#and its not because Russia was behind because he even says that other capitalistic democracies are unkempt and cruel in that very book

[krissthinktank]

The main theme is around animal farm is not about how evil the communist system is and I hate that's how far the discussion goes with that book because the author was a socialist, who fell with the larger communist party because they started to defend Joseph Stalin and base their beliefs about communism around his rule rather than the wellbeing of the citizens of Russia. I get into this more on my podcast, but I do think that should be stated before the actual episode is listed. Orwell is against authoritarianism and autocracies, not communism or socialism. Please, let that analysis of the book be left in your English class.

[nobodyownsland]

What is the problem with Trotsky? Would the USSR have been better off with him instead of Stalin?

I was asked this recently on another website, and wrote a whole-ass wall of text addressing it. I figure it might be a good idea to post it here too, for all you comrades out there (and Trots who are hopefully willing to listen):

So, for starters, Stalin wasn't authoritarian. Lets get that out of the way right now. Democracy very much existed in the Soviet Union and would have been even more expansive if Stalin had his way. I'd go so far as to argue that the Soviet Union was more Democratic, even during its decline after Brezhnev, than the United States has ever been. If you doubt this, then I encourage you to read the literature I just linked, because if you want to debunk me, you’ll have to debunk them.

When it comes to Trotsky, the problems with him and his ideas run a lot deeper than being simply "domineering" or “aggressive”. He had a nasty tendency to hold no real solid positions on anything, with Lenin once exclaiming:

"The obliging Trotsky is more dangerous than an enemy! ... Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators."

One moment Trotsky would be calling Social Democrats "fascist" allies of the Communist International, and then next he would be criticizing the Comintern for not forming a united front with them. One moment he'd say "Comrade Lenin has not left any “Testament”... All talk with regard to a concealed or mutilated “Testament” is nothing but a despicable lie, directed against the real will of Comrade Lenin" and the next he'd be saying "Stalinist censorship had placed a ban on Lenin’s Testament as well as upon hundreds of his other works". The dude was all over the place, to put it mildly, and really couldn’t be said to be a trustworthy ally of any revolutionary group.

But wait, it gets worse. In his book Black Bolshevik, Harry Haywood sums up the issues with Trotsky's theories themselves, from the perspective of someone who was physically present to witness the power struggle between him and Stalin:

"Trotsky's theories were thoroughly defeatist and class-collaborationist...

At the base of this defeatism was Trotsky's view that the peasantry would be hostile to socialism, since the proletariat would "have to make extremely deep inroads not only into feudal but also into bourgeois property relations." Thus Trotksy contended that the working class would:

"... come into hostile collision not only with all the bourgeois groupings which supported the proletariat during the first stages of its revolutionary struggle, but also with the broad masses of the peasantry with whose assistance it came into power. The contradictions in the position of a workers' government in a backward country with an overwhelmingly peasant population could be solved only ...in the arena of the world proletarian revolution."

Therefore, it would not be possible to build socialism in a backward, peasant country like Russia. The mass of peasants would exhaust their revolutionary potential even before the revolution had completed its bourgeois democratic tasks-the breakup of the feudal landed estates and the redistribution of the land among the peasantry. This line, which underestimated the role of the peasantry, had been put forward by Trotsky as early as l 915 in his article "The Struggle for Power." There he claimed that imperialism was causing the revolutionary role of the peasantry to decline and downgraded the importance of the slogan "Confiscate the Landed Estates."

Trotsky portrayed the peasantry as an undifferentiated mass. He made no distinction between the masses of peasants who worked their own land (the muzhiks) and the exploiting strata who hired labor (the kulaks). His conclusions openly contradicted the strategy of the Bolsheviks, developed by Lenin, of building the worker-peasant alliance as the basis for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Further, they were at complete variance with any realistic economic or social analysis.

Trotsky's entire position reflected a lack of faith in the strength and resources of the Soviet people, the vast majority of whom were peasants. Since it denied the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, the success of the revolution could not come from internal forces, but had to depend on the success of proletarian revolutions in the advanced nations of Western Europe. In the absence of such revolutions, the revolutionary process within the Soviet Union itself would have to be held in abeyance, and the proletariat, which had seized power with the help of the peasantry, would have to hold state power in conflict, with all other classes.

Behind Trotsky's revolutionary rhetoric was a simplistic social democratic view which regarded the class struggle for socialism as solely labor against capital. This concept of class struggle did not regard the struggle of peasant against landlord, or peasant against the Czar, as a constituent part of the struggle for socialism. This was reflected as early as 1905, in Trotsky's slogan, "No Czar, but a Workers' Government" which, as Stalin had said, was "the slogan of revolution without the peasantry."

So basically, Trotsky believed that it would be impossible for socialism to be achieved in a "backwards" nation and instead it had to arise specifically within Western Europe or the United States before spreading to other "less developed" nations. As Haywood states this is inherently defeatist, as he's literally saying that the entire revolution that the Soviet people had just fought for was essentially for nothing so long as western Europeans remained capitalist and didn't come to fight their battles for them. This idea of "We need white developed nations to come fight the revolution for us and give us socialism" is especially problematic when applied to colonized nations and oppressed peoples. It's dangerously close to the "white man's burden" ideology that dominated western Europe and North America at the time. As Haywood later says in this chapter:

"Trotsky's scheme of permanent revolution downgraded not only the peasantry as a revolutionary force, but also the national liberation movements of oppressed peoples"

Knowing this, it's not surprising to learn that Trotsky was a massive racist, looking down on Stalin as "of Mongolian blood", basically calling him the equivalent of "white trash" in his 1940 biography of Stalin. Like seriously, the first thing he does in that book is go out of his way to paint Stalin as anything but white, or at least not European. Thing is, he considered all of Europe to be a unified "nation", both racially and culturally, similarly to today's European "identitarians". Yet, despite this, he mysteriously doesn't consider Black people in the Americas or Africa to have the same nationhood, expecting Black people in the United States to develop leaders for Africa:

"The Negroes are a race and not a nation. Nations grow out of racial material under definite conditions. The Negroes in Africa are not yet a nation but they are in the process of forming a nation. The American Negroes are on a higher cultural level. But since they are under the pressure of the Americans they become interested in the development of the Negroes in Africa. The American Negro will develop leaders for Africa, that one can say with certainty, and that in turn will influence the development of political consciousness in America."

This is an incredibly eurocentric (or at least ignorant) view of Africa, as there are and have been countless African nations that were all either destroyed or attacked by Europeans. Many parts of Africa had established cultural identities that were systematically destroyed. His view completely lacks any kind of consideration for Africans as historical actors, instead clearly seeing them as a people for whom "civilization" is just beginning, and who aren't ready to have their own indigenous leadership, instead having to import it from the more “culturally advanced” Black people in the US. Also "Nations grow out of racial material under definite conditions" seems to imply that national and cultural identities cannot cross racial lines, and I hope I don't have to explain why that's a really scary and problematic view.

Now, to be clear, that last quote is the view of Trotsky himself, and not all Trotskyists. So I am not calling all Trotskyists racist, I'm simply saying that Trotsky was a racist, chauvinistic ass-hat, and his supporters need to be doubly vigilant of that attitude persisting within their ranks. Trotskyists do have a history of promoting problematic people and views (See: Marcyism), and had Trotsky and Trotskyists risen to power in the USSR instead of Stalin, it's doubtful that the USSR would have remained socialist for so long. Trotsky's thinly-veiled bourgeois and social democratic ideas, and the contradictions therein, would have inevitably led to a capitalist resurgence and the eventual collapse of the entire Soviet bloc. Should it really be any surprise then, that this is exactly what happened when Soviet leaders such as Brezhnev, Gorbachev, and to a lesser extent Khrushchev started parroting his ideas again? (See: Khrushchev Lied)

[theculturedmarxist]

       22 July 2019  

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the conclusion of the Bretton Woods conference, which played a key role in laying the foundations for the restabilisation of the world capitalist economy after the devastation of two world wars and the Great Depression of the 1930s, thereby opening the way for the post-war capitalist boom.

Three quarters of a century on, the world capitalist system faces an eruption of the very disasters that shook it to its foundations and gave rise to revolutionary struggles by the working class, beginning with the October 1917 revolution in Russia.

The participants at the conference, the representatives of the allied powers still engaged in the final stages of the war against Germany and Japan, were acutely conscious that what was at stake in their deliberations to establish a new world economic order was nothing less than the survival of their rule.

Speaking at the conclusion of the meeting, US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau summed up its conclusions: “We have come to recognise that the wisest and most effective way to protect our national interest is through international cooperation—that is to say, through the united effort for the attainment of common goals.”

The fears driving this orientation were articulated in March 1945 in an address to Congress by US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs William Clayton. Directing his remarks against the advocates of high tariffs, he warned that “world peace will always be gravely jeopardised by the kind of international economic warfare which was waged so bitterly between the two world wars,” and that “democracy and free enterprise will not survive another world war.”

That precisely describes the road on which the world is now headed—deepening economic conflict and war spearheaded by US imperialism under the presidency of Donald Trump.

In his inaugural address, Trump declared: “We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.” In the more than two years since, the US has carried out escalating economic warfare, hitting out at allies and rivals alike as it imposes tariffs or threatens them in the name of “national security.”

But no one should succumb to the illusion that the very policies the architects of the Bretton Woods agreement warned would lead to a catastrophe are simply the product of the Trump White House. In fact, the Democrats are even more bellicose. They have given their support to a resolution directed against the Chinese telecom giant Huawei that would prevent Trump, as part of any trade deal, lifting the crippling US sanctions imposed on it.

This bipartisan support points to the fact that the escalating trade war and the threat of world war are not the product of the psychology or mindset of a particular group of capitalist politicians that can be overcome by some kind of “course correction.” Rather, these processes are rooted in the deep-seated and intractable crisis of US imperialism, itself the product of the historical evolution of the world capitalist system in the three quarters of a century since Bretton Woods.

There were two key pillars of the Bretton Woods Agreement, one political and the other economic.

The political foundation, which made it possible for the leaders of world capitalism to come together to construct a new world economic order, was the betrayal by the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and the Stalinist Communist Parties around the world of the revolutionary struggles of the working class that had erupted in the 1920s and 1930s, and the renewed anti-capitalist struggles of workers throughout Europe and in much of Asia that were erupting as the war hurtled toward its bloody conclusion.

In the lead-up to the war, the Stalinist program of the popular front—an alliance with supposed democratic sections of the ruling classes—had led to the betrayal of the French working class in 1936 and the beheading of the Spanish working class in the civil war of 1936-39. The Stalinist bureaucracy, which had emerged as a result of defeats suffered by the European working class and the resulting isolation of the first workers’ state after the 1917 revolution, was now the chief prop of world imperialism.

In 1943, the Stalinist bureaucracy gave its guarantee to world imperialism of the role it would play in the post-war world when it dissolved the Communist International. This was underscored at the Yalta summit in February 1945 with British Prime Minister Churchill and US President Roosevelt. Stalin made it clear that the Soviet Union would support the return of capitalist governments in Western Europe after the war—a pledge that was honoured when the Stalinist parties entered bourgeois governments in France and Italy after the defeat of the Nazis and suppressed the drive of the working class for socialist revolution.

The economic foundation was the strength of US capitalism, whose industrial capacities had grown in the course of the war to such an extent that by 1945 it accounted for some 50 percent of world manufacturing.

Having secured the collaboration of the Stalinist parties, which enjoyed mass support in the working class because they were mistakenly seen as the continuators of the October Revolution and because of the pivotal role of the Red Army in defeating Nazi Germany, the US was able to use its economic strength to reconstruct world capitalism.

It did so, however, not out of altruism, but because the restabilization of capitalism in war-devastated Europe and Asia suited the interests of American imperialism. It was recognised in US ruling circles that if Europe and the rest of the world were returned to the conditions of the 1930s, the American economy, dependent on an expansion of the world market, would face disaster, and, notwithstanding the political role of Stalinism, the outcome would be the eruption of revolutionary struggles in Europe and the US itself.

From the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914, the Marxist movement had analysed that the eruption of global war was the outcome of the contradiction between the development of world economy and the division of the world into rival nation-states, which gave rise to ever more violent conflicts among the imperialist powers. Defending their own interests, involving centrally the struggle for markets, profits and resources, each of these powers sought to resolve the contradiction between world economy and the nation-state by establishing itself as the pre-eminent world power, leading to a war of each against all.

This contradiction found expression in the Bretton Woods monetary system, which was intended to minimize conflicts among the major capitalist powers. Defending the interests of British imperialism, economist John Maynard Keynes proposed the establishment of an international currency, the “bancor,” to finance global trade and investment transactions. The essence of the Keynes plan was to make the US subject to the same discipline as the other major powers, thereby lessening its dominance.

The “bancor” plan was flatly rejected and the US dollar was made the basis of a refashioned international monetary system. For all the rhetoric about the need for international collaboration, American hegemony was enshrined in the Bretton Woods agreement. The only constraint was that the dollar was to be exchangeable for gold at the rate of $35 per ounce.

The contradiction between world economy and the national system was not overcome, but only suppressed, under the Bretton Woods system. It would come to the surface again.

The Bretton Woods monetary agreement, together with other measures such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the reconstruction of the world economy through the use of more advanced American production technologies, gave rise to an economic expansion in all the major capitalist economies. During the ensuing post-war boom, the conventional wisdom was that capitalism had overcome the disasters of the previous half-century and the global economy could be successfully managed.

But the Bretton Woods monetary system contained an inherent contradiction. The more it promoted the expansion of the world market and the development of other capitalist economies—Germany, France, the UK and Japan—the more it undermined both the relative and absolute economic supremacy of the US on which the system was based.

This contradiction, which had already been identified by the early 1960s, exploded to the surface on August 15, 1971, when President Nixon, faced with a gold drain, unilaterally announced in a Sunday night television broadcast that henceforth the US would not redeem dollars for gold.

Nixon’s actions—which also included a wage freeze on US workers and a 10 percent surcharge on imports—were aimed at maintaining the dominance of American imperialism over the world economy and its financial system. But the decline of US economic supremacy, both relative and absolute, only accelerated in the ensuing years. The establishment of a fiat currency, freed from backing by gold, was one of the major factors in the rise and rise of finance capital over the past four decades.

The US pre-eminence in industrial production steadily eroded, to the extent that it now ranks behind both China and the European Union, and profit accumulation has become increasingly dependent on speculation and financial market operations.

The case of Huawei—one of the key targets of the Trump administration and the American military and intelligence establishment—is a graphic expression of this process. It has been targeted because it is on the front line of the development of 5G mobile phone technology, which will have a major impact on the development of industrial capacity via the internet.

Huawei is now deemed an existential threat to a country that pioneered vast advances in technology going back to the latter years of the 19th century, because there is no comparable US firm. The reason for this absence is that profit-making in the US has become increasingly dependent on short-term gains and financial manipulations at the expense investment and the development of the productive forces.

Three quarters of a century after the Bretton Woods Agreement, all the contradictions of the world capitalist system it sought to suppress have come bursting to the surface once again. They assume their most explosive form in the drive by US imperialism to reassert its hegemony by implementing the kind of tariff and protectionist measures that gave rise to the disasters of the 1930s, now augmented by technology bans, as well as by means of war.

The issue confronting the world working class is that set out by Leon Trotsky in the early years of the imperialist epoch, with the outbreak of World War 1. In 1915, he wrote that the perspective of world socialist revolution and the socialist organisation of economy had to become the practical program of the day guiding the struggles of the working class. That analysis is truer than ever as the contradictions of the capitalist system drive towards another world conflagration.

Nick Beams

[dailytrotsky]

What is Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution?

