Free (Market) Radicals

I consider myself a rational, compassionate, pretty average human being politically, but I am labelled “radical left”. The problem I find is that the economy is run by the “radical right” (the neoclassical school of free market radicals), but they call themselves “centre right” (the Tories, for example), which skews the entire political spectrum and distorts the political landscape in the minds of the electorate. Indeed, wasn’t it George Orwell in his book ‘1984’ who highlighted the perversion of language and meaning by the ruling class to suit their own controlling agenda. They label rational, compassionate human beings as “radical left” to smear common sensibilities and make room for their radical right-wing agenda in the “centre right”. They distort language and meaning to legitimise themselves in the eyes of the public to manufacture consent and take and hold power over all of us.

Now speaking as a rational, compassionate, pretty average human being; caring about people and wanting supply to meet demand – like the human demand for access to clean drinking water, healthy food, modern healthcare, etc – shouldn’t make one “radical”. Yet in our warped right-wing world – and its social value disorder of mass-consumption at the expense/exploitation of people from poorer backgrounds – that’s what we’re regarded as, and that’s just plain wrong! We’re not radical, we’re rational, compassionate human beings. “Radical left” is their label, not ours! They’re the radicals who have created a flawed neoclassical model to justify their own selfishness and lack of compassion! We are the normal ones who want a better world for everyone. We are the ones who need to stand up to their austerity measures for the poor and handouts for the rich. Only we can delegitimise them and their nefarious agenda. Only we can shift these radicals who have occupied the centre right back over to the radical right in the eyes of the public, where they belong.

Andrew Parker – The Voice of Anarchy

General Election 2015: What you’re really voting for!

After listening to 6 weeks of (soon to be broken) promises I think it’s important that we know what the Parties stand for and what we will be getting for our vote. Here are some of the Key Issues:

Neoliberalism – The Tories, Labour, UKIP and the Lib Dems are all parties who support Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is a term used interchangeably with Capitalism. Since the 1980s, Neoliberalism is a term used primarily by critics of the resurgence of ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism, whose advocates support extensive economic liberalization policies such as privatisation of public services, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy. Neoliberalism is famously associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States. These Neoliberal Parties state that the economy (and growth) are the most important thing and should be protected above all else, as stated here by Tory MP Anna Soubry on Question Time aired 12/03/2015 (see 26:02 minutes):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b055ks65/question-time-12032015.

Surely, the most important thing is the people! But even Labour and the Lib Dems fight for this socially destructive system which ensures wealth is consolidated into the hands of the wealthy few at the expense of everyone else.

Other social evils that the Neoliberal Parties support and which are symptoms of the Neoliberal ideology which they espouse:

Dirty Energy, Fossil Fuels and Fracking – Another symptom of Neoliberalism. Wealthy oil and gas companies lobby Govt’s and use their wealth to drill where they want, when they want, causing pollution and ecological devastation along the way. The Neoliberal Parties sit back and let this happen, possibly for financial incentives…what other reason could there be?! We have the technology to make clean renewable energy universal, so why else persist with dirty energy?!

Fossil Fuels

Fracking

TTIP – TTIP is probably the worst thing you haven’t heard of and all the Neoliberal Parties support it, again perhaps only for their own financial incentives. It seeks to remove even more power from democracy and hand it to the Corporations. It will see the privatisation of every public service and if our Government tries to block this, the Corporations will be legally obliged to sue our Governments for potential loss of earnings. TTIP is as draconian as you can possibly imagine and it must be stopped…but it won’t be if you vote for one of the 4 Neoliberal Parties!:

Austerity/Cuts – Since the 2008 Financial Crash, caused by Banks over-lending and taking unnecessary risks, Western Governments have bailed them out and billed the taxpayers (that’s us!) All the 4 Neoliberal Parties agree on varying degrees of further cuts in the next Government. But the last thing people need after years of frozen wages, cuts to much needed benefits like the Independent Living Allowance (formerly paid to people with disabilities), cuts to pensions, cuts to public services and the selling off of public services like Royal Mail on the cheap, unemployment, inflated costs of housing and the rising cost of living, is more austerity/cuts!

