Winter Patriot Community Blog

Election Day approaches, with all the appeal of a multi-train collision.

You can read the rest here or comment below.

All systems of government redistribute wealth. It's inevitable. Every piece of legislation pertaining to tax law -- or any other aspect of the economy -- steals money from somebody and gives it to somebody else. What matters is the direction in which the money flows.

You can read the rest here, or comment below.

In his essay, The Work of Local Culture, poet and rustic sage Wendell Berry famously wrote of a steel bucket that used to hang from a fencepost on his Kentucky farm:

"I never go by it without stopping to look inside," Berry wrote. "For what is going on in that bucket is the most momentous thing I know, the greatest miracle that I have ever heard of: it is making earth. The old bucket has hung there through many autumns, and the leaves have fallen around it and some have fallen into it. Rain and snow have fallen into it, and the fallen leaves have held the moisture and so have rotted. Nuts have fallen into it, or been carried into it by squirrels; mice and squirrels have eaten the meat of the nuts and left the shells; they and other animals have left their droppings; insects have flown into the bucket and died and decayed; birds have scratched in it and left their droppings or perhaps a feather or two. This slow work of growth and death, gravity and decay, which is the chief work of the world, has by now produced in the bottom of the bucket several inches of black humus. I look into that bucket with fascination because I am a farmer of sorts and an artist of sorts, and I recognize there an artistry and a farming far superior to mine, or to that of any human. I have seen the same process at work on the tops of boulders in a forest, and it has been at work immemorially over most of the land-surface of the world. All creatures die into it, and they live by it."

Berry's recognition of "an artistry and a farming far superior . . . to that of any human" at work inside his bucket is, of course, homely recognition of the fact that the universe doesn't need people. The universe got along fine before humans appeared. The universe will get along fine when humans disappear.

Prehistoric Meteorites

Scientists today know that Earth and her ecosystem were shaped in part by a series of meteor strikes. Geological evidence shows, for example, that 65 million years ago a meteor some 10 kilometers in diameter roared down from the heavens and struck Earth near what is now the town of Puerto Chicxulub, on the Yucatan Peninsula. The giant rock exploded upon impact, leaving a crater roughly 180 kilometers in diameter. The explosion filled the atmosphere with clouds of gas and debris that blocked the sun’s light for years. The long darkness caused immediate and catastrophic global climate changes, of which one result was the extinction of the dinosaurs.

About 74 million years ago, some 10 million years before the Yucatan apocalypse, a similar disaster occurred near what is now the town of Manson, in northwest Iowa. The impact and explosion of the Manson Meteorite, as it is called, left a crater 35 kilometers wide. The Manson Crater is 23rd largest of the 172 meteoric craters known to exist on Earth. Basing their calculations on evidence such as the size and depth of the crater and damage to the surrounding terrain, scientists believe that the Manson Meteorite was about 2.5 kilometers in diameter and was traveling at about 56,000 mph when it hit the ground.

Though human history is filled with wars and floods and plagues and famines and volcanos and earthquakes, neither our written records nor our folklore recall cosmic calamities like those at Manson and Chicxulub. The heavens thus far have refused to rain annihilation upon man. Of ancient craters like those at Chicxulub and Manson, no part is now visible. Scientists know those craters exist and can map their extent thanks to evidence from drill cores, from seismic instruments, and from other scientific and technological resources.

Meteorites in Iowa History

Though hundreds of small meteors enter our atmosphere daily, most all of them burn up before they reach the ground. Evidence of their burning, particles of ash sometimes called cosmic dust, perpetually drifts down from the sky.

Some of that dust surely falls into places such as Wendell Berry’s bucket and contributes in some way to the process at work there, though neither Berry nor anyone else could actually see it. The 'stardust' that rains upon us is invisible to the naked eye and can only be detected using special tools and techniques.

The nightly display of 'shooting stars' is all most folks ever see of rocks from outer space. For a meteor to actually strike the ground (only meteors that hit the ground are called meteorites) is an extremely rare occurrence. Some of those lucky enough to witness such an event may be superstitious and attach ominous import to what they have seen. Others may not know what they’re seeing and mistake it for something else entirely.

So it was when, at about 2:50 p.m. on February 25, 1847, a meteor streaked fire and smoke across the sky and exploded over Linn County, Iowa. Pieces of the thing showered down on a strip of wooded land near the Cedar River, from Hooshier Grove (now the town of Ely) to a spot two or three miles south of the village of Bertram.

