The Therese Defarge school of Social evo

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

George Bush can still lie with impunity while escalating tensions that may lead to war.

I remember last December when George Bush's request to retrofit bombers as an obvious preparation for a war with Iran was scuttled by a National Security Estimate that concluded Iran's ended it's nuclear program in 2003. Yesterday on US funded Farda Radio, which is broadcasted into Iran, George Bush charged that Iran's government “declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people -- some in the Middle East.” George may have been thinking three months was more than enough time for the American people and it's press media to have forgotten events so far back in the past. If so he was almost wrong. The press managed to remember the report, if forgetting the historical context in which it came out. Still no one is really holding George accountable. No one pointing out a pattern of giving false witness despite evidence to the contrary.

"The president shorthanded his answer with regard to Iran's previously secret nuclear weapons program and their current enrichment and ballistic missile testing," National Security council Spokesman Gordon Johndroe further dissimulated. While implying it was just George's deplorable lack of command of the English language Gordon own sentence structure implies that the previously secret program is still underway, sidestepping the issue that our spies say it's not by simply rewording a false witness into an innuendo. This is not an issue regarding a lack of education but a lack of virtue.

The US ersatz Left fails just as sadly. Saying George Bush statement was as uninformed as John McCain's charge of Iran training Al-Qaeda Ploughshare Fund president Joseph Cirincione laments that they are both so wrong about Iran. Unfortunately neither McCain or Bush or wrong about Iran. They are wrong (in the ethical sense) about lying about Iran. They are wrong in the morale sense of wanting to go to war in order to steal resources and turn a profit. They are not wrong in the sense of being uninformed, nor our they wrong that their words might lead to outcomes they desire. This is were Joseph Cirincione IS wrong, this is not the time to go forgiving the romans because they know not what they do. That is the wrong at the heart of the US ersatz Left, trapped inside a box they themselves hold shut of the Anti-Ghandian pacifist tradition.

I know I have lost a lot of people on that last statement, an indication of how tightly shut that box is. The ersatz left might adore pictures of Ghandi but they would reject the man and the organizer he was. There are two traditions in the non-violent movement, that of confrontation and that of conversion. Ghandi and King followed the tradition of confrontation, a tradition of practicing non-violence by rejecting pacifism. Rejecting the vainly meek whimpering that does not firmly say no and mean it. Sometimes it's not enough to “witness” what absolutely must be stopped. There are times for moments of silence and there are times to scream, there are times for order and for disorder. Right now the US nation is the single most violent militaristic country on earth, possible in Earths history. It is more than passed time for the ersatz left to stop dreaming they live in a reasoning, lawful non-violent society. It is time to wake up and see the horrible brutality the rest of the world is seeing when they look at us.

It's also time to to start waking up to the reality that the war is not ending in a year, or two years or four years, or whatever amount of time anyone out their thinks it's going to take for an elected official to stop the war. The war will stop when either the US people, or the rest of the people of the world stop allowing it to happen. That does not mean asking, does not even mean telling our governments to stop, it means not allowing them to continue. That is not pretty, even in a non-violent context. Stopping the war in a militaristic state means stopping the State, means shutting it down. That means disorder, stopping traffic, stopping labor, stopping the economy, it means disrupting the order of things because the order of things is not right. It also means violence because the state is already violent to those who really challenge it's authority. By real I mean ways that stop or hinder it's ability to function rather than make symbolic gestures the state can easily ignore. It's only when we brake with the non-Ghandian pacifist tradition that we will begin to stop the war. 

