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Against All Odds

I've long thought that there is a link between food, consumerism, capitalism and social justice. The way we eat and the way we are fed is such a basic part of our day to day existence. There is no better way to understand how thoroughly social injustice is perpetrated by our very economic system than to witness the way healthy eating has become a luxury to be enjoyed by the wealthy while the rest of society is pushed towards eating more and more processed food, providing cheap calories while reaping havoc on our health. In the name of profit and continued growth we are being encouraged to eat more of what brings big food companies the most money. The impact of this on those eating all of this crap is something that does not concern these same companies.

Whenever they are challenged to take responsibility for their actions, the Mcdonalds, Nestles and Unilevers of the world put up a spirited and indignant fight. Relying on their wealth and political clout they often prove that might makes right. But this does not have to be the narrative. This film showcases two activists that stood up to big business and won against all odds

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When It comes down to it

When it comes down to it, I'm an anti-capitalist. The below has the same effect on me as showing Mexican welfare queens getting arrested has on elderly citizens of Arizona.

Being Wrong

There is little that triggers my derision and instant dismissal quicker than a climate change denier. How much evidence do you need? How long can you possibly spend burying your head in the sand in the face of the obvious human effect on our environment? We consume and pollute and waste and impact and pretend that it has no effect on us. And if you are not stupid and you are still denying our impact on the environment then you are, at the very least, selfish.

Writing these lines, I can feel the self righteous rage rise in me. I not only recognize that we need to act now to attempt to stop what looks like almost inevitable and disastrous environmental and social upheaval, but I am also a member of the Israeli Green Movement, I take an active part in trying to promote a sustainable future for humanity and the rest of the planet. And these idiots deny anything is wrong or pretend there is nothing wrong just to make a quick buck.

And I am no better then they.

I think that Naomi Klein is right when she describes the motivation behind a lot of institutional climate change denial as having its roots in an understanding of what it will take to stop climate change. When you begin to realize the drastic changes needed to the way we live, and procreate, travel, consume and eat in order to stop climate change, is it any wonder that people have little appetite for a green agenda? Herein lies part of the explanation, but when you slap your forehead at the stupidity of this suicidal, chauvinistic destruction of everyone’s future, realize that they act this way for the same reason that you are not a vegan.

Now, for all you vegans out there feeling very good about yourselves, consider this. Too many of you are  busy being preachy, self satisfied, unbearable kill-joys and too few of you are being quiet, inspirational examples that we can aim to emulate.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last year thinking about the connection between pursuing a sustainable future and what I eat. I’m on the verge of becoming a vegetarian, rather than just drastically reducing my meat intake but the idea of being a vegan still feels hopelessly radical to me. The idea of having to give up dairy and eggs is simply beyond me. I know that what that what will allow us to feed the planet is for all of us to give up animal based food. I know that what will make a real impact on climate change is for all of us to stop eating animal based food. I know that in the end necessity will force us to stop eating animal based food but for now, at the very least, I want my cheese and I want my eggs.

So, the next time you feel perplexed by those numbskulls who won’t give up their SUVs, realize that they are just like you because you can’t give up your ice-cream. Empathy will always get you farther in changing someone’s mind than being right will.

Leaders of the Leaderless

George Orwell was a convinced communist until he saw how it’s ideals where being corrupted by the power hungry leaders of the Soviet Union. In 1984 he wrote of the dangers of thought policing in the service of doctrinal purity and in Animal Farm he addressed the suspicion with which we should approach those that claim to be our leaders. The animals, having become aware that they were being exploited by what they initial believed to be well meaning farmers, revolt and expel them, establishing an ideal and egalitarian society established on agreed and publicized principles. It does not take long for a certain group of animals, the pigs, to claim leadership in the best interest of the collective, quickly replacing the plutocracy of humans with a plutocracy of pigs.

I get the chills when I read updates on the English language facebook page of the “The Israeli Social Movement (NGO)” such as:

“Alon Lee-Green, Stav Shaffir, and Yonatan Levi, leaders of the Israeli Social Movement, in Time Out Israel” 

or

“In a highly divided society in Israel, it is a challenge to mobilize everyone for the cause of social justice. Social justice movement leader, Stav Shaffir, believes it is possible. Stav posted on the issue of representation in organizing protests”

I cannot help but think of Orwell’s pigs strutting about on two legs, not long after all the animals shouted “four legs good, two legs bad!”

What are these people thinking? Do they not see the irony in claiming leadership of a movement that has been driving the ruling elite crazy by refusing to appoint leaders they can negotiate with? How can they possibly claim to represent a movement that is so broad  it is impossible to reduce the protests to a simple list of demands, no matter how long?

The genius of the protest movements of the last year, be they in Tel Aviv, New York or Madrid is that they recognized that the entire system requires an overhaul in order for things to change. It’s not enough to pressure a party on the left or on the right because in the end they are part of the same corrupt political structure where capital and politics are merged at the hips. By understanding that if these movements imitate the same power structures of those institutions they are protesting, they are destined, like the animals on the farm to go from the tyranny of humans to the tyranny of pigs, to become that which they rail against. The most important outcome of the protests has been to cause us to look and think about our respective societies outside the narrative of the establishment and their media mouthpieces.

It’s disappointing to see how well intentioned individuals are unable to resist the temptation to take ownership of movements they are a part of. Is it so difficult to insist on being an activist and not a leader? Why cheapen yourself by giving in to the very same culture you are protesting, where everyone is just working to get ahead while elbowing their comrades to the pavement? Have you so little self awareness that you are reduced to a Ya’ir Lapid?

This is our protest movement. It belongs to all of us. We will join you but we will never follow you. 

Uncomfortable thoughts about being a hypocrite

For years now I’ve been giving my brother a hard time for never buying music, movies or ebooks. He pirates them all. My argument has always been that if you enjoy the music that someone has invested time and effort in making, if you spend a couple of days reading a book then the least you can do is give the musicians and authors their fair share. The standard response has always been to call me a hypocrite because, although I buy a lot CDs and books, I also pirate music and movies. This is not an entirely unfair criticism, I just don’t think it’s as black and white as that. It’s not either you pirate everything or you pirate nothing. It’s not about maintaining purity, about thinking that the choice is between living exactly by an ideal or assuming that you can change nothing. This mindset that allows us to on the one hand complain about the fact that TV, newspapers and popular culture is crap and at the same time not realize that we are all part of shaping our surroundings is at the crux of a lot of our problems.

I thought of this after I read this response to this blogpost, where an NPR intern details how she never bought more than 15 CDs, not seeing the irony that she is undermining the very industry she wants to work in. Reading this made me realize that we maintain a similar hypocrisy about many things we criticize.

Many bemoan the demise of the independent stores in town centers. The kind of stores where you actually establish a relationship with the people working there, they know your name and they know what you like. Yet, we cannot pin the blame for their disappearance on the big box retailers and the national chain stores alone. It is us, who prefer the convenience of 24/7 shopping and saving a couple of bucks that is driving these small retailers to close their doors. If are not willing to spend a little more or be OK with not being able to shop at 9 in the evening, then we have no right to complain that the stores we go to are impersonal and staffed by people that care nothing about us.

This doesn’t mean that we can never order from Amazon but rather that we should stop expecting to get Amazon prices for everything we want. If there’s a Starbucks and an independent coffee shop on your block then avoid Starbucks. When you need some paint go to a local hardware store instead of home depot. Understand that if you want your neighborhood to look different then you need to put your money where your mouth is.

This is true for many of the choices we make.  We can complain loudly about the quality of food but at the same are not willing to pay the premium for buying from small farmers. We are upset with our lousy politicians but how many of you have written or called your representative to share your opinion about something you care about? When was the last time you demonstrated or volunteered for something? We’re concerned about the environment but the majority of people can’t give up their addiction to their car or put up with the “inconvenience” of public transport.

In short, my brother is right. We are all hypocrites. But, if we now resign ourselves to our hypocrisies and as a result only double down on behavior we know to be self defeating then we waste an opportunity to learn something about ourselves. The uncomfortable feeling when you realize you may talk the talk, but you are not exactly walking the walk is best seen as invitation to examine your actions and motivations. Otherwise it only leaves us feeling embarrassed.

Many social justice protesters in the west espouse a fairer distribution of resources in their countries. They protest the unfair hoarding of money and influence by the 1% at the expense of the 99%. Were you to extend this demand to it’s logical and global conclusion, then those same people in rich western countries, the global 1%,  should also agree to a fairer distribution of global resources for everyone else. This would mean a lowering of living standards in the first world in order to improve living standards in the third world. I’m not sure how many of the people protesting in New York, Tel Aviv, Madrid and Athens would agree to this (yours truly included).

Does this hypocrisy of ours mean that we shouldn’t seek greater social justice in our respective communities? Certainly not. What’s more, it is realizations like these that allow us to think beyond our comfort zones, our ideological bubbles, our truisms and maybe, just maybe learn something new.

An Open Letter to Chris Hayes

Chris,

Following the controversy over your remarks about whether automatically calling all soldiers heroes doesn’t get in the way of us having an open and honest conversation of how and when we should use our armies; I was surprised at how upsetting I found many of the chauvinistic, knee-jerk reactions to what you said.

I thought that your remarks where intelligent, meaningful, respectful and necessary. I’m sorry that you felt the need to apologize for them. Let me explain.

I served as a platoon commander in the armored corps of the IDF during the second half of the 90’s. I was repeatedly deployed in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon. My soldiers and I often talked about the disparity we felt between serving in what was a war zone when at the same time civilians were leading normal lives, often only miles away. We felt this most strongly when coming home to Tel Aviv on weekend furloughs while stationed in southern Lebanon. Many of us asked how could people just go about their daily lives as if nothing is happening while we are getting injured and killed.

I always thought that that was the point of having an army. With universal conscription, everyone (in theory at least) spends three or four years of their lives in the army to protect civilian society so that when they get out of the army, they can live a normal civilian existence. By shouldering the burden of defense for a limited amount of time we where allowing the existence of a vibrant, liberal democracy where people could ask difficult questions about how we should treat our military. I risked my life so that your Israeli counterparts could question why my soldiers and I were being sent to Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. I most definitely did not risk my life so that I could get false respect from macho militarists, most of whom wouldn’t recognize the shooting end of a rifle if was staring them in the face.

On November 23, 1998, during a battle with Hezbollah, my tank was hit by multiple anti-tank rockets and I was injured. For 7 days straight I was in both major daily newspapers, being called every kind of hero. I was thoroughly embarrassed. I didn’t feel like a hero. I just didn’t get out of the way of the rockets in time.

You’re right, when you say that not everyone is made out to serve in the military and that goes double for combat units. It’s physically demanding but then so is working in agriculture or construction, so that doesn’t make us heroes. You need to be able to eat a lot of shit, which certainly doesn’t make you a hero. You spend most of your time bored out of your mind while waiting for something to happen, which doesn’t make you much except for a little twitchy. And you have to love your comrades enough so that you don’t think twice about endangering your life in order to keep them safe. It is that camaraderie that makes serving in a combat unit a privilege rather than a burden.

I’ve found that the people who called us heroes and went out of their way to celebrate our service, were for the most part the same people most enthusiastic to go to war and at the same time the least likely to serve in combat units. The way to honor our troops is by paying them a decent wage, taking care of their families, making sure they have the equipment and the training they need to do their jobs, paying for their college education, giving them citizenship, properly funding VA, healing their injuries (both physical and mental), understanding that our responsibility towards them does not end when they are discharged and continually asking ourselves if the wars we send them to are absolutely necessary.

That is respect. The rest is just so much hot air.

Thank you for your service, Chris. You honor us with the tough questions you ask.

 Bram Spiero

Profit Creators

                

Power resides in words. What we argue about is more important than how we argue. The vocabulary of our discourse is what often determines the outcome. In a rape case, when you say a woman was asking for it because of the cleavage she was showing, you turn the conversation into a discussion on how much cleavage constitutes a provocation rather than determining if the accused raped her or not. What she was wearing is irrelevant. No one has the right to have sex with another against their will; even if, theoretically, the victim was walking the streets nude.

This is where the “job creator” defense is so brilliant when used by plutocrats. They cannot be taxed, they cannot be criticized, they cannot be expected to contribute more to society beyond the virtue of creating jobs. Should it become too difficult to create jobs, they will simply be forced to move somewhere more accommodating to job creating.

We then fall into the trap of arguing the relative worth of those jobs, if the tax breaks accorded big business is resulting in the creation of enough jobs, who deserves these jobs and who these jobs would go to if they were created elsewhere. All the while, the powers that be, look on, smile and apply for another subsidy for all the job creating they are doing.

Jobs are in fact created by consumer demand. It is not in fact the entrepreneur that is creating the greatest value, he has ,at most, a brilliant idea, identified consumer demand and  has some money he would like to multiply. On his own he cannot multiply it. He needs workers to make products and services which he can then sell at a profit. It is the workers that have invested value into his capital. It is the employees that are profit creators.

If workers, profit creators, are expected to contribute to their own well being and protection by way of the taxes they pay and the public services they perform. If these same workers are also the job creators by way of the consumer demand they represent and are expected to contribute further by way of the VAT and other sales taxes they pay. Then show me the logic that explains why entrepreneurs, investors and corporations, using the resources that are the public goods of all of society, should not equally  contribute to the well being and protection of the profit & consumer demand creators.

When we argue about social justice and get hit with the job creator defense, retort by saying that without social justice we will be punishing the profit creators. Let them argue about why they are against social justice.

Damn Straight

Living with Capitalism

                Capitalism as a means of attaining social justice is failing. Like our religions, our monarchies, our peoples republics and our spokes councils, capitalism caries the promise of giving you a fair shake. And like them all it fails. The free market does not encourage competition but rather monopoly. The invisible hand will do little more than bitch slap you back into the mall.

                There will be those that will argue that what we see today is not capitalism but rather a perversion, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s a moot point more akin to arguing that the soviet union was not about communism, that the crusades had nothing to do with Christianity, that pacifism does not appease fascism.

                Whatever the ideology, whatever the idea, purity can never be attained. It doesn’t exist. If we are willing to re-examine capitalism time and again in an effort to make it work, then why can’t we re-examine socialism, communism, anarchism? None of these hold all the answers. All of them hold some.

                Capitalism is not going to disappear but that does not mean that we should not challenge it’s orthodoxies, pry apart its paradoxes demand that it share the stage with other ideas. 

Explain That

When I spend time trying to understand how the economic crisis that came to a head in 2008 started, I come to realise that in fact nothing new has happened. When I see how successful the perpetrators are in escaping the consequences of their actions or even the insinuation of responsibility, I start to understand what is meant when you say that history is written by the victors, by those in power. When I realise that the current struggle between the 1% and the 99% is as old as time itself, when I begin to understand how thoroughly the instruments of state have been and are being used to serve the interests of the very few and to negatively impact the interests of the very many, then I start to realize that there is something very wrong with the system.

This is a very troublesome conclusion to come to, especially if you are an active and willing participant in the system, a “law-abiding” citizen, a productive member of society. To suddenly realize that you are aiding and abetting in negating those very things you believe by trusting the state.

But what does this make you, this realization? What is one to do with this understanding that the whole system is corrupt? When you start seeing the conspiracies, how do avoid becoming a conspiracy nut?

I see tweets like this one from @JAMyerson:

“The goal in capitalism is the endless accumulation of wealth. An excellent way to get wealth is cronyism. The tendency is reliable.”

and think to myself, if it is so obvious that this system is not working, that the people in power are bought and paid for, then why does it not bother more people? Why do we allow this to continue?

I think the answer lies in one of the common responses to the realization that the system is gamed, which is burying yourself in work, consumerism and reality television. Ignorance really is bliss. Most people, when they are fed and entertained will not bother to notice that they are being robbed blind. This is something that the powers that be have relied one for as long as there have been powers that be. There really isn’t much difference between free bread and gladiatorial games in ancient Rome and Big Macs & Big Brother nowadays, is there?

But what do you do when can’t or won’t ignore the reality of what is going on? When I realize that the way I believe the world works and the fact that I believe that I must actively participate in changing the way the world works is very much a minority opinion; when I realize that the more time I spend learning about how the economy works, how our politics work, how our societies work I am becoming increasingly radicalized; when I on the one hand dismiss the conspiracy nuts as just that, nuts and at the same time sometimes find myself quietly thinking that some might have a point, that is when I feel least comfortable with my thoughts and convictions.

Populist Falacies

Part of what OWS and her sister movements are suggesting is that we rethink the superficiality with which we approach our world. An opportunity to re-imagine how our world should ideally work is not something that comes along every day and should be embraced with hunger, curiosity and maybe a little trepidation. Now that Yair Lapid has pulled the veil off of his political beliefs it becomes evident that these are both superficial and unimaginative. What is most disappointing is not that he entertains these ideas, what can you expect from someone that works so hard at giving offense to so few, but rather that the ideas he espouses are so popular.

Here, like elsewhere we find little more than an ill conceived collection of neo-liberal baubels and populist trinkets. At best there is a sentimental distortion of a past that never existed which all too often resembles just plain old chauvinism.

So, what are these populist fallacies then?

The market can solve problems that the state can not.

There is a tendency to look at how messy politics is, how imperfect the way that decisions are made is, how mediocre the results often are and look with envy at how “successful” businesses are at attaining results. This is, of course, a fallacy. Politics take place in a democracy and is conducted in the public arena when compared to businesses which conduct their affairs behind closed doors and are run by hierarchical organizations. Politics and government exists to serve the wants and needs of citizens, business exists to make a profit.

If there is something wrong with the way the Trains are run, why is the logical answer to privatize it? If we need to change the way this service is managed, let’s change it. The reason for it’s existence doesn’t need to and shouldn’t change. It exists to provide a service to the public, not to make money. Add to that there is no example that I am aware of where public transportation was privatized and this led to better service, less problems and ultimately less cost.

Not so, says Lapid, trains should be privatized. Let the market take care of it.

You are all middle class.

I keep on thinking about Monty Python’s the Life of Brian when I hear Lapid talk about the middle class. “You are all individuals”, Brian shouts at the masses proclaiming him the messiah, “we’re all individuals”, they answer. You are all middle class, Lapid seems to say, except for them. Them are the Arabs, the ultra-orthodox and the Plutocrats, leeches the lot of them, living off the sweat and toil of the productive middle class.

What is this all encompassing middle class? My very unscientific definition of the middle class would be those people that can afford to buy an apartment, raise their kids and retire without feeling uncertain that they can pay for all of it. Someone who struggles to do the same is part of the working class. Someone who is unsure if he can feed and clothe his family is poor. Someone who can spend his money frivolously is rich. I am most certainly working class by this definition. Lapid is banking on our tendency to identify up and despise down.

Talking in us and them always makes me uncomfortable. Lapid is suggesting pursuing the divisive, niche politics of them and us while at the same time decrying the divisive, niche politics of others. When talking about Shas and Yahadut HaTorah he calls them both free-loaders and also holds them up as role models for how small political parties can exercise disproportionate power. Talking in us and them disenfranchises the them. Does a society belong less to its poor than it does to its working and middle classes? Is Lapid suggesting a democratic society modeled on Athens, with few citizens serviced by many residents?

This place was once decent (when we were running the show)

The most disturbing sentiment is one which is not specific to Lapid but rather seems to be part of a general malaise. There is a longing for a mythical past when things where more clear cut, people knew their place, when “we” were in power and “they” were not. This is what he alludes to when he says that he wants to change the political system so that small parties can no longer exert power over the coalition. He acts as if there is a form of democratic government where these pressures don’t exist.  The whole point of democratic government in general and parliamentary government in particular is that it forces compromise. It does not allow any single political group to impose their will on the rest. This is a good thing.

Things were not better in Israel when it was being run by a single party. Corruption existed, cronyism was everywhere and whole parts of the population had decisions made for them without being consulted. We don’t live in the past, so why are we seeking out solutions that only partially worked then to solve different problems now? The sixties, which so many of us progressives like to hark back to, was not an era of liberty and social justice but rather an era of great strife as a result of tremendous injustice. Perhaps it is better to look to the past in order to avoid making the same mistakes rather than as a model for our future.

There is this Bertrand Russell quote that I saw on someone’s facebook wall the other day:

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, wiser people so full of doubts.”

A lot of people liked this and seemed to identify with the sentiment, many of whom are professed liberals, lefties and progressives. It triggered a long conversation about how easy it is to trigger that inner fascist we all have that longs for order and certainty and disdains the messiness of groping towards an uncertain truth. I surprised myself with how, when I thought about it, this seemed like such a chauvinistic sentiment. Whether he knows it or not, Lapid is flogging very similar wares and banking on people voting for sentimental reasons.

Relatively Speaking

Cultural relativism is just another form of not having to smell the poor. Human rights are universal and should be extended to everyone, not just your allies. The fact that they are universal is what should make our transgressions, occupations, invasions and killing a source of trouble to us. If what your society does wrong, and all of our societies do wrong, does not keep you up at night then you are little more than ignorant, cowardly, fascist or all of the above.

Don't Confuse Me with the Facts

Shorter Showers

One of the many pamphlets I picked up in Zuccotti park was an anarchist essay by Derrick Jensen “Forget Shorter Showers – Why Personal Change Does Not equal Political Change”. I didn’t take to it’s argument then, that change in the personal sphere has negligible effect on the public sphere, but it took what Chris Hedges had to say on liberals talking about the needs and interests of the poor without ever being in danger of meeting the poor for me to understand why not.

Personal change is essential for political change. Political change requires passion, authenticity and an ability to empathize.  As banal as it might seem, it is exactly learning to buy less that awakens us to the unsustainable nature of our consumer society. It is learning to eat better, to make our own food, to know what we are putting in our mouths, that allows us to realize the importance of promoting equal rights to good nutrition. It is precisely through caring for others that we come to understand our short comings as a society in caring for the needy.

If all we do is concentrate on grand ideas, theories and mass political movements in order to affect change, we are not likely to get very far. We need to marry these ideas to practical change on the ground. It is only when enough people stop believing that change is impossible that it starts to take place. It is only when people feel that change will affect them on a personal level that they will invest the emotional capital needed. How can we convince others to affect change if we haven’t made it ourselves? Who will believe is when we speak of hollow theory?

Even though the Arab spring is more about civil liberties and self determination while protests elsewhere are more about the consequences of economic oppression, what sparked and allowed these protests to grow is personal change, personal example which allowed masses of people to realize that they were in the same predicament. One of the reasons why the protest movement has not yet turned into a mass movement in the States is because the majority of people who are struggling are still embarrassed to admit it, still believe that somehow, magically they’ll realize the American dream.

Like others I believe that the watershed in Tunis, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Damascus, Athens, Madrid and Lisbon came when people no longer felt that they were the only ones that were struggling with the system. This loss of shame at not being able to keep up the farce that everything was ok; that although the economy is tough, you’re keeping your head above water; that although you need to bribe to get ahead, you are managing; that although your neighbor got dragged away by the secret police in the middle of the night, they won’t come for you. This is what is fueling the revolutionary change in governments, in the way so many of us are thinking about the way our world should look. It’s the understanding at a personal level that the status quo simply can no longer be maintained. It is seeing your friends and neighbors struggling, seeing them protesting, defying power, that will move you to join the attempt to reshape our world.

Greek Fire

With Athens ablaze and it seeming likely that another round of austerity measures are not going to extricate Greece from it's economic woes, understanding both the reasons for how it got where it is and what will finally solve its problems may very well be useful in thinking about our economies in new and innovative ways.

I have not spent a lot of time trying to understand the reasons for the depth of the current economic crisis in Greece. The claims that Greeks are a bunch of lazy, money grubbing free-loaders who simply borrowed to much and are now paying the price seems overly simplistic to me. Reading beware of Greeks bearing bonds by Michael Lewis only made me realize that there is something far more systemic going on. An interest was being served by successive Greek governments running up massive debts that where being swept under the carpet that goes beyond people expecting to have their pie and eating it.

Greece is but a more extreme version of where many of the rest of us find ourselves. The better we understand what has happened in Greece, how this was allowed to happen, the better we will understand how we allowed Glass-Steagall to be repealed.

Solving Greece's problem's might be the key to us re-imagining how our societies and economies will work in the future. So far, the regular measures have been very ineffective in restoring belief in the Greek economy nor do the Greeks seem ready to undergo further cuts to public spending. What new and old forms of economy will emerge as the current one collapses? We have already seen the return of a barter economy in many parts of Greece and desperation will like lead to further inventiveness.

Block Black Bloc?

Sometimes there is nothing better than a good disagreement when you want to better understand an idea. Recently Chris Hedges published an article, in which he called Black Bloc the Cancer in Occupy. Hedges, a war correspondent for decades and now a radical social commentator and activist describes in almost religious terms the need to maintain passive civil disobedience as the only effective means for achieving social change. He warns against the use of violence and specifically what he describes as the tactics of Black Bloc as playing into the hands of establishment forces and their attempts to de-legitimize the occupy movement.

The article caused a lot of very virulent feedback, most of it angry rants against Hedges, but also some excelent responses that detailed the nuances missed by Hedges.

Susie Cagle quite possibly does the best reporting on Occupy Oakland I have run across. In her piece she calls out Hedges for buying into establishment propaganda as well as berating both him and most other journalists for not bothering to do the leg work. As most of the references to Black Bloc violence in the Hedges piece refer to Oakland, she shows him to be both wrong and lazy.

David Graeber is an American anthropology proffesor, anarchist and one of the early organizers of Occupy Wall Street. In an open letter to Hedges, he explains that black bloc is a tactic and not a movement, the use of anonymity when confronting established power and that Hedges' call for imposing peaceful protest as interpreted by him (or someone else) as a  form of violence.

All three pieces are well worth reading and will leave you better informed on the complexities of a democratic protest movement where pluralism is put to the test, how there is a large gap between what is often reported even by those sympathetic to a cause and what people on the ground experienced as actually having taken place and what anarchy and it's tactics represent when not approached as a the destructive dogma it is often presented as being.

Thank you Chris for starting this fire.

Policies not Personalities

We really should stop looking for a messiah. Part of the reason why our societies look the way they do is because we keep on voting for personalities and not policies. We want to believe that we are voting for a transformative figure and are always disappointed when confronted by their humanity. Despite this, we will continue to project our hopes and desires on political figures.

I think of this as the other week journalist, author, actor, news presenter and all around celebrity, Yair Lapid decided to launch his political career, soon to start his own political party. This was followed by the announcement that Noam Shalit, father of freed IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, will be running in primaries for a seat in the Knesset with the labor party. Special men both, come to solve the special problems of Israel, to save Israeli democracy with their special insights. I don’t know whether to scream or barf at the idea of wasting another entire election cycle on the cult of personality. I just get angry at thought of these guys proving Shalom Hanoch right when he sang, “the public is dumb therefore the public will pay”.

The reason for my opposition to all these new celebrity players in the political game is because they don’t bring anything of value. I do not understand the popularity of either Lapid or Shalit when we know nothing of their political ideas. We have no indication as to their ability to garner political power or their ability to use it to achieve results.

I am not opposed to charisma in politics as long as it is married to a clear, definable ideology. Power for the sake of power is tyranny. A beautiful ideology divorced from the ability to deal with the day to day mud wrestling that is politics is a kind of masturbation. It will never lead to the birth of anything new. To believe things will be improved by having a specific individual in power is to buy into the cult of personality. It cheapens our part in a democracy, as Howard Zinn so aptly described:

All those histories of this country centered on the Founding Fathers and the Presidents weigh oppressively on the capacity of the ordinary citizen to act. They suggest that in times of crisis we must look to someone to save us: in the Revolutionary crisis, the Founding Fathers; in the slavery crisis, Lincoln; in the Depression, Roosevelt; in the Vietnam-Watergate crisis, Carter. And that between occasional crises everything is all right, and it is sufficient for us to be restored to that normal state. They teach us that the supreme act of citizenship is to choose among saviors, by going into a voting booth every four years to choose between two white and well-off Anglo-Saxon males of inoffensive personality and orthodox opinions.

The idea of saviors has been built into the entire culture, beyond politics. We have learned to look to stars, leaders, experts in every field, thus surrendering our own strength, demeaning our own ability, obliterating our own selves. But from time to time, Americans reject that idea and rebel.

And still we pine for our Ben-Gurions, Churchills, Kennedys, Begins, Reagans and Rabins; hoping that these new personalities will return us to these false memories of certainty and purpose. When will we reject and rebel and snatch the reins of power out of the hands of those that have been abusing it?

Michael Kordova, Social Media Manager and Online Spokesman for the Israeli Green Movement asks on facebook: “Will the Green Movement wise up and become part of the protest movement? I ask and who answers? Do we posses only ready made solutions or also the leadership that will take these ideas to the people?”  

