Book List:
Decline
and Fall of Public Service Broadcasting
by Michael Tracey
The
Clinton Vision : Old Wine, New Bottles
Deterring
Democracy
Well.. what can you say? Ought to be required reading
in schools
READ IT ONLINE
Power
and Prospects
Well.. what can you say? Ought to be required reading
in schools
Anarcho-Syndicalism
by Rudolf Rocker
If you are not brain-washed about the word Anarchist
then you are probably well advised to make up your mind about this book
Out
of the Ashes
Iraq's Murder Regime, and stupid USA cock-ups.
Written by Westerners, it is not entirely accurate or fair. But it is full
of "facts" and a good look behind the scenes. Probably stuff there which
we are not supposed to know.
Hitler,
a study in Tyranny
Especially if you grew up in Germany.... this is
a MUST READ. History class all over again, but with GREAT PARALLELS
to the world today. Propaganda hasn't changed that much. The issues are
still similar, and we still haven't learned
Secrets
and Lies: The Anatomy of an Anti-Environmental PR Campaign by Nicki
Hager
a bit boring but realism strikes!
From
Naked Ape to Superspecies by David
Suzuki (The radio-programme
is GREAT!)
John Ralston
Saul
Avram Noam Chomsky
in deutsch
... Bücher
von Chomsky in deutsch
"In today's world, I think, the goals of a committed
anarchist should be to defend some state institutions from the attack against
them, while trying at the same time to pry them open to more meaningful
public participation - and ultimately, to dismantled them in a much more
free society, if the appropriate circumstances can be achieved."
Noam Chomsky "Power & Prospects" isbn
1-86448-112-9 page 75
Read
the Chomsky archive
Hear
and see Chomsky speak!!
rage against the machine (12
parts) http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/rage/rage-01-144.ra
capital rules: (18 parts) http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/cr/cr-01-144.ra
Class war (17 parts) http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/cw/cw-01.vox
Prospects for Democracy (13 parts) http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/pd/pd-13.vox
The Clinton Vision (22 parts) http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/cv/cv-01.vox
contribute
The
Clinton Vision : Old Wine, New Bottles ... Buy the Book! (with amazon.com)
Read this wonderfully sane book:
Small
Is Beautiful : Economics As If People Mattered : 25 Years Later...With
Commentaries
by E. F. Schumacher
And a MUST-READ is this often excellent
Magazine:
The Z-magazine
$50/yr 12 issues, fax: 508 4570626 (visa) or email
John Ralston
Saul
His book: Voltaire's Bastards
subtitle: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West
When asked why he wrote the book, Saul once said, "I thought I would
write a book which would be the sort of book you're not supposed
to write: an anti-expert book which will be hated by all the ideologues
and all the beneficiaries of the system."
«Ours is a civilization astonishing in the degree to which it
seems to see and to know. Never before in history have there been such
enormous elites carrying such burdens of knowledge. This success story
dominates our lives. Elites quite naturally define as the most important
and admired qualities for a citizen those on which they themselves have
concentrated.
The possession, use and control of knowledge have become their central
theme-the theme song of their expertise. However, their power depends not
on the effect with which they use that knowledge but on the effectiveness
with which they control its use. Thus, among the illusions which have invested
our civilization is an absolute belief that the solution to our problems
must be a more determined application of rationally organized expertise.
The reality is that our problems are largely the product of that application.
The illusion is that we have created the most sophisticated society in
the history of man. The reality is that the division of knowledge into
feudal fiefdoms of expertise has made general understanding and coordinated
action not simply impossible but despised and distrusted.
When we look around at the influence and strength of money, of armies,
of legal officials, or indeed at the ease with which writers are silenced
through censorship, violence and imprisonment, it seems that the word is
a fragile blossom. But one step back from this immediacy is enough to reveal
the power of language. Nothing frightens those in authority so much as
criticism. Whether democrats or dictators, the)i are unable to accept that
criticism is the most constructive tool available to any society because
it is the best way to prevent error. The weakness of rationally based power
can be seen in the way it views criticism as an even more negative force
than a medieval king might have done. After all, even the fool has been
banished from the castles of modern power. What is it which so frightens
these elites?