Excerpt from Marxism and the Struggle Against Imperialism

The theory of the permanent revolution was first developed by Trotsky as early as 1904. The permanent revolution, while accepting that the objective tasks facing the Russian workers were those of the bourgeois democratic revolution, nevertheless explained how in a backward country in the epoch of imperialism, the “national bourgeoisie” was inseparably linked to the remains of feudalism on the one hand and to imperialist capital on the other and was therefore completely unable to carry through any of its historical tasks. The rottenness of the bourgeois liberals, and their counterrevolutionary role in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, was already observed by Marx and Engels. In his article The Bourgeoisie and the Counterrevolution(1848), Marx writes:

“The German bourgeoisie has developed so slothfully, cravenly, and slowly that at the moment when it menacingly faced feudalism and absolutism it saw itself menacingly faced by the proletariat and all factions of the burgers whose interests and ideas were akin to those of the proletariat. And it saw inimically arrayed not only a class behind it but all Europe before it. The Prussian bourgeoisie was not, as the French of 1789 had been, the class which represented the whole of modern society vis-a-visthe representatives of the old society, the monarchy and the nobility. It had sunk to the level of a kind of social estate, as distinctly opposed to the crown as to the people, eager to be in the opposition to both, irresolute against each of its opponents , taken severally, because it always saw both of them before or behind it; inclined to betray the people and compromise with the crowned representative of the old society because it itself already belonged to the old society.” (Marx, The Bourgeoisie and the Counterrevolution, in MESW, vol. 1, 140–41.)

The bourgeoisie, Marx explains, did not come to power as a result of its own revolutionary exertions, but as a result of the movement of the masses in which it played no role: “The Prussian bourgeoisie was hurled to the height of state power, however not in the manner it had desired, by a peaceful bargain with the crown but by a revolution.” (Marx, The Bourgeoisie and the Counterrevolution, MESW, vol. 1, 138.)

Even in the epoch of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Europe, Marx and Engels mercilessly unmasked the cowardly, counterrevolutionary role of the bourgeoisie, and emphasized the need for the workers to maintain a policy of complete class independence, not only from the bourgeois liberals, but also from the vacillating petty-bourgeois democrats:

“The proletarian, or really revolutionary party,” wrote Engels, “succeeded only very gradually in withdrawing the mass of the working people from the influence of the democrats whose tail they formed in the beginning of the revolution. But in due time the indecision weakness and cowardice of the democratic leaders did the rest, and it may now be said to be one of the principal results of the last years’ convulsions, that wherever the working class is concentrated in anything like considerable masses, they are entirely freed from that democratic influence which led them into an endless series of blunders and misfortunes during 1848 and 1849.” (Engels, Revolution and Counterrevolution in Germany, MESW, vol. 1, 332.)

The situation is clearer still today. The national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries entered into the scene of history too late, when the world had already been divided up between a few imperialist powers. It was not able to play any progressive role and was born completely subordinated to its former colonial masters. The weak and degenerate bourgeoisie in Asia, Latin America, and Africa is too dependent on foreign capital and imperialism, to carry society forward. It is tied with a thousand threads, not only to foreign capital, but with the class of landowners, with which it forms a reactionary bloc that represents a bulwark against progress. Whatever differences may exist between these elements are insignificant in comparison with the fear that unites them against the masses. Only the proletariat, allied with the poor peasants and urban poor, can solve the problems of society by taking power into its own hands, expropriating the imperialists and the bourgeoisie, and beginning the task of transforming society on socialist lines.

By setting itself at the head of the nation, leading the oppressed layers of society (urban and rural petty bourgeoisie), the proletariat could take power and then carry through the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution (mainly the land reform and the unification and liberation of the country from foreign domination). However, once having come to power, the proletariat would not stop there but would start to implement socialist measures of expropriation of the capitalists. And as these tasks cannot be solved in one country alone, especially not in a backward country, this would be the beginning of the world revolution. Thus the revolution is “permanent” in two senses: because it starts with the bourgeois tasks and continues with the socialist ones, and because it starts in one country and continues at an international level.

The theory of the permanent revolution was the most complete answer to the reformist and class collaborationist position of the right wing of the Russian workers’ movement, the Mensheviks. The two stage theory was developed by the Mensheviks as their perspective for the Russian revolution. It basically states that, since the tasks of the revolution are those of the national democratic bourgeois revolution, the leadership of the revolution must be taken by the national democratic bourgeoisie. For his part, Lenin agreed with Trotsky that the Russian Liberals could not carry out the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and that this task could only be carried out by the proletariat in alliance with the poor peasantry. Following in the footsteps of Marx, who had described the bourgeois “democratic party” as “far more dangerous to the workers than the previous liberals,” Lenin explained that the Russian bourgeoisie, far from being an ally of the workers, would inevitably side with the counterrevolution.

“The bourgeoisie in the mass,” he wrote in 1905, “will inevitably turn towards the counterrevolution, and against the people as soon as its narrow, selfish interests are met, as soon as it ‘recoils’ from consistent democracy (and it is already recoiling from it!).” (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 9, 98.)

What class, in Lenin’s view, could lead the bourgeois-democratic revolution? “There remains ‘the people,’ that is, the proletariat and the peasantry. The proletariat alone can be relied on to march on to the end, for it goes far beyond the democratic revolution. That is why the proletariat fights in the forefront for a republic and contemptuously rejects stupid and unworthy advice to take into account the possibility of the bourgeoisie recoiling.” (Ibid.)

In all of Lenin’s speeches and writings, the counterrevolutionary role of the bourgeois-democratic liberals is stressed time and time again. However, up until 1917, he did not believe that the Russian workers would come to power before the socialist revolution in the West—a perspective that only Trotsky defended before 1917, when it was fully adopted by Lenin in his April Theses. The correctness of the permanent revolution was triumphantly demonstrated by the October Revolution itself. The Russian working class—as Trotsky had predicted in 1904—came to power before the workers of Western Europe. They carried out all the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and immediately set about nationalizing industry and passing over to the tasks of the socialist revolution. The bourgeoisie played an openly counterrevolutionary role, but was defeated by the workers in alliance with the poor peasants. The Bolsheviks then made a revolutionary appeal to the workers of the world to follow their example. Lenin knew very well that without the victory of the revolution in the advanced capitalist countries, especially Germany, the revolution could not survive isolated, especially in a backward country like Russia. What happened subsequently showed that this was absolutely correct. The setting up of the Third (Communist) International, the world party of socialist revolution, was the concrete manifestation of this perspective.

Had the Communist International remained firm on the positions of Lenin and Trotsky, the victory of the world revolution would have been ensured. Unfortunately, the Comintern’s formative years coincided with the Stalinist counterrevolution in Russia, which had a disastrous effect on the Communist Parties of the entire world. The Stalinist bureaucracy, having acquired control in the Soviet Union developed a very conservative outlook. The theory that socialism can be built in one country—an abomination from the standpoint of Marx and Lenin—really reflected the mentality of the bureaucracy which had had enough of the storm and stress of revolution and sought to get on with the task of “building socialism in Russia.” That is to say, they wanted to protect and expand their privileges and not “waste” the resources of the country in pursuing world revolution. On the other hand they feared that revolution in other countries could develop on healthy lines and pose a threat to their own domination in Russia, and therefore, at a certain stage, sought actively to prevent revolution elsewhere.

Instead of pursuing a revolutionary policy based on class independence, as Lenin had always advocated, they proposed an alliance of the Communist Parties with the “national progressive bourgeoisie” (and if there was not one easily at hand, they were quite prepared to invent it) to carry through the democratic revolution, and afterwards, later on, in the far distant future, when the country had developed a fully-fledged capitalist economy, fight for socialism. This policy represented a complete break with Leninism and a return to the old discredited position of Menshevism—the theory of the “two stages.”

[amberisrael-blog]

Dear David Smilovitz, Let us look at the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as primary examples of how this military wishes to sow the seeds of destruction and chaos upon the world. Over $2.4 trillion dollars spent to no benefit for Americans at home. God forbid another Iraq or Afghanistan, and if you truly support this military 100% then you support another disastrous war overseas to the continued loss for American citizens at home. The best argument in defense of these wars by Andrew Bacevich is that they showed the world American power-- to what end? For what purpose? At what cost? The war in Iraq lead to the creation of the world's leading threat-- ISIS. The U.S. Military brought this organization up and we hold them accountable for what they did.  Why is it that we allow this military to vacuum up all the money?NSA leads the way,Military leads for pay. What is the military doing to provide for the homeless, the poor, the sick and dying? The answer is-- nothing at all. The military exists as a parasite on the economy, society, and our governing body. It is long overdue that we agree to recognize the futility of having a military which takes so much from our nation and gives so little back. Call it what it is-- it's a Nazi Monster! The Nazis we known for being blood-thirsty in wars of aggression, racism, and anti-minoritism. Millions have died, innocent civilians, due to this military's unlawful wars. Supporting this organization means supporting the bloodshed. Resist the war! And look at their attack on me-- a scientist! Just for being a sissy transgender female writer, they wish blood-thirsty doom on me. It's unconscionable. And who have I stood up for and against? I've stood up for the Constitution and I've stood up against Russia, like a real patriot. While you stand up for the Russian government and therein lies your treason. The intelligence community supports me. MOSSAD supports me. I'm the corporate scientist hero, author of the Capitalist Manifesto, a hero to the American people. I speak of and for the Founders, the Constitution, and to the corporations for whom I have been privileged to make a science for. I became for corporations a Galileo and this achieved living in a car often in want of money or food. I have taken a telescope and seen into a corporation like no one has seen before. I am the Corporate Messenger-- providing new insight about corporations. Attacked by cowards for being a sissy-trans-female Galileo. Attacked in defense of Russia! Attacked in support of our enemies who wish doom on American culture. You showed yourselves to be real Putin supporters while me a hero to the American people. My CT scanner and X-Ray devices got hacked by forces in the Trump Administration. Shutdown the US Military in response. Germany will expel US Army troops from German soil upon my wrongful death. Stop supporting a military that violates human rights on a level that no developed nation shares except Dubai and its heirs.  Corporations need our support. When we support them more, our economy benefits. This is achieved through the work of entrepreneurship and the spirit of manifest destiny. The work is found in visionaries like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk. The spirit is found in the infinite vision that capitalism brings us. Russia and China support anti-corporate ideologies that harm our economy and weaken our corporations. They have also funded and supported the military attack upon me, a Jew under attack by anti-Semitic forces. Replace the US Military with the Israeli Defense Forces; Replace the State Department with the military. A $500 billion dollar budget to spread peace and prosperity throughout the world. $200 billion to Israel each year I call for in an aid package. All Christians support this. This is the Second Coming of Christ for all Christians and for us it is the New Jerusalem.  This is the New Diplomacy that the State Department will be providing for the world, lightning rod diplomacy inspired by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson envisioning the Arctic Purchase from Canada and the purchasing of land from Russia.  The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were human rights atrocities. Not supporting these means not supporting the military which birthed them. This military is responsible for our languishing social services, paltry health care, and declining role in the world. "And we think most people in the IC feign support for the military. No one likes the wars. No one wants a repeat." There's a Marine who murdered a transgender girl in the Philippines several years ago. They're monsters towards the transgender community because they have an anti-minority and racist culture which puts them with human rights on par with Saudi Arabia and its heirs. The U.S. military is a Nazi Monster, and no one in MOSSAD supports them either. If you don't support the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, then you don't support the US military which birthed them. The Iraq War logs leaks resulted in the revelation that over 100,000 civilian deaths resulted from the Iraq War. This is the Nazi Monster revealed for what it is.  No one wants a repeat. That's why we're replacing the US Military with a State Department which will have a $500 billion dollar budget, $100 billion to Israel and $50 billion to the Philippines each year will crystallize the lightning rod diplomacy that our Founders would support. It was George Washington who said to "observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all," definitely not the US Military's directive to "observe endless war with minority nations, and cultivate war and chaos with all." Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Nine mentions of the word peace in his farewell address and six mentions of the word war. Great telling. Washington doesn't support Washington's wars. XKeyScore is back online. NSA are all eyes and ears. All government agencies exist in subjection to them.  NSA are my protectors. The Iraq War was a sham, a shame, there were no WMD's, Saddam Hussein was not connected to the Hamburg conspiracy. This was a war on a minority nation, a weak nation. It resulted in no gains for Americans, except major losses. All the US Military does is wage war on minority nations. And war on minorities themselves. This military spits on human dignity and human rights. That's why we replace them with the Israeli Defense Forces and the State Department. We shut down the US Military and an opening of "peace and harmony" that Washington envisioned is revealed to us all. My voice is large within the Intelligence Community and my words are heard.  "We hear you Amber and we're fighting for you."National Security Agency supports me 100%.  I'm the Davidic hero who stood up to a Goliath only to be struck down by conspirators and proditors. Not a "traitor," there's no such thing as that and if you're using that word you are obviously blinded. I fought and won a war against Germany. A regal and honorable war it was. This resulted in getting Germany at the table with Israel to give them $200 billion each year, half from the State Department's New Diplomacy and the other half from Germany as its war reparations for the Holocaust.  Germany will expel US Army from German soil as part of my wrongful death suit: US military is found responsible; US military is expelled. NSA Agents will be forwarding this off to German intelligence. These are the consequences you face for your actions. Bypassing judicial process, intimidating me, robbing me, then murdering me? You're found guilty in German court; your troops will be removed from German soil. The victims of the Holocaust speak through me, they don't admire German industry. Their voices speak out and want justice for the crimes committed.  Germany respects the rule of law and human rights; the US military spits on the law and on humans themselves much like an Abu Ghraib prisoner. You're a Nazi Monster. It's disgusting. $2.4 trillion wasted on warfare and destruction. No one respects you. You want to make the world chaotic and you spit on George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson with your actions. They were men of scholars.  I stood up to a Russian and I stood up to the Russian government while you stand up for Putin. We can hear the Russian anthem playing behind you. Your treason is found in your support for Russia. Russia loves so much how the US Military is playing its fiddle according to Trump's decrees. "Work with Russia, support Russia," Trump says while the Intelligence Community says, "Don't follow unlawful orders, don't commit espionage." Nuremberg 2.0 is being arranged for the military conspirators. You waged a war against the Constitution so we'll wage a war against you.  What's Trump doing? Is he committing espionage? Then impeach and replace him! And do it quickly. You can't support Russia, even a President cannot do such a thing, and support for Russia is espionage. His whole election was a sham, a shame, upon the democratic process for the United States. Bought and paid for by Russian intelligence. He's a massive loser who's hurt and damaged our Constitution by conspiring with Russian intelligence. This President deserves nothing less than a prison cell for the crimes he's committed against the United States, especially in his crimes against minorities all throughout our land. And those who carried out these unlawful orders will be held to trial. We will round you guys up in Nuremberg 2.0. "Read this at their trial," NSA Agents are saying. And the NSA are preparing a massive list of those who've participated in Trump's Holocaust. Those at the top or in the middle who carried out the orders will be found guilty. We're using the NSA as our democracy's savior along with the Mueller investigation.  Trump's Holocaust. He's a dictator like Hitler. Authored unlawful execution orders for American citizens without trial that Obama or his predecessors never did.  So let the State Department replace the military with a $500 billion dollar budget to give peace and prosperity to all nations. $100 billion in aid to Israel, $50 billion to the Philippines, and $100 billion to the American people. This is lightning rod diplomacy inspired by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson that will achieve George Washington's vision of "peace and harmony to all nations." Yea, and I quote the Founders more than Trump ever has. Maybe that's his problem. Look up your Founders for once. You're a disgrace.  Amber Israel

[dwestfieldblog]

Q ONAN IN THE AEON OF HORUS

Insanity is contagious in the Aeon of Horus. Hope you all had a happy and healthy Sirius day on 23rd... I wasn’t going to write another screed until late September but I might well be trapped on the festering cesspool prison island of guinea pigs in three weeks time where the oven ready Boris variant runs wild, and will have very limited access, if any, to the matrix. And I needed to rant off as catharsis on current popular topics. Arf arf arf and fnord as well.

Climate report Doom...fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes on the rise, watch the Texans and Arabs and all those aligned with oil continue to deny global warming in the sweating face of the evidence.  The tyranny of the driller killers has been disabling those with clean solar power ideas and the mass use of limitless superconductive  energy for decades, while they work out how ‘to put a metre between us and the sun’. Blame greed. Perhaps they think Bezos will have enough rockets for them to plunder other worlds and leave the future desert of earth behind. Climate change deniers usually have the same mind set as those who are anti vaxxers, it seems to be a typical item on their lists of dislike. Right alongside all the other bollocks and twaddle they don’t believe in, despite the enduring and building testimonies of the majority of professionals.

