DUNE DISCUSSION FORUM FOR ORTHODOX HERBERTARIANS
http://www.jacurutu.com/
I didn't say it did. I try to present both viewpoints.Jodorowsky's Acolyte wrote:Um... Sorry, Freakzilla. I don't understand how your choice of news links supports your political/sociological viewpoint.
Considering this was published in July, you might think that there would have been a lot less "No one knows why they're protesting" and "Occupy has no demands" crap going on in mainstream news in September & October. I still hear it from time to time, but it was everyone catch phrase in the early days of the occupation. Maybe if, as journalists, they'd have done their jobs and read up on why they're there, they'd have found this little article. Perhaps then there would have been less of this:#OCCUPYWALLSTREET
A shift in revolutionary tactics.
13 Jul 2011
Alright you 90,000 redeemers, rebels and radicals out there,
A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that bodes well for the future. The spirit of this fresh tactic, a fusion of Tahrir with the acampadas of Spain, is captured in this quote:
The beauty of this new formula, and what makes this novel tactic exciting, is its pragmatic simplicity: we talk to each other in various physical gatherings and virtual people's assemblies … we zero in on what our one demand will be, a demand that awakens the imagination and, if achieved, would propel us toward the radical democracy of the future … and then we go out and seize a square of singular symbolic significance and put our asses on the line to make it happen."The antiglobalization movement was the first step on the road. Back then our model was to attack the system like a pack of wolves. There was an alpha male, a wolf who led the pack, and those who followed behind. Now the model has evolved. Today we are one big swarm of people."
— Raimundo Viejo, Pompeu Fabra University
Barcelona, Spain
The time has come to deploy this emerging stratagem against the greatest corrupter of our democracy: Wall Street, the financial Gomorrah of America.
On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices.
Tahrir succeeded in large part because the people of Egypt made a straightforward ultimatum – that Mubarak must go – over and over again until they won. Following this model, what is our equally uncomplicated demand?
The most exciting candidate that we've heard so far is one that gets at the core of why the American political establishment is currently unworthy of being called a democracy: we demand that Barack Obama ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington. It's time for DEMOCRACY NOT CORPORATOCRACY, we're doomed without it.
This demand seems to capture the current national mood because cleaning up corruption in Washington is something all Americans, right and left, yearn for and can stand behind. If we hang in there, 20,000-strong, week after week against every police and National Guard effort to expel us from Wall Street, it would be impossible for Obama to ignore us. Our government would be forced to choose publicly between the will of the people and the lucre of the corporations.
This could be the beginning of a whole new social dynamic in America, a step beyond the Tea Party movement, where, instead of being caught helpless by the current power structure, we the people start getting what we want whether it be the dismantling of half the 1,000 military bases America has around the world to the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act or a three strikes and you're out law for corporate criminals. Beginning from one simple demand – a presidential commission to separate money from politics – we start setting the agenda for a new America.
Post a comment and help each other zero in on what our one demand will be. And then let's screw up our courage, pack our tents and head to Wall Street with a vengeance September 17.
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
Fascism for Dummies
by Pete Kofod
The Dollar Vigilante
Here at TDV fascism is frequently referred to as the increasingly prevalent form of government in the West. We recognize that this conjures strong emotions and we often get a few angry emails voicing displeasure with our characterization of their homeland. We understand that the word fascism is an emotionally charged word and we do not use it lightly.
We recognize, however, that we have never taken the time to define it completely nor place it within the context of our communications (although Jeff did compare the USA to the dictionary definition of "fascism" in "The Fasco-Communist Police State of America"). As such, we have fallen victim to one of our own cardinal sins; letting somebody else control the thoughts by controlling the definition of the words used to define those thoughts. To make matters worse, by default, we have relegated the responsibility of defining those words to two of the most criminally complicit estates in our society, namely the educational system and mass media. It is time to address this oversight.
