Economic Aspects of "Love"

[American Dream]

http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/sp/carlos.htm

CARLOS THE JACKAL

Stewart Home

Carlos the Jackal has been caged, the western media rejoices and in this celebratory fashion, the press has ushered in a new era of paranoia. The Venezuelan belongs to the old school who specialised in hi-jackings and assassinations. In his middle-age, Carlos is an anachronism and western spooks are now using this media icon to remind those who nominally employ them that their services are indispensable if the world is to be 'made safe for democracy'. It is highly convenient that, as the London Sunday Times so eloquently put it, 'no sooner had the world rejoiced at the capture of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the celebrity terrorist of the 1970s, than a new menace emerged: a nuclear market for backroom bomb makers.' In other words, at the very moment nineteen-seventies style 'revolutionary' mayhem is finally neutralised, the 'threat' of nuclear terrorism is to be exploited by the many journalists who work for the intelligence services to the mutual benefit of themselves and their paymasters.

Given this state of affairs, it's hardly surprising that the press has presented Carlos to its readers as being simultaneously villainous and comic, recasting his life as the tragic story of how a bumbling psychopath became known as the most dangerous man in the world. One of the more sordid aspects of the Jackal's arrest was its exploitation as an opportunity for under-the-line advertising of Johnny Walker whiskey. The media necessarily played a key role in these illicit promotions, with the fact that Carlos had a penchant for this brand of scotch being mentioned in many of the news reports about his capture. If the Jackal had been a 100 Pipers man, I might have a little more respect for him, but thanks in no small part to his consumption of Johnny Walker Red Label, Carlos comes across like a failed method actor angling for the lead role in a B movie about an ageing drug baron being edged out of business by younger and more vicious hoodlums. The Jackal possesses all the trappings of a sad old bastard, from the tendency to reminisce about his 'glory days' right the way through to a hernia and a girlfriend twenty years younger than himself.

While much of the media is busy portraying Carlos as evil, his small but vocal fan club within anarchist and left-wing circles persist in simplistically praising their hero's bold 'revolutionary' acts. Rather like the groupies who stalk the inmates of America's death row, innumerable Carlos freaks believe they are transgressing dominant values when all they are really doing is creating a mirror image of the world as it is. Topsy-turvy thinking of this type was long ago taken to its logical conclusion by an American neo-Nazi group called the Universal Order, who view Charles Manson as their 'Fuhrer'. However, there are more sophisticated responses to the activities of the Jackal and his associates. In its more populist guise, one of these can be summarised under the heading 'Terrorism Is Theatre', which is used as the title of the opening chapter of a book called The Carlos Complex by British journalists Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne.

If, as Dobson and Payne suggest, 'terrorism' is 'planned for public effect, not for military targets' and has no real strategic aims, then rather than resembling 'theatre', its 'irrationality' is closer to the techniques employed by avant-garde movements such as Futurism, Dada and Fluxus. Indeed, the parallels are remarkable, not only is there the same focus on breaking down traditional narrative structures and instead emphasising individual and apparently isolated events, both 'Terror International' and the avant-garde consist of several tightly knit and overlapping groups operating under a variety of organisational names. Just as it is difficult to explain the activities of Carlos to the uninitiated without mentioning the Baader-Meinhof Gang or the Japanese Red Army, so when summarising the achievements of the Fluxus group, intelligent discussion requires reference to contemporary rivals and collaborators such as Auto-Destructive Art, Gutai, Actual, the Situationists and the Happenings movement. The supposition that there is a link between the avant-garde and the activities of urban guerrillas has become something of a cliche in the Anglo-American media over recent years. The more upmarket sections of the press have run endless features about 'art terrorism', which generally consist of little more than anecdotes about media pranks pulled by individuals working in what can loosely be described as the cultural tradition derived from Futurism and Dada.

It is therefore inevitable that fringe intellectuals will begin to consume the media spectacles orchestrated by the various groups associated with Carlos as works of performance art. Since the individuals being drawn into this discourse are well versed in the theoretical basis of avant-gardism, its course of development is utterly predictable. Carlos himself is suspect, over-exposure in the press and the recent 'capture' have completely eroded his mystique. The chief theorist of Fluxus, George Maciunas, drew a distinction between 'the monomorphic neo-haiku flux event' and 'the mixed media neo-baroque happening'; the career of the Jackal smacks suspiciously of the latter.

When divorced from its political context and viewed through the perspective of avant-garde aesthetics, the Lod airport massacre performed by the Japanese Red Army in May 1972 is without doubt the most sublime act of 'Terror International'. Three members of the JRA troupe who'd just arrived in Israel from Rome walked into the arrival lounge, removed submachine guns from their hand luggage and sprayed their fellow passengers with hot lead. Twenty-six people died and another eighty were wounded before two of the actors were killed and the third captured. Andre Breton had long ago insisted that the ultimate Surrealist act consisted of randomly firing a revolver into a crowd. The Lod airport 'happening' was simply the realisation of this dictum through the use of modern weaponry. However, it would be wrong to conclude from this that the JRA is not rooted in the past or that it entirely escaped the conventions of the particular culture from which it emerged. Like all avant-gardists, 'Terror International' established its 'modernity' through the double-bind of incorporating archaic elements into its activities. In the case of the JRA, the troupe's fame dates from the March 1970 hi-jack of a Japanese airliner using Samurai swords instead of more contemporary weapons such as guns. It is the tension established between this embrace of tradition and the use of genuine innovations which creates the illusion that the avant-garde is at the cutting edge of social change.

While all the groups clustered around Carlos and the PFLP were absorbed by the cult of violence, the JRA were particularly mystical in their disregard for life, believing that death during the course of their 'revolutionary' happenings would result in union with the three stars of Orion. The use by 'Terror International' of this combination of myth and violence is reminiscent of the theoretical outlook of Georges Sorel, the scourge of social decadence and prophet of the general strike, whose writings were a huge influence on Marinetti and the Futurist movement. This conjunction of perspectives serves to illustrate one of the many ways in which the activities of Carlos and his associates could be absorbed into the history and practice of performance art.

Equally, the words of Group Zero's Otto Piene can be interpreted as a call to arms: 'We, the artists, with serious concerns, have to face reality, wake up, move out of the art world and embrace the void'. Likewise, the influence of the Situationist International on the Angry Brigade, an English urban guerrilla group of the early seventies, is well documented and this troupe's use of terminology such as 'spectacle' in communiques enabled the police to identify them as 'anarchist' inspired. However, there are innumerable other ways of understanding the significance of 'terrorism', many of which produce results that are considerably more sublime than those obtained from pure aesthetics.

The Carlos 'legend' is still being milked by western propagandists, the Jackal's stint as a student at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow being considered more than sufficient proof that he was a KGB agent. However, nothing in the world of spookery is straight forward and since his activities greatly benefited the CIA/MI6, it is just as likely that Carlos was working for the British and Americans. This scenario isn't nearly as bizarre as it may at first appear, thanks to the cell structure of para-military organisations, individuals joining groups of this type have no idea who is directing their actions.

