The monopoly of violence and simple solutions to supposedly insoluble problems

I read somewhere, but haven’t verified, that the police actually let stuff burn/be destroyed early on. As if they were hoping people would call for a crack down. If that’s true (big if, I’ll try to find a link), then that makes the ad-hoc groups all the more understandable and is another example of where the oligarchs may have overreached. Thinking it would lead to people calling for them to crack down, it has instead in some areas led to the creation of these “militias”.

I’d like a show of hands here, but I don’t think I’ll get it. Do you have investments? What’s your net worth? If your answer to the first question is yes, and the answer to the second question is positive….significantly positive, and you are condoning the riots, and therefore condoning the purposeful looting and violence that is significantly accompanying said riots, then fork it all over right now. It would be a great way for you to put your money where your mouth is. I’m thinking Sterling Newberry is one such person. With a pedigree name like that, how could he not be? Well, Sterling, buck up and give the rioters a leg up…..now. Actions speak louder than words.

Morocco Bama
But if you wanted to fix it…..
Who is the “you” here? Is it ks? Is it Diana Prince? If so, what the hell are they doing already? Boot them the hell out. They’re doing a terrible job. If it’s that simple, get to it then. Like yesterday, instead of supporting violent thugs on the internet, support them in person. Hell, I’d be willing to create a pool to fund some tickets for both of them to travel to the U.K. and partake in the “riots” if they can’t afford it.
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WTF? So far, you are the only person on any of these threads who has advocated violence. I have repeatedly and unequivocally stated that I do not condone or advocate violence and/or rioting — so why do you continue to claim otherwise? Why attack KS? You are the one who said that you were going to get a gun and defend your stuff (btw – good luck with that) so what the fuck is your problem? Why don’t you just build a bunker and hoard gold?

Ghostwheel
This is my second favorite fantasy, lately, just after the one involving Christina Ricci, Scarlet Johansen, and lots of whipped cream
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hmmmm…now that I think about it… My bunker will be stocked with lots of weed, massage oil and Daniel Craig… Though Christina, Scarlet and whipped cream are welcome! Viva la Revolution! 😉

btw – anyone who would like to finance a trip for me to visit the UK – please do! However, in the interest of full disclosure – I will spend all my time there getting pissed, smoking hash and talking shit with old dear friends. Good times, good times… 😉

Wow, this thread has some real potential. Let the good times roll!

Well, of course, this is basically what FDR did with the CCC.

“You basically give everyone who wants a job, a job, put ex (or current) sergeants and corporals in charge, move any non-married men and women out of the city, and put them to work fixing and building things.”

Not a new plan though back in the day, “out of the city” meant a sentence of transportation to Australia. :o)

I’m constantly reminded of Mark Twain’s observation that what you take from one end you have to give at the other. The wealthy among us have this infantile notion that if they can only cut their taxes, and there by cut welfare programs, health programs, food and assistance programs to the most desperate, they will have more money for their wine cellars, gardens, prostitutes/escorts, yachts and vacations. Of course if they had “a pair” they would shoot their lessers and dump them in mass graves, but they don’t seem to have that killer instinct that allows people to stack heads and trample children with elephants. And starving masses take a while to die, and are dangerous in the interim. So instead they have to hire police, and buy security and congresses, hire lawyers, build walled communities and ultimately pay for bloated militaries to keep them secure. In the end, they pay far more for all of this than they saved, but how much worse for everyone? How much better would it have been to simply accept that there is a price for living secure in a society, and that all the money they spent (and probably less money) could have been spent on making everyone’s life more meaningful, rich, rewarding and happy. All things being equal, isn’t it better that if you’re going to spend x amount of money that it go to making someone happy rather than making someone miserable? But no. It won’t end until ‘they’ grow a pair and stack heads, or ‘they’ are taken out with pitchforks, rebar, and torches.

You forgot step 1: Tax the wealthy.

skuppers is right, this is all obvious to the Plutocrats and their Social Scientists and Social Engineers. DO a quick google search of you doubt that what you say isn’t obvious to them. I didn’t have to, but did anyway. They know Youth violence, and violence in general, is a very real outcome of particular policy, or lack thereof, and yet here we are….AGAIN…and AGAIN.

