“This, this is living History. Everything we are doing and saying is thrilling—it will be read by a thousand generations, think of that! Why I would not be out of this glorious delicious war for anything the world could give me.”

quote/title from Winston Churchill, 1915

    Over two months ago, Russia invaded Ukraine, a sovereign country.  That cruel, illegal war has killed and maimed thousands and displaced many more.  The United States and much of the international community rightly has stood with Ukraine.  In the immediate, I think refugee resettlement, humanitarian aid, debt cancellation for Ukraine, and support of Russian dissenters should be our priorities.  Meanwhile, there exist valid arguments for and strong disagreements over the use of sanctions or weapons shipments.  I am wary of these more coercive measures because of their unintended consequences, but done to scale (and without the profit motive), they can possibly be effective in getting to the best possible negotiated settlement for Ukraine.  Wars tend to end in one of two ways: vanquishing of one side by the other or some type of negotiated settlement.  The former is unlikely to happen with Ukraine on top**, without wider, possibly nuclear war.  The latter leaves much to be desired, but I believe it is the best way to stop the bloodshed. (https://theintercept.com/2022/04/14/russia-ukraine-noam-chomsky-jeremy-scahill/).  Good, thoughtful people may disagree.

    However, we should beware of the less sober, less thoughtful columnists and essayists at outlets like “The Atlantic” (not to be confused with diligent journalists on the ground) who daily channel their inner Churchill to write beautiful sentences about the worldwide battle between “democracy” and “authoritarianism.”  They are often the same liberal and conservative (chicken)hawks who sold us the Iraq war, with beautiful prose back then too, and who now want us to fight to the last Ukrainian, regardless of what many Ukrainians think or want***.  True, Russia is not a democracy, and it invaded the more democratic Ukraine (ranked #86 on The Economist’s “Democracy Index”; Russia is 126 for reference; the US 26).  To call it a battle between authoritarian Russia and democratic Ukraine passes muster, I believe.  We can and should support Ukraine, whether or not it is a democracy.  But, to call this a worldwide battle between authoritarianism and democracy is simplistic and self-serving.  When US leaders and pundits speak of the “rules-based, liberal international order,” much of the rest of the world, especially the more melanated parts of the global south, laughs out loud.  Those people understand all too well that the rules have never applied to the US. They know that western governments, typically at the behest of western capital, make and break the "rules" whenever it suits them.   

    One might call this critique “What-About-ism.”  What-About-ism at its worst, yes, does deflect from the actual crimes and imperialism of Russia or other states/actors.  However, the charge of “What-About-ism” is now frequently being used to quell dissent, alongside the neo-McCarthyite tactic of calling people who complicate the narrative as “Putin apologists.”  At its best, the question of “What about…?” includes the question “What if…?”  For example, what if the US did join the International Criminal Court (we did not) and what if the US did not have a law that authorizes us to invade the Hague if American personnel are taken there (we do have such a law, passed with bipartisan support)?  So when Condoleezza Rice rightly, even if ironically, declares that Putin is a war criminal, what if we actually had a “rules-based” place to send him (and her).  I agree that maybe our best weapon against Russian and other states’ future aggression is a “rules-based, liberal international order.”  It just has never existed, that’s all.  I’m interested in building it, though.  Sign me up.

    With that, I re-share a longer essay from last summer on liberals and foreign policy and some of the clever psychological moves we make with history (let alone conservatives, for now): An Elegy for Ted McGrath: Lexus trumps olive tree: The limitations of a "good liberal" (Part 5: "You can't go from Saddam to Switzerland without getting stuck in Hobbes")

    Peace!  Solidarity!

*The Real Winston Churchill (jacobinmag.com)

**Feb. 27, 2023 addendum: It is unclear whether Ukraine will end up fully on top, as in a fully defeated Russia, but I did not think at the time of this writing that Ukraine would have fared so well (relatively speaking) militarily, now one year on.

