miguelitoh2o's picture

    Breaking the Social Contract

    The natives are restless. We used to get to come into the castle when the marauders and pillagers arrived at the city’s walls in exchange for our support and defense of the realm. Not any longer. This war is being fought in the realm of ideas and promulgated by the plutocracy through their public relation branches, aka the MSM. The people have taken to the streets with amorphous discontent and amorphous demands. The only given is that they’re not going to go away. They’ve spied the little man behind the green curtain, dispensing aphorisms, misinformation, and advice, and have decided to call him out. It’s become clear that no one in a position of power or wealth gives a fig for them. The best plan the owners of the world can come up with is to discredit them, or failing that co-opt them and their movement. With luck de-fuse the smoldering keg on the doorsteps of our moneyed class. With more luck, that moneyed class will recoup all or most of the debt owed them from the 99% who don’t enjoy the economic clout to cause the renegotiation of their debt. The most the 99% can count on is to have legislation introduced to forgive penalties on early withdrawals from their IRA accounts so they might pay back the bankers while risking their personal safety net.

    It becomes harder to dismantle this social bomb as the people get closer to the edge of economic survival, but these are some committed flaks we’re up against. As each day passes it becomes clear that any sense of noblesse oblige that may have once existed in the upper echelons of society has devolved into a cynical PR operation designed to sway public opinion toward the belief that someone, anyone still cares about those 99% of Americans who don’t belong to the club. And to instill fear of changing the status quo. Still, as resources dwindle and personal debt accumulates while the middle class strives to maintain a lifestyle before it diminishes to mere economic survival; it becomes harder to distract the unwashed masses from the underlying truths. As a Buddhist might say: Painted cakes don’t satisfy hunger. And no matter how hard the economic elite spin this, the underlying reality that is sparking the public’s discontent remains the same. I take heart in the way the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its’ failed ideas and implementations, for the same thing can happen here in the West. All the PR in the political universe can’t spin away the level of unemployment and debt slavery that is the apparent goal of the plutocracy.

     


    Eventually the oligopoly will call out the police in an effort to maintain order. They’re all ready there with swinging batons and pepper spray here in the early skirmishes of the Occupy Wall Street movement. This is just the beginning. It will get worse, and maybe we’ll have our own “uniquely American” version of tanks entering Tienamen Square, and a few martyrs to rally around, but probably not. The oligarchy learned that lesson pretty well at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. More likely the movement will be baited, provoked into doing something that could ostensibly justify quick and decisive police action to shut it down, while a parallel slam by the MSM press discredits the movement. As leaders emerge, there will be attempts to expose any flaws in their personal histories, and otherwise discredit any movement mouthpieces that emerge. In the meantime they’ll be trying to trip the rabble up in beltway debates in which most sane non-policy wonks will end up in verbal quicksand sooner or later. If not, they’ll seek a way to co-opt the movement, then sucker those who fall for it in the standard bait-and-switch following the election.

    Still, I don’t see this going the way the oligopoly might want it to. We’ve reached a kind of saturation point at which there is no turning back. We’re arriving at the point at which the spell has been broken in a sufficient number of American minds to carry the seminal desire for reform forward. There’s a growing communal knowledge that no one in power is listening anymore, and that no one will do anything to stem the tide that is washing our citizenry out to sea, to sink to oblivion off the front pages of the remaining news outlets that would bother printing the demise of Joe Everyman. There’s no telling where that will end, but I think the pre-manufactured ideas of the Kochs of the world will carry little weight when it’s you, your family, and your friends on the bread lines. So in some ways the form of our discontent should stay just as amorphous and unfocused as it has been. It makes it harder for the political and moneyed class to pin down and subsequently disown based on some manufactured intellectual abstraction. Eventually they’ll snap to the fact that telling the people to eat those painted cakes isn’t gonna cut it. Eventually they'll realize that they aren't the only ones who can break the social contract that has existed between the rich and the poor for most of human history, when we are at their gates.

    Comments

    Brilliant


    Yes. Brilliant is the word.  Very eloquently stated.

