Foreword: I am so busy with the events in the Ukraine that I barely had the time to follow the events in Ferguson so I will readily admit that I have no opinion about it. I do have quite a few opinions about race-relations in the USA, including some rather politically incorrect ones (I don’t consider US Blacks either as either Africans or Americans, for example). While I lived in Washington DC (from 1986-1991) at the time of Marion Barry and I often found myself on the receiving end of Black racism and yet I consider Malcolm X the greatest “American” (in quotation because he never considered himself “American” and neither do I) in the history of the USA and one of my personal heroes. I now live in the South (though one could argue that Florida is culturally north of the Carolinas) where I have African and local Black friends tell me very interesting stories about how it feels to be Black and have your car pulled over by a cop. I find the issue of race relations in the USA absolutely fascinating if tragic, but right now is not the time for me to deal with this issue. But one day, if somebody is interested, I might. Right now, the Russian Team has requested articles about the events in Ferguson and one of the best ones was written up by Nora. Now, full disclosure and warning: I consider Nora as a personal friend and a wise and kind lady, don’t you even think of posting something ugly if you disagree with her. You are more than welcome to criticize and disagree, but make darn sure it is substantive and respectful towards Nora. Second, while race is most definitely an issue in the USA, any racist post will immediately go to the trash. Criticize Blacks or Whites as a social group if you want, or White or Black organizations, but do not use any argument which implies that a member of race X has his/her free will restricted by his ethnicity or which lumps all the individual people into one. Deal?
The Saker
——-
What Happened in Ferguson
Setting The Stage
To set the stage for what happened in Ferguson, it would probably be helpful to understand a bit about how the deck has been stacked against people of color in the United States. Although slavery officially ended in 1863, it was ultimately replaced in the South by not only the state-sponsored terrorism of Jim Crow but unofficial re-enslavement via both the sharecropping system and arrest on trumped-up charges leading to unpaid labor on prison chain gangs. The Civil Rights Era brought an end to the worst of this but the War on Drugs ensured that African Americans continue to be arrested and imprisoned at more than twice the rate of whites for similar offenses even though drug usage is about the same for both groups. And outrageously underpaid prison labor in for-profit private prisons is now replacing what little remains of American manufacturing.
Richard Nixon augmented white resentment in the way he “resolved” the implementation of Brown vs. The Board, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision on school desegregation, because he shrewdly realized that working-class white Democrats, North and South, would happily become Republicans if the Republican Party “took their side” on the issue. The end result of that was that re-segregation occurred and black schools are now once again under-funded, with poorer facilities, out-of-date and sometimes even *no* books (!), and generally much worse teachers. I.e., not much has really changed at all in terms of education either.
Worse yet, although blacks once lived in all areas of this country, beginning in the third quarter of the 19th century, they were herded into the cities and literally forbidden to be in many towns after dark. And the parts of the cities they live in generally have far worse services — less frequent garbage pick-up or snow-removal, streets and street lights not well-maintained — but still very high rents, especially considering the quality of the housing. Ostensibly these problems were to have ended with the passage of various Civil Rights laws but again, not really. Redlining is an ongoing process by which blacks are prevented from buying homes in certain areas by making it far more difficult to obtain mortgages and setting higher interest rates for them than whites with similar qualifications. Given that home ownership is generally the primary source of wealth for most American families, this arena too has been closed off to most African Americans. And finally, jobs: given two candidates equally qualified for a position, the African American is significantly less likely to be hired.
White attitudes meanwhile have not shown much improvement either. This is in part due to Nixon’s Southern Strategy for re-empowering the Republican Party, and in part due to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush’s deliberate race-baiting (and vote-getting) strategies, including deliberately trumping up white fears of black violence and lying about the extent of welfare fraud by blacks. But the Democrats, frightened at their loss of white voters, weren’t much better: Bill Clinton’s Welfare Reform hurt a lot of innocent people, white and black, because he too wanted to look tough on black crime — which had actually been declining — while ignoring the serious and far more expensive crimes of wealthy whites. Another factor here is due to the relative isolation of whites from blacks: it’s far easier to remain afraid of people you never get to know, especially if the media commentators you trust keep filling you with stereotypes instead of telling the truth. And make no mistake about it: the most prejudiced whites are also the most frightened whites. Sadly, it is not only to the benefit of the Republican Party to keep them that way but, because few blacks vote Republican, the Democratic Party really doesn’t have to work very hard to get the black vote — so they don’t much bother either. So it’s a truly lose-lose situation there too.
Now for the police. Racial profiling and police brutality have always been a fact of life for people of color in this country. This stems in part from the fact that traditionally the people recruited to be policemen have been quite likely to view blacks as inherently inferior, dangerous and more likely to be criminal. Gun use is deeply ingrained in American culture, and those who hold such racist views are particularly likely to see their guns as essential for personal safety and the only real way to maintain public order. It should also be noted that fears of a black insurrection as well as the desire to conserve one’s human property led quite early to the formation of armed paramilitary slave patrols throughout the South, a primary reason for both the inclusion and peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery The growth of the American gun lobby over the past 25 years has both fed upon and reinforced these views but in point of fact, parents in the black community have traditionally had to sit their pre-teen children down for the rite of passage known as “The Talk”, in which they’re given very specific instructions on how to behave with sufficient meekness and submission to, hopefully, remain alive.
However, the over-militarization of local police — up to and including official instructions to consider and respond to non-violent protesters as terrorists — is a disturbing new trend. The Department of Homeland Security has been a huge profit-making venture for the Military Industrial Complex, both in terms of providing taxpayer-funded grants to local police and fire departments ostensibly to protect us from terror attacks but in fact to ensure that items no longer needed for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could be sold somewhere. So now the tiniest rural fire departments have armoured vehicles they can hardly afford to fuel, and local police have the latest in military equipment and Mossad training inculcating in them a genuine terror of the population — i.e., us — they are paid with our tax dollars to protect.
A commenter on the English version of this blog who lives in a Washington DC suburb recently called her local police department about a possible fraud case which ordinarily would have required simple fact-finding by a single detective. Instead, a fully-armed five-man SWAT team arrived at the wrong address, ready to fire. These events are increasingly common across the board, with innocent people of every age and color and sometimes even their pets being brutalized and/or murdered at traffic stops, in clearly non-violent situations in their own homes when simple medical or other assistance had been requested or again the police burst into the wrong home, and/or the simply because the policeman did not feel his (often quite arbitrary and illegal) orders were being sufficiently obeyed. There is also considerable evidence to suggest poor screening for excess violence or poor behavioral controls, previous job infractions of this sort and/or drug and alcohol abuse among applicants for police work.
Add in a “normal” quantity of southern racism (also quite present in the North, of course, reinvigorated by Sarah Palin and deliberately amplified by various rightwing media in efforts to get Republicans out to vote), a large group of African Americans recently moved from the inner city to one of the few areas they were begrudgingly allowed to enter, and a town whose second-largest source of operating revenues comes from the fines and fees paid by African Americans disproportionately targeted for traffic stops and other low level offenses http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/27/is_ferguson_feeding_on_the_poor and yes, Ferguson was a recipe for disaster. The event itself though, while hardly atypical, is in some ways less interesting than its aftermath, which provides almost a Rohrschach test for America’s people, media and governance at this point in time.
The Event
The evidence on which all parties agree is that Michael Brown was an unarmed 18-year-old highly regarded by his teachers who wanted to start his own business and had no criminal record. He was shot and killed by Ferguson, MO police officer Darren Wilson while walking with a friend to visit his grandmother at approximately noon on Sunday, August 9, 2014, just two days before he was due to start college. There is no police video of the shooting although an audiotape of several shots appears legitimate and many eyewitness tweets and a later video of Brown’s body are also on record; nevertheless, many details of the incident remain unclear. What can be stated without dispute is that Wilson stopped the two teens and ordered them with rather questionable legality to get off the street and onto the sidewalk; accounts differ as to how hostile this confrontation was or whether Brown remained on the street, was pulled by Wilson towards or into the car or was at some point actually in the car assaulting Wilson as later claimed by the police. It is fairly well established, however, that Wilson was seated in his car when he first shot at Brown and his friend through the open car window but missed as they fled. He then got out of his car, fired again at Brown and continued to shoot multiple rounds after the teen turned around with his hands up, ultimately killing him with a shot in the head as he fell. What happened next is like plate tectonics or watching a Greek tragedy unfold.
The Aftermath
Not trusting the hostile and overwhelmingly white power structure in Ferguson, Brown’s family requested a private autopsy by a former NYC forensic pathologist; his results showed nine gunshot wounds (four on the right arm, three on the head and two on the chest) suggesting he had been shot at least six times though not from very close range since there was no gunshot residue on the body. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at-least-6-times.html?_r=0 However, the full findings from the official autopsy by the St. Louis County medical examiner’s office have not been made public, so the presence of any residue on Brown’s clothing or in Wilson’s car remains uncertain. The Justice Department was also asked to conduct an autopsy, though it is highly doubtful that additional information can be obtained.
Michael Brown’s body lay in the street for four hours afterwards at police insistence, Wilson’s name was not revealed for another week and although the Ferguson Police Department filed an incident report on 8/15 alleging that Brown and his friend had committed a robbery just before he was killed, it took the department another full week to file even a highly-abbreviated report of his murder. It was acknowledged, however, that Wilson had no knowledge of the robbery at the time he ordered Brown off the street.