***Feb. 27, 2023 addendum: While I do still think many hawks in the US want this war for, in part, their own psychological and other needs (in addition to right and just reasons), I stand corrected on the Ukrainian part.  It appears a year in, that most Ukrainians--or more of the ones I've been listening to--do want to keep fighting on.  That is, they are not just being pushed by the west as the sentence above seems to indicate.  I think the below article from Bill Fletcher, Jr. reflects how I feel, for what it's worth, on this day:

Nothing Is Worse Than Silence in the Face of Aggression | The Nation

 

Russian Bears and Chinese Subs

Steaming somewhere in the Yellow or South China Sea--I can’t remember specifically-- in the spring of 2008, our combat-information team on the USS Cowpens reported some unusual aircraft several miles away.  We learned later that they were Russian “bears,” which was some type of bomber.  We were not used to Russian bears flying so closely, but taking my cues from more experienced shipmates, I did not sense any danger.  We heightened our ship “readiness,” but the day and week passed by without incident. 

On the same deployment, the next week or so, combat-information spotted a Chinese submarine several miles away.  Similarly, there was no imminent danger--we were all just out cruising in international waters--but, for a crew used to just doing circles and drills for weeks at a time, it provided some excitement.  I came up to the bridge that late afternoon to take the watch as officer-of-the-deck (OOD) several hours after the submarine had been spotted.  The off-going OOD briefed me where it was, and I took the otherwise routine watch.  At one point, I called down to the captain to make a pretty standard report.  He then asked me where the Chinese sub was.  I told him I would call him right back with the information.  When I did, he berated me on the phone for not having “situational awareness” (SA), that is, for not knowing its location off the top of my head.  The captain was right.  An OOD should have had that information on hand.  I finished my watch, we finished our deployment, and we did not hear from the sub again.  

Reflecting later on the incident, I admitted, still, that the captain was right--I should have known--but at the same time, of course there was a Chinese submarine there.  We were in international waters yes, but relatively speaking, we were pretty close to China.  This was not off the coast of California or Alaska, or even Hawaii or Guam.  It made half-sense that there would be a Russian plane there, too.  We were, relatively speaking, not that far from Russia. 

Viewed from the Chinese or Russian perspective, should not they have been the ones alarmed, if there indeed was cause for alarm in the first place? Should not they have been the ones excited, as a US vessel (that was permanently deployed in Japan) cruised by?  Or should not they be the ones bothered when they consider the thousands of other US troops, planes, ships, bombs, and missiles stationed all around China and Russia?    

“Cognitive empathy” is a skill and virtue that would do the US foreign policy establishment, the US media, and Americans more broadly a lot of good.  Cognitive empathy, frequently articulated by writer/journalist Robert Wright, should not be confused with “emotional empathy.”  Cognitive empathy requires viewing a situation from an adversary’s perspective, not exactly feeling bad for them.  It requires temporarily withholding judgment to understand the causes of a current predicament.  Why is China acting the way it is?  Why is Russia?  (Or Iran or Venezuela?)  How does each country view our actions of the past two, five, ten, fifty, or 100 years?  Are they just angry and sociopathic, or do they have legitimate gripes, even if we don’t agree with those gripes?  (Here are two recent Robert Wright cognitive empathy pieces on Russia: Why Biden didn’t negotiate seriously with Putin (substack.com) and How cognitive empathy could have prevented the Ukraine crisis (substack.com).  Here is one on China: China and the Challenge of Cognitive Empathy (substack.com) )

Cognitive empathy does not preclude judgment and condemnation.  Regarding China, we should condemn its concentration camps of Uighurs, we should condemn its suppression of dissent in Hong Kong, we should stand in honest solidarity with Tibet, we should be concerned with its building of islands in the South China Sea, for instance.  Regarding Russia, we should condemn its recent military buildup along the border of Ukraine.  If it invades Ukraine, we should condemn that.  We should condemn the suppression of its own internal dissent.  Cognitive empathy and seeing things from their perspective does not mean that I would prefer to live in China or Russia ("Love it or leave it!").  It does not even mean I would prefer a China- or Russia- (or China-Russia-) led world order to a US-led world order. 