Becoming an urban guerrilla has remarkable parallels with joining the Freemasons, it is a commitment made in blind faith, as the example of Italy demonstrates so well. While the majority of individuals who saw 'active service' with the Red Brigades genuinely adhered to left-wing ideals, their activities were ultimately directed by members of the security services and blended perfectly with right-wing atrocities such as the Bologna Station massacre, that had initially been blamed on communist elements. In Philip Willan's 1991 book Puppet Masters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy, the Red Brigades are described as having a three tier structure; the young fanatics, the Eastern Bloc agents and 'further in, in the most secret compartment, the infiltrators of the Interior Ministry and Western secret services'. The Red Brigades were, of course, part of the PFLP inner circle in Europe and while these and other groups claimed to be 'marxist revolutionaries', the fact that their activities were of such obvious benefit to the security services in both cold war camps, results in assertions of this type appearing suspicious.

Personally, I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories that suggest the destiny of the world is controlled by a cabal of thirteen men who meet in a darkened room. Obviously, various forces are competing for dominance within the world, and even the more successful of these ruling elites are riven by factionalism and rivalry. The success of the Anglo-American 'security' system established in the aftermath of the Second World War rested, at least partially, upon the fact that it remained unseen by the mass of those whose lives were circumscribed by it. While the role the British and Americans played in the establishment of the post-war intelligence services throughout Europe is most readily evident in Italy, their influence certainly wasn't confined to this single defeated Axis power. Likewise, there can be little doubt that this state of affairs gave London and particularly Washington, great power and political leverage across the whole of Western Europe.

In the latest issue of the maverick London based journal Perspectives, someone calling himself Peter Drew makes a number of observations about the security services and writes explicitly about a CIA inspired scheme code named Gladio which has received considerable coverage in the British 'quality' press in recent years. After repeating what was already widely known about the plan to use anti-communist far-right groups as a disownable guerrilla army against the cold war foe, Drew then says it 'is now believed that some of these, particularly in Germany, are being used to foment political and xenophobic violence and destabilise the USA's new enemy - a united Europe'. Drew also makes reference to the fact that Robin Ramsey, editor of the left-wing and generally reliable conspiracy journal Lobster, recently reprinted the one statement cut from an early eighties television programme on British intelligence. It was made by a former BOSS agent Gordon Winter and ran as follows: 'British intelligence has a saying that if there is a left-wing movement in Britain bigger than a football team our man is the captain or the vice captain, and if not, he is the referee and he can send any man off the field and call our man on at any time he likes.'

Now, if British intelligence is in the habit of providing leadership to 'subversive elements' within the United Kingdom, it would make sense for the CIA to control from above the activities of its foreign 'enemies'. I am not suggesting that control of Carlos and his Commando Boudia, or interlocking groups such as the JRA, was necessarily as direct as that exerted on the Italian Red Brigades. However, since it was the Anglo-American security establishment who reaped the major propaganda benefits from the media 'happenings' of 'Terror International', it would not be surprising to discover that they pulled at least some of the strings animating the PFLP puppet. It was in the spooks interest to perpetuate the cold war and they quickly created a minor cultural industry in the form of books and articles linking 'international terrorism' to Moscow. That they were well placed to maximise the propaganda potential of 'terrorism' is made readily evident by works such as Stephen Dorril's The Silent Conspiracy: Inside the Intelligence Services in the 1990s: 'Journalism has been a natural recruiting ground for the security services. John le Carre, who worked for M16 between 1960 and 1964, has made the astonishing statement that 'the British Secret Service controlled large sections of the press, just as they may do today'. In 1975, following Senate hearings on the CIA which had revealed the extent of agency recruitment of both American and British journalists, sources let it be known that half the foreign staff of a British daily were on the MI6 payroll. In the mid-eighties, the present author was given, by a senior Observer journalist, a list of five foreign affairs journalists on a Sunday newspaper who had acted as correspondents for the intelligent services. No doubt the practice continues to this day.' Certainly, as recently as this month, the British journalist Patrick Seale felt it necessary to issue a statement denying that he ran MI6's Beirut bureau when he was the Observer's Middle East correspondent.

However, intelligence influence in the publishing industry extents well beyond the employment of journalists to gather data and spread disinformation through the press. A Sunday Times feature of 19/9/93 by Nigel West entitled 'Literary Agents', revealed that a good many novelists, particularly those working in the thriller genre, were security service employees. This article appeared to be partially inspired by a more detailed account of the phenomena given in a 1987 book by Anthony Masters called Literary Agents: The Novelist as Spy. Many spy thrillers are little more than Anglo-American intelligence propaganda, and a pertinent example is the 1976 publication Carlos Terror International by Dennis Eisenberg and Eli Landau, promoted with the blurb: 'the novel that is closer to the truth than anyone dares to believe!' The book name checks urban guerrilla groups from across the world: 'As for West Germany, there have been indications that the Baader-Meinhof murder-gang are again gaining in strength'. The inevitable conclusion is the 'same we would reach if we had an interest in weakening the West and fostering anarchy - unite all these factors under one umbrella - an umbrella known as Terror International'.

However, whether or not it was directly controlled by the CIA, 'Terror International' was more than simply a vehicle for cold war propaganda which sought to justify increased surveillance and other repressive measures in the western 'democracies', while simultaneously helping to secure those all important increases in 'defence' and espionage budgets. The Jackal's greatest personal triumph was the raid on the OPEC headquarters in Vienna in December 1975. Once the building had been stormed, the hostages were divided into four categories; Friends, Enemies, Neutrals and Austrians. The 'Friends' were the Libyans, Algerians, Iraqis and Kuwaitis. The enemies were the officials representing Saudi Arabia, Iran, Abu Dhabi and Qatar. In this way, the activities of 'Terror International' were perfectly suited to protecting the interests of the Anglo-American establishment. The PFLP and their inner circle in Europe were a not unimportant factor in reinforcing those divisions that already existed between a number of middle eastern states. In this way, Carlos and his associates assisted in minimising the chances of OPEC functioning as an effective oil cartel.

I do not wish to suggest that the PFLP was simply an arm of the CIA. Certainly, many of the politically naive urban guerrillas who saw active service with 'Terror International' initially committed themselves to para-military tactics because they adhered to a political programme that was at complete variance with the aims and interests of the Anglo-American establishment. At certain times, these 'revolutionaries' may even have been able to act in accord with their 'marxist' principles. However, the clandestine nature of the organisations to which they belonged provided ample opportunity for manipulation by both Washington and Moscow. If 'Terror International' was a political football, it's logical to conclude that the Anglo-American establishment supplied the referee, because this side scored the vast majority of goals during the course of a long and toughly contested game. Since we now know that the CIA was able to exercise at least some control over the Red Brigades, there is a distinct possibility that they succeeded in directing the activities of the other urban guerrilla organisations co-ordinated by Carlos.

