though it’s a pity about our leaders.
I feel bad for the Anonymous hackers who were arrested today, but it’s also a good thing, in that it will radicalize the hacker community even further and force them to adapt and change their tactics. They are the bleeding edge of real resistance, and they have moved far from their libertarian roots and become left wing in their sympathies (targeting a city for refusing to allow the homeless to be fed is as left wing as you can get.)
Since, of course, the DOJ has shown no interest in pursuing those who did DDOS attacks against Wikileaks, it is yet another confirmation that the law, as it exists now, is used as a bludgeon against people the government doesn’t like, while those who the government does like are left alone, and crimes against the government’s “enemies” aren’t investigated. Laws which do not have at least the appearance of being evenly applied are not just, are not perceived as just, and become legitimate targets for breaking.
Meanwhile in England, the Cameron government’s massive slashes to education hit virtually all at once, making an entire cohort of young people know exactly who just did their level best to destroy their lives. This is important, to put it bluntly, young males who don’t have enough money to settle down with a young female are extraordinarily dangerous to the state.
What is interesting about both of these things, and many others recently, such as the austerity bills and various legal rulings from the Supreme Court which don’t even pretend to follow precedent, is how the velvet glove has come off the iron fist of state and corporate repression. The elites think that there is nothing ordinary people can do. Whatever the elites do, no matter how harsh, the hoi polloi can only submit. And if they don’t, well, so much the worse for them.
And yet the system is cracking up. A large part of why all of this is being done is to create ever bigger corporations and ever richer western billionaires, so they can compete with the oilarchies. But recently Russia been minting billionaires faster than US. It’s really hard to state how startling that is. America’s rich have done everything they can to rig the game so they will get richer, they have a bigger base economy to work off of, and they’re still losing the Red Queen’s race. No matter how much they repress their own population, they can’t keep up with the folks who have the real gold of the modern economy: black gold.
Unfortunately, as stupid, venal and brutal as our enemies are (and if they aren’t your enemies you’re a fool or getting a pay check, or I hope you are), our leadership is even more stupid, venal and cowardly. This entire generation of leadership on what passes for the left is beyond contemptible. If they are not outright sell outs of the interests of those they claim to champion, then they are willing to betray anyone but their members, and if with rare exceptions (in the US, basically, the gay leadership) they are cowards, unwilling to risk themselves in any way, unwilling to actually fight. They cavill and moan and condemn anyone who actually fights back. Watching fools demanding that the man who threw a pie at Murdoch be condemned for violence was beyond sad, it was a farce. Violence? It reminded me of all the hand wringing when an Iraqi threw a shoe at George Bush, a war criminal and mass murderer. Oh dear.
And so, while the young are being radicalized, the leaders of the left are unable to provide leadership. They have been selected to be weak and cowardly, to be unwilling to fight, to be compromisers trying to get the best deal possible as long as that deal doesn’t upset the status quo in any real way.
This varies by country. I have more hope, say, for Greece (after they set the finance ministry alight) than I do for the US. But the first job of the left in most countries is not to fight the right, it is to destroy the leadership of the left. To drive them out of power and into the wilderness and either to replace them or to create new forms of organization. And it is to understand that class war is like war, there will be casualties. People will be beaten, people will be killed, people will go to jail. That is what will happen. It can be avoided in only one way, surrender. Suffer exactly what the oligarchs want you to suffer and you will be allowed to live and die in what passes for peace. It will be a peace filled with suffering, hunger, deprivation, and violence not primarily from the authorities but from each other, but if that’s what you want, it’s available. Always understanding, of course, that anyone who won’t fight will have to accept anything the oligarchs do. Anything. When you won’t fight, you only get even scraps if it is someone else’s interest.
There’s an old saying about living on your knees or fighting on your feet. The problem with that is that once you’ve said you’re willing to live on your knees the next question is “will you crawl on your belly?”
And so, in this, not the twilight of the post-war era, for that has passed, but in the dawn of what the oligarchs hope is a new conservative order, that is the question you must answer, “will I crawl on my belly, will I fight, or will I try to make a separate peace?”
The cost of a separate peace, of course, is a sliver of your soul.
One a day.
Cloud
… to put it bluntly, young males who don’t have enough money to settle down with a young female are extraordinarily dangerous to the state.
True that.
But recently Russia has come to have more billionaires than the US. … America’s rich have done everything they can to rig the game so they will get richer, they have a bigger base economy to work off of, and they’re still losing the Red Queen’s race. No matter how much they repress their own population, they can’t keep up with the folks who have the real gold of the modern economy: black gold.
