Manifesto 6.0 (Practice Draft)

     The spectre haunting Europe in Marx & Engels' day now overshadows the world. The collapse of empires, the blight of war, the mindless exploitation of Nature, the persistent devaluation of life --all life, not just human life-- these are the signs and symptoms of a pathological culture on its way to ecocide and extinction. Redemption, if it is possible, can only be achieved by global revolution overthrowing the present world order. The spectral forces of alienated labor, resistance to illegitimate authority, recognition of universal human rights, the struggle for social justice, these assume material form in solidarity and community.

     By now, the early years of the XXI century, it is clear that there is an elite class of humans --less than 1% of all humans-- whose decisions determine the use and distribution of human and natural resources necessary to sustain life on Earth. It is equally clear that their decisions have resulted in the present conditions of conflict, poverty, disease and environmental degradation. They continue to pursue social and economic policies that preserve and protect their positions of privilege, power and authority. 

     It is no secret that the immiseration of the majority of humans will increase, even as our numbers decline in the wake of endless wars and plagues that become more frequent and lethal. It is no secret that the oceans are dying, warming as they become more acidic, killing coral reefs, melting the polar ice caps. Drought and wildfire, followed by storms and flood, are reducing crop yields, devastating forests, turning grasslands into deserts. There is no relief or rescue on the horizon. There is perhaps, the possibility of transformation through revolutionary action, but the spectral forces of imagination, invention, organization and cooperation must coalesce and unite even as classes, castes, divisions and heirarchies dissolve and merge, giving rise to a new order, a global awareness, a planetary consciousness that holds fast to the truth that Earth, our homeworld, is alive, sacred and finite.

Note: On De-colonising the American Mind (Part 1)

    The earliest appearance in English, of the word colony, according to the OED, was 1548, in the context of distant territories under the political control of a parent state. The word has roots in Latin that appear to generate branches that twine together. One sense of coloni is a farmer, one who tills the land. Cultivate, culture are related. The word colonel is perhaps related: The one leading the column of soldiers; the one in charge of the invaders who will seize the land; the one who will be in charge of the plantation. There is also a somewhat mystical connection suggested by archaeology and the architecture of ancient Roman colonies. The center of the colony was laid out in a grid, with a column at its center. The pillar represented the colonists; the capital (head) was the symbol of the power of the remote ruler. The allegiance and subordination of the colonists to the homeland was a necessary condition, not always offered willingly, for the economic growth of the parent state.

          Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule.^[6]  -- Jürgen Osterhammel's Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview

     The British, French and Russian settlements on the American continent during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries certainly fit the description for colonies. After the revolution and separation from England, the American government extended the practice of colonial occupation with regard to the indigenous people and the lands they inhabited. Despite increasing tension over slavery, the economies of the southern states continued to depend on the plantation system established under colonialism. Although slavery was later abolished by law and treaties were signed ending hostilities with the native peoples, the social and economic conditions for these populations did not improve and often became worse. The arbitrary cruelty of a hierarchy defined by skin color, gender and ancestry was and is the legacy of our Jewish and Christian forbears.

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       “Feminism means that we renounce our obedience to the fathers and recognize that the world they have described is not the whole world.”     -- Adrienne Rich

    This attitude of superiority and entitlement that men express in contemporary social settings is grounded in a patriarchal construction of the world. This is elegantly deconstructed by Susan Griffin (Woman & Nature: the Roaring Inside Her), diagnosed as pathology by Mary Daly (Gyn/Ecology), and further developed in work by Adrienne Rich, bell hooks, Clarissa Pinkola Estés and others. Male privilege and white supremacy are the twin pillars supporting colonial oppression. As we are witnessing in America, and elsewhere in Europe, anti-establishment, xenophobic, nationalist sentiments are fuelling a resurgence of white male assertiveness that empowers and validates the authoritarian regime.