Meanwhile, when the police finally allowed people to access the site of his death, Brown’s family and other residents placed flowers and candles over the bloodstains on the street. At that point, in gestures of contempt quite familiar to people who had lived through Jim Crow, one policeman let his dog urinate on the memorial and others re-blocked the street from cars and then deliberately drove their cars over the candles and flowers, scattering the petals, ruining the memorial and deeply horrifying the already shocked, grieving people. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/ferguson-st-louis-police-tactics-dogs-michael-brown
Over the next few nights the unarmed mourners and protesters grew increasingly restless and perhaps a dozen of them began looting and vandalizing and set one business on fire. Accustomed to enforced deference but at this point genuinely afraid they might have a riot on their hands, the police refused to acknowledge any culpability, attempted with questionable veracity to place the entire blame on Brown, and responded to the protesters according to the Mossad training provided their chief. This included riot gear, SWAT team tactics and helicopters the first night, followed by tear gas, wooden pellets, rubber bullets, smoke bombs, and flash grenades. The results were about as predicted, the governor intervened, steps were taken to calm things down, more people protested, the situation gained national attention, the media took their accustomed positions along predetermined political fault lines, the police over-reacted again, the intensity ebbed and flowed, the National Guard were called in, many people were roughed up, threatened and arrested, including several journalists, and statements by the Obama administration appeared more interested in the violence perpetrated by the protesters than against Michael Brown. Things finally began to calm down after his funeral.
The Fault Lines
Every single part of this tragedy, up to and including the poor training, judgment and violent behavior by some of the police, was utterly predictable; so too was the sensationalized and highly-slanted media coverage, the location, content and intensity of the public outcry on both sides of the Left-Right political divide with the typical uncaring indifference in the middle, and the far greater amount of money collected on behalf of Darren Wilson than Michael Brown. http://www.ksdk.com/story/homepage/2014/08/23/cash-raised-for-mo-cop-surpasses-brown-donations/14506401/ The intensity of the protesters’ response is likewise hardly surprising given the destruction of a simple memorial to a murdered teenager whose body was not yet cold, performed deliberately by members of the same organization as the man who had killed him under highly questionable circumstances.
It is equally important to recognize that what happened in Ferguson was hardly an anomaly: not a single thing happened there that hasn’t happened in many places in this country many times before. In fact, taking a longer view, the biggest question is why the media chose to give it so much coverage. And the answer to that most likely has more to do with their own increasingly precarious finances and the current state of our foreign rather than domestic affairs and their resulting assessment once again that the public really needs a strong diversion and the inculcation of yet more fear.
Nevertheless, just as people all over the world are becoming increasingly aware of the Anglo-Zionist Empire’s true role in taking over and/or destroying so many other countries, the ugly difference between myth and reality in American life — essentially unchanged since our very beginning — has been revealed for everyone to see. The sad truth, however, is that the vast majority of Americans remain locked in to their own propaganda-induced preconceptions, and while efforts continue to be made to address the underlying issues of police militarization, brutality and unequal treatment before the law, the likelihood of genuine improvement in any of these areas is extremely low.
A Word About Sources
Please feel free to ask if you have any questions. For more information on any of this, I will be happy to provide all sorts of URLS but for a deep and nuanced view of the African American experience I cannot more highly recommend a writer and blogger named Ta-Nehisi Coates. He sees things clearly, thinks things through exquisitely well, and is a genuinely superb writer. http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/ Another good resource on this issue and others affecting African Americans is Professor Gerald Horne, interviewed here in a six-part series with transcripts: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12258 Alexander Reid Ross also provides an interesting and informative view of other developments in Ferguson that have an impact on this case, http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/28/notes-on-ferguson/ And finally, The Color Of Change, http://colorofchange.org/ and Black Is Back Coalition http://www.blackisbackcoalition.org/2014/08/27/national-march-on-ferguson-saturday-aug-30th/ are both good resources for anyone interested in the determinedly measured response by the African American community and its supporters to resolving these issues.
Ferguson does not = Novorossia. Please, let’s not muddy the water by creating false equivalents.
@Malooga,
I believe, I need a PhD. to understand, which is way, way above my head.
I remember something you claiming that the cop was not to blame, but again like I said it was way, way above my head.
And, your partial quote (three words) of Mr. Ahmadinejad was correct too, but how it was worded and presented, was again way, way above my head.
A Simpleton,
Mohamed.
I am a Semite. What does, “Thou Shall Not Kill” mean to me.
Remember, the Commandment is written in my language:
1. Do not kill.
2. Do not murder.
3. Do not take someone’s life.
4. Whether that life belongs to humans and/or animals.
5. So, why do we take animals’ life for food?
If you are an Muslim you might know the answer. Being a Christian, it is probably above your head.
Best regards,
Mohamed.
@Malooga
Fascism always includes the demonization, marginalization, and sometimes, murder or removal, of a minority segment of its population. Fascism is the implementation of the divide and conquer strategy within a single society. It creates an intentional schism, and pits one part of society from the other. Both groups are then preoccupied and emotionally charged, and thus, more vulnerable to manipulation by the powers that control society. Some of the more emotional commenters should pause and recognize how they are being manipulated.
You are an immensely clear sighted person Malooga.
Thank you.
Malooda said:
“Howard Zinn is actually a Jew, but grew up in the States”
It is really astounding how many of your readers believe these to be two mutually exclusive categories.
They would never say that about a Protestant.
For the record, Howard Zinn was actually an American, who happened to be born into the Jewish faith.
He had the courage to fight for his country, America, in the second world war. Later, he had the patriotism to speak up and apologize for his actions, which amounted to bombing innocent German civilians, when he understood better to complexities of the war. He spoke against the myth of the “Good War.”
He was against bombing civilians, whether they were Germans or Palestinians, whose cause, by the way, he actively supported.
It is astounding how many people on this blog are willing to completely disregard standard police procedure, because they feel that an officer has the “right to protect himself.” They would make good Israelis, your readers, sanctimoniously citing statistics of Palestinian violence in defense of the IDF “protecting itself.”.
Finally, I have posted to this blog about 15 times. Only three comments have gone through, often up to 24 hours later, when they are irrelevant. My last comment had to be posted twice, when I did not see it appear in the updated comments. This has prevented me from feeling comfortable in sending you money. I hope that in the coming months when you roll out the new version of the blog you are able to address these shortcomings.
Oh, only one person mentioned the presence of paid provocateurs in the rioting. This is standard procedure. It allows the police and many of your readers, apparently, to then justify police repression. Why were no police protecting the stores after an event like this? Students of history will find that the same pattern repeats in every event like this. If the police were really there to protect us, they would have protected those stores before the looting, not after.
Anonymous 12:00,
Let me translate your comment into my native language: You like what I say about Ukraine but can’t handle what I say about the United States. ;~) And yeah, baby, I’m 100% American and can 100% guarantee a whole lot of my family have been here a lot longer than yours.
Joseph Moroco,
Your comment, at best, is tendentious.
Malooga,
Thank you for your praise and thought-provoking comments. Hopefully hearing these things expressed so well in such very different ways will encourage some genuine reflection on the part of those who automatically reject it whenever they see it’s got my name attached. ;~)
Anonymous 15:35,
An emphatic yes to almost everything you said. Your second-to-last sentence, however, is absurd. While Reconstruction was certainly imposed on the South at bayonet-point, Jim Crow assuredly was not. Reconstruction ended with the Tilden-Hayes compromise and the North was complicit only in letting it happen bc at that point they preferred extracting profits from various Southern resources and, frankly, no longer gave a damn about the condition of black folk. That’s not to say they were angels up North either, of course, bc sundown towns and all sorts of other associated horrors began at just about exactly the same time. Also, the reconstituted Ku Klux Klan became quite active in Northern states, including perhaps most prominently Indiana, Pennsylvania and Maine.
Bottom line: scapegoating leaders, regions or victims, doesn’t work. It’s historically inaccurate and does us no good whatever right now either. We have a problem and — here I go again — if you’re not facing it squarely and trying to do something about it, your tacit approval makes you as guilty as anyone else.
Norwegian Bob,
You sound very American to me! ;~)
Anonymous 17:09,
Not a whole lot of guns around at the signing of the Magna Carta. The rest of your purported history is similarly weak tea.
Anonymous 19:20,
You appear to be confounding cause and effect, or perhaps attempting to justify the police response? In any case, I am curious as to why you are focused on that part of the entire cascade of events, especially since there is some evidence to suggest that the looters were not Ferguson residents and may have been agents provocateurs. Certainly it’s not the first time that has been done as it’s a fairly standard procedure used to discredit people challenging TPTB.
But let me ask you this: do you think the looting would have happened had the kid not been shot and his memorial destroyed? And if so, why?
Hi Nora. Congrats on your article. You’re a talented writer and should contribute more in that regard.
In terms of your analysis, I agree the outcome in Ferguson was based on ethnic divisions, bad choices and wickedness. None of this is new. The SOS has always sown tares of division and corruption. And these tares eventually erupt into a Ferguson event. But its important to look beyond the usual suspects. In this case I disagree that its evil southerners and their racial hatreds. The historical record is much older than the American south.