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 05:28 | link | comments |
iran, anti-war, violence-no-violence

Fascism imploding or How the Neo-cons and Neo-liberals have lost the cold war

In the year 1985 the leadership of the former Soviet Union began to recognize the damage the arms race had been doing to their economy and sought to withdrawal. Rather than embrace this practical step back from insanity, the Reagan administration slowed the process of ending the war on the bases of forcing the Russian to embrace a US style economy. As Soviet leaders did more to pull back from the arms race Reagan and Bush continued to push costly programs such as the Strategic Defense Initiative (AKA Star Wars.) Even after the Malta meeting when George H. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev made a joint statement officially ending the cold war, the economic interest of the Military industrial complex continued the arms race. Early attempts to divert the large amount of resources to address social issues, such as better education and universal health care, faltered as Pentagon threaten base closing rather than reduce the Lion's share of cash flowing into the corporate sector. The war on drugs became the outlet to condone continued use of the US military, as well as military aide, to third world countries. This course was not fundamental altered during the Clinton administration. The return of the Bush family dynasty brought with it a passionate return of the cold war as it became the objective of the US military to be able to conduct two major wars simultaneously in both hemispheres. While pursuing this massive increase of an already outrageous budget, the George W. Bush administration brought the country to the brink of an economic crisis just waiting to crash down on the American people.

Then the September 11^th attacks on the World Trade Towers allowed that massive military to be deployed. Afghanistan presented a target that, while certainly connected to the Al Qaeda, that had long been of strategic interest to the the US. Many people make the connection between war and oil in the Middle East, but a true understanding needs to grow from knowledge of the role oil plays in maintaining the strength of the US economy. The US controls oil and foreign countries, for half a century, need us dollars to buy oil. This is just what allows the US government to float it's obscene deficit while other countries buy US treasury bonds in order to purchase the oil needed to maintain their petrol based economies. An Afghanistan pipeline would allow international access to the Caspian oil reserves that would be under US control of the US oil industry. This was at the heart of the US support of the Taliban when it seemed the right wing law and order regime might succeed stabilizing the Afghanistan under a dictatorial system. Despite the fury and anger of the American people, and the Crusader posturing of the Bush administration, it is questionable our country would have rushed to war had the Taliban succeeded in a final triumph over the northern Alliance. As we all know the Bush administration did not stop their but rather lied in order to lead the American people into a second war, aimed at seizing the Iraqi Oil fields. Even more insanely The Bush administration threaten more wars, targeting both Iran and North Korea, saber rattling that was supported by Neo-liberals such as Ms. Clinton, who even criticized George Bush for not taking a stronger position against Iran.

This move represents a major paradigm shift governing the nature of US imperialism. Until this time the view of the Pentagon was that traditional warfare was not economically profitable or sustainable. Economic imperialism, through institutions including the World bank, International Monetary Fund, and multi-national corporations that exploited cheap labor while becoming the dominate force in third world economies. Military aspects of imperialism shifted to proxy countries whose US trained military are often more loyal to the US than their own people. Wars fought by US forces tended to be quick actions, gaining a quick victory. A victory that was either total or of enough strategic significance to force quick successions at the bargaining table. More background information in this is the nature of the arms industry and the needs of armament self-sufficiency. The research, development and production of arms is an initial cost that must be spread over the entirety of production. If you spend a billion dollars developing an advance weapon system, then produce a thousand such weapons then the cost of the R&D is one hundred million dollars per weapon, while if you produce a million the R&D cost is only a thousand dollars. Even with a military the size of the US, it is difficult to remain self sufficient without selling some of the weapons to foreign countries. Further the US could insure military dominance by controlling the level of technology it supplies to foreign countries so as to maintain a combat edge over it's customers. The invasion of Iraq represent a return to direct conquest based imperialism that had been abandoned after proving it's disastrous nature in the two world wars of the early 20^th century.

