23 April 2019

An Indefinite Pause for Contemplation and Reconsideration

I HAVE BEEN researching, writing and editing Dispatches from Dystopia and its predecessor Outside Agitator's Notebook since the first week in October 2009. 

But the only lesson I am able to glean from that 108-month effort is,  "why bother?" 

I had hoped my work would be -- as it sometimes was during the 30 years I worked as an award-winning member of the editorial staffs of various newspapers and magazines and as a longtime stringer for United Press International -- a progressive influence. 

But I was  never able to come up with a format  fetching enough to empower either of this blog's incarnations. 

Readership, which peaked at about 3,500 maybe five years ago, fell off to near zero after old age began chronically sidelining me with various geriatric illnesses, and it has never exceeded more than about 1,600 readers since then.  

Indeed the only discernible consequence of my work as a blogger is various forms of harassment, whether by government agents and/or their storm-trooper allies or merely by the inescapable wretchedness that has defined my life since its beginning, I will probably never know. 

Nor does it really matter.

Hence, in this the fourth week after my 79th birthday, I am stopping -- I know not for how long.  I am retaining the Dispatches domain name and of course intend to continue writing, but I am not sure when this new work might start appearing nor even whether it will be journalism or fiction. 

Meanwhile I thank you all for your readership; I am truly sorry I have not been able to serve you and our socialist cause more effectively.

LB/23 April 2019
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16 April 2019

Censorship by Wealth and Stealth: How Our Capitalist Masters Murdered Press Freedom; Why They Persecute Julian Assange

Jailing of Journalist for Exposing Poisonous Depth of U.S. Corruption Forever Nullifies the Pivotal 1734 Peter Zenger Case, Again Revealing "American Democracy" as Our Species' Most Self-Destructive Big Lie 
 
THE PERSECUTION OF JULIAN ASSANGE reduces to used toilet paper the Peter Zenger verdict, the pivotal 1734 finding by a British colonial jury that truth is always the ultimate defense against prosecution for seditious libel. 

And that's just one of the many ways Assange's arrest lays bare the Big Lie of  "American democracy." 

It also adds yet another chapter of atrocities to four centuries of damning evidence that would have long ago reduced the U.S. pretense of "democracy" to a bitter joke in any polity even slightly less dishonest or hypocritical than than pridefully ignorant, habitually hateful Moron Nation. It demonstrates just how thoroughly the  First Amendment and indeed the entire Bill of Rights have been reduced to be nothing more than stage-props. 

Ultimately what Assange's illegal arrest shows us is the extent to which the tyranny implicit in "American exceptionalism" -- an older more euphemistically disguised variant of the bigotry that launched German Nazism -- has again been elevated to the dominant doctrine of U.S. governance.

Given the reality of the Roberts Court -- which I dub "the Robber Court" because I cannot doubt its intent to rob us of the last few remnants of New Deal humanitarianism -- the Assange case is merely another tombstone in the graveyard of U.S. democratic process.

But -- as my Tory ancestors might have told themselves after they were raped and beaten and tarred-and-feathered and harried into exile -- one could hardly expect  better from a nation founded by Southron slave-owners and their New England bankers to protect slavery and  preserve the enormous profits generated by unpaid captive laborers. 

"American democracy" is thus revealed -- at least to the remaining few of us not already brain-warped either to stupefied babbling or submissive silence -- as naught but the most flagrantly dishonest of white Christian Europe's serf-and-slave realms. 

Nor are the horrors   implicit in this damning truth any way diminished by the fact the Imperial U.S. is ruled not by a single dictator, but by a mostly anonymous,  ever-more-omnipotent cabal of plutocrats -- the unapologetically evil upper echilon of the One Percent aristocracy.  

Thus with its malignancy disguised by intricately woven deceptions, the United States has become the most deadly  threat to survival in the history of Planet Earth.

***
 
HERE IS a brief review of Zenger's significance. The Printer's Trial: the Case of John Peter Zenger and the Fight for a Free Press (Gail Jarrow; Calkins Creek: 2006) tells us that after Zenger's acquittal on a charge of criminal libel,  "British governors were reluctant to charge...


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08 April 2019

SitRep #5: Life and Death Under Neo-Confederate Barbarism

(Note: The socioeconomic and environmental Apocalypse is undeniably upon us. But the lies, deceptions and betrayals promulgated by the One Percenters and their minions no longer hide how -- in accordance with their shock-doctrine -- they are using the Apocalypse to impose the ultimate regime-change: the reordering of human society into Neoliberal utopia: Ayn Rand opulence for our masters, serfdom and slavery for the few selectively bred 99 Percenters they allow to survive. The following merely adds to the preponderance of  evidence.)
***

Please Read These Next 3 Reports (Even If You Read Nothing Else Herein)My recommendations as the past week's most vital reports, chosen for how the events and trends define our overlords' intentions and therefore shape our world, the U.S. Empire and the probable doom both of our species and our planet.   