We should keep a healthy skepticism of US media when it comes to foreign policy and war.  That does not mean we automatically dismiss reports out of hand.  It does not mean there are not some good on-the-ground journalists doing rigorous work for the major corporate outlets.  However, empirical historical data shows that good reporting pieces have a difficult time making it up the chain when war is on the horizon--they have a hard time competing with the celebrity columnists and talking heads.  The Chomsky/Herman propaganda model from Manufacturing Consent (1988), in my view, is still very true.  Truth-telling happens, yes, but it ranks second behind profit-making.  Has The New York Times actually learned from its mea culpa in the build-up to Iraq? (If no one is held accountable, do they even have to?)  From Panama to Iraq I to the Balkans to Iraq II to Libya, has CNN ever met a war it didn’t like?  Need we recall that MSNBC fired Phil Donahue because he was an outspoken critic of the Iraq war?  (I don’t mention Fox here; it ceased pretending to be a serious news outlet many years ago; but picking on Fox, while necessary, is easy.)  Just to take one of many foreign policy/war sloppy stories from recent years, recall the Times Russians-paying-Afghan-bounty-hunters-to-take-out-US-soldiers story? Recall we liberals were up in arms about it because it fit with our Trump-loves-Putin-I-can’t-believe-he’s letting-Putin-get-away-with-this narrative? Yeah, so it turns out, it was not true.  Or at the least, it could not be confirmed.  Does anyone pay the consequences for such bad reporting, and shameless amplifying, or do they all keep getting promoted? 

At the same time though, having spent the past decade on the antiwar (not necessarily socialist) left, I’m also healthily skeptical of antiwar and alternative media that reflexively downplay the crimes or misdeeds of an adversary.  In rightly criticizing US nationalism or imperialism, some alternative outlets go too far in defending other countries’ nationalisms and imperialisms.  While we should stand in solidarity with Chinese people, Russian people, or Cuban people, for instance, I don’t believe we need to wholly defend the Chinese state, or the Russian state, or the Cuban state, for instance.  (In my short time on the more socialist left, I have seen less of this.  Socialist anti-imperialists, on their good days, see all imperialisms and all capitalisms/extractions as the problem.  US-led imperialism/capitalism just tends to be the most destructive.  Check out these long, scholarly critical-of-everyone interviews on Russia and China).     

If there is war with Russia or if there is war in Ukraine, yes, we must blame Russia for its aggression.  And, we must stand with Russians--and Ukrainians--who are resisting their own governments’ militarisms (like how this transnational group of women did).  However, if there is war in Ukraine, it must be noted that the US is to blame as well.  From the end of the Cold War to the current administration, the US has played a role in antagonizing Russia.  One very important factor has been the expansion of NATO:

Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.

White House Press Secretaries Jen Psaki and Rachel Maddow might assume that this quote is from some "Putin apologist." But, it's from no less than William Burns, in 2008, then US ambassador to Russia and now director of the CIA.  He went on to say that it was “hard to overstate the strategic consequences” of offering Ukraine NATO membership, which, he predicted, would “create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.”  Furthermore, if we felt the need to expand NATO, why would we not at least consider including Russia at that point in the ‘90s? (We did not ever give it serious consideration.)  Then-ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock, wrote:

The plan to increase the membership of NATO fails to take account of the real international situation following the end of the Cold War, and proceeds in accord with a logic that made sense only during the Cold War. The division of Europe ended before there was any thought of taking new members into NATO. No one is threatening to re-divide Europe. It is therefore absurd to claim, as some have, that it is necessary to take new members into NATO to avoid a future division of Europe; if NATO is to be the principal instrument for unifying the continent, then logically the only way it can do so is by expanding to include all European countries. But that does not appear to be the aim of the administration, and even if it is, the way to reach it is not by admitting new members piecemeal.

From our exiting of various arms deals to our meddling/bombing in the Balkans--and the very quick recognition of Kosovo, for instance--to our actual or perceived role in the 2014 Ukraine coup to the Obama administration encouraging regime change in Russia itself, is it any wonder that Russia does not trust the US?  Absolutely, this does not justify a Russian invasion.  Sure, there was a case to be made for Kosovo. Sure, we might tell Russia they shouldn’t feel encircled--and yes, absolutely don’t take it on any innocents sure to be killed in an invasion of Ukraine--but cognitive empathy requires us to stand back and take stock.        

