The US Government is the World's Most Significant Impediment to Global Harmony

"The United States, not Iran, poses the greatest threat to world peace." - Noam Chomsky

         The blips on the map above indicate the locations around the globe where the United States presently has units of various special forces deployed. If you were able to get a closer look at the map, and could then count the blips, you would see that there are just over one hundred of them. If you look yet closer, you will also be able to tell that each blip is in a different country on the map. What this tells us is that the United States has sent its most highly trained soldiers into over one hundred countries around the world. For what purpose would they be there, you  might ask? Admittedly, in some of the nations, they are likely in garrison, where they are stationed with much larger detachments of troops, like the 4th Mechanized Infantry Division that is presently deployed throughout Europe, holding posts set by the Marshall Plan just after the end of World War II and right at the beginning of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The same goes for the detachments in the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, and Japan. There may also be some serving as advisers to the armies of nations that are presently fighting armed rebels, like many of the African nations and some of the other Asian nations not mentioned before. These both may also apply to positions located in the Middle East. However, the majority of the blips represent locations where the US Special Forces Command is presently conducting active combat operations.

        I do not want this piece to be about each military engagement that the United States has ever been involved in. I have already written such as piece, The United States Does not Run on Peace. What I really want this piece to be about is the thoughts and feelings that should be generated by the realization that  Noam Chomsky is not wrong. In the twentieth century, no other nation in the world did more to mettle in the affairs of other nations than did the United States. No nation in the world was involved in as many regime changes as was the United States. No other nation expended more resources placing economic pressure on nations around the globe than did the United States. No other nation on the planet has as many troops stationed around the globe as does the United States. Historically, when a nation is at such point in their political development, the only direction for them to go is down. By the 1820s, the Spanish Empire was reduced to a mere fraction of its former glory, as the heart of its holdings in the Americas declared independence. The same happened to the other major European empires. By the 1960s, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Belgium had lost nearly, if not all, of their colonial empires in Africa. Those that did have lands left around the globe, were in the same position as Spain, who lost even more of its empire after the Spanish-American War, from 1898-1900. Their holdings were, at best, insignificant. In the coming years, where does this place the fate of the economic empire that the United States has built over the last century?

        This empire that the United States has built, of course, began as a land based empire. Through conquest, theft, bribery, treachery, genocide, war, and many other dubious acts, the United States managed to stretch across the North American continent and various locals around the world. The only two significant losses that the United States has suffered are the Philippines, gained through illegal warfare and genocide, and the Panama Canal Zone, gained through espionage, bribery, extortion, political intrigue, and bloodshed. Since the end of World War II, the focus has shifted to trade expansion and the establishment of treaties that favor American businesses and products over those of other  nations. Essentially, the United States has built and empire of duty free, or Free Trade, economic zones where it can dump cheap products and outsource manufacturing jobs to save money on labor costs and environmental regulations. Now, the US military has had a role in the construction of this global economic conglomerate, also. Any particular nation that does not wish to do business with the United States on the United States' terms, usually runs the risk of having their leader killed, their government overthrown, or their country invaded bombed into the Stone Ages. The only difference is just that one sided trade deals, and blitzkrieg style attacks, have replaced annexation and imperial rule.

        The pie chart above shows how much the United States has invested in the construction and enforcement of this global economic empire that they have built. Another key point to make about this monster that has been created is that the American people have also been incorporated into this empire, but as subjects. As it relates to the money defense of this accusation, the chart does most of the work. The money that the government spends on services for its people is a mere fraction of what it spends to maintain and expand its economic influence. Even further, as is well known, the benefit from the spoils of this empire are not evenly shared. The main purpose of this empire is not to build the economic power of the United States. It is to build the private wealth of a few of our richest citizens at the very top of our society. The rest of us are expected to die when commanded, live with what is handed out to us, and shut the hell up. Plain and simple, to use some Marine Corps phraseology, it is not for us to reason why, it is but for us to do and die. When we do manage to get the courage up to ask why, what happens? We run the risk of being locked up for one of a million unjust and heinous laws. We may also find ourselves in the hospital, having received a complementary beating for our troubles at the hands of the local police force. Worse, what scanty little job we have been able to get a hold of may be taken from us and shipped away and all because we had the audacity to ask for better pay. Worst of all, however, is the crap that gets thrown in our face to keep us from ever knowing that there is a problem in the first place. The crap we are delivered through our televisions, the lies that we are taught in our schools and places of worship, the poison put into our water, the fat in our food, the sports we follow, and the fallacious lies that infect the internet, are all designed to turn our eyes away from the screw job that is being pulled on us by our super wealthy overlords, and we are expected to like it.

        Let us get back to the question of where this places the fate of American Empire, and add the question what happens next? For those of us that are awake, the answers to these questions should be fairly obvious; however, they should also be very worrisome. If the United States is responsible for the economic destabilization of over half of the nation's on Earth, and it has used military force, of some sort or another, on that very same amount of nations, what happens when all that bad karma comes home? What happens when the nation's that this government has swindled kill of the the United States' interests out of their countries? Worse, what happens when they finally decide to pay back all of the military bullying? If one trade deal after another began to be rejected, the United States' economy would crash in a way that it never has before. I say this because, at such a point, the poor and desolate would not be the only ones out of work. What was left of the Middle Class would be annihilated, and the uber wealthy members of our society would be screwed as they watched all of their debts get called in and the value of their money tank. The government would also have a very difficult time remaining open, as it would be without a tax base, rich or poor. Now that the economy has been smashed, to further alleviate the threat of the United States ever bullying them again, many of the nations that once suffered at the hands of US troops, will send their troops into the United States' mainland to return the favor. More than likely, they will also divide its territory up into several smaller nations to prevent the Untied States from ever repeating past transgressions. The United States will be occupied territory, and the whole of the world will see it as a justified action because the United States made its own bed, and they will argue that it is time for them to lie in it. Further, with the United States broken up and its flagrantly arrogant exceptionalism no longer impeding international progress, the path to a single unified world government will likely be much smoother.