All of us understand the mechanisms. To me, and I think to most here, if not all, it’s rather obvious and not even worth stating any longer amongst like and enlightened minds. The real issue is how to get from here to there, taking into consideration a world with ever diminishing resources. We have a limited window of opportunity to talk through this and organize, but that window is ever so surely closing, and then we are at the mercy of uncontrollable forces…..Chaos, if you will, for the majority of us, easily manipulated and controlled by the Plutocrats and their Deep State scumbag minions.

A generation of youth, worldwide, but specifically in the West as we speak, have been disenfranchised…..and the damage has been done for a number of them. Giving them a job digging ditches at this point isn’t going to suffice. They’re going to laugh in your well-meaning faces. That may work for the very young…those not yet tainted with the effects of a disenfranchised and substantial subculture, but how do you prevent the very young from being tainted by the subculture despite your most sincere and best efforts?

It’s an uphill battle with those who are in their teens, or approaching their teens, because much of the damage has been done, and to undo it is like trying to cure a drug addict. If any of you have a drug addict family member, or friend, you know what I’m talking about. It takes countless hours, days, months, years and decades of heart-wrenching drama and intervention, and even then, the odds are slim for recovery, because you can’t do it for them. I believe the same holds true for this.

Considering what I just said, we know that this is just the beginning of this opportunistic and thuggish violence aimed and everything and anything, including you and me, who are not ordinarily violent, and would only engage in violence as a last resort in order to survive another day in this world made unnecessarily miserable. If we are to have our own message, rather than our message being the anti-thesis of the Plutocratic talking heads like Limbaugh and Beck, we must take a position and stand on this opportunistic and misdirected violence that we are witnessing, otherwise, we fall right into the hands of the Limbaugh’s and the Beck’s et al. See, the dirty “Leftists” are nothing but thuggish goons and are in bed with the radical Islamists who want to take advantage of the chaos and bring down the UK Government and install a Sharia state. On the way to take my mother to one of her many medical appointments yesterday, I listened to Limbaugh yesterday to see what the fat fucking Plutocratic whore’s spin was on this, and this was his spin. You have taken his bait, just as planned. He’s making you a Lee Harvey Oswald patsy by making you react in exact opposition to what he spouts. It’s a strategy. See it for what it is. Don’t react to him. Own your reaction to this violence. Appreciate the complexity, understand what led to it, but don’t embrace it….because if you do, you quite literally are signing your own death warrant, and any hope of forming a cohesive and constructive resistance will be precluded.

Lots of good ideas, all of which will work to varying degrees, and none of which are palatable to “political reality” as defined by the governing class.

So, first you agree with Ian that it’s easy, leveling all kinds of kudos his way, then you throw this rather large caveat on your support of it being easy by pointing out the rather ponderous barrier of “political reality,” and in that sense, implying that it’s not that easy. Which is it.

By the way, that’s one of the main reasons I think it’s not easy….is because of the political reality and the fragmentation of society on the issue, or issues. That fragmentation, or perception of fragmentation, is by design, and it’s a major impediment.

Heck, maybe it’s actually the case for all I know! Sure seems like it.

I feel the same way. Some days, and the last few have been those days for me, it’s as though the metaphor is no longer a metaphor….it’s real, or might as well be real. It’s why I subscribe to the notion of an Egregore. It explains it nicely without having to navigate rabbit holes of misinformational conspiratorial trails.

http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/gegregor.html

An egregore is a kind of group mind which is created when people consciously come together for a common purpose. Whenever people gather together to do something and egregore is formed, but unless an attempt is made to maintain it deliberately it will dissipate rather quickly. However if the people wish to maintain it and know the techniques of how to do so, the egregore will continue to grow in strength and can last for centuries.

