An Unofficial Manifesto of the September 17 Movement

The struggles of our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, in Spain, Ireland and Iceland and in Greece and Chile have shown what we are all capable of.  They've shown solidarity, courage, thirst for justice and a willingness to stand as brothers against the guns of tyrants. As civilizations erupt in righteous fury, as near light-speed access to information has opened up across borders, cultures and languages, it becomes more and more evident that the world is changing; the people are demanding change, and we will get it.

There are those, many in fact, who claim that these uprisings are third world occurrences. The Global uprising has no bearing on the world’s beacon of democracy except in that we are their role models. What arrogance! These reactionary talking heads are the same who believed the peoples of the Middle East to be happy with their kings and despots, or viewed them simply as economic pawns and their dead bodies as “collateral damage.” If it is a beacon of anything, the United States of America is a beacon of economic imperialism, efficient manufacture of consent, and plutocratic subversion of government. Global corporations control governments more efficiently than ever, profiting from war, imprisonment, bailouts, debt and massive tax loopholes. Unemployment is as bad as it has ever been while Wall Street sees record profits and pays lobbyists and fake “grass roots” organizations to campaign to reduce social mobility for the lower classes, and make ordinary people pay for crises we did not cause. We are living in an age of efficient tyranny by an increasingly elusive and deceitful oligarchy. This is an age of plutocracy. The US is ripe for revolution.

Participation vs. Spectator Democracy

A common misconception is that democracy simply comes from voting, that the act of ratifying decisions by electing the representatives who make them ultimately gives the final say to the people. This is simply inconsistent with reality; any American who pays attention can recall an instance of the contrary. True democracy - it literally meaning “government by the people” - requires active participation by the people. If legitimate power derives from a mandate from the masses, it is not unreasonable to deduct that decisions made without the consent of the governed are not acts of legitimate power. Without constant ratification by the populace, the assurance of consent with every action, a political structure becomes an entity separate from the people, working “for the people” in name only. 

Our current political body is such an entity, making decisions as a group separate from the people, justifying itself with the occasional election in which we are allowed to decide who among a wider group of oligarchs may make our decisions for us. Our participation in this “government by the people” is limited to control over minute details within a limited scope of ideas, instead of being the basis for all its workings. What have resulted are plutocracy, corruption, and the limiting of civic participation to something as cumbersome, pointless and apathy breeding as voting.

The separate entity, democratic only in name, works for its own benefit, and for the benefit of the upper class its members come from. In the summer of 2011, American Republicans and Democrats deliberated endlessly over what should be done about the country’s debt. The Republicans, so concerned with gaining control during the 2012 election, almost made it their strategy to let the economy crumble so it would be blamed on the democrats; this at the detriment of hundreds of thousands of citizens. While millions of Americans were without health care, Democrats caved to pressure from lobbyists and Republicans and allowed what could have been exceptional reform to become a Frankenstein’s monster designed by lobbyists. Joe Lieberman, the Democrat (now independent) who filibustered the only progressive measure in the bill happened to be the biggest recipient of PAC money from Insurance companies in all of congress; this, all while the majority of Americans wanted, or needed, something done about health costs.

Plutocratic Sabotage

The greatest saboteur of democratic fairness is the influence of money. Concentrated wealth is power without accountability. Nobody votes for who holds the most money, and yet the influence of their power writes legislation and decides what we may or may not see in the news. It also gives strong advantages in the ability to further their power through profits – profits often gained through gambling with people’s livelihoods, mass layoffs and exploitation of impoverished people. The goal of business is profit; and, as it turns out, doing what is best for the public is not profitable. Getting the most labor for the smallest wages, not having to bow to safety standards made to protect the public, and making the public pay for crises they didn’t cause are profitable. Ultimately, having no accountability to the people whose lives are impacted by the relentless pursuit of profits is just good business.

Good business is influencing political systems to act on your behalf, whether or not it is to the detriment of those whose best interest that political system is supposed to represent. There is no conscience, or rationality; only the blind pursuit of financial gain at whatever cost. Currently mobs of “Tea Partiers” funded by Koch Industries and the ghosts of the John Birch Society are relentlessly campaigning for the benefit of massive corporations under the guise of a populist grassroots movement. They have a great deal of money supporting their cause, and are willing to eradicate the entire middle class (through ending of collective bargaining, de-funding of education, extermination of social safety nets and programs people rely on, etc.) for the benefit of the economic elite. They, and thousands of lobbyists, work endlessly so that the very financial industry that caused our current economic crisis does not have to pay a penny to save it, despite having paid their Executives’ bonuses with out tax money. Instead, we pay for their crisis through our Pell grants, social security, retirement funds, Medicare, Medicaid and our right to collectively bargain.

More than just shirking responsibility to maximize profits, economic power influences government in other ways detrimental to the public. Private prisons, for instance, make a profit from every human being thrown into jail. They lobby to perpetuate harmful drug laws that put non-violent offenders in prison, and even help write racist anti-immigration laws that would arbitrarily put foreign workers into prisons. Private contractors, building war machines or sending mercenaries to fight, profit exorbitantly from frivolous war mongering and wasteful defense spending, as does a plethora of energy conglomerates that profit from newly formed puppet nations and the seizing of foreign resources. These actions and decisions are rarely questioned, yet they harm always.

Currently less than half a dozen corporations own all of the mainstream media outlets available to us. While some claim to be “fair and balanced” compared to the rest of the “liberal media,” rest assured that there is no liberal media. More importantly than omitting inconvenient stories and facts, corporate controlled media limits the scope of acceptable thought; the “liberal” news stations are only as liberal as is acceptable to corporate interests, and what fits snugly within the status quo. Opinions that are too challenging are never spoken; facts and stories that contradict what our understanding of the world is supposed to be are never aired. It’s called the “manufacture of consent;” it makes it safe to give us freedom of thought, because any thought which challenges the status quo beyond safe parameters is taboo and “crazy” if its existence is acknowledged at all. All the while, the narrative that other media outlets have “liberal bias” gives stations that very obviously advocate for plutocratic control and religious dominance a strong viewership.

