Thursday, September 30, 2010

Denis Rancourt on anti-hierarchy activism - Nine-part video mini-series

Here is a nine-part video commentary about anti-hierarchy activism.
#1 On the need to act across hierarchical strata; act up.
#2 When does our opinion matter to power?
#3 Is organizing activism? (When does it help?)
#4 Is community building activism?
#5 On the need to embrace hatred. (related essay)
#6 Fight your own oppression!
#7 Where do you fight?
#8 How do you fight?
#9 What is the payoff?
The underlying assumption is that of anarchism, that hierarchy by design and nature is violently oppressive. These videos are about activism aimed at flattening the hierarchical pyramid. (If you're not fighting hierarchy then you are helping to maintain it.)



















Related essays HERE.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Real news from Barcelona - Students and workers prepare to challenge EU capitalism


"Un grupo de activistas 'okupa' la sede del banco Banesto de Barcelona" (LINK)

This Saturday, in Barcelona, a gigantic empty bank was squatted right in the main center of the city, and right now it's being used as a center of coordination for all people getting ready to the general strike of this Wednesday (September 29).

All those who live in the city and cannot take part in the strike for several reasons (precarious situation at work, minimum services obligation, etc), can pass by and ask for help; all those who are not aware of the different committees working on the strike can find the information there; groups who needed a meeting place, now found one; those who want to share the resources they have now have a place to do it.

We believe, that capitalism is not a destiny and that there are many ways of living outside of it and creating conflict. In moments like this we can, together, find answers and solutions for our questions and create links with the people who, as us, want to take back control of their own lives.

Here you have a collection of news about the occupation. Most of it will be in Catalan or Spanish, however if you have doubts or curiosities, write me!

Cheers to all,
Deb
(at the bank, Barcelona)

Happiness is rebellion-shaped
http://29-s.net/
http://blip.tv/file/4166889
http://movimentdel25.wordpress.com/
http://desdebaix.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/des-de-baix-a-la-manifestacio-combativa-quina-es-la-teva-vaga/
http://assembleadebarcelona.wordpress.com/
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/403427/index.php

http://es.noticias.yahoo.com/5/20100925/tes-un-grupo-de-activistas-okupa-la-sede-44b36e8.html
http://www.acn.cat/acn/573349/Societat/text/banc-central-de-credit-banesto-ocupacio-moviment-25-S-vaga-general.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUwbiILGhaY
http://es.noticias.yahoo.com/5/20100925/tes-un-grupo-de-activistas-okupa-la-sede-44b36e8.html
http://www.lavanguardia.es/ciudadanos/noticias/20100926/54011463352/ocupan-el-banco-espanol-de-credito-en-la-plaza-catalunya-de-barcelona.html
http://www.lavanguardia.es/economia/noticias/20100925/54011334779/un-grupo-de-anticapitalistas-ocupa-la-antigua-sede-del-banco-de-credito-en-barcelona-mossos-ccoo-ugt.html
lahaine.org
http://elperiodico.com/es/noticias/barcelona/20100925/centenares-activistas-ocupan-banco-espanol-credito-plaza-catalunya-para-llamar-huelga/499240.shtml
http://www.diariovasco.com/agencias/20100925/centenares-activistas-ocupan-banco-credito_201009252132.html
http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/500-anticapitalistas-ocupan-antigua-sede-banco-espanol-credito-plena-p
http://www.abc.es/agencias/noticia.asp?noticia=530587
http://www.3cat24.cat/noticia/871306/barcelones/Els-joves-antisistema-decideixen-continuar-locupacio-de-lantiga-seu-del-Banc-Espanyol-de-Credit-fins-el-29-S
http://www.3cat24.cat/noticia/869686/catalunya/Un-grup-dactivistes-ocupa-lantic-Banc-de-Credit-per-fer-reflexionar-sobre-la-vaga-general

Seguimiento:
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/403999/index.php
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/404012/index.php
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/404020/index.php
http://www.naciodigital.cat/noticia/18361/fotos/ocupacio/antic/edifici/banesto/barcelona
http://www.naciodigital.cat/galeria/602/pagina1/ocupacio/antic/banesto/barcelona/promoure/vaga
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/404061/index.php


Sunday, September 26, 2010

On the pleasure of watching the corporate media crash and burn


It has been a great pleasure watching the Canadian agenda rag CanWest ship nose dive into bankruptcy and disappear. Not even a gift bailout from the Harper Government (under the guise of a stimulus package) was able to materialize.

