Category: jam esc
Whitewashing the Classwar
24th April
So a certain Mr. Kevin D. Williamson published this article in the National Review Online. Go read it, the rest of this can wait.
For those of you who can’t be bothered to click-and-read, Mr. Williamson argues—perhaps convincingly—that, since the Reagan era, the super-rich got poorer, and the poor got richer, and he gives some data that appears to back this claim up. He goes on to make the point that the richest people in the year 2000 were different people than the richest people in the year 2010, and therefore that the claim made by so many on the left, that ‘the rich are getting richer,’ is just so much hooey, and therefore the wingnut lefties are all crackpots.
US Uncut visits Bank of America
18th April
US Uncut’s flash mob at Bank of America made me cry. GoGo! And I especially like the way some of the tellers appear to be thinking ‘Right On!’
We need quite a bit more of this in the United States, and not just against BofA, but against all Corporate and Political entities that 1) act as if they are above the law; 2) profit by screwing the poor and the elderly out of their hard-fought wages and savings; 3) encourage and extent corporate entitlements and redistribution of wealth from the poor to the super rich.
We The People must rise up and shake off the bonds of Capital and the power that comes with it. We must all stand up, band together, and chip away until we bring the corporatocracy to its knees, until the State and its corporate owners retake their … Read More »
Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
3rd April
Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
With the likes of Vanity Fair crying foul, can there be any doubt about it?
Yes, my friends, this is Class War, and we’re losing.
The Middle Class needs solidarity with itself, and must band together with the disadvantaged classes to topple the current social order.
Don’t let the rich and powerful confuse you!
Muslims are not our enemies; Jews are not our enemies; Christians are not our enemies; and Mosques are as holy as Churches and Synagogues!
African-Americans, Hispanics, and Arabs are not our enemies, and this country was built by and for Immigrants of all shapes, sizes and colors!
Our neighbors are not our enemies, be they teachers, fire fighters, welfare queens, obnoxious jerks, union members, or any of the other groups that regularly find themselves under attack.
The 1%ers—and those that pander to their whims—are our … Read More »
On the Class War, part 1
28th March
If you’ve been following the liberal media [and by that, I mean, pretty much, Democracy Now, AlterNet, and similar Left, Progressive, whatever, but news organizations that focus on the plight of the working and unemployed populations, rather than advertisers and profit making/taking.]; if you’ve been paying attention to the union fights in Wisconsin and throughout the midwest; if you’ve paid any attention to the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Lybia, and the rest; or even if you’ve merely noticed the gulf between the super-rich (and the leaders we elected that are always already wholly-owned subsidiaries, of the super-rich) and other 99% of the population, you might suspect that something is amiss in American and world/human society.
On Capital, part 3: Capital and Desire
27th February
So Capital is useful, in that it enables trade, but in doing so it alienates all sides of an exchange from the products being exchanged and from one another. While this is a problem, it is not insurmountable, or, rather, it may be insurmountable, but it could be alleviated somewhat, perhaps though an campaign of education or through direct intervention by individuals and groups. The biggest problem, and the one that can only be overcome if all humans everywhere decide to cooperate, is Capital itself, its desire, what it wants.
On Capital, part 2: the Uses and Abuses of Capital
27th February
So Capital has its uses (enabling trade and all), and you won’t find any argument from me on this point. After all, without some sort of system for creating, storing, and transmitting value, we wouldn’t have many of the luxuries we enjoy in the Early Twenty-First Century: I wouldn’t have a cheap, used netbook to type this on while I listen to crappy TV shows, streamed via Hulu on a MacBook Pro across the room, because it’s unlikely that a society based on mutual aid would choose to create netbooks, crappy TV shows, Hulu, MacBook Pros, or any of the things we normally think of as leisure goods. Without some form of Capital, there would be no Google, no Apple, no Microsoft; no Presidents, Prime Ministers, Kings, Judges, Governors, Police, Emergency Services, or anything of the sort; limited options for … Read More »
On Capital, part 1
5th February
In previous posts, I’ve made a bunch of rather bold claims about capital, and so maybe it’s time I talk a bit about what capital is and how it operates, or, rather, what I (perhaps mistakenly) think of capital and how I believe it operates.
Class, part 3
30th January
In the previous two discussions of class, I gave a brief history of the class structure, and sketched out a theory of how humans moved from no classes to two classes, then to three, four, many, and then back to two again, sort of. To reiterate: in the United States (and many other societies) class has nothing to do with the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. It’s not about the Rich and the Poor, nor is it about the producers and the consumers, though all of these have a place in the discussion. The class structure (and the resultant struggle) exists between those members of the society who consume without thought or question, and those who refrain from such consumption to every possible degree.
Class, part 2: the Class Structure, or Lack Thereof
30th January
Once upon a time, there were only two classes: the ruler(s) and everyone else. (Of course, prior to that, there was only one class, that is, there were no classes, because everyone worked together to build a society for everyone.) As populations—and thus society—grew, other classes developed: the courtier class (lackeys of the ruling class), the merchant class (who moved goods around and provided some limited services to the population), a class of clergy persons (who, depending on who you ask, provided hope and healing to the population, or those who kept the people asleep and in line so the ruling class could continue ruling without interference or worries of revolution, and maybe both), and the rest, the hoi polloi, rabble, the people.
Class, part 1: the History of the United States is a History of Class Struggle
30th January
In case you weren’t aware, the Pilgrims weren’t the only people who landed on Plymouth Rock: there were also slaves, indentured servants, women to entertain the male Pilgrims, and other non-pilgrim sorts of folk who supported the Pilgrims by building, farming, cooking, and making while the Pilgrims prayed and otherwise got their Pilgrim on.
There are far more thorough (and more patriotic) discussions of this out there, and I’m not going to go into much detail, but believe: the country may have been founded by a bunch of pious folk who wanted to pray to their version of the one true god and who had no love for tax-paying, but the country was built by slaves, on a foundation of bent-backed indentured servants, and painted with the blood of wantonly slaughtered indigenous peoples. And all of these people, without whom the … Read More »