Economic Power and Democracy

Economic power is not democratic power; it dominates our lives whether we like it or not.  Wealth is accumulated through owning some resource or productive property with the potential to provide things people need, and the selling of those things at the highest price people would be willing to pay for it before they would rather starve. If we want to live in a house, have a car or retire, we must go through a bank. If we want to get an education we must take out a student loan and spend most of our working lives paying it off. If we wish to eat to survive, we must work for a wage and purchase things that literally grow on trees from those who own the trees. Even sources of energy or sources of water are the property of someone who we must buy from if we would like to be warm in the winter or would like to hydrate ourselves.  In a purely socio-anthropological sense, wealth comes from depriving people of the things they need.

Of course, in most cases, a bit of work is required to turn property with productive potential into something usable by the average person – like growing seeds onto crops, putting crops into cans, turning wood into a home or turning steel into a car. Suffice to say, without labor the original resource is worthless; and yet, the owners of these resources accumulate many times the wealth that the workers do. If workers accumulated wealth proportionate to their contribution to the creaton of a product, the owner could not make a profit, he would break even. In fact, if each owner got back the same percentage of what they put in as each worker receives for what work they put in, the owners would lose money.

In special cases, one’s capital invested in creation of a product is the result of saving up wages or the accumulation of wealth created from one’s own work. Usually these are our small business owners, however, and very rarely do these individuals amass enough economic power to exploit entire populations or sabotage political systems. In fact, those who amass large, influential amounts of economic power most often do so much more easily than others due to pre-existing economic privileges. Even in cases of “self-made men,” there are always unfair advantages over others less physically, economically, mentally or socially able to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” that come into play.

Economic power is power derived from coercive forces rather than through consent and participation. Even when voting occurs within a corporation, it excludes the workers and consumers most affected by the actions of the corporation, includes only those who stand to profit at the detriment of the rest, and the weight of each person’s vote is determined by how much economic power that individual has. Wealth always wins; economic power functions by the prehistoric notion that “might is right.” We must conclude that economic power and democracy are incompatible. Tyranny through property is not somehow freer than tyranny through government power.  To economic power, freedom is just another commodity to be bought and sold. The profit motive unchecked by the public interest is tyranny. There is no conscience, there is no justice.

Fairness and Freedom

It has been long debated whether or not Democracy is not in itself a form of tyranny. It is, they say, akin to two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for dinner. It is important that the rights of minorities are always recognized and protected, of course, but it is also important to note how reactionary this analogy is meant to be. It would be worth making a bet that whoever originated that saying, or at least those who most often use it, were less referring to the rights of People of Color, Transgender and queer folk, Gays, Lesbians or the disabled, and more referring to the so called rights of business men to act without accountability to the “tyranny of the majority.”

 Obviously precedent should be put into place to protect those marginalized by the majority. It still stands to reason, however, that while people are organized or governed, the freest and fairest way for them to be so is democratically. If people are to live in societies and communities, and not isolated from one another entirely, it is democratic organization that that prevents the corruption and tyranny of concentrated power.

Even in stateless societies, as we are long past the isolated pioneer days, it is rudimentary de-facto democratic organization that would prevent communities from being usurped by demagogues who would exploit the power vacuum and rule with their economic power. Freedom is most often taken away by concentrated wealth and concentrated political power; the horizontal orientation of proper democracy, then, best protects it, as it allows the people to protect it themselves, collectively.

In a sense, freedom is free, and democracy is the tool we use to keep it that way.

Democracy is not only the freest structure we’ve ever conceived, but the most just. To the dismay of some who look only at a country’s GDP and the profits of the rich, the quality of a society is best judged by how well-off the worst-off of that society are. Indeed, putting power into as many hands as possible ensures as many people as possible are satisfied. Society, after all, is a means of collective survival; it comes from recognizing the benefits that come from cooperation and mutual aid. Human beings are a social species akin to ants or bees, but with the gift and beauty of consciousness and personal individuality. It has been our consciousness and ingenuity, along with our natural capacity to organize that has allowed us to survive as a species. In fact, studies have shownthat acts of mutual aid and altruism trigger reward responses in the brain, even in cases when one acts against one’s self interest. Not only is cooperation moral, it is natural, and so the society which fosters it is the most moral, and most just.

The Case for Dissent

The idea that civilization is a biologically determined means of collective survival explains and is proven by our species’ rich history of dissent. Since the days when agriculture created productive property and division of labor, and gave way to the hierarchies, economic power and eventually lordship, “divine right” and government, structures that have put the self actualization needs of the power hungry ahead of the physiological needs of the rest have been met with the dissent of the masses. The outcomes of their actions have been limited only by their imaginations, and the extent of sabotage by demagogues. Indeed, if civilization is meant to benefit the whole of society, and justice and freedom are both natural and moral, then dissent is the noblest sentiment our species can comprehend – and we can comprehend quite a lot.

It was historian and civil rights advocate Howard Zinn who said that “Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy, it is absolutely essential to it.” The men who founded this country shared his sentiment, believing that a people had the right to take and re-structure or replace their government as it would be necessary to maintain democratic principles and liberty. Thinkers like Thoreau knew it was necessary to revoke consent from a government if it was unjust. The suffragettes who won the right to vote, the civil rights champions who ended segregation, the industrial workers responsible for lessening the exploitation of the lower classes and the countless other people whose struggles failed and whom history has ignored, all knew that to further justice and liberty, action was required – action in defiance of the establishment whose power stood in the way of their liberation because it benefitted from their oppression.

