Today's Topics:
1. anarkismo.net: Left unity, left cooperation or a working
class front? by Warren McGregor (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #285 - Culture, In
subscription: Alain Bihr, " The First Age of Capitalism
(1415-1763)" (fr, it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-
en@ainfos.ca)
3. Information and photojournalism from the Libertarian
Festival of Social, Classical and Internist Solidarity. By APO
(gr) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. wsm.ie: Video - Living Utopia - The Anarchists and the
Spanish Revolution (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. wsm.ie - Review: Jordan Peterson in Dublin - not the type of
talk the audience had envisaged (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. Belarus pramen: This Is Just the Beginning [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
A call for socialist Left unity is heard widely today in South Africa, but is usually
taken as a call for unity of praxis (unity in theoretical programme and action). This is
sometimes framed as transcending old divides (these seen as outdated, divisive or
dismissed as dogmatic), and sometimes as unity in order to have action (rhetorically set
up as the opposite of "arm chair" theory). ---- What do we as revolutionary anarchists
think? We think this approach is fair in intention, asks important questions and aims at
addressing the crisis of the left and working class movements. ---- However, the idea that
divisions are outdated, divisive or dogmatic is incorrect. The "left" - taken here to mean
socialist, and not which side of the Parliamentary aisle you sit on - is a spectrum in
which a wide variety of anti- and non-capitalist ideologies and traditions rest, from the
more reformist social-democracy on one end, to the revolutionary anarchist and Marxist
sets, on the other.
Having these very different approaches is not what weakens the left. A call for left unity
as a unity of praxis misunderstands (or ignores) the value of difference and progressive
debate to theoretical development and strategic innovation. This development and
innovation strengthens the left and is best antidote to being dogmatic - so long as it
involves honest and open (but respectful and constructive) debate and disagreement. In
other words it contributes to social change.
This process requires real engagement and thus also requires avoiding a politics of
labelling opponents in a derogatory way or with caricatures in order to dismiss instead of
engage them. Dismissing whole sets of ideas and experiences by labelling them dogmatic,
divisive or outdated (or ultra-left or reactionary etc.) is itself dogmatic.
The term "left", and the term socialism, are not and cannot be reducible to any one of
these ideologies, and in particular, are not reducible to Marxism.
If left unity means real unity of praxis it would mean a synthesis. However, a synthesis
is not truly possible, given how radically different left traditions are. Either it will
create something incoherent or extremely vague (how can you, for example, really blend
Leninist vanguardism with anarcho-syndicalist counter-power?) or it will be a unity in
name only, but where one pre-existing outlook is imposed.
If it's the former, it will not do anything to take the left forward but remove clarity.
If the latter, it involves prescribing, somewhat arrogantly, one specific theoretical
approach while labelling other views as outdated, dogmatic, divisive etc
This latter approach, unfortunately, has become common practice in many contexts,
including in South Africa. It usually means dismissing other views, then prescribing a
programme that is basically a brand of Leninism or a left version of social-democracy,
often under labels like "21st century socialism," "democratic socialism" or socialist renewal.
Disastrous past failures are skipped or excused or presented in the best possible light.
It is not explained how, for example, Leninism will not (yet again) end in a dictatorship,
after it has had over 30 dictatorships and not one example of anything like a workers
democracy. It is not explained how, after every single Keynesian government failed in the
face of capitalist globalisation, social-democratic schemes will suddenly work now, under
global capitalism.
A lot of what is presented as new or as innovative is old wine in new bottles. Ideas get
put in new bottles. For example, the idea of building a solidarity economy of cooperatives
to end or exit capitalism is very old, going back to P.J. Proudhon in the 1840s; the idea
of state-funded worker-run farms goes back to Louis Blanc in the same period. Both
approaches have failed to create anything able to end capitalism for over 150 years and
it's not clear why they should be tried yet again.
A different call for left unity calls for a Mass Workers Party. But this idea is rooted
in the Marxist tradition. The call skips very serious debates, particularly over state
power, the role of unions, electoralism, representative versus participatory democracy,
vanguardism etc. It does not engage with whether an approach based on capturing individual
states can achieve anything under neo-liberal globalisation.
While both Marxists, social democrats and nationalists are agreed on a project of
political parties capturing state power, anarchism arises as a working class socialist
ideological movement that rejects exactly this approach. It is a critique of the standard
Marxist political programme but tied to a distinctive anarchist analysis of the state
itself as a fundamental site of minority class rule.
