Seamus OBlimey wrote:8bitagent wrote:It's eerie how close some of the message of white nationalists are to my own
No it's not.
No, it's not. The exact same pervasive sense of fear, the growing realization that one is living in a cold, unjust, exploitative system run by very powerful and ruthless predators is shared not only by many different Americans (Black, White, Hispanic, Men, Women, Christians, Jews, Muslims, you name it), but by a large segment of the world's population. If children could independently think and organize politically, they'd express the same sense of persecution, with equal justification. All kinds of people feel that something is very, very wrong, and they're very, very right. Take America: in less than one decade, it's gone from incredible apparent prosperity to a devastating recession; the gap between the obscenely rich and the obscenely poor has become obscenely large. America's 'democracy' is being more clearly exposed as yet another deceptive brand name rather than a means for citizens to participate in shaping their own country, and to ensure that their rights are clearly defined and protected. As the corporate elite homogenize the American landscape and culture, as they transform American citizens into passive political, product and media consumers and cannon fodder for catastrophic endless wars that profit only themselves, people who feel alienated, helpless and increasingly disenfranchised instinctively rebel against a system that continuously lies to them and defines a 'good citizen' as one that willingly participates in his or her own enslavement.
To counteract these feelings of fear, alienation and helplessness, it's a no-brainer that individuals will seek a group identity to give them a sense of not being alone, and to find a cause that gives their suffering meaning and purpose. It is the same, identical human dynamic that motivates ordinary individuals to join a 'white supremacist' group and others to join a 'Judeo-supremacist' group, that leads others to join a 'feminist group' and others to join a 'Muslim supremacist' or "Christian supremacist' or 'worker supremacist' or 'peasant rebellion' or pretty much any other cause, including an environmental cause or anti-racist cause.
All these 'movements' share a deep, often justified, sense of grievance and an urgent need to do something now before it's too late. Beyond those commonalities, however, which in themselves are neither illegitimate nor wrong, I personally distinguish between movements I am prepared to support and those I am not, using these criteria:
1) Reactionary vs progressive: reactionary movements almost always promote a highly romanticized and selective view of some ideal past, a self-serving version of which their followers dream of recreating. Reactionary movements are incredibly appealing to individuals who already feel enough fear and powerlessness in the current reality and are not prepared to add to those feelings of insecurity by heading into uncharted territory.
Progressive movements, in contrast, want to use the lessons of the past and of the present in order build a system that incorporates those lessons in order to build something new and better. The former uses an idealized, usually mythical, past as a static template, while the latter treats the past as a valuable pool of knowledge and experience.
2) Narrow-based vs universal: narrow-based movements are driven by an 'us vs them' world-view, in which the 'us' is an inherently superior group that is victimized by an inferior 'them' who are motivated by envy and irrational hatred to bring 'us' down to 'their level'. In all narrow-based groups, there is an incredible amount of self-stroking, which can be very appealing to individuals whose self-esteem is very low and who feel insignificant and helpless. Narrow-based groups also conveniently allow individuals to project all their fears, grievances and anger onto a dehumanized and demonized Other, in the form of people who are vulnerable and easy to attack, unlike those who actually shape the system itself. Like the Ugly Duckling,
we are victimized and targeted by them precisely because we are superior. Only by joining with our own kind to celebrate our superiority and find strength in numbers can we hope to win the mortal struggle to take our rightful place at the pinnacle of humanity and preserve ourselves as uniquely precious vessels against those who try to assimilate us into a homogeneous mud of mediocrity. Universal movements, in contrast, are driven by the belief that all human beings are inherently precious and have the potential to make a unique contribution to the whole, within a system that protects the dignity and certain basic rights of each. Such movements consider any struggle legitimate if its purpose is to defend and protect the legitimate rights of a targeted group against those who would deny that group the same rights they claim for themselves. While narrow-based groups struggle to preserve or obtain exclusive privileges for their 'group', however it is defined, regardless of the cost to inferior categories of people, universal groups consider humanity as one organic unit in which injustice or oppression in any part harms the whole body.
Another important difference between narrow-based and universal movements is that the former accepts that divisions between people are fixed and 'natural', while universal movements recognize that such divisions are completely changeable depending on the situation. For example, whether I choose to primarily identify myself as a White person or a Brown person, or a worker, or a woman, or a Christian, or an Egyptian or a Canadian or a secularist or a Leftist or a humanitarian or a nearly infinite number of other "identities" not only changes depending on the issue, but should be largely up to me. Universal movements recognize that it is people's right to mobilize and form alliances that they believe most effectively protect their rights, as long as those rights are legitimate, iow are the same for everybody and are not predicated on violating the rights of others. (For example, the "right" to own slaves, the "right" to ethnically cleanse, the "right" to beat one's wife, the "right" to prevent others from inter-marrying, etc.)
3) A third, crucial distinction is between movements that posit the Enemy as a class or group of people, and those that perceive the Enemy as an unjust or dysfunctional system. The first is based on an implicit assumption that the only system possible is a zero-sum game in which the prize is survival, the only alternative being annihilation or enslavement. It struck me, watching that video, how many of the white supremacists seemed quite poor and expressed the belief that they are oppressed, which of course they are. In a parallel universe, African-Americans feel equally oppressed, with even more justification. Nothing could be better, from a systemic point of view, than to encourage each side to focus their anger on the other rather than on the system that oppresses both. It's no accident that racial hatred is being deliberately stoked by billionaire Rupert Murdoch's FOX network, or that racist incitement saturates so much of what passes for "entertainment" produced by Hollywood's elite "dream factory". Yet even a cursory understanding of human history, or the way the system is set up, would show that even if African-Americans were to entirely wipe out the white people who form the minions of the white supremacist movement or if the white supremacists were to wipe out all the Black people, it's hard to see how that would make any difference at all to the very real oppression that both groups face, of which the "color divide" is but one manifestation: a symptom, but not the disease itself.
The second is based on the understanding that people create systems that in turn create people, and that voluntary or involuntary abdication of one's responsibility to freely and effectively participate in creating a sustainable system for guaranteeing even one's own dignity and basic rights, inevitably leads to oppressive and unjust systems. From that perspective, it is futile and counter-productive to devote one's limited resources to attacking the products of a system while neglecting to address the system that produces them and one's own role in perpetuating it. Here again, increasing our objective knowledge about the incredibly complex current global reality, as well as the historical record can provide us with an immense data-base of different models that have been and are applied today, which we can use to develop a system that is intelligently designed to develop and protect a vibrant society based on the values of justice, freedom, prosperity and dignity for all its members. Such a task can never be accomplished if "society-building" is left to a few narrow segments of society, such as "elites" or corporations: it can only be done through the most broad-based participation of a society's grass roots, including the many subgroups that are currently marginalized. Also, democracy begins at home and can only be effective if national politics are determined by an active citizenry working at the neighborhood and community levels up, rather than the other way around.
In a marginally related way, this sort of reminds me of a funny story I read recently, about the inhabitants of Sderot, the town that was built on the ruins of an ethnically-cleansed Palestinian village. If you'll recall, Israel's oft-repeated justification for the outrageous slaughter of last year's Operation Cast Lead was the 'intolerable' suffering of the residents of Sderot due to Palestinian rockets from Gaza. It seems that, now that that they've served their purpose, the elites' crocodile tears have all dried up and the hapless inhabitants of Sderot are left to confront their true insignificance to the Powers That Be.
Sderot plagued with welfare crisis
During Operation Cast Lead southern town's residents didn't have to worry about foreclosures, debt collection but recent state of calm changed matters. Ynet inquiry suggests number of applications to social services has risen considerably in last year
Yael Branovsky
Published: 12.17.09, 12:56 / Israel News
After a few months of relative calm Sderot residents are faced with growing welfare issues. "Sometimes I think, to hell with it - bring on the Qassams. It'll solve my problems with the bank and I'll get to keep the roof over my head," city resident A. told Ynet this week.
"Suddenly when it's calm and there are no more Qassams, they've threatened to take away my house. During the operation everyone was considerate."
A Ynet inquiry has revealed that parallel to the recent security calm, the city started facing a growing financial crisis. Since Operation Cast Lead ended last January the number of applications to social services has risen by over 40%.
Director of social services in the Sderot Municipality Yigal Levy pointed to an alarming phenomenon – banks, state agencies, and various commercial firms which have been lenient with residents during the Qassam days have reinforced efforts to collect debts from the residents. ...
Social workers in Sderot are also facing a massive flow of residents of low socio-economic status from other cities which has virtually caused them to collapse. "Since Operation Cast Lead we need to address the residents' real problems, which have not surfaced before, but there are also returning residents and others who arrive from outside towns such as Yavne, Nazareth and Lod having heard of the welfare department's good care," Levy said.
'No one cares'
Over 4000 families are currently being treated by social services in Sderot. Out of all applications this year, 40% were new applications and some 20% of those were related to bank debts and foreclosure threats. The municipality finds itself unable to attend to all of the new problems as a result of a drop in grant funds.
"The number of applications has risen, but our ability to address them has dropped by 50%," Levy complained. "The government saved people from the Qassams, but now no one really cares."
Meanwhile A. feels virtually hopeless. "As long as the operation lasted no one approached me and I could live in peace, at least in that respect. My debt isn't that high, I'm trying to pay it off and still they threatened to evict me…I always felt that we were abandoned here, but now I feel it even more," he said.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340 ... 64,00.html
Anyway, my point -- and I do have one -- is that we need to avoid the temptation to simplistically mirror these or similar supremacists' demonization of the Other, otherwise we help to perpetuate the very system that produces them. Whether we're talking about Jewish supremacists in Palestine or white supremacists in the U.S., mindlessly reacting in a way that reinforces their paranoia and self-pity is counterproductive. It is far more effective to distinguish between legitimate rights and aspirations while explicitly rejecting, exposing and counteracting their racist beliefs and their own violence or oppression of others.
It's also crucial to find a way to reach these people with accurate, relevant and verifiable information about the way the predatory system really works, including its formidable propaganda apparatus that is so effective at making people consistently act against their own self-interest. Although typically, such movements attract a number of seriously disturbed individuals, violent criminals and agents saboteurs, the majority are ordinary people who are bewildered and seeking the relief of trusting false prophets who claim to have all the answers. I'm not naive about how difficult it is to change racist attitudes, but I do believe that we should not be reinforcing the wall between "us" and "them", but instead hacking a doorway through that wall and providing a healthier, more informed and more intelligent alternative that strengthens OUR struggle for positive change, rather than THEIR struggle to keep society on its downward trajectory.
"If you're not careful the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X
by American Dream » Fri Jan 08, 2010 8:12 pm 