    Bottom line is we don't really know where this will go or what will happen.  We just don't know.

    In Denver we are having an open forum on mssion and goals instead of a general assembly this evening.  I am hopeful that the majority present will agree that we can at least have a vision and mission statement even if we do not move immediately to stating goals as they are the most broad and inclusive.  I have been working on this in preparation because I have done things like this before with huge crowds of people and it can help to put thought into it on your own so that you have condensed down your own peice of the puzzle before sharing it.

    I had to review for myself what belongs in a vision statement and what belongs in a mission statement.

    The trick with this in my view is that the movement wishes to include the majority views but may never have that many millions of people participating directly in order to actually represent that in reality.  However we can do our best to consider what the majority of Americans agree on.  Once we grog that I think we can allow ourselves to being setting goals.

    For my part or piece of the puzzle I will be presenting:

    Vision:  (This is supposed to be a Big Hairy Audacious Goal)

    To Live in a world where the hearts, minds, and wills of the majority of people are fully expressed.

    Mission:

    The Occupy Denver movement stands in protest to the co-opting of our democracy and takes action to inspire and encourage the majority of people in the US and around the world to recognize and reclaim their political power and to restore or establish democratic governance.

    I can't wait to see what the combined efforts co create.

    I solicited donated items for Occupy Denver yesterday and I spoke with a woman who at first acted as if there was no hope that our efforts would actually result in anything.  I said it's like the ship is sinking...   we can watch it go down or we can try to keep it from happening.  It's a choice.


    However we can do our best to consider what the majority of Americans agree on.

    This is an important sentiment synchronicity.  If the movement is seriously going to represent the 99% - or at least a significant majority - it needs a broad-based vision.

    The major tension I see so far in the variety of statements emanating from the protests is the tension between anarchism and democracy.   Young people are frequently drawn to both of these ideals.  But in the end, they are incompatible.  To put it simply, democracy is a form of government: a way of organizing a society, reaching social decisions and establishing a rule of law founded on equality, and on stable popular and majoritarian institutions.

    Anarchy is the repudiation of government, and it exalts the individual will over social organization and cooperation.  There is no such thing as a democratic anarchy.

     


    Yeah but in an anarchy man, everyone can do as they like and not get bad news like parking tickets man...

    And like your dog can run free without fear of retribution from some repub prick who hates freedom man.

    And you can like pee anywhere you wish.


    hah.

    I get the impression, though, that many of the young agitators are not so much taken with no-rules anarchy as with something more like the Burning Man Festival ethos.

    Also there is the similar "Anonymous" version of things where it's basically fuck-your-laws-here-is-our-moral-consensus, Robin-Hood style (V for Vendetta, basically same thing.)

    A reminder to all that the anti-consumerist Vancover group Adbusters (their website bears the subtitles "Culturejammer Headquarters" and "Journal of the Mental Environment") was really the main originator of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests, and their intent was, and still is, a a global movement, as witnessed by what they have on their home page right now.


    Yes, AA, and David Graeber apparently has an organizing role:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber

    Graeber has a very well-received new book on the history of debt, and I am looking to reading it.  He's also a noted anarchist scholar.

    But I've been frustrated with that faction of the contemporary left for some time.  I think the left took a very bad turn when it grew infatuated with Chomsky and the other "libertarian socialists", and that is one reason why they have been bumbling in the wilderness for so long as the right has run circles around them and come to dominate society.   Ever since the New Left, its been one individualistic, countercultural wave after another, with all the energy and emphasis on how people can further detach themselves from their society, and declare their personal independence and liberation from it, rather than govern it effectively.  It's just prolonged adolescent rebellion, a symptom of the infantilization and narcissism promoted by commercial society, with seemingly strident youthful declarations of cultural and behavioral independence always followed up by capitalist co-option and political neutralization.  People attached to this outlook seem unwilling to take on the responsibilities of actually assuming sustained control of their society and governing it, and prefer to remain outside all institutional power structures so that they can be permanent dissidents or protesters or rebels.  Their narcissistic and individualistic rebellion usually degrades into a mere style and repertoire of personal tastes and hobbies with adulthood.

