vision… in realizing this transition to a world established consciously… by all of us. Our Good Three have been arguing that we need a new way of conceptualizing and describing this challenge… but we've had that language… held in trust for us… by the earth-connected: it is the language of truth and beauty… the language of our Grandmother Earth… our mother-tongue… which we have been systematically kept from seeing… or trusting… when we do. Our great ones of heart who speak it… are there for us to turn to now… when we need unshakeable authority… for mutually inter-linking our efforts globally.

 

[“150405whosetsterms.mp3”:]

 

…the issue they are really calling our attention to… with this question… is Bentham's… it's all about language: who controls the lexicon… the definitions… So… what does it look like… this freedom?… and the forms by which we achieve it?… And what are its dimensions? What does it mean to be 'antisystemic'?

 

Later on in the program we will read that:

In brief, in question is – assuming we're collectively and actively concerned with furthering the transformation of the capitalist world-system into a socialist world-system – 'whose' socialism? That, it seems to us, is the query posed by the growing if still muted 'anti-Westernism'. It addresses directly the assumption that the coming socialist world-system is of Western manufacture, so to speak.

Stated (to my mind) more helpfully… the issue they are really calling our attention to… with this question… is Bentham's… it's all about language: who controls the lexicon… the definitions… So… what does it look like… this freedom?… and the forms by which we achieve it?… And what are its dimensions? What does it mean to be 'antisystemic'?

[“150405theaxis.mp3”:]

 

…'truth' and 'beauty' must be the axis that regulates the wheel of the world we want… Presently it is the soulless who make the decisions for us… This cannot be… if we are to honor our full humanity…

 

I died for Beauty – but was scarce

Adjusted in the Tomb –

When One who died for Truth, was lain

In an adjoining Room –

 

He questioned softly “Why I failed”?

“For Beauty”, I replied –

“And I – for Truth – Themself are One –

We Brethren are”, He said –

 

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night –

We talked between the Rooms –

Until the Moss had reached our lips –

And covered up – our names –

 

(# 449)

You see… 'truth' and 'beauty' must be the axis that regulates the wheel of the world we want… Presently it is the soulless who make the decisions for us… This cannot be… if we are to honor our full humanity…

Perhaps the central question is this: how, and to what extent, can the well-organized arms of progressive movements in Western Europe, framed as they are by their current forms and immediate concerns, recompose themselves into agencies, not of national realization but of world-historical transformation? This recomposition would mean they became in the future as subversive of the interstate system per se as they have in the past been its products and proponents.

 

[Of the processes that stem… from 'capital's ongoing centralization…] the second and third… entail the redefinition of trajectories. For the de-nationalization of domestic labor forces suggests a fundamental change, on the part of the left, as to what “national” means…. To accomplish the reconception will entail a degree and kind of substantive and rhetorical inventiveness not presently in ascendance within prominent movements. And the third, the increasing salience of the gender question, entails… the further generalization, from the pauperization of women to the pauperization of people on a world-scale, that is precisely the change in consciousness the very effectiveness of the organizations in core zones may help to bring about, as part of world-scale movements that bypass and so subvert interstate arrangements.…

(We're going to be thinking more about this… the suggestion that you can 'bypass and so subvert interstate arrangements…' and still keep intact the overall centralization of capital processes that are going on – or… in the terms being developed here… maintain the global-state-statesmen… the 'power'-guys… hidden 'power'. And we're also going to be pondering this whole issue of: How do we create a global consciousness of our shared purpose and objectives…)

 

The Outer – from the Inner

Derives its Magnitude –

'Tis Duke, or Dwarf, according

As is the Central Mood –

[I like the way she puts that… that sort of covers it all… 'the central mood': be that 'dangerous… unhealthy obsession…' or be that… 'life's longing for itself…' (nothing healthier than that…) – P.S.]

The fine – unvarying Axis

That regulates the Wheel –

Though Spokes – spin – more conspicuous

And fling a dust – the while.

 

The Inner paints the Outer –

The Brush without the Hand –

Its Picture publishes – precise –

As is the inner Brand

 

On fine – Arterial Canvas –

A Cheek – perchance a Brow –

The Star's whole Secret – in the Lake –

Eyes were not meant to know.

 

(# 451)

She's describing the micro that applies equally to the macro… of this deadly… dangerous… system of 'class' we've been stuck in.

 

[“150405thingwithfeathers.mp3”:]

 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all –

 

'Truth' and 'beauty' must be the axis that regulates the wheel of the world we want… they are… as we speak… being disinterred by Emily… and Bob… and all the Karls… and Zora… – the ancestors of heart who have probed this millennia-long madness called 'class' and left their precious Hope:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

 

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

 

I've heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet, never, in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of Me.

 

(# 254)

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[Today’s reading: the conclusion of Chapter 4, “Beyond Haymarket?”… and resumption of Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…, “1968: The Great Rehearsal”… – P.S.]

 

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* April 5th, 2015 reading: finishing Chapter 4, “Beyond Haymarket?”… before returning to Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…

 

[“[“150405ruleproduction.mp3”:]”:]

 

In our last show we questioned whether relations of 'rule' – the crafted 'legitimacy' (the internalized mental states that ensure 'citizens' obey…) nation-states use to compel our obedience – were… in fact… contradicted by relations of production… the rules for consuming the earth global statesmen invent to establish the material conditions that reinforce their rule… We could perhaps think of these two broad arenas as two locks on our ability to move… with the chain being our obedience…

 

Second [of three “subordinate 'directional' changes for the 'capitalist development' of capital” attendant upon “the growing contradiction between relations of rule… and relations of production.” The first was the challenge states face by increasing 'constituencies of welfare”… and the state's inability to meet popular expectations… – P.S.] is the seemingly contradictory growth – contradictory to the capitalist development of capital – of “human rights” as an organizing concern of growing numbers of intellectuals and popular leaders, of various persuasions, throughout the world. To a large extent – framed, as the issue has been, almost solely in terms of relations of rule (its immediate locus of course, as “issue”) – the comprehension of its emergence as reflecting the contradictions between relations of rule and relations of production (including relations of appropriation) has been slow to form.…

[In our last show we questioned whether relations of 'rule' – the crafted 'legitimacy' (the internalized mental states that ensure 'citizens' obey…) nation-states use to compel our obedience – were… in fact… contradicted by relations of production… the rules for consuming the earth global statesmen invent to establish the material conditions that reinforce their rule… We could perhaps think of these two broad arenas as two locks on our ability to move… with the chain being our obedience… – P.S.]

[“150405civildepth.mp3”:]

 

“The tendency shows more fundamentally, if less clearly theoretically, in the question of how relations of rule relate to relations of production. We reach here matters of very considerable civilizational depth, where even the distinction which we have been working with disappears. For the challenge, in process of realization, is to the 'Westernism' of our ways of thinking – and, to short-circuit much – to our ways of conceiving of the 'socialism' of a socialist world-system and so derivatively to our ways of identifying what is or is not 'progressive'…”

 

…The rights of workers in the end underpin all others. Without the former, such “rights” as others may have are but certificates issued; annullable by the particular apparatus of “stateness” that forms the confrontational relation. As elsewhere in our conditions of existence, so here too does the capital – labor relation organize the terrain of confrontation and discourse.

 

A third tendential development is the growing “anti-Westernism” of the peoples of the peripheralized and semiperipheralized zone of the world-economy's operations. Primarily channelled in and through the interstate system, the impetus for the sentiment lies not in mere “anti-imperialist” (positively put, “nationalist”) movements but rather in elemental challenges to the “Westernism,” as encompassing civilization, that the capitalist development of the modern world as historical social system has entailed. This is a domain of inquiry fraught with difficulties, both theoretical and historical, for the once colonized and the once colonizing alike (specifically presuming good faith on the part of each, however central the historical divide perforce remains).

[The points being made here are really worth exploring in greater depth… they're talking about an “anti-Westernism” that encompasses 'civilization' more so than representing simply 'anti-imperialism'… – P.S.]

The tendency shows more fundamentally, if less clearly theoretically, in the question of how relations of rule relate to relations of production. We reach here matters of very considerable civilizational depth, where even the distinction which we have been working with disappears. For the challenge, in process of realization, is to the 'Westernism' of our ways of thinking – and, to short-circuit much – to our ways of conceiving of the 'socialism' of a socialist world-system and so derivatively to our ways of identifying what is or is not 'progressive'.

[Our Good Three are wrestling with the real problems those of us who want a global social transformation to freedom… face… I haven't heard this since: what is the nature of the future we want?… if it is 'anti-civilizational'… what does that mean? And this is not to criticize Immanuel Wallerstein… at all… particularly now that I am seeing… what likely happened to his brethren… – P.S.]

[“150405denational.mp3”:]

 

“The further processes… entail the redefinition of trajectories. For the de-nationalization of domestic labor forces suggests a fundamental change, on the part of the left, as to what “national” means…” [I'm still wanting… at some point… to address the 'Black Lives Matter' issue – although it is “fraught with difficulties…” to use our Good Three's language… There was a photo in the local student paper in which was shown those words – “Black Lives Matter” – lit up in neon lights on the City Hall Lawn… and I couldn't help but think… what if all the resources (because there's money there…) had been put behind the Occupy Movement?… and all the media coverage?… Beaucoup… beaucoup… on this issue of how racism is supposedly still dividing us… discussion-time much better 'spent'… coming together and deciding what we want… instead of constantly reacting to what the media tells us is what we're supposed to be doing… We need our 'own things'… as Ntozake told us… back in the day… – P.S.]

 

In brief, in question is – assuming we're collectively and actively concerned with furthering the transformation of the capitalist world-system into a socialist world-system – 'whose' socialism? That, it seems to us, is the query posed by the growing if still muted 'anti-Westernism'. It addresses directly the assumption that the coming socialist world-system is of Western manufacture, so to speak.

 

Perhaps the central question is this: how, and to what extent, can the well-organized arms of progressive movements in Western Europe, framed as they are by their current forms and immediate concerns, recompose themselves into agencies, not of national realization but of world-historical transformation? This recomposition would mean they became in the future as subversive of the interstate system per se as they have in the past been its products and proponents.

 

The centralization of capital per se can be neither factually nor strategically a legitimate concern of movements, it as process being for them formative merely of terrain, not of objective.…

[The 'logic of capital' working against us again? Because if the privatization of our common earth is in fact part of the 'global-state-statesmen's conscious plan… it does indeed speak to our need to see the 'opposite' of that… come to pass… and that… reclaiming our human energy – which is the only meaningful expression of 'de-nationalization' is… by definition de-centralizing 'capital'… – P.S.]

…The further processes it entails, however, produce the very politics of movement formation and growth. The first observation above, about the relocating of the epicenter of overt “classical” class struggle, implies merely a refocusing of Western European movements. The second and third, in contrast, entail the redefinition of trajectories. For the de-nationalization of domestic labor forces suggests a fundamental change, on the part of the left, as to what “national” means (thus leaving to the right the systemically formed residues of “primordial” sentiments). To accomplish the reconception will entail a degree and kind of substantive and rhetorical inventiveness not presently in ascendance within prominent movements. And the third, the increasing salience of the gender question, entails; (1) the elimination from the movements of yet another (and in a different sense) “primordial” sentiment, and (2) the world-scale generality of – hence organizational subordination to – what is essentially a reforming movement (“capitalism” being quite able “to develop” under conditions of legal and substantive gender equality).…

[…and we see this too with… a lot of different things… I'm still wanting… at some point… to address the 'Black Lives Matter' issue – although it is “fraught with difficulties…” to use our Good Three's language… There was a photo in the local student paper in which was shown those words – “Black Lives Matter” – lit up in neon lights on the City Hall Lawn… and I couldn't help but think… what if all the resources (because there's money there…) had been put behind the Occupy Movement?… and all the media coverage?… Beaucoup… beaucoup… on this issue of how racism is supposedly still dividing us… discussion-time much better 'spent'… coming together and deciding what we want… instead of constantly reacting to what the media tells us is what we're supposed to be doing… We need our 'own things'… as Ntozake told us… back in the day… – P.S.]

[“150405vonwerlhof.mp3”:]

 

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

 

…It is the further generalization, from the pauperization of women to the pauperization of people on a world-scale, that is precisely the change in consciousness the very effectiveness of the organizations in core zones may help to bring about, as part of world-scale movements that bypass and so subvert interstate arrangements.… [And… again… notice the strategic thinking… what challenges the 'logic'… the premises… of the interstate-system (i.e., the 'power'-guys…) and what doesn't… – P.S.]

Claudia von Werlhof puts it like this:

 

The production of human beings in a society like ours [i.e. in a global 'class' system… – P.S.] is, however, not only the most important, permanently necessary, and the most difficult task; it is also particularly frustrating… That is why women have developed a specifically feminine capacity for work; they had to develop it. It gets its orientation from the fertility of their bodies. Creating a new life (through childbirth) is the principle that women apply also to all other activities – earlier for the common benefit of all people, today for the benefit of the system.

[…although really 'slave work capacity' works equally well… I don't think it's helpful at this point to make too much of female generative capacities… As our Good Three are saying… the point is to generalize our movement focus… and I think von Werlhof would agree… as generalized – and ever-growing – immiseration is a structural requirement of 'class'… – P.S.]

Everything that women do must bear fruit and it must be gratis, like the air we breathe.… All these duties and qualities make up the feminine work capacity.… Not the generalization of wage labor, but the generalization of housework is therefore the dream of all capitalists. There is no cheaper, more productive or more fruitful human labor, and one can also enforce it without the whip. I believe that the restructuring of our economy will involve the effort to re-educate the men and force upon them, as far as possible, the feminine work capacity.…

 

An alternative is possible only if we, men and women, succeed in getting back forever not simply the wage, but much more – namely the means of production: our bodies and our children, our houses and our land, our knowledge and our creativity, and the results of our labor. We want all this without continuing to depend on “central powers” like puppets, so that we can work for our own, autonomous existence. [What happens to all the hard work that is done by our good-hearted folks from academia?… – P.S.] (“The Proletarian Is Dead; Long Live the Housewife?” by Claudia von Werlhof, published in Households and the World-Economy [edited by Joan Smith, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Hans-Dieter Evers; published in 1984)

…The growing contradictions between relations of rule and relations of production will in all likelihood occasion a plethora of radical nationalist expressions and “movements”. But world-scale movements, with emanation in various national arenas, may prove world historically even more consequential. At least, this is the major positive direction in which to move.

[And this of course explains why Empire was commissioned. Negri and Hardt being (or were to be…) the 'Hegel' of this current 'post-capital' full-scale strut of the 'global-state': i.e. the Republic. We continue now our reading of Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…, “1968: The Great Rehearsal”… – P.S.]

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* “WUR of April 12th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 2):

[The spoken word of the following wordbeat is from the April 5, 2015 show:

 

“[Of the processes that stem… from 'capital's ongoing centralization…] the second and third… entail the redefinition of trajectories. For the de-nationalization of domestic labor forces suggests a fundamental change, on the part of the left, as to what “national” means…. To accomplish the reconception will entail a degree and kind of substantive and rhetorical inventiveness not presently in ascendance within prominent movements. And the third, the increasing salience of the gender question, entails… the further generalization, from the pauperization of women to the pauperization of people on a world-scale, that is precisely the change in consciousness the very effectiveness of the organizations in core zones may help to bring about, as part of world-scale movements that bypass and so subvert interstate arrangements.” (We're going to be thinking more about this… the suggestion that you can 'bypass and so subvert interstate arrangements…' and still keep intact the overall centralization of capital processes that are going on – or… in the terms being developed here… maintain the global-state-statesmen… the 'power'-guys… hidden 'power'. And we're also going to be pondering this whole issue of: How do we create a global consciousness of our shared purpose and objectives…) “The Outer – from the Inner… Derives its Magnitude – […we're going to have to think about what Emily Dickinson is saying in relation to this system of 'class'… because it is a wheel that has been turning for thousands of years… and we have been arguing that… these 'power'-guys' longing to create their vision… that this vision of theirs has been turning the world for at least 250 years… and that the world of class itself… in a sense… has been turned by a longing for 'supremacy'… a longing to maintain a system of 'rule' that allows the very… very few to feel like 'gods'. So… we have been allowing this compulsion of the tiny few to drive all of us… so… we need to take charge of that 'axis' with a healthy longing: our longing for love… and truth… and beauty… and for the continuous growth of our humanness.] “The Outer – from the Inner… Derives its Magnitude – 'Tis Duke, or Dwarf, according… As is the Central Mood –” [I like the way she puts that… that sort of covers it all… 'the central mood': be that 'dangerous… unhealthy obsession…' or be that… 'life's longing for itself…' (nothing healthier than that…) She's describing the micro that applies equally to the macro… of this deadly… dangerous… system of 'class' we've been stuck in.][Spoken word is from our April 5, 2015 radio broadcast.]

–––

 

Today’s show: “'Longing' Is the Taproot” (Part 2)

 

[“150412deeplove.mp3”:]

 

I'd lost my passion by the side of the road… and she picked it up… and claimed it. She's helped me see so much – which is not why… but derived from: my love for her is endless.

[Sisters and Brothers… because edits to the “Embracing Global Goals (Part 2)” page no longer 'save'… I am posting the html text for this show on the: “Excerpts from Arrighi and Gramsci” page (which I am now also calling the “Embracing Global Goals [Part 3]” page…) but please also download the pdf form… available on the main 'Blog' section of the website… – P.S.]

April 6, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: In last week's show we noted the words of Zora: that it was vitally important that she find people, and they find her. This is, I'm arguing, what moves us – we-stuck-in-a-'class'-system –when we're young… and in possession of a deep connection to the earth…

 

…this was one of my motives – an important one – in starting the Nascence - to reach out to find my tribe…

 

…and while I don't yet have a tribe (I'm hoping to find one in time…)

 

…I did find love… a passionate… encompassing… voracious… love…

 

…deep love…

 

Who… tell me… who would walk in and take the hand of someone in the global-state's crosshairs… legs knee-deep in the morass of hidden 'power'?

 

Who would walk into that fire?

 

Nobody.

 

Nobody but her…

 

…and what did she get as recompense?

 

…nothing but trouble…

 

…she had no choice but to bend…

 

…and now I fear for her…

 

…I don't know all of what's going on… but please… hold her in your thoughts…

 

…I owe this woman so much…

 

I'd lost my passion by the side of the road…

 

…and she picked it up… and claimed it.

 

She's helped me see so much – which is not why… but derived from:

 

…my love for her is endless.

 

–––

 

[“150412newworldpremises.mp3”:]

 

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

 

“Abstractions Re-Establish Hierarchical Relations”

 

When our Good Three said last week that the centralization of 'capital' is merely formative of the terrain on which our movement strives to achieve universal human freedom… and is “not strategically a legitimate concern of movements…” I questioned whether reclaiming our human energy necessarily… simultaneously… 'de-centralizes capital'… thereby re-making the 'terrain' on which we organize ourselves – the means also being the destination.

 

What's key… I think… is this notion of “by-passing interstate relations…”

 

…and how can we do that… given that each one of us manifests 'the state'… if we don't connect through our earth-taproot? We are all sprigs from that source… and we either choose to be it… or choose not to.

 

We either manifest the earth… or we manifest the state…

 

…because… in the absence of our 'establishing-conversations'… the 'fall-back thoughts' tend to kick in… after which we tend to picture the forms by which we usher in our freedom in terms of some 'next-level-organization'… particularly as we must combine our energies to challenge 'power' –

 

…and abstractions – a form of 'mind-deification'… when what is wanted (missing) is the integrity of the sufficient soul… and the structure / design that itself protects / ensures healthy human interrelations… both with each other… and with the broader earth (and that design… I'm arguing… I'm arguing… is 'distributed generation' – automatically establish… or re-establish… hierarchical relations…

 

…which is why 'soul-sufficiency' phrasing… and like terminology… is key.

 

How do we honestly source our original creative energy – expressed in any number of forms – inviting… re-igniting… our amorous play with that fire…

 

…and fall in love with our amorous selves?

 

What would entice us away from the 'power'-guys current almost exclusive hold on our attention…

 

…away from their version of events?

 

You see… they have taken away… from those of us closely monitored… almost all rivals for our attention. All other stimulation except that which is provided by 'power' (differentially… of course) – jobs… school… social relations dominated by the 'logic' of 'exchange' (safe routes for 'power') – has been removed from us… while they trap us in a utilitarian frame.

 

But…

 

…consider what utterly absorbs us in those rare moments when we experience it: those moments when we work together with others on creative projects… completing the circuit with our taproot…

 

…and then consider how completely absorbing is the project of founding a new world on a fresh foundation… based in premises that are opposite to the 'logic' of 'rule': non-commercial… non-utilitarian… our right to develop our earth-gifts without force being applied to this process (continuous growth…)

Publication – is the Auction

Of the Mind of Man –

Poverty – be justifying

For so foul a thing

 

Possibly – but We – would rather

From Our Garret go

White – Unto the White Creator –

Than invest – Our Snow –

 

Thought belong to Him who gave it –

Then – to Him Who bear

Its Corporeal illustration – Sell

The Royal Air –

 

In the Parcel – Be the Merchant

Of the Heavenly Grace –

But reduce no Human Spirit

To Disgrace of Price –

 

(Emily Dickinson, # 709)

…a project therefore… with clear 'terms of engagement'… with clear terms for our coming together… rooted in the understanding that we are… first… reclaiming our 'lost' gifts (which are not lost… are always there… waiting… to be re-ignited…) second… that we are… each one of us… the axis that turns the wheel. There can be no more ceding… giving up… relinquishing… our power… our leadership capacities… to some supposed possessor of 'higher knowledge'. This has been 'power's principle con for millennia…. Third… agreement that it is our responsibility to… literally… reclaim the world. And… fourth… all of our creative projects must be 'inclined' toward our future – our future together uncoerced…

 

And there is a fifth: our projects acknowledge the existence of hidden-'power'… we need safe spaces that are safe in every sense… 'safe houses' all over the world working on this… on ending 'class' and making our interrelations with each other…and with the earth… healthy.

 

We have to be free of all coercion to speak in our true voices.

 

This is what makes all the various 'speak-out' projects / exercises fundamentally so false (not 'false' in a 'personal health' sense… and not to trivialize the importance of this… but 'false' as a political strategy for challenging 'power'…) 'false' because they approach the problem of our silencing too (and intentionally so…) literally… as about simply relating events of our lives (generally what we do to each other as representatives of the state…) a form of group comfort in group-sharing… but devoid of means for achieving understanding… only possible if 'hidden power' is acknowledged.

 

Each generation… it seems… re-discovers 'speaking bitterness' (as our Chinese Sisters and Brothers put it…) – and though it might infinitesimally alter 'power'-relations… within the life of the individual that effect cannot survive the constant pressure of created and imposed material scarcity – i.e. 'the job'… in whatever form it takes (including 'the job' of being a cautionary tale for 'power'.)

 

'Coercion' is the dinosaur in all the 'state-sanctioned' 'living room discussions' of 'social problems'.

 

For instance…the local weekly now includes a parenting column in which the author advised parents to follow their dreams rather than impose them on their children. We've made a very similar point here… although usually framed in the context of 'listening to our bodies'.

 

But as my son said to me recently: we live in a world in which you can't listen to your body… a fact never acknowledged … let alone discussed… in pundit-speech.

 

–––

[Today’s reading: the conclusion of Chapter 4, “Beyond Haymarket?”… and resumption of Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…, “1968: The Great Rehearsal”… – P.S.]

 

–––

 

* April 12th, 2015 reading: returning to Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…

–––

 

[“150412worldrevolution.mp3”:]

 

“It seemed but a matter of decades until the goals of 1848 would be realized in every corner of the globe.” We are seeing here… once again… how critical is the focus on 'class'… the question of language… controlling the definitions… and… of course… acknowledging hidden 'power'… including the fact that each one of us is 'the system of class' in microcosm… – for if the 'central mood' moving that axis is 'rule'… 'hierarchical control'… the system of 'class'… and we do not challenge that… we are not 'antisystemic'.

Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements… “1968: The Great Rehearsal” began by saying that:

 

(…that chapter begins by saying…

There have only been two world revolutions. One took place in 1848. The second took place in 1968. Both were historic failures. Both transformed the world. The fact that both were unplanned and therefore in a profound sense spontaneous explains both facts – the fact that they failed, and the fact that they transformed the world….

 

1848 was a revolution for popular sovereignty – both within the nation (down with autocracy) and of the nations (self-determination, the Volkerfruhling)….

 

…1968… was a revolution against the counterrevolution represented by the U.S. organization of its world hegemony as of 1945. It too was an attempt to fulfill the original goals of the Russian Revolution, while very much an effort to overcome the limitations of that revolution…

…our reading resumes…

–––

 

Since the states could control the masses and the powerful strata could control the states, it was clear that a serious effort of social transformation would require counter-organization – both politically and culturally. It is this perception that led to the formation for the first time of bureaucratically organized antisystemic movements with relatively clear middle-term objectives. These movements, in their two great variants of the social and the national movement, began to appear on the scene after 1848, and their numbers, geographic spread, and organizational efficiency grew steady in the century that followed.

 

What 1848 accomplished therefore was the historic turning of antisystemic forces toward a fundamental political strategy – that of seeking the intermediate goal of obtaining state power (one way or another) as the indispensable way-station on the road to transforming society and the world. To be sure, many argued against this strategy, but they were defeated in the debates. Over the following century, the opponents of this strategy grew weaker as the proponents of the strategy grew stronger.

 

1917 became such a big symbol because it was the first dramatic victory of the proponents of the state-power strategy (and in its revolutionary, as opposed to its evolutionary, variant). 1917 proved it could be done. And this time, unlike in 1848, the revolutionary government was neither suborned [bribed] nor overturned. It survived. 1917 may have been the most dramatic instance but it was not of course the only instance of successes, at least partial, of this strategy. The Mexican Revolution beginning in 1910 and the Chinese Revolution of 1911 culminating in 1949 also seemed to demonstrate worth of the strategy, for example.

 

By 1945, or perhaps more accurately by the 1950s, the strategy seemed to be bearing fruit around the world. All three major variants of the historic “old left” antisystemic movements – the Third International Communists, the Second International Social Democrats, and the nationalist movements (especially those outside Europe) – could point to notable successes: the armed struggle of the Communist parties in Yugoslavia and China, the massive 1945 electoral victory of the Labour Party in Great Britain, nationalist triumphs in India and Indonesia. It seemed but a matter of decades until the goals of 1848 would be realized in every corner of the globe.

[We are seeing here… once again… how critical is the focus on 'class'… the question of language… controlling the definitions… and… of course… acknowledging hidden 'power'… including the fact that each one of us is 'the system of class' in microcosm… – for if the 'central mood' moving that axis is 'rule'… 'hierarchical control'… the system of 'class'… and we do not challenge that… we are not 'antisystemic'.

 

This was written… or at least presented… in 1988… and so obviously did not have the benefit of Keith Lowe’s Savage Continent… and its devastating portrait of where Europe was at in 1945… and the notion of a global antisystemic ‘sentiment’ at that moment that is ‘optimistic’… ‘minus Europe’… unless simply delusional… cannot stand up. It throws in even more stark relief the importance of Keith Lowe’s accomplishment… – P.S.]

[“150412fivesins.mp3”:]

 

“…the new left accused the old left of five sins: weakness, corruption, connivance, neglect, and arrogance…” …we are more and more… I'm feeling… rejecting the empty categories that we're told to think in terms of… and recognizing that this strategy of 'power' to impose this veneer of 'scientific rationality' on our lived and living experience in which we exchange mutually all the time… in which we reject categories all the time… we're moving… we're fluid – we're always… always changing and in motion… and… academe… I believe… has been complicit in the process of trying to freeze us in place…

 

This widespread optimism of the antisystemic forces was nonetheless quite exaggerated, for two reasons.

 

One, the institutionalization of US hegemony in the world-system as of 1945 made possible a generalized counterrevolutionary thrust…

[…not to belabor the point too much… but… the view from the ivory tower (and we must include among those who wear the ‘ivory tower’ tag the hierarchically-structured Left leadership of that day and beyond – remember Lowe’s documentation of how surviving Jews were thrown under the bus by such?) is necessarily skewed. We-down-here-in-the-cheap-seats are able to see that the “generalized counterrevolutionary thrust” had been stomping on us well before declared war removed millions of us from the planet: that the 'thirty-years'-war… as our Good Three view the combined world wars of the twentieth century… constitute a 'counterrevolutionary thrust… well before the US claimed world hegemony… after the field had been cleared… – P.S.]

One, the institutionalization of US hegemony in the world-system as of 1945 made possible a generalized counterrevolutionary thrust to slow down the pace of the growing political strength of the antisystemic movements. The US sought to “contain” the bloc of Communist states led by the USSR. And in Greece, in Western Europe, in Korea, they succeeded in such “containment.” The US government sought to “defang” the Western labor and social-democratic parties by rigidifying historic differences between the Second and Third Internationals and by erecting “anti-Communism” as an ideological carapace [shell]. This attempt too was largely successful, within the US itself and elsewhere. The US sought to slow down, dilute, and / or coopt the political expressions of Third World nationalism and, with some notable exceptions like Vietnam, this effort too was largely successful.

 

Were the counterrevolution all that had occurred politically, however, its effect would have been momentary at most.

[By defining ‘counterrevolution’ narrowly – i.e. to exclude totalitarianism with a ‘Left’ face – so distorts reality as to make it unrecognizable as such… – P.S.]

Were the counterrevolution all that had occurred politically, however, its effect would have been momentary at most. A second thing occurred to dampen the optimism of the antisystemic forces. The movements in power performed less well than had been expected; far less well. Already in the interwar period, the Soviet experience of the 1930s – the terrors and the errors – had shaken the world’s antisystemic movements. But in a sense Hitler and the long struggle of the Second World War washed away much of the dismay. However, the terrors and the errors repeated themselves after 1945 in one Communist state after another. Nor did the social-democratic governments look that good, engaged as they were in colonial repression. And, as one Third World nationalist movement after another created regimes that seemed to have their own fair share of terrors and errors, the optimism of the antisystemic forces began to be eroded.

 

While the US, and more generally the upper strata of the world system […what I call ‘power’… or ‘the global-state-statesmen’… – P.S.], attacked the antisystemic movements exogenously [externally] as it were, the movements were simultaneously suffering ailments endogenous to them, ailments which increasingly seemed to be themselves “part of the problem.”

 

It is in reaction to this double (exogenous and endogenous) difficulty of the traditional old left movements that the new social movements emerged, more or less in the 1960s. These new movements were concerned with the strength and survivability of the forces that dominated the world-system. But they were also concerned with what they felt was the poor performance, even the negative performance, of the world’s old left movements. In the beginning of the 1960s, the concern with the power and the evil of the proponents of the status quo was still uppermost in the minds of the emergent new movements, and their concern with the inefficacies of the old left opposition was still a secondary consideration. But as the decade went on, the emphasis began to shift, as the new movements bean to be more and more critical of the old movements. At first the new elements sought to be “reformist” of the tactics of the old antisystemic movements. Later, they often broke outright with them and even attacked them frontally. We cannot understand 1968 unless we see it as simultaneously a cri de coeur (“a passionate appeal”) against the evils of the world-system and a fundamental questioning of the strategy of the old left opposition to the world-system.

 

At its height, and when it had reached the highest level of screeching, the new left accused the old left of five sins: weakness, corruption, connivance, neglect, and arrogance. The weakness was said to be the inefficacy of the old antisystemic movements (the Social Democrats in the West, the Communists in the East, the nationalist governments in the South) in constraining the militarism, the exploitation, the imperialism, the racism, of the dominant forces in the world-system. The attitude towards the war in Vietnam became a touchstone on this issue. The corruption was said to be the fact that certain strata had, through the efforts of past antisystemic action, achieved certain material concessions and allowed their militance to be softened by this fact. The connivance was the charge of corruption taken one step further. It was said to be the willingness of certain strata worldwide actually to profit by the exploitation in the system, albeit at a lower level than that of the dominant strata. The neglect was said to be the obtuseness about, if not conscious ignoring of, the interests of the truly dispossessed, the real lower strata of the world-system (the subproletarians, the ethnic and racial minorities, and of course the women). The arrogance was said to be the contempt of the leadership of the old movements for the real problems of the lower strata, and their ideological self-assurance.

[Even a momentary plunge… into the sterile waters of ‘categorization’ following the vivid reenactments of Savage Continent feels jarring to me… but it highlights how far we’ve come… these past almost twenty-seven years… towards a living… practical-actual… global unity of humanity… because we are more and more… I'm feeling… rejecting these empty categories that we're told to think in terms of… and recognizing that this strategy of 'power' to impose this veneer of 'scientific rationality' on our lived and living experience in which we exchange mutually all the time… in which we reject categories all the time… we're moving… we're fluid – we're always… always changing and in motion… and… academe… I believe… has been complicit in the process of trying to freeze us in place…

 

[“150412walkinstep.mp3”:]

 

And… of course… von Werlhof's point… that: “…An alternative is possible only if we, men and women, succeed in getting back forever not simply the wage, but much more – namely the means of production: our bodies and our children, our houses and our land, our knowledge and our creativity, and the results of our labor.…” This was published at least four years earlier… written for some time before that… and by a woman in their own circle of academics… Why was it not followed up on?… There's confusion as to language in our Good Three's analysis: 'antisystemic' for instance… a point Giovanni Arrighi will himself be making… in the article excerpt shared on this page.… So we see… language… defining… is not some superficial nicety we glance at as we frame our strategic advancement (of the species… to our freedom…) – rather… it's the whole ball of wax… for without linguistic clarity we cannot have theoretical clarity… without which… we cannot… all of us globally… walk in step. Presently… we are not… walking in step… there is a gap… and what did Emily tell us about closing a gap? 'To fill a Gap… Insert the Thing that caused it – ' Brilliant woman, isn't she?

 

…we are feeling the future arriving… even as the ongoing ‘counter-evolution’ is doing all ‘it’ can… to stop it… It also seems to me… there is an insufficient appreciation of the point they were making… just two years previously… i.e.…

 

“…Perhaps the central question is this: how, and to what extent, can the well-organized arms of progressive movements in Western Europe, framed as they are by their current forms and immediate concerns, recompose themselves into agencies, not of national realization but of world-historical transformation? This recomposition would mean they became in the future as subversive of the interstate system per se as they have in the past been its products and proponents.… ”

 

[“Of the processes that stem… from 'capital's ongoing centralization…] the second and third… entail the redefinition of trajectories. For the de-nationalization of domestic labor forces suggests a fundamental change, on the part of the left, as to what “national” means…. To accomplish the reconception will entail a degree and kind of substantive and rhetorical inventiveness not presently in ascendance within prominent movements. And the third, the increasing salience of the gender question, entails… the further generalization, from the pauperization of women to the pauperization of people on a world-scale, that is precisely the change in consciousness the very effectiveness of the organizations in core zones may help to bring about, as part of world-scale movements that bypass and so subvert interstate arrangements.…”

 

And… of course… von Werlhof's point… that: “…An alternative is possible only if we, men and women, succeed in getting back forever not simply the wage, but much more – namely the means of production: our bodies and our children, our houses and our land, our knowledge and our creativity, and the results of our labor.…” This was published at least four years earlier… written for some time before that… and by a woman in their own circle of academics… Why was it not followed up on?…

 

There's confusion as to language in our Good Three's analysis: 'antisystemic' for instance… a point Giovanni Arrighi will himself be making… in the article excerpt shared on this page.

 

So we see… language… defining… is not some superficial nicety we glance at as we frame our strategic advancement (of the species… to our freedom…) – rather… it's the whole ball of wax…

 

…for without linguistic clarity we cannot have theoretical clarity… without which… we cannot… all of us globally… walk in step. Presently… we are not… walking in step… there is a gap…

 

…and what did Emily tell us about closing a gap? 'To fill a Gap… Insert the Thing that caused it – ' Brilliant woman, isn't she? What caused the gap… between us as human beings?… our having our common earth stripped from beneath our feet… our mooring… our lingua franca… our mother-tongue… Who speak it?… the tribe called 'Artists' are among them… those of them… I should say… who attend to the task for all humans in this moment of filling that gap… advancing our ancestors' gifts… restoring our humanness… – P.S.]

[“150412sixtyeight.mp3”:]

 

“When 1968 exploded – in Columbia University, in Paris, in Prague, in Mexico City and Tokyo, in the Italian October – it was an explosion. There was no central direction, no calculated tactical planning. The explosion was in a sense as much of a surprise to the participants as to those against whom it was directed. The most surprised were the old left movements… But the explosion was very powerful, shattering many authority relations, and shattering above all the Cold War consensus on both sides. Ideological hegemonies were challenged everywhere and the retreat, both of the powerful strata of the world-system and of the leadership of the old left antisystemic movements, was real. As we have already said, the retreat turned out to be temporary and the new movements were checked everywhere. But the changes in power relations effected by the movements were not reversed.”

 

These were heady charges and they were not made all at once, or from the outset. It was an evolution from the mild questioning of the Port Huron founding statement of SDS in 1962 to the Weathermen in 1969 and after, or from the conventional views (if militantly implemented) of SNCC in the early 1960s to those of the Black Power movements of the late 1960s. It was an evolution from the Jeunesse Etudiante Communiste in France in the early 1960s who dared to be “pro-Italian,” to the barricades of May 1968 in Paris (and the virtually open break with the CGT and PCF). It was an evolution from the Prague Spring which emerged in late1967 to the founding of Solidarnosc in 1980.

 

When 1968 exploded – in Columbia University, in Paris, in Prague, in Mexico City and Tokyo, in the Italian October – it was an explosion. There was no central direction, no calculated tactical planning. The explosion was in a sense as much of a surprise to the participants as to those against whom it was directed. The most surprised were the old left movements who could not understand how they could be attacked from what seemed to them so unfair and so politically dangerous a perspective.

 

But the explosion was very powerful, shattering many authority relations, and shattering above all the Cold War consensus on both sides. Ideological hegemonies were challenged everywhere and the retreat, both of the powerful strata of the world-system and of the leadership of the old left antisystemic movements, was real. As we have already said, the retreat turned out to be temporary and the new movements were checked everywhere. But the changes in power relations effected by the movements were not reversed.

 

[“150412legacies.mp3”:]

 

We have been arguing… that with the lens 'keeping the cattle herded'… along with “'power'-plans are clandestine” (a version of: “all politics… intra-state and inter-state… is theater…”) we can see clearly enough to begin to 'de-nationalize' ourselves as a whole… not just our 'labor'. Does Germany secretly work together with Russia to sink all hope of self-determination for Ukraine? Do the myriad 'terrorist' groups… from Mexico… to Nigeria… to Iraq… receive clandestine support from the global-state-statesmen? If we are waiting for 'proof' provided by the 'power'-vetted media to deliver us certainty on such questions… we wait in vain… It is to ourselves and our mutual authentic communications that we must now turn… to plan an authentic future…

 

The Legacies of 1968

 

Four main changes can be distinguished. First, while the balance of military power between West and East has not changed appreciably since 1968, the capabilities of either the West or the East to police the South have become limited. The Tet Offensive of early 1968 has remained to this day a symbol of the impotence of capital-intensive warfare in curbing the intelligence and will of Third World peoples. Within five years of the offensive, the USA was forced to withdraw from Vietnam, and a new era in North-South relations began.

 

The most dramatic expression of this new era has been the frustration of the US government's multifarious attempts to bring the Iranian people back to “reason.” It is no exaggeration to say that events in Iran since the late 1970s have had far greater influence on the internal affairs of the USA (notably on the rise and demise of Reaganism) than events in the USA have had on the internal affairs of Iran. This frustration is not the symptom of some peculiar weakness of the United States as world power, or exceptional strength of the Iranian state as an antisystemic force. Rather, it is a symptom of the increased national sovereignty enjoyed by Third World peoples in general since the withdrawal of the US from Vietnam. The close parallel between the recent experience of the USSR in Afghanistan and that of the US in Vietnam provides further evidence that the unprecedented accumulation of means of violence in the hands of the two superpowers simply reproduces the balance of terror between the two, but adds nothing to their capabilities to police the world, least of all its peripheral regions.

[What can we say… now that the dynamics – of which the events our Good Three observe are the visible effects – have advanced a bit… since when this was presented… in 1988?

 

When they point out… as they did earlier… that: “…the institutionalization of US hegemony in the world-system as of 1945 made possible a generalized counterrevolutionary thrust…” to which we replied: 'By defining ‘counterrevolution’ narrowly – i.e. to exclude totalitarianism with a ‘Left’ face – so distorts reality as to make it unrecognizable as such…' – suggests a response… Recall how they put it:

 

“And, as one Third World nationalist movement after another created regimes that seemed to have their own fair share of terrors and errors, the optimism of the antisystemic forces began to be eroded.”

 

We have been arguing… that with the lens 'keeping the cattle herded'… along with “'power'-plans are clandestine” (a version of: “all politics… intra-state and inter-state… is theater…”) we can see clearly enough to begin to 'de-nationalize' ourselves as a whole… not just our 'labor'. Does Germany secretly work together with Russia to sink all hope of self-determination for Ukraine? Do the myriad 'terrorist' groups… from Mexico… to Nigeria… to Iraq… receive clandestine support from the global-state-statesmen? If we are waiting for 'proof' provided by the 'power'-vetted media to deliver us certainty on such questions… we wait in vain… It is to ourselves and our mutual authentic communications that we must now turn… to plan an authentic future… – P.S.]

[“150412statuscracks.mp3”:]

 

“Thirdly, and closely related to the above, pre-1968 power relations between capital and labor have never been restored. In this connection, we should not be deceived by the experience of particular national segments of the capital-labor relation. What must be assessed is the likelihood that the commands of the functionaries of capital be obeyed by their subordinates over the entire spatial domain of the capitalist world-economy, and over a period of time long enough to allow for the interplay of commands and responses to affect the relations of production and the distribution of resources. From this point of view, the central fact of the 1970s and 1980s has been the growing frustration experienced by the functionaries of capital in their global search for safe havens of labor discipline. Many of the locales that in the early 1970s seemed to provide capitalist production with a viable alternative to the restive labor environments of the core zone have themselves turned, one after another, into loci of labor unrest…”

 

…Secondly, the changes in power relations between status-groups such as age-groups, genders, and “ethnicities,” a major consequence of the 1968 revolution, have also proved to be far more lasting than the movements which brought them to world attention. These changes are registered primarily in the hidden abodes of everyday life and as such are less easy to discern than changes in interstate power relations. Nevertheless, we can say with some confidence that even after 1973 (when most movements had subsided), the commands of dominant status-groups (such as older generations, males, “majorities”) continued in general to become less likely to be obeyed by subordinate status-groups (younger generations, females, “minorities”) than they ever were before 1968. This diminished power of dominant status-groups is particularly evident in core countries but may be observed to varying degrees in semiperipheral and peripheral countries as well.

 

Thirdly, and closely related to the above, pre-1968 power relations between capital and labor have never been restored. In this connection, we should not be deceived by the experience of particular national segments of the capital-labor relation. What must be assessed is the likelihood that the commands of the functionaries of capital be obeyed by their subordinates over the entire spatial domain of the capitalist world-economy, […I really like their rootedness in the concrete there… rather than abstractions… I like their practical definition of the strength of existing 'power'-relations… – P.S.] and over a period of time long enough to allow for the interplay of commands and responses to affect the relations of production and the distribution of resources. From this point of view, the central fact of the 1970s and 1980s has been the growing frustration experienced by the functionaries of capital […I would say of the 'global-state-statesmen'… the 'power'-guys… – P.S.] in their global search for safe havens of labor discipline. Many of the locales that in the early 1970s seemed to provide capitalist production with a viable alternative to the restive labor environments of the core zone…

[…Now… this is not rooted… in my mind… as directly as it needs to be… that when we're talking about 'capitalist production' that is an effect of the underlying social relations of domination of us… we-the-people… and we're going to be saying next week that 'the economy' is merely 'class' relations quantified… and if we allow 'the economy' to be sacrosanct… so we are then therefore allowing 'class' to be sacrosanct… Because… recall what job they do… these functionaries… in the furthering of this global-state: they privatize the globe… and they serve their masters without question… and they both 'serve' and 'are' – there's a lot of cross-over… I would imagine… – P.S.]

Many of the locales that in the early 1970s seemed to provide capitalist production with a viable alternative to the restive labor environments of the core zone…have themselves turned, one after another, into loci of labor unrest – Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Iran, South Africa, and most recently, South Korea. [We'll return to this thought next week… I think… because we need to consider where we are right now on this issue… – P.S.] We may well say that since 1968 the functionaries of capital have been “on the run.” And while this heightened geographical mobility has tended to dampen the unruliness of labor in the places from which the functionaries of capital have fled, it has tended to have the opposite effect in the places in which they have settled.

 

–––

 

* “WUR of April 19th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3):

[This is Part 7 of our “Moving Forward” series… revisiting the Waking Up Radio conversation of September 30, 2012:

 

“…and I think it's important for us to remember that while we have to struggle to the truth… because 'power' has a monopoly on the media… and always has… and in terms of how we can interconnect with each other… they know how critical… at least since Plato they've been very clear… that the power of thought is dangerous… and rulers know this… have known this… and because they can devote their lives to planning… ” “…you said 'the power of thought is dangerous' and I wanted to talk about that for a second… and make a distinction… The way I would phrase it is: 'the power of thought is powerful in conjunction with the sharing of ideas'… that if an individual says, 'I am free… I don't let the system control me…' that that is not an 'earth-based' assessment of what's going on… So: 'power of thought' in conjunction with 'the free-flow exchange of ideas'… with… as Kropotkin put it: 'going to the people'…” “Yes precisely… and in fact that ['going to the people'] is what the media is doing in a very 'efficient' way… because when Helen Caldicott or Col. Ann Wright says something like: 'the military trains people to become violent'… we are all… thinking that at the same time… so… it is a form of collective thinking… we're all thinking together… there isn't the exchange… that's the next step… that's how thought develops… And so the media is a critical piece in terms of speeding up the process… so that's why it has been obvious to 'power' for millennia how important is to control how thoughts get out… what thoughts get out… and particularly in this moment with these accelerated means – the speed with which things can get out – …it's a safe bet that they have been planning for this moment for decades if not centuries… the moment when the planet has been consumed to the degree that it can no longer adequately fund their game of 'supremacy'… and by 'fund' I mean 'fund our energy'… 'fund keeping us bought-off or complacent.' It's a global game of 'supremacy' they play which requires our unconscious complicity… And when you are in the 'end game'… which we are in… it is a very dangerous moment… So you can bet they have been thinking about… 'how do we neutralize the Pacifica Network'… 'how do we make sure that no rogue element advocating a mass movement to end wage work'… which is so incredibly obvious…” “If we talked to one another… and that's where I want to go with this: talking about the fears around responsibility…” [Spoken word is from our September 30, 2012 radio broadcast.]

–––

 

Today’s show: “Creating the Spaces We Need” (Part 1)

 

[“150419systemdisintegration.mp3”:]

 

…'power's chief strategy is our atomization (achieved through many means… and primarily… up to now… through the wage work system…) and we're going to be thinking as we conclude our reading of Antisystemic Movements… and absorb the thinking of our Good Three (because it's very rich and has never been – as far as I'm aware – adequately followed up on…) we're going to be thinking more about how that atomization is achieved as the world-economy contracts… because of the consumption of the planet… and is unable to keep us all 'occupied'…

 

April 14, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Until we build the numbers we need… that create the physical spaces which receive our 'founding energy'… spaces in which we seed a healthy alternative to this diseased system… all who long for love… truth… and beauty to be the axis that turns the wheel of our new world… are at risk…

 

“If we talked to one another…” about our fears… my son will be saying in the next word-beat in the “Moving Forward” series… we would finally overcome 'power's chief strategy: our atomization (achieved through many means… and primarily… up to now… through the wage work system…) and we're going to be thinking as we conclude our reading of Antisystemic Movements… and absorb the thinking of our Good Three (because it's very rich and has never been – as far as I'm aware – adequately followed up on…) we're going to be thinking more about how that atomization is achieved as the world-economy contracts… because of the consumption of the planet… and is unable to keep us all 'occupied'…

 

What does 'atomization' mean when so many people are cut loose from 'employment'?

 

If we talked to each other about our fears we would overcome 'power's chief strategy: our atomization'…which leads to dissent being isolated… and eliminated… with ease.

 

It feels to me very solemn… this moment we're in… on the cusp of something completely different… full of fear… and full of anticipation…

 

…and promise…

 

We will get there… to that space in which we breathe together… laugh… and plan… but the challenges are serious. Folks with means are afraid to 'get involved'… the 'power'-guys display… to intimidate… an astonishing array of technology and weaponry… thoughts out in the broad populace have been so exceedingly controlled that the bridge to new thoughts seems effectively closed.

 

What to do?

 

Safety is no doubt an issue….

 

…and yet…

 

 

What we have to keep in mind and ponder… are time- and space-frames: the global 'class'-system is disintegrating… it can no longer generate the necessary 'legitimacy'… anywhere in the world…

 

…which means we are confronted with a global 'power' that easily feels threatened… and as a result is taking the offensive…

 

…but the needed thoughts… though it may seem otherwise… are already out there… else the reaction from 'power' would be more measured…

 

…we need only…

 

…figure out a way…

 

…to call the question [of what world do we want].

 

–––

 

[“150419webringthehope.mp3”:]

 

It is in examining the underlying structure of things that we gain our footing… achieve the clarity we need… the certainty… to serve in a leadership capacity… membership in which is self-selected and dedicated… those of us who choose to do this are the doctors… the Miklos'… the givers of hope who take pains to see and accept the full strategic picture… the diagnosticians who take it all in… with passion and love… what is being done to ourselves and our brothers and sisters… grateful for the chance to help bend our collective energy to a future when coercion is off our backs…

 

I want to call attention to two points our Good Three make… one from last week… the other from today:/p>

…pre-1968 power relations between capital and labor have never been restored. In this connection, we should not be deceived by the experience of particular national segments of the capital-labor relation. What must be assessed is the likelihood that the commands of the functionaries of capital be obeyed by their subordinates over the entire spatial domain of the capitalist world-economy, and over a period of time long enough to allow for the interplay of commands and responses to affect the relations of production and the distribution of resources. From this point of view, the central fact of the 1970s and 1980s has been the growing frustration experienced by the functionaries of capital in their global search for safe havens of labor discipline. Many of the locales that in the early 1970s seemed to provide capitalist production with a viable alternative to the restive labor environments of the core zone [are themselves no longer safe…]

Looking long… and broad… as our Good Three advise… we can see multiple processes unfolding simultaneously…

 

…we see the loosening of the hold of states – of the notion of the legitimacy of 'status-power-groupings' (to use their language… mine would be 'the internalized state'… in its various forms / expressions… but basically boiling down to 'citizen / barbarian' being the core distinction of 'class'… of the 'power'-guys' system…) – on our minds… and as our Good Three show us… this is a well-established… and on-going… process…

 

…we see that we… as individuals… are striving for clarity… hunger to know the truth…

 

…while at the same time… we see the loosening of the hold of 'the economy' (i.e. 'class' quantified…) over our minds as well…

 

So… while…

There is no denying that from all these points of view 1968 is dead and buried and cannot be revived by the thoughts and actions of the nostalgic few. Granted this, we must nonetheless distinguish carefully between the movements and ideologies of 1968 and the underlying structural transformations that preceded and outlived those movements and ideologies. These structural transformations are the outcome of secular trends of the capitalist world-economy, and as such cannot be reversed by any unfavorable conjuncture that might ensue from their open manifestation.

It is in examining the underlying structure of things that we gain our footing… achieve the clarity we need… the certainty… to serve in a leadership capacity… membership in which is self-selected and dedicated…

 

…those of us who choose to do this are the doctors… the Miklos'… the givers of hope who take pains to see and accept the full strategic picture… the diagnosticians who take it all in… with passion and love… what is being done to ourselves and our brothers and sisters… grateful for the chance to help bend our collective energy to a future when coercion is off our backs…

 

…trusting our voicings of the truth… knowing that reality shifts to the open and free the more our longing for it is repeated… that voice names what exists (which is why it's so important that it be honest…) that claiming the right to name our experience of dispossession for what it is… is the first step to reclaiming the planet…

 

As Miklos showed us… to study the long-term trends that (as they are in motion… and will deliver the outcome they are burdened with…) that reveal our unburdened (of coercion) future… means we bring the necessary hope that builds the momentum we need to get to our freedom…

 

…means that we create the 'safe' spaces that foster the study and sharing and practicing of ideas for bringing about the living brotherhood and sisterhood of global humanity…

 

…because that's what we want… we want force off our backs.

 

–––

[Today’s reading: we continue with Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…, “1968: The Great Rehearsal”… – P.S.]

 

–––

 

* April 19th, 2015 reading: returning to Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…

 

[“150419democracycon.mp3”:]

 

“Notwithstanding the many and real differences that set the Prague Spring and the Chinese Cultural Revolution apart, the two movements had one thing in common: they were assaults on the dictatorship of the officials… But most Third World states, caught between higher prices for energy resources and stiffer competition from newly industrializing countries, have experienced even greater impoverishment and underdevelopment than they did before 1968. Similar considerations apply to the other subordinate groups. Thus, over the last fifteen years the progressive breakdown of generational, gender, and ethnic barriers to the circulation of elites (which has benefitted quite a few members of each group) has been accompanied by youth unemployment, double exploitation of women, and the immiseration of “minorities” on an unprecedented scale. As for the change in the balance of power between labor and capital, its benefits have accrued mostly to workers engaged in stepping up the automation of labor processes, or in servicing the expanded markets for elites, or in running the relocated plants in their new locations. For the rest, the gains of the late 1960s and early 1970s have been eroded, at first by the great inflation of the 1970s and then by the unemployment of the 1980s. It is probably too early to assess who is benefitting and who is losing in material terms from the crisis of dictatorships. But here too the preliminary record seems to indicate that the material benefits of greater democracy have accrued only to a small fraction of the population.”

 

[And…] Finally [of the legacies of 1968…], in the 1970s and 1980s, civil society at large has been far less responsive to the commands of the bearers (or would-be bearers) of state power than it had been before 1968. Although a general phenomenon, this diminished power of states over civil society has been most evident in the semiperiphery, where it has taken the form of a crisis of “bourgeois” and “proletarian” dictatorships alike. Since 1973, “bourgeois” dictatorships have been displaced by democratic regimes in southern Europe (Portugal, Greece, Spain), East Asia (Philippines, South Korea), and in Latin America (most notably Brazil and Argentina).

