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In the Year 2025
A Message From Dear Leader Palin:
Comrades, your attention please. As we come now to mark a dozen years spent as your Dear Leader, I thought it might be worthwhile to take stock of our achievements. And as Thanksgiving time rolls around once more, I thought it only proper to take stock of our blessings, and give thanks to the Lord Jesus for all he has given us.
We should be thankful, to begin with, for our unity as a nation. Many of us remember well the ugliness of the democracy our parents suffered under, with all its messy dissent and nasty name-calling. That is now over for good. In our last election (which was, truly, our last election), fully one hundred percent of the population of God's chosen country voted in favor of making me Dear Leader For Life, an astonishing show of unanimity and national will. No more ugliness, no more division, no more worrying "Should I vote for Tweedledee or Tweedledum?" choice. We are one people now, with one Leader, as God always intended.
We must be thankful as well for our freedom from freedoms. I know I speak for all of those from my generation who can remind you younger patriots of how destructive it was to the national peace when anyone could say anything, when people could disrupt our family prayer hour with demonstrations on the street, when sexual deviants could undermine our wholesomeness by getting married or serving in our military, or when Muslims defamed the name of our Lord Jesus by their very presence in America. We are so much freer now without these infernal threats to our well-being and our perfectly rigid belief structure. And we are so much truer to what our blessed Founders had in mind when they wrote our Christian Constitution.
Similarly, now that we have finally cleared our airwaves of all the smut that used to clog them, we are so much happier as a society. Why would anyone require anything other than PaliFox, anyhow? It provides all the entertainment we need, and just enough news to remind you of your civic duties, but not so much as to make you worry anymore. Isn't that a relief? Let us be thankful for this blessing, and also for how much it has blessed your Dear Leader's personal Patriot Account.
I am happy to report that all of our wars are going swimmingly. And we don't even have to worry anymore about catering to wimpy fussbudget allies who were constantly complaining about torture this, and international law that, and all those other effete niceties Eurosissies love so much. We may be fighting clear across the evil Muslim world all by ourselves but, by golly, we don't have to worry. We are a great and exceptional nation, and our god kicks butt on their silly deity. We should be especially thankful now for all our men in uniform - the straight, the male and the many. They protect us from terrorists every day, and we join in thanks for their service, and for the way the country has rallied around our universal military service policy so necessary to fight all these wars at once.
We are not only more secure in the world now, but we are also more economically secure since our National Patriotic Readjustment Policy went into effect recently. Banning unions, the minimum wage, productivity-choking rules like the forty-hour week, and ruinous red tape from bureaucratic agencies like that old OSHA thingy, we've now created the model economy for our great nation. Our human resources are the best in the world, and our rich elites are therefore unsurpassed in their wealth. We have achieved one of the highest degrees of income diversity on the planet! You betcha. We're America! Everything we do is great.
To be sure, it took some doing to get where we are. The country I inherited was a mess. It got so bad that our last president wasn't even an American. Plus, he was a Muslim and a socialist, and he wasn't even white like presidents are supposed to be. But we rolled up our sleeves and got to work, and now it's morning in America again. Again.
Of course, we had to get rid of the dissenters and the whiners and the bleeding-heart evildoer coddlers, but that tough love is what it takes to have a healthy society. And I think the Liberal Reorientation Camps are working out pretty great, don't you?
Look at how much better off we are, too, now that we've re-learned the great lessons of self-reliance that long-ago generations had understood so well. Our seniors have toughened up since we got rid of those Social Security and Medicare albatrosses that made them so soft in the past. They no longer have to take care of their homes anymore, and every time I visit them in the Patriot Palaces we've constructed they all tell me how much nicer life is now. True, they don't live as long as they used to when they got health care and stuff, but believe-you-me the Ministry of Information is working on correcting those statistics even as we speak. Pretty soon America's seniors will be living longer than ever!
Same with the youngins. All that public education was making them weak at the same time it was draining our financial resources. Not anymore. I'm so proud of our country when I see our wee little Entrepreneur Scouts working in factories almost as soon as they can walk! Our education system is so much more suited to our needs today. No more Emerson for everyone, no more algebra for all. Now we focus our teaching like a laser beam, and our little worker bees learn just exactly what they need to be super productive at the factory - not a bit less, and definitely no more.
We are also able to produce so much more these days, having stripped away all that socialist environmental regulation. And none too soon, either! Now that Manhattan and most of Florida are nearly underwater, we can't be worrying about such trivialities as we man-up to build the barricades we need to keep the raging waters at bay.
One of our greatest achievements has been to finally tame the powers of the government, so that it can be as good as a great nation like ours deserves. We've moved the White House back to Wall Street, where Washington himself took the oath of office. It's so much better that way, since government officials no longer have that long commute to get to work anymore.
And renaming Congress as the House of Lords was such a great stroke. I want to thank Vice President Palin and Homeland Security Secretary Palin for that great idea, and for restructuring our legislative branch so that it has all the same powers as the British upper house. I hear every day from our great American citizens how much they appreciate the new system, without the messy checking and balancing that used to bog us down. That is, before the Great Crusade Wars that required us to suspend Congress, the courts, the Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution. It's all so much easier now when I just decide. Doncha think?
America is back, my fellow citizens! Our people have assumed their rightful place and have learned once again the great qualities of respect and deference. We know, as we used to, that it is faith in what our superiors tell us - not the Devil's decadent belief in our own sadly mistaken observations - that brings us the good life. And God has rewarded us for our faith by returning to us, and bringing his gifts of obedience, order and really, really rich rich people, just like the Good Book says.
God bless the Christian Corporate States of America!
And God bless America's Dear Leader For Life!
226 Comments so far
Show AllCute holiday weekend fluff! I like to imagine Ms. Palin looking corpse-like with plastic surgery, speaking animatroncally, the teleprompter replaced by a USB port at the base of her skull, computers working the muscles of her mouth to deliver the message--all she has to do is breathe. The smile and the message permanent...
But it ain't gonna happen that way. The environmental collapse most people are not seeing around them will exert itself by 2025. People will be looking for food, not voting booths. Of course, I could be wrong.
