I'm not clued in to the various -- and contending -- protest movements under way to "stop Trump". The initial street protests seemed to fizzle out, partly because of the holiday season I'm sure (priorities and all that), partly because people have to work to get by, and partly because they were being overwhelmed/co-opted by Democrats who basically didn't want any uprisings in the streets.
No, they were going to go about the business of de-Trumping by clever political strategy. Except they didn't have one. They still don't. Some of the most ludicrous examples of the failure of political strategies are on view daily at Daily Kos. I will say no more about that.
What the Dems have had all along, though, is an intense and overriding interest in knee-capping the Left -- or what they believe to be the Left. No genuine popular movement can get going under their wing. Any independent "left" movement must be crushed or co-opted. They must control the process. Otherwise, who knows what might happen? Someone like Trump could get elected.... ooops.
Speaking of, we just can't know whether vote casting and counting was done accurately this time around. It's a mystery that will never actually be solved because in too many cases, there's no way to verify the vote. It can't be done. What is becoming known, however, is that efforts to suppress the vote, to disqualify millions of voters, and to make it impossible for significant numbers of voters to vote, or for their votes to be counted were very successful, and these efforts were directed at and largely affected Democratic voters. It also appears that many Democratic voters declined to vote for president, whereas others voted third party.
So for the sake of argument, I'm going to accept the results as a relatively accurate reflection of what those who were able to vote and were so inclined voted for. I'm not taking it on faith. The announced outcome is one of many possibilities. For the sake of argument, the result is instructive.
We get to this outcome in large part through the failure of institutions and politics to protect and defend the People from the depredations of the Overclass, an Overclass which has had almost unfettered free rein to pillage and plunder for decades.
Politics hasn't changed it; politics has enabled it. No matter what the People say they want, no matter what or who they vote for, the political class does what it wants. Institutions have been more interested in preserving, protecting, and defending themselves rather than anything or anyone else, and they have almost all failed their constituencies. NGOs have long been a bad joke. Churches forgot their mission. Institutions of higher learning exploit their students and their parents. Police go rogue and murder without consequence. Financial institutions loot their customers. Media parades bizarre falsehoods.
On and on. It's a goon show, and most Americans know it.
Since its all a con anyway, why not put a master con-man on the throne? What do we think Obama has been? Or Big Dog? Or Bush the Lesser? All of them con-artists. And that's big reason why they were put on the throne to begin with. Their job is to con the public and keep them tame in the face of all the horrors and exploitation they're subjected to. Hillary couldn't do it.
The biggest institutional failure in the political realm is that of the Democrats who have failed in every way -- especially since 2009 -- to protect and defend the People against the forces arrayed against them. I maintain that failure is cynical and deliberate. They knew what they were doing: betraying their constituency. That's been the way of nearly all leftish political parties in the west for many years.
And that is a primary rationale for the "rise of the right." Given that the so-called Left has entirely abandoned the People, there is no political party that serves them. The "rise of the right" is not due to popular will, it's due to abandonment by the pseudo-left, the Democrats and Social Democrats and in some regions by Socialists. They obviously don't care any more -- if they ever really did -- about what happens to the Little People. No doubt it has something to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China into the capitalist workshop of the world, but that happened so long ago now, hardly anyone remembers any more.
The right rises when the People, abandoned, have no political anchor on the left or center. A political vacuum thus created is filled one way or another.
What is necessary, then, is for the People to take matters into their own hands, outside the political process, and make it impossible for the Ruling Clique to govern.
That's both easier and more difficult than it sounds. Most people, by nature, are going to go along with the powers that be. Most think they have no other choice. On the other hand, it doesn't take a lot of resistance or rebellion to throw a spanner in the works and bring the Juggernaut to a halt -- at least temporarily.
A weak government can be stalled or overcome rather easily.
I will not recommend ways to do it at this point, but understand that many of the "resistance manuals" out there are little more than support manuals for the failed political institutions and systems that don't work.
Robert Reich has one that's gotten some currency. It's not really about resistance at all. It's about supporting failed institutions, the political process and the Democrats. To that I say, No. He blew his premise in any case on Democracy Now! yesterday. It bordered on self-parody. Sorry that Amy didn't call him on his bullshit.
Another is the Indivisible Guide produced by congressional staff and political consultants which again focuses on working within the failed political process that's brought us to this point. It doesn't work. But it keeps people busy doing things -- which won't work -- so there is that. Keep hope alive and all that!
