Author's posts
Jun 24 2012
Asperity, Austerity and 1984: Fulfillment of 1984 & the Replication Today By The Geogre
In the first part, I talked about the false comparison of Orwell to Huxley and how features of the writing made it easy to mistake each author’s purpose and scope. However, there is something else. Neil Postman was not alone in thinking, in 1984, that we dodged a bullet and instead took a pill. I understand the feeling and shared it. It seemed like, as Lord Boyd Orr had said in 1966, “Give the people a choice between freedom and sandwiches, and they’ll take the sandwiches,” but we had already been shot but did not know the blood stain.
We were aware, then, that the public of democratic nations was placidly accepting outrages that would lead to atrocities, but I would propose that it took 2003 and George W. Bush to demonstrate to us how well television and the fragmented Internet have made every year 1984. Indeed, the television, which Postman saw as an abstracted medium that forbade long-form discourse and non-pictorial conceptualizing, would eventually resemble the view screen of 1984 as much as the Soma of Brave New World, especially cable news, where anything not at full volume and alarm was mere caesura for a day of emotional extremes and informational abbreviation. The Memory Hole was far easier to achieve by accident than plan.
I criticized Postman for a misplaced emphasis on the fiction of 1984 whereby he missed the systemic critique of the novel. The novel’s appearance in the midst of a nation enacting a policy called Austerity, where everyone was to “pitch in” to get “England” back on its feet after the war, is conspicuous and screams out for a comparison. Specifically, within the fiction and outside of it, a System of power is above the people, and the people are the enemy of power itself. Big Brother is an image or visage for a system, but the true power is no person or party — just the continuing flow of resources and labor from the people to an indifferent end. This is what is frightening. The group in charge was never fascists or Stalinists or Churchill or anyone else: it was capital.
Austerity today (the “new Austerity” in Europe and deficit mania in the U.S.) is different in cause, but the same in effect. Both ask nations to turn their GDP over to repayment of debt rather than intervention in markets to stimulate employment. The language used in both instances is similar, too: “Get back on our feet” and “recovery.” However, nation states and capital have had quite a bit of time and learned a few lessons.
We can see, in the gap of attitudes and responses of the public, the effect of social and cultural mutation. If we can see a greater or lesser increase in the effects of social control, then we can understand, I believe, just how thoroughgoing Orwell’s book was a description of an ongoing project that has now succeeded.
Jun 18 2012
A Necessary Evil, or Just Evil? by T’Pau (T. P. Alexanders)
We are told we need the law. We need a million rules to ensure everyone has a fair shake, a level playing field we rely on as we move through life. But if you are lesbian or gay, the majority have recently passed laws giving people who prefer heterosexual coupling an advantage. The federal government has done nothing to come to this minorityâs assistance. These laws are just the latest in a long litany of discriminatory laws.
We are told we need the law to define culture, to give the boundaries of permissible behavior. Yet, do you think you are aware of every law you live under? In every jurisdiction, outdated laws remain on the books. You are likely to have broken some of them without even knowing. In fact, most new endeavors begin with consultation of a lawyer. Legal professionals research for hours to ensure their clients wonât inadvertently break some little known law. Many of these laws unduly invade our private lives to restrict trivial actions, like putting a window in a wall of your home, so the state or some industry can make money.
We are told without the law, our society would crumble into brutish chaos. To me, the image of John Pike, dressed like an SS officer, strutting around a circle of passive students shaking a can of pepper spray, meant to be used at distance on an advancing crowd, is the image of brutish chaos.
Or perhaps those words conjure up the image of an octogenarian pepper sprayed in the eyes for speaking out against a government that coddles the rich and abuses the poor.
Or the Berkley students night-sticked in the bread basket to discourage peaceful assembly:
Yet, surely our teachers and parents are right. Surely we need the rule of law to guide society. We need some rules.
Or not.
Today we crawl outside one of our deepest and oldest mental boxes to consider the unthinkableâthat changes in the law cannot cure societyâs ills, because the law, itself, is part of the problem. Today we take a walk on the wild side in a lawless society.
Jun 11 2012
Citizens United, June 5th, and Money, Money, Money, Money! by Geminijen
“When the madness is directed towards the likes of you and me,
Then our blindness may be lifted and we might begin to see.
For when others are afflicted, with the scourge that has no end,
Then we practice our denial — and the purging, we defend.So the powers and the peoples of the nations of this Earth
Could be fully in connivance — or denial of the hurt…
And even, in our hubris, in our information age,
We are blinded by our bias — and at petty issues rage.So the workers were divided and they voted Nazis in,
And so many were the workers, who paid dearly for this sin!
And we see now in Wisconsin, there’s a Walker riding high,
And there’s cash enough from coffers to propagate the lie.”