Thankfully, you are wrong.
But you certainly nailed Green and his daydream for exactly what it is. Fluff from a flake.
I just love it when men use a woman to represent all the evils of late capitalist patriarchy. I guess this is just too delicious for left wing sexists to let pass. I have no love for Sarah Palin but she is just a useful female ad figure to con the public. She is not responsible for the policies and politics that have devastated our world. They are overwhelmingly the politics of patriarchy even if it is clear that women can be induced by the promise of money and power to be part of them. It is like the song American Woman back in the 60's used to represent a bands hatred of the Vietnam policy. There are plenty more examples of this phenomenon. Men love to represent what they hate in female form. Nothing could be more masculine than our system of money/power/domination.
Yeah, Sarah's just great. And DMG quite clearly used her to represent all women, which he, like all us men, hate, and love to use to transfer the ills we create so nobody knows it was us. Thanks for pointing that out. Somehow I missed it. Nice touch that all men are pimps, but women can be "induced by the promise of money and power" and not be whores who spread disease. Um, wait a second. Isn't that same promise of money and power the motivation that makes men act the way they do? Ouch. Cognitive dissonance.
In case you didn't notice, the one thing that DMG did not write is that Sarah Palin is responsible, or even potentially responsible for the content of the trifling ironic prophecy he typed out. He actually named the demons for which she fronts/whores in exchange for those glittering "inducements" (a combined corporatist theocracy or theocratic corporatocracy, probably not female dominated).
What happened, did you take an overdose of your "take yourself seriously" pills this morning?
Yeah, sure we can organize opposition. Sure. Everyone on the left is falling over themselves to be the first one to put the good of the group first, or to even be able to conceive of themselves as anything but all-knowing individuals or at best members of small groups whose main wars are with ideologically similar small groups, rather than with their potent, unified enemy.
Thanks for sharing.
Great reply. This often comes up, with women who blame everything on men, no exceptions. It's a kind of false feminism, and it reemerges all the time in discussions like this. artemix apparently never heard of Margaret Thatcher or Hillary Clinton, among many other women who are always more than eager to hurry on the male patriarch agenda, just so they can be major players in the drama of power.
So it's just by accident that Palin was chosen? Of course not, it was a conscious decision. Huckabee might have even been a better choice thematically speaking, since he's more openly fundie than Palin.
I've noticed that those who criticize others for seeing sexism everywhere generally don't see it anywhere. I hope that this is not the case here.
If you read the various accounts, yes, it was a big, bad accident, like almost everything about the McCain campaign, which should be no surprise, given his surprise at being offered the primary win in exchange for dropping his opposition to torture. He didn't have a clue from the start. She wasn't the choice of his "people."
There is no place for identity politics in opposing the power alignments in this country. Surely you see that they don't do it. They bind themselves together and fight as a unit regardless of how haphazardly assembled, poorly fit, and periodically reshuffled their parts.
Palin is no different than Reagan. For the people in her target market, she's not hard to look at and she can read lines. They were both bimbos without real power -- Reagan napped through the meetings where the "real" powers made decisions. Sarah will be at church or on moose hunts. Gender is not the issue.
It also isn't with the less superficial women who have achieved real power, like Thatcher, Kirkpatrick, Rice, etc. They weren't rewarded with power by men because they toed the patriarchal line and were non-feminine. They achieved power because it was what they lusted for, and put ahead of all other interests in life -- just like the men who achieve power. Me, I like to play music, do things with my wife that we both enjoy, and raise my kids. That's it. I'll never have power, even though I have a penis, because it just doesn't interest me and I wouldn't waste one minute of my time or bit of my talents pursuing it. A woman who really craves it has a decent shot at getting it. That's what these women parlayed into the stature they ultimately achieved. It wasn't merely that they satisfied the demands of the gatekeepers, who were men. They satisfied the demands of the gatekeepers who were power-driven. It's not the same thing.
Let's cut the nonsense. If we can't work as a team, we're all going to suffer and die at snowballing rates. The odds are long enough even if we do work as a team. There is no productive reason to constantly direct focus towards our personal micro-issues. You might even have to tolerate a few patriarchal types, and some two-state solutionists, and I might have to tolerate a few sorority girls and Brooklynites. Deal with it. We are on the losing end of a war. If we don't lose it, we can get back to that stuff after the celebration.
Gender equality is not a "personal micro-issue." The fact that you divide things into "issues" and then rank them does not mean that it is an accurate reflection of reality.
In the class struggle, we stand with any of our working class brothers and sisters persecuted or abused on any pretext. We don't see those battles as discrete "issues" that we then rank in importance, we don't personalize them, and we don't lecture people as to which should be "our" priority.
We stand with the women of the world everywhere and at all times, or the entire foundation for the battle for social justice is at risk. I am shaking my head that anyone with pretensions of being engaged in the struggle for social justice could call that a "personal micro-issue." And of course, we are told that it is not relevant that the person saying that happens to be male, happens to be a winner in a viciously patriarchal and unjust and oppressive hierarchical social structure.
"Identity politics" is a right wing frame.
I absolutely refuse to "work as a team" as you have outlined it here. I will fight hard against what you have outlined here. I saw little basis for considering you to be any sort of team mate before, and absolutely none now. Stating your view of things as though it were beyond questioning, and then lecturing everyone about getting on your team - I hear the voice of the bosses we are fighting against in that. It is the voice of the smug, arrogant, know-it-all condescending boss. "I don't have any power even though I have a penis." Good grief, could you be any more clueless? It has nothing to do with your penis, it has to do with your thinking.
Deal with it.
I won't deal with it. It's total bullshit.
I'll defend women from chauvinism, and violence, but I won't defend their right to a Hummer. I love (and need) the Earth more than they need that kind of equality. As I stated above, you have to decide what kind of outcomes you're about, not just inputs.
And I'm not surprised that you don't want teammates in the struggle against theocratic neoconservatism and neoliberalism. Obviously you missed it, but that was my initial point. Hardly any self-identified leftists want to work with anyone but themselves. We are, for the most part, totally disinterested in measures of effectiveness -- only measures of purity. And that's why we lose, and why we're heading towards the ultimate loss.
