Toward A Manifesto

The goal obviously is for the rich men to enserf if not enslave the poor, to get rid of the men who question you, to drive the women before so you can take separate the Wives from the Whores, and for the young to be suitably programmed. Poor women don't scare rich men so much, they just want a place to keep the ones somebody wants to keep track of. The lower down the scale she is the easier she is to give away, rent, or sell. Western civilization has been run this way since the Assyrians at least.

As for the role and power of women in society, a lot depends on whose women or at least which women. Women who can somehow get away with defying Patriarchy must have something they can do better than most people, or they'd simply be gotten rid of. So a man who wants to move up in the world will try to link up with a "co-conspirator," and those men who think they've risen far enough above already just want breeders and whores. And maybe governesses, when the women come from gentry that's fallen on hard times but who are smart emough to teach the children how to be obedient and to be worth trading away.

As to which sex rules society, or whether they share it between them, you can't be sure you can tell. Remember that however they conceive of any such thing from their own point of view, which is to say from their position of power. What you hear and see around you depends on what they want you to think, feel, believe, and do. Which might not have anything to do with how society is run and by whom. I hesitate to say that the particular ways of the Classes have nothing to do with what you're supposed to think is going on, because for example novelists have a lot of trouble leaving out autobiographical material. Or what they want you to think is autobiography anyway.

The plainest fact, from watching the public sphere as the Masses experience it, is that they want us all to be very confused. To be confused in a particular way, or to whatever be generally confused to whatever degree they intend. If you're too confused, too stupid, or too broken to be useful, they'll find a way to get rid of you, get you to get rid of yourself, or perhaps to get various groups to get rid of one another.

There's nothing in our social experience that's not manipulation. For the very powerful it's all a game they play together; what we get is whatever crumbs they let go of. They think of us as cattle, as house pets, as pieces to be moved about, or as prey for their little human hunts. Part of Prohibition's usefulness was as a way to come to grips with the Mafia from Sicily or their closest cousins from the Italian mainland. Sometimes they'd even done business with the Jews, a tradition that goes back perhaps to Pompey's little con game. Prohibition was also way to give the Irish a way to prove themselves worthy of becoming employed.

And Prohibition generated a lot of monetary circulation: you can't really be sure that the "authorities" were not milking Those People for all they could get, but framing it as a crusade against the Papists. Represented mostly by Italians. Who were at least from a civilized society, except that those Italians Italy could easily do without were huddled en masse and shipped here. "Oh boy, that didn't turn out so well."

Take the Jews, for example.

As it was with the European Jews at around the same time: many of those who'd come here wanted to do something for the Tribe. Even for those superstition Hasidim, who nevertheless circumcise their sons. everybody's connections abroad could be part of a business network. And some among the Jews that were already here, or who had family and business with them, wanted to buy in to the Corporation. Those who got holocausted were those the "western," "civilized" Jews had left to their fates. Conspicuous among them were the various Hasidic sects left behind, which was most of them.

Of course America had a clique or two of powerful Jews, whether they "practiced the religion" at all or not. Which is to say, those Jews who had a lot of power primarily over other Jews would be the ones to treat with the Gentiles. The Sanhedrin, as Napoleon wanted to call it. And of course power involves money: those Jews who got rich from international commerce wanted to take in only those who were presently pertinent, while those who got rich from their congregations wanted to take only those who were more religious and easier to control. And, naturally, those were closer to the main trade routes of the day, and involved in or at least affected by whatever was going on there that meant the most to those here. You might say it was a contest between the businessmen and the Levites. It would appear that the Levites were too weak to save their Eastern European co-religionists. Or it could be that they simply didn't need those who were left behind.

As for the German and French Jews, and sometimes Italian ones, they were at least civilized people, wise and/or rich. Those were the most resourceful were the most useful: of course you'd get Einstein and Wittgenstein out alive. It buttressed that cliques' claim to be smarter than most people in ways that were especially useful. First you get out some physicists, then you set up physics laboratories. By getting rid of their academic Jews they deprived themselves of nuclear fission. Which is why antisemitism, or race prejudice, or other overly broad personification of The Other is counterproductive and stupid. You sort through them, the same as with anybody else.

