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Equal and Opposite Lunacy
As crashing economies and austerity measures slap ever more ferociously at the lives of the vulnerable and disenfranchised, the Western world, with all its hidden poverty and institutional racism, may continue to convulse.
The riots that broke out in London over the weekend and spread throughout Great Britain, triggered by the controversial police killing of a 29-year-old man, have sent shockwaves in all directions. Who knew things were so unstable, that Britain’s struggling neighborhoods were just one incident away from such destructive lunacy?
“On Twitter late last night, following the main bulk of the riots, I was astonished at the incomprehension generally expressed as to why they had occurred. There seemed to be an extraordinary lack of awareness that working class youth in Britain are being punished for the financial excesses of the banking collapse,” freelance British journalist Pennie Quinton wrote on Al-Jazeera.
“The public spending cuts this year meant many of the youth summer schemes in London did not run. These riots suggest boredom — and inarticulate rage. The youth are smashing and grabbing the things society tells them to want.”
Good God, the wealth gap is widening everywhere, and this is its cost: occasional public spasms of inhumanity and nihilism, perpetrated by those who have nothing much left to lose. But who cares about root causes? The riots are so compellingly photogenic, and the need for a return to order at all costs is suddenly so desperate.
“In central London,” the New York Times reported, “owners of electrical goods stores along busy Tottenham Court Road shuttered their premises as convoys of riot police vans with sirens wailing crisscrossed the city, a show of force that seemed designed to cow potential looters and reassure their potential targets.”
Prime Minister David Cameron, announcing the addition of 10,000 police to the streets, declared: “People should be in no doubt that we will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain’s streets and to make them safe for the law-abiding.”
This is the world I fear most: a world in which “us vs. them” is de rigueur, co-opting common sense, creating a schism in public discourse. Good guys and bad guys. It is, of course, the world we live in already, but its pervasiveness could spread. And there are so many who would prefer that, and know how to profit from it.
The British riots are a harbinger of what could happen in the U.S., where, of course, the same governmental “austerity” measures — the same cuts in services to the poor and middle class, the same jettisoning of vast segments of the populace to a forgotten hopelessness — are shattering the social structure. And the phenomenon of “flash mobs,” in which hordes of young men, self-organizing through the social media, converge to commit random mayhem, have already sent jolts of panic through many urban centers.
And then there’s the fact that big, full-scale riots are, well, as American as apple pie, what with our long history of racism and all. This is a looming disaster of immense proportions. Among other things, hard-core Republicans will, in their equal and opposite lunacy, see rioting as an excuse to justify further austerity measures (as punishment) and, ultimately, plunge the nation into all-out domestic war.
This is a peace alert! Peace consciousness is our only hope and it must spread. I believe that there is an extraordinary underground of such consciousness in the United States and around the world — an awareness that “us vs. them” is a single, devalued coin, that one side may succeed at doing great harm to and temporarily suppressing the other but will never “win” in the sense of freeing itself finally and forever of its enemy.
Last week, writing about the aftermath of the mass murders in Norway, and quoting columnist Colman McCarthy, I asked, “Why are we violent, but not illiterate?” There’s a more concrete way to put the same question: Why was the Egyptian uprising at the beginning of the year a peaceful one while London’s riot has caused the worst damage to the city since the Nazi blitz? Both were responses to police brutality, and occurred in a context of expanding social inequality, but the differences couldn’t have been starker.
“When media analysts talk about an uprising like the one in Egypt as spontaneous,” Cynthia Boaz wrote last month in an excellent analysis on TruthOut, “they are revealing their lack of understanding of the dynamics of nonviolent action and, simultaneously, are taking credit away from activists, who in many cases, have worked hard for years — often at great personal risk and sacrifice — to make this kind of victory possible. Regimes like Mubarak’s don’t fall when people just spontaneously show up in the city square. They only fall when movements are capable of exerting sustained pressure on them over a length of time.”