"We are, for the most part, totally disinterested in measures of effectiveness -- only measures of purity. And that's why we lose, and why we're heading towards the ultimate loss."
Steve, I refuse to accept that loss is a fait accompli.
But yes on the purity. We see it here. The flowery prose that gets praised rather than the hard core politics of getting things done.
Sure, we all want a nice planet, the lifting of suffering and the fulfillment of human potential,and to love one another, that's the motivation.
Our methods, without being unethical, have to be street wise. We have to be because capitalism is dirty, thinking otherwise is a death sentence.
What does Sara Palin have to do with the struggle against the ruling class? What do Hummers have to do with any of this?
Not agreeing with your particular very individualistic and idiosyncratic analysis does not mean people do not "want to work with anyone but themselves."
Objecting to sexist ideas is not "measures of purity."
I have little patience with the idea of seeing criticism of Sarah Palin as "sexist," it's damn necessary if we don't want to see the theocratic corporatist war mongering b*tch as President.
If the feminist movement really wants to make itself 100% irrelevant to the struggle keep up this line of thought. Ironically after wading through this shit stream far from making me more sympathetic to feminism as is presumably the goal of the posters, I find myself *much* less sympathetic to feminism.
What a bunch of whining irrelevant bullshit ya'll invented that has *nothing* to do with the content of the article or the intent of the author from what I can see.
I know how very seriously you take yourself and how you present every one of your posts as if they issued directly from The Voice of The Masses, and that anyone disagreeing with you is a closet defender of the managerial and owning classes, but I'll go out on a limb here and say once again that I agree with Steve Greenfield on this one. Even if that pisses off Sioux Rose.
We can get so entangled in these hyperventilating identity issues that we completely lose track of what's at stake, and to my mind Greenfield gets what's at stake far better than you do. You seem nearly ALWAYS to make a point that you stand with NO ONE but yourself, because you alone carry the pure unadulterated perception of what being on the Left really means and anyone deviating from your purity is one you'll fight to the bitter end. Good luck rallying millions to your narcissistic cause.
If you actually think identity politics is a "right wing frame," you must be working for a right wing think tank, hoping to convince others of the obverse of the truth, which is their stock in trade. Identity politics has so totally fragmented efforts of the left to matter AT ALL that it (the left) no longer matters to hardly anyone. The left has been marginalized and made literally irrelevant largely because of all these identity issues (who is a real feminist; what does real feminism mean; who is a racist and what is racism at its core; how many ways can we divide ourselves ethnically so we feel perfectly safe within our own little tribal units, etc.) and now we're having a knock-down drag-out over whether Sarah Palin is a justifiable target for leftist satire--because she's a WOMAN, and that most likely means she's off limits. It's absurd and patently idiotic, and it seems we're simply stuck with this madness. Look no further to find out why the far right has beaten us senseless.
Ephraim, a superb piece of prose, and I agree with it 100%, though I myself sometimes commit the sin of elevating identity trivia over the more substantial issues affecting all of us under the hegemonical world coporatocracy. I used to teach in business school. Truth be told, the women who came to school were no less power and wealth hungry and completely for corporate culture than men. Ironically, and without realizing it as if by reflex action as was done by the attack on Green above(below?), while they were corporaticizing their own identities, they used to get into gender identity fights with corporate men.
I am a little stunned that people here are describing gender equality in such dismissive and derogatory terms.
Yes, right wing mouthpieces are the ones who introduced this idea of "identity politics" into the national discussion back in the Reagan area. It is a right wing theme. The idea is that "they" - Unions, women, GLBT people, immigrants, people of color - are "special interest groups" with an "agenda."
You can make your points without trying to smear the other poster, by the way. Your first two paragraphs are nothing but a personal attack.
Bingo Ephraim!
I'm with you Steve, and the fact that so many on the left seem to be too busy trying to engage in some inverted social consciousness pissing contest in the face of single-minded, implacable forces bent on converting a living, breathing planet and all beings who dwell there into dollar bills is kind of discouraging.
We are an all-volunteer, not-for-profit movement dedicated to the never-ending goal of making sure that our never-ending goals are expressed in a thoughtful manner that is in complete alignment with the thoughts, feelings, and needs of all our members because each one is precious, and no one's perspective or opinion is any more valid than anyone elses...
what? we lost? shit.
Suck it up people, we are going to have to learn to cooperate with each other, and not agree all at the same time or we may as well hoist the white flags now.
Indeed Commonsense, indeed.
Class consciousness, working class solidarity, and standing first with those in the working class who are treated as second class citizens are interrelated, and it is not "some inverted social consciousness pissing contest" to talk about race and gender.
Notice that it is always those with less power, less wealth, less privilege, less status who are told to suck it up and put aside their petty little issues for the sake of solidarity, and who are then blamed for divisiveness? Just as the Obama administration systematically threw all of the groups who supported him under the bus because "we are all Americans and must pull together" - people whose support he shamelessly curried by lying to them - now we are hearing the same tune from people here - get to the back of the bus, we have important work to do. "Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss." That phrase applied when Obama took over from Bush, and we can see it in action here as the dissenters from the Democratic party take over the discussion from the party supporters.
Let's talk for once, and for just a little while, about straight white males putting aside their petty little micro issues for the sake of solidarity. Why not? What is the difference? Their desperate need to be "color blind" and "gender neutral," for example; their determination to point the finger at every group except their own; their insistence on imposing the same patterns and structure for the discussion and the organizations that the ruling class uses; their constant bullying to take charge of everything and control and dominate everyone. Let's talk about those divisive petty little micro-issues. Just for a day or two, Then we can go back to baling everyone else for the social and political problems.
Great post, the oligarchy likes nothing more than he disappearance of a class, power, and eco-systems unifying systems analysis, and its replacement with identity politics that fragments and divides, and sadly we are doing it to ourselves.
