Saturday, August 28, 2010

Prose for the Season

1. Vicarious Idylls

Food Network, Travel Channel and various Real Estate Shopping programs are all the rave. Fantasy Consumption viewing is overtaking real consumption. Add lotteries and you have a society of pipe dreamers who vicariously enjoy the conspicuous consumption of their masters.

2. Identity and Bondage


I do not know who I am. Identity is tautological. A=A goes nowhere. Here we see the eternal presence and self-indentity of God( Old Testament and St. Augustine). The only vestige of selfhood one can hold to is the perceptual illusion of a contained body. Rimbaud makes it clear with “Je suis un autre”. Have we, the fabled “I’s”, ever had it?

Identity, the Self, is one of Humanism’s more endearing forms of Deification(reification). Every God is born through a statement of self-identity. Name a man and he will view it as a contractual bond with the Cosmos constituting his “Selfhood”. Culture is the nominal disintegration of Humanity into Selfishness.

Consumption based societies devote every mode of production to serving selves. Communal standards are abandoned and a Freudian Dystopia is instaurated. The Superego serves the Id. It creates controls to facilitate consumption. The value of human liberty dwindles and eugenic ideologies of racial and ethnic identification grow. The Id craves security for its own excesses. Identity stands as the Fortress of Selfish excess. What is the principle of all security? We defend national identity, liberties and protect property for one cause—->”To further our self interests.” Writ large it is the marketed suppression of class struggle via media to all “I’s” who sell themselves into bondage for their “own” self interest. Adam Smith’s invisible hand promises liberty but forges shackles.

The assertion of self is the first step towards bondage. Who legitimizes names and identity? States preach identity as strongly as the God of the Old Testament. There is no other I am but I am. And it tells you who you are–>A series of letters and numbers on various ID’s. It devolves, like States and the Judeo-Christian God, into Sociopathology. Every master births sons to die in his place for everyone’s sins. War propaganda has always been a process where we build up martyrs to die for masters in a battle against evil.

3. Bankers as Jealous Gods

Bankers really do “God’s work”. They place a plague on many houses. Especially upon those who do not appreciate and honor their value with sufficient sacrifice. We all know they abhor Golden Calves.

4. Luxuriant Wastrel

I am the proud scion of a Rentier. It underlines my antipathy to religion. God created the Universe aeons ago and has done nothing since but collect rent. Jesus was Cosmic QE1. His blood flowed to pay the “debt of our sins”. Amazing how elastic religious narratives are. It seems they are hidden in language as a Divine Grammar. Too bad the divination is mostly practiced by devils.

I live as a luxury. Therefore I take pride in being waste. I revel in wasting time as much as time wastes everything. Rest is the highest form of rebellion. It helps me fashion a home in this abominable world. Graciously love, a selfless utopia of shared sentiments, gilds the dross enough that life still holds fair.


5. News Cycle Poesy

The bad infinity of news cycles
buries minds in triviality
and time stamped
quantums of concern.

6. Cyber Sharecropping

Facebook is an Alienation machine. It offers a formatted hyperreality in lieu of a world diminishing in human value.
One could say the same of Google and its relation to knowledge.



7. August in Paris

August days in Paris scald like a sauna. Dusk’s cool reprieve feels transcendent.At night the perfume of the Tuileries charms a gallant breeze to steal across the silky black Seine.

Paris is certainly worth a mass. I miss everything except Sacre-Coeur. It is a white headed zit on the forehead of Paris.

8. Athens not Rome

US decline comparable to the Imperial Roman decline meme, and the forest of echoing epigones, is tiresome and sloppy. A better comparison would be the meteoric rise and quick decline of Athens from the 6th to 4th Century BCE. The rise after the Greek Allies beat back the Medean(Persian) invasion to the Delian League and collapse into Imperial folly-- the campaign against Syracuse(Sicily). A period in which an extended Oligarchy started as a “Democracy” and concentrated to a traitorous few who aligned themselves to the majority’s enemies(Sparta and Persia) in the reign of the “Thirty Tyrants”. Later Philip’s Macedonia bought out a broke and eviscerated Athens with Silver. Socrates was long dead and the Sophists reigned.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

It Will End on an Oily Stage

1) Partisanry: Sham Covenants of Propaganda

You really have to congratulate the Petroleum/Banker Cartel’s ability to turn a legitimate and grossly apparent Global Ecological Crisis into a partisan issue. They’ve mapped out the sides and pander to the American “Cowboy”, white hat/black hat, ideological fetish. We see such meaningless bifurcations in politics, economics, religion and, in its purest form, sports. It is a classic marketing technique that goes all the way back to the spread of Christian Doctrine—> “If you are not with me you are against me.”