This is at the heart of US Fascism. While most Americans refuse to even recognize US imperialism, and even the US left shies from using the F word, the US does manifest a number of Fascist tendencies. As my step-father was so fond of saying, you can no more be a little fascist than a little pregnant. It is more than time for Americans to look at the Fascist nature of the US in terms of a historical understanding of what fascism is rather than one based on wartime propaganda and leftest name calling. Fascism derives it's name from the bundles of sticks that in Roman culture represented the concept of imperium or the right to rule an invaded land as extended by the Roman Senate to a Imperator. These bundles of sticks as a representation of military authority by the bars worn by Lieutenants and Captains in most modern Armed forces. It is from the concept of imperium that the world imperialism is derived, and we can see the continuum of this concept in such Imperial apologies as the white mans burden. While only a ancient prototype of fascism, we can see the beginning of fascism when imperium was extended to Imperators over the fatherland, creating a military state. This military state avoided a permanent war economy because it's military strength was not built on industrial might. It's military was surprisingly cheap with a total manpower of approximately 250,000 at the hight of it's power. The advance technology the military depended on was roman engineering and a road system that only improved the economy. Considering some 54% of our GNP goes to military spending, and the ties in between the military industrial system and the oil industry that provides the fuel for a modern military, it is not possible to say the same. So compared to ancient Rome we are closer to fascism because we do have a permanent war economy. We do not have direct military rule, but this could not be said of Fascist Germany or Italy either. Although a war veteran Hitler was not in the military when he came to rule or afterwards. Although he wore a uniform while in power, his military experience was as an enlisted man in the trenches during the four year of the war. He did were a Military Uniform while in office, but then so has president Bush who never saw warfare first hand. German fascism was not military rule, Militaristic rule by a corporate state. That corporate state needs profits, and to maintain those profits, that corporate state needs both war and oil. It also needs an industrial infrastructure dependent on either a strong economy or material gains in conquest. This returns us to the current wartime situation and how it has effected both America's military might and it's economy.

The US has failed to convert the conquest of Iraq to the successful plundering of it's resources. The US invasion tore down the centralized dictatorship that was maintaining a brutal but firm stabilization of the country. The US invasion may have displaced that dictatorship, but failed to replace that dictatorships role in maintaining order. The US did not bring democracy, it did bring chaos and the collapse of infrastructure and institutions that maintained if not a successful economy at least a sufficient one. While the gain, and we are talking about the gain necessary to sustain a fascist state, did not come the cost was immense and continues to grow. Having already destabilized the domestic

economy with unnecessary tax cuts to the rich, The Bush administration maintained the economy by artificially generating the housing industry, keeping a low prime rate to spur housing starts. Although many American's live in substandard housing, and the shortage of affordable housing within the reach of working and lower middle class Americans the artificially driven industry did nothing, and continues to do nothing to address these needs. The profit of selling one high end house between the half million and million range is more than selling many houses affordable by working people. The result of this is two fold, every time an overly expensive house is sold, it pushes up the cost of the housing around it

up, and the industries insistence on high end housing requires a focus on pushing consumers to buy the most expensive house they can. This creates the so-called housing lust, a misnomer indicating a desire arising from the passion within the consumer rather than the industry. Even as mortgage failures have begun a global financial crisis, and despite the growing shortage of low cost housing, the industry continues to build exclusively high end housing further digging themselves into an economic pitfall. This situation provides a strong incentive for other countries to buffer themselves from the collapsing US economy by ending their dependence on US dollars. It only requires the Russians to begin selling oil for rubbles to allow a mass international sell out of US treasury bonds to insure a depression The US may never recover from. Nor can the blame for unsound economic policies of the housing industry be solely place on the Neo-conservative or Republicans as municipalities across the country see growth and new housing starts the vital force in motoring their local economies. Even as the housing industry falls deeper into recession housing starts continue to be high end driving the industry down further.

In the meantime the Iraq war has scene a wide scale capital depreciation of it's vast investment in a two hemisphere military. In Iraq equipment is both used more frequently and under harsher conditions. It is very likely that even if the war ended soon the equipment will be degraded, perhaps to the degree that it isn't even worth transporting back home. No doubt the hawks of our nation will want it replace, and as likely they still expect the rest of the world to finance that expenditures despite both the growing advantages and feasibility of buffering themselves from our fiscal madness by no longer investing in our economy. With our economy in shambles, our expensive military reduced to junk, and are control of oil reserves slipping we could easily end up losing the cold war by continuing to fight it. Although with Peak Oil and Global warming the victory may be short lived, Khrushchev prediction of burying the US may still be true as we sink into a less than first world economy.