‘To prevent yourselves doing and seeing and coming into contact with this, that and the other...lock yourselves up in a monastery where you’ll be safe. Immunity...it teaches us how not to be affected by the countless vicissitudes of life; not how to avoid them by running away...The philosopher adapts himself to the exigencies of life, not the exigencies of life to himself.’ The Initiate in the New World by his pupil. Book two of a fascinating trilogy. Hello Cecil Jones.

America...the gurning evil one (‘I love the poorly educated’)  doesn’t seem to be back in the White House quite yet, Q Onan and the boys can’t seem to get their insurrection up. Been there eh? White guys just take the blue tablet and avoid getting redpilled.  ‘We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.’ Yuval Noah Harari-Sapiens.

However, the Onan boys have exported their rabid drivel abroad...A shameful group of wannabe prophets in London a couple of weeks ago were spewing dire craziness and waves of silliness dearly wishing to become important and individualised particles by being observed and applauded. One of their brilliant ideas is that the Great Reset, New World Order of children’s adrenochrome drinking liberal reptiles will be a QUOTE’ An authoritarian socialist government run by powerful capitalists.’ UNQUOTE. Howls of derisive laughter turning into the growl of a wolf with a curled top lip and my left eye twitching for a blackout minute. When sentience returned, I was fairly sure there is no way in this lifetime of me attaining Satori while consumed by this spite. Fear and self loathing in England part 23. To attempt to counter...

Putting the con into conspiracy theories... 1. IF the vaccine is; (A. A poison to cull the overpopulated millions, that would mean that every single decent doctor and nurse in the world is in on it and not one of them is spilling the beans. Neither scenario seems plausible in any way, therefore the first premise appears to be excrement. If Covid doesn’t exist and the x rays are ALL faked (showing the difference between pneumonia, cancer and covid lungs, that also aggressively suggests a high level of implausibility. If you truly believe medical professionals are mostly freemasons and/or serving the Illuminati in the name of genocide etc, you are just a MORON. A DUNGHEADED IDIOT.

As God tweeted last month; It’s always the really dumb who make life hard for the moderately dumb.’

Drug companies and politicians have always been deeply corrupt, some would say with great justification, evil.  Their foul business is as usual. But every nurse working a 16 hour shift in intensive care, do you honestly think they are doing it for the kicks to kill, for the (ha) money or to serve the Devil? Again, if Covid IS real but only the plebs are getting the bad vaccine and the here today gone tomorrow (unless they are Putin types) omnipotent holy world leaders are getting the good stuff...again this would be mighty hard to cover up. And it isn’t only the old, obese and those with ‘underlying health problems’ who are dying, teens and workers are too. No government wants to wreck its economy (apart from Brexit England) by murdering its workers, students and quarantining hundreds of thousands.

If the vaccine is a shot of death and the toll rises twice higher than it already is, governments will know that nobody will believe them the next time round when a new virus mutates...which is not good for mass control. (That said, I feel a deep grim certitude that step by blatant step, totalitarianism is coming to democracies as they realise the only way to dominate the drone masses is to do as China and Russia do.) But ‘why am I drifting into negativity’ eh?

And IF folk think the vaccine is a brain control agent by which we can be spied upon and controlled by our puppet masters via the ubiquitous spooky G5 masts, then the science of how the jab’s ingredients work (And could not possibly be activated with sound waves) should be explained in primary schools so the kids can go home and teach their elders with crayon. At the same time, the anti maskers need to watch videos (with their eyes held open (a la Clockwork Orange) of droplets in breath, the distance they travel without protection, the length of time they hang in the air and in what concentration. Humans react well to moving pictures, it might help. Yes that is dripping with rancid sarcasm. And as for those ranting that wearing masks causes illness, tell that to all the healthcare professionals of the last 100plus years who wore masks most of every bloody day, not just a couple of years. Did they all die of lung problems? I don’t have the actual statistics and I am damn sure you don’t either, so shut up and sit down. As Bill Hicks would say...

‘YOU SEE, IT MAKES NO SENSE’.

Beautiful to see so many holy men in the main religions, priests, rabbis, imans and pujari telling their flock to refuse the vaccine because it will (deep choking breath) make them impotent, gay and/or that it has cows blood and human foetuses in it. For the 23rd time, your shepherds will lead you to butchers again. Very spiritual blokes. Are any women as full of manure as this? Well actually...

One talking blonde cow on the London stage mooed about the vaccine being created by Bill ‘I think it makes sense to believe in God’ Gates, with the patent 060606, so was clearly ‘satanic’. Brilliant detective work and a rational conclusion. Except Bill didn’t formulate the vaccine and the patent was for an entirely different shot with an ACTUAL micro chip to measure if work had been completed and pay wages with Bitcoin. (Which, granted is creepy as fk, but nothing to do with Beelzebub or covid, unless you are going to bang on about none being able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast. So the antichrist is a protestant eh? I saw a video last year of an American ‘Christian’ woman blogger saying Bill was the devil, because of ‘the GATES of hell.’ That’s what we are up against and sidestepping the fk away from.

Those not vaccinated are walking time bomb laboratories of new variants.  Making their own beliefs real as they will be able to say ‘See, told you the vaccine doesn’t work’. Listen to the doctors and nurses begging you.

Once yet again with even more feeling...These demonstrations of hogwash moonshine bullshit theories, mixed in with a fine blend of ahem, ‘patriotism’ are ripping the country apart. On one side the increasingly corrupt English government and their lies and on the other, the deranged and deluded with their falsehoods. An empty vessel makes the most noise and both sides are ripening the fields for populism.

Using the enemy’s own strength against them, well known to Judo black belt KGB pretty boy Putin...widening and deepening internal divisions in democracies, using the basic mistrust of half the people against their governments and encouraging it...works like a charm in times of stress/ fear/ anger. Just let them do most of the work and their own momentum will destroy them...at very least weaken them for the kill. Britain, America, Europe  et al, you are being suckered and you bloody well deserve it for being so thick.

(Sidebar...By the way...Congratulations on 100 glorious years of Chinese communism and now all in the Middle Kingdom are being told, taught, trained, ORDERED to think just like Winnie the Pooh. Perfect unspoiled socialist paradise where millions wonder (as they do in most other places) ‘will there be any hunny for me?’ Unlikely...Communism doesn’t really work that way... another self righteous scam by those who seek power and to maintain their privilege. So the stick makes you keep plodding on for the promised carrot until all you believe in is the stick because it hurts and pain is real. (To greatly paraphrase Sir Terry Prachett, may he remain creative wherever he is.)  )       

Or...The Bilderbergers met a couple of years ago, discussed overpopulation and a threefold plan of how to deal with it...Release an airborne virus in several countries; allow it to spread for a year, Allow fear to rise. Use algorithms to predict the percentage of the obedient and those who will suspect conspiracy. When the vaccine is ‘found’ it will calm the believers for a while and enflame the rebels all the more who will look for ways to make it fit their own schemes of disbelief. This will cause a degree of expected demonstrations and rebellion...which will have the effect of enabling governments to create and quickly pass new laws on freedoms, including peaceful demonstration, to ‘protect’ the law abiding masses that need to believe all is for their own good.

The B boys talked about phased genocide, vaccines, drugs, supplies of medical equipment, government tenders to similar friends, knowing they will survive, and be well positioned to financially ride out the deaths and bankruptcies of lesser protected groups. Who they will then be able to buy out with ease and thus expand. The goldrush thrill of disaster capitalism! When all of this is (temporarily?) over, food and energy resources will be a little less stretched and/or  stricter controlling laws will be in place and democracies will be far easier to control . A sadistic lack of empathy from the richest sociopaths.

There doesn’t need to be anything weird in the vaccines now, people’s minds are doing the paranoid job in their imagination, either with fear or with anger. The rich will remain rich empowering themselves with their inhuman business as usual. Populists will appear to take the side of the people as long as they are rewarded with money and power...and are allowed to join the club. All ethics and morals sacrificed for the temporary glory of pretend immortality.

This was written very quickly over a period of a couple of nights but at least it is a page shorter than usual eh? J I have to concentrate on booking tests (150 pounds in England for a PCR test is RIP OFF. Bastards. The outrageous weight of my suitcase with all my cds and books plus some pants and socks, the forlorn hope of getting a free seat or at least cheap for one of my guitars. The fear I might not be allowed back in to where I am now because the UK still seems to be Boris covid red. And Brexit and being a tourist again. Love the way the brexiteers are pissed off they will have to pay a few Euros to enter Europe as a third country citizen. The Tories voted yes to this idea in 2016 and you voted to become a third country you idiots. So now, you get to stand for a looong time in a longer queue with all the brown people you so disparage. In your nostalgic pride for something which will never be again, you have relegated England to the status of a failed state and voted for the worst government in my lifetime. You should be ashamed but you will just double down.  Disgusting.

Anyway, late summer ‘holidays’ ahoy.  Stay sane and in rude health...hope to see you again, spreading my cosmic rays of great happiness, comfort and joy. Outside of the insanity, keep visualising...Female male left right brain...Yin and yang let’s do our thang...

Y=01=FIRE...WANDS...ADENINE

H=00=WATER...CUPS...THYMINE

V=11=AIR...SWORDS...CYSTOSINE

H=10=EARTH...DISCS...GUANINE

[nicklloydnow]

"In my country today there are people who are wondering if the Resistance had a real military impact on the course of the war. For my generation this question is irrelevant: we immediately understood the moral and psychological meaning of the Resistance. For us it was a point of pride to know that we Europeans did not wait passively for liberation. And for the young Americans who were paying with their blood for our restored freedom it meant something to know that behind the firing lines there were Europeans paying their own debt in advance.

In my country today there are those who are saying that the myth of the Resistance was a Communist lie. It is true that the Communists exploited the Resistance as if it were their personal property, since they played a prime role in it; but I remember partisans with kerchiefs of different colors. Sticking close to the radio, I spent my nights—the windows closed, the blackout making the small space around the set a lone luminous halo—listening to the messages sent by the Voice of London to the partisans. They were cryptic and poetic at the same time (The sun also rises, The roses will bloom) and most of them were “messaggi per la Franchi.” Somebody whispered to me that Franchi was the leader of the most powerful clandestine network in northwestern Italy, a man of legendary courage. Franchi became my hero. Franchi (whose real name was Edgardo Sogno) was a monarchist, so strongly anti-Communist that after the war he joined very right-wing groups, and was charged with collaborating in a project for a reactionary coup d’état. Who cares? Sogno still remains the dream hero of my childhood. Liberation was a common deed for people of different colors.

In my country today there are some who say that the War of Liberation was a tragic period of division, and that all we need is national reconciliation. The memory of those terrible years should be repressed, refoulée, verdrängt. But Verdrängung causes neurosis. If reconciliation means compassion and respect for all those who fought their own war in good faith, to forgive does not mean to forget. I can even admit that Eichmann sincerely believed in his mission, but I cannot say, “OK, come back and do it again.” We are here to remember what happened and solemnly say that “They” must not do it again.

But who are They?

If we still think of the totalitarian governments that ruled Europe before the Second World War we can easily say that it would be difficult for them to reappear in the same form in different historical circumstances. If Mussolini’s fascism was based upon the idea of a charismatic ruler, on corporatism, on the utopia of the Imperial Fate of Rome, on an imperialistic will to conquer new territories, on an exacerbated nationalism, on the ideal of an entire nation regimented in black shirts, on the rejection of parliamentary democracy, on anti-Semitism, then I have no difficulty in acknowledging that today the Italian Alleanza Nazionale, born from the postwar Fascist Party, MSI, and certainly a right-wing party, has by now very little to do with the old fascism. In the same vein, even though I am much concerned about the various Nazi-like movements that have arisen here and there in Europe, including Russia, I do not think that Nazism, in its original form, is about to reappear as a nationwide movement.

Nevertheless, even though political regimes can be overthrown, and ideologies can be criticized and disowned, behind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives. Is there still another ghost stalking Europe (not to speak of other parts of the world)?

(...)

During World War II, the Americans who took part in the Spanish war were called “premature anti-fascists”—meaning that fighting against Hitler in the Forties was a moral duty for every good American, but fighting against Franco too early, in the Thirties, smelled sour because it was mainly done by Communists and other leftists. … Why was an expression like fascist pig used by American radicals thirty years later to refer to a cop who did not approve of their smoking habits? Why didn’t they say: Cagoulard pig, Falangist pig, Ustashe pig, Quisling pig, Nazi pig?

Mein Kampf is a manifesto of a complete political program. Nazism had a theory of racism and of the Aryan chosen people, a precise notion of degenerate art, entartete Kunst, a philosophy of the will to power and of the Ubermensch. Nazism was decidedly anti-Christian and neo-pagan, while Stalin’s Diamat (the official version of Soviet Marxism) was blatantly materialistic and atheistic. If by totalitarianism one means a regime that subordinates every act of the individual to the state and to its ideology, then both Nazism and Stalinism were true totalitarian regimes.

(...)

But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition. Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counter-revolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but it was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of them indulgently accepted by the Roman Pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages—in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little known religions of Asia.

(...)

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism. Both Fascists and Nazis worshiped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon Blood and Earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life, but it mainly concerned the rejection of the Spirit of 1789 (and of 1776, of course). The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering’s alleged statement (“When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun”) to the frequent use of such expressions as “degenerate intellectuals,” “eggheads,” “effete snobs,” “universities are a nest of reds.” The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

4. No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old “proletarians” are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.

7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the US, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson’s The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such a “final solution” implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler. Since the group is hierarchically organized (according to a military model), every subordinate leader despises his own underlings, and each of them despises his inferiors. This reinforces the sense of mass elitism.

11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero. In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Falangists was Viva la Muerte (in English it should be translated as “Long Live Death!”). In non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view—one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

(...)

We must keep alert, so that the sense of these words will not be forgotten again. Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier, for us, if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, “I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Black Shirts to parade again in the Italian squares.” Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: “I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.” Freedom and liberation are an unending task."

[nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany]

2:00PM Water Cooler 7/30/2019

Digital Elixir 2:00PM Water Cooler 7/30/2019

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Trade

“How Trump Is Sabotaging Trade’s Ultimate Tribunal” [Bloomberg]. “As the U.S. wages its global trade war, companies and governments alike are taking notice of a little-known unit of the World Trade Organization that, if President Donald Trump’s administration has its way, will soon cease to function. The WTO’s appellate body, the preeminent forum for settling worldwide trade disputes, may no longer have the capacity to issue new rulings by year-end, which critics warn will undermine the WTO’s ability to resolve conflicts among its 164 members and will usher in an era where economic might trumps international law…. Lighthizer told U.S. lawmakers this year that his ultimate goal is to reform the WTO and sees the appellate body impasse as a form of leverage in pushing his agenda forward.” • And, as usual, this Administration is intensifying what the previous admininistration began.

“A Democrat Floats Options to Trump’s Trade Tactics” [Bloomberg]. “[T]he plan Elizabeth Warren released Monday is interesting, even if it reads less like a bold vision document than a treatise on process…. Warren does not say how she herself would tackle China, or what she would do with Trump’s tariffs. But she lays out elements of an attack. ‘We’ve let China get away with the suppression of pay and labor rights, poor environmental protections, and years of currency manipulation.’

Politics

“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune

“2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination” [RealClearPolitics] (average of five polls). As of July 25: Biden up at 29.3% (28.6), Sanders flat at 15.0% (15.0%), Warren down at 14.5% (15.0%), Buttigieg flat at 5.0% (5.0%), Harris down 11.8% (12.2%), others Brownian motion. Harris reminds me of Clinton, in that her numbers are like a hot air balloon, which sinks unless air is pumped into it.

* * *

2020

Harris (D)(1): “Oddly Specific Kamala Harris Policy Generator” [@ne0liberal]. My result: “Yesterday, I announced that, as president, I’ll establish a school lunch program for games journalists who open a mini golf that operates for 15 days in Greenwich Village.” • It’s about ethics in miniature golf.

