The Therese Defarge school of Social evo

History for those engaged in creating it. Comprehensive activism and applied memetics.

Cincinnatus and Iraq and the carter years.

I left off talking about what I felt was my first radicalizing moment when the nun who may quite literally have saved my life was excommunicated. Around that time a polish born cardinal who had been thrown out of china was transferred to the local parish my family lived in. He was not involved in the parish work but lived as a cardinal in exile while working with the american anti-communist network, I guess as some kind of expert on the evil red horde, while pulling in local catholic youths like my brothers to help with mail outs of anti-communist hate literature. Maybe it was felt he could help clean up any scent of communism that may have resulted from the departed order of nuns feminism I know seeing this side of the church was as much a politicizing factor for my brothers as their rapid approach to draft age.

At the beginning of the current Iraq war their was a lot of talk in the press about it not becoming another vietnam like quagmire without really looking at the history of vietnam and US involvement in it. The communist victory in China and how it was framed and profited from by the anti communist network had a great deal to do with this. It was the communist victory that propelled the red scare of the fifties, who framed it as the “loss of china”, assuming somehow that china was the US's to lose. The state department, particularly people working in asia, became primary targets of the House committee on unamerican affairs throughout the red scare. This became a major discouragement for talent coming into that branch of the government, it also hung, even well into the sixties, as a blade ready to fall onto the neck of the administration in power if another asian country “fell to communism.” I don't use quotation marks to discount a statement truth, I think it is over used and disreputable writing technique but rather to make it clear they were significant slogans of a political movement in the US during the fifties that did not completely loss their significance until the end of vietnam and the opening of relationship with China during the Nixon administration.

Another important analysis of vietnam was self-destruct by pentagon analyst Cincinnatus, a work that first framed my own understanding of anarchism. I had dropped out of high school, but returned after two years. New York High schools had a two term years, and returning to school in new york would have included my last term were because of high absenteeism I had failed all but one subject (history). I was able to live with family in New Jersey, which because they only recognized full years did not bother looking at this dismal part of my school record. I was still radical in my believes, but did not see any immediate political direction to take. I ended up graduation high school with a 3.8 grade average, more than good enough to get into a college, but with very little in the way of financial opportunity. With an extensive background in history, it was the one subject I didn't fail in my last year in the new york system. I began exploring the possiblity of signing into the marine corps platoon leadership class, it was during this period that I read Cincinnatus highly conclusive work, that discribed how the armies suppression of reports from the field that conflicted with the existing assumptions of leadership created not an ineffective hierarchal structure, but a self destructive one. Their was also an impressive demonstration of how the same strategies, in sequince, that had failed under the french where replayed as ineffectively by the US who presented them as new strategies by simply giving them new names. This is in part possible when people get their information from authorties without taking charge of informing themselves. On Sunday, the 18^th of September Time released a story on Iraq http://www.time.com/time/press_releases/printout/0,8816,1106259,00.html In which many intelligence officers attack the administrations conducting of the war. One of the major problems they saw was the administrations focus on searching for weapons of mass destruction when fighting the quickly building resistance movement should have been the order of the day. Is three years to really long a history for those educated in the western post-modernist order to remember? WMD were the sited reason and justification of the war, searching for them was not a priority but a political necessity for the conducting of the war itself. Anyone who decides not to be ignorant (to ignore, choose not to know) is aware that their were no weapons of mass destruction and that looking to find them was a wasted effort. Looking in order to maintain an illusion of validity is a whole different story. Times articles, like many liberal and democratic calls to vote Bush out, will only serve to maintain the war. If you want to end the war you need to stand with truth, you need to acknowledge the lies and hold US and british leaders who violated national and international laws accountable. We failed to stay out of Vietnam because we used the myths of anti-communists to ignore the truths about anti-imperialism in asia and the third world. In '72 the US was ready to get out of vietnam, McGovern was much closer to winning than the final election results indicated. McGovern answer to the war was simple, stop it, bring the troops home. He was asked though about prisoners of war. McGoverns position was that if the war ended the communist would have no reason to hold american prisoners. When pressed, well what if they still held prisoners McGovern said he would beg for their return if need be. It was this that was the heart of Mcgovern's defeat and the National shame that followed in watergate. We never wanted to admit that we were the aggressors. McGovern lost the election by the widest margin in US history because americans were not ready to recognize that they are the military aggressors. Although Nixon brought most of the troops home the war, and US involvement in it contenued and the last US casualties fell with the taking of Saigon under the carter adminsitration. In the same way democratic president Bill Clinton never ended George Bush senoirs war with Iraq, he continued regular bombing and casualties continued with the UN reporting 5,000 deaths a month in Iraq throughout his administration. It was often useful for Clinton to continue the war, and dangerous for him to end it without confronting the truths about our policies that no democratic president or presidential candidate would be interested in doing. Clintons policies on Iraq as much led us to the war as that of either Bush. To end war we need to stop pretending we are on the defensive, stop pretending we stand for peace. Americans have been taught that war is a human thing, but most wars fought in the past 100 years have largely been fought by weapons produced and sold by the US to other governments. Many of these have been purchased on loans that have indebted these nations to the US. The US progressive movement is hamstrung by middle class liberals who pretend they live in a peace loving country with a long history of non-violence and maintaining a denial that they live, and their affluence status grow out of, what could easily be the most militaristic culture in the history of the earth. Not being able to find weapons of mass destruction at the beginning of the occupation should have required the US to pull out as it was the single justification for that war, but such a pull out would have meant acknowledging that our government was the aggressor. We could have pulled out orderly and peacefully right then, but only by holding George Bush accountable, impeaching him and handing him over to an international war crimes tribunal. Such a policy while being a hope for peace would never be supported by middle class liberals for the same reason that we could not pull out of vietnam. It would require acknowledging that their affluence grew from a militaristic economy.