    It's no wonder that with so much of the left obsessed for so long with withdrawing from governance and institutions into dreamy romantic individualism, and eschewing legislation and direction and durable political structures, the right has had a free hand to build up and dominate the institutions that now rule our society.  The left needs to go back to democracy,  regenerate the capabilities of the democratic community, and ditch the anarchist/libertarian aversion to organized power and institutions.  "Occupy Wall Street" will just end up as another soundtrack to a clothing person if its participants don't get serious about adult governance.

    During the Iraq War, I used to read a lot of stuff on antiwar.com, and even supported them financially.  But that's not my scene anymore.  It's not that I don't see anything of value in that area of discourse.  But I decided that I couldn't support the connections with libertarianism, Ron Paul, the gold bugs, the free-bankers and the other factions of the radical right.  I incline toward a form of democratic socialism, and believe the romantic individualism of the libertarian/anarchist schools of thought are fool's gold for progressives: an open door to profound inequality and rule by the strongest and most competitive.  If a community wishes to prevent itself from being dominated by a few strong individuals and corporate entities, it has to maintain the resolve to stay united in solidarity, make rules to prevent these usurpations and enforce those rules.  The power of concentrated wealth can only be fought with the countervailing power of a committed democratic society.

    There is to my mind both a lack of social and psychological clarity and intellectual maturity in anarchistic thinking, including a very wooly and romantic view of a potential economy without any structures and hierarchies and regulatory apparatus, where everything is spontaneous and voluntary and governed by a creative mutuality.   But there is no coherent laissez faire egalitarianism or democracy.  Laissez faire is just political negligence, and leads ineluctably to rule by a few.

    I've also been reading and debating libertarian philosophers in the current scene, and discovered many have strongly elitist and anti-democratic views.  Some have defended a view called "epistocracy", according to which everyone has a "right" not to be ruled by people who are more ignorant than them.  But it's inherent in the democratic ideal, as I understand it, that people have to be willing to bind themselves to others in a community of political equals, and submit themselves to democratically enacted rules, even when those rules are foolish, an made by people who aren't as smart as they are.


    I don't sense any libertarianism at OB. Almost the opposite, in fact.


    Thank you for that, I did not know. I tracked down the Oct. 3 interview with him by Ezra Klein.  In it, he mentions getting involved at the first meeting for it after the idea had been promoted by AdBusters. In the interview, he stresses the anti-institutional direct democracy approach (which Genghis describes in his post as being frustrated with,) because they/he think the current institutions of society are the problem. Note his ambivalent attitude about unions in the interview. I think the wikipedia writers are correct that the approach/ideology is derived from the Situationists.

    To be clear to anyone who might misinterpret, I am not trying to imply that Adbusters or Graeber continue to have some kind of insidious guiding hand behind the curtain. To the contrary, actually their theory here appears to be to act as a catalyst and not to guide things at all. I was just looking for an explanation for some of the behavior Genghis described in his post, and then the very ironic complaint on their website about others trying to piggyback off their name. I found that; now I understand better.

    I would just suggest that it might rather be the case here that there is great appeal in their anti-institutional approach to protest to the more libertarian all along the American political spectrum, rather than them being highly libertarian. Hence we see things like Rand Paul fans trying to piggyback. But it's less clear that an anti-institutional anarchist or libertarian end game was expected; rather seems more like expecting new institutions to come from groundup direct democracy. (That can of course bite you in the ass. Yes, very idealistic. See California direct democracy, proposition system. See Egypt and Islamists vs. seculars for that matter. Thinking like this comes from despair at a system seen as no longer tolerable, that it has to be remade. And if practical, a realization that finding something tolerable after the "revolution" is going to be a very long process.)


    To the contrary, actually their theory here appears to be to act as a catalyst and not to guide things at all.

    Yes, I agree.  There is no one message, and no one entity or group of activists can control the message.  It's a free-form and dynamic work in progress.  The more people get involved and contribute their own thinking to the discussion, the broader the base will be.


