What do the pesticide DDT, engine exhaust, lead and cell phones have in common?

They are all possibly carcinogenic.

"It’s hard to imagine how any collection of ordinary citizens can gain a hearing in an arena dominated by multibillion dollar corporations."

I became aware of Scott Russell Sanders through the excellent Agroinnovations podcast. Here's a snip of an interview he did with Baby Got Books:

The dominant stories in America are indeed materialistic, and that is because they are composed and broadcast—from television, radio, billboards, the pages of magazines and newspapers, and every other medium of communication—for the sole purpose of persuading us to buy things. The advertising that permeates our society is funded by corporations, which are not devoted to improving our lives, serving our society, or protecting the planet, but only to selling their goods and services. The US Supreme Court has enshrined this crass storytelling by defining corporations as persons and dollars and speech. It’s hard to imagine how any collection of ordinary citizens can gain a hearing in an arena dominated by multibillion dollar corporations. So changing the dominant story will not be easy. But it will change, if only because its ruinous consequences, for ourselves and our world, are ever more obvious. Meanwhile, each of us can speak up for a vision of personal, communal, and ecological good that embraces peace, justice, caretaking, and spiritual richness, rather than aggression, power, and material accumulation. That our voices seem to be small and scattered is no excuse for remaining silent.

[...]

The first question I ask of anyone who labels himself or herself a conservative is: What do you want to conserve? My own answer to that question would include preserving a stable climate, drinkable water, clean air, diversity of species, a fair judicial system, honest government, high quality public parks and schools and museums, and many other shared forms of wealth. Too often, today, self-proclaimed conservatives seem intent on conserving only their own money, their power to acquire and keep more money, and their freedom to do as they wish regardless of the consequences for society or planet. There is nothing conservative about such an attitude; it is reckless in the extreme.

"No one stopped to think about the people." R.I.P. Gill Scott-Heron

From an interview published in the Telegraph.uk:

"Music has the power to make me feel good like nothing else does. It gives me some peace for a while. Takes me back to who I really am.”

"Another fool playing songs that don't matter for people who chatter endlessly."

"We think that until all people have democracy at work, we can’t have real democracy in the rest of society."

Nate Hawthorne:

We want to replace capitalism with a world that is more democratic. When we organize on the job we are trying to change the balance of power. Usually the boss calls all the shots. We organize to make it so that the workers have a lot more input. Of course, we can only get so far with this because we still live in a capitalist society. In the long term we want to organize every workplace to make them all democratic. In our view, in a good society, all people would have democracy on the job, instead of leaving our rights at the door when we get to work like we do now.

In addition to democracy on the job, we’re for democracy off the job. We think that until all people have democracy at work, we can’t have real democracy in the rest of society. Think about how many hours most people spend at work, commuting to and from work, looking for a job, and thinking about work when off the clock. Work takes up a ton of our lives, and work in a capitalist society is undemocratic. With so much of our lives spent in undemocratic workplaces, how could we have real democracy in the rest of our lives?

We also think that all people should have their basic needs met – people should have enough food, and safe secure homes, access to medical care, some access to entertainment and the arts, and so on. We think it’s terrible that our society wastes so many resources on the lifestyles of a few super rich people while so many poor people go without the bare necessities. We think if we did away with capitalism this wastefulness would go away and there would be plenty for everyone.

"Give up the comfortable illusion that the Democratic Party or liberal institutions can be instruments for genuine reform."

Chris Hedges:

To accept that Obama is, as West said, a mascot for Wall Street means having to challenge some frightening monoliths of power and give up the comfortable illusion that the Democratic Party or liberal institutions can be instruments for genuine reform. It means having to step outside the mainstream. It means a new radicalism. It means recognizing that there is no hope for a correction or a reversal within the formal systems of power. It means defying traditional systems of power. And liberals, who have become courtiers to the corporate state, must attempt to silence all those who condemn the ruthlessness and mendacity of these systems of destruction. Their denunciation of all who rebel is a matter of self-preservation. For once the callous heart of the corporate state is exposed, so is the callous heart of the liberal class.

"What narrowness of historical outlook, my little lamb!"

"You argue against my slogan, 'here I stand, I can do no other.' Your argument comes down to the following: that's all well and good but human beings are too cowardly and weak for such heroism, ergo, one must adapt one's tactics to their weakness and to the principle 'chi va piano, va sano.' What narrowness of historical outlook, my little lamb. There's nothing more changeable than human psychology. ... My dear girl, disappointment with the masses is always the most reprehensible quality to be found in a political leader."

- From The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg.

Wonderful!

"The light at the end of the freedom tunnel is a McDonald's arch. Corporate ledgers are the gospel."

Charles Davis:

While they preach their love of freedom, it's clear that for many on the right the love of markets -- or specifically, corporations -- trumps all other concerns about force and state power. All human needs must be met by a corporation in a quasi-competitive marketplace (the second part's optional), in their view, lest we all become limp-wristed socialists prattling on about "sharing" and "community." That there are alternatives to such strictly defined systems of economics that are not based on state coercion -- and who do you think grants corporations personhood and limited liability? -- is not so much as acknowledged. The light at the end of the freedom tunnel is a McDonald's arch. Corporate ledgers are the gospel.

(h/t BroadSnark)

"The State which thinks itself entitled to force its citizens to go to war will never pay proper regard to the value ... of their lives in peace."

Via mahsanmilim.com:

From the Anti-Conscription Manifesto 1926

"It is our belief that conscript armies, with their large corps of professional officers, are a grave menace to peace. Conscription involves the degradation of human personality, and the destruction of liberty. Barrack life, military drill, blind obedience to commands, however unjust and foolish they may be, and deliberate training for slaughter undermine respect for the individual, for democracy and human life.