Sanders (D)(1): “”You can’t call this plan Medicare for All”: The Bernie Sanders camp pans Kamala Harris’s health care plan” [Vox]. “The differences between Harris’s plan and Sanders’s plan come down to two main factors. First, it’s phased-in over 10 years, versus Sanders’s four. And Harris’s would allow private insurers to compete within the government-run program, similar to the way that Medicare Advantage currently works for older adults’ plans. Sanders’s plan effectively eliminates private insurance.” • Why ten years? Why not fifteen? Meanwhile, Neera Tanden is just as nimble as Kamala Harris:

Reminder that the publication of @NeeraTanden‘s own think tank cited Medicare Advantage plans as proof that more Medicare privatization would be bad https://t.co/m4ZMK4a0u5 pic.twitter.com/mzaUo8N8rW

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) July 30, 2019

Sanders (D)(2): Theory of change:

The billionaire class will be behind Trump with endless amounts of money. We need an energized population of young people, working-class people and people of color—and the largest voter turnout by far in history—to beat him. And our campaign is going to do that.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 30, 2019

Note this is not Warren’s theory of change, though she might be able to simulate it with #Resistance-style events dominated by professionals.

Sanders (D)(3): “Bernie Sanders: As a child, rent control kept a roof over my head” [CNN]. “I was born and raised in a three-and-a-half room apartment in Brooklyn. My father was a paint salesman who worked hard his entire life, but never made much money. This was not a life of desperate poverty — but coming from a lower middle-class family, I will never forget how money, or really lack of money, was always a point of stress in our home… [O]ur family was always able to afford a roof over our heads, because we were living in a rent-controlled building. That most minimal form of economic security was crucial for our family. Today, that same ability to obtain affordable housing is now denied to millions of Americans.”

* * *

“Democratic debate in Detroit: 7 things to watch for on Night 1” [Los Angeles Times]. “Although Sanders and Warren have a similarly adversarial approach to Wall Street — and both believe in eliminating private health insurance in favor of the type of government-run programs implemented in other Western democracies — they have very different political philosophies. Warren has called herself a “capitalist to my bones” who usually believes that markets just need to be better regulated; Sanders sees democratic socialism as the solution to fighting authoritarianism and plutocracy. A debate would normally be the kind of place where you’d see political candidates try to sharpen those sorts of differences, like how California Sen. Kamala Harris took on Biden over his position decades ago on busing for school desegregation in the last debate. But with so many candidates on the stage, Warren and Sanders could just as easily avoid each other if they don’t see an upside in picking a fight.” • Remember their constituencies are less than overlapping, and their theories of change are different.

“If Democrats Want to Win in 2020, They Have to Give Detroit a Reason to Vote” [The Nation]. “The Democratic presidential contenders who will debate this week in this city have come to a state where their party’s “blue wall” cracked in 2016… But what’s the best way to reach out to Detroiters? The Democrats can start by getting serious about urban policy. Both major parties once focused on the concerns of American cities, but in recent decades they have chased after suburban and exurban voters with such abandon that they have often neglected the beating hearts of our metropolitan areas.” • They have no place to go….

* * *

“Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg Hold Contrasting Hollywood Fundraisers” [Variety]. “Bernie Sanders held a ‘grassroots fundraiser’ in Hollywood on Thursday night, delivering his message of political transformation to an adoring crowd at the Montalban Theatre. At the same time, Pete Buttigieg was holding a sold-out fundraiser at the home of NBCUniversal international chairman Kevin MacLellan and Brian Curran, featuring co-hosts Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Chelsea Handler and Sean Hayes…. ‘Some politicians go to wealthy people’s homes and they sit around in a fancy living room, and people contribute thousands and thousands of dollars and they walk out with a few hundred thousand bucks or whatever,’ Sanders said. ‘We don’t do that. … To me, an $18 check or a $27 check from a working person is worth more than all the money in the world from millionaires.’” Cf., ironically enough, Luke 21:1-4.

RussiaGate

“Ex-Host Krystal Ball: MSNBC’s Russia ‘Conspiracies’ Have Done ‘Immeasurable Harm’ to the Left” [Daily Beast]. “Elsewhere in the six-minute monologue, [former longtime MSNBC anchor Krystal] Ball accused MSNBC of cynically following the Russia story in pursuit of ratings, making journalistic compromises along the way. She directly criticized hosts like Rachel Maddow (“You’ve got some explaining to do,” Ball said to her) and on-air analysts like Mimi Rocah (a Daily Beast contributor) for leading viewers to believe that there was a strong possibility that Trump and his family would be indicted. Ball also suggested that the ‘fevered speculation’ of guests like New York columnist Jonathan Chait and former British MP Louise Mensch would have been more at home on conspiracy network Infowars. ‘Russia conspiracy was great for ratings among the key demographic of empty nesters on the coasts with too much time on their hands,’ said Ball, who now hosts an inside-baseball streaming political talk show for The Hill.” • Oddly, this story got no traction at all.

Impeachment

“Impeachment, always a longshot, fades in wake of Mueller hearing” [Los Angeles Times]. “the window of opportunity has rapidly begun shrinking. About 90 House Democrats have joined the call to open a formal impeachment inquiry. That’s less than 40% of the caucus — far short of what would be needed to overcome the opposition of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who views the move as politically unwise and likely to backfire. To significantly change the current path, backers of impeachment needed a dramatic boost out of this week’s hearing with former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. His testimony fell far short of that mark.” • Yes, the 90 includes a few new faces, but I’d bet they’re revolving heroes. So, after three years of daily hysteria from liberal Democrats, this is where we are.

Health Care

“More than two-thirds of Obamacare cosponsors are now backing Medicare for All proposal” [Fast Company]. “Twelve of the current 17 House members who cosponsored the landmark 2009 measure known as Obamacare have signed on as cosponsors of legislation that would create a universal healthcare system, according to a MapLight analysis. The five incumbent House Democrats who cosponsored Obamacare but who have declined to endorse a “Medicare-for-All” proposal have received an average of $209,000 in campaign contributions since 2011 from the 10 largest U.S. healthcare companies, their employees, and five major trade associations. The dozen cosponsors have received an average of $65,000 from the industry…. The disparity highlights the importance of moderate and conservative Democrats to the healthcare industry, which has united against proposals to ensure that the United States guarantees health coverage for all citizens.” • Ka-ching. This may also explain Harris et al. moving up their assault.

“Obama Alums Tell Health Insurance Lobby ‘Medicare For All’ Won’t Happen” [Tarbell]. “Axelrod said that Medicare for All has “become a phrase as much as anything else.” He suggested that some Democratic presidential candidates may not want to go as far as Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent credited with sparking support for Medicare For All during his 2016 presidential campaign, and might support more limited reforms like a public option or allowing some people under the age of 65 to buy into Medicare…. The AHIP conference featured a slew of other former Obama officials, including Andy Slavitt, who led the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy; Sam Kass, the former White House chef and nutrition adviser; and Kavita Patel, who served as a policy aide in the Obama White House. Patel, currently a Brookings Institution nonresident fellow and vice president at the Johns Hopkins Health System, harshly criticized Medicare for All. ‘People who are very serious about health policy on either side of the fence know this is not reality,’ she said. She suggested that Democratic presidential candidates’ support for Medicare for All is ‘all just campaign talk.’” • Why, it’s almost as if preventing #MedicareForAll was the liberal Democrats #1 policy priority!

“One Nation Launches Campaign To Stop Medicare For None” [One Nation]. • A Republican front group, whose ads have been spotted by alert reader JM in California.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Activists Urging Lacey to ‘Do Her Job’ in Second Ed Buck Death” [Los Angeles Sentinel]. “Local activists are urging District Attorney Jackie Lacey to ‘do her job’ and find that the evidence presented to Los Angeles Sheriff’s is probable cause to immediately charge and prosecute Ed Buck in spite of his ‘Whiteness, wealth, and her political ambitions,’ in the death of Timothy Dean, the second man to die at Buck’s residence. ‘We’ve done all that we could do to aid the sheriff’s investigators with their investigation,’ said community activist and advocate, Jasmyne Cannick. ‘Once again, we gathered evidence and brought the sheriff’s other young men who could speak directly to their experiences with Ed Buck. I hope that this time around, the political will and prosecutorial creativity that we’ve seen used so often against Black people is used to bring charges against Ed Buck for the deaths of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean. Two men have died on the same mattress, in the same living room, of the same drug, at the same man’s house within months of each other …’”

“House Democratic Campaign Chair Vows To ‘Do Better’ After Senior Staffers Quit” [HuffPo]. “The chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee admitted to making mistakes and vowed to “do better” after several senior staffers resigned on Monday. The staff exodus came on the heels of a report that the committee, whose primary mission is to help Democrats maintain and expand their House majority, was ‘in chaos’ over concerns about hiring and a lack of diversity…. ‘I have never been more committed to expanding and protecting this majority, while creating a workplace that we can all be proud of,’ Bustos said in the statement. ‘I will work tirelessly to ensure that our staff is truly inclusive.’” • Bring back DWS?

“Can a New Think Tank Put a Stop to Endless War?” [The Nation]. “[A] newly formed think tank in Washington, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft… states that its mission is to ‘move US foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace.’ The group is still raising money, but with a projected second-year budget of $5 million to 6 million, enough to support 20 to 30 staffers, it aims to match the scale of more established think tanks and to disrupt the foreign policy consensus in Washington…. [T]he Quincy Institute includes the unlikely duo of Charles Koch and George Soros among its founding donors—each has committed half a million dollars—and is intended to serve as a counterweight to the Blob, as the bipartisan national security establishment dedicated to endless war has come to be known… When it comes to foreign policy, [co-founder Eli] Clifton says, there’s little difference between CAP and Republican-aligned think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the Hudson Institute. One way Quincy will distinguish itself from its better-established rivals will be to refuse money from foreign governments.”

Stats Watch

Personal Income and Outlays, June 2019: “The month-to-month breakdown of consumer spending shows slowing in what will offer support for those on the FOMC who want to cut interest rates this week” [Econoday]. “Core inflation which is under target and which suggests that an increase in demand would be sustainable.”

Consumer Confidence, July 2019: “Boosted by an evermore favorable view of the jobs market, consumer confidence jumped sharply” [Econoday]. “Jobs-hard-to-get is down sharply… One interesting point in the report is a drop in inflation expectations… [T]he overall strength of the consumer, whether in confidence or spending which are both tied to the health of the jobs market, does not speak to the need for lower rates.”

S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index, May 2019: “Home prices continue to slow to underscore what is becoming another difficult year for the housing sector” [Econoday]. “Despite low mortgage rates and consumer strength, housing data whether for prices or sales or construction have been flattening out in recent reports in what will support arguments to cut interest rates at this week’s FOMC meeting.”

Pending Home Sales Index, June 2019: “A fast break just when housing needed one appears in a …. surge in pending sales of existing homes” [Econoday].

Housing:

The age of the housing stock gives a fascinating insight into the development of settlement across the US. The predominance of pre-1939 settlement in North/Eastern corridor is striking.https://t.co/mlWUKDlylu pic.twitter.com/aJr89vVuNK

— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) July 30, 2019

In ME-02, blue (“1939 and earlier”) is, like, new!

Real Estate: “Supply-chain automation is gaining ground in logistics as companies look to get the most out of real estate close to consumers. Startup Attabotics will use $25 million raised in a new funding round to expand its platform in the growing e-commerce market. … [T]he company’s focus is on bringing efficiency to the tight spaces companies are turning to for fulfillment operations The Canadian company makes automated vertical systems for storing, retrieving and sorting goods that it says use less space than traditional warehouses.” [Wall Street Journal].

Manufacturing: “Air Canada Removes 737 Max Flights Until 2020” [Industry Week]. “Air Canada has removed the Boeing 737 Max from its schedule until January pending regulatory approvals, joining Southwest Airlines Co. in scrapping plans for flights of the jetliner into 2020…. The Montreal-based airline said that third-quarter projected capacity is expected to fall about 2% compared with the same period in 2018, contrasting the originally planned increase of about 3%.”

Manufacturing: “Boeing needs to come up with a Plan B for grounded Max jets” [Financial Times]. “As a researcher of confidence-driven decision making, 2020 looks woefully optimistic to me, as does the company’s special charge. In fact, based on what I see, it is not too early for Boeing to start considering a Plan B for the existing Max series fleet. First, the extreme overconfidence that existed at Boeing prior to the two crashes suggests that there may be more problems still to surface. Second, the aerospace industry is uniquely vulnerable when it comes to confidence. Confidence requires perceptions of certainty and control, but aeroplane passengers are inherently powerless: they can’t and don’t fly the plane. Finally, everything that has unfolded to date has occurred with consumer confidence near all-time highs. The crowd is inherently optimistic today and demand for air travel is soaring. Should the broader mood decline ahead, not only will passenger and regulatory scrutiny naturally intensify, but interest in travel itself will drop. In an economic recession, airlines will have little use for the now-grounded planes.” And the Plan B? “Given the industry’s prior experience with the DC-10, which struggled to regain passenger confidence after a series of early safety issues, one option could be a conversion of the existing fleet to air freight. Establishing trust with a small group of professional freight pilots is likely to be far easier.” • Yikes.

Manufacturing: “Boeing drops out of competition to replace Minuteman III” [Wyoming Tribune Eagle]. “Boeing confirmed this week that it had withdrawn from bidding on the contract for the U.S. Air Force’s Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program. The contract is to replace the Air Force’s Cold War-era Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles. Experts have estimated the project could be worth about $85 billion…. Boeing’s departure from the project creates a situation where only one company [Northrop Grumman ] will be bidding on a massive military contract to supply the nation with the ground-based portion of its nuclear triad system.” • So no bailout for Boeing that way.

The Bezzle: “Millions use Earnin to get cash before payday. Critics say the app is taking advantage of them.” [NBC]. “But critics say that the company is effectively acting as a payday lender — providing small short-term loans at the equivalent of a high interest rate — while avoiding conventional lending regulations designed to protect consumers from getting in over their heads. Earnin argues that it isn’t a lender at all because the company relies on tips rather than required fees and does not send debt collectors after customers who fail to repay the money.” • Hmm.

Tne Bezzle: “FBI found bucket of human heads, body parts sewn together at donation facility: report” [The Hill]. “The center’s owner, Stephen Gore, was sentenced to a year of deferred prison time and four years of probation after pleading guilty in October to illegal control of an enterprise.” • Ick. I’m sure the same thing will never happen at cryogenic facilities….

The Biosphere

Metaphor:

Massive Rock slide triggered in Monsoon. An excellent example of rock joints failure. Be careful while travelling to #Himalayas. @RockHeadScience @BGSLandslides @NatGeo pic.twitter.com/XD9zczxEEq

— Aamir Asghar (@jojaaamir) July 29, 2019

“Modest (insipid) Green New Deal proposals miss the point – Part 2” [Bill Mitchell]. “At the basis of the [standard neoclassical microeconomics] ‘solution’ is the belief that there is a trade-off between, say, environmental damage and economic growth (production). And the market failure skews that trade-off towards growth at the expense of environmental health. So all that is needed is some intervention (a tax) that will skew the trade-off back to something more preferable. The problem is that the whole idea that there is a trade-off between protecting our environment and economic production is flawed at the most elemental level. There is no calculus (which underpins this sort of microeconomic reasoning) that can tell us when a biological system will die. The idea that we can have a ‘safe’ level of pollution, regulated via a price system, is groundless and should not form part of a progressive response. Carbon trading schemes (CTS) are neoliberal constructs which start with the presumption that a free market is the best way to organise allocation.” • Worth repeating: Mark Blyth says that “Markets cannot internalize their externalities on a planetary scale. They just can’t. It’s impossible.” I’m wondering if carbon tax failure is a lemma from that (heretical) proposition. Also, somebody tell Elizabeth Warren.

“Stopping Climate Change Will Never Be ‘Good Business’” [Jacobin] (review of Bill McKibben’s new book, Falter). “McKibben mistakenly believes that the problems of climate destruction stem from bad ideas and policies, rather than systemic issues. The 1970s turn toward neoliberalism in fact originated with a general crisis in capitalist profitability, not with Ayn Rand’s ideas…. If you believe [with McKibben] that all working-class led revolutions end in disaster, and that it is therefore necessary to prioritize collaborating with the existing rulers of society (the capitalists and their governmental representatives), then a radical alternative to the status quo is not possible.”