Dobson and Payne are therefore wrong to suggest that the activities of 'Terror International' had no real strategic aims. From the perspective of the Anglo-American establishment, they were a perfect covert compliment to official policy. In middle-age, Carlos isn't much use to anyone as an urban guerrilla. Now is a particularly convenient time to haul him before the courts and thereby demonstrate that the western 'democracies' are still vigilantly guarding themselves against the many 'enemies' who threaten their very existence. And the successful persecution of a spent force immediately after the Aldrich Ames spy-scandal can't do any harm. In their different ways, these two events provide justification for spiralling intelligence budgets in our increasingly insecure world.

To nobody's surprise, the Anglo-American establishment continues to perfect its own unique technology of repression, with vast amounts of money being poured into the development of frequency weapons and methods of electronic control. In the final analysis, it doesn't matter who Carlos worked for or what motivated his activities, he served the cause of reaction by playing the role of an urban guerrilla on a pitch marked out by the Anglo-American establishment and according to the rules they'd instituted for the 'strategy of tension' game. Little that is good is likely to emerge from the capture of the Jackal. The most we can hope for is the rehabilitation of that classic fashion item, the white trenchcoat, as worn by Carlos during the OPEC raid of December 1975. As a celebrity 'terrorist', the Jackal is the perfect hook on which to sell ideologies, whiskey and clothes.



First published by the German magazine Konkret, October 1994

[American Dream]

Here is an abridged version of The Codes of Gender, in which Sut Jhally, known for a number of documentaries on pop culture, analyzes current messages about masculinity and femininity in advertising, applying the ideas of Erving Goffman regarding gender and cultural performance.

Definitely worth the time to watch:

[American Dream]

I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave

My brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying, dildo-packing time inside the online-shipping machine.

By Mac McClelland | March/April 2012 Issue

"Don't take anything that happens to you there personally," the woman at the local chamber of commerce says when I tell her that tomorrow I start working at Amalgamated Product Giant Shipping Worldwide Inc. She winks at me. I stare at her for a second.

"What?" I ask. "Why, is somebody going to be mean to me [1] or something?"

She smiles. "Oh, yeah." This town somewhere west of the Mississippi is not big; everyone knows someone or is someone who's worked for Amalgamated. "But look at it from their perspective. They need you to work as fast as possible to push out as much as they can as fast as they can. So they're gonna give you goals, and then you know what? If you make those goals, they're gonna increase the goals. But they'll be yelling at you all the time. It's like the military. They have to break you down so they can turn you into what they want you to be. So they're going to tell you, 'You're not good enough, you're not good enough, you're not good enough,' to make you work harder. Don't say, 'This is the best I can do.' Say, 'I'll try,' even if you know you can't do it. Because if you say, 'This is the best I can do,' they'll let you go. They hire and fire constantly, every day. You'll see people dropping all around you. But don't take it personally and break down or start crying when they yell at you."

Several months prior, I'd reported on an Ohio warehouse [2] where workers shipped products for online retailers under conditions that were surprisingly demoralizing and dehumanizing, even to someone who's spent a lot of time working in warehouses, which I have. And then my editors sat me down. "We want you to go work for Amalgamated Product Giant Shipping Worldwide Inc.," they said. I'd have to give my real name and job history when I applied, and I couldn't lie if asked for any specifics. (I wasn't.) But I'd smudge identifying details of people and the company itself. Anyway, to do otherwise might give people the impression that these conditions apply only to one warehouse or one company. Which they don't. [3]

So I fretted about whether I'd have to abort the application process, like if someone asked me why I wanted the job. But no one did. And though I was kind of excited to trot out my warehouse experience, mainly all I needed to get hired was to confirm 20 or 30 times that I had not been to prison.

The application process took place at a staffing office in a run-down city, the kind where there are boarded-up businesses and broken windows downtown and billboards advertising things like "Foreclosure Fridays!" at a local law firm. Six or seven other people apply for jobs along with me. We answer questions at computers grouped in several stations. Have I ever been to prison? the system asks. No? Well, but have I ever been to prison for assault? Burglary? A felony? A misdemeanor? Raping someone? Murdering anybody? Am I sure? There's no point in lying, the computer warns me, because criminal-background checks are run on employees. Additionally, I have to confirm at the next computer station that I can read, by taking a multiple-choice test in which I'm given pictures of several album covers, including Michael Jackson's Thriller, and asked what the name of the Michael Jackson album is. At yet another set of computers I'm asked about my work history and character. How do I feel about dangerous activities? Would I say I'm not really into them? Or really into them?

In the center of the room, a video plays loudly and continuously on a big screen. Even more than you are hurting the company, a voice-over intones as animated people do things like accidentally oversleep, you are hurting yourself when you are late because you will be penalized on a point system, and when you get too many points, you're fired—unless you're late at any point during your first week, in which case you are instantly fired. Also because when you're late or sick you miss the opportunity to maximize your overtime pay. And working more than eight hours is mandatory. Stretching is also mandatory, since you will either be standing still at a conveyor line for most of your minimum 10-hour shift or walking on concrete or metal stairs. And be careful, because you could seriously hurt yourself. And watch out, because some of your coworkers will be the kind of monsters who will file false workers' comp claims. If you know of someone doing this and you tell on him and he gets convicted, you will be rewarded with $500.

The computers screening us for suitability to pack boxes or paste labels belong to a temporary-staffing agency. The stuff we order from big online retailers lives in large warehouses, owned and operated either by the retailers themselves or by third-party logistics contractors, a.k.a. 3PLs. These companies often fulfill orders for more than one retailer out of a single warehouse. America's largest 3PL, Exel, has 86 million square feet of warehouse in North America; it's a subsidiary of Deutsche Post DHL, which is cute because Deutsche Post is the German post office, which was privatized in the 1990s and bought DHL in 2002, becoming one of the world's biggest corporate employers. The $31 billion "value-added warehousing and distribution" sector of 3PLs is just a fraction of what large 3PLs' parent companies pull in. UPS's logistics division, for example, pulls in more than a half a billion, but it feeds billions of dollars of business to UPS Inc.

"Leave your pride and your personal life at the door," the lady at the chamber of commerce says, if I want to last as an online warehouse worker.
Anyhow, regardless of whether the retailer itself or a 3PL contractor houses and processes the stuff you buy, the actual stuff is often handled by people working for yet another company—a temporary-staffing agency. The agency to which I apply is hiring 4,000 drones for this single Amalgamated warehouse between October and December. Four thousand. Before leaving the staffing office, I'm one of them.