As for the uncivilized Easterners perpetuating the 14th century, well... That's too bad for them. They were basically too hard to get to when these trade networks were growing. Damn the Russians, they ruined "Polish-Lithuanian" Jewry. A couple hundred years of bigoted persecution can do that to anybody. The Nazis finished off the Tsardom's job, pretty much. If that regime had refused to let "civilized" Jews interact with them that would not have happened. But Imperial Russia's trade routes were mostly internal and secondly "oriental," so the trade involving Jews in Mother Russia was mostly external. It was they who traded the tea and learned the local languages. Whether they meant to or not, the most useful commercial contacts for the expending Russian power were with the Jews of those land they took over or planned to. Hitler's jewcatchers never reached Bukhara: it took Jerusalem's jewcatchers to reel them in to use them.

And those Russian Jews who survived WW2 were those who'd been integrated into Tsarist society the longest, as America's fourth- or fifth-generation Jews are here. It was the Russian invaders into Muslim lands who forged ties with the local Jews: those Jews who were Russian were too far away from the front. They were used instead to liason with those Russian nobility who could read and write and to perform clerical functions the illiterate peasants simply couldn't. Those illiterate Russian peasants who were in close contact with the Asian Muslim world were too busy killing the Muslims to have much to do with local Jews; that would be up to the Russian elite that monopolized high military commissions and civil offices, those whose famlies were of account. By then the Jews of Russia were functionally integrated into society, but Jews elsewhere were of limited utility. Those Jews who were still in the shtetels the Bosheviks had to give up had been given up on.The civilized West had no way to reach them in SS-ruled territory.

These days, when an American Jew deals with anything Israeli s/he might be most loyal to Zion; yet when an American Jew does business with the Japanese, the Turks, or the Germans, they're first and foremost *American* Jews. Israel's a small country: only those they can make useful room for will get actively recruited.

But again, we can't be sure that this is what's going on at the upper levels. For all I know the USA is being run in the interests of the Russian mafia and/or oligarchy (if there ever really was much difference). Until the Civil War the USA was ruled in the interest of the South, that provided the agricultural cash crops that were traded overseas. It wasn't till the industrial North had maneuvered itself into security that it dared interfere in inter-zone relations.  (The preceding circles of commercial gentry provided bankers, governesses, and politicians.) Cutting out the middlemen was the purpose of the Civil War, 160 years ago. How that ultimately worked out, and at whose expense, you can go by the condition of urban Blacks and poor Whites in the "flyover." (Are there poor whites on Long Island, or only poor relations?) While the Southern rich are once again in charge of their part of the country and must be at least consulted on major decisions: that is to say the opposite of their position in the days of Henry Calhoun. They were beaten, those Cavaliers, and forced to be useful to the Northern bourgeoisie. And non-elite Blacks and less useful Whites were "suddenly" not important anymore. Till the next big war came on.

But these days, well, which elite clique wants to take the blame for President Cheeto? Don't blame the American Jews, or at least the ones we're told about: they're not that stupid. Instead, it looks like the Putinists are getting the credit for our current situation. And my hunch is there are very few American Jews willing to bend over for the new Tsar. Now American Jews are even less likely to join the Republican Party. How did Americans wind up with him as President? The Millenials might find out before they retire. Or it might wait for a future ancient historian to unearth.

But again, what we see on TV does not have to have anything to do with what's going on in the lives of those who can afford to really matter. For all I know the real world rulers really are reptilians; they might as well be for all the real difference it would make to me.

And this is the sense I've been able to make of contemporary life. But then I'm weird. Or so they tell us.

   

The Theory And Practice Of Bedlamism

One of my core assumptions is that life might improve in some ways at some times for some people, but for most of us the conditions of life won't get much better: every step forward brings a push back, or we sidestep or turn into another situation that ain't much better. And complicating our lives--struggling even harder, or facing more or more difficult choices--is more likely to increase fatigue and frustration than to increase our satisfaction with our lives. At bottom we are very simple primates, not a breed of demigods.

