Drones

Voters are drones.

Truth

For the deluded, truth is not reality.

Manipulation

Manipulation is the true national pastime.

Propaganda Lesson

From How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street:

"I'm so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I'm frightened to death," said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation's foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message. "They're having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism."

Luntz offered tips on how Republicans could discuss the grievances of the Occupiers, and help the governors better handle all these new questions from constituents about "income inequality" and "paying your fair share."

Yahoo News sat in on the session, and counted 10 do's and don'ts from Luntz covering how Republicans should fight back by changing the way they discuss the movement.

1. Don't say 'capitalism.'

2. Don't say that the government 'taxes the rich.' Instead, tell them that the government 'takes from the rich.'

3. Republicans should forget about winning the battle over the 'middle class.' Call them 'hardworking taxpayers.'

4. Don't talk about 'jobs.' Talk about 'careers.'

5. Don't say 'government spending.' Call it 'waste.'

6. Don't ever say you're willing to 'compromise.'

7. The three most important words you can say to an Occupier: 'I get it.' 

8. Out: 'Entrepreneur.' In: 'Job creator.'

9. Don't ever ask anyone to 'sacrifice.'

10. Always blame Washington.

BONUS:

Don't say 'bonus!'

Luntz advised that if they give their employees an income boost during the holiday season, they should never refer to it as a "bonus."

"If you give out a bonus at a time of financial hardship, you're going to make people angry. It's 'pay for performance.'"

As well they should be scared.  I doubt it is enough.  If this sort is sweating, it shows OWS strategies are working.

The above illustrates the importance of staying away from the political process.  Politicians are combated by denying them legitimacy, and refusing to engage them in any way shape or form is the best expression.  Nonentities should be ignored.  It's not about Washington, because the real power is obviously not there.  Issuing no demands just keep the issues hanging around, and focuses people's attention on this rotten system.  It does not matter if some disprove of OWS tactics.  There is no such thing as bad publicity.

Irrelevancy

In politics, irrelevancy is a career move.

Keep it up, Geezers!

The stupid geezers behind what is left of the "Tea Party" movement that has since become co-opted by the slimy Republican Party are showing their desperation. They obviously know they do not represent the future, but instead of trying to do something about it they piss and moan. Rather than find some commonality with people whom they would generally agree on the larger symptoms of systemic disease, they would rather distance and isolate themselves further in a self-imposed ghetto. The hilarious thing is the contradictions in their criticism of OWS. They will claim that it is more interested in anarchy, but at the same time believe in "big government." It's kind of hard to see how these two extremes can coexist.  From Wall St. Protest Isn’t Like Ours, Tea Party Says:

“They seem to be more in favor of anarchy than they are in favor of working out problems through the Constitution,” Jenny Beth Martin, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, said about the Occupy forces.

 “We have worked very hard to be respectful of the laws,” she said in an interview. “We protest and complain, but we’re also trying to work within the system. It’s frustrating to watch people who have an utter lack of respect for our form of government.”

Tea Party Patriots issued a statement last week titled, “Occupy Wall Street? They’re No Tea Partiers.” Tea Party supporters, it argued, were the ones who “have stood firmly on principle.”

 “They believe freedom from government allows entrepreneurs to try new things, see what works and discard what doesn’t,” it continued. “They don’t believe corporations are inherently evil, or that bankers should be beheaded.”

By contrast, it portrayed Occupy protesters as freeloaders, or would-be freeloaders: “Those occupying Wall Street and other cities, when they are intelligible, want less of what made America great and more of what is damaging to America: a bigger more powerful government to come in and take care of them so they don’t have to work like the rest of us who pay our bills.”

So which is it?  Granted a truly leaderless movement (which truly scares authoritarians) will have such contradictions, but this propaganda isn't even interesting.  (The Constitution is a dead document, so why would it be respected is besides the point.)  It shows why their generation has done such a great job of destroying America: they believe what they are saying even if it makes no sense compared with what they just said.  Keep it up, geezers!  Your doing a heck of a job...

