SEASONED GREETINGS & a MERRY XANAXMAS!!
(CM/P is Fighting to Keep Xanax in the Holidays)
The First Communist--by Simonovic
[As we find ourselves entering Nature's Dead Zone,
the Winter Solstice, and bravely trying to fight back the gloom of endless
Night, of eternal Nothingness, with folk tales of the 'Birth of the Prince of
Peace', it is only meet to consider how the character of the 'King of Kings',
the 'King of the Jews', might have responded to current events taking place in
his Homeland (Is Carrie wack or what?) and the reactions of his Christian
subjects.
Just in the last two years, the US State and Defense
Departments have redoubled their efforts to bring chaos and bloody death to all
those parts of Israel's deep security zone that were once considered quite
friendly to the West, though vestiges of their ancient 'non-aligned' longings might
have been turning their heads toward those ever anti-fascist watch dogs, Russia
and China. The issue of Palestinian statehood alone has caused Western
warriors, centurions to Waste Capital's last days, to renew their bloody
Humanitarian campaigns to bring Democracy to the UnFree World (or vice versa),
regardless of the cost in lives and treasure--the cost paid by the UnFree
World, that is.
In March 2011, a peaceful demonstration in
Damascus--the expression of a popular desire for political reforms, and one
that would be requited a couple months later by the ruling Ba'athist government
headed by Bashar al Assad--was interrupted by gunfire from the rooftops.
The fire was directed at civilian demonstrators, to be sure, but also, and
especially, toward Syrian government officials and security agents.
Eventually this gunfire, universally acknowledged as
originating from foreign, anti-government provocateurs, and well-cover up by a
sophisticated propaganda apparatus based in Europe to feed the highly tenderized
and uncritical Western imagination by the mainstream media, and tacitly
supported by the obsequious, and never-been neutral, UN, was expeditiously
declared a civil war, and the invaded became the moral equivalents of the
invaders. But, then, with the body count surpassing 40K, and the Stop the
Fucking Genocide chorus in full voice, who really cares who's on whose side and
killing whom for what, right?
The pointlessness or hopelessness that was born of
this categorical inanity: END ALL WAR (a real folksinger's critique: 'The
War Is Over/If You Want It' [repeat till you puke]--Ono/Lennon), has led to
resignation among some in the anti-fascist camp. There is weariness even
among some anti-imperialists who supported the reelection of the US president.
As Adorno used to say, The Only Hope Is False Hope.
Regarding the conflict in Syria, a once-and-future
Obama supporter, Russian President Vladimir Putin, put it this way:
"The fighting will
become even more intense, and you [the world in general] will lose tens of
thousands and, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of people," he said.
"If such a price for the ouster of the president [Assad] seems acceptable
to you, what can we do? We, of course, consider it absolutely
unacceptable."
When it comes to the death
and destruction of Others (and it's not too cheap about killing its own), the
US is pretty free in picking up the check--just remember Secretary of State Mad
Albright's response to this cogent query from Leslie Stahl on 60
Minutes about US sanctions against Iraq:
—We have heard that a half million children have
died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is
the price worth it? –
The Mad One: —I think this is a very hard choice, but
the price--we think the price is worth it.—
—60 Minutes (5/12/96)
—Who can blame Susan Rice for not wanting to follow
that class act?! Though she was born to the job.—
So, to get back to the birthday of the
Savior-formerly-known-as The Prince of Peace: How can we celebrate Peace
on Earth or Goodwill to All the Victims of Hurricane Sandy (MSG, starring Paul
McCartney and The Stones), when out the other side of our collective neck we
are proclaiming support for self-avowed Islamic Jihadis, Mujahideen,
anti-secular, anti-democratic, fascoid hope-to-die war fiends? Those who
brazenly blow up the US’s shit and unashamedly splash their summary executions,
beheadings, their car bombings of government buildings (including kids'
schools, hospitals and old-folks' homes) all over You Tube we are then going to
declare the sole representatives of the Syrian people? Their victims? How can we come to
such a dire and delusional conclusion?
