Conceptual Guerilla econ ammo essays

by **AnnaLivia** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:32 am

THE LITTLE RED HEN this is the first in a series of essays i will post here, from a guy called conceptual guerilla. i've been waiting for his site to come back online, and it finally has, but i see he's WAY behind in getting it updated. So, to prevent you from having to wade through outdated stuff, i'll give you the link but also put here what i think are the most valuable essays, in full. right off the bat i'll tell you i don't always agree with everything this man says, but these essays will, i hope, help econ newbies to better understand, and help the rest of us by giving more tools to explain cheap-labor predation to everybody. A CLOSER LOOK AT A CONSERVATIVE FABLE You have no doubt heard the story of “the little red hen”. Some conservative pundit repeats it every so often. The story may be boiled down as follows. The little red hen is hungry and wants to bake herself a cake. She goes around to the other barnyard animals asking for help, which no one gives. Then when the time comes to enjoy the product of her own labor, everyone in the barnyard wants a piece. The conservative uses this tale to justify the deprivations of the poor – on the basis that they have “earned” their position through their laziness. The well-to-do on the other hand, have likewise “earned” their material prosperity through their own “hard work”. The moral lesson of the story is simple enough, and not really very debatable. The problem for the conservative is that it has very little to do with corporate capitalism. In fact, you can use this conservative fable to “turn the tables” on conservative apologists for corporate capitalism. You see, the conservative makes important assumptions in the story that aren’t valid. Notice something really interesting about the story. Whose oven is it? Does it belong to the little red hen, or is it available to everyone in the barnyard? If anyone has access to it, it is a simple matter for any of the other animals to make their own cake. But if this barnyard is like the real world, not only do the other barnyard animals have no guaranteed access to the oven, they have no guaranteed access to the raw materials from which cakes are made. They couldn’t make their own, if they wanted to. Notice another possible assumption of the fable. Does everybody who helps in the enterprise get an equal share of the product of that enterprise? I don’t think the conservatives are prepared to say that anyone who contributes to production of a finished product is entitled to an equal share of that product. That sounds like “socialism” – something I’m sure that conservatives didn’t intend to assume in their fable. Let’s re-write the fable, and make it a little more accurate. To be true to the world of corporate capitalism, somebody owns the oven. We’ll assume the owner is the little red hen. Unfortunately, owning the oven only creates a mere possibility for producing anything with it. The little red hen quickly learns that gathering the wheat, grinding it to flour, obtaining the other materials, and producing the actual product is work. The little red hen isn’t industrious at all. In fact, she’s rather lazy. Soon, she begins to wonder is there isn’t a way to get somebody else to do the work. So she goes around to the other animals. They don’t have ovens, so naturally they are interested in using her oven. In fact, the other animals are perfectly willing to give her a share of what they produce, since she does have certain responsibilities. She has to clean the oven. She has to pay for the energy to run it. She may even obtain the materials from which cakes are made. When she approaches them to ask for their help – notice that the little red hen needs the help of other people, she isn’t a “rugged individualist” at all – they want to know what the terms of the deal are. “Do I get an equal share of what we make in the oven?” they ask. “Well, the cake we make is only so big. Since it’s my oven, I get half, and all of you can split up the other half.” Each animal then figures out that he will expend more energy baking the little red hen’s cake than its worth. “Not I,” they respond to this deal. The little red hen could then respond with a better deal. After all, with so many people helping out, there is no reason why the oven can’t produce enough for everybody. In fact, working together the barnyard animals could produce a surplus for sale making everybody fat and prosperous. They could organize a labor cooperative. “Why not engage in large scale production, with a piece of the surplus for every animal assisting in the enterprise,” the horse suggests as a counterproposal. That sounds good to the little red hen, at first. Then she gets to thinking about it. Remember, the little red hen is lazy. She doesn’t really want to do the work herself. On the other hand, her oven is the one critical piece of equipment she can use to bargain with the other animals. Unless they get their own ovens. Then she has nothing to use as an inducement for them to work using hers. All of this surplus production for sale, means that eventually the other animals won’t need her oven any more, and she’ll be right back where she started. The other animals haven’t figured this out. She has, because she’s lazy and conniving. She wants those animals in a position where they have to work at her oven, and can’t ever build their own. So she goes to the farmer. It seems that he provides the raw materials. That’s what every animal in the barnyard eats. “Why are you just giving it away,” she asks him. “I could turn it into delicious cakes, sell them and make you a tidy profit. Give me control of the resources, and I will make both of us rich.” A couple of days later, feeding time comes and goes, but the farmer never shows up. The animals are all wondering if something happened to him, when the little red hen wanders by. “Oh, he and I are partners now. He gave me all of the corn and the wheat and feed for use in my bakery business. If you’re hungry, I’d be happy to sell you a cake or a loaf of bread fresh from my oven.” Of course, the barnyard animals have no money to buy anything – which she well knows. When they point this out, she makes them an offer. They can work in her bakery and she will feed them. “What about a share in the profits,” they ask. “Take it or leave it,” she tells them. Obviously, they take it, for a while anyway. It isn’t long of course, before they realize that she can’t make the first nickel of profit from her enterprise without their help. Individually, they have little power to negotiate better terms. Together, however, they can pretty much dictate terms to her, in the same manner that she dictated terms to them. So one of them – the horse for example – starts talking to the other animals. “If we stick together and refuse to work, she’ll have to offer us a better deal,” he tells them. The little red hen catches wind of this, and realizes the spot she’s in. Not only is the horse right, none of these animals is going to have to least sympathy for her. She has to do something. Finally, she comes out of her pocket and pays a little bit more than she would like to. But not to everybody. That would be too expensive. Instead she goes to the dog. “Listen, Fido. You’re smarter than these other chumps. You’re not really one of them. You’re a predator. You’re strong, you’re fast. You deserve more they do. I’m going to give it to you. All you have to do is protect my interests. You can start by doing something about that big mouthed horse.” That doesn’t work for long. The barnyard animals soon figure out that she can’t threaten all of them. They might pay a price, but sticking together is still the best defense. So she comes up with something really ingenious. She figures out how to keep them from uniting. There are ten animals in the barnyard. She decides she only needs eight to work in her bakery. So she calls all of them together. “Listen,” she says. “I’ve been thinking. You’re right, the people who work in my bakery deserve a bigger share. In fact, I’m willing to give each of you a 25 percent increase in pay.” This brings cheers and applause. “We’ve won,” they say. Not quite. “I’m willing to increase you’re pay, but you’re going to have to prove that your worth it. I only need eight of you. So the two of you who produce the least today, will just have to find something else to do.” Now she has eight animals working for a little better pay, and two who are unemployed. It doesn’t cost an extra cent, since she is now paying the same overall amount split eight ways instead of ten. The ‘unemployed” have no where to go, she controls all of the food, and she has nothing for them to do – or she says she doesn’t. So they begin to starve. Now, she’s got them where she wants them. They don’t dare talk about “organizing”. They don’t complain too much about their pay, and they work as hard as she demands that they work. After all, there are two starving animals who would love to take their place. She doesn’t even have to worry about them organizing secretly. The fear of losing their job and facing starvation will cause one or more of them to “inform” in an effort to secure his own position. The only problem she has is the two starving animals. She is perfectly willing to let them waste away. What choice does she have? The minute they have any bargaining power they will demand an even greater share. Worse, they might set up their own competing enterprise. On the other hand, once the two “outcasts” are gone, she will have to create two more, narrowing the work force to six. Then to four. Soon, she will paying the small number left entirely too much, and she will need all of them. She needs to keep the two outcasts going. On the other hand, she has to be careful. Too much “generosity” might be interpreted as weakness. It isn’t long before a few of the animals come to her with an humanitarian plea. “We can’t just let these other animals starve,” they say. Some of the other animals – playing right into her hands – ask why not. “Why should we support those deadbeats,” they ask, oblivious to the fact that the little red hen has created the whole problem to start with. They even tell the story of the “little red hen” to justify leaving these “slackers” out in the cold . After a little pro forma protesting, she finally agrees to establish a “humanitarian” welfare system. “I’m willing to commit two percent of my take to feed them if you will commit two percent of yours.” Isn’t that fair of her?. She has agreed to pay a minuscule portion of her huge surplus, if the other animals will commit a portion of their already meager cut. With this regressive welfare system and a small fund keeps the two “outcasts” barely alive – until she needs them to replace any of the unruly or complacent animals. Of course, she doesn't even consider "full employment" as the solution to their starvation. That would wind up empowering the animals doing the work. In fact, poverty and near starvation becomes a cruel lottery, with all of the animals taking a turn in utter destitution. The last time I checked, the little red hen was living in a brand new air-conditioned ten thousand square foot chicken house. She is the queen of the barnyard. She is respected. She is feared. She is hated. She attributes this hatred to “envy”. In fact, for all her wealth and power, she is miserable, because she can never rest. She spends her days on the roof of her chicken palace looking at the other animals in the barnyard, and wondering. When will they figure out the game? When will they ask why all ten of them can't work in her bakery? When will they figure out that the starvation of the two is being used as a weapon against the other eight? When will they realize that they and the two “deadbeats” are being screwed by the same little red hen?. When will they unite – once again – and force her to offer them a fairer deal? When will they realize that they don’t need her at all, and her oven can cook more than just bread and pastry? I hear oven baked chicken is delicious. <a href="http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/littleredhen.html">www.conceptualguerilla.co...edhen.html</a>

