Re-Orientation

EDITED AND HOSTED BY THE GREANVILLE POST n the preface to his last and perhaps most significant work , Andre Gunder-Frank cited what he called “ Fairbank ’ s Rule No .
2 ” : “ Never try to begin at the beginning .
Historical research progresses backward not forward… Let the problems take you back.
” My mother was a forensic photographer .
One of her less appetizing assignments was for the record of corpses returned from Jonestown , Guyana , after what has since been billed as a mass suicide by a bizarre religious sect led by an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these pages have implicitly followed that rule and perhaps derive from that inclination to the historical that all forensics involves .
I have already argued in previous essays that the ruling elite in the West — let us call them the owners of NATO for simplicity — by virtue of their education and indoctrination possess a degree of consistency and determination which is not generally shared among the bulk of the far less organised population .
Wealth and power permit not only an exercise of the will but a formation of interests which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ duration than the desires of ordinary people who are managed by advertising or police .
If we continue to assume that the ruling elite has a rationality that is coherent with that of the broad mass , the majority of the population , we deny ourselves the vantage point needed to understand events through the past .
Of course , it is easy to get lost in debate as to the constitution of the ruling elite , to attempt to disaggregate groups and interests to show — as normative political scientists and sociologists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ short-lived or impossible because of intra-elite competition .
This is part of the same theoretical apparatus used to justify the current economics ideology — marginalism .
With the nominal end of the Western chattel slavery regime , the ideology of white supremacy upon which it became based was modified .
That was the real intellectual accomplishment of what was later called in the US the “ Progressive Era ” .
Progressivism became the dominant Western ideology by the end of World War I and the military-industrial complex became the standard bearer of that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what passes for “ Left ” in the US and has always been the underlying philosophy of liberalism .
Hence when all debate transcripts are read and/ or burned it is the progressive consensus that maintains Western empire , led by the Atlantic alliance .
Progressivism is embedded in modern mass media and its particular form of communication — one which is ultimately military and not democratic in nature ( unless one means the form of democracy tied to the slavery system ) .
Given the foregoing , the problem that should now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ produced by the incidence of an illness known popularly as the “ corona virus ” , a kind of influenza detected in central China , in or around the major city of Wuhan .
The result of this detection has been a combination of central government measures and a mass media saturation , which together make it impossible to assess with absolute certainty what has happened and the degree of seriousness or urgency ; i.e.
, the risk involved .
The temptation is to look for the origin , the beginning of it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both present and future .
However , it may be more fruitful to look at the essential problem created and work back to the range of issues upon which this problem is based .
The essential problem is not new , but it has become critical for the West .
From the end of the Opium Wars in the first half of the 19th century until 1949 , China was practically a tribute state of the Western powers .
In 1949 the People ’ s Liberation Army under Mao Tse Tung and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last of the tributary forces led by Chiang Kai-Shek .
Chiang had seized control of the Kuomintang , the original nationalist organisation led by Sun Yat-sen and driving out the communists made it into an instrument of European collaboration until the Japanese invasion in 1937 .
The Kuomintang was driven to the island of Formosa where they remain today .
Until Richard Nixon was elected POTUS in 1968 , the People ’ s Republic of China had been formally isolated from all international fora .
Following US diplomatic recognition and its replacement as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Security Council , successive leaders of the People ’ s Republic of China have promoted the industrial modernisation and development of the country .
This meant expansion of foreign trade — also to obtain resources insufficiently available domestically — and increased exchange to obtain know-how and increase goodwill .
The Western empire , both its North American and European components , saw the opening of China as a vast new opportunity to deindustrialise and further undermine the organisation of their own working class and unemployed — in the interest of higher profits as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Whereas in the 19th century the West destroyed Asian industry to promote its own factory system , now the West was using China to destroy its own aging factory system , not for modernisation but for wealth extraction .
The intensification of this process only became possible after 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet Union .
Until 1989 the Soviet Union was the most crucial ideological challenger to the Anglo-American system of piracy and plunder .
It was visible , linguistically assessable and although incapable of expansion given NATO forces on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inspiration for the newly emerging independent states — the former colonies and protectorates of Euro-American empire .
Once European state socialism had been overthrown , Progressivism could rejuvenate its imperial attributes .
Hence Progressives defended , even advocated , the destruction of Yugoslavia and the dismantling of social infrastructure that had been created as bulwarks against local socialist demands ( going back to Germany ’ s “ progressive ” , Otto von Bismarck , the original author of that country ’ s social security programs ) .
The collapse of the Soviet Union @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-imperial struggle in what was once called the Third World left China as the only communist country on the planet .
Contrary to Western expectations the industrial penetration of China was unable to dislodge the Chinese Communist Party or its claims to Chinese sovereignty .
China ’ s sovereignty has what might be called natural causes .
With some 20 per cent of the world ’ s population in the fifth largest national territory , it is virtually self-contained .
However , like all large populations in history , adequate distribution of food @ @ @ @ @ @ @ challenge , aggravated by the great size of the country and complexity of logistical tasks to be accomplished .
For most of recorded history China has been the centre or the fulcrum of world population and society .
One would not know that from any history classes or books and other media in the West .
In fact , one only has to look at the standard Mercator projection to see the way in which China has been presented to the West — despite the fact that Europe was an insignificant population of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peninsula until about 1600 .
Returning to the problem : ostensibly it is the incidence of an influenza strain in the world ’ s most populous nation and meanwhile second largest economy ( whatever that really means ) .
Since this incident with a reported toll of deaths and infections , not even approaching the constant annual death toll in the US for ordinary surgical procedures or common influenza , the major corporate and state propaganda instruments of the West — including especially the BBC which still profits from widely held if misguided @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China as the source of an outbreak comparable to bubonic plague .
Some 200 – 300 deaths have been presented as an impending extinction event .
Thus magnifying the already cultivated fear that China ’ s development will trigger the climate catastrophe St Greta is preaching .
Unlike Western governments that routinely deny the existence or risk of the illnesses and hazards that arise in their territories — unless there is pecuniary advantage in their exaggeration — the Chinese government has taken what measures which would be impossible in the West , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this writing it is impossible to say how long these measures will remain in effect .
They are public health measures of a basic nature that amaze and awe simply by the scale in which they have been imposed .
Thus we see the degree of social and political organisation which China has developed for protecting 50 million people in Hubei Province where Wuhan ( population 11 million ) is located .
If one takes a country in the West of comparable size , let us say the United Kingdom , one can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are .
Or perhaps we should say that organised selfishness for the benefit of whites — the guiding principle of Western “ civilisation ” — is incompatible with the very notion of public health and welfare .
`` Contrary to Western expectations the industrial penetration of China was unable to dislodge the Chinese Communist Party or its claims to Chinese sovereignty ... '' Nonetheless , the events in China are disturbing .
They do not reflect on China but on the West .
If one goes from the apparent problem , an influenza @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to the historical context in which it arose , then it is necessary to see the current conflict honestly .

EDITED AND HOSTED BY THE GREANVILLE POST
by T.P. Wilkinson
OpEds
I
n the preface to his last and perhaps most significant work, Andre Gunder-Frank cited what he called “Fairbank’s Rule No. 2”: “Never try to begin at the beginning. Historical research progresses backward not forward… Let the problems take you back.” My mother was a forensic photographer. One of her less appetizing assignments was for the record of corpses returned from Jonestown, Guyana, after what has since been billed as a mass suicide by a bizarre religious sect led by an American named Jones. My arguments in these pages have implicitly followed that rule and perhaps derive from that inclination to the historical that all forensics involves.
The Corona Virus pandemic, an induced huge socioeconomic dislocation in China, argues the author, can trace its roots to a Western tradition of unrepentant and uninterrupted colonialism, enforced by any means necessary.
I have already argued in previous essays that the ruling elite in the West — let us call them the owners of NATO for simplicity — by virtue of their education and indoctrination possess a degree of consistency and determination which is not generally shared among the bulk of the far less organised population. Wealth and power permit not only an exercise of the will but a formation of interests which are far more focussed and of longer duration than the desires of ordinary people who are managed by advertising or police. If we continue to assume that the ruling elite has a rationality that is coherent with that of the broad mass, the majority of the population, we deny ourselves the vantage point needed to understand events through the past.