Is it, as my dear friend and comrade Duci Simonovic
describes it below in this post, a Politics of Fraud? Or is it just the
late-stage dementia, the nostalgic amnesia, of that morbid condition which is
Consumptive Waste Capitalism? Whatever the fuck ever.
Merry Xanaxmas--with a cyanide back! –mc]
POLITICS AS FRAUD
In
capitalism, politics is reduced to the technique of directing people’s
dissatisfaction towards the realization of the political and economic interests
of the ruling class. This process corresponds to the nature of the “consumer
society”, the last stage in the development of capitalism, when the
consequences of the destruction of nature and man as a natural and reasonable
being become the means for the reproduction of capitalism. At the same time,
the ruling logic of monopolistic capitalism, which is expressed by the
principles “Destroy the competition!” and “Big fish devour small fish!”, has
become a totalizing logic, which through the privately-owned media, acquires a
fatal dimension. This is the origin of the notion that “globalisation”, which
means the neo-liberal model of capitalism, is a “neccesity”. Political
decisions are not based on objective scientific analysis. On the contrary, “scientific analysis”
is based on the strategic interests of the ruling order. In that context, the
fundamental historical truth that capitalism is doomed to fail is discarded.
The political sphere of contemporary capitalism is
integrated into the mechanism of capitalist reproduction and works according to
the laws of the “consumer society”. There is a hyperproduction of the alienated
political sphere in the form of political ideas, groups, parties, media... It
is largely aided by the Internet, which enables the technical production of a
political sphere deprived of sociability and humanity. The political sphere
has become one of the virtual spheres of capitalism, while political parties
are a form of alienation of man’s political being and the means for the ruling
order to deprive man of his elemental human and civil rights. So called “political
pluralism” has turned into a deafening clatter, destroying any chance for a
conversation based in arguments, along with any faith in reason. Instead of
competitive political programs, a ruthless enforcement of political ideals, through
advertizing, has become the chief mode of “political conduct”. Ultimately, the
political sphere of capitalism has become a privilege of the ruling class and
the means for doing away with the political life and the political struggle of
the oppressed working masses. These factors gave rise to fascism in Europe in
the wake of the Great Depression of 1929. The same factors are giving rise to
fascism today.
One of the most important manipulative
instrument used by polititicans is political jargon. Expressions such as
“post-industrial society” have but one purpose, namely, to impart the notion
that capitalism has made a qualitative leap in its development and, in so
doing, they become a new ideological mask hiding its true nature. There are
also other expressions, such as: “democracy”, “late capitalism”, “open
society”, “capitalism with a human face”, “transition”, “free world”... These
terms do not only serve to cover up the destructive nature of capitalism, they
also impose a way of thinking that abolishes any possibility for dealing
critically with the ruling order. Ultimately, the most important aim of
political jargon is not to promote, through lies, the realization of certain
political and economic interests, but to deprive people of their power to
reason and, thereby, to destroy their political being. Reason and the critical
mind are subjected to everyday political needs. Only politically profitable
questions are being posed, receiving the same answers. There are no questions
of principle relating to the basic existential and essential challanges. There
is no ideal of humanity or of a visionary consciousness. The emphasis is placed
on “Political Correctness”, which means doing away with any thinking that might
shed light on the true essence of capitalism and oblige man to take up a
political practice that could abolish capitalism and create a new world.