Now, there may be many ideas common to both Marxist and anarchist branches of the
socialist family, such as the necessity of mass working class struggle, anti-capitalism,
etc. But there are deep differences of philosophy.
These include, but are not limited to, on one hand theory, such as anarchism's very
different analysis of what the state is and how it works, what class is, whether
capitalism can be progressive, etc. This approach leads to the anarchist view that states
and parties aiming at state power cannot be used to create a free, non-capitalist social
order. On the other hand, as regards application, see also anarchism's vehement insistence
on democratic, collective self-reliance and individual freedom within a cooperative
communal society; versus the state and party-centred approach that has overwhelmingly
dominated in Marxism. An approach, located in its own historical canon, which anarchists
argue, amongst other claims attributed to it, gives Marxism its fundamentally
authoritarian and anti-democratic nature.
These differences are not a matter of dogmatism or sectarianism. They should also not be
erased in the name of "left unity", which effectively puts the South African left back on
the statist track.
Obviously there are and will be many areas of cooperation and campaigning - would there
really be any serious division over, for example, opposing gender-based violence, climate
change, organizing workplaces, fighting for land reform?
There will always, however, be a parting of ways over how to pursue these aims, over
long-term vision and so on, as per the dictates of ideological difference.
Silencing the debate in the name of unity might be well-intentioned, but it shuts down
useful debates and democratic space. Additionally, it prefigures a politics that views
difference as dangerous. Historically this, when taken to extremes, saw Marxists in state
power lining up left opponents for jail, exile and/or execution, and social democrat-led
governments crushing revolutions.
What is of greater importance is a unity through organisation around and in working class
struggle. It also means realising the inevitability of conflict, but utilising it as a
means of revolutionary institutional and theoretical development. Most surely, a programme
of action is needed if these, our organisations seek transformation of society, and if we
aim to create unity across the many sites of working class organization and struggle.
However, this programme, its philosophy, key concepts and ideas for change and
reconstruction must be tested and reformulated in struggle. Here, struggle is not only
meant the fight for better day-to-day working and living conditions, greater political
freedoms, and so on. It also involves the constant and consistent development of ideas and
action. This requires engaging ideas in an open, honest, critical and self-reflective way,
contributing to the development of the instruments of revolutionary, socialist class
struggle: the workers' organisations (like unions and community-based organisations) to
build the power for thorough-going socio-economic reconstruction (the revolution).
This internal developmental struggle in movements should be waged as a battle of ideas
between, yes, competing ideological sets for influence in, but never imposed onto the mass
movement. To claim that your theory not only understands the path of history, but the
eventuality of the destination and thus its own theoretical purity, is pure delusion. We
can safely predict particular patterns based on historical precedent, but such definite
assertions and teleologies are unscientific, uncritical and effectively impose a claim on
and structure of leadership. These leadership forms develop and assert immovable control
over movements, suck the creative life out of movements and are fundamentally
authoritarian, no matter the initial individual characteristics of those making them.
It is deeply misleading to present theory as a pointless distraction from struggle as it
is shaped by and builds it. Anti-theoretical approaches present difference as a problem of
dogma or sectarianism - and therefore cannot see that differences are useful - or present
theory as a lazy "armchair" indulgence that prevents us "doing" things. But theory is both
a process and an instrument of human action and socialist theory cannot, therefore, be
divorced from progressive socialist action.
Thus any call for left unity, no matter how well-intentioned, fails to address the fact
that many left ideologies exist, and misses the point altogether as to what should drive
the socialist social transformation many of us are working towards.
What we should think of, rather, is building and strengthening a working class front,
based on unions, community-based movements, left groups, cooperatives, etc., which can
cooperate around specific campaigns and demands. These movements should be internally
democratic, politically pluralist in which different left groups can cooperate with one
another - and frankly, much more importantly - engage the mass movements. Movements in
which different perspectives are encouraged, developed and tested. No group surrenders
political independence - the right to have, express and campaign for their views - in the
name of unity, but all can cooperate on specific issues.
The idea is not to wish away difference, and to create a party for the working class, but
to unite big and small working class formations; the idea is not to pretend difference
doesn't exist, or to conflate the working class movement with one ideology; the idea is
that difference and debate are essential, not outdated, dogmatic, pointless. It is
destructive only of centralised authority, of dictatorship.