        So, where would this all leave the average American citizens, who could ultimately care less if the rulers of this country destroy themselves? First, during the initial economic crisis, many people are simply going to die. The methods of death will vary from robbery or homicide to starvation, but the civil unrest that will result from the chaos will do a lot of damage to the civilian population. Those that manage to survive the economic hardships, will be further weeded through during the invasion and the subsequent military occupations. Those that did not die in the initial fighting, will die when they attempt to fight the occupation, or when they fall victim to more civil unrest and the martial law and brutal reprisals that follow. When peace and order are finally restored, the people that have managed to live through all of the chaos will find themselves living in a very different and fairly unfamiliar world. The nation that gave them birth, that provided a home for generations of their family, and that taught them everything that they would ever need to know about the world, would be no more, and it would never be coming back. They would have find a new home, adapt to a new set of national values, and begin learning and teaching their children how to survive in a world without the United States. Such will be the case, if we as a people are not able to gain control of the rains of  power in this nation from the vice grip of the wealthy elite who are strangling it to death and setting it up for a global showdown. Those of us that are awake just need to have the courage to get the ball rolling, and those that have not yet awoken need to wake the hell up before it is too late. There is a global community out there that is waiting for us to take our fair place among them, but they are not going to wait for us forever.....but, perhaps, we find trial by fire more preferable.

I am Done with Being Made to Feel Like a Social Reject (Part Three): Power is There, the People Just Have to Reach Out and Take Hold of It

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." - Preamble to The Constitution of the United States of America

         I take this statement very seriously for, of all the protections that the Constitution provides us, for all the liberties that it grants us, and for all of its efforts to check the abuse of power, it does one other thing that is extremely important. It places the ultimate power to decide the future of this country in the hands of the People, our hands. It clearly states, We the People of the United States. It does not say, We the Rich People of the United States, or We the White People of the United States; it simply says, We the People of the United States. The present reality is, unfortunately, that this statement does necessarily hold water. Abandoning the naive assumptions that the quote is universal and that it was meant to be so from the beginning, in exchange for the reality of the present political situation in the United States, one must accept that the statements We Rich People and We the White People, tend to be more accurate, and they always have been. This does not mean that they have to remain so, however. The People of this country have the chance to make the statement literal and universal in its application. All we have to do is wield the power that a simple understanding of history, and a plain text reading of the Constitution, grants us. This is the final piece in this series, and I am going to focus on just on issue, Human Governance. Let us take a journey together through the veins of history. When we are done, you will know where I stand.

The Theory of Human Governance: According to Sun Tzu, the main purpose of the state is self-defense, in both the defensive and offensive aspects of the term. He emphasized the importance of positioning in military strategy, and that the decision to position an army must be based on both objective conditions in the physical environment and the subjective beliefs of other, competitive actors in that environment. He thought that strategy was not planning in the sense of working through an established list, but rather that it requires quick and appropriate responses to changing conditions. Planning works in a controlled environment, but in a changing environment, competing plans collide, creating unexpected situations.

        According to Plato, in his treatise, The Republic, one of the primary purposes of government is to serve justice. Although large parts of the Republic are devoted to the description of an ideal state ruled by philosophers and its subsequent decline, the chief theme of the dialogue is justice. It is fairly clear that Plato does not introduce his fantastical political innovation, which Socrates describes as a city in speech, a model in heaven, for the purpose of practical implementation. The vision of the ideal state is used rather to illustrate the main thesis of the dialogue that justice, understood traditionally as virtue and related to goodness, is the foundation of a good political order, and as such is in everyone’s interest. Justice, if rightly understood, Plato argues, is not to the exclusive advantage of any of the city’s factions, but is concerned with the common good of the whole political community, and is to the advantage of everyone. It provides the city with a sense of unity, and thus, is a basic condition for its health. “Injustice causes civil war, hatred, and fighting, while justice brings friendship and a sense of common purpose." The people of a republic voluntarily give up certain rights to ensure justice for all.

        Niccolo Machiavelli asserted, in The Prince, that good rulers sometimes have to learn "not to be good," they have to be willing to set aside ethical concerns of justice, honesty, and kindness in order to maintain the stability of the state. The idea was shocking to contemporaries, who had inherited medieval ideas about divine kingship, in which the king was appointed by God for the express purpose of serving as a sort of celestial deputy on earth, upholding law and justice. In popular medieval belief, the king was thought to be a "primate," an avatar of human virtue with innate authority over lesser beings in the cosmological hierarchy. In contrast, Machiavelli argued that the most successful kings were not the ones who acted according to dictates of law, or justice, or conscience, but those willing to do whatever was necessary to preserve their own power--and thus indirectly preserve the order of the state.

         According to Hobbes, in The Leviathan, to avoid the the constant threat of death that people are exposed to in a world without leaders, people come together to form a commonwealth. Hobbes begins his treatise on politics with an account of human nature. He presents an image of man as matter in motion, attempting to show through example how everything about humanity can be explained materialistically, that is, without recourse to an incorporeal, immaterial soul or a faculty for understanding ideas that are external to the human mind. Hobbes proceeds by defining terms clearly, and in an unsentimental way. Good and evil are nothing more than terms used to denote an individual's appetites and desires, while these appetites and desires are nothing more than the tendency to move toward or away from an object. Hope is nothing more than an appetite for a thing combined with opinion that it can be had. Hobbes argues that men invent their various conceptions of the world to ease the trouble and suffering encountered when existing outside a political community. To make this process more simple, the people agree to surrender power to a sovereign, whose job it then is to protect them and to provide for the common good.

        In Sir Thomas More's Utopia, there is no private property, with goods being stored in warehouses and people requesting what they need. There are also no locks on the doors of the houses, which are rotated between the citizens every ten years. Agriculture is the most important job on the island. Every person is taught it and must live in the countryside, farming for two years at a time, with women doing the same work as men. Parallel to this, every citizen must learn at least one of the other essential trades: weaving,mainly done by the women, carpentry, metalsmithing and masonry. There is deliberate simplicity about these trades; for instance, all people wear the same types of simple clothes and there are no dressmakers making fine apparel. All able-bodied citizens must work; thus unemployment is eradicated, and the length of the working day can be minimized: the people only have to work six hours a day, although many willingly work for longer. More does allow scholars in his society to become the ruling officials or priests, people picked during their primary education for their ability to learn. All other citizens are however encouraged to apply themselves to learning in their leisure time. Slavery is a feature of Utopian life and it is reported that every household has two slaves. The slaves are either from other countries or are the Utopian criminals. Leadership in this society is elected by family groups and must be rotated over a cycle of years.

        Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the political aspects of a society should be divided into two parts. First, there must be a sovereign consisting of the whole population, women included, that represents the general will and is the legislative power within the state. The second division is that of the government, being distinct from the sovereign. This division is necessary because the sovereign cannot deal with particular matters like applications of the law. Doing so would undermine its generality, and therefore damage its legitimacy. Thus, government must remain a separate institution from the sovereign body. When the government exceeds the boundaries set in place by the people, it is the mission of the people to abolish such government, and begin anew. It is from Rousseau, of course that Thomas Jefferson and the remainder the Founders of the United States took their inspiration when, in the Declaration of Independence, they said, "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

         Adam Smith, the author of Wealth of Nations, and the father of Capitalism, believed that the sovereign, or commonwealth, had three duties. The first duty of the sovereign, that of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies, can be performed only by means of a military force. But the expense both of preparing this military force in time of peace, and of employing it in time of war, is very different in the different states of society, in the different periods of improvement. The second duty of the sovereign, that of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice, requires two very different degrees of expense in the different periods of society. The third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth, is that of erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual, or small number of individuals; and which it, therefore, cannot be expected that any individual, or small number of individuals, should erect or maintain. The performance of this duty requires, too, very different degrees of expense in the different periods of society. Otherwise, it was the duty of the government stay out of the way of the free flow of capital and goods. The market was to be driven by chain of supply and demand not the government.

        Karl Marx was not without his own opinions on the matter. In the case of the nations which grew out of the Middle Ages, tribal property evolved through various stages - feudal landed property, corporative movable property, capital invested in manufacture - to modern capital, determined by big industry and universal competition, i.e. pure private property, which has cast off all semblance of a communal institution and has shut out the State from any influence on the development of property. To this modern private property corresponds the modern State, which, purchased gradually by the owners of property by means of taxation, has fallen entirely into their hands through the national debt, and its existence has become wholly dependent on the commercial credit which the owners of property, the bourgeois, extend to it, as reflected in the rise and fall of State funds on the stock exchange. By the mere fact that it is a class and no longer an estate, the bourgeoisie is forced to organize itself no longer locally, but nationally, and to give a general form to its mean average interest. Through the emancipation of private property from the community, the State has become a separate entity, beside and outside civil society; but it is nothing more than the form of organisation which the bourgeois necessarily adopt both for internal and external purposes, for the mutual guarantee of their property and interests. The independence of the State is only found nowadays in those countries where the estates have not yet completely developed into classes, where the estates, done away with in more advanced countries, still have a part to play, and where there exists a mixture; countries, that is to say, in which no one section of the population can achieve dominance over the others. This is the case particularly in Germany. The most perfect example of the modern State is North America. The modern French, English and American writers all express the opinion that the State exists only for the sake of private property, so that this fact has penetrated into the consciousness of the normal man.

       Robert Griffin and Robert Paxton offer differing opinions on Fascism. Griffin describes fascism as a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism. He further describes the ideology as having three core components: first, the rebirth myth, second, populist ultra-nationalism, and third, the myth of decadence. He labels fascism is a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism built on a complex range of theoretical and cultural influences. He distinguishes an inter-war period in which it manifested itself in elite-led but populist armed party politics opposing socialism and liberalism and promising radical politics to rescue the nation from decadence. Paxton says that fascism is a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

    Noam Chomsky has a position on government also. Here is his assessment of the United States. He maintains that a nation is only democratic to the degree that government policy reflects informed public opinion. He notes that the US does have formal democratic structures, but they are dysfunctional. He argues that presidential elections are funded by concentrations of private power and orchestrated by the public relations industry, focusing discussion primarily on the qualities and the image of a candidate rather than on issues. Chomsky makes reference to several studies of public opinion by pollsters such as Gallup and Zogby and by academic sources such as the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. Quoting polls taken near the 2004 election, Chomsky points out that only a small minority of voters said they voted because of the candidate's agendas, ideas, platforms, or goals. Furthermore, studies show that the majority of Americans have a stance on domestic issues such as guaranteed health care that is not represented by either major party. Chomsky has contrasted US elections with elections in countries such as Spain, Bolivia, and Brazil, where he claims people are far better informed on important issues. For an ideal state, Chomsky argues that instead of a capitalist system in which people are wage slaves or an authoritarian system in which decisions are made by a centralized committee, a society could function with no paid labor. He argues that a nation's populace should be free to pursue jobs of their choosing. People will be free to do as they like, and the work they voluntarily choose will be both rewarding in itself and socially useful. Society would be run under a system of peaceful anarchism, with no state or other authoritarian institutions. Work that was fundamentally distasteful to all, if any existed, would be distributed equally among everyone.

The State of Human Governance: The state of human governance is deplorable. We are in a constant state of war, and we cannot seem to figure out how to get along. The situation in the United States is not favorable, but the same goes for the rest of the world. I thought I might offer a listing of articles that speak on the issue as clear as a bright summer's day. These do not come in any particular order.

US Attacked: Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers and Hit Pentagon in Day of Terror
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/9-11imagemap.html

NBC Nightly News Oct 7, 2001 - America Strikes Back
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-St8s9RKEU

"Shock and Awe" The Beginning of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq (CNN Live Coverage)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7iorfwcmeY

Trayvon Martin Shooter Told Cops Teenager Went For His Gun
http://abcnews.go.com/US/trayvon-martin-shooter-teenager-gun/story?id=16000239

What we know about Michael Brown's shooting

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/11/us/missouri-ferguson-michael-brown-what-we-know/

9 Dead in South Carolina Church Shooting - The Hunt is On for the White Gunman

http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/charleston-south-carolina-church-shooting/

WPK (North Korea) lays out scathing new approach in relations with China

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk00100&num=13836

Tens of thousands of Muslims flee Christian militias in Central African Republic

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/tens-of-thousands-of-muslims-flee-christian-militias-in-central-african-republic/2014/02/07/5a1adbb2-9032-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html

Boko Haram attack in Niger kills six soldiers

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35931546

Police narrow in on two suspects in Boston Marathon bombings

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/injury-toll-rises-marathon-massacre-article-1.1319080

Hunt is on for Brussels bombings suspect; Islamic State warns of more, worse attacks

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-brussels-airport-explosion-20160322-story.html

Horror at the beach: 22 dead in terrorist attack on Ivory Coast resorts

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/14/horror-at-the-beach-22-dead-in-terrorist-attack-on-ivory-coast-resorts/

7 July 2005 London bombings: What happened that day?

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33253598

Israel bombs northern Gaza Strip after rocket attack
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/israel-bombs-northern-gaza-strip-rocket-attack-150607053011069.html

Rocket Attacks on Israel From Gaza
https://www.idfblog.com/facts-figures/rocket-attacks-toward-israel/

Saudi Arabia: beheadings reach highest level in two decades
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/02/saudi-arabia-beheadings-reach-highest-level-in-two-decades

2008 Mumbai Terror Attacks Fast Facts
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/world/asia/mumbai-terror-attacks/

Mainland officials confirm Xinjiang terrorist attack that reportedly killed up to 50 people
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1878940/mainland-officials-confirm-xinjiang-terrorist-attack