THE ETYMOLOGY OF "FASCISM"
The word fascism is rooted in the Latin word fasces, a Roman object made of wooden rods tightly bound by red, overlapping straps. At the top, or occasionally in the middle, of the fasces was an axe head. The bound wooden rods represented strength through unity and the axe represented the means by which authority was exerted by the unified entity. In addition to being used as a weapon by Roman authorities, the fasces was a key symbol on government buildings of the Roman empire. The symbolism of the fasces is significant. The wooden rod represents the weak individual whose sole contribution is to provide strength to the unified object, in this case the State. The axe head, unsurprisingly, represents the force with which the State will ensure its survival.
Fascism is referred to as an ideology with numerous characteristics, the most common being fervent nationalism, virtually unlimited central authority, militarism, and state control of production. While those traits are almost universally present in fascist run societies, we take the position that fascism in, in fact, not an ideology at all. Merriam-Webster defines ideology as the “visionary theorizing of a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture.”
We contend that the objective of fascism is to ensure the survival and further the influence of the State. As Benito Mussolini famously stated, “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” Fascism holds self-preservation of the State as the supreme objective, regardless of method. It is therefore difficult to envision fascism as an ideology any more than a pride of lions being governed by an ideology. Fascism is an observed organizational structure in which the State exerts unlimited and arbitrary power over all its subjects merely for its own survival.
THE CORE CHARACTERISTICS OF FASCISM
While we contend that fascism is without principles, that is not to say that it does not have core characteristics. Rather than representing a platform of principles from which to rule, however, these characteristics represents processes and tools that empower the State apparatus. As times and conditions change, a fascist State will shift message, priorities and effort, all for the purpose of self-preservation. At times the State will appear pro-market, other times it will claim national exigencies demand that it assume control of production in the economy. Commonly observed traits, however, include:
Nominal or no limit on the power of the State. Whether explicit or de facto, when the State ceases to recognize limits on its authority, it is displaying a core characteristic of fascism. This is often seen in the broad powers that are granted to the law enforcement, military and the intelligence apparatus. As a related aside, a common observation in fascist regimes is that law enforcement and military cease to be viewed as members of the community in which they serve. Their encroaching and increasingly heavy handed tactics become the source of discontent among the people which in turn results in increasingly hysterical propaganda from the State.
Significant spending on national defense. Regardless of the financial conditions of the State and its subjects, military spending is virtually unaffected by financial stress occurring in other segments of the economy. The State recognizes that political power is meaningless without the force to back it. Money goes to salaries, weapons, research and various military adventures. In Germany and Italy in the 1930s, significant production and economic benefit was bestowed upon the military and the military industry. This is still the case in some countries today.
Key segments of the economy are granted cartel status by the State. Industries including agriculture, health care, banking, energy and manufacturing find themselves submitting to the State’s plan for production or being run out of business. In a fascist regime, the State typically does not actually seek to run the enterprise, they merely dictate the conditions and stipulations under which producers must operate.
A final note on fascism. It is commonly held that fascism is a right-wing form of government. We hold that the differentiation between left and right in this context is completely meaningless. North Korea and the former Soviet Union certainly can be characterized as fascist. The key characteristic is a high degree of force and deceit that the State deploys in self preservation.
This brief article is far from an exhaustive study on the matter of fascism. Lew Rockwell of the Mises Institute and Richard Maybury, author of the Uncle Eric series of books have dedicated many years of academic research to this topic. Much of what we have captured in this short primer is a result of their pioneering work. For those interested in further study of fascism, its history and how it manifests today, we encourage you to seek the works by these two remarkable men. See "The Fascist Threat" by Lew Rockwell and the Uncle Eric books here.
For recent interviews with Lew Rockwell, Richard Maybury, and Pete Kofod on Anarchast, click on their names.
Reprinted with permission from The Dollar Vigilante.
December 17, 2011
Pete Kofod is the founder and president of Datasages, a technology services firm that offers cloud computing and strategic technology services to various private organizations. Pete is a property owner at Doug's Gulch in Argentina and enjoys a variety of outdoor activities including tennis, skydiving and hiking. His most recent adventure is pursuing his private pilot's license. Pete is married and home schools his two children.