If legitimate power is built on a mandate from the people, the truest and purest expression of democracy is to protest when that power betrays the people, to revoke consent when that power carries out injustices in their name, and to dismantle that power when it acts toward it’s own ends or to those of a ruling elite at the detriment of the people.

The Mission

Now is a crucial time. Global corporations dominate our lives and hold silver-spoon-fed politicians on puppet strings. The unions who brought us our weekends, pensions, overtime pay and rights in the workplace are being demonized and broken. Armies, mercenaries and jackals maintain global occupation – empowering despots and killing civilians - to line the pockets of oil companies and weapons contractors while telling us they are spreading democracy. Taxes are cut or nonexistent for banks and companies, but a grim reality for working people. They say “no taxes” but raise them for workers. They say “corporations are people too” but call unions corrupt. They crash markets, foreclose on homes, lay off workers and make record profits while they tell us lies about “shared sacrifice” when bringing our safety nets, wages, rights and education to the guillotine.

No more. The goals of the youth are simple – they’ve been cried out endlessly but muffled by background noises and ignored by those who find them inconvenient. We want democracy, not plutocracy; people before profits. We want:

1.     To eliminate the stranglehold of corporate power over our political system, and minimize as the role of money in political deliberation.

2.     To maximize participation and control by the people, and put all power – economic and political – in a position of direct accountability to the public interest.

3.     To prioritize the well being of the country as a whole over the profits of plutocrats, and maximize the rights of ordinary people.

We cannot wait for these things. We cannot put them aside in the hopes that our children will see them come to fruition. We need them now. We will get them, and the longer we have to wait for them, the more our ends will justify our means. The start of the path toward greater democracy, liberty and equality will start with a few basic objectives to be determined in the course of our actions.

Our Call to Action

Our demands alone are not enough to silence us. Nothing will silence us. Our demands are far less important than our vision. They are far less potent than our love for justice and liberty and they are far less potentially dangerous than our anger.

The youth of the world have risen. Tyrants are falling, old systems of oppression are being challenged, people are beginning to finally question their governments, they are finally beginning to question global economic domination and they are finally seeing that their interests lie in true democracy, and are at odds with the interests of bankers, stockholders and CEOs. The oligarchs know this, and they are clinging desperately to the old myths that justified their power, and screaming them to whomever remain among those blind enough to believe them. Their panic is betrayed by their increasingly obvious contempt for democracy, and the popular revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece, Chile and Iceland are what make their hands tremble. The millions unemployed and under-employed, the millions without health care, the millions on Social Security and the millions who are beginning to question the system that betrayed them, are the single most dangerous force in this planet.

Now is the time to mobilize. Now is the time for all who value liberty, equality and justice stand with our brothers across the world. Today is the day we stop asking for change and start taking it.

Some Thoughts on Democratic Revolution

(This blog post is a pre-write for/forerunner to something else I've been working on) 

I recently read an article on Infoshop called "Do 'Leaderless Revolts' Contain the Seeds of Our Own Failure?." The article cites Anti-Austerity protests in Greece, as well as the revolutionary movements of Egypt and Spain. The strengths and weaknesses of these revolutions, which are addressed by the article, have mostly to do with the unique, technological nature of today's revolutions, but are also indicative of problems revolutionists have pondered for centuries.

In any revolution, dozens of fundamental questions need to be asked: What is the structure of the new society? Is this structure stable, and how do we maintain stability while maintaining the most possible liberty and equality for citizens? How do we deal with reactionary counter revolution? How do we prevent power hungry demagogues from taking advantage of the power vacuum? We can narrow all of these questions down to "how do we make sure a democratic revolution stays democratic?" 

There are countless ways a revolution can go wrong and ultimately put power into the hands of someone just as bad as, if not worse than, the previous ruler. A group might use coercion claiming to be acting in the name of the people, as with the Jacobins. A group might promise to ensure a smooth transition by fighting off counter-revolution, as with the Bolsheviks; or a group might simply have some other form of power with which to fill the power vacuum, as it is looking like it might be in Egypt.

Any sociology textbook will tell you that dissent is maximized and more likely to lead to action when people are able to communicate their grievances to one another, and when some kind of leader can articulate those grievances into some kind of plan. Social media, in these revolutions, has allowed for communication of grievances between individuals the likes of which have not been seen since the advent of the printing press (which is extremely important, though the media has played up social media's role in order to downplay the revolutionary fervor that had to have existed to begin with).  The result has been exacerbated dissent and efficient organization on a massive level that is mostly leaderless.

When any power structure is being removed, it is done so through at least one of two kinds of power: Counter-Power, the belief in specific goals or a specific structure as a replacement for the old, and Anti-Power, the basic desire and capacity to remove the current structure (I did not come up with counter/anti power, however the blogs I read about it on didn't cite anyone).  Organization through social media makes it possible to amass a great deal of anti-power; however, being leaderless the exacerbated dissent is without a sense of direction and without long term goals. After the removal of the old structure, confusion and lack of structure are left. This power vacuum can then be easily exploited by the private power of corporations or the violent power of a military. 

Clearly, of course, both anti-power and counter-power are necessary. A revolution by counter-power alone will never take off the ground except through military coup (which ultimately leads to more tyranny), and a revolution by anti-power leaves behind confusion to be exploited by demagogues (which ultimately leads to more tyranny). 

The anti-power we see in the Middle East and other countries in the 21st century, however, is very unique and may very well hold a solution to its own problem. We saw in these revolutions (particularly in Egypt) an enormous capacity for organization: means of passing information, committees and councils all came into fruition almost organically. Driven by simple common goals, people were capable of creating temporary structures through which to organize the revolt. Is it at all unreasonable, then to hope that counter-power and anti-power do not have to be separate? If these organizational structures can emerge organically among dissenters in the streets, they can be an example, or the beginnings, of a post-revolutionary structure.