 

Alongside this crisis, indeed preceding and following it, has developed the crisis of the so-called dictatorships of the proletariat. Notwithstanding the many and real differences that set the Prague Spring and the Chinese Cultural Revolution apart, the two movements had one thing in common: they were assaults on the dictatorship of the officials (primarily but not exclusively on the dictatorship of the Community Party's officials) dressed up as a dictatorship of the proletariat. In China, the assault was so violent and unrestrained as to deal a fatal blow to that dictatorship. Subsequently, party rule could be re-established (as it has been) only by accommodating demands for greater grassroots democracy and economic decentralization. In Czechoslovakia, a nonviolent and restrained assault was put down speedily through Soviet military intervention. Yet, between 1970 and 1980 the challenge re-emerged in a more formidable fashion in Poland, eventually shaking the Soviet leadership's confidence in the possibility of patching up a crumbling hegemony indefinitely by means of repression and purely cosmetic changes in party dictatorship.

 

This tendency has been most evident among Third World states. The oil-producing states were able to take advantage of the new balance of power in the interstate system by charging after 1973 a much higher rent for the use of their natural resources than they were ever able to do before 1968. This advantage lasted about ten years. A few other Third World states have been able to step up their own industrialization by taking advantage of the relocation of industrial activities from core countries. How much of a gain this will constitute by the 1990s remains to be seen. But most Third World states, caught between higher prices for energy resources and stiffer competition from newly industrializing countries, have experienced even greater impoverishment and underdevelopment than they did before 1968.

 

Similar considerations apply to the other subordinate groups. Thus, over the last fifteen years the progressive breakdown of generational, gender, and ethnic barriers to the circulation of elites (which has benefitted quite a few members of each group) has been accompanied by youth unemployment, double exploitation of women, and the immiseration of “minorities” on an unprecedented scale. As for the change in the balance of power between labor and capital, its benefits have accrued mostly to workers engaged in stepping up the automation of labor processes, or in servicing the expanded markets for elites, or in running the relocated plants in their new locations. For the rest, the gains of the late 1960s and early 1970s have been eroded, at first by the great inflation of the 1970s and then by the unemployment of the 1980s. It is probably too early to assess who is benefitting and who is losing in material terms from the crisis of dictatorships. But here too the preliminary record seems to indicate that the material benefits of greater democracy have accrued only to a small fraction of the population.

 

[“150419sonsofthemother.mp3”:]

 

Is not the requirement that we be subjects inherent… not just in the 'capitalist world-economy'… but in the logic of 'rule' itself… across 'class'-time? And why should this premise of 'rule' be sacrosanct? Why should we relinquish our right to give to ourselves our own 'reproduction'… setting 'economic' categories aside so that we – as opposed to 'things' – may move about freely… and pursue our happiness? Here again we see the trap that is 'economic theory' leaves us nowhere to go… stuck in its 'logic'… In its frame and definitions we remain 'labor' – never human beings – ad infinitum… but in earth-speak… there is an opening… a road… a path… to freedom…

 

In all directions we are faced with the apparent paradox that a favorable change in the balance of power has brought little or no change in material benefit to the majority of each subordinate group. This apparent paradox has the simple explanation that the reproduction of material welfare in the capitalist world-economy is conditional upon the political and social subordination of the actual and potential laboring masses. To the extent that this subordination is lessened, the propensity of the capitalist world-economy to reproduce and expand material welfare is lessened too.

[Is not the requirement that we be subjects inherent… not just in the 'capitalist world-economy'… but in the logic of 'rule' itself… across 'class'-time? And why should this premise of 'rule' be sacrosanct? Why should we relinquish our right to give to ourselves our own 'reproduction'… setting 'economic' categories aside so that we – as opposed to 'things' – may move about freely… and pursue our happiness?

 

Here again we see the trap that is 'economic theory' leaves us nowhere to go… stuck in its 'logic'… In its frame and definitions we remain 'labor' – never human beings – ad infinitum…

 

…but in earth-speak… there is an opening… a road… a path… to freedom…

 

Recall Whitman's “laws for creations”:

Each of us inevitable,

Each of us is limitless – each of us with his or her right upon the earth,

Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth,

Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

–––

Laws for creations,

For strong artists and leaders…

All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the compact truth of the world,

There shall be no subject too pronounced – all works shall illustrate the divine law of indirections.

 

What do you suppose creation is?

What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior?

What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but that man or woman is as good as God?

And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself?

And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally mean?

And that you or any one must approach creations through such laws?

–––

Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,

Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet,

Those who love each other shall become invincible,

They shall yet make Columbia victorious.

 

Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious…

 

(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?

Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?

Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)

 

(Walt Whitman, Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic A Voice)

[“150419workableplan.mp3”:]

 

“To the extent that this subordination [of us] is lessened, the propensity of the capitalist world-economy to reproduce and expand material welfare is lessened too…” What worth a 'benefit' conditional upon our subordination?… our 'agreeing' to relinquish our power as living beings?… 'The economy' is merely 'class'-relations quantified… and if 'the economy' is sacrosanct… so is 'class'… What if von Werlhof's point had been followed up on?… and of course if we own our bodies there's no such thing as putting them on the market… for hire – paid… to follow orders… to do what you're told to if you want to live – that's a set-up for fascism… and this has to be the conversations… not in this tiny space… but in the streets… we have to start acknowledging that 'facism-creep' that is all around us right now… And it may just seem accelerated here in the Bay Area because it's been such a fount of 'progressivism' that it's been massively infiltrated… seriously… I had no idea until I put myself in the crosshairs… but it's good to know… we have to know the truth… Miklos is right… we have to face the full… harsh… reality… to develop authentic planning… “…self-esteem begins with a workable plan…” for real.

 

What meaning this thing – 'material welfare' – to a soul enslaved? What worth a 'benefit' conditional upon our subordination?… our 'agreeing' to relinquish our power as living beings?… 'The economy' is merely 'class'-relations quantified… and if 'the economy' is sacrosanct… so is 'class'… – P.S.]

…To the extent that this subordination is lessened, the propensity of the capitalist world-economy to reproduce and expand material welfare is lessened too. [Only because 'rule' has been made sacrosanct… made to seem the 'necessary' footing… of the 'modern' way of life… – P.S.]

 

The history of the capitalist world-economy since 1973 has been the history of its adjustment to the social upheavals of the previous five years. The adjustment has been problematic, leading some to speak of a general crisis of capitalism, because of the scope, suddenness, and simultaneity of the changes in power relations ushered in by the social upheavals. When changes in power relations are limited and piecemeal, as they usually are, the capitalist world-economy can accommodate without difficulty imperceptible changes in the overall allocation of resources and distribution of rewards. But when the changes are numerous, significant, and simultaneous, as they were in the period 1968 – 1973, their accommodation involves long and serious disruptions in established patterns of social and economic life.

 

The inadequate access to means of production, of exchange, and of protection that characterizes subordinate groups makes the latter particularly vulnerable to these disruptions.…

[…what if… in the academic halls of the Left… there had been a concerted effort to follow up on von Werlhof's point…

 

…and the point just made: embrace the most vulnerable… embrace 'all of us'… recognizing in so doing that 'generalization of immiseration' is 'power's plan for 'all of us'… Von Werhof's point:

 

…that: “…An alternative is possible only if we, men and women, succeed in getting back forever not simply the wage, but much more – namely the means of production: our bodies…

…and of course if we own our bodies there's no such thing as putting them on the market… for hire – paid… to follow orders… to do what you're told to if you want to live – that's a set-up for fascism… and this has to be the conversations… not in this tiny space… but in the streets… we have to start acknowledging that 'facism-creep' that is all around us right now… And it may just seem accelerated here in the Bay Area because it's been such a fount of 'progressivism' that it's been massively infiltrated… seriously… I had no idea until I put myself in the crosshairs… but it's good to know… we have to know the truth… Miklos is right… we have to face the full… harsh… reality… to develop authentic planning… “…self-esteem begins with a workable plan…” for real.

[“150419technologybasket.mp3”:]

 

“One may wonder, however, whether this failure of a more favorable balance of power to deliver welfare might not be swinging the balance of power back in favor of dominant groups…” I don't think we need to 'wonder' on that one anymore. They took the technology and ran with it. They put all their eggs in that 'Technology' basket… that 'Weapons Technology' basket. The argument in this space is that… so long as 'class' remains unchallenged… so long as the originating-concession – that First Cause – of our bodies' loss remains unchallenged… there can be no 'improvement' worthy of claiming our ambition… as 'power's ultimate aim will ever be to impose permanent conditions of enslavement – differentially expressed – on all of us. There simply is no turning 'power' away from – whatever it temporarily concedes out of necessity – its totalitarian vision of a permanent global 'class' system… [But then:] “The competitive system absorbs the full energies of most of the people at all economic levels. Constant application, attention, and concentration of energy are the conditions of survival within it, primarily in the specifically economic professions, but also in other activities organized on their model… In a purely capitalist world, what was once energy for war becomes simply energy for labor of every kind…” What 'power' is engaged in at the moment… because they fear what is being called 'the periphery'… and the fact that there are some 'been-wide-awake' folk in this so-called 'periphery'… – that their main concern is locking us down… here in the so-called 'West'… because we have those [technological] resources [that would allow us to facilitate the unification…] and so they want us to remain… indifferent…

 

…and 'workable' means 'seeing reality'…

 

“…An alternative is possible only if we, men and women, succeed in getting back forever not simply the wage, but much more – namely the means of production: our bodies and our children, our houses and our land, our knowledge and our creativity, and the results of our labor.…”?

 

…'follow up'… not just among themselves… but beyond those halls… and out into the world of we commoners… to let us know… that heart… love… truth… beauty – was about to supersede 'economic theory'?… – P.S.]

…We should not be surprised, therefore, if most members of the subordinate groups have experienced little or no improvement over the last fifteen years in their material welfare, notwithstanding, nay even because of, the improvement in their power position. One may wonder, however, whether this failure of a more favorable balance of power to deliver welfare might not be swinging the balance of power back in favor of dominant groups.

[I don't think we need to 'wonder' on that one anymore. They took the technology and ran with it. They put all their eggs in that 'Technology' basket… that 'Weapons Technology' basket. The argument in this space is that… so long as 'class' remains unchallenged… so long as the originating-concession – that First Cause – of our bodies' loss remains unchallenged… there can be no 'improvement' worthy of claiming our ambition… as 'power's ultimate aim will ever be to impose permanent conditions of enslavement – differentially expressed – on all of us. There simply is no turning 'power' away from – whatever it temporarily concedes out of necessity – its totalitarian vision of a permanent global 'class' system… – P.S.]

The cultural and political backlash of the late 1970s and of the 1980s against everything that 1968 stood for seems to suggest that this is indeed what is happening. While still paying lip-service to Third World solidarity, Third World states have been engaged in widespread feuding and intense economic competition among themselves. [Sown by hidden-'power' do not doubt… and not just through the economic means of 'debt'… and the international financial institutions… – P.S.] The younger generations, the women, the 'minorities' have all switched, albeit to different degrees, from collective to individual concerns, while class solidarity and unity of political purpose among workers are in most places at an historical low. And in the epicenters of the struggle for political democracy, the desire for more and greater freedoms is often paralyzed by fears of economic disruption. [Do we see how effectively the con 'the economy' silences dissent… once we have been slotted into our 'nation' boxes?… – P.S.]

 

There is no denying that from all these points of view 1968 is dead and buried and cannot be revived by the thoughts and actions of the nostalgic few. Granted this, we must nonetheless distinguish carefully between the movements and ideologies of 1968 and the underlying structural transformations that preceded and outlived those movements and ideologies. These structural transformations are the outcome of secular trends of the capitalist world-economy, and as such cannot be reversed by any unfavorable conjuncture that might ensue from their open manifestation.

 

Thus, [Let me say at the outset that I'm still pondering this 'thus'… because… it seems to imply multiple things and I'm not sure which… if any… they mean… but let's read it first… – P.S.] Adam Smith long ago pointed out the negative long-term impact of an ever widening and deepening division of labor on the martial qualities of the peoples that are most directly involved in it. The greater specialization and mechanization of war activities themselves could counter this negative impact, but only up to a point. At the beginning of our century, Joseph Schumpeter made a similar point in support of his argument that capitalist development undermines the capabilities (as opposed to the propensities) of states to engage in imperialist wars:

The competitive system absorbs the full energies of most of the people at all economic levels. Constant application, attention, and concentration of energy are the conditions of survival within it, primarily in the specifically economic professions, but also in other activities organized on their model… In a purely capitalist world, what was once energy for war becomes simply energy for labor of every kind. (Joseph Schumpeter, Imperialism and Social Classes, 1955, p. 69)

 

[We are going to have to think more about what our Good Three and Mr. Schumpeter are saying here… in terms of the reduction of the ability [of the 'power'-guys] to engage in imperialist wars… because we are making a different argument here… that that was not necessarily to 'power's disadvantage… whether or not it anticipated and planned for it… – and it is this focus on 'the martial qualities of the people' that I'm pondering here… what it is they're getting at… whether they're talking about the erosion of the ability of the state to compel loyalty and allegiance… or whether they're talking about the erosion of the capacities of the people for true 'innovation' and creativity… we're going to have to think about this… I want to make sure we're doing full justice to this awesome work by our Good Three… which never got adequate attention from all the pundits out there… – P.S.]

To this we need only to add that the spatial unevenness of capitalist development has tended to undermine the martial qualities of peoples precisely in those states where it tended to concentrate wealth. Up to a point, core states have been able to counter the ensuing change in balance of power implicit in this tendency through an ever-increasing capital intensity of war. But at a certain point – as the experience of the US in Vietnam and of the USSR in Afghanistan have shown in exemplary fashion – further increases in the capital intensity of war bring rapidly decreasing returns, particularly when it comes to policing the periphery of the world-economy.…

[What 'power' is engaged in at the moment… because they fear what is being called 'the periphery'… and the fact that there are some 'been-wide-awake' folk in this so-called 'periphery'… – that their main concern is locking us down… here in the so-called 'West'… because we have those [technological] resources (that would allow us to facilitate the unification…) and so they want us to remain… indifferent… – P.S.]

[“150419statepowererosion.mp3”:]

 

“In order to reproduce, or re-establish, the command of capital over labor in the workplace, the functionaries of capital are induced to mobilize an ever-growing proportion of the labor force in wage activities but by so doing they revolutionize power relations between the genders and among age-groups and 'ethnicities.'” [I love the dynamism of their thinking here… I've said this before… it is like jazz… the 'I-feed-off-you'… the living interplay… They recognize that this is ever in play… ever dynamic… – 'power's play ever-dependent on our staying asleep… And… remember… that we are now in a moment when they can't… though they want to… expand the proportion of us in the 'labor force'… in this moment… and we're talking 'globally' – always… 'globally' we have to base our understanding… our assessment… our planning… our strategizing… – on the 'overall'… the global scene… – P.S.]

 

The same processes that undermine the power of core states over peripheral states over the longue durée of the capitalist world-system also undermine the power of capital over labor, of dominant over subordinate status-groups, of states over civil society. An ever widening and deepening division of labor makes capital increasingly vulnerable to workplace acts of protest and passive resistance on the part of subordinate workers, regardless of the level of class consciousness and organization expressed by those acts. In order to reproduce, or re-establish, the command of capital over labor in the workplace, the functionaries of capital are induced to mobilize an ever-growing proportion of the labor force in wage activities but by so doing they revolutionize power relations between the genders and among age-groups and 'ethnicities.' [I love the dynamism of their thinking here… I've said this before… it is like jazz… the 'I-feed-off-you'… the living interplay… They recognize that this is ever in play… ever dynamic… – 'power's play ever-dependent on our staying asleep… And… remember… that we are now in a moment when they can't… though they want to… expand the proportion of us in the 'labor force'… in this moment… and we're talking 'globally' – always… 'globally' we have to base our understanding… our assessment… our planning… our strategizing… – on the 'overall'… the global scene… – P.S.] Last but not least, the growing complexity of the division of labor within and across political jurisdictions makes the exercise of state power over civil society increasingly problematic.

 

These are the kinds of process that prepared the ground for, and eventually gave rise to, the movements of 1968.…

[Let's keep in mind that they are writing almost thirty years ago… and we must situate the out-flows from 1968 that they're describing in that moment… the moment in which they write… i.e.… they are now realities… realities that we take for granted – both the leveling of status-power-relations… and… despite that… the generalization of immiseration to everyone… – P.S.]

[“150419longueduree.mp3”:]

 

Eurozone?… No… US?… Can't do it… You see what I mean about the dynamism of the moment… about how everything is in flux… everything is on the table… is up for grabs… let's grab our lives back!… We are not going to have a moment more opportune… They are ready to roll in global fascism… They just have to get all their players in line behind it… and get us… here in the 'West'… and perhaps especially the US… locked down… by figuring out how to nullify the Internet… and the capacity for instantaneous communication – the capacity it brings us for organizing on a world-scale… literally we can organize a global General Strike overnight… if the consciousness is there to do it… if we start talking about it… if we put our agenda out in the streets… not be afraid to say the so-called illegitimate thoughts… the thoughts not sanctioned by the official media. We have to make our media the only one that matters… the 'people's media'… the media of our voices in the streets… and let those seeds blossom in multiple 'safe' planning spaces…

 

These are the kinds of process that prepared the ground for, and eventually gave rise to, the movements of 1968. Being processes of the longue durée, their unfolding spans the entire lifetime of the capitalist world-economy. The explosions of 1968 and their aftermath can be interpreted as symptom of the fact that the system is approaching its historical asymptote. 1968, with its successes and failures, was thus a prehide, better, a rehearsal, of things to come.

[And we do appreciate what they're saying: that they are looking over the entire course – five centuries plus – of what has been named the 'capitalist world-system'… so when they are saying that they are looking at 1968 as a 'rehearsal'… that is not speculation… they have been studying the long-term structural trends that drive the processes that comprise that 'system' of 'accumulation'… trends that are bringing to us the outcomes of 1968… and as they are about to say… that's in flux too… that's in movement too… and that it depends on us… – P.S.]

1968: A Rehearsal of What?

 

If 1968 is analogous to 1848 as a failed world-scale revolution and as a world-historical great rehearsal, for what sort of world-revolution may it be the great rehearsal? Can we on analogy project today's underlying secular trends, specify what was new about yesterday's new social movements, and thereby sketch in advance likely trajectories of the confrontation and progressive social changes they suggest? As we move chronologically towards the 1990s and the 2000s, our historical social system, the capitalist world-economy, continues to be faced with difficulties in four principal arenas.

 

First, the interstate system is marked by a military stand-off between the US and the USSR and the evident inability of either to control matters of consequence in states of the periphery. Hegemony is giving way to its conceptual counterpoint, the condition of rivalry. [We should think more about this: 'hegemony is giving way to its conceptual counterpoint, the condition of rivalry'… – P.S.] The possible realignments of alliances between the five major actors – the US, the USSR, Western Europe, Japan, and China – are only now beginning. And everyone is approaching such realignments most gingerly and most fearfully. And by 'everyone'… they mean the 'power'-guys… the global-state-statesmen… those looking at that whole 'world order'… trying to figure out their place in it… and how to keep 'their people' subjected… – P.S.] Hence, US hegemony is being eroded without any clear, and therefore reassuring, world order to replace it. [Eurozone?… No… US?… Can't do it… You see what I mean about the dynamism of the moment… about how everything is in flux… everything is on the table… is up for grabs… let's grab our lives back!… We are not going to have a moment more opportune… They are ready to roll in global fascism… They just have to get all their players in line behind it… and get us… here in the 'West'… and perhaps especially the US… locked down… by figuring out how to nullify the Internet… and the capacity for instantaneous communication – the capacity it brings us for organizing on a world-scale… literally we can organize a global General Strike overnight… if the consciousness is there to do it… if we start talking about it… if we put our agenda out in the streets… not be afraid to say the so-called illegitimate thoughts… the thoughts not sanctioned by the official media. We have to make our media the only one that matters… the 'people's media'… the media of our voices in the streets… and let those seeds blossom in multiple 'safe' planning spaces… – P.S.] Meanwhile, markets of all sorts – capital, capital goods, labor, wage-goods (ordinary), wage-goods ('durable') – are evolving at a rapid pace.…

 

[“150419titanic.mp3”:]

 

…and so… clearly… all the various financial meltdowns in the subsequent thirty years were entirely predictable and predicted by our Good Three… so let's don't kid ourselves that any of this was not clearly understood by the 'power'-guys… what was about to happen and was / is inevitable… because… as our Good Three say… these are structural trends that cannot be reversed… just like the Titantic… after so much water taken in… it's not going anywhere but down…

 

The possible realignments of alliances between the five major actors – the US, the USSR, Western Europe, Japan, and China – are only now beginning. And everyone is approaching such realignments most gingerly and most fearfully. Hence, US hegemony is being eroded without any clear, and therefore reassuring, world order to replace it. Meanwhile, markets of all sorts – capital, capital goods, labor, wage-goods (ordinary), wage-goods ('durable') – are evolving at a rapid pace.…

[The sixth major actor… the earth… in the master's tongue appears as 'the market'… or 'the economy'… but… as our source and mother tongue exerts a continuous pressure of her own 'realignment'… restoration of balance… expressed in the 'explosions of 1968… – P.S.]

…They are becoming less and less regulated social mechanisms of the circuits of capital and more and more loci of speculation…

[…and so… clearly… all the various financial meltdowns in the subsequent thirty years were entirely predictable and predicted by our Good Three… so let's don't kid ourselves that any of this was not clearly understood by the 'power'-guys… what was about to happen and was / is inevitable… because… as our Good Three say… these are structural trends that cannot be reversed… just like the Titanic… after so much water taken in… it's not going anywhere but down… – P.S.]

…They are becoming less and less regulated social mechanisms of the circuits of capital and more and more loci of speculation (what liberals call 'market forces') and increasingly show (as on 19 October 1987 in equity prices) the kind of jagged price movements which are at once their hallmark and the reason for their always and everywhere being objects of regulation.

 

Possibly the Group of Seven (with the IBRD, IMF, and BIS) can impose renewed order. Possibly the transnationals' ingestion of markets through vertical integration (and the analogous organization of their counterparts in countries of existing socialism) is sufficient for them to absorb and so to dampen the price movements. Whether, in this sense, the world-scale centralizing of capital is historically far enough advanced (as suggested by 'the absolute general law') to replace the interstate system's market-regulation via hegemony, we shall see.

 

–––

 

* “WUR of April 26th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3):

[This is part of our “Moving Forward” series… revisiting the Waking Up Radio conversation of September 30, 2012:

 

“…at the very moment when our brothers and sisters in Egypt were using social media to get rid of a dictator… there was a group of young people in southern California who were using it to plan a pillow fight… ” “…Yeah…” [Spoken word is from our September 30, 2012 radio broadcast.]

–––

 

[“150426greensleeves.mp3”:]

 

There is a whole body… mind… and soul… there in Mr. Burns… showing us how it is a longing for freedom-in-union-and-wholeness being expressed… in all healthy longing… based in a soul-sufficiency of spirit – …where we're going… where we tend… is what we must cultivate within.… Essentially our Good Three are asking whether… and if so how… centralizing the resources of the earth into the hands of the Miniscule Few could “replace the interstate system's market-regulation via hegemony…” (i.e. a hegemonic state maintains 'order' in the world through its deciding control of where resources go… via its command of pricing mechanisms…)

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency” (Part 2)

Green sleeves and tartan ties…

Mark my truelove where she lies;

I'll be at her or [ere] she rise,

My fiddle and I thegither [together]. –

 

Be it by the chrystal burn [water],

Be it by the milk-white thorn,

I shall rouse her in the morn,

My fiddle and I thegither [together]. –

 

(Robert Burns)

 

There is a whole body… mind… and soul… there in Mr. Burns… showing us how it is a longing for freedom-in-union-and-wholeness being expressed… in all healthy longing… based in a soul-sufficiency of spirit –

 

…where we're going… where we tend… is what we must cultivate within.

April 23, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Thirty years ago our Good Three – who did their analysis… identified the underlying structural trends inherent in what they call “the processes of accumulation”… and in what I call “the consumption of the planet”…

 

…they pointed out that as 'markets' (the resources of the planet…) get played out – i.e. as the earth gets tapped out – more and more they (markets) become “loci of speculation”… showing us that if they… our Good Three… could see the underlying 'economic' instability that necessarily follows a feeding frenzy… and therefore the inevitable 'crises'…

 

…then… the 'power'-guys… who have nothing else to do but devote their lives to foreseeing the obvious outcomes of obvious trends… and to intervening in our lives to make the 'reality' they want us to accept as authentic… happen…

 

…these 'power'-guys could also see the inevitability of 'capitalist crises'…

 

Our Good Three left us pondering “whether… the world-scale centralizing of capital is historically far enough advanced (as suggested by 'the absolute general law') to replace the interstate system's market-regulation via hegemony…”

 

Essentially they are asking whether… and if so how… centralizing the resources of the earth into the hands of the Miniscule Few could “replace the interstate system's market-regulation via hegemony…” (i.e. a hegemonic state maintains 'order' in the world through its deciding control of where resources go… via its command of pricing mechanisms…)

 

Recall from a previous show our discussion of how the market is not a value-determining but a value-assigning mechanism for 'power'… so when our Good Three ask that question… they're really asking (as when they say 'the interstate system' they're really saying 'power'…) if that form… (or masking ideology: 'the market'…) if that form… masking ideology of 'power' can no longer stand up… has lost too much substance (no actual earth to back it…) and so has lost all legitimacy…

 

…if that mask has fallen… is there any other mask that could replace it… because when all 'power'-masks fall… we finally can begin to live in a world we determine… all of us together… and claim our lives as global humans…

 

–––

 

[“150426theworldwewant.mp3”:]

 

So we can make planning spaces that are 'safe'… once we define their qualities. (And that's the theme for today's show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency”… so that's perhaps where we begin in defining these qualities: What would make a place a place of cultivation of soul-sufficiency?… because it has to be that to be 'safe'… we all of us have to be agreed on that… as a starting place.)… so another key quality is: 'continuous growth based in continuous discussion'… because we have to get to a place of 'comfort' in working with our Brothers and Sisters who… don't have access to the process that we're engaged in… and that's going to be difficult…What was the core longing of 1968 if not to be done with false divisions? – i.e. 'class' in all its manifestations?

 

That dream that's been haunting us for millennia is not a pipe-dream… it is our destiny… and the fact that we've been millennia in the striving don't make it any less… true… legitimate.

 

We have to begin discussing the fact… that the world we have… to which we are conditioned to adapt…

 

…a world in which no one lives free… no one becomes the sun they're meant to be… one… on the contrary… in which we stand in shadows cast wide and long… is… a profoundly unsafe place to be… because no one can see other than their own struggle to be seen… And that's not judgment… that's just reality… we are… each one of us… forced into this individual struggle to try to… not just to survive… but to 'figure out' why it is… the circumstances… the social arrangement… around us has been made so difficult… Why? (“The Outer – from the Inner… Derives its Magnitude – …”)

 

But…

 

…just as each individual under 'class' – when separated from his brothers and sisters – manifests the state… so each individual – in our daily lived reality of Unity – once we join hands – manifests Freedom.

 

So we can make planning spaces that are 'safe'… once we define their qualities. (And that's the theme for today's show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency”… so that's perhaps where we begin in defining these qualities: What would make a place a place of cultivation of soul-sufficiency?… because it has to be that to be 'safe'… we all of us have to be agreed on that… as a starting place.)

 

This week I ran into someone who had been a good friend… but writing Waking Up altered the course of my life fundamentally… drew me in and along a course I could never have anticipated… and… understandably… that course felt foreign to my friends…

 

I tried to provide a concise summary of the arguments and discussions that happen in this space… as she was short on time… I asked her whether she might consider hosting a discussion of some of the issues – and… that's a sub-theme of today's show: “what are some of the key discussions we should have?”… because another key quality of such a 'safe space'… would be not just 'continuous growth'… but 'continuous growth based in continuous probing'….

(…sad to say… we have a world of… 'souls-for-hire'… but then until we create these safe places for the 'cultivation of soul-sufficiency'… what alternative do we have?… We've been arguing that in this system… there is a totalitarian level of control of the thoughts we have access to… which means alternative possible thoughts… alternative possibilities… haven't been made available to us…)

…so another key quality is: 'continuous growth based in continuous discussion'… because we have to get to a place of 'comfort' in working with our Brothers and Sisters who… don't have access to the process that we're engaged in… and that's going to be difficult…

 

So 'discussions' is a sub-theme of today's show: “What are some places to begin thinking through… moving… the transition to the point where we're building our future?”

 

So I asked if she would consider hosting a discussion of the issues… could she find an issue-point of entry that might feel welcoming… I wondered out loud to her… a discussion-theme that would get us to the ultimate ones of 'work' (I learned… is the exact right place to start… if you want to end up in 'power's crosshairs… which… I'm afraid we do…) 'coercion' as core to 'the system'… and 'class' being totalitarian (none of this is discussed as we grow up in the world of 'class'… rather… just the opposite… they're presented as inevitable…) she said she could think of nothing.

 

Afterwards… I found myself coming again to this question of… longing… longing for that which has been silenced… In previous shows I commented on how I saw that 'longing' in two-year-olds… I saw them let it go… too…

 

What was the core longing of 1968 if not to be done with false divisions? – i.e. 'class' in all its manifestations?…

 

I think the question boils down to “What world do we want?”… because all the other necessary questions flow from it: “Why don't we think we deserve it?” “Why do we stop ourselves from asking for it?” “What do we think gets in the way of our having precisely the world we want?”

 

–––

 

[“150426redefinework.mp3”:]

 

…and we've talked about this in previous shows… how the wage-work-system makes of love… affection… and attention… a scarce commodity – ensuring that the mindset of 'being productive' is systematically reinforced by the structure of the family system itself… that we learn that we have to earn – and that we aren't really able to… truth be told – earn the attention of our parents… It is the perceived 'need' to 'prove' ourselves 'worthy' – the internalized state… our unconscious allegiance with 'power' – that is the problem we must overcome… and I have to add here… that it is real hard to do that while stuck in the wage… I can testify… but it can be done… I can also testify to that… and I write about this towards the end of Waking Up… that as we gain access to new ideas… new thoughts… and as they germinate within us… we can begin to redefine the meaning of wage work in our lives as 'that which must be done for now…' in order to gain the leverage to figure out a way to move beyond it… that's what this is all about… figuring out… how to get out of this trap that we're stuck in…

 

'Power' believes… that it 'organizes' the world for us… identifies 'the best'… eliminates the recalcitrant… assigns jobs to the rest… – allowing for the acquisition and pursuit… of 'Knowledge-Infinite'… and we have loaned them our agreement… pending discussion… across the political spectrum…. Here is the Marxist version:

Thus the secret of capitalist 'money-making' is resolved by the fact that the wage-labourer, who owns none of the means of production […always remembering Von Werlhof's point… that the key… the most important… 'means of production' are our bodies and those of our children… – P.S.], is compelled to work beyond the time necessary for the maintenance of his life – that he can only live at all, if he simultaneously sacrifices a part of his life to capital. Only by these means can capital valorise itself, create surplus-value. “What appears as surplus-value on capital's side appears identically on the worker's side as surplus-labour in excess of his requirements as worker, hence in excess of his immediate requirements for keeping himself alive.” [Marx, Grundrisse, p. 595] In this respect there is no basic difference between the social situation of the wage-labourer and that of the exploited classes of earlier epochs; since “Where capital rules (just as where there is slavery and bondage or serfdom of any sort), the worker's absolute labour-time [that is labour-time containing surplus-value] is posited for him as condition of being allowed to work the necessary labour-time, i.e. of being allowed to realise the labour-time necessary for the maintenance of his labour capacity in use-values for himself.” [Grundrisse, p. 533]

 

[…and I ruefully was smiling there because the perspective in Marx's words there is so totally utilitarian from the perspective of 'power'… it makes me weep a bit… – P.S.]

 

Thus, just as with previous modes of exploitation, capital's mode of exploitation is also based on the surplus labour of the direct producers. It is clear that the capital relations (and also that of serfdom and slavery) would not be possible if human labour merely provided what was necessary to keep the producers alive. “If the whole labour of a country”, wrote an English author in 1821, “were sufficient only to raise the support of the whole population, there would be no surplus labour, consequently nothing that can be allowed to accumulate as capital,” [from an anonymous pamphlet cited in the Grundrisse] Consequently, advantageous natural conditions, or a relatively high degree of productiveness of human labour, constitute the preconditions for every form of exploitation, for all forms of class-rule. In this sense, “it can be said that surplus-value etc. rests on a natural law, that is on the productivity of human labour in its exchange with nature.” [Marx, Theories of Surplus-Value, III] However… relations have to arise which compel the producers to work beyond their necessary labour-time. (Roman Rosdolsky, The Making of Marx's 'Capital', 1968, p. 220 – 221)

Implied here: that 'the system' (of 'rule') produces 'the surplus' that allows for the 'advancement' of 'civilization'… or 'modern life'… and a certain number of souls sacrificed is 'an acceptable price to pay'… in order to achieve 'it'. This is a key discussion.

 

We also must discuss both our intrinsic wholeness… how 'force' distorts… steals… not 'portions' of us merely… but our entire being… when it purports to commandeer just a piece… during the hours of 'work'… as a living thing cannot be partitioned and remain a cohesive whole…

 

…and along with this discussion… there is intimately tied another: the degree to which (under the influence of “hidden 'power'”) what's called 'human nature' is intentionally sculpted… our mental state shaped with the belief that we must be 'productive': that we're here to serve the state… essentially… when there is no alternative to 'the state' as a frame within which to place our allegiance…

 

It is the perceived 'need' to 'prove' ourselves 'worthy'…

(…and we've talked about this in previous shows… how the wage-work-system makes of love… affection… and attention… a scarce commodity – ensuring that the mindset of 'being productive' is systematically reinforced by the structure of the family system itself… that we learn that we have to earn – and that we aren't really able to… truth be told – earn the attention of our parents…)

It is the perceived 'need' to 'prove' ourselves 'worthy' – the internalized state… our unconscious allegiance with 'power' – that is the problem we must overcome…

(…and I have to add here… that it is real hard to do that while stuck in the wage… I can testify… but it can be done… I can also testify to that… and I write about this towards the end of Waking Up… that as we gain access to new ideas… new thoughts… and as they germinate within us… we can begin to redefine the meaning of wage work in our lives as 'that which must be done for now…' in order to gain the leverage to figure out a way to move beyond it… that's what this is all about… figuring out… how to get out of this trap that we're stuck in…)

[“150426mustbeglobal.mp3”:]

 

…because 'power' has figured out that in order to control our resistance they have to lead it – that's a deep conversation… we have to seriously think about that… and that the wage-work-system allows for that… coerced work allows 'power' to lead our resistance… that's a big conversation…

 

…instilled with mother's milk (per Bentham's advice…) it is an extremely powerful… if false… unnatural… impulse… conditioned in us irrespective of the official 'political' ideology of the parent…

 

…so 'Marxists' will manifest it (mistaking it for healthy 'competitiveness'…) no less than 'Fascists'.

(…I was thinking this as I was reading the Introduction to the Grundrisse… and the gentleman who wrote it mentioned that it was 'lost' – and when these things get 'lost' we know what that really means… like all those missing documents from Nikola Tesla's apartment that just got spirited away… never heard from again – well this was one of those 'lost' documents… and then they figured out at some point that Marxist theory actually was another… because 'power' has figured out that in order to control our resistance they have to lead it – that's a deep conversation… we have to seriously think about that… and that the wage-work-system allows for that… coerced work allows 'power' to lead our resistance… that's a big conversation…)

[“150426notilluminati.mp3”:]

 

I totally vibe with Karl Popper's optimism. And… I totally think that we have to stop giving our attention to what 'power' is doing. And… by the way… there is nothing to do with 'light' about them… except for that light that makes them melt away… like the vampires they are…

 

'Power' cannot take a 'piece' of us… short of taking the whole. We are bought and sold… all-together owned… by those who believe themselves to be 'Olympians' in essence… and so have staked their exclusive claim to the earth… and the heavens…

 

…and by our unconscious acceptance… it has become their's – unfair… and falsely got… but that's the reality we have to confront.

 

Karl Popper wrote that Marx didn't credit enough the influence of 'power'… what he calls 'physical power':

We must think in these matters in even more materialist terms, as it were, than Marx did. We must realize that the control of physical power and of physical exploitation remains the central political problem. In order to establish this control, we must establish 'merely formal freedom'. Once we have achieved this, and have learned how to use it for the control of physical power, everything rests with us. (Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, p. 128)

(I totally vibe with his optimism. And… I totally think that we have to stop giving our attention to what 'power' is doing. And… by the way… there is nothing to do with 'light' about them… except for that light that makes them melt away… like the vampires they are.)

 

[“150426millenniaofclass.mp3”:]

 

Karl Popper provides a key piece of the puzzle: the motivation of these 'power'-guys… the roots of totalitarianism in Plato… the point of their 'classical education – likewise Martin Bernal. It is in fact… those ancestors and present scholars of those areas of the world… who study 'class' and its related distresses over the centuries… who have been figuring it out for us… and we can't turn our back on all that work… we need their thinking to get free…

 

(Another conversation… point being: Karl Popper provides a key piece of the puzzle: the motivation of these 'power'-guys… the roots of totalitarianism in Plato… the point of their 'classical education – likewise Martin Bernal. It is in fact… those ancestors and present scholars of those areas of the world… who study 'class' and its related distresses over the centuries… who have been figuring it out for us… and we can't turn our back on all that work… we need their thinking to get free…)

 

[“150426nextweekgeneral.mp3”:]

 

I feel the need to continue our discussion of Antisystemic Movements another week. If folks have the time I hope you will read and think about the quotes I put up to do with “the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation.”

 

I feel the need to continue our discussion of Antisystemic Movements another week. If folks have the time I hope you will read and think about the quotes I put up to do with “the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation.”

 

–––

 

* “WUR of May 3rd, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3):

Here's a song to celebrate our Flyin' High Day: Freedom… Leisure… Independence… Happiness Is Global Humans… Day… this May 1st:

 

“Let the good times roll!…” [B.B. King]

–––

 

[“150503redemption.mp3”:]

 

…and part of the process of creating these 'safe' spaces… part of that 'safety' is this process of helping each other get 'big'… and that's how I define 'healing'… because it's reclaiming the lost 'self'…

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency” (Part 3)

 

…and part of the process of creating these 'safe' spaces… part of that 'safety' is this process of helping each other get 'big'… and that's how I define 'healing'… because it's reclaiming the lost 'self'…

I was looking at a photo of Mingus near the end…

and saw my swollen face in his…

…how many of the ones who love us most…

…have they taken from our midst…

…how many of the most courageous…

(…and I'm not talking me…)

…have they 'saved' us from​…

How much longer…

…will we let it go on?

…simply to hold back the day…

…when we finally live free…

…and be each other's bedazzling…

[“150503abilitytoexpresslove.mp3”:]

 

…because that's really what this is about… truly… the ability to express our love… 'power' has intentionally made our world hazardous on every level… in order to suppress our love… and our ability to express it… it's much deeper than I realized going in… six years ago… “Leisure IS Happiness…” …and our bodies know this… and when we trust ourselves enough to listen… we hear that… we know that… that we can't begin to be happy if we're being rushed around… compelled… coerced… to implement the objectives… the orders… of others… we have to own ourselves to be happy… no living thing wants to be in a cage… and we have not discussed the fact that we are living in a cage… in a class system… where our human energy is compelled…

 

April 28, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: As you know… how we can express our love… the importance of this…

(…because that's really what this is about… truly… the ability to express our love… 'power' has intentionally made our world hazardous on every level… in order to suppress our love… and our ability to express it…

 

…we're going to continue to delve into this issue… it's much deeper than I realized going in… six years ago…)

As you know… how we can express our love… the importance of this… has recently been brought to my attention (to my soul's salvation…) and… in that context…

(…and it must be said: the fact that I have put good-hearted folks – and one in particular who sets me aflame… my whole world rocking… a far greater heart than mine… as I walked in blind… – at risk… is my only regret…

 

– it's such an odd feeling… to be so simultaneously happy… and so worried… it almost makes you feel guilty… to be so happy… feel so light… at such a price…)

…I've been pondering this notion… of 'power' (and we-the-people… until we talk about it… and reconceive our allegiance…) believing that it 'develops us' as it uses us… as it makes us cogs in their machine…

 

There are (at least) two sides to this that we'll be considering today… the first we've discussed before… and I've written about on the page, Founding & Realizing A Test Site – not modeled on ‘democracy’… but on freedom – Premised On “Leisure IS Happiness… –

(…and our bodies know this… and when we trust ourselves enough to listen… we hear that… we know that… that we can't begin to be happy if we're being rushed around… compelled… coerced… to implement the objectives… the orders… of others… we have to own ourselves to be happy… no living thing wants to be in a cage… and we have not discussed the fact that we are living in a cage… in a class system… where our human energy is compelled…)

[“150503leveltowhat.mp3”:]

 

I've been pondering this notion of how we could imagine ourselves being 'developed' as we're being 'made-use-of'… made 'cogs' in their machine… in our earlier discussions of this issue… when we discussed De Tocqueville's contribution to global-'power's self-concept and definition of their objectives… their goals… we discussed this in the context of what De Tocqueville thought of as 'the leveling effect of commerce'… – that it tends toward an 'equality of conditions'.… “Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience; but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive…” How is it that folks can be 'happy' to be obedient?… Are we born that way?… No. We've discussed for a while how what feels happy is 'self-definition'… being 'big'… claiming ourselves… naming ourselves… that's what makes us happy… and energized… So how is it that someone can be 'happy' to be obedient?… which… De Tocqueville says… in that state they are not debased… Really? Just the opposite. I guess the point here is: what 'power' makes us to be is 'reality'… that's essentially what he's saying…

 

So I've been pondering this notion of how we could imagine ourselves being 'developed' as we're being 'made-use-of'… made 'cogs' in their machine… in our earlier discussions of this issue… when we discussed De Tocqueville's contribution to global-'power's self-concept and definition of their objectives… their goals… we discussed this in the context of what De Tocqueville thought of as 'the leveling effect of commerce'… – that it tends toward an 'equality of conditions'. But we should keep in mind as we read… that he is rooted in the notion that this process is 'civilizing'… he doesn't see within the scope of his notion of 'humanity'… the earth-connected indigenous… has no notion of the earth itself being the source… the fuel for… a broadening to a universal beauty and truth… of each individual one of us:

Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience; but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive… [This is a good expression of C.L.R. James' point that “…passive obedience is precisely the basis of bourgeois (I would say 'class'…) society… They want us to be 'happy' with whatever is our assigned 'place'…” and we've had… in this space… elaborated discussions of that point… because it's never discussed over the airwaves and it's a really important discussion: How is it that folks can be 'happy' to be obedient?… Are we born that way?… No. We've discussed for a while how what feels happy is 'self-definition'… being 'big'… claiming ourselves… naming ourselves… that's what makes us happy… and energized… So how is it that someone can be 'happy' to be obedient?… which… De Tocqueville says… in that state they are not debased… Really? Just the opposite. I guess the point here is: what 'power' makes us to be is 'reality'… that's essentially what he's saying… – P.S]

 

[“150503debasedbywage.mp3”:]

 

…and by 'universal level' we should hear 'a single pattern of thought'… the definition of 'totalitarianism'… Voice names what exists – that's why it's so critical we stop mis-naming reality to our children – if no one names totalitarianism for what it is… it can't be discussed. It's all around us… covered by 'the wage'… 'the price'… of a human being… wearing the face of normality. Notice – not even 'the Left' over the airwaves will say this… that we are debased by the wage… …Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America – this is a book I am absolutely certain 'power' uses as propaganda with our young people… because his words can be so mis-understood… and encouraged to be so mis-understood… like Plato's… it's a perfect propaganda tool for 'power'… We must not mistake his argument… he is wedded utterly to 'class'… Rather… he believes in the inevitability of 'social equality' between the 'classes'. And I think we're seeing indications of the influence of his thinking here in the US right now… we could include in that category the granting of legal equality to 'sexual minorities'… gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered… to all formerly discriminated-against groups… that in granting 'legal equality' (which begins the process of conferring 'social equality'…) we are seeing an expression of what De Tocqueville is talking about in terms of everybody becoming 'equal'… he is not talking about the elimination of 'class'… Just the opposite… he's saying that “to preserve 'class' we have to ensure there is 'social equality between the 'classes' and the various social groups…”

 

As soon as land was held on any other than a feudal tenure, and personal property began in its turn to confer influence and power, every improvement which was introduced in commerce or manufacture was a fresh element of the equality of conditions. Henceforward every new discovery, every new want which it engendered, and every new desire which craved satisfaction, was a step towards the universal level. […and by 'universal level' we should hear 'a single pattern of thought'… the definition of 'totalitarianism'… Voice names what exists – that's why it's so critical we stop mis-naming reality to our children – if no one names totalitarianism for what it is… it can't be discussed. It's all around us… covered by 'the wage'… 'the price'… of a human being… wearing the face of normality. Notice – not even 'the Left' over the airwaves will say this… that we are debased by the wage… – P.S] The taste for luxury, the love of war, the sway of fashion, and the most superficial as well as the deepest passions of the human heart, co-operated to enrich the poor and to impoverish the rich. [And by 'impoverish the rich'… he's talking about the destruction of the old feudal order… inherited wealth based in a connection to the possession of land… and not in the restless drive for 'Perfection' that bedevils the Plato's Tribesmen… P.S.]

 

From the time when the exercise of the intellect became the source of strength and of wealth, it is impossible not to consider every addition to science, every fresh truth, and every new idea as a germ of power placed within the reach of the people. Poetry, eloquence, and memory, the grace of wit, the glow of imagination, the depth of thought, and all the gifts which are bestowed by Providence with an equal hand, turned to the advantage of the democracy; and even when they were in the possession of its adversaries, they still served its cause by throwing into relief the natural greatness of man; its conquests spread, therefore, with those of civilization and knowledge; and literature became an arsenal, where the poorest and the weakest could always find weapons to their hand.

 

In perusing the pages of our history, we shall scarcely meet with a single great event, in the lapse of seven hundred years, which has not turned to the advantage of equality. (Alexis de Tocqueville, “Author's Preface”, Democracy in America)

And this is a book I am absolutely certain 'power' uses as propaganda with our young people… because his words can be so mis-understood… and encouraged to be so mis-understood… like Plato's… it's a perfect propaganda tool for 'power' (and I use the word 'propaganda' exclusively to mean “'power's attempts to manipulate our thinking”…)

 

We must not mistake his argument… he is wedded utterly to 'class'… Rather… he believes in the inevitability of 'social equality' between the 'classes'. And I think we're seeing indications of the influence of his thinking here in the US right now… we could include in that category the granting of legal equality to 'sexual minorities'… gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered… to all formerly discriminated-against groups… that in granting 'legal equality' (which begins the process of conferring 'social equality'…) we are seeing an expression of what De Tocqueville is talking about in terms of everybody becoming 'equal'… he is not talking about the elimination of 'class'… Just the opposite… he's saying that “to preserve 'class' we have to ensure there is 'social equality between the 'classes' and the various social groups…”

 

The issue for us to consider today is this: as we grow bigger… we global humans… as our knowledge of the world… our Brothers and Sisters… and how our imprisonment 'works'… as all this increases… 'power' wants to halt that process.

 

[Please listen again to some of our earlier thoughts on 'education'…. As the global-economy collapses… as the resources of the planet get consumed… or have been… 'power' has to figure out… since they can no longer buy off enough people with the wage… how they're going to buy us off… those who are left… and we're going to be talking about that…:]

 

Practical solutions… guidance – guidance that reflects the actual circumstances of our lives – is precisely what we’ve been denied… and this is what makes our Good Three’s contribution so important… and no less so Kropotkin’s… whose words… built on here suggests this: that ‘power’ uses ‘education’ (under ‘class’) to provide the ‘objective evidence’ of ‘natural inequality’… and ‘science’ (including Marxist theory…) as the legitimating ideology (full-spectrum propaganda-coverage…) ‘Vetting’ of the media is made automatic by the “‘class’ education project”… and that the ‘education process’ alone ensures that only the thought-parameters established by ‘power’ are allowed to see the light of day… the airwaves… [From our February 22, 2015 show.]

 

–––

 

…the ‘class’-system is based on the assumption of ‘scarcity’ (…because… if we think about it… if ‘knowledge’ is scarce… belongs to only a few… that can easily form the mental frame for ‘scarcity’ overall… because if we don't know what to do to preserve our own lives… reproduce ourselves… we are condemned to be slaves to Necessity…) – the belief that ‘there isn’t enough… stuff…’ and that we-the-people are not sufficient… and that we believe this… contrary to reality… because this is the substance of our ‘education’, both official and the unspoken ‘education’ embedded in our social relations… utterly dependent… And so… therefore… we also said… the flip-side of the story “The Elevation of The Few”… is our diminishment… in our own eyes. And truly… with this lens in our possession… the media-display becomes one long parade of illustration… of our conditioning to not see our own abundance. [From our January 25, 2015 show.]

 

–––

 

[“150503theystackthedeck.mp3”:]

 

Of course De Tocqueville did not really believe in an 'equality of conditions'… because that would mean… if he's honest… 'equality of education'… and this 'men who exercise power' would never allow. It seems to me De Tocqueville is right… that 'commerce' does tend toward a 'universal level' – if not an 'equality of conditions' – recalling our earlier point that 'universal level' implies 'single pattern of thought'… i.e. totalitarianism. This has ever been the direction Plato's Tribe intends to take all of us… globally… while telling us… per Bentham… that as long as we're all 'happy'… our particular place in their 'grand scheme' is 'objectively' fine… being 'objectively' defined… by the 'system' of 'education'… they will ever and always while they exist… stack the deck – always have… always will… while class exists – so… as we said during the February 22, 2015 show… it is on this – the 'system of education' – on which they intend to rely… which is why those they intend for 'low-slotted' positions… are slaughtered by 'terrorists' (across the ideological spectrum… and continents…) when they aspire (against this planned assignment…) higher… and… what has 'power' done in the past when there were 'too many people' – when we started talking to each other globally… getting rowdy… what has 'power' done: starved… crushed… blown our bodies up… in all the 'crises' made especially just for us…

 

…because I do believe that a lot of the apparent 'natural disasters' are not… and certainly the manufactured crises of 'under-the-table-paid-for-terrorist-groups' that cause havoc and destroy our hope – try to… let's don't let that work…

 

It seems to me De Tocqueville is right… that 'commerce' does tend toward a 'universal level' – if not an 'equality of conditions' – recalling our earlier point that 'universal level' implies 'single pattern of thought'… i.e. totalitarianism. This has ever been the direction Plato's Tribe intends to take all of us… globally… while telling us… per Bentham… that as long as we're all 'happy'… our particular place in their 'grand scheme' is 'objectively' fine… being 'objectively' defined… by the 'system' of 'education'… they will ever and always while they exist… stack the deck… so… as we said during the February 22, 2015 show… it is on this – the 'system of education' – on which they intend to rely… which is why those they intend for 'low-slotted' positions… are slaughtered by 'terrorists' (across the ideological spectrum… and continents…) when they aspire (against this planned assignment…) higher…

 

Of course De Tocqueville did not really believe in an 'equality of conditions'… because that would mean… if he's honest… 'equality of education'… and this 'men who exercise power' would never allow.

 

So as existing crises deepen… and in particular as more folks are cut loose from employment – or forced into accepting less-and-less… of everything… and those who accept 'less-and-less'-jobs… and find themselves patching them together… and rushing… rushing… rushing: even in those situations… the legitimacy of 'the state' breaks down – and those kicked to the curb for real… find they have more time… more time to think… more and more folks will be thinking about bigger things… even the biggest things. What has 'power' done in the past when there were 'too many people' – when we started talking to each other globally… getting rowdy… what has 'power' done: starved… crushed… blown our bodies up… in all the 'crises' made especially just for us…

 

…all the while… the supposed more 'realistic' (than 'democracy'…) model of 'China' is shoved at us. Haven't we been hearing this for some time now?… 'power's appreciation of how Chinese global-statesmen 'successfully' 'control' billions of commoner-Chinese… and so… “isn't there a need”… they say disingenuously… “to 'rethink' 'democracy'?…”

 

Last week we noted Karl Popper's point that Marx insufficiently credited the influence of 'the big fist'… the 'power'-guys'… who resist (refuse) all constraints upon their movements… and… (and this is my point…) operate behind scenes to create the 'reality' they need.

 

We can now add to this… that he didn't credit sufficiently the influence of “global 'power'”…

 

…or the degree to which it lives in each and every one of us under 'class': its ranking system… its 'productivity-emphasis'… its 'mind'-deification… all of which nullify our love for our Brothers and Sisters…

 

So as we said in that wordbeat… that the 'scarcity'-mindset is reinforced by the notion of 'knowledge' being scarce… in other show we've said that it's also reinforced… undergirded… by the 'wage work system' in many senses but in particular by the fact that parents have to go out and sell their human energy… and so children are left alone… when they need the tribe… full time… so because appreciation of our children… and love… and time… and attention… has been made a scarce commodity… our children are taught… with no words spoken about it… that love… attention… is something they have to 'earn'… and they grow up with this hunger for it… this need to be 'seen'… to be acknowledged… to be 'of use'… making them… ready soil for 'power' to plant its seeds in.

 

–––

 

[“150503economicruse.mp3”:]

 

…their creation 'capitalism' is sinking… that ship of Compelled Silence… which is the wage-work system… into which we've all been driven… with all our safe harbors inundated… washed into their sea of blood… They of course – those global-state-statesmen – knew all along it was meant to take on water… to bloat… to sink… to cast we hapless-many in the drink… but this 'economic ruse' is but one among their 'High Tech Tools'… …add to that: controlling discourse – our communications – on the Internet… and over the airwaves… and the physical elimination of dissent… by means of their development of EMF weaponry… …all of which they're doing now. Do any of us doubt their objective… is to install hardcore totalitarianism? So what can counter all this? What do we do about it?

 

So how do we seize this moment? How do we take back our lives?

