Dean Taylor

Dean Taylor

60p

36 comments posted · 0 followers · following 0

9 years ago @ Antiwar.com Blog - Frankensteinian Hubris... · 0 replies · +10 points

The 'people that matter'--for example, the Clintons, Bushes, the 'captains of industry,' hedge fund managers, etc.--as well as their offspring, are, of course, thoroughly insulated from the inevitable blowback.

So what's the problem? The children of the working class who become willing participants in the investor class-configured bloodspill will be told of their singular contribution to the spreading of democracy (they're more ambassadors than warriors, you might then conclude). The non-white 'collateral damage' (non-combatants) are, well, readily written off ('freedom has its price'). Empire's proximity to their oil, their mineral stores, their now-obliging markets and 'human resources,' etc., improves with the geo-political bedlam we breed and nurse...

Life is good--in the boardrooms, at Goldman-Sachs, for the Penny Pritzkers, the Brothers Koch, and war financiers.

DC: 'Be grateful we've staved off food riots thus far--and, stop meddling!'

9 years ago @ Antiwar.com Blog - Ellsberg Billboards Ur... · 0 replies · +7 points

conscience, integrity, moral stamina on the one side--career seduction at the other pole...

once again, Dan provides an arc of light inside the Beltway cave...and we, the people, thank you!

10 years ago @ Antiwar.com Blog - A Christmas Message fr... · 0 replies · +6 points

Edward--

We, the People, convey a sincere 'thank you,' for having the integrity, the nous, the moral stamina, to act on everyone's behalf. By cultivating a surveillance 'norm,' Empire compels a degeneration--a fragmenting--of the Community, as both a material and cognitive fact (THE essential fact of our lives).

We dig you--for what you accomplished, and for the constitutional values you hold dear (these are, in truth, 'of a piece'...).

Peace, brother...

13 years ago @ Antiwar.com Blog - Ellsberg Responds to S... · 0 replies · +1 points

from AP/SFGATE article: "Amid WikiLeaks storm, gov't promotes Ellsberg film"

"The films are intended to foster 'understanding and cooperation, dialogue and debate,' it says."

Notice: the State Department "validated" films are intended foster MANY things save the ONE very needful thing--CHANGE of the investor-class-configured status quo. However--HOWEVER--the top-down-capitalist construct CANNOT be rehabilitated, i.e., it is informed solely by greed for individual gain. That's individual gain--even amongst themselves there is an adversarial, cut-throat ethic in play.

The State, as educator John Dewey has pointed out, is merely the shadow cast by Big Business. We on the Left--i.e., the working class--have no interest in engaging in rhetoric with the shill for rentiers, the Fortune 500 CEOs, their consiglieri, or the Banksters. Nor are we interested in token gestures designed to placate American labor--i.e., to keep us pacified and away from the barricades in organized rebellion.

And, what, then do we DEMAND? We want CONCESSIONS, i.e., SUBSTANTIVE CONCESSIONS that will enable us to live apart from the yoke of wage slavery. We want the EFCA bill passed with the card check provision intact, we want a four-day work week, we want the minimum wage DOUBLED, we want single-payer health care. But, please do spare us the DIVERSIONS of films we ought to view to engage in "understanding and cooperation, dialogue and debate." NO MORE TALK--WE WANT ACTION! WE WANT OUR FUCKING LIVES BACK!

AP/SFGATE: http://bit.ly/emIQBX

on the four day work week (CounterPunch): http://www.counterpunch.org/coyle12242010.html

on wage slavery (CounterPunch): http://www.counterpunch.org/manson12282010.html

13 years ago @ MRZine - mrzine.monthlyreview.o... · 0 replies · +1 points

Imagine for a moment that the Bolsheviks had chosen, on principle, not to do away with the worker’s councils (i.e., the soviets), not insisting, as they nevertheless did, upon a “temporary”, top-down, controlling vanguard—i.e., taking their cue from Marx (his essential error?). Indeed—and in contradistinction to that failed attempt, and the ruin that ensued—Bakunin’s view is that one can never undo “old” top-down control (Tsarism, the kulaks, feudalism in Russia, etc.) by instilling “new” top-down control, however transient.

