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We are the 99 percent

Exclusive Post-Mortem Interview With Lucy Parsons, Rosa Luxemburg, and Emma Goldman

Posted 11 years ago on May 24, 2012, 7:17 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

anarcha-ghosts

During the recent NATO counter-summit in Chicago, we sat down for tea with the ghosts of Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, and Rosa Luxemburg, who granted us a rare interview. (The ghost of Mikhail Bakunin, crashing on the couch while in town for the protests, also chimed in.) We discussed Occupy Wall Street, NATO, the demonization of anarchists, May Day, the crisis in the European Union, prison reform, the U.S. Presidential elections, and more.

NATO

OWSt.ORG: The recent mass mobilization here in Chicago was one of the most significant events in the young Occupy movement’s history. We were joined by veterans against war, nurses for a Robin Hood Tax, anarchists opposed to police brutality. What are your thoughts on NATO? Why is it relevant to Occupy?

EMMA: We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. It's quite saddening.

LUCY: Yes, but the NATO protest which has just been observed in Chicago was a great success from many standpoints, notably among which was the increased number of young people who took part in it. Very inspiring.

MIKHAIL: Why are so many people generally discontented with NATO today? The ruling class (the 1%, as your slogan goes) – which created NATO to protect its commercial and industrial transactions against the terrifying red phantom [the Soviet Union] – had not reckoned with the fact that a military regime is very costly, that through its internal organization alone it paralyzes, it upsets, it ruins nations, and moreover, obeying its own intrinsic and inescapable logic, it has never failed to bring on war; dynastic wars, wars of honor, wars of conquest or wars of national frontiers, wars of equilibrium – destruction and unending absorption of States by other States, rivers of human blood, a fire-ravaged countryside, ruined cities, the devastation of entire provinces – all this for the sake of satisfying the ambitions of Wall Street and their favorites, to discipline populations, and to fill the pages of history.

ROSA: The action at the Boeing headquarters was particularly brilliant for highlighting the connection between business and war. Armaments and wars, international contradictions and colonial politics accompany the history of capitalism from its cradle. It is the most extreme intensification of these elements, a drawing together, a gigantic storming of these contradictions.

chicago black bloc
Anarchists at the NATO summit

OWSt.ORG: Do you support the military veterans who returned their medals at the NATO summit?

EMMA: Absolutely. It is probably even more important to carry the truth into the barracks than into the factory.

OWSt.ORG: Surely by now you’ve heard of the #NATO5 (originally the #NATO3 before 2 more were arrested), the alleged anarchists being accused of making molotov cocktails during NATO who are now being charged with terrorism. The case bears striking resemblance to the anarchists who were arrested before May Day in Cleveland. In both examples authorities are being accused of entrapment, even planting evidence. What are your thoughts?

LUCY: How little has changed from our day. As you know, all of us here have been imprisoned and/or murdered for our political views. Our comrades were not murdered by the State because they had any connection with the bombthrowing, but because they were active in organizing the wage-slaves. The capitalist class didn't want to find the bombthrower; this class foolishly believed that by putting to death the active spirits of the labor movement of the time, it could frighten the working class back to slavery.

EMMA: That every act of political violence should nowadays be attributed to anarchists is not at all surprising. Yet it is a fact known to almost everyone familiar with the anarchist movement that a great number of acts, for which anarchists had to suffer, either originated with the capitalist press or were instigated, if not directly perpetrated, by the police. For a number of years acts of violence had been committed in Spain, for which the anarchists were held responsible, hounded like wild beasts, and thrown into prison. Later it was disclosed that the perpetrators of these acts were not anarchists, but members of the police department. This is one of the many striking examples of how anarchist conspiracies are manufactured. That the American police can perjure themselves with the same ease, that they are just as merciless, just as brutal and cunning as their European colleagues, has been proven on more than one occasion. We need only recall the tragedy of May 4th, 1886, known as the Haymarket Riot – here in Chicago, no less. No one who is at all familiar with the case can possibly doubt that the anarchists, judicially murdered in Chicago, died as victims of a lying, blood-thirsty press and of a cruel police conspiracy. The Judge of the case himself said: "Not because you have caused the Haymarket bomb, but because you are anarchists, you are on trial."

