How to Overthrow the Illuminati

[seemslikeadream]

who the fuck is Tanzeem Shaneela and why should I care one fuckin' bit about what she has to say?

[Searcher08]

I had never heard of Illuminati Theory, so I did a search and came across a rather different perspective.
http://kasamaproject.org/culture/4288-young-radical-speaks-on-why-illuminati-theory-spoke-to-her
Many young people in the hood and beyond are influenced by Illuminati theory. If you do poltical work in the hood you have definetly experienced this. Do revolutionaries take this reality serious enough? The following article is from a young radical, Tanzeem Shaneela ,from the Fire Next Time network speaking to why the Illuminati theory had spoke to her. This article originally appeared on the Fire Next Time blog. Posting the article does not mean endorsement of its arguments.

The Illuminati and Why It Spoke to Me

by Tanzeem Shaneela

Growing up as a working class woman of color, I knew from a young age that something was wrong with the conditions under which I and people who looked like me were living.

I knew that living in a drug infested neighborhood, having to move from substandard building to substandard building because my mom didn’t make enough to cover the rent once it was raised and the constant violence I witnessed both inside and outside of my home was not normal. I knew something was fucked up and that it was bigger than me, and although I was politicized from a young age by my father; as a teenager I still wasn’t able to fully connect the dots between my oppression and the system under which I lived.

Without an understanding of capitalism, neoliberalism and white supremacy I was unable to fully articulate what the problem was. I knew that racism existed, I knew that I was poor and that this contributed to the problem and I knew on some level that my being a woman had something to do with it, but outside of that I didn’t know much else.

Then came the Illuminati.

I feel the need to stop here and say that as a young woman I was what some might call a “tomboy.” Most of my close friends were guys and in many ways the things that interested me were the same things that mostly guys and few women I grew up around were interested in. One of these things was politics. This is not to say that there were, and are not young women of color with an interest in talking politics, I’m just saying that in the context in which I grew up it was mostly young men who partook in these types of conversations. This is where I was introduced to the concept of the Illuminati.

At 16 years old, my understanding of the Illuminati was that they were a bunch of rich white men that were connected to the government and they ran shit. In short they were the reason that my life and everyone else’s was fucked up. I remember hearing about and discussing for what seemed like hours the government plan to implant everybody with a microchip and that all who refused to have this chip would have no access to water, food, a job, healthcare or any necessities for that matter.

Looking back at this now I realize that we were already deprived of these basic human rights but somehow the thought of the “new world order” and the Illuminati clouded my ability to make these connections. Religion played a part in this as well: To me and my friends this represented the mark of the beast and the idea that all those who refused it would be tortured on earth but saved when the end of days came. We weren’t even particularly religious, but there was something in all of this that spoke to us.

Illuminati theory has a strong pull among young Black and other poor peoples. Do we arrogantly laugh it off or do we address it?

This is one of the aspects of Illuminati conspiracy theory that is the most detrimental to struggle. The idea that the Illuminati is all powerful and unstoppable and that they have some spiritual or religious prophecy to fulfill makes it easy for people to step away from struggle and accept the idea that we must endure here on earth because it is God’s will. Essentially it serves to create a feeling of powerlessness.

When 9/11 hit and the $20 bill conspiracy ran rampant, I was all about it. It made perfect sense. The symbols on the bill, the way the numbers added up, the towers burning and the pentagon with a huge hole in it. It served as proof that I wasn’t crazy, that shit was fucked up, and that it wasn’t my fault that I was poor, and at the bottom of the pecking order. I felt I needed this proof due to the fact that I was constantly bombarded, as many oppressed people are, with the idea that I was poor because of something I did. My family and I weren’t good enough, smart enough and didn’t work hard enough to be successful in this society.

This “blame the poor” ideology is a consequence of the neoliberalism which is pervasive throughout our society and within poor communities. We are taught to blame ourselves and hate ourselves and never to look at the systemic issues which are creating the injustices we face.