Immigration – All the Neoliberal Parties see immigration as a problem, although UKIP are the most vocally opposed. Immigration isn’t a problem of its own creation. Like the other social ills mentioned above, it is a symptom of Neoliberalism or in more specific terms, Globalisation. Neoliberals believe in free markets – the free movements of capital goods (products and services) without any intervention or regulation by Governments. But when it comes to the free movement of people, Neoliberals are vocally opposed and seek strict Government regulation. People from other countries become immigrants because they come from a country that is what one might call ‘a capitalist sacrifice zone’. The infrastructure of public services (healthcare, education, roads and rail services) and resources one needs to survive are not available in their country, which may be ravaged by war, famine, indebted to wealthier countries and transnational banks. Work is scarce and lowly paid and people live in poverty. Depression, fear and desolation are everyday factors. We’ve heard about the Migrant Boat situation in the Mediterranean where many thousands drown each year fleeing war zones and failed states in North Africa and the Middle East. These countries have failed due to developed western nations directly interfering in the geopolitics of the region (Iraq, Libya, etc), or not stepping in when outside aid is vitally required (Syria, South Sudan, etc). So the people living in these countries risk their lives and pay every penny they have to travel to wealthier countries (like the UK) to find better paid work to send home to their families. So immigration is not caused by immigrants, it’s caused by wealth and resources hoarded by individuals and organisations based in wealthier developed countries. This is why Nigel Farage is a liar and UKIP are demonising poorly paid immigrants just to win votes. If UKIP and the other Neoliberal Parties stop people from ‘capitalist sacrifice zones’ emigrating to the UK for work, the UK economy will be adversely affected and people in foreign countries will get poorer still, increasing already desperately unbalanced inequality. The only way to stop people coming to the UK for work is to unilaterally (all countries in agreement) build the infrastructure of countries that need it and ensure these countries can develop by dropping the debt (in the form of a debt jubilee) and return the wealth of these countries to the indigenous people (most land and resources all over the world are owned and hoarded by the wealthy few in wealthier, developed countries. Did you know that of the 36.8 billion acres of inhabitable land on Earth, Queen Elizabeth II owns 6.6 billion acres of it! One little old lady OWNS just under 20% of the planet!: http://www.polgeonow.com/2012/06/feature-queen-elizabeths-16-countries.html  You can see why I’m not a Royalist and believe that land belongs to the people, all people, but particularly those who currently inhabit it, and most definitely not one obscenely-wealthy Neoliberal!)

Of course there are many issues that have been brought up over the last 6 weeks and you may be able to think of many more besides. These are just a few of the Key Issues but are barely mentioned by our mainstream media, especially in the factually correct terms that I have laid out. This all shows why we shouldn’t vote for one of the 4 Neoliberal Parties – Conservative, UKIP, Labour or Lib Dems.

So, then, who should we vote for? I’m not trying to tell you what to do, I’m just trying to ensure you have all the facts so you can make an informed decision either way. It all depends on what you believe is most important?

If you believe the economy (which is fake anyway. There’s plenty more on that in my previous blog posts!) is the most important thing, like our friend Anna Soubry MP, then vote for one of the 4 Neoliberal Parties. It doesn’t really matter which one you vote for, because policy-wise there’s very little that separates them. If you’re already rich you’ll no doubt get a bit richer. If you’re middle class life might get a bit tougher, but if you’re one of the vast majority who is a heavily-indebted working class person, life is about to get even harder if people vote on mass for the 4 Neoliberal Parties.

If you believe that the health and well-being of the people and the planet is the most important thing, you should be voting for one of the parties who oppose Neoliberalism, Dirty Energy, TTIP, Austerity and see immigration for what it really is, the symptom and inevitable outcome of a cruel, unequal Neoliberal system. If you see one of these parties on your ballot slip – the Green Party, TUSC (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition), the SNP (Scottish National Party) or Plaid Cymru, you should vote for one of them. Again, it doesn’t really matter which 1 of these 4 ‘people’s’ parties you vote for, policy-wise, because they are all very similar because they are all well-informed, well-intentioned and just want what’s best for people. They also support: the scrapping of university tuition fees, a financial transaction tax on the big banks, increase the minimum wage to £10 per hour, invest in renewable energy including the installation of solar panels on all south facing roofs and insulating homes, create 1 million new jobs in green energy initiatives and public services, abolish the bedroom tax, invest in jobs and public services, provide 500,000 new social homes, cap rental costs on private properties, end the privatisation of public services like the NHS, rebuild labour power and rights, take urgent action on climate change, renationalise the railways and cut fares. It’s a no brainer! Vote for real change! (Green, TUSC, SNP, Plaid Cymru) Don’t vote Neoliberal! (Tory, UKIP, Labour, Lib Dem)

P.S. If you live in Manchester Withington vote Lib Dem because John Leech is a Lib Dem rebel and a great servant of the people and if he loses his seat, Labour will have a monopoly over Manchester, and anyone who knows anything about anything knows that monopolies are bad for people and bad for democracy. Otherwise, give the 4 Neoliberal Parties a miss on Thursday 7th May and give your cross to one of the 4 ‘people’s’ parties!

Andrew Parker – The Voice of Anarchy

We have the best democracy money can buy!

Marx’s quote, “The State is the Executive Committee of the Bourgeoisie”, is indeed very prescient in modern times, especially in the aftermath of the bail out of failed banks and the collapse of the finance industry in 2008 and the big corporate donations to political parties electoral campaigns, which pay for elections and put our politicians in the pockets of the banks and big business.

Like Marxist Professor David Harvey said, “we’ve got the best democracy money can buy”, so maybe the problem isn’t ‘The State’ (Ancaps, Capitalists and Libertarians take note) but that The State is used and abused by the moneyed class to further their interests at the expense of everyone else, the rest of us, all of humanity!!!

Is the state then not just a tool to be used by he who holds greatest social influence? In current times none are more influential than those with the greatest wealth mixed with the greatest desire to consolidate, and especially, to expand that wealth. So is not the solution to this problem:  a) To remove money from politics, which unfortunately then leaves us open to backdoor deals even more corrupt than we currently have. Or b) Remove the incentive and temptation to use and abuse power, so effectively we need to remove the ability for one person to hold coercive power over another. This cannot be done while there still exists a monetary economy and hierarchical social structures, which cause domination and downward social pressures. Which leaves us with only one social system that can be of great benefit to a progressive humanity – Libertarian Socialism. The answer to all our problems is that simple!