Slavery in the US starts with the slave traders and the huge fortunes made by those families in the business. Touro Synagogue, Newport RI is the oldest orthodox synagogue in the US. Its earliest members were some of the oldest and wealthiest families in America. Many of their descendants remain prominent today — including the DeWolfs who were the nations leading slave traders and intermarried with non-jews so the origins of their slave-trading fortunes became murky. Puritans did not originate the slave trade in America. Southerners don’t have a lock on the sins of slavery or of racial prejudice.
The real issue of Ferguson is the zionized-militarized policing initiated by dual-citizen Michael Chernoff and his IDF buddies at DHS. The disintegration of black families since the 1930’s is connected to generational welfare and drugs — all pushed by SOS cartel. Dependency and drugs has broken black families leaving impoverished grandmothers to fight for the survival of children.
In all these scenarios — caused by myriad factors — TRUTH is found by “following the money”.
The crime of Ferguson is that these SOS bastards continue to divide us. Many southerners are concerned over the militarization of police in their own communities. And many blacks are concerned by the disintegration of the family structure. These concerns are one and the same — even if people don’t see them as such.
Michael Brown is a symptom of SOS America. He was also a thug whose behavior did not protect him from harm. The police shouldn’t have shot him 11 times. No one is innocent. No one wins. Except the SOS and its minions.
The Touro Synagogue celebrated its 250th last year. The descendants of it’s wealthy elites list their ancestors business fortunes as “shipping”. No mention of the cargo. Rum to devastate American Indian populations — and slaves to devastate the south. Synagogue of satan — SOS — indeed.
AGS,
Oh Dear Lord Yes, we’re absolutely *all* in this together — but I was hardly extolling the North! I sure know better than that! ;~) The entire wealth of this country was based on slavery and then sharecropping — cotton mills and the Triangle Trade made a whole lot of individual fortunes that then spurred everything else, including all the European immigrants we were able to absorb. And yes, Providence (think Brown University), but also slavery existed in various places in the North until the mid-19th century. My uncle-in-law had a gorgeous old place in Upstate New York with a slave cabin he kept trying to donate to the New York State Historical Society, and they just kept refusing. And we’re damned sure that the upstairs back wing of our house and a rather elaborate but totally ramshackle two-story “hogpen” (yeah, right) were slave quarters. So yes.
There’s so very much to be said about all this but my main focus here was simply barriers and the lack of equal treatment under the law. (Well, that and the fact that we are all in this together.) And absolutely yes to everything else you said, with one minor exception, bc the evidence really doesn’t exist quite yet to term Michael Brown a thug. He may or may not have actually been the one on that video (the determination has not officially been made so he’s still innocent until proven guilty), there are a lot of unsubstantiated allegations being spread about him, including many on this post, and there may or may not have been sufficient time for him to get from the store to the spot where he was killed. We’ve all got our opinions, of course, but the facts really aren’t all in, and it’s important to always make that distinction. But yes, yes, yes, this is a part of our past and our present and there’s just no way any one of us can weasel out from some degree of responsbility at the very least for acknowledging it as a structural problem and part of everything else we really need to clean up, for everyone’s sake.
@ Mohamed
“I believe, I need a PhD. to understand, which is way, way above my head.”
Ha, ha. Your talking to a dropout here.
“I remember something you claiming that the cop was not to blame, but again like I said it was way, way above my head.”
I never said the cop was not to blame. A troll chose to completely misinterpret the post I wrote at MOA, and then others who had not taken time to read what I had written parroted it all over kingdom come. I wrote a clarification on the same thread, which those who enjoy getting a little steamed up under the collar neglected to read.
For the record, and for those who have read Nora’s post, I agree with her on this issue.
“And, your partial quote (three words) of Mr. Ahmadinejad was correct too, but how it was worded and presented, was again way, way above my head.”
I was surprised when you claimed I was hasbara, when I claimed that I am in favor of the State of Israel not existing. Hasbara would claim the opposite and defend the Israel.
Dearest AGS and Nora,
My wife of almost 40 years is somehow kin to General Lee. I am from a tribe, which is thoroughly inbreeds. She is from the family of inbreeds too. When they have a family reunion, we have to wear name tags, due to so many southerners running around in one place. Never had a problem all those years, I lived in Dixieland.
Here is for my wife:
“”Dixie Chicken”
I’ve seen the bright lights of Memphis
And the Commodore Hotel
And underneath a street lamp, I met a southern belle
Oh she took me to the river, where she cast her spell
And in that southern moonlight, she sang this song so well
…………………..”
In honor of those who have fallen in Ferguson and surroundings:
“”The Ballad Of Curtis Loew”
Well I used to wake the morning before the rooster crowed
Searching for soda bottles to get myself some dough
Brought ’em down to the corner, down to the country store
Cash ’em in and give my money to a man named Curtis Loew
Old Curt was a black man with white curly hair
When he had a fifth of wine he did not have a care
He used to own an old dobro, used to play it across his knee
I’d give old Curt my money, he’d play all day for me
Play me a song Curtis Loew, Curtis Loew
I got your drinking money, tune up your dobro
People said he was useless, them people are the fools
‘Cause Curtis Loew was the finest picker to ever play the blues
He looked to be sixty, and maybe I was ten
Mama used to whip me but I’d go see him again
I’d clap my hands, stomp my feets, try to stay in time
He’d play me a song or two
Then take another drink of wine.
Yes sir
On the day old Curtis died, nobody came to pray
Ol’ preacher said some words, and they chunked him in the clay
But he lived a lifetime playin’ the black man’s blues
And on the day he lost his life, that’s all he had to lose
Play me a song Curtis Loew, Hey Curtis Loew
I wish that you was here so everyone would know
People said he was useless, them people all are fools
‘Cause Curtis you’re the finest picker to ever play the blues”
Best regards,
Mohamed.
@Malooda: “Howard Zinn is actually a Jew, but grew up in the States”
It is really astounding how many of your readers believe these to be two mutually exclusive categories.
BTW, Kurt Vonnegut is a Jew too! I highly recommend this work, especially, “Timequake”.
“Timequake is a semi-autobiographical work by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. published in 1997. Vonnegut described the novel as a “stew”, in which he alternates between summarizing a novel he had been struggling with for a number of years, and waxing nostalgic about various events in his life.”
Like I said, you don’t need a PhD. to understand rocket science.
Mohamed.
The American left needs to re-read Marx and dump its romanticism for the lumpenproleteriat. Any nation that is forced to pick between a repressive state apparatus on the one side and miscreant mob chaos on the other is going to pick the former and with good reason.
Nora
Nice job, and thanks.
вот так
Malooda 24:27
The Howard Zinn comment was mine…I’m not sure if you are critizing me for saying Jew and American in the order I said it, or what ?
You call yourself Malooda here, but the other, very intelligent comment that came before the one at 24:27 was lovely…was written by a person called Malooga…now I’m not sure if you are the same guy…
If so, I liked you better the first time than the second time…and Saker don’t need your moogla….he’s got ours.
Nora,
Thank you for your thoughtful response of 12:21. I have to admit that I am a little perplexed by it, though. In particular, I don’t understand the purpose of your lecture about facts and reasoning. The only explanation for it that I can imagine is that you didn’t understand my earlier comment at 7:54. Apparently you did exactly what I wrote was important not to do, that is, conflate the two categories of your topic. I accept responsibility for this, because I might not have been explicit enough in my terminology.
There is always a difficulty in writing anything with precise meaning. If it is too elaborate it starts reading like a patent application: accurate, unambiguous, but awfully tedious. If it is too brief it can be confusing or misleading. Perhaps I was guilty of the latter.
What I should have written was that the first category of your topic included only the very “specific facts” directly related to and strictly limited to the tragic death of Mr. Brown.
I think if you reread my comment with that in mind that you will see that I was attempting to steer the discussion away from arguments about those specific facts, and on to the more general issues of race relations and police conduct that you seemed to want to discuss. I agree with you completely. The general issue is the one that needs everyone’s attention.
It is also interesting that you spontaneously launched into a discussion about psychopathy. This is not a popular discussion, but I agree with you that it should be. In that regard, I will (again) recommend the book: Political Ponerology by Andrew Lobaczewski. If everyone read that book the world would be a better place.
Your “bottom line” is also a little confusing to me. It’s not that I find your statements confusing, or that I disagree with anything you wrote, but I don’t understand the point you are addressing. In particular, I never expressed my feelings about anything, yet you seem to be accusing me of some thought crime. Would you please elaborate, that is, if you consider it to be important.
Song,
Please a) define Marxism; b) tell me which members of the American left you believe to be Marxist; and c) why.
Song,
Dammit, I hit “send” too soon! (need more coffee… ;~) In any case, if your dictionary’s still around you might then look up Fascism.
If anyone is still here, Mr. Nora’s been on this like white on rice (after the amount of time it took to try to get through some people’s heads the real difference between fact and opinion, I’m really rather sick of it myself). In any case, he has kindly provided URLs for some other interesting analyses, including one by Paul Craig Roberts and another by a white Lutheran minister who had lived in Ferguson and still has many friends there on both sides of the racial divide. I am also including the URL for Malooga’s fine piece at MoA which got so thoroughly misinterpreted by the usual suspects.