MIKHAIL: [muttering under breathe] There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the States, under no other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and yet so terrible: “for reasons of national security...¨

EMMA: Yes. What, then, are the objections? First, anarchism is impractical, though a beautiful ideal. Second, anarchism stands for violence and destruction, hence it must be repudiated as vile and dangerous. Both the intelligent man and the ignorant mass judge not from a thorough knowledge of the subject, but either from hearsay or false interpretation.

war is terrorism
NATO is the real terrorist

OWSt.ORG: What are your thoughts on the proposed removal of NATO troops from Afghanistan by 2014?

ROSA: What is being prepared by the ruling classes as peace and justice is only a new work of brutal force from which the hydra of oppression, hatred, and fresh bloody wars raises its thousand heads. Remember that your victorious capitalists stand ready to suppress in blood our revolution. You yourselves have not become any freer through the “victory,” you have only become still more enslaved.

OWSt.ORG: After seeing all of the horrific livestream and photos of police violence against peaceful protesters last week, many people in the movement find ourselves again asking: are police part of the 99%?

LUCY: People have become so used to seeing the evidences of authority on every hand that most of them honestly believe that they would go utterly to the bad if it were not for the policeman's club or the soldier's bayonet.

EMMA: Referring to the American government, the greatest American anarchist, David Thoreau, said: "Law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily made agents of injustice."

police state vs gradmas
The police state in full force in Chicago

Occupy Wall Street

OWSt.ORG: Clearly, one of the most significant accomplishments of OWS was to shift political discourse away from debt and markets and toward economic inequality and human need. For example, slogans like ¨the 99%¨ versus the ¨the 1%¨ are now commonplace in popular culture. How important is this shift?

MIKHAIL: Thanks to Occupy, one would have to be a sophist to deny the existence of the abyss which separates these two classes today. As in the ancient world, our modern civilization, which contains a comparatively limited minority of privileged citizens, is based upon the forced labor (forced by hunger) of the immense majority of the population who are fatally doomed to ignorance and to brutality. But what of the objection that this contrast, this gulf between the small number of the privileged and the vast numbers of the disinherited has always existed and still exists; just what has changed? It is only that this gulf used to be filled with the great fog banks of religion, so that the masses were deceived into thinking there was a common ground for all. Nowadays, the Great Revolution has begun to sweep the mists away; the masses, too, are beginning to see the abyss and to ask the reason why. This is a stupendous realization. From the moment this question was asked, the people everywhere, led by their admirable good sense as well as by their instinct, have realized that the first condition for their real emancipation or, if I may be permitted to use the term, their humanization, was, above all, a radical reform of their economic condition. The question of daily bread is for them the principal question, and rightly so.

ROSA: [nods] Naturally no one could predict the lightning-like way in which this idea would succeed and how quickly it would be adopted by the working classes.

OWSt.ORG: Rosa, you were a big proponent of May Day. How did you feel about the Occupy General Strike on May 1st?

ROSA: The brilliant basic idea of May Day is the autonomous, immediate stepping forward of the proletarian masses, the political mass action of the millions of workers who otherwise are atomized by the barriers of the state in the day-to-day parliamentary affairs, who mostly can give expression to their own will only through the ballot, through the election of their representatives. What could give the workers greater courage and faith in their own strength than a mass work stoppage which they had decided themselves? What could give more courage to the eternal slaves of the factories and the workshops than the mustering of their own troops? The first of May demanded the introduction of the eight-hour day. But even after this goal was reached, May Day was not given up. As long as the struggle of the workers against the the 1% (as you Occupiers say) and the ruling class continues, as long as all demands are not met, May Day will be the yearly expression of these demands. And, when better days dawn, when the Global 99% has won its deliverance then too humanity will probably celebrate May Day in honor of the bitter struggles and the many sufferings of the past. This is to say, let’s make next May Day even bigger!

may day nyc
Tens of thousands of workers, unions, immigrants, and Occupiers march together on May Day, 2012 in NYC

OWSt.ORG: Occupy has been critcized for ¨not having demands¨ or for ¨demanding the impossible.¨ How do you respond?