Taking stock also requires looking at structures and institutions and histories of Russia not just lazily focusing on the singular personality of Vladimir Putin.  Putin is a symptom of recent Russian history, not the cause.  Liberals and Democrats looked for Vladimir Putin behind every one of Trump’s nefarious actions and all nefarious actions worldwide.  (Trump, by the way, for all his strange personal overtures to Putin, was quite concretely hawkish on Russia.)   Tony Wood’s Beyond Putin: Money, Power, and the Myths of the New Cold War is a highly recommended corrective to the facile mainstream obsession with Putin-the-man.  The book does not paint a rosy picture of him, but it depicts him as a creature of and from a particular social-political-economic milieu.  Not only is the singular focus on Putin-the-man lazy and incorrect.  It is convenient.  We are able to just say, “He’s crazy or ruthless,” and not consider--enter cognitive empathy!--the forces that move and shape him, both foreign and domestic (he still might be ruthless but I don't think crazy).  We don’t seem to commit that same error with China.  Rarely do we say “Xi did a, b, or c.”  We tend to say, “China did x, y, or z.”

But, we do commit many errors with China.  There is much to say about our misguided approach to China, but because we are not at the moment saber-rattling with them, I will not go into great detail (I have previously).  However, a couple quick notes. One, we should keep in mind that, between 1820 and 1949, the US intervened in China no fewer than thirty times with “dollar diplomacy,” or “gunboat diplomacy," or helping the British to force opium upon their markets, or forcing them to open their markets to other goods, or many other small invasions/extractions.  Two, at the end of World War I, Woodrow Wilson and the victorious allies gave the German colonized region of China to…Japan.  Blowback occurred in many ways (see Japan 1910s to 1945), but it also occurred in the the form of Mao and the communist revolution. Meanwhile, Wilsonian hypocrisy, dressed in lofty rhetoric, lives on in the US.  (I hope there are no moves on Taiwan--on the Cowpens I had to miss a Sting/Police concert in Tokyo because we were sent to go steaming off the coast of Taiwan during their elections as show of strength. I guess we were successful.  I hope Taiwan and China can live together amicably.  But, a cognitive empathy thought exercise is helpful to understand how China views Taiwan.  You may not agree with China’s perspective or Wright’s analogy, but if we want to lessen the chances of war, it would behoove us to understand.)

The Chinese and Russian states certainly have their crimes.  However, I believe what Martin Luther King, Jr., said in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech--a speech that was derided by the The New York Times, The Washington Post, and by many of his liberal civil rights allies: the U.S. is the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”  Since the end of World War II, from outright wars in Vietnam and Iraq, to CIA coups in Guatemala and Chile, to “Washington consensus”/IMF “structural adjustment programs” and debt-wealth extraction and so-called “free-trade agreements,” it is hard to find a government during these years that has killed, starved, or immiserated, directly or indirectly, more people on earth than the United States has.  All the while saying it is doing the opposite--that it is liberating.

The point is not to keep count or to rank atrocities or to prove that the US (instead of Vladimir Putin) is behind every bad action. I just think it might make our overtures for peace more credible and maybe even more effective. As a citizen of the US, I have more agency with this government--and by extension, some agency with US client states like Israel, Ukraine, Egypt, or Colombia--and that is why I start here. But, we shouldn't stop here either.

Peace! Solidarity!             

"Loyal Sons We'll Ever Be"? Occupy Wall Street, Ten Years On

"Loyal sons we'll ever be. High we'll hold your memory." Alma Mater, LaSalle College High School, Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania

When Occupy Wall Street first set up camp in Zuccotti Park, New York in September 2011, I was curious.  I sympathized with the main thrust of the protest: inequality is bad; we are the 99%.  However, I didn’t (don’t) like confrontation, and I had hoped that the protesters wouldn’t break the law, or make a mess in the park.  I didn’t honestly know what we could do about inequality, and I didn’t want to think too deeply about it.  I had ended up on the lucky side of inequality, for the most part.  Furthermore, Team Obama, whom I proudly voted for, would take care of it, I believed, as long as the Republicans didn’t get in the way.  Trust the process.