The only way out of equal and opposite lunacy is to recognize that action and principle cannot be torn apart. “In Gandhian language, means and ends are inseparable,” Boaz wrote.
What would it take to institute nonviolence training and planning on a national scale? I believe the resources to do so exist, if everyone who believes in it understands the urgency of beginning such a process now.
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27 Comments so far
Show AllThere's no profit in non-violence.
The oligarchy's web of war-profiteering corporations can't have such claptrap. Why, such drivel is downright 'UnAmerkkin'.
If we are "..to institute non-violence training and planning on a national scale...", I would suggest beginning with the two infantry divisions that are presently being trained in domestic crowd control (contravening posse comitatus) and our increasingly militarized local police, both of which are guaranteeing the right of our predatory capitalist class to feed upon the assets of American working people.
Tony Vodvarka
What would it take to institute nonviolence training and planning on a national scale?
Certainly the resources in understanding of what should be done and practical programs of applied peace education do exist. However, the economic resources to institute them on a national scale do not exist.
This would require government funding distributed through a Department of Peace. Even if it happened now (not) it would take at least a generation for us to begin to grasp the concepts. We are too saturated and enamoured by with violence.
"Why was the Egyptian uprising at the beginning of the year a peaceful one while London’s riot has caused the worst damage to the city since the Nazi blitz? Both were responses to police brutality, and occurred in a context of expanding social inequality, but the differences couldn’t have been starker.".......
The delusion of those thinking they must exercise a form of absolute power, by definition, corrupted absolutely, is utterly dependent on 'sophism'. Being aware of and calling it what it is when it comes up an incredibly valuable instrument in countering disinformation and strengthens the dignity of non-violence every time for the long haul........
“Sophism”: in the field of logic, argument or rationalization conceived with the objective of producing the illusion of truth, that, although simulates an agreement with the rules of logic, in reality presents an inconsistent, incorrect and deliberately misleading internal structure”; and by extrapolation, “any captious argument conceived with the intention to induce in error, which assumes bad faith on the part of the one who presents it.
MSM - Merciless Sophistic Mauling
daily shaping the American mind.
"the wealth gap is widening everywhere, and this is its cost: occasional public spasms of inhumanity and nihilism,"...... the word "occasional", my be somewhat wishful when we look back, but this one sentence fragment pinpoints the real problem that need to be addressed and resolved.
"I was astonished at the incomprehension generally expressed as to why they had occurred."--Robert Koehler
the icons of "success" look down from ivory towers held mesmerized as narcissus in the two-dimensional image of superior perfection; believing all look up in unabashed admiration seasoned with a dash of envy and bathed in the reflected glow of divine excellence emitted from on high as a gift of hope that for just one moment we escape our mundane misery, lift ourselves up as we identify with greatness we shall never achieve. and for that we bless them.
as an independent retailer travelling from town to town, festivals, rallies powwows, art & craft shows and such, we experienced immediately when the economy hit a bump in the road. the crowds would come to ooh and ah, " i want this! don't sell it because i'll save up and buy this beauty next year!"
took several months for the "experts" from the top to gather all the statistics, analyze and agonize to discover what we too small to fail business people had known for quite some time. last week my evening news-that's-important-to-rich-famous-&-politically-connected teleprompt reader informed us that the problems of wall street are beginning to seep onto main street. gee whiz! the high and mighty experts are seveal years behind the curve.
p.s. why do italics instructions sometimes work and sometime not?
"...why do italics instructions sometimes work and sometime not?"
I'm going to take a stab here, hummingbird. It seems if there are blue links within the article, html symbols are needed for paragraph separation and, by extension, italics, bold-face, and streamers are enabled.
Nice post, BTW. The fools engaged in this oligarchic "race-to-the-top" are completely blind to the seeds of destruction (blow-back) they are producing down below.
(Perhaps not completely blind. It's hard not to notice the development of tasers, para-military "police" forces, and increased surveillance.)
