Mørklægning og Magtfuldkommenhed.

Offentlighedsloven, et lovforslag som Bødskov selv kritiserede da han var i opposition til Løkke-regeringen, blev tvunget ned i halsen på befolkningen på trods af over 86.000 underskrifter imod loven, hvilket må kaldes et betydeligt antal underskrifter i et lille land som Danmark. Gennemtvingelsen skete desuden på trods af, at den landsdækkende presses redaktører i samlet flok lod vide, at meget ikke længere ville kunne afsløres hvis man gennemførte loven. I flere af de landsdækkende aviser påviste man sågar adskillige tilfælde, hvor verserende sager ikke ville være kommet ud i offentlighedens granskende lys, såfremt loven var blevet gennemført da man efterforskede disse. Intet af dette havde desværre nogen videre betydning for de magtfuldkomne politikere på Borgen.

Morten “Mørklægger” Bødskov præsterede i det ene tv-interview efter det andet, at fremstå som et perfekt eksempel på den karrieremageriske politiker som med rette vækker politikerleden i befolkningen. Argumenter for lovens gennemførelse var der ikke mange af. Faktisk var der kun et, som Bødskov så valgte at gentage i det nærmest uendelige, som var han en plade der var gået i hak. Udover, at denne optræden nåede helt op på siden af Bertel Haarders raserianfald i pinlighed, demonstrerede Bødskov også, at dansk retspolitik åbenbart ikke er baseret på gode argumenter, hvilket selvfølgelig i sig selv er ganske foruroligende.

Mørklægningsloven bør desuden ikke vurderes som et enkeltstående tilfælde, men som endnu et symptom på, at en forkrøblende sygdom har ramt det danske politiske system. Andre steder ser vi nemlig ligeledes, hvordan gennemsigtigheden i forvaltningen af staten er blevet kompromitteret af store lag tyk sværte. Politiets Efterretningstjeneste er notorisk for institutionens lukkethed og tillader selv ikke aktindsigt i sager der er så gamle, at alle implicerede for længst er døde. Hertil kommer så, at der ikke er åbenhed omkring hvem der lobbyer det danske folketing, og der er endvidere heller ikke åbenhed omkring partistøtten, hvorfor vi altså effektivt er afskåret fra, at se hvem der udøver denne form for indflydelse på det politiske teater.

Der er ikke længere nogen mærkbar forskel på om Danmark er styret af den ene eller den anden side af midten. Folketingsvalgene er i dag pseudovalg mellem to alen af et stykke, idet der blandt midterpartierne lader til at være så stor konsensus om hvordan landet skal styres, at det er blevet umuligt at tage seriøst, at rød blok skulle udgøre et egentligt alternativ til blå blok. Det gælder ikke mindst hvad angår retspolitikken generelt, og offentlighedsloven i særdeleshed, idet dette lovforslag oprindeligt kom til verden da den blå blok var i førersædet. Generelt kan man desværre i dag sige om midten i dansk politik, at den består af fjender af det åbne samfund. Pænere hverken kan eller bør det siges.

Personlig og Politisk Emancipation.

Nogle har ment, at man efter nedrivningen af Berlin-muren og Sovjetunionens kollaps, var nået frem til historiens afslutning, med den borgerlige parlamentarisk-demokratiske styreform og kapitalismen på sejrsskammelen. Denne holdning er blevet gjort til skamme af de seneste års demokratiske og kapitalismekritiske massebevægelser og deres krav om et reelt demokrati, samt af en globaliseret og finansialiseret kapitalisme, som fortsat er i gang med at delegitimere dette globale økonomiske systemets eksistensberettigelse. Som protesterne verden over vidner om, tilhører politiske emancipationsprojekter ikke just fortiden, men eksisterer derimod i bedste velgående i vores samtid.

Vi skal imidlertid passe på med kun, at tænke emancipation af menneskeheden indenfor rammerne af en politisk logik, for politisk emancipation er ikke “den endegyldige og absolutte form for menneskelig emancipation”, som Marx betonede i Kritik af Gotha-programmet. Det er en af den politiske idéhistories svagheder, at emancipation ofte udelukkende behandles indenfor rammerne af det intersubjektive rum, hvilket vil sige, at man mestendels beskæftiger sig med netop en politisk-strukturel emancipation, og til dels med en normativ-kulturel, mens den subjektive, individuelle emancipation af den enkelte, typisk ikke granskes i noget videre omfang.

Sat på spidsen kunne man spørge hvad det nytter, at have emanciperet de politiske strukturer i et samfund, hvis dets borgere er traumatiserede, neurotiske og afhængige? Har man derved skabt et frit samfund? Svaret synes at være et klart nej. Et overordnet emancipationsprojekt, bør aldrig kun være politisk projekt som blot vedrører det intersubjektive rum, men bør i stedet være både et politisk projekt og et personligt. Sagt anderledes: libertært inklinerede mennesker bør ikke kun vende deres emancipations-projekter mod repressive ydre politiske strukturer og kulturelle normer, men tillige fokusere på den individuelle emancipation, hviket betyder, at vi skal være opmærksomme på repressive elementer i egen tænkning og eget følelsesliv, og så snart vi har identificeret sådanne, forsøge at skaffe dem af vejen.  

Verdensfredens Garanter.