Every time the heat is directed off of very real concentrated wealth and power and on to some nebulous defined patriarchy where working class men are as big a villain as any corporate CEO the powers that be, under cover of night, laugh their way to the quite literal bank. Which is not to say male dominance is OK, it isn't, it is to say the best way to fight patriarchy and other isms, is to promote cooperative consensus oriented participatory social structures, for *all* people.
artemix: Well said! And yes, men can be induced or seduced to crave money/power, etc., but it is the Patriarchal System....not men as individuals, that are the problem. Patriarchy hurts men too! Little boys have to live up to this ridiculous macho image whereby they are supposed to be tough, emotionless, driven, successful, wealthy......ad nauseum. When they can''t accomplish that (same for women), they feel like failures! The system is unbalanced. There is no deep respect for the feminine aspect of life. We have lost the part of us....as a Nation...no, as a planet....that values softness, caring, charity, dreaming, music, art, lovliness, grace, purity, innocence, peace, unity, etc.
The yin/yang symbol is the perfect example of life in balance: Side by side, equal but separate, different as day and night but yet the same.....Every time any major stride is made to attempt a paradigm shift toward the feminine....the Patriarchy triples its' efforts and the backlash is merciless. That is exactly what is happening now!
That's the funniest sexist screed I've read in, I dunno, maybe an hour.
The replacement of a class analysis with identity politics has done nothing but divide and conquer the oppressed. More class analysis and ecological systems views please, less my oppressed group is more important than yours bullshit.
Thanks!
I, too, dislike identity politics, but let's not clump anything that might make us feel uncomfortable into that pigeonhole so we may dismiss it. The argument could be made that the civil rights movement was just large scale identity politics. While class analysis, or moreso class justice, surely would have helped blacks in the US, since they were largely at the bottom of the wage scale, how big would the victory have been if they still couldn't sit at the same lunch counter as whites?
Somewhat ironically, your call to stop the "my oppressed group is more important than yours" posts is, in itself, one of those very posts. A gay woman blue-collar immigrant from Haiti can be oppressed as an immigrant, as a lesbian, as a woman, as black, as a worker. The point isn't to set up a hierarchy of oppression as you seem to want to do by claiming the superiority of class analysis and so privileging class oppression, but to stand against all oppression. When this is done, we begin to see a familiarness in these patterns of oppression and an interlocking structure of oppression--our Haitian immigrant is oppressed as all things all at once.
While the various feminisms can disagree on many things, most would, I hope, agree that the goal isn't for women to "rise" to the status of men and in so doing gain the privilege of oppressing other women. It's a particularly patriarchal view that states to liberate some means to oppress others. It's the view of those with power who view equality itself as oppression, the view of those with male privilege who fear losing that privilege.
Feminism shouldn't scare the Left, and for the Left to dismiss it as nothing beyond "identity politics" demeans it as nothing more than the self-interested politics of whiny brats, which is in itself an example of why feminism is as vital now as ever.
sweetheart
some of the worst offenders of the 'there is no such thing as equality' and 'equality is oppression' belief are women
and they are not women aping men, they are ALL woman.
It's their personality make up, they are narcissistic, they have Narcissistic Personality Disorder or worse.
I'm not scared of feminism, nor any other movement that advances equality.
It's just that sometimes feminism or patriarchy isn't the issue.
Like here. The issues are the undemocratic policies of the far right and loss of civil rights in the name of freedom.
These reified wet dreams of the far right spoofed into a homily by Madame Palin are not just a hoot but also draw a sobering picture of what the society they propose would look like.
Thanks you Morticia if we allow the elite to use identity politics to divide us and keep us at each others throats we *will* loose. The suits in the suites (public and private) are the only enemy that counts, and some of them are gasp upper class women, Hilary "I will obliterate Iran" Clinton and Meg Whitman ring a bell? How about Condi Rice, Margret Thatcher, Madeline "500,000 dead Iraqi children are worth it" Albright, Janet Reno, Janet Napolitano, etc, etc, etc.
What is sad is at one point identity politics was an authentic movement about civil rights, reclaiming lost histories etc, but it has long since been co-opted to serve elite objectives in my strong opinion.
Either we all hang together against the oligarchy or surely we will all hang separately to update a quote from an old gasp pale male.
MORTICIA: Once in a blue moon I might agree with you, but I generally find you arguing for the things that are at their source, oppressive. Your use of the narcissism ruse is awful. What Sarah represents is fundamentalist Christianity, to find a system more repugnant to WOMEN'S rights, would necessitate nothing short of enlisting in the Taliban!
You remind me of the type of woman who likes to be "one of the boys," and therefore hangs out at the water cooler to glibly put down other women (and their sincere efforts) in attempts to win favor at the office.
I want to thank TWO AMERICAS, with whom I've had some heated debates, for his higher understanding on this one! I also found his posts particularly compelling on the Harvey Wasserman thread.
Also, VOX, a GREAT post, most especially your 3rd paragraph; yet I suspect its luminous wisdom will pass right over the heads of those who clamor for a unity based on worker class identity, while managing to discredit every other basis for human rights.
I remember reading about the women active in the Black Panther Party, and how their male peers (radical, each and all) fully expected them to get the coffee and type up the notes. Sexism is a latent condition of 98% of men. To pass over it as if the matter has been dealt with, and it's just so yesterday, is not unlike Obama giving Bush a pass (on his seeking a quasi-legal way to promote torture) by arguing that we must all look forward, not back.
I'm not sure that Greene was specifying the evils of the world as attributable to women, but the entire raging Christian Theocratic movement definitely thinks Eve was to blame for plenty. And projection, Ms. Morticia, alleged expert on psychology, happens to be another area worthy of your scrutiny.
I really don't think you've ever read a serious book on feminism. It's a shame, presuming you are a woman at all.
Yeah how dare someone identify the root of our problems exploitation by the rich? We can't have that now can we, far better to have a head full of cloudy mysterious pretend bullshit idn't it?
It's pretty easy to hide your class privilege in a crystal ball idn' it? Emma Goldman a true feminist *radical* never would have put up with identity politics bullshit, and neither should we.
Sigh!
GUITAR: I think you are another poster I don't especially like or respect, now using an unfamiliar screen name. And it would help if you could differentiate between the words LOOSE and LOSE.
