Two heads, one moose and no soul
        
          On the assumption that America will be at war as long as George W. Bush is President, and that impeachment is impossible as long as the DLC- Democractic Leadership council, I took on preparing back up literature fucosed on how the DLC functions as the corporate co-optation of the democractic party. It seemed to promiss quite a task as the DLC tends to linger in the shadows, but as I began researching the staff of the Progressive Policy institute, the DLC think tanks whose staff produce "blueprint" the official publication of the DLC, I was surpriced to learn of Bull Moose Marshall Wittman, whose bio as a senoir fellow of the DLC think tank proved a short and interesting read.
        
PPI | Bio | September 22, 2004
Marshall Wittmann
Senior Fellow

Marshall Wittmann is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute. Previously, he was Director of Communications for Senator John McCain (R-AZ). Mr. Wittmann has served in various positions with the Hudson Institute, Heritage Foundation, Christian Coalition, and in the administration of President George H. W. Bush.        

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 15:31 | link | comments |

Further on Class
      I am going to be refering more to the content of the class. Gino trick with Ray and the handgun, but was more putting forth a defence of his position against moving forward more boldly with any offensive strategy. He spoke some of an example in a combat like situation were he and others might need to flee, and how obvious it was with his leg not allowing him to keep, that if someone had to stay behind to provide for a delay it would be him. I thought then, as I still do know that this thinking could be brought further, that as Gino benefited from priveledge within the organization the risk an offensive would bring to the organization was a greater concerned for Gino AND many of the CC. To me it was related to the never trust anyone over thirty concept, which was never about age but the level to which an individual had bought in.
      Gino claimed that in 75 he had been in the minority that wanted to create a foco in Suffolk, that between the organization and what was left of the panthers, with only one major highway into the area, such an attempt might have lasted 6 months. Thier were some, myself included, that felt even an ultimately unsuccessful insurrection of that duration within the US would have had a powerful impact on US internation imperialism that would have made the sacrifices worthwhiled. Keep in mind as well that such an incident coming on the heels of the SLA might have changed the exceptable level of resistance to the reactionary period that would soon occur under Ronald Reagan. Without hearing contradiction from those who had been involved in the early decision I found it beleavable that he was more daring at an earlier date in the organizations history.
      It was not, however, just boldness that entered into the hesitation to move forward in Suffolk. Although I was not a part of the organization at the time, I was aware of the concern involved from other discussions with other radicals, it was felt that revolution in the US was in part impossible because of the size and scale of the country and it's economy. A locale rising would not last against so large a centralized government was a strongly held truism by many. The strategy of system 76 was to grow nationally with the idea of being able to produce a national co-ordinated offensive. In 79 the offensive era was started, with the understanding that the locale entities which had spread horizontally accross the nation, would now grow vertically - this meaning to begin building fractional entities such as CCMP and CCLP that would begin moving up the economic and social stratas of the local community. At the same time, locale cadre would begin seeking points of contradiction in which to create an offencive - such as the blacklist used by temp agencies in New Brunswick, the exploitation low income people needing checks cashed in Heightstown, the explosion of the rat population in trenton, the low fine utilities companies paid in western Mass when they cut off utilities in deadly cold weather. As well as the nationally produced prosidium strategies, that excluding the one based on TWOC where over worked to the degree of being convoluted. I had traveled to the west coast in the '80 and provided the first briefing on the offensive period to the southern california unit, were I choose to focus on localely generated offensives such as the rat offensive both because I was more enthusiastic about them and because I felt the point of the briefing was to inspire field cadre to seek the offensive issues and concerns that arise from the organizing work itself.