I'm assigned a schedule of Sunday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. When additional overtime is necessary, which it will be soon (Christmas!), I should expect to leave at 7 or 7:30 p.m. instead. Eight days after applying, i.e., after my drug test has cleared, I walk through a small, desolate town nearly an hour outside the city where I was hired. This is where the warehouse is, way out here, a long commute for many of my coworkers. I wander off the main road and into the chamber of commerce to kill some afternoon time—though not too much since my first day starts at 5 a.m.—but I end up getting useful job advice.

"Well, what if I do start crying?" I ask the woman who warns me to keep it together no matter how awfully I'm treated. "Are they really going to fire me for that?"

"Yes," she says. "There's 16 other people who want your job. Why would they keep a person who gets emotional, especially in this economy?"

Still, she advises, regardless of how much they push me, don't work so hard that I injure myself. I'm young. I have a long life ahead of me. It's not worth it to do permanent physical damage, she says, which, considering that I got hired at elevensomething dollars an hour, is a bit of an understatement.

As the sun gets lower in the curt November sky, I thank the woman for her help. When I start toward the door, she repeats her "No. 1 rule of survival" one more time.

"Leave your pride and your personal life at the door." If there's any way I'm going to last, she says, tomorrow I have to start pretending like I don't have either.

Though it's inconvenient for most employees, the rural location of the Amalgamated Product Giant Shipping Worldwide Inc. warehouse isn't an accident. The town is bisected by a primary interstate, close to a busy airport, serviced by several major highways. There's a lot of rail out here. The town became a station stop on the way to more important places a hundred years ago, and it now feeds part of the massive transit networks used to get consumers anywhere goods from everywhere. Every now and then, a long line of railcars rolls past my hotel and gives my room a good shake. I don't ever get a good look at them, because it's dark outside when I go to work, and dark again when I get back.

We are surrounded by signs that state our productivity goals. Other signs proclaim that a good customer experience, to which our goal-meeting is essential, is the key to growth, and growth is the key to lower prices, which leads to a better customer experience. There is no room for inefficiencies.
Inside Amalgamated, an employee's first day is training day. Though we're not paid to be here until 6, we have been informed that we need to arrive at 5. If we don't show up in time to stand around while they sort out who we are and where they've put our ID badges, we could miss the beginning of training, which would mean termination. "I was up half the night because I was so afraid I was going to be late," a woman in her 60s tells me. I was, too. A minute's tardiness after the first week earns us 0.5 penalty points, an hour's tardiness is worth 1 point, and an absence 1.5; 6 is the number that equals "release." But during the first week even a minute's tardiness gets us fired. When we get lined up so we can be counted a third or fourth time, the woman conducting the roll call recognizes the last name of a young trainee. "Does your dad work here? Or uncle?" she asks. "Grandpa," he says, as another supervisor snaps at the same time, sounding not mean but very stressed out, "We gotta get goin' here."

The culture is intense, an Amalgamated higher-up acknowledges at the beginning of our training. He's speaking to us from a video, one of several videos—about company policies, sexual harassment, etc.—that we watch while we try to keep our eyes open. We don't want to be so intense, the higher-up says. But our customers demand it. We are surrounded by signs that state our productivity goals. Other signs proclaim that a good customer experience, to which our goal-meeting is essential, is the key to growth, and growth is the key to lower prices, which leads to a better customer experience. There is no room for inefficiencies. The gal conducting our training reminds us again that we cannot miss any days our first week. There are NO exceptions to this policy. She says to take Brian, for example, who's here with us in training today. Brian already went through this training, but then during his first week his lady had a baby, so he missed a day and he had to be fired. Having to start the application process over could cost a brand-new dad like Brian a couple of weeks' worth of work and pay. Okay? Everybody turn around and look at Brian. Welcome back, Brian. Don't end up like Brian.

Soon, we move on to practical training. Like all workplaces with automated and heavy machinery, this one contains plenty of ways to get hurt, and they are enumerated. There are transition points in the warehouse floor where the footing is uneven, and people trip and sprain ankles. Give forklifts that are raised up several stories to access products a wide berth: "If a pallet falls on you, you won't be working with us anymore." Watch your fingers around the conveyor belts that run waist-high throughout the entire facility. People lose fingers. Or parts of fingers. And about once a year, they tell us, someone in an Amalgamated warehouse gets caught by the hair, and when a conveyor belt catches you by the hair, it doesn't just take your hair with it. It rips out a piece of scalp as well.

If the primary message of one-half of our practical training is Be Careful, the takeaway of the other half is Move As Fast As Humanly Possible. Or superhumanly possible. I have been hired as a picker, which means my job is to find, scan, place in a plastic tote, and send away via conveyor whatever item within the multiple stories of this several-hundred-thousand-square-foot warehouse my scanner tells me to. We are broken into groups and taught how to read the scanner to find the object among some practice shelves. Then we immediately move on to practicing doing it faster, racing each other to fill the orders our scanners dictate, then racing each other to put all the items back.

"Hurry up," a trainer encourages me when he sees me pulling ahead of the others, "and you can put the other items back!" I roll my eyes that my reward for doing a good job is that I get to do more work, but he's got my number: I am exactly the kind of freak this sort of motivation appeals to. I win, and set myself on my prize of the bonus errand.

That afternoon, we are turned loose in the warehouse, scanners in hand. And that's when I realize that for whatever relative youth and regular exercise and overachievement complexes I have brought to this job, I will never be able to keep up with the goals I've been given.

The place is immense. Cold, cavernous. Silent, despite thousands of people quietly doing their picking, or standing along the conveyors quietly packing or box-taping, nothing noisy but the occasional whir of a passing forklift. My scanner tells me in what exact section—there are nine merchandise sections, so sprawling that there's a map attached to my ID badge—of vast shelving systems the item I'm supposed to find resides. It also tells me how many seconds it thinks I should take to get there. Dallas sector, section yellow, row H34, bin 22, level D: wearable blanket. Battery-operated flour sifter. Twenty seconds. I count how many steps it takes me to speed-walk to my destination: 20. At 5-foot-9, I've got a decently long stride, and I only cover the 20 steps and locate the exact shelving unit in the allotted time if I don't hesitate for one second or get lost or take a drink of water before heading in the right direction as fast as I can walk or even occasionally jog. Olive-oil mister. Male libido enhancement pills. Rifle strap. Who the fuck buys their paper towels off the internet? Fairy calendar. Neoprene lunch bag. Often as not, I miss my time target.

Plenty of things can hurt my goals. The programs for our scanners are designed with the assumption that we disposable employees don't know what we're doing. Find a Rob Zombie Voodoo Doll in the blue section of the Rockies sector in the third bin of the A-level in row Z42, my scanner tells me. But if I punch into my scanner that it's not there, I have to prove it by scanning every single other item in the bin, though I swear on my life there's no Rob Zombie Voodoo Doll in this pile of 30 individually wrapped and bar-coded batteries that take me quite a while to beep one by one. It could be five minutes before I can move on to, and make it to, and find, my next item. That lapse is supposed to be mere seconds.