It's also nice everyday watching the likes of the CBC, the Globe and Mail, and the National Post, play catch up so as to avoid the embarrassment of not covering the real news that is viral on the internet. There are now many prominent examples of such catch up: G20-Toronto police violence, Climategate, Israeli crimes in international waters, and US war crimes in Afghanistan...

It's gotten to the point where the corporate media get their news from twitter after the rest of us do, since they gave up bothersome investigative journalism long ago.

But it's not enough for these now exposed servants of powerful interests to just crash and burn. They are so committed to kissing ass that they insist on serving with ridiculously overdone editorial and commentary constructions in the face of what is obvious to anyone who can say "Google".

In this way they bravely raise improbable edifices of opinion generation that are bound for catastrophic failures.

A recent example is described in this video (below), where thousands of US-Canada media "pieces" have been generated to ridicule and condemn the September 23, 2010, statements of Ahmadinejad at the UN, in the face of majority public skepticism about the 911 official story and the apparent acts of cover up. (And in the face of the transcript of the actual speech!)

This baby is gonna crash, just like the H1N1 swindle and many more.

It all makes one wonder what the mechanism for return to sanity away from corporate mind engineering will be if the internet is completely saddled for profit. Will photocopied tracts become hot items? Will photocopy lock-downs be implemented? ...



Full unedited Ahmadinejad UN speech: HERE.
.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Are Physicists Smart?

Disciplined professionals serve power

by Denis G. Rancourt

First published on Global Research in 2006, presently not available on the GR site.


It is generally assumed that physicists are smart people. Even some chemists look up to physicists. Physics is reputed to be a difficult subject, the stuff of nightmares in high school. The greatest scientists that come to mind are often the physicists Einstein and Newton. The inventors of the atomic bomb are held in awe, as are the cosmologists that gave us black holes and worm holes into parallel universes. The proverbial rocket scientists are physicists. It is generally assumed that anyone who has studied quantum mechanics and can work-in the concept of entropy at a cocktail party is pretty smart.

I’m a physicist and I’ve trained physicists and I’d like to advance a different view: That generally, physicists, as a group, are pretty stupid, and certainly no smarter than any other group of self-centered and self-serving professionals.

Physicists limit themselves to physics, to simple phenomena that are amenable to manageable mathematical descriptions or to more complex phenomena that are reduced to simplistic descriptions via appropriate filters that are said to “capture the essential features”. Physicists study only what they can, given their specific and limited methods, possibly more so than in any other natural science discipline.

This in itself is an efficient and productive approach but physicists go much further. As a matter of professional culture, physicists believe that their methods could eventually lead to a deep and thorough understanding of all phenomena (including human consciousness, learning, politics, etc., for example), given time, dedication, sufficient funding, and powerful enough computers. Physicists believe that all sciences and all branches of human knowledge are physics, ultimately. They arrive at this conclusion having never read or studied psychology, pedagogy, philosophy, history, politics, sociology, art, etc. as part of their professional training.

Indeed, the modern professional physicist has usually subjected himself (less often herself) to extreme specialization, to be able to handle the technical side of the profession. This training is also largely about adopting the culture of the professional physicist: Examples and examples of what are “good problems – good questions” and what are “bad (= ‘unmanageable’) problems”; and examples and examples of how one tames a new problem and fits it into the mould of what a physicist can do. The physics student learns to bridle his curiosity and to restrict himself to what is doable, publishable, useful, profitable; using the unique methods of physics and providing “answers” that other professionals could not. That is the name of the game.

A broader education would not be compatible with this strategy – just enough reading outside of the field to spot new physics opportunities is the most that is recommended. A broader education might also cloud one’s professional identity and one’s professionalism: Eighty percent of physicists in North America work for the military, in the world’s largest military economy [1]. But of course physics students are drawn to physics because all can be understood via the physics portal and because worm holes are neat. Students search for meaning and social status and find military and corporate service, often in an environment that maintains the neat-problem mental bubble first cultivated in sci-fi and electronic game land.

If you’re already smarter than everyone else (as is generally the working assumption in most professions), then you don’t really need to venture out into other fields – that are so primitive and qualitative and descriptive in comparison to physics.