       Now Gino was saying he was less willing to risk the organization without a plan with a limited number of "If's" , he wanted what I felt was an unreasonably low level of risk for someone promoting insurrection. He talked about Castro and the attack on the Moncada Barracks, rebutting a theory some folks on the left had that Castro new it would be a failure, but one that was strategically needed. Gino claimed if this was true Castro would not have gone on the attack himself. I don't think either Gino or most of the middleclass NOC cadre understood the prospective of a real revolutionary. ( FYI - it was while waiting for the classes, when most of Gino brown nosers where waiting outside his office - apparrently exploiting female cadres sexually- that those of us who disagreed had our best chance to talk to other cadre about dissent, this happened as well one pro runs, and while doing super jobs and even while on security patrols. It was also during these times that I heard back some of the crud things Gino said about my sexual preferences while vacuuming his carpet.) I think Castro must have wanted a success, and known the odds were high. In the same way I would have attempted an inssurrection in Philly after the MOVE bombing- knowing it had as good a chance of success as perhaps I would have in my life and yet doubting it would have held more than a few days. The idea of waiting for a moment, and a plan, that required no risk to the organization was to me ludicris and I did my best to convince others of this - this was the bases of my being labeled an "Adventurist" which I find as subjective a term as it's polar opposite "coward".
        This was the justification then for NOC, to slow down advancing entities so that others could catch up - avoiding uneven developement for a strong nation wide movement. Gino had excluded himself from the central committee - he had no vote. But by making membership within the CC solely based on Dot, he pretty much insured thier would never be a majority of willing risk takers - think about this in relationship to what I have said above. The majority of people rising up to high levels of leadership within the party, who maybe at this point have gotten into coopting some priveledges, who being disconnected from the economy for a decade or more so they are depended on the party as thier survival niche - they are just not likely to vote for taking the risk a real revolution required. Some of these folks were pasifist, others disagreed in other ways, and by not having to vote himself Gino could play each against the other and ussually get what he wanted with others having "made" the decisions involved and taking blame for bad decisions if any. This was the scam if thier was any - but like many scams it dependent on those being taken in to be conceited, greedy, cowardly or in someways buying in to the scam to meet thier own needs.
        Margret, although I have never met you I have assumed some things from this briefing might apply to you. When Gino was speaking of the possibility of himself being Killed he spoke of what would need to happen with his successor. He spoke of Nikita Krushchev denouciation of Stalin who was his patron and based an arguement on this that his successor would, out of political need more than desire, have to denouce him. I might have made a mistake at this time, I saw it egocentrically in how these statements seemed to pre-empt or at least pre-frame his death in such a way as to nulify any politcal shift away from central control that might follow. The power struggle between Mary and Gino was not yet known to me and perhaps he just meant that she would denouce his policies. Still I must say that when suddenly the police stumbled over the arm store a year after Gino's death, that they had failed in finding years earlier in an 8 hour search, and then hearing that you took over. I imagine NOC was just not prepared and was caught trying to put the guns away, but it raised questions and memories. My understanding of why so many in center (and it was not just the women, I tried to persaude Mike K and David M quite often that NOC itself was the major thing holding back the organization.) Was that they were convinced he was the only one to have put in a system, he was building a similier reputation for Angus around the special events protocal, but many cadre from Philadelphia could tell you she had been unable to understand the SEP herself, T had to be on the phone with her, 3 or 4 hours redirecting her because as operation manager her lack of understanding the dielectical nature of the SEP was holding back the experienced field cadre she had been put in charge of as Gino "new breed" of ops manager. This makes me question the validity of the claims of your success in Rochester, I do not myself know the truth of your reputation.
      What I do know is that Natlfed, based on building extensive arenas of struggle geographically accross the country while avoiding uneven development seems to have failed. From what I can tell the entities are weaker now than they were in the 80's, not as vibrant. The retreat from brunswick is a major indicative, once one of the most promissing arena's and now in Pirth Amboy? I have heard why this was done too, and feel it is a disgraceful and cowardly position for NOC to have taken. I thought it was a failure in the 80's, I remember telling Mike K. that the single act that would move the revolution forward is shutting down NOC, it's hard enough to maintain a vibrant and growing organizing drive without hamstringing successful ones so the rest can catch up. Remember in dielectic, state of being and state of becoming, if organizing drives or not allowed to grow they start dying. Are still holding to this concept of moving forward by holding the entities up? Is it not evident it is a failure.
    