The self-perpetuating downward pressure of the current socio-economic system has conditioned us to focus too much on micro-managing issues, which are merely the symptoms of a wider social value disorder anyway , something the wealthy few fear us figuring out! I figured it out and have now shared that knowledge with you. The sharing of knowledge between people is true people power, more powerful than any democracy paid for by the highest bidder! Share the knowledge, share the wealth!

The solution then is one of macro-management, or more simply put: We need a better system! We need then to get rid of this horrible crony capitalist system and put in place Libertarian socialism, asap!

Once more, share the knowledge, share the wealth!

Andrew Parker – The Voice of Anarchy

Answers to Questions on Religion, Death and The Meaning of Life

Having recently watched Stephen Fry’s interview on RTE’s ‘The Meaning of Life’, I started to wonder what answers I would give to the questions Gay Byrne asks all of his guests at the end of their interviews. Below is how I expect the final few questions would go:

GB: What was Jesus?

Me: If indeed we can attribute these stories to a single person from that era…

GB: So you doubt his existence?

Me: Of course…

GB: Why?

Me: Because there’s no evidence and the stories are all so absurd.

GB: Absurd?

Me: Magic tricks passed off as miracles by God or a God-like person.

GB: And is there a God?

Me: No, and that’s quite an absurd question.

GB: Why?

Me: Well, first of all, which God are you talking about? Because we are closely connected culturally I understand you to mean the God of Abraham, the one with the beard and the pearly gates and the angels and harps, which sounds more like an acid trip than what we should reasonably expect to occur after we die, but what would a Chinese person think of such a question?  Or a Hindu person?  Or a Scientologist? Or an Ancient Greek person? Well, they’re quite likely to think that we’re mad and refer us to the one true God, or Gods, which they identify with from their cultural background. Everyone is indoctrinated to think a certain way and think everyone else is mad for thinking otherwise and this shows us perfectly, that in fact everyone is wrong, and all religious people are doing is selling certainty to uncertain people, which is essentially selling people an empty box. They’re just salesmen filling a gap in the market – shysters – whether they know it or were dragged into believing this nonsense when their heads were still soft, and so for that reason it’s hard to blame each individual person. In truth it’s a cycle of mental abuse stemming back to the progenitors of religion, like the way L. Ron Hubbard sold Scientology to people in the mid 20th century. It starts with a shyster salesman, sometimes creating but always filling a gap in the market and so beginning a cycle of mental abuse. It’s the progenitors of religion and the ones who deep down don’t believe but preach it anyway, they’re the people I have a problem with. They, and control freaks like them, seek to profit from distracting us from what’s most important.

GB: Which is?

Me: Everything that can be affected by an act of love, from making love and giving life, to choosing not to kill a person or crush a flower or an insect under your foot. Animals love each other and us to varying degrees and with varying capacities. Perhaps even plants can love, that hasn’t been entirely ruled out at this stage. Apparently, there were scientific studies done where plants grew stronger and lived longer if people stroked their leaves and sang to them. We should spread love far and wide, because in its absence is an indifferent universe which deals creation and destruction in equal measure. It is our capacity to love that sets us apart. But then I must mention the existence of hate. Hate exists in the absence of love, where the perceiver is embittered by its absence and is looking for someone to blame. All you need is love! The Beatles got it right. We shouldn’t allow our world to be run by sociopaths – those with no empathy or capacity for love. This is why we’ve gotten ourselves into such a mess. But it’s a mess that can only be fixed by love.

GB: Now suppose you are wrong and when you die you find yourself at the pearly gates confronted by God. What will you say to him, her or it?

Me: Well, again, this is an absurd scenario!

GB: Humour me.

Me: It’s just not going to happen. It’s just the wishful thinking of people who strive for meaning in a meaningless world.

GB: Well, now, that’s a bit pessimistic!

Me: Verging on Nihilistic, I know, but all the same…here’s the thing; people of a sociopathic tendancy invented this stuff, as I said earlier, to cash in on a gap in the market, which is people’s uncertainty and search for meaning in life, when really, there isn’t any, no objective meaning anyway. But as a sideline, we do subjectively – as individuals – prosper more when we cooperate as a species, so there is certainly value to a simulated objective meaning in life in the form of global cooperation of a Libertarian Socialist tendancy. Now, the people who buy into religion seem to want to live forever in some never-ending afterlife and they want to believe this stuff simply because they’re so scared of dying and becoming nothing.

GB: And isn’t becoming nothing a bad thing?

Me: No, not at all, even if we were to become nothing, which I don’t think is entirely true.

GB: So what do you think happens when we die?

Me: Well, first of all, on immortality in heaven or wherever we are lead to believe this is supposed to take place; say after the equivalent of 300 billion earth years has passed after your death, and you’ve done everything you wanted to do, even stuff you didn’t want to do, but you did it because you had never done it before; whilst sitting on a cloud looking out over heaven, happy that you’ve done all this stuff, content and satisfied in everything you’ve experienced over the last 300 billion years, suddenly, it occurs to you, “now what?! I’ve done everything – most things more than once – and I really don’t care to do any more, but I can’t just sit on this cloud for the rest of eternity. I think I’ll ask God if he can make me not exist anymore.” So you go to God and say. “Listen, thanks for everything, it’s been heaven, but I feel like I’m just filling time now and I was just wondering – well, I’ve actually been wondering this for a few hundred billion years – I was wondering if I could ‘go’ now?” “Go,” booms God, “Go where?” “Er, I guess the best way to put it is, I’d like to cease to exist now, if that’s all right?” “What? Is there something wrong with your heavenly experience that you’d like to share?” “No, like I said, it’s been smashing, but I’d just like to shuffle off this ‘immortal’ coil now, if you don’t mind?” “Well I’m sorry you aren’t entirely satisfied with your heavenly experience…” “Well, it’s not like that exactly…” “But the alternatives are eternal banishment or Hell, so unless you have anything constructive to add, I suggest you go back into Heaven and enjoy yourself. Good day to you!” Now, suddenly, you aren’t in Hell, but you may as well be!