 

It seems to me that with this question our Good Three posed: “[is]… the world-scale centralizing of capital… historically far enough advanced (as suggested by 'the absolute general law') to replace the interstate system's market-regulation via hegemony?…” they are asking if concentrated wealth in the hands of the Miniscule Few can wield an 'authority' equivalent to the 'authority of the market'… 'market-authority' – an equivalent authority based in the undisputed superiority of one set of global-state statesmen –

 

…to squash us… beat us down…

 

…and what I've learned… is that that – this squeeze on us materially…

(…which is what the market is about… and what it's for… what the concentration of all the resources of the planet into tiny… Miniscule Few… hands is for [to get us to do their bidding: “hunger will tame the fiercest animals…” – that's been their m.o. for a long time … thousands and thousands of years… it has served them well… and now 'power' is geared up to fix this class system in place permanently…] so this is a critical juncture… we don't want them to figure out how to snatch from our hands the advantage of… as our Good Three put it… 'electronification'…)

…but this 'economic ruse' is but one among their 'High Tech Tools'…

 

…add to that: controlling discourse – our communications – on the Internet… and over the airwaves… and the physical elimination of dissent… by means of their development of EMF weaponry…

 

…all of which they're doing now. Do any of us doubt their objective… is to install hardcore totalitarianism?

 

So what can counter all this? What do we do about it?

 

As to this matter of the loss of the 'martial-capability' of states… which we questioned during the April 19, 2015 show… our Good Three may only mean this in the sense they profess: that there are no hegemons (hegemonic states) left…

 

…nor can there ever be again…

 

…and in truth… 'hegemons' are but tools… the hidden and bidden global-state-statesmen have ever pulled the strings since they created the global-economy…

 

…and the true 'competition' has always been… since then… to identify the truly 'great' 'men'… of 'world-historic' proportions'…

 

…in truth but abandoned children.

 

These then… are the two ends of our dilemma… the harsh reality that must be faced: our strings are pulled by a Tiny Few… for no other reason than to see… their ignoble vision become reality… to determine who… in their competition for 'Most Misanthropic'… will reign 'supreme'…

 

…and the other side of this ignoble-ness… we-the-people mirror it internally… our mindset has been shaped to reflect… the priorities of 'power' perfectly…

 

…until now…

 

…as we finally see…

 

…their ship is sinking.

 

Friendly amendment: their creation 'capitalism' is sinking… that ship of Compelled Silence… which is the wage-work system… into which we've all been driven… with all our safe harbors inundated… washed into their sea of blood.

 

They of course – those global-state-statesmen – knew all along it was meant to take on water… to bloat… to sink… to cast we hapless-many in the drink…

 

But before then they'd fully intended to winnow our numbers such… that the survivors would be grateful much (a state of mind encouraged and supported – reinforced – by all the apocalyptic… 'fear-your-neighbors' propaganda…

…and have they ever been rolling that out thick and heavy… and the opposite is true… I must say… particularly as lots of good-hearted folks [including my son… addicted to this show I forget the name of… some vampire show…] the opposite happens when we have a crisis like an earthquake or whatever… we pull together… we help each other… the love we have within us is finally able to be expressed – that's the truth… not their so-called 'apocalypse'… please… let's remember that… don't be duped… even if you're hooked in the stories… because it's about forming a crew… 'power' knows what stories will hook us… we have to provide the counter-balance to that… with our discussions…

[“150503habitofobedience.mp3”:]

 

De Tocqueville's notion: 'leveling effect of commerce'… requiring the general imposition of 'the habit of obedience…' is… no less than Marx's 'general law of capitalist accumulation'… attempting to capture an extremely destructive process……in which… we're told… we 'develop' because that which is stolen from us… and from the earth overall… increases in quantity. De Tocqueville of course doesn't think about the depredations upon the earth required to force the globe into a common habit of obedience.

 

It's been difficult for us to come to grips with the reality that there are folks with this level of… essentially self-hate… because “I am thee… thee are me…” we are each other… and you cannot commit genocide… you cannot commit murder of any kind… without there being an element of self-loss in it… because we're all connected…

 

So… before they rolled out 'next-level' 'governance… they'd fully intended to winnow our numbers such… that the survivors would be grateful much (a state of mind encouraged and supported – reinforced – by all the apocalyptic… 'fear-your-neighbors' propaganda…) thankful for the wondrous 'science'… the 'magic' of which was used to 'save' our lives…

 

…so grateful we'd gladly accept… whatever crumbs they'd generously give us.

 

De Tocqueville's notion: 'leveling effect of commerce'… requiring the general imposition of 'the habit of obedience…' is… no less than Marx's 'general law of capitalist accumulation'… attempting to capture an extremely destructive process…

 

…in which… we're told we 'develop' because that which is stolen from us… and from the earth overall… increases in quantity. De Tocqueville of course doesn't think about the depredations upon the earth required to force the globe into a common habit of obedience.

(And this is of course Bentham's obsession as well: all these guys around the same time processing heads-rolling after the French Revolution and trying to figure out how to instill 'discipline'… how to have us do it for them – internalize discipline – and Bentham said… “have the parents do it… duh…” and they did.)

Marx… on the other hand… who does acknowledge this earth-impact… and our – we-the-people's – resulting general immiseration…

 

…doesn't think about the common imposition of 'the habit of obedience' as the necessary concomitant to the devastation of the earth…

 

…i.e.… we have to go along… with what is clearly insane.

 

[“150503seeyadontneedya.mp3”:]

 

But here's the catch that caught Marx's eye: that because there's a 'relative surplus' of us… this surplus of us grows “proportionately to the advances made by capitalist production not because the productiveness of social labour decreases, but because it increases…” […automation… 'electronification' of processes… instantaneous communication and flow of information… which to acquire converted huge amounts of the earth into physical things and money (financialization)… – and as all that 'social labor' increases… 'power' don't need us no more… it stole our substance and now it's time ('power' believes…) to say “bye… see ya… don't need ya…” Alright… so what does 'power' do? Now… Marx could see far but he couldn't see as far as into the diseased souls of these guys… plug in the technology… and you have a lot of room for a lot of misanthropy… a lot of genocide… a lot of blood-flow… a lot of phony-crises… and 'natural disasters'…

 

Let's consider… as we read… the full implications of Marx's “absolute general law of capitalist accumulation”:

We again meet here the previously defined law [in Capital, Vol. 1, p. 644: the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as “the capitalist mode of production develops and an ever larger quantity of capital is required to employ the same amount of labour-power…”] the previously defined law that the relative decrease of the variable capital, […'variable'… and this refers to us… we-the-people… 'variable' meaning: “how low can we make them go?” – 'power' is asking right this second… – P.S.] hence the development of the social productiveness of labour, […see… while we're driven low… we're supposed to be happy because 'we're' being 'developed' – our 'social existence'… i.e. our collective… concretized… capitalized selves… our 'stolen-human-energy-vested-in-objects' form… is growing… (yea!…) now… us individually… not so much… Now that's crazy. Why do we accept that deal? We should be talking about that… – P.S.] involves an increasingly large mass of total capital to set in motion the same quantity of labour-power and squeeze out the same quantity of surplus-labour. Consequently, the possibility of a relative surplus of labouring people […you feel me… it's time for 'heart'… phony 'Reason' and phony 'Rationality' has had its day – it's time for 'heart' to reclaim the intellectual discourse… because we are not happy with this deal… we do not want to see ourselves referred to as 'laboring people who are a “relative surplus”… meaning… that 'the economy' is all that matters… and not us… and 'the economy' being but the tool of global-'power' to privatize all the resources of the globe… and roll out its installed totalitarian state… But here's the catch that caught Marx's eye: that because there's a 'relative surplus' of us… this surplus of us grows “proportionately to the advances made by capitalist production…” – P.S..] develops proportionately to the advances made by capitalist production not because the productiveness of social labour decreases, but because it increases […automation… 'electronification' of processes… instantaneous communication and flow of information… which to acquire converted huge amounts of the earth into physical things and money (financialization)… – and as all that 'social labor' increases… 'power' don't need us no more… it stole our substance and now it's time ('power' believes…) to say “bye… see ya… don't need ya…” Alright… so what does 'power' do? Now… Marx could see far but he couldn't see as far as into the diseased souls of these guys… plug in the technology… and you have a lot of room for a lot of misanthropy… a lot of genocide… a lot of blood-flow… a lot of phony-crises… and 'natural disasters'… – P.S.] It does not therefore arise out of an absolute disproportion between labour and the means of subsistence, or the means for the production of these means of subsistence, but out of a disproportion occasioned by capitalist exploitation of labour, a disproportion between the progressive growth of capital and its relatively shrinking need for an increasing population. (Capital, Vol. 3, p. 222)

[“150503talkaboutpower.mp3”:]

 

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

 

The rate of profit falls – and ever-expanding growth in the 'rate of profit' is what defines 'capitalism' – as the 'rate of profit' falls as 'capitalism' 'develops'…

 

…so 'capitalism' is doomed (was doomed from its onset…) – Immanuel Wallerstein was simply telling the obvious truth…

 

…can we please start talking about 'power'?

 

…'capitalism' is done… 'power' ain't… is the point… that we have to start discussing…

 

So as the rate of profit falls as 'capitalism' 'develops'…

 

…in earth-terms: the more of the earth (the physical resources of the planet…) are converted to 'capital'… (i.e. quantified and put in private hands…) – which… as crises deepen… ever-tends to its money-form ('financialization'… no more 'earth' to buy… plus… they know some difficult times are arriving and so it's good to have your stash…) whence conveyed to fewer and fewer hands…

 

…as this happens… there is less and less earth to do anything with… i.e. 'employ' us… we… the source of everything… we… the ones who make everything…

 

…nothing needs to be 'produced'… there is too much 'stuff' as it is (and they've already automated our humble tasks…) and so there's 'too many' of us (by their lights…) 'too many' stomachs… and we become 'superfluous'.

Marx concludes by saying that the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is “in every respect the most important law of modern political economy… It is from the historical standpoint the most important law.” [Capital, III] It implies “that the material productive power already present, already worked out, existing in the form of fixed capital, together with the scientific power, population etc., in short all conditions… for the reproduction of wealth, i.e. the abundant development of the social individual – that the development of the productive forces brought about by the historical development of the productive forces brought about by the historical development of capital itself, when it reaches a certain historical development of capital itself, when it reaches a certain point, suspends the self-valorization of capital, instead of positing it.… (Roman Rosdolsky, The Making of Marx's 'Capital', 1968, p. 381 – 382)

We are at that point. Marx is right… this is the most important thing for us to be thinking about: as our social… collective… concretized… existence… stands in vast quantity hierarchically over us… and runs us via automation and electronification… we ain't needed anymore… And… no more 'capitalism'… This is why I'm focusing on this issue of 'obedience' right now… it seems like 'the point'… this issue of 'obedience'… that Marx did not devote enough time to… the point we just made: that you cannot have the accumulation of the entire resources of the planet into this Tiny Few's hands… unless you've had… prior to this… the broad imposition of the habit of obedience… and Marx didn't have time to get to this… So we have to finish that work… Right? We have to talk about the other side of our twin-dilemma: the fact that we've internalized this mess…

 

Apologies… for ending the show early… but these days I find… each day it seems like they 'up' the level of intensity on me… in every sense… I can't go for a walk these days… and I try to go every day… without it suddenly turning into Grand Central Station or something… Point being: not feeling able to continue at this moment… so we're going to continue this next week.

 

–––

 

* “WUR of May 10th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 3):

“This is always…” [Betty Carter]

[“150510thespear.mp3”:]

 

Perhaps there is someone out there who could help establish… using my home as base… for a physical space… a non-profit for the planning of just such an artistic flowering that an advancement of global human freedom means.

 

What we are doing… is for always… and for everything… Why should we settle? We deserve it all because we are 'all'… We are as infinite are our love…

 

But it is also true… that until we have a movement… a global movement… 'power' will force us to choose… and… to the one I love… I would not want her to experience any diminishment of her life… nor would any of you for yours…

 

I am won… that is certain… and now I am even more motivated… to do what I can… to see a global movement for generalized human freedom…

 

Perhaps there is someone out there who could help establish… using my home as base… for a physical space… a non-profit for the planning of just such an artistic flowering that an advancement of global human freedom means.

 

I think it's time to seize the initiative… because 'power' can keep us reacting ad infinitum. Just a few people can change the world… reclaim our global humanity.

 

Unfortunately… heretofore 'power' has provided the most dramatic example of what a very few… a Miniscule Few… can do… to us all… all life devastated in the wake of their very focused energy… it's time to stand with the earth and provide the counter-energy to their global misanthropy-plan.

 

All we would need is a few folks with vision in the arts to comprise the guidance – I suppose they would officially be a 'board'… but perhaps a better image is a spear.

 

–––

 

[“150510thestorymustchange.mp3”:]

 

…and we've found 'coercion' and 'division' to be… in many ways… the twofold-heart of the system of 'class'… in order to compel us… from birth onwards… 'to come in'… and to convince us to believe 'there is no alternative' to it… and that… therefore… “labor is our inevitable lot”… that we are forever condemned to implement the plans of others… and to never probe our own… or even to come to know they exist… for far too many of us… …and what we have been considering in our recent focus on the importance of being able to express our love… is that a key place to begin digging for these hidden truths… is with that core hidden truth within each one of us in a 'class' system: that our human energy should not be directed by the state… (…and in future shows we'll be considering that this is the missing piece in Alice Miller's analysis – although her contribution to our understanding of our entrapment under 'class' is critical… and she is absolutely right when she says: “As long as the child within is not allowed to become aware of what happened to him or her, a part of his or her emotional life will remain frozen, and sensitivity to the humiliations of childhood will therefore be dulled.… All appeals to love, solidarity, and compassion will be useless if this crucial prerequisite of sympathy and understanding is missing…”

 

Today’s show: “Establishing a 'safe' place to plan and express our love: places for the cultivation of soul-sufficiency… which necessarily means: helping each other get 'big' – the process of reclaiming… sharing… and expanding our original 'selves'…” (Part 4)

 

May 6, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Over the course of these conversations… certain 'root-issues' catch at our feet and tell us to pause and dig deeper. We need 'numbers'… we've said repeatedly over the years… in order to begin to create the alternative to global-'power'. “What erodes our numbers?”… we've paused several times at that question… pointed our 'logic' at it… and found such things as: coercion in child-rearing… and the various forms of 'division' that are sown in us and which course essentially throughout the overall 'system' (all of them variations of the basic division between 'citizen' – 'barbarian'… or… put another way… the division between intellectual and manual labor…)

 

…and we've found 'coercion' and 'division' to be… in many ways… the twofold-heart of the system of 'class'… in order to compel us… from birth onwards… 'to come in'… and to convince us to believe 'there is no alternative' to it… and that… therefore… “labor is our inevitable lot”… that we are forever condemned to implement the plans of others… and to never probe our own… or even to come to know they exist… for far too many of us…

 

…and most recently… our foot tripped on the issue of 'obedience'… as the base mindset… the deep training… of 'class'… needed to inculcate a belief in the inevitability of 'power' (without…) and internalize discipline ('power' within…) early… requiring a relinquishment of our own power… our unique gifts… in order that global-'power' might direct our human energy as it sees fit…

 

And all of these key… root… issues… 'power' continuously keeps pushing underground… and manufactures innumerable song-and-dance numbers to keep us distracted from recognizing the thought… that there are… quite likely… hidden truths we should be delving for.

 

Please listen again to this wordbeat-excerpt from a recent show on this question:

“So all the various ways our numbers are systematically reduced… our numbers available to come to consensus… on the need to discuss what should be the world we live in – how do we make what we want… come to be… Because we in the U.S. have this codified right to 'pursue happiness'… and that is not an individual pursuit… they try when they put out their propaganda to frame it that way and make it seem loony… but… rather… it is in fact our right as a people to come together and collectively discuss: What does it mean… to 'pursue happiness'… if not to realize our inherent gifts… our right to grow our knowledge… as they do!… or as they think they do but as we do authentically… …our right as a people to pursue truth… We have the codified right to come together and discuss how we do that… as a collective… as a people… In a sense I'm asking the same question that our Academe Three are asking: How do we confront the dilemmas facing our ability to move on as a global humanity? How do we do that? Because we are… all of us global humans…living in a moment when the story has to change…” [From our February 1, 2015 show.]

…and it is not coincidence that… this moment when all the suppressed issues of 'class'… of 'power'… that explain the nature of our containment… are coming to the surface… is simultaneously the moment that Karl Marx… Rosa Luxemburg… and Our Good Three have been telling us inevitably falls due – when a 'system' that has been eating without stint is finally brought the check…

 

…how did they put it?

 

…as the “'social productiveness' of labor” increases – as 'power' sucks the life out of us and vests it in (relatively) permanent objects (an objective only realized with our obedience…) – they have no need for the greater number of us…

 

…and… they – Karl, Rosa and our Good Three – are unanimous… that the day will arrive – and that day is now – when 'power' has no need for a significant percentage of us… So we have a choice… we can either claw and scratch at each other to be one of those few 'the system' has a need for… or we can choose each other: love… and solidarity…

 

…and what we have been considering in our recent focus on the importance of being able to express our love… is that a key place to begin digging for these hidden truths… is with that core hidden truth within each one of us in a 'class' system: that our human energy should not be directed by the state…

(…and in future shows we'll be considering that this is the missing piece in Alice Miller's analysis – although her contribution to our understanding of our entrapment under 'class' is critical… and she is absolutely right when she says:

As long as the child within is not allowed to become aware of what happened to him or her, a part of his or her emotional life will remain frozen, and sensitivity to the humiliations of childhood will therefore be dulled.

 

All appeals to love, solidarity, and compassion will be useless if this crucial prerequisite of sympathy and understanding is missing. (Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-rearing and the Roots of Violence, p. xv)

…and that this is the critical juncture… where that must change… our human energy must be reclaimed…

 

–––

 

[“150510safedesign.mp3”:]

 

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

 

…and that this is the critical juncture… where that must change… our human energy must be reclaimed…

 

…and to begin to do that… we need 'safe spaces'… as…

 

…reclaiming our human energy globally is based in…

 

…“reclaiming our 'within'…”

 

…and how do we do that if not by coming together in discussion – with a dual purpose of understanding: global-'power'… and 'internalized discipline' / the inauthentic (false) self – i.e., in order to upend… both of them…

 

…and while there will be inevitable infiltration… if we 'do our planning' of these spaces right… we can nullify that tactic…

 

–––

 

Sisters and Brothers… we've been discussing the two sides to our dilemma… which is our containment under 'class': the 'outer' and the 'inner'…

The Outer – from the Inner

Derives its Magnitude –

'Tis Duke, or Dwarf, according

As is the Central Mood –

…and we've asked… where… at what point… does the reclamation of the true self – that self capable of becoming 'soul-sufficient' – start… and… with Emily's guidance… we've turned the spotlight on the internalization of global 'power'…

 

…global-'power' without… is premised on… global-'power' within…

 

…and noted the critical fact that as we reclaim our 'within'…

 

…we get targeted.

 

…which… again… makes the creation of 'safe spaces' a critical need…

 

What makes a space 'safe'?… safe for the envisioning and building of a new world without coercion? Put practically: no agents… no infiltration. But… as that's not possible… is there a way to design a space… a project… such that the very act of participation in it… builds it… moves it toward its goals…

 

If so… what would that design be?

 

What helps to realize the goal of a world premised on individual self- and soul-sufficiency? Let's slightly modify Kropotkin's guidance: he told us that “freedom is always the best solution to the problem of gaining our freedom…”

 

If we want a world with no coercion… a space that's 'safe' would also be premised on the absence of coercion… beyond fundamental agreement on the end-goal as the purpose of our participation…

 

–––

 

[“150510soulsupport.mp3”:]

 

We're making the case here that reclaiming the abandoned 'self' requires that we confront our training in obedience. Now… Alice Miller makes an interesting point… one which could be interpreted as a version of what De Tocqueville said about 'obedience'… Recall that he said that: “Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience; but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal […control the thoughts and you do control the reality – I guess that's the essence of what De Tocqueville is saying here…]

 

We're making the case here that reclaiming the abandoned 'self' requires that we confront our training in obedience. Now… Alice Miller makes an interesting point… one which could be interpreted as a version of what De Tocqueville said about 'obedience'… Recall that he said that: “Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience; but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal […control the thoughts and you do control the reality – I guess that's the essence of what De Tocqueville is saying here… – P.S.] and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive…” Alice Miller writes… using the word 'adaptation' in the sense of 'obedience':

One might ask whether adaptation must necessarily lead to depression [which… she argues… it does under 'class'… – P.S.] Is it not possible, and are there not examples, that emotionally conforming individuals may live quite happily? There are indeed such examples, and above all there were more in the past, for depression is a disease of our time. Within a culture that was shielded from other value systems, such as that of orthodox Jewry in the ghetto… an adapted individual was not autonomous and did not have his own individual sense of identity (in our sense) that could have given him support; but he did feel supported by the group.… Of course, there were some exceptions… [She is but pointing out that our nature is communal… that we are tribal… and that until 'rule' commandeered it… our communalism was used for us… – P.S.] Today it is hardly possible for any group to remain so isolated from others who have different values. Therefore it is necessary today for the individual to find his support within himself, if he is not to become the victim of various interests and ideologies. This strength within himself – through access to his own real needs and feelings and the possibility of expressing them – thus becomes crucially important for him on the one hand, and on the other is made enormously more difficult through living in contact with various different value systems. What's missing here in her analysis is hidden 'power'… because way she puts it suggests that there are these equally-weighted competing ideologies and value-systems… when… in fact… when you have amassed all the resources of the planet to support your particular ideology… that moves the entire world the way you want it… – P.S.] These factors can probably explain the rapid increase of depression in our time and also the general fascination with various groups. [She's thinking here about the 'appeal' and spread of fascism… which she expands on in For Your Own Good… – P.S.] (Alice Miller, Prisoners of Childhood, p. 59)

–––

 

[“150510thechoice.mp3”:]

 

The authority of the earth – present in the urge to grow our gifts in adventurous interrelationships with new lands and experiences… no less than in our communal traditions – is voiced in classless… as well as in 'class' societies. On the contrary… it is precisely the point of the totalitarian drive which came to exist in the era of De Tocqueville and Bentham to silence this authority of the earth… in order to compel our participation in the project of achieving… and fixing permanently in place… global-'power'.… The issue is 'force and division'… the choice before us in this transitional time is between the Open Society and Totalitarianism…

 

This raises an interesting question… one that also comes up in this notion of 'the development of the productive forces'… and returns us to the question we asked last week… “How is it possible for us to think that 'power' 'develops' us as it uses us?”

 

I think the way clear through all the issues compressed in this discussion is… again… to remember the authority of the earth as it is ever-expressed in counter-definition to the false authority of 'power'… or… as Nikola Tesla put it: “With… the full development and a perfect system of wireless transmission of energy to any distance man will be able to solve all the problems of material existence. Distance, which is the chief impediment to human progress, will be completely annihilated in thought, word and action. Humanity will be united, wars will be made impossible and peace will reign supreme.” (Quoted in Waking Up, p. 59 – 60)

 

The authority of the earth – present in the urge to grow our gifts in adventurous interrelationships with new lands and experiences… no less than in our communal traditions – is voiced in classless… as well as in 'class' societies. On the contrary… it is precisely the point of the totalitarian drive which came to exist in the era of De Tocqueville and Bentham to silence this authority of the earth… in order to compel our participation in the project of achieving… and fixing permanently in place… global-'power'.

 

It is under a global-'class' system when our need to grow our gifts is utterly silenced.

 

The issue is 'force and division'… the choice before us in this transitional time is between the Open Society and Totalitarianism…

 

…or… in Kropotkin's terms: between Freedom… and Authority.

 

–––

Marx concludes by saying that the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is “in every respect the most important law of modern political economy… It is from the historical standpoint the most important law.” [Capital, III] It implies “that the material productive power already present, already worked out, existing in the form of fixed capital, together with the scientific power, population etc., in short all conditions… for the reproduction of wealth, i.e. the abundant development of the social individual – that the development of the productive forces brought about by the historical development of the productive forces brought about by the historical development of capital itself, when it reaches a certain historical development of capital itself, when it reaches a certain point, suspends the self-valorization of capital, instead of positing it. Beyond a certain point, the development of the powers of production becomes a barrier for capital; hence the capital-relation a barrier for the development of the productive powers of labour. When it has reached this point, capital, i.e. wage-labour, enters into the same relation towards the development of social wealth and of the forces of production, as did the guild system, serfdom, slavery, and is necessarily stripped off as a fetter. The last form of servitude assumed by human activity, that of wage-labour on one side, capital on the other, is thereby cast off like a skin, and this casting-off itself is the result of the mode of production corresponding to capital; the material and mental conditions of the negation of wage-labour and of capital, themselves already the negation of earlier forms of unfree social production, are themselves results of its production process.

 

“The growing incompatibility between the productive development of society and its hitherto existing relations of production expresses itself in bitter contradictions, crises, spasms. The violent destruction of capital not by relations external to it, but rather as a condition of its self-preservation, is the most striking form in which advice is given it to be gone, and to give room to a higher state of social production.”

 

The third section of the Rough Draft ends with this prognosis of “breakdown.” (Roman Rosdolsky, The Making of Marx's 'Capital', 1968, p. 381 – 382)

(Hasn't the Political Theater produced by the Right of late been amusing?… their relentless… no matter how nonsensical… attempts to 'blame' the sinking global-economy… and the loss of the hegemonic status of the US… on the Left… as they tear and scrape… fangs all a'froth… in their single-minded attempt… to regain the office of US president?)

Within the social relations of capitalism, however, the workers need an enormous effort to combat the limitations of their wage-labour status, the status more impotent today within the production process than in any previous epoch of capitalism; for never before has the individual performance of a worker been reduced to such fragments and fractions of fragments of a job as is his contribution to the present-day high-grade socialised labour process. At the same time, the productivity of his labour has increased a thousandfold compared to the labour done in the one-man shops of the Middle Ages. But the productivity is not his in terms of his individual labour, and taking his individual operations as a standard of judgment the productivity is that […or seems to be that… – P.S.] of the capital in whose employment he works and dependent on the efficiency of the management. Hence the managerial fetishism that pervades our society, the accepted belief that modern industrial establishments or indeed large-scale establishments of any kind cannot be run without their hierarchy of managers in control of every detail of production and of organisation and in particular, of course of the workers. This fetishism accrues to the socialisation of labour by the fact that it is in the wrong hands, wielded by management in the service of capital and for the exploitation of labour instead of being the foundation for working class power in a society of production.… As seen from that angle the functions and conditions of [workers'] own socialised labour take on an appearance as of an object-nature extraneous to them, to be studied, elaborated, and enforced upon them by separate agents. (Alfred Sohn-Rethel, “The dual economics of transition,” The Labour Process and Class Strategies, 1976)

 

We'll be returning to this quote as we continue unpacking the issue of 'obedience' with the help of Alice Miller in future shows… Suffice to say… an initial thought on this… is that the confusion we feel at age… say… two… as we experience the imposition by parents of their requirement for obedience… that that confusion over 'obedience'… which gets resolved under 'class' as 'power'-worship… easily transfers over to the whole mysterious work-process itself – a cast-veil of mystery that reinforces our submission to what seems the vast knowledge of an inscrutable 'power'. What we have to discuss is how to reincorporate this knowledge back within us… – P.S.]

So this transition-moment we're in… is a 'getting our own back'-moment… and that starts within… becoming 'soul-sufficient'… in places… spaces… that foster the rediscovery of 'self'… and in fostering the same in our Brothers and Sisters…

 

–––

[Today’s reading: we continue with Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…, “1968: The Great Rehearsal”… – P.S.]

 

–––

 

* May 10th, 2015 reading: returning to Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…

 

[“150510.mp3”:]

 

1968: A Rehearsal of What?

 

[During our April 19, 2015 show… our Good Three asked…]

 

If 1968 is analogous to 1848 as a failed world-scale revolution and as a world-historical great rehearsal, for what sort of world-revolution may it be the great rehearsal? Can we on analogy project today's underlying secular trends, specify what was new about yesterday's new social movements, and thereby sketch in advance likely trajectories of the confrontation and progressive social changes they suggest? As we move chronologically towards the 1990s and the 2000s, our historical social system, the capitalist world-economy, continues to be faced with difficulties in four principal arenas.

[…and the first one was the shake-up in the geo-political scene… the claims of the global statesmen of China… and Russia… and India… rising… as they jockey for place… no hegemonic state to cast the deciding vote. Recall they said:]

…Hegemony is giving way to its conceptual counterpoint, the condition of rivalry… The possible realignments of alliances between the five major actors – the US, the USSR, Western Europe, Japan, and China – are only now beginning. And everyone is approaching such realignments most gingerly and most fearfully. Hence, US hegemony is being eroded without any clear, and therefore reassuring, world order to replace it.…

[…and then they wondered whether… and how… the total consumption of the earth… that pot of cash they sit on… conveyed with it the necessary control mechanisms to… in my words… keep the cattle herded…

 

We proceed now to the other difficulties Plato's Tribe face in their 'self'-less determination… to rule the human race… – P.S.]

Second, the contradiction between labor and capital, given both the increasing centralization of capital and the increasing marginalization of large sectors of the labor force, will remain elemental. The new social movements have increased the worldwide pressure for higher wage-levels with world capital seeking ever more to respond to this pressure by reducing the size of labor input. As a result, there has perforce been a rising level of material well-being for a significant sector of workers and a deepening relative immiseration of many others, hence an absolute and relative increase in the inequalities of well-being among the world's workers. There has been thus a widening scope for the mechanism of unequal exchange in world-scale accumulation.

 

At the same time, capital's increasing search for safe havens from organized labor unrest carries with it of course a growing relocation of industrial proletarianization and hence of collective efforts to control that process and / or to ameliorate its effects. The net result may well be an increasingly class-conscious focus to the nationalist sentiment that pervades the zones outside the core, particularly in semi-peripheral states. Similar phenomena are increasingly occurring in socialist states, notably (but certainly not only) in Poland. [And in this context we should consider further Sohn-Rethel's point about how global 'power's design of the global 'class' work-system – i.e. a work-system global in scope – so (continuously and increasingly…) fragments our work experience that we feel it as external… and superior… to us – i.e. as disempowering… – P.S.]

 

Third, the ability of states to control their civil societies is diminishing. Historically, it is through the constitution of civil society, and its subsequent extension – notably, through the 1848-engendered 'incorporation of the working classes into society' of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – that one traces the successive transformations of the monarchies and patriciates of the nascent capitalist world-economy into its constituent and still evolving states. The organizing contradiction from the inception of stateness, state power versus civil rights and liberties, remains central to the state – civil society relation. Over time, of course, the scope of each has greatly expanded, thus sharpening the struggle, which the post-1968 world-scale 'human rights' movements profoundly reflect. The notion that ruling strata seek to legitimate their rule – so that they are as morally obligated to command as those they claim to rule are morally obligated to comply – is both very old and very widespread.

 

Weber's central theoretical claim – that certain beliefs in popular consciousness are an indispensable condition of routine compliance and so of the 'stability' of the relational network administering the rules – remains plausible.…

[A restatement… it seems… of Bentham's point (or Plato's… for that matter… that 'the people' must be trained to obey by strictly controlling what thoughts are allowed into our consciousness… for 'governance' to occur… – P.S.]

…However, the very increase in the efficiency of the ways in which each state controls its civil society, the expansion of an instrumental bureaucracy, itself creates the limits of its efficacy by generating an ever more widespread skepticism among those whom the bureaucracy is administering. The reach of authority has come to be more and more denied, as both the US and USSR governments, among others, have increasingly discovered. 1968 symbolized the outburst of such skepticism. For a while, the coming to state power of old social movements limited this corrosion of authority. But these new regimes were quickly swept up in the increasingly 'anti-state' consciousness of the mass of the population.

 

This process has been spectacularly abetted by the impact of new technology on the ability of states to control their space. Electronification is physically different from electrification and does not so much abridge the space of social relations as abridge the capacity to control social relations through controlling their space. The implications for stateness remain to be explicated – and experienced. But the control of populations through controlling the space they and their relations with one another occupy – as citizenry, as communities, as individuals – is in the process of being fundamentally undermined int he two key directions formed by the modern world-system's spatial jurisdictions, within states and between states.

 

Fourth, the demands of the disadvantaged status-groups – of gender, of generation, of ethnicity, of race, of sexuality – will get ever stronger. We must hear Gallaudet here and add the physically handicapped, who comprise the true pariah stratum of historical capitalism. All six status-group relations are deeply different one from another, and even more so in their specificities in the world's social structures, but they share three features. Each was a ground of a new left reproach of the old left. Each in a very real sense is as much a contradiction among the people as an element of the capital – labor or state – civil society contradiction. And the oppressed of each explicitly seek not the turning of the tables but social equality, not only structurally but ideologically as well (in the sense of the elimination from social consciousness of presumptions of superiority / inferiority in relations of gender, generation, ethnicity, race, sexuality, able-bodiedness).

 

We therefore project probable realignments in the alliance systems of the interstate system along with increased sharp economic fluctuations, a sharpened (and in particular a geographically widened) class struggle, an increasing inability of states to control their civil societies, and a persistent reinforcement of the claims to equality by all the disadvantaged status-groups. It is very unclear, in the nature of things, where this will lead. After 1848, the world's old left were sure that 1917 would occur. They argued about how and where and when. But the middle-range objective of popular sovereignty was clear. After 1968, the world's antisystemic movements – the old and the new ones together – showed rather less clarity about the middle-range objective. They have tended therefore to concentrate on short-range ones. There is clearly a danger that if organizations concentrate on short-range objectives, even in the name of long-range ideals, they may sacrifice middle-range success or even middle-run survival.

 

We have no answer to the question: 1968, rehearsal for what? In a sense, the answers depend on the ways in which the worldwide family of antisystemic movements will rethink its middle-run strategy in the ten or twenty years to come. 1917, for good or ill, was the result of an enormous amount of collective and conscious effort by the world's old left in the years following 1848. No doubt it was also the result of structural developments in the capitalist world-economy. But it would not have happened without human organization and revolutionary programs.

 

The risks of drifting are very clear. The tenants of the status quo have not given up, however much their position is weakened structurally and ideologically. They still have enormous power and are using it to reconstruct a new inegalitarian world order. They could succeed. Or the world could disintegrate, from a nuclear or an ecological catastrophe. Or it could be reconstructed in the ways in which people hoped, in 1848, in 1968.

[This concludes Giovanni Arrighi’s, Terence K. Hopkins’, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements]

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* “Please read for the WUR show of February 29th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’” (Part 2) Show:

 

“Excerpt from: “Hegemony and Antisystemic Movements,” by Giovanni Arrighi”

from: “Hegemony and Antisystemic Movements,” by Giovanni Arrighi

 

Once again, however, we had very little to say about the “what,” “who” and “how” of the possible reconstruction. We reiterated the challenges and opportunities that the decline of the states as significant organizing centers of the global economy’s development posed to antisystemic forces. We pointed out that “What movements and social groups expect in terms of democracy, human rights, equality, and quality of life has become extraordinarily high, just as the states find it increasingly difficult to meet these demands. This is the crunch the world-system is facing as the twentieth century comes to an end” (Arrighi et al 1992: 232-6). And we again underscored that “The key problem for putative antisystemic movements in the 1990's is the search for a new or renewed ideology, that is, a set of strategies that offers some reasonable prospect for fundamental social transformation” (Arrighi et al 1992: 239).

 

But all we had to say about this “set of strategies” is that they were absent and that their absence translated into an embarrassing silence of antisystemic movements North and South, concerning the three spontaneous claims of oppressed persons and groups: the right to total otherness; the right of power confrontation other than as part of a social project; and the right of instant egalitarianism. The old antisystemic movements had contested these claims on the ground that they were the bearers of a viable and much more efficacious alternative. But once the new antisystemic movements had rejected this alternative as neither viable nor efficacious without putting anything in its place, the old antisytemic movements found it extremely difficult to deal with the spontaneous claims that came once more to the fore.

 

We illustrated these difficulties with the ambiguity with which antisystemic militants confronted three political situations “which may well serve as prototypes for the forms of struggles of the next 30 years”: the Iranian revolution as the incarnation of the right to total otherness; the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait as the incarnation of the right of power confrontation; and the massive unauthorized migration from South to North as the incarnation of the right to instant egalitarianism. In the face of this ambiguity, we concluded with a rhetorical question and a warning very similar to that uttered on the eve of 1989: “where is... a new strategy for transformation in the direction of a democratic, egalitarian world, the erstwhile objective of the antisystemic movements? The dilemmas of the antisystemic movements seem to be even more profound than those of the dominant forces of the world-system. In any case, without a strategy, there is no good reason to believe there is any invisible hand that will guarantee transformation in a good direction, even when and if the capitalist world-economy falls apart” (Arrighi et al 1992: 242)

 

More specifically, the neo-liberal counterrevolution did not just result in the destruction of the illusions of the older family of antisystemic movements as we pointed out. As we do not seem to have realized, it had also a profoundly corrupting and divisive impact on the 1968 family of antisystemic movements. In the North in general and in the US in particular, the corruption of antisystemic forces has primarily taken the form of an acritical acceptance of the benefits of financial expansion and of the conversion of dominant groups to the anti-authoritarian and anti-statist thrust of 1968. In the South, it has taken the form of an equally acritical acceptance of the neo-liberal or some other religious creed as a prop or a substitute for the discredited ideology and practice of national emancipation. In themselves these trajectories of corruption have divided and increasingly alienated from one another antisystemic forces within the South and between North and South. But underlying the division and mutual alienation of antisystemic forces was the success of the neo-liberal counterrevolution in shifting competitive pressures from North to South. Corruption and divisions have not prevented antisystemic forces from resisting with some success further advances of the counterrevolution--from Seattle, through the formation and consolidation of the Social Forum, to the anti-war movement of 2003. But it remains unclear whether this resistence can produce an agency capable of promoting change in the direction of a more egalitarian and democratic world (see Silver and Arrighi 2001).

 

The second critical consideration concerns our failure to foresee, as we could have with a different understanding of the long-term dynamic of the modern world system, the short- and middle-term impact of the counterrevolution and underlying financial expansion, not just on the antisystemic movements of 1968, but on the world capitalist system as instituted under US hegemony. We failed to foresee, first, the reflation of US world power that occurred in the 1990's and, second, the mid-term de-stabilization and possible systemic breakdown that seems to have begun in the early 2000's. Breakdowns of this kind have been typical of past hegemonic transitions and one may well be on the verge of occurring in the present transition as well (Arrighi and Silver 2001). But whether it does or not, the fact that in the present as in previous transitions pro-systemic forces have unwittingly played a leading role in creating the conditions of the breakdown makes the very concept of antystemic forces and movements problematic. It blurs the distinction between pro- and anti-systemic forces, because nominally pro-systemic forces engage in activities that de-stabilize the system, while nominally anti-systemic forces engage in activities that have the opposite effect. The difficulties we face today in drawing such a distinction are not altogether different from those we still face in interpreting the 1930's and 1940's, when fascism and colonial imperialism were de-stabilizing forces and communism emerged as a stabilizing force.…

 

V. World Hegemonies as Passive Revolutions

 

As Beverly Silver (2003) has shown, major explosions of social conflicts were crucial components of past hegemonic transitions. Not only were they a factor in the destruction of the old hegemonic world order. In addition, they contributed to defining the social contents of the emerging hegemonic world order by bringing to the fore demands and aspirations of subordinate groups that the new dominant bloc, under the leadership of the rising hegemonic state, selectively repressed and accommodated.

 

There is a close resemblance between the “repression-accommodation” process through which successive hegemonic powers have increased the social inclusiveness of the world capitalist system and the “restoration-revolution” process that characterizes Gramsci’s passive revolutions. Indeed, we may well say that each successive hegemony of world capitalism has been characterized by a particular passive revolution, in the course of which the hegemonic state exercised a Piedmontese function vis-a-vis the world capitalist system as a whole. The central question of the twenty-first century is whether the renewal/transformation of the world social system towards greater equality and democracy still requires the exercise of a Piedmontese function and, if it does, which state or coalition of states will actually have the capabilities and dispositions necessary to exercise it.

 

A proliferating literature on the crisis of national states and the formation of a transnational capitalist class and world proletariat implicitly or explicitly rules out both the need and the possibility of such a function. Some advocate the formation of a purely class-based “world party” as the most likely agency of the egalitarian and democratic renewal of world society (e.g. Boswell and Chase-Dunn 1999). Others see a rebellious and mobile world proletariat (or “multitude”) as already poised to attain instant egalitarianism through massive unauthorized migration from South to North (e.g. Hardt and Negri 2000).

 

These assessments of the present and future of antisystemic forces, like some of our own assessments in Antisystemic Movements, miss the significance of the US-led neo-liberal counterrevolution of the 1980's and 1990's in reflating US world power through an accommodation of the anti-authoritarian and anti-statist aspirations of 1968 and a simultaneous repression of its egalitarian aspirations. The result of this new passive revolution has been a general crisis of dictatorships and a sharp increase in between-state and within-state inequality--an increase that belies the idea of increasing equality under the impact of massive migration and makes extremely problematic the idea of a purely class-based “world party.”

 

From this standpoint, the East Asian economic renaissance has had a major contradictory impact. On the one hand, it has been the single most important force counteracting the tendency towards greater inequality among countries and world regions. On the other hand, it has contributed to growing inequality within countries (Arrighi et al 2003). As a result of these contrasting tendencies and the growing industrial, commercial and financial weight of the region in the global economy, East Asia in general and China in particular have emerged as the arbiter of the egalitarian and inegalitarian tendencies that confront one another in the ongoing hegemonic transition to a yet unknown destination.

 

At the present stage of the confrontation, it is impossible to tell which tendency will eventually prevail. The outcome largely depends on the kind of social conflicts that will emerge out of the growing inequality within countries and on the kind of regional order/disorder that will emerge out of these conflicts. Whatever the outcome, however, it is hard to believe that states will not actively intervene in the struggles not just in support of particular social groups but also as their substitutes, thereby exercising some kind of Piedmontese function. It is unlikely that in exercising this function any individual East Asian state can become hegemonic globally. But it is not just possible but likely that individually or collectively East Asian states will play a decisive role in shaping the social contents of any future world order. (Giovanni Arrighi, “Hegemony and Antisystemic Movements,” 2003, Paper prepared for the International Seminar REGGEN 2003, Hegemony and Counter-hegemony: Globalization Constraints and Regionalization Processes, Rio de Janeiro, August 18-22, 2003. An earlier version of this paper under the title “Antisystemic Movements and Gramsci’s ‘Piedmontese Function’” was presented at the conference The Modern World-System in the Longue Duree, Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University, Binghamton, November 2-3, 2001.)

 

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* Please read for our February 29, 2015 show…

 

“Excerpt from: Prison Notebooks by Antonio Gramsci” [forthcoming]

 

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* “WUR of January 11th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”:

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[Please check out the audio for the next ‘non-coercion commercials’ we’re planning (spoken word is from the December 28, 2014, January 4, 2015 and October 13, 2013 radio broadcasts):

 

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“Now these were just tossed-off asides… but I’ve often found these ‘asides’ to be the main purpose of the speech – embedded propaganda. He said: • “Youth! You have limited time… you must be productive [activists]!” No… I wouldn’t be sitting in this seat if that were so. • “We must support the drunk!” OK… that was random… clearly suggestive of propaganda… ‘power’ has a lot invested in having its agents use the ruse ‘addictions’… i.e. “I’ve been wounded by ‘the system’…” to distract us from our purpose. • “There is no alternative […where have we heard that before?… – P.S.] we have a void in organizations…” We should have a word – maybe ‘double-dump’ (although that sounds a bit earthy… maybe that makes it a good choice for earth-speak…) – for the multiple-simultaneous-plants-in-a-single-thrust this man favored. And this propaganda is akin to that invitation we discussed earlier… in which young people are lured into betrayal of their brothers and sisters by telling them that “only the most [add desired quality here… ‘clever’… ‘radical’?…] ‘see’… that this tactic is the most [whatever…]; and he is encouraging them to think of the ‘solution’ in terms of building an ‘organization’ [‘party’ perhaps?… hierarchically-structured and disciplined?… ‘power’ would love that…] • “Violence disempowers the system…” Could you show me the analysis on that please? • “We don’t know what we want… yet…” Yes we do… yes we do… we don't want to be forced anymore… We want a world in which we can share our gifts without force… • “…we have to smash the system to have a hole to build a society around…” [Excuse me… we – we- the people – built this stuff… this is our stuff… why would we ‘blow it up’? Our hands built it!] All of which displays (I believe) intentional misunderstanding (and misleading) about what is ‘the system’… ‘the state’… ‘power’…”

 

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We all (under ‘class’) receive deep training in powerlessness as infants… when we see adult distress… and then our own… and then are told… in blows and boredom… in curses and coldness… in false-feeling-expressed… and in obliviousness: “you can do nothing about it…” so we let ourselves go. …I mean… you can actually see this in two-year-olds… you can see them trying to tempt adults back to themselves… back to reality… back to playfulness… back to joy… – and then their on-going perplexity… their on-going question: “Why? Why not? What’s wrong?…” and you can also see… see them give up on it… see them bow… to what feels like the inevitable: powerlessness… trained in us… beginning with our parents… because they have no choice: they have to work. We don’t own ourselves.

 

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“We took time with Galbraith because he was studying ‘power’s track… the slime they drag behind them… showing its global nature… and how ‘governance’ is done clandestine… by applying and withdrawing ‘credit’… we see this whenever large sums are exchanged between large banks and states… or large states to smaller…. or on Galbraith’s and Henry’s scale… by the big global banks setting interest rates… and imposing ‘austerity’ globally… and we know that ‘austerity’ means ‘disciplining the people to accept less and less…’ less and less control over our own lives… less and less earth for our personal use… the absence of leisure for ourselves and our children… the absence of health… less and less safety net… and of course less and less food… especially untainted and fresh…. And this is a global imposition of ‘less’… accomplished ‘simply’ by siphoning ‘money’ (a representation of earth…) out of our communities… by ‘power’s henchmen in government… quite nonchalantly… who sadly or blithely (it little matters…) cite their ‘budget authority’… raise it up high and pound it hard on our heads. The wage work system destroys our empathy… …the surveillance state destroys our trust… each one of us is meant to grow our full gifts… division… coercion… and necessity forestalls their development… the hiding and pretense warps our humanness… and absolutely none of it (not remotely…) brings us happiness.”

 

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Today’s show:

 

What we’re asking today [once we get past the shady ‘technical difficulties’…] is: “What is… what we on the Left have been pleased to call… ‘the class struggle?”… and: “What kind of ‘struggle’ is it… when one side doesn’t know its opponent… while for the other… its every move must be conscious… as it sees itself as being ‘Mind’ incarnate?… The writings and conversations in this space… have advanced the position… that we-the-people are being intentionally manipulated… managed… moved… toward a given future — and if so… the absence of any discussion necessarily means the conscious actors utilize clandestine means. It’s time for broad public discussion of this question… and what it means for the quality of the world we live in… And we’re also asking… How does ‘power’ know what ‘dissent’ is useless (or… better yet… protects it…) and what dissent threatens it?… and it must know this in order to direct its agents…

 

What we’re asking today [once we get past the shady ‘technical difficulties’…] is: “What is… what we on the Left have been pleased to call… ‘the class struggle?”… and: “What kind of ‘struggle’ is it… when one side doesn’t know its opponent… while for the other… its every move must be conscious… as it sees itself as being ‘Mind’ incarnate?

 

The writings and conversations in this space… have advanced the position… that we-the-people are being intentionally manipulated… managed… moved… toward a given future — and if so… the absence of any discussion necessarily means the conscious actors utilize clandestine means. It’s time for broad public discussion of this question… and what it means for the quality of the world we live in…

 

…because if it is only a tiny few who shape our common global society… and these tiny few jealously guard their monopoly control of decision-making… the fact of that imbalance will continue to build on itself… and dissent will forever be suppressed… because this tiny few have the will… and the means… to do it.

 

And we’re also asking…

 

January 7, 2015… Sisters and Brothers:… How does ‘power’ know what ‘dissent’ is useless (or… better yet… protects it…) and what dissent threatens it?…

 

…and it must know this (and this is obvious…) in order to successfully (in the first instance…) provoke it… and (in the second instance…) destroy or deflect it…

 

…i.e. it must know this in order to direct its agents…

 

As you read the quotes below (I’ll be filling in the context… and adding my comments… access permitting… shortly…) please consider this: There is a material reality below… which means… propaganda must walk a fine line… between what it wants us to think – by skewing our perception of reality – and physical reality itself. For the purposes of our gaining our freedom… the two major considerations are really both manifestations of one thing: energy. As Craig Calhoun says: “Energy is basic.” (And I would add… human energy is most basic.) So the question to ask ourselves as we read that political theory… is… “Is it rooted in earth?”… “Does it come from a clear-minded focus on our relationship with the earth… and the centrality of ‘work’… to whatever ‘society’ we design for ourselves?”… “Or does it try to overwhelm… with ‘difficulties’… and ‘complexities’….

 

We begin with the Winter, 2014 Slingshot article that we first encountered last week… one that I said really disturbed me – its notion of ‘embracing collapse’ particularly:

We all sense the system is unsustainable – environmentally and economically. What that means is that the system as it is currently organized is on the verge of being swept away. [Notice how the passive tone alone immediately connotes… simultaneously ‘no conscious actors’ and ‘inevitability’… – P.S.] The system wants everyone to think that if it collapses, this will bring a period of famine, epidemic, destruction and suffering – and too many of us willingly buy into this narrative. Doom think is fashionable, accompanied by resignation and a reorientation to purely personal concerns since “we can’t do anything anyway…” Naturally the system seeks to preserve itself by psychologically and culturally promoting fear of its own collapse in such a way that people feel powerless, resigned and isolated so they’ll passively accept business as usual.

 

So Mr. Palmer’s claim that predictions of ‘famine’ etc. is ‘doom-think’… is quite difficult to take seriously… …and even more difficult to take seriously is his celebration of ‘collapse’ while carefully omitting any reason to celebrate… and lots of implied reasons… to fear…

 

We all sense the system is unsustainable – environmentally and economically. What that means is that the system as it is currently organized is on the verge of being swept away. The system wants everyone to think that if it collapses, this will bring a period of famine, epidemic, destruction and suffering – and too many of us willingly buy into this narrative. Doom think is fashionable, accompanied by resignation and a reorientation to purely personal concerns since “we can’t do anything anyway…” Naturally the system seeks to preserve itself by psychologically and culturally promoting fear of its own collapse in such a way that people feel powerless, resigned and isolated so they’ll passively accept business as usual.

[This is what I would call ‘sophisticated-slippery’ – another ‘tell’ that it’s ‘power’-propaganda: i.e. that it’s not just that its meaning is difficult to pin down – that it means both what it seems to be saying… and its opposite… simultaneously – but that it seeks to foster what it claims to be trying to prevent: fear and resignation. This is particularly evident once you read all three of these paragraphs…

 

The central slipperiness – aside from not being clear about what he means by ‘the system’ – is both telling us that the “the system as it is currently organized is on the verge of being swept away…” and that ‘the system’ “wants us to think” that this will mean famine… etc…

 

Now this is misleading because the ‘power’-guys… in their planning for the world they want… put the earth and its resources… the implications of resource shortages… front and center… as… without the actual picture of the physical reality… how can you plan? Recall what Craig Calhoun (from the London School of Economics… and it don’t get too much more ‘power’-purposed in Academia than that – outside of Oxford / Harvard / Cambridge / Yale…) recall what he had to say:

The extent to which nature is used up or irretrievably damaged is a problem for the future of capitalism (as well as life generally) It is a problem that exceeds the categories of economic analysis. This is partly because natural resources are extremely hard to price appropriately (especially with attention to long-term sustainability)… Understood as essentially limited resources, nature is also an object of competitive appropriation among capitalist organizations and the states on which they depend.… But 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 arid Arabia and crowded China fight to acquire rights to fertile Africa. (Craig Calhoun, “What Threatens Capitalism Now,” Does Capitalism Have A Future?)

So Mr. Palmer’s claim that predictions of ‘famine’ etc. is ‘doom-think’… is quite difficult to take seriously…

 

…and even more difficult to take seriously is his celebration of ‘collapse’ while carefully omitting any reason to celebrate… and lots of implied reasons… to fear:

Point being: let’s get beyond anger and blame… and embrace a strategy… that places us… beyond betrayal… You see: it’s the strategy that’s key… not some false attempt to ‘master’ our feelings… and the only strategy that places us beyond agents is not ‘issue-based’ – i.e. ‘fix-the-state-based’ – but rather ‘claiming-the-all-based’: a global reclaiming of human energy.

 

But another way to approach the system’s unsustainability is to rejoice, because this means that our current hassles are near an end. Part of the unsustainablility of the system is us. Our role – if we’re willing to step up can be to rise up against the system and its meaningless jobs, its production for profit not use, its ugly industrial machines, its police and endless wars, and its isolation, selfishness and loneliness.

 

Environmental collapse isn’t the only option and the question now is whether we can shake off our collective pessimism and see that the kind of collapse we’re about to be part of is really up to us. Sure, if nothing happens soon industrial capitalism will run up against natural limitations, killing us and itself. But we’re not dead yet — why the mournful sad faces when there’s still time to fight back against the coal mines, the oil trains, the fracking, and the greed, shortsightedness and corporate and governmental structures that are killing the planet? (Jesse D. Palmer, “The Darkness Before the Dawn: Resist Inertia, Embrace Collapse,” Winter, 2014, Slingshot)

The word ‘collapse’… instead of ‘transition’ – the choice of which (‘collapse’… rather than ‘transition’…) in repetition… with the word ‘inevitable’… seems likely the point of this propaganda…

(…and I don’t think it can be unconscious propaganda… in this case… given this is not some stroked and massaged pundit over the airwaves… but… we are supposed to believe… an unencumbered actor.

 

And I suppose I should reiterate here again… how helpful it is… to have an accurate understanding of ‘the state’ – i.e. that ‘the state’ exists within… i.e. that we are ‘the system’… a balm in a sense… to the wound that opens when we sense ‘betrayal’.

 

In one of my first blogs (“Is It Never Too Late To Be The Parent I Should Have Been?”) I said something like this: “anger at others… is really anger at oneself… which is really anger at ‘the system’…” Looking back on those words from today’s vantage… I can appreciate how much farther we can see… thanks to our found ancestors’ wisdom… those the state suppressed… because they are threatening to it… in particular: Miklos… Alice… Popper: even just these three I think… are sufficient… to plot our roadmap to the future.

 

Point being: “anger at the system equals anger at ourselves equals anger at our brothers and sisters who betray us”… means we will be – each one – ‘betrayer’ and ‘betrayed’… until we end this sick system.

 

Point being: let’s get beyond anger and blame… and embrace a strategy… that places us… beyond betrayal… You see: it’s the strategy that’s key… not some false attempt to ‘master’ our feelings… and the only strategy that places us beyond agents is not ‘issue-based’ – i.e. ‘fix-the-state-based’ – but rather ‘claiming-the-all-based’: a global reclaiming of human energy.)