The “Global Warming” label is now an epithet as loaded with obloquy as “Liberal” in the United States. Any acceptance of Global Warming theory is, much like being a “Liberal”, deemed “anti-American” and a threat to liberty.

Professional ‘rasslin style narratives dominate the debate. People identify with a stance and find pride in “not being fooled” or shame in being “conned by Global Elites”. The entire crisis has been made meaningless in an uneven war of truth versus a well funded propaganda campaign. A real crisis has been denigrated into a trivialized partisan debate. Propaganda hands the Petroleum Cartel the inertia it desires. Why else would they invest billions in spreading disinformation? Inertia towards clean energy initiatives makes them trillions.

Has partisanry improved the US political system? It has improved the entire political system’s ability to reward the super rich funders at the expense of middle and lower class citizens.

2) Ideological Sacrifice through Market Capture

Whoever spends the most money has the ability to disseminate the most (dis)information and capture the debate. It’s amusing some are paranoid about Al Gore and taxes on Carbon consumption when they already pay much more to establish military presence, occupations, wars, government tax breaks and grants benefiting the Oil Cartels controlling everyone’s access to carbon based fuel consumption . And, as others have noted, the Big Banks are in collusion with Big Oil. The Speculative Practices of Banks and Hedge Funds largely game the Oil Price rates on COMEX.

The Climate Change narrative has been “Captured”, in the market sense, by Big Oil Propaganda. The US consumers addiction to Petroleum based consumption is “Too Big to Fail”. Of course the Oil Co’s, taking a cue from Big Tobacco, broadcast commercials highlighting their pious concerns for the Environment and eager devotion to fund Clean Energy initiatives. They talk a good game and do nothing. Quoting Jesus again, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” They pay lip service and, like Wall Street, continue to engage in a captured market system which serves them.

Propaganda is disseminated to soften the brains of the masses to see real conditions transmogrified by over simplification and obfuscation into false dichotomies. This practice hides the effort of moneyed interests to capture and dominate markets. It is a mass marketing effort to dupe many for the gain of a few. God forbid anyone mention “Class Warfare”! Big Money(Corporatists and Financiers) has been attacking, in collusion with every facet of the US Government, the middle and lower classes for 4 decades! You never hear about this in the MSM. If someone dares mention it they are dismissed as an espouser of “Class Warfare” and labelled as a Socialist or Marxist. Big Money has captured that debate. The Tea Party movement is so captured their eyes fail to see the obvious redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the plutocrats. They are too busy convincing themselves that President Obama is an evil Socialist and Muslim Kenyan attempting to steal money from real Americans(whites) to coddle poor immigrants and welfare bums! These people surrender all thought to the basest propaganda. It is intellectually and ethically spineless. They are the ignorant tools of racist scapegoating which toadies up to the plutocrats. It is no surprise they came out against Net Neutrality “in the interests of Freer Markets”.

Global Warming deniers are also spineless. They toady up to the Oil Cartel by becoming the ignorant tools of a propaganda which displaces the reality of ecological disaster and, instead, trumps up irrational fears of a “one world government” funded by “carbon taxes” which will only benefit “the Global Elite”. If you look at the Global Elite you will find all of them have built their riches through direct or indirect connections with Big Oil. World Governance is ALREADY dominated by Big Oil. All of the recent military actions, trade and financial policies are based on the need to secure more resource capture for Big Oil. Every nation is involved.

Monsanto, Too Big to Fail Banks, The Petroleum Industry and the Two Party dominated US political system–all utilize this methodology. Their security wing is the US Military(Pentagon), CIA-NSA, FBI, DEA and the FDA. They employ “kind-hearted” NGO’s in poor countries to gain market dominance. Good cops and bad cops abound in this system.