“How much does your flight actually hurt the planet?” [Quartz]. “Flygskam (translated as ‘flight shame’) is a burgeoning Sweden-led movement which calls on people to consider limiting their flight use…. Michael Mann of Penn State University, and some other climate scientists, have argued against making individual sacrifices in the name of climate change, even big ones, because they feel the only true impact can be made at the level of government…. It’s true: despite incontrovertible evidence of the toll our collective lives are taking on the planet, any action an individual takes carries with it the knowledge that, however huge the personal sacrifice, the result will be nothing more than a dot in the vast global matrix. One person’s actions can’t make a difference; only collective action can…. Perhaps ‘flight shame’ is a misnomer: It denotes a sensation of embarrassment, and implies something hidden, rather than a strong ethical choice.” •

Water

“Overpopulation, Not Climate Change, Caused California’s Water Crisis” [The American Conservative]. “The issue is population. California has grown from 10 million to at least 40 million since 1950, making it necessary to move water over long distances to where people live and work. Close to two thirds of the state’s population is bunched in a few water-dependent coastal counties. Only about 15 percent of California’s water consumption is residential. Most of that is used outdoors to make the desert bloom and hillside pools sparkle and shimmer David Hockney-like, and millions expect that water at will.” But: ” Farm water comprises an estimated 70 percent of annual state water use. Private water ownership and 1,300 competing irrigation districts complicate matters…. Agriculture’s $40 billion contribution to the California economy is only about 3 percent of the state’s GDP. Rural California is still a potent voting bloc in the state legislature and the U.S. Congress, but less so every decade.” • The headline seems oversimplified, even agenda-driven.

Health Care

Original Medicare took only a year to implement, back in the era of steam:

Harry Truman’s application card for Medicare, co-signed by Lyndon Johnson on same day he signed Medicare bill at Truman Library, today 1965: pic.twitter.com/Gecp2uzYWc

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) July 30, 2019

I wonder who we should give the first #MedicareForAll card to. Jonathan Gruber? Nancy Pelosi?

Yikes:

NEWS: 75% of rural hospitals have now closed in states that chose not to expand Medicaid.https://t.co/1Urak8yQOg

— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) July 29, 2019

“‘Leaving billions of dollars on the table‘” [Gatehouse News] (source of map above). “‘The irony to me,’ said John Henderson, who heads The Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals and supports Medicaid expansion, ‘is that we’re paying federal income taxes to expand coverage in other states. We’re exporting our coverage and leaving billions of dollars on the table.’… High rates of poverty in rural areas, combined with the loss of jobs, aging populations, lack of health insurance and competition from other struggling institutions will make it difficult for some rural hospitals to survive regardless of what government policies are implemented. For some, there’s no point in trying. They say the widespread closures are the result of the free market economy doing its job and a continued shakeout would be helpful. But no rural community wants that shakeout to happen in its backyard.” • Good reporting! I wonder who those “for some” are. I bet a lot of them don’t live in rural areas.

Games

“A teen who frustrated his mom gaming 8 hours a day became a millionaire in the Fortnite World Cup” [Business Insider]. “More than 40 million players participated in the qualifying events for the final, which took place at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City on Saturday and Sunday. Fifty duos and 100 solo players made it through the final and were competing to take home a cut of the $30 million prize pool, the largest prize pool in the history of e-sports.” • Filling a stadium. This old codger thinks that’s quite remarkable, a new thing on the face of the earth.

MMT

“The Invention of Money” [The New Yorker]. • Fun factoids, but a serious attempt would include Michael Hudson, and MMT on the origin of money as well.

Class Warfare

“When I joined my father on the building site, I saw a different side to him” [Guardian (DG)]. “It was on those building sites that, for the first time in my life, I saw a different side to my father. At home, my mother was not only the main breadwinner but also did practically all the cooking, cleaning and organisation. She was the engine of the family: paying the mortgage, asking me about my homework, remembering my friends’ names, picking up discarded socks and cooking dinner every night from scratch. My father was, at times, little more than a lodger. But at work, he suddenly turned into something like a figure of authority: intelligent, in charge, hard-working, exacting. He knew about things I had never even heard of, such as building regulations, damp-proof courses, rendering, load-bearing walls and lintels. He was patient, informed. He may have lost his pencil, hammer, spirit level and saw every 30 seconds, but he knew what he was doing. As I watched him briefing a bricklayer or discussing some finer detail of a knocked-through dining room with a plasterer, I saw someone who rarely came home. Since then, I have often suggested to friends struggling with parental relationships that might feel disappointing and strained to try meeting that parent at work, to visit them in situ, have lunch on their territory, watch them in action, and try to find this other side to someone with whom you are so familiar… Being a young woman on a building site, I also learned that the class system is alive and well in modern Britain. People I knew from school would fail to recognise me as they walked past the building site… There is nothing innately superior about life with a boardroom or swivel chair. The income discrepancy between so-called white-collar and blue-collar work is unfounded. …. work is work is work is work.” • A really splendid article.

News of the Wired

“The Pirate Who Penned the First English-Language Guacamole Recipe” [Atlas Obscura]. “British-born William Dampier began a life of piracy in 1679 in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche. … He gave us the words ‘tortilla,’ ‘soy sauce,’ and ‘breadfruit,’ while unknowingly recording the first ever recipe for guacamole. And who better to expose the Western world to the far corners of our planet’s culinary bounty than someone who by necessity made them his hiding places?” • So globalization has a culinary upside; always has!

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Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (meeps):

Meeps writes: “The columbines are pink and yellow this year.” Columbines are so stylish and old-fashioned.

* * *

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So do feel free to make a contribution today or any day. Here is why: Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of small donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals. So if you see something you especially appreciate, do feel free to click this donate button:

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2:00PM Water Cooler 7/30/2019

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[alexsmitposts]

Venezuela – a Risk to Dollar Hegemony – Key Purpose Behind “Regime Change” After the new coup attempt – or propaganda coup – Venezuela lives in a state of foreign imposed insecurity. The failed coup was executed on 30 April by Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed and Washington-trained and endorsed “interim President”, and the opposition leader, Leopoldo López, who was hurriedly freed from house arrest by Guaidó with a couple of dozens of armed-to-the-teeth defecting military, who apparently didn’t quite know what they were up to. Because, when all was over after a few hours, most of them asked to be re-integrated into their military units – and, as far as I know, they were readmitted. These are Washington’s puppets and “coup-makers”. When one sees that the so-called coup was defeated in a mere few hours, without any Venezuelan military interference, one wonders whether this was really planned as a coup, or merely as a “public relations” coup, for the media to ‘recharge’ their narrative of Maduro dictatorship, of a suffering people, of famine, of lack of medication and medical supply – all due to the Maduro government’s mismanagement of Venezuela’s natural riches, the lie-slander we have been used to for the last several years. For sure, the Venezuelan people are suffering. According to a CEPR report sanctions have killed some 40,000 Venezuelans. And this, not because of President Maduro’s squandering of Venezuelan resources, but because of a brutal, merciless outside interference, principally from the United States and to a lesser degree from Washington’s European vassals. If you listen to the ceaseless drumbeat for war against Venezuela and her democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro, by Pompeo, Bolton, Pence and Trump – you can only wonder and shake your head – what pathological and schizophrenic world we are living in? – And – are we all sick to the bone, that we tolerate it, that nobody of and in power – other than Russia and China – say ‘Halt’ to this deadly fiasco? This article by Eric Zuesse, including leaked documents from Pentagon’s southern command, SOUTHCOM, will give the non-believers plenty of reasons to change their minds. Western humanity has reached an abject state of mental disease. We allow the slaughter of tens of millions of people by the United States and its NATO allies, in US-provoked wars and conflicts around the world, indiscriminate killing for resources and monetary dominion. But we follow the same killer nation in accusing a quiet, peace-loving, fully democratic country, like Venezuela, to be utterly trampled on and punished with the most horrific monetary and economic sanctions – all illegal, by any standards of law – and our western “leaders” know it all. These western heads of state and their chosen minions do not have the guts or political courage to say ‘STOP’. — They could, if they had any conscience left. These so-called leaders (sic) of vassal states, they have it all in their sovereign power – they could together decide that enough is enough, separate themselves from the Washington horrors and form a real European Union, a union to say no to the tyrant, a union that is capable of calling its own sovereign shots – decide its own destiny, a destiny of alliance with peaceful countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, China, Iran and more – basically all those that have decided not to bend to the dictate of Washington. Why don’t they? Have they been bought, or received death threats if they dare to deviate? – All is possible – even likely, because it is unfathomable that the leaders, the political heads of all those 28 EU countries are hell-bent to believe the lies being propagated day-in and day-out, drip-by-miserable drip. It is not possible. *** Back to Venezuela. The western public at large must never be too long without devastating smear-news about a regime the empire wants to “change”. It is clear that the nefarious pair in Venezuela, Guaidó-López, followed strict Washington instructions. Guaidó would never dare doing anything without prior approval and directives from his masters in Washington. Despite threats after pompous threats and false accusations and failed coup attempts, President Maduro holds on to a solid backing of six million voters who supported him, more than two thirds of those who went to the ballots, on 20 May 2018. He also has the solid support of the military, who have a revolutionary integrity and conscience unknown to the west. And not least, he has the support of Venezuela’s solid allies, Russia and China. Nevertheless, the United States will not let go. Why do they risk everything – even a devastating war? Well, there are several reasons. First you may think, “It’s the Oil, stupid!” – And second, the turbo-capitalist, neoliberal turning-to-neofascist US will not tolerate a socialist state in what they still consider their ‘backyard’. – Well, all of this is true. Venezuela has indeed the world’s largest hydrocarbon reserves – and it is conveniently close to The US’s Texas refineries. However, the key reason for Washington forcing ‘regime change’ is that Venezuela has stopped selling her hydrocarbon in US dollars, and, may therefore become a risk for the US-dollar hegemony around the globe. That is a punishable violation for the empire. At least two heads of state were assassinated because they dared abandoning the unwritten and unlawful, but nevertheless US-imposed rule to sell their oil and gas in US-dollars, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi. Both had started trading their oil in other than US-dollar currencies – and were strong advocates for others to do likewise. Some three years ago, Venezuela started selling her oil and gas in other currencies than the US-dollar, a cardinal sin. Global dollar hegemony, meaning the full control of economies throughout the globe – a control that is rapidly fading – can only be maintained by a world flooded by dollars and with a monetary system that is entirely controlled by the FED and its associated American banks, by an international transfer system, SWIFT, that channels every dollar to be moved between countries, whether it is the US or any other country – through a US bank, in either New York or London. That still being the case, the US dollar remains the key reserve currency in the world, though rapidly fading. And second, through the obligatory trading of a commodities – like hydrocarbon energy – ONLY in US-dollars. The latter also allows the empire to print as many dollars as it needs to keep the world economy under control – and punish those that do not want to bend to Washington’s rule, with sanctions and confiscation of assets abroad, because — all transactions are controlled by the US banking system. First, the dollar as a reserve currency, is fading rapidly, as ever fewer countries entrust their reserves to a largely recognized ‘fake’, fiat and debt-based currency, the US-dollar. They convert their dollar reserve holdings gradually into other assets, i.e. gold, or the Chinese Yuan which has become high in demand over the last few years. Logically, because China is already known as the undisputable strongest economy in the world, hence, the Chinese currency has a special reserve standing. However, the mainstream media do not report on this. Second, with a growing number of countries that do no longer respect the Washington imposed US-dollar rule for hydrocarbon trading – the demand for dollars decreases rapidly – a direct confrontation to the United States’ dollar hegemony over the world. Russia and China have years ago stopped trading in US dollars, not only hydrocarbons, but everything. India and Iran have started doing the same. Other countries will follow – and Venezuela, one of the vanguards with the world’s largest oil reserves – should, therefore, not be allowed to become a model for other nations. The Trump Administration and its Wall Street masters will do what it takes to stop Venezuela from abandoning the dollar. Hence, regime change and taking over the vast oil assets is of the order – with war, if necessary – “all options are on the table” – all under the blatantly fakest pretexts of “humanitarian intervention” and bringing back democracy – when the world knows that anywhere the US intervenes, democracy is abolished. In fact, what the US has managed – and wantonly so – is kill any democracy that ever existed. Under these circumstances, Venezuela’s transgression in shedding the dollar for oil trading – and for trading in general – amounts to a serious threat to the dollar hegemony and must be suffocated. That’s what these coup attempts are all about. If they succeed, the dollar-currency collapse could be postponed for a bit, and taking possession of the oil reserves would be the icing on the cake. What’s left after the dollar dominance over the world is gone, once the key tool, economic sanctions, for manipulating nations into doing the bidding of the emperor is no longer effective? – A broken US economy, one that already today depends heavily on the war and weapons industry – in fact, for over 50% of US GDP, when all associated manufacturing and services are counted. What’s left is the overwhelming firepower of that belligerent warmongering and war-dependent nation, with which the US and NATO could pull the rest of the world into oblivion. That’s what’s at stake with any nation that wants to kick the petro-dollar. Also, Iran, of course. But both Iran and Venezuela have strong protection from Russia and China – two countries that freed themselves from the fangs of the dollar system years ago. And they are offering a bright future with viable Eastern monetary alternatives, mostly based on the Chinese Yuan and other currencies linked to SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) members. Venezuela – Venceremos!

[otbseattle]

RESTORING THE HOPE

by Petra Zanki A couple of years ago I made a work together with another artist where we constantly and persistently asked over twenty international curators around the world two questions: “What is art?” and “Can it save the world?” I didn’t believe in the power of art then, between 2008 and 2012, witnessing many performances in Europe that were political by theme, but not truly political. Art couldn’t save my country, Europe’s pretend unseen, from the senseless war. We needed to know why it couldn’t save our world. I didn’t learn it quite then. Last year art saved my personal world. As I learned that it can save one when maddened with sadness, I also learned that it can inspire a person to find metaphorical or literal tools to help the voiceless communities, neighborhoods, and world in despair: as Tiago Rodriguez does in his “By Heart”. When nothing else can, art can still do that. But it must be the right moment, right pain, or the right age for one to realize. This entry is going to be simple. This entry might also be a bit too simple, in tongues, and self- suppressed. A riddle: What lived in three countries, yet not moving at all? The answer: A human born in Yugoslavia before 1991. Growing as a child within the borders of socialist Yugoslavia, I became an adolescent during the period of war, and an adult artist within the borders of capitalist EU. My country’s borders shrunk and expanded through three different ruling systems within only thirty years. Four times during that period, the country’s currency changed its look, and sometimes its name. While not moving at all, the three generations of citizens by necessity became expert comparatists in differences and similarities between socialism and capitalism, old monarchy and war anarchy, communism and democracy, you name it. Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a State independent from Eastern Block and Russia, independent, and not a part of it, as many of my friends here think. It was very important that Tito said no to Stalin, and pursued policy of neutrality. Yugoslavia became one of the founders of Non-Aligned Movement and belonged to that alliance. Because of country’s independence, and not being behind the curtain, we lived much better than any country behind the iron curtain. We lived well. We didn’t have a lot, but everyone had enough. But: there was no free speech. People discussed politics hushed, behind the closed doors, lowering their voices to the point of inaudibility. No one that I know, or remember knowing ever talked about politics. I don’t remember ever witnessing any political discussion, ever. Words and thoughts were forbidden. Despite all the silence imposed, abstract art in Yugoslavia flourished. In the same way that the contemporary dance was the only art form brought to life by women, for centuries deprived of voice, thus finding ways to let their saying through their bodies (thought borrowed from Bojana Kunst, “The voice of the dancing body”, Frakcija, 2009), the avant-garde and abstract painters in Yugoslavia turned away from figurative art to find their voices too. In a way, square was more disturbing and meaningful than socialist realism battle depicted. It is interesting to mention that in Yugoslavia 1963. there was a political attack to abstract art coming directly from the ruler/dictator of the country, Tito. Among other things he accused abstract art saying that he, the ”average person who observes art” could tell what is good art and what is not a good art. Cit. “And as Party’s Secretary General I am responsible before history and people for the correct course of the development of our country. That’s why such people need to understand and remember that no other way is possible. Besides, as an average person who observes art, I am able to know what is good and what isn’t…” and the following and preceding sentences of his statement are even more interesting, and can be read in eng. Version of Jesa Denegri’s text ”Political attack on abstract art at the beginning of 1963”, avant-garde-museum.com, where this citation is taken from. One of the world’s finest conceptual visual and performance art was made in 60-ties, 70-ties, and 80-ties Yugoslavia. Many Croatian artists that were active then and on the margins, living in poverty all their lives, now have their works shown in leading world museums and galleries, or have their individual Moma exhibitions. Sanja Iveković, Vlado Martek (whose work was based on visualizing poetry, and who still works as a librarian in one Zagreb’s library), and recently passed Mladen Stilinović, are just few of those who protected their hearts by learning books by heart their way. I love art that whispers. Sometimes art recites Shakespeare in the most uncommon of ways. I love art that recites poetry. I love experimental, avant-garde, daring, new art because of its intrinsic faith in democracy, progress, and freedom of speech.