Continues at: http://www.motherjones.com/print/161491

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

http://libcom.org/library/anarcho-syndi ... d-struggle

Anarcho-syndicalism, racism and Struggle

I was born in this country, but my parents were born in a country that was still under the British colonial rule, a country that was still part of the "empire". Like thousands of other people my parents came to this country to work, they were encouraged to do so. For the last twenty-four years they have put up with poor working conditions, low wages, racism and a profound and deep sense of alienation. They have clung to a myth of return, return to a country that is still suffering from the direct and indirect consequences of British imperialism. It is a myth. They cannot and will not return to their country, it's an economic and social impossibility.

Around me I see hundreds of young people in the same situation as myself. Born here, educated here but still not part of this country, we are marked out by colour, culture and language. Some second generation immigrants totally reject British culture, they too long to return to a place they regard as home. Some others totally reject their parents culture and regard themselves first and foremost as British. A large majority try to balance the two, regard themselves as Black or Asian British. I have tried the first two approaches, I even returned to my parents' country but found myself a foreigner there too. I now reject all of these approaches. Whilst I cannot deny my parents' (and to some extent my own) culture, the common element is class. My parents are working class, I am working class, both here and abroad. From both instinct and experience I reject the divisiveness of nation and accept the unity of class. This is the only solution to the problems of "fitting in".

The reason I am writing this pamphlet is to express these ideas to a wider audience, of all cultures, and to engage in a dialogue with whoever is interested. I have specifically refrained from mentioning which country my parents come from, this is because the experience is common to all the nations that were exploited by British imperialism.

Racism - Who Benefits?
It is often said that racism is a deliberate policy to divide and rule the working class, whilst this is undoubtedly true it does not go very far in explaining racism, nor are the conclusions drawn as far as they should. Racism in Britain is directly linked to its colonial past. Even before the influx of twentieth century immigrants (Jews, Irish, Blacks, Asians, etc.) belief in Empire and Colonialism were deliberately fostered in sections of the working class to quieten down working class opposition. Even the middle class philanthropists were patronising racists in their assumptions. "Socialists" like Hyndman at the turn of the century supported British Imperialism. With this imperialism racism was an integral part. The belief that the exploited peoples were inferior and barbaric existed even before large numbers of blacks and Asians came here (though in some parts of Britain there have been blacks in the community for hundreds of years, like Cardiff, Bristol, Liverpool etc.).

When the economy was expanding and capitalism needed more labour the Colonial connection was used to bring in immigrant labour, very often from places that had been deliberately under-developed by colonialism. After a time when the economy was ending its expansion and some far sighted politicians saw future contraction and unemployment then racism was used in an overt way. Let's be straight about this, Enoch Powell did not create racism or racial tension, it had been part of British society for hundreds of years, he merely brought it out of the gutter and into the open.

As can be seen for hundreds of years racism and colonialism were tactics used by the state to gain the support of the British working class. So the idea that racism is a divide and rule tactic of the capitalist bosses is true. But the honest conclusion is not that simply the bosses benefit, it's more than that, the entire STATE benefits. The bosses, govt, police, media, all win. The government wins, both Labour and Tory governments used and will use racism. The police not only create racism and are racist, they need racism. They will use racism to get new and more powers. They need racial conflict to get more power and also to practice strategy and tactics for future mass disturbances, (Ireland is the obvious example of who benefits by inter-communal conflict). The race relations industry, that mass of patronising academics, middle class social workers and self-styled "leaders" and "experts", have got a stake in continuing racial conflict.

The only people who don't benefit are the immigrant communities and the white working class. Whilst we are at each others throats everyone else, police, bosses, government, media and academics are making a profit.

To be anti-racist it is not only necessary to be against racism and scum like the nazis (I'll get around to them later), it is also necessary to be against the STATE, (whatever colour flag the government waves), against the bosses and finally against the patronising and racist race relations industry. To be truly anti-racist one must also campaign actively for racial unity, the unity of the working class. True anti-racism is also anti-statism, if the state is smashed the whole racist structure is smashed. And without state protection how long will the nazis last?

Culture
Culture is more than just songs and dances, culture is more a way of thinking and acting, it's a way of expressing a common solidarity. Within my own immigrant community great emphasis is laid on culture and language, in common with many communities. In an alien society the preservation of a cultural heritage is seen as of vital importance, especially with the chance that young people might grow up totally divorced from the "mother-land". Too often this takes the form of superficial learning of folk-dances, music and song. Also we have this strange idea of a "national" culture divorced from the realities of class. There is no such thing as a pure "national" culture. A culture is formed in actual experience in the hard struggle of daily existence, in the struggle against both native and foreign bosses. Our "community" leaders ignore this fact. For second generation immigrants like myself it's too much to take. I have nothing in common with the boss, even if he speaks the same language. We have to examine this culture critically, take what is good and reject what is bad from both British and native cultures. Accept what is combative, what is liberatory, what is unifying, learn from our parents and working class history, but reject what is passive, what is sexist, what is stultifying and reactionary. I use my language not to sing songs to the new boss, or to god, but to express solidarity with my comrades in struggle both here and abroad.

In British working class culture similarly there is much that is both good and bad. The history of struggle and solidarity among union militants is of immense value and similar to what exists in our own communities. We can learn form it, study its history , just as the white working class must do with our own culture.

Much more difficult to do is to be critical of our own communities. Each community has its own so-called "leaders" and "elders" who exploit their position for their own ends, often allied to the Labour or Communist Party, they presume to speak for all of us, they have an interest in keeping us passive, separate, and under control, their control. They will use slogans about national or cultural preservation to keep us apart from the rest of the working class. They also have their own class and economic interests, they are usually business men with factories that exploit workers of all nations. I do not talk here of the true class militants but the middle class scum who appear on TV to apologise for us every time we hit back.

Nazis
For large numbers of people mention racism and they will immediately think of skinheads, the National Front or other Nazi groups. Yet when I come across racism it's when I open the newspaper, or listen to the radio, or watch TV, it's when I see a group of politicians or academics talk about us as if we are a cancer. Racism is when I see workers doing shit-work for low wages and being afraid to complain. Capitalism and the State are the real racists, and what's more they have real power. The racist bosses have the power to hire and fire and exploit. Racist police have the power to beat up and arrest and spy. The racist courts have the power to fine and imprison. Racist politicians have the power to take decisions and create fears and tension. In comparison the Nazis are almost powerless. Almost, but not quite.