In the beginning of the 19th Century, Auguste Compte created a “social
physics” (“physique sociale“) according to which all social phenomena should
be in a functional unity so that society, based on the ideas of “order” and
“progress” and guided by the principle of “to know in order to predict, to
predict in order to act” (savoir pour prevoir, prevoir pour agir), could develop without
political conflicts. In contemporary capitalism, these ideas appear in the form
of the empty phrase “organised capitalism”, which is but another name for
contemporary capitalist totalitarism. In “organised capitalism” each area of
human life must become a functional part of the capitalist process of
reproduction. This also refers to man. Not only to his way of living and
behaviour, but also to his character, his way of thinking, interpersonal
relations... – all must fit into the process of capitalist reproduction. In
contemporary capitalism, the basis of capitalist totalitarism is not in
repressive political institutions, but rather in the economic sphere. The whole
of life is subjected to the process of capitalist reproduction, which is
expanding faster and faster. Capitalism drew into its existential sphere all
social areas and turned them into tools for capital accumulation, which means
for the destruction of life. The development of the consumer standard with its
resultant debt slavery, in which a majority of citizens in the most developed
capitalist countries currently live, have become the chief means for drawing
people into the capitalist order. Compte’s “social physics” was related to the
leading ideas of the French Bourgeois Revolution and the political movements of
people deprived of their rights, who sought to create an emancipated bourgeois
society. The idea of “organised capitalism” came on the wings of capitalism as
a destructive totalitarian order and in contrast to the people’s struggle to preserve
life on the Earth. It is a myth intended to prevent the demise of capitalism,
yet only prolongs the agony of mankind. At the same time, contemporary
Nostradamuses, predicting the “catastrophy of capitalism” by discarding the
emancipatory heritage of bourgeois society and changing the potential of the
working class, only contribute to the final annihilation of the world.
For those who fight for “democracy”, the
“freedom of capital” is the main justification for its existence. Capital
acquired the status of an earthly deity, gaining as such an undisputed power
over man. Again it should be pointed out that “democracy” is a political
expression of the domination of capital over people. It follows that the
“development of democracy” actually means strengthening the domination of
capital over people and that “democracy” is not “threatened” when there is a
lack of elementary human and civil rights, but rather when the domination of
capital over man is threatened. This truth is confirmed every day in the most
developed capitalist countries of the West, particularly in the USA. In practice, “democracy” has become the
means for doing away with the guiding ideas of the French Bourgeois Revolution,
which ideas form the basis of modern humanism, as well as the elimination
of elementary human (droits de
l’homme)
and civil rights (droits de citoyen), which are the basis of modern legislation.
The more man’s right to life, to freedom, to personal health and a healthy
environment, to work and a secure existence, to freedom of speech, to family,
to inviolability of the home and private life are breached – the more loudly
politicians swear by “democracy”.
Ironically, under capitalism, democracy - whose original (Greek) meaning is the “rule of the
people” (demos kratein) - means the order under which citizens are reduced to a
working and consuming “mass” and, as such, to the slaves of capital. Capitalist “democracy” is not based on
human and civil rights, but on the absolutized principle of profit, which in
turn is based on the absolutized principle of privite ownership. Anything which
serves to protect private ownership and which provides “freedom” to increase
profit is justified and welcome. When private ownership becomes the absolute
principle, then the most atrocious crimes become legal and legitimate if they
serve to stop the disintegration of the ruling order. Man’s right to life and
liberty is sublated by the right of capitalism to survive. The current state of
the world clearly demonstrates that capitalists are ready to employ any
possible means in order to deal with the outcome of any crisis that might
endanger the ruling order. The destruction of the World Trade Center in New
York and the “attack” on the Pentagon suggest that capitalists will not
hesitate to commit any crime in order to preserve the ruling order.
Proceeding from the axiom that in Germany,
as well as in other advanced capitalist countries, the most important political
decisions are made by an ever-smaller circle of people outside of political
institutions, Jürgen Habermas warns that Germany and other Western European
countries have entered the stage of “post-democracy”, a system somewhere
“between parlamentarism and dictatorship”. However, this tendency indicates the
true nature of “democracy”, which Habermas tries machanically to separate from
“post-democracy”. It is a kind of
capitalist democracy with an inherent potential for fascism, which can easily
be reproduced with the ever-deepening economic and environmental crises in
Europe, along with the low birth-rate crisis in the European nations. Habermas’ view of the contemporary
German political scene shows the futility of his previous analyses of “late
capitalism” and supports the conclusion that “democracy” is but one of the
political guises donned by capitalism at the time of its expansion. With the crisis of capitalism, all
democratic masks are dropped and capitalism shows its true, fascist face. The
example of contemporary Germany (as well as that of the European Union and the
USA) shows that fascism is a manifestation of capitalism in crisis.
Habermas belongs to the school of bourgeois philosophers who, for over
half a century, have been trying to prove that capitalism is on the road to
becoming reasonable, which means that it is developing on a humanist
level. In that context, they
overlook its fascist potential.