That is, the essential fact of our lives is that we must work, and, therefore, it makes nothing but good sense to establish the democracy we insist we want—i.e., a participatory democracy—at the syndicalist level, that being a decentralized matrix of worker’s collectives, or unions.

There, we establish the distinct possibility of 1) ongoing dialogue, 2) effective arbitration, 3) mutuality, and 4) participation of the kind sorely lacking in the highly centralized, top-down, hierarchical arborescent-model (i.e., Ponzi?) construct under which we suffer.

Hayek (Mises, and, more recently, Summers, et al.) argue to the necessity of control via “the unseen hand of the market”—i.e., the centralized market. If, however, we prescind from the idea of the Federal-as-God-as-needed-control mantra and consider the reality of “smaller,” decentralized (i.e., the rhizome model of, e.g., Deleuze and Guattari) local collectivization with localized, non-hierarchical communication displacing the virtually religious idée fixe of control, then a space of negotiation exists when one was lacking a moment ago.

Localized union consent via dialogue—i.e., consent which prescinds from individual greed as the salient, malign dynamic in this equation—has a better than equal chance at establishing a sustainable environment in which to flourish, not merely survive. This is not a utopian moment proffered here. It is highly workable, pace Hayek, Mise, Greenspan, and the other supposed Ivy-League “geniuses” in our midst.

Anarchism, as posited here, has nothing to do with lawlessness, chaos, disorganization, nihilism, etc. Rather, it is adult men and women determining the course of their own lives. The element of “organization” comes from the radical (i.e., fundamental) fact of the basic necessities we all need on an equal basis. That “equal”—when acknowledged as such—is all the foundation, organization, management, order, etc., we, as a collective will ever need.

When, however, we move away from the logical construct of a community of adult men and women—considered as a localized, non-hierarchical collective existing via ongoing consent—towards an eminently adversarial construct—i.e., capitalism—we have consented to (tacitly or otherwise), aided and abetted an abiding 1) dissonance, 2) antagonism, 3) contention, 4) rancor and wars of every stripe.

We do not need the “unseen hand of the market” for the commonweal. That is an academic (institutionally-derived) ruse—and an ersatz substitute—for what is essential (unremittingly so) to us for the long haul.

Capitalism is not a fait accompli! The history of civilization in the West does not begin with the Inclosure Acts!

the rhizome model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizome_(philosophy)

anarcho-syndicalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism

Mikhail Bakunin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakunin

primitive accumulation of capital: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_accumulation_of_capital

the Commons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons

the tragedy of the Commons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tragedy_of_the_Commons

Inclosure Acts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure_Act

13 years ago @ MRZine - mrzine.monthlyreview.o... · 0 replies · +1 points

"Over the years we've brought listeners news from unions, workers' centers, and working class social movements."

The Great Taboo broken here is the taboo of Empire which disallows even the MENTION of the phrase "working class."

And why might that be so, i.e., why might it be the case that the State/corporate/MSM regime studiously avoids even the mention of the term?

Because, first, it would risk ALERTING the slumbering giant--i.e., the overriding majority of the rank and file--that such a thing as "class" even exists! That is to say, one of the ways that consent is manufactured to control those who have been marginalized by predatory capitalism--marginalized as a function of its top-down, exploitive hierarchy--is by perpetrating the ruse that we have 1) a democracy, where 2) "all men are created equal."

That feint by those courting and wielding Power has great utility in that the working class is placated and tranquilized--i.e., drugged!--and thereby kept off balance as would-be activists. The psy-op process works something like this: "Even though I am a plumber's assistant [or store clerk, or office worker, etc.], I am JUST AS GOOD as anybody else in this country--and by extension--in the world, since we Americans are exceptional!"