    In addition to a thorough feminist analysis, and certainly as important, is a comprehensive anti-racist, anti-colonialist analysis.  Beginning with Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth), Walter Rodney (How Europe Under-Developed Africa), Frederick Douglass, and W.E.B. DuBois, one begins to appreciate how deep are the roots of white supremacy. It is widely recognized that these hierarchies of status are learned in childhood and become lifelong factors in our behavior, so we know when to step up and when to defer. This internalized set of rules is the psychic glue that holds families, communities, nations, civilizations together. Since we tend not to recognize these inner processes, we don't connect the consequences that result from our unconscious participation and compliance with the social order.
    

Welcome to the Apocalypse I

    We are all going to die.
    That is a fact, not an opinion. You, me, our loved ones, family and friends, our pets, all of us will go under the hill or up in smoke. Yet most of us don't seem to understand or appreciate this obvious fact. If we did, I think we would be a whole lot kinder and forgiving to one another, ourselves and our homeworld. I think if we truly realized the fragility, brevity, and exquisite beauty of our existence-- being alive, being human --we'd behave better. People who have survived a near-death experience or feared for their life, often become kinder, more compassionate and generous. Their sense of being is transformed in remarkable ways, according to their own accounts. Although the genre is anecdotal, there is agreement that life itself, breath by breath, is a treasure beyond value.
    Considering that we share the same fate and have nowhere else to live but this tiny spinning rock --for the foreseeable future, another fact-- doesn't it make sense for us to cooperate to co-create and nurture environments and networks that sustain our homeworld and us, too?
    Considering we share the same fate and the same homeworld, how does it make sense to allow one species to destroy the environments and networks that sustain us all? I'm making an effort to be temperate, but the urgency of the moment tends to inflame my rhetoric. A growing number of us are convinced that human activity has tipped the balance of the biosphere in lethal ways. Those dangerous and destructive practices must stop and we must begin to remedy and restore what survives. Unfortunately, many of the "decision-makers" and "world leaders" remain firmly committed to the status quo, despite their treaties and agreements to mitigate greenhouse-gas damage.
    People around the world are organizing in opposition to the continuing pillage and pollution of global capitalism. In response, the state tends to protect the property and interests of the business class, at the expense of the people and the environment. The ascendancy of private property over the commonwealth has been underway for several centuries, culminating in various forms of state capitalism and capitalist control of the state. The corporatist state is one of the hallmarks of a proto-fascist regime.

     Fascism is a form of radical nationalism that first appeared in Europe in the aftermath of WW I. Each of its manifestations exhibited unique characteristics, but all shared certain features in common. Guided by historians and sociologists, one can easily tick off fascism's dominant traits:

    a strong leader, a father figure, a dictator, a savior, patriarchy
    a police state, a security state, a surveillance state, law & order
    scapegoating minorities for social problems, xenophobia
    criminalize opposition, eliminate unions, control mass media
    promise a return to better times, take back our country
    restoration of values, moral purity, protect the homeland
    oligarchic control of the economy, corporatist state apparatus

    The fascist regimes of Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, and Hitler in Germany, have spawned imitators in other parts of Europe and Latin America, as well as Asia and Africa. It's probably important to distinguish those regimes that come to power by military coup (e.g. Pinochet in Chile, the Shah of Iran) or by installation (e.g. Trujillo, Duvalier) from those that are elected democratically. Call them exo-fascism, "Fascism Imposed", and endo-fascism, "Fascism Invited," respectively.

    When I was an undergrad, at UCI in the late sixties, a rash of critical texts appeared almost overnight, like mushrooms. New names joined the contributors to venerable Marxist journals; older, almost forgotten authors were revived. While Charles Reich's The Greening of America was a best-seller, Wilhelm Reich's The Mass-Psychology of Fascism was reprinted. It sold poorly and was mostly ignored, but I found the book enlightening. W. Reich's clinical work with working-class men and women revealed a constellation of neuroses in which he recognized a pattern, as identified by the title of the text. His patients complained about their work, their private lives, their dissatisfaction with life in general. He observed their anger, their insecurity, their fear and their persistent use of force and violence. Reich described the alienated personality prepared to embrace fascist leadership. The people who felt most betrayed and disappointed in their aspirations were the most eager to blame others.