Elizabeth Parenti Soba Jan 23, 2006

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 14:21 | link | comments |
gino parente, natlfed, twoc

The night of a class long ago       
     If I remember correctly this was a class, given by my stepfather that Dan Foster had attended I know at least he was at NOC at the time. I can clearly define the event for a number of reasons related to the changes and power struggles occuring within CPUSA-P that have been discussed by former cadre and central committee members on the ongoing Natlfed discussion in portland indy media, as well as the theatrics involved in the class.
     The main theatrics revolved around a handgun. Gino always had a handgun on the desk during classes at NOC. The understanding involved in this was that if raided it could be quickly handed over to defuse the cops who not knowing the gun was fully legal would somehow feel they had the "goods" and might fall into a place of over confidence. At one point in order to press a point regarding the trust needed between those within the closed section, Gino had Ray hold the gun to Gino head and start gently tapping the trigger. Gino went on about, if he slips I die while he slowly went down on it, taking it into his mouth. Being more familier both with Gino lack of personal courage and the about of pull a trigger required I was less impressed with this stunt than most.
      The content of the class mentioned that someone had threaten to kill Gino, he did not mention that the same person had traveled to NOC alone to discuss the conflict at hand. My understanding was that I was the only closed section cadre at NOC not on alert. Over the past couple of days I had almost laughed at the way Gino, with his exagerated comic flair, turned and fled at the threshold of rooms I occupied. As was often the case with Gino, the "death threat" was not so much a fiction as a misrepresentation. Gino was already field command, and like Gnomon I objected to this, although my objection was more esoteric. My understanding of the field command position, one in which Gino was contracted and commission to deliver the revolution, could only be justified with the organizations constitution under a claus that allowed, I beleave the central committee, to issue letters of marque to expand the revolution into other countries. My arguement and concern had been regarding using this claus in a domestic area in which the party channels itself were overroad. Another cahnge in party practice and policy had to do with locale initiative, in the past when the organization was within it's largest growth period, the importance of motion and momentum was always stressed. An autonomous cadre, unit or entity would propose a TAPS (tactics as planned) for a locale initiative with a date of implimentation far enough into the future (2 weeks or more depending on the scale of the operation), If thier regional or national leadership did not abort the plan they proceeded, field personel were not obligated to seek approval but to provide the opportunity for national to stop what they felt was a problem, it was up to national to act if it had concerns and so also obligated them to state a position that validated thier interfernce with the revolutionary motion proposed by cadre in direct communication with the needs of the locale membership as represented in more successful areas by workers benefits councils. I am sad to say I did not fight this policy change, as it came early on and although I did not like it was not yet ready to become rebelious toward the internal administration.
     My concern was with a policy directed at orders and thier implementation. In Stalinism thier had always been an understanding of grass roots power, a bottom up practice that parralleled the top down structure in such a way as to provide for mass pressure on the leadership. Democratic Centralism, the marxist leninist concept of collective decision making and individual responcibility, was not suppose to be focused on the individual responcibility centralized at the top but in the need for each individual to be aware and stand firm to thier individual responcibility. In a concensus those in the minority might submit to the will of the majority in order to move forward, and tradition even had it that they would try harder than anyone else to implement the new decision because it was contained within the theory that only through implementation could a theory truely be understood. In review or debriefing of the tactic, plan or strategy, after it had been worked hard along the road of implementation, should reflect consistant with the concept of praxis, a higher understanding than when the order, plan or tactic was perceived and a critisism may well find fault with the thinking on which the tactic or plan was based. Entities that were moving forward only to find NOC monkey wrenching them began to become quarrelous with NOC orders and to aide the consolidation of powers a policy had been sent to at least some field entities that assumed orders could not be wrong and that stated that debriefs of tactics could not be used to question leadership.
     For about 6 months I had fought this policy in the locale unit, politboro first responce hand been to utilize the typing pool at NOC overload the locale units agenda with items  to flood the agenda. Another policy at this period had provided governing for the local agenda that placed recruitment first, nationally generated items second and locally generated items third, so by sending half a dozen or more items each week they could easily tie up any locale process to defy national authority. When they were ready to let the item be discussed they had prepared, with extensive notes and coaching a locale cadre to argue the National position. This cadre was an administrative assitant who had been appointed operations manager but then replaced by local cadre initiating the split that lasted two years. The unit was one Philly shared with AC and the item went on for the space of several meetings over a few days period.
      For me it was very interesting, I have to say that Dave made the most reasonable arguement possible for the policy, focusing mainly on the concept of interpeting orders and failure to do so. I cited a great deal from Cincinnatus book "self Destruct" and parralleled the party policy with the policy of discarding field reports containing information inconsistent with Westmorelands strategy in vietnam, as well as the basic traditions around voting with ones feet and marking changes from the bottom up. What amased me was all these, mainly middleclass cadre, who were raidy to go along with a policy of infalibility rather than challenge authority. It made me understand something, if the entities could not defy NOC how could they defy the federal government?
       Again I am running short on time. In this class Gino said many things that related to what had happened within the organzation in 76, and what would happen when he died. I likely understood more of it then than some people in the room, and after reading the indy media discussion I understand far more. and I will write more on this tommorrow.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 14:25 | link | comments |