I had gone back to work and live at Notre Dame, my alma mater, as the rector of a men’s residence hall, and so I wasn’t close to New York City at all.  But by October, my curiosity brought me to peek at least at Occupy South Bend (Indiana), which had set up camp in the plaza facing the Morris Performing Arts Center, downtown.  If it was over- or underwhelming, or if I awkwardly saw someone I didn’t want to be seen by, I would pretend I was just a passer-by, heading for a coffee at the South Bend Chocolate Company. 

I visited the encampment on a dreary Saturday afternoon, after the initial Occupy energy had waned but before the police swept out the final campers from Zuccotti Park back in New York.  I stayed long enough to listen to some debates on whether weapons would be allowed in the camp--no--and debates about how to hold debates.  I came back one or two more times in the next week or so.  Some of South Bend’s homeless population had joined the encampment.  In my very brief visits, there seemed to be an over-emphasis on procedure, which I found tedious.  There was a heated disagreement one time.  Whatever the subject was, I recall a young man, about my age, passionately highlighting how he had been there longer than the others.  He reminded me that I didn’t like confrontation.  

From mainstream media I couldn’t avoid, from Notre Dame student murmuring in the residence and dining halls, and from my limited social circle, there seemed to be two reactions, if any, to Occupy Wall Street.  One, “Yes, inequality is a problem, but what do those people want?  What will they gain by this?  This protest isn’t helpful.  (Also, Obama is in, so stay cool).” Or, two, “Those people should just get a job, and a shower.”  

The loyal sons and daughters of Notre Dame are the loyal sons and daughters of capital or at least of the professional managerial class.  Therefore, we are not supposed to go to such protests or encampments.  The loyal sons and daughters of Notre Dame are supposed to put their heads down and study during the week, lift up their heads to drink and watch football on the weekend, and graduate into good-paying jobs.  Many are interested in changing the world, yes—“What would you fight for?”  Notre Dame talks a lot about how the school and its people are changing the world.  But the loyal sons and daughters are supposed to do that by raising money to build basketball courts in Jamaica through the “Bookstore Basketball” tournament.  We are supposed to donate extra coats in the fall.  We are supposed to shave our heads for the “Bald and the Beautiful” and grow beards for “No Shave November” to raise money to fight cancer.  We are supposed to build houses in Appalachia over fall break.  We are supposed to do the Urban Plunge in Philadelphia or Chicago over winter break.  We are supposed to buy toys for poorer South Bend kids for Christmas.  We are supposed to travel to Washington, DC, to learn about global “development” policy over spring break.  We are supposed to raise money for the missions in Chile or the schools in post-Katrina New Orleans.  Our undergraduate or graduate research is supposed to engineer prosthetics for veteran amputees or to support women entrepreneurs in Honduras.  When we graduate, some of us are supposed to spend a year and a half in Uganda, as I did, or teach for two years in Catholic schools in Brownsville or Laredo, before we take our permanent places in the professional managerial, if not the owning, class.  There, we are supposed to have ethics in our business dealings, and in our free time, do some volunteering.  When we buy a home and start a family and are established, and perhaps even buy a second home, we are supposed to donate to Notre Dame and maybe even earmark it to the Appalachia seminar or to the missions.  Or to a scholarship program, that can help underrepresented groups go to Notre Dame and rise into the ranks of the owning or professional managerial class.  If they have good enough SAT scores, our sons and daughters are supposed to go to Notre Dame to continue the legacy and virtuous circle.  

This is not to pick on Notre Dame alone--I just happen to know it well.  This is the standard operating procedure of many universities, especially “elite”/elite-aspiring universities.  Everyone at all those universities is apparently changing the world, all the time.  At Notre Dame, there happens to be a Catholic tinge to it.  We may add mention of the poor to the “prayer of the faithful” petitions.  We have a vast body of “Catholic Social Teaching” and a Gospel, and from time to time, it makes us feel bad about the state of the world.  We may go on a retreat to think and pray about injustice. 

