I am such a bloody hypocrite. I go on about the “othering” of people, decrying the accusatory “objectivisation” of social groups; I deplore the fascistic blame game, so often used to divert attention from the real issue or problem; I rail against the divisions, deliberately created to divide and rule us and then I go and call the billionaire oligarchs and their political, academic and scientific establishment “the parasite class.”
People need to look up to something or someone they consider to be above them only because it then justifies being able to look down on others. That’s from a Carlos Castaneda quote I cannot locate.
I always use the term "rich assholes". It's meant to be pejorative and meant to exclude and shame. As you say, they are not elected and in my opinion, not really members of any community, but their own. I'm willing to "other" them whenever I can.
"Michels said that the technical demands of society made oligarch leadership indefensible to the survival…"
I believe you mean "indispensible"? I mean, the idea they're indispensible to our survival IS indefensible, but still.
I call them "the elite" because it's how they think of themselves—superior to the unwashed masses they fight tooth and claw to ensure don't acquire the level of education and knowledge they think they have. Parasites they are, but that rather goes with the territory of being an Elite, doesn't it? It's our desire to achieve that level of being supported entirely by others they manipulate to keep us struggling to reach that ever-moving goalpost.
Hey! I wanted to thank you very much for recommending NEVERMORE to your readers. It is an honour to be recommended by one of the contemporary political analysts I most admire. Thank you for the vote of confidence!
Parasites serve some symbiotic function. This may be said - not always, but for any living thing, I suggest always - whether we are aware of it or not. Nothing and no oneexists in and of itself alone.
I agree self-interest is the underlying principle but that self-definition is key to what at that moment operates to frame perceptions and responses.
The experience of fear or threat will have an effect on the mind of an individual as on a group that can be looked at on many levels ie biology as well as psychology. The reflex would resolve to restore natural rested function, but if the conflict persists, loops or is reset over and again, a condition sometimes called 'amygdala capture' operates as a reptilian brain override for in the focus of a fight-flight reaction all else is subordinated to the 'emergency powers'.
Under intense and extreme conditions, adaptation to a conflict state becomes identity within it. Here are the blocks to the peace from which to release an identity that fears loss of self, face or power as a result of restored Communication. So guilt and guilting aka the blame game operate every kind of manipulative masking deceit to protect the problem, the conflict, the realm of death and taxes - for neither are inherent to our creation are the level of our spirit but pertain to the mortal coil of masking in the body as a distancing and separation from Infinity - which is neither big or small - being edgeless or 'non local' as the locals here use as a more sciency term than anything associated with non-physical perspectives of the past.
But in the Bible as an example, the idea of the Adversary is within a greater 'Plan' or function, as activated in a sleeping Adam, initiated in Job but then restated in fulfilment in NT Jesus. I know the idea of evil get CAPS and generates an identity set over and against as if The Good Guys, but Jesus says resist ye not evil for a very specific warning, namely (in modern terms) what you resist persists, while that which is left unused fades from non use.
Perceived evils feed on emotional reaction, and 'transmit' contagion by resonance to the attempt to eradicate them - which righteously kills all the bastards as a self-vindicating sacrifice - and once started sets the basis of an identity that loves to hate, and so must hate to love, and so can only mask in virtue that it thought to claim in righteousness.
Pausing an instant to check in at the heart is not a technique, but the only way to truly live conscious to our life, for otherwise our conditioned reactions replay or reset our past - which is protected and mutates to ensure no future can 'break in' to relive the trauma that such strategies were set by and learned under.
Excepting that the complex of defences set by lies to conceal against true disclosure ARE a compound of death and taxes - for as you may have wits to see, death is 'unconscious ness' or denial of function to awareness set in the focus of an identity theft, or mis-taken inheritance.
So the masking order disintegrates to the rising of awareness - along with all the suppressed denials, conflicts and grievances, that a surface 'order' pushes beneath the table or gives a blind eye to.