I agree that it’s all about the oil (and natural gas). It’s as much about the oil as Dune, dramatic license in allegory notwithstanding, is about the spice.
bill
Not to quibble, but that Iraqi guy threw his shoes at Bush, not a bomb.
Ian Welsh
Oh, I thought I said shoe. Oops. fixed.
orange
a separate peace, i want my place at court.
anon2525
But recently Russia has come to have more billionaires than the US.
Source?
anon2525
For what it’s worth: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_number_of_US_dollar_billionaires
World — 1210
U.S. — 412
China — 115
Russia — 101
More detail can be looked up concerning the net worth of individual billionaires for each country by following the links at the URL, above.
Notorious P.A.T.
“the Anonymous hackers who were arrested today”
Why can’t we look forward, not backward?
David Kowalski
Close, Ian. Moscow has more billionaires than New York City (IIRC it was 71 to 59).
Notorious P.A.T.
http://tominpaine.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-progressive-gets-progressively.html
“I received an email not too long ago from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee asking me to sign a petition that threatened Obama by telling him that if he sold out on social security and Medicare, they would, in no uncertain terms vote for him anyway.
I’m not kidding. That’s what it said. “
Frank
Anyone that would support a law that prohibits an individual from feeding another individual (homeless or not) is not a libertarian. Maybe a Libertarian (as in a member of the LP) but that’s not the same as a libertarian. Plus, “libertarian roots” and “left wing” roots are the same thing.
Ian Welsh
Corrected on billionaires. Thanks.
Most libertarians aren’t libertarians. But in any case libertarians are not noted for their support of charity.
And no, libertarianism is not left wing. When Ayn Rand is the core of an ideology, that ideology, whatever it may have been, is not a left wing ideology.
Neocons roots are in the left too, as an aside.
Morocco Bama
Christ, I love it when you rant at the faux “Left!!” It reminds me of Lenin in his day……how he would harangue and jeer at the crowd, not afraid to get in their face and shake them up.
May I suggest an excellent movie that is pertinent to the topic at hand. It’s entitled Flame and Citron. Here’s a link to a clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eYEpKeF8X0&feature=related
Mudduck
Dennis Meadows – co-author of ‘Limits to Growth’ – pretty much nails the current situation:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/20603
“In theory we could use peak oil as an opportunity to rethink our society, our reliance on the military and so forth. In practice we’re not going to do that. In practice what will happen, as it becomes clear that peak oil is a reality, the rich and powerful will grab as much as they can, and not worry much about the poor and the weak. What happens after that I’m not sure. If the rich and the powerful can manage to grab a lot, they can sustain a lifestyle for a long time! . . . We also have 5 or 6 other peaks to contend with, leave aside peak oil: peak water, peak food, peak climate and so forth, and collectively they are going to cause a lot of problems.”
It’s the End Times, and they’re withdrawing behind walls to protect the wealth, where monasteries in the Middle Ages organized to protect knowledge.
StewartM
Notorious P.A.T.
FireDogLake, by contrast, has their membership calling their representatives telling them that if they vote to cut SS/Medicare/Medicaid, in any way whatsoever, they lose their vote.
Even that may not be enough now, but that kind of reaction from the left is long overdue. I remember FDL getting a lot of abuse on the Daily Kos and other “liberal” sites for bucking Obama on health care reform and not being “team players”. It seems that events have shown that Jane Hamsher and crew are owed an apology.
-StewartM
anon2525
…If the rich and the powerful can manage to grab a lot, they can sustain a lifestyle for a long time!…
It’s the End Times, and they’re withdrawing behind walls to protect the wealth, where monasteries in the Middle Ages organized to protect knowledge.
There won’t be any place to run to. The monasteries existed in a time when the natural world was not being destroyed. If they were wise, then they would conspire to counter the power of the fossil fuel industry, and do whatever they could to save the natural world.
Notorious P.A.T.
“I remember FDL getting a lot of abuse on the Daily Kos and other “liberal” sites for bucking Obama on health care reform and not being “team players”.”
I remember that. Long story short, I now read FDL most days but have long since moved on from those other sites.
I might have to move on from this site too, since all Ian does lately is play music videos. (kidding!)
Petro
“It’s the End Times, and they’re withdrawing behind walls to protect the wealth, where monasteries in the Middle Ages organized to protect knowledge.”
I really, really hope they’re clinging on to their Dubai island dreams.