Right or left, religious or not, however, a couple things are understood.  One: avoid confrontation and conflict.  Don’t make others or yourselves feel uncomfortable.  Two, which is related: don’t mention labor unions.  They’re for other places.  We don’t need them in our Notre Dame “family.”  (Other so-called “liberal” colleges swiftly become very illiberal the moment there are rumblings of unionization.)  Three: never, at least in a non-eschatological way, imagine a different system.  Especially if you wish to be taken seriously, you must accept, embrace, practice, take your role under capitalism.   

When it comes to the explicit questions of political economy, at Notre Dame and elsewhere, there exists a very limited spectrum of debate.  At the right, the problem is: there are too many capital controls.  There are too many regulations.  Capital needs to be loosed even more, actually, for the United States to be “(more) competitive (again).”  Then, we will reach a fair equilibrium of sorts, and if you work hard enough “like I (or my dad) did,” then you can make it too. Growth is good, as it lifts all boats.  Don’t get in the way of growth.  On the left end of this limited spectrum, we are to tax the rich a little more (but that’s not us!), provide more welfare benefits, and maybe cut the Pentagon budget somewhat.  For overseas problems—we at Notre Dame are so damn global—increase development aid and support human rights.  But, overall trust the process of regulatory, global capitalism.  Don’t question the US-led world order.  Yes, we err at times, but on the whole, we mean well.  Especially with Obama and his best and the brightest whiz kids Ivy League advisors, whose ranks we might join one day, we can manage and engineer the domestic and global inequality away.

If we’re being honest, I think what we are asking--or praying--for is, “How can we change the world without really having to change?”

*

There are plenty of criticisms of Occupy Wall Street.  One of the best shorter critiques came from Greg, a union electrician in South Bend, active in Jobs with Justice.  Noticing that much of Occupy and the Wisconsin state house protests earlier in 2011 was led more by college graduates and white collar workers, he said at a central labor council meeting, “I’m with you.  I’m standing with you all.  But where were you all thirty years ago, when we [more blue collar workers] were taking it on the chin?”  Touché.  Working people of color, especially women, have similar and even sharper critiques: “Yes, but where have you been?”  And so, good radicals, often by necessity, had been ahead of the curve well before Occupy, but Occupy pushed me, at least, finally to think outside that very limited and very manufactured spectrum.  We have to start somewhere.  (Organizer-scholars Jonathan Smucker and Astra Taylor, respectfully, provide two of the better, longer, and very fruitful critiques of Occupy Wall Street.  They praise the conversations Occupy forced and the mutual aid it practiced, in the flesh, but they also push it/us to take the message beyond the park and to organize beyond the choir.) 

Unless you own capital, capitalism eventually comes for you.  It might take another thirty years, or come earlier like it did for Greg, but it comes.  Capitalist logic commodifies every human activity and human being in the name of profit.  Then it cannibalizes that which it no longer finds useful and seeks out new frontiers, both actual and constructed, where it can do the same.  It can be regulated for a short time, but it gnaws away at any leash we give it.  Since Occupy, we have seen how finance capitalism, after laying waste to people’s homes and livelihoods in the 2008 crash and Great Recession, has grown even more powerful and brazen.  We have seen how capitalism outsources, offshores, and then eats up companies in the name of “private equity,” leaving working people in its wake.  How it amasses fortunes in the health sector while millions can’t afford insurance or prescription drugs.  How it outprices long-time residents in one part of a city while divesting from another part of the same city and how it uses race and fear to lubricate that cycle in search of profits.  How it created the material conditions and ideologies that made us choose between public health and the “economy” in this pandemic, as if the “economy” is something that exists outside of public health and the lives of human beings.  How capital played both sides in the 2016 election and then, despite feigned protests here and there, played the role Trump needed it to play while Trump mostly played his part to further enable capital.  How it played both sides in the 2020 election.  How it drives wars of empire and resource extraction and accompanying astronomical military budgets, passed with vast bipartisan support.  How it pushes international “development” on the poor of the world as it continues to suck up the wealth from the global south.  How it has created divisive yet profitable, advertising-algorithm-driven social media universes.  How it restricts any debate on itself and yet convinces us we have a free press.  And how in that press it stifles any meaningful discourse on inflation or supply chains or workers quitting, for instance.  How it refuses to be tamed, how it greenwashes and PRs us just enough, while it continues to extract and lay waste to the planet.  How it creates foundations, donates to universities, and gives to NGOs, not only to avoid taxes but also to de-radicalize and “professionalize” future change-makers.