The point about fascism may seem yet to be proven, as most people associate fascism with genocide and totalitarian control of thought. Many feel American's are incredibly free, to free to be called fascist. Before we go their let look at some features that our more structurally related to fascism. Hitler's entire rule was an emergency one, the constitution was in effect but the enabling act allowed it to be discarded. As early as the Roosevelt administration the constitution was being undermine by administrative agencies that bi-passed the checks and balances of the constitution. Extensions of the executive branch these agencies were given the power to write legislation that have the force of law, the power to enforce those laws, and internal review process that served as a judicial process. The executive branch had begun giving powers to agencies that it did not itself possess. How this legalistic concern materialize into a visible problem can be seen in the attempt by congress to control corporate labeling that misrepresent their products in the 90's. After the law was passed their was high spirited hope by nutritionist and other health care specialist as they waited for the new regulations to be writen based on the law. The shock came when the FDA used their mandate to attempt to disassemble the health food industry, requiring congress to scramble in order to write legislation to protect that industry as the corporations were allowed to continue misrepresenting their products. Throughout the 80's the bill of rights took a beating as both republicans and democrats took aim on rights of their own choosing. Some democrats might balk on this, but no real democracy has ever existed without the right to bare the arms of the day. Even if that were not the case, they could hardly be expected to defend rights attacked by the republicans while at the same time attacking other rights guaranteed by the same document. More recently the patriot act, Guantanamo, attacks on Habeas Corpus all undermine the constitutional government do to emergency conditions as embodied by the war on terror, the latest continuation of the cold war.

Where is the mind control of totalitarianism, how about the fact that long after the rest of the world knew Iraq had nothing to do with 911 most American's still believed this was true? In the years immediately following the conquest of Iraq many American's were convinced that weapons of mass destruction had been found? Still not satisfied? How about the recent study by Duke Universities Dan Ariely and researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology regarding the Placebo effect? In this study 85 percent of the volunteers who were given sugar pills purported to be pain relieves costing $2.50 said they felt less pain, while only 61 percent of those given sugar pills purported to have been marked down to ten cents felt relieve. As one visitor from the former Soviet Union once said, both the US and the Soviets had propaganda, but the people of the Soviet Union recognized it as propaganda. Which country then is more totalitarian in the control of the thoughts, understandings and opinions of their population?

That leave the question of Genocide. Yet Genocide has never been a necessary prerequisite to Fascism, neither Franco or Mussolini saw the need for antisemitism to create or maintain a fascist state. If we compare US fascism to Fascist Spain or Italy, we can find ourselves closer to German standards than we like to admit. Certainly the attack on the Hispanic work force of industries depend and the global assault on the Islamic fate is questionable, the regular displacement of poorer American's by gentrification, or the disproportionate incarceration of African American's are all questionable practices related to genocide, but the soundest claim toward an American's created genocide comes from a sector that might surprise many. Those who consider themselves left of center and concerned about both the earth, yet still refuse to forsake imperial privileges. Bio-fuel has already begun to satiate American fuel consumption at the cost of third world bellies. The Mexican staple tortillas has risen 100% in price as a result of bio-fuel. As Castro pointed out in his April third Granma article, the world surplus of grain after filling human needs is 80 million tons while the bio-fuel needed to replace 20% of the west dependence on petrol would be 500 million tons. Three Billion human beings are endanger of death generated by an American greed and selfishness. Genocide enough?

Beyond on this the pattern we are now seeing proves fascism exists in America. The permanent war state, that needs not only to maintain profits but increase them. The economy that can't pull back from a mad suicidal pace is the final proof of American Fascism. Nor will are upcoming elections set us free, as no candidate elected will truly seek to end the war.

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 13:51 | link | comments |
babylonian renaissance, anti-war, fascism

The damn strategy within a strategic context.