ROSA: In our time, the legal eight-hour day was one of the demands on our minimal program. i.e., the very least minimum of social reform which we, as representatives of the workers’ interests, must demand and expect from the state. The fragmentation of even these minimal demands into still smaller morsels goes against all our tactics. We must make our minimum demands in unamended form. Even if we are ready to accept any installment, we must leave it to the bourgeois parties themselves to whittle down our demands to fit their interests. If we ourselves start believing that our demands are excessive and practically impossible, then we are making the saddest moral concession. Certainly our policy should and can only endeavour to achieve what is possible under given circumstances. But this is not to say how, in what manner, we should endeavour to achieve what is possible. This, however, is the crucial point. Precisely because we do not yield one inch from our position, we force the government and the bourgeois parties to concede to us the few immediate successes that can be gained.

EMMA: [nods] Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labelled utopian.

OWSt.ORG: Since the brutal crackdowns on our encampments last fall through to the attempted re-occupations in the winter and spring, and now even the militarization of home evictions in response to Occupiers nonviolent resistance to foreclosures, more and more Occupiers are becoming the target of the criminal (in)justice system. Many are, for the first time, learning what poor people and communities of color have long experienced – that police and prisons, far from making us safer, are actually used to control and suppress marginalized communities and dissidents. Emma, as an early proponent of prison abolition, what are your thoughts on Occupy’s role in supporting prisoners?

EMMA: With all our boasted reforms, our great social changes, and our far-reaching discoveries, human beings continue to be sent to the worst of hells, wherein they are outraged, degraded, and tortured, that society may be “protected” from the phantoms of its own making. Prison, a social protection? What monstrous mind ever conceived such an idea? Just as well say that health can be promoted by a widespread contagion. We are spending at the present $28,284.16 per year for every person in a federal prison institution. In 2009, 7,225,800 adults were under correctional supervision — 3.1% of adults in the U.S. And that in a democratic country. Such unheard-of expenditure for the purpose of maintaining vast armies of human beings caged up like wild beasts! The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation. On the other hand, the widespread prison investigations, agitation, and education during the last few years are conclusive proof that we are learning to dig deep into the very bottom of society, down to the causes of the terrible discrepancy between social and individual life. That said, I am not very sanguine that any real change can take place until the conditions that breed both the prisoner and the jailer will be forever abolished. If Occupy is to address the problem of prisons, this must be the goal.

union square
Emma Goldman addressing anarchists in Union Square, NYC

The US Presidential Elections

OWSt.ORG: President Obama came to power based on promises of change. A lot of people got behind this and have been disappointed and are now starting to question whether genuine change can come from above. How can we keep making tangible improvements to our living conditions while remaining independent from the corrupt mainstream political system?

ROSA: Never in world history has a political party gone so miserably bankrupt, never has an exalted ideal been so disgracefully betrayed and dragged through the mud! Anyway, as we said in my day, it is clear that you must not demand a ten-hour day if you want the eight-hour day. Do the contrary and you’ll do well: if there is any possibility of getting legislation to limit working time to ten hours, it is only by constantly pressing for an eight-hour day. All our experiences point this up. Only by demanding from bourgeois society all that it is capable of granting have we succeeded here and there in obtaining a small part. It is a very new principle of so-called “practical politics” in our party to hope, on the contrary, to get great effects through mutest and moderate demands. No matter how popular and appealing this tactical turn may seem, it altogether misses the mark. Nobody can possibly believe that our too extreme demands made it impossible for the bourgeois parties to show their good will. No. It is exactly by demanding the eight-hour bill that we can force the bourgeoisie to show its good will at least with a more modest reform. Here as in other cases, it was only our pressure, our pushing the bourgeois reforms to extremes, which squeezed a quarter ounce of “good will” out of the bourgeoisie. It is obviously bad logic to count on bringing its so-called good will out by taking the pressure off.

EMMA: Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world. Our institutions and conditions rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real betterment. "All voting," said Thoreau, "is a sort of gaming, like checkers, or backgammon, a playing with right and wrong; its obligation never exceeds that of expediency.¨ A close examination of the machinery of politics and its achievements will bear out the logic of Thoreau. Universal suffrage itself owes its existence to direct action. If not for the spirit of rebellion, of the defiance on the part of the American revolutionary fathers, their posterity would still wear the King's coat. No real social change has ever come about without a revolution. People are either not familiar with their history, or they have not yet learned that revolution is but thought carried into action.