I should also note that among the material I chose not to include — bc just like the store robbery Michael Brown is alleged to have committed, in traditional American jurisprudence a person’s prior record cannot be held against them — is the fact that the police force Wilson had previously worked for actually had to be disbanded bc of both racial tension and corruption. However, the Washington Post — hardly a Liberal rag — just came out with a piece on the use of excessive force by the Ferguson police.
“Counting Wilson, whose shooting of Michael Brown on Aug. 9 set off a firestorm of protests and a national debate on race and policing, about 13 percent of Ferguson’s officers have faced excessive-force investigations. Comparable national data on excessive force probes is not available. But the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project, funded by the libertarian Cato Institute, estimated on the basis of 2010 data that about 1 percent of U.S. police officers — 9.8 out of every 1,000 — will be cited for or charged with misconduct. Half of those cases involve excessive force.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-least-6-ferguson-officers-apart-from-brown-shooter-have-been-named-in-lawsuits/2014/08/30/535f7142-2c96-11e4-bb9b-997ae96fad33_story.html
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/08/15/cops-gone-wild.html
http://firedoglake.com/2014/08/30/ferguson-and-the-prophet-jeremiah/
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26081-crowdcontrol-policing-in-the-us-is-stuck-in-riot-mode.html?full=true#.VARe7ihy9Hg
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=832&Itemid=74&jumival=1078
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/31/1325627/-Can-you-still-doubt-plight-of-black-men-with-police-irrespective-of-socio-economic-circumstances
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2014/08/31/podcast-ferguson-class-divisions-why-community-may-reject-voting-as-key-answer-to-injustice/#at_pco=cfd-1.0&at_ab=-&at_pos=0&at_tot=8&at_si=540455deac6757e4
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/08/malooga-on-ferguson-the-bigger-picture.html#more
вот так
Thank you, and you’re welcome. ;~)
Writer,
Writer,
I may not fully understand your point, but if I do I could not more strenuously disagree. It is always essential (no?) to convey relevant facts so that any subsequent discussion can be based on them. In this case I limited myself to strictly evidentiary data for many reasons, including bc I knew what was gonna happen next and really didn’t want to have to deal with it; Saker kinda forced my hand and I shouldered up bc it really did need to be done. But also, because while we absolutely need not one but a whole series of discussions on racial issues, that was soooo not the purpose of this piece. Remember, it was written to give people in Russia, where they have not got our Culture Wars divide, a basic overview of the situation so they could see for themselves just how the American people are dealing with it. In terms of psychopathy however, let’s just say I have considerably more than a lay person’s training, knowledge and experience in the field, and chose my words quite carefully. And finally, please know that my bottom line really wasn’t particularly addressed to you, so feel free to disregard it if it doesn’t apply! ;~)
@Nora: I am also including the URL for Malooga’s fine piece at MoA which got so thoroughly misinterpreted by the usual suspects.
Bullshit sister,
What Mr. Malooga is saying that the jobs of law enforcing class is highly desirable and come with perks. But this law enforcing class is NOT responsible for their deeds because of institutionalized violence. Therefore, they are not responsible for their behavior. Total Bullshit.
I agree with Mr. Malooga that the big picture is that the system is fucked up, but it us the minions who are feeding this system and are responsible for it.
The change comes from the bottom and not from the corrupt top.
The person who took Mr. Malooga to task is JSorrentine. You can ask dearest AGS opinion regarding JSorrentine?
If I am not mistaken, AGS has already opinionated regarding JSorrentine on this blog.
Sorry to be so harsh dearest sister.
Best regards,
Mohamed.
@Malooga: I was surprised when you claimed I was hasbara, when I claimed that I am in favor of the State of Israel not existing. Hasbara would claim the opposite and defend the Israel.
Read my lips. The comment in the first place was made by Ayatollah Imam Khomeini (ra). The comment was then repeated by Ahmadinejad. Both Imam Khomeini and Ahmadinejad never questioned Israel’s right to exist.
But the HASBARAH took both men to task by twisting their comment, like you are doing.
Enough said,
Mohamed.
Mohamed,
I guess I need to go back and look at that again — I admit I haven’t lately. I know I agreed with a lot of what he said but maybe should have been more uncomfortable with that part of it. Thank you for pointing it out. I do like JSorrentine: not much gets by him, that’s for sure! ;~)
you are a god dammed liar blacks rule america ,white people are opressed here.
Nora,
Marxism is the philosophy and ideology elaborated by Marx and Engels and which has developed into numerous branches over the decades. Basically it argued that the section of the population that does the actual production was exploited by an exploiter class that capped the surplus capital and that eventually this would lead to revolution. It also identified a section of the exploited population which had fallen so far in its degeneracy that it no longer had any class identity but was instead a cesspool of petty criminality that, in times of social stress, is more then not likely to act as the ally of the exploiter class out of opportunism and petty egoism. This degenerated section of the proletariat is the lumpenproletariat.
Left-wing parties have almost all been influenced by Marxism as it provides a very structured analysis of class conflict throughout history with the promise of a classless society in the future. Anyone who speaks of exploiter and exploited sections of the population in the 20th century has basically been influenced by Marxism in some form. That said, “classical” Marxism and Soviet-style Marxism-Leninism was never that influential in US leftist circles. However, the US radical left was strongly influenced by post-WW2 Western European Marxist thinkers who tried to explain the lack of support of the European proletariat for Communist parties by arguing arguing that the European proletariat needed to have its culture profoundly changed first. According to this view, the revolutionary class was no longer the proletariat itself, but various other marginal groups in the society, many of whom most of the proletariat did not much care for. In this way, the proletariat was gradually sidelined and various elements of the lumpenproletariat became the central focus for the leftists. By the 1960s, with the rise of the black civil rights movement and black nationalism in the US, many US leftists, influenced by this form of neo-Marxist thinking, latched onto the black population as the revolutionary class (even if they did not specifically describe it in those terms) that would be the vanguard against the power structure. However, much of the black radicalism of that period ultimately degenerated, through a combination of FBI subversion and internal ideological rot, into pure identity politics and excuse-making for petty criminality. That is where I see much of the US left now. It is blinded by this idea that the rioting urban lower-class blacks will drive some sort of profound social change and that the widespread petty criminality in that population will disappear without white racism. That is a false vision. The black lumpenproletariat has completely absorbed the neoliberal dogma of consumerism and are more interested in robbing local shopowners (not that much wealthier than they are) than revolution. Malcolm X has turned back into Malcolm Little.
Anonymous 18:09,
Dry up or provide proof.
I realize you’re upset but try not to take the Lord’s name in vain, okay? It’s really not very becoming and hardly substantiates your claims. Otoh, you certainly demonstrate quite clearly a lot of what I’ve said here about your type.
Song,
Good answer, up to the 1960’s or early 1970’s. Since then, not so much, just vague statements and allegations. Can you provide any more specific data to back them up?
More data to support what precisely?
That the post-1960s US left focuses on the lumpenproletariat over the proletariat?
Answer: Look at the platform of almost any radical left-wing group in North America and you will find lots about diversity and homosexuals and immigrants but not much about workers. Compare their platforms to those any Communist party prior to the Second World War.
That the black underclass has absorbed neoliberal consumerism?
Answer: Look at the vast majority of black rap music, a genre that initially had a more social focus but quickly became immersed in chanting the glories of buying Adidas shoes. This phenomenon is documented most recently in Mathias Cardet’s book Effroyable Imposture du Rap.
“Needless to say, as soon as these crazies got to power, they immediately passed a series of fantastically stupid and provocative laws such as the re-authorization of Nazi propaganda…”
Does anyone know the details of the law being referenced here?
Nora,
Nora,
Are you still here?
You don’t understand my point but you strenuously disagree? Seriously? That’s hilarious! Why are you prattling on about the relevancy of facts? I never suggested that anyone should ignore facts, or anything remotely like it. I’m going to borrow one of Saker’s lines. Please read what I actually wrote, if necessary read it again.
You have already explained why you wrote the piece, and you don’t need to defend it. You did a good job, and it was a truly noble effort. I suppose that next week your assignment will be ‘the meaning of life’ or maybe ‘determining the one true religion’. My point is, that you had an impossible task. It was quite reasonable to summarize the recent events in Ferguson. You did that well. But it is impossible to describe race relations in the U.S., including police conduct, in a few paragraphs. The subject is enormous. Nevertheless, you tried. What you wrote may have been adequate for a Russian audience; I don’t know. But it was grossly incomplete for an American audience. Therein lies the root of one of the problems with the ensuing discussion.
I completely agree that race relations and police conduct needs to be discussed. And I more than agree that the discussions need to be frank and factual. (There. See?) But I disagree that you have given the Russian readers a basic overview of how the American people are dealing with it. I contend that the American people are NOT dealing with it. Let me make an analogy (or is it a simile or a metaphor; oh, whatever).
A man limps into a hospital feeling terrible. He looks really awful, and reeks with an overwhelming odor of death. An examination quickly discovers that a wound on his leg has developed into a massive case of gangrene. It is ugly and it stinks. (If you have ever observed such a case you know that it is not for the faint-of-heart or the weak-of-stomach.) The attending physician tells him that it will kill him if untreated, and the treatment is amputation. What should the man do? Should he review the history of the wound, the care he has given it, what else he could have done, and so on, take some aspirin and hope for the best, or finally look closely at his ugly, stinking leg, accept the unpleasant facts as they are, and act decisively?