If the Trumpian agenda is to be stopped or thwarted, what's needed is to make it impossible.
The political system is designed and intended to enable it. It's just that simple.
Showing posts with label Juggernaut. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juggernaut. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Not Much Interested
Can't say I've been following the campaigns or the conventions with anything like the interest and involvement I once had. No, not at all.
It's not so much the sham and charade of it all as it is the fact that at some point you learn that the spectacle has a particular purpose: to keep the Rabble amused and distracted sufficiently -- divided and at one another's throats if need be and possible -- to enable the continued exploitation and looting by the privileged elites.
It's a basic principle of rule.
Whatever else goes on, the Rabble must never be allowed to express their own interests and govern their own lives. Ever.
I have essentially no interest in either of the two major candidates for the presidency of the United States, for example. They may be a tremendous contrast to one another (or maybe not), but neither has shown a determination to enable the People's liberation. Instead, they both show a strong tendency to want to order and command the Rabble to extract the most power from them. The idea of self-governance doesn't occur to either of them. It's more a matter of who can assert dominance over the masses "better."
Sheesh.
Of course the electoral process was irreparably damaged when the Supreme Court lawlessly intervened in the 2000 election, handing the presidency to George Bush the Lesser and his enforcer Mr. Cheney.
I'm old enough to remember some other lawless interference, including the assassination President Kennedy in 1963, and numerous subsequent assassinations, upheavals, bewildering government behaviors (such as wars and what have you) and constant economic exploitation and social and political repression.
But the election interference by the Supreme Court in 2000 was unprecedented, and it essentially put the lie to the whole idea of "elections." If they don't produce the "correct" result within a certain time frame, then they will be canceled and the Supreme Court will decide the outcome.
In the interim since then, we've seen, over and over again a plethora of electoral outcome shenanigans, from outright voter intimidation/suppression, to fungible machine counts, constantly off kilter polls (ha!), and media collusion for desirable outcomes. The Supreme Court hasn't had to interfere again, so that's good, I guess. But the mask came off, and I think more than a few people understand that if the outcome isn't satisfactory to the PTB, then the Court can and will intervene again. But it's almost impossible to imagine that the outcome cannot be remotely manipulated to produce the desired result so as to obviate direct intervention.
So. Don't think your vote really matters. It doesn't.
Besides, we've been given such dismal choices this time around. At least Obama had charm and grace. Neither of these two -- Clinton or Trump -- have either. Many have speculated that if Obama could run again, he'd be elected in a heartbeat over either of these two, and that's probably correct.
Can't say that Bernie has/had much charm or grace, either.
Of course, this has nothing to do with policy. It has everything to do with personality, and that's what our elections for president have been running on for practically ever. It's not about the policy. It's about the personalities on offer.
Those of us who try to keep things on a policy plane (heh) say that really, neither of the major candidates has anything to offer the Rabble besides more pain, suffering, and exploitation, and it appears from the signs and portents that one of them, Mrs. Clinton, is eager to get her war on, while the other, Mr. Trump, may wish to delay it for a bit, until the US itself is "cleansed." Yeek. Neither is really a palatable option in my view.
I will say that it was obvious to many of us during the 2000 election that Mr. Bush and his familiar Mr. Cheney were more than eager to gain the White House and get their war on. I remember online bets being taken over how long it would be before Bush-Cheney involved the US in a major armed conflict. I said "6 months," and of course lost because it actually took 9 months to get things started.
But that war started so long ago now, many young people who will be able to vote in the 2018 congressional elections (if they want to) can't remember a time when the US wasn't at war abroad and at home... It appears to be a permanent state of war -- which is what Bush-Cheney wanted apparently -- that the Rabble can do nothing about.
Trump wants to expand the imperial wars against Muslims, whereas Clinton seems to want to expand the Empire -- by any means necessary including nuclear confrontation -- to absorb/dismantle both Russia and China.
Whichever one succeeds in gaining the White House, they are both mad, and their warmongering policies are utter madness. But that's where our governing class is these days -- delusional, insane, dangerous, mad.
There is this notion that Clinton is somehow the consummate E-Ville of All Time, and Trump is not, but this is silly. They are both products of a corrupt and evil system, only one is slicker at it than the other, and one will be slightly sly-er at accomplishing the ends that system desires than the other. The system itself is evil, if you will, and it will only produce choices-candidates who fit the interests of the system. Don't fool yourself that one is uniquely evil and the other is not. They are parallel products of the same system. Both equally nasty.