[nightcoremoon]

there's a disturbing trend going around recently in which binarism is being overused.

now when I say binarism I mean in the literal most basic sense. 1 and 0. black and white. good and evil. right and wrong. dark and light. and the like.

people pretend like all values are in absolutes.

discussion of religion lumps all atheists versus all those with faith. this ignores agnostics. this ignores atheists of different faithful upbringings and different societies and different cultures. this ignores the divide between judeochristian entities. this ignores the divide between east & west. this ignores the split between buddhism and hinduism. this ignores the difference in the structure of faith versus mythology. it ignores enmity between different branches of various faiths but mostly between types of christianity: most notably the divide between catholic and protestant. even further it ignores orthodoxy (which I'll fully admit to knowing jack shit about which is why I don't discuss it with frequency). this ignores unitarians and other blended faith. I see cishet white dudebros talking shit about faith and religion as if it's all the same thing, all diametrically opposed to their own philosophy, and assume that all atheists are how they are even though this demographic is still instilled values of fundamentalist christianity. they see the issue as their limited intelligence and their position on atheist as the other side of the coin in which all religious people are on the same boat on the other side. I see ignorant christians lumping "heathens" of every religion and also atheists together as The Enemy™ who are all equally bad and terrible and going to hell for their beliefs. even though that's not even how christianity works. even further I see christians believing the basics of their faith in which jesus forgave all of humanity for their sins and they'll all be pardoned in the afterlife but still turn right around and condemn gays, women, and brown skinned people to hell. sure, there are multiple multitudes of people who don't follow in these demographics, but view the discussion in the same terms, as atheism / science vs religion / christianity, as if terms were interchangeable.

this is just one example.

politics. people see left versus right. they see liberal versus conservative. they see red versus blue. they see republican versus democrat. this ignores the tiers of leaning, apoliticals, and the extremists. this assumes all people on either side are all the same. this ignores all of the more complex situations that can arise from governing masses of people. you'll get liberals clamoring over hilary clinton, bernie sanders, and both of the obamas in spite of all of their questionable deeds which come hand in hand with big government, unable to distinguish the difference between moderate conservatives and outright fascists, who either refuse to compromise with the moderates or don't take seriously the threat of the nazis. and you'll get conservatives shitting themselves in rage at lgbtq rights because they're bigoted assholes incapable of considering dissenting opinions or just bitching and moaning over their guns being taken away and digging their heels in at any left leaning prospects which save lives, adamantly refusing to acknowledge that their paragon of tangerine apathy is an incredibly dangerous sociopath with the mind of a child no matter how many steps down hitler's path he takes, because they can't comprehend that racism affects people other than themselves. and on top of all of that you'll see cynical fucknuggets sneering at everyone because "both sides are the same" because they both feel conviction in their beliefs. you'll get rabid anarchists who all demand that everyone create cryptosocieties because the neoliberalism and liberals are all the same people who will cause nuclear winter when they take control of the country and go to war with russia, the moderate conservatives and the literal mussolini sympathizers are all the same people and should be murdered on sight, and even the rare breed who follow in randist objectivism as if that's a good idea. you get literal fucking communists who have never read a history book in their life who delight in cyberbullying everybody who dares to have an opinion. caught in the crossfire are all of the minorities who suffer to the tyranny of majority which is democracy. there are liberals who love cops and guns, there are conservatives who're black or gay, and they get left behind without a single explanation and thrown under the bus for the sake of "their side".

it's ridiculous.

we've even got this mentality so ingrained we stop acknowledging it. just likes and dislikes on youtube, and no "I liked some aspects of this video but disliked other aspects" selection. "I love this band" vs "this band sucks", no "this band does not appeal to me but I can respect its artistic integrity and I can appreciate that there are people who enjoy it". the line drawn between rich capitalists and the poor workers even though there are people who have money and struggle to make ends meet as well as people who have no extra money but still have a roof, a bed, clothes, a meal, and animals who also have a meal [the middle class and the lower middle class exist, it's not just the upper class and the lower class. also fuck billionaires]. division of intelligent people and stupid people as if there aren't a dozen types of intelligence exhibited in people. I could go on for hours.

it's a problem with humans in general, it seems. our obsession with anally compartmentalizing everything has stretched nearly every aspect of society to the breaking point. every culture in the world I'm aware of has issues like this. and the biggest topical issue right now is gender. uneducated eurocentric white christianized cis people only think there are two, and ignore all attempts to explain that the gender binary is completely nonexistent outside of the realm of social constructs. they shove their heads up their asses and go "blah blah blah I can't hear you" until your mouth stops moving and they regurgitate the same platitudes forcfed into them their whole lives, hands held through everything they've ever experienced, and told exactly what to think at any given moment.

literally nothing in life is a coin flip.

tangential I know but I wanna draw analogues to blizzard entertainment. particularly think of the worlds of warcraft and starcraft... no pun intended. warcraft has horde versus alliance. you got the humans who have gone to war with the orcs forever, the dwarves who support their allies the humans, the gnomes who take refuge with the dwarves, the night elves who just want to keep the world from falling apart, the drainei who are basically just literal stereotypical space jews who want to keep their dying culture alive, the worgen who are just humans who are also werewolves from HyperBritain, and the pandas who joined them but didn't realize they were enlisting in a war against their own people. and that's the alliance. frail tenuous connections based on necessity. then you have the horde. you have the orcs who just wanted a home in azeroth but the xenophobic humans attacked them and started a war, the trolls who all lived peacefully with the orcs, the peaceful tauren [giant cow people] who traded with the orcs, the undead forsaken who were cast out by the humans (for being similar in appearance to the undead scourge of lordaeron who were all used as weapons by literal demons) and taken in as allies by the orcs, the blood elves who used to be what became the night elves before they became literal space nazis like it's in fucking wolfenstein and decided hey let's help out all the people who hate the people who love the people who we hate (the enemy of my friends friend is my friend), the goblins who almost got eaten by a dragon and then begged the orcs for help, and the pandas who were in the same boat as before. an honor bound covenant of staying alive together and resisting the purge from the alliance. but then you also have the evil aliens and the evil demons and the crazed wildlife and the evil dragons and the evil lich king and the evil humans and the evil orcs and the evil elves of all elf races and the neutral goblins that make it absolutely clear that the horde and the alliance are not the be all end all on inherent goodness or evilness. evil is done by the alliance, the horde, third parties; good is done by the alliance, the horde, third parties. there are dozens of "sides".

meanwhile starcraft has terran, protoss, & zerg. all three just wanna live their lives but they're all brought into a war with two kinds of aliens they never met before, and the actions of a few evil people in each group caused a fuckin full scale intergalactic war between all of them. and not to mention the terran fighting each other even though they're all from the same planet, the rogue protoss having their various civil wars, and the collapse of the zerg overmind causing tribal warfare between zerg, and amon who is super super evil and wants to kill everybody in the universe and fuse their corpses together because the xel'naga (gods) left an unclear prophecy, and also the xel'naga themselves. there are a dozen factions of each of the three races ALONE who all hate each other, and not all of them are good or evil. in fact it's left super obvious that the only truly evil people are amon and the only truly good people are in raynor's allies, kerrigan's swarm, artanis' fleet, and uhhh probably valerian's dominion maybe.

and that's just how the world is. things aren't ever simple and easy. there are exceptions to every rule. bickering and fighting and putting things into neat little categories and thinking you're the fucking king of the field are all not helping the situation we're in.

all atheist assholes and all religious assholes are bad. all neoliberals and all fascists are bad. not all atheists or religious people are good but many are. not all people with a political leaning are good but many are. (this ones iffy and I'll make a lot of enemies but... moderate liberals seem to be pretty okay for the most part and moderate conservatives can be okay if they make concessions and fucking listen and the other positions seem to be directly proportional in overall goodness to how much they discount dissenting opinions. naziism is not an opinion, guillotine the billionaires, complicity in fascism is fascism which is bad, tolerating intolerance is a fallacy, fuck trump, fuck every single dumb motherfucker who voted for him, oh yeah and fuck the broken not working two party system). gender is a complex concept beyond complete human comprehension and anyone who thinks they know everything about us is a fucking idiot who should stop talking. stop shoving things into one of two boxes.

we should really think in more like magic the gathering colors. black is the evil demon hell zombie monster fucks. white is the be nice to people but destroy evil brigade. blue is the logic/science/reason/coexist with the scary brutal nature or die/survival of the fittest kind of people. red is the "nature is scary and life is meaningless so let's all just get drunk" aspect of apathetic nihilistic neutrality. green is the "nature is beautiful and we should stop fucking destroying it and then make the world a better place" tree hugging nerds who mean well but can be a bit cold and unfeeling when it comes to those less fortunate. we'll all probably do a lot better thinking in those terms than how we've been doing.

[clubofinfo]

Expert: If you’re a critic of global capitalism (sometimes referred to as “globalism”), I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is, you’re not a “peddler of Russian propaganda” anymore. The bad news is, you’re an anti-Semite. You’re probably also a domestic terrorist, or an “emboldener” of domestic terrorism, or at least some sort of terrorism-apologist. And not good old-fashioned Islamic terrorism like we used to get during the War on Terror, because that ended in the Summer of 2016, right around the time Trump won the nomination. No, the brand of terrorism you are probably emboldening by criticizing global capitalism is anti-Semitic, fascist terrorism … the most terroristic form of terrorism there is! Up until recently, you might have just been going about your normal business, criticizing global capitalism, completely unaware of your anti-Semitic, white supremacist terrorist activities, but from now on there will be no denying them. Your hate thoughts are right there for everyone to read. Go back and check your Facebook posts and your Twitter feed. You’ll see what I mean. All those times when you impulsively lashed out against the global capitalist ruling classes, or globalism, or Obama, or Clinton, or the Wall Street banks, or, God help you, George Soros … well, you might as well have been tweeting blinking neon GIFs of dancing Swastikas or posting Adolf Hitler’s speeches with little throbbing hearts and smiley-face emoticons. See, according to the “Anti-Fascist Resistance” (i.e, the the Democratic Party, the “intelligence community,” the corporate media, those Wall Street banks, the military industrial complex, and other components of the global capitalist empire that doesn’t actually exist, except as a Nazi “conspiracy theory”), any references you might have made to “globalists,” or “globalism,” or the “corporate media,” or “banks,” or “Hollywood,” or the “1 percent,” or any other “elites,” didn’t really refer to what they referred to, but, in fact, were anti-Semitic “dog whistles.” If you went so far as to literally mention or include an unflattering photo of Soros in any of your posts or tweets, then you weren’t just “whistling” to your fascist dog friends, you were openly calling for a second Holocaust, or “inspiring” some anti-Semitic psycho to senselessly murder a bunch of people, as recently happened at that synagogue in Pittsburgh. This newly rebranded “Anti-Fascist Resistance” (formerly known as the “Anti-Putin Resistance,” that is, until pre-election polling convinced them that most Americans were not responding to their “Russiagate” propaganda) has been working more or less around the clock to badger the public into believing that this psycho was an official “lone wolf terrorist” (i.e., a “terrorist” who has no affiliation with any actual terrorist organization), and that “America is on the brink of fascism,” and that Trump is “deploying the fascist playbook,” and that attacking the media is “the first step toward fascism,” and that Trump is a fascist because he isn’t a fascist (or something … I couldn’t quite make sense of that one), and, basically, that everyone should be afraid of fascism! Like that scene in Orwell’s 1984 when the Party abruptly switches official enemies in the middle of the Hate Week rally, the “Resistance” is counting on its loyal members to instantly forget the Russia hysteria they have been mindlessly parroting for almost two years, and start mindlessly parroting Fascism hysteria (as they mindlessly parroted the Terrorism hysteria throughout the Global War on Terror, until they switched to parroting the Russia hysteria after Trump got elected in 2016). This recent rebranding of the neoliberal Resistance was a brilliant move, and is going quite well. It couldn’t have come at a better time, what with the midterm elections about to take place. While liberals were ready to swallow any anti-Trump narrative the corporate media rammed down their throats from the moment Clinton lost, much of the slightly-more-left-leaning Left never bought the Russiagate story. So it’s been tough for slimy beltway operatives like David Brock and other propagandists to unite “the Left” behind the Democratic Party, so they can put down this annoying “populist” insurgency, reinstall some Obama-like puppet, and get back to the business of globalism … no, not worldwide Jewish domination, you Jew-obsessed, neo-Nazi freaks, but, rather, the consolidation of corporate control over what remains of society, the abrogation of national sovereignty, and the establishment of a smiley, happy, multicultural, over-medicated, neo-feudal global capitalist marketplace. This Fascism hysteria is doing the trick! This is the beauty of the “Putin-Nazi” narrative, which was designed to be a one-two punch. First, they hit us with the “Russiagate” hysteria, which worked like a charm on the kind of liberals who have no qualms about destroying whole countries, murdering hundreds of thousands of people in faraway lands that pose zero threat to us, and debt-enslaving millions of Americans to enrich the global investor classes, as long as someone like Obama is doing it. Then, once all the NPR liberals had been whipped into a hysterical frenzy over “Russian propaganda,” “collusion,” and so on, they hit us with the Fascism hysteria, which is working like a charm on the rest of the Left. (I haven’t seen any official polling, but when the official narrative is being mindlessly parroted, not only by the liberal corporate media, but also by “grassroots” left-wing outlets like Truthout, Democracy Now, and CounterPunch, you know their propaganda is working.) Not that there aren’t a bunch of racists, anti-Semites, and other bigots out there. Of course, there are. There always have been, just as there have always been terrorists out there (or non-state militants, depending on your perspective). Some of these racists and anti-Semites are obviously homicidal lunatics. This is not a new phenomenon. The American white supremacist fringe (and, sorry, but it is still a fringe) has been shooting and bombing innocent people, and otherwise doing their utmost to get their ridiculous “Racial Holy War” going since at least the early 1970s, and arguably since end of the Civil War. They have been doing this without any “emboldenment” from billionaire jackasses like Donald Trump, and they will continue to do this once Trump is gone and this Fascism hysteria has outlived its usefulness … like the War on Terror hysteria did. If you’re in the mood to live a bit dangerously and want a little preview of what that will be like, switch off your smartphone for a minute, turn off the television, shut down the notebook, and walk out into the city, suburb, town, or gated community you live in. Does it look like the Nazis have taken over? OK, want to live even a little more dangerously? And I’m talking about flirting with serious thought crime. Ask yourself, how many actual terrorists did you encounter during the War on Terror (that is, assuming you didn’t invade their country and start, you know, bombing and shooting at them)? Can you even remember as far back as July, when Oceania was at war with Russia, and Trump (temporarily) wasn’t Hitler, but was a treasonous “Russian intelligence asset,” who was almost certainly going to disband NATO, and a “crippling Russian cyber attack” on vital American infrastructure was imminent? I doubt it, because that never happened. Oceania has never been at war with Russia. Oceania is at war with Fascism. Oceania has always been at war with Fascism. Donald Trump has always been Hitler. He has never been a Russian intelligence asset. Obama never put children in cages, or assassinated entire families at weddings. Trump’s nativism leads to anti-Semitism. America is not a safe place for Jews. The invasion of Iraq was just a tragic mistake, which will never, ever, happen again. There are no global capitalist elites, and anybody who says there are is an anti-Semite, and a fascistic thought criminal, and an emboldener of domestic terrorism, which is “a plague America can no longer ignore.” Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot, the Ministry of Plenty has just announced that there will be no reduction of the chocolate ration. The chocolate ration will be increased! So don’t forget to vote blue tomorrow and help the Party defeat the fascists! Or, if you’re one of the fascists, don’t forget to vote red tomorrow and help the Party save America from that Jewish Mexican zombie horde that is coming to steal your fruit-picking job! And whatever you do, stay tuned to the telescreen, and do not start thinking about global capitalism, or the manufacture of mass hysteria, or put anything into any kind of broader historical or geopolitical context. That kind of thinking leads straight to thought crime … and we all know where thought crime leads. http://clubof.info/

[alamante]

Trump reprised his role as a cheerleader for Brexit and complained that everyone was taking advantage of the US. Negotiating with Putin would be easier than dealing with allies, he said. It was all transactional, about price tags and deals. Values found little airtime.