Time, the press, the democrats and anyone one who wants to distance themselves from the policies of war need to start acknowledging the truth. If the Iraq war had ended in a clear and unresisted US victory we would have gone to war with someone else, likely Iran, syria or North Korea becase our current national policies embrace a permanent war economy based on aggressive imperialist expansion. Muslims do not hate americans, they like anyone hate being oppressed and our government have not only been oppressing them but targeting them as a group since the soviets fell. George Bush and Tony Blair are war criminals and turning our countries away from permanent war economies means acknowledging that over concerns of maintaining illusions that protect our pride and justify the priviledge granted to our wealthier classes. It needs to be understood that wealthier includes the middle class and labor aristocracy. The america I grew up in and lived most of my life organizing in is mostly invisible in the US and likely unknown overseas. Although now some of the story about New Orleans is making it clear how oppressed poor americans are it is just touching the tip of an iceberg of cruel inhumanity. Something that is often missed in this talk about new Orleans is that while the administration delayed actions in saving poor humans stranded in contaminated flood water the gas pipelines went up in days. The devaluation of poor americans is a long standing default in US policies, something I hope to cover more in the coming weeks. Just as Time failed to point out the historical importance of searching for WMD in the beginning of the occupation of Iraq when speaking of the situation only a few years later, so the actions of the bush administration before Katrina are only partly being included in understanding that event. Some of these things have been mentioned, how Bush cut the budget to fixing the levies diverting the money toward the war. The amount of rescue vehicles absent because the national guard is in Iraq. One thing not as often mentioned is how Bush, weaken environmental protection of wet lands resulted in wetlands that formally protected the city from being developed for profit. This is not a republican thing. Saving green space was one of the vary first political battles I was involved in when I held campaign for the democratic socialist organising committee in New york city against future democratic mayor Koch. Today in my home town democrats are some of the primary supporters of development under the pseudo-theory of “in-fill” that creates an illusion that sooths middle class liberals image of environmental concerns and allows the urban poors concerns about the last of their green space being taken away to serve the interest of profit. Nor is New Orleans the only time when the interest of profit is put in front of lifes in US urban planning. I am aware that most people outside the US are under the impression that america lacks a poor and oppressed class, but for as long as I can remember the bottom 20% of america's populations based on income have lived regularly exposed to more physical violence than any other population, including many living in war zones qualifying them as some of the most oppressed people on the earth. A major reason this continues to be the case is that there is no way higher class's can truly be their allies until they acknowledge the true nature of their country which would reflect on their own self image as someone whose affluence. But more than just their money it would means betraying the basis of their superior status, their better education, because acknowledging what is wrong with were this country is leading our world means acknowledging higher education in the western system is often fraudulent and fundamental in supporting the continuation of the system based on the promotion not of learning but of ignorance. During the Vietnam war men burned their draft cards and woman their bra's, both hand been signs of privilege that had come to be recognized in at least the immediate moment as signs of oppression. In the same way the one best hope of the US middle class might be to recognize their college diploma's in the same way. As I will be telling in the next few days, I ended up leaving college in my first 4 months in order to work with the organization. I gave up the privilege the diploma represented and as a consequence could never make quite as much money. I have some college educated friends who have made more in a year than I have made in my life, many who have made more in a single month than I have made in any year of labor. In that way a diploma can be seen as a privilege. But it is oppression as well because it requires you to buy into so many lies that you no longer can think. there is a song about a woman who swallowed a lie, in the end to live she needed to throw it up in order to live.

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 18:17 | link | comments |

Backtracking  Sept 7th 2005

Once again it has taken me a bit to get back to this writing, I am afraid my various commitments at times over take me and also sometimes procrastination becomes involved. I am not quite satisfied with how much my own history and prospective fails to come through in this history. As I began writing about the sixties, remembering my involvement and commitment before joining with natlfed I begin remembering not just what my nation has forgotten but what I have forgotten as well and it has made me at times hesitate. As I mentioned very early on I came from a poor but politically involved family. My mother, although not herself political, carried the burden of her parents political commitment when their violent deaths orphaned her. An ordeal that left her an alcoholic and drug addict. She had been irish american, my fathers line was italian american. I want to begin today with a story about my father, who like gino was known by more than one name. His peers called him buddy, he was a bit of a brute, people tended to be afraid of him.