Published accounts agree that “The attention of people in that region was arrested by a rumbling noise as of distant thunder; then three reports were heard one after another in quick succession, like the blasting of rocks or the firing of a heavy cannon. . . . These were succeeded by several fainter reports, like the firing of small arms in platoons. Then there was a whizzing sound heard in different directions, as of bullets passing through the air.” (a)

The explosions were so loud that they caused alarm in Iowa City, 22 miles away. (b) Judge James Cavanagh and two of his sons were cutting wood along the Cedar River some way south of the impact area. When they heard the heavy explosions and saw puffs of dark smoke in the northwestern sky, the Cavanaghs and other witnesses thought the town of Marion had been blown off the map. (c)

Perhaps because Marion was then the Linn County seat and the largest town in the area, or perhaps because early reports told of a single strike in Linn County about nine miles south of Marion, meteoric stones recovered by Linn County residents in the days and weeks after the 1847 strike are known to science and to history as fragments of the Marion Meteorite. It is estimated that between 46 and 75 pounds of the Marion Meteorite were recovered in all, and it is likely that more of it remains to be found. Of that which was recovered, Amherst College got two pieces weighing roughly 20 pounds each. A museum in Tubingen, Germany, got a fragment weighing about a pound, and Chicago’s Field Museum houses two smaller pieces. In 1977 Amherst College lent one of its two fragments back to the State University of Iowa, where it remains on display. (d)

The Marion Meteorite was the first meteor strike in the recorded history of Iowa. It was also the first of several that awed and sometimes terrified Iowans in the latter half of the 19th Century: At 10:20 p.m. on Feb. 12, 1875, residents of Iowa County saw an enormous fireball come screeching out of the southeast and blast itself to bits in the sky just west of Homestead. People saw the flash and heard the detonation at a distance of 150 miles. It scattered pieces of rock over some 20 square miles. Another big rock smashed to earth near Estherville (Emmet County) at 5:15 p.m. on May 10, 1879, and still another struck near Forest City (Winnebago County) on May 2, 1890. (e)

The Estherville strike was the biggest of the four. (f) One recovered boulder reportedly weighed 431 pounds. Several others near that size were found, along with hundreds of smaller fragments. The rock’s spectacular explosion caused a dust cloud several cubic miles in volume, according to watchers’ estimates. (g)

In the 20th Century, too, Iowans experienced several meteorites: On a bitter cold night in November 1916, watchers saw a meteor explode in the sky near the town of Mapleton (Monona County). ( Another 'detonating meteor' (sic) was seen in the sky west of Alta (Buena Vista County), at 9:55 p.m., on May 31, 1917. A 108-pound meteorite believed to have come from one of those two explosions was recovered in 1939 from a cornfield east of Mapleton. (i)

The continuous rain of meteorites globally should remind us all that Wendel Berry is right: planet Earth is a sort of bucket hanging on a fence post in the cosmos. The soil, the land, the plants and animals, the people that shelter in the bucket, the moon, the stars, the universe itself are parts of a living process that goes on apace, within and all about us. When any person claims to 'own' a piece of that process, he or she is deluded. To believe we can control it is the utmost folly.

Control issues aside, some Iowans believe they can taste stardust in cornbread. Details at eleven.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

a) Rev. Reuben Gaylord in a letter to Prof. Charles Upham Shepard of Amherst College, qtd. in Ben Hur Wilson, “The Marion Meteor,” The Palimpsest 39, n. 4, April 1958, 186.

b) C.W. Irish, qtd. in Wilson, The Palimpsest 39, 188.

c) Judge James Cavanagh to C.W. Irish, qtd. in Wilson, The Palimpsest 39, 187.

d) Wilson, The Palimpsest 39, 185.

e) “Looked Like the Face of Moon Had Fallen Off,” The Cedar Rapids Gazette, 16 July 1967, 5-B.

f) Ibid.

g) Otto Knauth, “Recall Days When Sky Rained Stones on Iowa,” The Des Moines Register, 24 April 1967, 3.

Ben Hur Wilson, “The Mapleton Meteor,” The Palimpsest 39, n. 4, April 1958, 197-206. For whatever reason, the incident caused so little stir at the time that witnesses were later unsure of the exact date of its occurrence.

i) Ibid. 197.

Dear Sir,

I have received your most recent, and looked it over, briefy.

Unfortunately it seems to contain a number of facts which contradict my opinions.

Therefore, I shall be unable to pay it any further attention.