One more point; the attempt to escape from our conflicts without addressing them, operates the 'magical solution' that repackages them into novel forms that effectively redistribute psychic energies such as to determine 'who pays' in a negatively operating pass the parcel of blame, running in a Fabian construct of musical chairs, accelerating under opportunistic orgy of plunder from destruction.
For fungi feeds on dead stuff, without which life would choke on death (as in fact a culture of death does in denial of life). So a willingness to take the feedback of our experience of a world as valid results to an input that also runs under our own radar as subconscious habits or unconscious denials is the willingness of bringing the unconscious to awareness in stead of endlessly sacrificing light and life to a gaslighting complex of defences set very deeply in protection under trauma and self-protected from casual interference - ie surrounded with thorns or guarded by terrors. What is true love but nothing added or taken away?
Notice how in emergency held in presence is guided to only do what is needful and not do what is not required. This is not a moral code, but alignment in energy and purpose.
There is more could unpack from this because a seeming unity can access resources that are unwise to underestimate. Fear driven agenda can access ingenuity that predictively anticipates what you were about to think, but it cannot create, it can only feed off the Creator it must deny in order to seem to exist.
Another brilliant piece of work Iain. I enjoy everything you write alongside Whitney Webb, Matt Ehret, Frances Leader, Miri AF and many others. You may know that James Corbett referenced your excellent Global Commons piece in his Report article yesterday. I look forward to more Substack articles in due course.
I have a natural born gift as an artist. I reach adulthood and realize throughout history that artists starve without wealthy patrons, “the elites”. So even though I have no interest in the field at all, I become an engineer in order to mate with the beautiful woman with expensive tastes.
In the world view presented, the assumption is that all are interested and adept at the necessities of a community. If left to that vision, no one would be pump out sewage or pick up the trash or dig the ditches or pave the roads.
Everyone would want to be a professional golfer, or shopper, or video game player, ..... or an artist.
Another great rant to generate thought and debate, cheers!
In the beginning were families,
the families interacted, united , had fights, conspired and effectively became consolidated through marriage ... in time they became CULTS.
The cults seeded what we call CULTURES.
After eons travelling, trading, exploiting and shit-stirring among each other they became conglomerated as one gross, many tentacled being (from the Sea to the Mountain peaks) - without any humanity being retained in its habits and desires. In effect it became an unstoppable machine with a compulsion (actually a psychotic 'justified necessity') to deceive, mutilated and CONTROL.
This all encompassing CLUB, CLAW and GROTTO has no pinnacle to its pyramid of power. It is controlled by the same families, with the same symbolism and sensibilities promoted since the deluge(s) all nations underwent.
The illusion of opposition is intrinsic with the chessboard they playout their nightmare scenarios upon. The queens and popes are pieces on the board, no more important than the pawns , yet given more parameters to play with. Yet all the pieces are heartless and prone to sacrificing those around them.
Those without empathy will consider life the GAME. They may flourish among their peers, yet have already lost a far greater prize, by sacrificing their own humanity and soul?
Funny how this article cites "reason" over and over while also espousing anarchist philosophy. Meanwhile, actual anarchists are all anti-reason postmodernists who would normally denounce reason as being "white", "western" and therefore racist, and their latest project got taken over by the tyrant dictator Raz Simone, to say nothing about the dictatorial manner in which /r/Anarchism is run. No sir, I am done with anarchism. Anarchist philosophy is all lies. Anarchists don't actually believe it. In practice they just follow Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, in which reason is supplanted by force.
I wonder if the controlled opposition is in fact within us all - the ego. I understand that doesn’t make sense in terms of how the term controlled opposition is generally used but somehow it makes sense to me.
I think youll like this poem- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rw4sd4AuJE - which is about the two types of parasites - the bum on the rods (The Hobo who relies on the kindness of strangers) whereas the Other Bum is the beneficiary of the system of capitalism (or crony capitalism, if you prefer)...
