The Courage of Nonviolence

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The Courage of Nonviolence manifests in different ways. It can mean the courage to resist persuasion, to struggle against active coercion, the wit to avoid manipulation, or the consciousness to stand firm in contending with persuasion. Every individual has a perspective independent of others. This perspective is a development of infinite variables of influence on a person, completely unique in comparison to other individuals. This creates an inevitable conflict. The odds are that a person will meet another person who has conflict with their own perspective, whether that is in personality, opinion, or objective. The question is how we resolve this conflict.

A person now has the choice to engage in violence, or to not. Violence is the use of forces to physically harm (irritation of one's weaknesses) and thus persuade another individual to conform to, maintain, or occupy their perspective. Some have different ways of justifying violence, whether it be for an objective that they subjectivity hold to be of more value than the person they commit violence against, a conscious justification, or whether it is from shear impulse of fear or anger or even hate. It of these subconscious impulses that are the most common causes of micro-personal violence and it is of these I will first address.

Fear is an instinct that serves of value to us, as is anger, and to some extent hate. They are all devises of the individual, designed to protect the individual. Fear induces automatic responses that remove us from potential harm, physically or other wise. Anger causes responses to prevent further harm in the future, to exploit fear in someone else, or protect one's self from fear or sadness. Hatred is the most basic and feral self-defense mechanism, one that defies definition more so than other emotions. Hatred can be used to protect us from recognizing similar traits in other individuals that we don't like in ourselves, to protect ourselves from the psychic implications of harming others, to protect ourselves from things or people that make us experience feelings we are not comfortable with, or to protect ourselves from many other emotions or conscious realizations that could lead us to conclusions that we are not comfortable with. People hate others who make them feel guilty, people hate those who make them feel inferior, people hate those that they do not understand, all a means of protecting one's self from harm, emotionally, mentally, physically, or even intellectually. These are core devises we use to remain out of harms way. And they are all proponents of violence.

Fear caused impulse independent of conscious thought, as a means of circumventing our typical thought process. It is the dictator of the democratic sanctity of our minds. It seeks to avoid deliberation in an effort to be efficient. The end product is almost indefinitely poorer than that of deliberation. This could be something to be said of conversation and argumentation, something people typically shy away from for the sake of protecting their own understanding, to prevent their own anchor from becoming loose, regardless of what ground it may rest in. Anyway, fear elicits responses that are not conscious. Humans are conscious beings. That is what makes us human, our ability to think independently of our instinct or intrinsic nature. Fear is an animal response. Fear is cowardly. Whether you value bravery or not, there is something to be said in fighting yourself and winning. Their is at least some value in being courageous and opposing a foe who knows you better than anyone and hold more control over you that even you do at times. To refuse to act violently as a cause of fear is by far the easiest to justify logically and condone as wrong. It is however, the hardest to resist. The ability to control our fear, however, is our ability to be human. To give in to that, we now are inhuman, we dehumanize ourselves. In the face of the loss of our inclusion to our race, we must beat back our instincts and refuse to act in fear. Even if that fear is the fear of death itself. That is true courage. Courage is not to be fearless when committing acts of violence. Violence is perhaps the easiest forum in which to fearless, in the security of our own fear, anger, or hatred. To face foes who are so impersonal to us, versus the foes you know the best that resides in you, is not true bravery. To act in the security of these emotions who serve as a buffer against harming yourself as you cause other to suffer. Irreversible damage is done to those who commit harm on others. Others who must occupy this perspective every day must conjure feelings of hate, anger, or fear to protect them from the mental degradation committing violence on other causes us. To refuse to give in to these emotions that sanctify our acts of violence, to allow them to protect us from the responsibility of our actions, is true cowardice. This is true fear. Real courage manifests itself in the face of our final foes. Ourselves.