See the problem with an immortal afterlife is there’s no option to no longer exist. You’re stuck existing for all eternity. Who wants that? Why would anybody want to be trapped for all eternity in existence when there will eventually come the time when we desire to cease to exist? You see, the desire to exist is dependent upon having something to exist for – a categorical desire, as phrased by the philosopher Bernard Williams – and when the desire for existence fades away to nothing, we should be allowed to follow suit. For this reason, longevity of life is great, it has instrumental value to live as long as you want to, but crucially, death is nothing to fear in and of itself. The only reason to fear death is if it comes when you still have things you want to do with your life and if you were to die you’d end up missing out on doing the things you would do if you were still alive – the ‘Deprivation View’ of death proposed by the philosopher Kagan. But Bernard Williams also said, “The immortal are not so lucky as to die,” so it appears true that the meaning of life is that life is finite and we may die. Death is therefore our saviour from an unwanted life – blessed oblivion, as they say. So in answer to your question…

GB: You mean, you haven’t answered it yet?

Me: No, sorry, I do tend to procrastinate a little.

GB: I noticed!

Me: I happen to have given all of this quite a lot of thought.

GB: Clearly!

Me: So, when we die – we are beings of energy and light; there’s the organic stuff too, sure, but the fleshy vessel gets left behind. So when we die, the energy that animates this fleshy vessel, flows away and since energy cannot be destroyed, rather, it can only pass from one thing to the next, it leaves this temporarily occupied space and time and returns to the pool of energy from whence it sprang, which exists outside this dimension, in a spaceless, timeless place. The spring of life, some might say.

GB: And could this place not be Heaven?

Me: No, not as we know it.

GB: And why not?

Me: Well, because of all the reasons I laid out earlier, but also because our self – our identity – is confined to the body – specifically, the brain – and we can’t take that with us. Our memories, our senses and our personalities get left behind and our energy – which starts at our conception and is the electrical signals that flow through our body, making our heart beat and our limbs and organs work, etc, only this energy continues on after death. But I do feel – due to the testimony of many on their deathbeds – that when we die and our energy flows back into this pool, it feels ecstatic, like pure unadulterated love, and we know when we get there that we’re home. Make of that what you will, I’m not selling it, it just seems to me to be true.

GB: It sounds a lot like Heaven to me, but we’ll have to leave it there. Thank you very much. (Shakes hands and finish)

Andrew Parker – The Voice of Anarchy

It’s our world! What do we want it to be?

Let us not allow, as willing accomplices to the crime of the millennia, the ruling class, through austerity, to continue to steal the wealth of the commons. And it is a crime! It is called Grand Larceny! The theft of ‘our’ property! They are stealing ‘our’ land and resources! They have taken ‘our’ goods and services, ‘our’ common heritage, free at point of use as part of ‘our’ basic rights, and privatised by the rich for ‘their own’ profits!

The ruling class have been doing this for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, but the aggression of this theft was ratcheted up by King Henry VIII during the Enclosure Acts, where land was stolen from the people, by decree of ‘God and the King’! The people were then forced to rent the land back from the King and his appointed landed gentry (landlords) who claimed the land ‘legally’ as their private property! This is a crime! Changing the law of a nation to steal from others is in itself is a crime! We are ongoing victims of Grand Larceny, of that there is no doubt! It is crucial that we learn the lessons of history, or else we are doomed to repeat it!

The courageous people who survived the war years of the first half of the twentieth century – wars against fascism and the theft of land and resources by rulers other than our own – learned that war and hatred would destroy humanity if we allowed it to continue. Humanity was growing too populous, becoming too advanced, and with the development of weapons of mass destruction, more deadly than ever before. The war generation learned the value of society working as one for the common good. They saw the benefit of building a society based upon social values where everyone was given the opportunity to live a life free to pursue their dreams, free from oppression and subjugation. The welfare state was born and with it the NHS and stronger labour unions to ensure the rights of workers and that business leaders contributed to society, rather than ransacking it as they had done before (and since!)

I am sorry to say that the last couple of generations have forgotten these social values by not learning the lessons of history. We have allowed the institutions of war to grow rather than to disband. We have allowed inequality to explode. The commons is once again being strip-mined by the ruling classes. Gone is the system of social responsibility, social values, and the common good. In its place is a system that treats the world as a trough from which the wealthy gorge. Access to the trough is theirs alone. They are protected by the authority of state infrastructure, which rules us with threats and fear and double speak. We are deceived by those who consider themselves our betters and more entitled than us to the common good of the world. They take what is ours and rent it back to us and threaten us if we do not happily accept their terms and conditions. But they don’t give us enough money to live a life free from debt; a key feature of the systemic mechanism of control that they use to oppress and control us. We get the crumbs from their feast. And having taken everything from us the rich refuse to contribute to society. Indeed, as Thatcher declared in 1980, “there is no such thing as society!” Today the rich refuse to pay their taxes. They are even subsidised 30 times more than the poor at a whopping £30bn. They have no social values, and perversely, we are abandoning our social values in a bid to “keep up with the Joneses”!