This does not mean a conference or symposium of the left is in and of itself useless, but
previous attempts have almost certainly descended into different groups and individuals
giving their positions, without a useful discussion of convergence or divergence. More
important is to have debates and discussions within the larger working class and its
movements beyond the left, where there is working class engagement with different ideas,
the test of practice, using an ongoing series of workshops, meetings, locals, media and
campaigns. In such a situation there is a battle of ideas and a battle for the leadership
of ideas, most surely, while guarding against a manipulation of processes, closing debates
by labels, or a "big man" politics of demagogy.
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31076
https://zabalaza.net/2018/07/20/left-unity-left-cooperation-or-a-working-class-front/
------------------------------
Message: 2
Our comrade Alain Bihr tackled a vast history of the development of capitalism in three
volumes. It starts with the beginning, " infancy " which the XV th to the mid-eighteenth
th century, sees Western Europe from the onslaught of the three Americas, Africa and Asia.
---- Through forced and unfair trade, unequal exchange or, even more directly, the
reduction to serfdom or slavery of their populations, the companies affected by the
initial European expansion saw their own trade routes. disturbed exchange, their altered
productive structures, their traditional political powers instrumentalized or destroyed.
With the main result of supporting the formation dynamics of capitalism in Europe itself.
Far from falling into misery, however, the author insists on the resistance that these
companies have been able to oppose to Europeans. Unequal resistance, a function of their
previous historical development, to which the work pays great attention each time, thus
providing a panorama of the world at the dawn of modern times.
Finally, Alain Bihr highlights the differences between the European states that will
embark on this adventure, the rivalries and conflicts that will oppose them and
redistribute the cards between them on different occasions, the very unequal benefits they
will derive from them.
Alain Bihr, The First Age of Capitalism, Syllepse / Page 2, 2018, 700 pages, 30 euros. The
book is under subscription until September 2 at a price of 25 euros.
TO SUBSCRIBE,
until September 2
1 ° For people residing in France or allers in the EU, the book can be ordered at the
following email address: edition@syllepse.net or at the postal address:
Editions Syllepse, 69, rue des Rigoles, 75020 Paris.
Label your check of 25 euros payable to Editions Syllepse with a letter mentioning " Alain
Bihr's book subscription " and your full postal address.
You can make a bank transfer of 25 euros to the following account, with mention " A.Bihr
subscription ":
Editions Syllepse, 69, rue des Rigoles, 75020 Paris
Postal Bank - Financial Center - 75900 Paris Cedex 15
FR14 2004 1000 0110 9960 3B02 017
2 ° For people residing in Switzerland, the book can be ordered at the following email
address: editions@page2.ch or at the postal address:
Editions Page 2, CP 34, 1000 Lausanne 20.
The book will be sent together with a payment slip. Do not forget to indicate your
complete postal address.
Alain Bihr is the author of some twenty books, several of which have been translated. In
particular, he published The Prehistory of Capital (Page 2, 2006), The Forgotten Logic
of "Capital" (Page 2, 2010), Class Social Reports (Page 2, 2012), Dictionary of
Inequalities (Armand Colin, 2014) , The neoliberal Novelanguage (Page 2 / Syllepse, 2017).
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Alain-Bihr-le-premier-age-du-capitalisme-1415-1763
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Message: 3
"To fight it all we need is a little modesty, a little more dignity and a lot of
organization" ---- On July 3, 5, 6 and 7 July, the Eleftherias Festival of Social,
Classical and Interfaith Solidarity took place in Athens, on the campus of Zografou (MITHE
School), by the Anarchist Political Organization - Federation of Collectives. The aim of
the festival was to create a public and open political and cultural space of encounter,
communication and fermentation between the social and class struggles developed from below
and the intervention of anarchist and libertarian pretenses within them. Thus, a public
field of dialogue was formed in which struggle experiences were presented and the
participants were able to draw political conclusions from resistances that break out both
in Greece and internationally, far from each other, but they are common fronts of struggle
against common enemies, with a common perspective on social liberation. To raise the
wealth of anarchist perceptions and practices, struggles that break out at different
angles of the planet and internationalist solidarity with the insurgents of all the earth ...!