It’s important for us to understand how propaganda works… the power of a single word… And the idea planted sub-consciously by this Slingshot piece… is the notion that ‘chaos will come’… ‘inevitably’. So his message: “Hope for the best… stay the course… don’t panic…” is disingenuous – the opposite overt message from the intended covert effect: i.e. fear and resignation… as ‘collapse is inevitable’… and – as the other Slingshot piece we looked at last week (by Finn) showed – to continue to do what can never result in human freedom (and this is the goal we’ve set…) doesn’t feel good… If we trust what our body says… trust its ‘logic’… it will guide us to what we need to do… move forward the strategy that will result in all humans getting free.

 

It’s important for us to understand how propaganda works… the power of a single word. (At the very beginning of Waking Up I recalled how a single word in a review of the book Dog Years drew me to the writer Mark Doty.)

 

As another example… recently my son and I had a conversation about the ‘Hunger Games’ films. When I called them propaganda his response was… “apparently the people fight back… they revolt…” But the story-line is not where the most insidious propaganda resides. Insidious propaganda works by planting notions beneath our notice… beneath our conscious awareness… repeated until it sets – and with ‘Hunger Games’… that repeated notion would be ‘districts’ – a world organized in districts – to get us thinking in terms of them… as the way the world ‘should be’ ‘structured’. To move an immensity (we-the-people) requires a gradual exposure… reinserted consistently… to the idea being promoted. ‘Power’ relies on frequent repetition of propaganda plants to guide us to the future they plan. And the idea planted sub-consciously by this Slingshot piece… is the notion that ‘chaos will come’… ‘inevitably’. So his message: “Hope for the best… stay the course… don’t panic…” is disingenuous – the opposite overt message from the intended covert effect: i.e. fear and resignation… as ‘collapse is inevitable’… and… as the other Slingshot piece we looked at last week (by Finn) showed: to continue to do what can never result in human freedom (and this is the goal we’ve set…) doesn’t feel good… our body sees the inauthenticity… and we long for honesty in all things.

 

If we trust what our body says… trust its ‘logic’… it will guide us to what we need to do… move forward the strategy that will result in all humans getting free.

 

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What propaganda does is to confuse… discourage us from trusting our body’s truth… and in so doing provides… the fog in which ‘power’ hides. For as we’ve said… ‘power’ must hide to survive… so they spin many webs to catch authentic thought… so they can fill it with poison… and see it turned… to feed what before it found abhorrent… Empire (the book) is the web… for the children of the Left.… This reads like Kissinger’s latest (Kissinger on the right flank… these guys on the left… and we’re… back in the harness again…): “The Westphalian peace reflected a practical accommodation to reality, not a unique moral insight. It relied on a system of independent states refraining from interference in each other’s domestic affairs and checking each other’s ambitions through a general equilibrium of power.” [You can hear in this the appeal to global-statesmen today… across place… — P.S.] No single claim to truth or universal rule had prevailed in Europe’s contests. [As if ‘rule’ is not a claim to “a single truth…” — P.S.]

 

What propaganda does is to confuse… discourage us from trusting our body’s truth… and in so doing provides… the fog in which ‘power’ hides. For as we’ve said… ‘power’ must hide to survive… so they spin many webs to catch authentic thought… so they can fill it with poison… and see it turned… to feed what before it found abhorrent… Empire (the book) is the web… for the children of the Left.

The emblem of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, an eagle with two heads, might give an adequate initial representation of the contemporary form of Empire. But whereas in the earlier emblem the two heads looked outward to designate the relative autonomy and peaceful coexistence of the respective territories, in our case the two heads would have to be turned inward, each attacking the other.

[And this is another propagandistic subliminal association: because we’re good-hearted… and ‘power’ knows this… knows we don’t want to be in eternal conflict… they know we hunger… long… dream… of peace.

 

This reads like Kissinger’s latest (Kissinger on the right flank… these guys on the left… and we’re… back in the harness again…):

No truly global “world order” has ever existed. What passes for order in our time was devised in Western Europe nearly four centuries ago, at a peace conference in the German region of Westphalia, conducted without the involvement or even the awareness of most other continents or civilizations… So it was that in Europe the conditions of the contemporary world were approximated: a multiplicity of political units, none powerful enough to defeat all others, many adhering to contradictory philosophies and internal practices, in search of neutral rules to regulate their conduct and mitigate conflict.

 

The Westphalian peace reflected a practical accommodation to reality, not a unique moral insight. It relied on a system of independent states refraining from interference in each other’s domestic affairs and checking each other’s ambitions through a general equilibrium of power. [You can hear in this the appeal to global-statesmen today… across place… – P.S.] No single claim to truth or universal rule had prevailed in Europe’s contests. Instead, each state was assigned the attribute of sovereign power over its territory.…

[As if ‘rule’ is not a claim to “a single truth…” – P.S.]

…Of all these concepts of order, Westphalian principles are, at this writing, the sole generally recognized basis of what exists of a world order. The Westphalian system spread around the world as the framework for a state-based international order spanning multiple civilizations and regions because, as the European nations expanded […and this is a euphemism for “the spread of ‘civilization’…” for “the ‘civilizing effect’ of ‘the European system’…” – P.S.], they carried the blueprint of their international order with them. While they often neglected […‘neglected’… how delicately put… – P.S.] to apply concepts of sovereignty to the colonies and colonized peoples, when these peoples began to demand their independence, they did so in the name of Westphalian concepts […because: ‘there is no alternative’ (yet…) – P.S.]

 

…and this… I think… is where the question we ended last week’s show comes in… along with Popper’s explanation of Hegel’s ‘philosophy of identity’ (discussed in our December 7, 2014 show. In which we said that ‘power’ really likes this Heraclitian notion of “…the unity of opposites…” – the notion of our being willingly… happily… gratefully… subservient to them… …what we saw: the uses to which ‘philosophy’ has been put across the ages of ‘class’… beginning… most notably… with Heraclitus… who believed… or wanted subjugated peoples to believe… that all opposites… i.e. we-the-people and ‘power’… share a fundamental unity… and interest in common… and that con has been maintained by ‘rule’ consistently to this day… when it appears in a now-recurring notion of ‘world order’. The question we asked last week was: “Which ‘side’ — who — forms the other in this struggle?… ‘power’ vs. us… Who’s determinative?… Who’s reactive?… My point is that… when ‘trends’… the reflection of actual material reality… are viewed with the lens “keep the cattle herded”… instead of ’the inner logic of accumulation’… these questions answer themselves: i.e. our resistance to what… what cannot be denied is a tightening global vise… only shows ‘power’ where to make adjustments…

 

…The contemporary, now global Westphalian system – what colloquially is called the world community – has striven to curtail the anarchical nature of the world with an extensive network of international legal and organizational structures designed to foster open trade and a stable international financial system […it is because of these multiple converging economic and environmental crises… and the fact that ‘power’ knows that the kind of ‘stability’ that he's talking about – which was never a reality in the first place – ‘power’ can no longer deliver. They are trying to accustom us – on Right… on Left… and all points in-between – to the ‘need’ for the ‘big men’ stepping in… taking in hand our needs… – P.S.], establish accepted principles of resolving international disputes, and set limits on the conduct of wars when they do occur. This system of states now encompasses every culture and region. Its institutions have provided the neutral framework for the interactions of diverse societies — to a large extent independent of their respective values. (Henry Kissinger, World Order, 2014, p. 2 - 6)

…and this… I think… is where the question we ended last week’s show comes in… along with Popper’s explanation of Hegel’s ‘philosophy of identity’… discussed in our December 7, 2014 show… in which we said that ‘power’ really likes this Heraclitian notion of “…the unity of opposites…” the notion of our being willingly… happily… gratefully… subservient to them. Here’s an excerpt: “The leading idea, and at the same time the link between Hegel’s dialectics and his philosophy of identity, is Heraclitus’ doctrine of the unity of opposites. ‘The path that leads up and the path that leads down are identical’, Heraclitus had said…” – [“…the unity of opposites…”: – This has always been ‘power’s wet-dream… the fantasy that we will just dissolve into ‘our role’… their ‘idea’ of us… into our assigned tasks… and be ‘one with them…’ as they ‘lead us into Perfection…’ It’s what they've wanted from Day One… ‘Unity of Opposites’… i.e.… us dissolved into them… – P.S.]

 

…what we saw: we saw the uses to which ‘philosophy’ has been put across the ages of ‘class’… beginning… most notably… with Heraclitus… who believed… or wanted subjugated peoples to believe… that all opposites… i.e. we-the-people and ‘power’… share a fundamental unity… an interest in common… and that con has been maintained by ‘rule’ consistently to this day… when it appears in a now-recurring notion of ‘world order’.

 

The question we asked last week was: “Which ‘side’ — who — forms the other in this struggle?… ‘power’ vs. us… Who’s determinative?… Who’s reactive?

 

We asked this in response to our Trio saying that the structural transformations of the world-system — which they will view in three aspects: the widening and deepening of ‘stateness’… the expansion of ‘ruler’-interlinkages globally… and our — we-the-people’s — global inter-relations mirroring those of ‘our’ state’s global inter-relations… i.e…. our identification with our ‘masters’… Marcuse’s ‘democratic introjection.’

 

My point is that… when ‘trends’… the reflection of actual material reality… are viewed with the lens “keep the cattle herded”… instead of ’the inner logic of accumulation’… these questions answer themselves: i.e. our resistance to what… what cannot be denied is a tightening global vise… only shows ‘power’ where to make adjustments… and the work of our three… based as it is honesty… heart… and reality… was clearly (to ‘power’…) worrying… and to massage troubled minds among the designated future managers… they commissioned Hardt and Negri.

 

Our Trio here are mis-seeing… they have ‘reality’ on its head… we-the-people aren’t ‘leading’ anything… we are being led…

 

All of this is so obvious… once we’re able to sit back and look at it…

 

…the question is… what are we going to do with it?

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[During the show we decided to skip ahead to the end of this Empire quote (because we were short on time…) to the paragraph that begins: “…A new sense of being is imposed on the constitution of Empire by the creative movement of the multitude…” – P.S.]

 

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The first head of the imperial eagle is a juridical structure and a constituted power, constructed by the machine of biopolitical command. The juridical process and the imperial machine are always subject to contradictions and crises. Order and peace – the eminent values that Empire proposes – can never be ahead but are nonetheless continually reproposed. The juridical process of the constitution of Empire lives this constant crisis that is considered (at least by the most attentive theoreticians) the price of its own development. There is, however, always a surplus. Empire’s continual extension and constant pressure to adhere ever more closely to the complexity and depth of the biopolitical realm force the imperial machine when it seems to resolve one conflict continually to open others. It tries to make them commensurate with its project, but they emerge once again as incommensurable, with all the elements of the new terrain mobile in space and flexible in time.

 

The other head of the imperial eagle is the plural multitude of productive, creative subjectivities of globalization that have learned to sail on this enormous sea. They are in perpetual motion and they form constellations of singularities and events that impose continual global reconfigurations on the system. This perpetual motion can be geographical, but it can refer also to modulations of form and processes of mixture and hybridization. The relationship between “system” and “asystemic” cannot be flattened onto any logic of correspondence in this perpetually modulating atopia. Even the asystemic elements produced by the new multitude are in fact global forces that cannot have a commensurate relationship, even an inverted one, with the system. Every insurrectional event that erupts within the order of the imperial system provokes a shock to the system in its entirety. From this perspective, the institutional frame in which we live is characterized by its radical contingency and precariousness, or really by the unforeseeability of the sequences of events — sequences that are always more brief or more compact temporally and thus ever less controllable. It becomes ever more difficult for Empire to intervene in the unforeseeable temporal sequences of events when they accelerate their temporality. The most relevant aspect that the struggles have demonstrated may be sudden accelerations, often cumulative, that can become vitally simultaneous, explosions that reveal a properly ontological power and unforeseeable attack on the most central equilibria of Empire.

 

Just as Empire in the spectacle of its force continually determines systemic recompositions, so too new figures of resistance are composed through the sequences of the events of struggle. This is another fundamental characteristic of the existence of the multitude today, within Empire and against Empire. New figures of struggle and new subjectivities are produced in the conjunction of events, in the universal nomadism, in the general mixture and miscegenation of individuals and populations, and in the technological metamorphoses of the imperial biopolitical machine. These new figures and subjectivities are produces because, although the struggles are indeed antysystemic, they are not posed merely against the imperial system – they are not simply negative forces. They also express, nourish, and develop positively their own constituent projects; they work toward the liberation of living labor, creating constellations of powerful singularities. This constituent aspect of the movement of the multitude, in its myriad faces, is really the positive terrain of the historical construction of Empire. This is not a historicist positivity but, on the contrary, a positivity of the res gestae [“the events or circumstances that relate to a particular case, especially constituting admissible evidence in a court of law”] of the multitude, an antagonistic and creative positivity. The deterritorializing power of the multitude is the productive force that sustains Empire and at the same time the force that calls for and makes necessary its destruction.

 

At this point, however, we should recognize that our metaphor breaks down and that the two-headed eagle is not really an adequate representation of at the relationship between Empire and the multitude, because it poses the two on the same level and thus does not recognize the real hierarchies and discontinuities that define their relationship. From one perspective Empire stands clearly over the multitude and subjects it to the rule of its overarching machine, as a new Leviathan. At the same time, however, from the perspective of social productivity and creativity, from what we have been calling the ontological perspective, the hierarchy is reversed. The multitude is the real productive force of our social world, whereas Empire is a mere apparatus of capture that lives only off the vitality of the multitude – as Marx would say, a vampire regime of accumulated dead labor that survives only by sucking off the blood of the living.

And here let’s pause to recall a point made during our Waking Up Radio show of February 16th, 2014:

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So the ‘story’… at base… that Left pundits are telling is as old as ‘class’… it’s called “the class struggle.”… And the issue before you… if you’re ‘power’… is how to insert your ‘piper’ in that story…

 

So the ‘story’… at base… that Left pundits are telling is as old as ‘class’… it’s called “the class struggle.”

 

This is the obvious story… the only story… for youth on the Left to latch upon… as it’s the truth….

 

And the issue before you… if you’re ‘power’… is how to insert your ‘piper’ in that story – and… recall… the ‘piper’ used to catch rats… but the people betrayed him… and so he decided to ply his trade with a different master.

 

But let’s pause for a moment and ask: does this make sense – inserting a ‘piper’ – … if we’re wearing our vampire hat?

(…and that’s a really good metaphor by the way…

 

…light… exposure… is what they’re most afraid of… it’s extraordinary how apt the vampire metaphor is… for ‘power’. It surpasses the ‘Mr. Smith Virus’ in this [addressing / explaining ‘power’s need to stay hidden… i.e. its fear of the truth… but also I suppose in its seductiveness…] which shouldn’t surprise us… as it was millennia in the shaping… to fit… ‘we-the-people’s dilemma… in attempting to wrestle with ‘power’…)

Because if it’s the right strategic move – inserting a ‘piper’ – … based on an accurate analysis… and you have bottomless resources with which to do it… ‘prove’ it… and centuries piled high of experience doing it….

 

If you must hide to survive… and you are the tiny few… far out-numbered by the billions of minds (potentially) devoted to the problem of how to get rid of you… i.e. the ‘role’ of ‘ruler’… how do you stay hidden?… except by systematic… continuous… misdirection (after of course you’ve established atomization… which defeats thought’s continuous growth…)? The thoughts you enforce on ‘the people’ must systematically and uniformly point away from you. Is this not obviously what ‘power’ must do?

 

And… as ‘power’ can’t defeat truth… and clearly they’ve tried… Fascism… Miklos shows us… was their most strenuous (because compressed within such a short time…) attempt at this…

– and by ‘defeat truth’ I mean in this instance ‘defeat the story “the class struggle”’… replace the reality that “there are a tiny few who want to rule over the rest…” with “there are a tiny few who are ‘the best’.”

‘Power’ has given its every waking breath to establish that Plato-driven myth in enough of our heads. It will never abandon it… it’s too core to their world-view and plans… but…

 

…as they see themselves as being masters of strategy… and with mountains of money… and think-tanks a’plenty… and bought-brains to fill them… we’d be foolish indeed to think they have no ‘Plan B’. (This too… is from Plato… who advised ‘power’: always temper the ideal… with the possible….)

 

And if mis-direction is key to keep the people from seeing you… you must give them a villain… prop it up as a target… to absorb all the world’s willingness to wrestle with wrong… to draw and expend… direct down useless efforts… and pass the uselessness on in the bargain… down… down… down the road… to subsequent generations… on and on flows confusion… ad infinitum…

 

…or so you hope.

 

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Returning to Empire, (the book):

Once we adopt this ontological standpoint, we can return to the juridical framework we investigated earlier and recognize the reasons for the real deficit that plagues the transition from international pubic law to the new public law of Empire, that is, the new conception of right that defines Empire. In other words, the frustration and the continual instability suffered by imperial right as it attempts to destroy the old values that served as reference points for international public law (the nation-states, the international order of Westphalia, the United Nations, and so forth) along with the so-called turbulence that accompanies this process are all symptoms of a properly ontological lack. As it constructs its supranational figure, power seems to be deprived of any real ground beneath it, or rather, it is lacking the motor that propels its movement. The rule of the biopolitical imperial context should thus be seen in the first instance as an empty machine, a spectacular machine, a parasitical machine.

Let’s pause again and recollect our first visit to Empire (the book) during the Waking Up Radio show of September 14th, 2014:

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…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….

 

Over the next few shows… we’re going to be thinking through what that means in political terms.

 

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.)

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Am I being clear enough about the connections between ‘power’ hiding… their employing propaganda – layered hierarchical propaganda to correspond to the various ranks of us they've created – propaganda to help them hide… and stay hidden – and what we on the Left have been accustomed to call ‘the class struggle’…? Is Shakespeare right when he says, “all difficulties are but easy… when they are known…"? If so… we don't yet know… our opponent… Re: Empire (the book)… These are the points they hope have been established: ‘Power’… as the organized force of global-state-statesmen… doesn’t exist… it has been ‘dematerialized’ and dispersed… it is held by us… because we are “the productive capacity of ‘Empire’”… we are no longer ‘common’… we have become ‘the Multitude’… and ‘the Multitude’ is ‘the system’. This is entertainment and pacification for the more privileged… In this moment we’re in… at this juncture… if that critical piece of ‘ontological’ [“…to do with the nature of being…”] ‘Marxist’ political theory don’t say this: “‘Power’ is global and consciously organizes and acts as such… so the only possible successful challenge to this… is one that matches it… i.e. one in which we organize a global response consciously… organized globally consciously as such…” it’s propaganda.

[Am I being clear enough about the connections between ‘power’ hiding… their employing propaganda – layered hierarchical propaganda to correspond to the various ranks of us they’ve created – propaganda to help them hide… and stay hidden – and what we on the Left have been accustomed to call ‘the class struggle’…? Is Shakespeare right when he says, “all difficulties are but easy… when they are known…”? If so… we don’t yet know… our opponent… – P.S.]

Returning to Empire (the book)

…A new sense of being is imposed on the constitution of Empire by the creative movement of the multitude, or really it is continually present in this process as an alternative paradigm. It is internal to Empire and pushes forward its constitution, not as a negative that constructs a positive or any such dialectical resolution. Rather it acts as an absolutely positive force that pushes the dominating power toward an abstract and empty unification, to which it appears as the distinct alternative. From this perspective, when the constituted power of Empire appears merely as privation of being and production, as a simple abstract and empty trace of the constituent power of the multitude, then we will be able to recognize the real standpoint of our analysis. It is a standpoint that is both strategic and tactical, when the two are no longer different. [Which ‘two’?… Who knows?… Who cares?… It don’t matter… because their purpose is but to confuse… and… ultimately… to de-fuse… – P.S.] (Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, p. 59 - 63, Empire, (2000)

Their efforts up to this point have been devoted to putting the full weight of their full capabilities for generating bullshit in the form of slick, convoluted, (they hope) impenetrable misdirection and deceit… behind the much more concise… and to the same effect of… the phrase “there is no alternative…”

 

These are the points they hope have been established: ‘Power’… as the organized force of global-state-statesmen… doesn’t exist… it has been ‘dematerialized’ and dispersed… it is held by us… because we are “the productive capacity of ‘Empire’”… we are no longer ‘common’… we have become ‘the Multitude’… and ‘the Multitude’ is ‘the system’.

 

This is entertainment for the more privileged… as they have nothing better to do… and life loves mental challenges. But look at what this indulgence costs… in the spent blood and lives of our Brothers and Sisters… those ‘classed’ as ‘hands’ for this sick system.

 

Of course it’s more than ‘entertainment’ and ‘pacification’ (in a simple sense alone…) it’s also wooing those it needs for management roles into complicity… salving their doubt… dissolving any lingering fellow feeling.

 

And all this because… those with public voices refuse to admit… publicly… that ‘power’ is a conscious actor… and it acts clandestinely.

 

In this moment we’re in… at this juncture… if that critical piece of ‘ontological’ [“…to do with the nature of being…”] ‘Marxist’ political theory don’t say this: “‘Power’ is global and consciously organizes and acts as such… so the only possible successful challenge to this… is one that matches it… i.e. one in which we organize a global response consciously… organized globally consciously as such…” – stated as simply and concisely as this… it’s propaganda. This is where we are at: simply stated is best. We are a global One challenging a global ‘Power’… No further words – excepting of course Popper’s and Alice’s for inspiration… and for cementing our certainty – no further words of explanation of this moment are needed… only action.

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[Today’s reading: We are – briefly interrupting our reading of Chapter 5 – continuing our reading of Chapter 2 of Giovanni Arrighi’s, Terence K. Hopkins’, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…: “Dilemmas of Antisystemic Movements”… and including some excerpts from Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri… – P.S.]

 

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* January 11, 2015 reading: Chapter 2 of Giovanni Arrighi’s, Terence K. Hopkins’, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements… “Dilemmas of Antisystemic Movements”… as well as excerpts from Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri

 

“In the course of the twentieth century, indeed defining it, a massive sea-change has been occurring in the social relations of accumulation… so structurally transformed that the very workings of the accumulation process appear to be historically altered. It is this ongoing transformation that has continually remade the relational conditions both of the organizing agencies of accumulation and of those in fundamental struggle with them, the antisystemic movements; and so have continually remade as well the relational character of the struggle itself and hence the nature of the movements defined by it…” – [Implied in this… when viewed with our lens of: “controlling us takes precedence over accumulation for itself”… is a sea-change in how the so-called rulers decided to extend and intensify that control… a constant process of ‘power’ trying to ‘figure out’ a move… a hold… we can’t get out of…. The means of course they used were two… one… their traditional vise of credit… and two… per Hegel’s guidance – and De Tocqueville suggestive…: tie them up in laws till they cry, “Uncle!” – make involvement in decision-making for the conditions of our lives so ‘complicated’ and onerous… we ‘choose’… to bow out of it… – P.S.]

 

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In the course of the twentieth century, indeed defining it, a massive sea-change has been occurring in the social relations of accumulation. In a sentence, the relational networks forming the trunk lines [central supply line of a system or network] of the circuits of capital have been so structurally transformed that the very workings of the accumulation process appear to be historically altered. It is this ongoing transformation that has continually remade the relational conditions both of the organizing agencies of accumulation (by definition) and of those in fundamental struggle with them, the antisystemic movements; and so have continually remade as well the relational character of the struggle itself and hence the nature of the movements defined by it. To retrace the steps: the life cycles of the various movements have been a part of and have helped to form the structural shift; hence the relational struggles defining the movements as antisystemic; hence the movements themselves and the trajectories that make them antisystemic. We depict the ongoing transformation here by outlining three of its faces in the form of structural trends.

[Implied in this (if I’m not jumping the gun again…) as another word for ‘capital’ is ‘stimulus’… or ‘credit’… or ‘tool to effect social transformation… an upheaval in our settled… self-determined… social relations’ – so implied in this ‘transformation of the relational networks of the accumulation process’… when viewed with our lens of: “controlling us takes precedence over accumulation for itself”… is a sea-change in how the so-called rulers decided to extend and intensify that control. Because the facade ‘endless accumulation’ as a motive is… in reality… the motive “intensify the hold”… what is really going on behind it… is a constant process of ‘power’ trying to ‘figure out’ a move… a hold… we can’t get out of…. The means of course they used were two… one… their traditional vise of credit… and two… per Hegel’s guidance – and De Tocqueville suggestive…: tie them up in laws till they cry, “Uncle!” – make involvement in decision-making for the conditions of our lives so ‘complicated’ and onerous… we ‘choose’… to bow out of it… – P.S.]

“In one guise the transformation appears as simultaneously an increasing “stateness” of the world’s peoples (the number of “sovereign states” having more than tripled during the twentieth century) and an increasingly dense organization of the interstate system. Today virtually the whole of the globe’s nearly five billion people are politically partitioned into the subject populations of the hundred-and-sixty or so states of an interstate system, which contains a large number of formal interstate organizations. This might be called the widening of stateness. The deepening of stateness is another matter.… Of even more importance here, in some ways, is the still far greater growth in the density of the interstate system.” [This is… I guess you could call it ‘power’s process of cementing its own consciousness as global-state-statesmen… as understanding that they are about… as Kissinger says… as understanding that they are about… together… maintaining what is euphemistically called ‘world order’… – P.S.] “Hence, to a degree and extent never envisioned by the successful social and national movements when they eventually gained state power, both what agencies of a state administer internally, and how they do this, is increasingly determined, to use a Weber paring, not autonomously (as befits sovereignty) but heteronomously (as befits what?)”

 

In one guise the transformation appears as simultaneously an increasing “stateness” of the world’s peoples (the number of “sovereign states” having more than tripled during the twentieth century) and an increasingly dense organization of the interstate system. Today virtually the whole of the globe’s nearly five billion people are politically partitioned into the subject populations of the hundred-and-sixty or so states of an interstate system, which contains a large number of formal interstate organizations. This might be called the widening of stateness. The deepening of stateness is another matter. Here essentially we have in mind the growing “strength” of state agencies vis-a-vis local bodies (within or intersecting with the state’s jurisdiction). Measures of this are of many sorts, from the voluminous expansion of laws and of agencies to enforce them, through central-government taxes as growing proportions of measured domestic or national product, to the structural expansion of kinds of state agency, the geographical spread of their locations of operation, and the growing proportion of the labor force formed by their employees. Moreover, like international airports around the world, and for analogous if deeper reasons, the organizational form of stateness (the complex array of hierarchies forming the apparatus of administration) has everywhere virtually the same anatomy, the differences from place to place being of the order of variations on a theme. They are variations that no doubt matter a great deal to the subjects of state power, but, world-historically, they are nonetheless only variations and not qualitative departures in form.

[Now… all of this is patently about tightening 'power's control over us… why is it so hard for academics to state it as directly as this?… – P.S.]

One final point should perhaps be noted here. Much has been made of the extent to which, following the accessions to power of social and / or national antisystemic movements, a marked increase in the structural "centralization" of the state has occurred, that is, a marked increase in what we're calling here the deepening of stateness. And, examining the trends in state formation within the jurisdictions severally, one at a time, one does see that. However, watching the overall trend instate formation in the modern world as a singular historical system over the course of the twentieth century, one would be hard put to attribute the overall trend to any such "internal" processes or, for that matter, even to the interrelated successes of the particular social and national movements construed collectively as but particular emanations of a singular complex historical process of the modern world-system. For even in locations where, seen in that way, the world-historical process has been manifestly weakest (the movements least apparently successful), the structural trend in state formation is no less apparent than elsewhere.

 

Of even more importance here, in some ways, is the still far greater growth in the density of the interstate system. [This is… what would be a good way of putting it? I guess you could call it “‘power’s process of cementing its own consciousness as global-state-statesmen… as understanding that they are about…” as Kissinger says… “as understanding that they are about… together… maintaining what is euphemistically called ‘world order’”… – P.S.] Just using the simplest of assumptions, and reasoning purely formally from the fourfold increase in the number of states, there is a sixteenfold increase in their relations with one another. But that of course barely scratches the surface. The kinds of specialized relations among the states of the interstate system have expanded nearly as much as the kinds of internal state agency. Added to this there are over a dozen specialized United Nations agencies (in each of which most states are related as members) and a very large number of regional international organizations (such as OECD, OPEC, ASEAN, COMECON [“an economic association of eastern European countries founded in 1949 and analogous to the European Economic Community. With the collapse of communism in eastern Europe, the association was dissolved in 1991: Origin is the contraction of Council for Mutual Economic Assistance”,) NATO, OAU, and so on.) If one goes beyond the existence of the voluminous set of interstate relations to the frequency with which they’re activated, via meetings, postal mail, cable, telephone, and now, increasingly, electronic mail, the density of the interstate system’s relational network today is probably several times greater than the comparable density of the official intrastate relational network of the most advanced and centrally administered country of a century ago (say, France).

 

One result is an enmeshing within each state’s operations of the “internal” and “external” relational webs and processes to such an extent that the distinction itself, except perhaps for border crossings of people and goods, begins to lose substantive force (in contradiction to its nominal force, which is increased with every treaty signed, every package assessed for duty by customs, every postage stamp issued). Hence, to a degree and extent never envisioned by the successful social and national movements when they eventually gained state power, both what agencies of a state administer internally, and how they do this, is increasingly determined, to use a Weber paring, not autonomously (as befits sovereignty) but heteronomously (as befits what?).

“It is clear that in this aspect dictatorship is a development of tendencies inherent in a democratic system itself… Dictatorship and democracy are not proceeding in opposite directions but on parallel lines….” (Diana Spearman) [And so… a more practical version of that De Tocqueville quote… – “if you can get ‘the many’ chasing money… it leaves the few who play the higher stakes of ‘power’ freer to pursue their ambition…” – would be: “…if you can get the vast majority stuck in simply surviving (or ‘mired in minutiae…’ it leaves the infinitesimal few freer to play their global game of ‘supremacy’…” De Tocqueville describes the broad dissemination of the administrative function… both in allowing the township exclusive responsibility for the implementation and enforcement of State mandates… and in this administrative function being fragmented into non-interdependent parts… with each functionary in charge of his or her part responsible only for its own action. In this way… it’s less ‘machine-like’ – which implies central control toward accomplishing a goal – and more: ‘central control in monopolizing central control’… bringing to mind a treading in place… allowing ‘power’ (which doesn’t have a thousand thousand rules dragging on its ankles… impeding action…) both freedom of movement and privacy in which to do it… as the rest of us are too busy trying to maneuver in the muck of laws to notice what is in any case cloaked in secrecy – well-shielded from media scrutiny. ‘Power’ keeps ‘the people’ busy pretending to be free… while it pursues supremacy… – P.S.]

 

[The degree of administrative enmeshment of states within the interstate system is the logical extension of the tactics developed to control us within states to the global level – obviously a ‘TINA’-move… an attempt to block all exits and cement in place… the ‘global system’… which asks the question: As ‘power’ has… in the last 250 years… been steadfast in their global focus to maintain control of us… when do we acknowledge that we can only defend ourselves… by doing the same?

 

The page, Founding & Realizing A Test Site – not modeled on ‘democracy’… but on freedom – Premised On “Leisure IS Happiness…… includes a quote from Diana Spearman. Here’s an excerpt of it:

It is clear that in this aspect dictatorship is a development of tendencies inherent in a democratic system itself; tendencies arising from a misunderstanding of the nature of democracy. Professor Laski [H. Laski, The State in Theory and Practice, 1936] is clearly right when he says that the services which parties have rendered to the democratic state are inestimable, but clearly wrong when he includes amongst those services that they are among “the most solid obstacle we have against the danger of Caesarism.” Nothing is easier than for the democratic party itself to evolve into an instrument of dictatorship. The historical destruction of democracy through its own parties is assisted by the modern development of government from the administrative side. Dictatorship and democracy are not proceeding in opposite directions but on parallel lines…. (Diana Spearman, (from Chapter IV, “Authoritarian Tendencies in Democracy,” Modern Dictatorship, 1939, p. 174)

And we commented on this by saying:

And so a clearer… and more inclusive and practical (and so more accurate…) version of that De Tocqueville quote I cite in Unpacking ‘Democracy’ – “if you can get ‘the many’ chasing money… it leaves the few who play the higher stakes of ‘power’ freer to pursue their ambition…” – would be: “…if you can get the vast majority stuck in simply surviving (or ‘getting things done’… ‘accomplishment’…) it leaves the infinitesimal few freer to pursue their global game of ‘supremacy’ – the pursuit of ‘Knowledge Infinite.’” Diana Spearman’s book, Modern Dictatorship (excerpts and discussion of which can be found both in Palmers’ Chat – see its Table of Contents – and in “Revealing Division”) is helpful for understanding this underlying motive of ‘power’. The philosopher-king-statesmen reason that if they can own / control ‘all’ the ‘Knowledge’ – and particularly the ‘knowledge’ of how to kill us (see the January 26th, 2014 show… on the page: “Miklos Nyiszli’s Lessons On Class”) – then their ‘supremacy’ can never be challenged.

 

This practical angle can be expressed slightly differently… thereby shedding even more light on this matter of ‘what we got’… in having ‘democracy.’ De Tocqueville (p. 56 – 7) describes the broad dissemination of the administrative function… both in allowing the township exclusive responsibility for the implementation and enforcement of State mandates… and in this administrative function being fragmented into non-interdependent parts… with each functionary in charge of his or her part responsible only for its own action. In this way… it’s less ‘machine-like’ – which implies central control toward accomplishing a goal – and more: ‘central control in monopolizing central control’… bringing to mind a circular action rather than a forward motion… a treading in place… allowing ‘power’ (which doesn’t have a thousand thousand rules dragging on its ankles… impeding action…) both freedom of movement and privacy in which to do it… as the rest of us are too busy trying to maneuver in the muck of laws to notice what is in any case cloaked in secrecy – well-shielded from media scrutiny.

 

So ‘democracy’… or… ‘rule of law’ installed by ‘majority vote’… in practice means… immobility – ‘no change’ – Plato’s ‘best state’ is proceeding apace… and sometimes the route it takes is dictatorship… and sometimes ‘democracy’… which offers the ‘plus’ that some are allowed to pretend they are ‘free’… so between ‘dictatorship’ and ‘democracy’ the only distinguishing quality is… for the latter… better drugs… better illusions.

 

‘Power’ keeps ‘the people’ busy pretending to be free… while it pursues supremacy…

 

…or… “if you can get the many mired in minutiae… it leaves the few who play the higher stakes of ‘power’ freer to pursue their ambition.”

It is time to confront Du Bois’ question: what price do we place on freedom?… Are we ready to begin organizing these discussions?… – P.S.]

“…the degree to which virtually all interrelations among peoples in different state jurisdictions have become dimensions of their respective states’ relations with one another…” – the question is… how did this happen… by accident?… by ‘inner logic’… or was it by intent? Were there conscious actors… fostering it? And then of course… how do we break down that ‘power’-allegiance?… re-direct it to conscious global unity (GLU)… be… the ‘glue’ we want to see… so that we may cleave… adhere… to each other… and to the earth…. Let’s start doing this… Brothers and Sisters… let’s start consciously interweaving and mobilizing… based on our common longing for ‘freedom-leisure-happiness’… the right to which we globally assert… – P.S.]

 

A second result, and one of no less importance to our subject – the current and future terrain on, through, and against which present and future antisystemic movements are and will be operating […Don't you love… that they have this as their focus? Can you cite anybody else who gives anything for us like this?… Let’s gather ourselves together… and get focused on the future we want… – P.S.] – is the degree to which virtually all interrelations among peoples in different state jurisdictions have become dimensions of their respective states’ relations with one another. This is not just a matter of travelers obtaining passports and visas and passing through emigration and immigration authorities, or of packages having to be sent with export and import permits and be duly processed, and so forth. These interstate procedures, which daily re-announce the borders of the respective jurisdictions of each constituent state, are but mediations of the movement of people, goods, and capital, and have been practiced for a rather long time.

[“…the degree to which virtually all interrelations among peoples in different state jurisdictions have become dimensions of their respective states’ relations with one another…” – the question is… how did this happen… by accident?… by ‘inner logic’… or was it by intent? Were there conscious actors… fostering it? And then of course… how do we break down that ‘power’-allegiance?… re-direct it to conscious global unity (GLU)… be… the ‘glue’ we want to see… so that we may cleave… adhere… to each other… and to the earth…. Let’s start doing this… Brothers and Sisters… let’s start consciously interweaving and mobilizing… based on our common longing for ‘freedom-leisure-happiness’… the right to which we globally assert… – P.S.]

“…The “openness” or “closure” of a state’s borders to such movements, however – we note parenthetically in passing – has always been less a matter of that state’s policies “toward the world” than of its location in the hierarchical ordering inherent in the capitalist world-economy’s interstate system. This location is determined not merely by academicians but by demonstrated or credible relational strengths, practical conditions effected by ruling classes….…” – [The ‘practical-mindedness’ of these ‘academicians’ puts them in a ‘class’ by themselves on the Left… – P.S.] [I can’t help wondering whether the book Empire… which followed some ten years later… was an attempt to settle these waters… i.e. lay claim to the ‘last word’ on the subject… Consider the following: – P.S.] “I remember the friendly argument I had with my son about the animated film Wall•E. I was put off by the propaganda that machines could, in theory, do everything.Huh? Machines pick the coffee beans, the cashews, assemble those ever tinier electronic components? Machines remove the coltan from the earth, and the people from their land?” But in retrospect… the essential message in the film is true to ‘power’s deepest wish — stemming I guess from their deep history of abandonment — to have their every need and whim addressed… by ‘hands’ devoted to them. This Economist… article captures it well. I fully expect the next hot ‘start-up’ to be: “WeWipeYourAssJustAsk”…

 

The “openness” or “closure” of a state’s borders to such movements, however – we note parenthetically in passing – has always been less a matter of that state’s policies “toward the world” than of its location in the hierarchical ordering inherent in the capitalist world-economy’s interstate system. This location is determined not merely by academicians but by demonstrated or credible relational strengths, practical conditions effected by ruling classes….

[The ‘practical-mindedness’ of these ‘academicians’ puts them in a ‘class’ by themselves on the Left… – P.S.]

…Rather it is a matter of the interstate system’s appropriating all manner of direct and circuitous relations among people of different countries (state jurisdictions) – whether religious, scientific, commercial, artistic, financial, linguistic, civilizational, educational, literary, productive, problem-focused, historical, philosophical, ad infinitum – such that they all become, at the very least, mediated, more often actually organized, by the counterpart agencies of different states through their established or newly formed relations with one another. The effect is to subordinate the interrelations among the world’s peoples not to raisons d’etat, a practice with which all of us are all too familiar, but to raisons du systeme d’etats, a practice with which most of us are all too unfamiliar.

[I can’t help wondering whether the book Empire… which followed some ten years later… was an attempt to settle these waters… i.e. lay claim to the ‘last word’ on the subject… Consider the following from that book: – P.S.]

Imperial command is exercised no longer through the disciplinary modalities of the modern state but rather through the modalities of biopolitical control. These modalities have as their basis and their object a productive multitude that cannot be regimented and normalized, but must nonetheless be governed, even in its autonomy. The concept of the People no longer functions as the organized subject of the system of command, and consequently the identity of the People is replaced by the mobility, flexibility, and perpetual differentiation of the multitude. This shift demystifies and destroys the circular modern ideal of the legitimacy of power by which power constructs from the multitude a single subject that could then in turn legitimate that same power. That sophistic tautology no longer works.

[Hold on: I think I see what they mean… I was just reading about this in the January 3 – 9, 2015 Economist… which tells us that… “the future of work…” is about us “being on tap”… in fact… they tell us… “there’s an app for that…”

 

In “Waking Up (The Plan, Part 3)” I wrote about the difference of opinion my son and I had on the film Wall•E: “I remember the friendly argument I had with my son about the animated film Wall•E. I was put off by the propaganda that machines could, in theory, do everything.Huh? Machines pick the coffee beans, the cashews, assemble those ever tinier electronic components? Machines remove the coltan from the earth, and the people from their land?” But in retrospect… the essential message in the film is true to ‘power’s deepest wish — stemming I guess from their deep history of abandonment — to have their every need and whim addressed… by ‘hands’ devoted to them. This Economist… article captures it well. I fully expect the next hot ‘start-up’ to be: “WeWipeYourAssJustAsk”… Continuing: – P.S.]

 

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[We skipped ahead again to the two end-Empire-quotes… and comment… – P.S.]

 

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The multitude is governed with the instruments of the post-modern capitalist system and within the social relations of the real subsumption. The multitude can only be ruled along internal lines, in production, in exchanges, in culture -- in other words, in the biopolitical context of its existence. In its deterritorialized autonomy, however, this biopolitical existence of the multitude has the potential to be transformed into an autonomous mass of intelligent productivity, into an absolute democratic power, as Spinoza would say. If that were to happen, capitalist domination of production, exchange, and communication would be overthrown. Preventing this is the first and primary task of imperial government. We should keep in mind, however, that the constitution of Empire depends for its own existence on the forces that pose this threat, the autonomous forces of productive cooperation. Their powers must be controlled but not destroyed. (Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, p. 344, Empire, (2000)

As we said earlier… ‘power’ prefers its propaganda-plants to be ‘sophisticated-slippery’… i.e. with (they hope) impenetrable layers… difficult to see. Empire, is a quite elaborate… quite ‘sophisticated’… illustration of this. Its clandestine advocacy of what it seems to be opposing is most insidious (or… its clandestine undermining of what it seems to be advocating…) Consider this:

When the proponents of the globalization of capital cry out against big government, they are being not only hypocritical but also ungrateful. Where would capital be if it had not put its hands on big government and made it work for centuries in its exclusive interest? And today where would imperial capital be if big government were not big enough to wield the power of life and death over the entire global multitude? Where would capital without a big government capable of printing money to produce and reproduce a global order that guarantees capitalist power and wealth? Or without the communications networks that expropriate the cooperation of the productive multitude? Every morning when they wake up, capitalists and their representatives across the world, instead of reading curses against big government in the Wall Street Journal, ought to get down on their knees and praise it!

Of course… what they really want is for us… we-the-people… to get this message: “Oh where or where would we be… without global ‘power’ providing… the infrastructure… the means… for all our needs?…

 

…and… more hidden in this is ‘power’s key strategy: “If you can get the Left chasing the red herring ‘money as culprit’… it leaves the Few who play the higher stakes game of ‘power’ freer to pursue their ambition.”

“…Some might object that the productive biopolitical universe still requires some form of command over it” […Isn't that really sleazy… really shady… really shameless?… implying that 'command' disappears… with their 'New World Order' in place… They're talking about the internalization of discipline… what Bentham told them to do (the 'Panopticon' serves as metaphor…) make us 'self-regulating' and save them the trouble… – P.S.], and that realistically we should aim not at destroying big government but at putting our hands on its controls. We have to put an end to such illusions that have plagued the socialist and communist traditions for so long!…”) – [They're talking about the very same things that Wallerstein, Arrighi, and Hopkins are talking about… but from such a place of dishonesty that it's hideous… – P.S.]

 

Now that the most radical conservative opponents of big government have collapsed under the weight of the paradox of their position, we want to pick up their banners where they left them in the mud. It is our turn now to cry “Big government is over!” Why should that slogan be the exclusive property of at the conservatives? Certainly, having been educated in class struggle, we know well that big government has also been an instrument for the redistribution of social wealth and that, under the pressure of working-class struggle, it has served in the fight for equality and democracy. Today, however, those times are over. In imperial postmodernity big government has become merely the despotic means of domination and the totalitarian production of subjectivity. Big government conducts the great orchestra of subjectivities reduced to commodities. And it is consequently the determination of the limits of desire: these are in fact the lines that, in the biopolitical Empire, establish the new division of labor across the global horizon, in the interest of reproducing the power to exploit and subjugate. We, on the contrary, struggle because desire has no limit and (since the desire to exist and at the desire to produce are one and the same thing) […Do you see the circular trap?… we ‘desire’… we ‘produce’… endlessly… – P.S.] because life can be continuously, freely, and equally enjoyed and reproduced.

 

Some might object that the productive biopolitical universe still requires some form of command over it […Isn’t that really sleazy… really shady… really shameless?… implying that ‘command’ disappears… with their ‘New World Order’ in place… They’re talking about the internalization of discipline… what Bentham told them to do (the ‘Panopticon’ serves as metaphor…) make us ‘self-regulating’ and save them the trouble… – P.S.], and that realistically we should aim not at destroying big government but at putting our hands on its controls. We have to put an end to such illusions that have plagued the socialist and communist traditions for so long! (Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, p. 348 - 9, Empire, (2000)

They’re talking about the very same things that Wallerstein, Arrighi, and Hopkins are talking about… but from such a place of dishonesty that it’s hideous…

 

Between the honest analysis of Giovanni, Immanuel and Terence… and this… there is a world of difference… an abyss…

 

We continue with our honest spokesmen… next week.

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* “WUR of January 18th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”:

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[Please check out the audio for the next ‘non-coercion commercials’ we’re planning. Spoken word for the first one is from our July 14, 2013 radio broadcast. It refers to events a year ago… and still in progress…. To read the full transcript for this show, you can download the pdf for Vol. 1 of: “Reclaiming Our Leadership: Waking Up Radio Conversations”… or visit the page: “To Rebuild Our Freedom (Pt. 2)”…

 

…and spoken word for the second is from last week’s show, January 11, 2015:

 

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“ – but I do want to re-emphasize the point that we have to be helping Egypt right now… which means helping ourselves…. If we can help Egypt forward this discussion of “how do we achieve our freedom when ‘the state’ has been captured by the ‘global economy’?”… which is just another word for ‘power’…. We have to be talking about this all over the globe… because otherwise we’re going to be duped by these pundits who tell us to ‘fix the state’… and that that’s the way… “let’s just start working on the Constitution…” come on…. And so Egypt is accelerating our thought process on this… because… whoa… I mean it’s breathtaking… two revolutions in the space of a couple years…. So… it’s like: “ok… here’s our revolution… we got rid of the dictator… alright, now let’s have this democracy… ok, no… didn’t work… perhaps ‘democracy’ is a con… hmm….” And so then they went ahead and called the question, right? “We don’t want repackaged tyranny… we want democracy…” and so now… they got nothing else left to give the Egyptian people but… ‘divide-and-conquer’: “Oh well, see, ‘tribalism’ is rearing its ugly head… that’s because, well, we turn against each other because of… blah, blah, blah…. Or… because the world economy is in such a dilapidated state… there’s scarce resources, so we gotta fight each other… blah, blah, blah…” So… this is not Egypt’s problem, this is the problem for global humanity… to see through this con ‘nation-state’… or… what I’m arguing is… because they’ve claimed the lexicon, we’ve got to start developing earth-terms… that cannot be co-opted… and undermined that way… that we cannot let them tell us that ‘leisure’ is ‘having free time’… we cannot let them tell us that ‘freedom’ is anything but ‘freedom from scarcity’… having the possession of our own bodies… being able to do what we want when we wake up in the morning… every single one of us…. We have the means. The earth is extremely generous.”

 

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“Am I being clear enough about the connections between ‘power’ hiding… their employing propaganda – layered hierarchical propaganda to correspond to the various ranks of us they’ve created – propaganda to help them hide… and stay hidden – and what we on the Left have been accustomed to call ‘the class struggle’…? Is Shakespeare right when he says, “all difficulties are but easy… when they are known…”? If so… we don’t yet know… our opponent…”

 

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“Pharaoh’s army… drowned in the Red Sea… Oh Mary don’t you weep… tell Martha not to moan…” The themes of today’s show are “seeing hidden ‘power’”… and seeing how they manipulate us – essentially with propaganda – with the means of transmission being media and / or agents… Last week we asked… is ‘the Left’ brave enough to face some facts: We are subjects not of ‘states’… but of an ‘inter-state system… e are prevented from seeing this by being encouraged to chase the red herring: “money is the culprit!”…

 

The themes of today’s show are “seeing hidden ‘power’”… and seeing how they manipulate us – essentially with propaganda – with the means of transmission being media and / or agents…

 

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January 12, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Last week we asked… is ‘the Left’ brave enough to face some facts:

 

• We are subjects not of ‘states’… but of an ‘inter-state system’…

 

• We are prevented from seeing this by being encouraged to chase the red herring: “money is the culprit!”…

 

We believe this key ‘power’-propaganda because ‘power’ has a propaganda-machine that can churn out propaganda endlessly…. ‘Power’ is constantly… continuously… manipulating us by inserting its propaganda within key ideological frames… which they can only do effectively if they know how those frames influence us – we’ll be discussing Bentham next week… who made all this his particular ‘business’ – the primary things being (under ‘class’… particularly once its established… which it has been for thousands of years… and certainly in the times of Jesus of Nazareth… and you'll be able to see that… hear that… when we quote from some Biblical text… of language… words… speeches… attributed to him…) – and there’s a lot of overlap because they all must tap into our hearts… so these three major groups of ideological influence that ‘power’ focuses on are: authoritarian / familial / paternalistic / patriotic ideology (and all the ideologies of ‘rule’ fall into this category…); ‘scientific’ / ‘intellectual’ / ‘higher learning’ ideology; and religious ideology.

 

• We believe this key ‘power’-propaganda because ‘power’ has a propaganda-machine that can churn out propaganda endlessly…. ‘Power’ is constantly… continuously… manipulating us by inserting its propaganda within key ideological frames… which they can only do effectively if they know how those frames influence us – we’ll be discussing Bentham next week… who made all this his particular ‘business’ – the primary things being (under ‘class’… particularly once its established… which it has been for thousands of years… and certainly in the times of Jesus of Nazareth… and you'll be able to see that… hear that… when we quote from some Biblical text… of language… words… speeches… attributed to him…) – and there’s a lot of overlap because they all must tap into our hearts… so these three major groups of ideological influence that ‘power’ focuses on are: authoritarian / familial / paternalistic / patriotic ideology (and all the ideologies of ‘rule’ fall into this category…); ‘scientific’ / ‘intellectual’ / ‘higher learning’ ideology; and religious ideology. Here’s an illustration of what I mean by: “how ‘power’ manipulates us by knowing what influences us… and then inserting a story… or inserting the propaganda… within those ideological frames…:

Some background: ‘Egypt’… the wordbeat above particularly… sent me on a thought-jaunt… a ramble… a rove… down courses of thoughts… that opened wider when I heard the interview [discussed next week…] with a man who used as a metaphor an actual historical occurrence from Ancient Egypt… in which it's speculated that the origin of 'rule' (in some respects…) can… in a sense… be traced back to the elevation of a few within a clan to the status of 'priest'… and that 'priests' became a caste… which then creates a caste system… because once you have separated out a few as possessing greater knowledge… that immediately creates hierarchy…

 

So… the situation was: the regular flooding of the Nile became noticed… obviously… circumstances that predicted the coming of the regular flood… likewise… – that situation was used to create a disparity in knowledge that led to a few being elevated as 'special': a 'ruler' as 'predictors' of events that were critical for the survival of the group… Anyway… I heard an interview with a man who used that as metaphor… and it sent me… along with my wordbeat… down this 'thought-jaunt'…

 

So… the situation was: the regular flooding of the Nile became noticed… obviously… circumstances that predicted the coming of the regular flood… likewise… – that situation was used to create a disparity in knowledge that led to a few being elevated as 'special': a 'ruler' as 'predictors' of events that were critical for the survival of the group… Anyway… I heard an interview with a man who used that as metaphor… and it sent me… along with my wordbeat… down this 'thought-jaunt'…

 

…and these courses opened wider still on Martin Luther King’s birthday when I luckily allowed myself some jazz to escape the media-analysis… and though I didn’t know… I should have… that jazz-DJ nonpareil… non-parallel… non-peer… Alisa Clancy on FM 91.1 KCSM… “the jazz station”… had put together an amazing tribute. It was playing very low when I thought I heard (speaking of nonpareil…) Aretha’s peerless tone. She was singing this: “Pharaoh’s army… drowned in the Red Sea… Oh Mary don’t you weep… tell Martha not to moan…” and… later that morning… I thought… let’s just read the original… so I searched out the Bible my mother gave me… the one with the zipper… and tried… unsuccessfully… to find… the full story… (you non-Trogs out there I’m sure would have just Googled it… but I held out… an easy thing to do as only my son is granted access to the Internet at our house…) I was especially interested in the ‘Red Sea-drowning’ part – didn’t find it.

 

Point being… I found myself exploring… after an hiatus of several decades… a few New Testament chapters that I must have read once… but not for a long time…

 

…it is Jesus speaking. It is powerful speech – these New Testament speeches to his disciples (“…and the time draweth near…) – If the goal is ‘freedom’… and I'm going to be arguing that that has been the goal… since 'class' first came to sit on our souls… and that all the great religions… are a massive response to that vile burden we all are forced to bear… called 'class'… and that all the great religions… before they got taken over by 'power'… resonated with us because of that… because they acknowledge that what we are experiencing is wrong. And it is precisely because of their power – the power of their essential message – that 'power' had to take them over… and use them… as Bentham said… to control… both the thoughts in our head and how they get expressed in our actions.

 

Point being… I found myself exploring… after an hiatus of several decades… a few New Testament chapters that I must have read once (some paragraphs are underlined…) probably during one of my ‘lost’ summers… when I was forced to attend ‘Bible School’ with the brother closest to me in age… (we were too small to be bitter about it but we sure weren’t pleased …) The words that follow – from “The Gospel According to St. Luke”… end of Chapter 20 and towards the beginning of Chapter 21 – are printed in ‘red’… signifying that it is Jesus speaking. It is powerful speech – these New Testament speeches to his disciples – and I can well understand why some would be drawn to the pulpit to speak them:

“Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts;

 

Which devour widows’ houses and for a shew [show] make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation….

 

…Take heed that ye be not deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draweth near: go ye not therefore after them.

 

But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by.

 

Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:

 

And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

 

But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name’s sake.

 

And it shall turn to you for a testimony.

 

Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer:

 

For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.

 

And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death.

 

And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.

 

But there shall not an hair of your head perish.

 

In your patience possess ye your souls.

 

And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.

 

Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereto.

 

For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled….

 

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;

 

Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

 

And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

 

And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”

We’ve often said in this space that we must work backwards from the goal… to achieve it.

 

If the goal is ‘freedom’… and I'm going to be arguing that that has been the goal… since 'class' first came to sit on our souls… and that all the great religions… are a massive response to that inhibition called 'class'… that injustice called 'class'… that vile burden we all are forced to bear… called 'class'… and that all the great religions… before they got taken over by 'power'… resonated with us because of that… because they acknowledge that what we are experiencing is wrong. And it is precisely because of their power – the power of their essential message – that 'power' had to take them over… and use them… as Bentham said… to control… both the thoughts in our head (and how we interpret the thoughts in our head…) and how they get expressed in our actions.