Our humanity has become sick with a social value disorder that is completely out of sync with the natural world, the ecosystems of which have also become sick. Since the rise of the latest incarnation of Grand Larceny by the wealthy in the 1970’s – Neoliberalism – the levels of carbon in our atmosphere has sky-rocketed. Our planet is warming exponentially. Our ice caps are melting. Our oceans are turning to acid. 50% of all species have become extinct. We are in the 6th mass extinction of our planet – remember the dinosaurs?! We are at serious risk of destroying the planet, the ecosystems, most life on Earth, and in particular, humanity, with our ignorance, with our greed, and most of all, with our refusal to learn from the mistakes of the past!

Democracy is an illusion. We might have elections every 4 or 5 years but nothing changes for the better under Neoliberalism, not while the rich fund the political campaigns of our ‘public servants’! ‘Public servants’ – that’s a laugh! We should change the name of these people to ‘Private Servants’, and the ‘House of Commons’ to the ‘House of Corporations’ whilst we’re at it, as they are the only ones who are truly being represented! No matter who we elect in these sham elections, all that keeps happening is the redistribution of goods from the commons to private hands. We are losing access to basic goods and services. We are losing access to our basic rights and privileges. These rights which were fought for by our grandparents and our great grandparents, but our parents and us have allowed them to be eroded. What will it take to wake us from our depression and make us fight back?!

We must ask ourselves: Is this what we want? Why did we allow this to happen to us? Why did our ancestors allow this to happen to them? And do we plan to pass these ever-increasing global problems down to our unsuspecting children? We must fight and teach our children by our example! We must be the role models that they need us to be!

We have allowed ourselves to be oppressed and our fighting spirit repressed. We have succumbed to depression and the numbing effect of escapism. WTF ARE WE DOING??? Reality check: ITS OUR WORLD! WHAT DO WE WANT IT TO BE??

Clearly, we must first take control over our own lives. Ideally, we must do what the Greeks have done and vote into power a party that serves the people, not the ruling class/financial elite, but seeing how Labour have fallen under the spell of Neoliberalism and the left-leaning Greens are still in their infancy, nothing is going to change in the mainstream political arena any time soon. We must organise and tell our bosses and our landlords what we want. We must stand together in unity and fight for our rights. We must only elect representatives who promise to serve us, and if they fail to fulfil our expectations, they must be subject to recall and immediate replacement by a representative fearful of not delivering what we demand. This is the start of us ‘turning the tide’ but it cannot work without YOU! United we stand, divided we fall, and we are in freefall, make no mistake!

The truth is, the ruling class would fight to prevent this from happening because they know full well that they would be massively overpowered by the poor, who are desperate for access to the land and resources currently being stolen and hoarded by the ruling class. If we were to fight as one and start to exert our power, the ruling class would no doubt refuse to hand over the resources & would prefer war (as usual) & a scorched earth, rather than a shared one!

What I’m saying is this: In this globally connected modern world, isn’t it time the people had a say in how the world is run? ALL people should have the power to decide what we want OUR world to be. If we screw up, at least it will be OUR screw up! But the ruling class clearly don’t want a democratic world, which just goes to show – Democracy is bad for business!

The ruling class try to distract us, numb us and deceive us enough to keep us from organising. Those of us who are already up in arms are told by these elites that if we were to encourage enough people to rise up against them, there would be chaos, or Anarchy they sometimes say, to distort its true meaning in another act of double speak! If we were to abandon their draconian hierarchical power system and their oppressive monetary debt-based system we would be reduced to a bunch of mad apes sitting in ditches launching shit at each other! This merely highlights how little they feel for our common humanity and how much they underestimate us!

The existential fear of the ruling class is real. After all, the kind of political and economic system in which they have risen to power is at serious risk of destroying us all! But instead of owning up to their responsibility (seemingly the only thing they don’t wish to own!), the ruling class are responding by grasping ever tighter to power, while wielding it to create their ticket off of a burning planet!

But perhaps a more complex fear is that, with the advent of intelligent machines replacing bullshit jobs, and even truly necessary jobs, there will be an immense surplus of energy left over from people whose creative impulses cannot be realized in labour. Where does all this energy go? Are we going to have to “plug in”, so to speak, to expend our creative energy in virtual worlds, video games, or other forms of increasingly exhausting transmedia? A highly likely outcome, should we continue to ignore our mounting global problems!

If we look at the history of the last cataclysmic economic event of the same character – the war years and the social consciousness of the war generation – the future is indeed dark for the ruling class. Surplus energy from higher productivity levels provided by automation were channeled into a series of historical social advances that had the overall effect of lessening the gap between the completely marginalized and those in power: labour rights, civil rights, gender equality, decolonization struggles, and so on. Since the 1970s, the ruling class have been hard at work to stop and sometimes reverse those gains with ever-evolving techniques of control. The evolution of these technologies of pacification itself creates more efficient methods of production, which frees up creative and libidinal energy, which in turn needs to be absorbed by the system in order to keep its uninterrupted functioning – hence the creation of bullshit jobs! But the ruling class know they can’t create bullshit jobs indefinitely without serious consequences.