So what do you do?
Clearly, the system is not self-correcting. If anything, it's getting worse. The option many have chosen is to withdraw and build a better -- but separate -- society that exists outside the parameters of government and rule.
That may be sufficient over the short term, but the long term looks pretty bleak. There is no escape from the vicissitudes of climate change, for example, and it looks from the evidence that the Empire will grind on like the Juggernaut it is, rolling over everything in its path in perpetuity. In other words, there's no permanent escape from the Juggernaut of Empire, either.
Stopping the Juggernaut will take some doing, and so far, nothing has proved effective against it. On the other hand, you never know what will be effective until you try it.
We are in such interesting times, no?
It's not so much the sham and charade of it all as it is the fact that at some point you learn that the spectacle has a particular purpose: to keep the Rabble amused and distracted sufficiently -- divided and at one another's throats if need be and possible -- to enable the continued exploitation and looting by the privileged elites.
It's a basic principle of rule.
Whatever else goes on, the Rabble must never be allowed to express their own interests and govern their own lives. Ever.
I have essentially no interest in either of the two major candidates for the presidency of the United States, for example. They may be a tremendous contrast to one another (or maybe not), but neither has shown a determination to enable the People's liberation. Instead, they both show a strong tendency to want to order and command the Rabble to extract the most power from them. The idea of self-governance doesn't occur to either of them. It's more a matter of who can assert dominance over the masses "better."
Sheesh.
Of course the electoral process was irreparably damaged when the Supreme Court lawlessly intervened in the 2000 election, handing the presidency to George Bush the Lesser and his enforcer Mr. Cheney.
I'm old enough to remember some other lawless interference, including the assassination President Kennedy in 1963, and numerous subsequent assassinations, upheavals, bewildering government behaviors (such as wars and what have you) and constant economic exploitation and social and political repression.
But the election interference by the Supreme Court in 2000 was unprecedented, and it essentially put the lie to the whole idea of "elections." If they don't produce the "correct" result within a certain time frame, then they will be canceled and the Supreme Court will decide the outcome.
In the interim since then, we've seen, over and over again a plethora of electoral outcome shenanigans, from outright voter intimidation/suppression, to fungible machine counts, constantly off kilter polls (ha!), and media collusion for desirable outcomes. The Supreme Court hasn't had to interfere again, so that's good, I guess. But the mask came off, and I think more than a few people understand that if the outcome isn't satisfactory to the PTB, then the Court can and will intervene again. But it's almost impossible to imagine that the outcome cannot be remotely manipulated to produce the desired result so as to obviate direct intervention.
So. Don't think your vote really matters. It doesn't.
Besides, we've been given such dismal choices this time around. At least Obama had charm and grace. Neither of these two -- Clinton or Trump -- have either. Many have speculated that if Obama could run again, he'd be elected in a heartbeat over either of these two, and that's probably correct.
Can't say that Bernie has/had much charm or grace, either.
Of course, this has nothing to do with policy. It has everything to do with personality, and that's what our elections for president have been running on for practically ever. It's not about the policy. It's about the personalities on offer.
Those of us who try to keep things on a policy plane (heh) say that really, neither of the major candidates has anything to offer the Rabble besides more pain, suffering, and exploitation, and it appears from the signs and portents that one of them, Mrs. Clinton, is eager to get her war on, while the other, Mr. Trump, may wish to delay it for a bit, until the US itself is "cleansed." Yeek. Neither is really a palatable option in my view.
I will say that it was obvious to many of us during the 2000 election that Mr. Bush and his familiar Mr. Cheney were more than eager to gain the White House and get their war on. I remember online bets being taken over how long it would be before Bush-Cheney involved the US in a major armed conflict. I said "6 months," and of course lost because it actually took 9 months to get things started.
But that war started so long ago now, many young people who will be able to vote in the 2018 congressional elections (if they want to) can't remember a time when the US wasn't at war abroad and at home... It appears to be a permanent state of war -- which is what Bush-Cheney wanted apparently -- that the Rabble can do nothing about.
Trump wants to expand the imperial wars against Muslims, whereas Clinton seems to want to expand the Empire -- by any means necessary including nuclear confrontation -- to absorb/dismantle both Russia and China.
Whichever one succeeds in gaining the White House, they are both mad, and their warmongering policies are utter madness. But that's where our governing class is these days -- delusional, insane, dangerous, mad.