Although by this time I had a better grasp of what capitalism was, it was still not enough to pull me from Illuminati-esque conspiracy theory. That only came as a result of reading more about history and being able to see how the system of oppression we live in was put in place through key historical moments. I read more about capitalism and its connection to poverty and racism and the explanations and understanding of how the world works made more logical sense to me than any Illuminati theory ever did.

The question I think of now as an organizer is: do people need to fully let go of all the ideas that come from the Illuminati theory?

I come across plenty of young brothers who talk incessantly about the Illuminati. Are they wrong? I don’t think so. The vast majority of young men I build with say that there is a group of men, mostly white and all rich who are running the world. They decide when we go to war and who with, what we see on television and what music and movies we are exposed to. They would call them the Illuminati, I would call them capitalists. They would say that their motivation is the creation of the New World Order, I would say their motivation is money and greed. What we are saying is similar enough that we have a basis from which we can build.

I write this piece because in many leftist circles when I bring up the Illuminati theory I get a lot of eye rolling and laughter, but I don’t think that this is the way to approach the topic. We need to be realistic about the fact that this ideology holds weight within a lot of oppressed communities and since building towards revolution cannot happen unless oppressed communities are leading; then in order to make this happen we must organize in these communities and we will thus come across individuals who believe in the Illuminati. If we roll our eyes, laugh and write people off as stupid we will get nowhere.

Instead let’s take what we can from these ideas and move forward to support in mobilizing people, not looking down on them and writing them off.

______________________________________________________________________________

This woman was searching for commonality and her words rang true with me. I started reading through the pamphlet and saw a big gap (to me) between the languaging of it and it's audience. IMHO it was also pretty anti-Islamic regarding the 'anti-Christ' connection.

It didnt mention Sept 11 or the 'War on Terror', which surely would have been relevant?

It also would potentially have the effect of stopping readers who subscribed to it from investigating where power is really held by groups like Skull and Bones, MafiaWithTiaras (UK) Plc, the European wide fascist/pedo networks, the Rothschilds, the Bank of International Settlements, the Swiss research into the epicentre of financial control....

I have just witnessed David Cameron, a rich white man from a banking dynasty family, decide to take my country down the path of potentially creating a world war. As I listened, I thought he was like someone delivering a PR/marketing release...

Do we reject any form of non-standard deep political assessment of him and his milleau as 'Illuminati Theory' and respond with rolled eyeballs?

My take is that what is missing from paraculture in general is
basic simple step by step approaches to real activism that achieves results,
not interminable 'analysis' that basically says "We are right, you are not" + "Nothing to see here, move along, just read beardy white guys".

To me, it reads like a college politics term paper.
Number of characters (without spaces) : 17,249.00
Number of words : 3,395.00
Number of sentences : 220.00
Average number of characters per word : 5.08
Average number of syllables per word : 1.72
Average number of words per sentence: 15.43

Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
Gunning Fog index : 12.66

Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :
Coleman Liau index : 12.18
Flesch Kincaid Grade level : 10.68
ARI (Automated Readability Index) : 10.22
SMOG : 12.37

Flesch Reading Ease : 45.94 (!!)
See http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch_Reading_Ease

If in the poorest Black neighbourhoods 25% of boys don't even graduate from high school (and literacy rates are *very* strongly linked with social exclusion), I would say this is pitched in a way that will exclude a big chunk of it's audience.

[Searcher08]

WHAT THE FUCK?????

I just posted the exact same piece

I NEVER read the 'At least one post has been made' message.

[smiths]

there is a tendency here sometimes to attack a given subject and to draw too wide a range of targets,

so, in this case, Eric Hobsbawm becames the target in a an attack on a slightly amateur and questionable Illuminati primer,

Hobsbawm was not anti-semitic. His politics were crystallized in his youth in Berlin in reaction to Hitlers rise and what he saw as the complicity of capitalism with leaders like Hitler against the working classes.
Hobsbawm, unlike most historians, understood that in taking a position in the great existential crisis of the 20th century, he had to be prepared to go all the way with it. And he did.
He supported Stalinism when most Communists lost faith, and he was seriously lacking in empathy for any group that got in the way of the great project towards socialist utopia. This was his singular failing.
It is widely agreed that it ruined his history of the 20th century despite the fact that his previous histories are absolutely brilliant.