Other fields…? Other methods…? Complexity…? Professional physicists have so buried themselves into their culture of the doable, the mappable, the reducible, the solvable, the codable, … that they are largely unable to perceive complexity.

Students are drawn to physics by its promise of a manageable mathematical description, an objective method to own the world, to organise and predict the outside. Emotional immaturity, a need for an objective solution to uncertainty or a need to escape reality, draws students to physics and accompanies them in their professional development. The same naivety that couples so well with the physics culture also blocks perception of the complex.

That is the main reason, in my view, that physicists are stupid: They are unable to perceive complexity, a complexity of the real world that goes far beyond what physics will ever be able to handle in any universe. They are unable to even get a glimpse of the textures and subplots that may be intrinsically incompatible with mathematical description. To them, mathematics is the language of reality, not a mere human invention or genetically delimited expression. To them, the objective mind is all-powerful and able to open all doors. To them, useful perception is physiological and does not benefit from the uncertainties of one’s emotional state. To the physicist, communication is data transmission, not the subtleties that can only be captured by the right configuration of social and emotional attributes. The physicist deals in hard bits, not the imperceptibles that determine our animal and social lives. The physicist is unaware of his blindness and glibly confident in his perception, especially his perception of himself as systematic unraveller of the truth.

If at least he was harmless!

Notes:
[1] Schmidt, Jeff. Disciplined Minds. Rowan and Littlefield Publ., NY, 2000; Parenti, Michael. Democracy for the Few. Bedford St. Martin’s Publ., Boston, 1995; Mitchell, Peter R. and Schoeffel, John (Eds.) Understanding Power – The Indispensable Chomsky. The New Press, NY, 2002.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

To: Joseph Ratzinger, aka “The Pope” and Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church


The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State


A Convening of a Forum of Justice under International and Common Law

Cause No. ITCCS – 001 – 2011 UK, Docket 001 A

PUBLIC SUMMONS

To: Joseph Ratzinger, aka “The Pope” and Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church

BE ADVISED that you have been listed as a primary witness in an adjudication of a matter before this Court, which is a Tribunal of International and Indigenous Judges. Your presence is hereby requested on Monday, April 4, 2011 at 10:00 am, at a location to be disclosed, in the City of London, England.

Said Tribunal is convened pursuant to international Law, indigenous tribal Law, the Rule of Natural Law and the Law of Nations. Your presence is required to participate in the examination of issues and questions regarding the following matters and charges:

1. Your responsibility and liability as head of the Roman Catholic Church for the crimes of genocide, murder, warfare, forced removal from traditional lands, slave labour, institutionalized racism, theft of resources, child trafficking and pedophilia, and other crimes against indigenous peoples and children, arising from the Indian Residential School system in Canada established and maintained by Roman Catholic Church and the government of Canada.

2. Your failure to reply or respond to a public Letter of Demand issued to you from the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared dated February 4, 2008, asking that you identify the burial sites and cause of death of children who died in Indian Residential Schools in Canada established and run by your church.

3. Your promulgation and enforcement of a policy of concealing and denying violence and rape against children within your Church, and your practice of actively concealing, protecting and aiding and abetting child rapists and other criminals within your Church, and of thereby perpetrating an international obstruction of justice.

You may desire to consult with your attorney in regards to this matter, or have an advocate attend the hearings with you. You may submit written documents and materials, but be advised that they do not carry the same weight, or can substitute for or replace, your personal testimony.

BE ADVISED that any failure by you to respond to this PUBLIC SUMMONS, or failure to attend this Tribunal, can be interpreted to mean that you do not dispute the charges made against you laid forth in this document and by witnesses and other material, and may result in a verdict against you made in absentia.

Due to the Nation to Nation status of this issue, involving the original Nations of the North American continent as holders of Allodial Title, and its concern with matters concerning internationally recognized Crimes against Humanity, this Tribunal and its findings will be monitored by human rights specialists and representatives of governments, International agencies, indigenous Nations and the public media.

This Tribunal will be open to the public and the media. Its officers will submit its findings in the form of a final comprehensive report to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Criminal Court, and other bodies.

Duly Signed and Delivered this 18th Day of September, in the year 2010, in the City of London.