3) The End of Times(Speculative Golgotha)

It is not a conspiracy. The accumulation and centralization of wealth becomes manically exagerrated in Financialization. Capital itself is buried under the dust of Speculative Securitization. Nothing makes money but money in this system. Debt is more lucrative than Capitalist enterprise. Under the euphemism of “market creation” wealth is redistributed from the debt ridden and the savers to wealthy speculators.

Monetarist policy rises as the Golgotha of Capitalism. Austerity measures preached by the High Priests of Finance(Bankers, Investors, Economists, Politicians) expose the fervent desire that in this Passion the people must walk the “Via Dolorosa”, not them. Bail outs Resurrect the bodies of the Zombie Jesus Army(Debt ridden consumers) to labor on Mt. Purgatory in hopes they will pay back all debts to the "Bankers who do God's work". Sadly, they are denied Ascension into Heaven. This time the Crucifiers, Bankers, will rise up Heavenwards on the backs of zombie debtors. They shall “walk with bare feet” and gain Eternal Absolution through the crucifixion of debt ridden consumers in their place. The blood of the people forever washes away their ocean of sin.

Monday, August 09, 2010

Neo-Conservatism's Abuse of Hegel

A crass misunderstanding and parodization of the Hegelian dialectic(cf. Fukuyama’s absurd “end of history”) could be posited as a propagandizing arm for the ascent of finance capital’s hegemony over western, mainly US, policy since 1945, or perhaps before.It is similar to the vulgarized “categories” of the Right Hegelians(Bauer bros, etc). in the mid 19th century.

Hegel’s Phenomenology was a radical objective idealism which attempted to map archetypes of the human spirit through history. It was an attempt to explain the French Revolution and Napoleon’s modernization of Europe in the late 18th and early 19th Century. Afterwards Napoleon fell and the reaction of the “Holy Alliance” set in.

To mention Hegel as a real force in contemporary western political propaganda is hilarious and shows an infantile understanding of his philosophy. Marx once joked that Hegel has been misused more than Christianity and, likewise, mostly by critical theologians and nationalists.

It is not impossible to “keep it straight”. In fact it’s quite clear. Oligarchies are known by their fruit, not rhetoric. And even the Rhetoric, if intelligently analyzed, shows a clear message wrapped in the same fine phrases. Factionalism is a dumb show for the easily distracted. Blaise Pascal, a brilliant man, stated that man craves distraction no more so than in his pursuit for certainty(Pensees-can’t do accent aigu). Uniforms and titles are presented as authorities and minds duly conform.

A case in point: Our present head of National Intelligence, General Clapper, believed Saddam Hussein and his Super Heroic Sons had Iraq’s WMD smuggled into Syria right before the illegal invasion and bombing of 2003. He stated this on record then and has not recanted it since. President Obama appointed this clown earlier this year. He presented him as a man “eminently qualified”.

A falsehood has never been a “negation” of truth. Where’s the Hegelian dialectic in that? Maybe the type that Marx cites in “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon”—>”As in Old Hegel history repeats itself again and again. They forgot to add, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce.”(loose paraphrase)

Neo-Conservatism is a reactionary irrationalism. It has think tanks, lobbying groups, and many government staffers as expositors(on every network and editorial board of all the major newspapers and magazines). Their work is to mask imperial bloodletting and bloodsucking under the rubrics of “Globalism” and “The War On Terror”. It is insatiably Paranoid and Sociopathic. It peddles constant fear and exceptionalism in the same breath. Two falsely claimed absurdities are not dialectical. They serve the same process. There is no struggle in this false antithesis. Maybe a struggle or inability to be truthful. It, of course, contradicts itself at every step. It bases every foreign policy effort on the worst possible case scenario and always without any probable cause. It states it fights for freedom while vigorously suppressing them for the people whose freedom they wish to protect.

Hegel stated the real is rational. Neoconservatives, as mouthpieces for irrationalism, are very real but never rational. Their view of reality is the fetishization of paranoia. Neoconservatism as a policy is irrationalism on par with Goebbels. It sees a Hitler behind every enemy and yet fails to see it violates the same Nuremberg judgments Hitlerism did with its “regime change preemptive strike” foreign policy. War Criminals paint themselves “protectors of freedoms” even as they urge the masses to give up more freedoms in the interests of security. They sell fear(terror) as a drug that requires constant war and a sustained attack on civil liberties as the treatment. There is no dialectical struggle here. Both absurdities aim to consolidate power for the Oligarchs.