by **AnnaLivia** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:05 am

here's the second essay. please let me know if you do find these helpful? for yourself, or for convincing others? “CHEAP-LABOR CONSERVATIVE” ISSUES GUIDE For those of you just arriving, who haven’t seen the lead article, the following is the operative concept. From “Defeat the Right in Three Minutes”: When you cut right through it, right-wing ideology is just “dime-store economics” – intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don’t really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly don’t. It all gets down to two simple words. “Cheap labor”. That’s their whole philosophy in a nutshell – which gives you a short and pithy “catch phrase” that describes them perfectly. You’ve heard of “big-government liberals”. Well they’re “cheap-labor conservatives”. Once you understand the general concept, you will frequently find yourself in debate over specific issues, like healthcare, social security privatization, public school vouchers, the “war on drugs” and of course the war in Iraq. What better way to put your conservative opponent on the defensive than by exposing the true motivation for his position – “cheap labor”. Can you really find the “cheap labor” angle in every conservative policy initiative, and every conservative position on any particular issue? Yes, you can. Here is a catalogue of some of the major issues on the national agenda. In every single one of them, the conservative position advances the cause of “cheap labor”. I defy any conservative reading this to show me one single conservative position, belief, principle or policy that has any tendency to boost the earning power of labor. 1. DUBYA’S TAX CUTS AND RESULTING BUDGET DEFICITS. Twenty years ago, cheap-labor conservatives claimed that tax cuts would stimulate the economy, and lead to balanced budgets. They don’t even bother spouting that crap any more. Now they say that deficits “aren’t so bad”, they don’t drive up interest rates, and they don’t create inflationary pressure. Here’s the real skinny. The purpose behind tax cuts and budget deficits is to bankrupt the government. Conservatives hate “social spending”. That’s what they mean by “big government”. They want you naked in as harsh an economic environment as they can create. But here’s the problem. Most ordinary people aren’t so ruthless. Most people think life is for living, not working your ass off until you drop. So if we the people can provide some basic social infrastructure for things like a basic retirement, assistance for higher education, unemployment compensation to get you through those Republican periods of high unemployment -- well, most people support all of that stuff. Conservatives lose elections when they talk about undoing it. So the manipulative sons of bitches – who don’t really believe in your right as a citizen in a democracy to establish institutions that do you any good – have come up with a “stealth plan” to get rid of our entire social welfare infrastructure. It’s called “bankruptcy”, and it is not an accident that the first thing Dubya did when he took office was bring back the deficits Bill Clinton had eliminated. 2. OPPOSITION TO EVERY IMPROVEMENT IN WAGES AND WORKING CONDITIONS IN US HISTORY. This is obviously directly related to “cheap labor” and doesn’t require much further explanation. In fact, the heading serves as the “One Sentence Response” – and I would stress the “every improvement in US history”, all the way back to abolition of slavery, and such obvious reforms as child labor laws. Cheap-labor conservatives have never been the friend of working Americans. Ever. 3. OPPOSITION TO ANY SORT OF NATIONAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM. Health care costs are outrageously expensive, and threaten people with financial ruin. Also, health insurance is primarily provided by employers through “group plans”. So if you lose your job, you lose your health coverage. This is not quite as a big a problem, since the passage of COBRA – which was opposed by guess who? That’s right, the cheap-labor conservatives. In short, national health insurance would provide a huge measure of security for working Americans from potential financial catastrophe – which catastrophe is therefore no longer a force keeping you suitably intimidated by your employer. 4. SCHOOL VOUCHERS, OPPOSITION TO THE FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, OPPOSITION TO LOCAL BOND ISSUES, ETC. Way back in the late nineteenth century – where the cheap-labor conservatives are trying to take us – conservatives opposed universal public education. You can go to “Freeper” right now and find cheap-labor conservatives who still oppose it. And the reason is simple. Ignorant and illiterate people have fewer options in life, making them fit subjects for “industrial serfdom”. In other words, an ineffective public education system is necessary to create a semi-literate workforce of “industrial serfs”, which accounts for cheap-labor conservative opposition to increased teacher pay, smaller class sizes, improvements in physical infrastructure, and anything else that might actually work. Let’s just propose a simple thought experiment. Suppose we had 95% functional literacy, with similar high school graduation rates, and vast numbers of those high school graduates going to college, or receiving specialized technical training. When everybody is properly educated, who is going to ride on the back of the garbage truck? Who is going to pick tomatoes? Who is going to digger footers on construction sites? And what kind of wages are such workers – who are in short supply and smart enough to know it – going to command? But wait, there’s more. Let’s consider your average dittohead “wannabe” living in the suburbs. Does he really want his children competing with those “brown” children for a seat in the university? What interest does he have in universal education that actually works? And you know how conservatives are about their “self-interest”. Well, he can’t very well advocate “resegregation”. So here’s what the cheap-labor conservatives came up with. “Vouchers”. Some of those “brown” children can escape from failing schools – but not all of them. As for the one’s that are “left behind”, well there’s a garbage truck with their name on it – assuming they don’t wind up in jail. 5. “LAW AND ORDER”. According to cheap-labor conservatives, the only legitimate function of government is to protect the fortunes and privilege of the “haves”. Economic progress like “full employment”, living wages, and first rate education system, all improve the living standards and prospects of the “working poor” – and the “cheap-labor conservatives” can’t have that, can they. So that leaves prison as the only “social program” the conservatives support. They say we “throw money at every problem”. Well “cheap-labor conservatives” throw prison at every problem. 6. “FAMILY VALUES” AND THE “CULTURE WAR.” They say they are defending American “culture” – but that “culture” is the culture of the corporate “middle class”. It features conformity, hierarchy, “respect for authority”, regimentation and other “values” of the industrial work place. In fact, America was founded by a group of decidedly undisciplined nonconformists. But that won’t do at all, if you want a docile workforce who will work cheap. 7. RACISM AND OTHER FORMS OF BIGOTRY. This one is amazingly easy to understand. Dividing working people against each other along racial, gender and ethnic lines keeps them from uniting along class lines. Consider the following example. In 1990, the nation was suffering under yet another period of Republican high unemployment. That was the year that Jesse Helms ran his famous “angry hands” commercial against Harvey Gantt, former African-American mayor of Charlotte. “You needed that job, but they had to give it to a minority.” This gambit is 150 years old. The cheap-labor conservatives produce a high deficit, high interest rate, “structurally sluggish” economy – then tell struggling white wage-earners that the “problem” is “unqualified minorities”. It was classic “scapegoating”, when the real culprits were the cheap-labor conservatives who liked that sluggish economy. And in case you doubt whether they liked the sluggish economy, consider the eight year tantrum they threw as President Clinton undid the deficits, brought interest rates down, and fueled an eight year economic boom, bringing unemployment to a 30 year low. Naturally, throwing a wrench into that economy was the first order of business after Dubya’s inauguration. 8. “RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.” Since prison and punishment are generally ineffective to reduce crime, and since the “cheap-labor conservatives” will hear of no economic improvements that are effective, “self defense” is about your only protection from crime. Instead of better schools, full employment and other improvements in social conditions, the cheap-labor conservative solution is “buy a gun”. 9. THE “WAR ON DRUGS”. Maybe you don’t see the “cheap-labor” connection. It’s there. The “libertarian” position on this is that what you choose to voluntarily ingest, is your business. And of course, marijuana isn’t nearly as bad for you as say, alcohol abuse. But cheap-labor conservatives don’t give a rat’s ass about you’re health, anyway. What they do care about is delegitimizing the “counter-culture”. If they could do it, they would outlaw deviations from the conformist culture of the “corporate middle class”. They can’t do that directly, so they have come with a “back door” method. They find cultural practices – like smoking a joint – and punish those. Today, they deny education benefits if you have any drug conviction – even for simple possession. They have also encouraged this “privatized” harassment of corporate workers through drug screening, etc. in an effort to economically marginalize the “counter culture”. It is really an exquisitely efficient means to keep the industrial work force intimidated. 10. “PRO OIL” ENERGY POLICIES. Answer this question, why don’t we have efficient cost effective renewable energy systems? Why didn’t we follow Jimmy Carter’s advice in 1979, and undertake the “moral equivalent of war” for energy independence. The technology has been around for decades. In the case of hydrogen fuel cells, the first one was invented in 1843 – that’s “eighteen forty three”. Energy is like labor in its central importance to the economy. But while conservatives want “cheap labor” they want “expensive energy” – in sources they can monopolize and control. Unfortunately, sunlight is like air. It’s kind of hard to “corner the market” on it. Meanwhile, the biggest beneficiary of “cheap energy” is the work force – who pay a larger portion of their income for energy. Well, we can’t have that. Lowering a wage earner’s “balance of payments” is just like giving him a raise. The same logic, by the way, motivates a “high interest rate” environment. Now you know why conservatives bad mouth “renewable energy”, and claim that the government “has no business” subsidizing R&D into this technology – as if the government hasn’t subsidized R&D into virtually every piece of high tech gadgetry in your house. Meanwhile, there is one form of “alternative energy” they like. Nuclear power. Why? Because nuclear power is horrendously expensive, and can be monopolized by the huge corporations selling it. Meanwhile, they support destruction of pristine habitats like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and unlawful invasions of sovereign nations -- sitting on a “sea of oil” to use the words of Paul Wolfowitz. All of which proves that the cheap-labor conservatives will do anything – and I mean anything – to prevent any improvement in the wage earner’s economic circumstances, including making sure he doesn’t have access to “cheap energy”. 11. THE INVASION OF IRAQ AND THE “BUSH DOCTRINE”. Perhaps, you thought this should be first – since it is highest on the national agenda right at the moment. Actually, the War in Iraq is an aggregate application of a number of simpler “cheap-labor” policies. First of all, Republican “demonization” notwithstanding, Saddam Hussein was a “target of opportunity”. Paul Wolfowitz said so. Saddam sat atop a really odious regime, in a country sitting atop a “sea of oil” – to again quote Paul Wolfowitz. As for global opposition to the US invasion, that was not an “unforeseen complication”. It was another ”opportunity”. In fact, one of the objectives was to demonstrate to the world that the US can do whatever it wants. But what about the “cheap-labor” angle, you ask. The invasion of Iraq is the first step in establishing a US led global corporate empire, with a wealthy corporate elite living off of a global pool of “cheap labor”. Don’t’ believe it? Go to whitehouse.gov and look at the National Security Strategy of the United States. This remarkable document lays out the “cheap-labor” foreign policy of the United States. In addition to the doctrine of “pre-emption – which is nothing new, we’ve been doing it for fifty years – there is the general strategy of “forward deployment” of US forces in the middle east and east Asia, along with the express goal of “discouraging” the emergence of a military rival. But the National Security Strategy doesn’t stop there. It goes on to discuss which internal policies of other nations the US will “encourage”. Guess what those policies are? The very same policies they are promoting here, including “free trade”, “flattening” tax rates, shifting taxes away from passive investments, reducing the “public sector”, and generally paving the way for corporations to dominate other societies. The US military will be the “police force” for this global “corporate order”, and Iraq is nothing more than the start of establishing the “military pre-eminance” of that “global police force”. Notice that the neocons are specifically intent on destabilizing international organizations that don’t promote corporate dominance. The conservatives don’t like the World Court, the United Nations or similar organizations. But GATT, the IMF and the World Bank don’t bother them a bit – since those organizations undermine the ability of third world nations to establish anything like our “New Deal mixed economy". And don’t forget, the cheap-labor conservatives are busy destabilizing our own “New Deal mixed economy”, in favor of an economy that strongly resembles present conditions in say, Argentina. In short, the invasion of Iraq has nothing to do with any “threat” of weapons of mass destruction. Neither do the cheap-labor conservatives really care about a “dictatorial regime” – since they prop plenty of them up, and even supported Saddam Hussein in years gone by. The real purpose of the invasion of Iraq is to provide a demonstration of American military “pre-eminence” – which will ultimately translate into global corporate “pre-eminence”. If you want another word for this “cheap-labor” foreign policy, try “corporate feudalism”. These aren’t the only examples of “cheap-labor conservative” policies and positions. While I will be supplementing and expanding this list from time to time, you should be getting the idea. Anytime a cheap-labor conservative takes a position on anything at all, take a look at the details. See if somewhere in those details there isn’t some way the wage-earner loses out. I have not yet failed to find the connection. Either the conservative position undermines the bargaining power of the wage earner, limits his economic options, harasses the wage earner in some way, raises his cost of living, increases his economic vulnerability or accomplishes some combination of the above. Now you can see how, in specific examples. More importantly, you have a new tool to use to analyze cheap-labor conservative rhetoric, ideology and policy. <a href="http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/blurbs.htm">www.conceptualguerilla.com/blurbs.htm</a>