Write Aol and Yahoo for selling out when Google held fast
  Although people are to quick to stop at just letter writing thier are times as a mass action it is wise.
The black list and other manafestation of oppression within the US during the cold war was motored not
just by the energy of right wing fanatics but by the willingness of moderate and liberal to co-operate rather than risk thier own image of respectability. This is a letter I am sending out to others I know our concerned with questions of freedom, hoping that they to will promote this action.

Greetings,
     As many of us know well, George W. Bush is no friend to individual freedom and human dignity. So far his administration has seen the promotion  of war, attacks on civil liberties at home and gross violation of human rights over seas. Over the past few months the government has sought a record of all searches made on the three largest internet search engins along with 1 million web addresses, after private discussions AOL and Yahoo agreed on a compromise in which they would give the government a weeks worth of search records. The matter became public thanks to Google, which has refused to comply with the Bush administrations unconstitutional demand and has begun a legal battle to resist the subpeona in court. More can be found in the following article;
 
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012006D.shtml

Below is a copy of a letter I have mailed to Mary Osaka, yahoo spokesperson and public relations manager;

Dear Ms Osako,
    I wanted to write to express my profound
disappointment in Yahoo's failure to follow Google's
example in resisting the department of Justice's mass
acquisition of personal Data from internet search
engines, not for national security or even for law
enforcement, but to promote censorship laws already
called unconstitutional in US courts. Has Yahoo failed
to notice that the current administration is noted
world wide for human rights violation and a disregard
for due process under the law? I am not so much
concerned with Yahoo responcibility toward individual
privacy agreements but at corporate citizen Yahoo's
capitulation to a growingly oppressive government. I
hope that the decision and policy makers at Yahoo may
find greater courage in the future.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba

I urge you to contact Yahoo and AOL to express your concern at thier co-operation with unlawful search and seizure by the Bush administration.

Mary Osako, yahoo

mosako@yahoo-inc.com
408-349-7855

Andrew Weinstein, AOL

andrewwstn@aol.com

Thank you
Elizabeth Parenti Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 19:49 | link | comments |

 Red scares and blacklists today.
       My Mothers cousin Jimmie had been a naval commander during the 2nd world war serving in the North Atlantic.
 For this action he was awarded the naval cross that medal in the naval service that ranks just below the medal of honor.
His wife Lilimar had been with the Norweigan underground and had once been tortured by the Nazi. Because her Uncle
had been elected to the Norway Government as a member of a communist party, Jimmie was cashered from the service 
ending his promissing career. In high school in the early 70's I had an english teacher who had worked as a stagehand
during the time he had been blacklisted. 