It is debasing human dignity to force men to give up their life, or to inflict death against their will, or without conviction as to the justice of their action. The State which thinks itself entitled to force its citizens to go to war will never pay proper regard to the value and happiness of their lives in peace. Moreover, by conscription the militarist spirit of aggressiveness is implanted in the whole male population at the most impressionable age. By training for war men come to consider war as unavoidable and even desirable."

Signed among others by:
Rabindranath Tagore (India), Martin Buber (Germany), Bertrand Russell (England), Albert Einstein (Germany), C.F. Andrews (India), Norman Angell (England), Henri Barbusse (France), A. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (Germany), Annie Besant (India), Edward Carpenter (England), Miguel de Unamuno (Spain), Georges Duhamel (France), August Forel (Switzerland), Kurt Hiller (Germany), Toyohiko Kagawa (Japan), George Lansbury, M.P. (England), Arthur Ponsonby (England), Emanuel Radl (Czechoslovakia), Leonhard Ragaz (Switzerland), Lajpat Rai (India), Romain Rolland (France), Fritz von Unruh (Germany), Paul Loebe (Germany), H.G. Wells (England)

"Conservatism and Liberalism are not Democracy."

"Conservatism and Liberalism are not Democracy. Conservatism is Feudalism, Liberalism is Commercialism, and Socialism only is in its essence Democracy."
- Edward Carpenter, from The Healing of Nations (1915)

"Perfecting your military and naval organization..."

"You cannot keep a 60-h.p. Daimler motor-car in your shed for years and years and still deny yourself the pleasure of going out on the public road with it—even though you know you are not a very competent driver; and you cannot continue for half a century perfecting your military and naval organization without in the end making the temptation to become a political road-hog almost irresistible."
- Edward Carpenter, from The Healing of Nations (1915)

"The last war will be fought when the workers ... begin to capture their own countries from the real enemy which now holds them."

William D. Haywood, from The General Strike (1911):

Bravery is one of the greatest of our attributes, but if it merely consists in shutting our eyes and doing what we are told, then even our courage is not worth much. To be quite frank with one another and with ourselves, we must admit that there is not much to admire in a man who, for a little cash, is ready to kill anyone whom his boss may tell him to shoot. This is the part a soldier has to play. It is his duty to obey without question, to ask if the cause is just is to commit an offence which will bring on him serious consequences.

We cannot admire the position of a man so placed though we may perhaps make excuses for it on the ground that the owners of the country have, by hoarding all the wealth, compelled him either to join the army or starve. Thus is the freedom of our Empire maintained.

[...]

Wars will cease only when the people have higher national ambition than that of capturing foreign lands, when men are not willing to fight in the quarrels of nations, when the people are no longer contented to have their country owned by a class which lives entirely on their labor. In a word the last war will be fought when the workers of all the various nations begin to capture their own countries from the real enemy which now holds them--an enemy so brutal that not only is it ever prepared to wage relentless war against the workers, but in time of peace commits more outrages than the most savage armies of the most ruthless war lords. Figures and facts condemn them beyond the lowest damnation.

"The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few."

From the Omaha Platform of 1892:

Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation and bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self-protection, imported pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of those, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires.

[...]

We believe that the power of government—in other words, of the people—should be expanded (as in the case of the postal service) as rapidly and as far as the good sense of an intelligent people and the teachings of experience shall justify, to the end that oppression, injustice, and poverty shall eventually cease in the land.

"We're low, we're low, we're very very low."

We’re low—we’re low—mere rabble, we know,
But, at our plastic power,
The mould at the lordling’s feet will grow
Into palace and church and tower.
Then prostrate fall—in the rich man’s hate,
And cringe at the rich man’s door;
We’re not too low to build the wall,
But too low to tread the floor.

We’re low—we’re low—we’re very very low,
Yet from our fingers glide
The silken flow—and the robes that glow
Round the limbs of the sons of pride.
And what we get—and what we give—
We know, and we know our share;
We’re not too low the cloth to weave,
But too low the Cloth to wear!

- Ernest Jones, from "Song of the Lower Classes" (1852)

Hate bankers? Let the state be your bank!

Ellen Brown:

Why a State Bank?

California joins eleven other states that have introduced bills to form state-owned banks or to study their feasibility. Eight of these bills were introduced just since January, including in Oregon, Washington State, Massachusetts, Arizona, Maryland, New Mexico, Maine and California. Illinois, Virginia, Hawaii and Louisiana introduced similar bills in 2010.

[...]

All of these bills were inspired by the Bank of North Dakota (BND), currently the nation’s only state-owned bank. While other states are teetering on bankruptcy, the state of North Dakota continues to report surpluses. On April 20, the BND reported profits for 2010 of $62 million, setting a record for the seventh straight year. The BND’s profits belong to the citizens and are produced without taxation.

[...]

In North Dakota (population 647,000), the Bank of North Dakota has $2.7 billion in deposits, or $4000 per capita. The majority of these deposits are drawn from the state’s own revenues. The bank has nearly the same sum ($2.6 billion) in outstanding loans.

California has 37 million people. If the California Investment Trust (CIT) performed like the BND, it might amass $148 billion in deposits. With $12 billion in capital, this $148 billion could generate $133 billion in credit for the state (subtracting 10%, or 14.8 billion, to satisfy reserve requirements).

[...]

We have been trapped in an austere neo-liberal economic model in which the only alternatives are to slash services, raise taxes, and sell off public assets, all in a futile attempt to “balance the budget” in a shrinking economy. We need to start thinking outside the box. We can choose prosperity, and public banks are a key tool for achieving that end.

