Throughout my years of organizing I have witnessed many people exercising
their freedom in the face of brutal oppression. The nobility of such
acts was palpable, you could feel it move through a crowd, the power of
people standing in solidarity. This nobility can be a potent catalyst,
moving us to take action. But it can also trap us in a cycle of
suffering, a belief that there can be no change without this
self-sacrifice. There is a feeling of inevitability to these dynamics. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. “Freedom isn’t free.”
Of
course, this “choice” to exercise one’s freedom often doesn’t look like
a choice at all. When the oppressor threatens to extinguish your life,
the lives of your sisters and brothers, life on the planet itself – what
is that choice? Take action or die? There’s that inevitability again.
So is freedom what you win at the end of the conflict, or is it the action you take within the conflict itself? Is it only definable in contrast to the oppression, or can it exist outside of this conflict narrative?
Democrats would have you believe that they are protecting freedom from Republican attacks, while Republicans claim that government overreach is the real threat to freedom. Neither party seems particularly interested in expanding our rights, in exploring what freedom looks like beyond this circular conflict narrative.
When I wrote “THE ILLUSION OF FREEDOM” a couple years back, I was
primarily concerned with how folks consider themselves “free” without
ever really exercising that freedom. I encouraged them to test those inalienable rights, to find out how they work, to experience what it means to be free.
Now, after eight years of legislative compromise sold as noble
self-sacrifice, I find myself wondering if we can even recognize freedom? trump’s Ministry of Truth churns out the daily doublethink, not to
defend their brutality, but to make it impossible to critique. Their
wanton plunder just another hostile takeover in a culture that
glorifies such ruthless behavior as business savvy. Like all
neoliberals, they expect you to give up everything to get something
back. Freedom is Slavery.
Within this trifecta of suffering, self-sacrifice, slavery, how effective is a reactionary posture pitting freedom vs. oppression? Sure, you’re free to fight for freedom, but are you free?
I think it is essential that we not allow these bloodsucking privateers and big-brother wannabes to define the language we will use to manifest our future. Your freedom shouldn’t be commensurate upon you winning it from them, nor should it be a function of you fighting them. That’s not the way the Constitution works, no matter what Minitrue said yesterday. “Congress shall make no law...” And the president? Not even a member of the legislative branch. Those rights are yours – You Are Free.
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I’ve been signing my letters “You Are Free” for years now, a gentle reminder to exercise your freedom. I mocked up artwork for a button (above), drifting from computer to computer on the backburner. Want one? Send me your address.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a couple of weeks now, I
wanted to get it out there before any more time passes. I have yet to
contact The New York Board of Elections or whomever else I
may need to in order to more clearly understand the
ramifications of what I am about to share, and what it means for New
York State elections going forward. So New Yorkers – PLEASE get on the
horn, followup, and let me know what you dig up. It’s your vote – use
it wisely.
On September 12th, many of my friends were proudly displaying their “I voted” stickers and urging others to get out the vote. In response I wrote into the algorithmic void, “I appreciate my many friends mobilizing to GOTV, but just a reminder
that if you are not registered in one of the two major parties, there is
no vote today. #Democracy#CountEveryVote#OpenPrimaries”
This would be the first time since I could vote, that I would not vote, relegated to the undemocratic limbo that New York’s independent voters find themselves in every primary day.
I
have heard the argument more than once that the parties should have
autonomy over who they want to nominate. Given that all things were
equal, I could see some validity to this, but all things are not equal. Come November a third of the state’s registered voters will be expected
to choose from candidates whose nomination process they have no say in.
The choice between the two major party nominees will be all but sewn up
before these independents even cast their votes. Coke or Pepsi.
At least that’s how it was a moment ago. What what?
Walking
by my polling place, a man asked if I was voting today. I answered that I
could not vote today, and he quickly moved on. I felt
very solitary in this statement, as if my saying it aloud made it that much
more real. I wasn’t really sure what would happen if I tried to vote. I
had read something earlier in the day about people voting using a
Reform Party ballot, and then it occurred to me that I could just go
inside and ask if there was any way for me to vote today. So that is
what I did.
The first poll worker I spoke to asked my
name, and found me in his book. We talked a bit about my no longer
being a registered Democrat. He suggested that I go to the table
corresponding to my Election District and see if I was still in the book
there, perhaps still listed as a Democrat... When I inquired about the
Reform Party ballot he suggested that I talk to another poll worker who was more versed on the specifics.
I was able to ask that poll worker, at another table, specifically
how I might vote today. After I explained my situation, she told me
I had two options. I could vote by affidavit with a Democratic Party
ballot, which I knew would ultimately not be counted since I was no
longer a Democrat. Or I could vote using the Reform Party ballot. She
had samples of the two ballots there so I could see them, and she
explained (paraphrasing here) that I could actually fill out the ballot
up to three times, if I wanted to test the process, without actually
casting my vote.