Yes, the 'talking heads' are there to placate the masses with pap.... I sometimes wish I could get everybody to listen to the words of John Trudell. The poet can tell the truth in a few words while 'experts' write volumes, saying nothing.
I've run the fair circuits (thirty plus years ago) and know that barter will be around far longer than the dollar or euro. (carved signs) I've traded signs for jewelry, for food, for gasoline, etc.... But today, in our "tech - no - logic" plastic world, kids aren't taught that this is even a remote possibility. At least the kids in the US. In Mexico barter is alive and thriving....
The problem is that the powers that be, want to control each and every movement of individuals now. By inventory, inspections, unConstitutional legislation....bit by bit the cookie crumbles.... The even passed legislation that growing your own food may be declared unlawful IF the government deems it necessary.....
Great comments, thanks. A Republican U.S.Congressman tried to introduce legislation last year to make it illegal to grow foodstuffs on your own property. Bartering is fun. Bartering with an African or a Jamaican makes bartering with a Mexican is like stealing candy from a baby.
"p.s. why do italics instructions sometimes work and sometime not?"
______________
FYI, hummingbird, here's a repeat of my response to your similar question the other day:
In what has proved to be a confusing as hell modification, CD now has two separate and incompatible ways of posting comments:
Comments threads in articles published in the "Views" and "Further" columns do NOT accept HTML tags-- so, as you note, commenters can't "embolden" or italicize text and add other graphic embellishments in these categories. One can only use basic text-- however, paragraph breaks are virtually "automatic"; if one uses the "carriage return" (aka big "enter") key or otherwise adds space(s) to make a paragraph break, it will "take".
Comments threads in the "News" column, which includes articles headlined at the top of the page ABOVE the head of the "Views" column, DO accept HTML. In THAT category, one can create bold and italic text, etc. using HTML tags. Paragraph breaks also require HTML tags, e.g. < p >; any paragraph breaks made using the carriage return "enter" key or other spaces will be eliminated when the raw comments text is entered into the "edit" or "save" mode.
I've been offering these "instructional" comments perodicially, because this mixed system is obviously a bitch to keep up with. I hope it helps.
We now return to your irregular programming.
---"Why was the Egyptian uprising at the beginning of the year a peaceful one?"---
It wasn't. The occupiers of Tahrir Square did all sorts of things - throwing up barricades, vandalizing vehicles and buildings for barricade material, and some instances of setting vehicles and buildings on fire, that would be considered quite "violent" and be condemned - by US organizers standards.
"---"Why was the Egyptian uprising at the beginning of the year a peaceful one?"---
It wasn't."
BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It most definitely was the very real threat of escalating violence that caused a change.
Change or else there will be a complete breakdown and anarchy. That is a threat that you can believe in and change happens as a result.
I am so sick of the leftist/progressive spokes people, like Thom Hartmann(telling us about the 4 Dimensional chess moves of Obama), Ed Shultz gun owner calling for gun control, Rachel Maddow, and Bill Press, etc. What do these people all have in common?? They are in the upper 1% in income and wealth. They speak for their class and it isn't in the interest of most working people in many respects. They have their own trickle down theory and they are elitists in every respect. They always tell us to be peaceful and keep working for change but never think of violence or the threat of violence. BS!
We got the New Deal because of the very real threat of communist revolution and serious violence if things did not change. People best wake up to what was happening to cause these things to happen and it was not benevolence on the part of the ruling class that got these things. It was the threat of violence on the part of the People that made the ruling class give in. Fear in the hearts of these men caused the change.
Dig up some photos of the bloody confrontations between the UAW and the police in Detroit or the Longshoresman and the police in California and see what it took to get concessions from the ruling class. This is not going to be pretty people. We have let them get far along with their plan for them to give in easily. A damn shame as this could have been avoided with minimal vigilence on the part of the working class. I guess too much TV, football, and alcohol numbed us to reality. Wine and circuses worked 2000 years ago for the Roman ruling class and it seems to still work in the 21st Century.
i've been following a blogger from the inside for some time. he calls himself 'sandmonkey'
http://www.sandmonkeyblog.com/
the people camping together at first did an excellent job of cooperation, self-policing and putting together clean-up crews, cooking crews and such. then came the interim, military government acting the only way they know how, top-down hierarchical chain of command, lealty to the establishment, mistrusting of the crowd. i haven't heard new word from this funky sandmonkey since the 16th of july. i do keep checking back.