Of course, it is easy to get lost in debate as to the constitution of the ruling elite, to attempt to disaggregate groups and interests to show — as normative political scientists and sociologists do — that concerted behaviour is ultimately short-lived or impossible because of intra-elite competition. This is part of the same theoretical apparatus used to justify the current economics ideology — marginalism. With the nominal end of the Western chattel slavery regime, the ideology of white supremacy upon which it became based was modified. That was the real intellectual accomplishment of what was later called in the US the “Progressive Era”. Progressivism became the dominant Western ideology by the end of World War I and the military-industrial complex became the standard bearer of that ideology. It remains the ideology of what passes for “Left” in the US and has always been the underlying philosophy of liberalism. Hence when all debate transcripts are read and/ or burned it is the progressive consensus that maintains Western empire, led by the Atlantic alliance. Progressivism is embedded in modern mass media and its particular form of communication — one which is ultimately military and not democratic in nature (unless one means the form of democracy tied to the slavery system).
Given the foregoing, the problem that should now take us back is the current panic produced by the incidence of an illness known popularly as the “corona virus”, a kind of influenza detected in central China, in or around the major city of Wuhan. The result of this detection has been a combination of central government measures and a mass media saturation, which together make it impossible to assess with absolute certainty what has happened and the degree of seriousness or urgency; i.e., the risk involved.
The temptation is to look for the origin, the beginning of it all and then to argue the consequences both present and future.
However, it may be more fruitful to look at the essential problem created and work back to the range of issues upon which this problem is based.
The essential problem is not new, but it has become critical for the West. From the end of the Opium Wars in the first half of the 19th century until 1949, China was practically a tribute state of the Western powers. In 1949 the People’s Liberation Army under Mao Tse Tung and the Chinese Communist Party succeeded in expelling the last of the tributary forces led by Chiang Kai-Shek. Chiang had seized control of the Kuomintang, the original nationalist organisation led by Sun Yat-sen and driving out the communists made it into an instrument of European collaboration until the Japanese invasion in 1937. The Kuomintang was driven to the island of Formosa where they remain today.
Until Richard Nixon was elected POTUS in 1968, the People’s Republic of China had been formally isolated from all international fora. Following US diplomatic recognition and its replacement as “the” China in the UN Security Council, successive leaders of the People’s Republic of China have promoted the industrial modernisation and development of the country. This meant expansion of foreign trade — also to obtain resources insufficiently available domestically — and increased exchange to obtain know-how and increase goodwill.
The Western empire, both its North American and European components, saw the opening of China as a vast new opportunity to deindustrialise and further undermine the organisation of their own working class and unemployed — in the interest of higher profits as always. Thus a strange reverse occurred. Whereas in the 19th century the West destroyed Asian industry to promote its own factory system, now the West was using China to destroy its own aging factory system, not for modernisation but for wealth extraction. The intensification of this process only became possible after 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Until 1989 the Soviet Union was the most crucial ideological challenger to the Anglo-American system of piracy and plunder. It was visible, linguistically assessable and although incapable of expansion given NATO forces on all its outer borders, still an inspiration for the newly emerging independent states — the former colonies and protectorates of Euro-American empire.
Once European state socialism had been overthrown, Progressivism could rejuvenate its imperial attributes. Hence Progressives defended, even advocated, the destruction of Yugoslavia and the dismantling of social infrastructure that had been created as bulwarks against local socialist demands (going back to Germany’s “progressive”, Otto von Bismarck, the original author of that country’s social security programs).
The collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the strangling of the anti-imperial struggle in what was once called the Third World left China as the only communist country on the planet.
Contrary to Western expectations the industrial penetration of China was unable to dislodge the Chinese Communist Party or its claims to Chinese sovereignty.
China’s sovereignty has what might be called natural causes. With some 20 per cent of the world’s population in the fifth largest national territory, it is virtually self-contained. However, like all large populations in history, adequate distribution of food, housing and amenities has been a challenge, aggravated by the great size of the country and complexity of logistical tasks to be accomplished. For most of recorded history China has been the centre or the fulcrum of world population and society. One would not know that from any history classes or books and other media in the West. In fact, one only has to look at the standard Mercator projection to see the way in which China has been presented to the West — despite the fact that Europe was an insignificant population of nut and berry eaters on the Eurasian peninsula until about 1600.
Returning to the problem: ostensibly it is the incidence of an influenza strain in the world’s most populous nation and meanwhile second largest economy (whatever that really means).
Since this incident with a reported toll of deaths and infections, not even approaching the constant annual death toll in the US for ordinary surgical procedures or common influenza, the major corporate and state propaganda instruments of the West — including especially the BBC which still profits from widely held if misguided trust around the world — has presented China as the source of an outbreak comparable to bubonic plague. Some 200 – 300 deaths have been presented as an impending extinction event. Thus magnifying the already cultivated fear that China’s development will trigger the climate catastrophe St Greta is preaching.
Unlike Western governments that routinely deny the existence or risk of the illnesses and hazards that arise in their territories — unless there is pecuniary advantage in their exaggeration — the Chinese government has taken what measures which would be impossible in the West, even under conditions of World War. At this writing it is impossible to say how long these measures will remain in effect. They are public health measures of a basic nature that amaze and awe simply by the scale in which they have been imposed. Thus we see the degree of social and political organisation which China has developed for protecting 50 million people in Hubei Province where Wuhan (population 11 million) is located. If one takes a country in the West of comparable size, let us say the United Kingdom, one can see how incompetent Western political organisations really are. Or perhaps we should say that organised selfishness for the benefit of whites — the guiding principle of Western “civilisation” — is incompatible with the very notion of public health and welfare.
"Contrary to Western expectations the industrial penetration of China was unable to dislodge the Chinese Communist Party or its claims to Chinese sovereignty..."
Nonetheless, the events in China are disturbing. They do not reflect on China but on the West. If one goes from the apparent problem, an influenza incident developed into a public health crisis, to the historical context in which it arose, then it is necessary to see the current conflict honestly.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-07-09--Don’t Let the Democratic Party Bury the Movement

he Black movement will be asphyxiated by the ubiquitous fingers of the Democratic Party if it does not build independent nexuses of people ’ s power .
“ Defunding the police – inevitably , in practice – is an immersion in Democratic Party budgetary dickering that legitimizes the imposition of the police upon the people.
” If power is measured by corporate endorsements and the kiss-up antics of Democratic politicians , the movement popularly known as “ Black Lives Matter ” is awesomely powerful , its name painted into the streets of cities across the nation .
Record-breaking contributions have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social justice organizations from the public-at-large , with bail funds amassing almost $ 100 million .
Even tiny projects have seen their previously forlorn GoFundMe accounts suddenly stuffed with contributions .
The cash windfall alone is enough to make one giddy – including life-long activists old enough to have participated in the radical mass movements of half a century ago .
The “ fascist pigs ” have not been “ offed , ” but some of them have been indicted and Democratic politicians now claim they want to rein in the ‘ warrior @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as “ heroes ” of the constant “ wars ” waged against Black and brown America.
“ Policing ” as we have known it has been discredited in ways that can not easily be reversed , with 70 percent of white people under age 45 agreeing that George Floyd ’ s killing was part of “ a broader pattern of excessive police violence toward African-Americans.
” Sixty percent of white folks of all ages told New York Times pollsters they feel “ positively ” about the “ Black Lives Matter ” movement – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ object to police behavior , as do overwhelming percentages of Black and brown Americans .
“ Democratic politicians now claim they want to rein in the ‘ warrior cops ’ that only yesterday were hailed as ‘ heroes ’ of the constant ‘ wars ’ waged against Black and brown America.
” There is no doubt that , in the arena of public perception , we have witnessed a stunning rout of the forces that erected the modern Black Mass Incarceration State in response to the Black rebellions and radical movements of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politicians of all races have for five decades been the hands-on urban managers of the world ’ s largest police state – pretends to have suddenly seen the light .
In Covid-19/Great Depression Two America , the servants of capital say we are all Black Lives Matter -- until the “ crisis of legitimacy ” passes .