ISIS Beheading 4 Kurdish-Peshmerga Soldiers - Graphic Video
http://www.zerocensorship.com/t/uncensored-beheading-video/185382-isis-beheading-4-kurdish-peshmerga-soldiers-graphic-video#axzz44YVBMQEG

ISIS urges German jihadists to turn country into battleground with Brussels-like attacks
https://www.rt.com/news/337956-isis-urges-germany-attacks/

Now That Russia Has Invaded Ukraine Again, Let's Stop Pretending a Ceasefire Ever Existed

https://newrepublic.com/article/120250/nato-russia-invades-ukraine-breaking-ceasefire-thats-old-news

Russia CRUSHES hundreds of ISIS targets in just THREE DAYS and unleashes 2,000 bombs
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/625318/Russia-ISIS-Islamic-State-Daesh-Vladimir-Putin-Tu-22-Bomber-Syria

Syria chemical attack: What we know
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-23927399

6 Things Going On In Mexico’s Drug War That Matter More Than El Chapo
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mexico-drug-war_us_56a7995fe4b01a3ed123dbd9

Mexico Under Siege
http://www.latimes.com/world/drug-war/la-fg-mexico-under-siege-20160309-storygallery.html

Darfur conflict: Sudan's bloody stalemate
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22336600

Child migration from Central America to the U.S.
http://www.centralamericanetwork.org/blog-en/?p=137

The Arab Spring's Violent Turn
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-arab-springs-violent-turn-6254

Libya Attack Brings Challenges for U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/middleeast/us-envoy-to-libya-is-reported-killed.html?_r=0

Global Report on Trafficking in Persons

https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glotip/GLOTIP_2014_full_report.pdf

Needless to say, I could make this list a mile long. However, the fact that I can make such a list is unacceptable. If there is anyone watching this world from afar, I shutter to think how they would assess the progress of the human species. I have no doubt in my mind that they might very well write us all off as a lost cause, and they would not be unjustified. This world's political system is tearing itself apart at the seams. Luckily, for us, I do not believe that all is lost. We are still here, and while we are still here, there is still a chance that we might save ourselves. I just hope that we are able to pull off the seemingly impossible before it is too late. If we do not, and I say this with prophetic purpose, I fear the consequences.

The Future of Human Governance: So, what do we have here? We have a set of theories and a set of events that fail to present a viable solution to the survival of the human species for future posterity. We have a global political situation that if left unchecked, is likely to spell doom for all of humanity, leaving everything that our civilization has ever striven, struggled, and fought for, over countless milliennia, to ruin. Our species is at one of those defining moments in history where we are presented with only two options, rise to the occasion and move on to the next stage of our story, or fall and be lost to the ravages of time. I, for one, am not willing to allow the latter to happen. As a single person, I have way to much blood, sweat, and time invested in the well being of humanity to watch it go down the proverbial tube. As a member of a much larger community of individuals, I find that it is my moral obligation, and frankly, my duty as a member of the species, to give everything that I posses to insure that the cause that is our survival, carries on. We have to evolve beyond this point where we find ourselves stuck in rut, if you will. We have been trying, for centuries now, to find a way to coexist in a peaceful way. So far, all of our attempts have ended in failure. I believe that that failure is based on the approach that we have taken towards solving the problem not in any particular flaw in our character.

        For Sun Tzu, the solution to all of our problems lies in the hands of a single leader who can maximize the use of strategy to achieve the greatest victory for his kingdom. For Plato, the service of justice relies upon an enlightened set of philosopher rulers, who are to be entrusted with the power of the state. For Machiavelli, the survival of the state depends upon a ruler who is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve victory, even if it means violating everything that he stands for, which includes hurting his own people. For Hobbes, stability depends on a contract between the ruler and the ruled that, once entered into, cannot be broken, for at that point, it has the backing of god and the ruler's power is absolute. Sir Thomas More's solution is a society absent even the most basic rights to privacy. Everything is open to everyone, and elected leaders have absolute rule over the land. Rousseau, even though he believed in the Social Contract, did not believe that the blessings of such an arrangement were necessarily appropriate for all peoples. He, as a member bourgeois, had his doubts about the abilities of the poor working classes. His ideal society is one ruled by an enlightened elite. For Thomas Jefferson, and the rest of the United States' Founding Fathers, We the People, at the time of the founding, only meant rich land owning white people. Their vision is a society ruled by the landed elite. For Adam Smith, the Invisible Hand of the market is the true authority. In his world, it is government's role to not interfere the market and to only step in on those projects where profit is not the prime motivation. The Vanguard of the working class is the solution for Marx. A small group of enlightened leaders that will lead society towards to the abolition of the class system is the only hope for mankind in his eyes. Fascist ideology, essentially, relies on the cult of personality and the ability of one person, imbued with total control of the state, to hold the loyalty of the people and lead them to freedom Chomsky's ideal state is a semi-anarchic state, where work is based on need and choice and all resources are to be somehow magically distributed equally.

        As can be envisioned by the long list of violent actions that I have have produced here and the many more that are daily being committed with little threat of reprisal, these approaches have not been successful in restoring order and establishing equality for the whole of the human race. Now, unless we wish to be identified as certifiably insane, as insanity can be defined as performing the same action repeatedly expecting a different outcome each time, and unless we want to completely annihilate ourselves, we must come up with a different type of solution. Further, we must do so with some relative haste because time is running out. As it appears to me, the central problem with our situation is the direction from which the decisions for our future have been coming. For the entirety of our history, and this includes the present era of 'democratic' regimes, the decisions for the future of the human species have been made by a very select few at the top our society. I discussed this in the context of the United States in my last blog piece, Progressive Party 2020: Or Do We Hit the Reset Button?, and I believe simply that this same method can be applied to the entire world. In that piece, I argue that it is time for the people of the United States so simply just hit the reset button on its present government. They need to start over and establish a government that is more responsive to the times in which they live. The same could be done on a global scale. Simply, hit the reset button in nations around the world. The people meet, establish a new government that best suits their needs, and they begin the struggle against the government that they have rejected, with the end game being the same.