America the BarbaricThe gleeful USian embrace of barbarism is no accident. It is instead an unprecedented national orgy of prideful self-fulfillment, its present horrors mind-boggling, its potential horrors far in excess of those inflicted on our species  by Germany c. 1933-1945.     

How the South Won the Civil War
To understand this is to understand how and why the U.S. Empire is not just "America the Barbaric" but also the de facto Fourth Reich.

 

Ecocide: the Relentless ChristoNazi/Capitalist Assault on Our EnvironmentObviously our Capitalist overlords know Mother Nature always bats last. Just as obviously,  that's why they're obstructing any effective action against Climate Change. They're depending instead on their wealth and mastery of technology to enable them to establish their Neoliberal (Neo-Confederate) dream-world even as the deteriorating environment kills off as many as  7.2 billion women, children and men -- 95 percent of the 99 Percent.  
 

 


 






Imperial Warmongering for God, Profit and Sadistic Pleasure
In Vietnam, the Empire's methodology of global conquest was aptly summarized by the infantry officer who tried to mansplain the necessity of destroying  Bên Tre to save it for Capitalism and Christianity. Now -- having extermimnated whole nations to grant them such salvation -- the Empire is destroying the entire planet to save it for Jesus and his Wall Street puppetmasters.

 



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01 April 2019

SitRep #4: Revelations of Our Masters' Relentless Malevolence

(With socioeconomic and environmental Apocalypse undeniably upon us, there is only one possible reason the One Percenters and their minions sabotage our every effort to cope with the crisis: they are exploiting it to maximize their wealth and power. Already they've reshaped human society to perpetuate their omnipotence, with serfdom and slavery for the few who survive their Final Solutions.  Such is shock-doctrine Neoliberalism – the ideology designed to serve  them even better in a post-apocalyptic future. To view their plans for the 99 Percent, visit a camp of homeless people -- and honor the dwellers therein as involuntary prophets of our probable  fate -- if indeed there is any human future at all. )  

***

Sampling the Indications, 25-31 March 2019
Our weekly dystopian digest of indisputable proof the One Percent is weaponizing both the economic crisis and the climate crisis to restructure all human society into Neoliberal utopia -- absolute power for the One Percenters, extermination of all "surplus" 99 Percenters, hereditary (inescapable) serfdom and slavery for the survivors --  a conclusion hitherto so taboo only one other English-language writer has dared suggest it. (Note: capitalization in the following is as in the original texts.)


Lead Stories: My Top Three Picks for the Most Revealing Works of the Week

 
 


Environment as the Final Macrocosm of Selfhood In an ultimate, literally suicidal spasm of misogyny, the Capitalists abuse our Mother Earth as if she were just another of their battered women or perhaps merely a stray female dog they like to kick and pelt with stones. But abused dogs eventually bite, and Mother Earth always bites last. 
 





The Worst Disease Ever Recorded
What terrifies me about this one is its CBR potential (which for the uninitiated is the military acronym for Chemical, Biological and Radiological Warfare). To see what's so scary, focus for a moment on a broader socioeconomic picture: reflect on the genocidal threat implicit in damning chronically unemployed people as  "surplus workers"...

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25 March 2019

Neoliberalism Kills the Planet to Kill the 99 Percent: SitRep #3

(With socioeconomic and environmental Apocalypse undeniably upon us, there is only one possible reason the One Percenters and their minions sabotage our every effort to cope with the crisis: they are exploiting it to maximize their wealth and power. Already they've reshaped human society to perpetuate their omnipotence, with serfdom and slavery for the few who survive their Final Solutions.  Such is shock-doctrine Neoliberalism – the ideology designed to serve  them even better in a post-apocalyptic future. To view their plans for the 99 Percent, visit a camp of homeless people -- and honor the dwellers therein as involuntary prophets of our probable  fate -- if indeed there is any human future at all. )  

***

A Sampling of Indications,  21-25 March 2019:
More glimpses at the infinity of evidence the One Percent is weaponizing the climate crisis, a notion hitherto so taboo only one other English-language writer has dared even suggest it.

The Future of Climate Authoritarianism Is Now Bad head: the report describes how ruinously the apocalypse has already permanently changed our world.

 
 
 
They already know most 99 Percenters are too ignorant -- or too cowardly -- to organize our  own party.

Exactly as in Karl Marx's time, this is how the Ruling Class responds to Working Class grievance.

Badly written head edited to eliminate misplaced modifier while preserving its message.