Your posts are not worth my effort in response. You have your mind made up, nor are you knowledgeable about the issue of feminism; and frankly, I am tired of the illusion that all opinions--those based on research and study, as opposed to those like Ms. Palin's just tossed from the hip--are equal. We are NOT equal in scholarship. We are equal at the level of our Spiritual Essence; but human beings are not all in the same place of maturity, that is, spiritual evolution.
I've learned in this forum that there are some who really resonate with what I take the time to share, a few who like to pick on me, and some who take what I write for Chinese. I am not particularly interested in the latter two categories of which you likely belong.
And if your elitist comment was pointed at me, for 90% of my adult life my income would qualify me below (or near) the poverty line. And I raised two children, never missed a rent or mortgage payment, have excellent credit, and live in accord with the Law of Karma. If you can top that, good for you.
Read a book by an accredited source and then get back to the forum.
A doctorate in pseudo science or religion leads to more epistemological category errors than an undergraduate class in population biology. Is "epistemological" enough of a 3 dollar academic word for ya Ms. scholar? And yes I have been banned from here before for being pro general strike, anti New Age mystification like the classic 19th century anarchists, and pro armed resistance should the need arise. Does Marx's classic saying "religion is the opiate of the masses," ring any bells? How about Emma Goldman's proud and ontologically sound atheism?
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/philosophyatheism.html
I said ontological, another 3 dollar academic word, am I elevated yet from mere unlettered worker peasant unperson status in your middle class derived value system?
I would also note that unlike you I am an actual leftist who believes *ALL* hierarchies are destructive to human dignity, your lack of self confidence is actually shown IMO by your need to pronounce yourself superior with words like:
"We are NOT equal in scholarship. We are equal at the level of our Spiritual Essence; but human beings are not all in the same place of maturity, that is, spiritual evolution."
The appeal to "maturity" is the last refuge of scoundrels and very a right wing trope, oh another 3 dollar academic word, can you respect me now, and elevate me to your exalted level in the hierarchy of identity politics, "spiritual evolution," (oxymoron) and academic elitism?
For a final foray into the academia you claim to love I suggest you read Alan Sokel, who cogently explains why proclaiming subjectivity and mystification is a disaster for radical left wing politics:
"For most of the past two centuries, the Left has been identified with science and against obscurantism; we have believed that rational thought and the fearless analysis of objective reality (both natural and social) are incisive tools for combating the mystifications promoted by the powerful--not to mention being desirable human ends in their own right. The recent turn of many "progressive" or "leftist" academic humanists and social scientists toward one or another form of epistemic relativism betrays this worthy heritage and undermines the already fragile prospects for progressive social critique. Theorizing about "the social construction of reality" won't help us find an effective treatment for AIDS or devise strategies for preventing global warming. Nor can we combat false ideas in history, sociology, economics, and politics if we reject the notions of truth and falsity."
http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9605/sokal.html
The trendy cognitive relativism that posits that all cultures have equally valid perspectives on reality, and thus there is no objectively world outside of cultural/spiritual interpretations does the radical project of positive social transformation no favors for the reasons stated above.
Was that academic enough for you? Do I pass?
Sigh!
Hi guitarist,
I don't doubt your academic, or intellectual acumen, but I question some of your assertions regarding spirituality, and non-rational forms of consciousness and experience.
RE: "Does Marx's classic saying "religion is the opiate of the masses," ring any bells?"
Who cares? It was a correct saying in it's own right when used as an accusation against the powerful rulers of European society. But as an overall truism, it is meaningless. Unmeasurable amounts of powerful organizing and great human truth have come from those of a spiritual mind working together for the unified cause of good. Religious expression and experience are traits shared by all peoples of all eras, in ways particular to their cultures. What has made people evil or good was not based on their religious traditions, but upon the morality of unethical individuals.
RE: "How about Emma Goldman's proud and ontologically sound atheism?"
Atheism is itself a powerful meme that helps to raise many essential questions traditional religion has failed to answer. But it is itself an irrational nullification of our natural need for belief. There needs to be an upgrade of our inner belief systems, not an extraction of them.
RE: "*ALL* hierarchies are destructive to human dignity,"
Even Marx accepted that hierarchies would need to be set up before the final workers paradise arrived. But even imagining a world where the gov't constantly seeks to eliminate naturally arising hierarchies is terrifying to me.
RE: "The appeal to "maturity" is the last refuge of scoundrels and very a right wing trope,"
Depends on who you're talking about. I think in this case you are going a bit out on a limb.
RE: "spiritual evolution," (oxymoron) and academic elitism?
Plato is the originator, more or less of the philosophy of 'spiritual evolution'. He certainly believed in it. Do you think he had nothing valid to say? Have you studied him?
RE: "The trendy cognitive relativism that posits that all cultures have equally valid perspectives on reality, and thus there is no objectively world outside of cultural/spiritual interpretations does the radical project of positive social transformation no favors for the reasons stated above."
Equally valid? Perhaps not, but barring major conflicts with scientific understanding, who really has the best ontological perspective, in your opinion? Our techno-maniacal industrialist society, or the 'superstitious' tribes people living in harmony within their ecosystem? (and I don't claim romantically that they all do.)
Strict atheism isn't an answer, its a non answer. There may be an objective world outside our interpretation, but who decides this? Who declares what it is? Even the scientists will eventually resort to belief. And this coming together of world belief, with the help of scientists, and those with the spiritual maturity needed, will be the radical project of positive social transformation.
I disagree African American anarchist Lucy Parson had *all* of this figured out 120 years ago, despite having all the worlds information at our finger tips we have gained little metaphysical or social understanding compared to her insights since then:
"Lucy Parsons, anarchist, unsuccessfully organized in her husband's defense when he was accused of violence in the so-called Haymarket Riot of May, 1886, and hanged. She continued organizing against capitalism and government, and helped organize the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World). Read more: Lucy Parsons Biography
Selected Lucy Parsons Quotations
• Let us sink such differences as nationality, religion, politics, and set our eyes eternally and forever toward the rising star of the industrial republic of labor.
• The involuntary aspiration born in man to make the most of one's self, to be loved and appreciated by one's fellow-beings, to "make the world better for having lived in it," will urge him on the nobler deeds than ever the sordid and selfish incentive of material gain has done.