 

If the goal is ‘freedom’… which we define here as “force out of our lives… ‘power’ ended…” just that simple – we never hear it spoken.… (…the fact that we never hear the deep reality of our lives talked about publicly – that coercion and hierarchy are its basis; that ‘rank’ divides us; that our children pay a high price for our absence as we bend to the imperative to survive – that we never hear it discussed is crazy-making…) I believe… un-manipulated by ‘power’… and with free and broad and open discussions… and listening to our Grandmother (Earth)’s voice… there will come clarity… rapidly… that we do indeed want ‘force’ out of our lives… ‘power’ / ‘rule’ / ‘class’… ended: ‘freedom from necessity’… manufactured or contingent…

 

If the goal is ‘freedom’… which we define here as “force out of our lives… ‘power’ ended…” just that simple – we never hear it spoken. So please bear with me if I can't always restore my playlist here at the station to its original structure. Folks mess with it. I appreciate your patience.

(…the fact that we never hear the deep reality of our lives talked about publicly – that coercion and hierarchy are its basis; that ‘rank’ divides us; that our children pay a high price for our absence as we bend to the imperative to survive – that we never hear it discussed is crazy-making… truly… to have what our bodies tell us is true never spoken… is wrong… and to see that passed on to the children is enraging…. We have to begin these conversations with each other and find some means to make them broad and public… so we can have our public discourse catch up to the oppressive circumstances of our lives…)

If the goal is ‘freedom’… which we define here as “force out of our lives… ‘power’ ended…” we’ve not yet had broad public discussions to determine what we-the-people mean by ‘freedom’ – we’ve not even had broad public discussions on what we mean by ‘we’… if there is a ‘we’… do we want a ‘we’… and if so… what kind of ‘we’…

 

I believe… un-manipulated by ‘power’… and with free and broad and open discussions… and listening to our Grandmother (Earth)’s voice… there will come clarity… rapidly… that we do indeed want ‘force’ out of our lives… ‘power’ / ‘rule’ / ‘class’… ended: ‘freedom from necessity’… manufactured or contingent…

 

…and as ‘power’ owns or controls – so long as we accept its definitions – all the resources of the planet… the only way to break that hold of force… is force of numbers… i.e…. overcoming ‘power’s quite obvious strategy of atomization…

 

they systematically are eroding our numbers when they erode the integrity of our children's souls (and ours) this explains the systematic attack on the indigenous on wholeness

So the first question to be asked to test a tactic for its usefulness in furthering the achievement of our goal is: “Does it help us break down atomization?” And as the hold of ‘atomization’ can only be broken by our reaching out to each other… the next question to be asked to test a tactic for its usefulness in furthering the achievement of our goal is: “Is it about ‘reaching-out’?”… and… keeping our eye on the prize… we must add… “Is it about ‘reaching-out’ with our key precepts of ‘freedom’: “that ‘power’ controls us by means of atomization… and by teaching us to use coercion… and to renounce our natural empathy for each other and connection to the earth… and particularly with the earth that is our children….” How is it that we cannot see the damage done to them… when we accept ‘power’s terms for our existence… and so have no time for them? How is it that we cannot see the ‘everyday commonplace injury’ done to our children…

 

 

So the first question to be asked to test a tactic for its usefulness in furthering the achievement of our goal is: “Does it help us break down atomization?” And as the hold of ‘atomization’ can only be broken by our reaching out to each other… the next question to be asked to test a tactic for its usefulness in furthering the achievement of our goal is: “Is it about ‘reaching-out’?”… and… keeping our eye on the prize… we must add… “Is it about ‘reaching-out’ with our key precepts of ‘freedom’: “that ‘power’ controls us by means of atomization… and by teaching us to use coercion… and to renounce our natural empathy for each other and connection to the earth… and particularly with the earth that is our children….” How is it that we cannot see the damage done to them… when we accept ‘power’s terms for our existence… and so have no time for them? How is it that we cannot see the ‘everyday commonplace injury’ done to our children… in the absence of our appreciation of them… our cuddling… singing… and playing… with them? I have seen children… unable yet to crawl… who cannot smile… who seem to exist across a vast Abyss of sadness. This is damage… the scope of which… pales the maliciousness of agents ‘power’ pays – whether open or clandestine – to insignificance. And yet we do not ‘see’ it. And these are children lost to ‘fellow-feeling’… lost to our movement to establish the reign of ‘Good Fellowship… and Attention-Giving… and Reverence’ in the world… and the end of ‘rule’. I hear folks on the Left talk of ‘strategy’… and yet… they will not build our numbers… the only strategy that wins for us our freedom.

 

And the more atomization – which is reinforced with every baby left to cry unheeded… sit unlooked-at… in such depression they cannot think of ‘playing’… in the fog of pain – the more ‘atomization’ is ignored by us… the more vulnerable we are to ‘power’s manipulation… because we so long for our greatness to be seen.

 

Think again on those words of Jesus: “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven…” Doesn’t it seem to ‘explain’ what we see around us today? Would it not seem to convey to its Believers a ‘secret’ knowledge of which they are in possession… Now why would that mean "lost empathy"? …and as an aside… have we discussed why it is we are so drawn to the notion of… needing to believe in the notion of… our 'specialness'… of our seeming to possess secret 'knowledge' that no one else has. We see it across ideology…. It's part of how they keep us atomized – by reinforcing those 'secret knowledges' within each caste… within each 'class': “Yes… we are the chosen people… Yes… you're right our position is different from that of all others…”. 'Power' will elevate those folks who will say that about their particular tribe… every time. You can always get paid to do 'Division work'…

 

Think again on those words of Jesus: “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven…”

 

Doesn’t it seem to ‘explain’ what we see around us today? Would it not seem to convey to its Believers a ‘secret’ knowledge of which they are in possession…

…and as an aside… have we discussed why it is we are so drawn to the notion of… needing to believe in the notion of… our 'specialness'… of our seeming to possess secret 'knowledge' that no one else has. We see it across ideology…. It's part of how they keep us atomized – by reinforcing those 'secret knowledges' within each caste… within each 'class': “Yes… we are the chosen people… Yes… you're right our position is different from that of all others…”. 'Power' will elevate those folks who will say that about their particular tribe… every time. You can always get paid to do 'Division work'. Always.

Doesn’t it seem to ‘explain’ what we see around us today? Would it not seem to convey to its Believers a ‘secret’ knowledge of which they are in possession… but not the ‘nons’… who live in fog around them? And does not ‘power’ possess the will… the motive… and the means – they have the technology… they have pockets so deep the bottom will never be reached (we'll get free first) – to cause these things? They have the technology… they have the means… – so the only question is… have they the will… and the motive? I'll leave that to your own pursuit of truth to discover… in your own way. I've formed my conclusions. And if so… if they have the will… and the motive… and have in fact used their ability to stimulate these things… would that not mean a vast vast many more of us lost to Empathy for each other?

…Now why would that mean "lost empathy" The words that we (will) read from Jesus seem to suggest that the ultimate in 'empathy' is to not distinguish between oneself and one's neighbor… and yet… when that precept is followed by prediction of inevitable collapse (as we discussed last week…) what does that produce if not lethargy… of a sort…. Because you possess that 'secret knowledge'… and you know… if others don't… that the end draws nigh… and that you must bear your suffering with patience… – do you see the effect… across the political spectrum… of pacifying a great many folk?…creating a kind of a somnolence out there… of folk waiting for the end to come… rather than intervening to stop this abomination… that we would not endure for a moment if we listened to the earth…

 

…after which… when we discuss it… our ears start to hear again…

Our nature is to learn from each other: movement… flow… synthesis – and yet we are being put in tighter and tighter-fitting boxes… with higher and higher walls between us… ‘Power’… far from installing ‘Perfection’… is attempting to install as permanent its reign of Death. We have been vesting our power in others: in ‘power’ that we imagine (as we are taught this ideology…) provides for us via ‘the economy’ or ‘market’… and ‘the state’… and we vest our power in those who speak for us… who see our suffering (“under ‘class’”… always must this be the coda – though it is never spoken… though it is made the background to our lives… it is nonetheless utterly false… and against our nature… to turn our backs on each other… as it requires of us…) – …so when folks see us… – because as children we don't get seen – and never more so than right now… because it is a progressive process of installation of their regime… never more so than right now our children are abandoned by us… are not seen by us… – if you doubt this… please… go to a park where small children play… and conduct a little 'experiment': start noticing children… and the complex set of responses it elicits…. Our children are not seen… and yet… we don't talk about that either…

 

Our nature is to learn from each other: movement… flow… synthesis – and yet we are being put in tighter and tighter-fitting boxes… with higher and higher walls between us… which… if ‘power’ succeeds in implementing its ‘vision’… would mean the end of authentic life and creativity… which cannot be leashed, corralled, and hoarded.

 

‘Power’… far from installing ‘Perfection’… is attempting to install as permanent its reign of Death. We have been vesting our power in others: in ‘power’ that we imagine (as we are taught this ideology…) provides for us via ‘the economy’ or ‘market’… and ‘the state’…

 

…and we vest our power in those who speak for us… who see our suffering (“under ‘class’”… always must this be the coda – though it is never spoken… though it is made the background to our lives… it is nonetheless utterly false… and against our nature… to turn our backs on each other… as it requires of us…) – we have (over the history of ‘class’…) tended to vest our own power in those who see our suffering…

(…and more so today than ever perhaps… because we have never been more invisible… which is what the reign of 'the market'… what folks can 'capitalism' accomplished for 'power' – it got us to alienate our own children… in order to survive… and they're doing this to the remaining Brothers and Sisters across the globe who still feel reverence for the earth… who still have the ability to feed themselves… apart from that global market. 'Power' will never stop till it has eradicated all hint of self-sufficiency… and installed utter dependence on them… literally… to exist…

 

…so when folks see us… – because as children we don't get seen – and never more so than right now… because it is a progressive process of installation of their regime… never more so than right now our children are abandoned by us… are not seen by us… – if you doubt this… please… go to a park where small children play… and conduct a little 'experiment': start noticing children… and the complex set of responses it elicits…. Our children are not seen… and yet… we don't talk about that either… It's as if… we are already… the walking dead…)

We have (over the history of ‘class’…) tended to vest our own power in those who acknowledge… name… our suffering… and try to alleviate it… and show how it will be exposed… and how we will escape it… by acknowledging true wealth: it is the theme when Jesus speaks: “Consider the ravens; for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?” [This comes to all of us: Why are the birds more free than we? I mean… truly… these thoughts from thousands of years ago… we're still thinking? We have this technology for a reason. Our Brothers and Sisters who developed it… developed it for us… not to seal us in our tombs… – P.S.] “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid…. Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” [Truth is spoke! – P.S.] “For a nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.” [Hear those words please… you global-state-statesmen… I think they're almost ready to come to pass… I think so… – P.S.] “Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? And to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.” [Abandoned children… that's the heart of this dilemma we're in… – P.S.]

 

So these ideologies… these religious ideologies… to which we gravitate… because the words are so powerful… because they say “someone does see you… you are not alone… we see that you suffer… and we care… when no one else does…” ‘power’ knows how powerful those words are… and makes sure it owns those who say them. It's that simple. This is speech that we need because we've been made invisible by a system that treats us like we're cogs in a machine… and so those who see our suffering… who show it… as such… who don't mince words about it… and then try to alleviate it… and show how it will be exposed… as such – exposed… that's key… because of the silence… the general installed silence: the outrage of that!… we long to see that corruption exposed. And then… finally… to show how we will escape it… by acknowledging true wealth: that's the 'escape' the great religions have offered – by your achievement of true wealth – your understanding that what 'the system' dangles in front of you… is false… and that that's… that's the only 'freedom' allowed… within that frame that accepts the reality of ‘class’…

 

…and we vest our power in those who speak for us… who see our suffering (“under ‘class’”… always must this be the coda – though it is never spoken… though it is made the background to our lives… it is nonetheless utterly false… and against our nature… to turn our backs on each other… as it requires us to do…) – we have (over the history of ‘class’…) tended to vest our own power in those who acknowledge… name… our suffering… and try to alleviate it… and show how it will be exposed… and how we will escape it… by acknowledging true wealth: it is the theme when Jesus speaks:

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (St. Mark 9, 36 – 37; St. Matthew 17, 26) (St. Luke 14, 11)

 

“For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” (St. Luke 14, 11)

 

““And as ye would that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise.” (St. Luke 6, 31)

 

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (St. Luke 12, 34)

 

“A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.” (St. Matthew 12, 35)

 

“Consider the ravens; for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?” [This comes to all of us: Why are the birds more free than we? I mean… truly… these thoughts from thousands of years ago… we're still thinking? We have this technology for a reason. Our Brothers and Sisters who developed it… developed it for us… not to seal us in our tombs… – P.S.] (St. Luke 12, 24)

 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit; for their’s is the kingdom of heaven;… Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy…. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God…. Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid…. Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” [Truth is spoke! – P.S.] (St. Matthew 5, 3 – 17)

 

“For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.” (St. Luke 8, 17) “For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.” [Hear those words please… you global-state-statesmen… I think they're almost ready to come to pass… I think so… – P.S.] (St. Luke 12, 2)

 

“Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? And to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.” [Abandoned children… that's the heart of this dilemma we're in… – P.S.] (St. Luke 7, 31-2)

If ‘power’ works behind scenes how do we ‘see’ them… if not by their effects: increasing atomization… and ever-widening income-gaps… and… our separation from our own power is how we see them… along with our being progressively boxed… and dispirited by increasing Division… and by the systematic global assault on our earth connection… both in communal traditions and land possession… (Land possession is key to freedom… and I'm not talking 'legal sense'… I'm talking "When we're in our freedom… the social-arrangement we have created"-sense…) So these trends… don’t we see them everywhere? Is not the pattern clear?… the constant pressure to force all of us into utter dependence… to make our common earth resources totally private… ensure none of us can escape ‘necessity’… while boxing us into ‘neat’ categories… with high walls… across which we do not speak… except to snipe and blame… and scrabble with each other for a larger share… of goods made artificially scarce… And of course this is the crux… our refusal to ‘see’ abundance… (in us… Because we have been trained by them… everywhere we look we see… nothing but ‘scarcity’ (and I mean this particularly in how we see each other… that's the point. If we trusted each other… done!… we could do this today…. Truly… that's what the technology means… – if we trusted each other… and made this more important than anything else… if not for our own sake (and it should be for our own sake… if we can't love ourselves… how can we love anything?) Our doubts are traitors… our inability to trust… stalls us — to trust that our Sisters and Brothers… once we start… once we are rolling… will back us. Because this is what we want. It's that simple. But we have to 'see' it… it has to be spoken.

 

(And when will we hear the left say that?… that abandoned children are at the heart of this dilemma we're in…)

 

• ‘Power’ plans… they have a vision… they act clandestine… they must stay hidden…

 

…and how ’bout this one:

 

• We are tribal… we are wired to trust… we want a world in which our earth-gifts are not used against us…

 

If ‘power’ works behind scenes how do we ‘see’ them… if not by their effects: increasing atomization… and ever-widening income-gaps… and…

 

…our separation from our own power is how we see them… along with our being progressively boxed… and dispirited by increasing Division… and by the systematic global assault on our earth connection… both in communal traditions and land possession…

 

(Land possession is key to freedom… and I'm not talking 'legal sense'… I'm talking "When we're in our freedom… the social-arrangement we have created"-sense…)

 

So these trends… don’t we see them everywhere? Is not the pattern clear?… the constant pressure to force all of us into utter dependence… to make our common earth resources totally private… ensure none of us can escape ‘necessity’… while boxing us into ‘neat’ categories… with high walls… across which we do not speak… except to snipe and blame… and scrabble with each other for a larger share… of goods made artificially scarce.

 

And of course this is the crux… our refusal to ‘see’ abundance… (in us…)

 

…because we have been trained by them…

 

…everywhere we look we see…

 

…nothing but ‘scarcity’ (and I mean this particularly in how we see each other… that's the point. If we trusted each other… done!… we could do this today…. Truly… that's what the technology means… – if we trusted each other… and made this more important than anything else… if not for our own sake (and it should be for our own sake… if we can't love ourselves… how can we love anything?)

 

Our doubts are traitors… our inability to trust… stalls us — to trust that our Sisters and Brothers… once we start… once we are rolling… will back us. Because this is what we want. It's that simple. And… given just a hint of it… we'll take the next steps…. But we have to 'see' it… it has to be spoken.

 

We’ll continue this discussion next week.

 

[The January 25, 2015 follows immediately below. By some means, sections of the html code is being over-written or suppressed. It does not show to viewers of the page.]

 

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* “WUR of January 25th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”:

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[Please check out the audio for the next ‘non-coercion commercials’ we’re planning. Spoken word for the first one is from our February 24, 2013 radio broadcast…

 

…spoken word for the second is from November 11, 2012…

 

…spoken word for the third is from October 13, 2013…

 

…and spoken word for the fourth is from July 14, 2013:

 

* “WUR of January 25th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”:

 

“And then the issue of ‘drones’ arose… – oh… and by the way… I really believe it is time… long past time… for us to get this phony sense of 'indignation' out of the Left discourse. 'Phony'… because the Left 'Intellect' pretends to be above… and not manifesting… 'the system'…. All of us manifest 'the system' – and we're not going to get to our future freedom by not recognizing… seeing… how it manifests in us… how it reproduces itself in our own participation in it. Until we make these things conscious… and join with our Brothers and Sisters… and stop pretending that while we are ready… the problem is those other unconscious folks who are not… – then we are in fact going to keep spinning our wheels… playing 'power's game… which serves some pundits, I believe, consciously and unconsciously. And then they turned (this was Election Night coverage…) to this issue of ‘drones’… and the way [this pundit] attacked Barack was so virulent… it struck me as extremely self-righteous indignation… and whenever I hear this indignation expressed about the overt and covert violence of nation-states… and of the United States perhaps in particular… I think, “Excuse me… but… what does he think this president is the president of? The Republic for World Peace?” What does this pundit imagine to be the goal of the U.S. state in an international state-system? Whenever I hear all this false outrage of the Left punditry I think of Diane Keaton and Al Pacino walking that road… trailed by the limo… Al essentially saying: “…this is what all nation-states do in their battle for 'supremacy' (“anyhow never second best…”) while Diane sputters her indignation…” [Spoken word is from our November 11, 2012 radio broadcast.]

 

[Now what does Henry propose we-the-people do?…] “The second challenge is to organize a global alliance around this issue. This is more difficult, although steps are already being taken. Global organizations like Tax Justice International, Oxfam GB, Friends of the Earth, Global Witness and Christian Aid are converging on a new global campaign around the issue of havens and offshore tax evasion. They've been enlisting support for this effort from countries like Norway, Chile, Brazil, Spain and France, organizations like the UNDP, the World Bank and even the International Monetary Fund.… This is very exciting…” [Perhaps he should temper his excitement a bit… because… as we’ve been discussing with issues of re-defining ‘work’ and defining ‘happiness’… when ‘power’ is afraid of something… they ‘leap-frog’ jump to the front of it… and try to direct it… That’s a key tactic of control. Get to the front and lead them where you want them to go. And… again… having those resources is very seductive… everybody wants to see their power expanded… so it’s easy to lie to ourselves about it…] [Spoken word is from our October 13, 2013 radio broadcast.]

 

“And even though so many ancestors saw through the cons… and left their precious help… not a one could overcome the structure of class itself…. We have to change the infrastructure… and… never doubt… we all want this… good fellowship… heart… which… if we develop the stances and the practices we need… trumps heartless ‘division’… brings… the upstart Spring. And therein lies the key to a successful strategy when we find false minds are crawling through our movement.… I believe that allegiance to our values can inoculate us from the poisonous bite of agent provocateurs… Last week we said that the structures of class are designed to keep us contained… and that inserting good people in them cannot change them… but there is a second part to that question… which is that the real action of ‘statesmen’ happens behind scenes… and that the forefront is theater… and a third part… which is that the ‘imperialism of rationalism’ erects interior structures in us all.…” [Spoken word is from our July 14, 2013 radio broadcast.]

 

D-Way: “You had some propaganda props before we get started?” The Raven: “Just one. I caught a snippet of a documentary over the airwaves this week… it was on the insidiousness of racism… and I heard someone say, “…if I want my child to have a good education, I have to, unintentionally, reinforce power disparities and racial divisions….” But what is a 'good education?… In an earlier show we were discussing how hard it is for a young person to challenge conventional thinking… or to go against the crowd…. We said that part of the reason is that they're fresh from an educational system which is set up to convince young people to accept a lifetime of jumping through hoops… which is essentially a lifetime of following instructions and obeying authority at all levels… as Bentham pointed out…. We have a system designed to make us serve the few… while training us to think we serve the many – the 'greater good' – and we have to redesign education… as we free ourselves. We're going to have to design an education that reinforces the key values of the future we want: generalized human freedom.” [Spoken word is from our February 24, 2013 radio broadcast.]

 

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What does it mean to be ‘strategic’ – as I heard this from multiple ‘Black Lives Matters’ representatives: that what they do comes from that place… that awareness. But seeing ‘the state’ accurately is key to our developing a successful strategy – which means: those mental and physical spaces… which can harbor dismissed (from the airwaves) conversations… must become a priority… And repeatedly this week I heard references to the omnipresence of agents… now and historically… clogging the arteries of dissent… here in the U.S…. for instance: there was a pundit who’s written a book about Martin Luther King who mentioned in passing (almost as if it was too obvious to be discussed…) that two folks on his staff were FBI agents… another with a book about Billie Holliday and what she had to endure from FBI harassment (and you know if they were on Billie’s ass… they were on Aretha’s… and Janis’… and Jimi’s… and… it’s a long list… free-folk-shining challenges 'power' – those who tap into the root – they want all creativity on leash… so they can claim to be… its generator and patron – just don't fit with their picture of the Republic… they want every single one of us… utterly dependent…

 

Sisters and Brothers: From Day One… since writing Waking Up… there has been harassment… but each day it grows more intense… and this is also true for the ways in which the website is messed with. FYI: upcoming shows will be posted to the page "Embracing Global Goals" for some time yet - so if the links to the shows (listed by date) don't work… please scroll down from the most recent show-link that does and look for it. Thank you as always for listening… and for your patience.

 

Today’s show considers the possibility… that it is not disparity in material wealth that is ‘power’s greatest motive… but rather disparity in knowledge… for… the pursuit of truth… of which it is the token… can lead to wisdom… and wisdom cannot be bought… sold… or bartered…. But what they imagine they hoard and aggregate is not ‘knowledge’ – because true knowledge can’t be bought… sold… or bartered… and certainly not hoarded – but its absence.

 

Three other themes of our show today: what does it mean to be ‘strategic’ – as I heard this from multiple ‘Black Lives Matters’ representatives: that what they do comes from that place… that awareness. But seeing ‘the state’ accurately is key to our developing a successful strategy – which means: those mental and physical spaces… which can harbor dismissed (from the airwaves) conversations… must become a priority –

 

…for if we are subjects of a global inter-state system… seeing this exposes the claim (that I heard this week…) as false… that “we cannot fight imperialism abroad without fighting its expression – state-sanctioned violence – here in the U.S. first.” And once that discussion finds a public forum… our organization can advance.

 

And: “What is Martin Luther King’s ‘radical legacy’?

 

And lastly: “Getting to know our opponent… so that… we can get global-‘power’ off our backs…”

 

And the thread that ties these themes together is the question: Which comes first… in our evolution to freedom… seeing ourselves accurately… or seeing ‘the state’ accurately? Because the ruthlessness of states requires as its flip-side and complement… our diminishment… our disconnection from our power… which means: disconnection from ourselves (the ancestors)… the earth… and each other.

 

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January 22, 2015… Repeatedly over the airwaves this week… I heard folks say that ‘we’… here in the U.S…. have “freedom of speech”… and I think, “Sure… so long as you don’t mind becoming a target… and running daily gauntlets (that increase over time…) while enduring invisible bombardments… risking peace of mind… health… and life…”

 

…and repeatedly this week I heard references to the omnipresence of agents… now and historically… clogging the arteries of dissent… here in the U.S…. for instance: there was a pundit who’s written a book about Martin Luther King who mentioned in passing (almost as if it was too obvious to be discussed…) that two folks on his staff were FBI agents… another with a book about Billie Holliday and what she had to endure from FBI harassment (and you know if they were on Billie’s ass… they were on Aretha’s… and Janis’… and Jimi’s… and… it’s a long list. That they are doing this to me… reveals the tactic to my satisfaction… and… it does "change everything" in how you see it when folks drop out… or get ill… or lose their lives 'naturally'… if they were righteous folk… challenging 'power'… which means all strokes… congested hearts and cancers… are suspicious… if these are righteous folk… challenging 'power'… which simply means: free-folk-shining. Free-folk-shining challenges 'power' – those who tap into the root… our own power… – these 'power'-guys… these global-state-statesmen… they want all creativity on leash… so they can claim to be… its generator and patron – just don't fit with their picture of the Republic… they want every single one of us… utterly dependent…)

 

Oh… and then there’s ‘the news’ that the state is using radar (which means radio wave – microwave – energy…) to probe – see into – folks homes unbeknownst – and these discussions of state ‘intrusion’… by their bland tone and acceptance… seem not to see… that this means… that… at the very least… subjects of states don’t have ‘freedom of speech’. (Listening to what was playing as I came in this morning… I heard this being said: “…France… which is a surveillance state…” and I thought… ‘state’… by definition means… in this day… with an inter-state system… ‘surveillance state’… – all states are ‘surveillance states’… that's what they're set up to do.)

 

…another book from yet another pundit on the ‘national security state’ acknowledged that “no, this isn’t a democracy…” – as if… “ho-hum-so-what?” – oh… and then there’s ‘the news’ that the state is using radar (which means radio wave – microwave – energy…) to probe – see into – folks homes unbeknownst – and these discussions of state ‘intrusion’… by their bland tone and acceptance… seem not to see… that this means… that… at the very least… subjects of states don’t have ‘freedom of speech’.

(Listening to what was playing as I came in this morning… I heard this being said: “…France… which is a surveillance state…” and I thought… ‘state’… by definition means… in this day… with an inter-state system… ‘surveillance state’… – all states are ‘surveillance states’… that's what they're set up to do.)

So we don’t have ‘freedom of speech’…

 

…at some point… can it be discussed… that honesty compels this acknowledgement?

 

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A very powerful man… But with one line I took issue. He said this… or close to it: “If there isn’t a cause a man is willing to die for, he’s not fit to live.” I think there’s a different way to look at it: If there isn’t a cause a man (or woman) is willing to live for… then he (or she) will languish in soul-death… or soul-abandonment.… I found my meaning in the words: “We are here to synthesize and advance our ancestors’ gifts… who longed for human freedom… and to be part of its realization.” This… I believe… is the true way to honor their legacy. And in the case of King: to honor him would mean… carrying forward his reasoning to the place it was seeking… the vantage high… that sees the globe. When folks marvel all amazed at his alleged ‘prescience’… as they did this week… and as they do every year on King’s birthday… that his words of fifty years ago are still relevant (and I suppose, then, the continued relevance of Du Bois’s… and Kropotkin’s… of a hundred years ago… they’d find even more impressive – but why stop there? Why not go back to Antiphon in Ancient Greece… an early advocate for our freedom… or perhaps we should be amazed at how ‘prescient’ Xenophon could be in ‘anticipating’ Bentham?)

 

Brothers and Sisters: As part of the Martin Luther King remembrance broadcasts… a speech of his… given to what seemed a Hall of privileged Brits… a speech that had for some reason disappeared… was found and aired.

 

His voice in that charged house made me think of that line of Emily’s: “positive as sound”. He was assertive to a fault…. His words broke crystalline over that crowd… as if he cared not whether they were cut.

 

A very powerful man.

 

But with one line I took issue. He said this… or close to it: “If there isn’t a cause a man is willing to die for, he’s not fit to live.”

 

I think there’s a different way to look at it: If there isn’t a cause a man (or woman) is willing to live for… then he (or she) will languish in soul-death… or soul-abandonment.

 

We move so fast under ‘class’… to stay one step ahead of that Frankenstein-Made-Monster… that Created-Beast Necessity… taking ever more bites out of our ass… We move so fast… to ‘prove’ we’re good enough to live…

 

…or… as Orwell said… we’re so busy sucking what we’re told is jam we fail to notice we’re technically dead.

 

When I couldn’t ‘stick’ to a job I mourned… I feared the worst… I comforted myself with escapist Fillers-of-the-Time – my life adrift from its mooring that the ancestors had made for it – and then… after… I’d put on those clothes that never fit… and went back out into the Wilderness-of-Mindless-Competition… first one job interview… then the next…

 

Once… going home from one such… climbing into a seat on the bus … I happened to see my face looking back at me from an overhead mirror at the front… and in shock I saw a skull – a hollowed-eyed mask of death. It shook me… yes, it did… because instinctively I saw: the glimpse into the mirror showed me true. I wasn’t living… whatever you may call the practice I call ‘hoop-jumping’ it’s not living.

 

Though I saw it as a sign… the ‘seeing’ stood for act for some time after that… till I could find a path.

 

I groped… I let my body find its way… one step led to the next… and to the next… until I found the further insight that ‘uncoupled’ from our fellows-of-the-life… we are nothing but a seeking and a groping-back to them…

 

…I found my meaning in the words: “We are here to synthesize and advance our ancestors’ gifts… who longed for human freedom… and to be part of its realization.” This… I believe… is the true way to honor their legacy.

 

And in the case of King: to honor him would mean… carrying forward his reasoning to the place it was seeking… the vantage high… that sees the globe.

 

When folks marvel all amazed at his alleged ‘prescience’… as they did this week… and as they do every year on King’s birthday… that his words of fifty years ago are still relevant (and I suppose, then, the continued relevance of Du Bois’s… and Kropotkin’s… of a hundred years ago… they’d find even more impressive – but why stop there? Why not go back to Antiphon in Ancient Greece… an early advocate for our freedom… or perhaps we should be amazed at how ‘prescient’ Xenophon could be in ‘anticipating’ Bentham?)

 

This is not ‘inspiring’… this is Hope on the verge of expiring… she should not have to tread water for so long…

 

…the continued ‘relevance’ means we have not synthesized and advanced our ancestors’ gifts. If we had… I would not have heard a woman say (representing ‘Black Lives Matter’ locally…) on a progressive radio talk show… that they “have a strategic plan…” and then proceed to tell a caller (per Michael Moore’s advice some years ago…) a caller who was appalled at ‘die-ins’: “If you don’t like ‘Die-Ins’… then… lick stamps… spread the word… just get active!…” – and there goes ‘Strategic’ out the window… unnoticed and unmissed… i.e. whatever she had… it wasn’t ‘strategic’.

 

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…the ‘class’-system is based on the assumption of ‘scarcity’(…because… if we think about it… if ‘knowledge’ is scarce… belongs to only a few… that can easily form the mental frame for ‘scarcity’ overall… because if we don't know what to do to preserve our own lives… reproduce ourselves… we are condemned to be slaves to Necessity…) – the belief that ‘there isn’t enough… stuff…’ and that we-the-people are not sufficient… and that we believe this… contrary to reality… because this is the substance of our ‘education’, both official and the unspoken ‘education’ embedded in our social relations… utterly dependent… And so… therefore… we also said… the flip-side of the story “The Elevation of The Few”… is our diminishment… in our own eyes.

 

January 18, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: To control thought… said Bentham to statesmen… you must… from the vast array of ‘facts’… select those that reinforce the picture you have… of where you want the state to go… or… in our present… ‘modern’… case… those that further the realization of your vision for the global-state.

 

And as suppressed thoughts… and therefore suppressed discussions… necessarily means sculpting human beings… distorting our nature to serve base aims (but even if you say they are not ‘base’… the distortion is there… is the reality… all the same…)

 

…and this distortion of our lived reality…and our fundamental being… necessarily means… lives lived in confusion…

 

…which does not bring happiness…

 

…far from it…

 

…yet another item on our long list… of suppressed discussions.

 

The one we are picking up today is the thread we began last week of our distorted view of each other – reinforced by base ‘power’-propaganda-parable’ called “The Elevation of The Few.”

 

Last week we said that… in some respects… the origin of ‘rule’ can be traced back to the elevation of a few within a clan to the status of ‘priest’… and that… once ‘priests’ became a caste… you have… not just ‘hierarchy’ per se… but even more significantly… for our project of freeing ourselves from this entrapment… you have separated out a few as possessing greater knowledge… and I don't think we've appreciated the importance of that… for us today… no less than throughout the history of ‘class’…

 

…that the ‘class’-system is based on the assumption of ‘scarcity’ –

(…because… if we think about it… if ‘knowledge’ is scarce… belongs to only a few… that can easily form the mental frame for ‘scarcity’ overall… because if we don't know what to do to preserve our own lives… reproduce ourselves… we are condemned to be slaves to Necessity…)

The ‘class’-system is based on that assumption of ‘scarcity’ – the belief that ‘there isn’t enough… stuff…’ and that we-the-people are not sufficient. And we believe this… contrary to reality… because this is the substance of our ‘education’, both official and the unspoken ‘education’ embedded in our social relations.

 

And so… therefore… we also said… the flip-side of the story “The Elevation of The Few”… is our diminishment… in our own eyes.

 

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And truly… with this lens in our possession… the media-display becomes one long parade of illustration… of our conditioning to not see our own abundance.

 

First came an interview with a man who’d written a book of ‘economic’ definitions… to whom I found myself unexpectedly in debt… because his opening story was about Ancient Egypt… reminding me of something I didn’t want to forget…

 

…a story I’d first heard in V. Gordon Childe’s Man Makes Himself:

 

[Ok… so I’m ‘Exhibit A’ for what happens to one’s thought process when one is harassed… sped-up… and bombarded…. In this case… the consequence is: an ancestor gets mis-read and mis-represented. So… scratch the “Hegel and ‘Necessity’” bit (maybe later we’ll talk about it…) and go straight to the issue of ‘Knowledge’… – P.S.]

 

“Russian excavators have shown that the [Predmostian] hunters [of East and Central Europe] erected substantial half-subterranean houses to live in…” [So… we finally re-figured-oout 'Earthships'… after ten thousand years… – alright… it hasn't been that long… only a few thousand years ago there were Earthship-like structures in what is now called Equator. This is old technology… knowledge that we were stripped of… Why? Because it enables us to be self-sufficient… Oh no no no… we can't have that… we must have everything converted into commodities… with bills attached… – P.S.] “A plausible but rather speculative, and certainly much oversimplified, account of the genesis of the Egyptian monarchy would run as follows. In the prehistoric village, communities of self-sufficing food-producing clans whose cemeteries line the Nile Valley may have fallen under the sway of a class of magicians…” […and the connection here… the thread… is that he's presenting the evolution of 'class' as an 'innovation' that “gets the ball rolling…” from the perspective of folks who think like that… and I believe there's other ways to look at it… and I believe that Kropotkin did too — I invite us to consider the notion that a far more accurate way of seeing the project we’re told is ‘Progress’ is one of controlling us… – P.S.]

 

…Russian excavators have shown that the [Predmostian] hunters [of East and Central Europe] erected substantial half-subterranean houses to live in…. (p. 58)

[So… we finally re-figured-out 'Earthships'… after ten thousand years… – alright… it hasn't been that long… only a few thousand years ago there were Earthship-like structures in what is now called Equator. This is old technology… knowledge that we were stripped of… Why? Because it enables us to be self-sufficient… Oh no no no… we can't have that… we must have everything converted into commodities… with bills attached… – P.S.]

…Economically each group was self-sufficient. But self-sufficiency does not spell isolation; shells brought from the Mediterranean half been bound in the caves of Central France…. [To repeat a point from last week… that… our nature is to learn from each other: movement… flow… synthesis… is our endowment… – P.S.]. (p. 60)

 

…Conditions in the Nile Valley would have been exceptionally favorable to the deliberate cultivation of cereals. The Nile, swollen by the monsoon rains on the Abyssinian plateau, overflows its banks with remarkable regularity every autumn. The flood arrives at a convenient season when the heat is no longer so intense as to scorch young shoots. And so, Perry suggests, the reliable and timely Nile flood first prompted men to plant seeds deliberately and let them grow… And natural irrigation would be the prototype of all systems of cultivation… (p. 75)

 

A group always on the brink of starvation dare not risk change. The least deviation from the traditional procedures that have been found lot yield the essential modicum of subsistence may imperil the whole group… (p. 99)

 

…Of chieftainship there is no definite evidence in early neolithic cemeteries or villages […and the connection here… the thread… is that he's presenting the evolution of 'class' as an 'innovation' that “gets the ball rolling…” from the perspective of folks who think like that… and I believe there's other ways to look at it… and I believe that Kropotkin did too.… He begins this chapter by saying, “Fifteen thousand years is a generous estimate of the post-glacial (Ice Age) period, as against a conservative figure of 250,000 years for the preceding era. Yet in the last twentieth of his history man has begun to control Nature, or has at least succeeded in controlling her by co-operating with her…” — I invite us to consider the notion that a far more accurate way of seeing the project we’re told is ‘Progress’ is one of controlling us… – P.S.]. Nor is there unambiguous evidence of warfare… As to the magico-religious notions that held neolithic communities together, a few guesses may be hazarded…. (p. 101)

 

…cultivation may have required a closer observation of the seasons, a more accurate division of time, the year. Agricultural operations are essentially seasonal, and their success is largely dependent upon the time of their performance. But the proper season is determined by the sun, not by the moon’s phases, which provide a calendar for hunters. In northerly latitudes the changes in the sun’s path between the solstices are conspicuous enough to provide clues as to the seasons. The observation of such clues would emphasize the sun’s role as ruler of the seasons and guarantee his divinity.

 

But near the tropics the sun’s movement is less striking. There the stars, always visible in those cloudless skies, provide a more obvious means of determining and dividing the solar year. You note that certain stars or constellations take up a significant position in the sky at the time when experience suggests you should plant your crops, others when you may expect rain to ripen them. By so using the stars as guides… [and… by the way… this is another area where we have lost knowledge… I’m afraid we’d suffer in the comparison with our ancestors of ten thousand years ago… when it comes to true knowledge… the knowledge we need for managing our own lives… becoming powerful in an authentic sense: connection with the earth… – P.S.] By so using the stars as guides, men may have come to the belief that they actually influenced terrestrial affairs. You confuse connection in time with causal connection. Because the star Sirius is seen on the horizon at dawn when the Nile flood arrives, it is inferred that Sirius causes the Nile flood. Astrology is based on this sort of confusion…. (p. 103)

 

…A plausible but rather speculative, and certainly much oversimplified, account of the genesis of the Egyptian monarchy would run as follows. In the prehistoric village, communities of self-sufficing food-producing clans whose cemeteries line the Nile Valley may have fallen under the sway of a class of magicians. By the time most individual villagers, having found their private magics futile, were prepared to rely on the magic of the cleverer persons, some acquired a little authority by successful pretensions to influence the fertility of the crops, the weather, and the Nile flood. The invention of a solar calendar making possible the accurate prediction of the flood’s advent would be a sure way of justifying such pretensions and consolidating such authority. To enforce them the actual power of cutting off real water by blocking irrigation channels would be an effective means. (V. Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself, p. 157)

…“Together these three facets of the ongoing structural transformation of the modern world-system […the increasing subjection of the world’s peoples to the inter-state system… the increasing subjection of ‘national economies’ to the world-economy… and the increasing organization (formation) of a world ruling class… i.e. one set of ‘rulers’… two faces…] Together these three facets reveal, to a greater or lesser extent, the structural surround of the state power seized or occupied by antisystemic movements in the course of the twentieth century, and indicate the degree and kind of reconstitution of terrain with which present and future movements of a like sort have to contend. […I.e. what we have to contend with – P.S.] They indicate as well – though this is not here a central concern of ours – the anachronism of the contents we give to the concepts with which we commonly work. The dilemmas of the antisystemic movements are thus in some measure the unintended product of a sort of false consciousness on the part, not of toadies nor even of hairsplitters, but of the most engaged of the intelligentsia.” [That's a really important point. In a sense… all of our radio shows can be linked to that fact. We have been mis-represented and set back… by the folks who… whether with intent or not… have ignored these words of our Good Three from Academe… And because 'power' embeds itself… through use of planted false folks… the money lever… and that lever that tugs on the deepest chords of our lives… what Bentham calls 'seductive motives'… – because 'power' embeds itself where thought grows or is influenced… we cannot know what part of the myopia […of Left Professionals…] is home-grown… and which part 'power'-sown… – P.S.]

 

The demarcation that Karl Popper describes so well – between the ‘rulers’ and ‘the people’ – starts here… some 10,000 years ago or so. The deal for those first ‘rulers’ was not sweet… unless you count the sweetened soil their bodies made… with their premature deaths… when their powers faded. And ever since… ‘rule’ has sought a way to make ‘rule’ both permanent… and safe (for themselves….)

 

Remember the poem of Plato’s Uncle Critias?…

“…and I have to say… it has occurred to me more than once… that their fantasy… these Plato’s Tribesmen… is to replace those gods on Mount Olympus… with themselves: the roar of their drones overhead… that are to inspire fear and dread…”

 

Then came, it seems, that wise and cunning man,

The first inventor of the fear of gods…

He framed a tale, a most alluring doctrine,

Concealing truth by veils of lying lore.

He told of the abode of awful gods,

Up in revolving vaults, whence thunder roars

And lightning’s fearful flashes blind the eye…

He thus encircled men by bonds of fear;

Surrounding them by gods in fair abodes,

He charmed them by his spells, and daunted them –

And lawlessness turned into law and order.

…that poem resonates in clear tones through this moment… as we are finally throwing back the curtain of their lies… and seeing the hidden ‘rulers’ where they hide in the so-called ‘economic forces’ they contrive… and in the distortions they’ve imposed… with force and manufactured scarcity… on our lives..

 

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“This changes everything…” says one pundit… about the notion… I believe… that global warming forces a re-evaluation of unrestricted ‘capitalism’ –

 

…but all these terms pundits use are ‘power’-given and driven – designed to keep us forever floundering in their sea of lies… as our Good Three From Academe will tell us later:

Together these three facets of the ongoing structural transformation of the modern world-system […the increasing subjection of the world’s peoples to the inter-state system… the increasing subjection of ‘national economies’ to the world-economy (as represented by the massive centralization of wealth – i.e. the consumed (destroyed) resources of the planet – into fewer and fewer hands… accomplished by the formation of large transnational corporations… and the increasing organization (formation) of a world ruling class… i.e. one set of ‘rulers’… two faces… And as we read these words of Terence Hopkins, Immanuel Wallerstein and Giovanni Arrighi… recall: they were given to us thirty years ago… – P.S.] Together these three facets of the ongoing structural transformation of the modern world-system, all of which reveal, to a greater or lesser extent, the structural surround of the state power seized or occupied by antisystemic movements in the course of the twentieth century, and indicate the degree and kind of reconstitution of terrain with which present and future movements of a like sort have to contend. […I.e. what we have to contend with – P.S.] They indicate as well – though this is not here a central concern of ours – the anachronism of the contents we give to the concepts with which we commonly work. The dilemmas of the antisystemic movements are thus in some measure the unintended product of a sort of false consciousness on the part, not of toadies nor even of hairsplitters, but of the most engaged of the intelligentsia. [That's a really important point. In a sense… all of our radio shows can be linked to that fact. We have been mis-represented and set back… by the folks who… whether with intent or not… have ignored these words of our Good Three from Academe… And because 'power' embeds itself… through use of planted false folks… the money lever… and that lever that tugs on the deepest chords of our lives… what Bentham calls 'seductive motives'… – because 'power' embeds itself where thought grows or is influenced… we cannot know what part of the myopia […of Left Professionals…] is home-grown… and which part 'power'-sown… – P.S.]

We must ask ourselves… What interest does a state – let alone an ‘inter-state system’ – have in our seeing our abundance?… our self-sufficiency in direct relations of cooperation? (…and isn't it clear that just as 'production' was the focus of this sick system of 'class'… so 'cooperation' is the focus of our new social arrangement?…) “This changes everything…”? Here’s an insight that truly does “change everything”: ‘Power’ plans… they have a vision… they act clandestine… they must stay hidden… – plug that into resources effectively limitless… and we have ourselves quite a problem… – plug that into resources effectively limitless… and we have ourselves quite a problem… one that’s solved by instant global communication.

 

We must ask ourselves… What interest does a state – let alone an ‘inter-state system’ – have in our seeing our abundance?… our self-sufficiency in direct relations of cooperation?…

(…and isn't it clear that just as 'production' was the focus of this sick system of 'class'… so 'cooperation' is the focus of our new social arrangement?…)

…and… if we are stopped from our need to realize this abundance… how does this lead to happiness?

 

It doesn’t.

 

We’re designed by states… the representation we get from pundits suggests… that they are deeply wedded to the belief that states (i.e. global-‘power’…) can do a better job of it than we ourselves. What do we think?

 

“This changes everything…”? Here’s an insight that truly does “change everything”:

‘Power’ plans… they have a vision… they act clandestine… they must stay hidden…

– plug that into resources effectively limitless… and we have ourselves quite a problem…

 

…one that’s solved by instant global communication.

 

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[Today’s reading: We are – briefly interrupting our reading of Chapter 5 – continuing our reading of Chapter 2 of Giovanni Arrighi’s, Terence K. Hopkins’, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…: “Dilemmas of Antisystemic Movements”… – P.S.]

 

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* * January 25, 2015 reading: Chapter 2 of Giovanni Arrighi’s, Terence K. Hopkins’, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements… “Dilemmas of Antisystemic Movements”

* January 25, 2015 reading: Chapter 2 of Giovanni Arrighi’s, Terence K. Hopkins’, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements… “Dilemmas of Antisystemic Movements”

 

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“The “openness” or “closure” of a state’s borders to such movements [of people, goods, and capital], however – we note parenthetically in passing – has always been less a matter of that state’s policies “toward the world” than of its location in the hierarchical ordering inherent in the capitalist world-economy’s interstate system.…” [We do see… that back then… thirty years ago and ongoingly through the surviving member… Immanuel Wallerstein… that these three had been trying to give us the language with which to make sense of our reality… so that we can successfully engage with global 'power'… so that we can know our opponent. Look how far that's gone… we will be asking ourselves… as we go along… ‘Power’ wants no competition for our allegiance… wants ‘the market’ to name us… the (deputized) state to claim (control) us. But increasingly… the state (as deputy) is participating in our naming… as it attempts to guide… and limit… dissent… it ‘deputizes’ our hunger for meaning… fostering ‘tribal’ groupings that can be safely (for it) contained with the nation-state frame… with the potential bonus (for ‘power’) that… through the resulting Division… and the ‘rules’ morass… the numbers needed to challenge them… can never be amassed… But what this also means is that… increasingly… 'tribal' groupings can be mobilized for purposes of Division… but not for forming a challenge to the state… – P.S.]

 

The “openness” or “closure” of a state’s borders to such movements [of people, goods, and capital], however – we note parenthetically in passing – has always been less a matter of that state’s policies “toward the world” than of its location in the hierarchical ordering inherent in the capitalist world-economy’s interstate system.

[We do see… that back then… thirty years ago and ongoingly through the surviving member… Immanuel Wallerstein… that these three had been trying to give us the language with which to make sense of our reality… so that we can successfully engage with global 'power'… so that we can know our opponent. Look how far that's gone… we will be asking ourselves… as we go along… – P.S.]

The “openness” or “closure” of a state’s borders to such movements [of people, goods, and capital], however – we note parenthetically in passing – has always been less a matter of that state’s policies “toward the world” than of its location in the hierarchical ordering inherent in the capitalist world-economy’s interstate system. This location is determined not merely by academicians but by demonstrated or credible relational strengths, practical conditions effected by ruling classes. [They were calling them out back then… and… so… where has that discussion been… for thirty years?… – P.S.] Rather it is a matter of the interstate system’s appropriating all manner of direct and circuitous relations among people of different countries (state jurisdictions) – whether religious, scientific, commercial, artistic, financial, linguistic, civilizational, educational, literary, productive, problem-focused, historical, philosophical, ad infinitum – such that they all become, at the very least, mediated, more often actually organized, by the counterpart agencies of different states through their established or newly formed relations with one another. The effect is to subordinate the interrelations among the world’s peoples not to raisons d’etat, a practice with which all of us are all too familiar, but to raisons du systeme d’etats, a practice with which most of us are all too unfamiliar.

 

There is, we should briefly note, a set of consequential historical contradictions being formed through this recreation of all varieties of social relations into networks within either inter- or intrastate frameworks. Many kinds of community – in the sense of communities of believers / practitioners – form in a way “worlds” of their own in relation to, in distinction from, and often in conflict with all others; that is, those who are not of their community, who are nonbelievers or nonpractitioners, hence nonmembers.…

[Two things… first… recall the focus of this chapter: “Dilemmas of Antisystemic Movements”… i.e.… that which must be confronted for us to succeed in getting free… and… as we read… we must ask ourselves continually… “How important is our freedom to us?”… or… at the least… “Are we willing to organize discussions of this question?”

 

Secondly… what they are describing… Popper called ‘tribalism’… and professional Leftists might call ‘identity politics’… about which we have conflicting feelings… because we have never factored hidden ‘power’ into our discussions… such that we ca see… that ending ‘power’… ‘global-‘power’… must be our top priority… – P.S.]

…These are often large, encompassing worlds: the Islamic world; the scientific world; the African world (or, in the United States today, the Black world); the women’s world; the workers’ or proletarian world; and so forth. It is far from evident that such communities of consciousness can even persist, much less grow, within the structurally developing inter- and intrastate framework. The kind of contradiction noted here marks to an even greater extent the popular peace and environmental movements, but that is because they are perforce, in today’s world, state-oriented; whereas the communities of consciousness we have in mind elaborate themselves independently of stateness (hence, however, in contradiction to it and to interstateness, rather than through them).

[‘Power’… as to it we are but children… believes the privileged ones among its subjects should be given games for entertainment… to keep them busy… particularly… if ‘jobs’ must be dispensed with…

 

…so… per our training… as we leap eagerly at this lure… let’s give one to ourselves: “Can you see the hidden hand of ‘power’ in that scene?” (and in the one that follows…) ‘Power’ wants no competition for our allegiance… wants ‘the market’ to name us… the (deputized) state to claim (control) us. But increasingly… the state (as deputy) is participating in our naming… as it attempts to guide… and limit… dissent… it ‘deputizes’ our hunger for meaning… fostering ‘tribal’ groupings that can be safely (for it) contained with the nation-state frame… with the potential bonus (for ‘power’) that… through the resulting Division… and the ‘rules’ morass… the numbers needed to challenge them… can never be amassed… But what this also means is that… increasingly… 'tribal' groupings can be mobilized for purposes of Division… but not for forming a challenge to the state… – P.S.]

“We have dwelt at length on but one face of the ongoing structural transformation of the capitalist world-economy; that seen through a focus on the plane of the interstate system and its constituent units, the states, and their relations with one another. We have done so for two reasons. One is the seemingly enduring disposition, on the part of historical social scientists, to carry forward – all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding – the liberal ideological distinction between “state” and “economy,” or “state” and “market” in some versions, as if these were fundamental theoretical categories.…” Recall what we learned from Jeremy Bentham – bear with me… please… because this gets to the heart of our present dilemma… the one we noted last week that today our Three Friends will show… in their ‘Heads Up!’ from thirty years ago… that being: we do not know our opponent… …and if we do not know our opponent… we cannot be in a ‘class struggle’… …far better to call it… “Ambush… beat… and break…” but back to Bentham: “To produce disbelief of the existence of the matter of fact [i.e. authentic reality… – P.S.]… a man [must find] his own perceptions in relation to [it] confirmed by the reputed perceptions of all other men without exception.…” [That is key… that has always been key… that is why states must engage in surveillance and oversight of what we hear… what is said… what we see… – because what we think must be confirmed by “all other men without exception…” I mean… we should be discussing this… if we truly had an educational system… early on in high school… we should be preparing our young people to do battle with these folk who want to name us… claim us… turn us into subjects… for their benefit… not for Humanity's benefit. Their agenda is not ours… – P.S.]

 

Division of Labor, Centralization of Capital

 

We have dwelt at length on but one face of the ongoing structural transformation of the capitalist world-economy; that seen through a focus on the plane of the interstate system and its constituent units, the states, and their relations with one another. We have done so for two reasons. One is the seemingly enduring disposition, on the part of historical social scientists, to carry forward – all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding – the liberal ideological distinction between “state” and “economy,” or “state” and “market” in some versions, as if these were fundamental theoretical categories.…

[“…all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding…”

 

Recall what we learned from Jeremy Bentham – bear with me… please… because this gets to the heart of our present dilemma… the one we noted last week that today our Three Friends will show… in their ‘Heads Up!’ from thirty years ago… that being: we do not know our opponent…

 

…and if we do not know our opponent… we cannot be in a ‘class struggle’…

 

…far better to call it “an ambush in the dead of night… in which we’re over-powered… forced face-downward to the ground… hands tied behind our backs… blindfolded… put under the strictest of controls… the only information we can think piped in… direct… from their megaphones to our ears… while simultaneously being thrust in harness… carrot to the front… whip to our backs… made to be… simple energy… so that ‘a system’ can be fueled… continuously…”

 

And the ‘nature’ of that system… is not for our discussion… but imparted to ‘the rulers’… generation after generation…

 

…and while we resist… just as my parakeet friends mentioned in Unpacking Democracy fought the cage… this resistance is intuitive… not a ‘struggle’ in the sense of fighting to end a system that puts us in a cage… is set on naming us… telling us what we are… such that we never can… discover it.

 

“Ambush… beat… and break…” is perhaps what we should call it… what they've done to us…

 

…but back to Bentham… This is him speaking in his "Rationale of Judicial Evidence" – P.S.]

An incredible fact […say… that the liberal distinction between “state” and “economy,” or “state” and “market”… is ideological…) owes its incredibility to one cause, and to one cause only… disconformity (as supposed) to the established course of nature…

 

…To produce disbelief of the existence of the matter of fact in question, this disconformity must be such as (in his judgment) to render its existence incompatible with a certain portion, at least, of those other numberless matters of fact, of the existence of which he has been persuaded by the indeterminate but amble mass of evidence above indicated.