Life's winners are those who don't care very much for other people, either as individuals or groups, and who view life as a succession of conquests: what matters is fulfilled desires--piles of spoils, racks of skulls, rows of medals--regardless of the cost to other people, and without more mental exertion than needed to get what they want this time. Their minds are focused, their desires are few, their theories are instrumental, and their ethics are self-justifications. "I see, I want, I take, I win."

The small injuries they might suffer provide battle scars to show off, proof that they deserved that ripe fruit because they pushed through briars to get it. Regardless of whose land they were on, or who they had to knock aside. Consequences are for other people, and if they spare a thought for what souls they might have they're confident of absolution. A case in point: Donald Trump is President. And he can always pardon himself, or get Pence to pardon him.

Those who preach otherwise are probably trying to sell you something you don't really need.

And me? "Lead, follow, or get out of the way": I don't care very much about leading, and I refuse to follow, so I stay out of the way. This took years to learn, though it was always my default option. In this state my needs are few, my desires simple, my conscience clear.

You might think me one of life's losers, compensating myself for my failures and avoiding more damage; or you might see me as another kind of winner, one who sees the apple is wormy and blighted. In the latter case I'm beyond good and evil, in the former I'm beneath it.

Either way I sit here, removed from the fray, watching you apes maul one another: here in a warm dry place, with a full belly, with my door locked and no one to vex me. A perch from which to point and giggle.

I am a simple primate with the luxury of imagining myself to be a nihilist buddha. I have accomplished all I really needed to; all that remains is to keep it till I die.

Worship me or fuck off.

By The Way

Here's a poll. I know you like those.

Who out there considers me naturally modest? Instead of, say, an egotistical son of a bitch?

Or am I just being obtuse again?

End Canine Slavery

AHA. The Herald-Leader, local McClatchy branch, has revealed Award-winning dog escaped.

I hope this dog finds somebody worthwhile to take care of him. See the dog's head & face in the picture? Does that look like fun to you?

So the owner is desperately trying to find her award-winning dog because it's her rainmaker. This is the equivalent of slavery: a hunting dog is at least kept alive while performing that job they were bred for, while "award winning" dogs have to spend most of their lives in activities that make no sense to them. Both are tyrannical, but this is another case of "Trotsky was a better Leninist than Stalin." It's bad enough that for many millennia we've domesticated dogs from wolves and kept them captive, which is something most "natural" communists don't do in quite the same way. Someone who's helping her dog hunt squirrel by allowing the dog to direct the hunt is someone true communists want to claim as a "close relation," at least, as equal partnership is that personal relationship communists cherish most. And people who spend a lot of time forcing others to serve their will declare themselves our enemies.

By the way, it's been said that "BDSM is contrary to anarchist principles and an effective bar to an anarchist way of life." (Remember in this sense anarchism is a part of that "natural communist" tendency that a Leninist could understand only hypothetically.) Will somebody out there please explain that opinion, so we can have that much of it in writing? (I mean writing done by myself, as clearly most of that is beneath attention.) Then your own readers can Like what you say (or not, whichever is better for the cause at that time) and thus spread your ideas. With enough of that your chances of being selected as a member of the "equal rights for all" conspiracy increase.

Yet y'all in general should mind your manners, as we've figured out that we don't want to wind up like Fred Hampton and his family and friends, and have come up with ways to avert that (or die trying). Natural communists such as (adult) anarchists ain't people it profits you to fuck with.

To Belabor The Obvious...

I can't imagine a nation with a culture that has not been successfully out-thought and programmed by its "elite." That's what "civilization" is. What gets problematic for the "elite" is when they out-think themselves. Forgetting that the way to keep their power is to duplicitously manipulating those they oppress, instead they treat in that way their friends, relations, and other social peers -- or even often themselves. Remember that someone who can be struck by conscience is of only minimal social power, or thereby is persuaded to relinquish any but minimal control by the self: that is what "submission" is.