(It's also amusing to note that capitalists, whose feet they lick, don't feel an obligation to pay their bills either--and for real as well.)

(Another Maximum Advantage Discussed moment.)

Lessons From Barcelona

Barcelona, the city which was at the epicenter of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT-FAI before and during the Spanish Civil War, has a few lessons worth listening to with respect to organizing movements without (the hindrance of) leaders. I've long maintained that the only true political difference is not Right and Left, but rather authoritarians and anti-authoritarians.  In most cases, the former boils down to the presence of politicians and centralization, whereas the latter does not. Unfortunately, during the blood-drenched Twentieth Century, only the Iberians seemed to understand this fundamental difference and even then they fell into the trap of aligning themselves with so-called "progressives" like Stalinists, who quickly set about the undermine the revolution of 1936.  (It ended, during May 1937 in Barcelona.)  Since the 1930s, Barcelona has seen a number of other movements with an anti-authoritarian bent, so the older generations there indeed have something worthwhile to pass on (as opposed here with geezers droning on and on about boring stories of peace, love and acid).  Since May 15th, the citizens of Barcelona have organized along neighborhood lines, and appear to have developed means of keeping any political leaders from emerging.  Here an excerpt from Reflections for the US Occupy Movement that anyone involved in OWS should reflect upon:

All of these movements constitute lessons learned that can be passed down to aid future struggles. So often, the mistakes that defeat a revolutionary movement are repeated. The neighborhood assemblies in Barcelona serve as spaces where people from different generations can share their perspectives, where those with experience in past struggles can collectivize that experience and turn it into communal property. In the beginning, the organizers of the 15M movement presented their protest model as something ultra-modern, with more references to Twitter than to the country’s rich history of social movements. This model was rejected by many in Barcelona, especially older people or those who had already participated in a previous movement. People preferred to build off their own tradition of struggle, while taking advantage of the new situation and adapting certain features of the 15M model to their use.

The historical memory of past instances of bureaucratization, co-optation by grassroots politicians, and pacification have already served to help the ongoing movement avoid a number of pitfalls. Despite attempts to centralize them, the neighborhood assemblies remain independent and decentralized, allowing for a broader, freer participation, and meaning that politicians who attempt to take advantage of these spaces are at a disadvantage because they cannot operate openly without being kicked out of the assemblies.

As groups like MoveOn.org and former civil rights activists turned politicians attempt to co-opt OWS for the Democratic Party, the lessons of Spain offer much needed wisdom to keep vile, disgusting politicians at bay.  (Certainly the original founders of the Tea Party and many of those suckered into voting for Obama might have also benefited from such advice, but that ignores the reality that far too many are authoritarians and therefore crave being told what to do.)

The piece goes on to identify further problems with the 99% concept that is worth reading:

The United States is also a country with inspiring histories of popular struggle. But it is a country with a case of social amnesia like no other. It seems that to a certain extent, the Occupy Wall Street actions exist more as a trend than anything else. The slight extent to which they draw on, or even make reference to, earlier struggles, even struggles from the past twenty years, is worrying. The fact that a present awareness of US history would shatter certain cornerstones of the new movement’s identity, for example this idea of the 99% that includes everyone but the bankers in one big, happy family, is not a sufficient excuse to avoid this task. The historical amnesia of American society must be overcome for a struggle to gain the perspective it needs.

There will always be reactionaries, not to mention authoritarians, and ignoring this certainty is done at one's peril.  However, this comment is telling in that most Europeans simply do not understand the cultural and social realities of US society and its cities in particular.   In Barcelona, neighborhood represent a force.  In the US, due it nature as a country of transients, most neighborhoods are just a collection of buildings.  It's a little hard to organize along such local lines when most do not even bother to know most of their neighbors.  Since much of what OWS is about is establishing tribes, as discussed in prior posts, the 99% tactic is a means of drawing people with common concerns and interests into a centralized focus.  It's about connections.  Technological means, like social media, are a poor substitute for face to face contact, but there are few other means for establishing relationships.

Anyway, ignore the past at your peril, but also do not try to make it fit your current circumstances.   The way is forward.