In the medium of anger, control of our actions would sometimes seem to manifest independent of our own will. It would seem as if someone else is driving us. people who have experienced acts of severe anger describe moments of "blacking-out" and then coming to to face actions they feel were committed independently of their our determination. This is at its core the realization of the instinctual, bestial, residual subconscious being inside of us taking control. It would seem an indomitable foe, like a boulder that roles down the steep side of a mountain, gaining momentum until we are now powerless to stop it. We must move aside or be crushed. Anger causes many other things. Their is a delineation between the anger of our conscious mind, and that of our animalistic inclinations. Conscious anger is the product of conflict with our consciously determined values and that of an outside entity and is under our complete control. It is then only logical to surmise that the use of violence is never a very logical choice in comparison to those that would in the long run prove to be much more productive. One doesn't need to whip a slave into working. One can free him, feed him, and show kindness to him. He will then be inclined to help you split that pile of wood outside as a sign of gratitude or a reciprocal act of kindness, etc., and he will do it with less dissent and more passion than that of a broken man. This is of course only one example, but it holds some universal truth. Kindness will forever elicit the same, no matter how long it takes. The real danger of anger is of the kind we would propose we have to control over. The boulder of our fury can carry us away down slopes of indeterminable depths. But suppose the boulder never got rolling. What causes us to get angry and lose control. Many consciously angry thoughts can spiral out of control and leave us wondering who was driving our actions. It all comes down to conscious control. We must tame the beast that is liable to take control of our actions. This metaphor is not-exclusively one that is based in Christian interpretations of our desire to do evil. It cannot be because my metaphor exclusively condemns violence which the bible does not do so exclusively. However, their is some merit in interpreting the need of many humans to blame their actions on an actor that is independent of themselves. The Devil of the Christian Bible can easily be a metaphor for our emotions and subconscious, one that defines both the role of anger, hate, and fear to cause negative things to happen and as another for the needs an individual has to transfer the responsibility of their actions to another being. Perhaps this is selling your soul to the Devil, allowing your controllable consciousness to be usurped by the uncontrollable impulse of your subconscious. I digress however. The point is that people have the ultimate control over how their anger will affect them. They have the ability to focus anger and to have it mean something other than a manifestation of your individual need to justify an act of violence. We must hold ourselves accountable for what we do rather than allow our anger to protect us from the guilt, or such other feelings, an act of violence against another human causes us.

Hatred is by far our most sinister foe. It can be justified consciously; it can be a virus of our subconscious. It may be argued that it is the easiest or the hardest to insight, it all depends on the context of our hate. I say it is our hate because it is our own. It is our own self's devise to protect us from harm. Do we give in to this cowardice of the self? Because it is truly cowardly to hide within the vestiges of our own hate rather than do battle with our self and come to terms with out actions or with our feelings. True bravery squares off with our own reality, with the reality that is our perspective, that perspective that defines us and changes what it sees. We change for the sake our own humanity or for the protection of another persons humanity. This is true courage, to change rather than to become static and wallow next to the furnace of our hate that keeps us war, to brave the potentially icy depths of self realization and responsibility.

True courage forsakes the safety of our objective hate, our irrational anger, and our cowardly fears. To master these instincts is true courage. Each of these are the sole proponents of violence against others because they justify our violence and protect our minds from the harm it does to our humanity. A true hero refuses to commit violence, even in the face of ourselves. Even in the face of our death.

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Communism

Karl Marx via last.fm

Before I write anything else, some clarifications should be made. This is going to be a long read. It is less of an expository or persuasive essay than it is a topic lecture. Or a hybrid. Humor me.
The governments that have called themselves Communistic have all been intrinsically fascist governments.
Communism has never been seen in the world. It has never been tried. Nor socialism to the extent that it was described.
If the first statement is true, then it can also be assured that Fascism and Communism are mutually exclusive ideas.

Thus, the first contention. The governments that have been erected around the globe over the ages have all come to the same end. A revolutionary utopia of the working class, to the despair and darkness of fascism. Why is this? Some say it is because it is inherent in the ideology of revolution. Many believe revolution simply replaces one class of elites with another. This is consistent with the scientific theory of revolution. One radical regime shall be replaced by another. But of course, I disagree. Instead, I believe that the inherent problem with these communistic countries was not revolution itself, it was the manner it which it was carried out in every instance. This manifests in two ways.

