Random Notes

A lot of the commentary over the remarkable statements by Israeli PM Netanyahu that suggested that Hitler got the idea for the Final Solution from "a Palestinian" -- ie: the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem -- focused on the idea that "he's delusional," and/or "he's insane."

To the contrary, I think he knows exactly what he is doing, and it's not delusional or insane at all. He's making a spectacle of himself in order to draw attention away from the disaster of his rule on the one hand -- the rash of stabbings by Palestinians in Israel has apparently deeply unnerved the population, and the response by Israeli civilians and security forces is way over the to as demonstrated by numerous viral videos of Israelis committing acts of summary execution in the streets, sometimes of "their own people."

It's yet another domestic catastrophe  brought on by a man who apparently lacks any conscience whatever. This is not insanity. This is not delusion. It is pathological in my view, but it isn't an "illness." It is character. Or lack thereof.

It's pathological because a lack of conscience is destructive in the character of anyone who is in a position to wield power over others or to utilize the power of a nation state to accomplish political objectives.

We see this in the political class all the time, this utter lack of conscience, empathy, or even interest in the well-being of anyone outside their own circle, or even beyond themselves. It's not limited to politics, either. We see it in business and finance (especially finance), in the administrative realm generally, in policing theory and practice, and on and on, and I wonder...

Do people in these and so many other fields learn these traits or are they born that way? Is there some kind of eugenic experiment under way that is breeding out the genes for compassion, conscience, and empathy? Truly, I wouldn't be surprised.

In Netanyahu's case, it's been clear for decades that the man sees himself as a Warrior-King on a mission. That mission will not be thwarted by lowly Palestinians (I doubt he considers them to be human) or by anyone else -- who he also seems to doubt are truly human. His mission appears to be the reconstitution of Eretz Israel or its modern equivalent for his own Power and Glory.

If anyone gets crushed in his pursuit of this project, it's their own fault.

And Israelis love him for it.

It's not insanity or delusion. It's purpose and will -- ultimately antithetical to humanity.

It is commonplace in the his realm. While it seems to make no sense to those on the outside,  most of those on the inside share his perspective more or less fully. It's dangerous and destructive and deeply immoral,

One of the aspects of its immorality in the Israeli case is that their argument regarding the Nazis seems to accept everything they did -- up to the Final Solution itself. Israelis can therefore justify what they have long been doing to the Palestinians -- which is very closely patterned on Nazi practice toward Jews and other minorities in Germany. That means that the camps were OK, the roundups, deportations, the ghettoization, the prohibitions on actions, employment, travel, etc., the restrictions and/or elimination of civil rights, the confiscations and demolitions, the summary executions, the lynchings, the lootings, the general destruction levied against Jews and other minorities were all perhaps unpleasant, but they were not the Final Solution and therefore were "OK."

Well, no. They weren't "OK." Or justified. Nor has Israel any right to impose similar conditions on Palestinians. But they do it just the same.

They criticize the Nazis for the mass executions, the gas chambers, and the ovens. Not really for anything else. All the rest of it up to that point was... OK.

Jeeze.

Netanyahu is flailing for attention, and he's getting it.

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The Clinton Drama continues, and if Hillary is elected, we'll have no end of drama in the nation's capital. What did I see the other day? The radicals will be offering articles of impeachment the day she's sworn in to the presidency? Well, yes. Of course they will. It's what they do. And she'll happily do battle against them. And the attempts to impeach her will be a spectacle to feed the ravenous maw of the media -- which will love it -- for (probably) her entire term in office.

Meanwhile, of course, the nefarious and conscience-free policies of Our Betters will have free rein.

Isn't that the point, after all? Positioning Paul Ryan in the #3 slot -- ie: Speaker of the House -- is a kind of preparatory master-stroke, on the thought that however the drama plays out (she could be assassinated, after all...) there will be a dynamic conscience-free back up at the ready.

Jeebus, no matter how cynical you become, it's really impossible to keep up these days.

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Sanders has yet to impress me. He seems to be a sacrificial shepherd leading his devoted flock into a cul-de-sac. No, he will not be allowed to become the president, not on a bet, and if somehow he manages to become the Democratic Party nominee (he won't) he will be left to flounder and fade away. With him go the remnants of a "progressive" Democratic Party. That seems to be the point in any case.