"In olden days the people did without coal, and were, I believe, rather more happy than we are to-day."

William Morris, from Glasier's William Morris and the Early Days of the Socialist Movement (1921):

For myself, I should be glad if we could do without coal, and indeed without burrowing like worms and moles in the earth altogether; and I am not sure but we could do without it if we wished to live pleasant lives, and did not want to produce all manner of mere mechanism chiefly for multiplying our own servitude and misery, and spoiling half the beauty and art of the world to make merchants and manufacturers rich. In olden days the people did without coal, and were, I believe, rather more happy than we are to-day, and produced better-art, poetry, and quite as good religion and philosophy as we do nowadays. But without saying we can do without coal, I will say that we could do with less than half of what we use now, if we lived properly and produced only really useful, good, and beautiful things. We could get plenty of timber for our domestic fires if we cultivated and cared for our forests as we might do; and with the water and wind power we now allow to go to waste, so to say, and with or without electricity, we could perhaps obtain the bulk of the motive power which might be required for the essential mechanical industries. And, anyway, we should, I hope, be able to make the conditions of mining much more healthy and less disagreeable than they are to-day, and give the miners a much higher reward for their labour; and also —and this I insist is most important—no one ought to be compelled to work more than a few hours at a time underground, and nobody ought to be compelled to work all their lives, or even constantly week by week, at mining, or indeed any other disagreeable job. Everybody ought to have a variety of occupation, so as to give him a chance of developing his various powers, and of making his work a pleasure rather than a dreary burden. I have tried to answer our friend's question fairly, but I can hardly hope that, not being, maybe, a bit of a dreamer like myself, he will be satisfied with it.'

"But without saying we can do without coal, I will say that we could do with less than half of what we use now, if we lived properly and produced only really useful, good, and beautiful things."
- William Morris

"Let everything that a city would have hidden and swept under a rug be revealed and shouted from the rooftops!"

Ken's Hot Dogs on allowing the homeless in city parks:

... let everything that a city would have hidden and swept under a rug be revealed and shouted from the rooftops!

Let the world see what Orlando and Las Vegas and many other cities do not want the world to see!

For those of you who do your politicking against feeding the homeless, and even deny others the possibility of feeding the homeless, your own wickedness has been set before you.

You have become great and grown rich; you have grown fat; you surpass the deeds of the wicked; yet you prosper, and the right of the needy you do not defend.

And are you not at all ashamed? Or is it your shame that causes you to outlaw feeding the homeless in public? Is it your shame that causes you to drive the homeless into a corner where no one will notice them? You may have Christ on your lips but you seem to prostrate yourselves to Mammon and Baal.

"One day I was playing with barbies and the next day grown men on the street were trying to fuck me."

BroadSnark:

The idea that girls and women are in some way responsible for other people’s action, for the sometimes truly awful things that people want to do to them, is pervasive. It is so pervasive that, when an eleven year old girl was gang raped, the first reaction was to examine her actions. Really? Is there something that an eleven year old can do to bring something like that on herself? What kind of society even lets that thought pass through their heads?

My teen-aged reaction to this bullshit (and a whole lot of other bullshit) was a big, punk rock Fuck You. I was not reading Betty Friedan. I did not have deep thoughts about how all of my personal mini-tragedies fit into a larger context. I knew that it hurt. I knew that trying to conform to social expectations would make me lose my fucking mind. I knew that, if I wanted to survive my teen years, I was going to have to give everyone the finger.

So I did.

"The honchos of Bubble Land do not recognize that they are functioning within a bubble."

[source]

More goodness from the latest Canyon Country Zephyr.

Scott Thompson:

... no culture has been more successful than ours in distracting itself from observing the natural world in detail. Look at how many people flock to artificial environments of one kind or another for their vacations: Disney World, Dollywood, luxury cruises, five star hotels, London, Venice, Hong Kong, you name it. Even vacations that center in national monuments or parks or other open spaces are likely to rely on adrenaline spikes from rock climbing, mountain bikes, or off-the-road vehicles.

[...]

With rare exceptions, the honchos of Bubble Land do not recognize that they are functioning within a bubble (it is, after all, an extraordinarily real-seeming bubble--like Disneyland). Consequently, they assert that the values fundamental to Bubble Land describe the way life works, and see themselves as the ultimate realists.

[...]

... any species, including ours, which chronically overpopulates ecosystems will sooner or later experience a die-back. ... no economic system can grant immunity from this, no matter how much it “grows” and advances its technology. To the contrary, it worsens matters because so-called growth can only mean consuming resources in an ever widening spiral, destroying more and more habitat, until the system caves in on itself.

"They loathe the damage caused by the production of resources but have no trouble consuming them."

Jim Stiles:

I once noted that when a Conservative really gets hot under the collar, he’s apt to get right in your face and growl, “One more word and I’ll knock your block off!”

But the Liberal? He’s more likely to sniff, “I will not even dignify that comment with a reply.”

I think I’d rather get punched.

[...]

I still find myself pulling a quote from the most honest conservationist I’ve ever known, Wendell Berry, who notes that while most environmentalists object to the impacts from the extraction of natural resources, they rarely connect the dots to the gasoline they keep pumping into their SUVs. They loathe the damage caused by the production of resources but have no trouble consuming them.

"The simplest, laziest, most exciting, uncomplicated, irrational, and primitive depiction of evil the world has ever known."