(excerpted)
Arjun Jalah
Sometimes you would give anything not to be right! When I started writing this diary three weeks ago, I predicted that Scott Walker would win the recall election for governor in Wisconsin. Walker, with unlimited corporate money, was challenged by a massive people’s movement when he outlawed most collective bargaining rights in what was usually considered a progressive state. I knew, with the certainty of a cynic that that much money would out-weigh people power. It was the fight between John Henry and the steel driving machine all over again. Yet, there I was, Tuesday night, praying that the people power would, in the end, win. Not. Walker beat Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate 53%-46%, winning by a whopping 6% points. As Ed of the Ed Show so colorfully pointed out, there was no way to put lipstick on that pig. Or as Chris Hedges had said a couple of weeks earlier: “We lost. They won.”
![monopoly](http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff420/nybritexpat/monopoly.jpg)
Jun 04 2012
As Faust said: “When concepts fail, words arise.” by Don Mikulecky
The remainder of the title would not fit: “The destruction of language in politics”. The series this is a part of has the labels:Anti-capitalist meet-up and anti-capitalism. No better a way to introduce my topic. Those are “buzz words” and have been around for a very long time. What do they mean? I would guess that the vast majority of the people who use these words along with “communism”, “socialism”, “democracy” , “freedom”, liberty”and many others have no real idea what they are talking about. Political exchanges are the “good guys” and the “bad guys” just like in our Western movies. But many of us are more sophisticated or at least we think we are. Read the diaries here and you will be able to see what I am getting at. Language is a very interesting thing. We have dictionaries and now the Google and Wikipedia sources for word meanings. The technology is racing ahead faster than we can comprehend. Umberto Eco calls it the modern magic. We use it like magic not really knowing how it works or where it originates. This diary is meant to blow your mind. It comes from the strange creature I am, a hybrid between scientist (but very unconventional), political activist (but very radical and unconventional) and citizen of the world rather than of a Nation. Oh yes I am an American citizen because that’s the way things have to be at this point in time. It will change, but I will be dead. When I die I cease to exist. I am 76 now. If I haven’t turned you off yet read on below. I hope to shock you.
May 31 2012
Karl Marx on the Paris Commune and Occupy Wall Street by Justina
The Occupy movement has sent out a Call to Action for a June 20th “Global Festival” to celebrate their global demand for a Universal Living Wage:
The regime of wholesale robbery – what the 1% call “austerity” – is already falling across Europe, and soon will fall across the world. But the inevitable collapse of austerity is not enough. We, the 99%, demand a world beyond Wall Street. We demand a system where everyone can not only survive, but flourish. To reach this world, we are raising our voices to demand a universal living wage.
We call on all occupies, unions, community organizations, immigrants rights groups, bodies, religious organizations, environmental groups, anti-poverty activists, and everyone to join us June 20th, 2012 for a new holiday for the 99%: A Global Festival for the Universal Living Wage.
No, Karl Marx, dead since 1883, is not now able to report on the events of the Occupy Movement, as he did on events of the U.S.’s Civil War for the NY Herald Tribune in the 1860’s and the Paris Commune in the 1870’s, but strangely, to this day, the mere mention of his name still strikes terror into the hearts of global capitalists and their media puppets, such as Sean Hannity. Link to…
There must be a reason that the capitalist powers of the 21st century tremble at his name 129 years after his death, his writing must have been very dangerous indeed. How much they must be fear of Tim Poole’s live-streaming. No wonder they arrested him this month in Chicago!. Read below to understand why Karl Marx, and especially his writing on the Paris Commune, was such a danger to capitalism.
May 21 2012
The Mouse that Roared! Greece’s Struggle Against Austerity by New York Brit Expat
We live in interesting times … Those on the left following the situation in Greece were treated to an interesting spectacle in the last election in Greece on May 6th 2012. As expected, those mainstream parties that supported the EU/IMF/ECB memorandum (http://www.reuters.com/…) imposing even more harsh austerity on the country were punished: New Democracy’s (the conservatives, centre-right) votes from 33%-19%, PASOK’s (the Greek socialist party) share fell from 43%-13%, LAOS fell below the 3% needed for securing seats (right-wing nationalist party) all lost seats in the election (greek election results). This represents in many senses a significant rejection of the mainstream political forces that have been ruling Greece since the end of the rule of the colonels (1967-74, for a history of modern Greece see, History of modern Greece) and particularly of the austerity that they have been imposing on the people of Greece over recent months.
Cheat Sheet (to keep track of the players):
SYRIZA: coalition of the radical left, led by Alexis Tsipras
New Democracy: Conservative, centre right neoliberals, led by Samaras
PASOK: Panhellenic Socialist Movement, Socialist party led by Venizelos
KKE: Communist Party of Greece
ANTARSYA: Coalition of Greek Anticapitalist Left, hard left
Golden Dawn: Chrysi Avgi, Greek Fascist Party, neonazis
DIMAR: Democratic Left, centre left to left wing, led by Fotis Kouvelis
LAOS: right wing nationalists
Independent Greeks: Right-wing split off of New Democracy, anti-austerity
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