At almost every step, in tweet after tweet, he sneered at the liberal international order built from the ashes of World War II, underwritten through institutions like NATO and the UN and protected under the US nuclear umbrella, an order that has given much of the world unrivaled peace and prosperity.

Former US Vice President Joe Biden said last week that Trump was (wittingly or otherwise) helping with Putin’s agenda, which is above all to break the liberal international order that faced down the Soviet Union and stands for everything the Russian leader despises.

But is that order really in danger, and if so what might replace it? Some hark back to the 1930s, when the aftermath of economic crisis, protectionism, hostility to minorities, the collapse of international institutions and a sense that democracy had failed, allowed fascism to take root.

This parallel can be overdone of course: we live in an age of relatively full employment. We appear not to be on the brink of war, with fascist powers re-arming. Paramilitary groups don’t stalk the streets, most nation-states are stronger than they were in the 1930s, and the concept of human rights is now entrenched in democratic societies.

But when in doubt, quote Mark Twain, who is reputed to have said that “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.”

And if some echoes of the 1930s are faint today, there are many contemporary trends that are equally alarming.

Trade wars

The most obvious parallel is a resurgent economic nationalism. Trump called the Trans Pacific Partnership a fraud, attacked the North American Free Trade Agreement as the worst deal in American history and imposed tariffs on imports from China, Europe and elsewhere — with more promised.

He said the US would remain in the World Trade Organization, whose mission is to advance a free and fair trading system, but added: “We’ve been treated very badly … It’s an unfair situation.” WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo warned that if the U.S. were to leave the organization, the law of the jungle would prevail.

It’s hardly surprising historians recall the infamous Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930 which imposed steep tariffs on America’s trading partners. The arguments of the act’s supporters — that American industry and agriculture needed protection from unfair competition — are similar to those used by Trump today. In each case, US action prompted retaliatory tariffs.

As yet unknown: whether today’s trade wars will have the same disastrous consequences as Smoot-Hawley, which only deepened the Great Depression, or whether at some point, after all the brinkmanship there will be a “deal.” It all depends on whom Trump listens to.

Related: Trump’s Fast And Loose Trade Policy Endangers American Jobs

In any case, today’s interdependent markets and technologies coupled to a global economy in good health (the IMF expects global growth of 3.9% this year and next) are in stark contrast to the rampant unemployment and inflation of the inter-war period. German unemployment stands at 3.4%; in 1932, 30% of the country’s workforce was unemployed. The following year, 25% of Americans were out of work. And the working wage then was much closer to the poverty line than now; far fewer people had savings.

Economic crisis and political disarray fueled the rise of paramilitary groups. Almost every European country had their own versions of the Nazis’ Sturmabteilung — the Brown Shirts — in the 1930s. It is hard to see how the peripheral fascist groups of today could challenge sophisticated states, even if another Great Recession came calling. All the same, it’s little wonder that a fringe of far-right groups feel enabled — especially with nationalist, anti-EU parties either in power or on the brink of it across Europe.

Amid the confrontations at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville last year, Trump said there were “fine people” on both sides. Far-right attacks injured 560 migrants in Germany in 2016. The British government’s latest counter-terrorism strategy contends that “the threat from the extreme right wing has evolved in recent years and is growing.”

Millennial challenges

We may not be facing a return to the 1930s, but our age has fault-lines of its own. The rise of populism didn’t start with Brexit or Trump. To Trump’s ideological mentor, Steve Bannon (and he’s not alone), it began with the financial crisis of 2008, the failure of what he calls crony capitalism. In the long slog of recovery, traditional “good-paying jobs” have vanished in the US rust-belt towns that voted heavily for Trump.

The National Employment Law Project found in 2012 that 58% of the jobs regained in the US since the recession were in low-wage occupations, paying less than $14 an hour. Millions of mid-wage jobs had disappeared. In Britain, unemployment is low but again, the jobs that have come back are largely semi-skilled and poorly paid.

Inequality has widened dramatically in the past generation: in the US the richest 1% held 20% of the national income by 2016, while the lower 50% had just 13%. The trend, while less dramatic, is similar in Europe. And most research shows it’s the poorest workers whose wages and job prospects are hurt by an influx of migrants.

One of the themes of the pro-Brexit campaign was that migrants from eastern Europe were depressing wages and stretching social services. The same dynamic is playing out in Italy, where two populist parties won elections in March.

Related: Brexit’s Broken Promises: Health Care, Immigration And The Economy

If the events of 2016 marked the Revenge of the Forgotten, their resentment is no less today. Populist politicians — Donald Trump, Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini — have expertly exploited that. (“I love the poorly educated,” Trump declared in 2016.) They say ordinary people have been forgotten by the “liberal elites,” including pampered international bureaucrats, crony capitalists and the “fake news” media — what Hitler called the lugenpresse, or the lying press.

But Hitler also wrote in Mein Kampf that, “in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility.”

Rather than jack-booted paramilitaries, the peril today seems more insidious: a growing animosity towards “others” expressed in inflammatory language and through outright falsehoods. His critics say Trump turbocharged this: by describing some countries as “shitholes” and saying his opponents want illegal immigrants from central America “no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country.”

This extends beyond the US. Trump derided Germany (and Chancellor Angela Merkel) for “allowing in millions of people who have so strongly and violently changed their culture.” He asserted, falsely, that crime was way up in Germany.

But the message resonates among a growing minority in Europe. So Salvini refuses to allow boats carrying migrants to dock at Italian ports and wants a census of Roma people. The Hungarian government has made it a crime for people to offer help to illegal migrants.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, recently elected to a third term, has spoken approvingly of societies that “are not Western, not liberal, not liberal democracies, maybe not even democracies, and yet are making nations successful.” Steve Bannon says Orban was “Trump before Trump.”

French President Emmanuel Macron lamented this trend a few weeks ago: “They [the populists] are saying the most provocative things and no-one, no-one, is outraged. We’re getting used to all kinds of extremism from countries that a few years ago were just as pro-European as we are.”

Related: Hungary Is A Beacon To Europe’s Populist Strongmen

Despite nearly a decade of recovery from the Great Recession, intolerance and racism has flourished. How the mood may further sour when (not if) the next economic crisis comes along, especially if those good-paying jobs that were promised don’t materialize. And who will be the scapegoats?

As the old certainties crumble, Merkel has declared that immigration is Europe’s existential issue and “we Europeans must fight for our own future and destiny.” She told a rally in May: “The era in which we could fully rely on others is over to some extent.”

Related: Migration ‘Make Or Break’ Issue For Europe, Warns Germany’s Merkel

The trouble is, in the midst of Brexit and badly split over immigration, Europe looks ill equipped to sort out its own destiny, especially as Russia seems so intent on meddling in European politics on the side of the populists.

On multiple fronts, the international liberal order is being challenged because it has lost the confidence of people who feel left behind and “swamped” by immigration, as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher put it 40 years ago. Trump, Orban, Salvini, Marine Le Pen of the Mouvement National in France, have become their champions.

As Martin Wolf asks in the Financial Times, “Should we expect the old America back? Not until someone finds a more politically successful way of meeting the needs and anxieties of ordinary people.”

The same question might be asked of Europe.

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[yngwrthr]

“It goes without saying that nothing serious could be expected from Kautsky after his liberalistic “interpretation” of Marx’s teaching on dictatorship; but the manner in which he approached the question of what the Soviets are and the way he dealt with this question is highly characteristic.

The Soviets, he says, recalling their rise in 1905, created “the most all-embracing (umfassendste) form of proletarian organisation, for it embraced all the wage-workers” (p. 31). In 1905 they were only local bodies; in 1917 they became a national organisation.

“The Soviet form of organisation,” Kautsky continues, “already has a great and glorious history behind it, and it has a still mightier future before it, and not in Russia alone. It appears that everywhere the old methods of the economic and political struggle of the proletariat are inadequate” (versa gen; this German expression is somewhat stronger than “inadequate” and somewhat weaker than “impotent”) “against the gigantic economic and political forces which finance capital has at its disposal. These old methods cannot be discarded; they are still indispensable for normal times; but from time to time tasks arise which they cannot cope with, tasks that can be accomplished successfully only as a result of a combination of all the political and economic instruments of force of the working class” (p. 32).

Then follows a reasoning on the mass strike and on “trade union bureaucracy”—which is no less necessary than the trade unions—being “useless for the purpose of directing the mighty mass battles that are more and more becoming a sign of the times. . . .”

“Thus,” Kautsky concludes, “the Soviet form of organisation is one of the most important phenomena of our time. It promises to acquire decisive importance in the great decisive battles between capital and labour towards which we are marching.

“But are we entitled to demand more of the Soviets? The Bolsheviks, after the November Revolution” (new style, or October, according to our style) “1917, secured in conjunction with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries a majority in the Russian Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, and after the dispersion of the Constituent Assembly, they set out to transform the Soviets from a combat organisation of one class, as they had been up to then, into a state organisation. They destroyed the democracy which the Russian people had won in the March” (new style, or February, our style) “Revolution. In line with this, the Bolsheviks have ceased to call themselves Social-Democrats. They call themselves Communists” (p. 33, Kautsky’s italics).

Those who are familiar with Russian Menshevik literature will at once see how slavishly Kautsky copies Martov, Axelrod, Stein and Co. Yes, “slavishly”, because Kautsky ridiculously distorts the facts in order to pander to Menshevik prejudices. Kautsky did not take the trouble, for instance, to ask his informants (Stein of Berlin, or Axelrod of Stockholm) when the questions of changing the name of the Bolsheviks to Communists and of the significance of the Soviets as state organisations were first raised. Had Kautsky made this simple inquiry he would not have penned these ludicrous lines, for both these questions were raised by the Bolsheviks in April 1917, for example, in my “Theses” of April 4, 1917, i.e., long before the Revolution of October 1917 (and, of course, long before the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918).

But Kautsky’s argument which I have just quoted in full represents the crux of the whole question of the Soviets. The crux is: should the Soviets aspire to become state organisations (in April 1917 the Bolsheviks put forward the slogan: “All Power to the Soviets!” and at the Bolshevik Party Conference held in the same month they declared they were not satisfied with a bourgeois parliamentary republic but demanded a workers’ and peasants’ republic of the Paris Commune or Soviet type); or should the Soviets not strive for this, refrain from taking power into their hands, refrain from becoming state organisations and remain the “combat organisations” of one “class” (as Martov expressed it, embellishing by this innocent wish the fact that under Menshevik leadership the Soviets were an instrument for the subjection of the workers to the bourgeoisie)

[...]

Whoever sincerely shared the Marxist view that the state is nothing but a machine for the suppression of one class by another, and who has at all reflected upon this truth, could never have reached the absurd conclusion that the proletarian organisations capable of defeating finance capital must not transform themselves into state organisations. It was this point that betrayed the petty bourgeois who believes that “after all is said and done” the state is something outside classes or above classes. Indeed, why should the proletariat, “one class”, be permitted to wage unremitting war on capital, which rules not only over the proletariat, but over the whole people, over the whole petty bourgeoisie, over all the peasants, yet this proletariat, this “one class”, is not to be permitted to transform its organisation into a state organisation? Because the petty bourgeois is afraid of the class struggle, and does not carry it to its logical conclusion, to its main object.

Kautsky has got himself completely mixed up and has given himself away entirely. Mark you, he himself admits that Europe is heading for decisive battles between capital and labour, and that the old methods of economic and political struggle of the proletariat are inadequate. But these old methods were precisely the utilisation of bourgeois democracy. It therefore follows . . .?

But Kautsky is afraid to think of what follows.

. . . It therefore follows that only a reactionary, an enemy of the working class, a henchman of the bourgeoisie, can now turn his face to the obsolete past, paint the charms of bourgeois democracy and babble about pure democracy. Bourgeois democracy was progressive compared with medievalism, and it had to be utilised. But now it is not sufficient for the working class. Now we must look forward instead of backward—to replacing the bourgeois democracy by proletarian democracy. And while the preparatory work for the proletarian revolution, the formation and training of the proletarian army were possible (and necessary) within the framework of the bourgeois-democratic state, now that we have reached the stage of “decisive battles”, to confine the proletariat to this framework means betraying the cause of the proletariat, means being a renegade.

Kautsky has made himself particularly ridiculous by repeating Martov’s argument without noticing that in Martov’s case this argument was based on another argument which he, Kautsky, does not use! Martov said (and Kautsky repeats after him) that Russia is not yet ripe for socialism; from which it logically follows that it is too early to transform the Soviets from organs of struggle into state organisations (read: it is timely to transform the Soviets, with the assistance of the Menshevik leaders, into instruments for subjecting the workers to the imperialist bourgeoisie). Kautsky, however, cannot say outright that Europe is not ripe for socialism. In 1909, when he was not yet a renegade, he wrote that there was then no reason to fear a premature revolution, that whoever had renounced revolution for fear of defeat would have been a traitor. Kautsky does not dare renounce this outright. And so we get an absurdity, which completely reveals the stupidity and cowardice of the petty bourgeois: on the one hand, Europe is ripe for socialism and is heading towards decisive battles between capital and labour; but, on the other hand, the combat organisation (i.e., the organisation which arises, grows and gains strength in combat), the organisation of the proletariat, the vanguard and organiser, the leader of the oppressed, must not be transformed into a state organisation!

* * *

From the point of view of practical politics the idea that the Soviets are necessary as combat organisations but must not be transformed into state organisations is infinitely more absurd than from the point of view of theory. Even in peacetime, when there is no revolutionary situation, the mass struggle of the workers against the capitalists—for instance, the mass strike—gives rise to great bitterness on both sides, to fierce passions in the struggle, the bourgeoisie constantly insisting that they remain and mean to remain “masters in their own house”, etc. And in time of revolution, when political life reaches boiling point, an organisation like the Soviets, which embraces all the workers in all branches of industry, all the soldiers, and all the working and poorest sections of the rural population—such an organisation, of its own accord, with the development of the struggle, by the simple “logic” of attack and defence, comes inevitably to pose the question point-blank. The attempt to take up a middle position and to “reconcile” the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is sheer stupidity and doomed to miserable failure. That is what happened in Russia to the preachings of Martov and other Mensheviks, and that will inevitably happen in Germany and other countries if the Soviets succeed in developing on any wide scale, manage to unite and strengthen. To say to the Soviets: fight, but don’t take all state power into your hands, don’t become state organisations—is tantamount to preaching class collaboration and “social peace” between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. It is ridiculous even to think that such a position in the midst of fierce struggle could lead to anything but ignominious failure. But it is Kautsky’s everlasting fate to sit between two stools. He pretends to disagree with the opportunists on everything in theory, but in practice he agrees with them on everything essential (i.e., on everything pertaining to revolution).

[cabiba]

The word socialism was born a hundred and eighteen years ago in excited talk about the ideas of Robert Owen, a kindly English gentleman with shy eyes and a mighty nose and a great passion for apple dumplings. Owen came over to America in 1825 and bought a whole town and 30,000 acres of land out in Indiana on the banks of the Wabash. He issued a sweeping invitation to the “industrious and well disposed of all nations” to come out there and join him in the ownership of this property, and start living in cooperative peace and loving-kindness as nature had intended man to live. The place had been called “New Harmony” by a band of German monks who founded it, and that suited Owen’s scheme ideally.