The first day of the festival began with the shaping of the surrounding area where
banners, photo exhibitions and tables were printed with the printed material of the APO
and its collectives and other collectives such as the Patras Women's Initiative and the
Student Assembly from the anarcho-anti-authoritarian space, while the festival was run by
a bookstore with the participation of Nautilus and the support of the Los Solidarios
cinematic publishing project. The first event of the festival had as its theme the social
and class struggles of the bottom and included a suggestion from the APO, the positions of
fighters from unions and grassroots grassroots initiatives, popular assemblies (Tax Front
in Transport, Association of Waiters of Salonika, Thessaloniki, Association of Employees
of the Book of Paper, Assembly of Resistance and Solidarity Kipselis - Patission), a
proposal by the Anarchist Assembly on Social and Classical Emancipation, and by informing
the French-speaking Anarchist Federation about fights in France (railway strike, student
occupation, defense of the autonomous ZAD community, struggles against nuclear power,
etc.). At the same time, the discussion "What does it mean to be an anarchist student"
from the meeting of students from the anarchist / anti-authoritarian space "with great
participation from young comrades and comrades and special interest was held. At the same
time, fairy tales were narrated in the surrounding area for both young and old, "a
smattering of butterflies". It was followed by the event for women's fights in Greece and
Turkey, with contributions from the group against the Patriarchate of the AP and the
Anarchist Women from Turkey, which presented their organization and action. The evening
was completed with American labels from the Dudettes.
The second day, the festival began with two parallel events. One of the "Arodasmos"
anarchist student assembly on restructuring in education, the mobilizations that have been
taking place over the last 3 decades against educational reform and forms of organization
in schools. At the same time the event took place on the subject of "contemporary
totalitarianism, war, nationalism, fascism. Anarchist Movement for Social and Tax Helping
(Athens) and the Federation for the Anarchist Organization (Slovenia, Croatia), with the
participation of partners from the political assembly for social emancipation (Lesvos)
FAO. It followed the presentation of the book "mujeres libres, the free women in Spain.
Anarchism and struggle for female emancipation "by Martha Ackelsberg issued by Nautilus
Liberation Publications and by a comradeship proposal from the group against the
Patriarchate of the AP. At the same time, an event was held on "Self-organized
Battlegrounds as a point of reference for social and class resistance and the struggle for
the social revolution. The need for their political defense against the repressive state
and partisan methodologies "with the assassinations of Lelas Karagiannis 37 from Athens,
Libertatia and Mundo Nuevo from Thessaloniki, the anarcho-anti-authoritarian Steki"
Antiphenia "from Petralona and companions / Managed Social Steak Galatsi "Stegastro" and
with information from the FAO on the repressive approaches to squatting in Slovenia.
The third day began with the event of the destruction and plunder of nature by the state
and the capital. In addition to the suggestion of the AOC, placements and updates were
made for the struggle against the Acheloos deflection and dams and for the action of the
Independent Match Meeting, for the fight that began ten years later in Lefkimmi, Corfu
against the construction of landfills and for the struggle against the extraction of oil
in Epirus. This was followed by the very interesting event "State Suppression, Terrorists,
Emergency Situation. Police-judicial constructions and exemption regime for contestants.
Prisons as "people's warehouses", detention conditions and prisoners' struggles "with the
participation of G. Dimitrakis, T. Theophilos and the former detainee, B. Palli.
At the same time, it was informed by the presence of the group against the Patriarchate of
the APO at the 1st International Meeting of Rifle Women held in Chiapas, after a call by
the Zapatista women.
The political events of the festival ended with the presentation of the partners of the
Revolutionary Anarchist Action (DAF) by Turkey, with a detailed presentation of the
organization's structures and activities, as well as outlining the social reality in
Turkey after the establishment of the Emergency Situation, the invasion in Kurdish Africa
and the recent elections.
The festival was completed with a concert of financial support at the students' homes with
the participation of NO FAKE BONE, PENTHIMOS / CLOWN, EVENTS, I WANT THE MOON, CHANNELS.
We sincerely thank all our fellow contestants and comrades, comrades and comrades who have
responded to our call by submitting their struggle experiences to the three-day
discussions, artistic and musical shapes that favored the festival events, but also
everyone and everyone involved and the supported in their own way.
The struggle for the social revolution will continue. And he will win!