OWSt.ORG: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has defended the 1%, claiming they are the job creators who will save the economy. Under this logic, what we really need is to let the market and the self-interest of bankers fix the financial crisis. What do you say to those who claim that market deregulation, privatization, and spending cuts – austerity, as they more honestly call it in Europe – is the best way out of the Great Recession?

MIKHAIL: It is in vain that we might say, with the economists, that an improvement in the economic situation of the 99% depends upon the general progress of industry and commerce in each country, and their complete emancipation from the supervision and protection of the State. The freedom of industry and of commerce is certainly a great thing, and one of the essential foundations of the future international alliance of all the peoples of the world. As we love freedom, all types of freedom, we should equally love this. On the other hand, however, we must recognize that so long as the present States exist, and so long as labor continues to be the slave of property and of capital, this particular freedom, while it enriches a minimum portion of the 1% to the detriment of the immense majority, would produce one benefit alone; it would further enfeeble and demoralize the small number of the privileged while increasing the misery, the grievances, and the just indignation of the working masses, the 99%, and thereby hasten the hour of destruction for States.

LUCY: The grandest works of the past were never performed for the sake of money. Who can measure the worth of a Shakespeare, an Angelo or Beethoven in dollars and cents? Agassiz said, "he had no time to make money," there were higher and better objects in life than that. And so will it be when humanity is once relieved from the pressing fear of starvation, want, and slavery, it will be concerned, less and less, about the ownership of vast accumulations of wealth.

EMMA: Indeed. The oft repeated slogan of our time is, among all politicians, that ours is an era of individualism. Only those who do not probe beneath the surface might be led to entertain this view. Have not the few accumulated the wealth of the world? Are they not the masters, the absolute kings of the situation? Their success, however, is due not to individualism, but to the inertia, the cravenness, the utter submission of the mass. For now at least. [smiles]

chicago says no nato
More scenes from the NATO summit

OWSt.ORG: Since the housing bubble collapsed and the financial crisis in 2008, progressively larger segments of the middle class are slipping into poverty. Others are living one paycheck or medical bill away from being homeless. How do you feel that this has changed politics, and what relevance does it have for Occupy?

MIKHAIL: We might truthfully say that the petit bourgeoisie, small business, and small industry are now beginning to suffer almost as much as the working classes, and if things go on at the same rate, this respectable bourgeois majority could well, through its economic position, soon merge with the proletariat. It is being destroyed and pushed downward into the abyss by big commerce, big industry, and especially by large-scale, unscrupulous speculators. The position of the petit bourgeoisie, therefore, is growing more and more revolutionary; its ideas, which for so long a time had been reactionary, have been clarified through these disastrous experiences and must necessarily take the opposite course. The more intelligent among them are beginning to realize that for the decent bourgeoisie the only salvation lies in an alliance with the people – and that the social question is as important to them, and in the same way, as to the people.

Europe

OWSt.ORG: Mikhail, as one of the earliest advocates for a federation of European States and of internationalism, how do you feel about the situation right now in the Europe and the coming potential of a Greek exit from the Euro?

MIKHAIL: There is but one way to bring about the triumph of liberty, of justice, and of peace in Europe's international relations – to make civil war impossible between the different peoples who make up the European family. Unity is the great goal toward which humanity moves irresistibly. But it becomes fatal, destructive of the intelligence, the dignity, the well-being of individuals and peoples whenever it is formed without regard to liberty, either by violent means or under the authority of any theological, metaphysical, political, or even economic idea. Recognition of the absolute right of each nation, great or small, of each people, weak or strong, of each province, of each commune, to complete autonomy, provided its internal constitution is not a threat or a danger to the autonomy and liberty of neighboring countries. The fact that a country has been part of the Eurozone, even if it has joined that State freely and of its own will, does not create an obligation for that country to remain forever so attached. No perpetual obligation could be accepted by human justice, the only kind of justice that may have authority amongst us, and we shall never recognize other rights or duties than those founded upon liberty. The right of free union and of equally free secession is the first, the most important, of all political rights, the one right without which the federation would never be more than a centralization in disguise.