Counter-power can grow organically from anti-power, creating goals and structures custom made for, and by, the people. It would be purely democratic.

Atlas Needs Us, We Don't Need Him - Addendum

While waiting for a prescription at the pharmacy, I got into an argument with my mom. It started with my mentioning a book I got at a thrift store called Organization Theory, and progressed into an argument about relations between management and workers. Her point was that the union in the company she works for (Dyncorp International) promotes hostility between corporate and the workers and, instead of cooperating toward the same goal, the workers are preoccupied with trying to leech as much as they can from the company.

My point was that the conflict of interest inherent in the setup precedes the existence of unions. The company's goal is maximum profit, where the workers' goal is making a decent living. One goal comes by the detriment of the other; even the higher paid airplane mechanics make nothing close to the value their labor creates. The union forms because the company has an enormous advantage in the pursuit of its goal, having absolute power through the ownership of capital, and the workers require some kind of leverage in the pursuit of their goal. This leverage comes from their numbers, and the fact that it is their labor that creates the company's wealth and allows its accumulation of capital and power.

Her argument reminded me of my earlier post, Misconceptions Addressed: The Need for the Rich. She claimed that that workers are not qualified for management, and that there must always be some hierarchal structure to maintain order and ensure everyone is working toward the same goal.

Even if this were true, and workers are incapable of management, why should person A. who is qualified for management make as much more as he does than person B. who is qualified for building airplanes? Even if managing the workplace does require qualified hands, why should that position be one of so much more power and importance than that of designing, building and shipping the products? Being qualified to manage does not make you superior to one who is qualified to run machines, build airplanes, build houses or any other job as vital to the creation of value as any other.

If managing does require high qualifications (and you'll find, in many cases, it doesn't), why couldn't the workplace still be run democratically with those oh so qualified people acting as consultants and explaining which decisions would be detrimental to the well being of the organization, and which would be beneficial? If this were the case, the qualified consultant having no position of power or ownership, his/her advice would be unaffected by the incentive of profit and would actually be for the benefit of the workers.

This is all assuming the need for management is legitimate. After all, what purpose does it serve other than ensuring the workers are working toward the company's goal: profit? Degrees in Business Administration primarily teach capitalist economics, accounting and the psychology behind motivation and productivity, the focus of which is profit for the owners of capital - something incompatible with cooperative and democratically run business. Productivity is still important, but when workers are paid more closely to the value their labor creates, motivation for productivity is hardly a problem.

For about a year and a half I worked at a small restaurant. The "manager" was the owner of the property and, after my first couple of months working there, had practically disappeared except when collecting her profits.  The half a dozen or so of us who worked there managed everything ourselves: schedules, bills, supplies, menus and even the health department. We knew what needed to be done and how it needed to be done much better than the owner did because we knew how a restaurant worked first hand; we were more than capable of managing ourselves. Ms. Sparling knew nothing, but she still reaped the profits at the end of the day. Imagine how things could have gone if we were working for ourselves and each other, instead of the owner?

Of course, not every workplace is a restaurant, and sometimes some knowledge about accounting is required, but for this I refer you back to my question about consultants; this person still does not deserve a position of authority over others whose jobs are as vital to the creation of value and the functioning of the workplace as his/hers.

Many claim "entrepreneurs" are necessary for the creation of jobs, that without profit they would have no incentive to create the jobs and that, because they took the risks and invested the capital to do so they deserve to reap exorbitant profits at the expense of the workers' labor. However, as I addressed in the first part of "Atlas Needs Us," the demand for products and the need for innovation exists independent of the profit motive. If people need it, people are going to make it; if some new innovation is required, someone is going to provide it. In fact, without the profit motive as a factor, these innovations are more likely to be made based on what is most needed and efficient, rather than what is most profitable. The capital "entrepreneurs" provide is usually accumulated from other endeavors in which profit was made from others' labor (and is usually a product of class and racial privilege), rarely is it accumulated from that person's own work (I've also addressed Meritocracy).

Crucial to the maintenance of capitalist exploitation, as well as to the perpetuation of false consciousness and the rationalization of any authority is the belief in the champion who is smarter, stronger, more creative, harder working and more rational than the rest of us: the person whose benevolence and moral superiority provides us with what we have and should be grateful for. This godliness makes him deserving of power over us and makes his exploitation of us not only justifiable, but morally right. We're taught to accept and rationalize his injustices while scrutinizing the shortcomings of our own brethren, all the while convincing ourselves that, if we can impress him and work the hardest for him, we too can become like him. This is a sentiment very much at odds with the principles of democracy. This is a sentiment of self loathing.

May Day Reflections

It's about 2 days too late but I've been sick of the internet and all who inhabit it not been very motivated lately.

This Sunday, as most of you reading this probably already know, marked the anniversary of the 1886 General Strike for an eight hour work day (8 for rest, 8 for work, 8 for recreation), and the subsequent Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, and the wrongful execution of 4 strikers accused of throwing dynamite. May 1st, May Day or International Workers' day is the commemoration of the struggles and victories of organized labor and all of those who seek liberation and economic and social justice.

Before it became a day to celebrate workers' struggles, May the First was Beltane, a Gaelic festival that, as most other spring festivals, celebrated fertility and rebirth. Call me delusional, but I like to think this is no coincidence.

Every worker victory is a rebirth. Every victory for social and economic justice and every stepping stone toward democratic liberation and egalitarianism is a small step toward rebirth. Every person who comes to find class consciousness is part of a collective, spiritual reawakening that will allow a new period of equality to grow from the ashes of the old power structures.

