Allred-Alive and Well in the Belly of the Beast

August 2020
They say on TV now we have to give Joe Biden and Kamala Harris a chance but first we have to get rid of the Fascist in the White House. And they said the world would never get another ego like Hitlers, a Caligula. Already I wander. Just seventy something more days, they say, or whatever the number is, then on November 4^th, we’ll (we being progressives and revolutionaries alike) start working on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Well, my friends, I’ve been watching you (the news) and here’s what I have to say.
If we’re on some sort of revolutionary countdown ten, nine, eight, seven six, five…and someone or something magical is going to happen on November 4^th, then I’m starting to write America’s (and the world's) epitaph right now. It looks as if from this perspective (from California), America has chosen cremation.
History marches on. Somebody has to be realistic. It can’t be me and Cornell West alone can it? He who isn’t being pessimistic isn’t being realistic. The fact of the matter somebody’s going to have to die to shake things up. Probably somebody who doesn’t want to for your sake or god’s sake either. There aren’t any Christ’s up America’s sleeve. They all came around in the sixties, all invoked in acceptance speeches when really the only important fact is when Mrs Schwerner, the wife of Andrew Schwerner, who disappeared along with Goodman and Chaney, insisted to Lyndon Johnson that he needed to get more feds down in Mississippi to search, Johnson, the great (now) signer of the Civil Rights bill, called J. Edgar to ask if HE thought there should be more FBI investigators and J. Edgar answered- she’s a communist- and Johnson answered-it’s worse than that, she’s rude and a (bitch).

That’s how we march along, like freed slaves heading to Nowheresville ( another sundowner town) with Hope.

Someday somebody other than Emma Goldman is going to blow the whistle on just having Hope and expecting a hell of a lot out of that magic.

you are living in the free world and in the free world you must stay. Phil Ochs

 I was one of those reluctant NPP (no political party) switchers back in 2018 just to get in to vote but that’s okay, I can always switch back if necessary. I enjoyed listening to the little one minute “speech” and was disappointed that only one, you, included US foreign policy as a necessary front to focus on. I assume one minute doesn’t cover much but still US foreign policy is the white noise behind everything this country does (especially with money and power). Equality and Justice will never happen as long as we continue to think of ourselves  (in the abstract) as superior and yet fearful of the rest of the world.

There are many people who have their finger on the pulse of what’s wrong here in America and around the world but unless we start acting in a “new” way, the old and traditional way will undermine and negate anything we do. The repetitive nature of historical facts has rendered the future (or even tomorrow) obsolete and impotent before it even gets here. As it is now, The future is just a long series of yesterdays, pasts. We need to eat less, want less, desire less, and most of all, fear less. We are Here

All of us kids lacked something essential to live in the modern world, the modern world being the world as it exists today rather than the way it was when we were all growing up. In thirty years of living we all become somewhat obsolete. We learn that business, the state, the institutions we adhere to or those we are cemented to by socialization or by debt, all that exists outside the very parameters we are told we must maintain. What we get is the particulars, the specifics, the nuances of the principles we live by and it’s within our nature to be confused as to what behaviors we must choose, which can only be defined by those others, the authorities that bind us.

Take citizenship for example. Citizenship is the specifically designed traditions and rules that give any person living within the confines of a nation the privileges of citizenship, usually the right to vote in most modern societies, this right to choose whoever represents the nation as well as the method of choosing, the processes. Other than that, there’s not much else to being a citizen, except maybe depending on the restrictions of living here unconditionally, free of harassment. But in most modern nations the rights determined to be irrevocable, at least on paper, human rights, those rights that every human has should not be usurped by citizenship. If all men should be treated equally under the law then that should not be a privilege given to those who have citizenship only and taken away from so called non- citizens, those not fitting the established standards of whatever society they actually live in. 

America like any other nation that confers upon its citizens certain inalienable rights only by way of citizenship is not a very progressive nation, no matter how high and mighty it’s ideals sound. That’s nationalism, racism, or any other ism by those very definitions. Any form of privilege whether written, practiced or insinuated which provides an exclusion to those who can’t be included and those restrictive practices being institutionalized within a nations traditions, legal, and social institutions is purely arbitrary.

We’re all born into this worldly strife, the same as a squirmy rat, the best thing about it is we haven’t been tattooed with a corporate logo yet. That comes later but for now, on that original birthday, we have no understanding of what awaits us upon arrival into our nation’s history. Depending on whether or not we’re born black and all the shades of equanimity, how much money our parents have (or parent in many more cases than is satisfactory), or how much luck and right circumstance we possess, we’ll plod through their authoritarian fogs ignonimously, each individual in various degrees, all the while lacking nobility.

Since he is getting older and especially since he, like the rest of the civilized world, is riding out The Covid-19 tidal wave in the relative safe environment of Amazon, Fed-Ex, UPS “essential” deliveries, making jobs for thieves as well as drivers, and contributing to the future by exposing himself to social media via Zoom, Hangouts, Duo, electronic banking- furthering job opportunities to hackers, thieves, African based scams, and homegrown sex illusionists, he is sharing the little pearls of wisdom he has gleaned from Life and living it to the fullest.

The security I'm looking for is the security of NOT knowing what my country is doing in my name. Or even yours. Call it the security of innocence, not naïveté, but Innocence. We've all lost all or so much of our Innocence and once you've lost it you can't ever retrieve it, even if you try and lose yourself in the nirvana of Buddha, or the big bosom of wealth,

Gone.

The rule of law

The rule of law has always been the continuous conflict between those who believe the law is suitable for everyone but themselves. Modern democratic nation states like to believe themselves capable of producing a higher and higher degree of sophistication in obtaining fair and impartial interpretation of the law.

That's their first mistake. Going back to the Bible, Talmud, Koran and many other standardized versions of what is law, who gets to punish lawbreakers, who are lawbreakers. In a fascist state, any fascist state whether ancient or modern, whoever controls the enforcement of laws gets to break the laws without punishment. So the question becomes, as Hannah Arendt didn't say, the fight is to see who can get away with breaking the law unpunished and who has to pay the price for breaking the law. 

All that is strictly determined by what questions and what answers they create for themselves when they decide what is a law. All the questions and all the answers contained in the above mentioned books and others have already been asked and answered in a thousand different ways. Every Anarchist should be proud to say, you can pick any answer to any question and you're probably right.

Of course, if climate change is left unabated the possibility that extinction would be the most extreme outcome is more possible. But let's be honest. Climate change is a slow process that for however long it exists, the troubles of society will continue to be exacerbated. A lot depends on the politics of economics. If capitalism is in place, I don't see any abatement there, the corporate interests will respond to dwindling resources in certain parts of the world, to redistribute temporarily unaffected resources to the parts of the world able to bring profit. Look to similarities to modern day distribution. In as much as the third world is already at the bottom of economic prosperity except as cheap labor, which it will continue to be. Resources in economically depressed areas will be protected and local communities will fight each other to be employed at these corporate strongholds, whose products will go from the ground to more wealthy nation states worldwide. Again, this is a current condition and the pressures of the current state of affairs will increase as climate change becomes more effective in destroying the more easily obtained, transported, and utilized resources. The small nations, not in the real food chain, will disintegrate into regional conflicts as extremist elements in all societies attempt to gain some control where there are none.

In other words, not much different than what we already have at the present time. Just different music to the world game of musical chairs.