Was Occupy Wall Street “Socialist”?  Not exactly.  It was probably more anarchist than socialist in its general outlook, but it was certainly anti-capitalist.  Was it “successful”?  No and yes.  No, because here we are.  The police broke up the encampment, and capital continues to reign and ravage.  But yes, because occupying the park was just the tactic--not the goal--and here we are, finally debating capitalism in some corners of the mainstream (not insinuating that Ted McGrath is mainstream).  Or at least, we are naming it.  Capitalism has been so hegemonic that for most of our lives, we have not had to name it.  It is just the air we breathe--and choke on.  “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” (Mark Fisher), yes, but the great science fiction writer Ursula LeGuin provides hope: “We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable, but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.”    

I don’t believe in some “Socialism” that is a fully built operating system out there just waiting to be uploaded to replace capitalism.  I ascribe to “socialism,” however, as a critique of the existing world order.  It is a critique that must always be contingent on the actual material conditions of people’s lives, that must evolve, that must be rooted in radical love, that puts human beings over profit, and that can win power and effect change.  For this radical socialist political bent, I partially credit Occupy Wall Street, now ten years ago, including that ornery, angrier young man who chastised the newcomers about procedure.  One need not be a socialist or a Socialist to change the world (if interested, though, join a chapter).  But, one must commit to fighting and organizing against capitalism.    

It was not Occupy Wall Street, though, that first taught me that capitalism is the problem.  Long before Occupy, from home to grade school to Notre Dame, it was the Gospel, the Hebrew prophets, or the Letter of James, for instance, that gave me the lens to see that capital is the false idol, and it kills.

Dr. King, Dr. Cornel West, and other prophets practice a radical Christian socialism that still affirms the dignity of a Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk and still holds out hope that these "masters of mankind" may repent, but that does not mean we just sit back and pray for change to happen.  Yes, we are a divided nation, but now is not the time for milquetoast “civil discourse “ or “unity.”  We seek radical, loving, organized, justice-seeking confrontation.  There is no change without changing ourselves.  

PS.

Dorothy Day:

“What we would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute--the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words--we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

PPS.: repost: Examples of how “managed democracy” (S. Wollin) manufactures consent (N. Chomsky/E. Herman) and limits debate on so many issues.  

1. COVID/Science

a. Yes, certainly get vaccinated, but the profits/power of big pharma are scandalous: https://theintercept.com/.../bayh-dole-act-public.../

b. NJ Sens Booker and Menendez are just as complicit as Sinema/Manchin and the GOP: https://www.salon.com/.../not-just-sinema-sen-bob.../

c. “In this house, we believe in science” is not good enough.  Science has never existed outside of politics, nor should it, actually: https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/carl-zimmer-virus/

2. Tech/Facebook

a. Facebook isn’t the problem.  Well, it is, but it is much deeper  The problem is surveillance capitalism: https://www.nytimes.com/.../12/opinion/facebook-privacy.html

b. With the unchecked power of "Bit Tyrants": https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1381-bit-tyrants

c. As Silicon Valley mystifies the labor which makes it possible, including the (global south) human beings behind the algorithms/AI/automation: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/.../belabored-work...