FNs Sikkerhedsråds fem faste (atomvåbenbevæbnede) medlemsstater er samtidig de mest våbenproducerende og -eksporterende lande. De ophørte enten for kort tid siden med at være imperialistiske (Frankrig, UK) eller er det fortsat (Kina, Rusland og USA). Desuden er ingen af dem ligefrem kendt for at føre en menneskerettighedsopretholdende udenrigspolitik og kun Rusland og Kina er, så vidt vides, ikke pt. i gang med større kamphandlinger udenfor egne grænser.

Hattedamet etikette og arbejderkamp.

Vi står overfor en økonomisk betinget global masseudryddelse af dyre- og plantearter og diverse potentielle økologiske dommedagscenarier, i en verden hvor den politiske styring er så meget i lommen på økonomiske kræfter og så mentalt belejret af den herskende kapitalistiske ideologi, at udsigterne til gangbare løsninger ovenfra, på vores fælles udfordringer, bliver stadig sværere at få øje på.  

På det lokale plan domineres den politiske teaterscene ligeledes af en overklassestyrkende - og derfor arbejderklassesvækkende - nyliberal styringsideologi, som tilgodeser overklassens tilsyneladende umættelige trang til materiel akkumulation, snarere end samfundets svagestes behov. Forskellene på at være styret af VK(O) og SRSF er efterhånden svære at få øje på. Seks ud af Folketingets otte partier er tilsyneladende enige om det meste.

Den europæiske parlamentariske socialisme, med dens selvindlysende forkærlighed for politisk styring ovenfra, har siden murens og USSRs fald, samlet set produceret politiske resultater ift. venstreorienterede mærkesager, som man er undskyldt hvis man ikke er i stand til at udpege. Og Johanne, fra det ellers så kritiske - og mestendels politisk impotente - Enhedslisten, bruger sin 1. Maj tale på at opdrage befolkningen og belære os om gode manerer. Vi siger tak til Johanne for introduktionen til hendes tantede regelbog for politisk aktivisme og civil ulydighed. Det er lige det vi har brug for i denne svære tid!

Book Excerpt: On Instrumental Reason.

"The kind of rationality that drives the modern scientific, economic, and technological revolutions - instrumental or administrative reason (herrschaftwissen) - is only one kind of knowledge, knowledge for the sake of power, profit, and control. Unlike the type of rationality that is critical, ethical, communicative, and dialogical in nature, the goal of instrumental reason is to order, categorize, control, exploit, appropriate, and commandeer the physical and living worlds as means toward designated ends. Accordingly, this general type of reason—a vivid example of what Nietzsche diagnoses as the Western “will to power”—dominates the outlook and schemes of scien-tists, technicians, capitalists, bureaucrats, war strategists, and social scientists. Instrumental knowledge is based on prediction and control, and it attains this goal by linking science to technology, by employing sophisticated mathematical methods of measurement, by frequently serving capitalist interests, and byabstracting itself from all other concerns, often disparaged as “nonscientific,” “subjective,” or inefficient.
 
The dark, ugly, bellicose, repressive, violent, and predatory underbelly of the “disinterested” pursuit of knowledge, of “reason,” and of “democracy,” “freedom,” and “rights” as well, has been described through a litany of ungainly sociological terms, including, but not limited to: secularization, rationalization, commodification, reification (“thingification”), industri-alization, standardization, homogenization, bureaucratization, and global-ization. Each term describes a different aspect of modernity - reduction of the universe to mathematical symbols and equations, the mass production of identical objects, the standardization of individuals into the molds of conformity, the evolution of capitalist power from its competitive to monopolist to transnational stages, or the political and legal state apparatus of “representative” or “parliamentary” democracies.  Each dynamic is part of a comprehensive, aggressive, protean, and multidimensional system of power and domination, co-constituted by the three main engines incessantly propelling modern change: science, capitalism, and technology. In industrial capitalist societies, elites deploy mathematics, science, technology, bureaucracies, states, militaries, and instrumental reason to render the world as something abstract, functional, calculable, and controllable, while transforming any and all things and beings into commodities manufactured and sold for profit. [...]

Clearly, instrumental reason targets not only objects and things for control, but also subjects and society; and just as mechanistic science moved seamlessly from objectifying heavenly bodies to policing social bodies, so administrative rationality moved from controlling nature to manipulating society. The disciplining of bodies in eighteenth century schools, the ubiquitous gaze of guards over prisoners in nineteenth century penitentiaries, the Taylorization process in twentieth century factories that studied workers’ movements to minimize wasted energy and maximize surplus value; the eugenics discourse and mass sterilization policies in the United States during the 1920s; the networks of mass culture, electronic media, and advertising that constitute a vast “society of the spectacle” (Guy Debord) that transforms citizens from active agents to passive consumers; the colonization of minds of children, youth, and adults through a cornucopia of chemical toxins that dull, deaden, and neutralize minds through pharmaceutical warfare—these are only some of the seemingly infinite methods and techniques used to regiment populations, pacify resistance, neutralize activity, and eliminate opposition."

Excerpted from The Global Industrial Complex: Systems of Domination.

On Capitalism and Freedom

One of the central dogmas of the secular capitalist religion is that capitalism produces greater liberty. To a very limited extent this is true. It grants the most powerful factions of society the liberty to freely prey upon the powerless. For most people though, it is a dogma in direct conflict with the grim realities of everyday life. For the world's poor the rampant speculation in essential commodities such as food results in the most tragic absence of liberty. It is, however, not just in the periphery of capitalist globalization, where most of the world's extreme poverty is to be found, that we find the promised liberty to be a mere fiction. The commodification of all the necessities for a good life, at least in strictly material terms, not only confines most of us to an existence of indebtedness to the owners of money, it also forces us to sell our time and labor to others in the most vital part of the human lifespan. Indebtedness keeps our noses to the grindstone. It forces us to bow to the demands of our capitalist masters, for we cannot afford being freed from our duties. The ubiquity of the indebted subject is hardly compatible with any meaningful notion of liberty. 

Samme politik bag nye masker.

Vi har i Folketinget en mangfoldighed af partier, men denne mangfoldighed dækker i mange henseender over en udpræget uniformitet. Forskellen på hvilke af midterpartierne der sidder på magten er efterhånden åbenlyst marginal, idet der på de brede linjer hersker en så høj grad af konsensus blandt de to store midterpartier, at forskellene blegner i forhold til lighederne. Man er således stort set enige om...

1. Hvilken retspolitik der skal føres.
2. At Kongehuset skal bevares.
3. At Grundloven ikke står til diskussion.
4. At medlemskabet af NATO og af EU bør opretholdes.
5. At militant aktivisme bør være et af de væsentligste elementer i den udenrigspolitiske kurs.
6. At alliancen med supermagten USA ikke fortjener hverken kritk eller genovervejelse.
7. At overvågningsstaten er kommet for at blive.
8. At visse dele af centraladministrationen bør mørklægges.
9. At krisen skal betales af samfundets svageste.
10. At en stram indvandringspolitik er ønskværdig.
11. At Folkekirken skal forblive den statsligt foretrukne religiøsitet.
12. At kapitalismen har sejret og bør opretholdes, om så der skal statslig intervention til.
13. At PETs virke fortsat skal have ekstrademokratisk karakter.
14. At det repræsentative parlamentariske demokrati er det eneste rigtige, herunder at demokratiseringsprocessen ikke bør fortsætte, idet ingen taler om en yderligere magtspredning eller større folkelig indflydelse.
15. At der ikke bør pilles ved landbrugsstøtten.
16. At staten er i sin gode ret til at fastsætte hvorfra i verden ens ægtefælle helst skal stamme.
17. At den stramme narkotikapolitik bør bevares.
18. At man er fra statsligt hold i sin gode ret til at bestemme hvad folkeskolens elever skal undervises i. 

Vi kalder den politiske proces som determinerer hvem der sidder på magten i Danmark, for et valg, men reelt er valget et ikke-valg mellem flere alen af et stykke. Valgets udfald vil nærmest med sikkerhed, i det mindste i den nuværende politiske kultur, være ensbetydende med samme politik bag nye masker.

Fri Læring.

Liberalisternes Begrænsede Frihedsideal.

Det liberalistiske frihedsideal - især i dets nutidige manifestation - er ganske begrænset. Man prædiker konsekvent ytringsfrihedens godhed og nødvendighed og plæderer for den videst mulige frigørelse af globale økonomiske kræfter, men vender det blinde øje til den strukturelle vold, som er indbygget i det globale økonomiske system. Man spørger sjældent hvad ytringsfriheden er værd for den fattige mand, som bor under en bro med sine børn og derfor er nødsaget til, at bruge alle ressourcer på at fylde deres maver? Svaret er nok mestendels, at den er uden nævneværdig betydning, for selv hvis han havde tid til at ytre sig, ville ingen lytte. Anderledes forholder det sig naturligvis for det multinationale medieimperium, som ejer og råder over talerør i hundredevis.

Det frie marked - og tanken om dets usynlige hånd - har siden oplysningstiden været en vigtig del af det liberalistiske tankegods, men er først i nyere tid blevet den væsentligste bærende søjle. Til trods for markedets frihedsindskrænkende magt qua forgældelsen af snartsagt enhver, anses finanskapitalismens ågerindustri ikke som tilpas problematisk til, at fordre nogen nævneværdig kritik Finanskapitalismens destruktive spekulation mødes som regel blot med skuldertræk.

Kapitalismen er ikke problematisk. Det problematiske er, at de kapitalistiske markedskræfter ikke er frigjorte nok. Finanskapitalismens frie virke vil komme os alle til gode, hvis blot Wall Street får frie nok hænder. Kapitalismen skaber kollektiv velstand med dens indbyggede strukturelle drift imod evig akkumulation. Det forsikrer de markedsoptimistiske liberalister os om. Vi bliver alle rigere, når de rigeste skaber profit. Det stigende tidevand løfter alle både. Politiken skal derfor underlægges markedets økonomiske logik, snarere end omvendt. 

Denne indgroede ideologi gør blind. Blind overfor den kendsgerning, at størstedelen af verdens befolkning er alt andet end rig, selvom kapitalismen har været verdens herskende økonomiske system siden oplysningstiden og verdens eneste siden Sovjetunionens fald. Blind overfor fattigdommens inhærente ufrihed i en verden hvor alt koster penge. Blind overfor det forgældede samfunds indbyggede frihedsunderskud. Blind overfor den udbytning som de herskende økonomiske strukturer tvinger os ind i. 

Nysproglig Ordbog.

Effektivisering (massefyring).
Aktivistisk udenrigspolitik (statsterror).
Forstærket afhøring (tortur).
Profitmaksimering (udbytning).
Offentlighedslov (mørklægning).
Forsvarsminister (krigsminister).
Undervisning (indoktrinering).
Kredit (gæld).
Økonomisk vækst (økologisk masseudryddelse).
Adfærdsvanskelighed (selvstændighed).
Heldagsskole (ekspropriering af fritid).
Nationale interesser (eliteinteresser).
Kriminalitetsbekæmpelse (privatlivskrænkelse).
Sikkerhed (overvågning).
Beskatte (berøve).
Kulturbevarelse (krigsmageri).
Fællesskabet (staten).
Underordnet skadevirkning (mord på civile).
Markedsføring (bedrageri).
Human Resources (lønslaver).
Public Relations (propaganda).
Demokratipromovering (angrebskrig). 
Underholdning (opmærksomhedsafledning).

Dagens Citat: George Orwell.

"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements."

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” (1946).

Dagens Citat: Michael Parenti

“The free market core mythology, to which both parties in this country and just about all mainstream political commentators are wedded, argues in effect that the most ruthless, selfish, opportunistic, greedy, calculating plunderers, applying the most heartless measures in cold-blooded pursuit of corporate interests and wealth accumulation, will produce the best results for all of us, through something called the invisible hand.” 

Michael Parenti "Democracy and the Pathology of Wealth". 

Dagens Citat: David Graeber.

"While the new free market ideology has framed itself above all as a rejection of bureaucracy, it has, in fact, been responsible for the first administrative system that has operated on a planetary scale, with its endless layering of public and private bureaucracies: the IMF, World Bank, WTO, trade organizations, financial institutions, transnational corporations, NGOs. This is precisely the system that has imposed free market orthodoxy, and opened the world to financial pillage, under the watchful aegis of American arms. It only made sense that the first attempt to recreate a global revolutionary movement, the Global Justice Movement that peaked between 1998 and 2003, was effectively a rebellion against the rule of that very planetary bureaucracy." [min fremhævning]

David Graeber: "A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse."

Plant Research: Plants Can Sense Gravity.

"Plants have the ability to sense gravity. There are specialized parts of some cells called statoliths, which occur, for instance, in plant root cells, which need to know which direction to travel—in this case, down into the ground. The cell senses gravity, and changes its behavior accordingly.

Pollen tubes don’t have statoliths and they don’t sense gravity. A pollen tube is on a mission to find and germinate an egg; if it were primarily concerned with responding gravity, that mission would be thwarted. The pollen tube grows in the direction of the egg, and it takes its cues from the egg’s chemical signals. This means that any impact of gravity on a pollen tube is due to the actual effects of gravitational force on weight-bearing loads in nature."

Discover Magazine

Dagens Citat: Bakunin

"What is property, what is capital in their present form? For the capitalist and the property owner they mean the power and the right, guaranteed by the State, to live without working. And since neither property nor capital produces anything when not fertilized by labor - that means the power and the right to live by exploiting the work of someone else, the right to exploit the work of those who possess neither property nor capital and who thus are forced to sell their productive power to the lucky owners of both."

 - Bakunin.

Pilkington on Hayek and Neoliberalism.

Radio interview w. Philip Pilkington of Naked Capitalism on Hayek and neoliberalism entitled "Neoliberalism & Hayek's Delusion".

"This week we welcome back Philip Pilkington to the show to talk about his latest writings on the life and times of Friedrich Hayek, the ideologue behind the Neoliberal project. Philip came over to my house this week and we sat about and waxed lyrical on such highfalutin topics as Classical Liberalism, Neoliberalism and Ordoliberalism. We also got around to political propoganda and the Mont Perelin society, the similarities between the far right and Leninism, and how, after Hayek's nefarious influence, our politics has never been the same again"

Nyliberalismens Tre Historiske Faser.

"The history of neoliberalism has at least three distinct phases. The first lasted from the 1920s until about 1950. The term began to acquire meaning in interwar Europe as the Austrian school economists and the German ordoliberals sought to define the contours of a market-based society, which they believed was the best way to organize an economy and guarantee individual liberty. “Neoliberal” was embraced by participants at the famous Colloque Walter Lippmann, organized in Paris in 1938 by the French philosopher Louis Rougier to consider the implications of Walter Lippmann’s book, The Good Society (1937). The term was chosen because it suggested more than a simple return to laissez-faire economics. Instead, neoliberalism would reformulate liberalism to address the concerns of the 1930s. Present, among others, were Hayek, Alexander Rüstow, Wilhelm Röpke, and Mises, as well as the French economist Jacques Rueff and the Hungarian British polymath Michael Polanyi. These men, along with others from Europe and America, would later form the Mont Pelerin Society with Hayek, Röpke, and Albert Hunold in 1947.

The influence of Mont Pelerin liberalism was apparent in Milton Friedman’s essay, “Neo-liberalism and Its Prospects,” published in 1951. Though little noticed and in many ways oddly unrepresentative of his thought, Friedman’s article can be seen in retrospect as an important bridge between the first and second phases of neoliberalism, between the concerns of the predominantly European founding figures, located in Austria, London, Manchester, France, Switzerland, and parts of Germany, and a subsequent generation of thinkers, mainly though by no means all American, located especially in Chicago and Virginia. Of course, the “first Chicago school” of economics, comprising Frank Knight, Jacob Viner, and Henry Simons, played its part in neoliberalism’s formation, but most early neoliberals were preoccupied with European concerns.

The second phase of neoliberalism lasted from 1950 until the free market ascendency of Thatcher and Reagan in the 1980s. At the zenith of New Deal liberalism and British social democracy, when neo-Keynesian approaches to economic policy were at their height, much of this period was a superficially lean time for neoliberals. Outside Germany, they lacked concrete political success in the 1950s and 1960s. Instead, neoliberalism generated intellectual coherence and matured politically. It grew into a recognizable group of ideas, and also into a movement. An increasingly confident group of thinkers, scholars, businessmen, and policy entrepreneurs developed and refined a radical set of free market prescriptions and promoted their agenda. Ironically, it was also in this period that the use of “neoliberal” by its proponents became less common. This was odd at a time when American neoliberal thinkers in particular were defining it ever more precisely in the spheres of industrial organization, monetary policy, and regulation. But this was probably because the term meant little in an American context.

Characteristic of the Chicago approach was the “methodology of positive economics,” out of which emerged Friedman’s revival of monetarism and Stigler’s theory of regulatory capture. This empirical bent was allied to new theories and research endeavors, subsidized by sympathetic business finance and developed in the 1950s and 1960s, about the relatively harmless nature of monopoly and the positive role of large corporations. From the Chicago perspective, the more worrying manifestation of monopoly was trade union power. The Chicago approach marked a sharp contrast, however, with European neoliberalism and even with the adherents’ own departmental forebears, such as Frank Knight, Jacob Viner, and, most important, Henry Simons. German ordoliberals, for example, always took the need for robust antimonopoly policies seriously. In parallel with the technical work of the Chicago economists, Friedman’s polemical arguments, put forward in Capitalism and Freedom (1962)—the “American Road to Serfdom,” as Philip Mirowski and Rob Van Horn have called it—presented the market as the means both to deliver social goods and to deliver the ends, the good life itself.

A third phase of neoliberalism, after 1980, was driven by the advance of an agenda of market liberalization and fiscal discipline into development and trade policy. Neoliberalism broke out of the predominantly North Atlantic and Western European confines of elite academia and domestic national politics and spread into many global institutions, especially in the former communist countries and the developing world. Its principles were adopted by economists and policymakers of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the EU, and as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The 1980s and 1990s were notable for the notorious “structural adjustment” policies pursued through these institutions and agreements. These were summarized in 1989 by the British economist John Williamson as the now renowned “Washington Consensus” and included tax reform, trade liberalization, privatization, deregulation, and strong property rights. The certainty with which such policies were introduced has been much criticized by economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, as well as by uncompromising opponents of capitalism in the antiglobalization movement, which famously erupted at the WTO meetings in Seattle in 1999."

Daniel Steadman Jones, Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman and the Birth of Neoliberal Policies, Princeton University Press (2012).

Dagens Citat: Keynes.

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, The General Theory of Unemployment, 1936.

Panem et Circenses.

Romerne havde fat i den lange ende. Skal man styre befolkningen uden at skulle bekymre sig om for mange kritiske spørgsmål, er det en god idé at aflede dens opmærksomhed med "brød og cirkus". Den romerske satiriker Juvenals metafor for hul og overfladisk underholdning og behovstilfredstillelse. I Orwells "1984" er han inde på noget lignende. Han fortæller om Informationsministeriet som producerer proletarfodder i form af overfladiske aviser fulde af kriminalitet, sport og horoskoper, samt populærmusik, hvor alle numrene er skåret efter den samme form. Det lyder jo ret bekendt. I vores tilfælde er det imidlertid ikke centraladministrationen som står bag denne effektive afledningsmanøvre, men derimod kapitalistiske firmaer. Vi kender det som B.T og Ekstra Bladet, indholdsløs popmusik baseret på de samme tre akkorder, de allestedsnærværende reklamer og fra fjernsynskanaler som TV3, hvis mest oplysende program er The Simpsons.

Dagens Citat: Marshall Sahlins

"The premise of American overseas aggression, according to Donald Rumsfeld and others, is something like the line in the movie Full Metal Jacket: “inside every gook there is an American trying to get out.” All we have to do to liberate this innately freedom-loving, self-interested, democracy-needing, capitalist-in-waiting is to rid him of the oppressive, evil-minded regime holding him down—by force if necessary."

Professor emeritus of anthropology, Marshall Sahlins. 

Toby Hemenway, "Redesigning Civilization"

The New Edge of Radical Economics - David Graeber & Charles Eisenstein.

Dagens Citat: Robert Anton Wilson.

"Since all authority and government are based on force, the master class, with its burden of omniscience, faces the servile class, with its burden of nescience, precisely as a highwayman faces his victim. Communication is possible only between equals. The master class never abstracts enough information from the servile class to know what is actually going on in the world where the actual productivity of society occurs .... The result can only be progressive deterioration among the rulers."

Robert Anton Wilson: The Illiminatus! Trilogy s. 388.

Chris Hedges on Corporate American Media

"The celebrity trolls who currently reign on commercial television, who bill themselves as liberal or conservative, read from the same corporate script. They spin the same court gossip. They ignore what the corporate state wants ignored. They champion what the corporate state wants championed. They do not challenge or acknowledge the structures of corporate power. Their role is to funnel viewer energy back into our dead political system—to make us believe that Democrats or Republicans are not corporate pawns. The cable shows, whose hyperbolic hosts work to make us afraid self-identified liberals or self-identified conservatives, are part of a rigged political system, one in which it is impossible to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, General Electric or ExxonMobil. These corporations, in return for the fear-based propaganda, pay the lavish salaries of celebrity news people, usually in the millions of dollars. They make their shows profitable. [...]

The lie of omission is still a lie. It is what these news celebrities do not mention that exposes their complicity with corporate power. They do not speak about Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, a provision that allows the government to use the military to hold U.S. citizens and strip them of due process. They do not decry the trashing of our most basic civil liberties, allowing acts such as warrantless wiretapping and executive orders for the assassination of U.S. citizens. They do not devote significant time to climate scientists to explain the crisis that is enveloping our planet. They do not confront the reckless assault of the fossil fuel industry on the ecosystem. They very rarely produce long-form documentaries or news reports on our urban and rural poor, who have been rendered invisible, or on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or on corporate corruption on Wall Street. That is not why they are paid. They are paid to stymie meaningful debate. They are paid to discredit or ignore the nation’s most astute critics of corporatism, among them Cornel West, Medea Benjamin, Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky. They are paid to chatter mindlessly, hour after hour, filling our heads with the theater of the absurd."

Chris Lynn Hedges: "The Day That TV News Died"

The Meaning of the Black Flag.

"Why is our flag black? Black is a shade of negation. The black flag is the negation of all flags. It is a negation of nationhood which puts the human race against itself and denies the unity of all humankind. Black is a mood of anger and outrage at all the hideous crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of allegiance to one state or another. It is anger and outrage at the insult to human intelligence implied in the pretences, hypocrisies, and cheap chicaneries of governments . . . Black is also a colour of mourning; the black flag which cancels out the nation also mourns its victims the countless millions murdered in wars, external and internal, to the greater glory and stability of some bloody state. It mourns for those whose labour is robbed (taxed) to pay for the slaughter and oppression of other human beings. It mourns not only the death of the body but the crippling of the spirit under authoritarian and hierarchic systems; it mourns the millions of brain cells blacked out with never a chance to light up the world. It is a colour of inconsolable grief.

But black is also beautiful. It is a colour of determination, of resolve, of strength, a colour by which all others are clarified and defined. Black is the mysterious surrounding of germination, of fertility, the breeding ground of new life which always evolves, renews, refreshes, and reproduces itself in darkness. The seed hidden in the earth, the strange journey of the sperm, the secret growth of the embryo in the womb all these the blackness surrounds and protects.

So black is negation, is anger, is outrage, is mourning, is beauty, is hope, is the fostering and sheltering of new forms of human life and relationship on and with this earth. The black flag means all these things. We are proud to carry it, sorry we have to, and look forward to the day when such a symbol will no longer be necessary."

["Why the Black Flag?", Howard Ehrlich (ed.), Reinventing Anarchy, Again, pp. 31-2]

Til minde om Irak-krigen.

"A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions."

- George W. Bush d. 23. Februar 2003.

Det er nu ti år siden krigen imod Irak blev påbegyndt med et storstilet angreb på den irakiske hovedstad og andre af landets tætbefolkede store byer, med enorm beskadigelse af den civile infrastruktur som forventelig konsekvens. Skabte denne krig, som præsident George W. Bush påstod, rent faktisk noget så rosenrødt som “et frigjort Irak” der har fyldt millioner af menneskelige tilværelser med “håb og fremskridt” eller er sandheden om krigen snarere langt mere dyster og ildevarslende? Følgende samling af links og videoklip kaster lys over forskellige aspekter af krigen og dens konsekvenser for den irakiske civilbefolkning.

Kenneth Roth (Human Rights Watch): US has Self to Blame for Iraq Failures.

Pepe Escobar: Search and Destroy: The Rape of Iraq.

Stephen Zunes: Democrats Share the Blame for the Tragedy of Iraq War.

Juan Cole: What We Did to Iraq.

Patrick Cockburn: The American Legacy in Iraq.

Seumas Milne: Iraq War: Make it Impossible to Inflict such Barbarism Again.

Vijay Prashad: Bombs Over Baghdad.

War Correspondent Discusses Iraq's "Culture of Corruption".

Le Monde Diplomatique: The New Normal in Baghdad.

Dahr Jamail: Iraq: War's Legacy of Cancer.

Joseph Nye: Iraq War Ten Years Later.

“War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole [..] the attacker must know that he is doing wrong, and so far from it being unjust to punish him, it would be unjust if his wrong were allowed to go unpunished [..] they must have known that they were acting in defiance of all international law when in complete deliberation they carried out their designs of invasion and aggression.” - Dommerne v. Nürnbergprocessen.

Jason Silva Preaches the Gospel of “Radical Openness”

Stuart Christie on Anarchism

Stuart Christie in a new interview:

"Anarchism is the movement for social justice through freedom. It is concrete, democratic and egalitarian. It has existed and developed since the seventeenth century, with a philosophy and a defined outlook that have evolved and grown with time and circumstance. Anarchism began as what it remains today: a direct challenge by the underprivileged to their oppression and exploitation. It opposes both the insidious growth of state power and the pernicious ethos of possessive individualism, which, together or separately, ultimately serve only the interests of the few at the expense of the rest.

Anarchism promotes mutual aid, harmony and human solidarity, to achieve a free, classless society – a cooperative commonwealth. Anarchism is both a theory and practice of life. Philosophically, it aims for perfect accord between the individual, society and nature. In an anarchist society, mutually respectful sovereign individuals would be organised in non-coercive relationships within naturally defined communities in which the means of production and distribution are held in common.

Anarchists, are not simply dreamers obsessed with abstract principles. We know that events are ruled by chance, and that people’s actions depend much on long-held habits and on psychological and emotional factors that are often anti-social and usually unpredictable. We are well aware that a perfect society cannot be won tomorrow. Indeed, the struggle could last forever! However, it is the vision that provides the spur to struggle against things as they are, and for things that might be.

Whatever the immediate prospects of achieving a free society, and however remote the ideal, if we value our common humanity then we must never cease to strive to realise our vision. If we settle for anything less, then we are little more than beasts of burden at the service of the privileged few, without much to gain from life other than a lighter load, better feed and a cosier berth.

Ultimately, only struggle determines outcome, and progress towards a more meaningful community must begin with the will to resist every form of injustice.

In general terms, this means challenging all exploitation and defying the legitimacy of all coercive authority. If anarchists have one article of unshakeable faith then it is that, once the habit of deferring to politicians or ideologues is lost, and that of resistance to domination and exploitation acquired, then ordinary people have a capacity to organise every aspect of their lives in their own interests, anywhere and at any time, both freely and fairly.

Anarchism encompasses such a broad view of the world that it cannot easily be distilled into a formal definition. Michael Bakunin, the man whose writings and example over a century ago did most to transform anarchism from an abstract critique of political power into a theory of practical social action, defined its fundamental tenet thus: In a word, we reject all privileged, licensed, official, and legal legislation and authority, even though it arise from universal suffrage, convinced that it could only turn to the benefit of a dominant and exploiting minority, and against the interests of the vast enslaved majority.

Anarchists do not stand aside from popular struggle, nor do they attempt to dominate it. They seek to contribute to it practically whatever they can, and also to assist within it the highest possible levels both of individual self-development and of group solidarity. It is possible to recognise anarchist ideas concerning voluntary relationships, egalitarian participation in decision-making processes, mutual aid and a related critique of all forms of domination in philosophical, social and revolutionary movements in all times and places.

Elsewhere, the less formal practices and struggles of the more indomitable among the propertyless and disadvantaged victims of the authority system have found articulation in the writings of those who on brief acquaintance would appear to be mere millenarian dreamers. Far from being abstract speculations conjured out of thin air, such works have, like all social theories, been derived from sensitive observation. They reflect the fundamental and uncontainable conviction nourished by a conscious minority throughout history that social power held over people is a usurpation of natural rights: power originates in the people, and they alone have, together, the right to wield it."

Rhizomer

"A simple symbolic model suggested by French philosophers Giles Deleuze and Felix Guatari presents a means of harnessing memetic structures without depending on them: the concept of rhizome versus hierarchy. Rhizome provides us with another example of a proven, evolutionarily successful pattern. It acts as the counterpart to, and in many ways is the opposite of, the pattern of hierarchy.

Examples exist throughout history of oppressed peoples, fed up with the trespasses of hierarchy, revolting in order to establish a new order that will place their interests above those of the existing elite. Over time, hierarchal structures have evolved impressive defenses against such direct assault. Successful revolutions have created their own hierarchal structure to confront strength with strength, but in the process they have sacrificed the objectives—the desire to benefit those at the bottom of the pyramid—that led to revolt in the first place. History demonstrates, and common sense validates, that the assumption of hierarchal structure invalidates the actions of groups that would overthrow hierarchy. Despite this logical truism, revolution after revolution proceed along the same path: revolutionaries assume hierarchal form to confront the strengths of hierarchies. The solution to hierarchy lies not in the failure of proper implementation (the standard critique of Marxist failures by Marxists), but in the fundamental structure of hierarchy itself. In order to resolve the deficiencies fundamental to the structure of hierarchy, we must, by definition, abandon hierarchy as an organizing principle. We must confront hierarchy with its opposite: rhizome.

Rhizome acts as a web-like structure of connected but independent nodes, borrowing its name from the structures of plants such as bamboo and other grasses. By its very nature, rhizome exhibits incompatibility with such critical hierarchal structures as domestication, monoculture-agriculture, division of labor and centralized government. Unlike hierarchy, rhizome cannot suffer exploitation from within because its structure remains incompatible with centralization of power. It provides a structural framework for our conscious organization of memes. Each node in a rhizome stands autonomous from the larger structure, but the nodes work together in a larger network that extends benefits to the node without creating dependence. The critical element of a world that focuses power at the level of the individual, that can meet the demands of our genome while providing the flexibility and potential to achieve greater goals, remains the small, connected and relatively self-sufficient node of this rhizome structure. In human terms, such a node represents an economic and a cultural unit at the size preferred by our genome: the household and the tribe. Functionally self-sufficient but not isolated, cooperating but not controlled, the rhizome economy, combined with a self-awareness of control structures, provides the real-world foundation of stability and freedom.

[...]The field of ecology provides further insight into the comparison of hierarchy versus rhizome. Greater diversity and complexity in an ecosystem increases its resiliency. The rigid stratification of hierarchy, while efficient from the standpoint of centralized control and coordination, has proved less capable of supporting dense, stable networks of organic life (of which humanity remains a part). Centralization and stratification produce ever-greater losses in efficiency due to the increased cost of distribution, coordination and communication. Hierarchy has incredible strength, but the accompanying inflexibility and top-heaviness can make it brittle and unstable. The networked, rhizome structure not only facilitates greater individual freedom, it also creates a more flexible and resilient structure for human ecology. The resiliency of rhizome may prove the deciding factor in our long-term survival as humanity encounters a host of potential threats. In the face of super-viruses, climate-change and overpopulation, the richer, more complex, more rhizomatic ecosystem has historically demonstrated greater survivability."

- Jeff Vail "A Theory of Power."

Lydighedskulturen.

 Den intellektuelle har et ansvar i et samfund, hvor han eller hun har mulighed for at udtrykke sig frit dvs. uden nævneværdig risiko for forfølgelse og afstrafning. Først og fremmest bør den intellektuelles opgave være, at udpege politiske, økonomiske og sociale strukturer som er autoritære, hierarkiske og derfor dominansorienterede, for herefter at udfordre disse mhp. at få klargjort om disse strukturer kan retfærdiggøres. Hvis ikke deres legitimitet kan påvises klart og tydeligt, følger det selvfølgelig at de må betegnes som illegitime og de må derfor forsøges skaffet af vejen hurtigst muligt.

De fleste af samfundets væsentligste strukturer er organiseret således, at nogle få dominerer de mange som er underlagt dem, i de institutionelle pyramider. Samfundet er altså overvejende struktureret således, at vi allerede fra barnsben indoktrineres til lydighed og underdanighed og vi lærer derfor allerede ganske tidligt, at indfinde os med andres dominans og kontrol over os. At denne indoktrinering er ganske effektiv kan ses i den kendsgerning, at de færreste nogensinde stiller spørgsmålstegn ved disse autoritære og dominansorienterede strukturers eksistensberettigelse.

Hvis man det meste af sit liv er underlagt andres dominans og kommando, vil mulighederne for at blive et frit og selvstændigt individ være stærkt begrænsede, da der ikke efterlades ret meget plads til selvstændighed, i hverken tanke eller handling, når en ganske stor del af ens liv går med at med følge andres ordrer.

Autoritære politiske og økonomiske strukturer koncentrerer beslutningstagningen i toppen, hvorfor de som er underlagt toppens beslutninger, uden nogensinde selv at få lov til at være med til at tage beslutninger, reduceres til hjul i maskineriet. Det hierarkiske og dominansorienterede samfund spilder således enorme mængder hjernekraft og kreativitet på gulvet ved at umyndiggøre størstedelen af befolkningen og udelukke dem fra beslutningerne og varetagelsen af samfundet og økonomien. Dette er ikke blot et tab for bunden af samfundspyramiden, men for samfundet som helhed.

I den politiske orden kalder vi det parlamentarisme og repræsentativt folkestyre. Vi afgiver vores stemme til andre, som vi gennem hele vores liv er blevet fortalt er myndigere og dygtigere til at varetage væsentlige dele af vores liv, end vi selv er. Men selv indenfor den politiske magtsfæres øverste nationale institution hersker hierarkiet og dominansens logik, idet også mange af de politiske karrieremagere er underlagt hierarkier og dominans, i de mestendels topstyrede partier, med deres øjensynligt skrappe krav til partidisciplin.

På arbejdspladsen sker noget lignende. Vi vinker selvstændigheden farvel og imødekommer føjeligt chefens ordrer, i det mindste så længe han er i nærheden. Gør vi det ikke, risikerer vi fyring grundet “samarbejdsvanskeligheder”, hvilket egentlig blot er nysprog for manglende lydighed og underkastelse. Når krisen kradser og hundredevis står i kø for at overtage ens plads er der selvsagt ikke det store incitament til ulydighed. Den eneste forhåbning er derfor for mange, at man en dag selv stiger i graderne, så man kan blive den der hundser rundt med de andre. Det er trods alt knap så hårdt at blive sparket i røven dagligt, når man har mulighed for at sende sparket videre ned gennem hakkeordenen.

I en hierarkisk politisk og økonomisk orden, hvor nogle få menneskers dominans over deres mange medmennesker opfattes som en selvfølge, er det ikke måske ikke så underligt, at mennesket ser sig som naturens retmæssige herskere. Konsekvenserne af denne besidder- og herskertrang er dog efterhånden så smertefuldt åbenlyse, at ingen blot nogenlunde oplyst person kan være ubevidst herom. Det herskende politiske og økonomiske system synes derfor at mangle eksistensberettigelse, for hvori skulle denne bestå, når dets fortsatte eksistens undergraver fremtiden for store dele af både menneskeheden og det øvrige liv på planeten?

Intet ved den nuværende tingenes tilstand er baseret på uforanderlige naturlove. Det behøver med andre ord ikke at være sådan. Andre steder i den såkaldte demokratiske verden, er den autoritetskritiske sol allerede vågnet i folks hjerter. I Sydeuropa ser vi hvordan folk forlanger “ægte demokrati nu!” og på den anden side af Atlanten var vi for nylig vidner til en højlydt opposition til finanskapitalisternes bankstervælde. Spørgsmålet er imidlertid hvor længe man her i landet kan blive ved med at smile i sine lænker? Med en del held vil tiden måske snart vise os, at lydighedskulturen besværligt trækker vejret på sit dødsleje. Indtil da er man undskyldt hvis man højlydt kommer til at grine, næste gang nogen begynder at tale om den anti-autoritære danske befolkning.