In our society racism is an ugly, stinking, festering problem to which we have, for the most part, only applied palliative care. Inappropriate police conduct is a related issue, but it also relates to other matters. Together these are serious and debilitating. We must examine the situation as it exists, no matter how ugly the facts are, and then we need to act effectively to remedy the situation. What is the remedy or how is it to be found? I don’t know, but I suspect that it won’t be simple, and it won’t be easy, and it won’t come about until our back is against the wall and that’s because psychopaths are running things. The last point is for another discussion.
Writer,
Just to be sure, I went back and re-read yet again your initial post, and it still appears that you conflated the facts and evidence I presented with some sort of “concensus”, although I’m still not sure on what or by whom. There was no concensus, popular or otherwise, in either those facts or that evidence: they were just simply well-documented historical facts and evidentiary data according to the very strict rules of American jurisprudence. So again, any conflation would have been on your part, not mine. Everything I wrote is certainly open to challenge or refutation of course, but only by other equally well-documented facts or new evidentiary data. However, no one yet has offered anything backed up by established historical and/or legal criteria. And that’s not just being pedantic: how we know what we know really does matter in separating out fact from opinion. I keep trying to tell you that.
And I’ve got to say I’m still perplexed at where you think I introduced any personal opinions at all on the background or content of the case since I only offered one, quite a bit later in the thread regarding the impact on all subsequent events of the police destroying the memorial. Also, my dear, I in no way launched into a discussion on psychopathy, although I do think there has been a lot of psychopathology evident in the public response to the facts of this issue, as well as the conflation of fact and opinion in some of the more tendentious comments observed here. Which also, btw, display an astounding lack of empathy. ;~) You may make of that, of course, what you will; I’ll try very carefully in the future not to sound like I’m lecturing you, especially since I’ve had the distinct pleasure here of being quite tendentiously lectured on the difference between fact and opinion by someone who clearly knew nothing about either the difference between the two, or the topic at hand. ;~)
And finally, dear, I wasn’t defending my piece: I don’t need to. It stands quite well on its own. But you have some real problems with comprehension so I was trying yet again to explain things, in the apparently futile hope you could take in some simple declarative sentences. Which you have proven yet again –despite all the words you so pompously throw around — you simply cannot do. Let me try once more — I’ll write it slowly this time and maybe you’ll get it: it was never the purpose of this piece (check the title, please) to open a conversation on race. So get off your high horse: you’re still full of it. And please do check the meanings of even some of the everyday words you use, bc you misuse them hilariously sometimes.
I’m done. Spew away; I’ve got far more important things to do.
Song,
First off, let me absolutely agree that damned near everyone in this country, whatever color or class, has absorbed neoliberal consumerism. Dear. God. Yes. dammit
I think you’ve made some really good points here but I’d like to challenge just a few of them and I can’t do it academically bc it’s not something I’ve spent a lot of time studying. Otoh, I’ve known a lot of Liberals and Progressives (whom I assume you’re calling the radical left), and also a lot of the people I think you’re referring to as lumpenproletariat, both black and white. I don’t like that term, but then I don’t think in Marxist terms and don’t think I’ve even seen that word since I first learned about Marx etc. in what I’d guess you’d call an elitist high school back in the Stone Ages. So I do see what has happened since the Civil Rights Movement morphed into that Godawful identity politics a bit differently than you, and would love to talk about it.
But how do you know that the post-1960’s US left focuses on the lumpenproletariat over the proletariat? I don’t they give a damn about either one, to be honest, and certainly don’t think in those terms. So yes, could you please name some people you consider members of the US left who have said or done anything like that? Bc otherwise how do you know they think in those terms? And please name a radical left-wing group with more than two or three members that even exists at this point in time. They may be there, propounding away, but who’s listening? Used to be you’d get preachers and radicals of all stripes hollering out stuff from atop a wooden box on street corners and in city parks with most people just hustling on by, and if anyone’s out there propounding that kind of stuff now it’s probably to the same effect.
What it looks like to me is that basically since Carter, and certainly with the advent of Reagan and Neoliberal supply-side economics (which actually began under Nixon and Ayn Rand’s lovely acolyte Greenspan, then the head of his Council of Economic Advisors, I think it was called), the whole country turned very much to the right, shifting even the definitions of Left and Right. Right now, Eisenhower’s policies while prez would make him, well, I don’t even know what the Right would call him but they were extremely bland, niddle-of-the-road concensus kind of stuff at the time — and definitely WAAAY off the far Left end of the political spectrum now.
But you see, we’ve got nothing even like Eisenhower now — it’s all different, far more Conservative. And that Left is just not there — they abandoned blacks and Civil Rights the very nanosecond quotas for Jews were abolished, and did care about women for a while but really, it just looks to me like everybody on the traditionally left side of the continuum got into making money and forgot about everything else. So yeah, if their sympathy genes for the underdog get triggered, they’ll donate something to someone, but that’s really about it. What really lights their fires are what they see as the ignorance and excesses of the Right — typical Culture Wars stuff the entire American public has been programmed right into. And here I go again but it would be soooooooooooo nice if we could just break out of that mold and focus on the folks who are screwing us all over.
Song,
My use of “elitist” in the second paragraph was probably not the best choice of words; what I should have said instead was “wealthy suburban Republican”. Sometimes it’s danged hard to translate *then* into *now* ! ;~)
Nora said… 31 August, 2014 21:07
Defining details is typically function of projection and a strategic weakness.
Your first sentence could also be deemed projection, although ending with ? possibly as a get-out or indicator of doubt.
The question was asked to add to data for calibration of ideological immersion in order to inform other actions.
The addresses of the “looters” are not details per se, but also relevant for the above purpose.
Anonymous 15:10
Huh?
“Defining details is typically function of projection”
Please provide a reputable source for that nonsense.
And trust me, whoever you are, if this is actually aimed at me, I hardly need to worry about strategy here. Facts and definitions do stand on their own, despite the apparently unceasing efforts of those who don’t like them. You can’t reason with enforced ignorance: all you can do is just point it out so other people can see it and laugh.
Nora,
Regarding radical leftist American thinkers who focus on the lumpenproletariat over the old proletariat:
Noam Chomsky is one example, in this text he is basically telling the majority of Americans that they do not need to worry about personal defense and worrying about it is a sign of historical ingrained prejudice
http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-why-americans-are-paranoid-about-everything-including-zombies?page=0%2C1
Angela Davis argued that high levels of black and Latino incarceration are a sign of political repression and specifically claims for the lumpenproletariat a key revolutionary role. She does not believe that the US prison system, like the Soviet gulag, despite all their injustice, is actually mostly filled with real criminals.
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/davispoprprblli.html
You may not use Marxist categories in analysis. I do to a large extent even though I suspect that actual Communism is a phenomenon of the ancient past rather than something that can be achieved in some glowing future.
My concern is that if everytime middle and lower-class whites (and others) encounter black criminality, they are lectured about how they have inherited historical guilt and therefore should not complain so much, then that majority population will never turn against the regime. One cannot ask people to tolerate low-class predators because those low-class predators are some putative revolutionary class needed to fight the high-class predators. Most people will react far more strongly to what they experience directly (low-class criminality) than what they experience indirectly (elite oppression).
I am not sure that the US became more rightwing in the 1980s and onwards. Rather, it became more right-wing in an economic sense and more left-wing in a cultural sense. What unites these two trends is the growing worship of the mass ego. Neoliberal economics as promoted by Greenspan and others makes the consumer the center of the economy and the ideal consumer is a docile drone who is nonetheless convinced of his or her own importance and demands instant satisfaction of his or her whims. A certain kind of radical leftism is compatible with this approach where sating the ego is seen as overthrowing institutional oppression. The end result is one where the rightists openly support predatory economic practices and the leftists agitate for a share of the spoils of those predatory economic practices putatively for such-and-such designated victim group. The modern Western corporations with their diversity departments are a good example.
Another example of the post-1960s US left’s shift to the lumpenproletariat is their attitude towards private ownership of guns.
Historically, socialists have understood that a popular army is one way to weaken the coercive power of a state controlled by oligarchic interests. A popular army requires a general population that is either armed or well-instructed in the use of arms (and it is hard to be well-instructed in the use of arms if you do not own any yourself). The problem with gun owners in the US is not that they have guns but that many of them have absorbed too much rubbish ideology and cultural decay just like the rest of the populace.
The practical result of the gun policies promoted by leftists in the US today would be to concentrate guns in the hands of the state’s mercenary troops and in the criminal world.
Song,
It might take me the rest of the day to give you a good response, but I’m really interested in this so I hope you’ll be patient!