by **AnnaLivia** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 2:10 am

again from Conceptual Guerilla's website: THE MYTHOLOGY OF WEALTH Along with ideas about politics, economic theory, political strategy and other related stuff, you will find at this site a sprinkling of something few people associate with political organizing. I refer to a healthy dose of cultural anthropology. Indeed, one message of this site is that whatever you understand about taxes, trade policy, wages and general social conditions, you can’t win the political struggle without also understanding things like culture, symbolism and myth. Many citizens of western industrial democracies like to believe that they have transcended their “superstitious” pre-scientific past. In fact, a central tenet of our industrial culture is faith in its “rationalism”. Much of the political debate centers around “rational” social and economic policy. In fact, progressives frequently fail to take into account “cultural” forces that frequently work against rational policies. Progressives regularly bemoan the “ignorance” that cheap-labor conservatives are so good at exploiting to prevent seemingly obvious improvements in society. In fact, the cheap-labor conservatives have counter-attacked with their own “rational” theory to justify their hierarchical world-view. Some call it “Social Darwinism”, though more politically savvy cheap-labor conservatives avoid that term. The purpose of this “rational theory” is to establish that the existing social order is the “natural order”. Elites enjoy wealth, privilege and status because of their inherent superiority. The place where this natural hierarchy is established, is that mythical place known as the “market”. Justifications for elites and social hierarchy goes all the way back to the pharaohs. For 6000 years, society has organized itself into social classes. The people who do the work are always in the lower classes. The harder and nastier the work, the lower down in the social order you sink. The people who don’t do this work must justify their position. They do it by establishing their “worthiness”, and a variety of cultural devices have been concocted over the millennia to accomplish this. The pharaohs, you may recall, weren’t people at all. They were gods. Roman emperors likewise had themselves deified, and before that Roman Senators justified their position as “patricians”. Basically, “my great great granddaddy was a big shot, therefore I should be too.” The middle ages gave us the notion of the “great chain of being”. Outside the earthly realm – in the realm of myth , that is – there is Jesus and the “heavenly host”. Just below the angels and saints is the king, followed by his entourage of muscle men otherwise known as the “nobility”. Since kings were chosen “by the grace of God”, they didn’t answer to ordinary mortals. At least they didn’t before Runnymeade, when the English nobility straightened out King John about where his power really came from. This is the historical background for those famous words of Thomas Jefferson. “Governments are instituted among men, and derive their just powers from the consent of the governed”. Everyone has heard those words. School children recite them. Few people appreciate that those words repudiated 6000 years of “mumbo jumbo” to justify the existence of social classes and fixed elites. Elites don’t get their power from the gods, or from Jesus or from any other mythological source. Elites get their power from the people they rule. Power flows from the bottom up, not from the top down. Old habits die hard. In fact, we still have a “leisure class”. As capitalism has grown so has the wealth and privilege of our leisure class. The old mythologies – gods, the “great chain of being” etc. – are no longer available to justify the existence and perpetuation of our leisure class, something our elites are definitely interested in perpetuating. What was needed was a new “rational” worldview that justified the existence of privileged elites. That rationalization came in the form of a brand new science known as economics, which included a brand new mythology. According to the new mythology, human beings are economic competitors. The “marketplace” is the new “Valhalla”, where “economic man” frolics. The “market” we are told, contains its own “rationality”. It rewards the efficient. It rewards that list of virtues George Will cites, like “thrift”, “delayed gratification” and of course, “hard work”. Free competition in the market place “rationally” selects the more “worthy” competitor. Thus, the wealthy are the superior competitors who have “earned” their elite status. If you haven’t succeeded it can only be because of your “inferiority”. Before debunking this whole ideology, a few observations are in order. First of all, notice that the hierarchical social order is back. It has a new veneer of “rationality”, but it is the same old ugly reality. Elites are “better” than you. The non-elites who do the work have “earned” their position, and are proper objects of scorn. Thus, we have a handful of haves, worthy of admiration and respect, and a large class of industrial serfs who own nothing but their bellies. The theory has changed, but the reality is just the same. Not surprisingly, cheap-labor believers in the “rational” hierarchy are hostile to democracy. In fact, they have decided that democratic government is an enemy to “market efficiency”. What Thomas Jefferson won through debunking the old forms of social hierarchy, today’s cheap-labor conservative is busy taking back through his new “rational” form of the same old shit. And it is the same old shit. First of all, “hard work” is only a small piece of the equation. In reality, success in the market is about market position. It isn’t about what you do, but about what you control. The hardest work is actually done by people whose market position makes their daily wage minimal. The person who profits most from their labor is the person who owns the factory they work in. While there are certainly examples of factory owners who started with nothing and rose to be “captains of industry”, for the most part our captains of industry started out a lot further ahead of the game. This is the difference between say, George W. Bush and you. Dubya went to prep school. You went to the public high school. Dubya went to Yale – ahead of someone with better credentials because he had family connections. Dubya had wealthy friends, through family, “skull and bones”, etc, who bankrolled his oil drilling business. Ask some of his friends to bankroll your oil business. Let me know if they stop laughing before their bodyguards throw you out. Even if you managed to persuade an investor to bankroll some enterprise, you’re going to have exactly one shot. If you lose, you won’t be getting a second chance. Dubya, on the other hand, went broke, and then his friends bankrolled him again, before finally getting him a one percent share of the Texas Rangers. See how it works? People with money help each other out. They don’t help out people who don’t have any. Many cheap-labor conservatives don’t want to help out the destitute at all. They say government assistance to people will make them “dependent”. They say it breeds “inefficiency” and “laziness”. They say that a harsh “got mine, get yours” social environment breeds “market discipline” by rewarding the most resourceful and competitive. Some extreme cheap-labor conservatives don’t even believe in public education. They say it is the family’s responsibility. If your family can’t afford to send you to school, well, that’s not their problem. Of course, wealthy elites shower their own with benefits – and enjoy a plethora of government benefits and services. They know the value of education, that’s why they keep expensive private schools like Andover in business. In fact, they do everything they can to give their own children every advantage money can buy, because they absolutely understand the value of a “head start” in the fiercely competitive social jungle they have created. They talk about “competition”, but they actually fear it, and do what they can to make the playing field as unequal as they can. Then they tell the wage earner that his position is “his fault”, and that he just needs to work harder – in their factory. He needs to be more “disciplined” and “thrifty” if we wants to “get ahead”. You now see how society becomes divided between “haves”, “have nots” and that peculiar new – but shrinking – middle class animal, the “have-a-little-want-mores”. But what do the “haves” have? Here’s where our discussion of cultural anthropology comes in. They don’t have anything at all, you don’t give them. Are you scratching your head? “What do you mean, they have ‘nothing at all’? Property and money are something.” Property and money are as mythological as Zeus. The first thing they teach you in law school – and I mean the first thing -- is that “property” is a collection of legal rights. They are mental abstractions. They were created in more or less their present form in the middle ages by common law judges. They include things like “alienability” or the right to sell your rights, “inheritability” or the right to pass your rights to your heirs. They include the right to exclude other people from a defined section of planet earth. They include the right to subdivide or alienate less than all of your rights. For example, a person who holds “title” to a house, can “lease” it – that is he can convey the right to “possess” the land for a defined period of time, while he retains his rights that last “forever”. He only has that right, because the law gives it to him. Under our system of laws, the ultimate owner of all “property” is the sovereign – the government. That is who originally granted your “rights”. Our system of laws and government defines your rights, and creates an entire infrastructure to regulate them. There are courts that will “enforce” your rights – that is send out the local muscle man known as the “sheriff” to chuck “squatters” off your property. Every state in the union has a system of publicly recording the documents that establish your “title” in order to put the world on notice of exactly “owns” what. So, how are these “property rights” created? That’s easy. They are created the same way all mythological realities are created -- with a little “mumbo jumbo”. “I, Conceptual Guerilla, do hereby bargain, sell and convey to John Doe and his heirs all of that parcel of land being more particularly described as follows: Beginning at a pin located . . . [insert your “metes and bounds” description here]. To have and to hold in fee simple forever and ever, amen.” In the old days, if you didn’t use the precise “magic words”, you didn’t convey jack shit. The last I heard, South Carolina still holds that a deed to “John Doe” without the magic words “and his heirs” conveys only a life estate, even if you specifically say “To John Doe in Fee Simple”. Perhaps you are familiar with that thing known as “legalese”. Maybe you’ve signed a contract – contracts rights are also myths – that starts something like this. “For and in consideration of Ten Dollars cash in hand, the mutual promises contained herein, and other good a valuable consideration receipt of which is hereby acknowledged . . .[blah blah blah].” All you need is to imaging a guy in a pointed hat waving around one of those incense balls you see in church. It’s all incantation and ritual that creates, transfers, modifies and extinguishes “rights”. These rights are created by words uttered by the priests of the law. In fact there is an entire structure and system of pieces of paper with “magic words” written on them that create, transfer, modify and extinguish these rights. There is a hierarchy of these rights. Contracts rights are “private” rights created by individuals. Property rights are rights to the exclusive control of resources – created often centuries ago by the king. Now those rights are traded around by individuals, usually by contract, but occasionally by the laws and infrastructure that transfer these rights to the descendants of dead people. Why don’t your “rights” just die with you? Because medieval judges decided they didn’t. And that’s the only reason. The infrastructure for these “rights” is established by the legislature, and the limits of what the legislature can do are established by the granddaddy of all legal documents, namely the “constitution”. All of the “laws, ordinances, customs and usages” that regulate control over resources and relationships between people – including their business relationships -- are nothing more than a set of rules invented by the imagination of some human being – frequently one who has been dead since the middle ages. Those rights are frequently exchanged for -- get this – printed pieces of paper with pictures of dead people on them. Where is the value of those pieces of paper? The answer is in your mind, in the mind of the person you are “bargaining” with – and nowhere else. It’s all a big game. It is our mythology, and it is no more real than belief in Zeus, Hera and Aphrodite. The “marketplace” – the Valhalla of “economic man” – doesn’t exist without the mythological legal infrastructure. Change the nature of those property rights, and the very character of the marketplace changes. In fact, without the right to “alienate” your “property”, there isn’t a marketplace at all. Without a stable currency, laws creating a banking system, laws regulating the “money supply” and other governmental functions, the marketplace is limited to barter. In fact, the idea that you can “own” something you don’t immediately possess – say the way people in New York “own” West Virginia coal fields they don’t even know how to get to – provides the whole basis for that thing we call “industrial capitalism”. Even your right to engage in a business enterprise with someone else is the subject of legal infrastructure. Partnerships have certain legal characteristics, and your rights as a partner – what you can enforce in a court – were defined at common law. [That’s the law created centuries ago by the king’s muscle men known as “lords”.] State legislatures have since created a variety of new forms of “business organization”. “Corporations” are another mythical beast conjured into existence out of the imagination of human beings. These mythical monsters – really just associations of people who have traded one set of paper symbols [dollars] for a different set with different rights associated with them [stock certificates]. Or maybe they “lent” the corporation some of those “dollars”, and got “bonds” – another paper symbol – with still other rights associated with them. Lately, these “fictitious persons” – but really the people who control them – have decided they don’t need “big government” anymore. They control vast stretches of real estate, vast stores of raw materials, equipment, the buildings they are housed in, and they don’t want you, through your elected representatives, changing the game on them. They don’t want you playing the game either – at least not on your terms. They want you working in “their” factories, making as little as they can give you in exchange – lest you accumulate your own property and paper symbols and out compete them. Some of them don’t even want you to learn how to read – unless you pay for it with money they make sure you don’t have. That’s the game the cheap-labor conservatives defend. Now lets take a fresh look at the words of Thomas Jefferson. “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” Can we change the game? Can we modify, regulate or even abolish those contract rights, those property rights or those business corporations? Can we use the power to “levy taxes” and spend money for “the general welfare” to do things like educate people, feed the hungry, and generally provide them with what Abraham Lincoln called “a fair start in the race of life”? You’re goddamn right we can. Thomas Jefferson said so. The “market place” isn’t a naturally occurring phenomenon. It is a human invention, created by our laws, customs and institutions. The vast fortunes of our elites are likewise the product of a mythological legal infrastructure that bestows access to resources to some people and denies it to others. “Wealth” is just the latest in a long history of myths used to divide the world into the people who work and the people who live off of them. We created this mythological system, and we can change it if we feel like it. We can regulate it a little – or a lot. We can modify any one of its elements, or all of them. Or we can abolish it altogether. It’s called “democracy”, and you should now understand why cheap-labor defenders of the “haves” don’t like it. You should also understand something else. Cheap-labor conservatives are great respecters of “tradition” and “authority”. They behave as if the institutions on which their wealth and privilege are based are “immutable” and “eternal”. They talk about “freedom”, until you challenge one of these “cherished” institutions. Occasionally, they refer to their “God given” property rights – which are no such thing. They are great advocates for a harsh and punitive enforcement of the existing order of things. They believe in more prisons, more powerful police, a stronger military, generous use of the gallows and then they denounce “big government”. It all makes perfect sense to them. Government exists to perpetuate the existing scheme of things – specifically the “eternal” institutions that empower them. But government has very little power to change the existing scheme of things. It has very little power – some cheap-labor conservatives claim it has no power – to create new institutions and new infrastructure that benefit anybody but them. That would be “tyranny”. And of course the existing scheme of things is the “natural order” – not the human created institutions we now understand that it is. Here’s the short answer to them. Government created property rights. Government can modify them. Government created the very market place where your fortune was made. Therefore, government can regulate the market place it created. Government can levy taxes against some of your fortune, and use that money to build other infrastructure that benefits somebody else. Government is not limited to creating the infrastructure you benefit from. Did government create “corporations” to promote large scale industrial enterprises? No problem. Government can create the infrastructure for labor unions and collective bargaining. Is the industrial enterprise you own “stock” in discharging toxic waste into the local river? Government facilitated your ability to build such a factory, and the government can tell you to clean up your mess. The cheap-labor conservative “minimalist government” social Darwinian world view is just plain bullshit. It builds a new class structure, which just like the ancient class structures, is based on a set of mythological concepts. In fact, those mythological concepts like “property rights”, “contract rights”, “corporations”, “stocks”, “bonds”, and even “money” itself are socially created to regulate distribution and access to resources. The “market place” is a human creation. The details of how it operates are determined by the particulars of the institutions on which it is built. It is “instituted among men”, and if its workings become destructive of the lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness of people subject to it, it may be “altered or abolished”. Cheap-labor conservatives would have you believe that poverty, ignorance, and environmental destruction are inevitable, and “natural”. They are not. The only thing “natural” about those phenomena is the natural proclivity of cheap-labor conservatives who lust for wealth and privilege to visit those plagues on people. Cheap-labor conservatives say we just can’t do anything about these problems. We can, and we have. More importantly, we have a legitimate right to rearrange our institutions, system of laws, and government created infrastructure to extend the benefits of prosperity to everyone, not just a privileged few. No less an American than Thomas Jefferson said so. <a href="http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/mythologyofwealth.htm">www.conceptualguerilla.co...wealth.htm</a>