“If the water levels rise as a result, I don’t think Disney-on-Dubai is going to be the place to be hanging out. I’m just sayin’.”
Tom Hickey
This is war. Prepare to sustain a lot of casualties. Battle ain’t beanbag.
The Raven
One can also end up on one’s belly if one’s legs are cut off.
I don’t think the leaders of the left are the losers you see. The problem is, there are no leaders, nor enough followers. All the battles of the turn of the 20th century, it seems, are to be refought, until the storms come and the sea rises.
More food for corvids.
Croak!
StewartM
Notorious P.A.T:
Me, I come here for the cheery and upbeat spin on current events. 😉
-StewartM
Oaktown Girl
But the first job of the left in most countries is not to fight the right, it is to destroy the leadership of the left.
I may be dreaming, but I have some slim hope that this may finally begin to happen here in the U.S. if there are huge slashes to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid over this Debt Ceiling bullshit.
There’s an old saying about living on your knees or fighting on your feet. The problem with that is that once you’ve said you’re willing to live on your knees the next question is “will you crawl on your belly?”
Yup.
Ché Pasa
The elites think that there is nothing ordinary people can do.
More to the point, the elites think there is nothing that ordinary people will do that they need to pay attention to.
There’s plenty that ordinary people can do to counter and/or thwart the Plutocracy/Kleptocracy, some of which is being done haltingly here and there now and then (one of the aspects lacking is persistence), but most of it is simply ignored. What isn’t ignored is “put down” — which doesn’t really take all that much overt repression any more. A few “non-lethal projectiles” shot at the crowd, a handful of Anonymi arrests, and there you have it. The proles are quiet again.
Those who are persistent and relentless are not the “left.” The “left” are certainly not the Rebels. The Rebels are the High and the Mighty these days, rebelling against the deadweight of the Parasitical Masses, and they’re winning.
Which should be a lesson to the Masses: if you rebel and persist at it, relentlessly, you will win.
But what passes for the “left” never seems to understand the nature and practice of rebellion.
groo
one point:
Young adults age 15-25 have their brains reorganized, science suggests.
Risk-taking is at its maximum.
The (mostly) males (sorry for the chauvinism, which it should not be) have two options:
a) go to war and fight FOR the status quo
b) Oppose it. Change it.
Later on the brain is rewired, brain cells die and the remaining connections reflect the status quo.
Not here, ofcourse.–Needs another interpretation.
I really do not like this materialist view, but there is some truth in that.
If the unemployment rate is near 40% in this age-cohort, like in Spain or Greece or Egypt or Tunisia, something must happen.
Could be violence or thinking.
Sofar, the thinking dominates.
But this is not welcome for the PTB.
Right?
guest
How can you compare the pie thrower to the shoe thrower? At least the shoe thrower might have drawn blood if Bush hadn’t reacted so quickly, and it was supposedly a grave insult in that culture. I cosign the shoe thrower and his bravery for his rather futile gesture.
I can’t freaking stand pie throwers, or glitter bombers or any of the other jackass stunts like that. I don’t know how violent it is (not much), but it is still assault, and the kind of assault that makes the victim look better, not worse. What’s the point? What’s the message? “I’m willing to break the law and assault you, but I’m not going to hurt you, just playing a childish prank on you that shows that I and my kind are harmless, silly, ineffectual, not to be taken seriously, and I’m going to go to jail and never be allowed to fly again or get a serious job for the privilege of pulling this jackass stunt.” That kind of psuedoviolence is so full of mixed messages that it really couldn’t be more counterproductive if it tried to be. Funny, but all the people I know who think that kind of shit is clever are the kind of people who got suckered by Obambi’s message of hope and empowerment and his pensive staring into the distance 3 years ago. The kind of shallow people who would abhor real violence, and yet can’t see the inconistency of laughing and applauding a pie thrower. If you’re against real violence, at least have the dignity and integrity to see this kind of thing for what it is.
I think true violence like shooting that POS and his POS son in the face, or throwing acid in their faces would have been ultimately counterproductive, but at least it would have been satisfying, and it might have concentrated the minds of the powers that be. It would have been taken seriously. At the very least he should have gone with a pile of shit in the face (flaming, if possible). Instead the joker got what he deserved: he got pwned by a dirty little whore with a heart of lead (sorry, but that is one hardcore golddigger). Joke’s on you loser: shaving cream pie FAIL.
Lisa Simeone
We do. Join us.
http://october2011.org