There's areason why capitalism was contrived by a white male merchant from Scotland....

Ohhh capitalism...your like that itch that wont go away and is responsible for millions of deaths. Or that burning sensation that just won't go away....what were we thinking getting involved with you? Penicillin won't fix this one, unfortunately, it will take immense class struggle, solidarity, and organizing to cure this disease. But like any diseases there are side effects that might by unseen, hidden by the more painful or prevalent symptoms. One of capitalism's most prolonged and socially damaging side effects has been the perpetuation of the myth of meritocracy to the point were it mirrored what Durkheim would marvel at as a homogeneous collective consciousness of capitalism. That is to saw we have ingrained capitalism into our mindset and inoculated against "socialistic" concepts and mental tendencies. In the arena of ideas in the American mind set meritocracy is the grand champ, of course it took the Tonya Harding approach of winning the gold. Meritocracy is defined as "Governance by elites who deserve to wield power because they possess merit (defined as 'intelligence plus effort') instead of by those who merely possess wealth or belong to privileged classes." (From www.businessdictionary.com) Of course its not the wealthy end of the spectrum that the mythological meritocracy rides his winged stallion to swoop in and defeat. Its the down trodden who are trampled by meritocracy's heavy hand when they raise a protest as to the conditions they are forced to live in. Of course like all myths, someone has to be decapitated before its over. Since the mid-1970's its the incensed poor and working poor whose wages have been forced to stare into the eyes of Medusa and remain stagnant. This while the Grendel-like creature known simply as globalization swings his club of deindustrialization and defecates gentrification onto every block. And like the 12 dwarfs we wait for prince charming and his marauding band of [insert political party affiliation] to make our world a better place to live. And its all because we were to damn lazy to fight back or to work harder! Really, come on working poor, 15 year old Vietnamese debt-slaves will do the work for .45 cents an hour while being threatened with rape and beatings by their Nike, Sony, and Apple overseers. You really think you can keep your job at minimum wage AND get sick days.....you should be thankful for having a job period. I mean if you work hard enough you can own the company right.....right....NAH just kidding get away from me with your food stamps.

If only it was framed this way. Instead meritocracy is instilled in the lives of millions of school kids daily not just in their history classes but in the science faires, in the football games, in all of this we frame the world around this individualistic threshing in which those who work hard succeed and those who fall to the ground can count themselves as the only source of their peril. Take for example drug use.

Meritocracy says: "Addicts and abusers got to where they are based on their flawed moral character and poor decision making. Had they been more observant and long-sighted in their decision making, had they been stronger willed they wouldn't have succumbed to drugs, alcohol, or other addictions."

Reality is however, poised to tell us a different story. A story Elliot Currie enlightens us with in his piece "The Futile War on Drugs." In explaining the fermentation of a culture of drugs and savage individualist capitalism which has arisen in concentrated urban minority communities Currie states. "The transformation of poo communities has, in shot been cultural as well as structural- involving subtler changes in values and attitudes as well as massive shifts in economic opportunities and standards of living." whoever he is quick to point out that the perceived savagery of this cultural shifts is in fact a "somewhat distorted version of the values that came to dominate all too much of mainstream economic life." So by the time of the "drug boom" of the mid-80's what a young minority man saw when he had the opportunity to meditate on his future was inconceivable unemployment or under employment, a lack of or non-existent government subsidized assistance to keep him from falling into poverty, gentrification pushing him farther and farther away from what is left of his community and social safety net, and a well to do white man in every SUV that drives down the freeway that dissects his neighborhood. I'd love to see John Wayne over come that one.

The difference here is one of methodological perspective, one sees the world through the lens of a social Darwinists individualistic ego-centrism. That is to say its always the wealthy who proclaim their own individual skills and merit as the harbingers of their wealth. Poor people tend not to proclaim, "if only I weren't so lazy and worked 16 instead of 12 hours a day, then I wouldn't be AS poor." The other methodological perspective views social trends and outcomes as the output of a system construed by a select few in which public policy, mass media, and funding is the scaffolding that erects what it pleases. In their analysis of the socio-economic roots of homelessness Timmer, Eitzen, and Talley state that, "the urban homeless problem is fundamentally a housing problem." That is the diagnosis is a condemnation of the system rather than the patient. It would be ridiculous for a physician to blame a patient for getting sick if they knew they were exposed to pathogen X or Y. Yet, this is what the myth of meritocracy perpetuates.

So how to do you kill the myth, by killing its hero. According to Timmer, Eitzen

"All government is big government, the question is big government for whom?" Howard Zinn

Ohhhh Mother Jones you make your name sake proud

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

If anyone hasn't seen this magazine its possible one of the brightest beacons of true investigative journalism in America. Take a look, poke around, enjoy!

R.I.P. Troy Davis

The laws protects those who fund it, the rest of us are doomed to fear it. Last night an innocent man lost his life to the whims of the state and its dogs of violence and oppression.