The Two Bums
The bum on the rods is hunted down as an enemy of mankind
The other is driven around to his club, is feted, wined and dined
And they who curse the bum on the rods as the essence of all that's bad
Will greet the other with a willing smile and extend a hand so glad
The bum on the rods is a social flea who gets an occassional bite
The bum on the plush is a social leech, bloodsucking day and night
The bum on the rods is a load so light that his weight we scarcely feel
But it takes the labour of dozens of folks to furnish the other a meal
As long as we sanction the bum on the plush the other will always be there
But rid ourselves of the bum on the plush and the other will dissappear
Then make an intelligent organised kick get rid of the weights that crush
Dont worry about the bum on the rods get rid of the bum on the plush
Notes
Utah Phillips writes
"This is a poem from George Milburn's book, The Hobo's Hornbook.
...you hear over and over again, "Nobody ought to get something for nothing." I've got to agree. You've got to work to eat.
I look at a factory. I see that everybody associated with that factory puts something in and they take something out. The workers put in their sweat and their skill, and they take out wages. The salesmen put in their skill and ability, and they take out commissions. The managers and foremen and people in the offices put in theirs, and take out salaries. But there's one group of people who take out more than they put in, and that more is called profit. I can't think of any other way to define it. That's a bunch of people who are getting something they didn't work for, and it's a whole lot. If we're really concerned about people getting just what they earn, if we're really concerned about people not getting something that they didn't put in time and sweat for, let's start with the major offenders, and get rid of them. Then we'll gradually work our way down to the petty chiselers. It just makes sense."
The Logos divides all men. “I came not to bring peace, but to divide” (Luke 12:51). No middle ground, no synthesis, no dialogue is permitted — just the ultimatum: “He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you (religious leaders) do not hear is that you do not belong to God” (John 8:47).
My strongest conviction and faith in Jesus Christ is this key understanding of being *logical* .
The adjective logical is rooted in the Greek word logos, which means "reason, idea, or word."
People need to look up to something or someone they consider to be above them only because it then justifies being able to look down on others. That’s from a Carlos Castaneda quote I cannot locate.
I always use the term "rich assholes". It's meant to be pejorative and meant to exclude and shame. As you say, they are not elected and in my opinion, not really members of any community, but their own. I'm willing to "other" them whenever I can.
"Michels said that the technical demands of society made oligarch leadership indefensible to the survival…"
I believe you mean "indispensible"? I mean, the idea they're indispensible to our survival IS indefensible, but still.
I call them "the elite" because it's how they think of themselves—superior to the unwashed masses they fight tooth and claw to ensure don't acquire the level of education and knowledge they think they have. Parasites they are, but that rather goes with the territory of being an Elite, doesn't it? It's our desire to achieve that level of being supported entirely by others they manipulate to keep us struggling to reach that ever-moving goalpost.
Hey! I wanted to thank you very much for recommending NEVERMORE to your readers. It is an honour to be recommended by one of the contemporary political analysts I most admire. Thank you for the vote of confidence!
Parasites serve some symbiotic function. This may be said - not always, but for any living thing, I suggest always - whether we are aware of it or not. Nothing and no oneexists in and of itself alone.
I agree self-interest is the underlying principle but that self-definition is key to what at that moment operates to frame perceptions and responses.
The experience of fear or threat will have an effect on the mind of an individual as on a group that can be looked at on many levels ie biology as well as psychology. The reflex would resolve to restore natural rested function, but if the conflict persists, loops or is reset over and again, a condition sometimes called 'amygdala capture' operates as a reptilian brain override for in the focus of a fight-flight reaction all else is subordinated to the 'emergency powers'.
Under intense and extreme conditions, adaptation to a conflict state becomes identity within it. Here are the blocks to the peace from which to release an identity that fears loss of self, face or power as a result of restored Communication. So guilt and guilting aka the blame game operate every kind of manipulative masking deceit to protect the problem, the conflict, the realm of death and taxes - for neither are inherent to our creation are the level of our spirit but pertain to the mortal coil of masking in the body as a distancing and separation from Infinity - which is neither big or small - being edgeless or 'non local' as the locals here use as a more sciency term than anything associated with non-physical perspectives of the past.