Copyright © 2011 The Dollar Vigilante
“If you make a war, if there are guns to be aimed, if there are bullets to be fired, if there are men to be killed, they will not be us. They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food, the guys who make clothes and paper and houses and tiles, the guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning high tension wires, the guys who crack crude oil down into a dozen different parts, who make light globes and sewing machines and shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns; oh, no, it will not be us who die. It will be you.
“It will be you — you who urge us on to battle, you who incite us against ourselves, you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler, you who would have one man who works kill another man who works, you who would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember this. Remember this well, you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots, you fierce ones, you spawners of hate, you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives.
“We are men of peace, we are men who work, and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace, if you take away our work, if you try to range us one against the other, we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy, we will take you seriously and, by god and by Christ, we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us, we will use them to defend our very lives; and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a no-man's-land that was set apart without our consent - it lies within our own boundaries here, and now we have seen it and we know it.
“Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one, not ten, not ten thousand, not a million, not ten millions, not a hundred millions, but a billion, two billions of us, all the people of the world: we will have the slogans, and we will have the hymns, and we will have the guns, and we will use them, and we will live. We will be alive, and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquility, in security, in decency, in peace. You plan the wars, you masters of men, plan the wars and point the way, and we will point the gun.”
Dalton Trumbo
Johnny Got His Gun, 1938
Thank you. I read the book this year for the first time. It is a brilliant book.SandRider wrote:“If you make a war, if there are guns to be aimed, if there are bullets to be fired, if there are men to be killed, they will not be us. They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food, the guys who make clothes and paper and houses and tiles, the guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning high tension wires, the guys who crack crude oil down into a dozen different parts, who make light globes and sewing machines and shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns; oh, no, it will not be us who die. It will be you.
“It will be you — you who urge us on to battle, you who incite us against ourselves, you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler, you who would have one man who works kill another man who works, you who would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember this. Remember this well, you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots, you fierce ones, you spawners of hate, you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives.
“We are men of peace, we are men who work, and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace, if you take away our work, if you try to range us one against the other, we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy, we will take you seriously and, by god and by Christ, we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us, we will use them to defend our very lives; and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a no-man's-land that was set apart without our consent - it lies within our own boundaries here, and now we have seen it and we know it.
“Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one, not ten, not ten thousand, not a million, not ten millions, not a hundred millions, but a billion, two billions of us, all the people of the world: we will have the slogans, and we will have the hymns, and we will have the guns, and we will use them, and we will live. We will be alive, and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquillity, in security, in decency, in peace. You plan the wars, you masters of men, plan the wars and point the way, and we will point the gun.”
Dalton Trumbo
Johnny Got His Gun, 1938
Occupy my ass. This shit here, this doesn't change anything. All it does is make you look like an asshat without a job, I don't care if you're 16 or 60. And if you're 60 you should know better.Freakzilla wrote:
That's exactly it. Does anyone seriously think they give a crap about these protests? They're laughing they're asses off.Freakzilla wrote:As long as the good ole boys are in Congress, nothing will change.
Mandy wrote:The good ole boys will always be in Congress, but that doesn't mean peaceful protests can't change things. And I don't think the lady holding that sign looks like an asshat.
Mandy wrote:No, but they're not trying to change corporate greed.
Edit: I don't necessarily think the OWS protests will work, just that they could.
No. As long as those protesters keep being so fucking PC nothing will change. But I can imagine a different future.Freakzilla wrote:As long as the good ole boys are in Congress, nothing will change.
There's a violent middle ground here.Omphalos wrote:No. As long as those protesters keep being so fucking PC nothing will change. But I can imagine a different future.Freakzilla wrote:As long as the good ole boys are in Congress, nothing will change.
Have you read this thread?ahnnah wrote:What do they want??? I just don't understand....Mandy wrote:No, but they're not trying to change corporate greed.
Edit: I don't necessarily think the OWS protests will work, just that they could.