        What would be even better is if this happened all at once, with the entire world throwing off the oppression of rule by the few in a single action. The scene would most definitely be chaotic; at first, but after the dust settled, the opportunity would exist to do something far greater than to just establish people oriented governments in nations around the world. While such a prospect is a beautiful thing, there is something that could be done that could potentially dramatically alter the future of humanity. Such an occurrence would create the possibility of the establishment a single world government. Such a government, if formed under such conditions, would exist, based not on the principles of the free market, neocolonialism, and the rule of the few over the many, but on the single principle that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. If this, or something like it, does not happen soon, we face one of two consequences. We either suffer the oppression of a world ruled by an oligarchic economic elite, or we sit back an watch as everything humanity has striven for melts away before our very eyes. I cannot speak for anyone else, but that prospect alone is the most depressing, and neither option is acceptable. We have come way to far, and accomplished far too many amazing things to just let it all go to waste. If our leaders will not answer our pleas, then we muster answer them ourselves. In my post, I am Done with Being Made to Feel Like a Social Reject (Part One): Galileo, I Feel Your Pain!, in the section, On Race and Equality, I contend that we are all the same people, a single species and thus, a single entity. I further contend now that that makes us a single government entity. If we are, then, a single government entity, we must come to the realization that we cannot survive into the future if we remain divided over petty differences. We have the technology, we have the will, and we still have the time. Rise up, my friends, and claim what you have known your whole lives is yours, a world that is ruled by a government of the people, for the people, and by the people!

The End.

Progressive Party 2020: Or Do We Hit the Reset Button?

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” - Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

         As we get closer and closer to the 2016 Presidential Election, the American people are beginning to find that they are at an impasse. Both of our major political parties are headed for a split. The Republican establishment is preparing to turn on Trump. As he continues to build up momentum towards that party's nomination, many of their senior leaders are threatening to run to Hillary and the Democratic Party establishment. Further, the Democratic Party's base is getting ready to turn on its establishment if Bernie Sanders is denied the nomination. They re threatening to do so more and more seriously, even as charges of voter suppression and corrupt leadership clog up that party's affairs. The outcome of a double party split is interesting to contemplate, especially when the movements challenging both party's old guards are populist in nature. If the Republican and Democratic party establishments join hands, they would form a new Conservative Party. If no other party is formed, this would leave a huge gap on the left, but it does not seem impossible for that to happen. Out of the chaos of a double party split, the left could finally take the opportunity to coalesce around a strong candidate. They could form the Progressive Party and give the American left an actual mainstream presence, and perhaps, even challenge for the White House. Such would be, especially amidst the present chaos, an amazing victory.

         The question then arises, what happens if this new Progressive Party does not win this election, but rather, loses out to the new Conservative Party? If this new leftist party wanted to respect the present system for what it is and continue to operate within its bounds, then their next few steps would be to centralize party leadership, to begin raising funds, and to begin putting together a slate of candidates for the 2018 Congressional Elections. The ultimate would goal would then be to put together a strong ticket and win White House in 2020. I am, however, forced to question whether or not that would really be all that feasible. The new conservative coalition that would develop out of the chaos of this election cycle would do everything in its power to solidify the voter suppression efforts that both parties are presently guilty of, and they would target the same people, leftists, racial minorities, immigrants, and young people, etc. It would be harder and harder for people on the left to legally organize the vote, let alone to form a new party that had the strength to resist this new conservative coalition. This repressed left would have to do something, if it wanted to remain relevant and able to participate in politics. Outside legal options, which would most surely be limited by more restrictive laws, they would have to come up with something more creative. What could they possibly do? They could, conceivably, follow the example of this nation's founders and exercise their sovereign right and moral duty to throw off this oppressive government and provide new guards for their future security.

        The American people have to call for a Constitutional Convention, not to amend the Constitution, though I do revere it so, but to replace it entirely. The present Constitution has become outdated, overly restrictive, and the government that it outlines is no longer capable of adequately representing the real make-up of the American citizenry. The Constitution was written to intentionally make change a slow process. The American people are to the point where that is no longer acceptable. We must secure or ourselves a form of government that can change with us, as we change. We need to establish a parliamentary form of government. Further, all present elected officials, to include state officials, and those that support or work for them, must not be allowed access to the convention that is called for this purpose. They have already proven the lengths to which they are willing go to keep us from exercising the sovereign power that we legally posses. Therefore, it has to be a convention elected from the present population, absent these individuals. This does not mean that present political boundaries should be abolished. The election process can occur in stages. It can begin with city assemblies, move up to state conferences, and then members of these bodies can elect delegates to a National Constitutional Convention. 

        The American people, as the true and only sovereign power in this nation, have the right to call these assemblies without the permission of the present government. They have the right, as is guaranteed by the present constitution, to meat peaceably and choose their own future for themselves, rather than have that future dictated to them by a government that has lost touch with its people and frankly, with itself. Though, the intent is to write a new constitution, it is still prudent for the people to make full use of the protections that are guaranteed to them in the present constitution. The people then have to elect and defend new leaders, and they must be able to represent as many different political regions as they can, so that when the time comes, they will be able to just step into the void left by a government that has lost the support of the people, whose power they are borrowing. Will the present government attempt to break such a venture apart? Yes, it will. Will it resort to tactics unbefitting an elected group of honorable statesmen in its effort to discredit such a movement? It most definitely will! Mainly, because they have no honor. Will the present government attempt to goad the delegates into engaging in pitched battles in the streets in its effort to protect its own interests? Without a doubt, and it will do so with a fervent passion that has not been seen from this government in a very long time. This, however, is precisely what the American people need this government to do. We need go get it to take the first punitive actions.

        This government has already done a great deal to lose the respect and support of the rest of the world. The American people, after they have held these meetings, and after they have drafted a new constitution, and further, have elected new leaders, have to show the world what this government is really willing to do to remain in absolute control of its position. Once the constitution is written, it must be submitted to every branch of government, and they have to be given an appropriate time table to respond to this usurpation of the power that we gave to them. They will, of course, reject it outright, and they will probably do so without even properly examining the document. It will then be the job of the American people to shut them down. How is this to be done? First, massive and peaceful protests must be held, declaring to our government that they have been deemed to be illegitimate and must peaceably step down. It can be guaranteed that they will not do that. That is when the American people simply refuse to recognize their authority. Refuse to cooperate with the police. Refuse to pay fines, fees, and taxes. If they want to defund our programs, it is time that we defunded theirs. Refuse to recognize the authority of any and all institutions of this, now, arcane government. We must slowly drain them of all remaining power that they may still possess.

        Of course, keep up the protests and never let up, not for anything. The biggest thing that needs to be remembered about this plan is that in no way, whatsoever, should the people be the first ones to resort to violence with their resistance and protests. I say this because we posses something that the generations before us did not, technology that can give us the ability to expose this government to the world without having to shed blood. This government that has now been de-legitimized has to be the first one to commit violence against the people. It is the only way that we will be able to garner the recognition and respect of the international community. They have to be able to see that the present government has lost its ability to govern, and this government has to debase itself so severely that when the people do finally rise up and place the people in that government into criminal custody, which is their sovereign right, the rest of the world will see their actions as justified and offer them support. The people, and their new government, must be the ones in possession of the moral high ground. They have to have Constitutional and Natural Law squarely on their side. The next step will be to seek formal recognition from the United Nations and other international institutions.