But the oligarchs that rule this country and both its corporate parties have no intention of dismantling the racist police state , beyond staffing the blue legions with more Black , brown and female officers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our communities and increasing their intelligence capabilities .
The “ reforms ” trotted out by local and national Democrats do not alter -- but rather , enhance and make culturally more palatable – the police mission to contain , control and politically neutralize Black America .
“ The Democratic Party pretends to have suddenly seen the light.
” To dethrone the overtly racist and imperially undependable Donald Trump , the oligarchs ensured the presidential nomination of hapless Joe Biden , who vows to veto Medicare for All , opposes defunding the police , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( but doesn ’ t remember the words ) .
Biden personifies ruling class determination to double down on endless war , Race to the Bottom austerity , and an ever-expanding national security state , including the local police component -- the same policies that led to the Crisis of Legitimacy of 2020 .
( The Covid mass deaths and accompanying economic shutdown is the result of privatization and austerity ) .
The oligarchs get what they pay for .
Therefore , the Democrats will wipe the clown paint from their faces , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ apologize to the cops for joining in the “ dozens ” circle ( “ Your cops so brutal… ” ) , as soon as the movement has been sufficiently exhausted or co-opted .
If the “ Black Lives Matter ” movement is to be neutralized , it will be by capture/cooptation by the Democratic Party– just as befell the great mass Black movement of half a century ago .
The oligarchs are now vastly more concentrated and powerful than in the previous era , and their Democratic duopoly apparatus has thoroughly infested every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Democrats are the capitalist enemy within Black America , ultimately answerable to the same forces that pull Republican strings .
The main difference is that Democrats , like most of the oligarchy , have seen the advantages of a diversified , multiracial management of Black grassroots unrest and repetitive capitalist crises .
Send in the Kente squads .
“ The oligarchs are now vastly more concentrated and powerful than in the previous era , ” Half a million or more protesters in the streets , resisting the police , brought people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but the Black movement will be asphyxiated by the ubiquitous fingers of the Democratic Party if it does not build independent nexuses of people ’ s power .
‘ Defunding the police ” may result in some reshuffling of local budget funds to social services , but does not in itself transfer power over those services -- or the police -- to the people .
Movement-speak is replete with the word “ transformational , ” but only people ’ s power can transform the relationship between the Black masses and the oligarchs ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-Black nature of the police mission , and neither does adding Black cops to the blue ranks .
Only community control of the police can create the institutional people power to transform , and eventually do away with , policing as we know it .
The cops will still be the cops , whatever their numbers and pay scales , unless they are made accountable to the communities they “ serve , ” who will shape the security force ’ s mission and manage and evaluate its performance .
Community control of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black self-determination , while defunding the police – inevitably , in practice – is an immersion in Democratic Party budgetary dickering that legitimizes the imposition of the police upon the people .
It will suck the righteous energy out of the movement , while failing to transform any power relationships of importance .
Along the way , key operatives will be “ captured ” as they form alliances with the “ better ” Democratic politicians in divvying up the budgetary spoils .
“ Only people ’ s power can transform the relationship between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state.
” Instead , the demand for community control should be expanded to include people ’ s control of social services , schools and the other institutions and services that organizers foresee benefiting from defunding the police .
This approach allows the movement to make common cause with social service , education and other workers and professionals , broadening and deepening the movement beyond policing/security issues .
– enough political fuel to stay in the streets as long as necessary .
If the movement is to be sustained , it must keep its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and avoid Democratic Party diversions .
They are the grave diggers of social movements .

T
he Black movement will be asphyxiated by the ubiquitous fingers of the Democratic Party if it does not build independent nexuses of people’s power.
“Defunding the police – inevitably, in practice – is an immersion in Democratic Party budgetary dickering that legitimizes the imposition of the police upon the people.”
If power is measured by corporate endorsements and the kiss-up antics of Democratic politicians, the movement popularly known as “Black Lives Matter” is awesomely powerful, its name painted into the streets of cities across the nation. Record-breaking contributions have also flowed to a broad range of social justice organizations from the public-at-large, with bail funds amassing almost $100 million . Even tiny projects have seen their previously forlorn GoFundMe accounts suddenly stuffed with contributions.
The cash windfall alone is enough to make one giddy – including life-long activists old enough to have participated in the radical mass movements of half a century ago. The “fascist pigs” have not been “offed,” but some of them have been indicted and Democratic politicians now claim they want to rein in the ‘warrior cops” that only yesterday were hailed as “heroes” of the constant “wars” waged against Black and brown America.“Policing” as we have known it has been discredited in ways that cannot easily be reversed, with 70 percent of white people under age 45 agreeing that George Floyd’s killing was part of “a broader pattern of excessive police violence toward African-Americans.” Sixty percent of white folks of all ages told New York Times pollsters they feel “positively” about the “Black Lives Matter” movement – meaning a significant slice of Trump supporters object to police behavior, as do overwhelming percentages of Black and brown Americans.
“Democratic politicians now claim they want to rein in the ‘warrior cops’ that only yesterday were hailed as ‘heroes’ of the constant ‘wars’ waged against Black and brown America.”
There is no doubt that, in the arena of public perception, we have witnessed a stunning rout of the forces that erected the modern Black Mass Incarceration State in response to the Black rebellions and radical movements of the 1960s. The Democratic Party – whose politicians of all races have for five decades been the hands-on urban managers of the world’s largest police state – pretends to have suddenly seen the light. In Covid-19/Great Depression Two America, the servants of capital say we are all Black Lives Matter -- until the “crisis of legitimacy” passes.
But the oligarchs that rule this country and both its corporate parties have no intention of dismantling the racist police state, beyond staffing the blue legions with more Black, brown and female officers, embedding the multiracial occupation army deeper in our communities and increasing their intelligence capabilities. The “reforms” trotted out by local and national Democrats do not alter -- but rather, enhance and make culturally more palatable – the police mission to contain, control and politically neutralize Black America.
“The Democratic Party pretends to have suddenly seen the light.”
To dethrone the overtly racist and imperially undependable Donald Trump, the oligarchs ensured the presidential nomination of hapless Joe Biden, who vows to veto Medicare for All, opposes defunding the police, and whistles tunes of war with Russia (but doesn’t remember the words). Biden personifies ruling class determination to double down on endless war, Race to the Bottom austerity, and an ever-expanding national security state, including the local police component -- the same policies that led to the Crisis of Legitimacy of 2020. (The Covid mass deaths and accompanying economic shutdown is the result of privatization and austerity). The oligarchs get what they pay for. Therefore, the Democrats will wipe the clown paint from their faces, fold up their kente cloths, and apologize to the cops for joining in the “dozens” circle (“Your cops so brutal…”), as soon as the movement has been sufficiently exhausted or co-opted.
If the “Black Lives Matter” movement is to be neutralized, it will be by capture/cooptation by the Democratic Party– just as befell the great mass Black movement of half a century ago. The oligarchs are now vastly more concentrated and powerful than in the previous era, and their Democratic duopoly apparatus has thoroughly infested every nook and cranny of Black civic life. The Democrats are the capitalist enemy within Black America, ultimately answerable to the same forces that pull Republican strings. The main difference is that Democrats, like most of the oligarchy, have seen the advantages of a diversified, multiracial management of Black grassroots unrest and repetitive capitalist crises. Send in the Kente squads.
“The oligarchs are now vastly more concentrated and powerful than in the previous era,”
Half a million or more protesters in the streets, resisting the police, brought people’s politics back to life, but the Black movement will be asphyxiated by the ubiquitous fingers of the Democratic Party if it does not build independent nexuses of people’s power. ‘Defunding the police” may result in some reshuffling of local budget funds to social services, but does not in itself transfer power over those services -- or the police -- to the people. Movement-speak is replete with the word “transformational,” but only people’s power can transform the relationship between the Black masses and the oligarchs’ state.Cutting police budgets does not alter the anti-Black nature of the police mission, and neither does adding Black cops to the blue ranks. Only community control of the police can create the institutional people power to transform, and eventually do away with, policing as we know it. The cops will still be the cops, whatever their numbers and pay scales, unless they are made accountable to the communities they “serve,” who will shape the security force’s mission and manage and evaluate its performance.