Unlike the fully stocked Democratic
ballot, the Reform ballot only had two candidates, one for
New York City Mayor, and one for Brooklyn Borough President. But more
importantly the ballot had a blank space for write ins under
each of the candidates endorsed by the Reform Party. So, it appeared that I
actually could vote today, but only for these two offices.
I then went to the table corresponding to my
Election District and they looked up my name in the book. Along side my
name was the acronym BLA, which the two poll workers explained to me was
“Blank.” They told me that they had received no training to handle this
situation, that they were informed about the Reform Party ballot just
that morning. There was a one sheet adhered to the table that instructed
them to give a Reform Party ballot to anyone listed as BLA in the book.
This was the key apparently, you had to NOT be enrolled in any other
party (besides Reform Party, of course) to vote using the Reform Party
ballot. I signed the book, and they gave me the ballot.
So now I
could write in whomever I wanted for these two offices. I decided that I
would test this thing out by voting for someone that I would be able to
track in the results – myself. I wrote in Thomas Gallagher for Mayor and
Marcel Duchamp for Brooklyn Borough President.
When I
took my filled out ballot
to the scanner, I asked that poll worker how
the machine would count my write in votes. He explained that it would
record that I had voted, and someone would come at the end of
the day to record the write ins by hand. He informed me that these
results would be posted on the Board of Elections website in about two
weeks.
I put it on my calendar and lo and behold:
So
what is the take away? Well, it appears that unaffiliated independent
voters can vote for whoever they wish in the primary using the Reform
Party ballot. This appears to be a function of the Reform Party charter, rather than statewide election law.
To be clear, these votes determine who the Reform Party candidates will
be, completely separate from the Democratic and Republican primary
process. So it isn’t actually an open primary, but it is certainly a
crack in the ice.
Could this be leveraged to present a challenge to the
state’s two party duopoly? Even if the Reform Party will accept
whoever gets the most votes as their nominee, what are the ramifications
of independents en masse fortifying the Reform Party line by using this
option? Could this be expanded upon by other third
parties? Perhaps I will be able to vote for more than two offices in the
next primary...
For those that are wondering, Marcel Duchamp
didn’t get recorded as a write in for Brooklyn Borough President. I see
one vote noted as “UNATTRIBUTABLE WRITE-IN (WRITE-IN)” and then
ultimately listed as “Unrecorded.” I believe this is my vote. For those
unfamiliar, Duchamp is widely regarded as the godfather of modern art.
He died in 1968.
Rather than writing a new post, I designed this graphic to call out the elephant in the room (the missing point). Please credit Forth Position Design when sharing it. Possible hashtags: #WeaponsIndustry #ArmsDealers #WarProfiteers #ConflictNarrative #AmericaFirst #GunControl #2ndAmendment #NRA #ThoughtsAndPrayers #LasVegasShooting #MadeInAmerica
Button pusher trump is waxing poetic about “fire and fury,” talking tough (but apparently “not tough enough”), stealing lines from Harry S. Truman following the US bombing of Hiroshima. Privatizer in chief’s commentary comes practically 72 years to the day after Truman’s address.
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening, beyond a normal statement. And as I said, they will be met with fire, fury and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Thank you.”
– trump, August 8th, 2017
“If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this Earth.”
– Truman, August 6, 1945
It’s simultaneously horrifying and absurd, like so much of the garbage that has come out of this administration and trump’s mouth. Is this a big game for trump, watching file tapes of former famous and infamous president’s, mimicking their moves so as to seem presidential? Is this administration really so completely devoid of direction that all they can do is dismantle and destroy?
I’ve found it challenging to discuss republican policy over the years. When I would say that they have none, I was often met with a quick rebuttal, citing all the damage republican policies had wrought. True enough, but underneath it all, there was never really any intention on the part of republicans to do anything in the interest of the people. They had no plan for the common good. And I always felt that this was the place to hit them, not to continuously indulge them by discussing the merits of their non-existant “plans.”
The bluster and nonsense we have seen with the recent republican health care debacle shows this plainly enough. By any measure, their health care plan really isn’t a health care plan at all. To be clear, it is NOT a plan to provide health care – it is another codification of tax breaks for the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us, another package of privatization giveaways to trump’s crony capitalist cabinet pals.
Certainly, the republican (or democrat, neo-liberal, neo-conservative, take your pick) free market solves everything gang, has a playbook that they follow. But it is the same play EVERY TIME. One could call this a plan, but it really is more of a scheme isn’t it? With an avowed snake oil salesman in the white house, shouldn’t we expect to be taken for a ride every single time? Why would anyone give this guy the benefit of the doubt – ever? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice...