Racist and fascist organisations have a useful role to play for the State. They can galvanise and manipulate racist feeling, they can pull communities apart. They can create violence and insecurity so that people call for more police power (just what the State wants). They can create discord in workplaces. They can attack militants and individuals. This doesn't mean that the State forms and directs nazi organisations though it's safe to say that police have their own people inside the nazi leadership. By offering publicity and protection, by nods and winks, the nazis are used to create the sort of situation the state needs. In effect they are the shock troops of the racist State. When they are no longer useful they will be discarded.

The nazi leaders aren't stupid, they know this, but whilst they are being used they are trying to use the situation to their own ends. No doubt the majority of nazi cadres really do believe the crap they are fed by their leaders but the fact remains that they are being used. For example the National Front leaders know that so long as they are seen as simply a collection of racist thugs they will only be of limited use to the State and will not be able to manoeuvre into power. Hence whilst keeping the racism as the main recruiting point and major plank of activity, they are quietly moving into other fields such as trade unionism, animal rights, ecology, right to work etc. Anti-racists should be aware of this new trend.

So while the State is our real enemy, and the protector and elder brother of the nazis, the various fascist do represent an everyday danger to for us. They are constantly making racist attacks, spreading their filth on the streets and so need to be dealt with. Self-defence is vital for communities under attack and we should not be afraid of violence, they only attack because they can get away with it. Monitoring their activity is also useful, we must know who they are, where they live and what they do. In workplaces only total unity and organisation will be able to ruin their plans for keeping us apart.

Beyond the equality principle
The demand for equal rights from some sections of the community, with the support of liberals and reformers everywhere, will not make that much difference to us at all. As long as the State exists then equal rights will be equal rights for wage slavery , equal right of exploitation, equal rights of the dole, equal rights to alienation and oppression. The only equal right that I want is an equal right to take part in the mass working class struggles to overthrow the State and Capitalism. And I won't get that right by asking nicely or staying silent.

Of course we mustn't stop struggling for equal wages, improvements in conditions and for the ending of racist practices. Indeed using direct action as our means, through wildcat strikes, go-slows, sabotage etc., the struggle for these reforms will not only produce results it will increase out power, confidence and morale. But the principle of equality is not the be-all and end-all of our struggle as workers. Beyond the equality of today, beyond equality in wage slavery and unemployment, beyond this lies the real equality which will come about when capitalism and the state are smashed.

For a large number of black trades unionists and militants the main focus is on getting more of our people into positions of management and control. And once we have black managers what happens? We can be ordered about in our own languages as well as English. This is not what I fight for. What difference if the boss is black, white or brown. A boss is a boss and out to control us. Rather than fight for more managers it is better to fight for the abolition of managers once and for all. Remember a boss will gladly appoint black managers to divide us so that he can't be accused of racism, and so he can spy on us. We want no bosses, black or white.

Direct action and unity
All through this pamphlet it has been constantly stressed that unity between workers of all races is totally vital. But how does that unity come about? By standing side by side and shouting "Black and white unite and fight"? Certainly that won't do any harm, but saying "let's love each other" doesn't mean we will and doesn't mean that hundreds of years of racism can be wiped out. The only way unity, class unity, can be achieved is by constant day to day struggle on all fronts. Only by the swapping of ideas and tactics in the everyday struggle at home in the streets and at work. If we all waited, black and white, for the politicians (from the SWP to the SDP), to unite us then we might as well give up now. Internationalism will replace nationalism when we all know that we have more in common with each other than with the bosses.

In the streets, in the momentous street battles of April and July 1981, we had black, brown and white fighting side by side against the common enemy, the police. It's that sort of common action that solidifies bonds between us all. In the struggle against the nazis we have all races united against the racists. It's that fragile unity of the moment that we have to build upon, we have to extend that unity, make it permanent. It will be put to the test again and again, and every time it survives it will be stronger and stronger. On the picket lines militants of all races multiply in struggle, we can win.

At home, on the housing estates, in tenant associations we must overcome the tensions. In cases of racist attacks, supportive neighbours help to end the isolation, help to hit back against the racists. In the struggle for better housing., against bad conditions we are united. Remember damp walls and TB recognise no differences in colour. Nor do greedy landlords or homelessness.

Work (where there is any that is), is perhaps the place with most potential for unity. Day in day out people of all races work together, together they face the same bosses (though sometimes differing degrees of exploitation). Unfortunately the unions have been totally pathetic about the struggle of black workers in this country. Often union officials are either apathetic, or racist, or both. The history of unions and racism is a sorry one. The divide and rule tactics of the bosses are allowed to succeed. But if you take a close look at the unions involved they aren't exactly enthusiastic about the struggle of white workers either. (This doesn't excuse their racism). From being the fighting organisations of the workers they have often degenerated into centralised and monolithic blocs run by well paid officials, divorced from everyday reality and useless when it comes to doing anything active. The only people who are to blame are the workers themselves who have let things degenerate to such an extent. It is up to the working class of all races to take back the unions, to get rid of the bureaucrats, to root out the racist scum, to turn the unions back into fighting units for a new society. The workplace is the basic unit of production, of organisation, each workplace needs an independent working class organisation run by all the workers themselves without politicians or bureaucrats. These workplace organisations can engage in day to day struggle for wages and conditions, using direct action, rather than waiting for the bosses to be nice, and from day to day to grow in confidence and power. The ultimate aim is for these workplace organisations or workplace committees, to unite across the country, again without the end for bureaucrats and politicians, and once united launch the struggle to smash the State and create a new society based on self-management and mutual aid.

With the workplace committee as the basic unit for struggle the workers power and organisation is rooted in real life. It is here that racism will be crushed. In struggle we will depend on each other for help and solidarity. Racists will either realise their errors when they see the reality of class unity or they will be driven out of the workplaces by the committees. In the streets and at home neighbourhood committees will work in the same way as the workplace committees.

All this may seem utopian dreaming but it is based on countless years of experience, on the history of workers struggles around the globe. This is anarcho-syndicalism, the union of workers struggling against the state for a free and libertarian communist world (anarchism). It is rooted in our class life, in day to day struggle. In Africa it is no longer then armed struggle movements, linked to foreign Imperialist powers (like Russia/Cuba, or China, or USA/South Africa), but the struggle of the unionised and class conscious workers and peasants which hold the key


Note

This pamphlet was written by a member of then South London Branch of the Direct Action Movement (forerunner of the Solidarity federation) in about 1983. While some of the situations described have moved on and changed, the conclusions are still generally valid.

[American Dream]

http://libcom.org/library/goals-then-st ... -part-i-ii

Goals. Then Strategy. Then Tactics.

First we dream up our goals. Big goals and small Goals. Our 'ultimate goals’ are visionary. They are the grand ones written on the wall and they stare at us. They are our inspiration. Our 'intermediate goals’, are the stepping stones. These goals create the conditions for the grand ones. They lead us to the right path. Then we have our 'immediate goals’--day-to-day demands. These goals are the victories we achieve once a week or once every five years. Winning these demands makes our lives better and demonstrates our power, both to our enemies and to ourselves.