Anarchist Political Organization - Federation of Collectivities
http://apo.squathost.com
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Message: 4
This documentary has interviews with 30 anarchist participants in the Spanish revolution
alongside footage captured at that time.[Video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=I0XhRnJz8fU ---- "Living Utopia is a
unique documentary that blends the historical account of the origins and development of
the Spanish anarchist movement, focussing on the 1936 war. A reflection on the
philosophical underpinnings of such a movement and their practical application. As both an
informative and inspiring piece of research it is considered a jewel amongst historians
and rebel hearts. ---- This documentary-film by Juan Gamero consists of 30 interviews with
survivors of the 1936-1939 Spanish Revolution, and is one of the best documentaries
dealing with the theme. The testimony of the anarchist militants are very moving indeed,
and are showing the constructive work of the social revolution in Spain. This "Anarchy in
Action" meant: on the land around 7 million peasants form collectives, in the city 3000
workplaces collectivised, 150 000 join the anarchist militias to fight fascism, as well as
cultural activities and the movement of the Mujeres Libres to free the women from patriarchy.
Spanish with English subtitles"
https://wsm.ie/c/video-living-utopia-anarchists-spanish-revolution-interviews
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Message: 5
Saturday 14th July we checked out the Dublin appearance of Youtube snake oil salesman
Jordan Peterson. Peterson over the last couple of years has developed a sizable following
of angry young white men through Youtube videos consisting of incomprehensible lectures on
‘meaning' and, more disconcertingly, anti-trans, anti-feminist, and anti-leftist rants. We
expected it to attract many of the small fascist groups and those in orbit around them,
indeed there were even ‘Men's Rights Activists' leafleting outside it, presumably having
identified it as a recruiting ground for their poisonous misogyny. ---- Peterson was
speaking at a a public talk titled "Winning the War of Ideas" which took place in Dublin's
3Arena. The event featured internet personas Jordan Peterson (an eccentric and generally
unintelligible Canadian university professor, widely known for his campaigning against the
rights of trans people and rants on "the postmodern conspiracy destroying academia") and
Sam Harris - an American, self-declared ‘new-atheist' and proponent of islamophobia and US
imperialism. It was moderated by the English journalist Douglas Murray, another
islamophobe, vocal opponent of migration, and proponent of ‘European values' and Brexit.
(Readers unfamiliar with these speakers should be sure to read the accompanying article,
which discusses their backgrounds in more depth).
While the event was, in the end, reasonably well attended, low ticket sales in the days
before led organisers to reduce ticket prices from over €60 to €20.
On the morning of the event, Peterson was given a forty minute interview slot on Marian
Finucane's RTÉ Radio 1 show, on which he recited his usual titbit polemics about sea
creatures justifying hierarchy in human society, and legal protections for trans people
leading to Orwell's 1984. While most of his ludicrous claims went unchallenged by
Finucane, there was a highlight at the end of the interview where she read out messages
sent in by the general public, most of which called Peterson out as deranged, an
intellectual fraud, and general bigot.
The most revealing portion of the night was the first twenty minutes, when an open mic was
given to audience members to say which speaker they were there to see, and what their main
interests/concerns were. As I walked into the auditorium, a young American man was on the
microphone. Noting that the event was titled the War of Ideas, his question was when this
would translate into a real war, "like a civil war in the US". There were howls of
excitement from the crowd which was still filing in. Another young man wanted to hear a
discussion on "the decay of Europe, and how feminism has caused that" - more cheers. A
young woman who hoped the speakers would address feminism was met with booing; whether the
woman was feminist or anti-feminist, or whether the crowd were booing her or simply the
mention of the word feminism, was unclear.
Before the show began the atmosphere was one of tension and excitement. People who usually
consume these political ideas in isolation through Youtube were clearly encouraged by the
number of people in attendance. The references which most excited were those closest to
pure fascist talking points - protection of national identity from whatever "threat" we
feel like, anti-immigration, anti-queer politics, and general reactionary backlash against
the gains of progressive politics. As the speakers walked onto the stage, before saying a
word, they were greeted with a standing ovation.