Song,
Part 1:
Song,
Thanks for responding. Chomsky I really haven’t paid all that much attention to ever since I decided his linguistic stuff was a bunch of hooey, so I honestly can’t say. To me he’s just a Jewish gatekeeper but I’m willing to take your word for it. Sometimes he seems to say sorta of decent stuff but mostly, meh, to me anyhow. Angela Davis is something else again — the incarceration rates really are awfully skewed, for real: they don’t reflect genuine criminality due to the uneven arrest rates for the same charges for whites as opposed to blacks, so is it political repression, racism, protection of white kids bc their parents have better connections (certainly so for suburban kids stopped by cops on drug charges) or some combination of all of it? Who knows — and how do you even gather the right facts to pin that down? It would certainly help if they were collected though, and they’re not. The bottom line though is twofold. First, prison labor makes a whole lot of money for the MIC, and other manufacturing — I’ll dig up the sources if you want them but they really are there. But secondly is the combined effect on the black community of those racially-skewed incarceration rates for drug and other victimless crimes and all the other barriers I cited, since so many men are taken out of it. Bad for families and building any kind of healthy community since so many men are taken out of it. And that leads into yet something else: Irish communities here in the middle-to-late 19th century and often quite a bit later, for one example out of many, were horribly violent, crime-ridden areas. And Ukraine right now, equally impoverished, is loaded to the gills with drugs, violence, prostitution, gambling, etc. And one common factor, regrettably, is that everything I mentioned, while not being the best way to make money, at least makes it possible to make some. So the effect of grinding poverty is real and exists across cultures, thus hardly limited to any ethnic or racial category.
Now for Communism — it never really did happen as Marx theorized bc Russia became totalitarian in order (they claimed) to adapt to the fact that there hadn’t been sufficiently industrialized to even have a proletariat. But Scandinavia wasn’t totally Socialist either, just Social Democrat. Everything else, as I see it, is just labels and theories and points of view — plus a whole lot of propaganda aimed at us to perpetuate the AZ Empire by keeping us seriously scared. Which. We. Were. But also, the Labor movement and a lot of Liberal/Progressive activism (not Communist by any means) achieved things like abolishing child labor, getting 8-hour work days, etc.. Then once those gains were made, the need for the movement as a whole just sort of fizzled away, while the union bosses got a bit too big for their britches and co-opted by management plus kept asking for truly ridiculous stuff/defending the lowest common denominator among workers (trust me, I’ve seen that in action!). Then management finally recognized how to win the wage/price spiral, and proceeded to do so. Then Carter and Reagan finished them off and Clinton sent the damned jobs overseas. At least that’s how I see it.
Song,
Part 2:
As for black criminality, I’ll set down the rest of my views if you’d like to hear them but we’re probably never going to agree on it so I’ll hold off for now. Otoh, being a gun-owner appalled at both the poor training/recklessness and paranoid attitudes of some of our current gun-toters but still not liking the Feds to restrict anything, I’m actually neutral on registration but think I’d probably shoot anyone trying to take ’em away. I’d die in the process but at least do some damage first. Liberals and Progressives (I just can’t call them the Left bc they really, really aren’t anymore) don’t understand this but it’s not a dogma/ideology thing with them: they just see guns as killing machines, don’t like the guys waving them around a) in general and b) bc they’re waving them around, and do get scared with the mass shootings. Plus, they see them as a Rightwing emblem. More Culture Wars in action: both sides have been led around by the nose on this issue by TPTB bc, hey, it gets votes and keeps everyone nice and focused on the other side and away from what’s being done to all of us. I’d LOVE to find a way to change that, bc we really all are all in this together and these hot-button issues — gun control, abortion, gay rights — are deliberately being used to gin up support; the only reason gay rights actually got granted, imo, is to use that as both crumbs for the Progressives (they’re losing on abortion rights and gun control Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.), and as an emblem of our superiority to both Russia and Islam.
So, to summarize so far, I’m still not seeing any radical anything on the part of people here who don’t adhere to Conservative ideology. Joseph Overton — hardly a Liberal (!) — came up with the concept named for him of a window within which political thinking and discourse can occur here, and it would be good to take a look at some of his work, bc it really does seem to apply.
Not sure I’ve responded to everything but I hope you’re still here and am looking forward to what you have to say.
Nora,
I think that we have explained our respective positions on the issue of black criminality pretty clearly. Certainly, I now have a more nuanced view of your position and see where we converge in our views. It appears that our main difference on this issue is that you assign greater importance to economic factors in explaining black criminality and incarceration rates whereas I do not think that they are so important. I apologize if my initial statement seemed a bit flippant.
Now, regarding the radicalism and why I think there is a now a significant leftist element that is compatible with neoliberal capitalism:
Capitalism unbound basically wants to simplify the vast majority of human beings into consumers. With improving technology, the number of people involved in actual production is likely to shrink (barring a collapse of the system) but the consumer population would continue to grow and the more deracinated people, the better consumers they become.
A certain kind of neo-Marxism is compatible with that approach. Not because they want to support neoliberal capitalism per se, but because they believe that the shedding of qualitative measure of human existence is emancipatory because it releases people from systems of thought and being inherited from the past. Marx had written that the workers had nothing to lose but their chains. Certain neo-Marxist thinkers came to the conclusion that under mid-20th century capitalism workers still had lots to lose (national identity, religion, hierarchical pre-capitalist cultural norms) and that the flattening of humanity by capitalism had to be pushed further before conditions were revolution could exist. Some of them may actually believe that there is a great Communist revolution waiting at the end of neoliberal globalization. I suspect that more of them are just interested in the emancipation of individual base urges in and of itself. Consequently, real social and economic equity is no longer of actual interest to this radical left.
On the question of the convergence of a certain super-capitalism and a certain neo-Communism, there is an interesting book that was originally published in Francoist Spain called The Red Symphony. It purports to be the transcript of the interrogation of a high-level Trotskyist party member by an NKVD officer (purportedly discovered on a dead boy on the Eastern Front by a member of the Blue Division.) In the course of that interrogation, the Trotsykist explains to the Chekist that Stalinism was not the real path to Communism and that the center of world revolution was not Moscow but New York where the financier elite knowingly pushs the capitalist system to its final destructive conclusion so as to gain total power. If the book is a forgery, then it is a forgery that is so well done to be largely true. I wonder if this book made some waves among White Russian emigres (could Saker chime in?).
https://archive.org/stream/Red-symphony-GlobalEnslavementUsingUsury-capitalismAndCommunism#page/n1/mode/2up
The great thing about the AZ empire is you can BUY justice and forgiveness even from god. Its good to be the king…
North Carolina on Wednesday released an inmate who has served three decades on death row – a day after declaring he and his half-brother were innocent in the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.
Both McCollum and Brown are mentally challenged, having low IQs, according to their lawyers. The men, 19 and 15 at the time, respectively, confessed to the crime after lengthy police interrogations, believing they would be allowed to go home after signing the papers.
Part 1
Yesterday afternoon I realized there were two other things I wished I’d said, so I’ll just start off by saying them now; then I’ll respond to what you wrote. First off — and this is hysterical bc we live in the country — I totally forgot about white rural/small town crime, and it is *substantial*. Same stuff as Ukraine and the inner city except the drug of choice is methamphetamine, And. It. Is. Nasty. So I felt pretty stupid about that all day and then what hits my eye this morning but a huge headline in the morning paper about yet more of it. This stuff goes unnoticed/unwritten-about in urban/suburban America (bc who cares about us) but from Maine to eastern Oregon to all over the South, it’s bad — real bad. And there’s very much less recourse to help bc there’s so much less money and infrastructure to deal with it — there are only so many state cops, for example, and generally at the other end of the district whenever you need them.
But secondly, we planted a fair amount of new grass seed and as I was watering it, I realized that’s a pretty good way to explain part of what I’m talking about. Among the things needed to get a decent lawn of course would be soil, water and the right temperature range and it’s pretty obvious that grass grows better with certain combinations of all three. But you can’t say anything for sure about the effect of, say, different kinds of soil unless you make a direct comparison by planting a couple of plots and holding everything else constant. Otherwise, you really don’t know — you’ve noticed some differences of course: that’s why you’re curious, and you’ve got certain ideas about how this stuff fits together, but you really can’t say anything for sure until you’ve pinned things down more precisely and that’s the only way to do it. Otherwise your theories are really no more than an educated guess. Nothing wrong with that, of course — figuring out how stuff works is essential for, well, just about everything, right? But it’s only the first step, bc then you have to see the extent to which you’ve nailed it, or where you may still be off a bit.
Now don’t get me talking about my grass (you’ll regret it as much as I do!) but this pertains both to theories in general and also of course old Nature-Nurture argument. Which is generally presented in our lovely media as strictly Either/Or but the reality is that it’s never that simple, and always boils down to different kinds of interactions between the two. And that’s generally where the media really drop the ball bc sound-bites propagandize better and most reporters have neither the knowledge nor the patience to convey things more precisely, while their bosses have definite agendas in mind and wouldn’t let anything through (to wit: Ukraine) that doesn’t further them. So, while I’m hardly soft on crime (trust me on that!), I strongly believe that both morally and practically there should be a level playing field in education, child nutrition, mortgages/small business loans, incarceration rates for similar crimes, etc., and then let things sift out as they may. Oh, and of course, de-militarized and re-trained police, enough of them walking their beats and more readily available out in East Jebip — we’ll *all* benefit from that!
Part 2
Sorry that took me so long; I really did get through it as quickly as I could. ;~) And I’m assuming you already know a lot of this but said it really in the hopes that other people might be reading it too. Now to your stuff:
In your third paragraph I think you’ve delineated the real problem with Neoliberal capitalism (and yeah, I sure do like the phrase “capitalism unbound”) bc how on earth are consumers (Lord, I hate being referred to that way) going to consume anything, up to and including food, if there are no jobs? People are going hungry here right now as I type, for that very reason — used to be a lot industry but it’s long-gone now. And either our Lords And Masters never really thought that one through, they simply don’t care, or they’re creating a Malthusian exponent; the effect looks to be the same in any case and, again, it’s spiraling out of control as I type.