        The support of the International Community is critical. If violence does break out, and it will, the fault has to lie directly on the government that the people of this nation have rejected.  The new government formed by this movement has to be able to go to the United Nations with clean hands. The propaganda war will be difficult to fight, but the American people have to be able to show their mettle in the face of the most drastic resistance. The fight for recognition will be tied to this. The present government is not going to surrender willingly. We must trust ourselves to make such decisions, or the effort will fail before it ever begins. The implications of this movement are far reaching. The present government is running this country into the ground and is placing it on a path towards a colossal defeat. We have to step in and stop this slow death before they get us all killed along with them. This is how we must tell the story to the rest of the world. We have to show them that we know what this government is doing is wrong and that we are willing to stop it. If this government gets locked down in a domestic crisis, it will not be able to continue the crimes that it is committing around the world. If our government will not listen to us and begin acting fairly, me must make it do so, or replace it. The power is in our hands. I say that if we want to ensure that government of the people, by the people, and for the people does not perish from the earth, we need to just go ahead and hit the reset button.....

A Counter-Response to Christopher Williams' Criticism

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill

        Let me begin by saying that I greatly appreciate Comrade Williams' both cogent and civil criticism of my last piece, “I am Done with Being Made to Feel Like a Social Reject (Part Two): Thomas Jefferson You Are More Right than You Know!” (http://refusetocooperate.blogspot.com/2016/03/i-am-done-with-being-made-to-feel-like_25.html)

        It is always a great pleasure when the exchange of ideas can take place as smoothly and respectfully as it is in this case. Perhaps, such exchanges can set an example for the future and produce a human society that chooses to think before it acts, rather than exploding with unbridled emotion that puts us all in jeopardy. It is in this spirit that I offer my response. I will address each criticism in order.

1.  I'll start with Rousseau: He was basically a bourgeois idealist who pulled his theory out of thin air to rationalize his class interest. Social contract isn’t a thing. People revolt not because of any violation of some supposed contract nor any kind of idealistic moralizing nor abstract appeals to justice. They revolt because of real material conditions of death and suffering that are no longer survivable , quaint moralizing be damned! Revolution happens because of a crisis where the old way of doing things is literally impossible and the material conditions exist for a new way of existing. 

        I understand that Rousseau comes of as a bourgeois idealist, but I do not think this is an entirely fair claim. Additionally, at the same time, I do not believe that he pulled his theory out of thin air to satisfy his class interests. Rousseau was the undisciplined son of watchmaker, whose intellectual understanding of the world was influenced by a Calvinist upbringing, a number of years spent wondering Europe tutoring and working as a secretary, and the unfairly organized social structure of French bourgeois society that surrounded the intellectual social circles and the court of the French Kings. He was not poor by any means, but he did have an understanding of European history up to his time. He knew of the many peasant revolts against feudalism that had occurred in the past four hundred years from his birth. In his wanderings, he had seen the depravity that still existed in the streets of European cities and on European manors, and he had seen the lack of interest in such depravity that had overtaken bourgeois society and the French Court. 

        "The Social Contract" was an effort to understand how such arrangements had come about, and to understand how such arrangements could change. Influenced by life experiences, the French socialite, Madame de Warens, his friendship with Diderot, and what he felt was an unfairly arranged social order. he wrote a treatise that he felt properly defined the nature of human government. He knew how badly the peasant revolts failed, and how difficult it was to institute change in a rigid social order, so he determined that in order for any change to be effected, there had to be a revolt from within the top rungs of that rigid social order. He recognized, like many after him, that the most successful revolts have always been those who had enlightened leaders at the helm. Now, there is a seemingly glaring biased against the poor working classes, who he and others have said were more likely to endure their circumstances than revolt against them, in this statement, but recognize that in his time, the poor working classes very rarely had access to the type of education that he did. This normally led to, as he and others recognized, unorganized and unsuccessful attempts to throw off the chains of oppression. Admittedly, his logic was flawed to a degree, but his idea was developed by others over time, and eventually led to the idea of the Vanguard, as is mentioned by Marx and his contemporaries, and later, Lenin.

2. The American Revolution: Jefferson and his revolution was essentially a bourgeois revolution, and by that I mean it was started, led by, and served the merchant class, it was a necessary revolution as it threw off the yoke of the old feudal system, which is a positive, but to move beyond that we need to move beyond the ideological system that it works within.

3. The Civil War: The Civil War was basically a resolution of the question of what form work under American capitalism would take. It was a question of chattel slavery vs wage slavery, obviously wage slavery won that battle. There wasn't really anything revolutionary about the civil war nor even really anything progressive despite some nice sounding speeches.

        I believe that I can connect these two to my response to the previous criticism. If feudalism's influence over the English American colonies was going to end, it was not going to end because the poorer classes, this being poor wage workers and slaves, in the colonies led a revolt. Honestly, if that had had happened, they would have been much more likely to revolt against the merchant class of the colonies than they would have the king. They had no understanding of the complexities of human society and government. They had been kept poor and uneducated for a reason. The revolt had to be led by the merchant class in the colonies, just as it eventually was in Europe. This, of course, did give way to the rise of capitalism, and the creation of a new class system that would eventually have to be reckoned with. 

        It was reckoned with, first during the Civil War. As Christopher mentioned, the Civil War settled the issue of labor. Wage labor won as the primary tool of Capitalism, but the Civil War was a revolution fermented by the Southern Elite, in their effort to protect their own economic interests. They merely warped the statement in the Declaration of Independence that the Founders used to justify their own rebellion, "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." They failed ultimately, to preserve slavery, but their rebellion did not end in 1865. Not months after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and several other former Confederates, formed the Ku Klux Klan. This organization swiftly developed into a guerrilla warfare unit whose sole goal was to reverse all of the progressive Reconstruction measures enacted by Congress after the war. In this, they succeeded. Congress gave up on Reconstruction in 1877, and immediately afterwards, former Confederates returned to government in the South and established a new wage based system of oppression, based on terrorism, which is now known as the Jim Crow Era.

        Now, here is where I tie all three of these together. In the three periods that are addressed, there was a general imbalance that existed between the ruling elite and the poor working classes. This gap was based almost entirely on education. In the Europe of Rousseau's day, in the American Colonies leading up to the American Revolution, and in the United States, before, during, and for some years after the Civil War, the poor working classes lacked the education needed to properly execute an effective rebellion. However, the Progressive Era, after about 1910, began to change this status quo. First, cities, then states, and then the federal government began to pass anti child labor laws and pro public education laws. By the 1940s, at least half of all American children were completing a high school level free public education. To the point now that a public education to the high school level is not only free, but legally mandatory. 

