It would seem logical and quite in keeping with "nature" that the wealthy and the elite would find myriad ways of justifying greed and the lack of solidarity. It makes little sense for the powerful to feel guilt over their position (indeed, such guilt or shame is what keeps a multitude of capable people from accumulating such wealth). It also seems fitting that greed-justifying writers, intellectuals and politicians (who may or may not directly belong to the economic elite itself) would be handsomely rewarded, lavishly praised and supported in many ways by that elite. John Kenneth Galbraith famously wrote in this regard that the modern conservative was engaged in the pursuit of finding a superior moral justification for greed.

"Justify our place atop the pyramid...even if our official, religious-based morality reminds us that there is something terribly wrong about large accumulations of wealth in the face of extreme poverty and suffering", they might say... If only to alleviate their consciences and allow them to feel good about themselves. But the usefulness of greed justification obviously goes beyond helping the rich sleep better. When Naomi Klein insists that Milton Friedman's economic theories were quite "profitable" (indeed they were!), she is pointing out that not only are such intellectuals well-rewarded for their work, but that the elite they serve are also freed to accumulate far greater wealth and power. For this to occur, the greed-justification theories must also somehow appeal to the much larger numbers of poor and middle-classes.

Now this is quite a trick, given that the economic policies (including a war-like foreign policy) that free the elite to accumulate more wealth almost universally work at the expense of the poor and middle classes. The question for the powerful has always been: how convince the overwhelming majority of people to wholeheartedly support our right to cynically exploit them - even to the point that they are willing to kill and die for this right?

And that brings us back to yesterday's closing rant about the current anti-taxation movement. The Obama adminstration is working to lower taxes for the vast majority of Americans, and raise taxes on the wealthy (to a point that would bring them close to what they were under that great socialist Reagan). So we are treated to the spectacle of thousands (what some columnists are calling an Astroturf, rather than grassroots, movement - given that it would seem to be rather manipulated and artificial, the manufacture of consent, as Chomsky put it) of protesters out in the streets, in the guise of "patriots", many working and middle class people crying out against raising taxes on the rich. 

What?

...ok...so they're idiots. But all those folks working in the corporate media who are rousing them to action? The Fox News contingent? Are those people real? Did they come from outer space to fuck with our heads (the graphics and production style would seem to support this theory). In any case, as an athiest, this pains me...but since I simply cannot imagine what would make so many people work so hard towards such an utterly fucked-up end...I'm left with begrudgingly having to admit of the existence of evil. Only evil could let such things happen...But what the hell is evil? Is it possible to define that concept without immersing oneself in the religions again?

looking foward cross-eyed

Watching the television news at lunchtime…hmmm…a case of willing suspension of disbelief?...a cynical exercise in ironic distance?...well, here the satellite company offers quite a full menu, from Spanish public TV news to the Spanish version of CNN (much higher quality than the international version), to BBC international (better still)…down to the weirdly hallucinogenic, futuristically frightening, empirical-proof-of-the-existence-of-evil Fox News (apart from the twisted, perverted, hateful politics, it’s just so damn ugly!), to the international French news channel (quite good), to Al Jazeera (in general, journalistically outstanding)…

In any case, we come upon the news that the Obama administration, after fully admitting to the prisoner treatment atrocities and war crimes committed by the CIA, has also fully absolved all those involved in said crimes. No point in dwelling over the past, they say. Better to look to the future. I’ll bet those folks who sat on the hot seat at Nuremberg before swinging on the noose wish the world would have been so “forward looking” back then.

This was followed, almost in sequence, by another piece concerning the Administration’s approach to Cuba…loosening up a bit…ah, but of course no thought about lifting the embargo. Hell no. As mentioned by an Administration spokesperson, the Cuban government must make some human rights progress first. Now, while the (CNN) newscaster was reading this news, I watched her face. I may have been imagining this, but she seemed to go just ever so slightly cross-eyed. Talk about cognitive dissonance! Or, ahem…was there? Is the world so utterly stunned, dazed, atontado, ajillipollado…so as not to be knocked on the head by this painful piece of hypocrisy? And this not from the Bush Administration any more…but from the sainted Obama Administration. ¡Hay que joderse!

 

By the way, has anyone noticed that the project (best illustrated by the Republican Party in general, Fox News and other corporate media giants, etc., and many others) which involves trying to convince the lower-to-middle classes (the massive majority) that their interests are the same as the ultra-rich -  just keeps going on and on? I’ve always been amazed by this process. The elite have always done this - how else is less than 10 percent of the population going to lord over the other 90 percent?. But since the age of Reagan and Thatcher, I can’t help but marvel at how absurd and preposterous this project has been and continues to be. The latest example are these anti-taxation “Tea Parties”, organized, it would seem, by Fox News itself, but with substantial support from a good number of blithering idiots.  I don’t know…my bafflement and rage are quite beyond words for today…better to take up the subject in another entry.    

ontological rant in the court of the imagination

The defendant stood before the judge in the hushed courtroom. He began speaking.

“I plead not guilty, your honor. In fact, I cannot but plead not guilty. My “not guilty plea” is nothing but the product of neuronal activity within my head. Even though I do feel a bit guilty about having caused the death of my loved one with that chop stick, that guilt has no practical effect on my plea. Even though I would have preferred to avoid her death, I had no direct control over the act. In fact, every time I am using the word “I” in this sentence, it is only for semantic reasons, for there is no “I” in the sense that the court commonly understands it. There is only an agglomeration of cells functioning as a unit, said unit representing nothing more than the gross accumulation of causes and effects within, and without. In fact, as I shall show, the movements associated with the physical entity labeled “I” were nothing more than the utterly unavoidable series of causes and effects, emanating from outside this body, setting off the pertinent internal string of causes/effects, issuing in an overall external physical act which, in sum, was but another cause to the effect, or consequence, under the court’s current consideration.

I would like to remind the court of a number of issues pertinent to my defense. A cursory look at the legal record, as well as at prevailing punitive law, shows that society grants the existence of different levels of responsibility for the acts of its members. Different punishments are meted out for taking another life, depending on what the court assumes to be the degree of intent of the killing. Courts look upon premeditation as proof of the highest degree of intent, of responsibility. From there we move down to premeditation with certain levels of just cause (self-defense, hunger, etc.). Next on the descending scale of responsibility are killings done in a state of passion. From there we go down to the myriad levels of insanity pleas. Finally, there are killings that can be said to be entirely accidental. All imply a number of elements – a sense of control, independent will, a clearly defined and existent self – in formulating the level of intent and responsibility. Note that at the lower end of this scale, the element of choice, of individual, clear-headed decision making leading to the act, becomes less and less applicable…until, in the case of proven and unavoidable accident, it is inapplicable altogether.
I would like to submit to the court that the same lack of individual will, or free choice, applies also to the most cold-headed, thoroughly deliberated murder. I challenge the court to identify, in a pertinent and rationally acceptable manner, the element that distinguishes murder in the first degree from accidental homicide. The court will no doubt bring up the autonomous self, the “free will”. But can the court really show physical evidence of such phenomena? I claim that it cannot. Contemporary brain science is revealing the physiological functioning of the brain, and of its relation to bodily movement – or behavior. What we can clearly demonstrate is a highly complex system of neurological, electro-chemical activity, a universe of causes and effects. Yet there is nothing in science that has clearly identified the active, individual, “morally autonomous agent” within all this.
If I could claim that I was clinically insane at the time of the killing, you would lower my sentence. If I could claim that another person literally forced me to shove that chop stick up the nose of my wife, you would lower my sentence, or even declare me innocent.
If believe that I need no such countervailing claims. The body that is identified as “me” did indeed commit the act in question. However, you are unable to reasonably show that there is a “moral agent” within this body to assume guilt. The court has only shown a series of causes and effects.”

The judge looked on in increasing annoyance, as did the jury. “Sir,” said the judge, “do you really expect us to take that argument seriously?”
“I’m sorry, your honor”, replied the accused. “I was unable to argue in any other way. I am thoroughly determined to argue against free-will…I am thoroughly determined…it…I…the force…oneness…”
The eyes of the accused began to dart back and forth across the courtroom, as he quickly lost composure.
He continued, his voice growing louder and louder. “There is no I!...and all of you!!...there is no “you”…you fools!!...” A bit of spittle began to form on his lips. “Everything you do is determined…everything!!...it is all laid out…it is all there…!....IT IS WRITTEN!!!!

He was wrestled to the floor by several guards as the last words echoed throughout the chamber.

“We hold the defendant guilty as charged.”

I scream, you scream, we all scream for torture

So upcoming Attorney General Eric Holder becomes the first “official” (i.e., law-relevant) voice to admit that water-boarding is torture. A nice breath of fresh air, one would think. As the Times reporter puts it, “In the view of many historians and legal authorities, Mr. Holder was merely admitting the obvious.”

Right. Making people undergo atrocious physical and psychological suffering is torture. What do you know. After 8 years of reality-denial and the weird kind of reality-derangement of the ruling party in the U.S., finally, it would appear, we have people who tilt ever so slightly more towards respect for the empirical.

Ah, but let us remember, Times reporter Scott Shane writes, all the problems such an admission of reality entails…Ah yes, the stickiness…the problems. As in, employees of the United States government, with orders directly from the White House, committed empirically verifiable war crimes. War crimes – according to the treaties and laws to which the U.S is itself a signatory.

All this, of course, making people squirm…one could feel the reporter squirming for them…

Now, in any decent world, criminal investigations would immediately be initiated, very possibly involving most of the highest members of the Bush administration, and very possibly resulting in war crime prosecution, and prison for these people.

The establishment squirms…

Why do they squirm, one might wonder? Apart from the practical political inconveniences of seeing establishment figures treated as war criminals, I think the squirming results from a certain ambiguity about the acceptability of torture itself. In general, many if not most people believe that torture is an acceptable tool for getting information. Apart from the fact that most professional interrogators deny this, I think that most laymen intuitively believe that anything is justifiable if it may possibly uncover information leading to the avoidance of other violent acts against innocents. Ah, yes, when directly questioned, most will not admit this…especially anyone in positions of legal responsibility… Thus the absurd rhetorical twists and turns by officials when testifying about water boarding…thus the many statements by Bush and others in his administration that “we do not torture”. Of course they were fucking torturing!...as Cheney, to his minimal credit, now openly admits.

Frankly, I think that many in the power structure in Washington either openly or secretly believe in the acceptability, indeed necessity, of torture. And thus, the squirming…even on the part of the “liberal” NY Times…

This rather barbaric stance spurts out openly when the perpetrators of war crimes are not Americans – witness the almost universal Congressional support for Israel’s latest clampdown in Gaza – a sentiment that runs against the almost universal condemnation Israel is receiving around the world. Unqualified support for absolute barbarism is easy when others are engaged in it…no realty-rearrangement or violence against logic/semantics necessary. This is what the pride- and religion-drunk idiots of Hamas don’t seem to get. Neither the rulers in Israel, nor their North American patrons, could give a flying fuck about war atrocities if they can in any way be justified by “protecting the country from enemies”. And those idiotic missiles Hamas seems intent on shooting at Israelis are just the ticket.

One wonders why the world bothers with such concepts as “international law”, “human rights”, etc. Obviously, when push comes to shove, or when it is in the interest of some powerful elite, rights and law are quickly forgotten.

Oh that the new political power structure in Washington were able to investigate, prosecute and punish those who spent the better part of 8 years defecating on US and international law, on the US Constitution…the same power structure that gave carte blanche to those whose fevered greed and cynicism led to such wreckage in the US and world economy…ah, sweet dreams…

Alter-xmas

Well, it’s that time of year again…the time to celebrate something other than miracle, mystery and authority, guilt and submission (ie., xmas)…

 

This year I hereby proclaim the 1^st of February as “Celebration of Reality” day, wherein we celebrate the plenitude of life as we and those around us actually experience it. Wherein we celebrate all the joys and sorrows, all the triumphs and defeats, all the love and loathing that life offers us. Wherein we celebrate ourselves as decent beings, based on our acts, based on wanting to fulfill our desires without doing harm to anyone – at least as far as we are able. Wherein we realize that we are all worthy and good people deserving of love and respect – as long as we do not lose that worthiness through our own selfishness. That we start out neither better or worse, superior or inferior to anyone else. And wherein we realize that we do not have to invent whole other stories and explanations based on metaphysical fantasy and impossible-to-understand gods who tower above us and make us feel small, afraid, and bad about ourselves – not to mention hateful and distrustful towards others with other kinds of “god-stories”.

 

In short, “Celebration of Reality” day is a day for feeling ok with ourselves, with our world, in spite of all its faults and shortcomings, a day for reaffirming to ourselves, each and every one of us, our desire to be as decent and loving as possible, while recognizing ignorance and injustice, and being willing and able to work against it.

Dustbins and Weathermen

Ah, history will be the final judge...but who will judge history? Which ideas are in the "dustbin of history", preserved only by those guttersnipe thinkers who find truth in officially discarded concepts... and which ideas sit upon the mantle, nobly looking down upon those intellectual guardians of what the comfortable classes call "reality"?

The Times recently ran two illuminating pieces in this regard. The first was a yet another look at Milton Friedman’s work – a kind of half-hearted attempt by the “paper of record” to recognize the general world-wide rejection of free-market absolutism…although in the end, the article leaves us with the feeling that Friedman’s beautiful truth – that the “market”, on its own (read: those with economic power) will always function more effectively than an economy subject to government oversight and regulation - will in the end prevail. Poor Milton, the article suggests, would be filled with sorrow to see, after a few little economic storms, how quickly the world resorts to government interference.