But dont forget, he was an outsider against the capitalist British establishment for much of his career, he was a tireless defender of the working classes against Capitalism and Imperialism.

Most of his obituaries were written by right-wing enemies of his, at an historical moment where it looked like Hobsbawms ideals were gone, and capitalism had won. Most were written as shots in the ongoing war of Capitalism against socialism.

I have seen the same kind of treatment against Chomsky here (establishment gatekeeper), the same kind of treatment of The Guardian Newspaper (establishment gatekeeper) and many, many more


keep the targets focused

[coffin_dodger]

From the 'pamphlet':

5. Where Illuminati Theorists Think Oppression and Exploitation Come From

Capitalism is an elusive process. It exists in the billions of social relations between workers and capitalists, and in millions of physical objects, but it can’t be pinpointed in any one of them. It’s a lot like gravity. Gravity can’t be identified and touched, but it can be felt in the relation between planets. Similarly, you can’t put your finger on capital in any one place, but it is present in the relations between people, and asserts a powerful force on them. Illuminati theorists feel this force at work in society, but identify it incorrectly.

so all the outrage at misdirection:



is not planted by a single entity or group of entities to distract us, but by.......me and you? All of us?

that is some funny shit, that 'pamphlet'.

[Luther Blissett]

What's wrong with anarcho-syndicalism?

[American Dream]

What's wrong with anarcho-syndicalism?

Right- I like the various forms of class struggle anarchism- am pro-organization but not pro-hierarchy etc. Power should be built from the base, not from the top down. And conspiracies certainly do exist- they fit quite nicely into this sort of world view it seems to me- they help form both the nature of the problem and understanding them helps form a basis for solving that problem...

[Wombaticus Rex]

At 16 years old, my understanding of the Illuminati was that they were a bunch of rich white men that were connected to the government and they ran shit. In short they were the reason that my life and everyone else’s was fucked up.

That's a pretty f'ing solid understanding of reality for a 16 year old.

+50 for "Illuminati Theory," eh?

Looking forward to MiB's take on this.

[Searcher08]

What's wrong with anarcho-syndicalism?

Right- I like the various forms of class struggle anarchism- am pro-organization but not pro-hierarchy etc. Power should be built from the base, not from the top down. And conspiracies certainly do exist- they fit quite nicely into this sort of world view it seems to me- they help form both the nature of the problem and understanding them helps form a basis for solving that problem...

Two questions:
What does 'pro-organisation but not pro-hierarchy etc' mean? Do you mean Triarchy?

How in particular can conspiracies fit into this worldview? (beyond a level of greedy white men doing what greedy white men do)

[American Dream]

What's wrong with anarcho-syndicalism?

Right- I like the various forms of class struggle anarchism- am pro-organization but not pro-hierarchy etc. Power should be built from the base, not from the top down. And conspiracies certainly do exist- they fit quite nicely into this sort of world view it seems to me- they help form both the nature of the problem and understanding them helps form a basis for solving that problem...

Two questions:
What does 'pro-organisation but not pro-hierarchy etc' mean? Do you mean Triarchy?

How in particular can conspiracies fit into this worldview? (beyond a level of greedy white men doing what greedy white men do)

If the Marxist-Leninist groups can teach us anything, it is that a well-organized group of people can get things done. While i want little to do with the various Leninoid groups that come into my sphere- be they Stalinist, Maoist, Trotskyist or whatever- I do feel that they do better than many North American Anarchist groups in terms of accountability for organizers, planning, focused work and sustaining broad strategies. Of course some of that comes with the baggage of Leninist groups: the hierarchy/authoritarianism, the group dogma/line, unaccountable bosses, that sort of thing.