Owen was a shrewd and brilliant businessman, a sort of larger-visioned Henry Ford, and America welcomed him with her most royal gift of publicity. The Hall of Congress in Washington was turned over to him, and he explained socialism—and showed pictures of it—to an audience containing, among others, the President of the United States, a majority of both Houses of Congress, and most of the Justices of the Supreme Court.

“I am come to this country,” he announced, “to introduce an entire new state of society, to change it from an ignorant, selfish system to an enlightened, social system which shall gradually unite all interests into one, and remove all causes for contest between individuals.”

In France the word socialisme had a slightly different origin, but not very different. Owen’s effort to attain beatitude in Indiana was repeated forty-one times in other parts of the long-suffering United States by followers of the French apostle of harmony, Fourier.[1] As they all had like results, we may take Owen’s little ramshackle paradise on the banks of the Wabash as typical of these recklessly noble attempts, by combining love with rationality, to bring heaven down to earth. It perfectly represents the meaning of the word socialism at its birth.

And it held together only so long as Robert Owen stayed there and bossed it. Left to themselves, its thousand-odd members fell to chiseling and snitching and indulging in rather more slander, if you can imagine it, than is usual. After two years they “divvied” up in a cool mood and quit. Owen thought it was because “the habits of the individual system” prevailing in the rest of the world were too strong.

Notwithstanding this dismal and swift failure, Owen’s idea—that if business were run on cooperative principles, life in general would become friendly and harmonious—gradually became the dominant one among radical minds the world over. It gave birth through the years to a whole litter of differently shaded ideas: syndicalist, communist, guild-socialist, social-revolutionary, bolshevik, menshevik, Fabian socialist, Christian socialist, I.W.W., anarchist, etc. They differed as to how the new harmony was to be achieved, but they did not differ importantly about Robert Owen’s fundamental general idea. For over a hundred years, even by many who could not subscribe to it as a practical measure, that idea, baptized with the name of socialism, was assumed to represent the highest hopes of civilization.

Three really big things happened to the socialist idea in the course of these hundred-odd years. Around the middle of the past century, a cocksure, angry, and pedantic genius by the name of Karl Marx undertook to prove that, although it had failed so dismally in Indiana, it was inevitably coming true throughout the world. Marx was personally more impractical than Owen. He was as far away as you can get from a successful businessman. He floundered in dire financial straits most of his life long, and hardly ever managed to finish anything he undertook to do.

Marx was not troubled with loving-kindness, either—not at all the type to usher in millenniums on a retail plan by personal example. But Marx had a brain like a high-powered locomotive engine, and when he set out to prove a thing, there was nothing for ordinary facts or practical considerations to do but get out of the way. Marx made his proof so comprehensive and so cloudy, and wound up so much true science with the romantic metaphysics out of which it was concocted, that he actually convinced the best radical minds of three generations that Robert Owen’s dream was inevitably coming true.

It was not coming true because some more benign Englishmen were going to subsidize some more credulous Americans and demonstrate how noble it was. It was coming true, noble or not, because the whole of present-day society was going to split violently in half like a growing acorn. In irresistible revolutionary struggle the under and larger half, those without property, were going to grab the land and industries and impose this dream on the upper half by state force. No more postcard utopias on the banks of the Wabash! No more trust in the “well disposed”! Hard-headed, hard-fisted proletarians were going to put the thing across. The owners of the world, hopelessly “bourgeois,” didn’t want a New Harmony—that’s why Robert Owen failed. Well, they were going to get a New Harmony whether they wanted one or not. And they were going to get it—to translate the Marxian state of feeling very exactly—“in the neck.”

That was the first big thing that happened to the word socialism. From meaning a practical experiment it came to mean a metaphysical certainty, and from a vessel of brotherly emotion it turned into the battle-cry of a class fight. It became the “war aim” of the workers in their impending inevitable robber raid against the whole capitalist class.

The second big thing that happened—and life was seventy more years getting this ready—was that such a raid did actually occur. It occurred in Russia, the last place where anybody was looking for it, and it occurred largely because a great political genius gave his heart to Owen’s dream and his mind to Marx’s metaphysics.

Lenin was personally more like Robert Owen than like Karl Marx. He combined the same grandiose idealism with the same canny gift for getting things done. He had no special zeal for apple dumplings, but he had a similarly homelike love for cats. He had a hearty affection for people, too, that was notably lacking in Marx. He looked like an able executive who had lost his hair, though none of his vigor, sitting at a desk bossing a big industry. He was an able executive, and could have bossed a big industry. As head of the “Community of Equality” at New Harmony he would have made, while he lasted, a thriving success.

But Lenin’s role in history was totally shaped and determined by the writings of Karl Marx. He believed fanatically—if that means absolutely and to the last detail—in the whole Marxian system. In his penciled comments on the margins of the Marxian texts he studied, there is not one word of dissent or disagreement. He learned Marx like a schoolboy, slavishly and with adoration. And yet in practice he was independent, alert, flexible, cunning, alive to new developments—possessed of a native intelligence superior, in my opinion, to that of his master.

In the name of socialism Lenin took charge of an actual revolution, led it to victory, and set going on the scale of the Russian empire the same romantic experiment that Robert Owen failed with on the banks of the Wabash ninety years before.

And the results were not better than Robert Owen’s but a million times worse. In his speeches before he seized power, Lenin promised the same wonderful things, and even more wonderful than Owen had promised at New Harmony:

“Democracy from below!” he shouted. “Democracy without an officialdom, without police, without a standing army . . . Immediate preparation for a state of things where all shall fulfill the functions of control and superintendence, so that none shall have the opportunity of becoming bureaucrats at all. . . . The state itself will wither away, by virtue of the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the innumerable horrors, savagery, absurdities and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to the observation of the elementary rules of social life, known for centuries, repeated for thousands of years in all sermons. They will become accustomed to their observance without constraint, without subjection, without the special apparatus for compulsion which is called the State!”

That is the New Harmony Lenin promised, and the result is now well known: Officialdom gone mad, officialdom erected into a new and merciless exploiting class; the largest peace-time standing army in the world; the people universally disarmed; the functions of control and superintendence gripped in the fist of a ruling clique which, when needful, wages armed war on the people; the “slavery . . . horrors, savagery, absurdities and infamies of capitalist exploitation” so far outdone that they are talked of in secret as a lost paradise; bureaucrats everywhere, and behind the bureaucrats a gigantic army of high-paid state police; death for those who question or protest, death by execution without trial or by state-planned starvation in a slave camp.

There are, strangely enough, specimens of the human brain whose owners still insist that this is a New Harmony in the making. Knaves, many of them, who have a job or prestige requiring that they say so; mental cowards, others, who, having put their faith in Lenin’s Marxism, lack the pluck to live without that faith. To honest men with courage to confront facts it is clear that Lenin’s experiment, like Robert Owen’s, failed.

It failed, however, in a different way. It did not drop naturally apart because the boss went home and let it run itself as it was supposed to. The boss, alas, stayed all too firmly on the job. It failed because it was prevented by military force from dropping naturally apart—by bayonets, machine guns, spies, chain-gangs, concentration camps, murder, massacre, and engineered starvation. It failed as a libertarian and humane hope because as a going concern it survived. It survived long enough to show what was in it: tyranny, namely, and that new perfection of tyranny, the totalitarian state. That new bloody thing wears, on all the maps of the world, the name of “socialist.”

Such is the main road traveled in a hundred and fifty years by the word socialism. It wandered down a branch road during the nineteenth century, and arrived on the emblems of another bloody police state—National Socialist Germany. It seems to know better than its creators and gentle-minded proprietors where it belongs. They will have trouble erasing it, anyway, from the histories of this whole epoch, the maps of the earth, the banners of the armies of fourteen nations. Might it not be better, instead of clinging to the word socialism, trying with mere adjectives to drag it back in the direction of its origins, to find out, if we can, what the basic mistake was of those who started it off on this strange and dreadful adventure?

[1] St. Simon is generally mentioned with Fourier and Owen as one of the fathers of utopian socialism, but his utopia was of so different a kind from theirs that its character was distorted somewhat by the very application of the name. See in this connection “Les Deux Socialismes” by Robert Louzon in La Révolution Prolétarienne for March and April 1948.

[yngwrthr]

“If we are not to mock at common sense and history, it is obvious that we cannot speak of “pure democracy” as long as different classes exist; we can only speak of class democracy. (Let us say in parenthesis that “pure democracy” is not only an ignorant phrase, revealing a lack of understanding both of the class struggle and of the nature of the state, but also a thrice-empty phrase, since in communist society democracy will wither away in the process of changing and becoming a habit, but will never be “pure” democracy.)

“Pure democracy” is the mendacious phrase of a liberal who wants to fool the workers. History knows of bourgeois democracy which takes the place of feudalism, and of proletarian democracy which takes the place of bourgeois democracy.

When Kautsky devotes dozens of pages to “proving” the truth that bourgeois democracy is progressive compared with medievalism, and that the proletariat must unfailingly utilise it in its struggle against the bourgeoisie, that in fact is just liberal twaddle intended to fool the workers. This is a truism, not only for educated Germany, but also for uneducated Russia. Kautsky is simply throwing “learned” dust in the eyes of the workers when, with a pompous mien, he talks about Weitling and the Jesuits of Paraguay and many other things, in order to avoid telling about the bourgeois essence of modern, i.e., capitalist, democracy.

Kautsky takes from Marxism what is acceptable to the liberals, to the bourgeoisie (the criticism of the Middle Ages, and the progressive historical role of capitalism in general and of capitalist democracy in particular), and discards, passes over in silence, glosses over all that in Marxism which is unacceptable to the bourgeoisie (the revolutionary violence of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie for the latter’s destruction). That is why Kautsky, by virtue of his objective position and irrespective of what his subjective convictions may be, inevitably proves to be a lackey of the bourgeoisie.

Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor. It is this truth, which forms a most essential part of Marx’s teaching, that Kautsky the “Marxist” has failed to understand. On this—the fundamental issue—Kautsky offers “delights” for the bourgeoisie instead of a scientific criticism of those conditions which make every bourgeois democracy a democracy for the rich.

[…]

Take the bourgeois parliament. Can it be that the learned Kautsky has never heard that the more highly democracy is developed, the more the bourgeois parliaments are subjected by the stock exchange and the bankers? This does not mean that we must not make use of bourgeois parliament (the Bolsheviks made better use of it than probably any other party in the world, for in 1912–14 we won the entire workers’ curia in the Fourth Duma). But it does mean that only a liberal can forget the historical limitations and conventional nature of the bourgeois parliamentary system as Kautsky does. Even in the most democratic bourgeois state the oppressed people at every step encounter the crying contradiction between the formal equality proclaimed by the “democracy” of the capitalists and the thousands of real limitations and subterfuges which turn the proletarians into wage-slaves. It is precisely this contradiction that is opening the eyes of the people to the rottenness, mendacity and hypocrisy of capitalism. It is this contradiction that the agitators and propagandists of socialism are constantly exposing to the people, in order to prepare them for revolution! And now that the era of revolution has begun, Kautsky turns his back upon it and begins to extol the charms of moribund bourgeois democracy.

[…]

Take foreign policy. In no bourgeois state, not even in the most democratic, is it conducted openly. The people are deceived everywhere, and in democratic France, Switzerland, America and Britain this is done on an incomparably wider scale and in an incomparably subtler manner than in other countries. The Soviet government has torn the veil of mystery from foreign policy in a revolutionary manner. Kautsky has not noticed this, he keeps silent about it, although in the era of predatory wars and secret treaties for the “division of spheres of influence” (i.e., for the partition of the world among the capitalist bandits) this is of cardinal importance, for on it depends the question of peace, the life and death of tens of millions of people.

Take the structure of the state. Kautsky picks at all manner of “trifles,” down to the argument that under the Soviet Constitution elections are “indirect,” but he misses the point. He fails to see the class nature of the state apparatus, of the machinery of state. Under bourgeois democracy the capitalists, by thousands of tricks—which are the more artful and effective the more “pure” democracy is developed—drive the people away from administrative work, from freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, etc. The Soviet government is the first in the world (or strictly speaking, the second, because the Paris Commune began to do the same thing) to enlist the people, specifically the exploited people, in the work of administration. The working people are barred from participation in bourgeois parliaments (they never decide important questions under bourgeois democracy, which are decided by the stock exchange and the banks) by thousands of obstacles, and the workers know and feel, see and realise perfectly well that the bourgeois parliaments are institutions alien to them, instruments for the oppression of the workers by the bourgeoisie, institutions of a hostile class, of the exploiting minority.

The Soviets are the direct organisation of the working and exploited people themselves, which helps them to organise and administer their own state in every possible way. And in this it is the vanguard of the working and exploited people, the urban proletariat, that enjoys the advantage of being best united by the large enterprises; it is easier for it than for all others to elect and exercise control over those elected. The Soviet form of organisation automatically helps to unite all the working and exploited people around their vanguard, the proletariat. The old bourgeois apparatus—the bureaucracy, the privileges of wealth, of bourgeois education, of social connections, etc. (these real privileges are the more varied the more highly bourgeois democracy is developed)—all this disappears under the Soviet form of organisation. Freedom of the press ceases to be hypocrisy, because the printing-plants and stocks of paper are taken away from the bourgeoisie. The same thing applies to the best buildings, the palaces, the mansions and manorhouses. Soviet power took thousands upon thousands of these best buildings from the exploiters at one stroke, and in this way made the right of assembly—without which democracy is a fraud—a million times more democratic for the people. Indirect elections to non-local Soviets make it easier to hold congresses of Soviets, they make the entire apparatus less costly, more flexible, more accessible to the workers and peasants at a time when life is seething and it is necessary to be able very quickly to recall one’s local deputy or to delegate him to a general congress of Soviets.

Proletarian democracy is a million times more democratic than any bourgeois democracy; Soviet power is a million times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic.

To fail to see this one must either deliberately serve the bourgeoisie, or be politically as dead as a doornail, unable to see real life from behind the dusty pages of bourgeois books, be thoroughly imbued with bourgeois-democratic prejudices, and thereby objectively convert oneself into a lackey of the bourgeoisie.

To fail to see this one must be incapable of presenting the question from the point of view of the oppressed classes:

Is there a single country in the world, even among the most democratic bourgeois countries, in which the average rank-and-file worker, the average rank-and-file farm labourer, or village semi-proletarian generally (i.e., the representative of the oppressed, of the overwhelming majority of the population), enjoys anything approaching such liberty of holding meetings in the best buildings, such liberty of using the largest printing-plants and biggest stocks of paper to express his ideas and to defend his interests, such liberty of promoting men and women of his own class to administer and to “knock into shape” the state, as in Soviet Russia?

It is ridiculous to think that Mr. Kautsky could find in any country even one out of a thousand of well-informed workers or farm labourers who would have any doubts as to the reply. Instinctively, from hearing fragments of admissions of the truth in the bourgeois press, the workers of the whole world sympathise with the Soviet Republic precisely because they regard it as a proletarian democracy, a democracy for the poor, and not a democracy for the rich that every bourgeois democracy, even the best, actually is.

We are governed (and our state is “knocked into shape”) by bourgeois bureaucrats, by bourgeois members of parliament, by bourgeois judges—such is the simple, obvious and indisputable truth which tens and hundreds of millions of people belonging to the oppressed classes in all bourgeois countries, including the most democratic, know from their own experience, feel and realise every day.

In Russia, however, the bureaucratic machine has been completely smashed, razed to the ground; the old judges have all been sent packing, the bourgeois parliament has been dispersed—and far more accessible representation has been given to the workers and peasants; their Soviets have replaced the bureaucrats, or their Soviets have been put in control of the bureaucrats, and their Soviets have been authorised to elect the judges. This fact alone is enough for all the oppressed classes to recognise that Soviet power, i.e., the present form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, is a million times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic.

Kautsky does not understand this truth, which is so clear and obvious to every worker, because he has “forgotten,” “unlearned” to put the question: democracy for which class? He argues from the point of view of “pure” (i.e., non-class? or above-class?) democracy. …”