The real cataclysm automation will bring the ruling class is the freeing up of enough time (energy) for the general population to create another revolutionary wave of demand for equality and upend the current systemic hierarchy atop which the ruling class comfortably sit. The ruling class are afraid of what we the people will do when we realize that it’s precisely ‘they’ who need to be automated away! The demon they fear is us!

Andrew Parker – The Voice of Anarchy

The Day ‘Free Speech’ Came At Too High A Price

In Paris earlier today, French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, was attacked by Muslim extremists carrying Kalashnikov rifles in retaliation for a cartoon depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, published in the magazine in January 2013. 12 people were killed, including the magazine’s editor, Stephane Charbonnier. The satirical publication has often courted controversy and in 2011 was firebombed after naming the Prophet Muhammad as its “editor-in-chief”!

This latest atrocity highlights three immediate flaws in our society: 1) That certain sections of our society believe that mass murder is a suitable punishment for the crime of publishing a cartoon! 2) That those who publish satirical material as part of their assumed ‘right to free speech’ must now live in fear of being killed, damaging our feeling that we can express free speech at all. And 3) The widespread support for the victims, both online and on the streets of numerous major cities around the world tonight, shows clearly the overwhelming feeling that our right to free speech means we demand the right to feel free to publish ‘anything’, even if that material might possibly be deemed an insult, either to individuals or certain sections of our society.

Our use of free speech and its impact upon our society is possibly something to which we do not give enough thought. The cartoon, published by Charlie Hebdo in January 2013, which was today punished with the execution of 12 Charlie Hebdo employees, was a condescending depiction of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. Muslims prohibit the recreation of any image of the Prophet Muhammad, so the Charlie Hebdo cartoon was felt by many in the Muslim world to be an insult to their beliefs, their identities and their way of life. But this does not justify the atrocity…far from it! Murder is wrong no matter what the perpetrator’s excuse. Murder is inexcusable! But are we permitted to insult other people, and in labelling it ‘free speech’, free ourselves from our duty of social responsibility?

The assumed right that free speech permits ‘anything’ is where I feel that free speech ceases from being a tool that can be used for good and becomes a weapon that can be used to hurt others with impunity. Where does this ‘right to free speech’ end? Does the right to free speech permit me to insult you, your way of life, your physical appearance, your family, or in this case, your sacredly held beliefs? After all, having the ‘right’ to say something, does not mean that we ‘should’ say something!

I now ask what I feel is a very relevant question: What is more important in society; free speech or social responsibility? Free Speech gives us the right to say anything at any time and waives our duty to social responsibility. Social responsibility asks us to question our actions and whether it would be better to refrain from such action if we feel such action may be to the detriment of others. One asks us to take responsibility for our input to society. The other attempts to give impunity for our input to society.

Clearly, social responsibility is more important than free speech for a number of reasons; peace and prosperity within our society being two key reasons that spring to mind, especially today! The publishing of the image of the Prophet Muhammad in Charlie Hebdo in January 2013 was an example of where the choice was made to abandon social responsibility in favour of the inconsequential attitude adopted by those who took false shelter under the right to free speech. The consequences were an insulted people, of which 2 extremist members today acted with extreme violent retaliation and murdered 12 people for the perceived crime of exercising their assumed right to free speech.

The mainstream media outlets, participants of vigils all over the world and the online support for the victims in the form of #JeSuisCharlie will tonight declare that free speech is important above all things, but that is quite clearly not the case. I do agree that violent oppression is against our civil liberties, but we must remember our own social responsibilities when we act. I for one think that the belief of the Muslim world in not recreating and publishing images of the Prophet Muhammad should have been respected.

Regardless, no one should be killed for saying or doing something which someone else perceives as insulting, just as no one should kill another, regardless of the perceived crime that one feels has been committed. Murder is intolerable in our society, but we learned today that the right to free speech comes at too high a price if we abandon our more important duty of social responsibility.

My deepest sympathies go out to the victims and their families of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Andrew Parker – The Voice of Anarchy

Charlie Chaplin speech from The Great Dictator

Just listen…

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People who spread the message of unity are the greatest threat to the status quo; to the perpetuators of the cyclical consumption engine of capitalism which is eating the world, making a few people fat and starving the rest. If I gave a speech like this while running for political office, I expect I wouldn’t make the election!

Andrew Parker – The Voice of Anarchy

Remember, remember…

“Remember, remember, the 5th of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I see of no reason the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.”

And we never have! Every year since 1605 we celebrate the capture of Guy Fawkes and the uncovering of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords and kill the King and many of the wealthy landowners of the era, with fireworks displays and the burning of the effigy of Guy Fawkes atop raging bonfires of vengeance. Hooray for our King (or Queen)! Hooray for our Lords! Hooray for our suffrage, we merry band of serfs!