Community control of the police is a project in democracy and Black self-determination, while defunding the police – inevitably, in practice – is an immersion in Democratic Party budgetary dickering that legitimizes the imposition of the police upon the people. It will suck the righteous energy out of the movement, while failing to transform any power relationships of importance. Along the way, key operatives will be “captured” as they form alliances with the “better” Democratic politicians in divvying up the budgetary spoils.
“Only people’s power can transform the relationship between the Black masses and the oligarchs’ state.”
Instead, the demand for community control should be expanded to include people’s control of social services, schools and the other institutions and services that organizers foresee benefiting from defunding the police. This approach allows the movement to make common cause with social service, education and other workers and professionals, broadening and deepening the movement beyond policing/security issues. – enough political fuel to stay in the streets as long as necessary.
If the movement is to be sustained, it must keep its focus on bringing Power to the People, and avoid Democratic Party diversions. They are the grave diggers of social movements.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-07-09--Left Lens Eps 1 DEBUT: On Joe Biden’s Chances, The Uprising Against Racist Policing, and Solidarity

In this debut episode of the Left Lens , Danny Haip hong and Margaret Kimberley introduce viewers to Black Agenda @ @ @ @ @ in Joe Biden 's 2020 chances , discuss why community control of the police is @ @ @ @ @ of the movement against racist policing , and end with a brief analysis of internationalism @ @ @

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thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-07-09--To Abolish the Medical industrial Complex

ike prisons , healthcare systems are part of the way that empire reproduces itself .
“ Anti-blackness has not distorted medical relationships and institutions , so much as built them.
” The past six months have highlighted the fight that Black people are in against state violence , both in the form of policing and the US healthcare system .
Though the ruling class cries that the coronavirus pandemic is “ the great equalizer , ” the virus continues to demonstrate exactly who our capitalist health-care system was designed to keep alive .
So far , across the country , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been Black people , even though they were only about 21 % of the population in the areas analyzed .
In Louisiana , over 70 % of people who died were Black ( despite Black people being only 32 % of the population ) .
Along with high rates of death , countless stories have emerged about Black people turned away from hospitals , struggling to access testing , and being disproportionately arrested or ticketed for not following public health guidelines .
On top of this , uprisings have taken hold across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ murder of George Floyd .
Many groups are calling for police to be de-funded and for the abolition of the prison industrial complex .
In the midst of a pandemic , it is crucial to understand how the prison industrial complex intersects with the medical industrial complex , and commit to abolishing both .
“ The virus continues to demonstrate exactly who our capitalist health-care system was designed to keep alive.
” Though medical institutions portray themselves as benevolent and objective , the structural reality is that biomedicine was forged in the political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ known as the medical industrial complex , we are all affected by a huge system that provides “ healthcare ” services for profit and makes billions of dollars each year .
Mia Mingus , a writer and community organizer who focuses on disability justice , helped put together the above detailed visua l of the medical industrial complex along with other organizers like Cara Page and Patty Berne .
The diagram shows how four “ core motivations ” serve as the foundational structuring agents of the four sections of the visual .
Desirability @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , charity and ableism structure access , and eugenics structure science and medicine .
This is what makes the medical industrial complex so profitable .
Along with its foundations in anti-blackness , the medical industrial complex is also inherently gendered and contoured by ableism , fatphobia , and anti-transness .
Internationally , all of these systems of domination affect vaccine development and allocation of medicines .
This diagram also beautifully illustrates how all of these parts are interconnected and serve to sustain each other .
In the bottom right-hand corner , we can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its own place in the diagram .
The abolition of the prison industrial complex requires the knowledge that our systems of medical “ care ” have been built on carceral logics , from the criminalization of domestic violence survivors to psychiatric hospitals .
In “ Are Prisons Obsolete ?
” Angela Davis writes that board members from the Corrections Corporation of America and the Hospital Corporation of America , one of the first private hospital companies , worked together to help found Correctional Corporations of America in 1983 .
Like prisons , healthcare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ empire reproduces itself .
“ Our systems of medical “ care ” have been built on carceral logics.
” Black health disparities are not an incidental feature of the healthcare system .
The coronavirus pandemic has further demonstrated that the medical industrial complex is so deeply deleterious to Black people that reforms like increasing the number of Black doctors or unconscious bias training for healthcare professionals are not enough to ensure Black people ’ s live .
The values of the medical industrial complex run in contradiction to the well-being of all Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Toll , Saidiya Hartman writes , “ the health-care system is routinely indifferent to black suffering , doubting the shared sentence of bodies in pain , uncertain if the human is an expansive category or an exclusive one , if indeed a human is perceived at all.
” The pledge to “ do no harm ” has little meaning when Black people are still excluded from the human .
Ultimately , Black “ health ” is an impossibility in a system built and sustained by anti-black violence and logics .
From its inception @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in service of white supremacy and capitalism .
In Frantz Fanon ’ s essay “ Medicine and Colonialism , ” he writes , “ The colonial situation does not only vitiate the relations between doctor and patient .
We have shown that the doctor always appears as a link in the colonialist network , as a spokesman for the occupying power.
” The ruling class continues to claim that biomedicine is simply abused occasionally for evil purposes , which purposefully detracts from addressing that it has always been a child of slavery and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ is an impossibility in a system built and sustained by anti-black violence and logics.
” It is no coincidence that today , many health studies continue to act as though race is a biological category that exists without racism .
Race-making has always been a crucial mission of the medical industrial complex .
In his 1851 “ Report on the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro , ” Samuel Cartwright , a prominent physician , writes about a mental illness called drapetomania which compels slaves to run away .
Twenty-four years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wendell Holmes Sr. , dean of Harvard Medical School and an avid eugenicist , wrote an 1875 essay about mechanisms of crime .
He writes , “ If genius and talent are inherited ... why should not deep-rooted moral defects and obliquities show themselves , as well as other qualities , in the descendants of moral monsters ?
” Theories of genetic inferiority created by physicians were the same that Prudential , one of the largest insurers of Black people at the time , used to justify their announcement in 1881 that insurance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worth only one third those of white people ’ s .
Their weekly premiums , however , would be the same .
It should come as no surprise then , that a 2020 paper published in the Journal of Internal Medicine was entitled , “ Obesity in African-Americans : is physiology to blame ?
” before public outcry forced a change in title .
Experimentation on Black people has also created the foundation for medical knowledge .
People often reference the Tuskegee Syphilis Study , but there are also a plethora of other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , like the “ Acres of Skin ” experiments done by dermatologist Albert M. Kligman on incarcerated Black men in Philadelphia from 1951 to 1974 .
“ Race-making has always been a crucial mission of the medical industrial complex.
” White doctors even abused Black people after their deaths .
In her book Medical Apartheid , scholar Harriet Washington explores the histories of medical schools stealing the bodies of Black people for dissection practice into the 20th century , even going do far as to rob Black cemeteries .
Of course , medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doctors abusing Black people ’ s reproductive freedoms .
From J Marion Sims ’ experimental surgeries on enslaved Black women in 1845 , to George Gey ’ s 1951 theft of Henrietta Lacks cells which still power the medical industrial complex , biomedical encounters have always been a threat to Black women ’ s health .
The Eugenics Board of North Carolina didn ’ t cease operations until 1977 , and of the almost 8,000 people sterilized in the state , about 5,000 were black .
While medical and research institutions make sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abuse , they also systematically deny Black people healthcare resources .
Chicago ’ s Southside neighborhood lacked an adult trauma center until 2018 , despite its high rates of gun violence .
This is just a part of a long history of medical facilities being intentionally built far away from predominantly Black neighborhoods .
Framing any of the cases above as an exceptional misuse of science is a dangerous way of avoiding the conversation that they are all expected outcomes of a system that was never made to ensure the health of Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simply absorbed the racism of other institutions , they are institutional violence themselves .
The state continues to discredit Black peoples ’ legacies of healing through granny midwives , root workers , and conjurers because they are a threat to white supremacist capitalist medicine .
Black people have been , and continue to be , the enemies of medicine .
In the end , white people are only able to secure their own health when they can place it next to the unwavering illness of black people that they create and re-create .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ threat to Black women ’ s health.