 

When the improbability (that is, the apparent, the relative, improbability) of an alleged fact, is set in the balance against testimony, it is still at bottom little more than testimony against testimony. Of the facts of the existence of which a man is persuaded, the knowledge, the persuasion, is derived partly from his own perceptions, partly from the alleged perceptions of others. But, in the unmeasurable mass of facts which (at least in a country where civilization is tolerably diffused) the most ignorant man is said to know, the number of those of which his knowledge is derived from his own immediate perceptions – from his own individual experience, is small, in comparison with those, for the knowledge or supposed knowledge of which, he stands indebted to the experience or supposed experience of others. […Do you see how ‘class’ can… in all fairness… be called ‘totalitarian’?… Consider how this is shown by the following… – P.S.]

 

Concerning individual facts, – so far as mere perception, exclusively of inference drawn from perception by judgment, is concerned, – no force of exterior evidence can either increase or diminish the degree of persuasion of which such perceptions cannot but have been productive. But in regard to species of facts, there is not one, perhaps, concerning which the persuasion derived by a man from his own experience, would not be capable of being overborne by allegations of contrary experience on the part of other men. What makes our confidence so entire as it is in regard to the existence of those species or classes of individual facts, the existence of which is announced by the phrase which exhibits as the cause of it this or that law of nature, is, – that, so often as it falls in his way to make the trial, a man finds his own perceptions in relation to them confirmed by the reputed perceptions of all other men without exception.

[That is key… that has always been key… that is why states must engage in surveillance and oversight of what we hear… what is said… what we see… – because what we think must be confirmed by “all other men without exception…” I mean… we should be discussing this… if we truly had an educational system… early on in high school… we should be preparing our young people to do battle with these folk who want to name us… claim us… turn us into subjects… for their benefit… not for Humanity's benefit. Their agenda is not ours… – P.S.]

“In determining whether any degree of credence ought to be given to an apparently anti-physical fact, regard must be had… to the probability of seductive motives acting upon the witnesses by whom the fact is affirmed…” [If we listen to our mother’s voice… if we allow earth-given words and meanings currency in our minds (and lives…) if we sit with them… let… those voluptuous tones enfold us… we might hear this: our nature is communal… our nature is to trust each other… and we want a world that reflects this truth… in which none of our fellows seeks to use us… manipulate our beliefs… and celebrate when they do… – P.S.]

 

…In determining whether any degree of credence ought to be given to an apparently anti-physical fact, regard must be had not only to the circumstantial evidence afforded by its apparent anti-physicality, but also to the probability of seductive motives acting upon the witnesses by whom the fact is affirmed. [If we listen to our mother’s voice… if we allow earth-given words and meanings currency in our minds (and lives…) if we sit with them… let… those voluptuous tones enfold us… we might hear this: our nature is communal… our nature is to trust each other… and we want a world that reflects this truth… in which none of our fellows seeks to use us… manipulate our beliefs… and celebrate when they do… – P.S.]

“Papa,” said Ernest, after we had left the house, “why didn’t Mrs. Heaton whip Jack when he trod on the egg?” [If you get a chance to read The Way of All Flesh… it is completely fresh… talks about the unconscious before Freud… I mean the man is just a brilliant soul… a shining light… and full of love and heart… and it shows on every page. But if you should venture into it… you'll find that it has to be largely autobiographical… and our poor little child Ernest was subjected to a lot of beating… – P.S.]

 

And consider this remembrance:

Next day I was to go back to London, but before I went I said I should like to take some new-laid eggs back with me, so Theobald took me to the house of a labourer in the village who lived a stone’s throw from the Rectory as being likely to supply me with them. Ernest, for some reason or other, was allowed to come too. I think the hens had begun to sit, but at any rate eggs were scarce, and the cottager’s wife could not find me more than seven or eight, which we proceeded to wrap up in separate pieces of paper so that I might take them to town safely.

 

This operation was carried on upon the ground in front of the cottage door, and while we were in the midst of it the cottager’s little boy, a lad much about Ernest’s age, trod upon one of the eggs that was wrapped up in paper and broke it.

 

“There now, Jack,” said his mother, “see what you’ve done, you’ve broken a nice egg and cost me a penny – Here, Emma,” she added, calling her daughter, “take the child away, there’s a dear.”

 

Emma came at once, and walked off with the youngster, taking him out of harm’s way.

 

“Papa,” said Ernest, after we had left the house, “why didn’t Mrs. Heaton whip Jack when he trod on the egg?” (Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh)

[If you get a chance to read The Way of All Flesh… because it's a different rhythm than we're used to… it started out for me… I found myself feeling… “I will get through this historical bit…” where Samuel Butler is establishing the historical context – it's like an 'establishment shot' in the opening of a film – and at first I feared this would be the way the book would be in general… and… it is completely fresh… talks about the unconscious before Freud… I mean the man is just a brilliant soul… a shining light… and full of love and heart… and it shows on every page. But if you should venture into it… you'll find that it has to be largely autobiographical… and our poor little child Ernest was subjected to a lot of beating… – P.S.]

I am deeply concerned about our earth-connected Brothers and Sisters… because there is a push – it feels like an acceleration… 'power' has been rushing rushing to annihilate earth-connected peoples [from Day One…] and it's only gained speed… every year it gets faster and faster… this huge maw going for our Brothers and Sisters who harbor within them the heart… the knowledge… we need… We here in the U.S. are being encouraged to not see as our Brothers and Sisters folks who are being slotted into that 'Hard Work' category… and then being massaged and wooed with the notion that… “well… we need certain sectors to do this… and other sectors to do that… and you guys [in the privileged regions of the world-economy…] are going to have to do the 'brain work' and you're needed…” and that's seductive because everybody [has the need… under 'class'…] to see themselves as 'smart'… – being asked to do the 'thinking' for the whole globe… for everybody: “Help us figure out this 'global warming' thing…” – and I'm very concerned that we might get suckered into it… We have to always remember: Number One for our activism… before even global warming… is getting our lives back… standing with our Brothers and Sisters.… We need those discussions.

 

[A key argument of these discussions is that ‘power’ triumphs over us by disconnecting us from our earth-given knowledge – and boy does that happen early… in a 'class'-system… –

 

…I have to figure out a way to express this better… because… even in a 'class'-system there are the earth-connected… and what I learned from books like The Way of All Flesh or George Eliot's Adam Bede… is that even in a 'class'-system… there are pockets of earth-connectedness across the centuries to the present… all over the world… and we have to remember that when we use terms that seem to suggest that… if you're 'European' you're this… or if you're African you're that – our diversity is rich… everywhere… and we need to preserve it… as those who listen regularly to this show know… I am deeply concerned about our Brothers and Sisters in villages in Africa… across the continent… in Mexico and South American… in India… China… Russia… the Ukraine… because there is a push – it feels like an acceleration… and we hear from reading Antisystemic Movements and Immanuel Wallerstein… we sense that from their perspective… thirty years ago… it was rushing rushing to annihilate earth-connected peoples then… and it's only gained speed… every year it gets faster and faster… this huge maw going for our Brothers and Sisters who harbor within them the heart… the knowledge… we need…

 

…so I guess it's a selfish sense of concern… that if we fail to reclaim our lives… right now – because 'power' is rushing to get hold of that escape route we got open right now called 'instant global communication' – then… it's going to be a lot more hardship… a lot more needless death… a lot more suffering…

 

We here in the U.S. are being encouraged to not see as our Brothers and Sisters folks who are being slotted into that 'Hard Work' category… and then being massaged and wooed with the notion that… “well… we need certain sectors to do this… and other sectors to do that… and you guys [in the privileged regions of the world-economy…] are going to have to do the 'brain work' and you're needed…” and that's seductive because everybody [has the need… under 'class'…] to see themselves as 'smart'… – being asked to do the 'thinking' for the whole globe… for everybody: “Help us figure out this 'global warming' thing…” – and I'm very concerned that we might get suckered into it…

 

We have to always remember: Number One for our activism… before even global warming… is getting our lives back… standing with our Brothers and Sisters… because if we allow ourselves to betray those in the 'low-slotted' categories yet again… it's going to come around and get us too… It already has. It already is. It's time for us to reclaim our thought process. We need those discussions.

 

And sitting and trying to 'fix' something that can't be fixed… while I'm in the midst of being flooded by these folk with their… microwave-energy-toys aimed at me… is not conducive to my health… and I want to see these discussions get flowing… going… rolling…. Truly… long overdue… thirty years!…

[Let me say in advance… in case it affects your ability to access the text for the next show… there were these 'dead zones'… or suppressions of html code… I don't know how these things are done… but it created access problems for this… the show of January 25th… which… if it persists… can make navigation of the page more of a challenge. And sitting and trying to 'fix' something that can't be fixed… while I'm in the midst of being flooded by these folk with their… microwave-energy-toys aimed at me… is not conducive to my health… and I want to see these discussions get flowing… going… rolling…. Truly… long overdue… thirty years! (Addendum: to any who may have noticed that my Kandinsky-plus-wordbeat videos have ground to a halt… FYI my account at Berkeley Community Media has been 'inadvertently' tagged 'non-member'… so I have been unable to submit any additional ones this past month…) – P.S.]

A key argument of these discussions is that ‘power’ triumphs over us by disconnecting us from our earth-given knowledge… and from the earth… and from each other… and that this was originally achieved by overt physical violence alone – on the global level the parallel is called ‘colonialism’. Bentham shows us – and of course later Alice Miller does as well – the use to which children were / are put… for ‘power’ to fully explore and explain the psychological dynamics at work in the shaping of human behavior under ‘class’… and the internalization of discipline… allowing ‘power’ to maximize and preference the ‘levers’ (that shape behavior…) that avoid physical violence with its own children… and the children it trains to replace themselves… And this is not to say that they necessarily don't use violence with their own children… only that Bentham recommended internalized discipline and the 'power' guys seem to have applied this to the larger political arena… and (you can tell by the propaganda that gets out there… you can always get paid to do Division work) it is also the case… that they encourage those of us targeted for extreme-'make-use-of'… we Black folks… to use violence and coercion against our children… they will prop folks up to say that its "part of our culture…" No it isn't.

 

A key argument of these discussions is that ‘power’ triumphs over us by disconnecting us from our earth-given knowledge… and from the earth… and from each other… and that this was originally achieved by overt physical violence alone – on the global level the parallel is called ‘colonialism’. Bentham shows us – and of course later Alice Miller does as well – the use to which children were / are put… for ‘power’ to fully explore and explain the psychological dynamics at work in the shaping of human behavior under ‘class’… and the internalization of discipline… allowing ‘power’ to maximize and preference the ‘levers’ (that shape behavior…) that avoid physical violence with its own children… and the children it trains to replace themselves…

[And this is not to say that they necessarily don't use violence with their own children… only that Bentham recommended internalized discipline and the 'power' guys seem to have applied this to the larger political arena… and (you can tell by the propaganda that gets out there… you can always get paid to do Division work) it is also the case… that they encourage those of us targeted for extreme-'make-use-of'… we Black folks… to use violence and coercion against our children… they will prop folks up to say that its "part of our culture…" No it isn't. It's part of our distress… part of the conditioning that all folks under 'class' have been subjected to…. And it's a common psychological dynamic… to identify with 'power'… with the powerful… So it's understandable… but this is another suppressed discussion… and… now that I've come to see how tightly controlled the airwaves are… I don't think it's just a matter of our willingness as Black folks to own it… but I think that's a big part… that it's still there… this rationalization for hurting our children… because that's what I still hear when I talk to folk… – and what I see. And I do not mean to suggest that it's more intense with us… because I don't think that at all – I'm just saying that… you can see what 'power' wants for the future… by the propaganda they put out there… because… they 'sculpt'… they shape the world they want… systematically… methodically. They want us… particularly… to not love ourselves: the folks that they intend to do the really hard physical work… they want us to see ourselves as debased… to not see ourselves as worthy… and there's no better way to do that… perhaps the only way to do that… is to have those who are in a position of trust… providers of nurturance and sustenance in a child's early life… if that person hits you… screams at you… turns their back on you… treats you as if you are 'less-than'… treats you as if you're not there… often…

 

…I mean this is throughout 'class'-society… but we are encouraged to think of this as part of our 'culture'… and it ain't… – P.S.]< – P.S.]<

…I cite Samuel Butler… and Alice… and Bentham… and all the others… to get us back to the ever-pressing (and authentically strategic…) question of numbers. Everything (to do with getting our freedom…) comes back to ‘numbers’… the flip-side of Division… [I hope we will ponder deeply – and take seriously the results of our reasoning – the fact that this… most cogent analysis [from our Good Three] of our… we folks who long for freedom… of our current position… is non-existant in the mouths of the pundits who give us our thoughts to think… for thirty years! Wallerstein… of course… is not a pundit… we are granted zero access… practically speaking… to him… in terms of public discussion. This… from our Good Three… is the most vigorous… rigorous… compelling and exhilarating analysis of what we got… in this current system… I know of… out of Academe… which means… what this is… is suppression of needed speech… Now that we have the means… please spread it… the probing this analysis represents… …and I hope… despite the obstacles put before us… we will get it abroad in the world…. It points to one conclusion only: we have to act globally… and as cooperation is our future and our nature… Let's start now melding our acts together. Our watchword must be numbers…

 

…I cite Samuel Butler… and Alice… and Bentham… and all the others… to get us back to the ever-pressing (and authentically strategic…) question of numbers. Everything (to do with getting our freedom…) comes back to ‘numbers’… the flip-side of Division… Building numbers is directly proportional to the depth and breadth… of we-the-people's reclaiming of our own thought-process… – P.S.]

…The other is the equally prevalent, although apparently less impermeable, disposition to imagine – again, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding – that the capitalist world-economy has evolved rather as an onion grows […as opposed to acknowledging… that there is a systematic privileging of some countries… in the inter-state system… along with a simultaneous… and intentional… debasement… of others… – P.S.], from a core of small and local beginnings through successively larger rings until the outer peripheral skin is formed, all by virtue of, in this view, the self-expansion of capital through its increasing subordination of labor.

[I hope we will ponder deeply – and take seriously the results of our reasoning – the fact that this… most cogent analysis of our… we folks who long for freedom… of our current position… is non-existant in the mouths of the pundits who give us our thoughts to think… for thirty years! Wallerstein… of course… is not a pundit… we are granted zero access… practically speaking… to him… in terms of public discussion. This… from our Good Three… is the most vigorous… rigorous… compelling and exhilarating analysis of what we got… in this current system… I know of… out of Academe… which means… what this is… is suppression of needed speech…

 

Now that we have the means… please spread it… the probing this analysis represents…

 

…and I hope… despite the obstacles put before us… we will get it abroad in the world…. It points to one conclusion only: we have to act globally… and as cooperation is our future and our nature… Let's start now melding our acts together.

 

Our watchword must be numbers… – P.S.]

–––

 

* “WUR of February 1st, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”:

Sisters and Brothers: The word-beat below is from our September 30, 2012 Waking Up Radio show. It is Part 1 of a series on ‘Moving Forward’:

 

D-Way: “Then what is my responsibility to my Brothers and Sisters?… and how do my actions [get] in line with the analysis that I have done [confirming that class is totalitarian…] and also: you’ve talked with people on the street… and you’re also seeing a lot of different perspectives… some people feel that they can only manage to do what they have control over… e.g. to be the best person… to effect change within their interactions in the physical world… and is that enough?… [in order] to not be overwhelmed by the overwhelming responsibility [of dealing with] this whole global system that has oppressed [all of us…] their far-reaches of control has suppressed the whole globe… – that is really overwhelming… So… how do we move forward?… those of us who are consciously trying to create a new world – where that system [of class] no longer exists… How do you do that… and still stay sane or feel powerful or feel strong?” The Raven: “I’ve been thinking about this question too… in the sense of: as you said D-Way… a lot of people both are done with a system of rigid… fixed… class divisions… and… feel powerless to change it… And so this is why I write… this is why I engage in conversations about this… because I don’t see anything more important for us to focus on as a species right now. So I ponder what it means for our behavior and our beliefs to be so out of sync… what this means for our souls… what this means for how we are not addressing the problems that are critical for the species in order to heal the planet and ourselves… For instance… most people I talk to both agree that we are in totalitarianism… and yet admit that they don’t really do anything about that. And that to me is horrifying. That to me is how Hitler came to ‘power’.” [Spoken word is from our September 30, 2012 radio broadcast.]

 

–––

[Apologies… for taking so long to put up the advance text for the show… These days I spend so much time trying to clear this very sticky mucus out of my body… and reclaim my own machine (computer) from what I call these 'access attacks'… and then having to run out to upload… I am being majorly slowed down.

 

[Apologies… for taking so long to put up the advance text for the show… These days I spend so much time trying to clear this very sticky mucus out of my body… and reclaim my own machine (computer) from what I call these 'access attacks'… and then having to run out to upload… I am being majorly slowed down. By the way… whatever entity is responsible for the Berkeley Community Media website is refusing to correct the error in my account which has me tagged 'non-member'… which disallows new video project submissions…]

 

When humans have to do what they’re told… else starve… or shiver in rain and cold… that’s a set-up for totalitarianism. Scarcity forces our obedience… forces our compliance… forces us to accept the double-lie… that: “the ‘best’ rule… the rest bend…” serves the interests of all of us humans. So this we now see clearly… in the light of our Academe Three (confirmed in the work of Karl Popper and Martin Bernal particularly): the existence of a very self-consciously global ‘ruling’ elite… motivated not by ‘money’… but a longing to feel ‘supreme’ – not in ‘things’-acquisition… but as means for being (supposedly) supreme in ‘Knowledge’-possession.

 

‘‘Numbers’ must be our watchword… we said in last week’s show… and we’ve been… of late… identifying where our ‘numbers’ go: nationalist ideology… mutually-exclusive ‘tribal’ categories… authoritarian childrearing (which generates – for ‘power’ – the fruit of indefinite ‘diversion’… a lifetime of confusion… for its victims – who are us all…) ‘religious’ belief in ‘historical inevitability’ (and so… nothing but to wait… for the ‘Great Restoration’… when all ranks fall…)

 

…and of course our ‘numbers’ go in droves… compelled by actors heretofore unknown… into simple survival… made subjects of Necessity… by manufacturing ‘scarcity.’

 

And these rifts… we’ve been arguing… are not ‘historical accidents’… but the result of a conscious malevolence: an activist ‘ruler’ mindset bent… on acquiring ‘Knowledge-Infinite’…

 

…so it is most def not happenstance… that the mental frames for ‘totalitarianism’ and ‘class’ (the scarcity mindset – “worth must be ‘proven’” – and ‘might makes right’…) are mirror-images. When humans have to do what they’re told… else starve… or shiver in rain and cold… that’s a set-up for totalitarianism. Scarcity forces our obedience… forces our compliance… forces us to accept the double-lie… that: “the ‘best’ rule… the rest bend…” serves the interests of all of us humans.

 

So this we now see clearly… in the light of our Academe Three (confirmed in the work of Karl Popper and Martin Bernal particularly): the existence of a very self-consciously global ‘ruling’ elite… motivated not by ‘money’… but a longing to feel ‘supreme’ – not in ‘things’-acquisition… but as means for being (supposedly) supreme in ‘Knowledge’-possession.

 

So all the various ways our numbers are systematically reduced… our numbers available to come to consensus… on the need to discuss what should be the world we live in – how do we make what we want… come to be… Because we in the U.S. have this codified right to 'pursue happiness'… and that is not an individual pursuit… they try when they put out their propaganda to frame it that way and make it seem loony… but… rather… it is in fact our right as a people to come together and collectively discuss: What does it mean… to 'pursue happiness'… if not to realize our inherent gifts… our right to grow our knowledge… as they do!… or as they think they do but as we do authentically… …our right as a people to pursue truth… We have the codified right to come together and discuss how we do that… as a collective… as a people… In a sense I'm asking the same question that our Academe Three are asking: How do we confront the dilemmas facing our ability to move on as a global humanity? How do we do that? Because we are… all of us global humans…living in a moment when the story has to change…. …thinking may be the most basic way to begin listening to the earth… the first step… to regaining our thought process… which surely must be our first responsibility… For thirty years at least… we have not known our chiefest difficulty… I’d call this sorry pass ‘The Betrayal of the Pundits”… if ‘power’ didn’t possess total control of the media… …for if you hoard the ‘knowledge’ of how to kill ‘silently’ (cause ill-health no doctor can ever diagnose…) along with the levers (particularly the ‘money’-one…) that manipulate us…

 

So all the various ways our numbers are systematically reduced… our numbers available to come to consensus… on the need to discuss what should be the world we live in – how do we make what we want… come to be…

 

Because we in the U.S. have this codified right to 'pursue happiness'… and that is not an individual pursuit… they try when they put out their propaganda to frame it that way and make it seem loony… but… rather… it is in fact our right as a people to come together and collectively discuss: What does it mean… to 'pursue happiness'… if not to realize our inherent gifts… our right to grow our knowledge… as they do!… or as they think they do but as we do authentically…

 

…our right as a people to pursue truth…

 

We have the codified right to come together and discuss how we do that… as a collective… as a people…

 

So this systematic plan on 'power's part to keep us from doing that… what does that mean for us?

 

…what does this mean… for our growing the numbers we need?

 

In a sense I'm asking the same question that our Academe Three are asking: How do we confront the dilemmas facing our ability to move on as a global humanity? How do we do that?

 

We are… all of us global humans…living in a moment when the story has to change.

 

For thousands of years we’ve been subsisting in the fantasies of the Few… who like to pretend they rule… and so stack the deck… by limiting our thought process… and restricting the possibilities available to us…

 

…but that grip on our thoughts has grown slack… as our ancestors had (and still have) our back… they made the means… for us to communicate and plan globally… and restore stolen chips to our stack.

 

Recently my son reminded me of that metaphor of the elephant… chained so long… that even with the chain gone… stands in one spot… and won’t move…

 

What is our responsibility?… asked my son (in the wordbeat – above…)

 

Here’s the beginning (to be fleshed out in those suppressed discussions… about the world… the future… we want… the world in which we establish… freedom-leisure-happiness… in Abundance…)

 

…here’s the beginning of a round-about reply:

 

It occurred to me that in some respects it’s almost exhilarating to know that practically (i.e. for the purposes of our advancing our understanding… of our inherent unity… and of how to achieve… evolution for all humanity…) everything allowed over the airwaves has been vetted… because it compels us… to think… to not be tempted… to go on ‘automatic’…

 

…thinking may be the most basic way to begin listening to the earth… the first step… to regaining our thought process… which surely must be our first responsibility.

 

Shakespeare has said – and is here oft-repeated – that rough roads grow smooth… when they are known…

 

…but for thirty years at least… we have not known our chiefest difficulty… our main rough road… despite all the puzzle pieces having been shown us.

 

I’d call this sorry pass ‘The Betrayal of the Pundits”…if ‘power’ didn’t possess total control of the media…

 

…for if you hoard the ‘knowledge’ of how to kill ‘silently’ (cause ill-health no doctor can ever diagnose…) along with the levers (particularly the ‘money’-one…) that manipulate us…

 

And then I heard Chris Hedges over the airwaves attribute words to Karl Popper he didn’t say: something like 'the people are supposed to make the government fear them'… or some nonsense like that – and that gets you thinking (that's why I said it's almost exhilarating to know that everything out there is intentional propaganda these days… so what is it they are trying to do in misrepresenting Karl Popper? And that's the first time I ever heard his name over the airwaves… so you know there's a purpose there – intentional purpose. The state 'fear us'… come on… never… they don't… that's the point – not since the French Revolution – they do not want to ever fear us again.

 

So they know… just as Miklos Nyiszli said… that if they monopolize secret knowledge of how to kill and main with no one knowing… and monopolize as well knowledge of the 'big picture'… the overall plan of which specific instructions ('jobs'… functions…) are a tiny fragment… then…

 

…then they can get rid of dissent (and when has 'power' ever not wanted to do that?) with no noise… no muss… no fuss…

 

…and then add to this the knowledge of how to manipulate us – particularly that ‘money’-lever… because we have to eat… we have to keep our health…

 

So if 'power' hoards the 'knowledge' of how to control us…

 

…is it truly the fault of ‘the pundits’?

 

And then I heard Chris Hedges over the airwaves attribute words to Karl Popper he didn’t say: something like 'the people are supposed to make the government fear them'… or some nonsense like that – and that gets you thinking (that's why I said it's almost exhilarating to know that everything out there is intentional propaganda these days… so what is it they are trying to do in misrepresenting Karl Popper? And that's the first time I ever heard his name over the airwaves… so you know there's a purpose there – intentional purpose. The state 'fear us'… come on… never… they don't… that's the point – not since the French Revolution – they do not want to ever fear us again.

 

…and this in the context… of other such recent incidents of seeming reference to thoughts harbored here… a singular mention of Alice Miller – I had never heard her mentioned before – directing listeners not to the book of hers we need to read: For Your Own Good… which points the finger squarely at the state and totalitarian ideology… as does Karl Popper: focusing on Plato as the root of all totalitarian ideology…

 

…and this in the context… of other such recent incidents of seeming reference to thoughts harbored here… a singular mention of Alice Miller – I had never heard her mentioned before – directing listeners not to the book of hers we need to read: For Your Own Good… which points the finger squarely at the state and totalitarian ideology… as does Karl Popper: focusing on Plato as the root of all totalitarian ideology…

 

…and then there was this panel of pundits having a discussion on ‘freedom of speech’… and what limits it… the point being of course… to confirm its… if limited… existence… and the panel insisting on the need for we-the-people having our own conversations… never saying… what these conversations need to be… or why…

 

And I thought… what’s going on here… if not ‘power’ sending the message “of course we don’t censor… here’s an example… see… there are no suppressed conversations…”

 

We are… all of us global humans…living in a moment when the story has to change… and we have a responsibility… to think furiously… after which… to organize collective ‘thinking galleries’… in which discussion happens – maybe we should have a running list of suppressed discussions… like: why is it we don't talk about the 'money-lever'? – about the world we want… starting with you… and then spiraling outwards… thinking concretely… about the physical infrastructure. hat are you like in the world you want? If I were to answer… I’d say… “relaxed and ‘time-full’… no rush… no pressure… time without limits… Next circle out… imagine your house… where is it in relation to your nearest neighbor? What our Good Three are helping us to see… is that the global-interconnections now are such… that in thinking through how you would fully embrace ‘you’… you’re thinking ‘globally’ too… Let’s start manifesting what we want for all of us – no division.

 

We are… all of us global humans…living in a moment when the story has to change… and we have a responsibility… to think furiously…

 

…after which… to organize collective ‘thinking galleries’ in which discussion happens… – maybe we should have a running list of suppressed discussions… like: why is it we don't talk about the 'money-lever'?… the fact that if you force folk to have to jump through hierarchical hoops in order to survive… then we are going to be passively standing by when they roll out… unfold… the story they want to happen…

 

…so maybe we can think of it in terms of: 'think-ins'… or collective ‘thinking galleries’ (gatherings) in which discussion happens… about the world we want…

 

…starting with you… and then spiraling outwards… thinking concretely… about the physical infrastructure.

 

What are you like in the world you want? If I were to answer… I’d say… “relaxed and ‘time-full’… no rush… no pressure… time without limits…

 

Next circle out… imagine your house… where is it in relation to your nearest neighbor?

 

…then describe village life… and if you’re not in it… then how far away is it… and how do you relate to it?

 

What our Good Three are helping us to see… is that the global-interconnections now are such… that in thinking through how you would fully embrace ‘you’… you’re thinking ‘globally’ too…

 

Let’s start manifesting what we want for all of us – no division.

 

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“The principle directional tendency of capital is its centralization on a world scale in two forms; financial pools, and technically divided and integrated labor processes.” – “Fatherland in danger, national defense, people’s war for existence, “Kultur,” liberty – these were the slogans proclaimed by the parliamentary representatives of the Social Democracy. What followed was but the logical sequence. The position of the Party and the labor union press, the patriotic frenzy of the masses, the civil peace, the disintegration of the International, all these things were the inevitable consequence of that momentous orientation in the Reichstag.”

 

I want to juxtapose some quotes… and later unpack them:

 

The principle directional tendency of capital is its centralization on a world scale in two forms; financial pools, and technically divided and integrated labor processes. The first is effected through extraordinarily large-scale banking consortia managing “public” and “private” funds alike and mediated by such organs of the world’s bourgeoisie as the IMF, the IBRD [the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development… a.k.a. the World Bank], and the BIS. The second is effected of course through the multiplying transnationalization of production under the aegis of the transnational corporation. This determining direction of capital on a world scale – oddly enough, not one that departs greatly from that projected in “the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation” – entails for antisystemic forces at least three broad consequential subordinate directional tendencies. (“Beyond Haymarket?”, Antisystemic Movements)

“We are now facing the irrevocable fact of war. We are threatened by the horrors of invasion. The decision, today, is not for or against war; for us there can be but one question: By what means is this war to be conducted?… This danger must be averted, the civilization and the independence of our people must be safeguarded…. In the hour of danger we will not desert our fatherland. In this we feel that we stand in harmony with the [Socialist] International, which has always recognized the right of every people to its national independence….”

 

With these words the Reichstag [“‘Reichstag’: the main legislature of the German state under the Second and Third Reichs; from the German ‘reichs’, meaning ‘of the empire’ plus ‘tag’, meaning ‘diet’ or ‘a legislative assembly’ – from the Latin ‘day’s work’ or ‘meeting of councilors’…”] group [the ‘Socialists’… – P.S.] issued the countersign [for the state… i.e. it capitulated… caved… – P.S.] that determined and controlled the position of the German working class during the war. Fatherland in danger, national defense, people’s war for existence, “Kultur,” liberty – these were the slogans proclaimed by the parliamentary representatives of the Social Democracy. What followed was but the logical sequence. The position of the Party and the labor union press, the patriotic frenzy of the masses, the civil peace, the disintegration of the International, all these things were the inevitable consequence of that momentous orientation in the Reichstag. (Rosa Luxemburg, “The Junius Pamphlet: The Crisis in the German Social Democracy,” February, 1915)

 

“The world war has annihilated the work of forty years of European socialism…” [i.e. the dream of global freedom… – P.S.] – In this space we have been raising the possibility for discussion: What if the result was the intention? …we have been arguing – bringing in the testimony of numerous ancestors… including Jeremy Bentham… Karl Popper… Miklos Nyiszli… Alice Miller… Albert O. Hirschman… De Tocqueville… Diana Spearman… and one potent contemporary attestor… Martin Bernal – that the French Revolution marked a turning point in the ‘story’ of ‘rule’… a turn toward a conscious plan to unify the ‘ruling class’ by making ‘rule’ permanent… through its institutionalization… by means of resource-aggregation: i.e. the accumulation of capital to fund this vision… and the crafting of global elite educational institutions to provide the on-going human resources to implement it…

 

The world war has annihilated the work of forty years of European socialism [i.e. the dream of global freedom… – P.S.]: by destroying the revolutionary proletariat as a political force; by destroying the moral prestige of socialism; by scattering the workers’ International; by setting its Sections one against the other in fratricidal massacre; and by tying the aspirations and hopes of the masses of the people of the main countries in which capitalism has developed to the destinies of imperialism. (Rosa Luxemburg, “Theses in the Tasks of International Social Democracy,” April, 1915)

In this space we have been raising the possibility for discussion: What if the result was the intention? If so… Left myopia on this question is understandable…

 

…since…

 

…if it is indeed the case… as we have been arguing – bringing in the testimony of numerous ancestors… including Jeremy Bentham… Karl Popper… Miklos Nyiszli… Alice Miller… Albert O. Hirschman… De Tocqueville… Diana Spearman… and one potent contemporary attestor… Martin Bernal – that the French Revolution marked a turning point in the ‘story’ of ‘rule’… a turn toward a conscious plan to unify the ‘ruling class’ by making ‘rule’ permanent… through its institutionalization… by means of resource-aggregation: i.e. the accumulation of capital to fund this vision… and the crafting of global elite educational institutions to provide the on-going human resources to implement it… if this is what has been happening to us…

 

…then… it takes time to catch up to the hidden ‘work’ of hidden actors…

 

…and ‘power’s ‘head-start’ on us is not just in terms of years… but in terms of means…

 

…and ‘class’ as a system ensures that disproportionate means but increases over time… exponentially…

 

Rosa Luxemburg concludes her ‘Tasks’ by listing the ‘historic mission’ of ‘socialism’, the last of which states: “The immediate mission of socialism is the spiritual liberation of the proletariat from the tutelage of the bourgeoisie, which expressed itself through the influence of nationalist ideology… The workers’ fatherland, to the defense of which all else must be subordinated, is the Socialist International.” – …once you see and feel the velocity… and ferocity… with which ‘power’ has seized our love and heart in its teeth… and… yearly… weekly… daily… keeps shredding… …then how can you describe the “the principle directional tendency of capital…” as being anything but: a war on us… and on the planet? – “We are massively, seriously in urgent need of reconstructing the strategy, perhaps the ideology, perhaps the organizational structure of the family of world antisystemic movements; if we are to cope effectively with the real dilemmas before which we are placed, as the “stateness” of states and the “capitalist” nature of capitalism grow at an incredible pace.”

 

Rosa Luxemburg concludes her ‘Tasks’ by listing the ‘historic mission’ of ‘socialism’, the last of which states:

The immediate mission of socialism is the spiritual liberation of the proletariat from the tutelage of the bourgeoisie, which expressed itself through the influence of nationalist ideology. The national Sections must agitate in the parliaments and the press, denouncing the empty wordiness of nationalism as an instrument of bourgeois domination. The sole defense of all real national independence is at present the revolutionary class struggle against imperialism. The workers’ fatherland, to the defense of which all else must be subordinated, is the Socialist International.

 

Last week our Good Three – Immanuel Wallerstein… Giovanni Arrighi… and Terence K. Hopkins – presented their conclusion… that ‘power’ is global… and operates through interstate mechanisms which… in an ever-increasing way… make us subjects not of ‘states’… but of the global-system – making ‘state’ and market’ non-descriptive… and requiring a new language and mindset for movements that aspire to be ‘antisystemic’.

Together these three facets of the ongoing structural transformation of the modern world-system, all of which reveal, to a greater or lesser extent, the structural surround of the state power seized or occupied by anti systemic movements in the course of the twentieth century, and indicate the degree and kind of reconstitution of terrain with which present and future movements of a like sort have to contend. They indicate as well – though this is not here a central concern of ours – the anachronism of the contents we give to the concepts with which we commonly work. The dilemmas of the antisystemic movements are thus in some measure the unintended product of a sort of false consciousness on the part, not of toadies nor even of hairsplitters, but of the most engaged of the intelligentsia.

Let’s return to those earlier words:

The principle directional tendency of capital is its centralization on a world scale in two forms; financial pools, and technically divided and integrated labor processes. The first is effected through extraordinarily large-scale banking consortia managing “public” and “private” funds alike and mediated by such organs of the world’s bourgeoisie as the IMF, the IBRD [the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development… a.k.a. the World Bank], and the BIS. The second is effected of course through the multiplying transnationalization of production under the aegis of the transnational corporation. This determining direction of capital on a world scale – oddly enough, not one that departs greatly from that projected in “the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation” – entails for antisystemic forces at least three broad consequential subordinate directional tendencies. (“Beyond Haymarket?”, Antisystemic Movements)

When I first read them I was struck by the fact… that… four years on… beyond the essay “Dilemmas”… their language seemed… more wedded to ‘Marxist’ categories than ever… despite their recognizing… as we shall read shortly:

We are massively, seriously in urgent need of reconstructing the strategy, perhaps the ideology, perhaps the organizational structure of the family of world antisystemic movements; if we are to cope effectively with the real dilemmas before which we are placed, as the “stateness” of states and the “capitalist” nature of capitalism grow at an incredible pace. We know this creates objective contradictions for the system as such and for the managers of the status quo. But it creates dilemmas for the antisystemic movements almost as grave. Thus we cannot count on the “automaticity” of progress; thus we cannot abandon critical analysis of our real historical alternatives.

Because… once you look at things… from the bottom… and see… as Rosa did (“The world war has annihilated the work of forty years of European socialism…” – work beautifully depicted in Maxim Gorky’s Mother…) and as we have been reading in Keith Lowe’s Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II…

 

…once you see and feel the velocity… and ferocity… with which ‘power’ has seized our love and heart in its teeth… and… yearly… weekly… daily… keeps shredding…

 

…then how can you describe the “the principle directional tendency of capital…” as being anything but: a war on us… and on the planet?

 

…and then… I got stuck on: “the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation”… about which… Rosa said this: “The aim and incentive of capitalist production is not a surplus value pure and simple, to be appropriated in any desired quantity, but a surplus value ever growing into larger quantities, surplus value ad infinitum… It is the production of surplus value which turns reproduction of social necessities into a perpetuum mobile…” Perpetuum mobile… from the Latin: “perpetually moving thing…” perpetually consuming… eating… the earth… input: earth… output: means… infinite resources for the acquisition… securing… of ‘Infinite Knowledge’?… ‘Power’… perhaps – also perhaps it didn’t… doesn’t… care – flipped the ‘greed switch’… not caring that it can’t be turned off… but it always was… a device of art only… on the road to totalitarianism… ‘Power’ knows we need a ‘point’… ‘money’ has served as such a goal… using ‘capitalism’ as the mechanism / device… and Marxist theory as the legitimating ideology…

 

…and then… I got stuck on: “the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation”…

 

The aim and incentive of capitalist production is not a surplus value pure and simple, to be appropriated in any desired quantity, but a surplus value ever growing into larger quantities, surplus value ad infinitum. But to achieve this aim, the same magic means must be used over and over again, the means of capitalist production – the ever repeated as appropriation of the proceeds of unpaid wage labour in the process of commodity manufacture, and the subsequent realization of the commodities so produced.

 

Thus quite a new incentive is given to constantly renewed production, to the process of reproduction as a regular phenomenon in capitalist society, and incentive unknown to any other system of production. In every other economic system known to history, reproduction is determined by the unceasing need of society for consumer goods… But in a capitalist system of production… [for] the individual private producer… appropriation of surplus valued is his real incentive… It is the production of surplus value which turns reproduction of social necessities into a perpetuum mobile. (The Accumulation of Capital, p. 39)

Perpetuum mobile… from the Latin: “perpetually moving thing…” perpetually consuming… eating… the earth…

 

…input: earth… output: means… infinite resources for the acquisition… securing… of ‘Infinite Knowledge’?…

 

…a machine set in motion that cannot be ‘unset’… except by getting ‘the people’ to ‘regulate’ it…

 

 

…but it always was… a device of art only… on the road to totalitarianism…

 

The ‘power’-guys… the global-state-statesmen… prepared themselves by propagandizing (as Reagan said…) that ‘democracy’ is but a pause… on the road to dictatorship…

 

Nonetheless… they did not – cannot – see (as it seems to have eluded Bentham…) but William could have told them: that there is a lever of which they cannot maintain an exclusive hold – that the perpetuum mobile for knowledge… in reality cuts one way… ultimately… if the right note is played… toward truth…

 

There comes a point in any quest to understand when it is no longer acceptable to produce pap… even when paid to do so.

 

‘Power’ knows we need a ‘point’… ‘money’ has served as such a goal… using ‘capitalism’ as the mechanism / device… and Marxist theory as the legitimating ideology…

 

…and they can’t be faulted for conservatism in overweighting us with burdens… of every imaginable kind… and in every imaginable way…

 

…but…

 

…their assumption that only they… are determined to know… what it is that makes things go… led them astray…

 

…or to think that they can hide for long… once our search for truth is unified… in voice and song…

 

“For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.”

 

After which… we make our rough road smooth.

 

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[Today’s reading: We are – briefly interrupting our reading of Chapter 5 – and concluding our reading of Chapter 2 of Giovanni Arrighi’s, Terence K. Hopkins’, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…: “Dilemmas of Antisystemic Movements”… – P.S.]

 

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* * February 1, 2015 reading: Chapter 2 of Giovanni Arrighi’s, Terence K. Hopkins’, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements… “Dilemmas of Antisystemic Movements”

 

This may be as good point as any… to call attention to a key area of difference between the argument of professional Leftists… usually Marxists as well… and the argument advanced here. When we read that the hierarchical structuring of states… “deepened the differences in productive capacity…” between them… we are hearing the ‘language of economics’ which Marxists necessarily use (…as they played… and continue to play… a key role in crafting it…) i.e.… we are entering into a worldview which accepts as legitimate (if only in a sense…) the value-assignment-role of ‘the market’ in determining ‘wealth’… But the argument here is that we cannot claim our freedom unless we renounce that language… that life must not be commodified for ‘rule’ to be unseated… and reverence become the defining quality of our lives…

 

We turn now to much briefer observations on two more faces of this transformation. A second face is in the organization of the structuring of another plane of the capitalist world-economy’s operation, the axial division of labor. This is the complex of interrelated production / transportation processes that is so ordered that the surplus-value created in the course of production and transportation is, historically, disproportionately appropriated at the organizing centers of the multiple and more-or-less lengthy chains or networks of dependent production processes.

[…by “the organizing centers…” they’re referring to those countries or regions ‘privileged’ to be… at the top of the inter-state-system hierarchy… given the ‘plum’ assignment of being… ‘the brains of the operation…’ So here again we see… that the ‘mental – manual’ distinction / segmentation… is key… – P.S.]

The relational patterns this ordering entails are thereby reproduced and, for additional reasons, their reproduction has cyclically deepened the differences in productive capacity between the organizing center or core portions of the axial division of labor and its increasingly peripheralized portions. In the twentieth century, the underlying transformation has effected some truly massive alterations in the constituent relations of the complex core-periphery axis and hence in the mapping of their respective global zones, the results of which – generally rendered as if the result of state policies – are broadly known.…

[Again… ‘power’ must hide to survive. This may be as good point as any – before we look more deeply at “the ‘state – market’ distinction ideology” – to call attention to a key area of difference between the argument of professional Leftists… usually Marxists as well… and the argument advanced here. When we read that the hierarchical structuring of states… “deepened the differences in productive capacity…” between them… we are hearing the ‘language of economics’ which Marxists necessarily use (…as they played… and continue to play… a key role in crafting it…) i.e.… we are entering into a worldview which accepts as legitimate (if only in a sense…) the value-assignment-role of ‘the market’ in determining ‘wealth’… But the argument here is that we cannot claim our freedom unless we renounce that language… that life must not be commodified for ‘rule’ to be unseated… and reverence become the defining quality of our lives… – P.S.]

“Of more immediate interest is the extraordinary growth in recent decades of a long-standing agency of the organizing center or core of the socialization of production (hence of labor) […more accurately called the ‘disciplining of human beings’… – P.S.] on a world scale; namely, what is currently called the multinational or transnational firm. In a sentence, many relations among materially dependent production processes that had been exchange relations…” [Recall what else is ‘historically original’: the ever-growing ‘stateness’ of the interstate system… the increasing density of inter-state relations within states themselves… the increasing irrelevance of what was in any case nominal ‘sovereignty’ to the functioning of ‘the system’… and the resulting “subordination (of the) interrelations among the world’s peoples…” to the self-interested imperatives – and our Trio are asking… what would those be? – of the interstate system. This underscores the point our Three are making: that the distinction ‘interstate system’ and ‘global market’ is ideological… It’s like a mystery that… bit by bit… they unfold before us: How did it come to be… this web in which we’re caught so thoroughly… ‘enfixed’ as to a tomb… – P.S.]

 

…Of more immediate interest is the extraordinary growth in recent decades of a long-standing agency of the organizing center or core of the socialization of production (hence of labor) […more accurately called the ‘disciplining of human beings’… – P.S.] on a world scale; namely, what is currently called the multinational or transnational firm. In a sentence, many relations among materially dependent production processes that had been exchange relations – or, if newly formed, could have been under other conditions (and so of, or potentially of, market-organized networks of commodity flows) – became transformed into (or, if new, formed as) intrafirm relations. The elemental arrangement – centralizations of capital, in the form of firms, entrepreneurially organizing geographically extensive and technically complex (for the time) chains of related production operations – is hardly new. It was, after all, what distinguished the chartered merchant (sic!) […again… the terms we’re given to think in… are intentionally deceptive… – P.S.] companies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from other capitalized operations. But in recent decades this “elemental arrangement” of the capitalist world-economy has been increasingly constituted on a scale, and in a form of both organization and production, that is historically original.…

[Recall what else is ‘historically original’: the ever-growing ‘stateness’ of the interstate system… the increasing density of inter-state relations within states themselves… the increasing irrelevance of what was in any case nominal ‘sovereignty’ to the functioning of ‘the system’… and the resulting “subordination (of the) interrelations among the world’s peoples…” to the self-interested imperatives – and our Trio are asking… what would those be? – of the interstate system. This underscores the point our Three are making: that the distinction ‘interstate system’ and ‘global market’ is ideological… It’s like a mystery that… bit by bit… they unfold before us: How did it come to be… this web in which we’re caught so thoroughly… ‘enfixed’ as to a tomb… – P.S.]

“The transnational corporations’ reconstruction of the world-scale division and integration of labor processes fundamentally alters the historical possibilities of what are still referred to, and not yet even nostalgically, as “national economies.” A third face of the ongoing structural transformation we are sketchily addressing here shows itself, so to speak, in the massive centralization of capital of the postwar decades. Slowly, haltingly, but more and more definitely, the central agency of capitalist accumulation on a world scale, a world ruling class in formation, is organizing a relational structure for continually resolving the massive contradictions… The centralization here is at the money point in the circuit of capital, and the borrowers are not directly capitalist entrepreneurs but are instead states, which in turn use the more-or-less encumbered credits to work with transnationals, operating with undistributed surpluses in various “development” projects, which, as they are realized materially, amount to what is called by some “Third World industrialization” and result in precisely the “deindustrialization” of previously core areas.” [This is called conquering and leashing the world’s peoples by sucking all the wealth – earth-resources stolen… i.e. destroyed… removed from the people’s use – out of the subject states… and into the hands of the banks… ‘power’s ‘money-face’… the ‘business-end’ of its subjection operation… through the deeply resistant… still get the bayonet… – P.S.]

 

…The transnational corporations’ reconstruction of the world-scale division and integration of labor processes fundamentally alters the historical possibilities of what are still referred to, and not yet even nostalgically, as “national economies.”

 

A third face of the ongoing structural transformation we are sketchily addressing here shows itself, so to speak, in the massive centralization of capital of the postwar decades. Slowly, haltingly, but more and more definitely, the central agency of capitalist accumulation on a world scale, a world ruling class in formation, is organizing a relational structure for continually resolving the massive contradictions, increasingly apparent between the transnational corporations’ control over, and hence responsibility for, the interruptions among productive processes and the multiple states’ control over, and hence responsibility for, the labor forces these production processes engage, more or less sporadically.

 

This structure being organized is basically a sort of replacement, at a “higher level” of course, for the late-lamented colonial empires, whose demise the national movements sought and the new hegemonic power, the United States, required. Through those arrangements, and such cousins of them as the Chinese concessions and the Ottoman capitulations, the axial division of labor had been furthered and, subject to the very system’s structural cycles, assured. The twentieth century’s thirty-years’ war (1914 – 45), insofar as it was about those arrangements, resolved the question of hegemonic power (a United States versus Germany fight, it was then understood) but left for invention the means of its exercise and, with that, the perpetuation of both the axial division of labor and the necessary multiple sovereignties, through which the interstate system and hence the relations of hegemony operated.

 

The invention was a long time in coming and seems to have emerged fully only, as we said earlier, after the narrowness of the limits of great-power military force had finally been established by the Vietnamese for all to see.…

[In our Waking Up Radio show of December 21, 2014 we posed the question: “What if… all the blood-letting was exactly what ‘power’ wanted?:

 

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But I have a deeper… and broader… concern about their analysis. What I’m seeing now… is that the problem we identified in last week’s show: ‘power’s invisibility… the clandestine manner of the global-state-statesmen’s mechanisms for organizing the world… and of their own planning… distorts the analysis… the implications of this problem must be plumbed… and mos def discussed… using the frame of our earth-allegiance – and with a fearless acceptance of the results of the analysis that our Reason gives us: what if… all the blood-letting was exactly what ‘power’ wanted? The view of ‘all’ changes when we admit… that the goal of ‘power’ has ever been… to ‘keep the cattle herded’… The question we should ask to test the motive I’m imputing to them… this motive ‘herding us’… is… whether after all the blood-letting… all the violence… were we-the-global-people more or less… ‘disciplined’?… i.e. were ‘the people’ more tightly ‘organized’ in state-boxes? And without question we can answer, “Yes.”.…” [Excerpt is from our December 21, 2014 radio broadcast.]

 

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The invention was a long time in coming and seems to have emerged fully only, as we said earlier, after the narrowness of the limits of great-power military force had finally been established by the Vietnamese for all to see. Crudely put, what seems to have been going on, by way of a structural replacement of the colonial empires, has been the simultaneous growth in massive centralizations of capital and a sort of deconcentration of capital (called deindustrialization in present core areas of the axial division of labor). The massive centralization has as its agencies quite small ad hoc steering committees of consortia, each composed of several hundred banks working in close relations both with central banks and with international genies, notably the IBRD, and IMF, and the BIS. The centralization here is at the money point in the circuit of capital, and the borrowers are not directly capitalist entrepreneurs but are instead states, which in turn use the more-or-less encumbered credits to work with transnationals, operating with undistributed surpluses in various “development” projects, which, as they are realized materially, amount to what is called by some “Third World industrialization” and result in precisely the “deindustrialization” of previously core areas.

[This is called conquering and leashing the world’s peoples by sucking all the wealth – earth-resources stolen… i.e. destroyed… removed from the people’s use – out of the subject states… and into the hands of the banks… ‘power’s ‘money-face’… the ‘business-end’ of its subjection operation… through the deeply resistant… still get the bayonet… – P.S.]

“This face of the transformation does suggest reconsidering the theoretically presumed concatenation [“a series of interconnected things or events… or the action of linking things together…”] of centralization and concentration of capital. But even more it suggests reconceptualizing the fundamental nature of the accumulation process as it is framed throughout the idea of the circuits of capital. For when the indebted states run into trouble, one of the agencies of this arrangement, the IMF, steps forward with austerity plans, the gist and substance of which amount to lowering the costs, now internationally reckoned, of the daily and generational reproduction of the labor forces of (within?) each of the countries. [… – P.S.]… Together these three facets of the ongoing structural transformation of the modern world-system, all of which reveal, to a greater or lesser extent, the structural surround of the state power seized or occupied by antisystemic movements in the course of the twentieth century… There remains a matter to end on here – to raise as a sort of coda – for nothing before has directly prefigured it… The kind of concern flagged in the Manifesto, the material means of unity among those geographically separate, remains central. The means themselves, and the very form of their materiality, have been fundamentally transformed. More and more antisystemic movements will find their own cohesion and coherence forged and destroyed by the newest of the means of mediating social relations.… Where then are we? We are massively, seriously in urgent need of reconstructing the strategy, perhaps the ideology, perhaps the organizational structure of the family of world antisystemic movements; if we are to cope effectively with the real dilemmas before which we are placed…” [Who do you know of since… to think so strategically… and so realistically… and so passionately… about how to effect a global movement… that is antisystemic… as we see in this… from Terence K. Hopkins… I invite Immanuel Wallerstein to challenge me on that… – P.S.]

 

This face of the transformation does suggest reconsidering the theoretically presumed concatenation [“a series of interconnected things or events… or the action of linking things together…”] of centralization and concentration of capital. But even more it suggests reconceptualizing the fundamental nature of the accumulation process as it is framed throughout the idea of the circuits of capital. For when the indebted states run into trouble, one of the agencies of this arrangement, the IMF, steps forward with austerity plans, the gist and substance of which amount to lowering the costs, now internationally reckoned, of the daily and generational reproduction of the labor forces of (within?) each of the countries.

[Once again… he’s saying the term ‘nation-state’ exists to invite confusion… And we know that when they talk about “lowering our reproduction costs…” they're talking about reducing our life expectancy… our health… our happiness… exponentially over time… – P.S.]

The arrangement is not per se historically new – one thinks of the Ottoman capitulations, for example – but it is far more massive and, as a structural array of processes of the world-system, far more frequent in occurrence and telling in its implications for the structuring of the accumulation process as such.

 

Together these three facets of the ongoing structural transformation of the modern world-system, all of which reveal, to a greater or lesser extent, the structural surround of the state power seized or occupied by anti systemic movements in the course of the twentieth century, and indicate the degree and kind of reconstitution of terrain with which present and future movements of a like sort have to contend. They indicate as well – though this is not here a central concern of ours – the anachronism of the contents we give to the concepts with which we commonly work. The dilemmas of the antisystemic movements are thus in some measure the unintended product of a sort of false consciousness on the part, not of toadies nor even of hairsplitters, but of the most engaged of the intelligentsia.

 

There remains a matter to end on here – to raise as a sort of coda – for nothing before has directly prefigured it. This is the ongoing transformation of communications networks. The Communist Manifesto observes: “And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarians, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years.” It is now nearly a century and a half since that was written. That sentence has lost none of its force. But it must be understood contemporarily. In the United States, in the 1960s, what effected the interrelation of the hundred-and-fifty or so Black demonstrations and the even more numerous public forms of the antiwar movement was television, which is why the commanding officer of the Grenada operation (Grenada: less than half the size in territory and people of an upstate New York county) correctly, from the U.S. government’s point of view, decreed there was to be no accompanying news coverage of the invasion. The kind of concern flagged in the Manifesto, the material means of unity among those geographically separate, remains central. The means themselves, and the very form of their materiality, have been fundamentally transformed. More and more antisystemic movements will find their own cohesion and coherence forged and destroyed by the newest of the means of mediating social relations.

 

Where then are we? We are massively, seriously in urgent need of reconstructing the strategy, perhaps the ideology, perhaps the organizational structure of the family of world antisystemic movements; if we are to cope effectively with the real dilemmas before which we are placed, as the “stateness” of states and the “capitalist” nature of capitalism grow at an incredible pace. We know this creates objective contradictions for the system as such and for the managers of the status quo. But it creates dilemmas for the antisystemic movements almost as grave. Thus we cannot count on the “automaticity” of progress; thus we cannot abandon critical analysis of our real historical alternatives.

[Who do you know of since… to think so strategically… and so realistically… and so passionately… about how to effect a global movement… that is antisystemic… as we see in this… from Terence K. Hopkins… I invite Immanuel Wallerstein to challenge me on that… – P.S.]

 

[This concludes Chapter 2 of Antisystemic Movements: “Dilemmas of Antisystemic Movements”.]