How Electronic Media serves the One Percent by fulfilling the evil implicit in the computer's origin. See also here and  here  for why cell phones -- so perfect for metastasizing hate -- can never foment genuine revolution.

Obviously because they're among the One Percenters'  favorite enforcers.

One of the innumerable examples of why anyone who believes Medicare for All can ever be achieved by anything short of  revolution is a deluded ignoramus still imprisoned by the Big Lie of "American Democracy," our species' ultimate  (and most likely terminal) act of self-deception. 
 

As always, the post-Theodosian Christians serve their One Percent masters and fulfill their Abrahamic legacy by waging permanent, often genocidal war on Earth-centered wisdom.
 
Possible good news the ChristoNazis' Robber Court will undoubtedly turn to bad news, another lesson in the necessity of revolution.

In Gaza as in the United States.
 
There's no better place to hide biological warfare than within an epidemic.

Pivotal truth the Democratic (sic) Party would have us forget.

  
 
How Moron Nation serves our masters by diving ever deeper into maximum ignorance.

Why the environmental and economic crises will never be solved by anything short of global revolution. See also here, how the One Percenters and their vassals intend to survive in their accustomed luxury even as they murder us by genocidal impoverishment. Again the prophetic relevance of homeless camps and why instead of demonizing homeless people, we should honor them as involuntary prophets.


*****

Random Notes on This the Darkest Epoch in Our Species' History
Social Media Is Not the Panacea It Seems: a Brief Analysis

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21 March 2019

Neoliberal Shock Doctrine Is Genocidal Ecocide (SitRep #2)

There Is Only One Possible Explanation for the Denial, Dithering and maliciously scripted paralysis by which our Capitalist masters are relentlessly sabotaging every effort to counter the economic and environmental Apocalypse now so obviously upon us.

The moral imbeciles of the totalitarian cabal we know as the One Percent are after all the de facto emperors of the world.  Their shock-doctrine strategy and tactics are obvious both in their obscenely profitable exploitation of the climate crisis and their sadistic intensification of Neoliberal socioeconomic and political savagery. That is why their relentless combination of environmental obstructionism and genocide by austerity1 declares their true intent despite the effluent of euphemisms, lies and disinformation by which they try to conceal it.2

Already they are building personal strongholds and raising private armies to assure their post-apocalyptic dominance. Clearly they believe the brutality enabled by their wealth and technological superiority nullifies our vastly greater numbers. Their dictates prove they intend to exterminate nearly all the 99 Percent and enslave the few of us who survive. Such is their serial-killer scheme to elevate themselves and their descendants to what they imagine will be eternal omnipotence in a post-apocalyptic neo-feudal world.
 
Will these corporate Ted Bundys triumph? They are infinitely more powerful -- and infinitely more evil in the damage they inflict3 -- than any despots who have preceded them on our species' paths of infamy. They have  convinced themselves they can manipulate environmental and economic disaster into weapons to assure their own exclusive preservation. As I said in my situation report of 17 March 2019,  to view our future as it is being dictated by the One Percenters, we need only visit the nearest encampment of homeless people. 

But our masters' misogynistic contempt for Nature blinds them to the fact she alone is the  ultimate decider.  Therein lies our sole advantage. Yet even now -- while there may yet be time to save ourselves by compliance with environmental necessity -- too many of us seem eerily unable to grasp that our only alternatives are survival through internationally cooperative socialism or extinction by continuing surrender to the Capitalist status quo. 

What follows are additional examples of the most terrifying crisis in our species' entire 250,000-year history. These are underscored by yet more proof of the One Percent's definitively  response -- a revelation so taboo only one other English-language writer dares even suggest it. I update it here -- hopefully with maximum provocation -- as often as new disclosures and developments require.

___________________________
1One of many examples of austerity as genocide. Others are here, here, here and  here.
2An especially useful guide to seeing through the euphemisms by which our masters try to hide their murderous intent.
3Pope Francis' denunciation of capitalism as "dung of the Devil, relevant too as compelling evidence of the apocalyptic and probably terminal schism dividing Christendom into two increasingly hostile camps, oft-violent Prosperity Gospel Nazis versus typically pacifist Liberation Theology humanitarians, the latter -- like Pope Francis himself -- also struggling to transcend the patriarchal misogyny and hatefulness at the core of Abrahamic doctrine whether Judaic, Christian or Islamic.

*****

A Presumably Relevant Sampling of Reports, 18-20 March 2019:
 
Why Students Of Color Are Stepping Up To Lead Climate Strikes I have often scorned Yes magazine as a potpourri of irrational if not clinically deluded optimism.  But "Students of Color"  is damn fine reporting. 
 
Christian Charity Gave Over $50 Million to Hate Groups, Report RevealsHow the ChristoNazis expand the theocratic tyranny implicit in "one nation under God."
 