But in the Bible as an example, the idea of the Adversary is within a greater 'Plan' or function, as activated in a sleeping Adam, initiated in Job but then restated in fulfilment in NT Jesus. I know the idea of evil get CAPS and generates an identity set over and against as if The Good Guys, but Jesus says resist ye not evil for a very specific warning, namely (in modern terms) what you resist persists, while that which is left unused fades from non use.
Perceived evils feed on emotional reaction, and 'transmit' contagion by resonance to the attempt to eradicate them - which righteously kills all the bastards as a self-vindicating sacrifice - and once started sets the basis of an identity that loves to hate, and so must hate to love, and so can only mask in virtue that it thought to claim in righteousness.
Pausing an instant to check in at the heart is not a technique, but the only way to truly live conscious to our life, for otherwise our conditioned reactions replay or reset our past - which is protected and mutates to ensure no future can 'break in' to relive the trauma that such strategies were set by and learned under.
Excepting that the complex of defences set by lies to conceal against true disclosure ARE a compound of death and taxes - for as you may have wits to see, death is 'unconscious ness' or denial of function to awareness set in the focus of an identity theft, or mis-taken inheritance.
So the masking order disintegrates to the rising of awareness - along with all the suppressed denials, conflicts and grievances, that a surface 'order' pushes beneath the table or gives a blind eye to.
One more point; the attempt to escape from our conflicts without addressing them, operates the 'magical solution' that repackages them into novel forms that effectively redistribute psychic energies such as to determine 'who pays' in a negatively operating pass the parcel of blame, running in a Fabian construct of musical chairs, accelerating under opportunistic orgy of plunder from destruction.
For fungi feeds on dead stuff, without which life would choke on death (as in fact a culture of death does in denial of life). So a willingness to take the feedback of our experience of a world as valid results to an input that also runs under our own radar as subconscious habits or unconscious denials is the willingness of bringing the unconscious to awareness in stead of endlessly sacrificing light and life to a gaslighting complex of defences set very deeply in protection under trauma and self-protected from casual interference - ie surrounded with thorns or guarded by terrors. What is true love but nothing added or taken away?
Notice how in emergency held in presence is guided to only do what is needful and not do what is not required. This is not a moral code, but alignment in energy and purpose.
There is more could unpack from this because a seeming unity can access resources that are unwise to underestimate. Fear driven agenda can access ingenuity that predictively anticipates what you were about to think, but it cannot create, it can only feed off the Creator it must deny in order to seem to exist.
Another brilliant piece of work Iain. I enjoy everything you write alongside Whitney Webb, Matt Ehret, Frances Leader, Miri AF and many others. You may know that James Corbett referenced your excellent Global Commons piece in his Report article yesterday. I look forward to more Substack articles in due course.
Have to build a new system based on resources located entirely outside of the political economy.
Thinking about it is the most frustrating thought process. I have nothing but contempt for the monetary system. I know I’m not alone but I am alone.
Regarding the etymology of 'elite', there are a people who consider themselves chosen. You didn't have the courage to say that though. lol.
I have a natural born gift as an artist. I reach adulthood and realize throughout history that artists starve without wealthy patrons, “the elites”. So even though I have no interest in the field at all, I become an engineer in order to mate with the beautiful woman with expensive tastes.
In the world view presented, the assumption is that all are interested and adept at the necessities of a community. If left to that vision, no one would be pump out sewage or pick up the trash or dig the ditches or pave the roads.
Everyone would want to be a professional golfer, or shopper, or video game player, ..... or an artist.
They are all men.
It's funny how the ruling class, philosopher class, and major religion sees that if they don't shape things, humans will tear apart the world.
It's a ridiculous myth...
https://robc137.substack.com/p/the-milgram-experiment-and-how-we
Another great rant to generate thought and debate, cheers!
In the beginning were families,
the families interacted, united , had fights, conspired and effectively became consolidated through marriage ... in time they became CULTS.