” Abolition , whether of the prison industrial complex , military industrial complex , or the medical industrial complex , is always a positive project .
Once the old systems are destroyed , we are faced with the task of world-building , of learning to “ imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions , ” as Angela Davis says .
For the medical industrial complex , this means having conversations where the point of departure is the truth that Black people know what keeps them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family what it is they need to heal .
For many , this means uplifting the holistic healing practices of our ancestors with the understanding that care can transcend both space and time .
Throughout history , Black liberation has always involved finding ways to ensure the well-being of one another outside of the state and its medical institutions .
From enslaved women exchanging recipes for abortifacients with each other to granny midwives like Margaret Charles Smith , who delivered over 3500 infants in rural Alabama during the 20th century and never lost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black Cross nurses who provided Black people with health services and education , to all the Black farmers who belonged to Fannie Lou Hamer ’ s Freedom Farm Collective .
“ Midwife Margaret Charles Smith delivered over 3500 infants in rural Alabama and never lost a mother in childbirth.
” One of the most relevant examples of community healthcare and preventative services is the Black Panther Party and their survival programs .
In spring of 1970 , Black Panther Party made free health clinics and programs to feed children breakfast mandatory for each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ volunteer doctors and nurses , as well as activists , who encouraged patients to ask questions and advocate for themselves .
Physicians were trained in alternative forms of medicine as well as biomedicine , and the BPP required that doctors read the work of Mao , Che , and other revolutionaries .
Along with their clinics , the BPP did research and screening on genetic disorders like sickle cell anaemia , provided immunizations , and trained members of the community as lay health workers who were able to provide both health services and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ programs lives in many organizations , collectives , and health centers today .
In our current moment , groups all over the country are creating networks where people can access healthcare without relying on the medical industrial complex or prison industrial complex .
Dream Defenders , a radical group of young people in Florida , has established a Trauma Response Center to combat the violence of both systems .
The center offers “ free legal services , violence interruption , mental health counseling , stop the bleed training as well as skills training @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” among other services .
In Chicago , a volunteer Black health collective and mutual aid organization called Ujimaa Medics runs workshops on gunshot first aid , and also teaches people to respond to asthma attacks , seizures and diabetic emergencies .
There are also organizations like Project LETS , which builds “ peer support collectives ” and other community-based mental healthcare systems .
When we abolish the medical industrial complex , this is the world that awaits us .
“ The BPP did research and screening on genetic disorders like sickle cell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ members of the community as lay health workers.
” Mia Mingus writes , “ What would it mean to not have to be afraid of going to the doctor ?
To be able to trust that the care and treatments you are receiving will not only take care of your body , but the planet and future generations as well ?
” Abolition looks like creating networks and institutions that answer these questions .
The demise of the medical industrial complex gives us the opportunity to fully imagine and reimagine these new systems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ belong to us .
The goal of this space is not to become human as defined by colonialism , but to generate Black healing from the violence wrought by ideas of health .
Once we come to the collective understanding that anti-blackness has not distorted medical relationships and institutions , so much as built them , we are able to continue to imagine ways of taking care of ourselves and our communities that actually improve the wellbeing of all Black people .
The abolition of the prison industrial complex and medical industrial complex @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us safe , and we can also keep us healthy .
Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report 's Facebook page at http : //facebook.com/blackagendareport Or , you can comment by emailing us at comments @ blackagendareport.com

L
ike prisons, healthcare systems are part of the way that empire reproduces itself.
“Anti-blackness has not distorted medical relationships and institutions, so much as built them.”
The past six months have highlighted the fight that Black people are in against state violence, both in the form of policing and the US healthcare system. Though the ruling class cries that the coronavirus pandemic is “the great equalizer ,” the virus continues to demonstrate exactly who our capitalist health-care system was designed to keep alive. So far, across the country, about 42% of coronavirus deaths have been Black people , even though they were only about 21% of the population in the areas analyzed. In Louisiana , over 70% of people who died were Black (despite Black people being only 32% of the population). Along with high rates of death, countless stories have emerged about Black people turned away from hospitals, struggling to access testing, and being disproportionately arrested or ticketed for not following public health guidelines. On top of this, uprisings have taken hold across the country, starting in Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd. Many groups are calling for police to be de-funded and for the abolition of the prison industrial complex. In the midst of a pandemic, it is crucial to understand how the prison industrial complex intersects with the medical industrial complex, and commit to abolishing both.
“The virus continues to demonstrate exactly who our capitalist health-care system was designed to keep alive.”
Though medical institutions portray themselves as benevolent and objective, the structural reality is that biomedicine was forged in the political and social terrain of colonialism. Commonly known as the medical industrial complex, we are all affected by a huge system that provides “healthcare” services for profit and makes billions of dollars each year. Mia Mingus, a writer and community organizer who focuses on disability justice, helped put together the above detailed visua l of the medical industrial complex along with other organizers like Cara Page and Patty Berne. The diagram shows how four “core motivations” serve as the foundational structuring agents of the four sections of the visual. Desirability structures health, population control structures safety, charity and ableism structure access, and eugenics structure science and medicine. This is what makes the medical industrial complex so profitable.
Along with its foundations in anti-blackness, the medical industrial complex is also inherently gendered and contoured by ableism, fatphobia, and anti-transness. Internationally, all of these systems of domination affect vaccine development and allocation of medicines. This diagram also beautifully illustrates how all of these parts are interconnected and serve to sustain each other. In the bottom right-hand corner, we can see that the prison industrial complex has its own place in the diagram. The abolition of the prison industrial complex requires the knowledge that our systems of medical “care” have been built on carceral logics, from the criminalization of domestic violence survivors to psychiatric hospitals. In “Are Prisons Obsolete?” Angela Davis writes that board members from the Corrections Corporation of America and the Hospital Corporation of America, one of the first private hospital companies, worked together to help found Correctional Corporations of America in 1983. Like prisons, healthcare systems are part of the way that empire reproduces itself.
“Our systems of medical “care” have been built on carceral logics.”
Black health disparities are not an incidental feature of the healthcare system. The coronavirus pandemic has further demonstrated that the medical industrial complex is so deeply deleterious to Black people that reforms like increasing the number of Black doctors or unconscious bias training for healthcare professionals are not enough to ensure Black people’s live. The values of the medical industrial complex run in contradiction to the well-being of all Black people. In her essay The Death Toll , Saidiya Hartman writes, “the health-care system is routinely indifferent to black suffering, doubting the shared sentence of bodies in pain, uncertain if the human is an expansive category or an exclusive one, if indeed a human is perceived at all.” The pledge to “do no harm” has little meaning when Black people are still excluded from the human. Ultimately, Black “health” is an impossibility in a system built and sustained by anti-black violence and logics.
From its inception, the medical industrial complex has been in service of white supremacy and capitalism. In Frantz Fanon’s essay “Medicine and Colonialism,” he writes, “The colonial situation does not only vitiate the relations between doctor and patient. We have shown that the doctor always appears as a link in the colonialist network, as a spokesman for the occupying power.” The ruling class continues to claim that biomedicine is simply abused occasionally for evil purposes, which purposefully detracts from addressing that it has always been a child of slavery and European colonialism.
“Black ‘health’ is an impossibility in a system built and sustained by anti-black violence and logics.”
It is no coincidence that today, many health studies continue to act as though race is a biological category that exists without racism. Race-making has always been a crucial mission of the medical industrial complex. In his 1851 “Report on the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro,” Samuel Cartwright, a prominent physician, writes about a mental illness called drapetomania which compels slaves to run away. Twenty-four years after Cartwright’s report, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., dean of Harvard Medical School and an avid eugenicist, wrote an 1875 essay about mechanisms of crime. He writes, “If genius and talent are inherited...why should not deep-rooted moral defects and obliquities show themselves, as well as other qualities, in the descendants of moral monsters?” Theories of genetic inferiority created by physicians were the same that Prudential, one of the largest insurers of Black people at the time, used to justify their announcement in 1881 that insurance policies held by Black adults would be worth only one third those of white people’s. Their weekly premiums, however, would be the same. It should come as no surprise then, that a 2020 paper published in the Journal of Internal Medicine was entitled, “Obesity in African-Americans: is physiology to blame?” before public outcry forced a change in title.