        Despite the many inequities that were endured and revolted against along the way, the poor working classes have a basic education that was not available to previous generations. Further, despite the many glaring inequalities that still exist, the American working class, without that education, would not be able to do as we are doing now. They would not be able to debate the finer points of human government because they would not have the needed education to do so. We can understand what it means to see our fellow working class comrades wallowing in squalor, and we can understand what actions are necessary to help to not only get them out of those conditions, but to keep them out of those conditions. All that is necessary now is a reversing of the plague of apathy that has taken over the educated working classes.

4. Women’s Rights: Kent starts out ok here, but then goes bad, reverse sexism is like reverse racism: it isn’t a thing. What Kent points to here are basically the things that MRA’s bitch about as proof of women being sexist when in reality this is just the negative effects of patriarchy rebounding on its benefactors, at best some of it might be a female backlash against patriarchy but these are all consequences and fruits of sexism itself not some "reverse sexism."

        I had hoped in this section more notice would have been taken of the point that I made about the unsung female heroes of the United States. There are too many women who get way too little respect for the major contributions that they have made to American society. This country would not be what it is now if it were for women like Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Fannie Lou Hamer, and many others. The courageous examples that they each set should be required education for both boys and girls in American schools, so that each can know what women are capable of. This would encourage more young girls to push themselves to be more than just the barbie doll rejects that society is trying to create, and would teach young boys to not only treat girls the proper respect but also to fight for them just as hard as they would fight for themselves.

        As for my position on Reverse Sexism that Christopher says is not a thing, I must admit partially, that my opinion on this has been somewhat developed by personal experience. The formal definition of sexism is this, prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex. It can also be called gender discrimination, and this is a problem in both directions. Women, as I admitted, have gotten the brunt of this form of discrimination for the vast majority of human history, but that does not mean that men have not gotten the same treatment at times. If a man goes to the police and reports that his wife beats him, what is the general reaction? It is documented that in many cases, men are laughed out of the precinct. This is sexism. It criticizes the man for not meeting the standards of his assigned gender role as the masculine man that can control his woman. To compound this, if he does attempt to control his woman, perhaps by simply restraining her, he runs the risk of being labeled a wife beater. He is then also subject to possible criminal prosecution, when it was his wife that was doing the real beating in the first place. Worse, she has gotten away with spousal abuse, a state crime, scot free. There is also the divorce issue. In instances where the woman makes more money than the man, it is still the man that is most likely to have to pay child support, lose property, and suffer other financial burdens that he was not equipped to handle based on the arrangement that he had established with his wife. Then there is also, of course, the cliche commercials that make men out to be idiots, drunks, sex addicts, cheaters, and countless other negative stereotypes. If women do not like such cliches, and want to see them put to end, how is it fair that they then do the very same thing to men? Reverse Sexism is a thing.

5. On Police Brutality: There's a lot of good stuff here but strangely Kent talks about police brutality like its a new thing or as if we have a “rising” police state. Reality is we always have had a police state for as long as police have existed. Any knowledge of the history of police demonstrates the classist, and in the US especially, racist roots of police forces and the poor and black who have always been on the receiving end of the boot of the law. It is only in recent decades that such violence has become more inflicted on increasingly less privileged whites and in no small part due to black activist work that people are being forced to face what the oppressed have always known.

        I do not believe that a police state, in the form that I am envisioning, is what has always existed in the United States. In the past, there have been occasions where the military was as police force, like in the Reconstruction Era South, and they did have federal legislation backing them up, but they were not a formal full police force. There have also been formal full time police forces in the United States since before its formal foundation; however, those forces were not militarized. Finally, Constitutionally, a federal police force is not legal. The Constitution has an interesting amendment that leaves the policing authority to the state governments. The Tenth Amendment grants all power not mentioned in the previous articles and amendments of the Constitution to the states, and that includes the power to police the populace. 

        This, however, is not what we have now. We have local police forces that are armed to the level of elite combat soldiers, who are able to enforce federal law at the ground level, and who, are largely granted the same immunity that is given to federal officials. We also have federal agencies whose job it is to police the populace at the national level such as the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the DEA, the ATF, the Secret Service, the US Marshall's Service, and many more. Further, these technically unconstitutional agencies have been granted vast power to enforce the laws of the United States against its own population. The Patriot Act and the Freedom Act are just two of the most recent examples. We can be arrested, we can be held without trial, our homes can be invaded, our phones can be tapped, our property can be seized, and much more, all without warrant.  This all in no way resembles what the Founders envisioned for the policing of the general populace. In the past, we may have had police in the states, or forces granted temporary police powers, but now we live in a country where we are policed by our own government on a permanent basis. We are watched like we are all potential criminals. The only thing that differentiates this nation from Nazi Germany, is that greater effort is put into hiding that fact from the people.

6. On Revolution: I have little to say here as most of this is pretty well known fact, I will just reiterate the Marxist perspective that revolution is the only means by which liberation of the workers will be achieved as those in power will not give it up without a fight. We however are not really in a revolutionary crisis at this time so fomenting revolution is premature, we should have no tolerance for adventurism. The people need education and mass organization before revolution would be advisable. Currently the American Left is in shambles, the average worker is horribly backward on multiple issues, and the most well trained and organized people in the country are right wing reactionaries. That is a recipe for disaster. The correct recipe is teaching the correct theoretical line and following it up with correct practice.

        I agree that revolution is most likely to the only way that the working classes will every truly get the redresses that they seek. I also agree that this is the case because the powers that be will, much the ruling classes of past eras, not give up their power without a violent and brutal fight. However, as to the conditions not being ripe for revolution, I would argue that if the conditions are not yet ripe for revolution, then it is up to the Vanguard, which in this day in age is the educated working classes, to make the the conditions ripe for revolution. The American left is in shambles, but at some point, they are going to have to come out of their self induced exile and get to work. The right wing reactionaries that Christopher speaks of need a coherent counter-force to battle them in the streets. This is where the left can make the conditions properly rip for revolution.

7. Gun Violence: Kent is largely correct here except for one glaring issue: “ The real answer is to solve the problem of mental illness. If we, as a nation, were to actually take the time to give the mentally ill the treatment that they truly need, they would be thousands of times less likely to resort to violent actions with guns. “ This is ableist garbage. Most shooters are not mentally ill and mentally ill people are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. Laws that disarm the mentally ill just leave a frequently oppressed group defenseless as do most liberal gun control laws which are also frequently racist as well.