(signed in the original)

Royce White Calf, Elder
Oglala Lakota Nation
Acting Secretary, The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State
American Section: c/o 1000 Walker St., Unit 223, Holly Hill, Florida USA 32117

ITCCS Communication 002 2011 UK, Docket 002



Friday, September 17, 2010

G20-Toronto public enquiry farce is a national shame - TRN reality check - video

Disgusting behaviour of the cops, their bosses, and the "justice" establishment. And of most of the mainstream media and the civil rights establishment which is soft asleep. Historians take note!

Witness the degradation of Canadian institutions. This is the continued growth of corporate fascism.




Sunday, September 12, 2010

Why we love to hate conspiracy theories: 911 Truth as threat to the intelligentsia

by Denis G. Rancourt
This essay was first posted on the Activist Teacher blog.


Especially left and liberal professionals and service intellectuals but also right-wing members of the intelligentsia vehemently attack and ridicule “conspiracy theories” such as the present 911 Truth movement.

Why?

It’s as though power did not covertly orchestrate its predation of us? Is that not the modus operandi of power?

Is it so difficult to believe that the complex and highly successful military attack on US soil that was 911 (levelling three gigantic sky scrapers, blasting a hole into the Pentagon, and destroying four commercial jets and their passengers) was not orchestrated by a religious zealot from a cave in Afghanistan and executed by failed Cessna pilot trainees with box cutters? Or that those who measurably benefited in the trillions had nothing to do with it?

What the hell? Not even (admittedly rare) authoritative mainstream reports seem to matter [1].

What ever happened to “war is a racket” and “follow the money”?

In rigorous compliance with the true meanings of "academic freedom" [2] and "freedom of the press" virtually no academics or mainstream journalists have made it their research to find truth or to radically (at the root) question the establishment version.

Indeed, all the major and considered-radical academic pundits such as Noam Chomsky and Ward Churchill, have actively avoided the possibility that the 911 attacks could have been known or aided from within the finance-corporate-military complex.

What keeps them from crossing that line? What makes them demean attempts to cross that line? [3]

Similarly, even outspoken dissident parliamentary politicians such as George Galloway have ridiculed the concerns of 911 truthers (at his last public talk in Ottawa).

Is such self and projected censorship by star intellectuals only the result of the fear of being mobbed by ridicule? Is asking these questions in public fora so dangerous?

When barred and suppressed Afghan Member of Parliament Malalai Joya was asked about 911 by a truther in Ottawa last year she replied that those who sought answers in this matter should address their questions to the occupiers of the White House. To this writer’s knowledge, this is the furthest that any politician has gone in this direction, coming from “the bravest woman in Afghanistan” no less.

But what shocked the present writer more is the derision to which was subjected the truther at the Malalai Joya Ottawa event, at the hands of an “activist” and “progressive” crowd.

INTELLIGENTSIA SELF-DEFENCE

The intelligentsia appears to be addicted to the illusion that it has a monopoly on valid analysis and understanding. In order to preserve this illusion and to protect its standing in providing interpretations of the World, the intelligentsia must limit the scope of all investigations to domains that fall within its self-established interpretational paradigms (right-left, power politics, geopolitical chess board, corporate motives, etc.) and self-established research protocols.

Those paradigms and protocols, in turn, and the rigorously followed discipline of not supposing the worst in one’s research stance, were established in academia at the time when “academic freedom” was being defined by the cornerstone nineteenth century US battles for professional independence in academia. The academics and society lost that battle [2]:
“[T]he economists were the first professional analysts to be “broken in,” in a battle that defined the limits of academic freedom in universities. The academic system would from that point on impose a strict operational separation between inquiry and theorizing as acceptable and social reform as unacceptable.

Any academic wishing to preserve her position understood what this meant. As a side product, academics became virtuosos at nurturing a self-image of importance despite this fatal limitation on their societal relevance, with verbiage such as: The truth is our most powerful weapon, the pen is mightier than the sword, a good idea can change the world, reason will take us out of darkness, etc.”

Academics and “radical professors” train the intelligentsia…

And power owns the media.

TRUTH ABOUT TRUTH

But much more importantly power owns us, owns our jobs, owns students at school and owns the homeless on the street, the First Peoples on the reserves and the prisoners in the jails. As long as we are owned, information about abuse of power is irrelevant for social change.

This is the sociological fact that the 911 Truth movement has failed to recognize [4]. Truth will not set us free. Truth and information do not lead to action. It’s not a question of how many folks know the truth.

It’s only a question of what the truth means in real terms to however few individuals and will these individuals rebel, actually rebel and individually take back power over their lives.