Please consider yourself dismissed.

~~~

You can read the rest here or comment below.

Bushist neocon Stephen Harper and his so-called "Conservative" Party emerged from Canada's federal election Tuesday with another minority government, but in a stronger position than before the election. A record number of Canadians slept through the festivities.

You can read the rest here or comment below.

In "A Bill That Can Never Be Paid," WP asks how come the American people don't rise up in anger. It's because they can't imagine what's coming down on them. They think this isn't going to be any worse than, say, the S&L screwing they took during the '80s.

Then there's the fact that the Reagan Revolution is now thirty years old. Those of us over 30 years of age are living with an entire generation that, collectively, have no memory of the world that was before Reagan. So far as they're concerned, we haven't lost a thing and they don't yet understand what we older folks are all upset about.

Reaganism, so far as I can tell, has succeeded beyond even Rappin' Ron's wildest hopes. Between GOP liars, talk-radio hate merchants, and free-market mythology, the political landscape is changed so that electing liberals is impossible. Democrats have been forced so far to the Right that the two parties are now effectively one and that one is Reaganite conservative. Politicians no longer squabble over ideology. They squabble over loot.

Beyond the fact that the population now has less money and less leisure than they formerly had, changes to date have had little to no impact on the overwhelming majority. They are hunkered down around their television sets, hoping things are already as bad as things can get and waiting for the "all clear" to sound. Having never heard of noblesse-oblige, having no memory of the Great Depression, having no recollection of responsible, accountable leadership or of constitutional government, and having had no PERSONAL experience of third-world poverty and police-state brutality, they lack any frame of reference.

Many older Americans know what is coming and fear it. They are preparing for it now. The rest of the country, totally unprepared, will be aroused when it finally gets here (in a few more weeks or months).

Younger Americans will be told by their masters that it's all the fault of the aged, the sick, the disabled. It is the aged and the sick and the disabled, after all, who draw the bulk of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other so-called entitlements. We will be the Jews of the New Reich that is howling down upon us. Our personal destruction, the theft of our property, the consumption of our goods will consume the energy of the mob for several years. By that time, the government will have work for them in the armed forces.

Those with eyes to see now know where this is going. Those who don't see are those who will help do the killing. I've said enough.

J.M.

« Principles » and exceptions, III : The evils of censorship

In part II, last Thursday, I went a little further on the idea that principles never have any exception, and that most people don’t get that. I then considered the principle of freedom of speech, so beloved in these parts of the Earth, and using Philippe Val’s case, I proved it was all bullshit. [Philippe Val has used freedom of speech as a principle to defend his publications of the Mohammed caricatures, during his trial; but then rejected it months later, as a matter of logic, when he fired one of his cartoonists, Siné, from the satirist paper, Charlie-Hebdo.] I concluded by saying that we did not live in countries with freedom of speech, but, rather, in countries with control of speech. This control has terrible consequences. I wanna talk about some of these consequences today.

You'll have noticed the title does not use the word control, but censorship, a much stronger term. If it is true that not all discourse is checked and authorized by the State, as it was during the French monarchy, or during the 3rd Republic, there are still today some that are not tolerated. This brings me to quote one of the most interesting declaration from George Carlin: “As far as rights are concerned, I believe one of two things is true: either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all.”

I do not want to explain that point here. Watch the video and you’ll understand. The simple idea that a principle cannot admit exceptions without being destroyed overtime gives you the solution to this apparently enigmatic statement. The point is that the control of discourse by the State wields the same gravity, regardless of the specific degree of control, loose or tight.

To repeat what I said the other day, people do not believe in freedom of speech. They do not think freedom is something to wish for, when it comes to racists, nazis and antisemites. They’ll want freedom for themselves, but not the others. Or, for the others, but certain others. Those whose freedom they can accept, with a stretch of good will. In this way, the actual nature of their position is obvious: far from acting on principle, they believe in an arbitrary list of authorizations and interdictions, and they will choose who belongs where.

It might be a good idea to mention some of those who oppose censorship, all censorship, and who claim to defend civil liberties. Their main, and pathetic, argument is deduced from the famous quote from Matthew: “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged.” Another one is: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” How cute. Thusly, censorship, and any anti-liberty measure, is not considered as a profoundly evil and dangerous measure, but rather as a tool that might turn against you, some day in the unforeseeable future. And you certainly don't want to be censored yourself, do you?

I will now try to describe some consequences. The first of them is the censored becoming defenseless. Censorship puts an interdiction on certain ideologies.

At this point, let us use, for the rest of the post, the case of racism, against which most think censorship is okay, and even required.

Censorship thus says that racism is intolerable, and all racist speeches, writings, and so on, are to be erased from public view. But this does not stop there. For the citizens in turn create an interdiction on their own thinking. You cannot think about it, reflect on it, and don’t even start believing, oh boy. Racism is bad, mkay ?

So what is the problem ? To begin with, and from a strictly pratical point of view, is this interdiction going to mean the disappearance of racist thoughts in people’s minds ? No. Racism will remain, and logically, racists too. Racists cannot use the usual means of communication. Will they stop being racists ? Another no. They will simply use other, less visible methods. They will, for instance, create websites hosted on foreign servers, against which the police won’t have the authority to intervene. I think there are still many ways to communicate, aside from that. Generally, censorship does not remove that which is censored. You all know that.