There is this notion that Clinton is somehow the consummate E-Ville of All Time, and Trump is not, but this is silly. They are both products of a corrupt and evil system, only one is slicker at it than the other, and one will be slightly sly-er at accomplishing the ends that system desires than the other. The system itself is evil, if you will, and it will only produce choices-candidates who fit the interests of the system. Don't fool yourself that one is uniquely evil and the other is not. They are parallel products of the same system. Both equally nasty.
So what do you do?
Clearly, the system is not self-correcting. If anything, it's getting worse. The option many have chosen is to withdraw and build a better -- but separate -- society that exists outside the parameters of government and rule.
That may be sufficient over the short term, but the long term looks pretty bleak. There is no escape from the vicissitudes of climate change, for example, and it looks from the evidence that the Empire will grind on like the Juggernaut it is, rolling over everything in its path in perpetuity. In other words, there's no permanent escape from the Juggernaut of Empire, either.
Stopping the Juggernaut will take some doing, and so far, nothing has proved effective against it. On the other hand, you never know what will be effective until you try it.
We are in such interesting times, no?
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Winning Plutocracy -- the Juggernaut
Somehow, we were supposed to believe, being "nonviolent" would lead to the Police changing sides, and it would lead to the Overclass doing the right thing for once in their worthless and exploitative lives.
On the other side of that fabulist coin is the notion that if things only get bad enough, the people will spontaneously rise up and destroy the Ruling Class once and for all.
But that's not quite how it is working out. Nor do I think it has ever quite worked out that way.
Instead, what we have is the relentless march of Power and Money on a Juggernaut crushing all in its path, which has no consciousness of "doing the right thing" or making common cause with the masses, or even with some self-appointed "nonviolent" elite among the masses. It simply isn't happening.
(Not being an X-Men fan, I had no idea there was a character called "Juggernaut" that behaves pretty much like Our Rulers...Oh. My. :-0. Live and Learn.)
How do you make common cause with that?
The fact is that the Plutocrats and Oligarchs are interested in rule over the rest of us and they use their militarized police as shock troops and enforcers. It is striking how very little "changing sides" there has been. It has nothing whatever to do with how the forces of resistance resemble or fail to resemble GhandiKing. Nothing. It has to do with the simplest facts of Power: Power concedes nothing without the demand, and right now and for some time past, there has been no demand Power has chosen to listen to or fear.
In Olden Days, it seems like you could always count on someone in the Ruling Classes or among their enforcers to break ranks and side with the People, and they simply aren't doing it now. If anything, the ranks are closing tighter and tighter, much more so than ever before.
And those who have from time to time appeared to be on the People's side aren't.
It's as solid a phalanx of Power and Money arrayed against the People as there has ever been, and they concede... nothing.
A lot of those engaged in the struggle and resistance against them -- and there are many millions world wide -- seem to think that persistence can win concessions, and it isn't happening. Persistence leads to ever greater levels of frustration and despair, not concession at all.
The other day I posted the video of Bella Eiko at the Public Safety Committee hearing of the Oakland City Council. She expresses her extreme frustration with the City administration and particularly with the Committee chair in no uncertain terms, at length. Her point of view, her anger and her frustration are shared by many in Oakland, and if people are honest with themselves, many more people would share her outrage at the blind indifference of officials to the ruin they spread in their wake. Bella Eiko was not polite in her outrage, and many would say she was engaged in "violent confrontation," but that would be a complete misreading of what was happening. She isn't violent, any more than Chris Moreland was violent when he was arrested in retaliation for sassing the Oakland police chief. She's furious -- as so many of us are -- at Power's complete indifference to the suffering they cause and perpetuate in service to... itself.
The lack of any concession by Power at all after months and years of growing need, protest and demand is one of the most striking aspects of the post-Soviet world we live in. Not only is there no concession, there are constant, growing, and often totally outrageous demands of the People by Power.
The Plutocracy is winning; the Plutocracy has won.
Recognizing that the Plutocrats and Oligarchs have won is not to concede to them, however.
I saw a comment the other day over at Digby's from someone who posts as CupOJoe, someone who I believe is the same online advocate for workers rights and a better life for all who has been posting on these topics for many years (the problem with Digby's comment section is that there is no way to be sure whoever is using this or that screen name is the same individual who has historically used the name). He said with regard to the Wisconsin Debacle in part:
Politics is a long, slow slog through the mud and we have not yet begun to fight in earnest.
and I was just kind of gobsmacked by it. Well, when to we start this fight "in earnest?" Digby has been writing about this struggle "in earnest" for over a decade now, and so has Joe, if CupOJoe is the same Joe I'm thinking of (I forget his last name right now, memory synapses are going haywire and all, but for a time, he had quite a prominent place on the advocacy side of the left-o-sphere.) I've had this blog since 2007, but I've been an activist online and in the field much longer than that going back to the ancient days of the 1960's. When therefore does the fight start in earnest? I'd really like to know.