by **km artlu** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 3:05 am

Thank you for the head's up on this guy. I found his bio of interest also. It's always encouraging when someone with mainstream competence and cred answers the call of conscience. Just lightly scanned his stuff so far, but some of his comments brought to mind an old Sub-Genius maxim: "Full employment is a threat, not a promise."

by **trachys** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 7:44 am

great rhetoric. onanism that won't make me go blind. maybe reading glasses, later in life, but well worth it.

by **AnnaLivia** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:13 pm

you're very welcome, km artlu and trachys. his site is called Conceptual Guerilla's Strategy and Tactics, for a reason. here's another essay: A RALLYING CRY FOR THE LEFT: "DOWN WITH 'CORPORATE FEUDALISM'" I finally have a "bumper sticker" that offers a better description for the corporate "new world order". Perhaps it is unfortunate, but the reality is that political agendas must frequently be expressed in slogans. The truth is that the left's positions are more complex, because reality is more complex than the neat slogans and rhetoric of the right. We are not very good at "PR", because we mostly detest the deliberate manipulation of corporate huxters -- including the huxters that have crafted the Republican "message". So we are rightly distrustful of the politics of image and oversimplification. Which makes it a challenge to come up with a slogan that is accurate, meaningful and short. Nevertheless, I believe I have discovered one. The central slogan of the right is "less government". The right has literally built an entire political movement out of these two words. Every thing you read from right wing activists is an interpretation of reality through the "lens" of these two words. In fact, this slogan is contradictory, as used by conservatives. Conservatives are the "punishers". They are the believers in military action abroad, and retributive justice at home. They want to increase the power of the police, not reduce it. "Less government" really means less government for the corporate interests they represent. It means a world where you are controlled, while your corporate boss runs wild. Those two words -- "less government" -- accomplish what any really effective communication accomplishes. The phrase has levels of sophistication. The least sophisticated conservative activist understands it, and the think-tank academic likewise understands it. The only difference is the level of understanding. It is a phrase that actually has intellectual content, and you can probe its meaning as deeply as you like. In fact, this is the strength of the phrase. It is accessible to absolutely everyone. It is a theme that furnishes the basis for every sort of particular application imaginable. You can literally find "yet another example" to give you something to rant about in five minutes. We on the left have a similarly simple formulation. It is instantly recognizable to anyone who hears it. And the level of understanding of its meaning is as deep as you care to probe. You can delve into the very bowels of historical, economic or sociological scholarship and see its continued relevance. It doesn't, like so many other slogans, dissolve into meaninglessness upon closer scrutiny. It has power, because while simple it identifies something both complex and real. What is the simple phrase that sums up our opponent, and unites every progressive in common cause against the right? Corporate feudalism. Variants include industrial feudalism or "neo-feudalism". In fact, it is a new name -- a more accurate name -- for "less government". It enables you to re-define conservatives -- virtually anywhere you go. Whenever you hear the words "less government", it is a simple matter to correct the speaker. "Oh, you mean 'corporate feudalism'". Because that is exactly what the conservative is talking about. Feudalism -- the original version -- divided control of the land of a nation among a noble elite. A handful of such elites governed as landlords over a peasantry who owned nothing "but their bellies", but worked in service to the lord of the manor. Feudal serfs were "bound to the land" and considered an "appurtenance" to the land, like its streams, timber and minerals. Not unlike today's industrial workforce, they were nothing more than assets to be exploited. "Freedom" was for "freed men" or "gentlemen" as they came to be known. It wasn't -- and isn't -- for serfs. Today's conservative sees things much the same way. His corporate neo-feudalism is about a new world of "privatized tyranny". He is talking about a world where the government is the agent for private corporate power. The "public good" or "public interest" have no place in this new world of "corporate feudalism". Private ambition, private profit, private fortunes, and of course "private property" are the only legitimate concerns of government. Even the uses of the US military have been subverted to the uses of "corporate feudalism". What else is the coming "oil war" but a war to allow the US to distribute the oil wealth of Iraq to private oil companies to exploit for profit? Do you really believe that the US government is going to establish any sort of democracy that doesn't "know its place"? In fact, you can look around the third world and see a consistent pattern. American foreign policy makers talk about "democracy" but what they set up are corporate client states. Corporate feudalism isn't new at all. Capitalism -- especially before the emergence of social democracies -- has always had a feudal character. In foreign affairs, we've been propping up governments who see their job as making the world safe for corporations since at least the end of World War II. What are the World Bank and International Monetary Fund but tools of transnational corporations to force sovereign nations to serve the interests of the corporate lords? Everyone on the left understands these realities. The people in the middle -- those who concern themselves with their own business, and don't pay much attention to the larger political and economic world -- do not. Oh, they have heard complaints of "US imperialism" from time to time, but that phrase creates no understanding, and in fact alienates the American moderate. He hears in that phrase an attack on "America", which he translates into an attack on himself. He accepts the "heroic" view of America in the world, and disbelieves the stories he hears of "American imperialism", because to believe them is to denigrate, in his mind, the character and virtues of the America he was taught to revere. The phrase "corporate feudalism" solves his problem of understanding. It is a phrase he can understand. It is as simple to comprehend as the old "company store". Many middle Americans who work for corporations are well aware of the feudal hierarchy in place where he works. Many more have the nagging sense that they are little better than serfs. It is also a more substantive description of "American imperialism". "Imperialism" suggests military conquest, but "corporate feudalism" doesn't quite fit that model. "Economic conquest" is more accurate, and its subjugation and oppression is much more subtle. Not only that, while it was done by "Americans" -- such as they are -- it does not reflect American values, American institutions or American freedom. Corporate feudalism is decidedly "unAmerican", and is a gross departure from American values. It represents the seizure of American government to serve a new purpose -- the promotion of corporate wealth and power. Opposing this corrosive new form of "privatized tyranny" is not "unAmerican". Neither is publicizing the abuses of the corporate lords around the world in Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Iran or Vietnam. America didn't do those things. You didn't do those things. An American government subverted by corporate oligarchs did those things, and lied to you about their true purpose. The "traitors" are the corporate "feudal lords" who stole our government and committed oppression and exploitation in our name. The 'traitors" are the one's who now seek to use debt and "free trade" to do to the US, what they have already done to Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. The traitors are the one's -- in the name of "liberty" no less -- who seek a government they say can do nothing for the people who live under it, but can only serve the interests of corporate fiefdoms. Patriots expose these corporate potentates. Patriots seek to restore democracy, subverted by corporate feudalism. Just as it did for the conservatives, two simple words define this reality. Two simple words explain to the average American the forces at work against him. Two words explain the subversion of American democracy by a new power never before seen, namely the power of the transnational corporation -- a force grown so large that only a democratic government can possibly control such potential monsters. Two words sum up the gradual growth of the "global economy". Two words explain the gradual corruption of American institutions. Two words explain the subversion of the press and media -- once the sentinels of democracy, now the mouthpieces for corporate PR. Those two simple words are "corporate feudalism". People need to hear those words, You, as a progressive activist, need to use those words. You need to listen to conservative propaganda, listen to the media's corporate propaganda, and learn to translate their euphemisms for the reality of "corporate feudalism". You need to become the spokesmen for this new interpretation, and use these two simple words, until the last person in America understands how his government has been stolen from him by people who do not believe in American democracy, but who worship before a very different altar, the alter of corporate power. Now you can see the opposition between left and right in stark relief. While the left believes in equality, democracy, social justice and genuine liberty, the right believes in the wealth, power and privilege of a corporate neo-feudal elite. And now you have a simple way to illustrate that fundamental difference. <a href="http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/corporatefeudalism.htm">www.conceptualguerilla.co...dalism.htm</a>