Experimentation on Black people has also created the foundation for medical knowledge. People often reference the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, but there are also a plethora of other studies that were conducted on Black people, like the “Acres of Skin” experiments done by dermatologist Albert M. Kligman on incarcerated Black men in Philadelphia from 1951 to 1974.
“Race-making has always been a crucial mission of the medical industrial complex.”
White doctors even abused Black people after their deaths. In her book Medical Apartheid, scholar Harriet Washington explores the histories of medical schools stealing the bodies of Black people for dissection practice into the 20th century, even going do far as to rob Black cemeteries. Of course, medical history is also rife with examples of doctors abusing Black people’s reproductive freedoms. From J Marion Sims’ experimental surgeries on enslaved Black women in 1845, to George Gey’s 1951 theft of Henrietta Lacks cells which still power the medical industrial complex, biomedical encounters have always been a threat to Black women’s health. The Eugenics Board of North Carolina didn’t cease operations until 1977, and of the almost 8,000 people sterilized in the state, about 5,000 were black.
While medical and research institutions make sure to target Black people for experimentation and abuse, they also systematically deny Black people healthcare resources. Chicago’s Southside neighborhood lacked an adult trauma center until 2018, despite its high rates of gun violence. This is just a part of a long history of medical facilities being intentionally built far away from predominantly Black neighborhoods.
Framing any of the cases above as an exceptional misuse of science is a dangerous way of avoiding the conversation that they are all expected outcomes of a system that was never made to ensure the health of Black people. Science and medicine have not simply absorbed the racism of other institutions, they are institutional violence themselves. The state continues to discredit Black peoples’ legacies of healing through granny midwives, root workers, and conjurers because they are a threat to white supremacist capitalist medicine. Black people have been, and continue to be, the enemies of medicine. In the end, white people are only able to secure their own health when they can place it next to the unwavering illness of black people that they create and re-create.
“Biomedical encounters have always been a threat to Black women’s health.”
Abolition, whether of the prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, or the medical industrial complex, is always a positive project. Once the old systems are destroyed, we are faced with the task of world-building, of learning to “imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions,” as Angela Davis says. For the medical industrial complex, this means having conversations where the point of departure is the truth that Black people know what keeps them well. This means asking friends and family what it is they need to heal. For many, this means uplifting the holistic healing practices of our ancestors with the understanding that care can transcend both space and time.
Throughout history, Black liberation has always involved finding ways to ensure the well-being of one another outside of the state and its medical institutions. From enslaved women exchanging recipes for abortifacients with each other to granny midwives like Margaret Charles Smith, who delivered over 3500 infants in rural Alabama during the 20th century and never lost a mother in childbirth. From the Black Cross nurses who provided Black people with health services and education, to all the Black farmers who belonged to Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm Collective.
“Midwife Margaret Charles Smith delivered over 3500 infants in rural Alabama and never lost a mother in childbirth.”
One of the most relevant examples of community healthcare and preventative services is the Black Panther Party and their survival programs. In spring of 1970, Black Panther Party made free health clinics and programs to feed children breakfast mandatory for each chapter. Health clinics were staffed by volunteer doctors and nurses, as well as activists, who encouraged patients to ask questions and advocate for themselves. Physicians were trained in alternative forms of medicine as well as biomedicine, and the BPP required that doctors read the work of Mao, Che, and other revolutionaries. Along with their clinics, the BPP did research and screening on genetic disorders like sickle cell anaemia, provided immunizations, and trained members of the community as lay health workers who were able to provide both health services and social services. The legacy of these programs lives in many organizations, collectives, and health centers today.
In our current moment, groups all over the country are creating networks where people can access healthcare without relying on the medical industrial complex or prison industrial complex. Dream Defenders, a radical group of young people in Florida, has established a Trauma Response Center to combat the violence of both systems. The center offers “free legal services, violence interruption, mental health counseling, stop the bleed training as well as skills training and job placement, arts programming,” among other services. In Chicago, a volunteer Black health collective and mutual aid organization called Ujimaa Medics runs workshops on gunshot first aid, and also teaches people to respond to asthma attacks, seizures and diabetic emergencies. There are also organizations like Project LETS , which builds “peer support collectives” and other community-based mental healthcare systems. When we abolish the medical industrial complex, this is the world that awaits us.
“The BPP did research and screening on genetic disorders like sickle cell anaemia, provided immunizations, and trained members of the community as lay health workers.”
Mia Mingus writes , “What would it mean to not have to be afraid of going to the doctor? To be able to trust that the care and treatments you are receiving will not only take care of your body, but the planet and future generations as well?” Abolition looks like creating networks and institutions that answer these questions. The demise of the medical industrial complex gives us the opportunity to fully imagine and reimagine these new systems as our needs change, because they belong to us. The goal of this space is not to become human as defined by colonialism, but to generate Black healing from the violence wrought by ideas of health. Once we come to the collective understanding that anti-blackness has not distorted medical relationships and institutions, so much as built them, we are able to continue to imagine ways of taking care of ourselves and our communities that actually improve the wellbeing of all Black people. The abolition of the prison industrial complex and medical industrial complex are inextricably linked. We can keep us safe, and we can also keep us healthy.
Gwendolyn Wallace is a senior at Yale University pursuing a BA in the History of Science and Medicine, concentrating in Gender, Reproduction, and the Body. Her research interests include histories of community health activism, reproductive justice, and the intersections between race-making, science, and medicine. Gwendolyn enjoys working with young children, gardening, and searching for used bookstores to explore.
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thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-07-09--NEOLIBERAL PSYCHOLOGICAL ROMANTICISM: FROM THE PRIMAL SCREAM TO THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS PART II

In Part I of this article , I begin by grounding neoliberal psychology in the political and economic reality of neoliberalism between 1970 to 2020 .
First , we discussed the historical origins of neoliberalism , and then its economic exploitation , mystification and ideological use to control people .
I briefly discussed the realities of the practice of neoliberal economic policies which has resulted in cannibalization of the infrastructure .
Further , I show thirteen instances in which neoliberalism shows its class bias .
Neoliberalism is an ideology because the upper and upper middle classes of society do not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ class .
It is only applied to neoliberal practices when it comes to middle-class , working-class and the poor who experience this cannibalization .
In practice , neoliberalism strips the individual of his social , qualitative , historical and cross-cultural connections so that all social life can be reduced to a quantitative , measured and calculating cost-benefit analysis .
Everything is saleable and reduced to a price .
At a micro level , neoliberal psychological realism results in what is called the “ entrepreneur self ” .
This entrepreneurial self is manifested in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ psychological realism takes place : • None in the thinking processes of the working class ; • None in the commercialization of child development ; • None in the relationship between Barbie-doll toys and the obsession with being thin ; • None in the preoccupation with living in the present through its ideological use of “ mindfulness ” psychology .
In this Part II article , I discuss two forms of romantic resistance to neoliberal psychological realism : humanistic psychology and the human potential movement on the one hand , and New Age @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the entrepreneurial self of realist psychology , romantic psychology develops an “ expressive ” self that was the result of the work of Maslow , Rogers , Fritz Perls and Arthur Janov .
This expressive self peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s .
The other kind of romantic psychology is in cultivating what I call a “ mystical self ” as embodied in the work of Carl Jung , Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell .
This “ spiritual psychology ” peaked in the early 1980 ’ s and continued to cultivate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s .
In the next few pages , I will review selectively some features of romantic neoliberal psychology as they relate to the humanistic psychological construction of an expressive self .
Please see Table A for a deeper comparison between the entrepreneurial self of Part I and the expressive self .
The seeds of romantic psychology began in the United States , not in the 1960s , but decades before .
Maslow was very influenced by the anthropological , cultural relativist work of Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead .
Both anthropologists challenged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They were extremely sympathetic to tribal societies and each championed what they thought were their liberating sexual practices .
( This anticipated the sexual revolution of the 1970s ) .
The neoliberal political and economic movement began with the Freiburg Circle in the 1930s at roughly the same time .
Abraham Maslow began his optimistic quest to rescue psychology from the clutches of what he felt was the pessimism and determinism of Freudians and behaviorists .