That's all very lofty sounding but you get the idea. Now more than ever are these things evident. Government attacks on organized labor, right wing austerity measures, supremacy of the banks and steps toward plutocratic totalitarianism have been met by increased involvement by workers' rights and democracy advocates, as well as increased support for them. The occupation in Wisconsin, the US/UK Uncut Movements, the demonstrations and riots all over Europe from Ireland to Greece, The Walks for Choice and countless other demonstrations of the people's will are evidence of a new world rising from beneath our own that just needs a few more people to push it.


This past May Day, rallies in L.A, Chicago, Santa Rosa, Honduras, Turkey, Venezuela and several other places showed their support for general progress, or protested Anti-Immigration laws and Anti-Labor laws - all demonstrating increasing popular support for change.

I am as convinced as ever that revolutionists do not make a revolution. The people make the revolution, the revolutionists only help it along. Their role is educating the masses, promoting the strikes and protests, and letting democracy take care of the rest.

Misconceptions Addressed: The Need for the Rich

Or: Atlas Needs Us, We Don't Need Him

I got into a lengthy discussion with my grandmother, yesterday, that was set off by a set of side-by-side columns in the Washington Post. The column I had commented on was one that speaks against taxing the rich based on fairness. The conversation that ensued -which was initially about an analogy used by the columnist that I thought was intellectually dishonest- elevated to being one about entrepreneurship.

I've addressed before, and I eventually managed to make clear to her, that the American Meritocracy is a myth because, despite the few rags-to-riches stories that are over-emphasized to appear typical, the odds against a person of little privilege "pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps" are phenomenal.

What the discussion came down to was that, according to her, the rich are overpaid for many things, but they are still necessary as our society's source of management and innovation. If they weren't there to take the risks and start the businesses, where would the innovation come from?

I managed to make my point clear enough, but I had one of those, "Goddamn it, that's what I should have said!" moments later on in the evening.

What I should have said was "Creators gonna create, Mimi."

That's the real gist of it. Production of commodities is driven by demand. Demand comes from need, and need existed long before -and will continue to exist long after- capitalist middle-men. We planted and harvested corn because we were hungry, we built houses because we needed shelter, we invented games because we were bored. Need drives innovation and need drives production, not a dollar bill on a fishing pole. If we need it, we will create it somehow; and if Jonas Salk (inventor of the Polio vaccine) had "gone Galt," someone else would have done what he neglected to do.

Just like haters gonna hate and masturbators gonna masturbate, so are creators gonna create and innovators gonna innovate. You don't become a doctor or teacher for the paycheck, you do it because you have a desire to heal and teach. Salk didn't invent invent the Polio vaccine because he got paid, he invented it because there was a need for it and he had the desire to fill that need. This, of course, isn't to say that these innovators and inventors shouldn't be reimbursed for their contributions to the public, only that their motivations are not, and should not be, simply to exploit society's needs for a profit.

In industry, innovation would be better to come from the engineers and workers motivated by efficiency and practicality, rather than coming from executives and marketers motivated by profit alone. How many revolutionary innovations do you think have been ignored because they did not promise a hefty return on someone's investment? How many more do you think have been outright sabotaged, despite how they might have helped mankind, because they threatened to hurt profits? The incredibly slow progress of the search for alternative energy is a perfect example. Because oil is more profitable right now than alternative energy, and because alternative energy is a threat to oil profits, the free market suffocates efforts to advance it.

Again, I'm not proposing that everyone just do everything they do for free (although I'm not saying that wouldn't be great, either). I'm saying that, when we need something, we are going to find a way to get it with or without those who would exploit that need for profit.

Of course, this is all ignoring the fact that very few of the super rich in this world actually are the innovators and creators that bring our civilization progress and prosperity; quite the contrary. The conservatives and Ayn Rands of the world would surely like us to believe this, but it is simply not true. The majority of our super rich are those born into relative privilege (most of whom were born into exorbitant privilege), and either utilized that privilege to jump into management positions, or used their unearned wealth and property to invest in the creators and innovators who have no other way of doing what they do best.

On Leftist Unity

One of the most important concepts in leftist ideology is that which emphasizes the importance of supporting all workers' struggles against the ruling classes. Considering the variety of thought and the infighting that occurs between various facets, being able to unify under a few basic and fundamental commonalities is extremely important.


Common Goals:
The Spanish Civil War of the mid to late 1930s gives us one of the best examples of a successful, decentralized socialist society, but it also gives us the best example of how having a lack of a unified platform can really blow up in your face. Portrayed by Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is a great deal of infighting amongst the anti-fascist forces. The Anarchists, the bourgeious-democratic republicans and the various Marxist facets of the POUM all had different plans for post-war Spain. This infighting and failure to determine a common coalition platform hurt morale, and the overall "revolutionary spirit" of the Republican Left diminished as the war went on.

This is why it is extremely important to emphasize the common goals between differing leftist tendencies. Anarchists and Marxist Leninists do not have to necessarily be enemies, for instance. What we need is not to recruit as many people as possible to one group, but to create a coalition built on the common goals of those groups.

The difficulty in finding those commonalities rests on the fact that these different groups and ideologies have differing strategies for attaining the same goal. Both Marxist-Leninists and Anarchists, for example, hope for a stateless and classless society. The difference is that Marxist-Leninists would utilize a transitional socialist government, where anarchists would do away with the state immediately. Solving this problem rests on compromise and collaboration. An immediate goal needs to be established. The nature of the immediate goals depend on the nature of the coalition, and once those goals are reached, the hammering out of various other details may begin.