by **proldic** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 3:45 pm

I wonder whether the reason people don't seem up to spending much time analyzing reparative economic justice issues in down-to-earth terms on a computer discussion board may have to do with the lack of a compelling reason on their part. There simply isn't enough representation from the statistical majority -- the working poor -- here. Whites, people "of color", whatever. I've been feeling it personally because I've been more and more unable to spend the time to articulate my views due to economic reasons, but it's not about me. Some of the people are wired and teched up, but I see how there's this really big half that still doesn't have computers, and they're the ones being screwed the worst. So can we really expect to acheive a truly "balanced" conversation on any topic in these forums? Not trying to get all Marxist per se here, just questioning things myself.

by **Morgan** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:12 pm

Anna, I totally loved the selection of essays you posted. Thanks! Prol, I totally understand the economic problem thing. I'm so there. Sigh. Responding to your post: This board does not pretend to be representative of the statistical majority. That's a cold, hard fact. RI posters are mostly white, mostly young, and mostly educated. This adds up to RI posters being mostly privileged. To me, because of our relative privilege, we should do more to educate and inform others who lack access to computer technology. I went into this in detail on another post because I felt that not enough working class/working poor had access to the kinds of stuff we were talking about. It seemed unfair to me to blame people for being stupid sheeple just because they lack access to the kind of information we take for granted. My answer was to be more active in the real world, taking what we have learned online and spreading the news. It takes time and effort. FYI: If you want to hear someone talk about economics, in down-to-earth terms, I recommend: <a href="http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/whoo.html" target="top">Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies & Global Economics</a> US Release Date: 1996 Cheers, Morgan

by **Gouda** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 1:20 am

Good stuff AL. Morgan, I am with you on that. Proldic: I think that some people do not know how to talk about economics, at least not enough to post, whether they are educated, working poor or neither or both. Some here may feel better suited to just quietly read, absorb, and learn when it comes to certain topics. I, for example, would have nothing to offer the mind control or ritual abuse threads, but I do like to follow them so that I can learn something. This is not to say I think that this forum is not econ-averse. That may be true for the reason you pointed out, but I don’t think most people come here for discussions on economic justice, again, maybe due to what you suggest. If they learn something, all the better.

by **Gouda** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 1:27 am

Because it is all connected.

by **AnnaLivia** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:18 am

Bumpity bump bump bump

by **Watchful Citizen** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:19 pm