One, the revolutions in all of these countries were led by an elite or a caste of elites, ie. the Russian Vanguard and the Maoist Jesus-Christ-ifacation of the Chairman. These are specifically doctrinal aspects of what Frederich Nietzsche the "over-man" or The Will to Power. They are foundational aspects of fascism as the "strong leader", an example of supreme existence to be modeled by the people. This was why one group of elites replaced the previous tyrannical ones in these countries. They were a ideological and dogmatic interpretation of philosophical communism which meant that these humans were handed too much power and it inevitably corrupted them.

The second point is tied to the first. The number one reason that communism has never actually be tried is because instituting a communist economic system in a society that has hardly gone through the capitalistic phase of human development is inherently going to lead to one thing: monopoly over all capital by the central government, not the abandoning of the idea of capital itself. Ownership to one totalitarian government rather than the abolition of ALL ownership. Dictatorship, economic and political and then social. The rhetorical ideas of Communism are potent and if used lightly will be corrupted in the worst possible ways, because there are parts of the ideology humans as a race are not ready for. Advocating a system of central government, nationalized industry, unity to the point of homogeneity and single-mindedness can only possibly be misconstrued as fascism in the current epoch. Here is why. Marx was not an ideologue. He was a scientist, one who outlined social rules and then a method. The doctrinaire interpretations of Leninist, Trotskyist, Stalinist, Maoist, Fidel-ist (the list could go on)communisms miss the point. The "science of the proletariat" (As labeled in Jack London's book The Iron Heel) IS NOT AN IDEOLOGY. That is what Marx meant when he said "I am not a Marxist". He meant that he did not subscribe to the new reactionary, algorithmic deviations of his science. Strictly speaking, communism is not even a political philosophy. Hegelian influences on Marx were technically very minimal, Marx really only adopted the dialectics, creation through conflict of opposing sides, in the context of his social law of "social evolution” and the historical interpretation of history through class antagonism. This is where the real reason that these governments were not communism manifests. They forgo "social evolution", instead adopting the all applicable dogma of the newly interpreted “Marxism and Leninism”, trying to apply the ideology as an algorithm capable of solving all worldly problems. This is inherently wrong. Social evolution specifically prescribes social developmental phases in between the 'predatory phase of human development' and communism. Not to confuse the reader, but a "communist government" is in itself a contradiction, the goal of communism being a stateless society. There must be a not only governmental and industrial development of the human race, but in that same manner, a gradual individual progress to be a better species. The understanding of the bigger picture, the value of the many over the few, the sacrifice of self interest for the common good must be learned if the human race is going to survive. There are intermittent points that need to be build upon, and by essentially jumping ahead of development, the 'communist governments' developed into a perverse and twisted brutalization of communism.


The time before the Proletariat Revolution in Russia, the early 1900's, during the age when Socialism was understood to be the most progressive of ideas, not an ideology or dogma. If Lenin knew how far he has set the human race back, he would have done it differently. By giving the elites fodder to attack what has been painted as 'communism', the old socialist truths of the 1900's have been lost beneath a propaganda flood of biblical proportions. The image of 'socialism' has gone from the people owning the means of production to becoming aligned with fascism.

I find it interesting that no Nazi Party or an offshoot of it has ever been outlawed in this country, while the Revolutionary Communist Party has bee outlawed numerous times over the past century. It makes you wonder what the elites intend for the people. Is it for the sake of ideologically confusing them to the point that buzz words like 'commie' and 'Nazi' mean the same thing? They seem to have succeeded.

In Defence of Idealism

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Idealism carries a connotation. A connotation that is now used in a similar manner to the one imposed on the word ‘utopia’. The word utopia has been used in mainstream media, and subsequently common discussion, to conjure up images of impossibility, an idea that is unrealistic. And so we have come to the old contest, ideas over reality. Realism has been a common ward of both Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative. The common allure is one of pragmatism, realistic aims and goals, a TRUE understanding, rooted in reality and so on. It is rare in discussions that you will find someone criticizing another’s realism. Often, when someone’s suggestion is denounced as unrealistic, they often go on the defense, claiming that they are realistic.

But here, I choose to contend. My contention begins that just because an idea is “idealistic” doesn’t mean it is not significant if not superior to a “realistic” idea. In fact, realism is useless without idealism, because without ideas, there could be no realistic norm.