    Over the years myriad volumes have been published on every angle and aspect of the social psychology, social economy and social dynamics of our civilization. How are we to understand something as narrow and complex as "late XX Century fascism" within such a huge context? And, if our understanding is correct, can we learn anything useful to forestall, diffuse or defeat fascism when it appears? Although the tone of this essay may seem academic, the matter at hand is immediate and serious. A growing number of citizens fear for the fate of the republic as a democracy, but even more, we fear for the survival of our grandchildren in the decades to come. The rapid shifts occurring at every level of government in the United States indicate movement toward a surveillance state, corporate control of government services, limits on civil liberties & the press, restricted immigration, reduced access to health care, employment, housing, education and justice. It's clear to me where this is headed and I don't think we want to go there.


    

What is to be done? Autumn Equinox 2017

    There's not much time. There's a lot to do. That much should be obvious to anyone with a pulse and a little compassion.  Everything I'm talking about has to be understood within and emerging from a realization that humans are committing ecocide.  This self-destructive pattern has opposing forces, communities and networks devoted to extinguishing those disastrous ideologies that have brought us to this precipice.  In the long run of history, it is my hope to see an end to capitalism, imperialism and male supremacy, the breeders of war and misery.

    In the short run, this could be a moment of rare opportunity.
    After eight months in office, there are more public calls for the impeachment of the President.  This will not happen as long as the GOP holds majorities in both houses of Congress.  With the mid-term elections next year, there is a serious possibility that the Republicans could lose that control.
    The other party, the Democrats, is in perpetual confusion.  Without dissecting the factions, let's allow that Sanders' campaign disproved the "conventional wisdom" governing the DNC & DLC campaign strategies.  Fortunately, the Sanders team has continued to work inside and outside the official party, pushing the conversation to the left, supporting local action committees, identifying and promoting progressive candidates to challenge the Wall Street Democrats.  For example, Every Voice http://www.everyvoice.org/  is a spin-off that's getting good results.
    This is a chance to challenge the old guard.  We need to find a lot of good, qualified people to get into races up and down the ticket, from school boards to Senators.  School boards?  We need to defend our schools from privatization as "charter" schools, don't we?  City council?  We want decent housing, fair wages, safe streets and clean water, don't we?  We know this if we studied "Civics."  These are abiding concerns for many of us on the local level.
    The unusual circumstances right now will require an enormous, coordinated effort to succeed.  I believe it would be possible to impeach the president and vice-president and choose a new Speaker of the House, who would ascend to the White House.  To do this, we would have to challenge and defeat many Democrats and Republicans currently sitting in the House.  With a progressive-tilted House, a new Speaker could be installed as the 46th President.  Think about that.

    Where do candidates come from? 
    Honestly, I don't know, but I have some ideas that suggest an historical trajectory we should take advantage of. 

   (At this point in composition I stopped to see what was causing Lambert's distress... )

    It's difficult to say how many authentic grassroots political action groups are functioning today. All the well-known and established non-profits have their spin-offs and astro-turf fronts competing for attention and dollars as well. (Check your Inbox if you doubt me. ) There are reports now, in the wake of the Democrats' purge of progressives, that the field of challengers the GOP will face comes from the Democrats' loyal donor class & "bundlers."
    If you participate in a group that has taken a stand to resist the GOP and Trump/Pence regime, look around and think about who might be a serious candidate for a local or district campaign. Who are the "spark plugs" and who are the stalwarts? What is the passion that drives them?
    Every day my email box is full of appeals for money, reports and alerts, projections and analysis, frequently above or below a name that's become familiar from repetition. Do any of these people aspire to public service, representing the folks they live with and advocate for? They are well up on current events and their public record should be readily available.
    Maybe you are the person to step up? Or a family member? A friend among your circle? It seems so remote, I know, and yet this is the essence of civic life and citizen democracy. As a democracy, we must insist upon respecting both "majority rule" and "minority rights" lest we perpetuate the present plutocratic hierarchy of power into the future.
    Last, here is a short list of groups from my inbox. You might recognize some of them. Just to repeat myself, "Who are these activists and could they be successful candidates who win elections?"

Rachel Warino   CA Labor Fed

Sabrina Joy Stevens   National Women's Law Center

Lucia, Candace, & Dutch   freepress.net

Emily Heffling  Western States Outreach Coordinator, Union of Concerned Scientists—       
    Oakland Office

Shaun O’Brien  AFL-CIO

Good Jobs Nation

Our Revolution

Sum Of Us

Avaaz

Ben Wikler  MoveOn

Brandy Doyle  CREDO Action 

Lena Moffitt  Sierra Club

Jay Henderson   Democracy for America

Reuben Hayslett   Demand Progress

     There are a handful of special elections coming up. It will be interesting to see what happens. In Alabama for example.

Observations in mid-summer, 2017

     The recently installed, but illegitimate, forty-fifth resident of the nation's capital has continued his demolition of 'life as we know it' for millions of people. The axe of presidential authority falls primarily on the necks of people who are poor, speak English as a second or third language, or belong to a 'Middle-Eastern faith community.'
     My friends have an old eucalyptus on the hillside above the street that needs to come down before it falls down. They called the crew that's been trimming their trees forever. The crew is down to the boss, one guy and a trainee. The rest of his guys had to leave, or stay home while their wives went to work. My friends tried another tree trimmer, but he said the tree was too big for his crew.
     Almost every day now people are in the streets for immigrants' rights, protesting the round-ups and deportations, the travel bans. Civil rights groups are raising funds to challenge the executive orders in the courts. The government is confident it will prevail. With the confirmation of the White House's choice for the Supreme Court, this seems likely in the end. Meanwhile, on the streets, ICE, the new Migra, is working overtime to fill those buses.
     The new crew in the White House, a collection of billionaires and vulture capitalists like 45, has cleaned house, giving pink slips to everyone left, scrubbed department websites, and ruthlessly rolled back as much of the previous administration's regulatory protections as it can reach, with help from the Republican controlled Congress. Privacy and net neutrality are about gone. Environmental protections: gone. School lunches and women's health: gone. Voting rights: going. Police reviews: on hold. Pipelines: green light. Arctic drilling: green light. And these "executive actions" have yet to be complemented by the Congress' legislative agenda, including repeal of ACA, tax reform, energy policy, immigration reform, trade agreements and another shot at privatizing Social Security.
     And there's the war business, the engine that drives the the imperial juggernaut across borders, the endless struggle for domination of markets and resources. By some experts' figuring, more than half of all Federal tax revenue goes to "defense" (which also includes veterans' benefits, pensions, etc.), a fact that validates the assertion that the US spends more on its military than the next seven nations combined. If we spent less on defense, we could divert our tax dollars to do all kinds of things that need doing! That's not going to happen with the current regime in control.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson Discuss the Recent Turn of Events

(With the assistance of Reel Covert Surveillance, LLC & ImagiNation, IBU)

