Sunday, August 9, 2015
Identity Politics
Divide and conquer is the best way to keep the great masses of people from rising up and overthrowing the tiny minority who rule them. Keep us fighting among ourselves, tell us that differences of sex, race, sexual orientation, etc. are more important than the difference of who owns and controls the means of production, and the 1% can laugh all the way to the bank (that they own).
The left in America was smashed by the Palmer Raids, imprisonment and deportations during and after WW1, but rose again during the Depression.
Smashed by the American Inquisition, 1945-1960, when leftists were purged from unions, the media, education and government, it rose again in the 60s.
Smashed by COINTELPRO, murders and imprisonments, what was left of the left turned to identity politics.
If we fight among ourselves, lining up in our various oppressed groups, arguing over who is the most oppressed and angrily denouncing any potential allies from other groups as unable to understand our pain, since they have more privilege, the ruling class doesn't have to bother dividing and conquering.
But then came the Occupy Movement. We Are The 99% was succinct way of putting the class issue back on the forefront. The response of the ruling class should be instructive.
The talking heads on corporate media shrilly denounced the protesters, and their impudent emphasis on Wall Street, instead of Washington, DC. They ordered the protesters to go get their parade permits, and march around an empty White House on a Saturday, the way they have been taught to do. But the Occupy Movement ignored the marching orders. It spread to almost every big city and many small towns across America. It was smashed.
The Black Lives Matter movement arose in protest of the wanton police murders of Black citizens all over the country. The response of the police was to increase the numbers killed. Why? Shouldn't police departments all over the country have warned their officers to back off, at least for a while? Instead, they seem to have declared open season. This fans the flames of outrage.
So now we are well into the quadrennial election "cycle", and two of the corporate candidates openly discuss class.
Bernie Sanders has been attacked for his discussion of wealth inequality in the USA by being called "racist". Yesterday, August 8th, he was actually stopped from speaking at a rally by self-proclaimed BLM activists.
Donald Trump, in the first Republican debate, pointed out that he,as a rich man, has bought and sold politicians, who do what their donors tell them to do. He was openly discussing the fact that the capitalist class owns our government.
So what happened? Trump was immediately attacked....for being sexist. It was announced that he was disinvited to the next showing of candidates.
It doesn't get any clearer than this. You can argue about identity politics all you want, but you must not discuss That Which Shall Not Be Named....the fact that our country is owned and controlled by a small group of people, who are busily stripping it for parts.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Resistance Is Necessary
Greetings and salutations. I am running for Congress because I am part of the resistance to corporate-occupied Washington, DC.
The 1 % have used the wealth they have gained in the last 34 years to buy themselves media, think tanks, lobbyists, congressmen and the Supreme Court, as well as the Presidency. They are using their ill-gotten gains to further increase their wealth.
Our country is under attack. Mountains are being blown up, waters are poisoned, topsoil is stripped for export and the earth beneath the soil is being fractured.
Our people are under attack. Millions are in prison, the police kick down doors and shoot dogs with impunity, millions have been thrown from their homes, and wages, pensions and the safety net are being reduced.
Our governing institutions are under attack. Equal justice is gone. The rule of law is ignored for the wealthy, while the poor are imprisoned for trivial offenses. The NSA spies on all of our communications, while Homeland Security gropes and radiates us, and we need ID to go just about anywhere. The Bill of Rights has been gutted. Even the Magna Carta has been overturned. The Executive Branch, which has abrogated the right to declare war from Congress decades ago, now gives itself the right to conduct world wide assassinations, including Americans. I am not one who believes that Americans have more rights than other nationalities, but the fact that they openly proclaim their intentions to kill American citizens without evidence, arrest or fair trial should give us all pause.
We are under attack, yet our trillion dollar military is not used to defend us. The president uses it as sort of a private hit squad, ordering assassinations and destabilizations using drones, bombs and death squads, to target people in other countries.
This is not going well.
There are many amazing people working on documenting the destruction of our institutions and our planet. Scientists measure the loss of ice, the rise of the oceans, and carefully document the loss of each species. Princeton researchers have just released a study which proves that the US is an oligarchy, not a democracy. Others have come up with innovative ways to preserve our environment, to protect our ecosystem and to order our affairs in a more just and sustainable way.
Yet our public policy bears no resemblance to the wisdom prescribed by those who study, observe and prescribe. There is no public discussion of the way we wish to order our affairs. We are ruled by greedy oligarchs, who are stripping the country for parts, and jailing or killing anyone who gets in their way.
One of the values of the Green Party is Future Focus. This means that we consider the effect of our choices on future generations. When the frackers tell us that we have a few years of natural gas left, as long as we poison our water, air and topsoil and cause earthquakes to get to it, is this a wise decision? Is it worth destroying the basis of life in order to get a few more years of fossil fuels? Who would vote for such a thing, if such a thing were put to a referendrum, instead of decided by bought out politicians?
Americans insist that we love our children. Let's pretend that that is true, and ignore the fact that the US is one of only 3 countries in the world to not give paid maternity leave to new mothers, or the fact that we have the highest rate of child poverty of developed nations.