Let me explain. Typically, the perceived value of realism is its connection and reality, to our current reality more specifically. But relativity is everything. When someone criticizes a certain idea for being "idealistic", their alternative would be that the person offer a more "realistic" idea. But here is the problem with being "realistic" all the time. It is relative to the reality we have now. It is inherently passive. It is the single largest factor in preventing change. When someone decries an idea as unrealistic, they advocate remaining in this current reality. They advocate fear of change, passivity in ideas, and the overall cowardice by cowering behind the enormity of the reality idealism questions.

Idealism, in contrast, is the basis of all change. In a real world (the irony is not lost on me) example, the idealistic designs of John Locke and then the Founding Fathers succeeded in changing our reality, changing the rules of the world and microcosm we live in. Had John Locke decided to remain "realistic" his radical ideas would instead have been the passive conservative-liberal thought process,
one simply content with quibbling over the most pointless and now relatively insignificant aspects of a monarchy-based society, and freedom absent reality… much in the same manner as most political commentators today act. They are content to squabble about insignificant “ideology-lite” and the most insignificant portions of the organization of our society. Like health-care. We are still worrying about the insurance-companies and not about 10,000 people dying a year from being uninsured. This is like John Locke complaining about someone censoring his article addressing the price of grain in England during his epoch. It misses the point.

The point is not that day to day problems are not worth solving. The point is that we lack the macro-understanding of our reality, instead choosing to operate within it's "realistic" boundaries, rather than exploring "idealistic" ideas like the freedom of press for John Locke and free health care for citizens of the richest country in the world(or simply that dead people = more important than less profit… novelty). More discussions should be held with more contending idealism, less small-minded quibbles over the allocations of resources in an inefficient and inherently unequal and freedom-less reality. We must break down reality, in favor of understanding the root causes of problems, rather than be satisfied with fixes within the boundaries of "a realistic" understanding.

The Orgins of The Modern Advertising Industry

Noam Chomsky via last.fm

Advertising permeates the majority of our interactions with even the most insignificant portions of our lifestyle. Its newest breed is targeting ways to attack our subconscious, subliminally installing conventional mainstream views and values. The most disturbing aspect of this new spawn is evident in its ability to go completely unrecognized and thus unchallenged. Advertising has already won half the battle while we slept in our four thousand square foot mansions. It has convinced us that it is completely harmless, a nuisance if anything. It has attacked our ability to challenge and think. There is one other industry that displayed striking similarities with modern advertising today. This piece will address striking similarities and almost complete parallels between the advertisement industry and the now extinct propaganda industry.

What is advertising? Advertise: to promote publicly; broadcast to increase sales. Advertisement: public notice or announcement. -- The Oxford American Desk Dictionary. Propaganda: an organized program of publicity. -- The Oxford American Desk Dictionary

In the years before Nazi Germany, 1900-1935 specifically, the term propaganda was very openly used, without the connotation it has today. Even liberal intellectuals in the then prospering Socialist party called their newspapers and pamphlets 'propaganda'. It was a rather neutral term until The National Socialist Party took power in Germany. They began to use the conventional tool of 'propaganda' to lie, throw things out of proportion, and thus completely control public opinion. Nazi Germany had not only control of the news, Josef Goebbels was the head of the entertainment industry and fine arts as well. This destroyed the neutral idea that was propaganda and replaced it with radically different connotations. The Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Germany was the single driving force behind the unprecedented rise of Nationalism in Europe in a century. The German people harbored not only hate for the European Jews, but the unwavering belief that they were just. Moreover, this came from the fact that 90% of their interaction was propaganda.

This illustrates the strength of any kind of program that involves public opinion or even economic inclination. In American politics, it is a known fact that the candidate that can put his/her face on more posters or surfaces than his or her opponent, is going to win the election.

Propaganda has not ceased to exist. The open industrialization of propaganda has disappeared. What party does not hurl the brand of ‘propaganda’ at the media of the opposition, and when has the reproach not been hurled back? The term has reached an all-pervading use; the correct application of the term is rare. Under these circumstance, no matter how much the elite would dream doing so, an organized form of propaganda in the interest of the elite is not possible. Simply because, everyone is paranoid of open propaganda of his or her opposition party, and thus acutely tuned to the use of propaganda, seeing it everywhere, challenging it constantly.
This is my contention. The elites have chosen a new medium. They have left the masses to their squabbling, their identity-politics, and have taken the industry underground.