It is an utterly cynical tactic used by those preservers of the status quo, playing upon the worst features of a humanity beaten down by elitist interests--i.e., it belies the actual antagonist (that identity purposely obscured) and, as victims are predisposed to become victimizers, it ultimately sets one worker against another, both globally and at home, as the true source of his immiseration is elided.

That is, (and, secondly), by broaching the term, its counterpoint--i.e., the INVESTOR CLASS--is inevitably brought to the fore. This is problematic because now an antagonistic dyad--i.e., pairing off--has been determined and, therefore, also serves to alert the working class that there does, in fact, exist ANOTHER collective of which 1) he is most certainly NOT a member, and 2) he is, in fact, shunned, feared, kept at a safe distance, etc.--literally, via housing/education/health care strata, and metaphorically, via elitist entitlements believed OWED only to the "better" people, i.e., by those comprising the investor/property owning opulent minority.

postscript: for more on this ALL-IMPORTANT issue:

The Hidden Injuries of Class, by Richard Sennet*
http://bit.ly/fR8Fve

*"the Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, the Bemis Adjunct Professor of Sociology at MIT and Professor of the Humanities at New York University" [Wiki].

13 years ago @ News From Antiwar.com - Lawyer: US Trying to '... · 0 replies · +9 points

NOW SHOWING!

Empire, Danse Macabre!

SEE!: what Empire has running through its pipes! MARVEL!: at the self-serving, Ivy-League piglets rutting in the sty that is Capitol Hill! LUXURIATE!: in the delicious anticipation of an over-indulged, over-fed investor class run to ground!

"WikiLeaks' high colonic irrigation for Empire has been a LONG TIME COMING! Catch this one!"
We, the People--Now!

"Three thumbs up (where, we're not saying)!"
The Cyber Spectator

"The ne plus ultra of the genre: breaks new ground in DC politics as both farce and film noir!"
The Anarcho-Syndicalist Review

13 years ago @ News From Antiwar.com - Disappointing Poll: Am... · 0 replies · +15 points

"it must also be considered that the American public has simply changed its mind..."

The American public has no mind--i.e., a "mind" is not necessary for TV watchers, and other cretins desperate for "entertainment".

That's why we're in this "Empire" mess--WE, the Sheeple, have fatuously enabled this global juggernaut by swallowing the ruse that we were (are) exceptional--i.e., die Übermenschen, or WASP master race! And, yet we have ALL partaken of the Ponzi looting and ill-gotten gains--NO exceptions.

Narcissistic schmucks deserve what they've accommodated, for 234 years...WE are Empire!

Robert Jackson SPECIFICALLY WARNED US at Nuremberg NOT to emulate those we were zealously, triumphantly walking to the gallows.

Guess whose turn it is to greet the hangman? WE are Empire!

13 years ago @ News From Antiwar.com - Obama's Lose-Lose: Wik... · 0 replies · +3 points

"all those loudmouthed leftists.... Always you, leftists."

Let me straighten out your hairy arse a little bit, there, Jimmy Bob.

NEITHER mainstream party may correctly be termed "Leftist", i.e., they are BOTH well within the purview of the Right/corporatist wing, with the GOP a bit further Right--i.e., even MORE insidious-- than Forwardlooking's hoodlums.

A truly Left presidential candidate, in the accurate sense of the term, would have been Nader, or McKinney--neither of whom was even allowed into the debates!

Also, anyone who votes for one of the two corporatist parties believing that any material alteration of the investor-class-configured status quo is on the horizon is, doubtless, a TV watcher--like you, for example.

13 years ago @ News From Antiwar.com - Facing Lieberman Boyco... · 0 replies · +9 points

"The new host is Bahnhof Internet AB."

Thank you, Bahnhof Internet AB! More balls than a Christmas tree! Don't quit our Julian!