Incoming blogpost, this shit should be basic bitch tier for anyone who has been following politics since the OWS era.
What is the main reason that the “disenfranchised” political movements are failing to accomplish anything, while simultaneously enjoying tremendous popularity? This is discussed heavily in Kaczynski’s book *Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How*. It all boils down to divide and conquer (D&C), but saying that alone does not do this topic justice for the masses of people who have not been immersed in the culture for the better part of a decade.
The upshot of the “How” in Kaczynski’s book. First, I must quote his postulates and rules for people who wish to change society.
Postulate 1. You can’t change a society by pursuing goals that are vague or abstract. You have to have a clear and concrete goal. As an experienced activist put it “Vague, over-generalized objectives are seldom met. The trick is to conceive of some specific development which will inevitably propel your community in the direction you want it to go.” Postulate 2. Preaching alone – the mere advocacy of ideas – cannot bring about important, long-lasting changes in the behavior of human beings, unless in a very small minority. Postulate 3. Any radical movement tends to attract many people who may be sincere, but whose goals are only loosely related to the goals of the movement. The result is that the movement’s original goals may become blurred, if not completely perverted. Postulate 4. Every radical movement that acquires great power becomes corrupt, at the latest, when its original leaders (meaning those who joined the movement while it was still relatively weak) are all dead or politically inactive. In saying that a movement becomes corrupt, we mean that its members, and especially its leaders, primarily seek personal advantages (such as money, security, social status, powerful offices, or a career) rather than dedicating themselves sincerely to the ideals of the movement.
Rule (i) In order to change society in a specified way, a movement should select a single, clear, simple, and concrete objective the achievement of which will produce the desired change. Rule (ii) If a movement aims to transform a society, then the objective selected by the movement must be of such a nature that, once the objective has been achieved, its consequences will be irreversible. This means that, once society has been transformed through the achievement of the objective, society will remain in its transformed condition without any further effort on the part of the movement or anyone else. Rule (iii) Once an objective has been selected, it is necessary to persuade some small minority to commit itself to the achievement of the objective by means more potent than mere preaching or advocacy of ideas. In other words, the minority will have to organize itself for practical action. Rule (iv) In order to keep itself faithful to its objective, a radical movement should devise means of excluding from its ranks all unsuitable persons who may seek to join it. Rule (v) Once a revolutionary movement has become powerful enough to achieve its objective, it must achieve its objective as soon as possible, and in any case before the original revolutionaries (meaning those who joined the movement while it was still relatively weak) die or become politically inactive.
Now, how does this apply to the impotence of people who are aware of their political and economic disenfranchisement? Those who are disenfranchised is an intentionally broad and vague category, including everything from fascists to communists. First, the only thing resembling a common goal among these disunited groups is the removal of power from the global “new nobility” of oligarchs. So, let us examine first how that different groups have created their own differing versions of what is essentially the same enemy. (One quick aside, I am going to include different philosophies on both sides of the political argument since everyone interested in politics has come to see the oligarchy as the greatest enemy to the people of the west and the world at large.) For the libertarian, government restrictions on personal freedoms is the problem, however, it is quite apparent that western government is dancing to the tune of these financial giants. If the libertarian believes in the greatest amount of freedom for the majority of the population, they simply must come to terms with the fact that the nearly unlimited freedom and power of these oligarchs is being used to make the population at large far less free. For the civic nationalist, the oligarchs are taking wealth and good jobs from his or her country and sending them overseas where labor is cheap and environmental policies are nonexistent. The civic nationalist is also aware that his national identity is being constantly eroded by both media and immigration policy promoting foreign culture as though it were preferable to his own. The fascist will point to the oligarchy being disproportionately jewish and demonstrate how the ethnic makeup of his community is being drastically altered. He will also show how predatory corporate culture and business practices are degrading his people and creating a new form of serfdom.