An egregore has the characteristic of having an effectiveness greater than the mere sum of its individual members. It continuously interacts with its members, influencing them and being influenced by them. The interaction works positively by stimulating and assisting its members but only as long as they behave and act in line with its original aim. It will stimulate both individually and collectively all those faculties in the group which will permit the realization of the objectives of its original program. If this process is continued a long time the egregore will take on a kind of life of its own, and can become so strong that even if all its members should die, it would continue to exist on the inner dimensions and can be contacted even centuries later by a group of people prepared to live the lives of the original founders, particularly if they are willing to provide the initial input of energy to get it going again.

If the egregore is concerned with spiritual or esoteric activities its influence will be even greater. People who discover the keys can tap in on a powerful egregore representing, for example, a spiritual or esoteric tradition, will, if they follow the line described above by activating and maintaining such an egregore, obtain access to the abilities, knowledge, and drive of all that has been accumulated in that egregore since its beginnings. Agroup ororder which manages to do this can, with a clear conscience, claim to be an authentic order of the tradition represented by that egregore. In my view this is the only yardstick by which a genuine Templar order should be measured.

And this..

A second significant reason for insisting on this point is the subject of the egregores. What is an egregore? It is the psychic and astral entity of a group. All members of a group, a family, a club, a political party, a religion or even a country, are psychically included in the egregore of the organization to which they belong. Of course, each of us belongs to several egregores at once. Therefore, each individual who is involved in a group receives the influences of the egregores, that is the astral counterpart of the group, in his psyche. This process is unconscious. The resulting drawbacks are, first, some perturbating psychic influences in the majority of cases, and second, a restriction of inner freedom. It is impossible to free oneself from certain egregores, for example the egregores of the country you live in. However, we should free ourselves from all egregores which are not essential. An egregore actually grows by drawing support from the members which constitute it who, in turn, through their repeated actions vivify it, somehow helping it to maintain its power. For a beginner, this is where the danger lies, all the more because of the tendency of man to seek protection, the price of which is often a loss of freedom. We should emphasize here that the association the Philosophers of Nature does not perform any group ritual in order to reduce the influence of its egregore to a minimum.

It certainly puts a new light on Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, doesn’t it? A grain of salt, I know, but certainly worthy of thought and exploration.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcyp28_eyes-wide-shut_shortfilms

Morocco Bama

By the way, that’s one of the main reasons I think it’s not easy….is because of the political reality and the fragmentation of society on the issue, or issues. That fragmentation, or perception of fragmentation, is by design, and it’s a major impediment.

But *technically*, the solutions come easily. In fact, often they’re pretty damn obvious. It’s just that our elites aren’t interested in solving the problem, they’re interested in objectively worsening them. Which in turn is because they have so distanced themselves from reality that it’s frightening. That’s how civilizations come crashing down.

Of course, reality always has the last laugh, so they’ll get it, at one point, but only after a lot of others ‘get it’ first.

StewartM

Small, but important, point – Ian said “simple,” not “easy.” These are not the same thing, and they are often in conflict.

@StewartM:

Despite all than the self-congratulatory plaudits they give themselves about being society’s “producers” as opposed to the mass of people whom they call “the herd” (“the herd” being only able to turn food into shit, as one told me) they’re so far removed from the actual production of wealth that it actually blinds them to what is required to produce the things that they need for their own lifestyle.

Perzactly!! If those amongst us who vainly aspire to the wealth and “greatness” of our nominal “betters” (and constantly vote/act against their own interests) would only absorb this fact…

As I wrote… erm, “elsewhere:”

Noam Chomsky, despite the scorn and public beatings he has endured for his entire career, has stubbornly kept his wary eye upon the sociopathic behavior of the looting class (it is of no irony that these greedheads label the people who do not labor on their behalf “the looting class” – it is nice to be able to turn that around on them…)

Morocco – Good Morning!

I see, Petro, So nuance is in order when it’s convenient for you, but not when it’s practiced by others with whom you don’t agree. Got it. Ain’t that the way it always is?

Often it is, but this isn’t really nuance. Type in “difference between simple and easy” in Google and let the waves of information wash over you.

Small, but important, point – Ian said “simple,” not “easy.” These are not the same thing, and they are often in conflict.