So, even while I might like individual members of such groups and feel that they are sincere people with positive motivations, I want to keep a lot of distance from such groups as they often are trying to "take over" movements and lead them in their desired direction. Still, I do affirm the positive value of being organized, having accountability and a plan etc. etc.

All that said, why the big bugaboo about Marxian theory? Is it because Marx was allegedly "an emissary of the brotherhoods"? Because Wall Street bankers (and their secret societies) are said to have controlled the Soviet Union? I think such ideas are longstanding myths of the Far Right and there is not good evidence to prove such claims are true!

Yes, I know that Western financiers and/or states may have sent money to revolutionaries in Russia and/or Cuba but this is what they do- they hedge their bets, fund both sides of a conflict etc. And transitional economies do need outside support if they are going to industrialize, just as revolutionaries need guns and supplies. Please note that this is a far cry from the dubious claim of Wall Street "banksters" or some such cabal running International Communism!

That said, I think that basic elements of Marxian theory are indispensable for understanding our world. What is going on now in this time of austerity other than a heightened class struggle? Whether we talk of the 99% and the 1%, or of workers and owners, many fundamental concepts from Marx are I think essential to understanding what is going on and how we might change things in a liberating rather than authoritarian way. From there, we can add on methods of the Wobblies, of the worker run sites in Argentina and Spain, the ideas of Selma James and Silvia Federici, etc. etc.

As to conspiracies themselves, many/most reflect the tendency of groups with money and/or power to work together to fulfill their own interests. The sorts of ideas outlined above are essential to understanding our world, including the very real conspiracies, which are extremely important, but which are not everything...

[Wombaticus Rex]

If the Marxist-Leninist groups can teach us anything, it is that a well-organized group of people can get things done.

But surely we could have learned that lesson from effective actors of any ideology, yes?

What else does Marxist-Lenenist thought have to offer?

[slimmouse]

At 16 years old, my understanding of the Illuminati was that they were a bunch of rich white men that were connected to the government and they ran shit. In short they were the reason that my life and everyone else’s was fucked up.

That's a pretty f'ing solid understanding of reality for a 16 year old.

+50 for "Illuminati Theory," eh?

Looking forward to MiB's take on this.

I think that this sums this whole thing up, both esoterically and exoterically depending on how you cut that cloth.

The bottom line remains the same.

The 0.001% need retiring soon.

Im keen for this if only to see where we go from there.

[American Dream]

If the Marxist-Leninist groups can teach us anything, it is that a well-organized group of people can get things done.

But surely we could have learned that lesson from effective actors of any ideology, yes?

What else does Marxist-Lenenist thought have to offer?

Yes- but specifically let's cite elements of the "New Left" as containing groups who offered a better example of focused, effective organizing than say the lifestylist, individualist or insurrectionary aspects of North American Anarchism as far as working towards revolution, towards fundamental social change.

Marxian theory is certainly important in understanding things- and changing them- as the original post makes clear:

4. Where Oppression and Exploitation Come From

The best way to explain oppression and exploitation is through a theory of the capitalist system as a whole, not through Illuminati theory. A theory of capitalism explains how oppression and exploitation happen due to the everyday functioning of a whole social system. The activities and interactions of millions of people keep society running, day after day, and also create oppression and exploitation in the process. By explaining how this system works, we can figure out how to stop it and create something new. We can also see how Illuminati theory fails to recognize how our capitalist social system works, and instead blames the bad shit we experience through on a single group of people, like Masons, Jews or bankers.

In our social system, the vast majority of people experience alienation. “Alienation” means the act of separating something from oneself. When you go to work for a boss, you alienate your abilities to that person for the length of your shift. Your ability to lift boxes, do mental math, or coordinate an office, are all properties of your body and mind. But for a few hours, they become a tool for someone else, who orders them around for their benefit. Your qualities are alienated to serve someone else. This relationship may seem simple, but it has huge consequences when it happens to millions of people every day.

In our capitalist society, people are divided into two main classes. The vast majority alienate their labor, their time, their whole lives in order to get a wage and survive. This class is called the proletariat, or the working class. The proletariat includes the workers who have to alienate their labor, and everyone who depends on them: unemployed people, children, the disabled, and more. A different class takes control over the alienated skills of the workers, and the alienated products they make. This class is called the bourgeoisie, the capitalist class. The bourgeoisie uses the skills and products of workers to their own benefit, ultimately in order to keep both classes in their respective positions.

As long as these class relations of exploitation keep running, day after day, the bourgeoisie will keep gaining more wealth and power by using the alienated labor of the proletariat, and keep strengthening the system that keeps this relationship in place. To end this situation, we will have to do more than attack individual members of the bourgeoisie. We will have to attack the system of capitalist social relations as a whole.

Alienation: Our Labor Taken From Us

Capitalism is a society built on alienated labor. At work, we put our skills to work for someone else. We manufacture products on assembly lines, but when they come out of the factory they don’t belong to us. We transport stacks of goods in trucks and warehouses that don’t belong to us. We prepare and sell products that aren’t ours in restaurants and retail shops. Even when we’re unemployed, we’re surrounded by buildings, clothes, and food that don’t belong to us, which were alienated from people just like us when they were made. We struggle to survive, because we can’t take food, clothing and shelter if we need them, or share them if we make them. Everything belongs to somebody else. Capitalism is a society divided into one class of people, who control others’ labor in order to make a profit, and another class–most of us–who can only sell our ability to work in order to get food, clothing and shelter.

A byproduct of all this alienation is that relations between people become hidden behind our relations with things. Everything in your apartment was manufactured, transported, assembled, and sold by other people living a lot like you: your fellow proletarians. Those people rely on the things you make, transport or sell with your alienated labor, too. But under capitalism, we don’t provide each other the things we make directly. Everything we make (or transport, assemble, cook, etc) is given to a corporation, which ultimately sells it back to other alienated workers like us. Instead of relating to other people by sharing the fruits of our labor, we relate to things we have to buy, and don’t see the working people behind them. We become alienated from each other, too.

Reification: Our Labor Turned Into A Thing

After a while, we come to view this situation as normal. We come to think of ourselves as isolated individuals. Soon it starts to seem like products impose their conditions on us. We are forced to go to work, because otherwise we can’t get things like food, clothing and shelter. We are forced to choose careers, homes, and even spouses based on their dollar values. We aren’t forced to do these things at gunpoint, but our options are limited because we don’t have free access to the resources, land, tools, and skills necessary to sustain ourselves. These things were stolen from our ancestors, and today, if we don’t work, we starve. If we don’t make smart economic decisions, we end up poor.

We end up justifying these relationships as natural and justified, when they aren’t. The stuff made by millions of alienated workers appears to dominate over the workers themselves. This process is called reification. Reification happens when a relation between people starts to seem like a separate force, imposing itself on the people taking part in the relation in the first place. We’ve all experienced reification at some point. When we’ve bowed down to our boss so often that all bosses seem to have some innate Authority, that’s reification. When we’ve been stuck in an unhealthy relationship for so long that The Relationship shapes all of our choices, that’s reification.

The side-effects of alienation don’t stop with reification. In capitalist society, the process of alienation also gives rise to ever greater oppression. Every time workers manufacture something, transport and and sell it, they make money for the bosses. The workers who do the alienated labor along the way get a fraction of the money back in the form of a paycheck. But the vast majority of the money goes to the bosses, who then use it to hire more workers, to manufacture, transport and sell more products, to make more money, and so on. Money that is used to make more money is called capital. Capital is our everyday labor, alienated from us, and reified into a thing that dominates us.

Capital: Our Own Labor Turned Against Us

The more alienated labor we perform, the more capital we generate. And the more capital is produced, the more power the people who wield capital have to dominate us. Capital takes different forms. Sometimes bosses invest in big office towers and factories, and capital takes the form of physical buildings. Sometimes bosses use their capital to hire people to make sure the process of making capital continues smoothly–for example, managers or cops. In this case, capital is personified in other human beings and human behaviors. But capital itself is bigger than any individual cop, manager or boss. A corporation can change its CEO or board of directors, or reshuffle its entire workforce, and the capital flowing through it can continue to grow. Individual corporations can merge with each other, or go out of business, and capital on a national scale will continue growing. It’s like the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy says: rulers are like bullets in a clip. As soon as you shoot one, another pops up to take its place.

Capital is not just the capitalists who run the corporations. It is the whole system, the “game” with its own rules that everyone has to follow. So long as labor is alienated from one class to another, the day-do-day operation of society creates capital, and with it, a ruling class that takes control of alienated labor and products. Capital only grows by sucking our labor, which it can do in many ways. It can push us to work harder and faster. It can force us to work longer hours or accept lower wages and benefits. Capital is nothing but our zombiefied labor, half living and half dead. It is nothing but our bodies and minds turned into objects for use.

We produce and reproduce the capitalist system every day. Television and toxic waste, pornography and plantations, silicon and slums, nurseries and nukes are all things it creates and recreates through our daily activity. Capital lives off our energy: it is vampire-like, parasitic, an alien force that dominates us from inside of ourselves. It reproduces itself through us, turning our creative powers against us, using our own bodies against ourselves.

Capital is not a conspiracy of aliens. It’s an alien we create. It’s not just Jay Z or George W. Bush–we have all sold our souls and our bodies to the devil. But it is a devil we create with our own hands. It can do nothing without us: our bodies are its arms, its legs, its reproductive organs, and its brains. Therefore, we have the power to end it. Throughout history, poor and working people have struggled to limit how much labor capital sucks from them. They’ve tried to change the rules of the game or stop playing it altogether.

No Way Out But to Destroy the System

Many people think they can escape the cycle of alienation, reification, exploitation and oppression without overthrowing the system. Like “enlightened” Illuminati theorists, they think they can find an individual way out, apart from everyone else. But it never works. We can try to hustle on our own, but we end up working just as hard as for a boss, and we risk getting locked up. Whether we sell weed or bottled water, we still have to compete with other hustlers, or make money for the suppliers above us. We can start our own business, but we still have to overwork ourselves to compete with other businesses. We can try to get signed to a record label, but we still make more profits for our bosses than for ourselves.

Even when we work “for ourselves,” our labor is alienated. We’re still wasting our talent, creativity, and time in order to survive, and keeping the system running. Sure, one in a million may become the next Jay Z who runs their own company. But this is only possible by exploiting thousands of other people who want to be Jay Z too, and making sure they don’t make it. All these strategies are failed routes out of exploitation and oppression. The only way out is to overthrow the system. This is possible because we create capital, the very force that dominates us. But Illuminati theory doesn’t recognize this fact. Instead of viewing the system of capitalist social relations as the enemy, Illuminati takes aim at particular groups of people.

[slimmouse]

AD, seriously.....humanity needs to step beyond this fucking political, religious bullshit.

What is right and what is wrong?

You know it just like I do.

Dont piss around with labels around here at least. Its siimply not fukn logical.

That is precisely what "the illuminati" want.

Its a pity that intellectuals cant see that wouldnt you say?

[American Dream]

AD, seriously.....humanity needs to step beyond this fucking political, religious bullshit.

What is right and what is wrong?

You know it just like I do.

Dont piss around with labels around here at least. Its siimply not fukn logical.

That is precisely what "the illuminati" want.

Its a pity that intellectuals cant see that wouldnt you say?

Not sure I follow:

What does it mean to "step beyond this fucking political, religious bullshit"?

What do you mean "Dont piss around with labels around here at least. Its siimply not fukn logical"?