He grew up in Italian south Philadelphia, his father was a first generation immigrant who had difficulty learning english. At 13 or so my father, along with his best friend, began running for the numbers, this meant basically being a courier for a local betting operation. My father himself was a casual gambler, not quite as good as some of my uncles or even myself as a grew older, but he came from a family where knowing how to determine odds was considered a basic survival skill. He played the number, bet on horses, played poker and pinnacle, I remember how pleased he was when he won 20-1 odds on a kentucky derby winner. He had nothing against the number but decided he could not run for them. He knew their were some people who did not know how to gamble responsibly, who gambled with money that should go to feed their families. People going hungry was something he could not stand, more than that it triggered him, he would go ballistic over anyone wasting food, spilling milk and such. The thought that he might be carrying an irresponsible bet, be party of some family going without, made him feel he could not continue with the job. His friend went on, using the job as his entry level into the italian underworld while my father went to work running messages for a telegraph company instead. As he grew older he began working as some kind of technicians, I think a lineman but i don't really know enough about the work to say. Eventually he would become a shop stewart for CWA, a union I also worked with as a member. When he was drafted into the army for WWII he was assigned to telecommunications, although his security clearance was held up and he was an MP or military policeman for awhile until he was cleared. We always thought this was funny in my family, they couldn't trust him so they made him a cop until they where sure he wasn't a spy. He was driving around some buildings he was assigned to guard at the Philadelphia naval base he was guarding when a philly cop pulls him over for speeding. My father figured he was in his rights to challenge the cop as a civilian approaching the building he was guarding so he stepped out of his jeep and swung his M1 carbine up aiming it at the cops chest and says “halt, who goes their?” He didn't argue much about getting a speeding ticket, the story and memory of that cops face knowing he had him cold was worth it to him. That was all the cop could do, give him a speeding ticket, he was in his rights challenging him.

It turned out my father's security clearance was being held up because of three questions on the application. Was your father an american citizen? Yes. Was your father born an american citizen? answer no. Was your father naturalized an american citizen? answer No. My father was ordered into an office where an officer from the national intelligence service accused him of lying on his application. My father was very proud of having never lied, as he understood the word, and said to hell I did, you have no right to call me a lier. The officer thought he had him to rights when he showed him the three questions, but my father had answered accurately each time. He explained to the officer that his father had been an immigrated from italy before the 1^st world war and was not a citizen when it started. He had enlisted and served as a cook serving on the front and after the war was made a citizen by an act of congress. It was then finally that he was cleared to work in his specialty which, having started to learn teletype machines 5 years early he was quite talented with. Eventually he was given an assignment to rebuild a machine that for security reasons he did not quite understand could not simply be replaced. He had learned latter it was for the project that would eventually deliver the atomic bomb to two cities in Japan. Remember this was a man who recognized his responsibility in carrying bets should an irresponsible father have gambled away a pay check, he supported Harry Truman's decision, perhaps he had to, but he never lied to himself that his contribution toward what happened tied him to the destruction that followed. I think he would understand the concerns many of us have about SUV and how these driver's who distance themselves from the effects of their actions in not accepting that their decisions are effecting the deaths of many people they will never know.

I seem to have gotten into another tangent here but I think the background is important to understanding my own political development. There is more to my political background their, especially with my father maternal grandfather who had been a Mussolini supporter which I will share some other time. I want to move ahead to my own politicization. My family had moved to New York when I was two, this because the company my father worked for was bought out in a merger and he had to relocated to keep his job. My mom and him had three kids even though they were a young couple. They were both Catholic, and my mother was determined to keep having babies until she had a daughter. It was hard at that time to get an apartment if you had kids, even if they weren't suppose to landlords screened out couples with children. My parents went to see an apartment, leaving us to play at a locale cemetery. When they were asked if they had any children my mother told them quietly that she had left all her children in the graveyard. They signed a lease then informed the surprised landlord that they needed to go to the cemetery to get us. While the landlord seemed to take it well enough on the surface he got even to some degree through me. I remember he rented a few apartments and did some construction work, he had a back hoe and a bucket loader and the trailer to transport them parked in his driveway. He let my brothers play on his equipment, but insisted to them and my parents that I should stay away from them as it could be dangerous and he didn't want me falling. It provided a good excuse to isolate me and make me an easy target for abuse.

I don't really want to get into this stage of my life much, beyond how it effected what followed. My parents were not good at dealing with this, and it was complicated by many of my mothers problems. I developed a significant speech and anger problems as a result of this experience that lasted long after we left that apartment. Things turned around for me as I was preparing for confirmation. One of the nuns who were giving me the religious instructions began speaking to me. She discovered I was far more intelligent than anyone had yet given me credit for, she dug deeper and became to some degree aware of what my problems stemmed from. She most likely saved my life and did it in a powerful and effective way, she worked with both my parents, and particularly with my father she moved him into being a powerful allie. It was three years latter that I would see her, along with the sisters of her order, march for the last time out of their school. They had been excommunicated as a reaction to their feminism. It clarified many things with me regarding institutions and patriarchy, maybe too it is one of the reasons I never completely trusted Gino, I never really fully trusted men in my life.

I am stopping for today.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 13:03 | link | comments |

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