Language -not money or force -provides legitimacy. So long as military,
political, religious or financial systems do not control language, the
public's imagination can move about freely with its own ideas. Uncontrolled
words are consistently more dangerous to established authority than armed
forces. Even coercive laws of censorship are rarely effective for more
than short periods in limited areas.»
...
There is, I think, an eerie similarity between the present period and
the days when contemporary ideology - what is now called 'neoliberalism'
or 'economic rationalism' - was being fashioned by Ricardo, Malthus, and
others. Their task was to demonstrate to people that they have no rights,
contrary to what they foolishly believe. Indeed, that is proven by 'science'.
The grave intellectual error of pre-capitalist culture was the belief that
people have a place in the society and a right to it, perhaps a rotten
place, but at least something. The new science demonstrated that the concept
of a 'right to live' was a simple fallacy. It had to be patiently explained
to misguided people that they have no rights, other than the right to try
their luck in the market. A person lacking independent wealth who cannot
survive in the labour market 'has no claim of right to the smallest portion
of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is', Malthus proclaimed
in his influential work. It is a 'great evil' and violation of 'natural
liberty' to mislead the poor into believing that they have further rights,
Ricardo held, outraged at this assault against the principles of economic
science and elementary rationality, and the moral principles that are no
less exalted. The message is simple. You have a free choice: the labour
market, the workhouse prison, death, or go somewhere else - as was possible
when vast spaces were opening thanks to the extermination and expulsion
of indigenous populations, not exactly by market principles. The founders
of the science were surpassed by none in their devotion to the 'happiness
of the people', and even advocated some extension of the franchise to this
end: 'not indeed, universally to all people, but to that part of them which
cannot be supposed to have any interest in overturning the right of property',
Ricardo explained, adding that still heavier restrictions would be appropriate
if it were shown that 'limiting the elective franchise to the very narrowest
bounds' would guarantee more 'security for a good choice of representatives'.
There is an ample record of similar thoughts to the present day." It is
useful to remember what happened when the laws of economic rationalism
were formulated and imposed - in the familiar dual manner: market discipline
for the weak, but the ministrations of the nanny state, when needed, to
protect the wealthy and privileged. By the 1830s, the victory of the new
ideology was substantial, and it was established more fully a few years
later. There was a slight problem, however. People couldn't seem to get
it into their heads that they had no intrinsic rights. Being foolish and
ignorant, they found it hard to grasp the simple truth that they have no
right to live, and they reacted in all sorts of irrational ways. For some
time, the British army was spending a good part of its energies putting
down riots. Later things took a more ominous turn. People began to organise.
The Chartist movement and later the labour movement became significant
forces. At that point, the masters began to be a bit frightened, recognising
that we can deny them the right to live, but they can deny us the right
to rule. Something had to be done. Fortunately, there was a solution. The
'science', which is some- what more flexible than Newton's, began to change.
By mid-century, it had been substantially reshaped in the hands of John
Stuart Mill and even such solid characters as Nassau Senior, formerly a
pillar of orthodoxy. It turned out that the principles of gravitation now
included the rudiments of what slowly became the capitalist welfare state,
with some kind of social contract, established through long and hard struggle,
with many reverses, but significant successes as well. Now there is an
attempt to reverse the history, to go back to the happy days when the principles
of economic rationalism briefly reigned, gravely demonstrating that people
have no rights beyond what they can gain in the labour market. And since
now the injunction to 'go somewhere else' won't work, the choices are narrowed
to the workhouse prison or starvation, as a matter of natural law, which
reveals that any attempt to help the poor only harms them - the poor, that
is; the rich are miraculously helped thereby, as when state power intervenes
to bail out investors after the collapse of the highly touted Mexican 'economic
miracle', or to save failing banks and industries, or to bar Japan from
American markets to allow domestic corporations to reconstruct the steel,
automotive, and electronics industry in the 1980s (amidst impressive rhetoric
about free markets by the most protectionist administration in the postwar
era and its acolytes). And far more; this is the merest icing on the cake.