Maslow first mentioned his famous “ peak experiences ” as far back at 1946 .
According to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , Maslow was a New Deal Liberal , and as late as 1960 , Maslow maintained a respect for Marx .
Among his most enthusiastic students was Abbie Hoffman who switched his major to psychology and took every class Maslow offered .
Parallel to Maslow , Carl Rogers , another humanistic psychology heavyweight , began studying at a liberal theological seminar in NYC in 1924 .
Five years later he worked for twelve years on the front lines of counseling , working with problem teenagers and abused children as a staff psychologist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children .
He developed a following among social workers and pastors .
In the early 1960s , Rogers published On Becoming a Person which outlined his version of Maslow ’ s self-actualization .
Increasingly , Rogers was critical of most institutional authority including psychiatrists , and this translated into how he did therapy in the 1960s and 1970s .
Rogers did his best to level the playing field , insisting that a person ’ s emotions and personal experience were the most important guides to health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ therapy in which the client determined the goals , processes and when they ended therapy .
The home of the human potential movements in the 1960s and 1970s was Esalen , located in Big Sur , California .
The two co-founders , Richard Price and Michael Murphy had different ideas about where Esalen was going .
Michael Murphey identified more with a mystical tradition , having studied with Sri Aurobindo in India .
Richard Price was more sympathetic to the experiential , drug-taking wing of Esalen .
Throughout most of the 1960s , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This changed in the latter part of the 1960s with the wave of LSD use on a mass level and the growth of a counterculture .
By the early 1970s Esalen had moved from a more moderate , discipled approach to a drug-using , “ winging it “ orientation .
There was a willingness , and in fact an expectation by group leaders that people experiment with LSD .
Fasting , trance states rebirth rituals , dream work , social nudity and group dancing were par for the course .
Sexual encounters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cathartic theory of the emotions The foundation for virtually all humanistic psychology was the cathartic theory of the emotions .
However , the venting approach to the emotions did not originate with therapists .
It has roots in the Greek concept that audiences watching a stage play and emoting along with the story serves a cathartic purpose .
Aristotle felt that viewing a tragic drama would allow catharsis to occur for the audience , draining off pity and fear .
According to Joyce Milton , the cathartic method as a mental practice within @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1877 by Josef Breuer , perhaps best known for his theory of hysteria and his use of hypnosis .
Later these ideas were taken up by Freud .
In the hands of humanistic psychologists , the cathartic theory states that emotions are like steam under pressure .
If not released they will explode .
Emotional ventilation is supposed to relieve inner frustrations .
This theory was carried on in groups with Will Schutz ’ s encounter groups and Fritz Perl ’ s Gestalt groups .
Therapists taught people to scream , beat pillows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ occurred in individual therapy with Janov ’ s Primal Scream therapy along with a spinoff group , “ Center for Feeling Therapy.
” Social psychologist Will Schutz helped to transfer relatively tame “ sensitivity groups ” in the 1950s to the dramatic encounter groups that began in the mid-sixties .
Schutz conducted the groups as marathon weekend-long events in which sleep deprivation eroded inhibitions .
After 24 hours without sleep , open and honest expression as well as actual tears , seemed to flow more easily .
( Encountering America , p 195 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ psychiatrist and Reichian therapist and led his first encounter groups in the mid 60s : Jessica Grogan tells us : In contrast to traditional encounter groups that relied on the self-direction of the group , Perls held the reins in his groups .
He utilized the concept of the “ hot seat , ” a position in which the seated individual received his full attention .
Another empty chair was set beside the seated individual and served as an object of projection ( it became the victim ’ s mother or father ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of one Esalen historian to take the person apart by noticing and commenting on every defense mechanism , every body posture , every quiver of voice or eyes .
Instead of allowing group members to interact with the hot-seated individual , Perls assumed full control while the group watched on in silence , and often , awe .
After a brutal dissection of his subjects , Perls measured his success in tears .
He then attempted to re-integrate the fractured person in order to create all new gestalt or whole person ( Encountering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Center for Feeling Therapy About the same time humanistic psychology was “ letting it all hang out ” at Esalen , in Los Angeles , Arthur Janov was developing what he called “ primal therapy ” .
According to Janov , almost all of people ’ s problems centered around their parents not giving them the right amount of attention .
The way Janov took his clients back in time to the original parental deprivation was a three-week isolation regimen with no external stimulation .
When alone and not in therapy sessions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drink alcohol or coffee , watch TV , listen to the radio or talk on the phone .
They were now raw enough to be taken back to the primal scene .
As they got closer , they screamed more and more at their imagined parents .
The idea was that once you got the screaming “ out of your system ” it was possible to begin living a full life instead of through muffled anger at parents .
In early 1979 A spin-off of Janov ’ s emerged , the Center for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s method of having the new client stay in a secluded motel room alone for three weeks .
A new client of the center met with a therapist in marathon three to seven-hour individual sessions during which the person was attacked and criticized .
Over the next 10 years , the center grew very successful .
There were 350 patients living near one another and sharing homes .
As often happens in cults , the demands of the therapists grew more bizarre and at the end all twelve therapists associated with the center @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problem with the construction of a romantic , expressive self is not just that the therapists had no scientific basis for the cathartic theory of the emotions , but that they stirred people up on marathon weekends but offered no structure for them to integrate all of what was stirred up after the weekends were over .
Several suicides at Esalen in 1968-1969 served as painful indications of the Esalen staff ’ s inability to provide comprehensive services for the mess they had created .
For more on the dark side of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lalich ’ s book , Crazy Therapies .
The sun sets on the romantic expressive self The numbers of those involved in the counterculture during the 1967 Summer of Love was no more than 100,000 people .
But by the early to mid-1970s “ flower power ” had become mainstream and hippiedom had arrived .
As the counterculture became a more mainstream phenomenon , psychology found a new life in self-help books .
From 1972 to 1979 , self-help books mushroomed across bookstore shelves , but many were written by authors untrained in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ large bookstore , the psychology section contains at least 10 shelves of self-help books for every shelf of books that attempted to uphold some scholarly standard .
Many self-help books actually disparaged psychotherapy directly .
By the mid-1970s , the humanistic movement seemed more self-indulgent rather than awakening a higher and deeper self .
After 1975 , Association for Humanistic Psychology – AHP – participation began to decline .
In 1976 and 1977 , the annual conference attracted about 2,000 participants .
By 1980 that number was 1,000 .
Literary critics turned on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the American ride had run out of gas .
The expressive self was withering on the vine .
In the early 1970s , feminist women ’ s spirituality was in crisis .
On one hand , women fought for more inclusion within Protestant , Catholic and Jewish religious institutions .
But for other women , all the world religions were patriarchal .
They were drawn to pagan and neo-pagan traditions .
Many joined already existing magical groups that centered on people like Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn , while others like Starhawk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the heart of this movement were goddesses and gods and their mythology .
Psychologically , all these groups were more or less influenced ( whether they knew it or not ) by the psychologist Carl Jung , the historian of religion , Mircea Eliade and the mythologist Joseph Campbell .
All three were anti-modern , rejecting science and materialism .
Their idealistic past was either the medieval world ( Jung ) , 19th century Romanian peasant culture ( Eliade ) , or the early American West , including Native Americans ( Campbell ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flirted with fascism .
Campbell dissociated himself from the 60 ’ s anti-war and civil rights movements .
He was not sympathetic to minorities , feminists or toward liberal social programs .
Campbell once said he would flunk any student who took part in political activism .
All three were anti-communist .
All three mythologists developed a following in the United States .
Why ?
On one hand , their theories went with the emerging anticommunism of the 1950s .
On the other hand , they also corresponded to the growing uneasiness of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feared was too materialistic a way of life .
All three mythologists were , in different ways , hostile to Judeo-Christian religions , all of which they believed were complicit in modernist problems .
Modern religions denied the importance of spiritual experience and were marred in superstitious rituals and material wealth .
For all three , mythological stories are really about solutions to common human problems that have been lost , marginalized or demonized by traditional religion .
All three mythologists were followers of a spiritual gnostic tradition which says there is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aware of , but which has been lost , thanks to modernity .