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* “WUR of February 8th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”:

Sisters and Brothers: The word-beats below continue the conversation that D-Way and I had during our September 30, 2012 Waking Up Radio show. They are Parts 2 and 3 of a multi-part series on ‘Moving Forward’:

 

D-Way: “I’m wondering why… for people out there who you interact with… and they say they feel like they’re ‘powerless’ to do anything to combat the creeping totalitarianism state… that totalitarianism is here… people agree… but feel like they can’t do anything about it… so… why do you feel like we can do something about it?… like… what do you say to people who say that to you?… you know?… because it is overwhelming when you think about the level of control and dominance that this system has put over the globe… So why are you hopeful that we can effect that change?” The Raven: “Well I think one way to answer that question is to respond to what we were just listening to prior to this show… When we got within a couple blocks of the station we started hearing the voice of Helen Caldicott… and she was interviewing Colonel Ann Wright… and Ann Wright was bemoaning the fact that can’t get people to mobilize around… anything… that there is a scary passivity on the part of us… and a scary hearing loss on the part of both [political] parties… and so they were in effect acknowledging that we don’t have an existing democracy… and that the problem was out there somewhere… ‘the problem is Barack’… ‘the problem is apathy’… the problem is everywhere but that man or woman in the mirror… For instance… [in her identification with the state… and lack of recognition that change comes from below…] being eternally ‘surprised’ that ‘power’ acts like ‘power’… and then they’re always ‘surprised’ that people have no time to engage in political activism… and they… almost as an aside… they said, “Well… people want to keep their job…” as if that’s an aside… and irrelevant… to how we solve this problem… As long as they can control whether we eat or not… as long as we are not questioning the deep underpinnings of a ‘class’-system… how in the world can we pull ourselves out of a sense of apathy?” D-Way: “I wanted to… back it up a little bit to the personal responsibility and how you said that people see… in the media… problems like violence or sexual assault… but we rarely want to internalize it… see how we perpetuate the system… but I just wanted to go back and say: it’s hard for people to hear… that they are the problem… Are you suggesting that people should think of themselves as a problem?” [Spoken word is from our September 30, 2012 radio broadcast.]

 

–––

 

D-Way: “Because… I saw as a bit of a dichotomy your saying that in one case we internalize ‘the system’… but at the same time when [Ann Wright] is saying: “well… we did this…” then… I hear you distancing yourself from that… saying that “we didn’t… we’re not a part of that…” So… we’re not doing these horrific acts around the globe… but in our language isn’t it important to make a distinction between this system of oppression and ‘us’?… or do we need to claim those horrific acts that are happening around the globe?” The Raven: “Well… the distinction for me is that… it gets back to: ‘What’s the objective?’… ‘What’s the goal?’… and when pundits talk about… with… perhaps… a sense of shame… what ‘we’… meaning ‘the U.S. state’… is doing… what they’re saying… implicitly… is that: ‘I want to be proud of my state… we must fix this… we must put in office those people who will implement in an honorable way the intentions of the people of this [nation-]state… the citizenry… and what I’m arguing… is that this is ideology in the guise of something noble… that… in fact… part of our apathy… our dispiritedness… around engaging in authentic activism is that no one speaks honestly… When I talk to people on the street… there’s so much more just down-to-earth honorable honesty than I ever hear… ever hear… over the airwaves… So when I hear an Ann Wright bemoan the lack of integrity of the U.S. state… as if a state can be anything but what it was established to be… that is contributing to massive confusion out there… So I say that the responsibility of pundits (but… of course… they wouldn’t be pundits if they did this…) is to begin using an authentic… earth-based language…” D-Way: “Well I wasn’t talking about ‘the responsibility of the pundits’… I’m talking about the responsibility of individuals and the language we use in describing the relationship we have with this ‘power’ that controls us. What I’m asking… what is the language that we use to describe that?… because if ‘the system’ isn’t us… how come we shouldn’t say… ‘this is what we’re doing…’ in order to claim it… in order to take responsibility for those atrocious acts that are happening… and then speak out and push to change those actions?” [Spoken word is from our September 30, 2012 radio broadcast.]

 

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So when the young college-educated… urged to devise new ‘apps’… or financial ‘instruments’… or run all the ‘systems’… or launch some new ‘start-up’… to serve the global-state-statesmen… are told they are ‘creatives’… they are… if they buy it… eating up the latest version of the Conquering Race story… and holding hostage our free future… …because if they… the so-called ‘creatives’… who operate the networks – the grid that hosts our interconnections – were to decide… finally… that they are not ‘special’… not cut from some cloth of a more refined ‘order’… and make common cause with all of us-targeted… then it would be ‘game-over’ for ‘power’ and its ‘system’… and authentic existence… could begin again… ‘Education’ is quite literally the means for fostering the divisions that perpetuate ‘the system’.

 

Sisters and Brothers: Today’s theme is: how we are controlled by stories… and how… once ‘class’ (‘power’… the global-state statesmen…) is established globally… once the Roach Motel is fully-constructed… all the stories allowed are versions of one: “The Logic of Rule.” This story has a vision and a mission… and so… as those who own it are only .0001% of us…

(…by the by… as an intimate relation… standing by… the following has been on my mind to mention ever since Oxfam released its report on global inequality which said that one percent of the entire global population – we’re talking seventy million – owns as much as three and a half billion…

 

Really?… Well… here’s a request to the numbers-crunchers… you who compose these quantifications… give us instead the ratio we need… that most effects our getting free… that best reflects our true endowment – we commoners for millennia on leash – that being… the wealth-divergence between everyone else… and those Miniscule Few Ten Thousand: the point-zero-zero-zero-one percent…)

…must get us to implement it… this ‘vision’. And trained as they are to be militaristic… they’ve (in their minds) organized us into regiments: they need officers… and grunts… and downstairs servants…

 

…and us raised… willing… to bow to them:

The regeneration of the inferior or degenerate races by the superior races is part of the providential order of things for humanity…. Nature has made a race of workers, the Chinese race, who have wonderful manual dexterity and almost no sense of honor; govern them with justice, levying from them, in return for the blessing of such a government, an ample allowance for the conquering race, and they will be satisfied; a race of tillers of the soil, the Negro; treat him with kindness and humanity, and all will be as it should; a race of masters and soldiers, the European race. Reduce this noble race to working in the ergastulum […from the Greek ‘ergon’ for ‘work’… and (perhaps) the Greek ‘gaster’ for ‘stomach’…] like Negroes and Chinese, and they rebel…. But the life at which our workers rebel would make a Chinese or a fellah happy, as they are not military creatures in the least. Let each one do what he is made for, and all will be well. (Ernest Renan, quoted in Chinweizu, The West and the Rest of Us: White Predators, Black Slavers and the African Elite, 1975, in the chapter: “Global Power and the Myths of Racism”, which describes Mr. Renan as a “western humanist and idealist philosopher from France…”)

So when the young college-educated… urged to devise new ‘apps’… or financial ‘instruments’… or run all the ‘systems’… or launch some new ‘start-up’… to serve the global-state-statesmen…

 

…are told they are ‘creatives’… they are… if they buy it… eating up the latest version of the Conquering Race story…

 

…and holding hostage our free future…

 

…because if they… the so-called ‘creatives’… who operate the networks – the grid that hosts our interconnections – were to decide… finally… that they are not ‘special’… not cut from some cloth of a more refined ‘order’… and make common cause with all of us-targeted… then it would be ‘game-over’ for ‘power’ and its ‘system’… and authentic existence… could begin again…

 

‘Education’ is quite literally the means for fostering the divisions that perpetuate ‘the system’.

 

–––

(Request for suggestions for how to break out of this 'communications-isolation-unit' I feel like I have been put in… When I called I-Power [the Nascence site web host] to try to figure out why my web page html text / code for the January 25 show was seemingly being suppressed or overwritten… but in any case didn't show… I got a woman who was curious why I wasn't checking my stats… I replied that my files on the site were regularly being altered… so it didn't make a lot of sense to credit what the 'stats' said… She told me that my 'normal' daily 'average' number of folks visiting the website of '80' was ten times higher on January 18. I answered that that was extremely implausible and asked her to send me an email to that effect… She never did… – P.S.)

 

(Request for suggestions for how to break out of this 'communications-isolation-unit' I feel like I have been put in… When I called I-Power to try to figure out why my web page html text / code for the January 25 show was seemingly being suppressed or overwritten… but in any case didn't show… I got a woman who was curious why I wasn't checking my stats… I replied that my files on the site were regularly being altered… so it didn't make a lot of sense to credit what the 'stats' said… She told me that my 'normal' daily 'average' number of folks visiting the website of '80' was ten times higher on January 18. I answered that that was extremely implausible and asked her to send me an email to that effect… She never did… – P.S.)

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…the way I see it is that in order for us to get our freedom… we have to have a new language [and I believe our Good Three agree… as we'll see in our reading shortly…] And so when I read excerpts from things… it's like… chunks of new language… new terminology… new stories… to fold into our thought-process. We have to have new thoughts to think… …but I will say this about Harper Lee: the news that she is publishing a new book was met (over the airwaves) with such lack of enthusiasm that it was striking… when you have folks announce the release of something new by Harper Lee and talk as if this is something that should not happen… it raises lots of red flags… and when something like this happens… we really have to make an extra effort… to flip it… and say "this is something we must read…" Harper Lee?… a new novel?… what a gift…

 

With apologies… I'd like to move our Harper Lee tribute and our Jomo Kenyatta reading to next week in order to have sufficient time for our Antisystemic Movements… reading… which has important insights for us to consider… and in order to give our Harper Lee and Jomo Kenyatta stories their due.

 

The reason why I'm bringing in these stories is because…

 

…the way I see it is that in order for us to get our freedom… we have to have a new language [and I believe our Good Three agree… as we'll see in our reading shortly…]

 

And so when I read excerpts from things… it's like… chunks of new language… new terminology… new stories… to fold into our thought-process. We have to have new thoughts to think…

 

…but I will say this about Harper Lee: the news that she is publishing a new book was met (over the airwaves) with such lack of enthusiasm that it was striking…

 

…when you have folks announce the release of something new by Harper Lee and talk as if this is something that should not happen… it raises lots of red flags…

 

…because… why?… it made no sense…

 

…and when something like this happens… we really have to make an extra effort… to flip it… and say "this is something we must read…"

 

Harper Lee?… a new novel?… what a gift…

 

–––

 

…and right now… because we are in transition… because humans globally are turning from ‘Rule’… and are looking to the earth once again for guidance… ‘power’ is on the defensive… a wounded tiger… which means… that the next presidential election will be… ‘simply’… the most ‘kick-stomping-dirty-tricks-to-the-death vicious… that any now walking have unfortunately seen… but far from this being a moment for watching… for sitting back in shock at this hideous ‘show’… rather… this is a moment… to go for the gold…

 

Stories are what we’re made of… we’ve said before in these discussions… and I don’t think we’ve fully appreciated what this means when we’re living under a system of ‘power’… of ‘Rule By the Few’…

 

…it means… as Bentham taught us… every ‘story’ that we hear… must reinforce ‘power’s ‘logic’… every story must add padding to their blanket of security…

 

…and right now… because we are in transition… because humans globally are turning from ‘Rule’… and are looking to the earth once again for guidance…

 

…‘power’ is on the defensive… a wounded tiger…

 

…which means… as the global-state-statesmen plan to remain hegemonic…

 

…and no ‘piece’ on the chessboard matters more than the U.S….

 

…that the next presidential election will be not just ‘knock-down-drag-out’-maxed-out… simply…

 

…but ‘simply’… the most ‘kick-stomping-dirty-tricks-to-the-death vicious… that any now walking have unfortunately seen…

 

…which means… you will be rewarded… as Cornell West knows… if you have a shtick that involves trashing Barack… who’s story they plan to put in their pockets… and mash it about… and pull it out tarnished… and use it to lie to future ‘students’ of ‘history’… the ones they intend to operate ‘the System’…

 

…and use it… of course… this goes without saying… use it… they fully intend… to regain the office of U.S. ‘president’…

 

…and you will be rewarded… as all the made-‘terrorists’… from Oaxaca to Abuja… from Damascus to Donetsk… also well know… you will be rewarded for causing sadness… for inspiring fear and despair… and sowing seeds of division… particularly in those who still have their souls…

 

So we… right now… are being treated to ‘stories’ most egregious… full of horrors… and scandals… and hearts-broken a’plenty…

 

…but far from this being a moment for watching… for sitting back in shock at this hideous ‘show’…

 

…rather… this is a moment… to go for the gold: to regain that world where we don’t ‘marvel’ at tyrants… who dress up in garb they think makes them ‘Titans’…

 

…but a world in which we… commoner-to-commoner… have joined hands globally… and are healing the planet… re-knitting our relations… and living our dreams.

 

–––

 

…there is intense infiltration… and what does that mean?… to know that nothing is real… is true… is authentic… I'm talking about the public world… in which they maintain exclusive hold on our thoughts… on what we are allowed to hear and think… What does it mean that it's almost guaranteed that media of any significant reach is infiltrated? I do want to emphasize that we need to think about this… think about this question of the insidiousness of omnipresent… widespread… infiltration by folks who are paid to help perpetuate illusions about the world we live in.

 

And this is another conversation: we have to start talking about… I don't think we've plumbed the depths of what it mens for every aspect of this society to have been so thoroughly infiltrated… and you don't know this until you are subjected to it…

 

…and that is a problem…

 

I don't know if I'm asking folks to just 'take it on trust'… that everything is artificial… constructed… about this world we live in… these guys are so super-anal they leave nothing to chance. And it is an eye-opener to realize that someone who is not a public figure can be subjected to this degree of intense harassment and scrutiny…

 

…it is an eye-opener… but it does confirm… that the level of infiltration into our lives – and I mean the collective 'our'… not in your personal life… except to the degree that… where you interface with public speech…

 

…there is intense infiltration…

 

…and what does that mean?… to know that nothing is real… is true… is authentic…

 

…in public speech… I'm not talking about people's personal relations…

 

…I'm talking about the public world… in which they maintain exclusive hold on our thoughts… on what we are allowed to hear and think…

 

What does it mean that it's almost guaranteed that media of any significant reach is infiltrated?

 

I do want to emphasize that we need to think about this… think about this question of the insidiousness of omnipresent… widespread… infiltration by folks who are paid to help perpetuate illusions about the world we live in…

 

…or I should say… perpetuate an illusory sense of the political system that we live in… an illusory sense of it being a 'democracy'… or that we have 'freedom of speech' – all of that – completely false.

 

–––

 

…‘power’s obsessive need to both create and vet the stories we get from media of any reach can be illustrated with a story that seems to work against it… that ‘item’ we began with… the ‘inequality’-report by Oxfam – their response its release may help show what I mean… as well as ‘power’s sense of ‘economy’ and ‘layering’ strategy (both sources of pride as evidence… they imagine… of their superiority of ‘mind’ and therefore ‘fitness’… for ‘ruling’ over us… because while the notion of the ‘one percent’ is a key bit of ‘power’-propaganda… (for instance the latest speech by Chris Hedges urging folks to blame… not the global-state-statesmen… but rather one of the traditional buffers of ‘power’… along with the police: national ‘elites’… i.e. those with padded incomes… but who could never be aspirants to deification… as they have no global ‘reach’…)

 

Sisters and Brothers… as we’re exploring ‘power’s obsessive need to control us with stories (which are… when ‘power’ is under threat… largely about directing our attention into division… and away from it…) and so as well its obsessive need to both create and vet the stories we get from media of any reach…

(…which… given the Internet and our instantaneous interconnections… has scaled up this task – bulked the weight of it on ‘power’s back – quite a bit. But they seem to have bit into it with gusto… there’s no shortage, it seems, of youth without means… but tech-savvy… willing to believe that… in serving ‘power’… they’ve joined the ‘winning team’… and so may partake vicariously in the acclaim awarded ‘power’s ‘heroic’ project – Goring’s ‘Heads Up!’ has yet to be discussed by us: his claim that if they’d succeeded they’d be deemed the masters of men… i.e…. that ‘class’… ‘power’… ‘rule’… has for its base conception since its inception the amorality of ‘Might Makes Right’… and Alice Miller explains how we reproduce this ‘system’ over the generations by implementing its ‘childrearing’ regime…)

…‘power’s obsessive need to both create and vet the stories we get from media of any reach can be illustrated with a story that seems to work against it… that ‘item’ we began with… the ‘inequality’-report by Oxfam – their response to its release may help show what I mean… as well as ‘power’s sense of ‘economy’ and its ‘layering’ strategy (both sources of pride… as evidence… they imagine… of their superiority of ‘mind’ and therefore ‘fitness’… for ‘ruling’ over us…

 

…because while the notion of the ‘one percent’ is a key bit of ‘power’-propaganda…

(…for instance the latest speech by Chris Hedges urging folks to blame… not the global-state-statesmen… but rather one of the traditional buffers of ‘power’… along with the police: national ‘elites’… i.e. those with padded incomes… but who could never be aspirants to deification… as they have no global ‘reach’…)

 

…and this story provides additional mileage on it…

 

…but to reinforce it further and spin it harmless… we have Right-wing push-back from Gates et al…. twisting its message to say… the issue is ‘improvement’… not ‘disparity’… i.e. that old ‘Rising Tide’ yarn (which in the face of imminent ocean death… widespread drought… crop failures… and famine in water-robbed-lands… and violence the plan for our Brothers and Sisters with strong communal traditions… in the face of this… their ‘twist’ highlights how truly shameless these Lost Children… called ‘statesmen’… are…)

In Waking Up (in the chapter, "Progress"…) I argued that we-the-people are the ones to discuss and see… that ‘progress’ lies in our authentic unity – ‘authentic’ meaning… ‘based in individual self-sufficiency’ – and that to think these necessary thoughts (necessary for advancing the species to freedom…) we need a story that is the opposite of ‘power’s:

The lost child is the source of our troubles…. [And… thanks to John Boswell's The Kindness of Strangers: Child Abandonment in Europe from Late Antiquity Through the Renaissance… we understand now how this happened… That is an important book. If you get a chance… I hope you'll read it… or bits of it… and that you'll try to feel it… if you know what I mean… feel the full implications of that – thousands of years of child abandonment – and how that gets embedded in what people think is part of being 'human'… but isn't… It's like Kropotkin telling us that in ancient texts gorillas were described as 'gregarious'… breaks your heart to think about that… how much damage has been inflicted… on life – we are not yet what we're meant to be… but we will recover all that was stolen from us by this sick system of rigid hierarchical rule.] It’s time for us to heal the hurt, complete the circuit – return home. We have nothing now but our imaginations and our biological memory, but that’s enough for the task at hand, which is reunion.

 

We are capable of investigating the world from a stance of unity, without linking that inquiry to a bunch of fanciful notions about ‘Thought realizing Itself,’ and some people being ‘good’ because they help Thought realize itself and other peoples being ‘bad’ because they don’t represent ‘Thought,’ or some such bullshit.

 

Let’s start telling ourselves a different story – if only out of solidarity, out of a need to grow together rather than in opposition.

 

The alternative story can be summed up in three words: “misery loves company.”

 

Some really, really unhappy people with big gaping holes in their souls, “under the pressure of necessity, resorted to violence.”

 

They set out on an endless mission to try to fill these holes with material stuff.

 

The sight of happy people drove them mad and they set about trying to destroy their happiness as thoroughly as possible.

 

From Necessity in the human story the road led to Child Abandonment and Violence, and then onward to Hierarchy and Passive Obedience.

 

Now it’s true that we can’t elevate this story to the level of ‘System,’ […and we're going to be discussing why we don't want to elevate things to the level of 'system' anymore… that word 'system' is important for us to think about…] and in it there are lots of incompletely answered questions like, “how did they get so unhappy?” But, still, it fits the facts way better than the tale Hegel tells.

[Of course… thanks to John Boswell's The Kindness of Strangers: Child Abandonment in Europe from Late Antiquity Through the Renaissance… we have some of those answers… That is an important book. If you get a chance… I hope you'll read it… or bits of it… and that you'll try to feel it… if you know what I mean… feel the full implications of that – thousands of years of child abandonment – and how that gets embedded in what people think is part of being 'human'… but isn't… It's like Kropotkin telling us that in ancient texts gorillas were described as 'gregarious'… breaks your heart to think about that… how much damage has been inflicted… on life – we are not yet what we're meant to be… but we will recover all that was stolen from us by this sick system of rigid hierarchical rule.]

Fear stalked the globe, stealing wherever it went – food, resources, happiness. And destroying the happiness of others was most satisfying of all: to smash as it had been smashed, wound as it had been wounded – to do to others what had been done to it: it made orphans. It’s a common compulsion, a familiar vacancy – a death-fetish dynamic (Israel comes to mind.)

 

The lost child is the source of our troubles…. It’s time for us to heal the hurt, complete the circuit – return home. We have nothing now but our imaginations and our biological memory, but that’s enough for the task at hand, which is reunion. (Waking Up: Freeing Ourselves From Work, “Progress”, p. 133 – 4) [The html page: “Waking Up (Progress, "Survival and Complicity" [Part 6]”

 

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[Today’s reading: As a Preface to Chapter 5… we will be reading from Chapters 3: “The Liberation of Class Struggle?”… and 4: “Beyond Haymarket?”… before returning to Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…, “1968: The Great Rehearsal”… – P.S.]

 

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* * February 8, 2015 reading: As a Preface to Chapter 5… we will be reading from Chapters 3: “The Liberation of Class Struggle?”… and 4: “Beyond Haymarket?”… before returning to Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements… “1968: The Great Rehearsal”…

 

“The principle directional tendency of capital is its centralization on a world scale… This determining direction of capital on a world scale… entails for antisystemic forcs at least three broad consequential subordinate directional tendencies. First… the ongoing relocation of labor-using manufacturing processes to the semiperiphery and hence the shift there of the epicenter of “classically” framed and conducted class conflict… Second is the de-nationalization, in effect, of domestic (“national”) labor forces. The world’s workers, increasingly made into laborers under the aegis of capital, move as they always have in order to be in relation to capital, a movement sharply furthered in speed and extent by developments in communications and transportation… Ship, air, and electronics have for decades now been analogously forming the possibility of an organized world proletariat within “national” locales. The possibility is at once eliminated, however, so long as we think with the state-formed consciousness that there are “nationals” and there are “immigrants,” and in that way reproduce the varieties of racism these historically formed categories inevitably entail. “National” and “immigrant” are categories of the capitalist world-economy’s interstate system; they have no place (except as phenomenologically [i.e. to do with objects in our consciousness and experience…] phenomenologically real conditions to be overcome) in the language of world-scale workers’ movements.”

 

[Re-reading that section (the end of the chapter “Progress” in Waking Up…) raised many questions… many of the same questions raised… although using very different language… in Antisystemic Movements… and chasing that fish… requires us to linger a bit… and explore in more depth our Good Three’s argument… leading to their Chapter 5 question: What was 1968 foreshadowing?

 

We’ll begin by reading towards the end of Chapter 4, “Beyond Haymarket?”… then splice in the end of Chapter 3, “The Liberation of Class Struggle?” (also posed as a question…) and then we’ll stop and assess… – P.S.]

The principle directional tendency of capital is its centralization on a world scale in two forms; financial pools, and technically divided and integrated labor processes. The first is effected through extraordinarily large-scale banking consortia managing “public” and “private” funds alike and mediated by such organs of the world’s bourgeoisie as the IMF, the IBRD [the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development… a.k.a. the World Bank], and the BIS. The second is effected of course through the multiplying transnationalization of production under the aegis of the transnational corporation. This determining direction of capital on a world scale… entails for antisystemic forcs at least three broad consequential subordinate directional tendencies.

 

First… the ongoing relocation of labor-using manufacturing processes to the semiperiphery and hence the shift there of the epicenter of “classically” framed and conducted class conflict – direct, organized, large-scale capital-labor struggles. That epicenter, and so its historical trajectory, will hence increasingly be formed within the jurisdictions of the states of that zone, and their politics indeed increasingly reflect the transformation.

 

Second is the de-nationalization, in effect, of domestic (“national”) labor forces. The world’s workers, increasingly made into laborers under the aegis of capital, move as they always have in order to be in relation to capital, a movement sharply furthered in speed and extent by developments in communications and transportation. Marx and Engels saw the railroad as shortening to a century, for national proletariats, the time needed to achieve the degree of class organization it took national bourgeoisies, with their miserable roads, five centuries to attain. Ship, air, and electronics have for decades now been analogously forming the possibility of an organized world proletariat within “national” locales. The possibility is at once eliminated, however, so long as we think with the state-formed consciousness that there are “nationals” and there are “immigrants,” and in that way reproduce the varieties of racism these historically formed categories inevitably entail. “National” and “immigrant” are categories of the capitalist world-economy’s interstate system; they have no place (except as phenomenologically [i.e. to do with objects in our consciousness and experience…] phenomenologically real conditions to be overcome) in the language of world-scale workers’ movements. (“Beyond Haymarket?”, Antisystemic Movements)

[…and I have to think… that this thirty years-hiatus of this discussion… was… obviously intentional… but that there was a lot of dirty dirty dirty dirty stuff involved in that…

 

‘Class’-consciousness means a common story… and the European burghers of the Middle Ages who worked together (‘self-organization’) had no organized… over-time-sustained… opposition… had no intentionally-affixed thousand-thousand rules and regs dragging at their feet… no ‘structurally-surrounding-state’ to hold them in place: rules and regs that establish monopolies in our head… over our thoughts… as Kenyatta said: “Oppressive laws and ordinances, which alone engross the monopoly of thought, of will, and of judgment, have been imposed…” – not just on Africa… but the globe…

 

…their ‘movements’ were not the result of some hidden action by a hand imagining itself to be tinkering with a ‘delicate watch’ mechanism…

 

What Our Three are saying here… is that once ‘class’ is global (and… we will be asking… does this mean that Marx is accurate in saying that the ‘system of production’… not just forms the basis of ‘society’ (for this expresses but a tautology…) but that it ‘evolves’ over time – even if we scrap those toxic hierarchical ‘stages’?…) then… objectively… we-the-people… and the ‘rulers’… are likewise global… – P.S.]

“National liberation in segments of the capitalist world-economy, and the transformations it has effected in relations of rule and other social relations, have altered the social structuring of the world-historical accumulation process. That much is historically evident and therefore theoretically to be taken into account. [Don't you love that?… that analytical clarity?… I mean… who else… who says they're devising theory even bothers to ensure that it's based in reality these days?… or 'strategy' likewise… or particularly… – P.S.] But it has not eliminated the relational conditions through which the accumulation process operates. And precisely that world-historical elimination, of the relational conditions through which accumulation of capital occurs, is what is entailed in the idea of the class struggle as the pivotal process in the transformation of the capitalist world-economy into a socialist world order. [What happened to that as our goal… hum?… We seem to have lost track of that somewhere along the way… – P.S.] …If, however, we cease to accord strategic primacy to acquiring such state power within the interstate system, far more becomes historically possible and thereby, within the domain of historically realistic alternatives, theoretically possible. It would seem a dubious theoretical tenet to assert that national liberation, in its successive occurrences, is in any way a necessary condition of the revolutionary transformation of the world-economy. It is surely indefensible to claim it as a sufficient condition.”

 

And third is the “official pauperism” sketched in the general law, which, to estimate from recent trends in the US and Western Europe, has two principal overlapping social locales, the young and the aged (both men and women) and women (of all ages). These were, it will be recalled, the first “officially protected” social segments of labor, in country after country, in the decade or so that “Haymarket” signifies. “Welfare,” too, has its contradictions. It seems likely that the “national” / “immigrant” categorization deepens the burdens of current capitalist development carried by the young, the old, and women, but it is only a deepening of the destruction of dignity, well-being, and hope that their pauperization per se entails.

[And here we’ll pause and consider an argument from Chapter 3 before returning. By “Beyond Haymarket”… they’re referring to the need – as the ground under our feet has shifted – the need for what they call ‘the class struggle’ and I call ‘the beat-down and break’ repeated over the centuries of class… and over the generations… as each child arrives free as the birds sing – the need to think differently – we who long for freedom – the need for new theory and strategy about how we-who-believe-in-freedom must confront ‘power’… – how do we do that successfully?… who else… since them… has been thinking so strategically like this?… – so let’s listen to how our Good Three answer the question “The Liberation of Class Struggle?”… – P.S.]

National liberation in segments of the capitalist world-economy, and the transformations it has effected in relations of rule and other social relations, have altered the social structuring of the world-historical accumulation process. That much is historically evident and therefore theoretically to be taken into account. [Don't you love that?… that analytical clarity?… I mean… who else… who says they're devising theory even bothers to ensure that it's based in reality these days?… or 'strategy' likewise… or particularly… – P.S.] But it has not eliminated the relational conditions through which the accumulation process operates. And precisely that world-historical elimination, of the relational conditions through which accumulation of capital occurs, is what is entailed in the idea of the class struggle as the pivotal process in the transformation of the capitalist world-economy into a socialist world order. [What happened to that as our goal… hum?… We seem to have lost track of that somewhere along the way… – P.S.]

 

Nor theoretically, in our view, could national-liberation movements, any more than core-zone social-democratic movements – given their common historical focus on securing and exercising power within the interstate system – have effected much more by way of change than they have done. If, however, we cease to accord strategic primacy to acquiring such state power within the interstate system, far more becomes historically possible and thereby, within the domain of historically realistic alternatives, theoretically possible. [This is dense… it really does bear unpacking a bit… their thought process here… because we don't hear this kind of analytical clarity anymore… – P.S.] It would seem a dubious theoretical tenet to assert that national liberation, in its successive occurrences, is in any way a necessary condition of the revolutionary transformation of the world-economy. It is surely indefensible to claim it as a sufficient condition. (“The Liberation of Class Struggle?”, Antisystemic Movements)

 

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* “WUR of February 15th, 2015… “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”:

Sisters and Brothers: The word-beat below continues the conversation that D-Way and I had during our September 30, 2012 Waking Up Radio show. This is Part 4 of a multi [probably 10]-part series on ‘Moving Forward’:

 

D-Way: “That’s where I’m confused with where you’re coming from, Raven… is… when you take responsibility for your Brothers and Sisters what’s the language that you use to describe the relationship that you have with this system?” The Raven: “Well I believe that we… all of us… manifest ‘the system’… I believe it’s important to say ‘the U.S. state’ and not ‘we’ because I think using the word ‘we’ leads to confusion and we absolutely have to start getting clear… developing clarity of thought… When we say ‘we’ meaning ‘the U.S. state’ it could be interpreted in many ways… it could imply a patriotic position… it could imply confusion… it could imply a sense of responsibility that ‘the state’ is in us… as you were suggesting… although… for the most part… when I hear it used that way on the Left… it is used to say: ‘we have to make this state better…’ – it’s the ‘fix-it’ ‘solution’… and I’m arguing that that’s a dead-end… that it isn’t a real solution… that you cannot ‘fix’ a state established to keep us contained and corralled… it’s not designed to [do what the people want…] So… in order to speak clearly… when we mean ‘the actions of the U.S. government’ we should say ‘the actions of the U.S. government’… and when we’re talking about how ‘the state’ gets reproduced on multiple levels… in multiple institutions… that’s a different level of analysis… and then we can start talking about… because I believe we have to start explaining… as we do our analysis… the world we’re living in… it never gets discussed in an open… authentic… way… over the airwaves… and so we have to start doing that for each other… so we have to start explaining how there is a single operating premise in a class system called ‘supremacy’… yes… it is manifested in the military… but it is also manifested in us… in how we relate to our children… and… when we talk about ‘the responsibility of pundits’… and who gets over the airwaves… and who doesn’t… I want to always give thanks for the ancestors… and to remind everybody listening… that there are no new thoughts about how to deal with this ‘class’-system… and it is evidence of the degree of our containment… and the level of totalitarian control of our thoughts… that we are still repeating the same conversations… in fact… at a much much lower level of analysis than our ancestors had figured out hundreds of years ago… For instance… in a book I picked up recently by Petr Kropotkin – it’s a collection of his pamphlets… A hundred and thirty years ago he wrote a pamphlet called ‘An Appeal to the Young’… addressing this issue, D-Way, of ‘well what is our responsibility? – he’s saying to young people: ‘you have a responsibility…’ and then he speaks to young people who want to become doctors… scientists… lawyers… engineers… teachers… and he concludes with artists… And in the one on ‘teachers’ he says (and I thought about this because you work with children, D-Way…) he says… Kropotkin: “And what shall I say to the schoolmaster – not to the man who looks upon his profession as a wearisome business, but to him who, when surrounded by a joyous band of youngsters, feels exhilarated by their cheery looks and in the midst of their happy laughter; to him who tries to plant in their little heads those ideas of humanity which he cherished himself when he was young. Often I see that you are sad, and I know what it is that makes you knit your brows. This very day, your favorite pupil, who is not very well up in Latin, it is true, but who has none the less an excellent heart, recited the story of William Tell with so much vigor! – [“Tell, William, a legendary hero of the liberation of Switzerland from Austrian oppression. He was required to hit with an arrow an apple placed on the head of his son, which he did successfully. The events are placed in the 14th century, but there is no evidence for a historical person of this name, and similar legends are of widespread occurrence.”] – His eyes sparkled; he seemed to wish to stab all tyrants there and then; he gave with such fire the passionate lines of Schiller: ‘Before the slave when he breaks his chain, Before the free man tremble not.’ But when he returned home, his mother, his father, his uncle, sharply rebuked him for want of respect to the minister or the rural policeman. They held forth to him by the hour on ‘prudence, respect for authority, submission to his betters,’ till he put Schiller aside in order to read Self-Help. And then only yesterday you were told that your best pupils have all turned out badly. One does nothing but dream of becoming an officer; another in league with his master robs the workers of their slender wages; and you, who had such hopes of these young people, you now brood over the sad contrast between your ideal and life as it is. You still brood over it. Then I foresee that in two years at the outside, after having suffered disappointment after disappointment, you will lay your favorite authors on the shelf, and you will end by saying that Tell was no doubt a very honest fellow, but after all a trifle cracked; that poetry is a first-rate thing for the fireside, especially when a man has been teaching the rule-of-three all day long, but still poets are always in the clouds and their views have nothing to do with the life of today, nor with the next visit of the inspector of schools…. Or, on the other hand…” [This is Part 4 of our “Moving Forward” series… excerpting conversation from our September 30, 2012 radio broadcast.]

 

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…and therein lay the success of hidden ‘power’… they operate clandestine… and ‘the media’ is designed to refuse the claims of its victims… and so ‘power’ can stay hidden… “Sweet…” I’m sure they think… a ruse they can use… ad infinitum… Except… despite the historical success of its central strategy… ‘power’ today is wading into uncharted waters… hence the danger of this moment… because surrendering their grandiose fantasies… is not in the mental-makeup… of global-state-statesmen… On ‘the news’ this week I heard that the head of the US Navy is ‘requesting’ use of ‘rail guns’ [if I got that name right…] on their vessels: weapons that use electromagnetic force… it’s not difficult to see… that the ‘same-family-weapons’ that they’ve designed to use against us… when applied clandestine… ends our ability to dissent… Given this ‘historical reality’… I’m putting this question out there: are there means for detecting and documenting the presence of these waves… or pulses… designed to cause harm… to interfere with biological electrical systems… and how can we get this detection means in the hands of folks being targeted? And then… as to the way in – because we need this ‘way in’… to re-claiming our thought process… into a mindset for getting free… of thinking… and taking action… globally – consider this: the Longshoremen have been our staunchest allies globally… over the course of recent ‘class’-history… Let’s plan and organize and call… a one-day Global General Strike in support of them… the Longshoremen… striking all up and down the West Coast US… Global-action is how ‘power’ breaks us… global-action is necessarily the means for our getting free… because the alternative… is the end of dissent… and we must not allow… that descent.

 

February 15th, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Upon investigation… I was told… when none of my edits to the “Embracing Global Goals” page would hold… “the problem’s not on our end… so it seems… it must be an issue with the ISP – that would be Comcast or AT&T – and I agree… all Internet censorship… in its various forms… can be laid at one or the other of these doors… and at the door of the global-state… of course: at the door of these would-be deities… the ‘power’-guys… ultimately.

 

It was years ago… five?… maybe… after my friend Bob said, “small planes don’t fly at night…” that I first started paying more attention to the skies… because whenever I slept… I heard them… and then… later… because I was outside more than most… fleeing the EMF fields (whatever their source…) I could not help but notice… that it could not be coincidence… that wherever I’d go… they also… it seemed… followed…

 

Many things have happened since… that fell within the category of what I… now… call ‘harassment’… my ‘machine’ (computer…) began ‘behaving’ oddly… little ‘glitches’ at first… ‘Word’ acting strangely… quotation marks were inverted… stubborn spontaneous font-changes… and ultimately it seemed the very operating system had experienced an ‘upgrade’… Recently… when I told the man at the Used Computer Store that there are two separate series of ‘loading status icons’ at the top of the machine when I start up – the second replacing the first – he refused to believe me… [During the show I misspoke: had the ‘on’ vs. ‘off’ of the ‘wireless’-option-status-icons display-sequence backwards… and corrected it in editing… – P.S.]

 

…and therein lay the success of hidden ‘power’… they operate clandestine… and ‘the media’ is designed to refuse the claims of its victims… and so ‘power’ can stay hidden… “Sweet…” I’m sure they think… a ruse they can use… ad infinitum…

 

Except… despite the historical success of its central strategy… ‘power’ today is wading into uncharted waters… which means… they swim scattershot… controlling the globe is proving to be… much more challenging… now that we have this technology.

 

In upcoming shows… when we reach the conclusion of Antisystemic Movements – the book… not our experience of them – one of the points our Good Three will make is that “the ability of states to control their civil societies is diminishing…”

 

…hence the danger of this moment… because surrendering their grandiose fantasies… is not in the mental-makeup… of global-state-statesmen…

 

…and their fingers never leave the triggers… and all their weapons of death… that they think prove they’re ‘the best’… they so long to use them.

 

On ‘the news’ this week I heard that the head of the US Navy is ‘requesting’ use of ‘rail guns’ [if I got that name right…] on their vessels: weapons that use electromagnetic force… which are to replace ‘traditional’… heavy and expensive weaponry…

 

…it’s not difficult to see… that the ‘same-family-weapons’ that they’ve designed to use against us… when applied clandestine… ends our ability to dissent… ‘our’… meaning the collective ‘our’: we-the-people…

 

…which means… it’s time to take that Head’s-Up! from our Good Three – and not wait until we … ‘we’… meaning ‘you and me’… become a target…

 

…imperative that we see… that if we don’t want to be ground down to the status of mere ‘functionaries’ [read: ‘slaves’…] of the miniscule Few with overweening fantasies of ‘rule’… we must start meeting to plan an alternative…

 

…and one piece of that Heads-Up! We should think about now is the importance of basing our theory and practice of planning and building an alternative… on what we now see is ‘historically evident’: that the official actions of the state is theater… that we have no ‘freedom of speech’… no ‘democracy’… that dissent will be harassed and eliminated by clandestine means… that this hidden… shadow… global ‘state’… will not demur at the prospect of killing folk… and that EMF weaponry has been… it seems likely… the key means…

 

…given this ‘historical reality’… I’m putting this question out there because this is key to our ability to keep moving forward: are there means for detecting and documenting the presence of these waves… or pulses… designed to cause harm… to interfere with biological electrical systems… and how can we get this detection means in the hands of folks being targeted?

 

And then… as to the way in – because we need this ‘way in’… to re-claiming our thought process…

 

…into a mindset for getting free… of thinking… and taking action… globally – consider this:

 

…the Longshoremen have been our staunchest allies globally… over the course of recent ‘class’-history…

 

…it’s time to give back…

 

Let’s plan and organize and call… a one-day Global General Strike in support of them… the Longshoremen… striking all up and down the West Coast US…

 

Global-action is how ‘power’ breaks us… global-action is necessarily the means for our getting free…

 

…because the alternative… is the end of dissent…

 

…and we must not allow… that descent… that ‘downgrade’ of our capacities to be human… of the chances of global humanity…

 

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…and-action is necessarily the means for our getting free… because the alternative… is the end of dissent… and we must not allow… that descent.

 

These abandoned children – the global-state statesmen… are so insistent that we pay attention to them… I thought perhaps we’d take this week… pause in our Antisystemic Movements reading… and allow myself time to hopefully find… a way to maintain the flow of its analysis… and regain that thought-process-momentum it gives us…

 

So let’s take this week to provide to them… that critical historical explanation… of how they got so damaged…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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February 10th, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: Yesterday afternoon… while I was at Berkeley Community Media… I fruitlessly attempted to upload and post audio files and their associated text for the February 8, 2015 (last week’s) radio show. Over and over I would post the changes to the online file… hit the ‘save’ button… and over and over… the changes did not ‘save’… I initiated a technical support request (‘ticket’) to ‘IPower’… the web host… and I will check on its status… and attempt to post this… later today… assuming I succeed in copying them from my Mac to my external hard drive… which for the past year has required intense concentration and effort to maintain hold of my own machine (what happens is that the desktop display does a shimmy-and-shake… seems to ‘fract’ a bit… with a ‘freeze’ being the destination if I don’t keep the machine ‘busy’… all the while my external hard drive is being expelled the second I plug it in… When I explained to the man at the Used Computer Store that there are two separate series of ‘loading status icons’ at the top of the machine when I start up – the second replacing the first – he refused to believe me…) So… on faith… let’s hope you will shortly be reading this (and going back and checking out the February 8 show audio and text…) and listening to the following excerpt from the May 4, 2014 show… afterwards I’ll share how I see its relevance (did I mention the constant EMF bombardment? On ‘the news’ today I heard that the head of the US Navy is ‘requesting’ use of ‘rail guns’ [if I got that name right…] on their vessels: weapons that use electromagnetic force… which are to replace ‘traditional’… heavy and expensive weaponry…

 

…it’s not difficult to see… that the ‘same-family-weapons’ that they’ve devised to use against you and me… when applied clandestinely… ends our ability to dissent… ‘our’… meaning the collective ‘our’: we-the-people…

 

…which means… it is imperative that we take our ancestors’ gifts – and in particular the one we’re discussing right now: our Head’s-Up! from our Good Three – and not wait until we … ‘we’… meaning the personal ‘we’… become a target…

 

…imperative that we see… that if we don’t want to be ground down to the status of mere ‘functionaries’ [read: ‘slaves’…] of the miniscule Few with overweening fantasies of ‘rule’… we must start meeting to plan an alternative…

 

…and before we leave this subject and turn to that Heads-Up! in full… let’s apply a part of it to this dilemma: the importance of basing our theory and practice of planning and building an alternative… on what we now see is ‘historically evident’: that the official actions of the state is theater… that we have no ‘freedom of speech’… no ‘democracy’… that dissent will be harassed and eliminated by clandestine means… that this hidden… shadow… global ‘state’… will not demur at the prospect of killing folk… and that EMF weaponry has been… it seems likely… the key means…

 

…given this ‘historical reality’: how can we detect and document the presence of these waves… or pulses… designed to cause harm… to interfere with biological electrical systems… and how can we get this detection means in the hands of folks being targeted?

“Immanuel Wallerstein: “What is meant by hegemony in a world-economy is the ability of one state to impose a set of rules on the operation of all other states, such that there is relative order in the world-system.…” Recall: he along with Terence K. Hopkins and Giovanni Arrighi… the three of them together… wrote Antisystemic Movements… when he and his co-authors wrote: “Opposition to oppression is coterminous with the existence of hierarchical social systems. Opposition is permanent, but for the most part latent…” And while it’s certainly true that ‘power’ has ever… since ‘class’s onset… been strenuously endeavoring to shape us… make us… be what it ‘needs’… to accomplish its (variously defined over the ages… but all a specie of the same arrogance…) its ‘greatness’… while certainly this is so… there is a missing factor which only we-the-people can add: our earth-given-knowledge of freedom… which never leaves us. “Opposition will be continuous…” …now that’s straightforward and clear… It’s clearly true… we need no ‘proof’… we know it in our bodies… And yet… …treatises will flow… …there will be oceans of deserts of theories… …there will be endless dissertations on them… And so… clarity was let go… …because the incentives… …were so ‘generous’… Surely… he must know… …that there’s absolutely nothing natural in that ‘order’ he seems to approve… …and that ‘order’ is a pleasant word for ‘force’… …that coercion’s both a fine web… …and a tank that mows us down… This is earth-speak: …we will resist… …we continue to resist… …we will resist some more… So… wither-dry-husk-blown-to-the-wind your phony ‘scientific theories’… …your social algorithms… Get you hence you calculating-cons… …get you gone. How dare you reduce the intricate web of our thought process… …the sighing of our infinite hearts… …to postulates and raw data… …to be polished smooth… How dare you take the mystery and magic of the subtle interweavings of our myriad experiences in multiple translations… …both in fluid memory and real-time… The world of ‘logic-systems’ is an invented world… …elaborate and well-organized… …there’s much to master… …much to digest… …much to offer in placation… …that abyss where was your soul.” [Spoken word is from our December 21, 2014 radio broadcast.]

 

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February 10th, 2015… Sisters and Brothers: I find I’m asking myself this week… What explains the reaction I’ve received… the – to put it euphemistically – harassment… a staggeringly extravagant harassment? Is what I say really so different from other public testimony?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Sisters and Brothers… two of the discussions planned for February 8, 2015 were postponed to the following (this) show: "Harper Lee's Examination of 'Class'"… and "Lessons from Jomo Kenyatta on Self-Governance"… They follow… – P.S.]

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As the media… we’ve been arguing… is ‘power’s means for inducting us into their stories… gathering us to serve (or at least not impede…) their ‘vision’…

 

…it’s important that we… we who long for freedom… install filters… or ‘power’-planted-story-detectors… in our ears…

 

…but before we continue with this theme… a brief pause to give thanks… for Harper Lee… one of the few who show sown-divisions… to help us understand… rather than to be divisive…

 

…particularly as… when the announcement that she was publishing another book was met by a lot of advance-attacking… my ‘power’-planted-story-detector went off… as there’s absolutely no doubt she’s a ‘national treasure’ among us…

 

– so why… the preemptive strike… unless it’s because…

 

…she – and this is a rare thing – brings so much light to the issue of ‘class’…

 

…and the ‘power’-guys don’t know what this new book says…

 

So let’s take a moment to appreciate the song and word of Harper Lee in To Kill A Mockingbird:

 

Atticus we’ll meet in a minute. But here’s Maycomb:

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

 

People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself….

Scout we’ll meet in a minute. But here’s Atticus:

Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty. When Jem and I asked him why he was so old, he said he got started late, which we felt reflected upon his abilities and manliness. He was much older than the parents of our school contemporaries, and there was nothing Jem or I could say about him when our classmates said, “My father – ”

 

Jem was football crazy. Atticus was never too tired to play keep-away, but when Jem wanted to tackle him Atticus would say, “I’m too old for that, son.”

 

Our father didn’t do anything. He worked in an office, not in a drugstore. Atticus did not drive a dump-truck for the county, he was not the sheriff, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone.

 

Besides that, he wore glasses. He was nearly blind in his left eye, and said left eyes were the tribal curse of the Finches. Whenever he wanted to see something well, he turned his head and looked from his right eye.

 

He did not do the things our schoolmates’ fathers did: he never went hunting, he did not play poker or fish or drink or smoke. He sat in the livingroom and read.

Now here’s Scout:

…I [Scout is speaking… this is from earlier in the book… she is “almost six…” has just had… that day… her first experience of school… and does not want to go back…] I told Atticus I didn’t feel very well and didn’t think I’d go to school any more if it was all right with him.

 

Atticus sat down in the swing and crossed his legs. His fingers wandered to his watchpocket; he said that was the only way he could think. He waited in amiable silence, and I sought to reinforce my position: “You never went to school and you do all right, so I’ll just stay home too. You can teach me like Grandaddy taught you ‘n’ Uncle Jack.”

 

“No I can’t,” said Atticus. “I have to make a living. Besides, they’d put me in jail if I kept you at home – dose of magnesia for you tonight and school tomorrow.

 

“I’m feeling all right, really.”

 

“Thought so, Now what’s the matter?”… [She tells him some things before finally getting to the point…]

 

…“But if I keep on goin’ to school, we can’t ever read any more…”;

 

“That’s really bothering you, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

When Atticus looked down at me I saw the expression on his face that always made me expect something. “Do you know what a compromise is?” he asked.

 

“Bending the law?”

 

“No, an agreement reached by mutual concessions. It works this way,” he said. “If you’ll concede the necessity of going to school, we’ll go on reading every night just as we always have. Is it a bargain?”

 

“Yes, sir!”

 

“We’ll consider it sealed without the usual formality,” Atticus said, when he saw me preparing to spit….

 

…The remainder of my schooldays were no more auspicious than the first. Indeed, they were an endless Project that slowly evolved into a Unit, in which miles of construction paper and wax crayon were expended by the State of Alabama in its well-meaning but fruitless efforts to teach me Group Dynamics. What Jem called the Dewey Decimal System was school-side by the end of my first year, so I had no chance to compare it with other teaching techniques. I could only look around me: Atticus and my uncle, who went to school at home, knew everything – at least, what one didn’t know the other did. Furthermore, I couldn’t help noticing that my father had served for years in the state legislature, elected each time without opposition, innocent of the adjustments my teachers thought essential to the development of Good Citizenship. Jem, educated on a half-Decimal half-Duncecap basis, seemed to function effectively alone or in a group, but Jem was a poor example: no tutorial system devised by man could have stopped him from getting at books. As for me, I knew nothing except what I gathered from Time magazine and reading everything I could lay hands on at home, but as I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me…. (Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird, 1960)

Now that’s a great illustration of the contrast between the clarity with which children see… and the challenged vision of adults under ‘class’… due to manufactured ‘scarcity’ and the stories we’re led to believe. So while 10,000 years of subjection produces a profound paralysis of action in us… each child starts out fresh… with backs that must be made to bend…

 

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We are considering today the broad impact of the fact that… as Jomo Kenyatta will tell us… there is no ‘freedom of thought’ under the global system of ‘power’… that the story of ‘Rule’ – into which is merged its multiple versions: “Thought Realizing Itself”… “Development of the Productive Forces”… “The Civilizing Mission of Europeans”… “The Triumph of the Republic: Realizing Plato’s Vision”… “The Pursuit of Knowledge-Infinite” – that the ‘heroism’ implied in such… is a mirage… a faux-heroic attempt… to not-see an Abyss staring at it… which is best known by the name, Abandonment.

 

If… as is undeniably true… one story… and one story only… has become dominant: the story of ‘Rule’… who has the ‘power’ to make it ‘systematic’… to embed it in all institutions?: only the tiny… tiny… tiny… miniscule Few.

The Kikuyu system of government prior to the advent of the Europeans was based on true democratic principles. But according to the tribal legend, once upon a time there was a king in Kikuyuland, named Kikuyu, a grand-child of the elder daughter of the founder of the tribe. He ruled many moons and his method of governing was tyrannical. People were prevented from cultivating the land, as he commanded that all able-bodied men should join his army and be ready to move with their families at any time and to wherever he chose. Thus the population lived a sort of nomadic life and suffered many hardships from lack of food. At last they grew tired of wandering from place to place and finally decided to settle down. They approached the king and implored him to let them cultivate the land and establish permanent homes, but owing to his autocratic power he refused to hear or consider their plea. The people were very indignant with him for turning a deaf ear to their appeal, and in desperation they revolted against him….

 

…After king Kikuyu was dethroned, the government of the country was at once changed from a despotism to a democracy which was in keeping with the wishes of the majority of the people…. This achievement was celebrated all over the country; feasting, dancing, and singing went on with intervals for a period of six moons which preceded the new era of government by the people and for the people….

 

…Every village appointed a representative to the Council, which took the responsibility of drafting the new constitution….

 

…In order to… prevent any tendency to return to the system of despotic government, the change of , and the election for, the government offices should be based on a rotation system of generations…. It was… decided that one generation should hold the office of government for a period of thirty to forty years, at the end of which the ceremony… [took] place to declare that the old generation had completed its term of governing, and that the young generation was ready to take over the administration of the country….

 

The tribal democratic institutions which were the boast of the country, and the proof of tribal good sense, have been suppressed. Oppressive laws and ordinances, which alone engross the monopoly of thought, of will, and of judgment, have been imposed on the African people….

 

The European prides himself on having done a great service to the Africans by stopping the “tribal warfares,” and says that the Africans ought to thank the strong power that has liberated them from their “constant fear” of being attacked by the neighboring warlike tribes. But consider the… modern warfare waged by the “civilized” tribes of Europe, and in which the Africans who have no part in the quarrels are forced to fight to defend so-called democracy. Take the case of the Great War, 1914 – 1918, in which tens of thousands of Africans lost their lives. The reward for this was taking away the best lands from the Africans, the introduction of kipande with its diabolical system of fingerprints as though the Africans were criminals, imposition of heavy taxation, and denial of freedom of speech, of the press, and of forming political or social organizations. This is what “democratic Britain” did in recognition of the services rendered by the Kenya Africans during 1914 – 1918. Another example is the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, where the wholesale massacre of the defenseless population took place to demonstrate European civilization. With these glaring facts in view can the Europeans boast of having stopped the “tribal warfare” and having established “perpetual peace” in Africa? It would have been much better for the Africans to continue with their tribal warfare, which they fought with pride and with the loss of a few warriors, rather than receiving the so-called civilizing missions which mean the subjugation of the African races to a perpetual state of serfdom.

 

In the old order of the African society, with all the evils that are supposed to be connected with it, a man was a man, and as such he had the rights of a man and liberty to exercise his will and thought in a direction which suited his purposes as well as those of his fellow-men; but today an African, no matter what his station in life, is like a horse which moves only in the direction that the rider pulls the rein. The harmony and stability of the African’s mode of life, in political, social, religious, and economic organizations, was based on the land which was, and still is, the soul of the people. The first step which the European civilizing missions took to disorganize the Africans in order to exploit and oppress them, especially in South and East Africa, was to take away the best African lands. This is one of the evils of European civilization that has found its way to the great African continent, and one which the past, present, and future African generations will never forget.

 

The land not only unites the living members of the tribe but also the dead ancestors and the unborn posterity. This fact is obvious, because it is in the ancestral lands that the ancestors lie buried, in the land which they once occupied. In this way the dead are able to keep direct communication with the living, and the sanctions which control behavior in both the collective life of the tribe and private lives of its individual members are the approval or disapproval of the ancestral spirits. Through incarnation the future generation is linked up with the past, thus bringing spiritually the three groups, i.e., dead, living, and unborn, into one organic whole. The annexation of the ancestral lands by the Europeans has robbed the African of the use of the productive asset on which his entire economic life depended. It has also interfered with the whole tribal organization whose genuine cooperation is based on constant communion with the ancestral spirits through which tribal law and custom, morality, and religion are maintained. (Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya [London, 1953], first Prime Minister and President of Kenya [1963])

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Today’s reading: As a Preface to Chapter 5… we will be reading from Chapters 3: “The Liberation of Class Struggle?”… and 4: “Beyond Haymarket?”… before returning to Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements…, “1968: The Great Rehearsal”… – P.S.]