But the rest are subject to the iron principles of economic rationalism,
now sometimes called 'tough' love' by those who allocate the benefits.
Unfortunately, this is no caricature. In fact, caricature is scarcely possible.
One recalls Mark Twain's despairing comment, in his (long-ignored) anti-imperialist
essays, on his inability to satirise one of the admired heroes of the slaughter
of Filipinos: 'No satire of Funston could reach perfection, because Funston
occupies that summit himself... [he is] satire incarnated'. What is being
reported blandly on the front pages would elicit ridicule and horror in
a society with a genuinely free and demo- cratic intellectual culture.
Take just one example. Consider the economic capital of the richest country
in the world: New York City. Its Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, finally came
clean about his fiscal policies, including the radically regressive shift
in the tax burden: reduction in taxes on the rich ('all of the Mayor's
tax cuts benefit business', the New York Tirnes noted in the small print)
and increase in taxes on the poor (concealed as rise in transit fares for
school children and working people, higher tuition at city schools, etc.).
Coupled with severe cutbacks in public funds that serve public needs, these
policies should help the poor go somewhere else, the Mayor explained. These
measures would 'enable them to move freely around the country', the report
in the Times elaborated, under the headline: 'Giuliani Sees Welfare Cuts
Providing a Chance to Move'." In short, those who were bound by the welfare
system and public services are at last liberated from their chains, much
as the founders of the doctrines of classical liberalism advised in their
rigorously demonstrated theorems. And it is all for their benefit, the
newly reconstituted science proves. As we admire the imposing edifice of
rationality incarnated, the compassion for the poor brings tears to the
eyes. Where will the liberated masses go? Perhaps to favelas on the outskirts,
so they can be 'free' to find their way back somehow to do the dirty work
for those who are entitled to enjoy the richest city in the world, with
inequality greater than Guatemala and 40 per cent of children already below
the poverty line before these new measures of 'tough love' are instituted.
Bleeding hearts who cannot comprehend the favours being lavished on the
poor should at least be able to see that there is no alternative. 'The
lesson of the next few years may be that New York is simply not wealthy
or economically vital enough to afford the extensive public sector that
it has created over the post great Depression period', we learn from an
expert opinion featured in another Times front-page story. The loss of
economic vitality is real enough, in part a result of 'urban development'
programs that eliminated a flourishing manufacturing base in favour of
the expanding financial sector. The city's wealth is another matter. The
expert opinion to which the Times turned is the report to investors of
the J.P. Morgan investment firm, fifth in the ranking of commercial banks
in the 1995 Fortune 500 listing, suffering from a mere US$1.2 billion in
profits in 1994. To be sure, it was not a great year for J.P. Morgan as
compared with the 'stunning' profit increase of 54 per cent for the 500
with a mere 2.6 per cent increase of employment and 8.2 per cent sales
gain in 'one of the most profitable years ever for American business',
as Fortune reported exultantly. The business press hailed another 'banner
year for U.S. corporate profits', while 'U.S. household wealth seems to
have actually fallen' in this fourth straight year of double-digit profit
growth and fourteenth straight year of decline in real wages. The Fortune
500 have attained new heights of 'economic might', with revenues close
to two-thirds of gross domestic product, a good bit more than Ger- many
or Britain, not to speak of their power over the global economy - an impressive
concentration of power in unaccountable private tyrannies. and another
welcome blow against democracy and markets." We live in 'lean and mean
times', and everyone has to tighten their belts; so the mantra goes. In
reality, the country is awash in capital, with 'surging profits' that are
'overflowing the coffers of Corporate America', Business Week exulted even
before the grand news came in about the record-breaking final quarter of
1994, with a 'phenomenal 71 per cent advance' for the 900 companies in
BW's 'Corporate Scoreboard'. And with times so tough all over, what choice
is there but to 'provide a chance to move' to the now-liberated masses?"