Whilst I do not condone any act of violence to overthrow a tyrannical regime, I can understand the motivations of those who do! Terrorism is not born out of a vacuum, as our ‘leaders’ would have us believe! It is the probable outcome of a given set of parameters, namely a social system within which all of our unique identities and ideologies are formed. Those of us who grew up in poverty and oppression (or are emotionally effected by the suffering of others) will grow to hate the established system that created them. Those who are very much beneficiaries of the same system will fight to defend it. We are all just two sides of the same coin, depending on your perception of whether you were one who was sacrificed by the system so that others could prosper, or one who prospered from the system due to the sacrifice of others.

From WW2 to 1970, the people of the western world fought for social policies that saw the implementation of the Welfare State. Productivity boomed. Jobs were plentiful and people were happier than ever before. The swinging 60’s is still regarded as the greatest period of social happiness in all of human history (or so my Dad says, but who am I to argue, I wasn’t even there…sadly!). But all of that was to change. In the 1970’s Britain was dubbed the ‘sick man of Europe’. In the average corporation, the highest paid received 25 times that of the lowest paid. The wealthiest were taxed over 50% of their wages by a state which controlled and managed the economy, based upon Keynesianism Economics, who learned from great economists like Marx and Smith. Unemployment was low, but sadly inflation was very high! ‘Hyperinflation’ was, according to the Chicago School Neoliberal’s like Hayek and Friedman, due to the state intervening in corporate affairs, keeping tax high and bending to the will of the Workers Unions.

With the conservative Reagan/Thatcher ‘revolution’ of the ’80′s, the high level of income taxes on the ultra wealthy went away. The result is that inequality exploded, making today’s world (especially in the US) the most unequal society that has ever existed. The highest paid in the largest corporations now receive 300 times the lowest paid! There are important differences to recognise. The role of inherited wealth, while growing today, has not reached the levels seen in pre-WWI Europe. Thus, a major lesson to draw is that the idea of meritocracy (those who work hardest and get the most education and are most competent at their jobs become wealthy) is dying. Rich people today are increasingly those who were born rich: “The past tends to consume the future”.

Because the income taxes on the ultra wealthy have been effectively removed, the richest 1% of tax payers have “fiscally seceded” from society. This is due in large part, to the growth of “super managers”, or CEOs, who have managed to demand exceptionally high salaries for their work.

Gone are the strong workers unions to cry foul in dissent, leaving the CEO’s no checks and balances and nothing to disincentivise them from paying themselves…essentially, whatever they feel like! Traditional economic reasoning would argue that each person’s wage or salary is a function of his or her “marginal productivity” (essentially how much more revenue or profit your work brings in to a given business).

Yet an individual’s “marginal productivity” is almost impossible to measure scientifically; in the abstract it makes sense, but in messy reality, the idea is a poor predictor of actual salaries and wages, and any estimation of “marginal productivity” will be hopelessly mired in subjectivity and opinion. Simply put, there is no way that CEO’s actually deserve their astounding salaries and bonuses.

Even more conclusions can be drawn. The prosperity of the three decades following WWII is thus a highly contingent outcome of historical context. The era of the welfare state was also the era of meritocracy. The neoliberal revolution and dismantling of the welfare state has made societies less equal and reward talent, effort and education less.

Most economists are closer to being mathematicians & stress the scientific aspects of their profession over humanities or social sciences. Most works in economics are performed in a clinically abstract universe where major assumptions are made just to simplify economic models. For example, assuming “perfect competition” (where market demand perfectly equals market supply and all economic actors carry the same economic weight) or that we are narrowly self-interested individuals who have the capacity to make totally rational decicions at all times. This can be very valuable. But make no mistake: these are impossible situations which will never happen on Planet Earth! The vast majority of economics work has little bearing on real-life situations. The complexity of human society defies mathematical models!

If ‘Social Policy’ and ‘Economic Policy’ were a married couple they would soon get divorced citing ‘irreconcilable differences’! Economics works as a science if we were to remove human suffering from the equation. Sadly though, we cannot! Social policies in capitalist economies always fail – see Keynesianism 1970’s. We moved right to neoliberalism when we should’ve moved left. Since social policies and neoliberal policies are irreconcilable we are left with a clear choice: Which one do we abandon to save the other?

Growth, we are told, is the engine of neoliberalism. Growth can be high and yet the vast majority of people remain poor. This is a key indicator of gross inequality because this growth has to be going somewhere, and it most certainly is not going to the poor, therefore it is being hoarded by the rich. Growth is in fact a neoliberal invention and was unheard of pre-1970. It is a false measure of social progress and whether our economy is weak or strong. If the people are suffering and taking to the streets in protest, it matters not whether growth is at record highs, that only means profits for the wealthy are at record highs, which just so happens to be the case. Growth also comes at great cost to the ecosystem. In the last 40 years the neoliberal agenda for more and more growth has seen the extinction of 50% of all the species on earth, the acidification of the world’s oceans, the melting of permafrost and what could be the 6th extinction level event of planet earth – our extinction!