The Democratic Party isn't the same as the Tories of Anglo politics, but it is in many respects the rightful conservative party of the United States. It has always been conservative whereas the Republicans are rightist radicals.

There is no political left in this country with any pretense to power -- perhaps there never has been one.  (FDR was not an exception). Without a functioning "left" in this country, it's impossible to move the governing apparatus away from or beyond its nearly exclusive devotion to the interests and demands of the Oligarchy.

The answer is withdrawal of presence and attention and consent. It happens organically, but it takes a long-long time to come to fruition. It doesn't happen in the political realm, it happens in the social realm, and eventually, the established political elements become irrelevant. "All of that" happens almost in another universe, affecting "real life" less and less, until nobody cares.

It's been happening in this country, this withdrawal, for several decades, but it's been fairly marginal in most respects. "Hippies" and such have been doing it since the 1960s, but there are many-many more elements than merely the unreconstructed hippies in the current withdrawals. "Alternatives" are everywhere, and those who pursue them find it's quite possible -- and sometimes a great deal more rewarding -- to simply let go of the necessity to serve the system as it is.

Thus I can't get too excited about the current political hoo-hah.

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Police whining has reached a crescendo. The recent incident of road rage in Albuquerque leading to the death of a 4 year old girl seems to have triggered a reaction in the media. That reaction is apparently focused on a restoration of the status quo ante -- prior to the consent decree and all the police reforms that went with it, including a steep reduction in police killings of civilians. The local media seems to want to restore previous police practices -- and the death rates that went with them -- as a means of curbing the "current crime wave."

Well, I call bullshit. There is no "current crime wave." Crime in general, and violent crime in particular, is at or below previous levels, prior to the consent decree and police "reforms." Restoration merely means adding more violence to the mix, not curbing it at all. But Warrior Cops can't help themselves, can they? They want to mix it up, they have to, it's an identity thing. If they aren't out there killing and brutalizing with impunity, what it the point of having police, right?

So they whine and whine and whine, like dogs chained up in the back yard, wanting to kill, kill, and kill some more, to be who they are.

And the media in Albuquerque is clamoring to unchain them. To root out all those criminals running wild.

Bleah.

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Enough.

Winning Plutocracy -- the Juggernaut

One of the more remarkable aspects of the "Nonviolence" Wars -- or rather, the argument, it never came to blows after all -- was the apparent urge many of those in the "nonviolence" community had to make common cause with the Oppressor, in the immediate case with the Po-leece, but down the road, with the Plutocrats and Oligarchs that rule us.

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.

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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.

Withdrawal

All day community sing, Pie Town, New Mexico, c. 1940; photo: Library of Congress, US Farm Security Photographs.

Millions upon millions of Americans have been forced into poverty since the advent of this Endless Recession, more millions every year it goes on, and strangely, despite the Occupy Movement and many thousands of NGOs serving the Poor, and hundreds of thousands of churches, and many tens of millions of concerned and generous Americans, there is no general outcry about the impoverishment of so many millions of Americans so quickly and so thoroughly as has been the case.

The official poverty rate today hovers around 15% or 16%, a historic high since the mid 1960's and it is growing. Like the unemployment rate, the "true" poverty rate is probably substantially higher than the official rate (the poverty rate is derived from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Supplement; the unemployment rate is derived from the Census Bureau's monthly Current Population Survey for the Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Homelessness is at a historic high as well, even as millions and millions of homes sit empty due to the banking and foreclosure crisis -- that goes on and on and on endlessly as well.

The Masters of the Universe have decided this situation is just right; they want no changes that might cost them anything, and they will have their handmaidens in government thwart any movement from below to adjust matters.

As we've seen over and over again, any serious effort to highlight the plight of the increasing numbers of Americans in poverty or to petition government for redress is met with ever harsher and violent repression.

The absence of a general outcry at the impoverishment of Americans may be due to official repression. On the other hand, many Americans don't have an intellectual, moral or emotional problem with increasing poverty -- as long as it doesn't touch them. As long as the problem of poverty is someone else's problem, what's to worry, right?

This attitude is yet another of the many legacies of the Reagan Era, and unfortunately, it's an affliction of Washington, DC that simply doesn't respond to persuasion or pressure from below. Reaganism took the place of Progressivism a generation ago now, and it doesn't look like the culture and the mindset of present day DC is capable of considering the consequences of poverty and of its policies that increase poverty. Even today's so-called "progressives" don't seem to get it.