The elites of the capitalist system of bred a new system of propaganda. This new form of propaganda has been allowed to permeate or daily lifestyles. Advertisements adorn bottles, cars, buses, enormous signs, 60% of TV and radio, and other daily objects. The pen you may be writing with may be adorned with a private business. The drive to work is accompanied by enormous billboards along the freeway. The TV show you love and Idol-ize (get it?)is permeated with sponsors and then commercial breaks. The social networking site you use to idly chat and gossip with friends has been completely spread with dozens of ads a minute. It is everywhere.

Advertisement is crucial to the market; it is needed to promote widespread sales and is another venue for competition. Advertisement itself is a large industry, providing jobs, college degrees, market enhancement, competition between firms and even artistic output. It allows any business, should they have the funds, to promote themselves freely and increase sale. It is key to the capitalist system...

Who are these elites? They are the rich, simply put. They are the people who benefit from your exploitation, the people who benefit from your misfortune. They have many names. The bourgeoisie, the aristocrat, the capitalist, the CEO, are all names for the same group of people. They are the ten percent, who wield ninety percent of the wealth and power in this country.

The elites have made a new institution, one who’s task in to lambast the people of America with economic inclination from every direction. The advertisement industry is simply the elites new medium for completely replacing independent thought with mainstream partiality to materialism. These billboards deliver one message. Buy, buy, buy. Consumerism at its finest, blind purchase into the capitalist system, the open exploitation for our joy in visual stimulation.
Advertisement in Modern Society
a. Exploits the masses joy for visual entertainment, the chemical need the human brain has for stimulation, to make profit.
b. Exploits the talents of people in the system to perpetuate its own means i.e. jobs, college, degrees, training the people to make the advertisement for them.

Advertisement has taken the place of propaganda in society. The industry has adapted to barrage us with materialistic goods and new superficial desires and fashions. It has become the new way to train the American people to conform to the devises of capitalism. It has become the new form of "off-job control", an off-shoot of the Tayloristic practices of modern manufacturing, a way to influence our choices and actions in more and more venues of our lives. Advertisement is not just the silly Six Flags man jumping up and down to a bouncy beat. It is a new form of manufacturing desires and needs in the public. It is the new, organized program of publicity of a thousand different interests from a thousand different interest groups. And it is all about how YOU have new attitudes and opinions based on these interests. This subliminal attack on our personal agency will result in the complete dependency on materialism, superficial objects, until we truly will define our worth my the amount of money or things we have. Look in the mirror. Do you not already see glimpses of this specter, haunting your very features?

After all, when the elites are trying to run the show, the last thing they want is interference from the masses. What better way to keep them out of the way than organizing a publicity industry focused on refocusing our attention and lifestyle on things like fashionable consumption and what new toy/tool they will tell you is a "necessity".

Let the people who are supposed to be running the show do so without interference from the mass of the population, who [being unintelligent and ignorant] have no business in the public arena. And from that idea grew enormous industries, ranging from [private] universities to advertisement, all very consciously committed to the belief that you must control the attitudes and opinions, because otherwise the people are just too dangerous.-- Noam Chomsky

Realize what they are doing to you, that is the first step. Then, we must take up arms against it. We must beat back this greedy intrusion into our lives and fight the exploitation that has been so deviously disguised, we must break free.

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Examining Capitalism

It is historical to say that all past systems of government have been discovered to be faulted. It is inevitable that the people discover that there are better ways of doing things, humans have adaptation pre-programmed.

However, by the same logic, the system, now defunct, must have been better than one preceding it. The the consequential functionality is much harder to perceive these days but no less, capitalism had its time.

A system of private ownership and undiscriminating opportunity was something of dreams and utopia in the 17th and 18th centuries. Capitalism was radically different. It was so progressive, it was revolutionary. It was the dangerous, liberal idea of its time, an experiment that was decried as 'Utopian', people thought it would never work.

To truly reach the depth of thought I wish, while still keeping you, reader, in pace with these thoughts, let's have some definitions.