Back in 2003, Condi got us all going (well, not all of us) with that proof in the shape of a mushroom cloud thing. Maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to jump on the bandwagon this time? Lest we forget, it was the bush administration that branded North Korea along with Iraq and Iran as the “Axis of Evil.”
So what about war? Well it really is the only thing we have going for us right now isn’t it? I mean, what other American export even comes close? Weapons are big business (JOBS JOBS JOBS!), and trump is the perfect instrument to tout our weapons superiority. We got nukes, and they are the best nukes. Sure North Korea has nukes now too (I’m sure Condi can verify this for us), but we have the BEST of the best!
Of course the weapons deals didn’t start with trump, but he sure knows how to close doesn’t he? Saudi Arabia escapes trump’s muslim ban list to the tune of $110 billion. He’s well on his way to beating the previous $115 billion record set during the Obama administration!
Cooler heads must prevail, the foxes are in the henhouse, where’s the revolution?
Been a while since you last read Nineteen Eighty-Four? Now would be a good time.
DOUBLETHINK means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in
one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party
intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he
therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the
exercise of DOUBLETHINK he also satisfies himself that reality is not
violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried
out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it
would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. DOUBLETHINK
lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party
is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose
that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely
believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and
then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion
for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective
reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one
denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word
DOUBLETHINK it is necessary to exercise DOUBLETHINK. For by using the
word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of
DOUBLETHINK one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the
lie always one leap ahead of the truth.
Upon leaving the Vatican trump tweeted:
Honor of a lifetime to meet His Holiness Pope Francis. I leave the
Vatican more determined than ever to pursue PEACE in our world.
trump presented the Pope with a set of Martin Luther King’s writings. Cause, you know, this Jesuit Pope needs to bone up on the evils of militarism, capitalism, and racism. Actually, it’s more likely just a cynical reference to the Pope’s 2015 address to the United States Congress:
Here too I think of the march which Martin Luther King led from Selma to
Montgomery fifty years ago as part of the campaign to fulfill his
“dream” of full civil and political rights for African Americans. That
dream continues to inspire us all. I am happy that America continues to
be, for many, a land of “dreams”. Dreams which lead to action, to
participation, to commitment. Dreams which awaken what is deepest and
truest in the life of a people.
And here is the Pope so eloquently sticking it to all the war profiteers in Congress during that same address:
Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly
determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed
conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are
deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering
on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply
for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In
the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to
confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.
The Pope presented trump with a copy of his 2017 World Day of Peace message on nonviolence, commenting “I signed it personally for you.”
I was pretty amazed when the Pope got to come to the US Congress and talk shit about America’s #1 export – WAR. Seems like the Vatican had no choice but to allow trump the same courtesy. Sticking it to the Pope like only a snake oil salesman can. Just look at that smile!
“That was a tremendous day. Tremendous investments in the United States. Hundreds of billions of dollars of investments into the United States and jobs, jobs, jobs.” WAR IS PEACE.
You know things are bad when people are willing to get their medicine
from the snake oil salesman. Huckster, hustler, button pusher, scammer,
scoundrel, swindler. Whatever you want to call this guy, there is one
single word that should be inextricably linked to his name and his brand
of snake oil:
Privatization.
Say it with me now: pri-vat-iz-a-tion (prī-və-tə-ˈzā-shən).
Get used to saying it. Every time he tweets – #privatization. Every time
he has a rally – privatization. Every time he signs another baby’s first
executive order – privatization.
The basic is this:
neoliberals were chomping at the bit to privatize every government
program they could get their greedy hands on long before this guy
entered the race. And in classic Newspeak fashion they’ve provided an out of control anti-establishment champion for
everyone to hate as cover for the installation of an
entirely corporate cabinet. Doubleplusungood.
Let’s be clear here, this
is no longer simply the fox guarding the henhouse. This is not about lobbyists
writing legislation, or corporate kickbacks, or pay for play – this is
about putting corporate executives directly in control of our government.
Sure,
they’ll continue to tow the party line: smaller government, lower
taxes, reduce the deficit, government corruption and reform (“drain the
swamp”), but keep your eye on the ball. Will this administration really
use their power to do away with all of those “bloated bureaucratic
agencies” or will they simply use the existing infrastructure to reroute
all those tax payer dollars into their own pockets?
So why are so many willing to accept this clear conflict of interest?
Well,
you see, we’ve got this thing in the States, a straight up hard on for
guys in suits that can put one over on everyone around them, take
advantage of every poor sucker along the way. We put these folks on the
cover of Fortune and Forbes and call them “the smartest guys in the
room.”