When it can be harmful
Supporting any opposition to the ruling elite is important to the health and efficiency of the movement, but there are many who seem to misunderstand. There are many who seem to believe that supporting any struggle against the ruling elite also means never questioning it; they refuse to criticize any regime that opposes "western" imperialism, no matter how worthy of criticism those regimes are. Supporting that opposition does not mean ignoring, accepting, or apologizing for the failures of those involved. Qaddafi's Libya, for instance, is defended by far too many people because it, especially in light of recent NATO agression, is an enemy of American and European economic willpower. Libyan opposition forces are called "counter-revolutionary," and "reactionary" despite the fact that Libya's government and its plethora of human rights violations are far from "revolutionary."

The Libyan "Opposition," on the other hand, is by no means immune to criticism simply because it opposes a tyrannical government. These groups are very thoroughly infiltrated by CIA influence and would likely only establish a bourgeois-democratic puppet government completely subservient to Western economic interests.

The opposition to the elite should be supported, but should never be beyond criticism.

Defeating the Moderate Advantage
Another obstacle faced by the Republican Left of the Spanish Civil War is one that the Left in the United States, as well as numerous other countries, still face. In any coalition of people and ideologies advocating reform, it is usually the least radical group whose demands are met (this is leaving out hostile coups and the like). Their platform is the least challenging, their transition is the least difficult and their ideology is the least at-odds with the status quo. In the Spanish Civil War, that group was the Republicans. In the United States, that group is the Democratic party, which many would-be socialists, anarchists or reformers side with. Because of its very moderately left leanings, it is perceived as more likely to gain ground in our political climate. The goals it seeks are small and still fit into the current socio-political structure while slightly acknowledging left wing sentiments. The result is, at best, minimal change.

This is a daunting conundrum, and one faced by both the left and the right, but its solution is simple.

Class Consciousness
The single most important part of any opposition to exploitation and tyranny is class consciousness. This should be the immediate goal for every leftist. Educate and agitate. Help people understand the nature of the current power structure and the nature of their place in it. Even those who simply understand those fundamental truths we know so well and don't necessarily act are still a part of the public's opinion. If the exploitative nature of capitalism (hell, even the simple fact that the rich are not looking out for you) becomes commonly understood, the entire society shifts.

This is why it is important for the left to be unified. We all have different ideas about stragegy and about post-revolutionary organization, but all of our ideals are built on the same truths. All of our ideals are built on class consciousness. Instead of telling everyone we can why Anarchism is the best ideology, or why the Soviet Model is the best system, we should all focus, as our immediate goal, on making those truths we have in common as understood as possible.

Cost Of Tax Cuts For America's Rich Exceeds Value Of Budget Cuts

As part of a law passed late last year, the Bush-era tax cuts for the richest Americans were extended for two years. The estimated cost to the government of that portion of the tax deal, $42 billion this fiscal year, exceeds the stated $38 billion value of the savings from the federal budget cuts lawmakers 

So even with the 60 or so billion that was originally to be cut, really only 18 billion dollars would have been actually cut. That’s not to say this is a zero sum equation, but you get the idea.

On top of the spending on tax cuts (yes, tax cuts are spending), most corporations are barely paying taxes as it is, if at all, because of countless loopholes and preferential rates for capital gains.

In the meantime, the majority of what is to be cut to save our deficit and protect future generations, based on Ayn Rand worshiper Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, is made up of necessary services and means tested programs (often conveniently confused for entitlement programs) that are relied upon by the poor, unemployed, disabled and elderly, not to mention Federal Financial Aid for low income college students.

I’ve been told by yuppie libertarians before that “those things aren’t a legitimate function of government.” My answer: “who gets to decide that?”

Because, as I’ve explained countless times before, the survival and safety needs are the legitimate function of government. What’s not legitimate is out of control military spending on imperialistic, neo-colonial endeavors. 

What’s not a legitimate function of democratic government is taking power away from the people and giving it to the privileged.

What’s not a legitimate function of government is depriving people of the things they need to feed economic and social power.

Speaking of Ayn Rand

I made a mediocre infographic showcasing the character of this right wing hero who has had so much influence on political discourse lately. Feel free to distribute this as much as you like.

Noticed this on one of my favorite Tumblogs:

High-res →

MFW I saw it:

Let me tell you why that’s bullshit, k?

Now, despite my seething hatred for Ayn Rand and other than the lengthy, moralistic, trying-too-hard monologues that, as Peter Griffin would say “insist upon” themselves, I don’t suppose Rand’s writing style is horrible.

Anon says “Basically it’s about a woman running a train company in a world with super strict laws.” What a misleading description. That’s basically not what it’s about, the whole point of the book is that the Train Company runners and other industrialists of the world are the Gods that we, as blood sucking collectivist leeches, should be worshipping instead of holding accountable. Hence the title: Atlas was the mythical character charged with holding the entire world on his shoulders. In the book, someone asks someone else what Atlas would do, and he said Atlas would “Shrug,” as if to throw all of the blood sucking leeches who owethe rich their lives into oblivion.

The book is Yuppie masturbatory material. It, and objectivism, are meant to assert that exploitation and and generally putting your own self-actualization needs above the needs of everyone else is morally right.

Anon makes it sound like some feminist tale: It’s not just a benevolent capitalist hero, it’s a female benevolent capitalist hero!

Except that the female capitalist hero gets raped by her boyfriend capitalist hero and it is perfectly okay because he is a superior capitalist hero. There’s no individual empowerment, only the right of the strong to fuck (literally) over the weak.

Defenders of Objectivism almost always call strawman. “That’s not what it’s about, bro, it’s about how the individual is more important than the collective.”
Yes. That is what it’s about and you just repeated what I said with candy-coated language.

It’s that, as a benevolent capitalist hero, your self actualization needs come before the needs of everyone else, and that is perfectly moral. Charity isn’t immoral, per se, but you should only do it if you feel like it, not because you are feel morally obligated (never mind the fact that your wealth is derived from these peoples’ poverty), and only if the people you would be helping are perfectly subservient and compliant. If they get uppity, forget it.