*UCLA students:*
Do you have a professor who just can't stop talking about President
Bush, about the war in Iraq, about the Republican Party, or any other
ideological issue that has nothing to do with the class subject matter?
It doesn't matter whether this is a past class, or your class for this
coming winter quarter.
_ If you help UCLAProfs.com expose the professor, we'll pay you for 
your
work._

The red scare and blacklist were driven by a network of anti-communist who conspired accross the country to deprive other americans of 
the opportunity to earn a living, and in so doing violated thier basic human right to prosper within the society of which they were a part, a
number of americans died as a direct or indirect result of the blacklist and a similier network is beginning to grow today. 

http://www.bruinalumni.com/
http://www.uclaprofs.com/

Popular images have reduced the understanding of the Red scare to a few right wing extremist.
Few understand how much the list depended on the co-operation of Liberal and moderate
individuals concerned with maintaining thier self images as respectable and law abiding citizens. 
The ACLU removed founding member Elizabeth Gurley Flynn from thier Board of directors because
they did not feel it looked right to have a communist on board. The Government had no power to effect the 
status of professors in private institutions, but those institutions voluntarily complied with the list 
rather than risk being tainted themselves. Now with President Bush openly dismantling what little remains of 
our civil rights we see the rebirth of the machinary to drive a new black list. 

Elizabeth Parenti Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 13:52 | link | comments |

In reply to Buster's New Year's Message

   Your message very quickly caught my eye, as Buster was my legal and most likely biological father's first name and he was born on new years eve. He was never a party member but was aware of it's existance. He was on Particularly good terms with Angus, who I suspect he would have much perfered as a daughter than myself. Anarchism fundamental difference with Marxist Leninism revolves around the question of organization without hierarchy. The structure I currently work within depends on the personal trust some parts of Largo would have described as common ground and anarchist would call affinity. It also depends on a concept of perogative that is based on use rather than abstract authority or ownership. Under this concept you would own, say an ax, because you used that ax. If times and needs led to someone else regularly using the ax you no longer needed the ax became the "property" of that person who now made use of it. Membership is simply based on participation with the core group, defined as those currently active, making desisions by concensus. The connection between these two examples may not be at first clear, but if someone maintained ownership of the ax another needed to use, just as when someone maintains ownership of anothers home, farm or factory, they will have a source of power over that person. In the same way a network of organization, which as the Stalinist term apparratus implies, is merely a tool. If control of that tool is based on an abstract bases of ownership rather than participation and use oppression in some form is likely to result. Even the term "The Organization" implies the same facelessness as "the corporation". This adds up to anarchist focus being largely based on networks of individual affinity, which is why I am going to some pains to provide information that will allow specific individuals who I have or have had a personal connection with me. Like when we disrupted a NOC sing with the quadafi song which for a few days earned me the title "Santa Claus". In anticipation of sharing this story I dressed as an black and red anarchist santa claus in a holloween party this past October, which I am guess to be as rare an incedent as the quadafi song, and will have been noted and remembered by approximately the same number of anarchist as the other incedent would have been noted by current or former Marxist Leninist. The minimum program within this is that I am able to communicate fairly clearly with individuals I once new well because they can clearly indentify who I am, while we both maintain a relative degree of confedentiality. A maximum program would be that it would help create a bridge between several unrelated demographies of activist or revolutionaries.
     I am again going to need to cut this short, I want to comment on the content of your message and will soon.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 11:31 | link | comments |

The Unitary theory of presidential power
     For those unfamilier with this apology for dictatorship and the concerns it brings to bare in the nomination of Justice Alito to the Supreme court I suggest you read the piece by Robert Parry for background then sight to paragraphs; http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011206Z.shtml
   

   The Supreme Court's embrace of the "unitary executive" would sound the death knell for independent regulatory agencies as they have existed since the Great Depression, when they were structured with shared control between the Congress and the President. Putting the agencies under the President's thumb would tip the balance of Washington power to the White House and invite abuses by letting the Executive turn on and off enforcement investigations.