Feudalism: A political and economic system of Europe from the 9th to about the 15th century, based on the holding of all land in fief or fee and the resulting relation of lord to vassal and characterized by homage, legal and military service of tenants, and forfeiture.--The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.

In other words, feudalism was a system that was based on economic and ancestral standing. You can understand why a world of equal opportunity could hold such allure to people who lived their lives the way their fathers did, people who knew their children would till the same land for all their lives. This political system was based on economic hierarchies, Kings ruled lords, lords ruled knights, knights ruled serfs, and serf owned nothing, not even themselves. Now, while that sounds like the majority were living in wealth and social standing, the reality is the ratio of lords to serfs was probably 1 for every 10,000 (approx. number, undoubtedly more) This system was explicit in exploitation of the masses. These people lived on the same land, worked it all their lives, kept ten percent of what they harvested in return for the simple right to live on the land of a lord they had sworn servitude to.

Capitalism: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth. --The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.

My definition will differ, due to the actual functional nature of capitalism. The free market is not exclusively an economic system. Economics, loosely defined, is the manner in which goods and services are distributed. Politics, loosely, are the decisions of how to implement this distribution. They are not mutually exclusive.

The capitalist system is also a social system, as much as the feudalistic system was. I will elaborate later.

However, democracy and capitalism are not synonymous. Democracy can be implemented independent of the free market. This discrepancy leads to one conclusion. American democracy is imperfect. Capitalism leeches the justice, equality, and liberty of democracy for personal gain, much like a parasite.

At the core of the definition of capitalism are the words "free market". This also translates into a free-for-all, which is the full realization of capitalism, little or no regulation of the market. Logically, in a contest, it is inevitable that there will be a winner and a loser. It is intrinsic in capitalism that there will always be at least one divide. Winner vs. loser, rich vs. poor, bourgeoisie vs. proletarian. It is empirically and logically obvious that a free market will leave the majority at the bottom because their can really only be one winner.

I will say this straight. The free market leaves absolutely no one watching the actions of these private interests. This leaves a system of rules, ethical and practical, absent from the system. This is the first way that capitalism becomes a social system. Conservatives seem to think that the answer for this problem is simple. And even better it is constitutional. Religion.

These groups now claim that they are directed and humbled by the "invisible hand" of holy morality. I understand that this is the wrong application of the term, I use it to illustrate the thought process that is behind this choice of ethical dictation. It is invisible. In fact, it is entirely absent. The intrinsic problem with faith-based punitive measures are that they are typically enacted late. This leaves the wrong-doer the "freedom" to act with no direct consequences, at least not in this life. The point of directing the market is so that people, here, is justice.Just as we regulate society (no murder), the market is regulated. For justice, equality, and the subsequent freedom of these to ideas. Leaving the discipline to the after life isn't much of an incentive, especially for people who have all the worldly luxuries to gain for their actions. And thus, things become even more entwined. As the parasite of capitalism continues to drain the equality from Democracy, the infection of sham religion begins to decay liberty. This constitutional right is becoming so unchecked, these vines will soon choke the life from the tree of liberty. Religion leaves too much power in too few hands. Massed religion is by its nature divisive. Not wrong, that is for another essay, but it separates people, adds another layer to the individuals identity and the resulting division. And now it is creeping into places it shouldn't, like government, school, policy, and now war. Refer to this essay: "Jesus Killed Mohammad" by Jeff Sharlet.
It isn't that freedom of religion shouldn't be protected with utmost passion; that is just it, it isn't. Since the majority of people in American prescribe to Christianity, not many remain to stand up for the minorities. So the Christian Right can operate absent of opposition, hiding under the guise of “freedom of religion” while denying others theirs.
But I digress. Forgive me.
Capitalism assures no discipline. It assures no accountability, responsibility, nor does it sponsor justice. This is where, when Democracy attempts to dislodge the parasite, the thing clamps on hard and burrows deeper to avoid extradition. When justice is pursued in this country, money comes before minority, cash comes before casualty, profit before protection of natural rights.
In a system presided over by profit, a morally devolved object by its inherently greedy nature, the inevitable occurs. Democracy is just a word when it goes to the highest bidder.