None of this has anything to do with Hegel. It has everything to do with a omnipresent 24/7 propaganda machine which scares people into being irrational cheerleaders for crimes against humanity. When they’ve convinced you that your “enemies” are not human where’s the crime? Again, Nazi Propaganda did the same thing with Jews, Slavs, etc etc…The Nazis justified every invasion and annexation with “National Security concerns”.

Again, please, keep poor Hegel out of this. Setting reasonable views against the megaphone of irrational propaganda shows no resemblance to the Hegelian Dialectic. One might just as well drag in Socrates with his agonistic, eristic, dialectic and posit a false struggle is dialectical when it's merely the theatrical charade of propaganda.

Friday, August 06, 2010

Ceres Burns


The Sun reaps
fire in fields.
Smoke, not bread,
the city yields.

Persephone's bridal gown
incinerates to ashen down.

Tears run steam
blighting the tares.














Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Fragment: Deconstruction and Marxism

Deconstructive literary analysis has advanced humanity through the placement of voice as a construct of authority and origin, not as the byproduct of some hierarchal anatomy.—Snoot de Seuil

….By setting itself up as a method which posits its own voice as a playful arbiter of value with rhetorical gamesmanship. It is hierarchical in its aims and unabashedly eats the cake it denies others.

Human justice and equality hasn’t improved a jot since 1965. Intertextuality is a scholastic move which rewards pedantry and semantic wars above analysis of real human conditions. It assails hegemony in texts and whistles past it in the real world. It is a boutique style scholasticism. Deconstructionism never once made an important political stand. Never once argued, throughout its mountains of analysis, for human rights. The “hierarchal anatomy”(sic) one sees is merely a marionette. The banalization of truth value created a vacuum where every theoretic effort earned its merits on its methodological success, regardless of any moral consideration.

Derrida, late in life, increasingly became aware of the commodification of discourse and “counterfeiting” in Deconstructionism. He grew disillusioned with how a liberal art(criticism) had become dehumanized into semiological games on an hyperinflated exchange. He regretted his “supplement” and “differance”.

The man behind the curtains of Deconstructionism, the Wizard, was a soi disant National Socialist and Jargonist, Martin Heidegger. Heidegger was, despite scandal, a great thinker and actually questioned widely held assumptions in Ontology and Metaphysics. Deconstructionism shrugged off such rigor and relegated itself to Literary Theory(not that literary theory can’t be important–but it does scarce honor to a man who advocated “piety in questioning and thinking” about fundamental assumptions about “being and its relation to the world”.) The Deconstructionists took their “piety” and questioned texts and not the human condition. In the end it became so enamored with its own reflections upon texts it drowned as a fully textualized Narcissus.

Deconstructive Literary Theory “liberates” semantic value into a “Rhetorical Economy”, the efficiency of narratives. Thusly, it takes intrinsic value and exploits it as an exchange value. It is truly a jargonistic “Hegelian night in which all cows are gray”. Interesting that its rise coincided with neo-Liberal Economic Theory, Game Theory, and Globalism. It commodifies truth on a rhetorical exchange. By this act of levelling it allows “market conditions” to hash out values. It is a method which valorizes choices and terms to essential truth status in texts. Some call it textual strip mining. It’s all well and good when exposing and highlighting racist tropes in Colonialist Literature. But even then it’s all wrapped in a sense of piquant play. Applied as criticism it consistently mines mountains of value out of a few terms.

Interesting most Deconstructionists either repented and became Marxists or devolved into apologists for Fascism.

Historical Materialism(Marx and the young Lukacs) has lasting value and actually considers man as the root in all human relations. It honors use value over the debasements of exchange value. Volumes 2 and 3 of Das Kapital painted a picture of the Hypertrophy of Capitalism into Financialization and greater, Global, accumulation of capital into fewer hands. Marx’s eschatology aside, his critique of Capitalist political economy stands stronger today than Friedman, Hayek, von Mises, and Krugman. The Austrian and Chicago School are producing policy papers about confronting economic conditions Marx forecasted in the mid 19th century. Reading Das Kapital in full was a strong antidote to the pious frauds of Globalism’s propaganda. Labor value has been stripped bare with greater competition. Greater need for Surplus Value creates a slave labor class in Asia and destroys the Middle Class in the West. Living Wages since 1975...