• There is an innate spring of healthy action in every human being who has not been crushed and pinched by poverty and drudgery from before his birth, that impels him onward and upward.
• We are the slaves of slaves. We are exploited more ruthlessly than men.
• Anarchism has but one infallible, unchangeable motto, "Freedom." Freedom to discover any truth, freedom to develop, to live naturally and fully.
• Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals.
• Never be deceived that the rich will permit you to vote away their wealth.
• Strike not for a few cents more an hour, because the price of living will be raised faster still, but strike for all you earn, be content with nothing less.
• Concentrated power can be always wielded in the interest of the few and at the expense of the many. Government in its last analysis is this power reduced to a science. Governments never lead; they follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.
• Let every dirty, lousy tramp arm himself with a revolver or knife on the steps of the palace of the rich and stab or shoot their owners as they come out. Let us kill them without mercy, and let it be a war of extermination and without pity
• You are not absolutely defenseless. For the torch of the incendiary, which has been known with impunity, cannot be wrested from you.
• If, in the present chaotic and shameful struggle for existence, when organized society offers a premium on greed, cruelty, and deceit, men can be found who stand aloof and almost alone in their determination to work for good rather than gold, who suffer want and persecution rather than desert principle, who can bravely walk to the scaffold for the good they can do humanity, what may we expect from men when freed from the grinding necessity of selling the better part of themselves for bread?
• So many able writers have shown that the unjust institutions which work so much misery and suffering to the masses have their root in governments, and owe their whole existence to the power derived from government we cannot help but believe that were every law, every title deed, every court, and every police officer or soldier abolished tomorrow with one sweep, we would be better off than now.
• Oh, Misery, I have drunk thy cup of sorrow to its dregs, but I am still a rebel.
• Chicago Police Department description of Lucy Parsons: "More dangerous than a thousand rioters..."
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/lucy_parsons.htm
Note SR that she needed no academic locution but was able to state profound truths in plain English without needing recourse to "accredited," (by whom?) books.
guitarist November 29th, 2010 2:44 am
I agree with you 100%. Your quote on the PRE-ENLIGHTENMENT obscurantism that now clogs the social "sciences" with new age mumbo-jumbo, which is just religious superstition in new clothes is so apropos. By the way, for anyone thinking of dissing me on the subjects I am critcising, I am quite well versed in those, both reading wise and practicising "spiritualism" for decades before my own enlightenment. As my moniker suggests, I am willing to say categorically that there is no "spiritual world" out there distinct from Nature as it exists. Nothing discussed in the mystical, superstitious literature has an ontology. Light has an ontology, even though we have no clue what a photon of light is (the new book by Stephen Hawking is worth reading by the spiritually misled). Science already acknowledges (Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty, for example) that we may not have intellectual access to everything in Nature, especially what Immanuel Kant called the "ding en sich", namely the "thing in itself". That does not imply in any sense or form that there are "spiritual entities" who know all there is in Nature and who speak only to literary types with vivid imaginations like poets and never to reasoning persons. Human beliefs are NOT knowledge of the objective world which existed before humans and will continue to exiast after humans disappear.
I like Sioux Rose. But she and others like her in the new obfuscated "left", as you rightly point out, and I know as I used to indulge in them too, demand recognition of "spiritual" entities that don't exist except as cultural/linguistic myths, thereby putting a tremendous externality on the Enlightenment left that is trying to bring the human race back to reason and reality to solve real problems of privation and corporatist hegemony. It is precisely that hegemony with its control over the media that promotes these pseuedo-intellectual, wishy washy tropes about the "feminine" and the "masculine" as existents in the Natural world. Please let us enjoy some humour by Green without tangentially going off into the mollasses of verbology without any ontology for their imaginary existents.
Great post, thanks for taking the effort to think it through and type it.
"I agree with you 100%. "
You agree with *all* his points, reasonisreligion?
RE: "Your quote on the PRE-ENLIGHTENMENT obscurantism that now clogs the social "sciences" with new age mumbo-jumbo,"
Well, I might agree with you here, depending on what direction you go. But I'm getting concerned...
RE: "By the way, for anyone thinking of dissing me on the subjects I am critcising, I am quite well versed in those, both reading wise and practicising "spiritualism" for decades before my own enlightenment."
Well, at least we know where your humility level is.
RE: "As my moniker suggests, I am willing to say categorically that there is no "spiritual world" out there distinct from Nature as it exists. "
What *is* out there, and how do you come to know its ultimate essence? Who said spirit must be 'distinct from Nature'?
RE: "Light has an ontology, even though we have no clue what a photon of light is (the new book by Stephen Hawking is worth reading by the spiritually misled). "
Light has ontology, but we have no clue what it is? (huh?)
Ultimately, even if you are a scientist, and a hard rationalist, it comes down to belief. It cannot be otherwise.
RE: "Science already acknowledges (Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty, for example) that we may not have intellectual access to everything in Nature, especially what Immanuel Kant called the "ding en sich", namely the "thing in itself"."
Our understanding will remain belief.
RE: "That does not imply in any sense or form that there are "spiritual entities" who know all there is in Nature and who speak only to literary types with vivid imaginations like poets and never to reasoning persons. "
Perhaps the literary types are themselves the 'spiritual entities' themselves.
RE: "Human beliefs are NOT knowledge of the objective world which existed before humans and will continue to exiast after humans disappear."
But so are the guesses of scientists of our greatest truths just so many beliefs, sutured together. There are individuals, that may or may not be scientists, who do understand what constitute valid belief systems, but science is only one part of the key to having this vision. In is moral integrity, that which many scientists could never find in themselves with the most powerful microscope.
RE "But she and others like her in the new obfuscated "left", as you rightly point out, and I know as I used to indulge in them too, demand recognition of "spiritual" entities that don't exist except as cultural/linguistic myths,"
The implication of this, appended to one of my posts is clear. I take your challenge friend (and I've definitely appreciated much you've offered) and will tell you that I demand only recognition of humans as spiritual entities, and consider your statement misplaced. I will also tell you that rationalists, and their ilk engage in far more myth-making than they think they are.