     "So, Sherlock, I see you've got your violin in your lap," Watson observed. "Were you playing before I arrived, perhaps?"
     The consulting detective nodded, stroking the body of the fine instrument. "Playing, Watson? No, not really. I was composing a dirge, actually."
     "Really, Holmes? A dirge?" Watson asked with some surprise. "Whose demise has roused you to attempt such an effort? Particularly after your own recent... er... challenges."
     Holmes smirked a little as he spoke, "There you are again, John, with a euphemism. But, your question is to the point." Putting flame to his pipe, producing a cloud of blue smoke, his voice seemed for a moment to be disembodied, in the vapor. "Whose demise has moved my cold heart to admit the feverish delusion of grief? What loss, you may well ask, is great enough to penetrate the armor of self-sufficiency and independence Sherlock Holmes has fashioned?"
     "Indeed, Holmes, I'd not meant... "
     "No, John, don't protest," Holmes said gently. "Perhaps it was nearly being removed from the game, as you mentioned, made me aware how marginal, how expendable each of us is. How perilously fragile our existence is, despite our best defenses."
     "You surprise me, Sherlock!" the doctor said. "Surely, with everything we've seen these many years, you must have understood! We all suffer, we all die."
     "But, Watson, I believed we were exempt, immortal, eternal."
     "Now, you don't?"
     "Not anymore."
     "What's changed, Sherlock? We've both been revived more than once."
     Holmes almost smiled at the remark. "Indeed, Watson, we have come back from the dead a time or two." He mused a moment before going on. "I believed 'the game' would go on forever, and as long as the game was afoot, I'd always be a part of it," Holmes explained, "with you, of course, there too."
     "And now... ?"
     "The game is over, Watson," said Holmes. "It is for the demise of the game that I grieve," he added, and fell silent.
     Dr. Watson sat in his own cloud of silence, for a moment, but his was a bewildered silence, unlike Holmes' gloom. "Sherlock, please, what are you saying?"
     Holmes' eyes appeared to sparkle a moment, perhaps with tears-- smoke or sadness? --as he met his friend's gaze."Barring the appearance of Maitreya or a World Teacher or some wise and benevolent extra-terrestrial beings capable of facilitating the universal transformation of human beings into conscious, peaceful creatures overnight... in short without a miracle, I have reached the inescapable conclusion that our species is committing ecocide. We are ending the possibiity for human existence on our home world. Thus, the game is over." 
     "Surely, you must acknowledge signs of hope, Sherlock, signs of resistance? You can't truly think it's finished."
     "Of course, there is resistance, but it's much too little, John, and much too late," Holmes said sadly. "Before the apparent election results in the US were known, it was already beyond doubt. Rising sea levels, more extreme weather events (so-called), increasing levels of greenhouse gases. The petroleum-dependent global economy has catastrophic consequences. Now, even mitigation is out of the question. This generation will be helpless to stop the collapse happening around them."
     "Holmes! Stop! You're looking through the darkest lens," Watson objected. "Yes, it's bleak, but we don't quit, no matter how difficult."
     Holmes smiled, a little. "Your optimism has always been an annoying comfort in difficult moments, but here it is entirely misplaced. I should say the election results in America have sealed our fate and hastened the end considerably."
     

 

I've Got Those Post-Election Armchair Revolutionary Blues   

    There are a couple aspects of the current socio-political situation that I want to look at. One is the vote-counting in swing states and the electoral college. The other is the correct stance in relation to the unfolding transfer of power to Trump and the Republicans.
    There are reports of voter suppression surfacing in the "swing" states Trump won. There is evidence that the rolls were scrubbed to dilute Democratic numbers, giving the GOP the narrowest of victories in a handful of states, enough to take the electoral college. Greg Palast, who has been on top of this story since the 2000 election, is on it again. If this story got the attention it deserves, millions of ballots currently uncounted, in storage, would have to be counted. People who are petitioning for the abolition of the electoral college should find this investigation helpful to their cause. Despite the criminal disenfranchisement of millions, it appears Clinton has won the popular majority and would be President, but for the electoral college. Activists in the targeted states should keep the spotlight on this, get the media covering it with press releases where the ballots are stored (or destroyed). Find voters who were denied the right and have a picnic/speak out (with media, livestream).
    As this story unfolds, look for signs of a third party emerging. Do folks prize the vote but despise the choices? I bet they do, and that's something we want to foster.