True but I think it is easier than imagined by some. It’s certainly not easy if one is not even going to try and let smokescreens like “the political reality…” lull you into inaction.

In this they echoes the life of their hero Ayn Rand; despite all her heavy breathing about “the producers” there was nary a real “producer” in all her little Objectivist cult.”

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149721/ayn_rand_railed_against_government_benefits,_but_grabbed_social_security_and_medicare_when_she_needed_them/

“In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O’Connor (her husband was Frank O’Connor).”

So Petro, let me ask. In this world of nuance versus semantics depending on whom the charge is leveled at, does simple equal effective. Here’s what I mean by that. A simple solution in the following clip is provided to a simple problem. Easy is the implication, but it doesn’t necessarily follow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68xSoecsoq0

Oh, and the moment I start deciding what to do based on Limbaugh’s reaction is the same day hell freezes over.

I wasn’t necessarily referring to you as opposed to some others I will not name. However, you may not do it directly, but you could do so indirectly, and not intentionally. Let me explain. Like myself, you frequent certain other internet locations to read other’s ideas and some of those others are going to formulate their talking points based off a knee-jerk reaction to what the “Right” has to say on the matter. Some of those reactions, which may not explicitly state that they are reactions to “Right” talking points, are possibly going to influence you…sometimes consciously, other times unconsciously. This is why I think it’s important to know what the “Right” is saying……so you can ensure that you not only don’t react to it directly, but that you also don’t react to it indirectly through a respected “Left” reactionary surrogate.

I respect that you don’t react in anti-thesis to Limbaugh and the like. The more people who are cognizant of this on the “Left”, the better. It renders Limbaugh much less effective in his social engineering propaganda.

And Petro, you were right to give Ian the benefit of the doubt, as Ian has clarified.

Oh, I do it love it so when people make liars out of me.

I am at a loss as to what MB’s solution would be. According to MB these folks are beyond hope. I can only assume, then, that he would want to lock them up for life, probably even the teenagers.

Yeah. That’s the solution!

followed by this and then your added next thread.

Also, I’ve lost at least one commenter whose feedback I valued because of the vitriol of these comment threads. I’m reluctant to moderate, but if I have to I will. I value my commenters, but remember, commenters a small fraction of readers, most of whom never comment and never read the comments.

There comes a point where if you disagree, you disagree, whether with me or with other commenters. Say your peace, but don’t get involved in long wars, please.

What a coward. If there’s one thing that is the epitome of cowardly, it’s censorship, and to think, I recently lauded you for not moderating and censoring. It looks like the bullies taught you a thing, or two, right Ian? Like how to bully….just like the Nazis taught the Zionists a thing or two, like how to genocide a population.

You chastise me, then tie my hands behind my back whilst the rest can take shots at me. Of course now, if I respond beyond this last post of mine at your blog, it will be moderated and/or deleted because you needed to find a scapegoat for TBear throwing a tantrum and you don’t want to lose readers who never read the comments. I have a hard time following that logic, but that’s because I’m an idiot, and didn’t have the same teachers that you and TBear had, right Ian?

I have news for you. It’s not your blog. It’s a public space, and you’re on your big ass soapbox in the middle of it and you want to tell people how to respond to your taunts and provocations. Oh, but of course, when it comes right down to it, you’re not quite the Socialist you say are….few seldom are, and you’ll claim, and so will everyone else, that this is your blog, this is Ian’s blog….it’s his private property, and you shouldn’t challenge him on his private property. There is no private property on the web, or anywhere, if you’re a real Socialist.

But I tell you what I’m going to do. I will be preemptive and return to whence I came and leave you all in peace to sing hymns of homage in your echo chamber. Maybe we’ll meet some day on opposite sides of the barricade. In fact, when things break down, as they will, try coming by to loot my home. Make sure you put your name on your shirt so I know it’s you, and I’ll show you a simple solution to the problem of looting. Don’t be afraid. If it’s good enough for the youth of the UK, it should be good enough for you. Okay tough guy?