When the talk began however, it became clear that it was not going to be the type of talk
the audience had envisaged. For the first hour, Harris and Peterson engaged in an
abstract, irrelevant and intellectually sterile discussion about the space between "facts
and values", which Harris stated was central to their "social project". The enthusiasm of
the audience visibly waned. Peterson's best efforts, which were spent attempting to
introduce some form of pseudo-religious "transcendentalism" or universal ethics to their
collective worldview, were almost effortlessly put down by Harris, who in fairness kept to
basic skepticism and rationality in this part of the discussion. In the toilets during the
event I overheard a young white man complain that the speakers "won't get on to talking
about the important stuff".
While the second portion of the show was supposed to be an audience Q&A, instead the
discussion continued. Perhaps an overly cynical view was that Peterson intentionally
veered it away from Q&A after hearing the blatantly far-right language of some audience
members (he had in the radio interview earlier that day, as he has done on other
occasions, claimed to have "nothing to do" with alt-right and other fascist politics). He
asked people who wanted a Q&A to shout first, then those who wanted the discussion to
continue to shout second. Predictably, the second won, in part because crowds will tend to
shout louder the second time, and partly because Peterson is a powerful orator and
communicator, and as a result people were so obviously in adoration of the speakers that
it seemed a compliment to ask them to continue what was at that point a draining, boring
discussion topic.
Eventually however, the speakers did get on to discussing more relevant political ideas.
When discussing borders Harris revealed his materialist conception of humanity, and
western-supremacist world-view claiming that, in the absence of international borders,
people would migrate to the West until standards of living were basically equalised
globally. A discussion of the role colonialism and modern imperialism played in preventing
development in these "less advanced" countries was absent. Peterson's contribution was
that lots of things are borders - "your skin is a border, towns are borders, cities are
borders". He did at least acknowledge that "we pay a bloody price for borders, and I say
those words very carefully[...]and it's often in the price of other people's blood". His
solution to this ethical problem was for each of us who are privileged by the border
regime to "live as effectively as you can". In essence - people are literally being
murdered for you, so make sure you get a good job and enjoy your salad.
When Harris introduced the point of alt-right and fascist politics intersecting with their
work, all three outrightly denied to have anything to do with fascism. Murray argued that
people are overly sensitive given past atrocities, and are on the lookout for fascists -
which has caused them to be unfairly targeted. Crucially, Murray followed by stating that
- being accused of popularising fascistic ideas is bad, but after a while, you seem to get
away with it. Peterson again denied any link to fascism stating that we know when the
right goes too far - they start talking about ethnic cleansing. He claims the rest of the
right's response is to box fascists in (demonstrably untrue throughout the history of
fascism). He followed with false equivalence, arguing that it's not as easy to identify
far-leftists, "and this is a real problem".
Except for some moments with problematic and racist comments (mainly from Harris and
Murray) and crack-pot religious references and biological determinism (mainly from
Peterson) the politics of the talk was generally limited to a relatively standard
centre-right type disc
https://wsm.ie/c/review-jordan-peterson-dublin-sam-harris
------------------------------
Message: 6
One thing that people who wield great power often fail to viscerally understand is what it
feels like to have power wielded against you. This imbalance is the source of many of the
most monstrous decisions that get made by powerful people and institutions. The people who
start the wars do not have bombs dropped on their houses. The people who pass the laws
that incarcerate others never have to face the full force of the prison system themselves.
The people who design the economic system that inflicts poverty on millions are themselves
rich. This sort of insulation from the real world consequences of political and economic
decisions makes it very easy for powerful people to approve of things happening to the
rest of us that they would never, ever tolerate themselves. No health insurance CEO would
watch his child die due to their inability to afford quality health care. No chickenhawk
Congressman will be commanding a tank battle in Iran. No opportunistic race-baiting
politician will be shunned because of their skin color. Zealots condemn gay people-except
for their own gay children. The weed-smoking of young immigrants should get them
deported-but our own weed-smoking was a youthful indiscretion. Environmentalist
celebrities fly on carbon-spouting private jets. Banks make ostentatious charity donations
while raking in billions from investments in defense contractors and gun manufacturers and
oil companies. This is human nature. It is very, very easy to do things that hurt others
as long as those same things benefit, rather than hurt, you. Self-justification is a
specialty of mankind.