         I first heard of Largo some time before the founding of EFWA, at the same time learning about the damn strategy. I am not sure of the richness of my understanding at the time, my full understanding of the strategy was not complete until years later. It was not called the damn strategy but for the purpose of this document it is as good a name as any. The key to understanding the damn strategy is to understand the progression through the spectrum from tactical non-violence to armed struggle as laid out by Nelson Mandela to the African National Conference in his proposal to embrace armed struggle. The previous speaker had suggested that the movement had failed non-violence. Nelson began his presentation by saying that the movement had not failed a non-violence but non-violence had failed the movement. He then stated that in the progression toward tactical armed struggle the steps option to consider were; sabotage, terrorism, and Guerrilla warfare. He ruled out Guerrilla warfare on the bases that the organization was not prepared for this step, having no force capable of conducting such operations. He ruled out terrorism because this would alienate the movement from support outside South Africa's borders. He proposed that the movement start a program of sabotage while recruiting and training a revolutionary Guerrilla force.
       When Oldie talked to me about this in the 80's he expressed the belief that Nelson was the greatest revolutionary theorist alive at the time. In saying this he did not exclude himself, which was unusual for him. The damn strategy contained three essential elements. As I will mention elsewhere, Gino failed to ever attempt to do all three at the same time in order to consummate the strategy. I will explain how Gino implemented this strategy elsewhere while here explaining how the tactic would work if truly implemented. I think this is important because it was Oldies intention that the strategy be used to understand the nature of armed struggle and it's role in liberation struggle. I believe that today this understanding is crucially important, primarily for the reason that by accepting the need to progress to sabotage, the ANC succeeded in eventually achieving one of the most bloodless yet successful revolutions in history. Today the anti-war movement, just as the anti-globalization before it, is hamstrung by a "non-violent" movement that rejects either property destruction, sabotage or direct actions aimed at interfering with the functions of the state and the capitalist economic structure it supports. This movement rejects the understanding of confrontational non-violence Ghandi preached while giving a false, insincere reverence to his name. The current war in Iraq began with a lack of public support that Vietnam war did not face until it was some 10 or more years in progress. Had a broader spectrum of the movement embraced shutting down the state, stopping the economy and allowing no business as usual, no war would have happened and hundreds of thousands, perhaps eventually millions of lives would have been saved.  Instead Americans chose to allow the war to happen rather than rejecting the pacifism Ghandi would never have endorse, preferring to avoid
confrontation and eroding their self image as orderly and law abiding citizens of a great democracy. Ignoring the reality that that so called democracy has both the largest army and the largest empire in history.
        The first element of the strategy was to seize the damn and set explosives to blow it up, but not to destroy it immediately. At the same time another group on the east coast would seize a radio explaining that the damn would be blown after giving a set time for evacuations to take place. No demands just get the people out before we blow it. In Oldies version of this the cadre reading the announcement would slit their throat afterward as a display of commitment. The announcer would be selected by drawing straws before hand. I found this part repulsive. I could at that time, and even now would be willing to give my life for a struggle, yet I think the idea of slitting your throat for symbolic reasons a desecration against the nature of life itself. This was Oldie own romantic conception that does not come from the reality that slitting ones throat was harder than he seemed to think.
         My step-fathers most public critics are incorrect in assuming an earthen damn was the true target of this strategy. The damn needed to be one that was part of the infrastructure, the necessary movement toward sabotage. On this scale it would have been one of if not the most effective blow against the national infrastructure achieved during the era. It was also a blow the state was not likely to sit by and allow to happen, meaning that the state would attempt to take the damn before the deadline was reached, likely before the evacuations were completed.  The significance of a major infrastructure such as an electrical power source was an absolute essential as it would insure the deployment of regular troops to regain control of the damn prior to it’s destruction, and likely before evacuations are complete. This meant that successfully repelling one attack, and remember in addition to shoulder-arms Largo possessed a working mortar, so the resistance of an initial attack is not out of the question. This successful defense would have placed Largo in a position of heroically holding out to allow the evacuations to be complete, then successfully destroying their target. If the first attack could not be resisted the damn would be blown and the State could be targeted for not allowing the evacuations to be completed.
        The third element would have been a rural force beginning a campaign of Guerrilla, with the capacity to continue that campaign for at least six months. Either the group would begin gaining support to progress toward a successful revolution, or it would be crushed after demonstrating that a revolutionary armed struggle was possible inside the US. It would also have international effects that might advance global resistance to US imperialism while the US was engaged in internal struggles. This is the three sections of the intended Largo structure, urban and rural Guerrilla and the third element is sometimes conceived , encouraged by Oldies romantics as a suicide unit but should really be described as a unit ready to confront regular US troops. The reality should be the understanding that these in most cases be the same thing in an initial attempt at armed struggle.
        Why the damn strategy never came to pass is something history will never know. The Public Eye stated in it’s 1984 article that the first wave “got cold feet”, Gino always told me something different. After the success of the Long Island farm workers organizing drive Eastern Farm Workers Association led to the initiation of the I. M. Young potato strike, the majority position was to engage in a prolonged strike that would drive the horizontal expansion of the entity leaps. Neither Polly Gardner or Mary Struggler ever disputed this. I know from my experience with his opposition to the implementation of the Omega-7 strategy that he used manipulation to oppose policy indirectly while seeming to support it. I like to believe that when Oldie was younger and physically more capable of leading an armed struggle he may have been bolder.   
 