Walter Wink:

The Myth of Redemptive Violence is the simplest, laziest, most exciting, uncomplicated, irrational, and primitive depiction of evil the world has ever known. Furthermore, its orientation toward evil is one into which virtually all modern children (boys especially) are socialised in the process of maturation. Children select this mythic structure because they have already been led, by culturally reinforced cues and role models, to resonate with its simplistic view of reality. Its presence everywhere is not the result of a conspiracy of Babylonian priests secretly buying up the mass media with Iraqi oil money, but a function of values endlessly reinforced by the Domination System. By making violence pleasurable, fascinating, and entertaining, the Powers are able to delude people into compliance with a system that is cheating them of their very lives.

Once children have been indoctrinated into the expectations of a dominator society, they may never outgrow the need to locate all evil outside themselves. Even as adults they tend to scapegoat others for all that is wrong in the world. They continue to depend on group identification and the upholding of social norms for a sense of well-being.

[...]

Redemptive violence gives way to violence as an end in itself. It is no longer a religion that uses violence in the pursuit of order and salvation, but one in which violence has become an aphrodisiac, sheer titillation, an addictive high, a substitute for relationships. Violence is no longer the means to a higher good, namely order; violence becomes the end.

"We need to dump them. Toss them on the scrap heap of history."

O'Hollern on Iraq war journalism:

They acted like pubescent groupies at a pop concert. It was nauseating. If you got too caught up in the thrill of it all, you’d miss the fact that their coverage consisted almost entirely of interviewing public officials and treating their statements as holy writ. There was no context given except the one provided by Washington. The insipid journalists who presided over the whole overblown spectacle not only didn’t ask any critical questions, but seemed constitutionally incapable of doing so.

The’re not necessarily dishonest. It genuinely never occurs to them that the US sometimes wears the black hat and our leaders often lie. They are true believers in Ted Koppel’s grade-school conception of America and its lofty role in world affairs, a viewpoint that exaggerates our virtues, ignores our crimes, and blames others for our mistakes. They are, weirdly enough, honest propagandists.

We need to dump them. Toss them on the scrap heap of history.

"Nobody really calls themself a prole any more."

thoughtstreaming:

The fact is, class warfare as both a term and a program have pretty much been emptied of meaning. To the extend Democrats or progressives do bring it up, it is distorted into a Common Man vs The Banksters sort of narrative or The Workers vs The Bad Politicians as in Wisconsin recently. For some it becomes a way to describe vast inequities in wealth and income or to frame this whole Pay Your Share of Taxes movement. Some speak of the Ruling Class, some speak of the Owning Class. Nobody really calls themself a prole any more.

Identity is tricky and simple subjectivization is a thing of the past. Nobody even admits to being a worker and all these vague categorizations and groupings only serve to confuse the basic antagonism into oblivion. But this doesn't mean basic exploitation has suddenly vanished.

"The principle of endless accumulation that defines capitalism is synonymous with exponential growth and this, like cancer, ends in death."

Samir Amin:

A socialist culture is not there, in front of us. It is the future to be invented, a project of civilization, open to inventive imagination. Formulae (like "socialization through democracy, not through the market" and "dominance of culture instead of that of economics and politics in service to it") are not enough, in spite of the success they have had in initiating the historical process of transformation. For it will be a long "secular" process: the reconstruction of societies on principles other than those of capitalism, both in the North and in the South, cannot be "rapid." But the construction of the future, even if it is far off, starts today.

[...]

The principle of endless accumulation that defines capitalism is synonymous with exponential growth and this, like cancer, ends in death.

[...]

Whatever you like to call it, historical capitalism is anything but sustainable. It is only a brief parenthesis in history.

[...]

The new phase of history that has opened is marked by the sharpening of conflicts for access to the natural resources of the planet.

[...]

The individual does not become a conscious, lucid agent of social transformation, but the slave of triumphant commodification.

[...]

The citizen disappears, giving way to the consumer/spectator, no longer a citizen who seeks emancipation, but an insignificant creature who accepts submission.

"The beauty of this War on Terror ... is that it forever sustains its own ostensible cause."

Glenn Greenwald:

It's literally impossible to convey in words the level of bloodthirsty fury and demands for vengeance that would arise if a foreign army were inside the U.S. killing innocent American children even a handful of times, let alone continuously for a full decade.

It's the perfect self-perpetuating cycle: (1) They hate us and want to attack us because we're over there; therefore, (2) we have to stay and proliferate ourselves because they hate us and want to attack us; (3) our staying and proliferating ourselves makes them hate us and want to attack us more; therefore, (4) we can never leave, because of how much they hate us and want to attack us. The beauty of this War on Terror -- and, as the last two weeks have demonstrated, War is the bipartisan consensus for what we are and should be doing to address Terrorism -- is that it forever sustains its own ostensible cause.

"The Obama administration ... has utilized the economic crisis to fundamentally and permanently alter class relations in America."

Barry Grey:

The Obama administration, acting in behalf of the financial aristocracy, has utilized the economic crisis to fundamentally and permanently alter class relations in America. Its central preoccupation has been to protect the wealth of the parasitic financial elite and ensure its ability to continue plundering the country’s resources.

No one has been held accountable for the wild speculation and outright criminal practices that precipitated the crisis. No measures have been taken to reclaim the ill-gotten wealth or rein in the banks and corporations. To the contrary, everything has been done to shield the perpetrators and make them richer than ever.

It is essentially in pursuit of this aim, concealed behind homilies on the need to reduce the deficit, that jobs, wages, unemployment benefits, schools, health care, pensions and social programs upon which tens of millions of people depend are being gutted.

The deliberate policy of keeping unemployment high, in order to weaken the resistance of workers to pay cuts and speedup, is reflected in the record cash hoard of nearly $2 trillion held by US corporations, the result of their refusal to use their bumper profits to significantly increase hiring.

The surge in CEO pay underscores the fact that the American capitalist class and its political representatives, beginning with the Obama administration, are pursuing a policy of class war.