Proldic, I agree with you and am taking this thread to expand on some topics you misunderstood me on weeks ago. I'm studying the way militarism is injected into every facet of American culture. I've found that economics plays a big part in determining who is vulnerable to being conned into killing for the wealthy. You're right about the internet being a heavily white venue so far. Computers are a middle-class-to-elite expensive technology which takes money and time to get into and use regularly. TV culture's elimination of reading and writing in favor of emotionally manipulative imagery hits the more vulnerable poor harder than those with the dollars and time to read parapolitics on blogs to find out what's happening and who the players are. And even newspaper readership is going away fast. I suspect that even the attempts to make broad-band internet access more common is a way to get internet users to use it to watch film clips resembling TV instead of reading it like a newspaper. Gotta make sure computer users don't get too smart! So class division is even more systemic in the internet than in published books and newspapers and class is closely related to race in this country. The anti-Vietnam War college activists also figured out that they had to connect with the working poor who weren't on campuses going to anti-war rallies and activist meetings. It appears that the alliance of middle-class white students and the mostly working-poor blacks was/is the FBI's and Pentagon's worst fear, a class alliance that would check the power of the rich to wage capitalist wars for profit with impunity. Hence the killing of Malcom X, Fred Hampton and many Black Panthers, and Martin Luther King. So now the Pentagon uses poor African Americans as prime targets for the economic draft since the draft was eliminated in 1973. Recycling the poor by using them against other poor people is an old tactic for solving two problems, having poor people and wanting the resources they live near. Likewise, financing CIA wars with drug profits and dumping the drugs in poor black neighborhoods and then profiting off the prison-industrial complex while using media to re-polarize whites and blacks against each other and further disenfranchising black voters uses fascist race-based vulnerability to visual targeting as 'the enemy' as a tool of class politics to build elite power on the bodies of the poor just as sure as the Old South's plantations did. "Don't free the slaves, they're too dangerous. The victims of Kamp Katrina were too dangerous to help." Thank goodness fascists will save us from our bad selves by killing off the 'immoral and weak' among us in the Eugenic States of America. I learned about the Pentagon's exploitation of black poverty when I worked with a prominent black singing group getting booked at some top-shelf events. (I work as a vendor in the theater/event industry and meet stars and politicians regularly.) I was horrified to discover that the NAACP and Jesse Jackson maintain close ties to the Pentagon as a jobs program and path to the middle class for blacks. I toured for months with former members of the US Air Force Symphony Orchestra who were black and some Vietnam vets and discussed black survival in a white military nation at length. So I'm not soapboxing from an isolated white experience. (I've seen repeated harassment of one black friend. On one tour I watched cops frisk my black boss and close friend and take money from his wallet. His crime? Dancing with white girls while black. Someone probably dropped a dime on him and a SWAT team of cops descended on us at a club and took him around the corner for a body search. Several times I've met him at our hotel's restaurant only to find security or cops hassling him over nothing. I'm embarassed to admit that I used my 'white man card' by putting my arm around my friend and fending off the unwarranted attention. What's worse, it worked. That's reality even in post-Rosa Parks Amerikkka.They left him alone when whitey stepped in. The black performers and ex-military I knew didn't want to 'represent' blacks, they wanted to feed their kids. I found that people often know exactly how wrong things are but just take their paycheck and detach from the larger picture by saying "don't I have a right to survive?" No one wants to acknowledge the smoke rising from the crematoria of American Military-Industrial Media Complex or their part in it. (I also know someone who works at Fox TV in NYC and tells me people working there know how bad Fox is and hate it but labor on in resignation. Resignation is its own reward.) Every year the NAACP (which does plenty of good work) has a tribute dinner for the US military with attendees like Colin Powell and other high-ranking people of color. In 2004 the tribute was to the US Air Force with a reception paid for by Lockheed Martin. I was supposed to work for this event. The event was advertised as honoring those who fight the War on Terror (ugh). I refused to work the event since Abu Ghraib had just broken and the Air Force had just wiped out another wedding party. (In fact, this event booking led me to quit a two-year job with the performers and face the trials of chronic unemployment.) I found the NAACP had a whole department called 'Armed Services and Veteran's Affairs' originally used to ensure that blacks get the same benefits as whites from the Pentagon but has devolved into enabling the barter of food and housing for cannon-fodder, a far cry from the attitudes of William Edward Burghardt DuBois on civil rights. <a href="http://www.naacp.org/programs/asva/asva_history.html">www.naacp.org/programs/as...story.html</a> >snip< "Today, partially as a result of the efforts of the NAACP Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Department, the NAACP has noted significant improvements in the status of African Americans serving in defense of our country. Approximately 30% of the working population is directly or indirectly employed by the Department of Defense (DoD) as uniformed military personnel, federal employees, or DoD contractors/sub-contractors. African Americans compose significant percentages of this work force. For example, in the military departments, approximately 19% of the service men and women are black. In the United States Army alone, 40% of the female population is black. A large proportion of the African American population is involved in military service because these occupations offer employment, training, and educational opportunities that are lacking in private industry. Since 1975, the NAACP has formally recognized men and women who make significant contributions to the defense of our country through the coordination of an elegant annual awards dinner. The dinner is the culmination of a year-long search for the individuals most worthy of such prestigious recognition. employed by the Department of Defense (DoD) as uniformed military personnel, federal employees, or DoD contractors/sub-contractors. African Americans compose significant percentages of this work force." >snip< Here's the 2004 dinner's webpage: hmmm. 404. Not found. Wonder why? "last modified 9/8/05" on related pages... Oh well, here's the listing of the event with some details: <a href="http://www.naacp.org/news/2004/2004-05-19.html">www.naacp.org/news/2004/2004-05-19.html</a> And here are lovely photos of the NAACP dinner with Marine Corp Commandant James L. Jones giving Kwaasi Mfume an award: <a href="http://www.naacp.org/programs/asva/asva_galary.html">www.naacp.org/programs/as...alary.html</a> The 2002 dinner was a tribute to the Marine Corps: <a href="http://www.naacp.org/news/2002/2002-07-07.html">www.naacp.org/news/2002/2002-07-07.html</a> Now called the Roy Wilkins Award with all military winners: <a href="http://www.naacp.org/inc/docs/convention/convention_roy_walkins_award_winners.pdf">www.naacp.org/inc/docs/co...inners.pdf</a> >snip< National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 2005 Roy Wilkins Renown Service Award Recipients United States Army Lieutenant General John R. Vines United States Navy Mr. Jesse W. McCurdy, Jr. United States Marine Corps Captain Keystella Mitchell United States Air Force Mr. Neville Thompson National Guard Lieutenant General Roger C. Schultz United States Army National Guard Master Sergeant Claire M.S. Potier United States Air National Guard United States Coast Guard Lieutenant Lushan A. Hannah 4 th Estate Defense Agencies Mrs. Traci Briscoe Defense Contract Management Agency National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 2005 NAACP Meritorious Service Award Recipient Vice Admiral Gerald Hoewing Chief of Navy Personnel/Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Manpower & Personnel) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 2005 Benjamin L. Hooks Distinguished Service Award Recipient Ms. Patricia C. Adams Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Civilian Human Resources) >snip< That's the NAACP's tie to the Pentagon. Proldic, you were looking for 'coded language' for evidence that RI has been overrun by anti-semites and other racists. Did you forget that Jesse Jackson called New York City "hymietown"? Not too coded a comment perhaps denoting Jackson's own bias against Jews. Or maybe this was a Washinton Post (military-media) generated smear to keep Jews and Blacks from uniting, too. Divide and conquer