How Capital Gets Its Way- A Local Perspective

Happy to publish this guest piece from a hard-fighting comrade (who wishes to remain anonymous). He has been trying to influence policy at the City level, to extract a few pro-labor concessions from some big developers by using the regulatory power of the liberal city council. But as usually happens in these types of negotiations, the forces of Investment and Economic Growth have the upper hand. And just as my friend warns, until those who labour realize their own collective power, they always will. Welcome to Capitalist Democracy in action:



I cannot gaze into the hearts of our civic representatives to see if they are truly sympathetic toward those who are being stripped of their dignity by a system that does so well at shielding those who are responsible for toil and destruction. A system designed to push to the forefront and saddle with guilt the leaders who we believe desire to do-well. However I have sat across the table from representatives of the true culprits, for a time in my life I was one of their enforcers, and I've heard them express the zeitgeist of our time that fear and the imperatives of the system demand our community's obedience, that in essence we don't matter.

In public the representatives of the true culprits sit amiably in the corner. But in private they consult with their masters fabricating their yield of promises in order to extract more treasure from our tiny and precious corner of the world and extract more toil from the bodies of our neighbors, our kindred. This tiny corner of the world like so many others can hardly bear to grant more. Yet we contort ourselves into knots trying to justify more ways in which to accommodate and to squeeze out just a few more drops for export into the pockets of those in the gilded towers. Or we pay dearly to retain those drops.

For many of us within the construct of our insulated, comfortable, ostensibly democratically-liberal lives, the moment has not yet arisen where we'll be forced to choose a side. But the transit of the two paths we are staring down is becoming very clear. The path we currently tread is one of individual identity lashed to fleeting tribal security which will lead to collective and earthly annihilation. The other is a path of solidarity and health based on moderation, sharing, restoration and respect for the earth. We don't have much time, some say the time has passed, to make the choice to step into the latter path. We cannot have it both ways.



"Which side are you on boys, which side are you on?" - Florence Reece singing to Harlan County, Kentucky.

Still Standing?

It is official; Trump told the Army he doesn't need no stinking EIS to get a pipeline finished and so the frozen drilling rigs are being fired up as I write. The tribal chairman has decided he doesn't want a giant clash and is asking protestors/Protectors to focus instead on a big March gathering in D.C. (after the pipeline is complete). He thinks we can affect the elected leadership and our representatives in government. Whatever. Native climate activists seem to be calling for folks to show up at Standing Rock but what is the plan exactly? The heroic types will shun "symbolic action" and insist on stopping the actual drilling with lock-downs and such. Others will want to "bear witness" and pray and "support". This is the School of the Americas playbook for direct action that has not closed the school after thirty years of annual actions.

The Big Enviro groups want to "hold the Army Corps. accountable" by having members send letters and more money; always more money. The Sierra Club says they "will continue to let you know how you can fight back." Awesome. Meanwhile the construction unions are celebrating Trump's actions to create good drilling jobs and MAGA. In a NYTimes op-ed,Naomi Klein asks: "In times of insecurity, why shouldn't unions worry more about jobs than about the environment?" She is trying to be understanding but borders on condescending. For one thing, climate change isn't like litter. it threatens the life of their children and the moral imperative is to protect our own (and then others).Big Greens and mainstream unions have tried to sell a version of kind, non-greedy, non-"predatory" democratic capitalism (the version Steve Bannon believes in as well) and now they they have constituents who believe all the free market, Blue-Green alliance bullshit. Now what do you tell them?

what do you tell the Water Protectors about their sovereignty? Do you trust them enough (and the union folk and the Sierra Club members) to explain the real crisis in all its dimensions? Recall that all these folks were ok with the pipeline when it was going through Bismark. And where is Black Lives Matter, where is Idle No More, where are all those students upset over debt, all those Occupy people upset over "money in politics"? Are they all busy writing letters trying to stop Betsy DeVoss and Jeff Sessions? How is that working out so far? Who is still standing?

Reist What?

We all remember reading, why, not that long ago, about the "great victories" that were the Keystone and DAPL actions. Blockadia rising, Indians praying, celebrities helicoptering in for solidarity. It was spectacular! Well, perhaps "Victory" was a tad premature. Apparently our Democracy decided we want those jobs and that oil funded prosperity and fuck a bunch of Indians and loser environmentalist extremists. Making America Great Again is going to take a bunch of fossil fuels, cause you know, the economy and jobs and oh yeah, safety, cause pipes are safer than trucks and trains.

Now, there are plenty of folks who are dying to bundle up and get their Standing Rock groove back but this time they had best think long and hard about what it is they are actually fighting for and who they are up against. Because there is no benevolent Obama to beg for understanding and "consultation". They better figure out that "energy independence" (tribal chairman Archambault) is not a vision for justice or emancipation, they better learn that drum circles and five bucks will get you a latte. And that the government is just a mega-corporation that gives two shits about water or life, they will bottle that water and sell it back to you for a profit.

This time around it can't be about treaties or rights or sacred ground. This time we need to make it about raw capitalism. This time we deal with the "ism", no matter the discomfort.

Gallons of virtual ink have been spilled post- Women's March attempting to translate outrage into "progressive change". Like the Bernie campaign energy would get funneled into Our Revolution and then Indivisible and Justice Democracy and several other off-shoots hoping to coalesce into The Movement. I contend the pipeline fights have the most symbolic import and should become the focal points but the radical critique combined with a new strategy for confrontation/resistance is crucial.

It is too easy to slide into what John Bellamy foster calls "the ecological modernization of capitalism" or what we know as Green Capitalism. Reform-minded, accommodating centrists who have learned nothing from the latest series of crises must be confronted with the abysmal record of their failure. Loud and proud we must shout them down and insist, following Naomi Klein, that "revolutionary levels of transformation to the market system are now our best hope of avoiding climate chaos." We must always bring it back to the question of scale.

When America Was Great

It is my theory that the nationalist fervor Trump has so successfully tapped into can be traced directly to the debacle which the Vietnamese refer to as "the American war". People want to return to pre-Vietnam/pre-Korea America, the America whose "greatest generation" saved Europe from the Nazis ( the role of the Soviets lost to historical amnesia) and the Pacific from the Japanese. I believe this nostalgic yearning, articulated in Trumps slogan, taps into the subconscious grief and trauma and shame over the horror of that grotesque defeat in southeast Asia. It is a repressed grief we have never reckoned with as a country, despite the long black wall with all those names etched in it(50,000). The "conflict" (America never officially declared war) therefore continues to haunt the collective imaginary and manifest in endless "culture war" battles, patriotic zealotry and support for phallic, disciplinary Fathers like Trump. This is the more "immediate" cause, with the general acceleration of modernity and relativism of post-modernity being the background ambiance, as it were, for this dislocation/ alienation/ estrangement/anxiety (see earlier posts if you have nothing but time on your hands, which apparently you do if you are here).

It is hard to describe to those who weren't around for that insanity. Not just the napalm and body bags but race riots and campus revolts and feminism and hippies. This was a time when every household had a tv screen tuned to the nightly news and every one of those screens displayed a carnage that makes Trumps use of the word obscene. He has no fucking clue. Which is why John McCain despises the draft-dodging-silver-spoon licking puke with a depth I can't even imagine but, paradoxically, also why so many aging baby boomers see in him a redemptive, even transcendent erasure of that stain through masculine, hyper-aggressive re-assertion of dominance and authority. Psychic disturbance, big time.

The Super Duper Power with it's highly trained army and high-tech weaponry and endless resources got its ass kicked by a tiny but fervent anti-colonialist, revolutionary force of peasants and workers. 7 million tons of bombs (twice that of WWII) were dropped on Vietnam ,Laos and Cambodia and helicopters had to scoop people off the roof of the US embassy in Saigon as we fled in defeat. So making America "great again" would restore the pride of those who came home as losers, and in the mind of many ( not myself), as criminals. O

Of course the whole rust-belt/ working class/ endlessly looping Chevy truck commercial is a potent meme but the defeat is the under-layment that gives it real potency. That's my theory anyway.

Democracy Dumpsterfire

The pomp,the ceremony, the solemn rituals of fireworks and Bibles and "the peaceful hand-over of power" have concluded and a diverse array of white folks- hard working, hardly working, a few getting dividend checks, a few their disability checks- are enjoying a brief moment in the sun. Bumper sticker companies will re-set the type from Obama to Trump. Red baseball caps versus pink pussy hats.

And of course the opposition will enact its own rituals of stubborn defiance. Black blockers in hoodies "taking the streets". Angry housewives going to rallies. They will be asked to join things, sign things, send money and call their representatives. To re-engage as citizens in civil society, a pretty picture not just at odds with our obscene reality, but actually propping up the dangerous illusion.

I miss Hunter Thompson and his brutal willingness to pull back the curtain and expose the grotesque sausage making, the carnivalesque, morbid excess of power and those who enjoy (joissance) it. Tragically flawed himself, he could paint unflattering portraits of "actually existing" humans and not be accused of being politically uncorrect. In these times, displaying a bit of shaedenfreud that Kentucky coal miners "will get what they voted for" is to invite the ire of repentant liberals with no dirt under their own fingernails. But isn't this the most offensive form of condescension? "Forgive them, they are but children and know not what they do; voting against their own interests is sad but so 'understandable' (by us). Fuck that. Ignorant is ignorant, whether you went to Harvard or listen to Lee Greenwood.

Which is the perfect segue into this interminable, banal debate between "identity politics" and "class consciousness". Hillary versus Bernie blah blah. Except it's bullshit; Hillary is a tool (so sad) and Bernie was not prepared to take capitalism straight on. Talking about "billionaires" and "re-building the middle class" is not a radical critique. We see this playing out in less Kubuki form in France where "third way" fake socialist Hollande is challenged on the left by actual socialists and on the right by actual neoliberals. Unveiled political economy and a debate about ownership. How refreshing!

Rebecca Solnit believes just such an insurgency is possible in the USA. She, like Michah White, calls on "wild-eyed young radicals to take over the Democratic Party." But meanwhile there are hundreds of thousands of Women Marchers out there today, mobilized by social media all across the country, calling for what, Medicare for all? Nationalize the energy sector? Occupy the factories? No. They want their rights protected (including property rights) They will hear all about "Indivisible" or "How To Use Tea Party Tactics" to win back power. Maybe someone will mention Our Revolution. Planned Parenthood will get lots of donations. The Democrats will settle back onto their yoga mats, smartphone at the ready, so they can call their congressman in between posture changes.

Ken Ward, one of the Valve Turners facing 30 years in prison says "I think protests are absolutely inconsequential. Trump will welcome them. We need a totally different approach."

Comfortably Back in Opposition

A new spectre is haunting the American progressive media-sphere: Trumpism. At least a thousand gallons of ink have been spilled warning us, preparing us, defining for us what this shifting, ephemeral threat could mean. Yet underlying this daily barrage of doomsday scenarios (Nazis in the streets, police rounding up protestors, Mc Carthyite hearings, etc) one senses a profound relief, a joy even, to finally be back in opposition. No more having to support a bunch of crappy programs (like the ACA), or policies (like drone strikes)Now we can really protest! March and carry banners, ( certainly no lack of slogans)give heartfelt speeches in support of all the programs and policies we hope to save from the reactionary onslaught. The landscapes and little children! Democracy itself in peril! Lions and tigers and bears and Rex Tillerson, oh my!

The dudes name is Rex, I mean c'mon, square jawed, graying at the temples, manly and yet thoughtful, a walking Viagra ad,if Delillo or Pynchon were to write this character into a novel, in their most post-modern, literary ironic spoof, they could barely get away with Rex. So who names their kid Rex? And who would you rather have on your team growing up, Steve over there with the glasses- or Rex. Yeah. So be afraid, be very afraid. Michelle is out and Melania in.

Getting back to Trumpism, really? because we needed a new "ism" to hate?; what parts of the brain does it attack? Will I know it when I see it? I remember Bush though I don't recall Bushism, but maybe that was just what we called "stupidity". As in, has anybody found those weapons of mass destruction yet? What? Trump is a liar? His cabinet is all Big Money boys? I'm shocked! This is totally unprecedented!

The problem for me is one of age. I have seen this movie too many times and it just doesn't entertain anymore. How long can you actually ride a merry-go-round and not notice that the scenery is eerily familiar. Despite all the breathless claims that "this is unlike anything we have ever seen before" I still have this Groundhog Day feeling, disturbing at first but quickly sliding into under-whelmed boredom.

Yeah, if only Hillary or Bernie or Jill got more votes. But since they didn't, now we can be against stuff. Against the wall, and against the registry and against the cabinet picks and the generals. Against hate and discrimination and sexism and xenophobia. Damn, I feel better already!

Just don't ask me how we ever get off the merry-go-round.

Life Enrichment

I attended a panel discussion about the Standing Rock Protection (not protest) the other night, and it was painful. Following a brief description of the sacred nature of the action by a (white settler) professor in Native American studies, the four panelists described their various experiences while visiting the camp. The common thread was personal growth, enlightenment and transcendence, much like those who travel to Sedona Arizona might describe their 'personal journey'. The one native on the panel could speak with authenticity about a re-connection to cultural roots but even there it was a story of dislocation and alienation (joining the military and going to Iraq, PTSD, and isolation, etc..) within a damaged culture and individual and the return of a prodigal son. There was lots of emphasis placed on the fact that so many veterans were drawn in, wounded warriors, who might find a certain redemption and grace through immersion into "the sacred".

If I sound cynical it is because I know this audience and their collective yearning for a New Age, non-confrontational way to "accept the Universe" and "be the change they want to see". As opposed to fighting for it. So a gathering with teepees by a river where they simply listen and absorb ancient wisdom from aboriginal people, not unlike the expensive meditation retreats they frequent, is the perfect anti-dote to the chaos of The Political. Oneness and Unity and prayer. Tribal connectivity. There is simplicity as well in the "Water is Life" meme; no mention of climate catastrophe, no deep structural analysis with all its nuance and contingency,no talk of democracy or The Left. Any struggle is reduced to one between the coarse "material" realm and the ethereal "spiritual", between affect and intellect. In this sense it is binary thinking, the setting up of a dichotomy, specifically anti-dialectical, ironically the very "Western" schism they claim to reject.

The thing is, I have been a "water protector" for many decades and know how the role is constructed with built-in bureaucratic, regulatory barriers to systemic change. One begins by accepting the framework of "capitalist democracy" and its inherent power relations. "Safe standards" are those which "balance" the protection of health with profit and investment property.
It is exactly the "realism" promoted by 350 Missoula when they claim there will "never be one climactic, ultimate victory but instead a steady one-by-one rejection of proposals", in other words an endless chain of camps fighting an endless supply of brush fires.

At the meeting we were asked to put our questions for the panel on 3x5 cards but I just had to leave. How does localized water protection turn into the necessary generalized rejection and revolt? Where is power located and how is it confronted and de-legitimized? If society is currently organized by market relations, what takes their place? If everything is sacred, is nothing then sacred?