Classism

The most striking feature of recent elections is not ‘who won or who lost’, nor is it the personalities, parties and programs. The dominant characteristic of the elections is the widespread repudiation of the electoral system, political campaigns, parties and candidates.
Across the world, majorities and pluralities of citizens of voting age refuse to even register to vote (unless obligated by law), refuse to turn out to vote (voter abstention), or vote against all the candidates (boycott by empty ballot and ballot spoilage).

Charred, lifeless and brutal, the hollowed out remains of Grenfell Tower in west London screams of the human agony inflicted when, on 14th June, the building became an inferno.

Police state, corporate state, denuded duncery state — a blistery bunch of 80 percenters lost in a carnival of debt, malignant food, maladjusted education and the folly of a full-throttle powerfully propagandist media like a proverbial copper girdle wire around our collective consciousness. That So Called Liberal (sic) Press (sic) playing triple dirges for the death of any emaciated version of democracy with a capital D for dollar.

On a scale not seen since the ‘great’ world depression of the 1930’s, the US political system is experiencing sharp political attacks, divisions and power grabs. Executive firings, congressional investigations, demands for impeachment, witch hunts, threats of imprisonment for ‘contempt of Congress’ and naked power struggles have shredded the façade of political unity and consensus among competing powerful US oligarchs.

In exile at St. Helena, when asked about his dishonorable treatment of Toussaint, Napoleon merely remarked, “What could the death of one wretched Negro mean to me?”

Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness.
— Wilhelm Reich, The Function of the Orgasm (1927) (Ch. V: The Development of the Character-Analytic Technique)

People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one, and if you repeat it frequently enough, people will sooner or later believe it.
― Walter C. Langer, The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report, 1972, Basic Books

Because the tribe is its members, the tribe is what its members want it to be—nothing more and nothing less.
― Daniel Quinn, Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure

The Financial Times’ Special Report (2/16/2017) published a four-page spread on the ‘use and possible dangers of artificial intelligence (AI)’. Unlike the usual trash journalists who serve as Washington’s megaphones on the editorial pages and political columns, the Special Report is a thoughtful essay that raises many important issues, even as it is fundamentally flawed.

As I looked at the photos of women’s marches in Washington DC, San Francisco and all over the world on January 21, I was struck by one thing. Whiteness. The marchers were predominantly white – even in places like Nairobi. Not only were they white, they looked like they were upper middle class – able to afford the finest warm clothes and designer outfits, down jackets, sporting iPhones to record themselves. When interviewed they appeared to be educated and articulate. All of this raised alarm bells in me. Even before the march I had reservations.