        Christopher and I, agree even more on the causes of gun violence than on the necessity of revolution. I think, especially, we agree on the need to educate the people. His criticism comes on how I refer to the mentally ill. I should have had him read my previous piece also.

"I, and anyone else who has this disorder, are no different than anyone else because we have to deal with this issue. I am just as capable of contributing to the advancement of humanity as anyone else. All this means is that for whatever reason, my brain operates a tad bid differently than most people. The disturbance, as I like to call it, causes to me see and interact with the world and the people occupying it, in the extreme, with very little room left for any sort of middle ground. Neither does this make me a threat to society, as some have suggested to me in my lifetime. I, more than others, maybe, was lucky to have people in my family, who, while they never went to the doctor for the issue, knew they had the problem and taught me to deal with it using techniques that they had developed over entire lifetimes. It is in adulthood that I have sought professional help to manage those symptoms that have proven too strong for me defeat alone. I was trained to adapt to my environment, to observe my behavior and adjust myself when I know I am acting out character, and to regulate myself through meditation, reflection, and education. Not everyone has the fortune to get this kind of guidance. They must and should not be stigmatized for that. We, as a whole society, need to express the same compassion for their condition that was shown to me when I was only a child. Bi-Polar Disorder is not something that one contracts because of irresponsible living. It is something that a person is born with, and something that people can be taught to live with, given the appropriate attention. Think on that the next time you label someone crazy."

        As someone who has suffered from mental illness in the past, and still battles with it now, I have to be frank that it is not ableist to say that the mentally ill do not need to be in possession of fire arms. When I was at the peak of my troubles, the first thing that I did, especially after my pistol found its way into my mouth on more than one occasion, was to sell all of my guns. I knew that I was a danger not just to myself, but also to others. I am grateful to have had friends at my side that were able to help me through those tumultuous times and help me to see that fact. It is people that do not have such social support that I am worried about because I have been there, and I know what is going on in their minds. Disarming the mentally ill is not just a public safety measure, it is a measure designed to save their lives also.  Where the issue would become ableist is if those disarming policies were made permanent. Admittedly, this is a sticky issue, because who is to say when someone is ready to to safely handle a weapon of death again? Ultimately, the real solution would be to have no need for any such weapons at all. If people could just get along and settle their differences peacefully, there would be no need for us to have a debate over whether a manic depressive bipolar person should be aloud to own a weapon or not.

In Summary: There are a number of issues that Christopher and I have differing opinions on, but there is one big central issue that we both very much agree upon. We both recognize that this country has some serious problems and that they are not going to be solved by the same people that created them. If anything is going to change in this country, it is the victims of the ruling classes of the United States that are going to have to  make those changes. It is the poor working classes that have to act. We also agree that such is the moral duty of anyone who has the basic education required to be able to make sense of the inconsistencies that exist in this country. On those grounds, I count Christopher a friend and a Comrade, and I thank him for his very thoughtful response to my writing. Solidarity Forever!

A Marxist Response to Halliburton

"We can do things the cheap way, the simple way, for the short term and without regard for the future. Or, we can make the extra effort, do the hard work, absorb the criticism and make decisions that will cause a better future." - Mike Rounds

A Marxist response to Halliburton

By: Christopher Williams

This is a response to Kent Halliburton’s, 

“I am Done with Being Made to Feel Like a Social Reject (Part Two): Thomas Jefferson You Are More Right than You Know!” (http://refusetocooperate.blogspot.com/2016/03/i-am-done-with-being-made-to-feel-like_25.html)

I will try to go point by point as there’s a lot of issues addressed in the article . 

1. I'll start with Rousseau: He was basically a bourgeois idealist who pulled his theory out of thin air to rationalize his class interest. Social contract isn’t a thing. People revolt not because of any violation of some supposed contract nor any kind of idealistic moralizing nor abstract appeals to justice. They revolt because of real material conditions of death and suffering that are no longer survivable , quaint moralizing be damned! Revolution happens because of a crisis where the old way of doing things is literally impossible and the material conditions exist for a new way of existing. 

2. The American Revolution: Jefferson and his revolution was essentially a bourgeois revolution, and by that I mean it was started, led by, and served the merchant class, it was a necessary revolution as it threw off the yoke of the old feudal system, which is a positive, but to move beyond that we need to move beyond the ideological system that it works within. 

3. The Civil War: The Civil War was basically a resolution of the question of what form work under American capitalism would take. It was a question of chattel slavery vs wage slavery, obviously wage slavery won that battle. There wasn't really anything revolutionary about the civil war nor even really anything progressive despite some nice sounding speeches. 

4. Women’s Rights: Kent starts out ok here, but then goes bad, reverse sexism is like reverse racism: it isn’t a thing. What Kent points to here are basically the things that MRA’s bitch about as proof of women being sexist when in reality this is just the negative effects of patriarchy rebounding on its benefactors, at best some of it might be a female backlash against patriarchy but these are all consequences and fruits of sexism itself not some “reverse sexism”.

5. On Police Brutality: There's a lot of good stuff here but strangely Kent talks about police brutality like its a new thing or as if we have a “rising” police state. Reality is we always have had a police state for as long as police have existed. Any knowledge of the history of police demonstrates the classist, and in the US especially, racist roots of police forces and the poor and black who have always been on the receiving end of the boot of the law. It is only in recent decades that such violence has become more inflicted on increasingly less privileged whites and in no small part due to black activist work that people are being forced to face what the oppressed have always known.

6. On Revolution: I have little to say here as most of this is pretty well known fact, I will just reiterate the Marxist perspective that revolution is the only means by which liberation of the workers will be achieved as those in power will not give it up without a fight. We however are not really in a revolutionary crisis at this time so fomenting revolution is premature, we should have no tolerance for adventurism. The people need education and mass organization before revolution would be advisable. Currently the American Left is in shambles, the average worker is horribly backward on multiple issues, and the most well trained and organized people in the country are right wing reactionaries. That is a recipe for disaster. The correct recipe is teaching the correct theoretical line and following it up with correct practice.

7. Gun Violence: Kent is largely correct here except for one glaring issue: “ The real answer is to solve the problem of mental illness. If we, as a nation, were to actually take the time to give the mentally ill the treatment that they truly need, they would be thousands of times less likely to resort to violent actions with guns. “ This is ableist garbage. Most shooters are not mentally ill and mentally ill people are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. Laws that disarm the mentally ill just leave a frequently oppressed group defenseless as do most liberal gun control laws which are also frequently racist as well. 

In Summary: There is some good stuff by Kent on some relevant issues but ultimately it is bogged down by liberal (bourgeois ) idealism with a dangerous wandering into almost MRA territory and pretty blatant ableism.