I was chatting with my neighbor the other day. He's an older man, has had a couple of strokes, but he's doing very well all things considered, he is quite spry and able to get along well enough. He notices how poverty is increasing all the time, and how nothing is being done to reverse it. There are no jobs, especially for the young. So many people are homeless. Cutbacks everywhere, and the cost of living keeps going up and up and up.

He says that he learned to live simply a long time ago; because of his simple lifestyle, he hasn't been exposed to some of the economic struggles that so many people are going through. He doesn't need or want that much in the material world.

Some of the young people could learn from him, he says, but they won't listen. I say, "Well, you know, they have to learn for themselves; you can't really tell them."

"Yes, but so many want all these things that they don't really need, that no one really needs," he says, "and when they're too poor to afford it... If they could learn to live simply, it wouldn't matter. Not so much anyway."

How are they to do that? How is anybody to do that? This is the dilemma that so many Americans have been facing for years now: how to transition from a wildly over-consumptive lifestyle to one that is easier on resources and on oneself?

Withdrawal is one way, one that has deep historic roots in the American land and psyche. Withdrawal is at the foundation of some of the English colonization efforts; the Puritans, after all, were a "withdrawal" sect, as were many others who came to America for religious freedom (for themselves, not for anyone else, of course).

Historically, there have been any number of withdrawal sects since the Puritans; many aspects of the Westward Expansion of the 19th Century could be characterized as forms of withdrawal -- especially the Mormon trek to Utah and elsewhere in the West.

There was a very active back to the land movement during the Great Depression despite the Dust Bowl and all the other hazards inherent in trying to pioneer on marginal lands.

Of course, the rebellions of the 1960's gave rise to a plethora of urban and rural communes, ashrams and other forms of intentional communities, a surprising number of which are still around, all premised on living simply and withdrawal from the materialist and consumerist culture.

The original Franciscan movement was predicated on voluntary poverty and withdrawal from the violent and materialist society of its own time; many of its critics pointed out how easy it was for rich men's sons (and soon enough, daughters too, with the establishment of the Poor Clares) to "leave it all behind," but it wasn't so easy for someone who never had anything to begin with to do so. Someone who has endured poverty for a long time will not necessarily be so kindly disposed to the adoption of poverty by someone who has lived in luxury all their lives.

The issue of hypocrisy doesn't go away simply because one who is privileged declares one's sincerity in living "poor". One way the privileged can demonstrate sincerity is to withdraw from materialist society. The Buddha as an example...

One of the ironies of "living simply" -- that is to say, consuming fewer resources -- is that it can be very expensive. Various forms of energy conservation, for example, can cost individuals and households extraordinary amounts of money. If they don't have the upfront cash or credit, what are they to do? Even with various subsidies, reducing resource consumption can still be an extremely expensive path to take and often is only realistically available to the well-off and rich.

Part of the path of Withdrawal is to find ways to get away from the necessity for relative wealth in order to live simply and well. The pioneers and refugees in Pie Town cut their own trees, built their own log cabins and dug-outs, grew their own food, and insofar as they could, they lived as simply as possible -- without all the modern conveniences such as electricity and running water, for example. Basically, they substituted their own labor for the consumer goods and services that most people relied on. It was not an easy life by any means, nor was it one that very many of the Pie Town pioneers could endure for very long. Not so much because it was so tough at the outset - though it was that. Inability to endure this primitive life for very long had perhaps more to do with the fact that there was little or no hope for improvement; the situation did not get better. In many cases, the situation got worse. Pioneering ideals don't last very long when, for example, the weather doesn't cooperate, crops fail and you're going hungry because you can't grow anything to eat, or when you or your children are sick and there's no medicine or doctoring and you don't know what to do.

Thus many communities that withdraw from materialist society don't try to start anew from scratch, they utilize the surpluses and overabundance of the materialist society around them to create an alternative, an alternative which may or may not be a stop-gap on the road to something else again.

What happens when the surplus runs out?

That's a point that Americans have yet to get to. As a rule, though, people are highly adaptable to whatever conditions they find themselves in. If at some point in the future, the surplus of materialism is all used up, then people will adapt to their new conditions, whatever they may be.

The key is for there to be some kind of transition.