Adair Turner, Head of the Financial Regulatory Authority, describes Neoliberalism as, “A 40-year intellectual mistake. An extreme rationale for masses of deregulation has its own set of stupidities and evils which you can separate from the opportunities of other forms of capitalism.” The current cancer of neoliberalism was germinated by a man called Hayek who took one good idea and from it generated a false set of toxic conclusions. He said, “there is more processing capacity in the wisdom of crowds than in the minds of an elite set of plutocrats.” Agreed! But after that he is incorrect in many of his assumptions under which we are ruled to this day. Hayek speaks of Adam Smith, author of ‘The Wealth of Nations’ as the progenitor of the unregulated capitalist free market, or the ‘invisible hand’! However, Adam Smith was acutely aware of the limitations of the ‘invisible hand’ and stated: “It is therefore understood that effective institutional infrastructure is required to ensure the operation of a free ‘and fair’ market [Note: Not FREE MARKETS, but FREE AND FAIR MARKETS]. Neoliberals then misrepresent the views of Adam Smith to convince others – namely our elected officials – to adopt their policies! Economics textbooks are filled with misinformation and misrepresentations of economists like Adam Smith, who were actually critical of unfettered capitalism, or Neoliberalism. Current economic teaching then is not fit to be described as a science, and most definitely not suitable to regulate human society – it is too inhumane for that! The economist Steve Keen says of those studying contemporary economics that they are effectively paying £9,000 for a lobotomy!

Unfettered markets tend toward ‘Monopoly’, and so proportionate Government action is needed to create a clear and ‘stable’ framework that enables some form of competition to take place under Govt regulation. Getting that balance right is of utmost importance.” This speaks more of Keynesianism than it does of neoliberalism and shows how the neoliberals have duped us into believing that neoliberalism is the invisible hand that can lead us to greatness. Neoliberalism was never meant to benefit all of us, as it professes, only a precious few – the robber barons of our era, the Bankers, Corrupt Politicians (who go on to high-flying corporate jobs) and Corporate CEO’s!

The result of 40 years of neoliberalism? If you are in most major cities around the world tonight look outside your window at the result of neoliberal economic policy & widespread suffering. Millions of masked men and women march against corruption and this inhumane economic system. “Beware the angry mob!”

So what can we do? If we are going to change the system as it is, if we are going to do it without violence or our own submission, we have got to understand why people sincerely and passionately believe the opposite of what we believe (empathy). Obviously we must organise and strengthen the workers unions to regain the force they once were in the 1960’s and 70’s. Strength in numbers and organised community meetings can return the political dialogue from Whitehall to our local community hall. But if we don’t fight for power, we are doomed to be ruled for another 400 years and more. This is why the Occupy Movement, Anonymous and every other social movement and activist condemns the corruption, inequality and the channeling of power from the public into the few private hands that control everything. We’ve been robbed in broad daylight. It’s a swindle! Crime of the century! And yet they go unpunished. It is us who are punished for not standing up for ourselves. The question is are you angry enough to do something about it? “Once we forget the suffering of those who fought so that we could be free, we become doomed to inherit their suffering!” Remember, remember…

Andrew Parker – The Voice of Anarchy

Hierarchies of Power

EVERYTHING turns out crony when you have hierarchies of power. Too much power concentrated in the hands of a few and wielded over the many without transparency or accountability will always lead to corruption, social injustice, lack of freedom and rampant inequality, whether the system is communism, capitalism, corporatism, fascism, socialism, etc.

EXAMPLE: You give me all your money to look after for you, and so do all your friends and all of their friends and on and on. I am now the richest man in the world. I have all the money and I use it to invest in risky deals using money I don’t have in reserve hoping that I make a profit. The only worry I have is if everyone comes to get their money at the same time (a ponzi scheme), but as long as they don’t I can keep going. Not only that but I know another guy who owns a money printing machine and I get loads of cash from him, paying him a little for his trouble from the money you gave to me and hand it to a few of my other buddies who are running the same money system as me. If you’re desperate and you need some cash quick, I can get my money printing mate to print some, give it to you then charge you interest on it.

QUESTION: Would you trust me with your money? In fact, would you trust anyone in the world besides your closest loved ones with your money?

ANSWER: No, me neither, then why do we trust Banks? That’s right, I’m a Bank! And so are my buddies and the guy printing the money is a central bank! Do you see how stupid we are for giving our money to Banks?!

PROBLEM: Money schemes run by Banks offer huge incentive for hierarchies of power and abuse of that power via corruption in our society and is caused by the misuse of money!

SOLUTION: I’m an Anarchist and I really like Libertarian-socialism because it eschews power in all its forms. Localism and horizontal power are two of its main objectives and are why we should a) Take care of our own affairs rather than handing our power straight over to other people all the time and asking them nicely not to abuse that power, and b) Get rid of money altogether to remove a huge incentive for hierarchies of power and abuse of that power via corruption in our society!

YOU’RE WELCOME! 🙂

Andrew Parker – The Voice of Anarchy

‘Libertarian Socialist Rants’ videos

I’ve been planning on sharing these four videos for a while because I think they really get to the heart of everything I stand for and have been sharing with you all so far. There is a wealth of aspects of a new society and criticisms of the current model packed very nicely into very easy to digest videos by Libertarian Socialist Rants – a Scottish guy named Cameron Watt. He, like me, is an Anarchist and a Libertarian Socialist, which is the same thing as an Anarcho-Communist or Anarcho-Syndicalist. We are both from the Noam Chomsky School of Thought and I can’t say I disagree with any of his major points. Please check out the videos below:

Part 1/4 – The Case Against Hierarchy

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Part 2/4 – The Case For Liberty

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Part 3/4 – Arguments Against Anarchism

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Part 4/4 – Achieving An Anarchist Society

Thanks for watching 🙂

Andrew Parker – The Voice of Anarchy