(h/t I Cite)

"I mourn for those jubilant crowds, for the ecstatic joy they find in another’s death."

Ken's Hot Dogs:

As “jubilant” crowds in America celebrate the killing “by an American bullet” of Osama bin Laden, I mourn.

I mourn for those jubilant crowds, for the ecstatic joy they find in another’s death.

[...]

I mourn for the deaths of all those who have lived and died by the sword.

I mourn for the spiritual death they suffered in taking up the sword.

I mourn for the spiritual death of entire nations in encouraging those who take up the sword.

I mourn for all those who hate their brothers and sisters, and walk in darkness, and do not know where they are going because the darkness has blinded their eyes.

[...]

I mourn most of all because we proud Americans also live by the sword, and because many of us have already died by it. I mourn most of all for the blood we have shed. I mourn for the fear that has overwhelmed us to make us shed that blood, and to cause us to celebrate the shedding of blood.

"This country isn’t in the business of winning wars, it’s in the business of waging them."

Donkey Mountain:

If you thought bin Laden’s death was the beginning of the end of the war, sorry, but thanks for playing. We may begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan this July, but the so called ‘war on terror’ is here to stay, at least for the near future. Too many people are making too much money on this venture, and their vote$$$ count more than ours.

The poor dumb people thought this was all about avenging 9/11. Won’t they ever learn? This country isn’t in the business of winning wars, it’s in the business of waging them, and it’s big business. The war on terror won’t end unless gigantic, mass protests force it to end or the Pentagon spots a more profitable conflict somewhere else; say, for example, a ‘cold war’ with China, which could give the military-industrial complex multiple orgasms for decades to come.

Glenn Greenwald:

Bin Laden was but one of the pretexts to justify it all. And with him gone (but definitely not forgotten), multiple other pretexts will quickly be created to take his place.

No apologies for slavery

click to enlarge

[go to P.A.P.-Blog for more maps on slavery]

"The capitalist class, bankrupt, old, useless and hurtful, has finished its historic mission."

Paul Lafargue, from The Bankruptcy of Capitalism (1900):

Capitalism, which in its virile and combative youth in the eighteenth century had wished to emancipate itself from Christianity, resigns itself in its old age to practices of the grossest superstition.

The capitalist class, bankrupt, old, useless and hurtful, has finished its historic mission; it persists as ruling class only through its acquired momentum. The proletariat of the twentieth century will execute the decree of history; will drive it from its position of social control. Then the stupendous work in science and industry accomplished by civilized humanity, at the price of such toil and suffering, will engender peace and happiness; then will this vale of tears be transformed into an earthly paradise.

O proletariat, where art thou?

This toxic other

"The mass cheering after the death of bin Laden was obscene."

Jodi Dean:

The mass cheering after the death of bin Laden was obscene. It was a clear indication of the obscene supplement of the law, of an obscene enjoyment of violence and arbitrary power that accompanies law. The language of assassination attempts to highlight this obscene dimension by emphasizing the illegality of the murder of bin Laden.

[...]

We on the Left are hypocrites if we condemn the Bush administration but accept the acts of the Obama administration.

There can and will be political violence. Some of us (in a very broad sense, perhaps including Bill Clinton and Barak Obama and George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden) will be the executors of this violence.

In the communist legacy, these executors of political violence have been Lenin, Stalin, Mao...there are others. But we err--we all err--in seeking coverage for this violence in the big Other of history, or justice. Acts may be courageous, but this doesn't make them just.

Gandhi's alternative was non-violence. There is a vocal Left that shares this view. I don't. But at the same time, I think that we indulge ourselves in obscene enjoyment when we seek to protect murderous violence, opportune violence, when we try to avoid confronting this enjoyment and instead perversely make ourselves into instruments of a higher law.

The result: murderous violence occurs, but that doesn't make it just or right.

"We drift along in idle conformity, simply following the common rut—afraid to show our hands."

"On all sides we are walled in by Fashion, Convention, Custom; things are done in an habitual meaningless way which expresses nothing except common tradition, or the remains of it—certainly in a way which does not express our feelings. We drift along in idle conformity, simply following the common rut—afraid to show our hands. Or we are enslaved to the bread and butter question and only claim to be ourselves for an hour or two out of the twenty-four. It is not real Life; it is not anything. It is the existence of a sheep, unworthy of the children of that Prometheus who stole fire from heaven, or even of our mother Eve who ate—simply because she desired it—of the fruit of the tree that stood in the midst of the garden."
- Edward Carpenter, from Angel's Wings

"How deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!"

"It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. ... The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!"
- Thoreau, Walden

"The myth of redemptive violence is exactly that: a myth. This is a cycle that must be broken."

"Christianity, Bonhoeffer said, stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. He didn't think Christians were doing enough. Instead, he asserted that Christendom ... adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power."
- Sande Ramage

Daniel Sturgeon:

Osama bin Laden’s mistake was to believe that violence could bring righteousness. He acted in line with this misbelief and the consequences for the whole world have been catastrophic.

What we must not shy away from is that our own British government along with the American government have also been taken in by the same mistaken belief. Violence begets only violence: the 9/11 attacks created only the desire for violent restitution in the hearts of the USA and UK. The war in Afghanistan has exacted many innocent lives, as well as the lives of those soldiers on both sides of the war. Now, both governments as well as many others are beginning to raise their vigilance against possible retaliation from Al-Qaeda. Violence begets only violence. Should such a retaliation come, no doubt there will be further consequences for whoever steps into Osama’s place as leader of the group. Violence begets only violence.

What can we learn? That the myth of redemptive violence is exactly that: a myth. This is a cycle that must be broken.