RE: "thereby putting a tremendous externality on the Enlightenment left that is trying to bring the human race back to reason and reality to solve real problems of privation and corporatist hegemony. "
Fancy words, but atheism is its own form of hegemony, and an dangerous one when misapplied. As usual, I advocate between a balance of intuition AND empirical knowledge that coalesces into the great Sophia of Wisdom, the balance of knowledge and belief. But true belief is not based on external authority, or simply tradition (which can inform it), it comes from deep inside.
From subjective empiricism.
There is such a thing. If you are enlightened, my meaning will be apparent.
RE: "wishy washy tropes about the "feminine" and the "masculine" as existents in the Natural world"
What are you saying? Masculine and Feminine, just 'tropes'?
"the mollasses of verbology without any ontology for their imaginary existents."
You've gone completely poetic here. Can you please be more concrete with your implications? I understand exactly each word, but I find your meaning obscure, or erroneous. Is 'the ground of being' imaginary? Is infinity imaginary? Is The All, The Nothing, The One, is this all just imaginary? Is your inner essence also imaginary? If not, what is it?
Anytime you want to discuss this reasonisreligion, I'm more than interested.
Scientists do not "guess" they test their hypothesis against existing reality and throw out the ones that do not *test* as being empirically true. As for moral integrity give me Alan Sokal who taught math for the Sandanista, the countless environmentalists who have training in ecological science, etc, as opposed to a spiritual leader like the Pope or the notorious anti Semite Madame Blavatsky who was a key source of inspiration to todays New Agers.
"Blavatsky used "Root Race" as a technical term to describe human evolution over the large time periods in her cosmology. However, she also claimed that there were modern non-Aryan peoples who were inferior to Aryans. She regularly contrasts "Aryan" with "Semitic" culture, to the detriment of the latter, asserting that Semitic peoples are an offshoot of Aryans who have become "degenerate in spirituality and perfected in materiality."[33] She also states that some peoples are "semi-animal creatures". These latter include "the Tasmanians, a portion of the Australians and a mountain tribe in China."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Blavatsky#Controversies
To Madam Blavatsky it was non Aryans ie Jews who weren't "spiritually evolved," ie SRs crude smear about my lack of "spiritual evolution," has it roots in a mystics crude anti Semitism, something to think about IMO.
Are there corrupt scientists? Yes of course just like there are corrupt spiritual leaders like cult leaders, your generalization however, that "scientists" in general are immoral is not worthy of serious thought, try again. :(
I have no interest in discussion religion BTW, which is naught but the mental illness of elevating the epistemological category error of confusing internal hallucinations with external reality to the status of taboo "scared truth" that dare not be questioned. Whenever you see a taboo that is off limits to rational critique. an undefendable falsehood lays beneath it. Life is too short for such mystifications and unclear thinking which do nothing but serve the interests of concentrated wealth and power. :(
Two points: Blavatsky was mostly an archaic snake-oil saleswoman, interesting history and reading perhaps, but she was largely just a self-promoter, advancing numerous sensational theories like belief in ectoplasmic humors, gold secreting from skin, etc as well as many other pseudo-spiritual beliefs. Her theories are rife with historical and occult inaccuracies ('the occult' being the history of secret societies, not magick), so why you think it essential to bring her up, I don't know.
RE: "I have no interest in discussion religion BTW"
Then why did you comment on a post that wasn't even a response to you?
Anyway, I'm not talking specifically about religion myself, per se. I'm talking about 'spiritual' experience, and perception. Very different. As a philosophy major, you know this.
It would like to see SR weigh on Ms. Blavatsky, I suspect she won't as much of the talk of "white light" (racist imagery much) and rhetoric about spiritual evolvement derive from her theosophist school of thought which led *directly* to todays New Age spiritualists. THAT is why I brought up her up to show the fetid racist origin of the hierarchical thought so prominently displayed by so many anti enlightenment, anti rational, New Agers who consider themselves more "spiritual evolved," (better) than mere working class atheists such as myself.
What time wasting divisive pretend delusional bullshit!
I notice SR has nothing to say about this notorious anti Semite progenitor of New Age thought, very telling IMO. She is a skeleton in the New Age closet, isn't she for mainliners of white light?
RE: "Let us sink such differences as nationality, religion, politics, and set our eyes eternally and forever toward the rising star of the industrial republic of labor."
Global cultural genocide.
RE: "The involuntary aspiration born in man to make the most of one's self, to be loved and appreciated by one's fellow-beings, to "make the world better for having lived in it," will urge him on the nobler deeds than ever the sordid and selfish incentive of material gain has done."
"Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals."
I couldn't agree more with the above two quotes. But anarchy can only work within a framework of universal equal education, where all students have the same capacities or proclivities. This is IMPOSSIBLE in the real world.
RE: "Governments never lead; they follow progress."
Then they must be formulated in a way that respects the source of their leadership: We The People. That is the purpose of effective representative gov't. Gov't at its core is administration. An aristocracy rules. These two factors should not seamlessly overlap. The latter (the wealthy) should only be allowed their portion of the administrative apparatus, and that portion limited to the added benefit they represent.
RE: "Let every dirty, lousy tramp arm himself with a revolver or knife on the steps of the palace of the rich and stab or shoot their owners as they come out. Let us kill them without mercy, and let it be a war of extermination and without pity"
I'll be right there to call the knifeman in. THIS is the answer you prescribe for progressives? Terrorism IS NOT our answer.
Anyway, I thought your list was going to have something related to the necessity to eradicated religion and spirituality, but it never got there.
"Oh, Misery, I have drunk thy cup of sorrow to its dregs, but I am still a rebel."
O come on, has it really got this bad in America yet? We haven't even seen a tidbit of how bad it can really get here in America. This is the romanticizing of rebellion.
Who is the real terrorist murderous empire which continues by passive acquiescence or those who fight back? Does it occur to you that fighting back might save the lives of hundreds of thousands of third world people? The new passive left is complicit in the crimes of empire IMO. EXACTLY why I am a paleo-leftist and have far more admiration for the old anarchists who made the ownership class PAY for their crimes than the slick new bauble headed pseudo passive "spiritual" "left." You can buy redemption at a New Age bookstore can't you, it isn't something fought for on the streets is it?