'Tough love' is just the right phrase: love for the rich and privileged,
tough for everyone else. The rollback campaign on the social, economic,
political, and ideological fronts exploits opportunities afforded by significant
shifts of power in the past 20 years, into the hands of the masters. The
intellectual level of prevailing discourse is beneath contempt, and the
moral level grotesque. But the assessment of prospects that lies behind
them is not unrealistic. That is, I think, the situation in which we now
find ourselves, as we consider goals and visions. As always in the past,
one can choose to be a democrat in Jefferson's sense, or an aristocrat.
The latter path offers rich rewards, given the locus of wealth, privilege
and power, and the ends it naturally seeks. The other path is one of struggle,
often defeat, but also rewards that cannot be imagined by those who succumb
to 'the New Spirit of the Age: Gain Wealth, forgetting all but Self'. Today's
world is far from that of Thomas Jefferson or mid- nineteenth century workers.
The choices it offers, however, have not changed in any fundamental way.»
The
dictatorship of reason ... An
interview ... Language
Barriers ... humanist
and skeptical links ...
Buy
the Book! Its worth it! (with amazon.com)
"The acceptance of corporatism causes us to deny and undermine the
legitimacy of the individual as a citizen in a democracy. The result of
such a denial is a growing imbalance which leads to our adoration of self
interest and our denial of the public good. Corporatism is an ideology
which claims rationality as its central quality. The overall effect on
the individual are passivity and conformity in those areas which matter
and non-conformist in those which don't."
From Saul's Book The Unconscious Civilization
John Ralston Saul's opener is that "we cannot live in democracy if
we don't believe
that debate is a central part of our life." He suggests that within
this debate "most ideas
should be apolitical and without partisanship." However, what is happening
right now
is the opposite: "The only ones who participate in the public sphere
are those who
have a vested interest in it." This is because our so-called "democratic"
society is in
fact a corporate society that revolves around "on-going negotiations
between interest
groups and 'specialists' like scientists, writers, journalists, and
business people..."
According to Ralston Saul, this results in "a public debate that is
noisy, but empty."
Why empty? "Because the only people missing from the public debate
are the citizens,
who are in fact the experts" and the ones, he adds, who should
be participating.
"Corporatism is not in itself a bad thing, adds Ralston Saul, but it
cannot be dominant."
Rethinking social structures, giving the citizen a central role to play,
allowing real
debates to take place... These are challenges the media
should be embracing. And
the role of the journalist in all of this? Ralston Saul has a ready
answer: "People are
extremely intelligent. That is the reason why we live in a democracy.
Therefore your
job is not to simplify information treat people as if they were
stupid, which is
catastrophic but to clarify information."
Jean Paré picks up on this point: "Our role, as journalists,
is to deconstruct all the
discourses, and to re-construct them accurately in order to re-construct
reality." In
Paré's opinion, every communication act is a "synthetic and
artificial construction"
constructions, moreover, that are all too often fabricated by public
relations experts
and what he terms "information manipulators." It is these latter that
worry Paré the
most, because they "mask" reality.
Prime examples of this "masking" of reality are when reporters talk
about "health-care
workers taking over from the health care system" when they mean to
say "the
government couldn't care less about the sick," refer to the President
as "a spin doctor"
as opposed to "a liar," or speak of the "opening up of markets" as
opposed to "massive
privatization." Paré insists that "when reporters use the words
of politicians, unions, or
special interest groups, they become that politician, union, or special
interest group."
As a result, reporters end up serving the "masters of the world," and
perpetuating the
inoculation of the public against the truth.
Worse still, concludes Paré, they inoculate the public against
information itself...
Following on from McLuhan's "the medium is the message, we have entered
the era of
"the word is the spin."