    Your remark about being a catalyst points directly to what is most attractive to me in these protests;

    The right to assemble is not only being able to create new groups but a chance to sponsor events without owning them.

    Unlike the WTO protests, this event invites those who gave the Reagan dream a shot to complain about what was promised to them: "Cast your kayak upon the waters and your cash level will rise."

    The thing about broken promises is not so much about getting paid as stopping a certain way of talking from being okay any longer.


    Erasing Islands where no islands should go.

    http://vimeo.com/28970463

     


    A apt challenge to my comment and a good Columbus Day song.


    Miguel this is an interesting moment in history as they say.

    You kind of map out one scenario that is more than possible.

    The right wing media is certainly against this mirror image of the teabaggers. But that is a good sign to me because it means the right wing teabaggers cannot hijack this incipient movement.

    And the unions are backing these 'sit ins' and the unions are kind of being accepted by the people on the ground.

    MSNBC is covering this pretty well with Shultz there on the ground.

    The tech is there to protect these people. Under pitched tents they have their laptops going and IPODS with camera action and there is no way the government can hide or censor this stuff.

    And the movement is spread out into 16? cities, so far.

    And there are the beginnings of a list of grievances already drawn up and posted.

    At any rate I am not as depressed about all of this.

     


     

    MSNBC is covering this pretty well

     

    And as can be expected  Olberman's doing a good job.


    Promises, promises, promises made and broken

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta  Magna Carta lasted 3 months

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal  Been under attack from inception.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society

    One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
    Martin Luther King, Jr.

    ************************************************

    No more empty promises; time is running out

    If this revolt goes under ground it will reemerge; then who can  restrain the anger?

    We plead, that those who can do something, do it now, before we have a social collapse along with the financial collapse.  Who can save himself, when this occurs?

    God help us.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5M_Ttstbgs

    Something happening here ................END

    What an indictment; we had the tools to prevent it and failed to use them. 

    Instead of Love thy Neighbor bringing peace and harmony  ....Selfishness and greed will destroy our civilization.

    What excuse will we have before the Great Judge;..... give us more time?  We promise?


    What an indictment; we had the tools to prevent it and failed to use them

     

    I've used this before. He was an anti Semitic, sexist  reactionary but TS Eliot knew how to describe futility

     

    Here in the land of lobelias and tennis flannels

    The rabbit will burrow and the thorn revisit

    And the wind will say

    Here lived a decent godless people

    Their only monument the asphalt  road

    And a thousand lost golf balls

    At least as I remember it. I think it's from the Hollow Men.


    Those lines are from The Rock.


    The plutocracy went to war in 2003 in spite of millions of very focused antiwar protesters in the streets here and around the world. The message was simple, Bush is a liar and don't start another war. It didn't work.  The war went on and he was re-elected. The main problem in America is the social contract between money and elections, how millions are needed to get the votes of 'undecided' until the last minute low information voters. Perhaps the OWS crowds will help them to wake up to reality.


    1000 Jews showed up to read a Nol Kidre for Yom Kippor - reminds me of when Yippies exorcized the Pentagon.

    This movement is getting interesting - especially because it doesn't have a focus - it's like Stone Soup - everyone showing up to add their dash of ingredients.

    The Oligopoly knows how to tear down defined movements. But when the movement is amorphous, when it doesn't give them a hard target to ridicule, they have no way to draw their viewers.

    The best they've done so far is "get a job". But that's pretty hollow with record high unemployment.

    An editor of the American Spectator "infiltrated" an occupy march in DC and got people pepper sprayed. There will be more of these fake protestors. It becomes important to ignore 1 or 2 propaganda cases, and keep an eye on how the movement is evolving overall.

    And Obama should be feeling the heat - at some point someone's going to ask him to do something that he follows through on, not just a show piece. Does he even have the power anymore?

     


    Here's a good interview with a Dkos blogger/OWS supporter on ABC's This Week.  I think he did a good job against a formidable panel.  Esp liked his response to George Will questioning him about why he would ask a corrupt, powerful government to be more powerful. Here's the link to the interview:
    abcnews.go.com/.../...
    abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/roundtable-reactions-wall-street-protests-14699460

     

    H/T Ohio gringo.