Sigh!
RE: "The new passive left is complicit in the crimes of empire IMO."
Meet me face to face, and say the same thing. I daresay you'll be picking yourself off the ground shortly afterwards.
I'm just as serious as anyone when it comes to getting this world back to a place or reason, and joy.
You are barking up the wrong tree friend.
Anyway, can't us guitarists show a bit of solidarity?
P.S. Salusa yes Plato has nothing valid to say, the metaphor of the cave and search for non existence Platonic essences is nothing but an excuse to crawl up inside in your own mind in solipsistic narc ism and ignore the very real external world which was easy for Plato and other ruling class people to do. I was a philosophy major and have been around the poitlessly nauseating Plato merry go round a few time.
And for those who claim atheism is without feeling, or nuance, or creativity that is also false, most of the surrealist artists were left atheists, again another rich well spring of knowledge that seems to be ignored by the spiritually deluded 21st century left. :(
RE: "I was a philosophy major and have been around the poitlessly nauseating Plato"
As a philosophy major, you would know that the metaphor of the cave is just the tip of iceberg of his philosophy. He in fact predicted our current political scenario, of the oligarchs of the marketplace taking over the world through their undo influence over the apparatus of government. There really is little he didn't already predict. I'd be willing to say that most of Marx is already covered by Plato. In fact, I'd say Marx more or less got most of his ideas strait from Plato.
RE:"nd for those who claim atheism is without feeling, or nuance, or creativity that is also false, most of the surrealist artists were left atheists, "
Great art (some of it), but weak philosophy. They were in essence spiritualists, strong believers in their movement, but without a firm core concept to unify them. The surrealists were a loose and fractured network with only psuedo-political/philosophic intentions, who had nothing to offer in terms of a humanist sentiment. They were specifically anti-meaning – Erisians.
Give me a serious thoughtful essay by Andre Breton over the over blown pretentious ungrounded in reality bullshit spewed by feminist spiritualists any day of the week.
How many times do have I have to read about the "crystalline WHITE LIGHT YIN archetype of the EARTH as MOTHER and nurturer as SHOWN in an ASTROLOGICAL CHART for DECEMBER, etc, etc, before I go gag, barf, talk about something real please?
Want to learn some real knowledge from an oppressed women of color that is not full of bullshit? Go listen to Abbey Lincoln's Straight Ahead and get your head out of the clouds.
'Give me a serious thoughtful essay by Andre Breton over the over blown pretentious ungrounded in reality bullshit spewed by feminist spiritualists any day of the week."
We all have our preferences. Nothing wrong with that. But perhaps what is not your preference is something others understand and appreciate moreso than yourself, and that may not be bad either. Some things are not worth disputing, as you mention. Best to come together on common, not conflicted ground. This topic becomes rotten when people begin fighting over it, imho.
I think perhaps what is so laughable and disturbing at the same time is the vociferousness of the anti-feminist responses. One doesn't see such things when issues of race are brought up, nor gay rights. The next time someone here mentions that they are Native American, as if that gives them a unique perspective (and it happens fairly often here), should I expect you to be here condemning their identity politics? For the examples I just gave are truly identity politics--gay rights? Identity politics.
Nope, that doesn't happen here, though. It's only when women say something, or someone mentions the f-word (feminism), that things get so heated. Women seems to occupy a special place, one that is exempt from the common dignities we extend to other groups.
Now, as for your tiresome assertion that feminism as a discipline is nothing more than identity politics, have you ever considered the socio-political manifestations of power that affect women in ways in which men are not affected? Abortion is an easy example, or take a look at AFDC recipients. Perhaps you think that women being poorer than men (http://bit.ly/XKA1F) has nothing to do with politics and gender, but then you'll have a hard time explaining the facts.
Back in the Sixties, when feminism became more popular in the US than it had been, most men and many women felt that the issues being discussed (wage inequality, lack of access to leadership positions within the movement, etc.) were personal issues detracting from the important issues of Viet Nam and racial equality. Not much has changed, it seems. Whether you like it or not, these "personal" issues are rooted in the political, are in fact social issues.
At least you like Sokal, but to fight against the excesses of academic postmodernism/poststructuralism is to ignore feminism entirely. And if you think that feminism is academic, read some Dworkin. Here's a good place to start:
http://bit.ly/b3SuTR
Not academic at all now, is it?
Vox: You are wise.....I love you!
To *assume* I am ignorant and anti feminist is tremendously unfair. I actually have read Dworkin, Mary Daly, and Starhawk and was even pretty convinced by their arguments in the late 80s and early 90s before the neo-cons coopted identity politics to their own fetid ends. So I am *not* anti feminist, but abuses by men with power are exactly that, abuses by men with *power* which in this society is either money or a position in the empire. We can deal with racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty, and environmental destruction *all at once* by challenging concentrated wealth and power and demanding its replacement with more decentralized participatory, cooperative enetities. Or we can be like the blind man feeling the elephant and pronounce it's a tree by only seeing part of the picture which is what all identity politics does, your choice, choose wisely. :(
The oligarchy would like nothing better than for self proclaimed "feminists" to sabotage and disrupt an analysis of concentrated wealth and power as the key levers of society, keep playing their game and shielding Sarah Palin from criticism as a wymin victim of patriarchy at your own peril. Sarah Palin is very much her own player and not victim, and must be held responsible for her horrendous ideology as an adult human being if we are to survive the next decade, and not descend into the horror show warned of in this authors parody. So must Obama despite the fact he comes from an oppressed minority.
Do you really not get that?
I get it guitarist. But that still does not discount the Feminist worldview. Sarah Palin is speaking for the Patriarchy but it is she herself who is after power....to her own detriment. No argument. What the disagreement is about, is that you seem to be saying that the Feminist argument is favoring Sarah Palin?! You are incorrect in that. I for one do not favor her. I pity her and am angry that she has allowed herself to be used by the Patriarchy. She is a betrayer of women. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. It would be in your best interest as well, to embrace a Feminist Worldview!