Contrary to the mantra of our left academic idols, truth and research are not threatening to power in a culture of subservience and obedience. In such a culture, radical-in-thought academics only stabilize the system by neutralizing the more action-minded youth. [5]

In such a culture, the only truth that is threatening to power is one that it perceives as an attack on its self-image [6]. And, in such a culture, psychological self-image arising from power’s connection to the broader society is the only force that can move power to constrain itself [6]. In this measure, in the present culture, 911 Truth could have an impact. In this way, some of the low-level actual perpetrators and facilitators of 911 could eventually be sacrificed in show trials or in mainstream smear campaigns.

In conclusion, the intelligentsia works at protecting itself (and by extension the system) and therefore will be a visceral opponent of 911 Truth until it can integrate 911 Truth and participate in neutralizing 911 Truth in order for power to save face. Or, some citizens might actually rebel? The extent and projection/potential of such pockets of rebellion is the only force capable of leveraging real concessions from power [7][8][9].

Endnotes

[1] “Major media articles on 9-11 raise questions” by Fred Burks, 2010, Want to Know.

[2] “Some big lies of science” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.

[3] “Questioning Foundations: An Interview with Denis Rancourt” by Michael Barker, 2010, Dissident Voice.

[4] “911 Truth” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.

[5] “Against Chomsky” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2008.

[6] “Psycho-biological basis for image leverage and the case of Israel” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.

[7] “On the racism and pathology of left progressive First-World activism” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.

[8] “Roundabout as conflict-avoidance versus Malcolm X’s psychology of liberation” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.

[9] “Murder and genocide are natural, therefore rebel!” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.




Denis G. Rancourt was a tenured and full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa in Canada. He practiced several areas of science which were funded by a national agency and ran an internationally recognized laboratory. He published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals. He developed popular activism courses and was an outspoken critic of the university administration and a defender of student and Palestinian rights. He was fired for his dissidence in 2009 by a president who is a staunch supporter of Israeli policy. [See rancourt.academicfreedom.ca]

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Murder and genocide are natural, therefore rebel!

A socio-biological critique of First-World middleclass activism

by Denis G. Rancourt
This essay was first posted on the Activist Teacher blog.


Evolution can be societal. Here I argue that we must recognize our primal drive for murder and genocide and society’s propensity for violently oppressive hierarchies in order to react with the needed determined and sustained individual-based rebellion. This rebellion is against the rogue warlords and hierarchies that dominate us. Warring and its hierarchical support serve no useful purpose now that the human species is not ecologically threatened by natural competitors and now that there is no need for genetic selection (otherwise imposed on a small gene pool by an unforgiving natural environment).

This is a critique of First-World middleclass activism, in the hope that it will start contributing to human evolution.

I argue that laws and ethical systems are diversions that serve hierarchy and I argue that a victim mentality induced by hierarchy makes us susceptible to the appeal of canned justice and to various escapes into cowardice; rather than allowing us to perceive the otherwise obvious possibility of rebellion and self-defence.

I describe a positive feedback trap in which perturbed activists respond to perceived threats by launching into behavioural rule generation (an anxious quest for the perfect model) which in turn supports the system causing the threats. This leads to off-target and co-opted actions such as ineffective appeals to politicians, lobbying for new laws and regulations, adopting extreme personal lifestyle rules, and extremes in applied political correctness (“inclusive language,” “safe space,” etc.). The more the activists feel threatened the more they spin pseudo-comforting behavioural rules and make requests to the hierarchical oppressors for better rules, thereby increasing their societal isolation and further distancing themselves from effective means.

The gargantuan failures of First-World middleclass activism in the face of advancing soul-battering corporate fascism, murderous militarism and exploitive finance globalization since the 1970s should be cause for radical self-examination. Canadian queer pride parades (that can’t agree on whether Israel is an apartheid sate), reparationless apologies for aboriginal residential schools, zero-impact demonstrations and petitions, and tolerated and disappeared public musings about proportional representation and parliamentary free votes just don’t cut it; whereas corporate greening counts negatively. It’s like the activism was designed to fail. There is little sign of actual resistance from the First-World middleclass.

MURDER IS NATURAL AND HEALTHY IS SICK

Animal rights activists believe that abstaining from killing animals is a higher moral state to which humans should aspire. But is it helpful and productive to aspire to a state that is not natural?