This gnostic tradition teaches that the material world is not reformable and it is better to withdraw from it in order to perfect oneself .
Though Jungian spirituality is eclectically Western , it is fair to say that Jung admired what he imagined to be pre-Christian German paganism .
If James Hillman is any indicator , Jungian psychology is a modern version of the archetypal , polytheistic psychology of the Renaissance .
The roots of Eliade ’ s religious beliefs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yoga .
According to Robert Ellwood , Campbell flirted with Hindu traditions but ultimately settled on the pagan traditions in the west , from Homer to the Holy Grail .
In The Politics of Myth , Robert Ellwood tells us that after his break with Freud in 1913 , Jung underwent a spiritual crisis and came out of it with an array of archetypes drawn from pagan sun-worshiping volkish mysticism to which he later added other western esoteric traditions such as alchemy .
Jung took Freud ’ s personal unconscious and collectivized it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had a collective unconscious which could be tapped through their mythology and ritual .
Jung thought that levels of the unconscious lay like geological strata in the psyche .
Mythology was to culture what dreams were to the individual .
In the modern world , the collective unconscious was repressed because modern religion has lost its ancient roots in mythology and ritual .
Modern masses are alienated and lack the symbols , myth and rituals that would ground collective psychic energy and provide integration .
Jung followed Ortega y Gasset in claiming that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while also separating from their unconsciousness and instincts .
To be fair to Jung , given this pessimism towards modernity , it is understandable that he flirted with the Nazi movement .
Because of their rootlessness , modern humanity ’ s collective unconscious had more power and can be easily distorted into a monstrous hybrid which results in the worst of tribalism and modernism ( Nazism ) .
Jung realized this later .
Mircea Eliade and nostalgia for the sacred Eliade fled Romania after it became a satellite of the Soviet Union in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he taught at the Sorbonne in Paris and then , starting in 1956 , at the University of Chicago .
In these roles he become the most important historian of religion of his time .
Eliade radically and systematically rejected the very epistemological and ontological foundations of the modern secular world .
He thought the object of the study of religion was beyond historical analysis .
For Eliade , ordinary means of knowledge and experience are not only flawed but are a “ Veil of Maya ” over our knowledge of reality .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the assault of secularism .
Why should he not try to engineer a religious destruction of the confidence in secular consciousness ?
Eliade seemed to hold a degenerate theory of the history of religions .
Rather than primitive societies consisting of backward , superstitious people , Eliade was all for Frazer ’ s description of bloody sacrifices , drunken banquets and carnivalesque masquerades as sacred activities .
Like Dumezil and other “ order ” theorists , Eliade felt that historical consciousness and modernity was a catastrophe for humanity ’ s sense of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time is myth , not history .
Eliade believed that to live in historical time and place was to live under fallen conditions .
Mystical experience was to live beyond history and place .
Myth tells us of the eternal time of origins .
Sacred space is the location in which myths are enacted .
The world ’ s spiritual sites have common properties – they are perceived to be the navel , or center , of the world .
This center is the cosmic tree where the perpetual regenerations of the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or labyrinths of medieval Christianity helps us to experience this center .
Joseph Campbell and the New Quest for the Holy Grail According to Ellwood , Joseph Campbell was the best known of all interpreters of myth for late 20th century Americans due to his lively and highly readable books , grand lecture hall performances and PBS appearances with Bill Moyers .
He was born in 1904 to Irish-American parents and both his grandfathers arrived in the US as poor immigrants who escaped the Irish potato famine .
Joseph ’ s father was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to upper-middle classes status which exposed Joseph to the arts and cultures of the world , allowing him to attend concerts , plays and museums .
After being taken by his father to Buffalo Bill ’ s Wild West show , he cultivated a strong interest in American Indians .
Through Thomas Mann , Campbell met Indologist Heinrich Zimmer .
When Zimmer died in 1943 , Campbell received the responsibility of editing Zimmer ’ s manuscripts .
The Zimmer connection enabled Campbell to become attached to the famous Eranos conferences which included scholars @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revived the study of Jewish Kabbalah , Henry Corbin of Iranian mysticism , as well Jung .
Campbell became a major figure in the world mythology with the publication in 1949 of The Hero with a Thousand Faces .
Despite his flirtation with Indian religion , a trip he made to India made him think twice because of the poverty and the disease he witnessed .
In the end , he turned westward .
Besides Native Americans , Campbell was drawn to Homer ’ s Odyssey and stories of the search for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he wrote a great four-volume world mythology .
According to Campbell there are four functions of myth : • None a mystical experience to awaken and maintain a sense of awe and gratitude ; • None an image of the universe in accord with the knowledge of the time ( in the sciences ) ; • None to give an account stage by stage through life .
In the application of myths to today , Campbell was no reactionary .
He proposed the place for myths to play themselves out today was in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a way that is comparable to the role of Arthurian fantasy in Victorian England and Wagner ’ s heroes in Wilhelmine Germany .
Ellwood makes a very interesting comparison between Star Trek and Star Wars as a way to demonstrate Campbell ’ s individualistic roots .
Star Trek was about cooperation between the crew , not the individual .
It isn ’ t even about the patriotism of say , the United States .
The crew members included people of many ethnicities .
It was about humanity in space .
In these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power between humanity and extra-terrestrial civilizations .
In the case of Star Wars , the theme was about the individual heroism of Luke Skywalker .
In Star Wars , Arthurian legend and Wagnerian cycles of myths all show the ultimate futility of grasping for power .
Politically this has conservative implications .
How convenient this is to encourage people to withdraw from political power and engagements into the private world of mythological journeys .
What kind of society would Campbell ’ s view of myth construct ?
Most likely a society of heroes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ follow their own myths .
Meanwhile a ground-crew of non-heroes ( the working class ) sing about heroes and the songs that keep the social order together .
It is ironic that in spite of his conservative politics , he was extremely popular at Esalen .
The mystical self as the playground of the upper classes What kind of Americans were drawn to Jung , Eliade and Campbell ?
Interestingly the publisher of both Campbell and Jung ’ s work , Bollington , was owned by Paul Mellon , related to Andrew Mellon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of that time .
Given the conservative tendencies of Jung and Campbell , it is not surprising that they found so much money to “ spread their word ” at a time of rabid anti-communism in the fifties , and as a reaction to the liberal and radical sixties with its expressive self .
Overwhelmingly , those drawn to Jung , Eliade and Campbell are upper middle-class and upper-class wealthy people – doctors , lawyers , architects and ministers from the upper middle-class as well as the independently wealthy .
They are people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1970s and then stepped forward into the vacuum left by the human potential movement .
They became the upper-class version of the swing to the right-wing politics .
This was happening at the same time when the lower classes were gravitating towards a right-wing fundamentalism in the churches of the South .
The place and misplace of romantic self As I said at the beginning of Part I , romantic emotional and spiritualist selves are two different answers to the experience of feeling trapped by neoliberal modern social conditions and realist psychology .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ all social relations ( expressive self of the human potential movement ) or to search for a premodern social life based on an organic community .
Their reaction is either for the individual : • None to detach from society and rebel emotionally , or ; • None to reject the associative , social contract relations of modern life , not by denying our social identity as the expressives do , but to dissolve into pre-modern social life as in the Middle Ages or into pre-Christian paganism .
Please see Table B for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and mystical selves .


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-07-09--MUST WATCH! System Update with Glenn Greenwald – How Congress Maintains Endless War

Glenn Edward Greenwald ( born March 6 , 1967 ) is an American journalist , author , and former attorney @ @ @ @ @ for publishing a series of reports detailing previously unknown information about American and British global @ @ @ @ @ were based on classified documents provided by Edward Snowden Greenwald worked as a constitutional attorney @ @ @ @ @ began blogging on national security issues and then contributing forand .
At the time , @ @ @ @ @ the most influential opinion columnists in the United States.In June 2013 , while at , @ @ @ @ @ reports on the documents released by Snowden .
Along with other reporters , Greenwald won @ @ @ @ @ and a Pulitzer Prize for the reporting .
Later in 2013 , Greenwald foundedwith Laura @ @ @ @ @ where he was co-editor for several years .
He has written several best-selling books , @