Sure, Mr. Koehler, non-violence is great and all but really the questions are:
How long can the elite treat the other 95% of humanity like cattle and there NOT be violent backlash?
Because this visceral reaction to being treated like cattle is so easily forecast, are the elite doing all of this on purpose to give excuses for the imposition of a full-blown, boot-to-the-throat, fascist police state?
For far too long, the elite have treated the cutting of services, the laying off of workers, the looting of common trust funds and the privatization of public property as if they were disconnected from the lives of actual people.
Hey, the bottom line is king, doncha know?
Now, it appears those "ciphers" on a ledger page actually have lives and families and now "everyone" is surprised?
Or are they?
Jill & Poly: Good posts.
I think the elites you reference have been pushing the envelope for some time. Of course, with control of the media, framing a consensus by offering the public a very slanted, truth-reduced view, their goals for Amerika are made all the easier.
To consider such items as:
1. Bush pushing the "unitary executive" model to essentially disable the checks and balances intended among THREE viable governing branches--still in progress.
2. The RETROACTIVE way illegal spying on citizens was later made legal, still holding.
3. The tolerance for torture thanks to the contrived advice of such legal "scholars" as Yoo, added to the Orwellian twisting of language designed to make the unconscionable into what most now take for merely the excess use of force. Still in process.
4. The Supreme Court decision granting corporations yet more power under the guise of free speech/personhood--naked carpetbaggers seizing power from sea to shining sea.
5. The lack of any declaration (in pursuit) of war, itself furthered wherever the remotest scent of terrorism can be found, or otherwise orchestrated through some black-ops agenda. Now the rule!
6. The entrusting of the nation's TRUE wealth, that of natural resources, to corporations as irresponsible as BP... as per the awful Gulf oil gorge... happening in too many states.
7. The appearance of real discussions about the issues of our times, as done on a controlled media, only allows the conversation to veer so far to the left (and it's seldom left of center, if we are honest). Yet these limits of discussion are taken for REAL by millions.
8. The continuation of the War on Drugs, when 2.3 million are incarcerated, and an entire infrastructure built around this nonsense, continues to rupture families and leave ordinary people with felony records.
9. The evisceration of unions and the blatant attempts (Wisconsin) to limit workers' civil rights... with job numbers tumbling, still crucifying the nation.
So all this herding of sheep has involved a number of covert fronts, and involved a lot of deep pocket interests.
I hope the CD chorus that always blames voters will take these items into account before they show such eagerness to blame the victims. Today's article by Harrington also explains how the entire election paradigm operates as its own trap. Again, to blame victims is a pretty sinister response.
All as Rome/USA burns....
All of this is a direct result of the ongoing decline and contraction of the economy in the west. A few western nations realize that keeping its populations working is central for the maintenance of a stable and cohesive society, but many do not. What we are beginning to witness is a spreading realization in many parts of the planet that billions of us are expendable and our lives no longer matter, even as consumers. Soon we are going to witness an increasing criminalization of poverty. Simply being poor will become a crime in the future. The poor are already filling the newly privatized prisons and are then being used as slave labor by these for profit Corps. Poverty and its ills are being made into a profit center for a few of the Oligarchy! A vast system of Private slave creation is being financed by our taxes as we write here. The right is dismantling the social safety net and replacing it with a gulag of imprisoned poor people.
The "very real threat of violence" is the only thing allowing "non-violence" to have any effect.
People talk about Ghandi and his non-violence causing the British to give in but it was the very real riots in India that got the Brits to negotiate a deal and leave.