      *                  *

    With daily announcements to the press services, Trump's team has identified the President-elect's first appointees, and they are appalling. Which is my second, but primary, concern today. What is the correct stance to take with respect to this transfer of power? There are some on the left, within the Democratic establishment, counselling for a conciliatory, "Wait and see" posture. The sitting President has offered his cooperation. The Senator from Vermont has promised to help Trump do what is good for the country, and vigorously oppose him when he does not. The mainstream mass media appear to be engaged in the process of reshaping, or reframing, what is acceptable, normal public behavior for the head of state. At the same time, the press is schooling Trump, tripping him up over his conflicts of interest and displays of ignorance. He is a media-creature and like any organism, he'll adapt to the changing environment or die.
    There seems, to my ear, to be a chorus calling for cautious vigilance: yellow alert, as it were. It may be based on some romantic belief in the gravitas of the office having a sobering effect on the occupant. Don't count on it, I say. If anything, it's likely to feed the ego of a narcissist. My initial response to "Wait and see" was, "See what? How bad it can get?" For half-a-second I was seduced by Obama, but then I realized what a "successful" Trump presidency would mean: the achievement of his campaign pledges:  Mass deportations. A Scalia-clone on the Supreme Court. Obama care-- gone. EPA-- gone. And what else?
    Those are but the dire prospects perhaps in the future. Turning to what we know, by past words and deeds, there are predictions we can reasonably make about decisions Trump will make that affect us all. We can begin with those appointees mentioned in passing above. Each is an indicator of the tone, style and objective purpose of the incoming regime. Trump's closest advisor and chief strategist, Steven Bannon, created Breitbart, the pre-eminent platform of the 'alt-right' white-rights movement. The head of the transition team for energy policy is the leading climate-change denier. The economics advisors include the CEO of Cerberus, former chair of the SEC, & a longtime exec from Goldman-Sachs. Trump's choice for Attorney-General is so reactionary, he was rejected by the Senate for a federal judgeship. The next head of the CIA is the quintessential Tea-Party Republican, totally in the pocket of the Kochs and neo-Cons. And then Trump's other "first" apointment, his national security advisor, has drawn attention for his apparent close ties to Putin and vitriolic comments about Muslims. Lest we forget, it's only been two weeks. More to come.
    In addition to these political moves that determine how the state is to be governed, some of Trump's other doings outside the Office are having an impact. His tweets continue to draw attention in the media. His refusal to hold a press conference raises questions about access, privacy and transparency. His private meetings with heads of state are "off the record." His continued refusal to repudiate the bigotry of white supremacist groups emboldened by his election clarifies his pledge to represent all Americans. He means all those who are white.

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    To me, it's obvious this is the early stage of a fascist coup. Remember Mussolini's definition? The corporate capture of the state apparatus. Most of the Congress, most federal courts, state legislatures and governors are dependent on corporate "sponsorship." There are ways to please the sponsor, and ways to provoke his wrath. Invariably, "he" is also "white." The election of a neo-fascist governor in Wisconsin, followed by the crushing defeat of the state's public unions, demonstrates the power and ruthless indifference of the "corporate elite." (Give me a better term?) From my perspective, there is no alternative but to oppose Trump in every possible way. When I consider the arc of history, both the long view and the short, there is no room for compromise with illegitimate authority that appeals to racist supremacy. Mr Trump and I share the same planet, breathe the same air, but that is all we have in common. Thus, I must stand in militant, non-violent resistance to his election, installation and occupation of the Office of President.
    As I watch the talking heads on tv, tossing their points back and forth, this "new normal" becomes more and more hollow as I listen. Now it strikes me what's missing from all this empty talk. I have not heard from the Elders, from the Grandmothers, from women, from communities of color, from the displaced and undocumented victims of American intervention. These are voices I want to hear. I want their counsel. I want them to tell me if my stance is correct or not.

     (The election was two weeks ago. Turkey Day is this week. In between, we've survived another Arroyo Arts Collective Discovery Tour, and been to my Uncle Al's funeral. I feel like I'm still recovering from the three weeks I spent subbing at a Charter school, teaching high school English. (That's a subject for another essay.) Just giving context to this entry.)