d. Two excellent Luddite podcasts to cut through the tech punditry/BS.  (Luddites are not anti-technology btw--they are against the power structure over technology)

i. This Machine Kills: https://soundcloud.com/thismachinekillspod

ii. Tech Won't Save Us: https://www.techwontsave.us/

3. Elections

a. Yes, Youngkin’s win in Virginia is a setback, but the manufactured crisis over "critical race theory" should not slow any of us down.  For one, we educators must not stop teaching the truth, and here is one excellent resource for content/pedagogy: https://www.learningforjustice.org/.../teaching-hard-history

i. But also, it must be noted, “The Republican who just won in Virginia was an executive at the Carlyle Group--a private equity firm that has laid off thousands of unionized workers at the firms it acquires.  But the Democrats couldn’t attack him on it.  Because the Democratic nominee was a Carlyle investor.” (Gravel Institute)  Capital plays all sides, and the people lose.

b. In Buffalo meanwhile, real estate capital made alliances across party lines to defeat the woman who won the Democratic primary.  The Democratic Party cannot make the claim that she was “unelectable” (a la Bernie 2016/2020).  Simply, her platform and movement simply threatened capital: https://www.newyorker.com/.../another-buffalo-is-possible

c. In Jersey City, real estate capital came out hard to back the NJ Dem machine incumbent, but bravo to our DSA-sponsored Joel Brooks who came within 180 votes for a city council seat.  We will keep organizing to chip away, e.g. for affordable housing: https://www.jacobinmag.com/.../new-jersey-city-council...

4. Labor

a. I’m not sure what it means for the 2022 or 2026 or 2030 midterms, but I believe we professional middle-classers should be standing in solidarity with workers on/near strike at John Deere, Kellogg’s, Nabisco, Frito Lay, Kaiser Permanente, Tenet, Warrior Met, etc., and with workers attempting to unionize at Staten Island’s Amazon warehouse, for instance: https://www.commondreams.org/.../after-months-organizing...

b. Stand with the workers, even if in some sectors, they happen to be MAGA.  Stand with coal miners, even as coal contributes to climate change--the miners themselves aren’t responsible for cooking the planet.  The system of extraction/financial capitalism is. And, the road to climate justice goes through worker justice: https://www.thedigradio.com/.../organizing-dsas-pro-act.../

c. “Corporate America wants to frame this as a ‘labor shortage.’ But what’s really going on is more accurately described as a living-wage shortage, a hazard pay shortage, a childcare shortage, a paid sick leave shortage, and a health care shortage. Unless these shortages are rectified, many Americans won’t return to work anytime soon. That’s the real lesson here. I say it’s about time.” (Robert Reich).

5. Inflation

a. And of course, we’re all supposed to scared of the coming inflation, but inflation (like science and tech) does not exist outside of history/politics: https://www.thedigradio.com/.../inflation-politics-with.../

b. https://economicupdate.libsyn.com/china-and-inflation...

6. Alec Baldwin

a. Hollywood/SNL virtue-signaling liberalism is pretty easy.  But, who are the obscured workers behind all the shows we stream from Netflix, Disney, and Hulu?: https://www.jacobinmag.com/.../halyna-hutchins-shooting...

i. Robert De Niro, anti-Trump, yes, but disaster capitalist: https://theintercept.com/.../robert-de-niro-barbuda.../

b. Support IATSE: https://www.labornotes.org/.../shocking-death-set...

7. Trumpism

a. Yes, absolutely fight this brand of authoritarianism, but long ago we submitted to "inverted totalitarianism" (Sheldon Wollin).  Fight that, too:  https://press.princeton.edu/.../democracy-incorporated

8. Supreme Court

a. “When people say that they want expertise that’s beyond politics, what they mean is people who learn in law school to pretend they’re not doing politics and do it anyway” (Samuel Moyn): https://podtail.com/.../behind-the-news-the-reactionary.../

9. War/The Rest of the World

a. On the Afghanistan withdrawal, beware not just the Tucker Carlsons but the Jake Tappers, too: https://www.thedigradio.com/.../the-media-war-w-adam.../

b. In between the big stories, beware the lower hum manufactured-consent on China, Cuba, Iran, Palestine, Colin Powell hagiography, etc.