          I want to go a little deeper in understanding how this impacts the nature of my country government than Mr Parry can do within the limits of journalism. For those unfamilier with the US constitution and it's history I want to explaine that the original decentralised dream of democracy faultered in meeting the assualts on it's territorial intergraty by Spain and England whose navies controled the two main waterways of the then young nation. A committee was called to revise the articles of confederation, but the wealthy and educated gentlemen in the room quickly discarded the articles and created the U.S. constitution, a document that does not once contain or refer to the word democracy and it was not recieved well by the nation in which a powerful revolutionary spirit still lingered. The new form of government was not able to gain acceptance until a bill of rights were added that defined at what point the new more powerful government infringed on individual rights to the degree in which the social contract was violated and at which revolution was called for and should be considered. The primary check toward balancing the power of the government was not a question of a single statue but was an essential distrust of government and authority that was anarchist in nature. Outside the bill of rights, the document more defines what checks thier our toward a dictator taking power and perhaps attempt to establish a new monachy. It is very typical of the post modern approach that by simply changing the root of the prefix from mono (one) to uni (one) the same concept can be repackaged without a historical pretext for it to be contended with. In order to provide linier checks and balances to the federal government itself the powers were devided into three branches, the legislative, that made the law, the judicial branch that interpeted the law and the executive branch that enforced the law. Thier was a struggle when the new deal federal agencies were first started because they in themselves obviated the checks and balances, they are part of the executive branch that the president already controls, but they contain the the power to both write regulations that had the power of law and had internal hearing procedures that effectively functioned as a judiciary branch. The president, since FDR has been granting powers to those they appoint to run these agencies that the constitution does not give the president. This was the majority position within the supreme court but FDR, whose party controled the congress, was able to force the supreme court to accept his position with a threat of adding more than 9 judges in order to shift the balance of power within the court. In the face of this threat the court backed down.

      That Judge Alito would not have the president take back this power that was not his to begin with reminds me of the feudal hariot tax. This was a tax on peasants based on an anacronism. Way back at some older date the lord would have given some peasants a horse to keep and feed in case it was needed for war and returned when he died. Long after this martial need was no longer a question and the lord had stopped placing horses into his tenant care the practice of taking it back when the peasant died was preserved and along with the mortuary became the historical death taxs of feudal oppression.

      I remember in the late 80's the congress had been trying to create a truth in advertizing law in regards to food nutrician and people concerned with the poor quality of processed corporate produced food where excitedly anticipating the new regulations the FDAA would produce. The FDAA used the opportunity to try to shut down health food stores and many forms of alternative healing that where competitors of the corporate pharmacuitical whose interest is so well represented in the agency. In a democracy The FDAA would have been investigated and those responcible for subverting the power of the government would have been held account but instead the confress was tied up with defensive moves to protect the health food industry from the attack of the pharmacuitical industry and the health concern interest of the american consumer was set aside as far as product labeling was concerned.

       A few years after this I was living in Minnosota, I formed an organization called "Tell it ourselves" which was a branch of Jerry Browns "We the people" and worked in a fast food restuarant that was at the halfway point between Duluth and the Twin cities. I use to give political and labor history class' to the young people being introduced to corporate oppression while at the same time being fed rot by thier high school teachers. It was a big milk producing area and when Bovine Growth Hormones where approved by the FDAA, they used the same regulations to attempt to gag anyone not using the hormone from presenting that information to individuals who desired not to have it enter thier lives.

        The FDAA has a tremendous control over dairy farmers because they control the strings on a federal purse created by the new deal. It is and was in the national interest to support small independant family owned farms, and it was for that purpose that the government set a minimum price which it  would pay to dairy farmers for milk. Unfortunately the current interpetation of the constitution demands americans accept Corporations as having the rights of an individual as outlined in the Bill of rights. Because the corporation cannot be excluded, it quickly dominates this surplus market places by producing more and more milk. The price of milk drops, but since the corporate farms have the ability to generate an vast volumes of poor quality milk they dominate the artifical market much of which is never eaten but is destroyed while milk itself remains a difficult item for poor americans to afford.