 


 



 
Meet the Press Chuck Todd and the Boeing Blackout    Garbled head as in original: what Todd and his owners hope will never dissuade us from flying the friendly skies of Capitalism. See also this.

*****

Some immediately useful references -- books by writers to whom I am forever grateful -- include: Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism; Metropolitan Books: 2007); Chris Hedges (American Fascists: the Christian Right and the War on America; Free Press: 2006);  Kevin Phillips (American Theocracy: the Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century; Viking: 2006); Jeff Sharlet (The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power; Harper: 2008). Relevant texts of resistance to which I am also indebted -- each a vital step toward revolution -- include The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth (Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor; Harper San Francisco: 1987) and Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature (John Bellamy Foster; Monthly Review Press: 2000). 

Yes, dear readers, this is the new format gradually taking shape.

Parting thought: Some of us must surely  recognize the Shock-Doctrine dynamics evident in the U.S. epidemic of mass murder. The epidemic requires no conspiratorial momentum beyond the deadly toxin of Neoliberalism itself; it is the entirely predictable (and therefore presumably Shock-Doctrine-deliberate) product of the rat-maze-tested rage and alienation spawned by a society that defines humans as nothing more than animations of wealth or poverty.  And now -- just as we the people face an intensifying outburst of hate crime that looks as if it might never stop expanding --  the Shock Doctrine dictates  the deceptively titled and now-probably unstoppable forcible civilian disarmament movement,  thus to manipulate our fear, horror and ignorance into the frightened throw-down-your-weapons-and-run helplessness that facilitates and embraces our overlords' Shock-Doctrine plans to imprison us forever in mandatory pacifism and zero-tolerance compulsory victimhood.    

LB/20 March 2019
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18 March 2019

Ecocidal Genocide and Enslavement of All Surviving Workers: That's the Shock-Doctrine "Final Solution" Ever More Evident in the Neoliberals' Stubborn Refusal to Fight Climate Change

Imagine a Concentration-Camp Planet Ruled by a Hillary or a Trump. Unthinkable, Yes?  But What Other Future Could They Be Planning?  
 
WHEN WE ANALYZE the indications  as investigative reporters and intelligence analysts are taught to do, there is only one possible  explanation for the denial, dithering and maliciously scripted paralysis by which our overlords sabotage every effort to counter the already-apocalyptic and soon-to-be-terminal climate crisis.1
 
No matter how I evaluate the evidence, I find it impossible to escape the conclusion our Capitalist masters long ago decided their "Final Solution" to all the world's problems is to allow the looming disasters to exterminate as many of us as possible. And then impose a zero-tolerance global tyranny more savage than anything our species has ever known, condemning the few Working Class survivors and their descendants to inescapable slavery.  

Thanks to Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism; Metropolitan Books: 2007), the Neoliberal methodology is obvious. Thanks to Chris Hedges (American Fascists: the Christian Right and the War on America; Free Press: 2006); to Kevin Phillips (American Theocracy: the Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century; Viking: 2006); and most of all to Jeff Sharlet (The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power; Harper: 2008); we already know our oppressors' capabilities and intentions. 

We therefore also know our masters are methodically weaponizing the murderously self-righteous patriarchal misogyny, the hateful Christian white-supremacy and the sadistic theocratic malevolence of their increasingly fanatical supporters into a new, terrifyingly global Sturmabteilung to serve as  guards,  torturers and executioners.  

        
A few of us even recognize the Shock-Doctrine dynamics evident in the epidemic of mass murder2 that fuels the now-probably unstoppable Forcible Civilian Disarmament Movement, which is manipulating our fear, horror and ignorance into the frightened helplessness of mandatory pacifism and compulsory victimhood. 

Given how the ChristoNazis and their fascist collaborators are already embraced as allies by the cops and by the imperial war machine,  it is obvious these new Storm Troopers will remain armed -- legally or otherwise -- even after the last firearm has been confiscated from the last non-fascist U.S. household. 

Meanwhile the entire murder-minded rabble is officially encouraged to  prey upon us at will. 
 
But -- until now -- only one other journalist, the admirably courageous Sarah Kendzior, has dared publicly suggest the Occam's-Razor-obvious answer of why our rulers are behaving as they do. Clearly they intend to profit both from the apocalyptic disasters and from the Shock-Doctrine opportunities for genocidal reconstruction of human society -- think  Puerto Rico and New Orleans -- such  events provide. 

Our masters have been quietly smuggling their traveling holocaust of horrors home, one private jetload at a time, since 22 November 1963.3  But now the triumph of the genuinely Nazified Donald Trump and his burn-all-witches running-mate Michael Pence has blown the...

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