The final and most terrible aspect of the capitalist system is its naturally global ambitions. The inevitable globalization of profit leads to what Chomsky calls "third-worldization" (pHD = right to make up words), or the division of wealth into high an low extremes. Ten percent of the population lives with ninety percent of the wealth. Democracy is theirs. The inevitable outreach into foreign markets is not only dictated by the search for more profit, it is intrinsic in the production system of capitalism. Consumerism, a topic within itself, sponsors what Marx called the "Theory of Overproduction". In few words, the capitalist means of production produce more consumables than Labor, or the people, can buy back. They refuse to pay the workers enough even to establish consumerist equality. A helpful graphic...

Soon, their is simply no capital in the hands of Labor to buy back material from Capital.

But the truly devastating effect of capitalism comes from the aggressive means by which it realizes profit. The continued globalization of profit leads to world wide "free-for-all" model, where on economy stands above the rest. The de facto economic empire will inevitably lead to the single executive, just as on a national level.

This is a model intrinsic in the functionality of capitalism. The single winner, or group of elites, wills stand above the rest, above the misery and poverty of the third world. And it will come here. Reform means nothing. Charging the brick wall a little slower will still end up with broken appendages. The system is systematically flawed. Being reactionary in nature, capitalism will not simply ave us as the wage-slaves we are today. Things can only go backwards as we accept more more reactionary means of social and economic organization. It will make slave of us all. Slaves to materialism, slaves to profit, slaves to capital, saves to the elite. Is private ownership really a factor in freedom? Maybe in 1776. Capitalism has had its time.

The People

Two hundred and thirty seven years ago, our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence.They signed in the face of execution, invasion, and shame. They did so because they new what they were doing was right. This day has been retold differently every time. And each time to fit the tellers agenda. The right-wing and the left-wing share pride in this day. The day they talk about, varies in the details.

The truth. These men were radicals. The very idea of freedom, independence from the Divine Right of Kings, was revolutionary. This was the next of many revolutions, where the people rose above the exploitation, the separation, the inequality. They made better a system of governing man. In short, in 1776, the idea of private property, freedom of speech, press, religion, and the right to petition and assemble were the most liberal, progressive forms of ideology of the time period. These men stood above the exploitation, taxes taken taken from them with no return from their government. They took a stand against the oppressors, and stood for freedom, advancing liberty's cause just a little bit further.

It has been nearly two hundred and fifty years since the day that natural right was signed into law. It has been nearly a quarter of a century, since men sought to rise up against injustice, oppression, and exploitation. It has been two hundred and fifty years since these men and women stood for freedom. It has been two hundred and fifty years...and the people of America are still not free.

Look to the American man. Look to his daily lifestyle. The man must leave his home in the morning and he must work all day to receive a mere fraction of what his labor is worth. He must come home, labor through the financial papers that demand his hard earned money. He must try to explain to his children why he must leave everyday so early and come home so late. He must explain to them that they too, some day, must make a family and leave for work every morning and come home late every night so that they might earn the wages to keep them alive. The tragedy of this situation does not arise from the fact that we as people must work. All labor is an honor. The injustice is the way that the system deems to distribute the product of this labor of the people, so that there is always someone who will have more. The very fact that a human being, one who we call our equal, is given an unequal share of the product of our labors, is an injustice, that we must tell our children that this is what they must do, so that their children, and their children, and theirs as well must be satisfied with this system.

The poverty of this nation will never amount to the terrible suffering that the people of the third world will experience. The injustices the oppressed people of the world must live under far outweigh the injustice we face here. The exploitation the masses of these countries are subjected to goes above and beyond that of which our people suffer. But I say this to you.

There is only one difference. The injustice, and the oppression and the exploitation of us, the people of the United States of America, exhibits only one difference from these poor, abused people of the Earth.

Here in American, it has been disguised better.

The reality is the the Kings of now still get our money. They still use it for their own means. They still have more influence over policy and politics than we do. they have their interests, one hundred and eighty degrees of ours. To me, international CEO carries only the infinitesimal difference from Kings. There are a lot more of them, and they wear no crown, disguising themselves as equal citizens, while oppressing and exploiting in ways King George couldn't have dreamed.