smears are commonly attributed to targets who are effective in organizing resistance to peel off potential allies and the Washington Post is a CIA flagship for psy-ops along with the NYT, LAT, and Miami Herald, TV, magazines, and wire services. Here is a 1998 Washington Post (get your salt) recap article from some forum called 'Clinton Accused' called 'Feeding Frenzy' about this 1984 political incident that tagged into the image of Louis Farrakhan as anti-semitic to maximize damage to Jackson's image as a political candidate: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/frenzy/jackson.htm">www.washingtonpost.com/wp...ackson.htm</a> >snip< "Jesse Jackson's 'Hymietown' Remark – 1984 Feeding Frenzy Rev. Jesse Jackson referred to Jews as "Hymies" and to New York City as "Hymietown" in January 1984 during a conversation with a black Washington Post reporter, Milton Coleman. Jackson had assumed the references would not be printed because of his racial bond with Coleman, but several weeks later Coleman permitted the slurs to be included far down in an article by another Post reporter on Jackson's rocky relations with American Jews. A storm of protest erupted, and Jackson at first denied the remarks, then accused Jews of conspiring to defeat him. The Nation of Islam's radical leader Louis Farrakhan, an aggressive anti-Semite and old Jackson ally, made a difficult situation worse by threatening Coleman in a radio broadcast and issuing a public warning to Jews, made in Jackson's presence: "If you harm this brother [Jackson], it will be the last one you harm." Finally, Jackson doused the fires in late February with an emotional speech admitting guilt and seeking atonement before national Jewish leaders in a Manchester, New Hampshire synagogue. Yet Jackson refused to denounce Farrakhan, and lingering, deeply rooted suspicions have led to an enduring split between Jackson and many Jews. The frenzy also heightened tensions between Jackson and the mostly white establishment press. " >snip< Sounds like Jackson both really said it AND he got it played to the hilt by the CIA media to divide blacks from jews. Sidenote: I see that the new editor of the LA Times (CIA venue for psy-ops) is black and in the past was offered the #2 spot at the NYTimes which is slashing employees as readership plummets for all papers. The NYT staff cuts will probably be used to tighten ship post-Judith Miller imprisonment with lines drawn in the corriders just as the CIA is polarizing over the neocons with refusniks ousted. Here's an interesting article on the recent shake up at the LATimes and its sister paper, the Chicago Tribune. This is all related to CIA control of public opinion and perhaps preparation for people of color in cities being the majority in this country soon: <a href="http://www.lamag.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=14D5B253DB1D499F9AD38F459D8E926A&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=620067A2F92C48368CF5A07C13BF1F77">www.lamag.com/ME2/dirmod....7C13BF1F77</a> Proldic, you were recently skeptical of my personal account of berating Jesse Jackson for complicity in militarism. You cited some lawsuit against Jackson the same day which I still don't know about. So here's more info on my 2004 encounter with Jesse Jackson in Chicago.. I attended the June 2004 Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago along with performers. I listened to Jackson bring black generals in medal-encrusted uniforms onstage and talk about their military careers for an hour despite the conference booklet decrying the Pentagon budget starving of the poor. And this was right after the NAACP military tribute dinner along the same lines. So I met Jackson backstage and cited him for hypocrisy and complicity while his security people eyed me and Jackson said nothing and then just left. I was the last person he met that night. Back at the hotel with conference meetings in every room, I saw the corporate donor sign board and saw Lockheed Martin and Boeing listed. Aha. Big money and Pentagon influence, just like the NAACP relationship. The economic draft has some high level...no not that racially-charged word, um...salesmen. So here's the link with corporate donors like Lockheed Martin, The Boeing Company, Shell Oil, Bank of America, Chase Manhatten Bank, Coors: <a href="http://www.rainbowpush.org/conferences/annualconference/2005/sponsors.htm">www.rainbowpush.org/confe...onsors.htm</a> Obviously many companies want PR points for 'supporting equality' but I don't think Lockheed Martin and Boeing do. They want troops to run the killing machines they make in the wars the White House makes.. Jackson seems to have found the value of talking critically to power while making overtures to save them face and to exact financial concessions. This 9/27/05 Jackson comment on 'Iraq in Katrina's Wake' describes atrocity in rather gentle terms and concludes with "Let’s put our clients in Iraq on notice. They must take responsibility for their future, for we have done enough. Announce a timetable for bringing the troops home. It is time to turn our attention to rebuilding America." Yikes. Imagine Martin Luther King writing " Let's put our clients in Vietnam on notice. They must take responsibility for their future, for we have done enough." Nope, unimaginable. King called murder and torture a crime against humanity regardless of the 'job opportunities' offered. True, Jackson calls the GOP out for their many crimes but treads softly on the war compared to the morally-charged anti-imperial anti-war language used during the Vietnam War. <a href="http://www.rainbowpush.org/FMPro?-db=RPOdata.fp5&-format=rainbowpush/data/resultspress.htm&-lay=main&category=press&-sortfield=Date&-sortorder=descend&-find">www.rainbowpush.org/FMPro...cend&-find</a> And when combined with Jackson's business education program which includes The Wall Street Project and not just small business support, I wonder where he draws his line of what is unacceptable and what to accomodate from corporations: <a href="http://www.rainbowpush.org/FMPro?-db=RPOdata.fp5&-format=rainbowpush/data/resultspress.htm&-lay=main&category=press&-sortfield=Date&-sortorder=descend&-find">www.rainbowpush.org/FMPro...cend&-find</a> >snip< 11/12/2003 Creating Opportunity Conference Sponsored by The Peachtree Street Project Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and Citizenship Education Fund Wall Street Project South click here for program details and registration 8:00 AM - Awards Breakfast Salute to diversity, inclusion and emerging market growth 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM - Sponsor Viewing Room - Sample Products of Our Sponsors 10:00 AM - The Coca-Cola Company Opportunity Forum Coke's top first-tier suppliers discuss LIVE supplier/vendor opportunities. 10:00 AM - Business Plan Boot Camp Space limited - APPLY EARLY! Draft, Polish and Perfect Your Business Plan with one-on-one advice from seasoned professionals in finance and marketing. Noon - Ministers Luncheon empowering pastors for financial stewardship Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. 2:00 to 4:00 PM - Concurrent Workshops Auto Manufacturing, Marketing and Sales Drive the Sunbelt Economy Glenda Gill, Rainbow/PUSH Automotive Project Terri Moon, executive vice president, The Bing Group Franchising - Roadmap to Entrepreneurism Clinton Barrow, president, Prestige Consulting Group Building Relationships to Corporate America Marcellus Jackson, J.D., Clark Atlanta School of Business >snip< "Building Relationships to Corporate America" !!?? Well, that shows who's boss and who to pander to, doesn't it? That's a dangerous affirmation of the power elite to offer to wannabes. My own opinion- that is like offering Jews classes in builiding relationships with Nazis. I guess a 'relationship' is better than just being fuel for their fires. But isn't complicity another form of fuel? Getting a piece of their pie is supposed to represent 'winning' the rat race and equality, I suppose. Survival is the first rule of fighting. I get the impression Jackson has decided that ending up in a pool of blood like MLK by taking on the CIA and Pentagon isn't worth the martyr status when there's money to be had in staying around and offering PR face-saving to the military-media complex in exchange for portraying the US military as a 'noble vocation' in support of the 'War on Terror.' Can you imagine Martin Luther King responding to this deal with the devil to kill other poor people for personal economic survival in the United States of Apartheid? Thankfully, not everyone in those groups is happy about this tack. I spoke to a long-time NAACP board member after the Rainbow/PUSH conference and he admitted 2004 was the first military tribute dinner he couldn't bear to attend. We talked about the economic draft and he said he'd try to address this topic with other board members to steer away from complicity in what the Pentagon is ordered to do by The Powers That Be. I hope you get a better picture of the topics and my own overt attitudes in my own words, proldic. I wouldn't waste my time with 'coded' language when fighting ignorance about the military occupation of our country and understanding how people attempt to engage with all classes: 1)those who know the fascist scam 2)those who have no clue what is going on 3)and the muddled middle of the semi-informed.

by **Watchful Citizen** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 8:07 pm

If you couldn't tell by my above post, hard facts are in short supply and I advocate getting those right and sticking to them in concise and emotionally compelling terms. (On this site, I don't bother with 'concise' because this is a way above average forum with high degree of background understanding.) Understanding crimes against humanity and injustice are plenty interesting and don't require additional entertainment value of a hand-puppet re-enactment. No, name the real names, dates, and places so the kids will know them and pass them on. It is entirely possible to describe reality in memorable and understandable terms.

by **israelirealities** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 9:30 am

thank you watchful, It sounds like a real description of the divide and rule tactics, and the recruitment of the poor to the military complex. I don't share your criticism of Jackson, who is probably looking for the most responsible way to lead his flock. The afro americans are truly being starved and oppressed, i have seen it and couldn't believe what I saw, like the life in SOuth Central LA, for instance. MLK was like the Ghandi, and Jackson is someone who has to take care of the food. It is a very hard dillemma, how much to resist and how much to collaborate with the very complexes that oppress you. There is also a question of timing, namely, when is a good time to rebell and when to be accomplice. How much to move ahead of your time/group, and how much to stay with them. I have had those hesitations with people I represented as lawyer, like indigenous tribes here in Israel (Bedouins). WHen the difference in power is so huge, you have to be really careful, cause the price is heavy, for the people out there. I had a few blazing legal victories in land disputes, against the government, sure, it was sweet and happy for a while, but the clients were retaliated against for years, and I think all in all, they lost more than they gained. ANd after all, when people are poor, the government can always harrass them forever, they never run of personnel or "memory". While the Afro Americans are under using their actual power, in my opinion, perhaps Jacksson knows their limitations right now. As for the organized Jews of America, while they might have been set up against the afroamericans and vice versae, as CIA tactics, still they cannot be exempt from responsibility for their quick assimilation into the ruling rich classes. Nothing to say more, its just inexcusable. They also do the same to the ISraelis whom they view as "inferior/lazy/prarsites/not trying enough" (the regular capitalist hate speech), and one can hardly blame the CIA for that (or maybe yes ?). It is an organized corruption of affluent people who forgot where they came from and where they are going to. Money, quick money, can do that. of course, this only with regards to the establishment, as there are individual Jews and groups of all kinds, many of whom work for social justice, I hear.

by **Watchful Citizen** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 3:27 pm

Israelirealities wrote in response to my post about Pentagon-Corporate ties to the NAACP and Jesse Jackson's RainbowPUSH Coalition: "It is a very hard dillemma, how much to resist and how much to collaborate with the very complexes that oppress you. There is also a question of timing, namely, when is a good time to rebell and when to be accomplice. How much to move ahead of your time/group, and how much to stay with them." Well put And thanks for the affirmation of this balancing act under oppression elsewhere.. I'm very hard on ALL intellectuals and leaders who fail to tell their audiences exactly who runs America and how so they know how the system is rigged but MORE IMPORTANTLY so people will then tell others about the cryptocracy that uses psy-ops to divide Americans from each other and set them to war, eugenics, and environmental destruction. Example: Cornell West. I love hearing him speak. Very inspiring, righteous, literary, etc. He does a speaking tour every February, Black History Month, and I hear him twice in my area. Example: Bill Moyers. I love to hear him speak, too. And in his defense, he did make a documentary video back during Bush I about the secret government. Amazing. But, as the saying goes, what has he done lately with his high visibility? At this year's media reform conference in St. Louis, not one single person-including Moyers- mentioned the CIA's media control program called Operation Mockingbird. BUT. Like Jesse Jackson, he must know what I know about CIA control of the media and government and does not tell his audience what is going on! I find this outrageous. To hold back on information people need to defend themselves and grow a resistance is to perpetuate the oppression by keeping the secrets of its hidden mechanisms. I'm even critical of Project Censored with their annual list of 25 stifled news stories that just draw chalk outlines around the bodies of killed stories without telling Americans that it was revealed in the 1975 Church Senate Committee Hearings on CIA Abuses that the CIA was in our media controlling what we know and believe! Where is anyone with visibility transmitting this crucial information to the American public? Meanwhile, the CIA is getting big PR over Plamegate as if the CIA hasn't been committing the atrocities the neocons are guility of FOR DECADES. So resignation to a criminal gang running the USA is setting in and I intend to hold leaders feet to the fire of criticism to get them to speak up.

Conceptual Guerilla econ ammo essays

Conceptual Guerilla econ ammo essays

more about cheap-labor predation

economic man frolics in marketplace Valhalla

to AnnaLivia

thanks for the introduction

Re: thanks for the introduction

pretending

RE: Pretending

Re: RE: Pretending

Re: RE: Pretending

libertarians love cheap labor

re: online representation of the working poor.

Oh, and I think there are already too many fables around.

Re: Oh, and I think there are already too many fables around

Re: Israelirealities on the difficulty of resist vs comply

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