Next we draft a strategy. This strategy takes us to our goals. Our strategy is practical but anticipates huge possibilities. Our strategy aims us through the day-to-day goals on our way to the bigger ones. If our strategy builds workers’ power then we are unleashing the possibilities to achieve anything. However, if our strategy is aimed only at the day-to-day goals, without the stepping stones, we’ll never realize our grand vision.

Lastly, we select tactics. These tactics fit our strategy like a glove. By taking these actions as a group, we prepare for bigger things. Remember--goals. Then strategy. Then tactics. That’s the dope! Now let’s put them together in a fun example. The big goal is free food for every human being. No one should starve while there is food. No one should pay for a basic human right. We already have the ability to feed the world’s population yet the captains of industry stand in our way. They withhold food from the market in an effort to keep up the price--to keep food 'profitable.’ If workers held the whole operation, from the farms to the stores, we could decide how to produce food and distribute it--freely, democratically the world over. We could feed the world for free and shorten the workweek in the process! The intermediate goal is workers’ domination of the agriculture and food stuff Industry. If we run it, start to finish, we can do with it what we please. The immediate goal--what’s necessary to feed ourselves today--might happen to be a pay raise for a specific group of food stuff workers. The immediate goal doesn’t have to be directly connected to the larger goals. Workers need things to survive and thrive and we demand these things on a daily basis. We use the immediate goals to prepare for the bigger goals. How do we do it? Strategy!

The strategy is workers’ power. Workers power on every farm, in every processing plant, around every terminal and warehouse, at every grocery store and fruit stand. Workers’ power. We want the fighting spirit on every “€˜shop floor.’ We want that power coordinated across the entire industry worldwide. We want the power to change conditions and dominate an industry so that nothing happens in that industry unless the workers agree to it. To build power locally and industrially, workers will need shopfloor and industrial committees to make collective decisions and coordinate actions.

Getting a pay raise for a group of food stuff workers doesn’t mean capturing the industry. That pay raise only advances our movement if food stuff workers won it themselves. If someone else won it for the workers, then their confidence and power has not increased. This workers’ power extends past the organization itself. It outstrips a simple “union” and moves into a generalized and internalized culture of resistance where workers realize our power and act using that power constantly. We want agriculture and food stuff workers to be arrogant, ungovernable, and explosive. We want them to feel entitled to run the world. (Someday they’ll have to!)

Given that workers’ power is the strategy, we’ll need to develop the skills and experience of individual worker-organizers in the industry. Expanding leadership capabilities to more and more workers increases the power of each sub-body in the industry. Therefore, part of our strategy has to be actively training workers and building an ever-increasing pool of experienced and dedicated organizers. Remember our goal was free food for every human being? Getting to this goal will likely mean having to develop our organizers into conscious revolutionaries. Even more likely is that these worker-organizers will, through strikes and struggles, become more radical than the teachers of revolution. Therefore, that individual development must be part of the strategy. Our strategy calls for building workers into organizer and organizers into revolutionaries. We form shopfloor and industrial committees which help push the struggle forward. Next month we’ll talk about what tactics uppity agriculture and food stuff workers might employ. What do you suppose are the tactics that will multiply our power, deepen our resolve, increase our confidence, expand our consciousness, and set the stage for achieving our dreams?

http://libcom.org/library/goals-then-st ... part-ii-ii

Last month we talked about goals, strategy, and tactics. We called forth our visions--our ultimate goals. As an example, we said: “Free food for every human being.” Then we came up with intermediate goals: “Workers domination of the agriculture and food stuff industry.” But to feed ourselves this week, our immediate goal was a pay raise. Next, we planned out a strategy--both to get us that pay raise and to set us on our way to our dreams. We designed our strategy to unite around immediate necessities and build our strength to achieve the impossible. Our strategy groups workers into shop floor and industrial committees. Workers group together in many ways, however, so we’ll work with what the situation calls for. To implement this strategy, we’re going to select tactics.

Tactics are the concrete actions taken to further a strategy. Our tactics must demonstrate our resolve to transform the food stuff industry. The effort to get a group of food stuff workers a pay raise relies on workers’ collective mass action. The shop floor and industrial committees choose tactics that build confidence and successfully demonstrate to food stuff workers their power 'at the point of production.’

A scenario might play out like this: Workers sign a letter and present it to the boss in a group. Everyone wears a special t-shirt. If the boss refuses, then they all participate in a 'cold-shoulder day’ to let the boss know nobody’s happy. Workers leafleting customers, vendors, transportation workers, workers at neighboring businesses, and investors might be necessary. The point is to demonstrate to the boss your unity and resolve. If management remains stubborn, then a 'sick out’ or a slow down might be next.

The point is to have the workers on the shop floor decide on a tactic and take action together. If our actions rely too heavily on a 'third party’-- the media, lawyers, negotiators, or even the so-called “community,” we might still achieve the pay raise. But whose skills, confidence, and power are we building and demonstrating? If we’re doing our job right, every small victory we achieve is a boost to workers’ confidence in themselves.

When workers are accustomed to demanding concessions through the use of our power at the workplace, we see that we have strength. When workers feel this power, we shift from 'bread and butter’ demands to broad political demands that represent our aspirations. If workers in the agriculture and food stuff industry world wide get good at demanding control over their jobs, pretty soon they’ll demand control of food itself.

This was just one example. Can you see how it all fits together? This way of looking at the work we do can be applied to almost anything. From planning a strike to printing branch t-shirts, the 'goals, strategy, tactics’ method helps us look more closely at our activity.

Ever wanted to do a tactic that conflicts with your--or has no--strategy? Often this is a problem of unstated goals. For instance, you might want to walk out immediately but the “5 Year Plan” calls for organizing quietly. In this case, responding to a particular offense, and the temporary freedom that comes from action, might be the real goal and the far-off revenge of industry-wide standards doesn’t seem worth the wait. The unstated goals of many tactics are some form of satisfaction. It is important to recognize this and balance a patient strategy with our irrepressible desires.

When we use this method, we call into question certain assumptions about 'tactics’ that might seem self-evident. Do we come up with a tactic--“Let’s put out a press release!” “Let’s picket!”--then dream up our goals from what we think we can win? Or might we plan out a strategy and selectively choose tactics that will build workers’ power effectively? This method also puts to the test certain so-called 'principles’ and makes them prove their usefulness as 'tactics’ rather than sacred truths. “We don’t have paid staff!” “We have extremely low dues!” “We don’t sign contracts!” “We allow anyone to join on the spot!” “We don’t affiliate with political groups!” “We don’t have mandatory anything!”... Whether we do these things or not should be because they are effective tactics in a plan to get to our goals, not because we read it in some bible somewhere.

First goals--to determine what we really want tomorrow and what we think we can get today. Then strategy--to plan out the campaign to achieve our goals and build the power and confidence of workers. Then tactics--to take concrete steps that demonstrate our resolve and alter the balance of power.