But really, I still don’t see any evidence of neo-Marxists having either the numbers, the audience or — far more significantly — the power to implement anything. Marxism at this point does look like an interesting way of understanding things, but in terms of actually achieving goals, it’s been pretty well discredited and the very few people who may still have Marxist or Communist goals are absolutely on the un-listened-to fringe. Where we are now is just so different from the Sixties and Seventies: they’re just not there, not behind the scenes and not out in front. Meanwhile, however, the Bankster/Corporatocracy not only does, but is, via offshoring, all the credit default swaps and other nonsense that yielded obscene profits while wiping people out of their homes, etc.
Marxism at this point — and I thank you for this — does look like an interesting way of understanding things. But in terms of actually achieving goals, it’s been pretty well discredited and the very few people who may still have Marxist or Communist goals are absolutely on the un-listened-to fringe. And I still don’t see any evidence of neo-Marxist of any stripe having either the numbers, the audience or — far more significantly — the power to implement anything. Power is more than just words on a street corner or the Internet: it’s the ability to get things done. And right now, We The People just don’t have any. Where we are now is just so different from the Sixties and Seventies: the only people with any interest in overthrowing the government (and not the system, mind you, just the government) are American Patriots. And they may be many things — and look like they might even fit into your theorizing quite nicely — but they’re not consciously Marxists. Those guys just aren’t there, not behind the scenes and not out in front (did you check out that stuff on the Overton Window, btw? It’s really kind of neat.). Meanwhile, however, the Bankster/Corporatocracy not only does have the power and the motivation (greed), but is doing exactly what you said, via offshoring, all the credit default swaps and other nonsense that yielded obscene profits while wiping people out of their homes, etc., and just generally helping themselves to everything that isn’t nailed down.
Song,
Lord, I was so busy composing my response to you I forgot to address it to you! o well… I tried, and I do hope you see it. ;~)
Nora,
The neo-Marxism that I refer to is not a mass movement. It is an ideology propagated through the media and academic institutions and is accepted by the populace with varying degrees of enthusiasm (in large part because they are no longer able to think of anything else as being left-wing).
http://diversity.cornell.edu/
http://web.uri.edu/diversity/
http://diversity.utah.edu/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcuse/#SpeLibGreRefNewSen
“Marcuse’s search for a form radical subjectivity that could serve as an impetus for revolution or social transformation led him down a path not traveled by his Frankfurt School colleagues. Indeed, one of the criticisms of Marcuse is that he gave in to pessimism and gave up on the working class as revolutionary subject. For Marcuse, we must look to “the substratum of the outcasts and outsiders, etc,” for any social change (MacIntyre 1970: 87).
One of the social movements that Marcuse turns to is the feminist movement. On March 7, 1974 Marcuse gave a paper at Stanford University entitled, “Marxism and Feminism”. In it he states:
I believe the women’s liberation movement today is, perhaps the most important and potentially the most radical political movement that we have. (Marcuse 2005: 165)
For Marcuse, the women’s liberation movement was important not only for the liberation of women, but also for the liberation of all oppressed people in our society. His hope was that the struggle for the liberation of women would create a new type of performance principle and aid in the cultivation of a new sensibility. In short, certain feminine qualities would replace brutish, violent, masculine qualities. Marcuse actually advocated a form of androgyny.”
This is what is understood to be leftism today. There is no more analysis of the socioeconomic reality and of actual relations of exploitation. It is all about individual release from restraint and the elimination of hierarchy from thought. It advocates the same Reign of Quantity (to quote René Guénon) that prevails in neoliberal capitalism and thus converges with neoliberal capitalism in the ends that it seeks.
Regarding the Overton window, I have read this summary
http://www.mackinac.org/12887
It is an accurate description of mass political perception and of how marketing (i.e. manipulating the emotional elements of human perception) is the critical element in determining mass political perceptions.
Song,
But Marcuse has been dead since before Reagan! Most people now haven’t even a clue who he was, or if they do, it’s just as an odd name in history. And diversity here is a) still legally required in some circumstances; but b) circumvented wherever possible by using surrogates such as people from Africa instead of American blacks. And the feminist movement? As a woman, I’ve just got to say, come on now: there have been two generations of women since then who don’t take very much of any of that stuff seriously either — even where I personally think they should. You can quote Marcuse all you want but his 15 minutes of fame ended before he did. No one thinks seriously in those terms any more; they’ve been utterly supplanted by newer stuff. Even Hillary Clinton was done with the New Left by the time she started law school and got more interested in money and power. I saw all this at the time: the New Left and Weathermen et. al. were kind of a spoiled, rebellious, adolescent phase that the people who went through it outgrew, but for some reason those who who were most turned off by it (and don’t get me wrong, there was a lot to be turned off by) never did: they’re still stuck there, still mad at Woodstock or hippies or yippies or God only knows what else. But that stuff is long gone now — you might as well be worried about the Wobblies or Molly Maguires. I mean, my gosh, we’re forty years past the 1970’s and we’ve got a whole new batch of totally different, greedy, conscienceless movers and shakers who supplanted the old WASP aristocracy, and even if not many of them are actually doing much thinking, we sure need to. But we need to see clearly what’s going on now and not just interpret it through what looks like a pretty darned decent lens which nevertheless needs some dust and smears from the past wiped off it so it can more clearly reflect the present.
I do think you’re onto something, I really, really do. But I think you could get a lot further if you’d just forget about every single figure left of Jimmy Carter and the New Dems — for gosh sakes, everyone else has! Me, I’m too data-driven and besides, my own interests lie elsewhere, but I’d really urge you to focus on those who really hold the power here, including various media figures trying their damndest to keep you from finding out they’re not on your side at all (or the other side either: just their own bc they’re all of them up to their eyeballs in it). And I’d love to see who and what else you come up with.
And yes to Overton: but don’t you see that the whole show in Congress is nothing more than kabuki: they all agree on the bottom line, and that bottom line never helps us, only them and their masters. It’s a wonderful game, but We The People just keep losing, not only regardless of our Culture Wars stance but, really, because we’re too busy fighting each other to realize we’re all being robbed blind. They use all this stuff as distraction and we fall for it every time but on the stuff that matters — just watch what’ll happen if they’re asked to do anything about Ukraine. The results will be just like Gaza — a mere 100%. Sometimes they may try to placate us and “seem” to be in favor of what one side or another of us wants — but just watch those final votes and you’ll see that when push comes to shove, they’re all in cahoots. And they damned near always get exactly what they want.
We The People, otoh, sure don’t.
People do not need to know who Marcuse or any of these thinkers were. Their ideas have become the left-wing side of what lies in Overton’s window. It was not that long ago that I was a university student and I can assure you that those ideas dominate the humanities and social sciences (albeit with an increasingly assert neoconservative/neoliberal minority also appearing). The contemporary mainstream right-wing, whom you might encounter more regularly than I do, purport to oppose that kind of leftism but their solution of super-capitalism leads ultimately in the same direction. Consequently, the culture wars are not just a distraction. They represent a dialectical process where each side occasionally scores victories against the other but each victory of either the post-socialist left (that may be a better term than “certain form of neo-Marxism”) or the neoliberal right reinforces the same trend towards the massification and commodification of humanity which serves the interests of both.
Song,
No, Song, they’re not. They only exist in the minds of people who are still afraid of them — they were boogeymen before Bin Laden became one, made boogeymen by some of the same people who are keeping both sides of us apart. I just don’t see Marxism anywhere, despite its utility as a means of analysis. But also, I don’t see the culture wars as a dialectic between the right-wing and the soggy leftish-wing. What I see are very deliberate and highly successful attempts by both political parties to brainwash/classically-condition (think Pavlov’s dogs) their members to focus on the errors/danger of the other side. But the people doing the conditioning imo have far more in common with each other than with their followers; their ties may be different colors but they’re wearing the same expensive suits, not khakis or jeans or work pants. And yeah, post-socialist left is better but really, honestly, the Overton Window has moved so far to the right since Eisenhower that I almost gag calling these folks Left at all. They may not be virulently racist but they’re pretty darned racist overall, and a whole lot of them right now, for example, have Russia all mixed up with the USSR and are trotting right along hating her bc by the time she fell they scorned and hated Communism. And I just can’t call these folks anything more than Leftish, bc they really are so far in the middle. But then do you really think the Tea Party is the Neoliberal Right? I don’t think *they* think so, although I think that’s precisely who are using them. So in that sense, I do see what you’re talking about, I think. And I’ve always wondered why they seem to hate the government when it’s the corporations who are running it. Does your theorizing cover that too?
Most of the right-wing in North America hates Russia as the Mongol empire of Asiatic barbarism. Most of the left-wing in North America hates Russia as the reactionary despotism of homophobic Christianity. They play off one another in the end.
The Tea Party was a manifestation of genuine popular unrest by a culturally zombified populace that felt someone was wrong but was unable to handle concepts needed to clarify the problem so they simply rallied to all of the symbols of US national identity from before the 1960s because they did not know anything else. They basically demanded more room for “market forces” from the Federal government because they did not know what else to demand. Yes, they are part of the neoliberal right, just its lower-class cannon fodder. The Tea Party hated the Federal government rather than the economic interests dominating that government because they are a reaction to the rise of Obama who incarnated all of the neo-left fantasies of “diversity”, “inclusion” and all that rubbish. The economic interests are not part of the Obama brand, but the Federal government is a bit part of it. The Obama brand was a reaction against Bush II who incarnated all of the right-wing fantasies of muscular, take-no prisoners, Texan capitalist machismo. The Bush II brand was a reaction against Clinton who was basically Obama-lite, and so and so forth.
Each push by the right for more capitalism leads to more alienated massified individuals. Eventually the right-wing symbols provoke enough of a reaction to give the left momentum. then each push by the left leads to more “diversity” and “inclusion” leads to more alienated massified individualsm. The symbols of the left eventually provoke enough of a reaction to give the right momentum, and so forth.
It is the strategy of tension, most famously used in 1970s Italy by NATO and various actors, only in a more bloodless manner suitable to a weaker-willed populace.
It is not my theorizing. Just my synthesis of the theories of others who have given more thought to the question.
@Song:Most of the right-wing in North America hates Russia as the Mongol empire of Asiatic barbarism. Most of the left-wing in North America hates Russia as the reactionary despotism of homophobic Christianity. They play off one another in the end.
Agreed. That is exactly true. Cheers!
The Saker
Thanks Saker,
Your blog is invaluable as a source of news and analysis of the Ukrainian situation. Your military background is also very helpful in informing your analysis.
Hi Saker,
I had no idea you were poking around here! Great to see you, and thanks for, oh gosh, like *everything* you are doing.
Song,
Part 1
Omigosh, yes! You’ve just absolutely nailed it re: the Tea Party! Wow. I got a big chunk of that but yes, yes, yes, you’ve *really* put it all together there. The only thing I could possibly add is their discomfort and fear with Obama’s color, but oh my gosh yes, to all of it! And I don’t care whether you call it theorizing or synthesizing or what, it’s just seriously on target and placed perfectly in the larger picture. And I thank you for that!
Two minor quibbles — well, one quibble and one question. When you say the economic interests are not part of the Obama brand, my sense of him since I first learned about the guy is that he’s a deliberately-inscrutable corporate tool trying his level best to not have a brand. He was/is owned by Penny Pritzker and the Daleys (Think. major. Big. Banks.) and a bunch of ag interests in Illinois, and Obamacare was a huge giveaway to the insurance industry: single payer/Medicare would have neutralized most opposition, plus worked better. Then there’s the bailout/too big to fail, a total gift for the banksters. Or what he didn’t do to BP, plus now offshore drilling. Hard to think of anyone doing more for those interests. And the Leftish, I think, are finally waking up to it, at least a bit.
But why are you referring to the Tea Party in the past tense? They’ve scared the pants off the regular Republicans (kind of like ISIS has Obama, if you think about it — or Frankenstein’s monster or the Sorcerer’s Apprentice), but aren’t they still a fairly potent force? They sure seem to be in the South, and also various rural areas although the worst of the fad (which is also how I see the New Left, come to think of it) may be over elsewhere.
Song,
Part 2
And one more comment regarding the stuff we talked about yesterday, bc I maybe wasn’t as careful as I could have been re: Marcuse in academia. I really don’t know much about what’s taught at the undergraduate level in, say, modern languages or sociology, etc.; never been my interest. So I really can’t speak to that at all and don’t want to give any impression that I can. I do know my kids had to deal with an awful lot of PC stuff in the 80’s and 90’s and rather resented it, but I see that as part of a trend to present indoctrination and ideology on both sides as education — take a look at the Randian/Friedman-ite dogma being presented as fact in every single business school — which I think fits your point precisely!
But it also leads somewhere else, and that is that the study of something, learning about some guy and his POV, doesn’t necessarily translate into buying into it. Sometimes yes, certainly re: Neoliberal economics or PC language and what you’re terming diversity but from which I’d actually exclude the structural fair treatment of people of color. (imo Nixon’s Affirmative Action was designed to provoke white resentment, not level the playing field). But technically, since you’re using Marxian theory, that would make you probably more of a Marxist and therefore further Left than any New Left types not yet pushing up roses. No?
In any case, to me the proof’s in the pudding. And I just don’t see any evidence of any political words or actions on the part of the Leftish that could be considered the least bit, well, even traditionally Left. People of color struggling for their rights under the law certainly fit into a Marxist paradigm and might sometimes use the words or analysis, just like you and I are now, but that doesn’t mean their goals, or even actions, are necessarily even real Left (as opposed to stale, lukewarm Left): aren’t they doing the same thing as the Tea Partiers think they are, i.e., trying to get the Constitution applied?
So I guess I’m still a bit confused. But I really want to thank you for this bc not only have I learned a lot and really stretched those old mental muscles, but also, it’s been extremely interesting and a whole lot of fun! ;~)
There is a lot of discontent with PC in North America, but people do not know how to think through that discontent because they still generally believe PC to be morally right even if in practice they try to avoid its effects. Consequently, it retains its ideological dominance. Of course it is not the traditional left of mass socialist parties, mass labour unions and the like and if you want to restrict the term “left” to the former then you would not refer to PC as being leftist.
However, I think that PC is left-wing for the following reason.
Left and Right do ultimately have some meaning as philosophical principles. Leftism basically tends to focus on how freeing people from constraints helps them become more fulfilled whereas Rightism tends to focus on how people left to their own devices do stupid things and so need some higher order imposed to keep them to their better natures. PC is firmly in the camp of freedom from constraint. Instead of freeing people from restraints imposed by their place in the system of production, they focus on purportedly freeing people from constraints relating to sexual desires, gender, and certain ethnic and racial identities.
I am something of a socialist and socialism has both left and right-wing elements depending on the form of socialism in question. My interest is not for the egalitarianism, but rather because socialism emerged as an attempt to move beyond capitalism and the dominant merchant ethos that it promoted. I am sympathetic to the militaro-clerical social order that preceded the bourgeois order because I am convinced that while human emancipation is good, there is no emancipation without the human being in state of order and discipline first which allows him or her to exercise his or her higher qualities. Otherwise, emancipation is just free reign given to the appetites which makes the person more a slave than any outside oppression could.
However, I understand that you cannot just go back in time because the old order fell for objective (though not necessarily moral) reasons that have to be taken into account. Consequently, socialism is a good starting point to consider the path beyond capitalism to recover what was lost as a result of it. Marxism is a highly developed theory of history that seeks to build a socialist society. It seems to have some big problems but it is still valuable.
Song,
I’m so glad you’re keeping this going! ;~)
And now we’re kind of getting to the meat of it too, I think.
I’ll totally agree with you re: PC (and other forms on mind-control) and the leftish, but I’m not so sure it’s freedom from constraint per se — these people have different sources than the right for their morality but in point of fact, “blue” rates of illegitimacy, divorce, etc. are far lower than “red”. Otoh, if you’ve read anything about authoritarianism (not just Adorno’s stuff!), it’s pretty clear that there are real differences in not just sources for morality but how authority in general is responded to on one side vs. the other. And thinking and word use are very rigidly controlled on the right as well — check out Viguerie, Lundt, even that oooold interview of Lee Atwater, I think the date was 1981 but whenever it was, he showed exactly how that use of words, and ultimately mind control, works on that end of the spectrum. In other words, just different variants of the same damned thing, completely and totally designed to keep us apart and squabbling, damn them. Also check out Epistemic Closure, bc there seems to be a fair amount of evidence that that has in fact happened on the Right.
I’m, well, probably more of a socialist at this point than I am anything else, but far less concerned about the labels or theories than what actually gets done. I.e., I don’t know or care about egalitarianism per se but I do care very much about giving every single kid the same opportunity to rise or sink. That to me is really important bc I know full well where I’d be if my skin hadn’t been fish-belly white and my family hadn’t chosen for more than a few generations to hide all the Injun underneath. And I keep thinking of all the other kids in this country who never had a chance to get, much less take advantage of, all the opportunities I did — they were equally deserving: every kid is. (Plenty of stupid in our elites, too; they’re chock full of it as a matter of fact, even while they walk around feeling so danged superior.) So I’m still disagreeing with you re: the need for order and discipline before being granted the rights the rest of us all enjoy. That just looks like stereotypes to me, again bc having hung out with a fair number of elites in my time, I sure didn’t see/haven’t seen a whole lot of order and discipline among ’em. In fact, to me, the behavior of the very lowest and very highest rungs in our society — their emphasis on status symbols and raw power, their profligate sexuality and drug use — are damned near identical. But, and this is a big but, they’re both outliers, with most of our elites and most of our lower-enders, acting more like (what remains of) the middle class the closer they get to it. And while I too think faith/spirituality — if and only if connected to compassion and empathy, i.e., the Two Great Commandments — can help a person reach, enrich and use their higher qualities more often, I have to say that I’ve also seen a fair number of non-believers do so also. We each ultimately have to find our own way — and that way seems to be pretty much the same regardless of how we get there. Does that make any sense to you? It sure does to me, anyhow. :~)
Dear Nora,
Just to say hello and… your paper on line in French two weeks late (sorry !) on this blog :
http://lesgrossesorchadeslesamplesthalameges.skynetblogs.be/
All the best,
Catherine