The cults seeded what we call CULTURES.
After eons travelling, trading, exploiting and shit-stirring among each other they became conglomerated as one gross, many tentacled being (from the Sea to the Mountain peaks) - without any humanity being retained in its habits and desires. In effect it became an unstoppable machine with a compulsion (actually a psychotic 'justified necessity') to deceive, mutilated and CONTROL.
This all encompassing CLUB, CLAW and GROTTO has no pinnacle to its pyramid of power. It is controlled by the same families, with the same symbolism and sensibilities promoted since the deluge(s) all nations underwent.
The illusion of opposition is intrinsic with the chessboard they playout their nightmare scenarios upon. The queens and popes are pieces on the board, no more important than the pawns , yet given more parameters to play with. Yet all the pieces are heartless and prone to sacrificing those around them.
Those without empathy will consider life the GAME. They may flourish among their peers, yet have already lost a far greater prize, by sacrificing their own humanity and soul?
Funny how this article cites "reason" over and over while also espousing anarchist philosophy. Meanwhile, actual anarchists are all anti-reason postmodernists who would normally denounce reason as being "white", "western" and therefore racist, and their latest project got taken over by the tyrant dictator Raz Simone, to say nothing about the dictatorial manner in which /r/Anarchism is run. No sir, I am done with anarchism. Anarchist philosophy is all lies. Anarchists don't actually believe it. In practice they just follow Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, in which reason is supplanted by force.
I wonder if the controlled opposition is in fact within us all - the ego. I understand that doesn’t make sense in terms of how the term controlled opposition is generally used but somehow it makes sense to me.
I think youll like this poem- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rw4sd4AuJE - which is about the two types of parasites - the bum on the rods (The Hobo who relies on the kindness of strangers) whereas the Other Bum is the beneficiary of the system of capitalism (or crony capitalism, if you prefer)...
The Two Bums
The bum on the rods is hunted down as an enemy of mankind
The other is driven around to his club, is feted, wined and dined
And they who curse the bum on the rods as the essence of all that's bad
Will greet the other with a willing smile and extend a hand so glad
The bum on the rods is a social flea who gets an occassional bite
The bum on the plush is a social leech, bloodsucking day and night
The bum on the rods is a load so light that his weight we scarcely feel
But it takes the labour of dozens of folks to furnish the other a meal
As long as we sanction the bum on the plush the other will always be there
But rid ourselves of the bum on the plush and the other will dissappear
Then make an intelligent organised kick get rid of the weights that crush
Dont worry about the bum on the rods get rid of the bum on the plush
Notes
Utah Phillips writes
"This is a poem from George Milburn's book, The Hobo's Hornbook.
...you hear over and over again, "Nobody ought to get something for nothing." I've got to agree. You've got to work to eat.
I look at a factory. I see that everybody associated with that factory puts something in and they take something out. The workers put in their sweat and their skill, and they take out wages. The salesmen put in their skill and ability, and they take out commissions. The managers and foremen and people in the offices put in theirs, and take out salaries. But there's one group of people who take out more than they put in, and that more is called profit. I can't think of any other way to define it. That's a bunch of people who are getting something they didn't work for, and it's a whole lot. If we're really concerned about people getting just what they earn, if we're really concerned about people not getting something that they didn't put in time and sweat for, let's start with the major offenders, and get rid of them. Then we'll gradually work our way down to the petty chiselers. It just makes sense."
Dear Iain
https://eu.theledger.com/story/news/2008/07/12/bibles-oldest-verse-reveals-the-logos/26558361007/
The Logos divides all men. “I came not to bring peace, but to divide” (Luke 12:51). No middle ground, no synthesis, no dialogue is permitted — just the ultimatum: “He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you (religious leaders) do not hear is that you do not belong to God” (John 8:47).
My strongest conviction and faith in Jesus Christ is this key understanding of being *logical* .
The adjective logical is rooted in the Greek word logos, which means "reason, idea, or word."