Well, to hell with that. From the beginning, free-market doctrine was no more than a throwback to an earlier stage of capitalism, when crafty and unscrupulous elites erected massive fortunes on the backs of millions, and finally drove their own economic system into the ground…to a time before capitalism itself was saved by more intelligent and far-seeing leaders. The application of this “neo-liberalism” from the 70’s onward has caused untold suffering around the world, while leading to greater accumulations of wealth (and, importantly, media power) in the US, Europe, and among the tiny elites of developing countries. And finally it has come home to roost in Friedman’s home country, as first seen in the savings and loan scandal of the 80’s, driven clearly home by the atrocity of New Orleans during and after Katrina, and finally convincing even the Wall Street Journal types that uh, ok, government intervention was needed, now, to stave off a complete financial collapse. Free-market discipline for the mass of citizens, indeed, but instant government bail-out when the financial elite fuck up, which they inevitably do…

In short, it is quite difficult to understand how anyone at this point can still accept Friedman’s basic view. It simply goes against logic, common sense and repeated experience throughout history. Economic power, when left to itself, serves its own interests. And why not? That is indeed its purpose and goal – to increase itself, as fast as possible and to the greatest possible extent. Good arguments can be made that a corporation is not acting properly when it makes decisions based on any other criteria than that of the maximization of its profit, of the value of its shares (and of course of the pornographic remuneration amounts to its chief executives). Corporate social responsibility, corporate spending on “culture”, corporate charity, etc., corporate self-policing in terms of the social impact of its operations (fair pay to employees, workplace safety, local investment, environmental responsibility, financial prudence, etc.) – all of this makes sense only if these activities somehow reflect on the bottom line. And thus, we see what we see – a world in which humanity holds the key to universal well-being through reason, technology and cooperation, yet a world that plays host to massive unnecessary suffering, poverty, exploitation and injustice. The unfettered (or less-than-effectively-regulated) “free market” is driving us directly over the edge at breakneck speed. And one has to have those ideological blinders firmly locked in place to not see this…

What could possibly account for the willful wearing of such blinders?...one quite useful explanation can be found, if we are willing to go back to that “dustbin of history”…or as that haughty imbecile who also appears in the Times, William Kristol, put it the other day, to a book “that now must lie, unopened and un-remarked upon, on an awful lot of rec-room bookshelves.” He is, of course, referring to Marx, the memory of whom he hilariously resurrects when addressing Obama’s supposed elitism (old cold-warriors never die, they just get more and more absurd). Quickly taking the cue and acting on ideological reflex, Kristol equates Obama’s comment on how economically oppressed citizens “cling to guns or religion” with Marx’s famous “religion is the opiate of the people” line. Fantastic. Tacking Obama to the (albeit quite accurate) words of the preacher of his church (what the fuck?), and linking Obama with an ex-member of the Weatherman…hmmm, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing here…when all else fails, might as well red-bait the guy…even 20 years after the end of the cold war. For Christ sakes, have they no shame? Well, uh, no. They don’t. And the egregious Hillary is as bad or worse than the Republicans on the matter.

One looks upon all of this, at the state of political discourse in the U.S., and is simply dumbfounded. Why has the “official line”, or those parameters within which mass media discourse can occur, become so utterly incapable of seeing, hearing…feeling? Well, the Marxist would not find this at all difficult to understand. Elite power views things in its own interest. And elite power also has the ability to greatly influence, if not completely form, mass opinion. From this perspective, of course free-market doctrine makes so much sense – what elite wouldn’t want complete freedom to do what he or she wants with their power? What elite doesn’t trust his or her own judgment in doing things right? Governmental interference in the economic activities of the elite, by definition, goes against those interests.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how utterly idiotic it is to remove all kinds of objective (public) power from economic activity. It sounds and feels good to those whom that kind of freedom serves. And they are the very people who have the power of influencing mass opinion.

Yeah, Marxism can be pretty useful in understanding things. Unlike the irrational drivel that passes for admirable economic theory under the name of Friedman-inspired free-market doctrine.

Hyprocrisy and the Horror

As much as I try to defend "democracy" against the dismissals of my "anarchist" friends here in Spain, I am left continually aghast at what I see in the major political campaigns. The latest angst-inducing affair, of course, is the volcanic eruption of idiocy and perverse hypocrisy set off by Barak Obama's comments on the Democrats' problems with white, working-class voters. In answering why these people tend to vote again and again for manipulative, cynical politicians who then proceed (since the Reagan years until today) to ream them all up the ass economically, Obama reasonably explained that they were"bitter over their economic circumstances, and cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them". Well for fuck's sake, how true. Yet suddenly we've had to withstand an onslaught of judgments by comfortable politicians and journalists, accusing Obama of "elitism". And we've got the horrendous Hilary Clinton blathering on about her family's deep, sincere faith, about her fond memories of daddy showing her how to shoot a gun...etc. Absolutely nauseating. If there were any doubt before, none is left. If the Democrats are pathetic enough to nominate this woman, I will not be able to vote....this after spending the better part of last year pleading with my skeptical Spanish friends to...vote!