On the other hand, some animal rights activists internally accentuate the murderous ways of humans and react by acting externally on behalf of other species to concretely oppose the killing. These resistors, such as members of the Animal Liberation Front, are among the boldest and most effective direct action First-World activists around. They act in true solidarity with the animals with which they identify. [1]

Most other First-World activists prefer to believe that humankind has a natural tendency towards cooperation and altruism that can flourish given a sufficiently humane system such as socialism or communism or constrained capitalism infused with more participatory decision making, and so on. [2]

But is it helpful and productive to aspire to a state that is not natural? And is it not harmful to be deceptive about one’s nature rather than practice honest self-appraisal? [3]

Should we not first ask whether or not humans have a natural tendency to practice murder and genocide? After all, genocides are far more common than the Israel lobby would have us believe. [4][5]

Certainly the spider, with its complex behaviour in hunting, stalking, and ambushing prey, is a sentient being. Presumably the spider could not survive on tomatoes and grass. The spider thrives on killing and devouring (alive) other sentient beings (including birds and small mammals when circumstances permit). Is it immoral for the spider to practice this behaviour? Has evolution privileged humane killing methods in the spider?

What about the killer whale? Is it not often observed to play with its prey for hours before killing it or simply letting it escape? We’ve all seen the documentary films where a live seal is repeatedly thrown like a rag doll; and the monkeys who torture a captured bird before eating it, or not.

Among large apes, dominant males maintain harems and violently prevent most other males from reproducing, while expecting complete submission and sexual favours from the females. They kill offspring that are not their own.

We know that birds mob individuals from their flocks and kill the undesirables for no apparent reason related to flock survival. And we know that human groups also practice mobbing.

If something is natural can it be wrong? Would it not produce healthier societies to recognize what is natural human behaviour and to make practical decisions based on realistically evaluated primal impulses rather than mask it all with moralistic rituals and myths?

We determine that an animal behaviour is natural by correctly supposing that animals left to themselves exhibit their natural behaviours. We can supplement this by physiological arguments. For example, we know that carnivores do better when they eat meat and that herbivores do better when they eat grass.

Let us apply the same rules to humans. Throughout history and as far as we can deduce, humans have predominantly been omnivorous and competitive for territory, resources, and reproductive projection. Clans have killed clans. Families have feuded. Patriarchies have maintained themselves. Nations have invaded other nations and taken slaves and resources at will. Entire peoples have been exterminated or enslaved every time superior war technology or tactics have been developed. The present is not excluded.

Human history is a story of human carnage. Is this not the first truth about humankind? Stable societies established by military strength are characterized by slavery, serfdom, kingdoms, prisons, mental institutions and every form of domination and exploitation; now including globalized wage slavery and resource expropriation.

On this backdrop, are philosophical discussions about morals and justice mere camouflage and deception only intended for temporary and superficial relief from reality? Or do they have another utility?

Canadian society’s crimes include, a continuing genocide against aboriginal peoples [5], a geopolitical war in Afghanistan, support for the US Empire, support for the genocidal and apartheid state policies of Israel [6], overturning the democratic popular government in Haiti, corporate and finance predation throughout the world, an immoral prison system used to maintain social inequities [7], vast structural social inequities with mass public health consequences, mass civil rights violations perpetrated at will and without consequences for the decision makers (e.g., G20-Toronto), mass indoctrination and pacification of the youth [8], continual social engineering manipulation, universal pharmaceutical and medical establishment predation [9] and much more.

And as I write this there is a cultural and racial global war of dominance raging. Geopolitical alliances are defining boundaries and leveraging control of energy resources. Enemies are formed in the ape minds of our leaders who distribute territory and privilege to their ape friends.

All of this appears thrust upon us by the natural world where predator species fight for territory and dominance. Don’t ask the lions to get along with the hyenas. A balance of forces is the only justice. The only thing keeping a dominant male from killing another male’s offspring is the birthing female’s teeth and wits.

THE POINT OF THE LAW

Is it not therefore somewhat artificial for humans to administer a “justice” system in form as though it related to justice and to criminalize murder as though it was some kind of unnatural anomaly? Is it not a rather cynical farce in our societal politics of the killing machine to talk about God and to pay lip service to morals and to ethics?

Or do laws and ethical systems play an essential role in justifying some murder and exploitation (war, economic predation) while providing some restraints at home? Such as: Father can go out into the world to steal, exploit and murder but it says he can’t just kill his dependent wife and children when he gets tired of them.

Or in our hierarchies are laws and ethical systems meant to keep the masses in their place with a false sense of security; an understanding between masters and slaves? The slaves provide servitude in exchange for the promise of safety. They demand to be exploited fairly. They are conned to accept punishment as “justice”.

In view of the above, laws and ethical systems appear to serve complimentary functions:
● They provide enforceable mechanisms to facilitate monopoly building by the top corporate and finance predators.

● They provide enforceable structure and codifications to preserve and strengthen the hierarchy.

● They codify the impotence of hierarchical underlings and define the place of underlings.

● They create an illusion of needed master-provided safety to underlings, in exchange for required compliance and servitude.

● They create the double standard whereby strict penalties for harming or attacking the hierarchical masters are enforced while killing in the service of the masters (military, police, accountants, etc.) is legitimized.
The Ten Commandments appear to be primarily concerned with nuclear family patriarchy as a basis for society. The Geneva Conventions deal with the rules of war between nation states, thereby legitimizing both war and nation states. And so on.

We invent morals and ethics to codify servitude and to establish dominance. We develop and maintain these codes and we come to believe that they are natural and that they provide security in themselves.

As war and exploitation technologies and social systems progress and as hierarchies grow and collide, so-called civil society and the diplomats, law makers and regulators follow explicit and unspoken directives in spinning more and better overarching webs of behavioural codification, in the hope of protecting us all while in fact entangling us more securely into the killing machines that we inhabit.

These codes, like all laws, are delimited and defined by power – they must be or they would not serve the acting hierarchies. All resource-intensive political endeavours in a hierarchy must serve the hierarchy.

It is not surprising that organized religions have been used to justify a majority of the most horrendous wars. This is a primary political function of religions, to expand the hierarchy. You have to admire some Jews for their honesty and transparency in this regard [18].

It is also not surprising and not operationally contradictory that organized religions are used to manage the home front. This is also a primary political function of religions, to maintain the hierarchy. It is natural for organized religion to collaborate with nationalism and to support corporate fascism; such as with the Nazi holocaust and now with US fundamentalist “Christian” support for the apartheid state of Israel – America’s military cash cow and thug in the Middle East.

POSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOP, DOWNWARD SPIRAL

In a bad habit gone mental, the more underlings and progressives feel threatened by hierarchies that have tapped into humanity’s murderous tendency the more desperately they strive for “better” laws, rules, and ethical codes; the more they seek to strengthen the very hierarchies that feed on us all.

Instead of finding the strength within, the warrior instinct that would fend off competing predators, hierarchical underlings beg for a more just master and expect a process that they do not control to wield a better world.

A now classic example is how the green movement was co-opted by atmospheric CO2 euphoria in which corporate leaders, First-World governments, global financiers, mainstream media, the NOG sector, the service scientists, and environmentalists all aligned to defeat a mythical carbon threat by advancing the largest planetary finance scam and economic development policing code ever conceived, thereby solidifying planetary social injustice in the name of social justice. [9][10][11][12]

And there is no lack of other examples. The entire apparatus of government is dedicated to spinning laws and regulations that provide more control to power and a continually renewed illusion of justice-from-rules to those underlings fortunate enough to have the luxury of illusions.

There have been times when governments and laws served to partly counter corporate fascism but these times were episodes during which underlings did find strength within to force some concessions from power. The resulting resistance regulations, laws and rulings have had short half-lives in a social environment of servitude and were quickly replaced and degraded. For example, how long did it take since the 1970s for health and safety government regulators to become corporate whores? [13] How long did it take in Canada since the 1970s for somewhat student-centered public education to become mind-numbing obedience training? [8]

Now in victim mode, the greater the perceived threat to we privileged middleclass hierarchical underlings, the more frantically we spin and scream, the more diligently we appeal to the humanity of our “representatives”, the harder we work to establish sane alternatives and “safe spaces”, to escape impending disaster.

INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE AS SICKO

I see many alternative networks, pathological desires to be isolated in “like mindedness” and extreme expressions of political correctness all around, as ineffective victim-mindset escapes from and shields against a violent and increasingly oppressive hierarchy.