At the same time the communist will shout that the bourgeoise is enslaving the people of the world, with vast corporate monopolies dominating the life of his or her people. The communist will decry the outrageous income inequality, unaffordable housing and the commodification of every aspect of life.
What all of these groups will have to come to terms with is that each is perhaps being influenced to view their particular label of this problem as somehow separate and distinct from other groups. All of these groups have some characteristic which is invoked to make them detestable to the others. The libertarian wants to make government smaller, reducing government spending and potentially starving the oligarchs of their lucrative government contracts, bailouts and subsidies. The civic nationalist wants the government to protect domestic businesses with higher tariffs on foreign goods, encouraging companies to keep jobs in the country. They simultaneously want to limit immigration so that worker’s wages are high due to decreased competition for jobs. The fascist wants certain industries nationalized such as banking and the creation of ethnostates which allow a country to retain its heritage. The communist wants big business to be wholly dismantled or to be publicly owned due to its terrible track record of employee treatment. Now, none of these groups want anything to do with each other because the national socialst and civic nationalist love the idea of a nation with a strong government and they think the libertarian is a fool because you must have a strong government to maintain order. The libertarian, fascist and civic nationalist all hate the communist because they believe in private property and hate the idea of a one world government centrally planned by the central governing authority. The libertarian, communist and civic nationalist hate the fascist because he is racist.
The fascist hates everyone else because they fail to see the link between a race of people, their culture and how that influences their civilization.
This illustrates the first problem in any kind of movement against the present state of oligarchal domination. The same enemy is defined as “the corrupt government”, “the people shipping our jobs overseas”, “the jews”, and “the bourgeoise”. While we are at it, we can throw in “the bankers” “the media” “corporations” these various sectors of the economy are all substantially owned, if not monopolized, by the oligarchal class. Combine the difference in names for the group killing our society with the fact that every group aware of the problem hates each other, and you have a perfect recipe for nothing being accomplished. This is textbook divide and conquer. The political options often being discussed by these various groups are rarely even practical. Rather than protesting the electoral process, campaign finance, bailouts and subsidies for corporations, tax loopholes the size of Texas or the constant assault on the First, Second and Fourth amendments, people instead argue over hot button issues like abortion, gay marriage, what to do with illegal immigrants etc. What this invariably results in is a group like Antifascists getting into a brawl with a group like the Proud Boys when both of them have the same enemy. This is exactly what they want. Little people fighting other little people about an issue that will only affect other little people.
To sum up the point thus far, all political groups aware of their disenfranchisement have a common enemy in the oligarchal ruling class. These groups refuse to work together to tackle the main problem because they can’t agree on what should happen after the main problem is dealt with. The points of division are nationalism, ethnicity and culture, private property and size of government.
The next factor to be considered is that of identity politics. Religion is one of the big ones that has arisen in the past four years on the ethno-nationalist side of the political realm. *Are you Pagan or are you Christian? What type of Christian? Your religion is a larp. Your religion is from the middle east it isn’t the religion of your ancestors. The pope is a joke. Martin Luther was a heretic. Your church has gays. Your church has pedophiles. This pagan group does gay marriages.* It’s like a broken record. Even if you can get these groups to agree that jews are bad, five minutes later they are in a flame war about what white really is. The extreme left is no different with its privilege and white boogeyman (oddly enough the far left and far right both seem to hate wealthy white men in suits who run the economy and influence policy, one just seems to be more specific about which white men they are talking about in the majority of cases). *You can’t comment on that because you haven’t experienced what I have been through. Toxic masculinity is a serious issue and it is being used to exclude people from certain spaces. White people shut up and listen. As a transwoman. As a (whatever).* All of these are just examples of ways to divide the people who are trying to achieve the same goal and make them fight each other instead of their real opponents. Jo might be a hardcore communist who thinks landlords are criminals and Alex might be a civic nationalist who thinks we need to stop immigration to increase wages, is that a valid reason for the two of them to hate each other? Both of them want a better economic position for themselves and others. Both of them know that there is an issue on a systemic level that is causing them hardship. Both of the policies being opposed are supported by the oligarchal ruling class. But, instead of trying to get something accomplished, they end up screaming at each other and get kicked out of dunkin donuts.