       And this power, which never belong to the president in the first place, Judge alito would have the president give back.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 14:33 | link | comments |

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 01:04 | link | comments |

To Dan Foster, and others with Natlfed
           Although I do not agree with the tone of discussion that marginalizes Natlfed current or former members as part of a cult the portland indy media discussion of Natlfed has been useful for me. In one way just hearing that Dan, who I knew when he was a provisional members still having sponsor meetings with Kit, was still a national cadre. While I am sure thier are many ways Dan and I disagree we share far too much common ground for me not to consider him a comrade in a traditional sense and I am sure enough he feels something of the same way toward me. If he is still involved in Natlfed I am sure it is because he sees it as his best option for manifesting his personal passion to struggle against the oppression of capitalism, and it is my dear hope that he can look back with some sense of profit in his labors. My own political practice has led me to embrace anarchism, but this does not require me to reject everything that I know Dan and I, as well as my step father, once agreed on. Although my understanding of how the US can be understood within a clinical sense as a Fasist country, which began largely with Gino's points regarding the obviation of constitutional checks on power by federal administrative agencies and the gravitation of law toward statutory system of uniformed codes and away from a common law understanding of traditional cultural expectations, has expanded to include an understanding of how a paleo-post-modernism has dominated common epistomology in a way that promoted such things as the corporate sponsored take over of the democratic party by the neo-liberal democratic leadership council as well as the co-optation of the anti-materialist Hippie movement by the apology of Young upwardly-mobile professionals toward a conspicuously consumptive life style that a capitalist market needs the middle class to maintain while keeping tham alienated from the prolitariat; while my understanding has grown it is still founded on much I learned from Gino. I am sure that Dan's understanding has grown over the years a well, likely in different directions than my own, yet I am sure our truths have a mutual bases of understanding which side we our on within the class struggle.
      I want to take a moment to identify myself more clearly to Dan enable the use of that common ground in communicating clearly. In the late 70's I wrote an analysis on the introducing arm struggle into north america that was embraced by Largo in a campaign planned against Anti-cuban military groups such as Omega-7. The operation was cancelled, for reasons muddied by the interrior struggles of the 80's, over very strong objections from myself. At that time Reagan had begun proclaiming the existance of Lybian based death squads in the US, using them not in a way differrent from Al-quada is used Bush administration, as a justification on cracking down on internal descent such as Elf, and Gino used this as a justification to back out of what was a fairly promissing venture, as well as a reason to begin disessembling much of the organizational apparatus within the closed section that I had been involved in developing including those unrelated directly to this operation. During the discussion for this I was at times labled an adventurist, which is what some marxist Leninist would lable Quadafi. Partly in protest of this I led a handful of Largo cadre into the begining of a group sing and sung a comic song to the Christmas carol "santa claus is coming to town" that made fun of Reagans scare tactic as well as Gino buying into that tactic. I don't know how much he understood, but I know Dan was one of those most vocal in appreciating the little action and went around that week saying I was Santa that year.
       Dan, I think you should recognize from that who I am, and why I feel I can speak of theory and my understanding of it as the step daughter of Gino Parenti. I remember Gino often stated that the highest level of political thoery was in those who where disenting, it's an idea that can be understood as an outgrowth of Stalinism;   That the capitalist State, the dictatorship of the capitalist class could only be defeated and kept down by a dictatorship of the prolitariat, that the taking of state power is the begining of the Revolution not the end, and that the failure in past revolution was not in smashing the state that was but in failing somehow to contend with the state that followed. That is a reduction of something I could speak 4 hours to, but I think you might be able to understand my claim to a legacy. Gino once said that if he could have taught what he taught in his class in college as a professor he would have felt no need to make the revolution, I have passed on his teachings for many years now, in a format more consistent with the tradition of excluding those who are not engaged in practice. This blog might seem like it moves away from presidence by being on the net, and yet we both realise that times have changed. I was able to email this sight to the organization when I began because you have shyly begun to show an online presense to those with the wit to look in the right places. Thier is a significant change in our time as more and more americans seriously begin to question if thier government is fasist in a clinical sence, One way or another Dan and I, even Robin as well, are tied within a tradition of resistance to the growth of this fasisism that goes back to at least 1968. Within this tradition thier is a large amount of information that is useful to those engaged in many movements , and as one whose participation within that tradition has been rich I feel adequately satisfied I can share enough useful information toward a common good.
      I don't have time to write all that I would right today, I must contenue over this week.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 17:20 | link | comments (1) |