Our schools, while also under attack by the rich, now teach our children to share and care, and frown upon bullying and violence. These lessons are the opposite of what our children learn in the outer world.
Imagine a kindergarten in which one child buys the teacher and uses her to enforce his will. Only the children that he picks can play on the swingset. The others must sit and watch them. Snack time also, is only for the favored. The other children go hungry. The child bulldozes the ballfields so that he can see if there is a prize underneath them. He scatters garbage all around the school room and playground. The child organizes an attack on the third grade, because their teacher is “evil”.
This sounds absurd to us, because our public schools would never allow such behavior. Why then, should we allow such behavior in our grown up world?
Greens sound radical because we believe that the 1% should not be allowed to destroy our ecosystem for profit, because we believe that each person deserves the basics of life, and because we believe that we must preserve our ecosystem, not just for future generations, but for other species on this planet. We believe that the values we teach our children in school, and that adults learn in church, are values that we should live by. We believe in solving differences peacefully, which now is considered downright anti American. Ask yourself why? Why would the country which hosts the United Nations have gone so far down the military path that it seems too radical to consider diplomacy as an option?
It is time to fight back. It is time to stop the corporate occupation of Washington, DC. The only way we can save the country is to organize. Join the Green Party and help the resistance.
The 1 % have used the wealth they have gained in the last 34 years to buy themselves media, think tanks, lobbyists, congressmen and the Supreme Court, as well as the Presidency. They are using their ill-gotten gains to further increase their wealth.
Our country is under attack. Mountains are being blown up, waters are poisoned, topsoil is stripped for export and the earth beneath the soil is being fractured.
Our people are under attack. Millions are in prison, the police kick down doors and shoot dogs with impunity, millions have been thrown from their homes, and wages, pensions and the safety net are being reduced.
Our governing institutions are under attack. Equal justice is gone. The rule of law is ignored for the wealthy, while the poor are imprisoned for trivial offenses. The NSA spies on all of our communications, while Homeland Security gropes and radiates us, and we need ID to go just about anywhere. The Bill of Rights has been gutted. Even the Magna Carta has been overturned. The Executive Branch, which has abrogated the right to declare war from Congress decades ago, now gives itself the right to conduct world wide assassinations, including Americans. I am not one who believes that Americans have more rights than other nationalities, but the fact that they openly proclaim their intentions to kill American citizens without evidence, arrest or fair trial should give us all pause.
We are under attack, yet our trillion dollar military is not used to defend us. The president uses it as sort of a private hit squad, ordering assassinations and destabilizations using drones, bombs and death squads, to target people in other countries.
This is not going well.
There are many amazing people working on documenting the destruction of our institutions and our planet. Scientists measure the loss of ice, the rise of the oceans, and carefully document the loss of each species. Princeton researchers have just released a study which proves that the US is an oligarchy, not a democracy. Others have come up with innovative ways to preserve our environment, to protect our ecosystem and to order our affairs in a more just and sustainable way.
Yet our public policy bears no resemblance to the wisdom prescribed by those who study, observe and prescribe. There is no public discussion of the way we wish to order our affairs. We are ruled by greedy oligarchs, who are stripping the country for parts, and jailing or killing anyone who gets in their way.
One of the values of the Green Party is Future Focus. This means that we consider the effect of our choices on future generations. When the frackers tell us that we have a few years of natural gas left, as long as we poison our water, air and topsoil and cause earthquakes to get to it, is this a wise decision? Is it worth destroying the basis of life in order to get a few more years of fossil fuels? Who would vote for such a thing, if such a thing were put to a referendrum, instead of decided by bought out politicians?
Americans insist that we love our children. Let's pretend that that is true, and ignore the fact that the US is one of only 3 countries in the world to not give paid maternity leave to new mothers, or the fact that we have the highest rate of child poverty of developed nations.
Our schools, while also under attack by the rich, now teach our children to share and care, and frown upon bullying and violence. These lessons are the opposite of what our children learn in the outer world.
Imagine a kindergarten in which one child buys the teacher and uses her to enforce his will. Only the children that he picks can play on the swingset. The others must sit and watch them. Snack time also, is only for the favored. The other children go hungry. The child bulldozes the ballfields so that he can see if there is a prize underneath them. He scatters garbage all around the school room and playground. The child organizes an attack on the third grade, because their teacher is “evil”.
This sounds absurd to us, because our public schools would never allow such behavior. Why then, should we allow such behavior in our grown up world?
Greens sound radical because we believe that the 1% should not be allowed to destroy our ecosystem for profit, because we believe that each person deserves the basics of life, and because we believe that we must preserve our ecosystem, not just for future generations, but for other species on this planet. We believe that the values we teach our children in school, and that adults learn in church, are values that we should live by. We believe in solving differences peacefully, which now is considered downright anti American. Ask yourself why? Why would the country which hosts the United Nations have gone so far down the military path that it seems too radical to consider diplomacy as an option?
It is time to fight back. It is time to stop the corporate occupation of Washington, DC. The only way we can save the country is to organize. Join the Green Party and help the resistance.
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