I am so disappointed in so many smart people who can't pick up a history book and read it. What is with you people? I sometimes think you work for the nobles and are a safety valve to relieve the build up of pressure of discontent and are not really wanting a change.
I believe Gandhi would agree with you SteppingRazor. " Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms is the blackest ". Mohandas Gandhi.
Hello SteppingRazor,
You noted,
"People talk about Ghandi and his non-violence causing the British to give in but it was the very real riots in India that got the Brits to negotiate a deal and leave."
I don't know whether that's true, but it's quite possible.. After all, the Brits knew that plenty of Indians had joined forces with the Japanese to fight them in WWII.
"We got the New Deal because of the very real threat of communist revolution and serious violence if things did not change. ... Dig up some photos of the bloody confrontations between the UAW and the police in Detroit or the Longshoresman and the police in California and see what it took to get concessions from the ruling class."
Good reminders. And of course that's a very short list of what went on.
"I sometimes think you work for the nobles and are a safety valve to relieve the build up of pressure of discontent and are not really wanting a change."
This kind of thinking will drive a person crazy. There are lots of reasons why people don't pick up a history book. Especially one that tells the ugly, unvarnished truth about their own country. (A truly appalling book that I can recommend is "The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves", by Andrew Ward.)
Is your point that people who prefer nonviolence don't really want change, or just that we're unrealistc about our chances of success?
My cats, and house, used to be infested with fleas. I tried non-violent ways of controlling them but it just got worse. Then I tried the parasite poison selamectin, sold as the brand "Revolution" and it got rid of all the parasites. Sometimes you just have to be practical about these things.
Edit: the fleas, BTW, never hesitated in using violence when sucking the blood from their victims.
But bluepilgrim, aren't you concerned that your shameless slaughter of these small, semi-harmless creatures, trying to make their way in the world as nature directs them, might be the first step in a life of crime that could culminate in the slaughter of thousands in a crowded stadium?
Evidently your methods used for non-violent control of them were not correct.
Nightly candle-light vigils around your cat, and the occasional fast (you, not your cat), will certainly work to dispel them. It just takes a little patience.
Point of information: the riots have not spread "throughout Great Britain". Nothing in Northern Ireland, where folks know a thing or two about rioting. And nothing in Scotland, where there is much social deprivation, but which since devolution has been run by administrations that have not imposed the kind of savage cuts to welfare, or huge price hikes for university tuition fees, that have done such damage to the social fabric of England.
wow...is this suggesting our problem is we are becoming too violent?
what in the hell do you think has been going on around here?
violence takes many forms...
is it not violent to poison another's well in the name of business?
is it not violent to fill streambeds with toxins, or oceans with detritus?
is it not violent to punish someone for enjoying marijuana?
is it not violent to force one to be radiated before enjoying the baseball game for which they paid?
is it not violent to place cameras throughout one's world, or compile databases of personal information?
is it not violent to knowingly vent radioactive particles upon unknowing citizens?
is it not violent to force the populations of other countries to suffer the poisons and illnesses associated with mining, and processing, and manufacturing, and shipping, that we might briefly enjoy the resulting product before shipping it to yet another country for toxic disposal?
is it not violent to steal the physical land, then work a man his entire life while contorting his mind, body and wallet to one's whim, with the sheriff's gun as passive-aggressive insurance?
I could go on and on...
maybe people are just tired of being shit on all the time, and want to know how it feels to be the shitter, instead of the shittee...even if only for a minute...
The oligarchy convinced people that conservatives were the good guys. That's when the pain began.
Thanks to everyone for your comments. I was particulary amused by bluepilgrim and port_lookout...not that bluepilgrim was trying to be funny, but the analogy was poignant and port_lookout's sarcasm was really good.
And a special thanks to dubet for making such a brilliant observation about what 'violent acts' are and how they often don't even remotely resemble traditional 'acts of violence'...where not even one fist is raised or gun wielded, yet the widespread devastation is just as bad. Or worse.