"The American worker still thinks politically instead of economically."

John Reed, from "A New Appeal" (1919):

... although the American worker is profoundly disgusted with the dominant Democratic or Republican Parties, and if you ask him what he thinks of such-and-such a political candidate, will say, “Oh, he’s just a dirty politician. They’re all alike — they make promises, but they never do anything when they get elected;” although the American workers knows that Congress, the State Legislatures and the City Councils are used by business interests for their own selfish purposes — still he does not know how to answer when he is told, “Well, if you don’t like your officials, vote for somebody you do like. You are the boss. This is a free country.”

The American worker still thinks politically instead of economically. No one has ever been able to tell him, in a way which he understands, that in our state of society the vote is almost powerless. As I have said, he knows that the men he elects to political office are dominated by Big Business after they get elected; but he doesn’t realize that unless he, the worker, takes away the power of Big Business before he elects his representatives, those representatives will always be bought — or if they are honest, they will always be powerless.

[...]

The American worker does not see to the heart of the society in which he lives. When the truth becomes too obvious, he is easily persuaded that all abuses can be corrected by agitation, by the law, by the ballot box. He does not see that the whole complex structure of our civilization is corrupt from top to bottom, because the capitalist class controls the sources of wealth.

Check out the Early American Marxism repository - they've made available a trove of interesting documents.

"The real ... contest of the coming years is ... between those people whose interests are with capital and those whose interests are with labor."

I have discovered the farmer-labor movement! Here's a little background commentary on the movement from 1920.

From The Radcliffe News, Friday, October 29, 1920:

FARMER-LABOR VS. SOCIALIST

Although the public is unaware of it and the parties themselves will not confess it, very little difference exists either between the methods of procedure of the Socialist and the Farmer-Labor parties, or between their ultimate ideals. Both wish to replace the capitalistic system with industrial democracy. Both represent an attempt to combine the workers of all nations into a league to do away with imperalism, secret negotiations, and war. Both uphold labor's struggle to secure a part for itself in the management of industry. The means by which both parties would enforce these principles also tally—the formation into a political party of those upholding these beliefs, the securing by political means of the passage of such laws as will lead toward the culmination of their final program, and the education of the workers that they may qualify for their future responsibility. The Socialists have come out with a more definite final program; the Farmer-Laborers hint at the same thing but lay their emphasis on the immediate steps ahead rather than on the ultimate end. They are not so cut and dry, so formally theoretical, so subservient to their final conception of the ideal state, but they do advocate, indeed have literally taken over from the Socialist platform the same means to the end. They are on the same train, but the Farmer Labors have not decided at just what station they will alight.

If, then, there is so little difference between the general trends of the two parties, why do they not strengthen their influences by uniting? Why do they prefer to work in opposition? Both represent labor as opposed to capital, both tend toward the same ultimate ideal, both advocate the same methods of procedure. Then why weaken the cause of labor by splitting its advocates into two camps?

The reasons are two, both of a psychological nature. The first is the prejudiced attitude of the public mind toward the Socialist party, the second the conservative soul of labor. Working together, these two forces have led to the necessity of forming a new labor party. Vaguely associated by the public with such words as "reds," "communism," and "Marxianism,"—words which carry an evil conotation largely through prejudice and lack of understanding,—Socialism has come to typify in the minds of many people lawlessness. Labor, too, contaminated by the press, also dreads the thing as an unknown and terrible monster. Labor has a conservative soul. It does not see far beyond immediate contentments. And Socialism seems to many the dream of a few idealists. When the Farmer-Labor party started to organize in New York, as each radical plank was proposed in the assembly, some laborer would ask, "This is not Socialism, is it?" And when assured that it was not, he would sink back relieved. Yes, Socialism has become the black cat of political superstition, and it is bad luck if a black cat crosses your path.

Therefore the Farmer-Labor party started as a substitute free from such a prejudice and by terming itself "Farmer-Labor" won the support of a great majority of workers who are afraid of new things unless presented under a familiar name. If, then, the two older parties have been accused of being twins, such an accusation can be applied to the younger also. The real, far-reaching contest of the coming years is not between four parties but between two opposing forces of ideas, between those people whose interests are with capital and those whose interests are with labor.

"Yes, Socialism has become the black cat of political superstition, and it is bad luck if a black cat crosses your path."

"If slaughterhouses had glass wall, everyone would be a vegetarian."

"Our food choices have the power to change the world for the better."

Mark Bittman on the "ag-gag" legislation that would punish those who film slaughterhouse cruelty:

What we can know is that organizations like the Humane Society and Mercy for Animals need to be allowed to do the work that the federal and state governments are not: documenting the kind of behavior most of us abhor.

[...]

The biggest problem of all is that we’ve created a system in which standard factory-farming practices are inhumane, and the kinds of abuses documented at E6 are really just reminders of that. If you’re raising and killing 10 billion animals every year, some abuse is pretty much guaranteed.

We don't need "ag-gag" laws that hide crimes against animals, we need laws that will help to expose those crimes and turn to glass the walls of every slaughterhouse.

"The prevailing inequality of opportunity is due to special privileges and monopolistic advantages, which can and should be abolished."

[source]

From the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Association’s Declaration of Principles (1936?):

The Farmer-Labor movement seeks to unite into a political organization all persons engaged in agriculture and other useful industry, and those in sympathy with their interests, for the purpose of securing legislation that will protect and promote the economic welfare of the wealth producers.

[...]

It maintains that the prevailing inequality of opportunity is due to special privileges and monopolistic advantages, which can and should be abolished by legislative action.