 

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* * February 15, 2015 reading: As a Preface to Chapter 5… we will be reading from Chapters 3: “The Liberation of Class Struggle?”… and 4: “Beyond Haymarket?”… before returning to Chapter 5 of Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Antisystemic Movements… “1968: The Great Rehearsal”…

[We will be finishing the end of Chapter 3, “The Liberation of Class Struggle?” (in Antisystemic Movements…) and concluding our reading of the end of Chapter 4, “Beyond Haymarket?”… before resuming our Chapter 5 question: What was 1968 foreshadowing?… – P.S.]

The structuring and restructuring of the world-economy in the period of US hegemony has been effected in large part by the successes of the national-liberation movements, successes that have hinged in part on the United States’ becoming hegemonic, and have in turn up to a point actually furthered that hegemony, Cuba and Vietnam to the seeming contrary notwithstanding. Three aspects of that continuing change largely delimit at present both the spaces into which the class struggle as world-scale organizing process is moving, and the enclosing, fragmenting counterprocesses that have worked to prevent any “uniting” of the workers of the world.

 

Fundamental to the forming of the world labor-force – or in Lenin’s sense, to the socialization of production, hence of the proletariat of the world – is of course the rapidly growing world-scale technical division of labor…

[Recall… just a paragraph or two earlier… our Good Three presented us with a very pregnant confluence of issues… as part of their efforts to help our feet find the right path… to freedom… – P.S.]

 

 

 

 

 

Fundamental to the forming of the world labor-force – or in Lenin’s sense, to the socialization of production, hence of the proletariat of the world – is of course the rapidly growing world-scale technical division of labor, through the arrangements constitutive of the operations of transnational corporations and integral, as well, to those of socially related state and interstate agencies. Frobel, Heinrichs, and Kreye have called this “the new international division of labor” (1980). It is not to us so obviously “new,” although that is as much an empirical as a conceptual matter. But it surely is not centrally “international” in the usual sense of that term. It is, rather, centrally “world-scale” – however consequential the interstate system may be in laying and maintaining the grounds for the intrafirm integrations of discrete labor processes, and the parallel structuring of accumulation, that these world-scale technical divisions of labor entail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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(Chapter 5, “1968: The Great Rehearsal”, begins by saying…

There have only been two world revolutions. One took place in 1848. The second took place in 1968. Both were historic failures. Both transformed the world. The fact that both were unplanned and therefore in a profound sense spontaneous explains both facts – the fact that they failed, and the fact that they transformed the world….

 

1848 was a revolution for popular sovereignty – both within the nation (down with autocracy) and of the nations (self-determination, the Volkerfruhling)….

 

…1968… was a revolution against the counterrevolution represented by the U.S. organization of its world hegemony as of 1945. It too was an attempt to fulfill the original goals of the Russian Revolution, while very much an effort to overcome the limitations of that revolution…

(…our reading resumes…)

 

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Since the states could control the masses and the powerful strata could control the states, it was clear that a serious effort of social transformation would require counter-organization – both politically and culturally. It is this perception that led to the formation for the first time of bureaucratically organized antisystemic movements with relatively clear middle-term objectives. These movements, in their two great variants of the social and the national movement, began to appear on the scene after 1848, and their numbers, geographic spread, and organizational efficiency grew steady in the century that followed.

 

What 1848 accomplished therefore was the historic turning of antisystemic forces toward a fundamental political strategy – that of seeking the intermediate goal of obtaining state power (one way or another) as the indispensable way-station on the road to transforming society and the world. To be sure, many argued against this strategy, but they were defeated in the debates. Over the following century, the opponents of this strategy grew weaker as the proponents of the strategy grew stronger.

 

1917 became such a big symbol because it was the first dramatic victory of the proponents of the state-power strategy (and in its revolutionary, as opposed to its evolutionary, variant). 1917 proved it could be done. And this time, unlike in 1848, the revolutionary government was neither suborned [bribed] nor overturned. It survived. 1917 may have been the most dramatic instance but it was not of course the only instance of successes, at least partial, of this strategy. The Mexican Revolution beginning in 1910 and the Chinese Revolution of 1911 culminating in 1949 also seemed to demonstrate worth of the strategy, for example.

 

By 1945, or perhaps more accurately by the 1950s, the strategy seemed to be bearing fruit around the world. All three major variants of the historic “old left” antisystemic movements – the Third International Communists, the Second International Social Democrats, and the nationalist movements (especially those outside Europe) – could point to notable successes: the armed struggle of the Communist parties in Yugoslavia and China, the massive 1945 electoral victory of the Labour Party in Great Britain, nationalist triumphs in India and Indonesia. It seemed but a matter of decades until the goals of 1848 would be realized in every corner of the globe.

[Are they serious? This was written… or at least presented… in 1988… and so obviously did not have the benefit of Keith Lowe’s Savage Continent… and its devastating portrait of where Europe was at in 1945… and the notion of a global antisystemic ‘sentiment’ at that moment that is ‘optimistic’… ‘minus Europe’… unless simply delusional… cannot stand up. It throws in even more stark relief the importance of Keith Lowe’s accomplishment… – P.S.]

One, the institutionalization of US hegemony in the world-system as of 1945 made possible a generalized counterrevolutionary thrust…

[…not to belabor the point too much… but… the view from the ivory tower (and we must include among those who wear the ‘ivory tower’ tag the hierarchically-structured Left leadership of that day and beyond – remember Lowe’s documentation of how surviving Jews were thrown under the bus by such?) is necessarily skewed. We-down-here-in-the-cheap-seats are able to see that the “generalized counterrevolutionary thrust” had been stomping on us well before declared war removed millions of us from the planet… – P.S.]

One, the institutionalization of US hegemony in the world-system as of 1945 made possible a generalized counterrevolutionary thrust to slow down the pace of the growing political strength of the antisystemic movements. The US sought to “contain” the bloc of Communist states led by the USSR. And in Greece, in Western Europe, in Korea, they succeeded in such “containment.” The US government sought to “defang” the Western labor and social-democratic parties by rigidifying historic differences between the Second and Third Internationals and by erecting “anti-Communism” as an ideological carapace [shell]. This attempt too was largely successful, within the US itself and elsewhere. The US sought to slow down, dilute, and / or coopt the political expressions of Third World nationalism and, with some notable exceptions like Vietnam, this effort too was largely successful.

 

Were the counterrevolution all that had occurred politically, however, its effect would have been momentary at most.

[By defining ‘counterrevolution’ narrowly – i.e. to exclude totalitarianism with a ‘Left’ face – so distorts reality as to make it unrecognizable as such… – P.S.]

Were the counterrevolution all that had occurred politically, however, its effect would have been momentary at most. A second thing occurred to dampen the optimism of the antisystemic forces. The movements in power performed less well than had been expected; far less well. Already in the interwar period, the Soviet experience of the 1930s – the terrors and the errors – had shaken the world’s antisystemic movements. But in a sense Hitler and the long struggle of the Second World War washed away much of the dismay. However, the terrors and the errors repeated themselves after 1945 in one Communist state after another. Nor did the social-democratic governments look that good, engaged as they were in colonial repression. And, as one Third World nationalist movement after another created regimes that seemed to have their own fair share of terrors and errors, the optimism of the antisystemic forces began to be eroded.

 

While the US, and more generally the upper strata of the world system […what I call ‘power’… or ‘the global-state-statesmen’… – P.S.], attacked the antisystemic movements exogenously [externally] as it were, the movements were simultaneously suffering ailments endogenous to them, ailments which increasingly seemed to be themselves “part of the problem.”

 

It is in reaction to this double (exogenous and endogenous) difficulty of the traditional old left movements that the new social movements emerged, more or less in the 1960s. These new movements were concerned with the strength and survivability of the forces that dominated the world-system. But they were also concerned with what they felt was the poor performance, even the negative performance, of the world’s old left movements. In the beginning of the 1960s, the concern with the power and the evil of the proponents of the status quo was still uppermost in the minds of the emergent new movements, and their concern with the inefficacies of the old left opposition was still a secondary consideration. But as the decade went on, the emphasis began to shift, as the new movements bean to be more and more critical of the old movements. At first the new elements sought to be “reformist” of the tactics of the old antisystemic movements. Later, they often broke outright with them and even attacked them frontally. We cannot understand 1968 unless we see it as simultaneously a cri de coeur (“a passionate appeal”) against the evils of the world-system and a fundamental questioning of the strategy of the old left opposition to the world-system.

 

At its height, and when it had reached the highest level of screeching, the new left accused the old left of five sins: weakness, corruption, connivance, neglect, and arrogance. The weakness was said to be the inefficacy of the old antisystemic movements (the Social Democrats in the West, the Communists in the East, the nationalist governments in the South) in constraining the militarism, the exploitation, the imperialism, the racism, of the dominant forces in the world-system. The attitude towards the war in Vietnam became a touchstone on this issue. The corruption was said to be the fact that certain strata had, through the efforts of past antisystemic action, achieved certain material concessions and allowed their militance to be softened by this fact. The connivance was the charge of corruption taken one step further. It was said to be the willingness of certain strata worldwide actually to profit by the exploitation in the system, albeit at a lower level than that of the dominant strata. The neglect was said to be the obtuseness about, if not conscious ignoring of, the interests of the truly dispossessed, the real lower strata of the world-system (the subproletarians, the ethnic and racial minorities, and of course the women). The arrogance was said to be the contempt of the leadership of the old movements for the real problems of the lower strata, and their ideological self-assurance.

[Even a momentary plunge… into the sterile waters of ‘categorization’ following the vivid reenactments of Savage Continent feels jarring to me… but it highlights how far we’ve come… these past almost twenty-seven years… towards a living… practical-actual… global unity of humanity… we are feeling the future arriving… even as the ongoing ‘counter-evolution’ is doing all ‘it’ can… to stop it… – P.S.]

These were heady charges and they were not made all at once, or from the outset. It was an evolution from the mild questioning of the Port Huron founding statement of SDS in 1962 to the Weathermen in 1969 and after, or from the conventional views (if militantly implemented) of SNCC in the early 1960s to those of the Black Power movements of the late 1960s. It was an evolution from the Jeunesse Etudiante Communiste in France in the early 1960s who dared to be “pro-Italian,” to the barricades of May 1968 in Paris (and the virtually open break with the CGT and PCF). It was an evolution from the Prague Spring which emerged in late1967 to the founding of Solidarnosc in 1980.

 

When 1968 exploded – in Columbia University, in Paris, in Prague, in Mexico City and Tokyo, in the Italian October – it was an explosion. There was no central direction, no calculated tactical planning. The explosion was in a sense as much of a surprise to the participants as to those against whom it was directed. The most surprised were the old left movements who could not understand how they could be attacked from what seemed to them so unfair and so politically dangerous a perspective.

 

But the explosion was very powerful, shattering many authority relations, and shattering above all the Cold War consensus on both sides. Ideological hegemonies were challenged everywhere and the retreat, both of the powerful strata of the world-system and of the leadership of the old left antisystemic movements, was real. As we have already said, the retreat turned out to be temporary and the new movements were checked everywhere. But the changes in power relations effected by the movements were not reversed.

 

The Legacies of 1968

 

Four main changes can be distinguished. First, while the balance of military power between West and East has not changed appreciably since 1968, the capabilities of either the West or the East to police the South have become limited. The Tet Offensive of early 1968 has remained to this day a symbol of the impotence of capital-intensive warfare in curbing the intelligence and will of Third World peoples. Within five years of the offensive, the USA was forced to withdraw from Vietnam, and a new era in North-South relations began….

 

 

 

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* “Embracing Global Goals, Scope and Action: Becoming Global Actors… Claiming the ‘All’”: Introducing Our Discussion of: Antisystemic Movements… by Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein.

 

September 4th, 2014… Sisters and Brothers: In the WUR show of August 31, 2014 we argued that most of the ‘thought’ on the Left is ‘magical’… because based in and on a notion of ‘reality’ from which critical bits are extruded: ‘the democratic introjection’ (as Marcuse put it…) or ‘poisonous pedagogy’ (as Alice Miller put it…) – or ‘the state in us’ (as I’m putting it…) – and what’s also missing is an accurate understanding (as to source and aims) of ‘power’ as a conscious actor… i.e. with a clear vision and goal – an ‘original’ as their mentor Plato might put it – a model ever before their eyes that they use to sculpt… or pound… us into the shape they want. In short… what’s missing is the ‘theory’ of why we obey.

(We give our allegiance to the state because we have no other allegiance and we are communal beings and must plant our ‘solidarity’ somewhere. The state ensures we can have no other allegiance… the global-statesmen brook no challenges – these are not folks to whom we can entrust our earth… especially… the earth in us… the ‘ownership’ of which… once transferred to else but self… is lost.)

We can’t move forward until we confront our obedience. Here’s a mini-video – first in a series of ‘non-coercion commercials’ that I’m planning – that presents the concept:

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…or visit the video on you tube:

 

“Children are disappearing. Is it really just the state that’s robbing our children of their youth?… or is it also the state… in us?”

 

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But… I believe… ‘the state within’… and ‘the global state’ that ‘power’ is unfolding apace… must be confronted simultaneously… that confronting one confronts the other ‘naturally’… because the one is but the micro of the larger ‘death’… and ‘life’ is ‘life’… and cannot be split… is one continuous whole.

 

What this means… as we said in an earlier show… is that it’s critical that we – across all the false categories – start bulking up our solidarity… with the ancestors… the earth… and each other. And we’re going to be continuing to argue in upcoming shows… that the opposite of solidarity… is force and coercion… and that when we manifest force and coercion… we manifest the state… and when we oppose force and coercion… we oppose the state.

 

To help us think this through we will be reading together the first chapter of Antisystemic Movements… by Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein; followed by “The Proletarian Is Dead; Long Live the Housewife?” by Claudia von Werlhof, and then “A Manifesto for Global Capital?” by Ellen Meiksins Wood.

 

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* “Introduction” to Antisystemic Movements

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sergei Konionkov’s To Those Who Fell Fighting for the Cause of Peace and the Brotherhood of Nations (1918) (…floating in a Goya sky… “as Peace should still her wheaten garland wear… (Hamlet, V. 2.41)]

 

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The concept of antisystemic movements is one which presumes an analytic perspective about a system. The system referred to here is the world-system of historical capitalism which, we argue, has given rise to a set of anti-systemic movements. It is the contours of this process that we are proposing to outline here. We are in search of the system-wide structural processes that have produced certain kinds of movements and which have simultaneously formed the constraints within which such movements have operated.

 

The movements have had their own mode of self-description. This self-description emerged largely out of categories that were formulated or crystallized in the nineteenth-century capitalist world-economy. Class and status-group were the two key concepts that justified these movements, explained their origins and their objectives, and indeed indicated the boundaries of their organizational networks.

 

The contemporary dilemmas of these movements are part and parcel of the same problem as the dilemmas of the concepts of class and status-group. That is why we felt that we could not analyze the movements, either historically or prospectively, without first rethinking these two concepts from a world-systems perspective.

 

We shall not repeat in this introduction the arguments that are to be found in the articles. We would merely like to suggest that if the structural processes that gave birth to these movements have been world-scale from the beginning, the organizational responses hitherto have been predominantly at the level of the various states. It is because we believe that new organizational responses will begin to surface that will be more world-scale that we think it urgent, not only for theory but for praxis, to reexamine the patterns and the degree of success of the world-system’s antisystemic movements heretofore.

[…“urgent… for praxis…” perhaps I’ve been too closeted in my personal journey… but I don’t believe there is today in academia any such concept of itself… as ‘urgently’ moving to help ‘praxis’ along… I don’t believe that… in general… it thinks much about we-cattle at all… – P.S.]

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* “Rethinking the Concepts of Class and Status-Group in a World Systems Perspective”

(…begins by revisiting The Wealth of Nations….)

 

This essay was presented at the IVth Colloquium of the annual International Colloquia on the World-Economy, sponsored by the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations; the Maison des Sciences de L’Homme; and the Starnberger Institut zur Erforschung Globalen Strukturen, Entwicklungen, und Krisen… in New Delhi, January 4 – 6, 1982.)

In his well-known but often neglected conclusion to Book I of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith defined the interests of “the three great, original and constituent orders of every civilized society,” that is, those who live by rent, those who live by wages, and those who live by profit….

[…“he who owns the lexicon rules the world…” truly… truly… we have been effectively penned… by definition… told… that the very existence of ‘civilization’ depends… on our being trapped… strapped… booted… leashed… bound to ploughs… and beat… – P.S.]

…His argument was that the interests of the first two orders coincide with the general interest of society because, according to his analysis, the real value of both rents and wages rises with the prosperity and falls with the economic decline of society. The interests of profit earners, on the other hand, are different from, and even opposite to, such general social interest, because to widen the market and narrow the competition are always in the interest of merchants and manufacturers. And, while to “widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; …to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens.”

 

Profit-earners not only have an interest contrary to the general one. They also have a better knowledge of their interest and a greater power and determination in pursuing it than those who live by either rent or wages….

[…perspective and scope of ‘interest’… I’ve never heard discussed… that the (constructed) structure itself places some… to ‘look long’… ‘think big’… and places us to see… and be… the opposite… never discussed (outside of Virginia Woolf…) is what it means that it’s only the miniscule few… who take responsibility for ‘the all’ of things… globally… and how this disproportion in ‘interest’… skews the very ‘quality’ of ‘humanity’ to suit the soul’s damage of the tiny few… – P.S.]

…The indolence of landowners, “which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind which is the necessary in order to foresee and understand the consequences of any public regulation.” As for the wage-earner, “he is incapable either of comprehending the general social interest, or of understanding its connection with his own.” Moreover, in the public deliberation, “his voice is little heard and less regarded, except upon some particular occasions, when his clamour is animated, set on, and supported by his employers, not for his, but their own particular purposes.”

[…as I read these words… the singularity of this present moment we are in… in which we finally can move… together… to a world that reflects our interests… we… whose energy has been… ‘historically’… ‘set on’ and used for other people’s purposes… the few… who ‘little hear and less regard’ our voices…. His words are true: we’ve never spoken before in our true voices… as our true voices need our true world to speak true. As we seek… as we see… as we speak… as we become… we bring into being… the world we need… to clarify our voices into that perfect harmony our souls have been seeking… for so long… – P.S.]

…Profit-earners, on the other hand, particularly those who employ the largest amount of capital, draw to themselves by their wealth the greatest share of the public consideration. Moreover, since during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have a more acute understanding of their particular interest than the other orders of society.

 

The Wealth of Nations being a work of legislation, the purpose of this “class analysis” was to warn the sovereign against the dangers involved in following the advice and yielding to the pressures of merchants and master manufacturers. As the head of the national household, he should instead strengthen the rule of the market over civil society [i.e. allow ‘competition’ to exist… – P.S.], thereby achieving the double objective of a more efficient public administration and a greater well-being of the nation.

 

It is not our purpose here to assess the soundness of the advice given by Smith to the national householder or of the substantive analysis on which it was based. Rather, we want to point out those aspects of his analysis that can be considered as paradigmatic of political economy and that we can find duplicated in contemporary class analysis.

[…implicit… in drawing this equation between ‘political economy’ and ‘class analysis’… that runs clearly through The Wealth of Nations… is the heretofore undisguised thought… that humans-made-‘citizens’ have no ‘legitimate’ claim to existence… apart from our service to the state… following the ‘order’ to which we are assigned…. Now… confronting this fact – the fact that we tell ourselves… by our obedience… the very thing that Goering said of himself: “It is not I who live, but the [state] who lives in me…” – in broad, public discussions… signals the advance of humanity itself… – P.S.]

First, the tripartite social order of which he spoke was a predicate of a particular kind of society; that defined by the territorial reach of a definite sovereign or state. These were the states of Europe as they had been and were being formed within mutually exclusive domains operating within an interstate system.

 

Second, his social orders (or classes) were defined on the basis of property relations. The ownership of land, of capital, and of labor-power define his three great orders of society. Among the proprietors of capital, what some today would call a “fraction” of capital (merchants and master manufacturers) is singled out for special treatment in view of its political-economic power, of its greater self-awareness of its own interests, and of the opposition of its interests to the general social well-being.

 

Third, the interests of each of the social orders / classes were identified with its market situation; that is, both their competitive opportunities in relations to each other as classes (and of individuals within each class to each other), and the costs and benefits to each of them of monopoly power within markets, understood as restriction of entry. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith limited the subjective ground of collective action by a class to these market interests. Monopoly power in the product as well as in factor markets was traced back to the creation of tolerance of restrictions to entry on the part of the sovereign / state.

 

Fourth, market relations were defined within or between national economic spaces. Class conflicts and alignments were thus limited to struggles within each state for influence / control over its policies. The unit of analysis, in other words, was the nation-state, which determined both the context and the object of class contradictions.

 

Fifth, a “relative autonomy” of state actions in relation to class interests and powers was presupposed. The enactment of laws and regulations by the state was continuously traced to the powers and influence of particular classes or “fractions” thereof. But the sovereign was assumed to be in a position to distance himself from any particular interest to promote some form of general interest, reflecting and / or generating a consensus for this general interest.

 

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

 

The first shift implied that the market was no longer seen as enclosed within (or “embedded” in) each nation-state as an independent economic space, and that the world-economy was no longer conceived of as an interstate economy linking discrete national economic spaces. Rather, nation-states were seen as jurisdictional claims in a unitary world market. By effecting the socialization of labor on a world scale, the world market determined the most general context of the class contradictions and therefore of the class struggles of capitalist society, which Marx defined by its constitutive orders, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat:

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

 

This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages. (The Communist Manifesto)

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

…compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois modes of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeoisie themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. (The Communist Manifesto)

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

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

The second shift implied that the antagonism between the two great classes into which, according to Marx, bourgeois society as a whole tends to split, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, was no longer traced to relations in the product or factor markets but to relations in production. In order to define the interests of the nation and of its component classes, Smith took leave of the pin factory whose scenario opens The Wealth of Nations to follow the interplay of supply and demand in the marketplace, and of class interest in the national political arena. Marx, in his critique of political economy took us in the opposite direction. We take leave not of the shopfloor but of the noisy sphere of the market place (and, we may add, of the political arena) “where everything takes place on the surface and in view of all men,” and follow the owner of the means of production and the possessor of labor power “into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there stares us in the face ‘No admittance except on business.’” (Capital, Volume I) In this hidden abode of production, Marx discovered two quite contradictory tendencies that implied two quite different scenarios of class struggle and social transformation.

 

The first was the one generally emphasized in Marxist literature after Marx: even if we assume that in the marketplace the relationship between the owners of the means of production and the owners of labor-power appears as a relationship between equals, in the sense that the commodities they bring to the market tend to exchange at their full cost of production / reproduction (which, of course, is not always or even normally the case),…

[…and of course… as Polanyi reminded us… human energy is not… can not be… a ‘commodity’… i.e. it is not ‘produced for exchange in the market…’ and that applying this term to the earth and us… is a fiction…

 

…and of course… as Bentham reminded ‘rulers’… fictions can be enforced as real… by the state… but what a toll it takes… this living lives premised on lies… on our souls… – P.S.]

…the relationship would still be a fundamentally unequal one. This is so because of the longer-run effects of capitalist production on the relative value and the relative bargaining power of capital and labor. Capitalist production, that is, is seen as a process that tends to reduce the value of labor-power (its real costs of reproduction) and simultaneously to undermine the bargaining power of its possessors, so that the advantages of the reduction of labor’s costs of reproduction tend to accrue entirely to capital.

…but are not these “longer-run effects of capitalist production”… the ever-increasing disparity in relative ‘power’… and so in ‘relative bargaining power’… a function of ‘political’ ‘power’ – ‘the state’ as the tool of ‘power’? – and never… in reality… of ‘capitalist production’… at least if we use that word to suggest an effect of ‘market laws’… – P.S.]

This tendency obviously poses problems of realization of the growing mass of surplus labor that capital appropriates in production. These problems periodically manifest themselves in crises of overproduction that are overcome on the one hand…

…by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented. (The Communist Manifesto)

 

[…Kropotkin’s words… about seeing ‘history’ with fresh eyes – once they’re open… (“Petr understood that ‘power’ selectively passes down the ‘stories’ that further its mission, and that, “Ere long history will have to be re-written on new lines….” we said in the Waking Up Radio show of February 23rd, 2014…) – is never more relevant than when we’re looking at what’s called ‘the economy’…

 

…i.e. could it be that Marx… who wrote so forcefully about taking the world away from ‘philosophy’ and setting it on its feet again… was likewise viewing things falsely?… Adam Smith’s words – their full import – have never been taken to heart: we commoners have been “little heard and less regarded….” The whole point of ‘class’… is to establish (irrevocably… soon… they hope…) that we ‘don’t matter’… so why would any of its ‘thinkers’ – whose allegiance is to ‘Thought’… or so they might imagine – consider it worthwhile to try to see the world from the eyes of those who ‘can’t put two sentences together’?… who are ‘mere matter’… to the mind of ‘Thought’… to be used to advance… a ‘bigger’ agenda that they could ‘never understand’.

 

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

The book Savage Continent provides prodigious illustration of resources being removed from our use… and…turned back over to ‘power’… He describes… an orgy of destructiveness. This systematic attack on ‘economic life’ was itself the ‘economic system’ working at a clip (because the point is privatization: atomization plus privatization equals control of us… manufactured ‘scarcity’…) racing at a pace unequaled since… The ‘economic system’ is not ‘capitalism’…. It’s called ‘power’… and they invent a tool called ‘the economy’ to keep us confused… War is an expression of this ‘economic system’… and ‘the economy’ is war by other means… i.e…. it’s about controlling the energy of the majority… the goal being… to beat us into submission… and… in the ‘normal’ course of events… overt violence is (as Solozzo said…) “too expensive…” in terms of maintaining legitimacy… as a means of controlling. And so they ‘normally’ rely on Bentham… whose Panoptic guidance says: “wage war by other means… i.e. be ‘economic’… and ‘efficient’….” “Let the weight of scarcity weigh on their minds…” Bentham advised.

 

But when the people arise… ‘economy’… ‘efficiency’… and all that jazz… flies out the door…

 

…and in walks war.

 

‘Economy’ is just a tool… like any other technology.

 

So ‘war’ is always war on us… whether they spill our guts with guns… or markets.

 

The economy is just war by other means… and war is the profligate failure of ‘breeding’… to control the energy of the majority (the true point of the ‘education’ we’re all given.)

 

What they (the ‘power’-guys…) hate most… is resistance. What they love most… is obedience –

Further… can we finally now be honest about those “means whereby crises are prevented”? When Marx and Engels say ‘overproduction crises’ are only ‘solved’ by digging ever deeper ‘power’s grave… that is to say… by eating ever more “means whereby crises are prevented”… those ‘means’ are the earth and us… where ‘conquest’ – the raison d’être of ‘class’ – mowed right over us…. As our authors said: “the structural processes that gave birth to [resistance] have been world-scale from the beginning…” – and our ‘place’ in the structure has always been premised on the privileging or suffering of those ‘higher up’ or ‘low’…

 

What happened to us was not ‘economic’… but rather deeply ‘psychological’… – P.S.]

It would seem from the above that the unequal relation between labor and capital, continuously reproduced and enhanced in the workplace, leads capital either to self-destruction in the marketplace or to a greater development of the world-economy, both extensively (incorporations) and intensively. Given a finite globe, the more thorough this development, the greater the self-destructiveness of capital.

 

In this scenario labor plays no role in precipitating capitalist crises except in a negative sense; it is its growing subordination in the workplace, and consequent weakening of bargaining power in the marketplace, that are ultimately responsible for the outbreak of the “epidemic of overproduction,” as Marx called it. Labor, or its social personification, the proletariat, plays an active role only in transforming the self-destructiveness of capital into political revolution. The increasing precariousness of working and living conditions induces proletarians to form combinations against the bourgeoisie.

Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers….

 

This organization of the proletarians into a class, and consequently into a political party, is continuously being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier….

 

Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all times, with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for its help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. (The Communist Manifesto)

Alongside this scenario, however, as we indicated, Marx suggested another one, quite distinct in its unfolding. Both in the Manifesto and in Capital we are told that, along with the growing mass of misery, oppression, and degradation, the strength of the working class grows too, not so much as a result of political organization aimed at counteracting its structural weakness, but rather as a result of the very process of capitalist production.

Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital… grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation, but with this too grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. (Capital, Volume I)

 

The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage labor. Wage labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. (The Communist Manifesto)

Here, therefore, the strengthening of labor in the workplace is the cause of the crisis of capital.

 

As we know, Marx never managed to reconcile these two contradictory tendencies that he discovered in the abode of production, let alone to work out fully and systematically all their implications for the analysis of class contradictions in capitalist society. Instead, Marx, in some of his historical writings, and many followers in their theoretical writings, gave up the critique of political economy and reverted to the Smithian paradigm of class analysis, reviving rather than carrying out the critique of political economy.

 

In the case of Marx, this retreat is most evident in his writings on the class struggle in France, in which class interests were defined in terms of a national political-economic space, and what goes on in the abode of production simply does not come into the picture at all. Obviously, Marx himself thought that the shift of focus he was advancing to analyze the overall, long-term tendencies of capitalist society had a limited relevance for the concrete analysis of a concrete instance of class struggle at a relatively low state of development of such tendencies.

[Let’s pause and recap… perhaps slightly translate (for our purposes…): Marx saw two (contradictory) ‘tendencies’ as inherent in the ‘process’ of capital accumulation (or ‘production’…): first… the unequal ‘power’ relation between those who “put ‘capital’ to work”… and we-who-do-the-work… is a bias that but increases over time… because ‘power’ uses its ‘power’ advantage to drive our bargaining position ever lower (‘cheapen its costs of labor’…) resulting in our increasing ‘immiseration’…

 

(…time-out to vent a suppressed rant… I am looking at a red line under ‘immiseration’… that is a politically-motivated red line… as are the lines under ‘commodification’… ‘commodify’… and ‘ain’t’… the rest will have to wait…)

 

…continuing… resulting in our increasing ‘immiseration’ over time… and… even though this results eventually in a ‘crisis of overproduction’ for ‘capital’… also referred to as a ‘crisis of realization’ – i.e., no one to buy its ‘stuff’ – this is not by our – we commoners’ – action or plan… as we are politically-weak paupers.

 

(But… I would argue… it’s also not “by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself…” – ‘power’ hides in so-called ‘economic forces’… there is absolutely no ‘objective reason’ why ‘the state’… in theory… could not undo the bias… except for the one we’re all trained in… of ‘might makes right’…. ‘Power’… ‘rule’… are not inevitable… though they are made by the few to seem so.).

 

However… despite our increasing pauperization… Marx prophesied our growing strength due to our increasing numbers and organization in ‘the abode of production’ (neglecting to consider that ‘society’ overall… was modeled on the design of the Panopticon.) Still… given that the scope… frame… and audience… for these two respective ‘analyses’ are different… it’s hard for me to see them as ‘contradictory tendencies’.

 

What I see as the pressing need for us… for all of us (globally)… is getting on the same page… which means we need to come to some agreement… as to what these “overall, long-term tendencies of capitalist society…” are… exactly… – P.S.]

Moreover, even at the theoretical level, the shift of focus away from the noisy sphere of political economy did not imply any belittlement of the nation-state as the main locus of political power, that is, of the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence over a given territory. This power embodied in nation-states, whatever its origins, could obviously be used, and has indeed generally been used, simultaneously in two directions: as an aggressive / defensive instrument of intra-capitalist competition in the world-economy, and as an aggressive / defensive instrument of class struggle in national locales. True, the growing density and connectedness of world-economic networks on the one hand, and the displacement of class contradictions from the marketplace to the workplace on the other, would ultimately make nation-states “obsolete” from both points of view. In outlining this tendency, however, Marx was only defining the situation that the capitalist world-economy would asymptotically [“asymptote: a line that continually approaches a given curve but does not meet it at any finite distance. From the Greek ‘not falling together’…”] …that the capitalist world-economy would asymptotically approach in the very long run. The farther the class struggle was from the projected asymptote, the more it would take on a political / national character. Even the proletariat, the class which in his view had neither country nor nationality, had first of all to wage a national struggle.

Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word. (The Communist Manifesto)

 

[Our intent… in examining ‘Marxism’… is… in translating it into terms that unify us globally – into ‘earth’-terms… as we all feel the same earth under our toes – to show that the path to freedom does not lie down a ‘Marxist’ road. This is not an easy task. ‘Marxism’ has claimed the energies of the Left for so long… its ‘intellectualism’ has such a cachet about it – it’s a language hard to learn… and a certain pride attaches to those who labored long to learn it… it’s acquisition then being such… that few who have it… are willing to relinquish it.

 

Nonetheless… I believe ours is a worthwhile project – this effort of ‘translation – ‘necessary’ even… perhaps… but I must say I’m not fully convinced… as simply trusting our bodies… should be sufficient….

 

But as we read this together… I ask that we keep in mind… what was discussed in the Waking Up Radio show of August 31, 2014… that… “the ‘modern’ language of ‘classification’… of ‘specialization’… of ‘ranking’ as to ‘historical stage’… and certainly as to ‘class’… is itself the key tactic of control… of containment… so it’s not just that when we’re trying to ‘win’ (play ‘power’s game…) that we’re snuggled up close and sucked right in… but even when we challenge its propaganda… because engaging with it hardens our chains… and in some sense validates the system….”

 

Reminding us of this caution is reminding us of the central problem: we’re told ‘civilization’ itself depends on our enslavement… we’re told Thought itself requires the categories ‘power’ provides… the key one being ‘class’. With the benefit of hindsight we could reply to Marx’s idea that “the proletariat must rise to be the leading class of the nation…” by saying that it has no empirical basis…

 

but it’s intent was polemical… not analytical…

 

…but when we reject the terms themselves… how reply? Why argue with false premises… except that so many still believe in them?

 

Within the mindset of ‘class’… we commoners can never become ‘the leading class’… surely this is obvious?

 

But what is less so… is whether we can re-define ‘the nation’… to our advantage… whether we can re-claim ‘the state’ from the global-statesmen – is that’s what’s happening this very moment (September 18, 2014) as the Scottish people vote on independence?… the transition?… a piece of it?… the first of the intermediate steps… to freedom?…. We will return to this question… – P.S.]

Marx’s empirical retreat into political economy did not, however, entail a corresponding retreat at the theoretical level. It simply implied a recognition of the distance separating the historical circumstances of nineteenth-century Europe from the asymptotic circumstances projected in the Manifesto and in Capital.

[But this assumes a ‘logic’ to ‘history’ that ‘it’ does not possess… – P.S.]

Far more than this was implicit in the retreat into / revival of political economy by Marxists after Marx, however. The most striking characteristic of the theories of finance and monopoly capital, of imperialism, and of state capitalism, synthesized in canonical form by Lenin, is that they take us back to the noisy sphere of political economic relations. Their main concerns are the forms of capitalist competition, and the class contradictions identified are those defined in terms of market interests and state power. However much such formulations may or may not be justified in terms of the political strategies of the time, we are concerned here with their elevation by epigones [“…a less distinguished follower or imitator of someone, esp. an artist of philosopher…” “from the Greek ‘epigonoi’: ‘those born afterward’…”] into theoretical advances rather than pragmatic retreats from Marx’s critique of Smithian political economy.

 

This theoretical retreat into political economy had some justification in the tendencies that came to characterize the capitalist world-economy around the turn of the century. The growing unity of the world market presupposed by Marx’s paradigmatic shift began to be undermined by the re-emergence of state protectionist / mercantilist policies. These policies increasingly transferred world capitalist competition from the realm of relations among enterprises to the realm of relations among states. As a consequence, war and national / imperial autarky [“…economic independence or self-sufficiency in a country, state, or society…”] came to the fore and in pragmatic terms shaped the scenario of the world-economy. Connected with this tendency, the high concentration and centralization of capital, characteristic of most of the new leading / core sectors of economic activity, led to a resurgence of practices, often backed by state power, that restricted competition within the national / imperial segments into which the world-economy was splitting. States thus returned to the forefront of world-economic life, and monopoly in and through the sovereign became once again the central issue around which conflicts and alignments among classes and fractions thereof revolved. This situation, which has broadly characterized the first half of the twentieth century, undoubtedly warranted a revival of political economy as the most relevant theoretical framework for the short- or medium-term analysis of class contradictions and conflicts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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* “The Proletarian Is Dead; Long Live the Housewife?” …by Claudia von Werlhof

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Francisco Goya’s Third of May, (1808, Portion)]

 

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If We Have Understood Housework, Then We Have Understood the Economy

 

Housework is a phenomenon that is most difficult to understand, but if we have understood housework, then we have understood everything. But this requires (and this requirement is still unfulfilled) that we do not view housework too narrowly or use it in a restricted sense, and that we relate it and indeed apply it to nothing less than the whole economy – in fact, to the world-economy. Only then will the explosive character and the significance of the so-called women’s question become recognizable in its generality. The women’s question is the most general – and not the most special – of all social questions, because all others are contained in it;…

[…because she’s putting them in it… – P.S.]

…because it, in contrast to all the questions to date, leaves no one out. This claim reflects not conceit, or arrogance; on the contrary, it reflects something inherent in the functioning of our society itself. For our society itself has created an historically unique (to date) situation, namely the situation that the women are always “the one below”. But only from below, hence at the bottom of the cask, can the whole be seen as the whole. Nothing is more important – actually nothing is more vitally necessary – than to support this tendency of analysis “from below.”

[…I agree… but what’s even more ‘below’ than women?… look beneath your feet… notice then… as we dissolve to dust… there is no difference… – P.S.]

The Connection between the World Economic Crisis and War danger: War Economy

 

The reasons that a really general theory of society and corresponding policy are necessary are nothing less than the currently beginning world economic crisis and the danger of war that is threatening us. I wonder more and more why this time no connection is being seen between crisis and war. In any case, the topic has not been raised up to now, not even in the rather broad peace movement in the Federal Republic of Germany, which is strange, because this connection has otherwise always been the subject matter of discussion. But today people are concerned only with moral or military-technological arguments. Why don’t people simply ask, “how come there now is suddenly a danger of war? The east-west conflict is actually nothing new!” Or, “What does it mean, we must tighten our belts? What has happened to the economic miracle for which we sweated a whole life long? What have you done with that?” These simple and fundamental questions of war and crisis are simply missing, at least in the public discussion. Why?

 

The answer is at first very simple: If there is a worldwide economic crisis, then it means that everywhere economic changes will take place. But can these be implemented without the application of violence?

[…is it clear that ‘power’ counts on suppressing the key discussions… to prevent our thought’s development from one generation to the next… to keep us treading water… while they continuously move… systematically… toward their dream’s installation… their fantasy of statis (how does Kissinger put it?… I listened to him yesterday – September 9, 2014 – hawking his book by the same name: World Order…) – P.S.]

Recently a German politician himself used the term “war economy”, and it is a kind of war economy towards which we are proceeding. I do not know what he meant by that, but I think that surely there is some objective background for this statement. To me it appears that changes in the world-economy are proceeding at full speed and are beginning to be noticeable more and more clearly also in the Western industrial nations. What is involved is not merely a cyclical crisis or a moderate structural change, but the beginning of a totally new phase of capitalist development, and nobody knows how it will look. It is characterized by the fact (which is exactly what is of primary importance) that it more or less does away with “free” wage labor. With this development, simultaneously, democracy, human rights, equality, freedom, and brotherhood are also called into question, not to speak of emancipation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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* “A Manifesto for Global Capitalism?”, by Ellen Meiksins Wood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[From John Boswell’s The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe From Late Antiquity To The Renaissance]

 

(During the May 18, 2014 show, we finally remembered to add Alice Miller and Jeremy Bentham to the “puzzle pieces” we needed to see what ‘power’s plans are… and in the May 25, 2014 show we remembered John Boswell… for his The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe: From Late Antiquity To The Renaissance….)

 

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A capitalist manifesto

 

Imagine a manifesto for global capital, written by a guru of globalization. Its object would be to present a picture of the world in which opposition to globalization and to capitalism itself would be futile, a world in which the best we can do is go with the flow, lie back and think of Nike.

 

[We first considered these words of Ellen Meiksins Wood during the Waking Up Radio show of September 14, 2014:

 

“What would be the essential propositions of such a [capitalist] manifesto?… the nation-state has become a fiction… supranational institutions as the WTO and the IMF to facilitate capital flows, and the movements of labour… problems will be solved not by resistance to global capital, not by less globalization, but, on the contrary, by more…” – and I have to say… the perspicacity of Terence Hopkins is impressive. Recall our quote from him in Palmers’ Chat… in which he placed his finger on the key problem ‘power’ faces – in their determination to arrest our building confidence… and attempt to yet again meet it with suppression – which is… the use of the nation-state as a tool wielded from ‘below’ – Scotland… is the present case in point… and… the on-going uprising of the Indigenous… ditto… (We’re going to be thinking deeply… in upcoming shows… about this question of the ‘nation-state’.)

 

What would be the essential propositions of such a manifesto? It would probably begin by insisting that the globalization of capital and the integration of the global economy have so transformed the world that the nation-state has become a fiction, as capital flows have far outreached the borders and the powers of the state. The world is now essentially ruled by the impersonal laws of the global market. To the extent that capital flows, and the movements of labour, still require some regulation, we may need such supranational institutions as the WTO and the IMF. But their role is to facilitate, not to dominate. To be sure, there are still a few flaws in the system, such as the disparity between rich and poor. But such problems will be solved not by resistance to global capital, not by less globalization, but, on the contrary, by more. Those who resist the relentless movement of capitalist globalization are doing much more harm than good.

 

We can come back in a moment to challenging this picture of the world. But let us first ask this: if the purpose of this analysis is to discourage opposition, at what point in the argument is resistance to global capital most effectively disabled? Of course, the general lesson we are supposed to draw from it is that capitalist globalization is an irresistible force and that opposition to what is practically a law of nature is futile and counterproductive. But an even more significant element in the argument is that it denies that there is any concentration of power in the global economy.

[Exactly… ‘power’ must hide to exist… Bentham schooled them well on this… and Plato (implicitly…) before him ( ‘power’ is ‘power’ is ‘power’…) – P.S.]

Either power is an inappropriate category in defining the globalized world, or power is so diffuse and immaterial that it might as well not exist at all. In either case, there is no target for opposition.

[Precisely the point of all of ‘power’s ‘modern’ propaganda – and what elaborately crafted propaganda Empire was… which should flatter the folks it was trying to convince… – P.S.]

In this respect, the manifesto would be the equivalent on a global scale of much older ‘pluralist’ arguments in political science, challenged by Marxist theories of the state way back in the 1970s. According to that old liberal orthodoxy, there were no concentrations of class power in the liberal democratic state, only an infinite diffusion of countervailing powers throughout society. Now, we are told, even the state itself is effectively powerless, and political domination, no less than class rule, is a thing of the past. All political forces and organizational forms once designed to challenge the power of capital at the level of the state are even more irrelevant than they were in an earlier pluralist world, as irrelevant as the nation-state itself.

 

Such a manifesto would seem to imply that there is no effective possibility of opposition. The diffusion of power in capitalism has, to be sure, always presented a problem for oppositional forces. It has never been as easy to trace the class power of capital to a visible source as it was in pre-capitalist societies, where the capacity of economic exploitation rested on ‘extra-economic’ political and military powers. In capitalism, not only are the ‘economic’ and the ‘political’ separated, but the impersonal forces of ‘the market’ do much of capital’s work. Nonetheless, as long as there was some identity between national states and national economies, struggles against capital could be directed not only against specific employers ‘at the point of production’ but also against the capitalist class at a point of concentration in the state.

[And now – post-World Social Forum… post-‘Occupy’… – we see ‘power’ trying to hide… no longer in ‘strong’ industries… or ‘strong’ states… but in ‘strong’ individuals… ‘talent’ that seems ‘by nature’ to have got that way (i.e., ‘strong’…) – P.S.]

It was, in fact, the essence of Marxist critiques of pluralist theories that the state did indeed constitute a point of concentration of capitalist power. But even if the state did once represent such a concentration of power and hence also a target of opposition, in today’s globalized world, we are told, such possibilities of opposition no longer exist. What good are struggles at the point of production, when capital is organized in huge, transnational corporation? What good are political struggles when the nation-state is dead?

 

If it is really true that capitalist power is now a mystical force, immanent in the world and completely disembodied [she is using the language of… and restating the argument of… the book Empire… – P.S.], everywhere and nowhere, it is the end of anti-capitalist struggle. Of course, the most sensible thing would be to embrace this ubiquitous force. But, in any case, resistance is futile. No amount of whistling in the dark about the insurrectional energies generated by globalization can change the fact that for us the game is over. The only opposition available to us is symbolic gesture and spectacle…

[Does this shoe fit… the massive protest against the inaction of the global-statesmen in the face of global warming… that we just witnessed on September 21, 2014 in New York City? (I’m writing this on September 23, 2014…) I’ve heard nothing to suggest otherwise… – P.S.]

…or the internal refusal that gives a kind of spiritual freedom to the prisoner in chains. If there really is no material point at which the power of capital can be challenged, and with all forms of political action effectively disabled, the rule of capital is complete and eternal.

[And of course recent events… from the election of Barack… to the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt… to the Occupy Movement… to Ukraine… and the massive scale and the deep… diffuse… forms of resistance occurring globally… in this moment… show otherwise… – P.S.]

This counsel of surrender would be the message of a manifesto on behalf of global capital. It is also, like it or not, the message of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire. This monumental and ambitious book has been read by supporters and critics alike as a relatively optimistic manifesto for oppositional forces in the globalized world. It has been praised as an eloquent voice for anti-capitalist movements. But for all its insistence on the possibilities of insurrection and the power of the ‘multitude’, it is much less persuasive as a call to opposition than as an argument for the futility of oppositional politics; and it has rather more to say abut the irrelevance of old oppositional struggles and forces than about the possibilities of new ones.

 

“In this smooth space of Empire,” Hardt and Negri tell us, “there is no place of power – it is both everywhere and nowhere. Empire is an outopia or really a non-place.” What does this mean for the possibilities of opposition? We are told – in sweeping generalities – that, precisely because the power of Empire is everywhere and nowhere, “the virtual center of Empire can be attacked from any point.” What precisely this means remains unclear. But, as the argument proceeds, it is difficult to see what kind of opposition it allows, apart from spontaneous gestures on the part of an inchoate ‘multitude’, which, instead of resisting the processes of globalization, can somehow reorganize them toward new ends – though by what means and to what effect (apart from creating new ‘subjectivities’) remains a mystery.

[For each new generation… ‘power’ but redesigns its old cons. Just as she pointed out the basic equivalency between Empire’s key message and that “of much older ‘pluralist’ arguments in political science, challenged by Marxist theories of the state way back in the 1970s…” so too can we see in this pseudo-optimism in non-resistance (“…instead of resisting the processes of globalization, [we’re supposed to] somehow reorganize them toward new ends…”) the false encouragement of pseudo-resistance of Mr. Steele (discussed in the Waking Up Radio show of July 27th, 2014… – P.S.]

We are told in rather more concrete terms what kinds of opposition are not possible. Political movements and organized working-class struggle are fruitless, especially local and national struggles (Hardt and Negri are very critical of anti-capitalist movements that focus on such struggles), because their traditional targets no longer exist. The simple fact is that, since there is no locus of power, there can be no real counter-power.

The idea of counter-power and the idea of resistance against modern sovereignty in general thus becomes less and less possible…. A new type of resistance would have to be found that would be adequate to the dimensions of the new sovereignty…. Today, too, we can see that traditional forms of resistance, such as the institutional workers’ organizations developed through the major part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have begun to lose their power. (quote from Empire)

[It’s interesting to contrast the shrouding effect of Hardt and Negri’s false pronouncements with the invigorating effect of Terence Hopkin’s… in his examination of Marx on this same issue:

 

“True, the growing density and connectedness of world-economic networks on the one hand, and the displacement of class contradictions from the marketplace to the workplace on the other, would ultimately make nation-states “obsolete” from both points of view. In outlining this tendency, however, Marx was only defining the situation that the capitalist world-economy would asymptotically [“asymptote: a line that continually approaches a given curve but does not meet it at any finite distance. From the Greek ‘not falling together’…”] …that the capitalist world-economy would asymptotically approach in the very long run. The farther the class struggle was from the projected asymptote, the more it would take on a political / national character. Even the proletariat, the class which in his view had neither country nor nationality, had first of all to wage a national struggle.” (Terence Hopkins, “Rethinking the Concepts of Class and Status-Group in a World Systems Perspective”)

 

(Discussed in the Waking Up Radio show of September 21, 2014 – “…Even the proletariat, the class which in his view had neither country nor nationality, had first of all to wage a national struggle.…” “Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word…” – and is planned for discussion during the September 28th, 2014 show as well…) – P.S.]

And so on. For all Empire’s lofty sentiments about new forms of contestation, this will be music to the ears of global capital. We are left with a mystical force opposed, if at all, by immaterial resistance.

 

But let us at least grant that Empire has its heart in the right place. Unlike our putative manifesto for global capital, it really does intend to celebrate, not to deny, the possibilities of contestation. The trouble is that its analysis of Empire denies us any such hope, no less effectively than the globalization manifesto does, and in alarmingly similar terms.

[…a ‘manifesto’ that robs us of our hope for freedom… cannot have its ‘heart in the right place’… because it has no heart – that we can see this is not just because we have the benefit of hindsight… that we’ve seen the World Social Forums… seen ‘Occupy’ catch fire globally… tied to massive and on-going anti-privatization mobilizations… seen one-third of the population of Egypt in the streets… seen… the beginning of the fulfillment of Nikola Tesla’s prophesy: that once we can communicate instantaneously with each other globally… we can no longer be lied to about each other – as easily – and global unity becomes a goal that’s achievable… if we can ‘disarm’ the global-state-statesmen…

 

…it is the absence of Plato’s Tribesmen in one’s analysis… that limits its effectiveness – and which would… in this case… have allowed us to see the propagandistic thrust of the argument – to recognize that the result: our demoralization… was in fact… the intention – and therefore to state unequivocally… the absence of ‘heart’ of Hardt and Negri – this book did not ‘achieve’ ‘celebrity’-status by accident… – P.S.]

The problem begins with the very first premise on which the whole argument of Empire is based. “Our basic hypothesis,” write Hardt and Negri, “is that sovereignty has taken a new form, composed of a series of national and supranational organisms united under a single logic of rule. This new global form of sovereignty is what we call Empire.” Its primary symptom is “the declining sovereignty of nation-states and their increasing inability to regulate economic and cultural exchanges.” This does not mean that sovereignty has disappeared together with the nation-state. It has simply changed its character. With the growth of transnational corporations, and global networks of production and circulation, “which have undermined the powers of nation-states, state functions and constitutional elements have effectively been displaced to other levels and domains.”

 

There is, of course, an important point here – which many other commentators have also made – about the ‘internationalization’ of the state: that nation-states, like other institutions in the global system, are now responding not simply to the demands of national capital but to the ‘logic’ and requirement of global capital. Although we should not underestimate the persistence of national capital and, for that matter, the roots of transnational capital within it, this is certainly a point worth making. It does not require us to assume that the nation-state is effectively dying; and I have even heard Michael Hardt explain, in a public lecture, that globalization did not exclude the nation-state. The point, he insisted, was simply that the state was now subsumed in the logic of Empire.

 

That said, the essential argument of Empire is something else: at the very least, it requires us to accept that there is an inverse relation between the degree of globalization and the importance of the nation-state. And herein lies the problem, because surely the critical point about the ‘internationalization’ of the state is that the nation-state is useful to global capital not to the extent that it is unable> to “regulate economic and cultural exchanges.” On the contrary, it is useful precisely because it can intervene in the global economy and, indeed, remains the single most effective means of intervention. The essence of globalization is not the declining capacity but the unique ability of nation-states to organize the world for global capital. This reality, and global capital’s inescapable need for territorial states to make possible its navigation of the world economy, is lost in the argument of Empire.

 

The book even seems indifferent to the coercive power concentrated in the state. That indifference is reflected in a conception of ‘sovereignty’ that allows Hardt and Negri to speak of the transfer of sovereign power away from the state, even though (a point on which Empire remains silent) it remains the dominant instrument of coercive force.

 

The first premise of Empire’s argument, then, is that the movements of sovereignty are parallel and conjoined with the movements of the economy, the networks of production and circulation. Give or take the odd time-lag or failure of synchronization, the two go hand-in-hand, so that the more global the economy becomes, the more global, too, will be the reach of sovereignty.

 

This account of the connection between the economic and political moments of capitalism displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the system works. The consequence of this misunderstanding is that Empire never confronts the realities of power or the possibilities of ‘counter-power’ in the world of global capitalism. This, in fact, is the most striking characteristic of the book: that, while purporting to be a study of power in the new world of global capitalism, its argument depends on evading the issue of power.

 

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Economic hegemony and political sovereignty

 

Capitalism is distinctive among all social forms in its capacity to extend its dominion beyond the limits of political authority, by purely ‘economic’ means….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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* “TBA, 2014 Show …”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[From Jean-Leon Gerome’s The Slave Market, (early 1860s)]

 

(During the May 18, 2014 show, we finally remembered to add Alice Miller and Jeremy Bentham to the “puzzle pieces” we needed to see what ‘power’s plans are… and in the May 25, 2014 show we remembered John Boswell… for his The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe: From Late Antiquity To The Renaissance….)

 

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* “TBA, 2014 Show …”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[From John Boswell’s The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe From Late Antiquity To The Renaissance]

 

(During the May 18, 2014 show, we finally remembered to add Alice Miller and Jeremy Bentham to the “puzzle pieces” we needed to see what ‘power’s plans are… and in the May 25, 2014 show we remembered John Boswell… for his The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe: From Late Antiquity To The Renaissance….)

 

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* “TBA, 2014 Show …”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Francisco Goya’s Third of May, (1808)]

 

 

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Thandiwe's Word:

ithedawn@gmail.com

...on the challenge of beginning to create the alternative:

 

“The imagination has to be stimulated – that imaginative part of ourselves that manifests our dreams, through that fire, that passion, that is our art. Asking questions stimulates that process of figuring out, visualizing, and manifesting what we want. But we need each other's help in order to do that – to manifest our power – and we've been cut off from helping each other.”

 

 

 

© Nas2EndWork (the NEW)

http://www.nas2endwork.org