It’s really funny what things will launch me into a rant like that. MFW

“Over a dozen banks will compensate victims for losses that occured as a result of mistakes on foreclosures according to an agreement reached with government regulators today.” Sauce.

Now if only we could end foreclosures completely.

This is Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. I am of the opinion that, under no circumstances should a person’s access to those bottom two tiers of the pyramid be subject to that person’s economic status, and that the top tiers should at the very least be accessible through the community.




 I believe that civilization has the biological purpose of being a means of collective survival. This is why we were compelled to create it in the first place; it’s in our nature. We are a social species, and it is this characteristic that has allowed us to survive.

Any civilization that fails to fulfill this purpose, let alone one that deprives people of their needs is a bastardization of its original purpose

Nobody should attain their self-actualization needs at the cost of the safety and physiological needs of others.
/rant.

I have a small problem with boycotts…

I understand not wanting to support companies and industries that do unjust things, I personally share this sentiment in regards to many industries/companies. Beyond that, though, as an instrument of bringing about actual change I think the boycott is a misguided exercise in futility. It only scratches the surface of the problem.

Say there’s a coffee company that profits from human trafficking, and the Prius drivers and Starbucks drinkers of the world conduct a successful boycott: the Coffee Company caves to the pressure and hires minimally reimbursed growers instead of slaves, they only changed their practices because the loss in profits attributed to the boycott were more than that which would be caused by ending their practices.

The change in practice was not a sudden realization of their wrongdoing and the value of human life, it was motivated by profit - the same thing that motivated the use of trafficked slaves in the first place.
Yes, our boycotting friends have effectively ended that one injustice, but in utilizing free market practices to do so they have not only effectively ignored every root causes of that injustice, but they’ve reinforced the very system that caused it in the first place.

Boycotts are really only good for the individual’s reassurance that he or she is not supporting unjust practices. It’s a treatment to alleviate the symptoms, but it does absolutely nothing to cure the disease; like taking Aspirin while parasites eat your colon.

Misconceptions Addressed: The Inherent Evil of Mankind

If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone denounce anti-capitalist ideas by citing the supposed greed of humanity, I wouldn’t be writing this. I would be living in the Hamptons defending the stupidity that made me rich. “greedy, competetive, over-consuming, individualistic” - all of these things the human race supposedly is, and it’s why “socialism is against human nature,” “the problem isn’t the system it’s people” and my favorite “socialism looks good on paper.”

Remember that old card game we played in Middle School? I call bull shit.

The human race is a social species, like ants or bees but with consciousness and thus individuality. That is why civilization exists in the first place. It was recognized that there were long term and short term benefits to organizing. Collective survival was in the interest of all. Mutual aid and cooperation were our evolutionary advantage. They were our key to survival.

This is why it feels good when you do nice things for people, even when it is not in your self interest. Studies have even been conducted showing that altruistic behavior triggers a reward response in your nervous system. That’s not religion, upbringing or morality; that’s biology.

Reciprocal Altruism occurs all over the place in the Animal Kingdom which, as I see it, seems to indicate that it is our nature.

The greed, competetiveness and overall douchebaggery we see is not nature. There is, actually, a fundamental difference between nature and a learned behavior. When your biological means of survival -civilization- is failing to fulfill its purpose, you are going to adopt behaviors that will help you to survive. When you live in a society that awards greed and competetiveness, you are going to adopt those characteristics, regardless of your nature.

How, then, did civilization become what it is today? Power. All it took was for one person to recognize the personal benefit he would recieve from controlling the resources that others needed for survival - the advent of private property, and for that individual to develop means of protecting his property from the collective power of the masses who needed it - the advent of government.

Since that time  -through every stage of social evolution from the empires of ancient Egypt, to the Feudal Lords of Medieval Europe and Asia, and to modern Nations and regimes- that has been the basic structure of society. As such, civilization has been warped into a means of serving the powerful, rather than the people who participate in it; and the misconceptions we have about our civilization and ourselves perpetuate that structure.

Rousseau’s Du contrat social affirms this. In it he asserts that society before private property was mostly egalitarian and that the ideal state should (though it does not) function as a manifestation of the general will. Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, himself states that Government primarily functions as a means of protecting property from society.

Considering all of this, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say that egoism is a learned behavior. Society is a biological means of survival, when it fails us because its function has been bastardized, we as individuals must find our own means of survival that defies our own nature. This is not to say that egoism is completely unnatural itself, but when it is rewarded, its behaviors are reinforced and the whole system is perpetuated; especially when we maintain that those behaviors are natural.

Misconceptions addressed: The Self Made Man and Meritocracy

The reactionary misinformation that perpetuates false consciousness.

There’s a famous quote, the author of which is disputed, that goes “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires,” and I’ve found this to be very true. There are legions of people who will defend to their deaths the rights of the rich, even when they are at odds with their own economic interests. This is because they have been taught to believe from childhood that American capitalism is a meritocracy, and thus believe that:

a. All who are rich got that way through hard work and ingenuity.
b. They, too, can become rich through their own hard work and ingenuity.

I, personally, find this sentiment insulting, as should anyone with a poor/working class background who has seen first hand the most hard working people in the world living in shacks and driving 30 year old vehicles.
The meritocracy myth is taught to us directly, and through the peripheral route. Example: Thomas Edison, a man born with one or more learning disabilities who goes on to invent the lightbulb; he teaches us that, even if we face crippling obstacles, as long as we just happen to be inventors with a great deal of luck in patenting and marketing our inventions, any of us can be an American success story.