    Thanks. Yes good response to Will.


    The British Crown and their lobbyists didn’t give a crap about the grievances of the American colonists.

    The 1% doesn’t give a crap about the other 99%

    It is going to be self evident.

    “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1AghS3sNSk

    I appreciated the gentlemen remarks about where is the movements solutions to the problems we face, as though the Occupy crowd is responsible to solve the problem.

    When the problem is the status quo is too deeply entrenched. Trimming around the edges won't work. when uprooting the whole root is probably the only solution.

    Everyone is aware that those in power are not listening and they really don't give a crap.

    They've waxed fat, they've benefited by the corruption, why would they seek to diminish the profitableness derived from the corruption

    Instead they're going to ignore and hope eventually the mob will return back to their homes and STFU.

    In the mean time "heres the castle gate, the barn door; go ahead and take out  your frustration, beat on it, rant all you like, then go home.


    Nice Señor Peeg. Thinking of re-patriotating?

    I dunno, your recent address kinda robs your formally authoritative voice. That said, I hope all is well in Peegalito-world. Very much so. xo6pywy


    ​Ack, that was xo. Really.


    I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere

    When the water filled every hole.

    And thousands upon thousands made an ocean,

    Making islands where no island should go.

     

    Oh no.

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrNgcC4VCKQ

     


    What Occupy Wall Street Protestors Want

    "WHO is the economy FOR? The top 1% or the 99%? How can 400 people have as much wealth as the BOTTOM 150 MILLION people? Why should workers who’s labor CREATES wealth be reduced to corporate serfs, considered disposable?"

    http://www.laprogressive.com/progressive-issues/occupy-wall-street-protestors/


    Farewell brilliant one. Brilliant in every sense of the word. My world became darker today. (hugs)


    Hello, bwakfat. Care to share what happened? It's fine if you'd rather not.


    I received this by email minutes ago from a former Dagblogger. No more details at this time.

    Sad news, our friend Miguel Gustav Fuentes Jones died in Thailand a few days ago. There's a little more info from one of his friends in Mexico on my Facebook page, and I don't have the heart to summarize it, so here's a screenshot.
    I did know that he was in Thailand but not much else. Sad news, indeed.

    Thank you, Lulu. Indeed tragic. I didn't get personal with him but as a forum participant, I knew miguelitoh2o as very special, very talented in communicating with others, very talented in soothing a savage beast, whatever the cause. Kindliness oozed from his writing. Condolences to all who knew him better.


    Jessica Monro Michael was diagnosed with congenital heart disease about 8 years ago and his health was deteriorating before he went to Thailand. One of the symptoms of the disease is dizzy spells and passing out. About a week ago he had a really bad fall in his apartment where he hit his head and bled a lot before coming to. I thought he was recovering, but today I saw his sister's post that he had died. She's still awaiting more word from Thailand and dealing with her own grief. He is a great spirit.

    Sorry AA, I fb'ed genghis, destor, cmauk and cville--forgot to post over here.  Bwak was looking out, though.

      Can't reach Quinn or Canuck, tho., if anyone else can, they should be told

     


    They're informed.


    We'll miss you, brother. 

    Great heart, great wit. 

    Damn it all to hell, this is a misery.

    Much love,

    Q

     


    He was a great writer. I was very sorry to hear the news.


    Oh I miss this guy Q!

    He would write about riding on his 'hog' and smokin dope with the irreligious! ha

    DAMN!


    Link to later works by Miguel, copied from another thread

    There is a website, I saw it day before yesterday, and will try to track down the link.

     

    edit to add:  here it is:

     

    http://miguelitoh2o.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-city-of-divine-beings.html

    There is the same info. in a news post here, where comments can also be made.


    You liked him!

    So did I.

    That's all I got.

    I am lost.


    How sad.  So sorry to hear this.  His writing was exceptional.


    Very Sad.


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