"The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice." Emma Goldman

Class Solidarity: The Have-nots save a life, the suit checks his cell phone

After class yesterday I went to grab a coffee with some friends and they were talking about a story being perpetually replayed on the news. It was the story of a motorcyclist in Salt Lake City trapped under a burning car after an accident. By standers gathered together and through combined will and strength lifted the car so that they could pull the motorcyclist from under the wreckage and too safety. Below is a link to the amazing video.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CNN?blend=1&ob=5#p/u/25/cZw32VQ1JEU

I posted the CNN Piers Morgan version for a reason. Even today catching snippets of the news new one is making a class analysis of the video. Look at the dress and try to generalize a certain class distinction of the people immediately moving towards the effort to lift the car. Its clear at least three are construction workers, a clearly working class distinction. One is also a woman and as we learned in our discussion last night women are in the vast majority of working class distinction. One of the men interviewed is a Doctoral student at a local university, thus as a student in relation to power structure we can place him in the lower middle and even working class. Now take a look at the video again, notice the man in the suit at the left end of the screen. I think its safe to assume by this mans demeanor (analyzing his cultural capital at a glance) and his dress he is either stable middle class or even in the wealthy class. He does not make a single move to aid the effort in moving the vehicle, not even a step forward. Instead he checks his cell phone. Also to the actions of the police officer. He doesn't initiate the effort to move the vehicle, no he tries to keep people away, yes he does eventually assist but then if you pay close attention he then afterwards tries again to move people away. I don't find him as guilty of negligence as the man in the suit but its an interesting reaction when you analyze his place in the power structure of society.

To me I think the really positive picture here is not just a humanist impulse to save a fellow human being but this was truly an example of class solidarity. In the Marxian sense it seems less predominant that any of these men and women thought to themselves, "That's a working class biker under there! Let save him!" I don't intend on making that argument. Instead its a matter of cultural class distinction that the victory is won. When we discuss cultural capital we tend to focus on the negative side of the discussion, the hamstring cultural capital delivers to the working class, the valued since of high class cultural capital, etc. But there is a well-spring of positivity to working class culture even without romanticizing it! The culture that arises from an environment of minimal autonomy, thrift, constant work, etc is one of mutual aid. One that focuses on the benefit of "having each other back." Its in my opinion the saving grace of the working class and I hope will one day be the tool we use to organize our selves to create a better world.

What do you think? Is this over analyzing? Or do you see something similar in this story?

A great human rest while we continue to fight

This is a bit late but I think this is a man worth noting. Stetson Kennedy was note an academic, he wasn't an organizer, he was an agitator; less concerned with tenured nature of his work as the fire it creates. Kennedy helped create the modern Anti-facist and Anti-racist movement of today. A link to his obituary is below. It is up to us to take up the mantel of his fight against racism and fascism in America,


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/us/30kennedy.html

"Property is theft" P.J. Proudhon

http://www.zcommunications.org/revolt-of-the-elites-by-frank-pasquale

Frank Pasquale is a Professor of Law with a focus on Health Care Regulation and Enforcement at Seton Hall University. We writes here an article that aims at sobering not the general population but the advocates and "activists" who seem to be pointing their megaphones in the wrong direction. Pasquale describes the current world wide upheaval as one that sets the top murder-bankers as the "Robbin Hood" character as portrayed by their loyal dogs of information wars in the media. As such it is the capitalist who is beaten down by the billy club of regulation and taxation who if given his freedom from the club of social responsibility would create a world of......oh wait were living in their world. But if we give them more freedom and more subsidies they will fix everything  and make sure and make sure everyone has a jo.....oh wait realistic unemployment is in the double digits. Well, they'll make sure things are still produced efficiently and that every table has a loaf of brea........wait recent estimates have the Somali famine as set to destroy over 75,000 lives. BUT THOSE DAMN PIRATES ARE RUTHLESS THUGS STEALING OUR PRECIOUS...oil. Pasquale goes into a recollection of many previous thinkers who foresaw what society would become and how government, military, and business have blurred into one repressive tool used to massacre and starve the workers and disposed in order to acquire comprehensible fortunes, militarize society to more efficiently squelch any social revolts of the lower classes, and mind sludge the population with media and consumption to divert attention.

For a fightening and gut wrenching look into the militarization of the police force and the creation of a security states policy becoming internationalized Jesse Strauss has a wonderful article written for Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/08/20118301581793156.html

A short intro to the eulogy of brevity

My name is Kevin Cordeiro, at the moment I'm in my final year of a bachelors in History. This after a bit of an ideological fall out with the education department. (someone got called a naive puppet of the for-profit education boss-bourgeoisie more interested in the inflation of white middle class students sense of noblese oblige then solving any real problems with the factory education system.) I'm hoping to move on to a graduate degree in secondary education in history from either an out of state or international school. My goal is to research and implement a means of involving local gangs within their local schools and emphasizing their positive aspects while addressing the grievances that bring the gang together in a hopes of debasing the gang hierarchy and shifting it from a  vessel of drug trade and territorial battles to a means of organizing local youths around direct action and autonomous solutions to the struggles of the working and lumpen classes. Its a thesis that needs refinement but one thing that is concrete is that I by no means intend for this to be some far fetched process of assimilation or integration of local gangs into the state-run school apparatus. Instead I see the school as a means of working outside the state and in some ways against it and its owners by taking advantage of the situations and environment produced by the factory school system. In other words, sabotage. I've been a member of the local providence Industrial Workers of the World since 2009, I'll admit I'm a tad behind on paying dues. From my time with the IWW I have had the extreme luck of working with such wonderful people and organizations as RI Jobs With Justice, DARE, ONA, and Libertalia. It was also through the Wobs that I was introduced to the theories and actions of another cause of passion for me, Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist Action. On the lighter end of the spectrum I have a Fell Terrier named Chomsky and am a 3rd generation soccer hooligan. Seeing as how this is my second to last semester I'm hoping it will be a great one.