Financial Crisis II Electric Boogaloo (Part 2)

Punked World. Punked out for the banks. Well, for a change, at least it's not just the US that is FUBAR. As far as the Author's question concerning the lack of a progressive tea party, here are two response questions and answers:

Q: What the hell is a "progressive" anyway? 

A: A Chump who voted for Obama (and not because they thought he was the lesser of two evils).  Why would anyone follow such a useless lead?

Q: Who cares about preserving this stinking mess other than a bunch of honky geezers? 

A: (See #1.)

Neither the Tea Party or "Progressives" speak for most Americans.  Only the MSM and/or alternative media would espouse otherwise. See also Barack Obama VS Those Craaaazy Republicans: Is He the Lesser Evil, or the More Effective Evil (via Naked Capitalism).

Chris Hedges seems to think wasting time with occupying Wall Street means something.  (He obviously spends too much time in NYC.)  It's too far gone for that.  (Where were these people in 2008?  Probably, hoping the biggest looser since Millard Filmore would come riding to their rescue.)

Europe Stews on Greece, and Markets Sweat Out the Wait. Riding to the rescue with funny money. Why anyone would take a "rescue" seriously is amazing.

Saving the Rich, Losing the Economy.  Policy makers care about their class and nothing more.

World's economic crisis 'worse than bank crash'.  Some have a clue, but too little, too late.

Short Term Memory

Massive head trauma destroys short term memory.

Majority

Q: Why do so many believe their cause represents a majority?

A: Their cause is delusional.

Slime

Until the false populist dries, its slime is always slippery.

Past It

Q: When something edible is "past it," it is rightfully discarded.  Why is this not true of systems?

A: Vested interests want you to eat shit.

Elite Support

1. Excepting Maoists*, contingent on their preservation, revolutions cannot succeed without elite** support.

2. After the celebration settles, fundamentally very little has changed. (As if.)

3. Thus the purge follows.***

4. The old way actually looks better.

5. Repeat.

* And who wants that?  (Peasants.)
** But not necessarily the same elite.
*** And who wants that? (Fanatics.)
**** And who wants that? (non-Fanatics.)

The Problem

The problem isn't lying politicians.  Politicians have always lied.  It's the truths people believe.

Winning

Winning does not always mean you won anything worth winning.

Interchangeable

An authoritarian may always be spotted by looking for interchangeable opinions.

Voids

In US politics, voids have a way of expanding.

The Sky

Saying the sky isn't blue doesn't make it so.

On Voting

“It’s painful to submit to our bosses; it’s even more stupid to choose them!”
-May 1968 graffiti

Beyond Voting by Ken Knabb succinctly describes the degrees of freedom with respect to governments:

Roughly speaking we can distinguish five degrees of “government”:

(1) Unrestricted freedom
(2) Direct democracy
(3) Delegate democracy
(4) Representative democracy
(5) Overt minority dictatorship

The present society oscillates between (4) and (5), i.e. between overt minority rule and covert minority rule camouflaged by a facade of token democracy. A liberated society would eliminate (4) and (5) and would progressively reduce the need for (2) and (3). . . .

In representative democracy people abdicate their power to elected officials. The candidates’ stated policies are limited to a few vague generalities, and once they are elected there is little control over their actual decisions on hundreds of issues — apart from the feeble threat of changing one’s vote, a few years later, to some equally uncontrollable rival politician. Representatives are dependent on the wealthy for bribes and campaign contributions; they are subordinate to the owners of the mass media, who decide which issues get the publicity; and they are almost as ignorant and powerless as the general public regarding many important matters that are determined by unelected bureaucrats and independent secret agencies. Overt dictators may sometimes be overthrown, but the real rulers in “democratic” regimes, the tiny minority who own or control virtually everything, are never voted in and never voted out. Most people don’t even know who they are. . .

I've always gotten a chuckle when a politician or some some other invested interest describes the current system as the pinnacle of the possible.  Maybe for them.  For the rest of us, it isn't even close.

Simple Answer

Yes, they are idiots.