increase in Post traumatic stress disorder and the war in Iraq

One growing effect of the war in Iraq in an increase in cases of post traumatic stress disorder, which has resulted in a neo-conservative attack on the validity of the diagnosis and an attempt to dismissed the need to support the troops whose lives have been destroyed by the deceit of the Bush administration. This Attack has to some degree been led by Dr. Sally Satel, a neo-conservative who has in the past defended racist policies in emergency room procedures and promoted the dis-empowerment of citizens with Mental health disabilities. Consistent with past administration practices to hide the ramification of our nations current permanent war economy the Bush administration is attacking the diagnosis, a move completely inconsistent with supporting US troops. As in the case of the weapons of mass destruction, where the administration knowingly propagated false and misleading information in order to force through it's own self-serving agenda, the administrations distortion of information to mislead the public provides the justification for immoral policies based on the lie that policy decisions are being based on the best possible intelligence.

For those not very familier with PTSD, it may seem confusing that the largest demographic growth in the need for treatment so far is not with returning Iraq vets but with vietnam vets. To understand this it is necessary to understand the nature of trauma and how humans as individuals and cultures heal from truama. American Vietnam vets had a relatively high level of PTSD compared to vets from world war two but a comparable level to cases in world war one. In part this can simply be explained by the average age of the combatants, 19 years of age in both Vietnam and WWI 26 in WWII, but other facts such as the degree to which the basic social contract was obviated by those governing the war policies, the degree to which propaganda and distortion set up soldiers to even greater disillusionment than war itself and the degree to which Government policies to hide the reality of the war prevent the grief and mourning that promote a healthy recovering.

The bases of Trauma is exposure to danger to oneself or others one feels some level of responsibility or empathy with combined with a lack of options, a hopelessness, to effect that situation. The violation of the social norms and contracts create an unreality that not only adds to the sense of hopelessness but prevent those unexposed to the trauma from being able to empathies and provide support to the recovering victim in the post trauma period. Think of this in terms of the Bush administrations insistence in hiding military coffins from appearing in the news media and refusal to himself participate in funerals that would both aide the healing process and provide a higher level of awareness that would equip more of the civilian population to support their friends and relatives exposed to this horrible brutality That George W. Bush policies have brought, not just to america but to the world.

Dr. Sally Satel attacks the diagnosis of PTSD by saying it encourages people not to get better, and in the shadow of ignorance neo-conservatives (and neo-liberals ) depend on the rise in treatment needs of vietnam vets may seem to encourage that understanding, but in the light of information it makes very good sense. Individuals process trauma to the degree they are able both in terms of their own nature and in the options society allows. I am reminded of something I heard back during the Bosnian crisis about British WWII vets, prisoners of war who had been forced to work in concentration camps where they were forced to witness and in some cases co-operate with the genocide of Jews, Gypsies and others by the Nazi regime. After the war they returned to english society, still very much in denial about the holocaust and certainly not able to understand why a non-Jewish Britisher would be effected by the crisis. By the 1990's, while the majority of Jewish survivors had progressed as a community in facing and healing from the holocaust these British soldiers had swallowed and buried their Grief and rage within themselves, still often negatively effecting their lives in ways they and others could not understand when suddenly confronted with images of genocide historically linked to their own experience, suddenly their truama and it's disabling effect came to the surface again. That Vietnam vets are becoming triggered and needing to seek help can actually be seen as a testament of how much Iraq is a reply of Vietnam. It is also indicative of the social problems the Bush administration is seeding for our future and that of our children and grandchildren.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 13:27 | link | comments |