As a consequence of this perceive-threat/spin-rules positive feedback trap, many of the resulting socio-behavioural escapes can be extreme. Veganism is often originally such a reaction towards an extreme rule-based behaviour, one which is contrary to natural consumption opportunism. There are no economic-underclass vegans in the First World. Other extreme lifestyle rule systems include physical activity ritualism, carbon footprint reduction obsession, off grid fetishism, etc. When extreme, these reactions can be all-consuming and can determine relationships and fundamental beliefs.

For example, how crazy is a frazzled clique of middleclass First-Worlders that develops and maintains an elaborate social behaviour code centered on “sensitivity/anti-oppression training” emphasizing the enforcement of “inclusive language” and the criminalization of racist expression as “hate speech” while not effectively and directly resisting the very hierarchical structure that so causes it to behaviourally suppress reality rather than physically confront its own immediate oppressors? This latest political correctness extreme social reaction is post-advent of nineteenth century anarchism and is therefore retarded. Academic feminist theorists have done little to stop this sad and regressive phenomenon.

Even one fully escape-integrated progressive academic [14] has critiqued these peaking political correctness excesses as having gone too far. [15]

CONCLUSION

A more healthy and self-respecting activism would be to recognize humankind’s primal capacity and impulse for invasion and murder and human society’s propensity for violent hierarchical oppression and to react in self-defence rather than to escape into isolation and pathology or to grope subserviently for power’s protection.

Self-respecting activists and anarchists and libertarians worthy of these titles need to practice day to day distributed rebellion as the only defence against our rogue killer-warrior masters who insist on running prison and extermination camps rather than serving as protectors only when needed. The species is no longer at risk from the outside. It’s time for a biological reality check and a vigorous and persistent program to keep these thugs in line.

There is no “then what?” Murder and genocide will stay alive and hierarchy will always tend to broaden its scope and sharpen its control. Rebellion (direct participation, resistance, sabotage, personal influence, taking back control, having a direct say) is the antidote to hierarchical violence and oppression. Rebellion creates a real and evolving alternative. Our constant rebellion is also our liberation, growth, and connection. Rebellion is anchored in the individual fighting his/her own oppression at the point of strongest individual contact with the control hierarchy – at work, at school, on the street, in the prison, on the reserve; wherever the individual is controlled in his/her own life. [2][3][16][17]

Endnotes

[1] “Memories of Freedom” by the Western Wildlife Unit of the Animal Liberation Front.

[2] “On the racism and pathology of left progressive First-World activism” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.

[3] “Roundabout as conflict-avoidance versus Malcolm X’s psychology of liberation” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.

[4] “The Holocaust Industry” by Norman G. Finkelstein, 2000.

[5] “A little matter of genocide – Holocaust and denial in the Americas 1492 to the present” by Ward Churchill, 1997.

[6] Norman G. Finkelstein’s web page on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

[7] “About the obscenity of the legal mind and its grotesque displays of arrogance” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.

[8] “Canadian Education as an Impetus towards Fascism” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2009.

[9] “Some big lies of science” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.

[10] “Questioning Climate Politics” by Dru Oja Jay, 2007.

[11] CFACT YouTube interview of Denis Rancourt about climate change politics, 2010.

[12] “The corporate climate coup” by David F. Noble, 2007, 2010.

[13] “Corrupt to the Core” by Shiv Chopra, 2008.

[14] “Global Warming Suspicions and Confusions” by Justin Podur, 2007.

[15] “Contested spaces worth defending” by Justin Podur, 2010.

[16] “Need for and Practice of Student Liberation” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.

[17] “G20-Toronto property damage is a good thing” by Denis G. Rancourt, 2010.

[18] "How To Kill Goyim And Influence People - Torat Ha'melech" YouTube video, 2010.

Denis G. Rancourt was a tenured and full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa in Canada. He practiced several areas of science which were funded by a national agency and ran an internationally recognized laboratory. He published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals. He developed popular activism courses and was an outspoken critic of the university administration and a defender of student and Palestinian rights. He was fired for his dissidence in 2009 by a president who is a staunch supporter of Israeli policy. [See rancourt.academicfreedom.ca]

Saturday, September 4, 2010

George Carlin on expressing the inner rebel

There has not been a period like the 1960s in North America since the 1960s, only a steady forced march towards corporate fascism... (LINK)

Here is a glimpse of the 1960s through George Carlin's story of personal liberation. It was all about letting your inner rebel out...