It declares that the government at present is dominated by the few and its powers are used to serve special interests. Money and credits, market and exchange facilities, the means of transportation and communication and the natural resources and other basic industries of the nation are practically monopolized by an industrial and financial oligarchy, which is in a position to extract tribute from all who live by labor and to keep great masses of people in a condition of unemployment and destitution by manipulating the productive powers of the nation.

It aims to rescue the government from the control of the privileged few and make it function for the use and benefit of all by abolishing monopoly in every form, and to establish in place thereof a system of public ownership and operation of monopolized industries, which will afford every able and willing worker an opportunity to work and will guarantee the enjoyment of the proceeds thereof, thus increasing the amount of available wealth, eradicating unemployment and destitution, and abolishing industrial autocracy.

According to the Minnesota Historical Society, "in 1943, the Farmer-Labor Party merged with the Democratic Party to form the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party of Minnesota." The Party's platform is now very business-friendly. George Bergquist says in "The Dilemma of the Farmer-Labor Party" (Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 3, No. 3 (Jul., 1939)):

A party of this kind, based on trade unions and farmers' cooperatives, is by its nature dedicated implicitly to the task of making the conditions of collective bargaining favorable and farm prices reasonable, and this task implies that of making industry prosperous, since prosperous industry is more able and likely to concede wage demands and better working conditions than is depressed industry. And such an implication is of course exactly counter to the pursuit of any sort of socialist policy, for capitalist prosperity requires that the capitalists have confidence in government and its purpose.

(h/t Left in East Dakota)

"The ferocious attack of capital has undermined hard fought gains made by the working class."

From May Day Statement by the New Trade Union Initiative:

The ferocious attack of capital has undermined hard fought gains made by the working class. The global economic crisis has formed the pretext for granting expanded concessions to capital on one hand and fiscal contraction on the other thereby intensifying the attack on both real wages and the social wage. Real wages are being eroded through a sustained inflationary pressure while the social wage is shrinking through fiscal contraction that has contributed to cuts in both social protection and social security.

[...]

Legislation protecting rights of workers and working people is being violated with impunity and being challenged, by capital, at every step. This has undermined the collective bargaining power of the working class. The growth of the economy has been as a result of shrinking of wages in the share of domestic product and a rapid rise of profits but also as a result of the transfer of savings from the working class. This has been achieved by undermining the public sector and placing it at the disposal of the private sector to facilitate the expansion of private capital.

People who want to be leaders

"The people who want to be 'leaders' are always the absolute last people who should have power over anything."
- Broadsnark

"The only function of government that our rulers see as legitimate and worth spending money on, is war."

Thers:

Why can we kill a guy but not get people jobs? Why can’t we fix bridges that are falling apart? Why can’t we get our shit together to save the fucking planet?

Because we’ve set our mind to do other things, that’s why.

Because the “we” that matters is not we the people.

No matter what Americans want, like jobs, say, we’ve achieved a point in our national history where, increasingly, the only function of government that our rulers see as legitimate and worth spending money on, is war. Even if our wars of choice are ludicrously conceived & then pretty badly botched.

Once upon a time we went to the fucking moon. Now we can’t get out of Afghanistan.

Starve the beast

David Sirota:

In a letter to his membership Tuesday, the president of the International Association of Firefighters announced that a unanimous vote of the union's executive board had frozen all campaign contributions to all federal candidates. Citing both the "extremist" Republican agenda and the refusal of Democrats to "stand up and fight for us," Harold Schaitberger said the resources now denied to federal candidates would be spent in states, where local Democrats have been much more willing to defend the labor movement.

"For every authority, every power, which is not the action of Liberty itself, is only despotism and tyranny."

C.F. Chevé, from his Socialist Catechism:

Q. What is the State?

A. It is the negation of the sovereignty of the People, of Liberty and of democracy.

Q. Why?

A. Because it places the sovereign People under the authority of its delegates, because it imposes on all the will of a few and renders the delegates of the nation masters of those who delegate to them.

Q. Must not society be governed?

A. No; but it must, on the contrary, govern itself.

Q. Do you reject then all authority, and every power?

A. Yes; for every authority, every power, which is not the action of Liberty itself, is only despotism and tyranny.

Q. What if the power should it favorable to the cause of progress?

A. Progress consisting of the realization of unlimited Liberty, the only power favorable to the cause of progress would be that which abdicated and committed suicide, ceasing to exist.

Q. What would you put in the place of the State?

A. Society itself.

Q. And in the place of authority or power?

A. Association, which is to say the mutual and voluntary convergence of all Liberties, the real and spontaneous centralization of all wills in one common will by consent and reciprocal accord, effective, integral, universal solidarity of rights and interests, organizing themselves by the simultaneous initiative of all citizens.

Q. What then would become of what we today call government?

A. It would transform itself into a simple bookkeeping operation, double-entry accounting for a mutual insurance company of which the National Statistics are the balance sheet, the Assembly the responsible and revocable manager, the whole of society the underwriter, and each of the citizens the insured.

Q. What would be the consequence of that reform?

A. The coming of popular Sovereignty and Democracy, which has thus far existed in name only. Indeed, to overthrow the state is to overthrow the monarchy, not only in its form, but in that which forms its source and essence, in the presidential, ministerial, bureaucratic and functionary power that is only a royalty in disguise; to overthrow the state is to render to each of the citizens all the attributions of sovereignty, it is to found the Republic and the Democracy, not just nominally, but in practical reality, in fact and in mores.

"Al Qaeda could only dream of inflicting the damage on this country that our own sick twisted fucks have wrought upon us."