Actually, they do not eliminate the fascist potential of German society,
but rather its socialist (communist) potential, the emancipatory heritage of
bourgeois society, including the revolutionary heritage of the workers’
movement and the idea of a new world.
For the German bourgeois intelligentsia, post-war German “democracy” is
the embodiment of the idea of “democracy” and, as such, serves as the measure
of the democratic character of a social order. In such a “democracy”, the
destiny of German (as well as other European) citizens lies in the hands of the
most reactionary political forces in the USA. Over the last 60 years Germany has been an American military
base, and not only have over 100 000 American soldiers been deployed on its
territory (who, along with their families, are not subject to German laws), but
there are also hundreds of nuclear weapons aimed at Russia that can be launched
at any moment (on purpose, by mistake or through sabotage). Since a
counter-attack is something to be considered, Germany (and Europe) could
disappear within 20 minutes. What
kind of “democracy” is it if the citizens are not allowed a say in the most
critical existential issues and are reduced to being hostages of the American
military/industrial complex?
Sloterdijk’s comparison
of the Roman Republic with today’s Germany (in his article “Der Verletzte
Stolz”/“Hurt
Pride“/,
Der Spiegel, 45. no. 2010) illustrates
a narrow-minded way of thinking, incapable of grasping the gist of a particular
society departing from its concrete historical potential. A destructive and fascistoid potential,
on the one hand, and the possibility for creating a society of free people, on
the other, represent a historical quality of contemporary capitalism, marking
the essential difference between the Roman and modern republics. In that
context, today’s depoliticization of citizens through sport and the
depoliticization through gladiator spectacles of the Roman plebs (who were a
parasitic mass of people, whereas modern citizens are employed as hired labour
and, as such, are capitalist slaves), about which Sloterdijk writes, are of a different nature. While
depoliticization of the Roman plebs led to the establishment of the patrician
tyranny, depoliticization of citizens in contemporary capitalism enables
capitalists to destroy life on the Earth. Bearing in mind that the body is
man’s immediate nature and that the destructive treatment of the body in sport
reflects destructive treatment of nature by capitalists, sport actually serves
to impose a life and value model based not only on the destruction of human
life, but of all life in general. Sportsmen are less and less human and natural
beings, and more and more robots, who are, as such, promotional agents for
capitalism. It should be noted here that sport became the means by which
workers were depoliticized not in contemorary capitalism, but in that of the
late 19th century, when workers in England managed to win the right
to an eight-hour working day. From the beginning, sport has been used by the
bourgeosie to “colonize the idleness of workers” in order to prevent them from
developing class conscioussness and to stop their political struggle. The
“Father” of modern Olympism, Piere de Coubertin, insisted on the notion that
sport is an “efficient means” for workers’ depoliticization. Fearing the future
of capitalism, in the wake of the October and Munich Revolutions, Coubertin
held lectures to the European aristocracy and bourgeosie in which he maintained
that “sport is the cheapest soul food for keeping proletarian youth under
control”.
In contemporary capitalism, man does not lose
his freedom, as Sloterdijk claimed, he is rather chained with new shackles.
Essentially, it is about establishing totaliarian control over man, made
possible because the citizens are stuck in the mud of consumer society by a
prevailing conformist mentality. The political marketplace of the most developed
capitalist countries in the West is dominated by the petty bourgeoisie. This
exerts direct influence on the nature of political programs and practice by
political parties. The conformism of (petty) bourgeois captalism is worse
than the most lethal weapons, the secret services and the alienated police and
the army. A
petty bourgeois accepts the loss of elementary human and civil rights in return
for a higher standard of living.
For him, the capitalist order is acceptable because it provides him with
an opportunity to “enjoy” spending and destruction. Actually, a petty bourgeois actively participates in the
creation of a totalitarian state and a totalitarian society based on the fact
that life, itself, conditioned by capitalism, is the source of terror. The
capitalistically degenerated petty bourgeois accummulates dissatisfaction,
which is increasingly manifested as a destructive mania directed against all
living beings. Instead of the need for a just and free world, we see the need for destruction through increasingly
destructive technical means. The purpose of the “action” is to release the pent
up dissatisfaction in a way and through means imposed by capitalism as a
destructive order. This is exemplified by frequent mass killings carried out by
individuals. It is the rebellion
of a capitalistically degenerated man with capitalistically degenerated methods
and means of “struggle”.
Considering the fact that more and more people possess more and more
lethal weapons, the possibility of mutual extermination is increased.
Destruction by technical means with their immediate effects becomes a model for
behaviour imposed by the dominant logic of capitalism expressed in the
principle “Destroy the competition!“. It is this logic that conditions not only
relations between people, classes, nations, races, religious communities,
states, and capitalist corporations, but also those of the petty bourgeois and
nature.
Capitalist progress has mutilated people as biological
beings and, thus, has called into question the possibility of biological
reproduction in the most developed capitalist countries. At the same time,
capitalism exhausted the raw materials and energy resources in those countries
and almost destroyed the animal world and nature as a life-creating environment. Instead of focusing on their own
development based on faith in the future, the (petty)bourgeoisie of the most
developed capitalist countries wish for the demise of other nations that might
“threaten” them by (still) having the capacity for biological
reproduction. Children have become
the greatest curse. The relation
of the (petty)bourgeois towards immigrant workers is the best illustration of
their relation towards the future.
Instead of indicating the true causes of the “white plague” in the most
developed capitalist countries, they are “concerned” with the birth rate of the
immigrant population, which is reduced to “dirty labour” and has the status of
a “lower race”. As far as
“international relations” are concerned, the most developed capitalist
countries do not envisage their own futures proceeding from developing their
own powers, but, instead, coming from the weaknesses of “competitive”
countries: the demise of others
becomes the elementary condition for their own survival. The consequence of the
ever more dramatic destruction of nature is that the ruling principle of
monopolistic capitalism, “Destroy the competition!”, has become the ruling
economic and political principle.
A ruthless war between the most powerful capitalist corporations has
turned the world into a battlefield and man into a capitalist warrior.
It is more and more clear that capitalism cannot deal with, and especially
cannot overcome, the increasingly deep existential and vast social crisis
created by “democratic” measures.
Current political practice in the West indicates that capitalists seek
to deal with the consequences of capitalism by abolishing basic human and civil
rights. The true nature of capitalist “democracy” can be seen in the treatment
of sports fans. Preventive
arrests, barbed wire, steel boxes, cameras, searches, special police
units.... Stadiums have become
concentration camps and mirrors reflecting the true nature of capitalist
“democracy”. The treatment of top
sportsmen, “heroes” of capitalism, also suggests that capitalism cannot reduce
the effects produced in a “democratic way”. Laws have been passed to allow police complete discretion.
Top sportsmen are under constant supervision by the “Olympic police”; they must
report their whereabouts three months in advance, so that the “Olympic police”
can find them and take urine samples in the most humiliating ways. “Great champions” must take off their
clothes whenever ordered to do so by “controllers” and urinate into a cup while
being checked to be sure the urine is flowing from their uretheras! At the same
time, destruction of people in sport has taken on monstrous forms. Increasingly
lethal supstances, blood doping and pregnancy doping, horrific training regimes
to which young children are subjected, transfer of sportsmen, money
“laundering”, the total criminalization of sport by bookmaking mafias, the
development of ever bloodier unto fatal sports disciplines ... – all this
speaks of a ruthless capitalist reality hiding behind the “humanist” messages
and smiling faces of politicians and TV commentators.
The practionners of contemporary fascism are not youth gangs “decorated”
with Nazi symbols, but the capitalist corporations that, by causing an
increasingly deep existential and wideranging social crisis, promote a fascist
ideology. The ruling principle of monopolistic capitalism, “Destroy the
competition!”, is the source of contemporary fascist practices, both in the
economic and political spheres. The capitalist destruction of nature and man as
a cultural and biological being conditions the appearance of and strengthens
the most reactionary political forces.
Along with the possibility of a new society, Capitalism breeds a new (ecocidal)
barbarism. The struggle between these two tendencies is conducted within
capitalism itself. The possibility of the establishment of the second period of
capitalist barbarism (as well as the possibility of the joint demise of the
working and ruling classes) is pointed out by Marx, himself, but that notion is
not given sufficient importance in his theory (and thus is not made integral),
and Marx did not proceed to elaborate possible forms of the development of
capitalism and the possible forms of political struggle against it. At the same time, according to Marx,
the possibility of capitalist barbarism is not just destructive by nature, but
also of an anti-libertarian character.
Marx overlooks the fact that capitalism is essentially an ecocidal barbarism,
in a technological form, and that capitalists are ecocidal barbarians.
Current developments in the USA and Europe indicate that German nazism
was but one of the historical manifestations of fascism and that fascism is the
enfant terrible
of capitalism. In today’s Germany,
over 30% of young people greet each other with a fascist salute, while over 40%
have never heard of Auschwitz. The
reason is simple: over 60% of the Germans do not want the documents testifying
to the crimes of Nazi Germany to be published. And that is the overwhelming majority of the
electorate. The horrible truth
is that for a majority of Germans Hitler made only one mistake: he did not win
the war. One of the examples of
the “development of German democracy” is the law adopted by the German
Parliament in August 2012, allowing the German army to be “employed” by the
ruling regime within the German territory. In other words, German capitalists now have the legal right
to use the army against German workers.
As far as Germany’s global “politics of peace” are concerned, by selling
(with the support of the USA) nuclear-armed submarines to Israel, “democratic” Germany is directly
involved in the campaign to incite a nuclear war, which can result in the absolute
annihilation of mankind.
As for American fascism, which is the pillar of the “new world order”,
its prinicpal characteristic is incitation to war. The American economy is a
war economy. The economic survival of the USA depends on the development of a
military-industrial complex that is the core of the American economy. American domestic and foreign
politics are instrumental in the production of wars and the creation of a war
hysteria, which boosts the stock market value of military production and
enables the plundering of both the American people and the people of the
countries under American domination. The war psychosis serves to deprive the
American citizens of elementary human and civil rights and to justify the
terror of an growing number of secret agencies surveilling American
citizens. Early in 2012, American
President Barack Obama signed an act, passed by both Houses of Congress, which
allows for the arrest of American citizens by the US Armed Forces, without a
warrant, and permits their indefinite detention without the right to legal
counsel. At the same time, the
American Army is “entitled” to kill anyone on this planet who is declared by
the government to be a “threat to the security of the USA”. Barack Obama has signed hundreds of
death warrants for people, who are not American citizens, based on the
presumption of guilt. During their
execution (primarily by means of unmanned aricraft flown by remote control), a
large number of women and children have been killed, which, by the standards of
“American democracy”, is considered “collateral damage” and is not counted as a
crime! In addition, the destruction of over 6 billion “surplus” people on this planet has become a legitimate
political option for the USA.
As
for Noam Chomski, he claims that American citizens are “ill-informed” and that
is the main reason they support “their” government. At the same time, he claims
that the American citizens are guided in their relation to the world by moral
principles and reason. Actually, the American (petty) bourgeois, like the
(petty) bourgeois all over the world, are guided by their private
interests. A large majority of the
American “middle class” were aware that Saddam Husein did not have any weapons
for mass destruction, yet they welcomed Bush’s aggression against Iraq,
believing that the USA would get hold of Iraqi oil and thereby improve their
standard of living. The atmosphere
changed when, instead of cheap oil, more and more corpses of American soldiers
were shipped back to the USA and the increased costs of the occupation of Iraq,
which was doomed to failure after the atrocious crimes of the invaders led to a
decisive resistance by the Iraqi people.
The same thing happened in Vietnam and with other American aggressions.
Launching wars is the most popular way by which American presidents have
demonstrated their “toughness” and gained approval from the “middle class”,
said to be the most important political force in the USA. American citizens are directly
responsible for the heinous, criminal policies of their governments. The same
can be said for the German (petty)bourgeois, who are directly responsible for
the crimes of their soldiers in Afghanistan, just as their predecessors were
responsible for the unspeakable policies of the Hitler regime, which they
followed in blind obedience.
x x x
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