[American Dream]

http://www.fpif.org/articles/review_escape_from_camp_14

Review: Escape from Camp 14
By Yunping Chen, June 22, 2012


In North Korea’s Camp 14, where Shin Dong-hyuk was born, the first of the Ten Commandments that formed the rules of the camp states: “Anyone caught escaping will be shot immediately.” Everyone in the camp is obliged to witness these executions, for they serve as warnings to anyone who contemplates escape. Shin saw his first execution at the age of four.

The U.S. government and human rights groups estimate that 150,000 to 200,000 people are held in North Korea’s prison camps. Many of the camps can be seen in satellite images, but North Korea denies their existence. Shin’s upbringing in one of these camps forms the basis of his story, Escape from Camp 14, written by former Washington Post journalist Blaine Harden.

It was a grim and nightmarish setting for any childhood. Like his classmates, Shin was never brainwashed about the Great Leader, but he was instead “schooled to inform on his family and on his classmates.” He was the prize for his parents in their “reward” marriage, the “ultimate bonus for hard work and reliable snitching” and the only safe way around the no-sex rule in the camp (although even then they were only allowed to sleep together five nights a year).

Shin says he never heard the word “love” growing up. He viewed his mother as “a competitor for food” and later “a competitor for survival.” He frequently stole her lunch and as a result got beaten “with a hoe, a shovel, anything close at hand,” beatings that could be as violent as any administered by the guards.

Indeed, violence seemed to permeate every aspect of life in the camp. In school, a teacher struck one of Shin’s classmates, a pretty six-year-old girl, over the head with his wooden pointer and killed her. The punishment was for stealing five kernels of corn and was justified according to subsection three of Camp 14’s third rule: “Anyone who steals or conceals any foodstuffs will be shot immediately.” Like his parents, Shin accepted all the rules and quickly learned to survive by snitching on other students. And of course, he was also snitched on by everyone else. As for the girl’s misfortune and the beatings he himself received, Shin believed that they were the just deserts of those with “treasonous blood.”

Inevitably, and perhaps most horrifying of all, Shin informed on his own mother and brother when they tried to escape. The first rule of Camp 14, subsection 2, is: “Any witness to an attempted escape who fails to report it will be shot immediately.” Shin admitted that he “was more faithful to guards” than to his own family, whose escape attempt would have put his life at risk. Shin avoided his mother’s eyes at her execution and believed that she deserved to die.

Shin was never told why his parents were put in the camp, but as a result he was born into the lowest level of the North Korean caste system. Kim Il Sung laid down the law in 1972: “Enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations.” The camp system is the tool for carrying out the law.

Shin Dong-hyuk and current North Korean leader Kim Jong Eun are about the same age. Kim Jong Eun is applauded as "another leader sent from heaven," while all throughout childhood Shin was called a “reactionary son of a bitch.” While Kim attended school in Switzerland and became a great fan of basketball star Michael Jordan, Shin spent his “most contented childhood moments” eating rats and field mice during summertime work. Thanks to these rats, fatal disease was rampant throughout the camp.

“Uncle” Park’s care for the 13-year-old informant first exposed Shin to sustained kindness. Shin’s friendship with Park proved a pivotal turn in his life. Shin’s well-traveled and broad-shouldered friend made him realize “where he was and what he was missing.” They decided together to escape the prison. On January 2, 2005, Shin crawled over Park’s dead body — Park had reached the electric fence first — then squirmed through to the other side and ran off through the snow. He was regarded as the first person born in a North Korean prison to successfully escape. He made his way to China, then South Korea, and finally to the United States.

Shin changed his name after his escape to South Korea. It was an attempt to reinvent himself as a free man. Because of malnutrition, he was five feet six inches and weighed about 120 pounds.

Shin’s book Escape to the Outside World sold only about 500 copies in its single Korean-language printing of 3,000. He said, "I don't want to be critical of this country, but I would say that out of the total population of South Korea, only .001 percent has any real understanding of or interest in North Korea." North Korea's labor camps have now existed twice as long as the Soviet Gulag and about 12 times longer than the Nazi concentration camps. The world’s indifference to the existence of North Korea’s horrible labor camps is an absolute shame. Shin Dong-hyuk’s story should help to transform this indifference into outraged concern.

[American Dream]

The Shock Doctrine Naomi Klein and Alfonso Cuaron

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/06 ... llustrated

Capitalist accumulation, illustrated

[American Dream]

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/20 ... -s-dollar/

“IN GOD WE TRUST”: COMMUNISM, ATHEISM, & THE U.S. DOLLAR
by Lisa Wade, May 16, 2012, at 11:40 am

Americans are familiar with seeing the phrase “In God We Trust” on our paper money. The motto is, indeed, the official United States motto. It wasn’t always that way, however. While efforts to have the phrase inscribed on U.S. currency began during the Civil War, it wasn’t until 1957 that it appeared on our paper money, thanks to a law signed by President Eisenhower.

1956:




1957:




The motto wasn’t simply added in order to please God-fearing Americans, but instead had a political motivation. The mid- to late-1950s marked an escalation in the Cold War between the U.S., the Soviet Union, and their respective allies. In an effort to claim moral superiority and demonize the communist Soviet Union, the U.S. drew on the association of communism with atheism. Placing “In God We Trust” on the U.S. dollar was a way to establish the United States as a Christian nation and differentiate them from their enemy.

[American Dream]

Buffy the anarcho-syndicalist: Capitalism bites



An excellent detourned comic from 2004 about Buffy,
the anarcho-syndicalist vampire-slayer.


http://nihilpress.subvert.info/buffy.pdf

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

A 1985 Virginia Slims ad reflected a similar notion that white patriarchy saves Native women from oppression. On the left side of the ad was a totem pole of cartoonish figures of Indian women. Their names: Princess Wash and Scrub, Little Running Water Fetcher, Keeper of the Teepee, Princess Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner Preparer, Woman Who Gathers Firewood, Princess Buffalo Robe Sewer, Little Woman Who Weaves All Day, and Woman Who Plucks Feathers for Chief’s Headdress. The caption on top of the totem pole reads: “Virginia Slims remembers one of many societies where the woman stood head and shoulders above the men.” On the right side of the ad is a model adorned with makeup and dressed in a tight skirt, nylons, and high heels, with the familiar caption: “You’ve come a long way, baby.” The message is that Native women, oppressed in their tribal societies, need to be liberated into a patriarchal standard of beauty, where their freedom lies. The historical record suggests, as Paula Gunn Allen argues, that the real roots of feminism should be found in Naive societies. But in this Virgina Slims ad, feminism is tied to colonial conquest — (white) women’s liberation is founded upon the destruction of supposedly patriarchal Native societies.
“
—
Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide

An image of the ad: