Economic Aspects of "Love"

[American Dream]

The average Black male
Live a third of his life in a jail cell
Cause the world is controlled by the white male
And the people don’t never get justice
And the women don’t never get respected
And the problems don’t never get solved
And the jobs don’t never pay enough
So the rent always be late; can you relate?
We livin' in a police state

[American Dream]

http://shesamarxist.tumblr.com/post/348 ... n-strongly

what do i believe in? strongly?

written in journal august 23, 2009

1. I believe that unconditional self love is developed in individuals through the unconditional love of parents.

2. That love can heal almost anything, if applied deeply and consistently.

3. That there is no such thing as evil people or good people. Our species is flawed and full of potential, simultaneously. We have the capacity to be both good and evil.

4. That there are enough resources in this world that every single person could live a very healthy and decent life. No one should starve in a world where we have such incredible technology and science. There is enough to go around, more than enough. If we harnessed it in the interest of people’s needs, not in the interest of capital, we could work half as much, people all over the world.

5. The fact that people have to think about money immediately after finding out that they or a loved one is sick is one of the most barbaric aspects of our so-called civilized world, so-called developed world.

6. I believe that prisons should be abolished.

7. I believe that children should not be isolated from the rest of society, it retards their development and disconnects us from our future, from our humanity, our creativity, humor and spirit.

8. I believe that love is a choice, not a feeling.

9. I believe that capitalism infects all of our social relations and infuses all of us with a dehumanizing view of one another as means to an ends.

10. I believe that healthy communication should be taught as part of “primary education”.

11. I believe that history, real, imperialistic, genocidal history must be taught and retaught to young and old alike. The future of our species depends on our ability to remember the past and learn from it.

[American Dream]

http://shesamarxist.wordpress.com/2011/ ... childhood/

Down with Childhood!
Posted: January 20, 2011 | Author: Sycorax |


The prevalence of violence against womyn and its overwhelming acceptance as a part of life, is some of the most glaring proof of how deep patriarchal social relations run throughout society.

However there is another violence that also permeates our society and it is similarly unquestioned and accepted as normal, and that is violence against children. Last night reading a book called Rethinking the Family I came across an essay by feminist writer Linda Gordon. In the essay Gordon makes an interesting point:

Women, who do most of the labor of child care and have the strongest emotional bonds to children, have fought for and largely won rights to child custody over the last 150 years. Yet women are often the abusers and neglecters of children. Indeed child abuse becomes the more interesting and challenging to feminists because in it we meet women’s rage and abuses of power. (268)

Gordon makes this assertion based on her looking through tons of paperwork filed by social service agencies. In this paperwork, we find that mothers are often perpetrators of child abuse themselves. Though its important to remember that this is also due to the sexual division of labor where womyn have a disproportionate share of responsibility in the caretaking of children.

As Gordon herself notes: “because men spend, on the whole, so much less time with children then do women, what is remarkable is not that women are violent toward children but that men are responsible for nearly half of the child abuse.” (268) Gordon argues that the 2nd wave of feminist movement in the U.S. did little to influence policies that affect children. She attributes this to the fact that many womyn in the 2nd wave movement were young and childless. But she also notes that feminists too often assume that the interests of children and womyn are the same. This assumption disregards the reality of child abuse wherein “severing maternal custody in order to protect children” is sometimes a necessity. I think this is definitely true.

I think that in many instances the welfare of mothers and children definitely does converge. I know in my own house, my mother was often emotionally abusive with us, though admittedly this was often a result of her inability to cope with the violence being inflicted upon her, and the resultant hopelessness, depression and isolation this caused.

That said, I do think that children’s special oppression under capitalism has been way under theorized by feminists. I myself have written and spoken in a romanticized way about the power we see in Mothers, their ability to endure, sacrifice and shelter us. However I think the issue of violence against children brings to the fore a contradiction that we shouldn’t ignore, or try to smooth away because it upholds an unrealistic and thus unsustainable idea wherein men are the perpetrators and womyn are the victims, or the kind ones. This is simply not true. I know that womyn can also be violent and cruel. Power inequalities are power inequalities and their deleterious effects can’t be limited to class, race, or gender.

Child oppression and exploitation seems to be particularly cruel in capitalism because children are either held in sweatshop condition labor (in the ‘underdeveloped world’) or barred and prevented from waged work altogether (in the industrialized world). When children are engaged in waged work they are rarely given any kind of control over surplus value they produce (their wages are often managed by older family members). Because children have little to no rights as workers, they are more exploitable. If their rights as workers were recognized (and legally enforced) waged work might actually empower them in particular ways. We all understand that being a waged worker of any kind in society blows, and that it’s not exactly emancipation to be given the right to be exploited for your labor power. The idea of children working is anathema to many of us who think it should be banned outright, unconditionally. However the idea that children should be barred from being productive members of society is relatively new and I think its important for us all to challenge our assumptions about childhood and what is ‘best for kids’. I remember this issue was brought up by Shulamith Firestone in her book The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (a ‘second-wave’ classic, published in 1970).



I always thought Firestone’s chapter on children was pretty brilliant, in that it uses the oppression of women to make some pretty sharp insights into the oppression of children. The chapter, entitled “Down with Childhood” traces the historical evolution of the creation of “childhood” as a distinct period of life.

I have read other evidence backing up Firestone’s observations here. For most of history children were integrated into family life from the day they were born, and this meant they were part of reproducing the family as well. There was no distinguishable language, dress or customs surrounding childhood, distinct or apart from adult life. This is still true for most places in the world where high birth numbers are a product of families using children as a survival strategy—the more children you have the more work you have contributed to the family unit and its survival. Firestone claims that during this time, without the modern educational system having been established yet, children transitioned easily into adult life because they participated in it from the earliest stages, “children were never segregated off into special quarters, schools, or activities. Since the aim was to ready the child for adulthood as soon as possible, it was felt quite reasonably that such a segregation would delay or stymie an adult perspective” (70).

In summary, with the onset of the child-centered nuclear family, an institution became necessary to structure a ‘childhood’ that would keep children under the jurisdiction of parents as long as possible. Schools multiplied, replacing scholarship and a practical apprenticeship with a theoretical education, the function of which was to ‘discipline’ children rather than to impart learning for its own sake. Thus it is no surprise that modern school retards development rather than escalating it. By sequestering children away from the adult world…a rigid separation and distinction by ages…children were no longer able to learn from older and wiser children. (77)

The ideology of school was the ideology of childhood. It operated on the assumption that children needed ‘discipline’…and that to facilitate this they should be corralled in a special place with their own kind, and with an age group as restricted to their own as possible. The school was the institution that structured childhood by effectively segregating childhood from the rest of society, thus retarding their growth into adulthood and their development of specialized skills for which society had use. As a result they remained economically dependent for longer and longer periods of time: thus family ties remained unbroken.

This insight is definitely true! Those of us who had older brothers or sisters we hung out with 0r were exposed to know that hanging out with older peers taught us vastly more about life than sitting in a 4th grade classroom. If we think back we also remember that most of us were desperate to know about life outside of our rigidly defined child allowance of knowledge. We wanted to know about sex, about work, about life. It definitely seems ridiculous to segregate children by age when you look at how quickly children learn from their older peers. That kind of inter-generational learning and contact is generally looked down on across the board, even for middle-aged adults. Senior citizens have a wealth of knowledge just because you learn a lot of shit when you’ve been alive long enough. We cut ourselves off from wisdom and knowledge when we are confined to people of our strict age group.

Shulamith also makes interesting observations about the ways that children and womyn are treated in society, as distinct creatures needing special treatment. In the below passage she gives a humorous overview of the ways in which both children and women are patronized by society in analogous ways that reveal the false generosity that underlies paternalism.

The myth of childhood has an even greater parallel in the myth of femininity. Both women and children were considered asexual and thus ‘purer’ than man. Their inferior status was ill concealed under an elaborate ‘respect’. One did not discuss serious matters nor did one curse in front of women and children. Both were set apart by fancy and nonfunctional clothing and were given special tasks (housework and homework respectively); both were considered mentally deficient (‘What can you expect from a woman?’ ‘He’s too little to understand’). The pedestal of adoration on which both were set made it hard for them to breathe.

Every interaction with the adult world became for children a tap dance. They learned to use their childhood to get what they wanted indirectly (‘He’s throwing another tantrum!’), just as women learned to use their femininity (‘There she goes, crying again!’). Because the class oppression of women and children is couched in the phraseology of ‘cute’ it is much harder to fight than open oppression. What child can answer back when some inane aunt falls all over him or some stranger decides to pat his behind and gurgle baby talk? What woman can afford to frown when a passing stranger violates her privacy at will?

Very often the real nature of these seemingly friendly remarks emerge when the child or the woman doesn’t smile as she should” ‘Dirty old scum bag. I wouldn’t screw you even if you had a smile on your puss!’… ‘Nasty little brat. If I were your father I would spank you so hard you wouldn’t know what hit you!’… Their violence is amazing. Yet these men feel that the woman or the child is to blame for not being friendly. Because it makes them uncomfortable to know that the woman/child/black/workman is grumbling, the oppressed groups must also appear to like their oppression – smiling and simpering though they may feel like hell inside. (83)

I quote the above passage at length because it is amusing to me and also true. I like Firestone’s colorful writing. In the chapter she goes on to look at the way children’s oppression is structured by their economic dependence and physical weakness. She also looks at the repression that is perpetrated against child sexuality. I think that Firestone makes really interesting points throughout this chapter, and raises a lot of questions that are still pretty relevant.

I would add to the above insight that the advent of schooling and childhood as a distinct period in life definitely maps onto the need to have more educated, skilled labor, and the needs of capital generally. But it is interesting to think about what childhood would look like under communism. How would we raise children? How would we respect their voices, their understanding of the world? How would we involve children in the decisions we make about the world they are going to inherit? It’s interesting to think about childhood and the role it has played in capitalism. Children and childhood are definitely good for promoting conspicuous consumption. Segmented markets are definitely a capitalist strategy that accentuates differences and cultural identity in order to sell commodities.

But what about intra-family violence and assumptions we have about children today? What would childhood look like if the upbringing of children was not tied to the development of wage-labor? These are questions I find myself thinking about today. Also, how can we incorporate a vision of society free of patriarchy, and not reproduce oppressive relations that exist today between adults and children? What would child liberation look like?



child liberation might look like this.

I encourage any thoughts or comments on this subject. I leave you with the conclusion of this chapter.

Children, then, are not freer than adults. They are burdened by a wish fantasy in direct proportion to the restraints of their narrow lives; with an unpleasant sense of their own physical inadequacy and ridiculousness; with constant shame about their dependence, economic and otherwise (‘Mother, may I?’) and humiliation concerning their natural ignorance of practical affairs. Children are repressed at every waking minute. Childhood is hell.

The result is the insecure, and therefore aggressive/defensive, often-obnoxious little person we call a child. Economic, sexual and general psychological oppressions reveal themselves in coyness, dishonesty, spite, and these unpleasant characteristics in turn reinforcing the isolation of children from the rest of society. Thus their rearing, particularly in its most difficult personality phases, is gladly relinquished to women—who tend for the same reason, to exhibit these personality characteristics themselves. Except for the ego rewards involved in having children of one’s own, few men show any interest in children. And fewer still grant them their political importance.

So it is up to feminist (ex-child and still oppressed women) revolutionaries to do so. We must include the oppression of children in any programme for feminist revolution or we will be subject to the same failing of which we have so often accused men: of not having gone deep enough in our analysis, of having missed an important substratum of oppression merely because it didn’t concern us. (94) (Emphasis added.)


.

[American Dream]

http://www.anarchiststudies.org/node/527

The Politics of Occupation: Anti-Authoritarianism and Direct Democracy

by members of Parasol Climate Collective and The Institute for Anarchist Studies

Perspectives 2011





INTRODUCTION

Walking through the camp of Occupy Portland, it is hard to believe it has only been a few weeks since it began. The transformation of the space is nothing short of miraculous: from a few scattered tents, some cardboard signs, and a tarp or two, a miniature city has arisen, crafted with the energy, creativity, and good intentions of us all. Together, we are learning first-hand the difficulties, frustrations, and joys of democracy and of the experience of power.

There are other things we need to be proud of, as well: we have held a space; we have negotiated ideas and conflicts as individuals, groups, and a mass; we have demonstrated flexibility and compassion; we have begun to question our assumptions. May this only be the beginning of all of these things.

As we move farther into the experience of wielding power for ourselves, it is good to remember the principle of rootedness, which comes to us from many different schools of martial arts. While we speak of being a “movement,” we are also a place of great stillness, a point which, in reality, refuses to be moved. This stillness will force others to move around us and to bend to our will - this should not be forgotten.

There are other principles, too, to keep in mind. May this text contribute to the discussion as we continue to help each other learn, grow, envision, create, and fight.

POWER and AUTHORITY ARE NOT THE PROBLEM

Social interactions, by their nature, involve the invocation, exchange, and negotiation of power. Power struggles are constant, whether they involve something small, like deciding where to go for dinner with friends, or something large, like the distribution of natural resources among different segments of the population.

It doesn’t make sense to say things like, “Power is bad,” or “Power is the problem.” Power exists, period. The issue is the way in which power is wielded and exchanged. Problems arise when, in the ongoing negotiation of power, the possession of power solidifies into a hierarchical structure that allows one group to exert dominance over another. These structures become accepted as institutions, and become “normal,” and the power disparity between groups ceases to be questioned. This is the nature of oppression.

Another common misconception is that “Authority is bad,” or “Authority is the problem.” A distinction needs to be made between authority and authoritarianism. Authority is simply expertise or specialized knowledge earned through experience, training, or effort. Health care professionals have a certain authority in questions or circumstances regarding a medical response. Pilots have authority when it comes to operating aircraft. This kind of authority simply acknowledges the benefit of experience, practice, and specialized knowledge.

Authoritarianism, on the other hand, is when the difference in authority is exploited to create and solidify an imbalance of power. For instance, I may turn to a health care professional to gain advice regarding a medical concern, but if the health professional is able to make decisions for me based upon her/his authority, that creates a system of dominance wherein I lose my power over my own body. Authoritarianism is a problem.

CONCERNS REGARDING DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

There is a tendency within some anti-authoritarian groups to think of consensus as “true democratic process,” and of majority-based voting systems as “compromised process.” However, it is important to consider the purpose of achieving consensus within a group before making these kinds of judgments.

The word “consensus” comes from the Latin consentire, or “feel together.” It implies unity, rather than unanimity - a willingness to engage with a group, air concerns (with an intention to resolve them), and then achieve a singularity of purpose together. The purpose is to better explore the issue at hand and to achieve a common understanding. It does not necessarily have to mean everyone being in total agreement. In order for this kind of communication to occur, groups seeking consensus require a great deal of commitment to one another; it is often best used among smaller groups that already have significant common assumptions and shared knowledge, as well as a deep level of earned trust.

In situations where a block to consensus can be used, groups may experience what is known as “the tyranny of the minority,” where the concerns of a small group or an individual can delay or derail the unity of a much larger group. This can be difficult to resolve, and can result in a loss of common purpose, as well as in significant negative feelings. One way in which this is avoided is through using “modified consensus,” (also known as a “supermajority”), where consensus is sought, but ultimately, decisions are taken through the expression of a previously agreed-upon majority, e.g. 90% or 2/3. At the time of writing, Occupy Portland is experimenting with a supermajority (90%) model. Total consensus is sought, but the Assembly accepts decisions with a 90% majority. Anything less than 90% is recorded and used as a guide for future proposals or action. Rather than being seen as a compromise, modified consensus should be considered a practice that is dedicated to the practical resolution and utility of the power of the group.

What is the purpose of using a democratic process? Democracy, particularly in a diverse community or society, should not necessarily be about achieving unity on all issues. There must be room for disagreement and multiple perspectives. What is important is that all concerns and interests have an equal opportunity to be heard and evaluated.

One issue that Occupy Portland is currently facing in its decision-making practice is the lack of time available to individuals to voice their ideas. This is inherent in the use of the “People’s Mic” technique, which nicely addresses the lack of amplification and creates a certain experience of unity through its mechanism, yet privileges those who are more comfortable speaking in front of crowds, as well as those with louder or more assertive voices. It also reduces discussion to brief phrases, which is not the way all of us prefer to explore ideas. One way this might be addressed would be an adoption of a spokescouncil model, in which individuals would group themselves according to interest, committee, affinity, or even randomly, in order to have smaller, more interactive (facilitated) discussions. These groups would then select a spokesperson to share a summary or consensus view with the General Assembly on their behalf. While some people dislike the idea of breaking into smaller groups, these groups can be malleable or impermanent to avoid the fossilization of interest “blocs.” Other benefits include the possibility of deeper discussion of issues, as well as the opportunity to use full consensus models on smaller and more practical scales. This can lead to greater clarity and understanding on the part of the participants in the General Assembly, both of the process and the proposals at hand.

Furthermore, it is particularly important for decision-making structures to contain and check accountability. In the example of Occupy Portland, all committees and the work they do must be accountable to the General Assembly. Decisions made by the General Assembly must, in turn, be honored by the groups and individuals doing work on the assembly’s behalf. An example of this would be on the first night of the Occupation, the General Assembly voted to cut off communication with the police via the Police Liaison. However, this was not honored by the committee, and significant damage was done, both to the confidence of the community and to the development of the process.

THE POLICE - AS AN ENTITY - ARE NOT OUR FRIENDS

It is understandable to want to feel secure and accepted, regardless of whether your pursuits are professional, domestic, political, or otherwise. But it is important to understand what Occupy Portland is and signifies in a historical context. This context includes understanding better the role of the police in our communities.

The police forces were first developed in this country to capture and return the property of wealthy men: namely, runaway slaves. Since that early role, the function of the police within civil society has been to protect the interests of the status quo: the rich, the powerful, the 1%. The social structure as it exists today entails racial, class, and gender inequalities, as well as other forms of domination, like ableism and ageism. This is the system that the police are sworn to protect and serve. Recall the shootings of people of color by the Portland Police Department in recent years: James Jahar Akbar Perez, Keaton Otis, Kendra James, Aaron Campbell, and others. In a city where the population is over 75% white, the number of people killed by the police are disproportionally nonwhite. Another example of a disadvantaged group being mistreated is James Chasse, a white local artist and musician who suffered from mental health issues and died in police custody after receiving a lethal beating at the hands of officers for alleged public urination.

These actions do not make our community safer for the 99%. We do not need people with lethal weapons to show up when we have a fender bender. We need moderators; we need people to ensure we are safe and unhurt. We don’t need surveillance, intimidation, or the threat of lethal force.

What we do need in our community is a means for us to call on one another to resolve disputes, mediate conflicts, and to intervene when we feel our safety or security is threatened. One of our goals, as a group, should be to develop these systems and capacities among ourselves, so that our values and processes are reflected in the means with which we protect them, and so that these means are, again, accountable to the General Assembly at large.

WE HAVE THE SPACE: WHAT WILL WE DO WITH IT?

It is important to acknowledge the magnitude of what we have accomplished so far. As a collective entity, we are not only learning new skills for democratic processes and communication. We are also learning what it means to wield power in and of ourselves. We do not need to ask permission to hold this space: we simply occupy it. We become the power that grants that access; we give each other the right to be here and to make our demands. With this in mind, we must also be careful not to become so caught up in the process of maintaining our camp that we forget to exercise this newfound power, or forget to work toward envisioning, crafting, and demanding the changes we hope to see.

One criticism you will hear of Occupy Wall Street and all the other hundreds of Occupations taking place across the country (and now, all over the world), is that our message is “incoherent.” Because of our diversity, our multiplicity of concerns and interests, our detractors say we have no clear purpose other than to protest for its own sake. Yet it is exactly this diversity of concerns that illustrates the magnitude of the problems of capitalism. We all experience the oppressive nature of this economic system, and we experience it in such various ways: from pressures and promises to join the military, lack of support networks for the elderly, lack of support for new parents, loss of homes or insecure housing, racial discrimination, queer discrimination, environmental devastation, unsafe working conditions, unfair taxation, corporate interests silencing our own, or simply the need to work more than one menial and unsatisfying job to care for a family. This is our common thread, our shared purpose. Herein lies our unity.

Our coming tasks should include short-term, camp-based goals:
• How can we best use this space and opportunity to share knowledge, skills, ideas, and experiences?
• How can we extend our influence from within the camp and the immediate area to reach out to those who are not familiar with our work?
• How can we better represent those who are unable to join us, physically?

Also, we need to ask ourselves the difficult questions about how our own organization, structures, assumptions, and practices are reproducing the structures of domination we have learned elsewhere. This is an opportunity to unlearn them, and to create positive alternatives. Look around the camp - who is represented here? Who is missing? It is important to recognize that many of the assumptions that arise from our assemblies are a product of absence as much as presence. Occupy Portland is largely white. Also, as someone pointed out in a meeting on process, many people cannot afford to take time from their job(s) in order to make their voices heard. A different racial or class makeup would likely result in very different conversations, which is something we need to consider seriously when we ask questions about who it is we represent. Who benefits from our protest and practices? Who doesn’t? How can we reach out to underrepresented communities and individuals who may not be comfortable taking the same risks as we are?

Lastly, we must consider not only how we can best support the activity of Occupy Wall Street and elsewhere. We must also think in terms of long-range, concrete goals for the transformation of our own larger community. How can we intervene directly in the structures and tendencies of local issues to transform them into those that will support our greater visions?

We have a lot of work to do. Let us take every opportunity, together.


Written by members of Parasol Climate Collective and The Institute for Anarchist Studies.

Questions?
Contact: alltopia@gmail.com

[American Dream]

More at: http://www.commoner.org.uk/wp-content/u ... gustin.pdf

[Hammer of Los]

Children, then, are not freer than adults. They are burdened by a wish fantasy in direct proportion to the restraints of their narrow lives; with an unpleasant sense of their own physical inadequacy and ridiculousness; with constant shame about their dependence, economic and otherwise (‘Mother, may I?’) and humiliation concerning their natural ignorance of practical affairs. Children are repressed at every waking minute. Childhood is hell.

The result is the insecure, and therefore aggressive/defensive, often-obnoxious little person we call a child. Economic, sexual and general psychological oppressions reveal themselves in coyness, dishonesty, spite, and these unpleasant characteristics in turn reinforcing the isolation of children from the rest of society. Thus their rearing, particularly in its most difficult personality phases, is gladly relinquished to women—who tend for the same reason, to exhibit these personality characteristics themselves. Except for the ego rewards involved in having children of one’s own, few men show any interest in children. And fewer still grant them their political importance.

So it is up to feminist (ex-child and still oppressed women) revolutionaries to do so. We must include the oppression of children in any programme for feminist revolution or we will be subject to the same failing of which we have so often accused men: of not having gone deep enough in our analysis, of having missed an important substratum of oppression merely because it didn’t concern us.

...

edited

My own kids seem pretty happy. I won't say they are perfectly adjusted, they mirror the frailties and imperfections of their parents, their teachers, their friends, the stuff they see on the telly and so on. They mirror what they see, for they need a guide to action, being born innocents into the world.

Children are a delight and a revelation.

They will show you your error if you listen to them.

And sometimes they will reveal profound wisdom, if you have the ears to hear.





...

[American Dream]

My own kids seem pretty happy. I won't say they are perfectly adjusted, they mirror the frailties and imperfections of their parents, their teachers, their friends, the stuff they see on the telly and so on. They mirror what they see, for they need a guide to action, being born innocents into the world.

Children are a delight and a revelation.

They will show you your error if you listen to them.

And sometimes they will reveal profound wisdom, if you have the ears to hear.

...

I think children are born with an incredible capacity to be bright, creative, healthy, loving people. I

It is up to the older generations to make that better world, which is indeed possible.

I agree very much with an earlier quote from the same author:

what do i believe in? strongly?


1. I believe that unconditional self love is developed in individuals through the unconditional love of parents.

2. That love can heal almost anything, if applied deeply and consistently.

[American Dream]

http://postpomonuyorican.blogspot.com/2 ... iento.html

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Beyonce's Blanqueamiento

Exhibit A: Beyonce at last night's Kayne West Glow in the Dark Tour concert at Madison Sq. Garden in NYC




Exhibit B: Beyonce looking damn near transparent in her new L'Oreal ad




Now since it is obvious that Beyonce has not undergone a radical skin bleaching procedure from last night's photos (courtesy of Bossip.com) can someone explain to me why the hell L'Oreal photoshopped her to make her look whiter?

I have no problem with Beyonce rocking blonde hair in a L'Oreal ad, but I have serious issues when a cosmetics and beauty conglomerate like L'Oreal deems it necessary to digitally alter her skin tone in order to make her look "appealing."

People have been attacking Beyonce but I don't think it was her decision I think that this was something that L'Oreal did. L'Oreal has denied the allegations, saying to the Associated Press: "We highly value our relationship with Ms. Knowles. It is categorically untrue that L'Oreal Paris altered Ms. Knowles' features or skin tone in the campaign for Feria hair color." They can deny the allegations all they want, and who knows maybe it was some freak accident that occurred at Elle Magazine's printer, but the message and its impact is the same: whiteness is still the benchmark for what is considered beautiful. Someone who views the ad, regardless of whose fault the photoshopping was, will be reminded that women of color will always be expected to conform to hegemonic white conceptions and standards of beauty.

People need to stop blaming Beyonce and focus on the fashion and cosmetics industries who perpetuate heterosexist and racist constructs of beauty.

Posted by Marisol LeBron

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/20 ... ping-game/

POLICING MASCULINITY: BRUT’S SLAPPING GAME
by Gwen Sharp, Nov 3, 2010
Cross-posted at Jezebel.

Since Lisa posted about the Old Spice guy today, I thought I’d post about a reaction to it. Stephanie V. let us know about Brut’s new feature on their website, Some Men Just Need to be Slapped. The…game (?) presents Man in a Towel, clearly meant as a parody of the Old Spice character:



You are then invited to slap him with various items:



In each case the hand shown slapping him is a woman’s, though for some reason when you click the option to slap him with Brut, it’s just an empty hand, not the actual bottle. Presumably her palm has Brut on it.

You can also then choose who should be the next slapping option — a character called The Incident (a parody of The Situation from Jersey Shore) or a mime:



Brut is going with the theme common in men’s hygiene products, which is to reinforce a certain stereotypical type of masculinity. Their website refers to Brut as “essence of man”:



As Stephanie says, “I didn’t even know they still made Brut — but clearly they’re trying to hone in on the Old Spice crowd by challenging their manhood.” And how better to denigrate a guy as insufficiently masculine? Show him being slapped by a woman, of course.

[American Dream]

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/20 ... trategies/

EVOLUTION, COMPLEXITY, AND HUMAN MATING STRATEGIES
by Lisa Wade, Jun 28, 2010

I heard stories this week about dung beetles and cuttlefish. Both made me think about the typical stories we hear in the media about evolved human mating strategies. First, the stories:

—————————-

Story #1 :The Dung Beetle



A story on Quirks and Quarks discussed the mating strategies of the dung beetle. The picture above is of a male beetle; only the males have those giant horns. He uses it to defend the entrance to a tiny burrow in which he keeps a female. He’ll violently fight off other dung beetles who try to get access to the burrow.

So far this sounds like the typical story of competitive mating that we hear all the time about all kinds of animals, right?

There’s a twist: while only male dung beetles have horns, not all males have horns. Some are completely hornless. But if horns help you win the fight, how is hornlessness being passed down genetically?

Well, it turns out that when a big ol’ horned male is fighting with some other big ol’ horned male, little hornless males sneak into burrows and mate with the females. They get discovered and booted out, of course, and the horned male will re-mate with the female with the hopes of displacing his sperm.

But.

Those little hornless males have giant testicles. Way gianter than the horned males. While the horned males are putting all of their energy into growing horns, the hornless males are making sperm. So, even though they have limited access to females, they access they get as much mileage out of their access as they can.

The result: two distinct types of male dung beetles with two distinct mating strategies.

———————————

Story #2: The Giant Australian Cuttlefish




The Naked Scientists podcast featured a story about Giant Australian Cuttlefish. During mating season the male cuttlefish, much larger than the females, collect “harems” and spend their time mating and defending access. The biggest cuttlefish wins. This 3 1/2-minute clip gives you the gist:



So the males are defending access to the females, other males try to “muscle in,” but the bigger cuttlefish “throws his weight around” to scare him off.

So far this sounds like the typical story of competitive mating that we hear all the time about all kinds of animals, right?

Well, according The Naked Scientists story, researchers have discovered an alternative mating strategy. Small males, who are far too small to compete with large males, will pretend to be female, sneak into the defended territory, mate, and leave.

How do they do this? They change their color pattern and rearrange their tentacles in a more typical female arrangement (they didn’t specify what this was) and, well, pass. The large male thinks he’s another female.

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So, can the crossdressing cuttlefish and dodge-y dung beetle tell us anything about evolved human mating strategies?

Probably not.

But I do think it tells us something about how we should think about evolution and the reproduction of genes. If you listen to the media cover evolutionary psychological explanations of human mating, you only hear one story about the strategies that males use to try to get sex. That story sounds a lot like the one told about the horned beetle and the large male cuttlefish.

But these species have demonstrated that there need not be only one mating strategy. In these cases, there are at least two. So, why in Darwin’s name would we assume that human beings, in all of their beautiful and incredible complexity, would only have one! Perhaps we see a diversity in types of human males (different body shapes and sizes, different intellectual gifts, etc) because there are many different ways to attract females. Maybe females see something valuable in many different kinds of males!

Let’s set aside the stereotypes about men and women that media reporting on evolutionary psychology tends to reproduce and, instead, consider the possibility that human mating is at least as complex as that of dung beetles and cuttlefish.

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See also my post on flatworm sex. I love it, but readers… not so much!

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[American Dream]

http://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/0 ... ary-force/

“An Argument For Black Women’s Liberation As a Revolutionary Force”

Mary Ann Weathers
[Originally published in No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation. Cambridge, Mass: Cell 16. vol. 1, no. 2 (Feb 1969)]


“Nobody can fight your battles for you; you have to do it yourself.” This will be the premise used for the time being for stating the case for Black women’s liberation, although certainly it is the least significant. Black women, at least the Black women I have come in contact with in the movement have been expounding all their energies in “liberating” Black men (if you yourself are not free, how can you “liberate” someone else?). Consequently, the movement has practically come to a standstill. Not entirely due however to wasted energies but, adhering to basic false concepts rather than revolutionary principles ant at this stage of the game we should understand that if if is not revolutionary it is false.

We have found that Women’s Liberation is an extremely emotional issue, as well as an explosive one. Black men are still parroting the master’s prattle about male superiority. This now brings us to a very pertinent question: How can we seriously discuss reclaiming our African Heritage — cultural living modes which clearly refute not only patriarcy and matriarchy, but our entire family structure as we know it. African tribes live communally where households let alone heads of households are non-existant.

It is really disgusting to hear Black women talk about giving Black men their manhood — or allowing them to get it. This is degrading to other Black women and thoroughly insulting to Black men (or at least it should be). How can someone “give” one something as personal as one’s adulthood? That’s precisely like asking the beast for your freedom. We also chew the fat about standing behind our men. This forces me to the question: Are we women or leaning posts and props? It sounds as if we are saying if we come our from behind him, he’ll fall down. To me, these are clearly maternal statements and should be closely examined.

Women’s Liberation should be considered as a strategy for an eventual tie-up with the entire revolutionary movement consisting of women, men, and children. We are now speaking of real revolution (armed). If you can not accept this fact purely and without problems examine your reactions closely. We are playing to win and so are they. Viet Nam is simply a matter of time and geography.

Another matter to be discussed is the liberation of children from a sick slave culture. Although we don’t like to see it, we are still operating under the confines of the slave culture. Black women use their children for their own selfish needs of worth and love. We try to live our lives which are too oppressing to bear through our children and thereby destroy them in the process. Obviously the much acclaimed plaudits of the love of the Black mother has some discrepincies. If we allow ourselves to turn from the truth we run the rist of spending another 400 years in self destruction. Assuming of course the beast would tolerate us that long, and we know he wouldn’t.

Women have fought with men and we have died with men in every revolution, more timely in Cuba, Algeria, China, and now in Viet Nam. If you notice, it is a woman heading the “Peace Talks” in Paris for the NLF. What is wrong with Black women? We are clearly the most oppressed and degraded minority in the world, let alone the country. Why can’t we rightfully claim our place in the world?

Realizing fully what is being said, you should be warned that the opposition for liberation will come from everyplace, particularly from other women and from Black men. Don’t allow yourselves to be intimidated any longer with this nonsense about the “Matriarchy” of Black women. Black women are not matriarchs but we have been forced to live in abandonment and been used and abused. The myth of the martriarchy must stop and we must not allow ourselves to be sledgehammerd by it any longer — not if we are serious about change and ridding ourselves of the wickedness of this alien culture. Le it be clearly understood that Black women’s liberation is not anti-male; any such sentiment or interpretation as such can not be tolerated. It must be taken clearly for what it is — pro-human for all peoples.

The potential for such a movement is boundless. Where as in the past only certain type Black people have been attracted to the movement — younger people, radicals, and militants. The very poor, the middle class, older people and women have not become aware or have not been able to translate their awareness into action. Women’s liberation liberation offers such a channel for these energies.

Even though middle-class Black women may not have suffered the brutal supression of poor Black people, they most certainly have felt the scourge of the male superiority oriented society as women, and would be more prone to help in alleviating some of the conditions of our more oppressed sisters by teaching, raising awareness and consciousness, verbalizing the ills of women and this society, helping to establish communes.

Older women have a wealth of information and experience to offer and would be instrumental in closing the communications gap between the generations. To be Black and to tolerate this jive about discounting people over 30 is madness.

Poor women have knowledge to teach us all. Who else in this society sees more and is more realistic about ourselves and this society and about the faults that lie within our own people than our poor women? Who else could profit and benefit from a communal setting that could be established than these sisters? We must let the sisters know that we are capable and some of us already do love them. We women must begin to unabashedly learn to use the word “love” for one another. We must stop the petty jealousies, the violence that we Black women have for so long perpertrated on one another about fighting over this man or the other. (Black men should have better sense to encourage this kind of destructive behavior.) We must turn to ourselves and one another for strength and solace. Just think for a moment what it would be like if we got together and internalized our own 24 hour a day communal centers knowing our children would be safe and loved constantly. Not to mention what it would do for everyone’ egos especially the children. Women should not have to be enslaved by this society’s concept of motherhood through their children, and then the kids suffer through a mother’s resentment of it by beatings, punishment, and rigid discipline. All one has to do it look at the statistics of Black women who are rapidly filling the beast’s mental institutions to know that the time for innovation and change and creative thinking is here. We cannot sit on our behinds waiting for someone else to do it for us. We must save ourselves.

We do not have to look at ourselves as someone’s personal sex objects, maids, baby sitters, domestics and the like in exchange for a man’s attention. Men hold this power, along with that of the breadwinner over our heads for these services and that’s all it is — servitude. In return we torture him, and fill him with insecurities about his manhood, and literallly force him to “cat” and “mess around” bringing in all sorts of conflicts. This is not the way really human people live. This is whitey’s thing. And we play the game with as much proficiency as he does.

If we are going to bring about a better world, where best to begin than with ourselves? We must rid ourselves of our own hang-ups, before we can begin to talk about the rest of the world and we mean the world and nothing short of just that (Let’s not kid ourselves). We will be in a position soon of having to hook up with the rest of the oppressed peoples of the world who are invovled in liberation just as we are, and we had better be ready to act.

All women suffer oppression, even white women, particularly poor white women, and especially Indian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Oriental and Black American women whose oppression is tripled by any of the above-mentioned. But we do have female’s oppression in common. This means that we can begin to talk to other women with this common factor and start building links with them and thereby build and transform the revolutionary force we are now beginning to amass. This is what Dr. King was doing. We can no longer allow ourselves to be duped by the guise of racism. Any time the White man admits to something you know he is trying to cover something else up. We are all being exploited, even the white middle class, by the few people in control of this entire world. And to keep the real issue clouded, he keeps us at one another’s throats with this racism jive. Although, Whites are most certainly racist, we must understand that they have been programmed to think in these patterns to divert their attention. If they are busy fighting us, then they have no time to question the policies of the war being run by this government. With the way the elections went down it is clear that they are as powerless as the rest of us. Make no question about it, folks, this fool knows what he is doing. This man is playing the death game for money and power, not because he doesn’t like us. He could care less one way or the other. But think for a moment if we all go together and just walked on out. Who would fight his wars, who would run his police state, who would work his factories, who would buy his products?

We women must start this thing rolling.

[American Dream]

http://www.prole.info/texts/anarchisman ... ation.html

ANARCHISM AND ORGANIZATION

by Errico Malatesta
taken from "Malatesta: His Life & Ideas"
ed. Vernon Richards. London: Freedom Press, 1993.


Organization which is, after all, only the practice of cooperation and solidarity, is a natural and necessary condition of social life; it is an inescapable fact which forces itself on everybody, as much on human society in general as on any group of people who are working towards a common objective. Since humanity neither wishes to, nor can, live in isolation it is inevitable that those people who have neither the means, nor a sufficiently developed social conscience to permit them to associate freely with those of a like mind and with common interests, are subjected to the organization by others, generally constituted in a class or as a ruling group, with the aim of exploiting the labor of others for their personal advantage. And the agelong oppression of the masses by a small privileged group has always been the result of the inability of the oppressed to agree among themselves to organize with others for production, for enjoyment and for the possible needs of defense against whoever might wish to exploit and oppress them. Anarchism exists to remedy this state of affairs... (Il Risveglio, October 15, 1927)


There are two factions among those who call themselves anarchists, with or without adjectives: supporters and opponents of organisation. If we cannot succeed in agreeing, let us, at least, try to understand each other.

And first of all let us be clear about the distinctions, since the question is a triple one: organisation in general as a principle and condition of social life today and in the future society; the organization of the anarchist movement; and the organisation of the popular forces and especially of the working masses for resistance to government and capitalism...

Now, it seems to us that organization, that is to say, association for a specific purpose and with the structure and means required to attain it, is a necessary aspect of social life. A human being in isolation cannot even live the life of a beast, for they would be unable to obtain nourishment for themselves, except perhaps in tropical regions or when the population is exceptionally sparse; and they would be, without exception, unable to rise much above the level of an animal. Having therefore to join with other humans, or more accurately, finding themselves united to them as a consequence of the evolutionary antecedents of the species, they must submit to the will of others (be enslaved) or subject others to his/her will (be in authority) or live with others in fraternal agreement in the interests of the greatest good of all (be an associate). Nobody can escape from this necessity: and the most extreme anti-organisers not only are subject to the general organisation of the society they live in, but are also in the voluntary actions in their lives, and in their rebellion against organisation, they unite among themselves, they share out their tasks, they organise with whom they are in agreement, and use the means that society puts at their disposal... (l'Agitazione, June 4 1897)


Admitting as a possibility the existence of a community organized without authority, that is without compulsion -- and anarchists must admit the possibility, or anarchism would have no meaning -- let us pass on to discuss the organization of the anarchist movement.

In this case too, organization seems useful and necessary. If a movement means the whole -- individuals with a common objective which they exert themselves to attain -- it is natural that they should agree among themselves, join forces, share out the tasks and take all those steps which they think will lead to the achievement of those objectives. To remain isolated, each individual acting or seeking to act on their own without coordination, without preparation, without their modest efforts to a strong group, means condemning oneself to impotence, wasting one’s efforts in small ineffectual action, and to lose faith very soon in one's aims and possibly being reduced to complete inactivity...

A mathematician, a chemist, a psychologist or a sociologist may say they have no programme or are concerned only with establishing the truth. They seek knowledge, they are not seeking to do something. But anarchism and socialism are not sciences; they are proposals, projects, that anarchists and socialists seek to realize and which, therefore need to be formulated as definite programs...

If it is true that [organization creates leaders]; if it is true that anarchists are unable to come together and arrive at an agreement without submitting themselves to an authority, this means that they are not yet very good anarchists, and before thinking of establishing an anarchist society within the world they must think of making themselves able to live anarchistiaclly. The remedy does not lie in the abolition of organization but in the growing consciousness of each individual member. In small as well as large societies, apart from brute force, of which it cannot be a question for us, the origin and justification for authority lies in social disorganization.

When a community has needs and its members do not know how to organize spontaneously to provide them, someone comes forward, an authority who satisfies those needs by utilizing the services of all and directing them to their liking. If the roads are unsafe and the people do not know what measures to take, a police force emerges which in return for whatever services it renders expects to be supported and paid, as well as imposing itself and throwing its weight around; if some article is needed, and the community does not know how to arrange with the distant producers to supply it in exchange for goods produced locally, the merchant will appear who will profit by dealing with the needs of one section to sell and of the other to buy, and impose his/her own prices both on the producer and the consumer. This is what has happened in our midst; the less organized we have been, the more prone are we to be imposed on by a few individuals. And this is understandable...

So much so that organization, far from creating authority, is the only cure for it and the only means whereby each one of us will get used to taking an active and conscious part in the collective work, and cease being passive instruments in the hands of leaders...

But an organization, it is argued, presupposes an obligation to coordinate one’s own activities with those of others; thus it violates liberty and fetters initiative. As we see it, what really takes away liberty and makes initiative impossible is the isolation which renders it powerless. Freedom is not an abstract right but the possibility of acting; this is true among ourselves as well as society as a whole. And it is by cooperation with our fellow human beings that we find the means to express our activity and our power of initiative. (l'Agitazione, June 11, 1897)


An anarchist organization must allow for complete autonomy, and independence, and therefore full responsibility, to individuals and groups; free agreement between those who think it useful to come together for cooperative action, for common aims; a moral duty to fulfill one’s pledges and to take no action which is contrary to the accepted programme. On such bases one then introduces practical forms and suitable instruments to give real life to the organization. Thus the groups, the federation of groups, the federations of federations, meetings, congresses, correspondence committees and so on. But this also must be done freely, in such a way as not to restrict the thought and the initiative of individual members, but only to give greater scope to the efforts which in isolation would be impossible or ineffective. Thus for an anarchist organization congress, in spite of all the disadvantages from which they suffer as representative bodies... are free from authoritarianism in any shape or form because they do not legislate and do not impose their deliberations on others. They serve to maintain and increase personal contacts among the most active comrades, to summarize and encourage programmatic studies on the ways and means for action; to acquaint everybody with the situation in the regions and the kind of action most urgently needed; to summarize the various currents of anarchist opinions at the time and to prepare some kind of statistics therefrom. And their decisions are not binding, but simply suggestions, advice and proposals to submit to all concerned, and they do not become binding and executive except for those who accept them and for as long as they accept them. The administrative organs they nominate -- Correspondence Commissions, etc. -- have no directive powers, do not take initiatives except for those who specifically solicit and approve of them, and have no authority to impose their own views, which they can certainly hold and propagate as groups of comrades, but which cannot be presented as the official views of the organization. They publish the resolutions of the congresses and the opinions and proposals communicated to them by groups and individuals; and they act for those who want to make use of them, to facilitate relations between groups, and cooperation between those who are in agreement on various initiatives; each is free to correspond with whoever he/she likes direct, or make use of the other committees nominated by specific groupings.

In an anarchist organization individual members can express any opinion and use every tactic which is not in contradiction with the accepted principles and does not interfere with the activities of others. In every case a particular organization last so long as the reasons for union are superior to those for dissension; otherwise it disbands and makes way for other, more homogenous groupings.

Certainly the life and permanence of an organization is a condition for success in the long struggle before us, and besides, it is natural that every institution should by instinct aim at lasting indefinitely. But the duration of a libertarian organization must be the result of the spiritual affinity of its members and of the adaptability of its constitution to the continually changing circumstances. When it can no longer serve a useful purpose it is better that it should die. (Il Risveglio, October 15, 1927)


We would certainly be happy if we could all get along well together and unite all the forces of anarchism in a strong movement; but we do not believe in the solidity of organizations which are built on concessions and assumptions and in which there is no real agreement and sympathy between members.

Better disunited than badly united. But we would wish that each individual joined their friends and that there should be no isolated forces, or lost forces. (l'Agitazione, June 11, 1897)


It remains for us to speak of the organization of the working and oppressed masses for resistance against both the government and the employers...

Workers will never be able to emancipate themselves so long as they do not find in union the moral, economic and physical strength that is needed to subdue the organized might of the oppressors.

There have been anarchists, and there still are some, who while recognizing the need to organize today for propaganda and action, are hostile to all organizations which do not have anarchism as their goal or which do not follow anarchist methods of struggle... To those comrades it seemed that all organized forces for an objective less than radically revolutionary, were forces that the revolution was being deprived of. It seems to us instead, and experience has surely already confirmed our view, that their approach would condemn the anarchist movement to a state of perpetual sterility. To make propaganda we must be amongst the people, and it is in the workers’ associations that workers find their comrades and especially those who are most disposed to understand and accept our ideas. But even when it is possible to do as much propaganda as we wished outside the associations, this could not have a noticeable effect on the working masses. Apart from a small number of individuals more educated and capable of abstract thought and theoretical enthusiasms, the worker cannot arrive at anarchism in one leap. To become an convinced anarchist, and not in name only, they must begin to feel the solidarity that joins them to their comrades, and to learn to cooperate with others in defense of common interests and that, by struggling against the bosses and against the government that supports them, should realize that bosses and governments are useless parasites and that the workers could manage the domestic economy by their own efforts. And when the worker has understood this, he or she is an anarchist even if they do not refer to themselves as such.

Furthermore, to encourage popular organizations of all kinds is the logical consequence of our basic ideas, and should therefore be an integral part of our programme. An authoritarian party, which aims at capturing power to impose its ideas, has an interest in the people remaining an amorphous mass, unable to act for themselves and therefore always easily dominated. And it follows, logically, that it cannot desire more than that much organization, and of the kind it needs to attain power: Electoral organizations if it hopes to achieve it by legal means; Military organization if it relies on violent action.

But we anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves. We do not believe in the good that comes from above and imposed by force; we want the new way of life to emerge from the body of the people and correspond to the state of their development and advance as they advance. It matters to us therefore that all interests and opinions should find their expression in a conscious organization and should influence communal life in proportion to their importance.

We have undertaken the task of struggling against existing social organization, and of overcoming the obstacles to the advent of a new society in which freedom and well being would be assured to everybody. To achieve this objective we organize ourselves and seek to become as numerous and as strong as possible. But if it were only our anarchist groupings that were organized; if the workers were to remain isolated like so many units unconcerned about each other and only linked by the common chain; if we ourselves besides being organized as anarchists in a federation, were not as workers organized with other workers, we could achieve nothing at all, or at most, we might be able to impose ourselves... and then it would not be the triumph of anarchism, but our triumph. We could then go on calling ourselves anarchists, but in reality we should simply be rulers, and as impotent as all rulers are where the general good is concerned. (l'Agitazione, June 18, 1897)

[American Dream]

http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/?p=55703

Ponzi Politics: Armour Residential REIT & Wall Street’s National Security Robber Barons
24th February 2012

By Alex Constantine

In December, a little bird informed us that Armour Residential REIT (ARR), a broker of mortgage-backed securities, “has routinely raised fresh capital by selling stock to new investors and then turned around and spent considerable sums on generous dividends for old and new investors alike. To some, this strategy actually looks like a glorified Ponzi scheme that could prove unsustainable (with the dividend cut or even cancelled) in the end. Meanwhile, Armour Chairman Dan Staton also doubles as chairman of another company – known as FriendFinder Networks (Editor’s note: NASDAQ: FFN, proprietor of an array of porn sites, including Penthouse and bondage.com. FNN board chairman Marc Bell is also an Armour director) – that has already seen its own stock collapse, plummeting from $10 to just 60 cents a share, this year. Could Armour face a looming disaster as well?”



ARR has been trending toward insolvency for the past two years. In 2010, the firm paid quarterly dividends. In Jan. 2011, ARR began monthly payouts, and the dividend was dropped by two thirds to 12 cents, reduced to 11 cents in the third quarter. The firm is increasingly cash strapped, and its debt/eguity ratio has been on the rise for the past five years.

Odds are that Armour will inevitably fold under its own internal stresses, but not solely because the firm is engaged in a glorified Ponzi scheme, or even because it peddles the same mortgage-backed securities that brought about the current recession.

“We Rob Banks”



The firm is following in the footsteps of the S&Ls in the ‘80s — many were looted by the CIA and Mafia, as reported by Pizzo and Fricker, etal. in Inside Job, a book the mass media has not found particularly “newsworthy” — and Fannie Mae in the ‘90s. The presence of Nixon-aide/Marriott exec Fred Malek on Fannie Mae’s auditing committee was a glaring red flag; the fall of the mortgage giant was not the result of poor judgment or incompetence, but deliberate as any Hole-in-the-Wall Gang bank heist.

For confirmation that a Ponzi scheme or corporate looting is afoot, one has to look no further than a firm’s audit committee — a select group of directors who fail miserably at spotting irregularities in the books. These dancing partners are paid huge sums in inflated director salaries to look the other way.

Three board members make up the audit committee at Armour Residential REIT, and their resumes are a travel guide to one of the darkest grottoes of the national security underground:

Stewart J. Paperin
John “Jack” P. Hollihan, III
Robert C. Hain

Dr. Stewart J. Paperin: CEO of Stephen Norris & Co. Capital Partners, also known as Steve Norris Partners, a private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts. The mention of this firm should incite crowd noises. He may have a low name recognition score, but Stephen Norris was a co-founder of the Carlyle Group, the notorious investor in military contractors, haunt of the CIA’s Frank Carlucci and William Barr, George Soros, James Baker III, GHW Bush, the aforementioned Fred Malek from Marriott, NewsCorp director Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (Norris’ close friend and investment partner in Euro Disney, the Four Seasons Hotel and Citigroup), and a phalanx of other geopolitical heavyweights with intelligence and DoD ties.

Norris is also a former member of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, appointed by President GHW Bush in 1990.

From Dr. Paperin’s bio at the the Armour website: “In addition to his role with Stephen Norris & Co., Mr. Paperin has been a Director of Enterprise Acquisition Corp. since July 9, 2007” (Enterprise merged with ARR in 2009), “and Executive Vice President of the Soros Foundation since 1996. From 1996 to July 2005, he was a Senior Advisor and Portfolio Manager for Soros Fund Management LLC. He has been Consultant to Soros Fund Management LLC since July 2005.”



George Soros, Dr. Paperin’s boss and an early Carlyle Group financier, is misunderstood by both the left and the right. His reputation as an open society philanthropist is a cover story. Beneath the veil of left-wing causes and media distractions, Covert Action Quarterly reports, Soros “thrusts himself upon world statesmen and they respond. He has been close to Henry Kissinger, Vaclav Havel and Poland’s General Wojciech Jaruzelski.” When anti-globalization demonstrators marched in the frozen rain at the World Economic Forum in 2002, George Soros was inside delivering an address: “As the police forced protesters into metal cages on Park Avenue, Soros was extolling the virtues of the ‘Open Society’ and joined Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama and others. Tellingly, one of the Soros foundations “now runs CIA-created Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty jointly with the U.S. and RFE/RL.” Soros is a CIA collaborator, and the Soros Foundation is a dummy front. One can only conclude that Dr. Paperin of the ARR audit committee, the right arm of George Soros, is also, without question, a CIA collaborator if not a full-fledged asset.

Dr. Paperin’s bio continues: “ … He was Financial Officer of Pepsico Corporation from 1980 to 1985 …” To the national security elite born.

Pepsico: The soft drink bottler, journalist Alfred McCoy reported decades ago in The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, operated an opium refinery in Laos for the CIA during the Vietnam War period – with the lobbying assistance of Richard Nixon, no less. Ray Hunt, the son of domestic fascist H.L, Hunt, also sits on the Pepsico board. Pepsico was a driving force in the overthrow of Salvador Allendé and rise of Operation Condor. Reporter Greg Palast has noted in the London Observer that the coup plot “against Chile’s President-elect Salvador Allende, using CIA sub-machine guns and ammo, was the direct result of a plea for action a month earlier by Donald Kendall, chairman of PepsiCo, in two telephone calls to the company’s former lawyer, President Richard Nixon. Kendall arranged for the owner of the company’s Chilean bottling operation to meet National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger on September 15. Hours later, Nixon called in his CIA chief, Richard Helms, and, according to Helms’s handwritten notes, ordered the CIA to prevent Allende’s inauguration.”

John “Jack” P. Hollihan and Robert C. Hain: The other “watchdogs” on ARR’s audit committee. Jack Hollihan is chairman of Litchfield Capital Holdings (ARR co-chair Scott J. Ulm was CEO of Litchfield from 2005 to 2009), recently gobbled up by Gramercy Capital, a trustee of the American Financial Realty Trust.

Jack Hollihan’s career began in the 1970s as an attorney at Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine. Donovan, Leisure was founded in 1929 by William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, widely recognized as “the father of the CIA.” Donovan formed the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942 to engage in spying and sabotage in Europe and Asia during WW II. Donovan himself hailed from Wall Street, and so did many of the operatives who served under his command. In 1947, when Donovan’s OSS was restructured and renamed the Central Intelligence Agency under the direction of his protégé, Allen Dulles, Wall Street continued to serve as a teeming recruitment pool. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfeinstarted out at Donovan Leisure. The list of notable alumni also includes CIA Director William Colby, former SEC chairman Roderick M. Hills, and RCA executive and Gulf Oil Director Samuel Murphy, Jr. Before the firm folded in 1998, it represented some of the most powerful CEOs and corporations in the country, including Walt Disney, General Electric, Kodak, Mobil Oil, American Cyanamid and American Home Products.

As noted, Hollihan went on to chair Litchfield Capital Management, a firm that recalls the name Josh Stampfli, who left Litchfield in 1999, joined Gale Technologies, an online brokerage that marketed Stampfli’s Liquidity Engine technology, incorporating AI to radically expedite NASDAQ trade stocks at the rate of 300,000 transactions per day. When Gale went bust in the 2000-2002 market decline, Stampfli was hired by none other than Bernard L. Madoff, the big-ticket Ponzi swindler. It was an enduring relationship. On October 27, 2007, Madoff addresseda colloquiumat New York’s Philoctetes Center on the future of the stock market. Beside him stood technological wunderkind Josh Stampfli, director of Madoff’s automated market division, creator of the Liquidity Engine. Together, they duped investors by claiming that the technology automated BLM Investment Securities LLC non-existent stock trades. Supposedly, according to Madoff, “he designed the trading logic to manage position risk and handle the order flow inherent to the firm’s business of providing liquidity to its customers.”In 2010, after the fall of Madoff, Stampfli was hired by Credit Suisse to direct its Advanced Execution Services (AES) division, a leading marketer of electronic trading tools.

Jack Hollihan’s bio boasts that he is “head of Global Project Finance … for Morgan Stanley International,” an investor in solar, wind and other emergent green technologies. The CIA couldn’t be far away. In fact, the executive director is GPF is Loren Ambinder, an alumni of GE Finance and Millbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP – another firm on intimate terms with Langley. Millbank Tweed’s website notes, “since the office opened its doors in 1980, our partners have included federal cabinet-level secretaries and heads of the CIA and FBI, and others who have served in significant government posts.” Former CIA directors John J. McCloy and William Webster both hailed from Millbank Tweed.

Robert C. Hain, the third ARR director on the auditing committee, is a Hollihan partner at City Financial Investment Company Limited, and serves as chairman. Hain, an ARR director since 2009, has had seats on the boards of financial services, business, arts, health and social services organizations at the national and local levels in Toronto, Zurich, Winnipeg, Halifax and London. His close association to Hollihan assures that he is an insider, and represents no threat to ARR’s financial shenanigans.

But the audit committee isn’t the only “watchdog” at Armour with numerous of CIA ties. On September 30, 2011,ARR announced that it had appointed Deloitte & Touche LLP “as the Company’s independent registered public accounting firm, replacing the Company’s previous independent registered public accounting firm, EisnerAmper LLP. The Company believes the addition of Deloitte & Touche LLP, a Big Four accounting firm, will position it for continued growth and success.”

Augusto Pinochet’s Favorite Bank

A few of the symbiotic CIA connections behind the firm’s “successes”:

* D& T was the liquidator of BCCI, among the Agency’s key money laundering bank.

* Mention of the firm evokes the name A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard, former CIA executive director, appointed by George Tenet on March 16, 2001. Krongard, per his corporate bio, was general counsel at Deloitte & Touche. He was general counsel of Deloitte Haskins & Sells, prior to its combination with Touche Ross and Co. in 1989, “responsible for all legal matters affecting a multi-billion-dollar international professional partnership. Previously, he was Associate General Counsel and a Member of Peat Marwick Mitchell, and Associate with Cravath Swaine & Moore (another firm often associated with the CIA) in its New York and Paris offices, where he specialized in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, SEC matters, and European financings.” His Wiki entry notes that Krongard has been “a longtime consultant to DCIs.”

* Deloitte & Touch did business with, and protected, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (recalling the aforementioned role of Pepsico in his rise to power). On August 23, 2009, the UK’s Independent reported that D&T used simple ruses to disguise the fact that “the banks were dealing with the Pinochet family fortune. Accounts were opened which were designated by any combination of his Christian names or initials – Augusto Jose Ramon – and the surnames of his father, Pinochet, or his mother, Ugarte, and those of his wife, Lucia Hiriart Rodriguez. Some bankers preferred to call him Joe (from Jose), or APU (Augusto Pinochet Ugarte). The practice made the tracing of information about him as difficult as, say, looking for Griff Rhys Jones under ‘Jones.’” Richard Evans, a former representative of D&T, was alleged by the Brilac report “to have acted in connection with Ashburton Trust, which was created by Riggs and whose beneficiaries included Pinochet’s five children, who each had a 20 per cent share. Mr Evans was also listed by Brilac as a director of Althorp Investment Trust, another repository for Pinochet family funds. It said he was active in promoting businesses in Argentina and was being investigated for money-laundering. Deloitte spokesman Ignacio Tena said: ‘Deloitte & Touche Corporate Services was contracted by Riggs Bank and Trust Company (Bahamas) to render administrative services for Riggs and some of its clients. Riggs did the due diligence, and gave all the information related to its clients, in accordance with the usual commercial practice and the Bahamas’ law.”

ARR has no shortage of national security dancing partners. The CIA ties are numerous, and we haven’t detailed all of them here. If the fall of the go-go thrifts in the ‘80s have taught us anything, it is that CIA reprobates are busily engaged in corporate looting. ARR appears to be but one current example of an unknown number of targeted Wall Street firms. Buyer beware.