This guy may not look like them, you may not even
think he’s smart enough to be them, but that’s the genius of it. This
snake oil salesman is selling the appearance of wealth. He’s been
pushing his get rich quick schemes on late night TV for decades. His
string of bankruptcies might give the impression that he’s been a
failure at this game, but nobody called Jamie Dimon a failure when we
bailed his ass out.
Everyone else in the world – yeah, pretty much everyone, calls this thing they are doing “austerity.”
In a nutshell – those in power engineer a crisis, financial or
otherwise, and then blame some other folks in power for doing an
inadequate job handling the crisis.
Here’s where it gets
fun – they’ll claim that the crisis, and the inadequate response, is
proof of a systemic failure and call for reform. This reform is always the privitization of the existing system.This
privatization involves tax payer money being allocated to them and
their private companies in place of the public institutions that
normally handle the job. They claim that privatization will be more efficient and yield a greater return on taxpayer investment.
Sounds
like a pretty good deal, right? Problem is, once they get that fat
government check, they’re free to welsh on the job or do it in such a
substandard manner as to escalate the crisis, leading to further
privatization...
Of course, blowing all this tax payer money on
nothing means that every time the people want something for their taxes,
the powers that be can claim that there just isn’t enough to go around,
salaries are too high, benefits must be cut, we all have to make
sacrifices. All smiles across the aisle.
There is one more essential step in
the neoliberal crisis capitalism playbook – they’re going to offer you,
your city, your country, a loan. A loan to make up for all that revenue they
just swindled you out of, all those resources they gobbled up, and all
that public land they privatized. And with a smile and a handshake they’ll
snap on the shackles of debt, turning you into a product they can buy
and sell on the market. That’s austerity,and it’s right here in
the good ole US of A, even if we’re all too cranked up on conflict narrative culture to see it.
So if
the snake oil salesman is respected by the people specifically for his
ability to get over on the people, how does one mobilize the
people in their own best interest? Well, if exposing his duplicity only serves to further validate his prowess, then perhaps a less direct, less confrontational approach is needed. The anti-globalization movement’s “¡Ya basta!” and a phrase I often heard repeated at OWS, “I would prefer not to,” come to mind. I recall messaging discussions concerning the framing of 2003 The World Says No To War demonstrations as a rejection of business as usual, a principled stand, a withdrawal of consent.
With this in mind I’d like to propose a basic three step outline for undermining the strategy
of domination through privatization. I am hoping that it provides a
simple starting point for other organizers and media folks to build
upon, a focus beyond the fractured reactionary response being scripted for us.
1 ) Take a closer look at
the government agencies under threat of privatization. Start with
the cabinet level offices and work out from there. What do these
agencies actually do? Who are the appointees that will lead these agencies in
this administration? How will their positions benefit them and their
corporate interests? How will the agency infrastructure be used to
redirect tax payer money?
2 ) Given that these
agencies may now be used to oppress rather than to protect, what
alternatives can we come up with in light of this privatization? This is
a tricky thing to propose, because the administration would like
nothing better than for us to cede complete authority to them in all these
areas. But if they have taken control of the government, we really need
to start coming up with alternatives that are insulated from their
influence.
3 ) Make these alternatives viable,
accessible, and desirable. This may involve the redirection of public
funds toward alternatives to privatized government programs, a mass
mobilization involving divestment and reinvestment focused on a withdrawal of consent. Not just boycotts and strikes, but the work of building viable alternatives to replace the existing dependencies.
Move Your Money
is an example of one such alternative mobilization. The campaign was pretty successful, with individuals, unions, and whole
municipalities moving their money from predatory big banks and financial
institutions into local credit unions and community banks. Just recently, the Seattle City Council voted to divest $3 billion from Wells Fargo over the bank’s backing of the Dakota Access pipeline.
Most notably, the campaign wasn’t presented simply as an ethical imperative, but as a practical benefit. Moving one’s money from a bank that charges outrageous fees with no
interest to one that offers free checking with interest is obviously attractive. The key then is accessibility. Is there a local credit union
office in
the neighborhood? Is one’s money accessible through ATM’s in
the neighborhood? Could that vacant building next to the check cashing
place be secured to house a new credit union office, providing an obvious
visible alternative at the point of interaction? These are
the kinds of details that must be addressed to encourage people to withdraw their consent, while simultaneously helping themselves.
There is enormous opportunity to mobilize the people through a desire for what they want, rather than simply controlling them through fear and desperation. This is, at its core, about replacing a narrative of scarcity and strife, with one of agency and empowerment. If this (s)election told us anything, it is that the people would rather vote for something than for nothing at all. The snake oil salesman only has power if we keep buying what he is selling. And privatization really is about selling you what was yours to begin with. Withdraw your consent and take it back.
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