Ideological parties in Israel, especially when they are socially left leaning, tend to shy away from political ambition in preference for beautiful, untainted ideas. It is not enough to know what needs to be done. In order to get elected you have to convince enough people that you have a burning ambition to see those ideas implemented. Voters understand that the political process crushes most initiatives and ideas; that if there is not a driving passion behind them, working to sell them, ensure their implementation, then they will go the way of the Dodo.

When we shy away from enthusiastically promoting our agenda because it reminds us of other ideological movements that we abhor, then we abandon the political field to them. I prefer parties to be strongly ideological, even if I am strongly opposed to them, as at least it makes the political discourse clear. It actually provides a choice between opposing ideas and not opposing personalities. Most of the parties in the very wide middle are nothing more than a collection of opportunists, celebrities and whores, each seeking to promote their private political ambitions, using whatever ideas are in vogue to get to the top. They are nothing but seat warmers in parliament, to be used by the ruling elite to perpetuate the status quo.

I prefer trying to answer Michael’s question rather than pondering if Lapid or Shalit are the newest messiah.

Worth Your Time, volume 2

This week with some of my favorite preachy people:

1. Naomi Klein tells us it's the end of the world unless...

http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate

2. Matt Taibbi details exactly how small and petty the 1% have become in their hysterical responses...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/uc-davis-pepper-spray-incident-reveals-weakness-up-top-20111122

3. Chris Hedges, probably the preachiest of them all, in a piece about his arrest outside of Goldman Sachs...

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/finding_freedom_in_handcuffs_20111107/

4. Arundathi Roy talks about imagining alternatives to capitalism...

http://www.truth-out.org/arundhati-roy-people-who-created-crisis-will-not-be-ones-come-solution/1322765555

5. Tom Tomorrow in a brief guide to class conflict in America...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/05/1041572/-Class-conflict

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Practical Occupation

Last month protesters from OWS along with community organizers broke into a home in East New York that had stood empty since being foreclosed in 2008 and turned it over to a woman and her family who had been homeless for the last 10 years. In similar actions in Columbus, Atlanta, San Francisco and Southgate, foreclosed, empty houses are being occupied by Occupy and turned over to those without homes. Evictions, sometimes as soon as 2 months after failing to make a mortgage payment, are being resisted by large crowds making it impossible for police to force people out of their homes. Through this action, OWS is putting its money where its mouth is by highlighting poor communities and how they have been affected by our economic system. It is also exposing some of the central questions we should be considering if we want to rethink how we run our societies.

In order for the movement to grow the coming year it is essential that it proves its relevance in helping to solve problems. The true relevance of OWS in starting a new conversation on how we want to see the future of our societies can only be maintained by not restricting ourselves to pointing out what is wrong but by proposing alternatives and implementing them where possible. Only by testing our ideas can we ascertain if they work. We have nothing to fear from the messy process of trial and error.

The focus on repossessed homes exposes one of the central differences between capitalism and socialism, between private property and community property, between the right of the individual and the right of the community. The question is what is of greater value, the right of an individual to buy an apartment building and leave it empty, for whatever reason, or the right of 20 families to housing at the expense of the individual?

A city belongs to all its inhabitants. When you buy a plot of land in a city that has been zoned for dwellings, do you have the right to not develop that land? The permits and deeds give you the right to make a profit from developing an apartment building that will serve a number of families, it does not give you a right to not build that building.

Finding the correct balance between the rights of individuals as opposed to the rights of a collectives is tough. Within reason, there is much to be said for the concept of private property. It is not difficult to find examples where the tyranny of the masses, or those claiming to speak for the masses, has trampled the rights of individuals. That this can and does happen in collectivist societies should not be used as an excuse to prevent criticism of the opposite extreme.

We are witnessing a tyranny by individuals who have amassed enough wealth and political power to trample the rights and interest of the many in order to serve the privileged few. Besides highlighting these perversions, we need to make sure we spend enough time thinking about how we break these power structures without merely replacing them with equally unbalanced and perverse structures and then to act. The housing crisis, at the heart of the current economic meltdown, is the perfect testing ground to try and rethink the balance between these rights in very practical terms.