Kurt Weldon:

Bin Laden was a sick twisted fuck. But no country or culture has a monopoly on sick twisted fucks. We have quite a few of them ourselves. Two of them ran this country for eight years. Al Qaeda could only dream of inflicting the damage on this country that our own sick twisted fucks have wrought upon us. After all, bin Laden’s whole strategy was to get us to do to ourselves pretty much what we did to ourselves.

So, yeah, bin Laden deserved it. But I will not rejoice.

I will, however, reflect on the amount of misery and death human beings are willing to visit upon each other in the service of nonsense and lies, whether that nonsense is an afterlife with 70 virgins, a cartoon vision of a master race, or trickle down economics. Religious fanatics deserve a special hell — even though I don’t believe in hell. When you get right down to it, what you’ve got is people willing to kill other human beings for the awful crime of having a different conception of what happens to you after you die.

So long, Osama — it hasn’t been good to know ya. But we helped create you before we killed you. And I know we helped create more than one of you. I also know that we won’t learn to stop creating people like you anytime soon.

Jodi Dean:

Cheerleaders, chants, and beach balls are barbaric responses to the announcement of a political assassination.

Political assassination is not an act of justice. It does not bring about justice in some kind of cosmic tit for tat. It is not the doing of justice. Justice is not done when another is killed in retaliation.

Retaliation, retribution, revenge--are these now the common terms through which justice is understood in the US? Do we think that victims are avenged when their assailant is killed? The victims are still dead, still gone, still mourned. Are they brought back in the acts of terror, torture, and imprisonment enacted in their name?

[...]

We have been reconfigured in a massive psycho-political experiment in transforming democracy into fascism, or a new barbarous variant of fascism, capitalist anarcho-fascism.

We are now the sort of people who cheer for death and murder, who repeat mindless lies, who glory in inequality--not bread and circuses but cheetos and reality tv.

Dennis Perrin:

We have a lot of growing up to do. We are spoiled children in a world where civilized people are considered our inferiors. I have more to say about the Bin Laden circus, but I'm too sick and angry to do so now. Think I'll take a long walk. Hopefully, I won't be pelted by flags.

"This Myth of Redemptive Violence is the real myth of the modern world."

Walter Wink:

The belief that violence “saves” is so successful because it doesn’t seem to be mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It’s what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god. What people overlook, then, is the religious character of violence. It demands from its devotees an absolute obedience unto-death.

This Myth of Redemptive Violence is the real myth of the modern world. It, and not Judaism or Christianity or Islam, is the dominant religion in our society today.

"Maybe we should be more like General Electric - they get lots from the government and they don't pay taxes."

"Hipster entrepreneurs who donate 1% of before-tax profit..."

Wikipedia:

A counter-revolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part. The adjective, "counterrevolutionary", pertains to movements that would restore the state of affairs, or the principles, that prevailed during a prerevolutionary era.

"Hipster entrepreneurs who donate 1% of before-tax profit to Tibet are the worst counter-revolutionaries."
- Troutsky

Get to know a vegan: Gary L. Francione

[source]

Wikipedia:

Francione accepts the tenets of Jainism, and particularly the Jaina doctrine of non-violence, or Ahimsa, linking it to veganism and animal rights. It is this belief in non-violence that makes him non-supportive of violent protest. Francione believes that animal rights can and should be achieved through non-violent direct action alone.

"If we want to change the world, we've got to focus on veganism."
- Gary Francione

"Not until the real manhood there is in war is transferred to the cause of peace will the reign of principles subvert the reign of the sword."

Ezra Heywood, from "The War Method of Peace" (1861):

Men will worship Love, though they work blood – will preach Jesus, though, as a “necessary evil,” they practise Joshua. Lying is one of the “fine arts” of war; they call its “strategy;” that is, falsehood in military boots. Yorktown in the Revolution was won by a lie, and Washington told it. John Brown went to Harper’s Ferry under a false name, – but because he was an Abolition saint, we did not say much about it! Murder is the gravest crime man commits; yet war is murder multiplied by the majority. By what ethics, then, is the man a criminal, and the mass heroes?

[...]

Patriotism involves much truth and heroism – as when Dutch shopkeepers opened their dykes and buried all Holland beneath the sea to save it from the clutch of Louis XIV. – as when the women of Fredericksburg, on bended knees, besought Gen. Lee to burn their city, rather than surrender it to the North – as when these Yankees, who hold their dollar so near the eye that it hides the universe, on the battle-field open their veins by their own vitality to reanimate the drooping State.

[...]

But patriotism, in its final application, is altogether narrow and selfish; dwarfs the man into an American or Frenchman; makes him a satellite of the government – with two or three facts you may calculate his orbit; of a party or sect; or a satellite of the town-pump; rarely sets the discordant notes of partisan strife to the sphere harmony of justice and impartial liberty.

[...]

States desolated, cities sacked, whole populations driven forth to squalor and starvation, beneath skies lurid with the glare of their burning homes, a million Americans still urged to mutual and unrelenting slaughter – no principles I have endorsed necessitate such barbarous measures! For I aspire to be a man as well as an Abolitionist, and slaveholders are my brothers not less than slaves. I know the grand purpose that inspires freemen in this tremendous conflict, – that this red evening cloud may announce a fair dawn to America; that, through the wall of sorrow and desolation, we may hear the music of breaking choirs, the joy of a race restored from slaves to men! But I would not do evil that good may come; I scout the horrid doctrine, that the end justifies the means; therefore, I do not believe in this war.

"But patriotism, in its final application, is altogether narrow and selfish; dwarfs the man into an American or Frenchman; makes him a satellite of the government – with two or three facts you may calculate his orbit; of a party or sect; or a satellite of the town-pump; rarely sets the discordant notes of partisan strife to the sphere harmony of justice and impartial liberty."
- Ezra Heywood