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 16:25 | link | comments |
gino parente, largo, violence-no-violence

Vingh within the context of Parentism

As far back as 1967 I had the general understanding of dialectics on the level of the average educated American. That dialectics described a process from theses, anti-theses to syntheses. This is an understanding of dialectics that predates Hegal and goes back to the scholastisicm of early universities. At that time a student would ask a question that the lecturer would discuss. After this a student would present a counter position and on the next day the lecturer would provide a final syntheses on the subject. With in this academic context the need is to provide a final answer that is not in motion with the real world. This is an academic concept not a praxis based one. In praxis a dialectician seeks to frame a dialectic in order to resolve a dichotomy in a way that advance the historical self interest of the oppressed classes.

     According to Oldie the term Vingh applied to various systems of winning at roulette used by gamblers in the Netherlands. Roulette may be played two ways, either picking a specific number or picking red or black, in terms of a system, and in general by my opinion, it is better to bet on black or red. This is essentially a coin flip, which most of us know is a 50/50 chance. We also know that this is in an infinite reality (or maybe we don't all know that?). In practice if a coin comes up heads, it will often come up heads again, and even again. Maybe in roulette red will come up, then red again, then black and red. The phenomena that red is coming up more than black is vingh.

     In Parentism Vingh is used to describe the dialectic that resolves a dichotomy such as the conflict between organizational survival and revolutionary purpose. Prior to Feb 1979 the dialectic that define the MBA strategy was consistent with organizational growth and survival while not inconsistent with revolution, after 79 it became consistent with revolution not inconsistent with organizational growth and survival. This slight change between consistent and not inconsistent was what vingh meant within the context of Parentism.

This understanding of dialectics shows the nature of Oldies understanding within a Stalinist framework as Described in the work Dialectical and Historical Materialism written by Stalin in '38. The concept of quantitative change to qualitative change is an essential element of the Praxis based Stalinist tradition of Marxist Leninism that is often explain through the analogy of boiling water. Water starts slowly rising in temperature one or two degrees at a time. Water that is 70* is not very different from water at 72* or even 75*. The water continues to increase a degree at a time and in the same way 200* water is essentially no different that water at 201*. When the water reaches 212* the quantitative change has become a qualitative change and what was water now is stream. The change of temperature from 211* and 212* is not a large shift, but it is significant in that the slight difference is at the point when the dialectic has inverted itself, what was water is now steam. In the same way the shift from consistent with organizational growth and survival not inconsistent with revolution, to the one were the consistence of revolutionary aims take precedence over the still significant concern for Organizational survival. Although the Offensive era began in '79 the Organization unofficially but in all practical terms retreated from an offensive posture in just a few years. The exact moment of which would be open to debate although there are a few useful benchmarks including the Public Eye article, Reagan's innuendo's about Nicaragua being closer to Texas than New England was as well as claims of Libyan death squads. All of these provided various excuses for Oldie to retreat from the organizations offensive posture.

Elizabeth Parenti-Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 21:02 | link | comments |
dialectical and historical mater

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