Woe betide the powerful person who believes and/or practices their stratum's ideology they strive to enforce upon the poor. What worse thing can happen to someone than losing or surrendering control of one's own mind and life? That shows you've been persuaded to bullshit yourself. To the extent that if you were already powerful or had the potential to be, you've revealed yourself to be incapable of exercising that personal power properly -- if you manage to keep any of it at all. In this respect your fellow "Athenians" are doing you a favor by not beating you to death. But is it any wonder that monks and nuns died in miserable droves from nursing plague victims, something no person of consequence would contemplate, when that keeps down the part of the educated citizen population who are unable -- perhaps too stupid -- to be trusted with themselves.

E.g., the only psychotherapy the elite can afford to indulge in, without some kind of winking and nodding that are necessary when one is being taught something deemed very important, is to preserve one's social power by swindling the many of theirs. Imagine an emir or emperor, or vital person of their class with connections to others, who has been educated and manipulated to surrender completely at the earliest opportunity. No successful "oppressive conspiracy" has even tried to tolerate in their siblings the kind of nymphomania they encourage in those peons they intend to use as prostitutes. Either society thereby becomes inbred and uncomfortably socially entangled, or sections of these segments are triaged out to make room for fresh blood and new money.

To maintain the position of conspiratorial masters they must always remember that they're conspiring together, albeit each for their own advantage. And to remain in the Club one must acknowledge one's own capacity for mental jiu jitsu (or worse) and advertise a certain relish for it as a word to the wise. To let it slip that you take what you teach others seriously will make it likely that your social peers do that shit to you. The Club too must be culled, after all.

Even to an anarchist, properly considered, voluntary submission is a sin. To remain free one must not act like a slave. That's what fascism is: a means of inspiring one to sort oneself aside, or inspiring others to render you at least useful.

The inability to volunteer for slavery is a prerequisite for not winding up a slave yourself. That's what freedom most frequently is. Too bad that only a random few in every generation are capable of thinking in those terms about themselves: the culling is necessarily relentless and ruthless. Thus a sense of honor must remain "among thieves," and a society's ethics must be the kind the "best" will profit from most when they don't participate in it themselves.

St. Augustine was obviously a has-been, or maybe a never-was, to have devoted so much energy to trying to persuade others of his own class to join the slave religion or caste. To perpetuate it you've got to learn to avoid tasting it. Don't Use The Product. This is the practical meaning, regardless of intent, of teaching about Nietzsche and Foucault: if you don't immediately grasp that even society's ways of thinking are set up to facilitate control by (and participation in) the Inner Party you don't deserve to be included.

Big Brother is your bestest friend when your worst enemy is yourself: one culls best when one culls oneself. Room 101 must be staffed somehow, and they might as well enjoy it.

Don't be poor Winston, is the message.

Those who do not display rigid ethical self-control, whether or not they bother to practice it themselves, perhaps should be programmed to self-destruct. There are certain things that just are just not done, or that one must never be caught at. See for example an example of how one purges oneself in Judaism.

Busy Old Bugger

Google Fit tells me I burned 2198 calories today, ~500 of them walking 6.54 miles in 17,547 steps, not counting the steps I took not carrying the cell phone around, such as ~240 calories pedaling determinedly to nowhere and whatever calories "strength training" burns. I don't think today's caloric intake will exceed 2500 calories, so going by the numbers I might have lost a few grams. Indeed the scale in the men's locker room says my weight's decreased two pounds in the past couple weeks, surely largely because of the dogs' increased need to march me around (Nina in particular seems to have goal of 1.5 miles a day); I'm trying to eat a little less but in that respect my self-discipline will probably always be remiss. ('I have to walk a lot: you've seen me eat.') I might yet make my goal of getting down to 155# by Xmas. (It's ony 3 more lbs., why not be optimistic?)