The citizens becoming defenseless, on the other hand, comes from the fact that racism is not recognized and condemned according to simple and solid principles. Racism is taken as a whole, and labeled intolerable. One does not enter the dark, shaky house anymore, and therefore one does not recognize the weak points, the falsehoods. One stays well outside, and reads the “Racist” card planted in front, mostly because the owner is proud of it. Then, one gets indignant and does "Oh !"s and "Booo!"s.

If you watch TV, then you know that at no time we are told why racism is “bad”. We’re just told it is. It’s the only message. No principles, nothing. We suppress words like nigger, but the principles that would truly protect us are never given.

As a consequence, far from arming citizens against it, censorship deprives them of munitions by logically depriving them of confrontations with racism, confrontations that would render the understanding of its errors necessary. Remember, one has to consider the possibility that racists could be right, in order to truly understand what is wrong with them. Just standing outside and doing “booos” won’t do the trick. Furthermore, racism itself, even though it “disappears” from sight, still exists, under sane appearances. With the use of censorship, you get the impression you have vanquished a terrible evil, until the day it comes back, more untouchable than ever. The rise of the National Front, and other extremist groups around the continent, sticks with this view perfectly.

Another consequence, even more terrible and underground, is the modification of an important part of the racists. Several persons I've known and met, some in real life, some on the internet, whom I know are far-right, have told me they actually cared about the Republic and that they were not racists or fascists, even as their positions spelled the contrary. One could also quote the Minister of Immigration and National Identity (!), who said he would implement his policy “with humanity.” And later, that the Left “did not have the monopoly of the heart.” I know many will say it was simply hypocrisy and I should not focus on this.

But I would like you to consider the contrary. Consider the possibility that censorship is so efficient and pervasive that even racists have integrated it, and more importantly, bypassed it. I deeply believe this is the case. And now witness the terrible situation we’re all in, all this due to censorship: the various populations are unable to recognize racism; and racists themselves sincerely believe they are not racist. This is really something I’ve been witnessing: more and more acts of open racism, and no condemnations, except when said acts are symbolic. But most of the time, people offer excuses.

At this point, I have nothing more to say. I plan to describe more examples of pseudo-principles –or as I call them, list-principles- in the future, but solely on my blog (the French one). I would certainly welcome other examples of list-principles in the comments.

OK I had to tweak the config options, if you select 'Input format' (at the bottom of the comment window) and set it to Full HTML you can then post youtubes...

I have been busy scaring the the crap out of myself today. So I thought I would share. Not that any of this is news to readers of WP's blog...

Video: Martial Law. US Army prepares to invade the US
"The plans to implement martial law in America have been taking shape for decades, hidden behind "Continuity of Government" contingency planning. Now, with public outcry over the banker bailout bill at fever pitch, all of the pieces are in place for the U.S. Army to start policing American citizens."

Starting at 5:27 min into the video:
If marshal law were enacted in the US a Clergy Response Team would be used. In many cases the clergy would already be known in the neighbourhoods where they would be "helping to quell fears and ease dissent". According to CBS they already helped to accomplish this in Katrina. One of the "biggest tools at their disposal" is Romans 13. A cleric they interviewed says it means "the government is established by the lord". It also says other scary stuff such as "rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil... [they are] the minister of God to thee for good...[they are] a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil" (like, for instance, those 'evil doer' government dissenters).

Has Sarah Palin Been Picked as the Titular Head of the Coming Police State? -by Naomi Klein ... I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites (”the heart of America is on display”) and realized Bush’s speechwriters were writing her — not McCain’s — speeches. I heard her tell George Bush’s lies — not McCain’s — to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners — this is Rove-Cheney’s enthusiastic S and M, not McCain’s, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit — but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.

I went to John McCain's official website after reading this article by Klein and interestingly, the first thing you see is a video of Sarah Palin welcoming you to the website. I thought that was strange but then I don't frequent presidential campaign websites.

Death Becomes Her: Let's Make Her President -by Jason Miller ... As is befitting of a huntress extraordinaire, Palin provides an endless supply of red meat for the benighted, socially conservative American masses to devour with the ferocity of the hungry wolves she loves to annihilate: - Life begins at conception. - No abortion (including in rape and incest cases) unless it is necessary to save the life of the mother. - Abstinence only. - Our war crimes and genocide in Iraq are God’s will. - Cut government spending on socially beneficial programs but keep underwriting the squatters in Palestine and pumping obscene amounts of cash into our murderous military machine. - Islamic extremists are “hell bent on destroying our nation.” - Russia invaded Georgia “unprovoked” and war with the Russians is a viable option. - Israel would be justified in launching a nuclear strike against Iran to preserve its “security.” - US military incursions into sovereign nations like Pakistan are necessary and permissible. - Shooting any non-human animal that moves, asking questions later, devouring their flesh in a delectable stew, wearing their skins and furs, and mounting their heads on our walls as macabre “trophies” are our - God-given rights as red-blooded Americans. The Alaskan wilderness, over which she presides, is a repository for OUR precious oil and we must “drill, baby, drill,” regardless of how many species we drive to extinction and how much damage we do to the environment. She is so rife with idiocy, devotion to “normalized violence,” and a river of venom that froths and seethes under her guise of “Christian compassion” that it is virtually impossible to pinpoint her most loathsome and dangerous trait. However, her zealous adherence to Western culture’s paradigm of dominionism, meaning dominion over the environment and nonhuman animals, demonstrates and encapsulates most of Sarah Palin’s myriad sociopathic tendencies that readily qualify her to occupy the Oval Office.

Stephen Harper copies Australian Prime Minister John Howard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8YwJC_nBgw
In 2003, Stephen Harper and Australian Prime Minister John Howard deliver largely identical speeches urging their nations to join George W. Bush's Coalition of the Willing to go to war with Iraq.

I can't say I am surprised but it is rather astounding to watch this blatant example of Bush's war propaganda machine in action.
I wonder who wrote this speech?

Yesterday, Chris Floyd posted one of his best pieces ever. It's called "The Wounded Shark: 'Good War' Lost, But the Imperial Project Goes On" and you must read the entire piece, if you haven't already done so. I can wait.

I respect and admire Chris Floyd's analysis -- especially in this case -- but I've also been having some mildly interesting thoughts of my own, about a few of the issues he touched on, and therefore I offer the following excerpts from his post, with extended comments.

I don't think I'm saying anything Chris hasn't already figured out. I think I'm saying things that he couldn't fit into his piece, which was already huge -- and brilliant! And therefore this commentary is not meant as a critique but rather as a companion piece to "The Wounded Shark".

You can read Chris Floyd's "The Wounded Shark" here ... and/or read my piece, "A Formula For Endless War" here ... and/or comment below:

Judgement? Experience? Humbug! I'm talking about the essential skills now, and Sarah Palin has what it takes. She'd be perfect as Vice President. She'd be even better as President.

You can read more here, or comment below.

A warning to all: this will be a very long and very amateur philosophish look at the crisis. And also, an attempt to defend the libertarian view, which I know WP, and probably lots of you guys, dislike very much (to say the least). But then we all believe in the virtue of freedom of speech, right? That virtue is contained in the guy who will totally shame me to death, should I say something that is demonstrably inaccurate. I trust that you won’t spare me.

This post is also published in French on my blog. I like the title because deception is what we call a “faux-ami”, a fake friend. Although this word exists in both the French and English language, the meaning is different. But you wouldn’t know on first sight, and so it happens that guys like me trust these fake friends, who then turn out to be traitors.

1. Double-meaning

The title, though, happens to be accurate in both cases: there is indeed a deception in America, as in, something is hidden. And there is a déception in France, as in, the reaction of the left is very disappointing. By left, I mean those people that I consider to be pretty well informed and pretty much anti-capitalist, and certainly not your average Democrat.

The deception has been adressed by many of our favorite bloggers, including of course WP himself just Tuesday. And there was Arthur Silber before him; and there was also Chris Floyd; and probably a host of other bloggers. There’s one passage I want to quote quickly, from one of Whitney’s excellent articles on Counter Punch (and my thanks to Arthur for bringing it up).

Market Ticker’s Karl Denninger has this to say:
The Fed claims to be an ‘independent central bank.’ They are nothing of the kind; they are now acting as an arsonist. The Fed and Treasury have claimed this is a ‘liquidity crisis’; it is not. It is an insolvency crisis that The Fed, Treasury and the other regulatory organs of our government have intentionally allowed to occur.

This is only part of the deception, although probably the biggest part of it. There are obviously other lies. And I won’t take the time to list them, since all the bloggers mentioned above have done so very well. Just one simple point from Sheldon Richman:
The biggest lie there is not financial but political. Even if there are gains, they will not go to the taxpayers but rather to the government. For some strange reason, this distinction is lost on virtually everyone, especially the news media.

The déception-disappointment in France comes in the form of a double irony. Just like some Republicans have rejected the plan in the name of non-interventionism (Ha ha ha), the French left (or what I’ve seen of it until now) is unanimous in its glee over the idea that the system has failed. It is their revenge on neoliberalism. Nevertheless, Socialists do support the bailout plan, for a short-term solution. (Ha ha ha ha) With, you guessed it, regulations to take care of the long-term problem. Uh? You might say. Well, of course. We need “to save the economy.” And put a stop to this crazy unfettered capitalism. This last part can be found many times over in the discussions I’ve seen. So here you have the French left, doing what big business wants, so they can screw big business really hard.

2. There is no ‘market’

Before I launch into my own view and comments, I want to emphasize that I come from a communist household. Therefore, the idea of the self-regulating free market sounded just as crazy to me as it probably does to you now. I think the terms “self-regulating” and “invisible hand” are totally inappropriate, to advocate for something like the free market.

With these, you get a feel that the market is a being that knows better and that will “correct himself” according to the situation that arises. Taken thusly, you don’t even need to know what happened in Chile to guess the actual and very real preference of neoliberals for big money players. No matter what those big corporations do, it’s ok. The market will correct himself. Let them do what they want, it’s natural baby. Alas for us, there is no such thing as a market that knows best. The market has no existence. It is not a being.

Actions have consequences and everything that goes up falls down. I believe this is all they mean, when they talk about an invisible hand guiding stuff. By the way, when are people going to make the connection between this very expression and Christianity? Actions have consequences, and wrongdoing brings down evildoers. Sure. I suppose if I lay off thousands of innocent people, so I can get richer, and they don’t have any means to protest, it’s going to have an impact on the market. The market will be fine. Have no worries. Big deal huh ?

Now, I know neolibs are big on imposing themselves on others. I am familiar with the neoliberals’ reverence for numbers and theories, a reverence that trumps up their perception of the reality of the situation. While I used to study mathematics (I got a bachelor’s degree), I know next to nothing about economics. But this doesn’t matter anyway. Whatever the situation of the Chilean economy is now, and no matter whether these guys’ calculations were correct or not, the evil of their deeds came in the form of sacrificing people’s lives and livelihoods, for a good that only they saw coming, and that they decided alone to go get. Again, at the expense of other human beings. And they turned out to be wrong; the economy didn’t bounce back quickly. “It’s for their own good.” Those familiar with Arthur Silber know that sentence and its worldwide consequences.

While neoliberals will never say they are anti-workers, you must not believe them. I’m pretty sure that nowhere in the neoliberal ideology there is anti-worker hatred in plain words, and it does not matter. Remember the Founding Fathers were slaveholders. Watch this video with George Carlin.

3. No hypocrisy

This brings me to my next point: there is no such thing as hypocrisy, and the way we are educated to treat each other precedes any ideological drive by far. Arthur explained this, on Monday from last week:
I plan to analyze many aspects of the mechanisms of manipulation, control and coercion in my series on tribalism. These mechanisms will be found in social networks, in political organizations, and -- most importantly, for this is the ultimate origin of all the rest -- in the family. And it is, in fact, in these other forms of order that many of the State's enforcement mechanisms find their start.

A quick note to say this is a series I’ve been dying to read for months.

Let’s return to what I was saying, and the Founding Fathers, who said in the Declaration of Independence, all the while holding slaves, that all men are created free and equal. Most people, like Carlin, would say that the Founding Fathers were therefore hypocrites. This is not true. [Besides, Carlin said this then, but later on, he will say “Hey it was the 18th century. What did you expect?”] They were perfectly honest, when they wrote that declaration. People think coherence is natural. No. Coherence is something for which you must work, it is something you attain. Incoherence is the natural state of your opinions and actions. You must sort them out yourself, and check your beliefs against the facts.

I say the Founding Fathers were not hypocrites, but rather, the way they were educated to treat other human beings (in particular, human beings with a black skin) prevailed by far over what they thought and wrote, on the philosophical level. This is why Arthur says that everything goes back to the family. A communist (but alas, homophobic) rapper, Immortal Technique, also says in Caught in a Hustle that “the mind of a child is where the revolution begins.” The way you are educated and treated by your parents is what matters.

[The same rapper has other lines that I like. From the song Dominant Species: “In a hundred years from now, everyone who’s living on this planet will be dead. So it’s inconsequential really, all the shit that you talk, all the bullshit that you stand for. It’s more important really, what you’re ready to build, what you’re ready to create, what you’re ready to pass down to your children.” And from the song Poverty of Philosophy: “My enemy is the white man I don’t see.”]

4. A personal digression

When the neoliberals had Chile under a military dictatorship, so as to impose their own petty ideology, they couldn’t care less about the people of Chile. They simply did not care. They did not consider them as equals, or as worthy of consideration, care, humanity. While I am a libertarian now, and I was a communist before, I could never have done anything like this to anyone, not then, and not now. It wouldn’t even have occurred to me that I had the right to even make them slightly hurt.

When I say I’m living with communist parents, most people ask me “Are you alright?” It seems Staline has forever carved the stereotype of the blunt and sadist, communist and mustachoed father in the minds of the entire world population. I am alright. My father is the nicest guy on Earth, except with homeless people, whom he can’t stand for political reasons (which are basically: why don’t they join the party, attend demonstrations, they’re living like shit and they won’t do a thing).

Thankfully, the way he treated me and my brothers has turned us into normal human beings, who care and worry about others. It’s actually embarassing, cause me and my brothers are often like “Okay, is this what you want? _ No no, do as you want. _ No, you! ” Another situation that’s kinda funny, is when I listen to loud death metal, and my father comes to me and says “You know… you can raise the volume, it’s fine, don’t worry about us. _ No no, it’s fine too.” Very very kind we are. It’s like a competition of kindness every day. Of course, it does not mean there are no tensions and conflicts. There are, and some arise out of this very humanity.

For instance, my mom is a refugee activist, and she just hates cops. Can’t stand them and regularly calls them f------s. (Don't want to risk another ruinous trial. You know what she calls them.) She actually wanders the streets with a camera, shoots pictures and basically works as some kind of Cop Watch representative. You can see her work on this website (in French) and here is an example. Alas, it seems she is infected with dualism, in the way that Arthur explained here. Well, because we are very very nice, we don’t hate cops and my brothers are regularly defending them. After which, there are more cries of “f--s!”, but hurled at the persons inside the house, just before the door is loudly closed.

Nevertheless, as much as she hates them, as much as she sometimes hates us for not being as virulently anti-cops as she is (I said sometimes, we're cool most of the time), and I do think they are f-----s, none of us would or could seriously think to hurt them.

5. They cannot care

But the elites could. The elites have sacrificed people in Chile, and in most countries around the planet. The elites think of us as cannon fodder. Remember this is not on the ideological level, ideology is only the surface, contrary to what people think. If you ask them, we are equal. They think they arrived where they are mostly by working. They think they deserve it. And if bad comes to worse, they’ll make stuff up about how special they are. This is the myth they hold on to, because, I think, they need to have a good conscience. That’s my interpretation, I might be wrong. I haven’t diagnosed them as a psychiatrist.

But what they say and think does not matter. What matters is how they were educated. Remember: the mind of a child is where the revolution begins. It is also where it is killed. The very fact that they are born and/or live in immense wealth influences the way they treat others who are not, and by far, as wealthy. They literally live in a world of their own, far apart from the rest of the population. Their way of life determines their way of behaving towards others, and it does so a hundred times more effectively than any Marxism course you can take.

This idea that life, in a sense, determines you is also adressed by Immortal Technique, when he attacks rappers who compromise themselves:
Niggers talk about change, and work within the system to achieve that. The problem with always being a conformist is that when you try to change the system from within, it’s not you who changes the system; it’s the system that will eventually change you. There is usually nothing wrong with compromising a situation, but compromising yourself in a situation is another story completely. And I’ve seen this happen long enough, to know that this is a serious problem.

I could offer many other anecdotes of people who changed because they changed their lives. It’s a very obvious point and everyone knows about it. So I’ll draw the obvious conclusion: elites can never care about us, because of the way they live, because of the way they are educated, growing, living with, and behaving according to lies and myths they have to create in order to sustain/justify themselves and their lives of immense wealth. Ask yourself this: could you have this kind of wealth, and act normally towards others ? No. If you cared about them, you would question this very discrepancy, you would give up this wealth and power.

6. Freedom or equality?

When I still considered myself a communist, I was always battling with this question. Which to choose? This is a very dangerous question and the implication is just as dangerous: there cannot be both freedom and equality. This is most probably drawn from the Soviet experiment. Most people will say that someday in Russia, the peasants decided to take power, and to impose equality. Thus, freedom was banished.

Therefore, and in the very usual tradition of dualism that Arthur talks about, we must not look forward to equality. Equality is wrong. It is, as that Reverend Republican candidate guy said, an idea that comes from Hell. Equality is un-natural.

While I agree that complete equality between each and every human being, on every level, let’s say on the salary, the size of your house, the number of children, etc. is absolutely impossible and crazy, I would still point to one huge flaw in the simplified analysis of the USSR debacle: there was no such thing as equality. This was the stated aim of the all-powerful state.

But what is a state, and how does it operate? It has laws, and enforces those laws on everyone, by use of deadly force if necessary. Although today people are no more killed for not paying taxes, but rather, for doing innocent stuff like: being agitated in an airport terminal. Another characteristic of the state is it does not tolerate any force other than its own. In order to apply those laws, or collect those taxes, the state must be able to enforce those on everyone, by force. If any kind of meaningful and lasting resistance arises, it will be crushed, by necessity.

The very existence of the state therefore implies a cruel inequality of power, between the masses of people, who are ruled, and the small group (at least, in comparison) who rules them. Overtime, this kind of power gives birth to a select group. And this elite, as I said, will not care, by virtue of its very way of life.

Freedom and equality are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other.

7. A “free” market

If you ever visit libertarian blogs, from real libertarians I mean, then you have stumbled onto this many times already. They will complain that the market is not free, there is still a Federal Reserve, and there is still government intervention in the market, etc. This remark is often given when neoliberals talk about defending the free market principles against the interventionism of liberals.

But even there, they are still wrong. There would not be such a thing as a “free” market, even in the absence of any government intervention. For the same reason Europe’s colonialism has nothing to do with free trade. For the same reason there cannot be equality in a population, while a state rules them all. For the same reason it is useless to talk about freedom of and from religion when the majority of the population is Christian, and a still bigger, almost unanimous majority of the same group, populates the government. For the same reason it is ridiculous to talk about international law when there are super powers with large armies and nukes.

Here’s some context: most of the wealth and power is concentrated in a few hands. The point of contention, therefore, is this: will the absence of protection by the government eliminate the concentration of power and wealth? It is this protection libertarians say actually made the concentration possible in the first place. Will we come to live among a truly free market, that is, a market without concentration, without monopoly, without subordination of democracy to the interests of the few, all this simply by enacting non-interventionism?

I cannot tell for sure, but my communist gut tells me NO. This has to be done. Just doing away with the state will not make the elites go away. We need to destroy the very concept of the elites. And this is the idea that somehow, some people actually are worthy of the millions they’re earning through the work of others. The idea that somehow, some people just can decide for the fate of their company's workers, whether it is through massive layoffs or simply by deciding what crappy pay they’ll get this month. More rantings about this at point 10.

8. Concessions under fear

But let’s continue. One libertarian has reminded everyone the other day that Congress had actually several times pushed banks to offer more subprime lendings. And that the chartering of Fannie Mae, for instance, gave this company sufficient leeway to take extreme risks. The feel of subsequent comments is telling: extreme bitterness.

People still look at the banks as bandits at large, and I certainly don’t blame them. They think they were not caught on time. This could not be more wrong. As the quote from Denninger explains above, it’s not that they weren’t caught on time by an unsuspecting, innocent, and upright state. No, it wasn’t because there were no laws or regulations against subprime lending. [Which, by the way, everyone - with a functioning brain of course - knew it would lead to disaster. Including Tom Tomorrow, who doesn’t hold a master’s degree in economics, last time I checked. This alone proves the government did know and let it happen anyway.] Rather it was because those benefiting from these practices were part of the elite. They raked huge profits and the Federal Reserve, or whatever agency was responsible, was not about to put an end to all this partying, just because there might be a crisis later. Remember they don’t care about us. They can’t.

But people still think that with regulations, it wouldn’t have happened. They still think back to the FDR days, as days of victory for the people’s interests. In France, people look back to 1968 and think about how revolutionary it was. And how it could maybe happen again. Isn’t there a group called Recreate 1968 in America? Yes there is. At this point, I’m sure Arthur would offer some bitter remarks about how some people want events that led to the current disaster to happen again, never actually solving anything.