A well-designed political system would have a built-in feedback system to ensure that
those making the decisions are also subject to the consequences of those decisions. Minor
versions of this are floated every now and then: Put Congress on Obamacare! Pay elected
officials what their average constituents earn! But in aggregate, of course, we have
nothing like this feedback mechanism in America. The titans of money congregate on Wall
Street and the titans of government congregate in DC and they all make decisions that
often disenfranchise and impoverish and frustrate the dreams of people far away, and then
they go to nice restaurants and go home to nice houses and have nice, well-paid careers
for decades to come. That is our system. There is little incentive for those who work
within that system to change it in a way that might create the sort of negative feedback
that can be unpleasant. Therefore it is the job of the public to do just that. Doing so
is, in fact, a public service. It promotes good government.
"With great power comes great responsibility." That is the basic idea underlying noblesse
oblige, and though noblesse oblige itself is not as good as equality, it looks fantastic
compared to what we have today. Today, we have an ignorant billionaire narcissist leading
our government, a man surrounded by a pack of enablers who by now have clearly
demonstrated that no amount of racism or xenophobia or lies or warmongering or outright
corruption will dissuade them from helping the boss do what the boss wants to do. Rather
than detail a laundry list of all the Trump outrages, I ask you simply to consider all of
the very real human costs that those outrages have already inflicted on human beings in
America and abroad. Some of those outrages, like ripping families apart at the border,
show their costs immediately; others, like eschewing the fight against climate change and
neutering the EPA and mainstreaming white nationalist ideas, will be manifesting their
costs for many decades to come. But the costs are real. We are the ones who are suffering
and will suffer them. By and large, the people responsible for these decisions will be
wealthy and famous and powerful enough to insulate themselves from those costs. Unless we
decide to see to it that they must face them.
It is telling that many of those who make their living in the political industrial
complex, whether Democrat or Republican or Washington Post editorial page, find the idea
of socially shunning people because of their politics to be abhorrent. Their shudders are
a symptom of the fact that DC is indeed a swamp-a friendly swamp, where all the gators and
slugs and mudfish meet up at the end of the day for cocktails, because to them, politics
is a job. To the rest of us, politics is the use of power in a way that has very real
effects on our lives. Poverty is an affliction of history and the failure to remedy
history's crimes, of greed and self-dealing and the tax code. Sickness is often an
affliction of the political decision not to build a fair and equitable health care system,
so that a small number of people can get rich instead. Tens of millions of people around
the world suffer under dictatorships that are supported by America to serve our own
economic ends. People die because of political decisions every day. Politics is real. This
is what is on one side of our current disagreement: death, and human rights, and freedom,
and equality. And this is what is on the other side: wanting to eat at a nice restaurant
without having anyone remind you that you are ruining people's lives. The sides of this
scale are not even close to balancing yet.
This is all going to get more extreme. And it should. We are living in extreme times. The
harm that is being done to all of us by the people in the American government is extreme.
To imagine that Mexican immigrants should happily cook for and serve meals to people who
enable a man who is determined to demonize and persecute them as subhuman criminals is far
more outrageous than the idea that those enablers should not be served in restaurants. I
do not believe that Trump administration officials should be able to live their lives in
peace and affluence while they inflict serious harms on large portions of the American
population. Not being able to go to restaurants and attend parties and be celebrated is
just the minimum baseline here. These people, who are pushing America merrily down the
road to fascism and white nationalism, are delusional if they do not think that the
backlash is going to get much worse. Wait until the recession comes. Wait until Trump
starts a war. Wait until the racism this administration is stoking begins to explode into
violence more frequently. Read a fucking history book. Read a recent history book. The
U.S. had thousands of domestic bombings per year in the early 1970s. This is what happens
when citizens decide en masse that their political system is corrupt, racist, and
unresponsive. The people out of power have only just begun to flex their dissatisfaction.
The day will come, sooner that you all think, when Trump administration officials will
look back fondly on the time when all they had to worry about was getting hollered at at a
Mexican restaurant. When you aggressively fuck with people's lives, you should not be
surprised when they decide to fuck with yours.
Stop working for this man. Stop enabling him. Stop assisting him. Start fighting him. The
people who are responsible for what is happening are not going to get out of this with
their happy wealthy respectable lives unscathed. This is a country that locks poor people
in cages for decades for trying to make $20. This is a country that is "tough on crime."
Remember? And the ones who make the laws are not going to like what happens when America
starts to regard them as the criminals.
by Hamilton Nolan
https://splinternews.com/this-is-just-the-beginning-1827099100
https://pramen.io/en/2018/07/this-is-just-the-beginning/
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