As to my other physical goals, it seems I'm doomed by inexorable heredity and by age-diminished androgens to never quite "turning into the Hulk," as my baby sister puts it. For one thing my biceps just don't want to get much bigger: I do get stronger but it doesn't look like it, and it's taken 2 years to go from 40# barbell curls to 60# without much pain. (One reason I don't get BDSM: pain is for people I don't like, which naturally rules out me and anybody I put up with more than strictly necessary for my survival.) And I'm still frustrated that my bust ain't increasing enough, though some progress is visible there; yet posted photographs show my upper back develops okay and my shoulders seem a little broader. I should have started this shit like 40 years earlier. But still, for a guy my age in my neighborhood I'm in half-decent shape, like they haven't told me I'm diabetic yet. I'm considering doing a month or so of more intensive body building before too long if my budget allows for buying creatine -- it's usually more fun to buy better liquor -- and, assuming I keep my visceral fat in check, I plan on wiling away part of the depth of winter working on "details" like my abdomen, calves, and gluteals. (Every middle-aged pervert should have a nice firm booty.) I'd rather increasing senescence not involve excessive debilitation, at least. At least not physically.

As for everything else, what is there to say? I hesitate to publicly post my senile sexual fantasies (though those who are interested know how to reach me), and I doubt anybody will really care that this week's reading concerns how the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939 played out. (Till Hitler made his worst miscalculation, if Hitler can ever be said to have calculated anything.) There just ain't much about my life that strikes me as anything anybody should give a damn about. Let's face it, I'm boring. Very few people have it in them to care whether I live or die, let alone what's passing through my damaged little brain at any given time. Those few things that happen during my day that aren't (AFAIK) illegal get posted to Facebook, along with whatever my view of whatever current events have been happening happen to be, and the only people I really fear rejection by are those who keep dogs for me to befriend and exercise with. What more can there be? I've got no money for anybody to scheme over, I can't imagine anybody woud ever want to see my senile self naked let alone take advantage of it, and my mindset is still so far beyond the pale that whether I can be a person like other people will always be an open question. (I think of myself as a freak from outer space, and I'm naturally charitable even to myself.)

As for me in general, well, at least I'm no longer old, ugly, crazy, boring, poor, *and fat*. So bite me.

Keep 'Em Marching

[Click photo for larger version.]

By that more complex graphic I'd say the ideal for a society on the scale of "the West" would be #16, libertarian socialism, after a slow (i.e. not Great Leap, maybe 2 generations) progression through social democracy. In general my idea would be closer to the lower left corner, but I don't see any way for the USA to get there from here without a major worldwide population reduction: if our body politic gets proportionally much smaller and if our society gets any nicer to our "broad masses" than say Israel is to its Jewish citizens we'd risk being conquered by a nastier regime with a bigger military, the way the USSR beat the Nazis.

In fact one of my proposals involves a larger standing army & navy, instead of letting so many un- or under-employed Americans become mentally & physically lazy "couch potatoes" who do little every day but overeat, watch TV and consume intoxicants. For one thing, historically it's been the Army Corps of Engineers that led the way in building the infrastructure we have that now needs repair or replacement, and it would probably take something very much like military discipline to get enough people to actually help do it.

In general don't see any better way then gentle compulsion, i.e. giving poor people a much more secure & purposeful life in uniform than out, to keep our people productively occupied now that we have no need for a large industrial or agricultural base. And part of that would be that to advance in grade you'd have to be physically fit and attend academic courses as well as those training & refresher courses directly related to your MOS. I'd also require some kind of national service after high school, for the same reasons those countries that do that do it.

I credit my brother-in-law for this insight: his & my sister's strategy to keep my youngest niece on track was to see that she was too academically and athletically busy to get into the kind of shit I did as a teenager. I thought it was a bit much then, I am an anti-authoritarian at heart, but I must admit now that the kid's almost 21 that their strategy seems to have worked well enough. So, broadening my perspective, I've become convinced that that kind of "benevolent despotism" is necessary to keep America from eating itself.

If nothing else we've at least got to keep the morons marching. Because, as that niece said when she was 17, "people are too stupid for anarchy." Hell, for the past 8 Presidencies we've been too stupid to manage representative democracy.

(Oh hell. This was not originally intended to be more than a quick paragraph. I sure do go on.)