A few months ago, I saw a French documentary about the “events of may '68” in France. And there was one comment from the narrator which was for once particularly revealing: the base thought the deal with the government wasn’t going nearly far enough. But that’s what they got. I don’t have any idea what the base actually had in mind. But it doesn’t matter.

The elites were afraid of losing their privilege and immense wealth, and ‘negociated’ with the masses. The masses got an actually crappy deal that made their lives easier, with higher wages and a strict legislation. The elites were afraid of the revolution, but they managed to retain their wealth, their position, their importance. I emphasize that the gains were real and important for the masses.

And so they ended up looking back on this year as a year of victory. My father shook his head (as he almost always does when the TV is on), when he heard of the “deal not good enough” comment. The victory of 1968 is part of revolutionary history now. The very same twist works with the New Deal era. But in truth, all the regulations of the past were concessions from the elites to the masses of people who were turning revolutionary by the hour.

9. Regulations maintain the elites

So now, I read my French friends and left economists talk about putting a stop to unfettered capitalism and how we’re going to put regulations. And I’m so disappointed, because I realize we’re all so far behind on understanding what needs to be done. Regulations maintain the elites. The elites maintain poverty. They maintain inequality. They maintain wage-slavery. We need to erase both the state and the elites to put an end to all this.

And I know I’m gonna sound funny but: why do we even have an elite ? What is so special about these guys, that they get to have millions of dollars and hijack the democracy ? Why such a huge discrepancy ? 600 years ago, we had monarchs who ruled by divine right. And anyone on this planet would say today: how can some guy say GOD gave him this right. He’s just some guy ! (Benedict ?) The very same insanity is with us today, in the form of the President, and the ruling elite.

10. Destroy them, but not physically, stupid!

So here I wanna try to destroy the concept, the idea, the forgery, the stupidity, the idiocy that some people are entitled to be part of an elite. First of all, we can all agree that our average elite member sleeps just like we do. Picture that. Picture, say, George Bush, sleeping. He’s in his bed. And suddenly, he gets up. Needs to pee. He gets out of his bed and heads for the toilets, on the other side of the palace. Okay, first difference.

10 minutes later, he finally finds the toilets. Second difference: it’s not any kind of palace; it’s actually difficult to remember where is what. He unzips his pyjamas; because his pyjamas somehow offer that possibility. Third difference. But the point is, he also pees like other human beings, through the urethra. And maybe he even takes a dump after that. Remember, this guy is part of the elite. So be very careful with the words you use. After having gestated inside his body for several hours, the poop, finally and with difficulty [remember, this is a christian elitist, so he’s very self-conscious about anything anal, and taking a crap is probably very close to sacrilege], the poop, I was saying, gets through the rectum and anus, with difficulty. But it does feel better when it’s over. Yes, the elite member takes dumps, and enjoys it when a big one has passed, just like we do. Then the human being gets back to bed, and falls asleep.

What I did was simple, it is the most revolutionary thing you can do, it brought down monarchies, and no one has to die from it. You must always think and talk of the elites as some guys. Some guys who purport to rule us. You must know, each and everyone member of that elite. You must see the ordinary human in them. This goes the same way for your boss. This is some guy who pretends to deserve a much higher pay than you do (we’re talking about a thousand times higher). And you must constantly ask yourself, and ask others, and ask your boss, and ask the elite: Why? What is so special about you, about them? What does my boss do? Spit fire from his ass?

Well he doesn’t, because I’d know: he farts all the time… I did it again! He’s ordinary, they’re ordinary. They don’t deserve all this power and wealth, they don’t even approach the merit required, no one does, not even armed with a million light-years merit-perch!

Another way this is done is by attacking the elites with… cream pies! Here is an actual quote from a French politician, complaining about this practice introduced by our very own and very beloved anarchist, Noël Godin. This is part of a French interview with him:
Lémi : And the pied-on person’s reaction ? Does it matter ?
Godin: A pie is a goddamn uncoverer of the deep nature of the pied-on. Since we chose unpleasant targets, without decency and hooked on their image, almost all of them took it personally. They could have diffused the attack by laughing… When our friend José Bové was pied on in Gênes, he laughed and it’s all fine now. On the contrary the others got mad and put the laughers on our side.
During the trial of the suit that Chevènement brought against us, certain moments made me think of the fake comic trials from Radio Luxembourg in the 1950s. At the bar, he declared: “You have to understand us; we politicians can only live through our image. When we are pied on, it’s our political capital that is pied on.” He went so far as to say: “I would have preferred a slap, some spit, or even a Corsican firecracker, for we, the politicians, cannot be covered with ridicule.” Of course, we were laughing our asses off, and the judge almost had the hall evacuated.

Can you believe this? It’s true! A politician actually said a cream pie in your face is worse than spit! So what are you waiting for?! You can actually destroy the elites by throwing creampies at their faces and proving to everyone how they’re only human beings high on arrogance. Full of themselves, full of shit. Redundancy? OF COURSE.

Note:
There’s so much Arthur Silber writes, and I’ve read his stuff for so long, I cannot be entirely sure all this I’ve written is entirely new, or if this is just me rehashing and regurgitating what I’ve read 4 months ago in one of his essays. I do know it resounds a lot with this one essay from a few days ago, including and especially the Robert Higgs' article. So let’s be clear: whatever I know now, and however clever I imagine I have gotten, this is mostly thanks to him. You surely know that feeling, when you get back to some old movie you watched and enjoyed as a kid, and now that you’re grown, it takes on a new dimension. Because there’s so much more you see and understand. This is how I feel in life, after having discovered Silber’s blog. Thanks man.