Of course, as I said, the American meritocracy is obvious bull pie. In fact, it is something that has lately come under a great deal of scrutiny. Even a professional who makes a living coaching Executives and othe business leaders says, ”I have been struck by how many people blindly follow the images portrayed by the media that try to convince the masses that “you too” can be the next athletic, singing, acting or business star regardless of your background, when the odds are astronomical that it will happen.”

This idea is simply not a reality. Those who defend it have only anecdotal accounts and examples; the millions of examples that contradict them are conveniently ignored.

Class Rage: A Confession

[first part of an indefinite part series outlining my own personal experiences with class conflict]

Most people either hate or love Che Guevara. I don’t do either. I sympathize with him. This isn’t about Che, though, I’m getting to something else.

Che, with all of his good deeds and pure intentions, was a brutal motherfucker. He killed soldiers that went AWOL, delighted in executing bourgeoisie fascists and screamed for blood during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I sometimes fear I might get to that point.

I’ve personally seen many of the things I crusade against. No, I’m not third world worker/slave or anything like that -my problems are 1st world problems- but I was brought up in a very conservative Catholic household, in a town built around a Navy Base, and went to a school that forced patriotism down my throat like crack down a toilet. I was also very poor. For several years my dad worked 7 days a week just to keep my mom, my brother and I fed. We relied on WIC for food, laundromats for laundry, the bus for transportation, etc. etc. Of course, I didn’t know any different; things typical middle class kids got to experience were “for rich kids.” Chuck E. Cheese, for example, was something to fantasize about like visiting Paris or going on a cruise.

I understand, as I understood then, that I was also very lucky. With everything we struggled with I knew families that had it much worse and I watched many of their homes break apart. I watched my Dad work his ass off to “climb the ladder” only to get laid off after having an accident and have his insurance company and its for-hire doctor try to screw him out of workers comp.

I’ve seen the struggles of the working class first hand. I’ve seen first hand the effects of racism among my classmates, I’ve seen first hand the effects of the Military Industrial Complex and of Gentrification in my hometown, I’ve had close relationships with a number of rape victims and I’ve watched loved ones hurt themselves and starve themselves because of corporate beauty standards.

I once identified and agreed with these things. I was “pro life,” anti secularism, anti gay rights; I was even an “anarcho” capitalist for a while. And you know what? I’ve turned away from all of those things because I realized on my own, through thought and experience, that they were wrong.

But enough autobiographical crap. That’s not the point of this.

What I’m getting at is that I’m at a point where a sense of righteousness is turning into hatred. I’m not strong enough to love all humanity. I’d like to, but there are people out there who profit on a daily basis from sickness, there are people who would execute gays just for who they love, there are racists and xenophobes in public office, there are politicians who knowingly fuck over millions of people for their corporate buddies. Think about that for a moment.

I hate them. For some there is ignorance, but for some there is outright malice and greed. Fuck them. How fucking dare them? Sometimes I think about everything that’s fucked up in this world, and I can’t help but fantasize about lining up every homophobic bigot, rapist, insurance executive and war profiteer and burning them alive.

That makes me no better than they are. Their monstrosity has turned me into a monster and that makes me hate them even more. I don’t like feeling that way. So, no, Che was not justified in his executions but I do understand how he got to that point. I know what it feels like when class rage turns into bloodlust.

My fear is that it might turn me into something that can’t actually make any positive changes because my anger makes me ineffectual. My fear is that I might become violent, that I might become like Che or some despotic lunatic.

But I guess being aware of it is the best way to prevent it from getting worse. I’ve always had anger problems anyway. I guess not wanting to become “that” puts me one step ahead; makes me better than “that.”

So here’s my silly little proposal: I want you all to promise me that if I ever become a murderer or if -during some kind of revolution if there ever is one- I become power hungry, no matter how pure my intentions are, I want you to kill me. Put me out of my misery and let me die with my honor intact.

But, you know what? Writing it all down helps. Getting it out there and off my chest helps. An hour ago I felt like I could snap any second, but now I feel like I actually could love all humanity unconditionally. So thanks for listening to me for a few minutes.

As American as Apple Pie

Over the last few months I’ve come to realize that many anarchists and socialists in the U.S focus a great deal on the radical traditions of Europe (Spain, France, Russia, Greece, etc) while ignoring the fact that the United States has a very rich Socialist tradition. In fact, many on the right seem to ignore or are unaware of the fact that the Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist, and that the song “This Land is Your Land” was not only written by a socialist of sorts, but has strong social justice overtones.

Consider the many acheivements of our labor movement, the influence over politics and culture that early 20th century anarchists had, the leftist influences over the Civil Rights movement and the Anti-war movement, and all of the folksy radicalism of the depression era. Hell, even the term “redneck” was originally a name for striking (more like coup-attempting) coal workers in West Virginia who wore red bandannas on their neck to show solidarity.

As we speak, inner cities are full of people dedicating their time to making their communities better places to live and organizing community members in collaboration with local unions, as well as young people dedicated to fostering class concsiousness through direct action. Campuses are full of students dedicated to social justice, or at least to educating others about it.

Why shouldn’t there be such a rich radical tradition in the U.S? This is, after all, the world’s beacon of neo-colonialism, corporatism, plutocracy and bourgeois dominance. Considering that, it’s a breath of fresh air to think about how consistently present the people’s opposition to power has been in this country. Even a number of our “founding fathers” had the basic ideals (or at least claimed to) that leftism draws from: democracy, equality and liberty. Some, particularly Madison, even proposed agrarian reform very early on.

Pundits and politicians paint the Capitalist system as source of American Pride, and all forms of socialism as somehow anti-American. This is a myth perpetuated by the oligarchy who has a great deal to gain from that reactionary sentiment among the people. Really, though, if Capitalism were so American, why would its opposition be such a huge part of our history, just as old as the Capitalist system itself? It’s knowledge that threatens their power