Later, both fire up the internet and tell their respective echo chambers about how shortsighted and confrontational the people on the other side of the political spectrum are and how “I stood up for what is right”.
Now we have arrived at the big question. What do we want to do? Do we want to sit around and endlessly bicker about how our way of rebuilding society after the problem of the oligarchy is solved is the best? Or, do we want to stop putting the cart in front of the horse and figure out how to solve the problem that every single one of these groups have in common? If you want to sit around and argue about how your ideology is better, please close this window on your computer and go back to your echo chamber and argue about whether or not Italians are white or whether or not it was real communism etc.
Okay, how can all these disagreeing political groups fight their common enemy? Let’s go back to the beginning with Uncle Ted’s wisdom.
>tremendous popularity Which echo chamber do you live in? Seattle or San Fran?
Thomas Gray
Rule i: *Clear and Concrete goal:* Drastically reduce the power of the global oligarchy through drastic economic reform such as nationalization of banking, breaking up of monopolies and political campaign reform. Rule ii: *The change must be permanent:* Private banking/usury must be made formally illegal and all political campaigns are to be run by an apolitical branch of the state, allowing no outside media campaigning or finance. Should a company be deemed “too big to fail” or otherwise non-competitive, it shall be nationalized or broken up among multiple, separate controlling interests. Political parties shall not be able to nominate candidates of their choosing eliminating the role of the RNC and DNC in politics outside of forming coalition governments should a multi-party system arise. Rule iii: *Practical Action:* Strikes, disruption of political rallies, refusal to participate in obvious shams and documentation of political corruption and incompetence. Rule iv: *Exclude Unsuitable People:* No leadership positions shall be given to people joining after media coverage of the group has occurred, anyone seeking prominence after the group has gained attention shall be asked to start their own group. Rule v: *Objective Must be Achieved ASAP:* Self explanatory.
Ummmm, hello! I was wondering: how goth is my frock? I got a thing for horror movies and mope rock but I can’t shock my hair up (I ran out of stock). And just like that, Frontalot ran out of talk. It was tragic, unheard of, never seen, me: out of rhymes when they usually come indefatigably. But me here talk good? No, bad talk do! Like my tongue got encrypted right before I lost root. Like my small talk got box-rox0red on a prior boot. It’s moot; she only dates guys in chokes and Docs, not brutes lacking eyeliner like I lack. But look, I’ll put a little on, plus lip shellac, just to stand next to that and dream about love. Of necessity, that has always had to be enough ‘cause I can’t talk to goth girls. I just stare and stammer: my name is MC Frimmer Frammer. And damn her if she giggles. Damn her double if she laughs. Goth girls like it when you double-damn it twice fast.
Goth girls, goth girls: they’re the girls that go to see the nerdcore rapper with the geeked out flow. At the show you can see the black lace on parade. I met a hundred dozen of ‘em but I ain’t got laid.
Got shunned by her at the Rocky Horror premiere. She steered clear of the nerd crowd but I heard loud in my ear the disdain that she held for my type: “always geeking on the computron.” I get hype on the stage! She might notice me then and observe that I’m “ironically hip in some flip universe.” And her purse in patent leather held in fishnet glove could then contain MP3 player with the Front filled up. Her name is Nyteshaed, yo don’t call her cherry tomato. She looks like Paisley Tinkle but poisonous like Topato. She says her hair got attacked ‘cause it’s black and it’s blue. She’s got a Johnny the Homicidal Maniac tattoo. Legs all deep in the boots, boots all up on the heels — yes, the kind to make a certain type of fetishist squeal. The ordeal I endure: this close to her splendor yet besieged by my shyness; try this: I surrender!