And what constitutes fighting in earnest?
I've said, and I still believe, that Occupy represents "The Revolution," insofar as an actual Revolution is possible under the circumstances. It is by nature a nonviolent resistance campaign -- whether or not a random or purposeful window is broken or a raging citizen angrily confronts and denounces Power. This is the only way a Revolutionary action (especially on a global scale, as the Occupy Movement is) can proceed in the world as it is. The fight is very much "in earnest" and with an enormous number of moving parts. It may not be as well-coordinated as one might wish, but no vast Movement of this sort ever is. Even the most adept of military campaigns are far less well-coordinated than legend might suggest.
And the progress of the Juggernaut is not as well-managed and inevitable as it may appear.
In fact, the Juggernaut can be stopped in its tracks much more simply than we may sometimes think. The Juggernaut doesn't think. It can't; it's inexorable. Thinking is not part of its nature. Nor actually is doing. In fact, all of its "doing" has to be done by those crowds eagerly surrounding it and pushing and pulling the cart forward. The Juggernaut cannot move on its own. The Juggernaut is mindless and relies entirely on worshipers for motive power.....
Bob Avakian of the Revolutionary Communist Party offered this insight a decade ago:
Stopping the Juggernaut and Making Revolution
A fundamental and essential question poses itself: Is it actually possible to stop this whole juggernaut without carrying out proletarian revolution? Well, we'll learn that in the event, as things actually develop, but certainly we can't say at this point that it would be impossible to stop this juggernaut without achieving the actual overthrow of the whole system--that only through revolution, to put it simply, could this juggernaut be derailed. Now, that may turn out to be the case, but that's not something we can determine at this point. So when we put forward the objective of actually stopping this juggernaut, it's not a gimmick; it's not a way to get people on a train, an express train with no local stops that goes only to revolution. It's an orientation toward actually uniting with people with a real objective in mind. We're not promising people that this is going to happen one way or the other, or pretending that we know the whole outcome of this. What we are saying is that we must have this as an objective--to stop this juggernaut--and we're serious in seeking to stop it, even if it means that it gets derailed short of revolution, because that will contribute greatly to revolution in any case, besides the fact that in terms of the two 90/10s*, and particularly in terms of the interests of the people of the world and their revolutionary struggles, it's important to stop this juggernaut.
But, at the same time, if we're not bringing forward, through the course of all this, the need for proletarian revolution, if we're not showing in a living way how this juggernaut is rooted in the very nature of this system--that it's one particular, concentrated expression of the nature of the beast and why we need to do in this beast--then we're not meeting what we need to be meeting in terms of the needs of the people and in terms of our revolutionary objectives. So this is another contradiction we're going to have to handle, once again, not in a linear or mechanical way but in a dialectical way, in accordance with the complexity of how these contradictions play out.
_________________
Footnotes:
* The "two 90/10s" refers to a formulation in the Draft Programme of the RCP, in the section on building a united front under the leadership of the proletariat (UFuLP), where it speaks to the importance of seeking to win over the great majority of people within the U.S. itself (the "90 percent") "while doing this in unity with the `90 percent' internationally , the great majority of the people of the world who suffer exploitation and oppression under the domination of imperialism and its allies and puppets."
Interestingly, Avakian's statement (from this essay) strikingly prefigures some of the conceptualization that characterizes the mostly anarchic Occupy Movement, yet the RCP play essentially no role in the actions of Occupy.
What's necessary to stop the Juggernaut in its track is something Gandhi and King understood very well: noncooperation.
Noncooperation is a concept many people still have trouble grasping -- let alone doing. It's always difficult to say "no" in the face of implacable Power. Much as I admire the grit and fortitude of people like Bella Eiko and Chris Moreland when they confront Power directly with their rage and outrage, I also caution: "You're feeding Power when you do that." Ultimately, denunciation won't work because Power loves the attention -- positive or negative, it doesn't matter, the attention itself is what Power desires and demands. So. Ultimately, to stop the Juggernaut, you have to stop pulling and pushing it. Step away.
And it STOPS. Just. Like. That.
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