OWSt.ORG: Occupy was inspired, in part, by the indignad@s, or 15-M movement, and the amazing uprisings against austerity in Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal and other countries (which, in turn, were partly inspired by the Arab Spring). What do you think Occupy has to offer to the so-called ¨Eurozone crisis¨?

MIKHAIL: The European Union can never be formed from the States as they are now constituted, considering the monstrous inequality which exists between their respective economies. Occupiers should therefore bend all their efforts toward reconstituting their respective countries, in order to replace their old constitution – founded from top to bottom on violence and the principle of authority – with a new organization based solely upon the interests, the needs, and the natural preferences of their populations – having no other principle but the free federation of individuals into communes, of communes into provinces, of the provinces into nations, and, finally, the entire world eventually.

The Future

OWSt.org: In the face of such repression and a near-total media blackout, is Occupy dead – as many of our detractors would claim?

MIKHAIL: Is it necessary to prove that Occupy is not dead? We need only see what is going on all over the world today. Behind all the diplomatic gossip, what serious question is facing all the countries if it is not the social question? It alone is the great unknown; everyone senses its coming, everyone trembles at the thought, no one dares speak of it – but it speaks for itself, and in an ever louder voice. The cooperative associations of the workers, these mutual aid banks and labor credit banks, these trade unions, and this international league of Occupiers in all the countries – does it not prove that they have not in any way given up their goal, nor lost faith in their coming emancipation? Does it not prove that they have also understood that in order to hasten the hour of their deliverance they should not rely on the States, nor on the more or less hypocritical assistance of the privileged classes, but rather upon themselves and their independent, completely spontaneous associations? It took Christianity 400 years to conquer Europe, are we surprised Occupy hasn’t succeeded the far more difficult task of creating economic justice in 8 months?

EMMA: The history of human growth and development is at the same time the history of the terrible struggle of every new idea heralding the approach of a brighter dawn. In its tenacious hold on tradition, the Old has never hesitated to make use of the foulest and cruelest means to stay the advent of the New, in whatever form or period the latter may have asserted itself. Nor need we retrace our steps into the distant past to realize the enormity of opposition, difficulties, and hardships placed in the path of every progressive idea.

OWSt.ORG: Ok, one final question. Where should Occupy go from here?

EMMA: The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of humanity, and the right of every human being to liberty and well-being, of course.

LUCY: The manifestations of discontent now looming upon every side show that society is conducted on wrong principles and that something has got to be done soon or the wage class will sink into a slavery worse than was the feudal serf. I say to Occupiers everywhere: Think clearly and act quickly, or you are lost. Strike not for a few cents more an hour, because the price of living will be raised faster still, but strike for all you earn, be content with nothing less. Just look at Spain and Germany, or just across the border to our comrades in Quebec, and right here this week in Chicago. The voice of the people will yet be heard.

montreal 100 days of protest
Up to 500,000 people took to the streets in Montreal on the 100th day of protest against tuition increases, austerity, and state repression

23 Comments

23 Comments


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[-] 4 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 11 years ago

election june 5, tuesday

this is cool

[-] 1 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Ditto for an excellent forum-post. Further, Lucy Parsons is a True American Heroine of The 99% Labour Struggle who deserves to be remembered, read & reflected upon ...

respice ; adspice ; prospice ...

[-] 4 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

OMG - Right On Montreal - Right On!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Removed]

[-] 3 points by athbhreithathbheochan (3) 11 years ago

"Patriotism runs counter to ordinary human morality.

This flagrant negation of humanity, which constitutes the very essence of the State, is from the point of view of the latter the supreme duty and the greatest virtue: it is called patriotism and it constitutes a morality of the State beyond human comprehension.

We call it a morality beyond comprehension because ordinarily it exceeding the usual limits of human morality and justice, whether private or common, and thereby it often sets itself in sharp contradiction to them. Thus, for instance, to offend, oppress, rob, plunder, assassinate, or enslave one's fellow man is, to the ordinary morality of man, to commit a serious crime.

In public life, on the contrary, from the point of view of patriotism, when it is done for the greater glory of the State in order to conserve or to enlarge its power, all that becomes a duty and a virtue.

And this duty, this virtue, are obligatory upon every patriotic citizen.

Everyone is expected to discharge those duties not only in regard to strangers but in regard to his fellow citizens, members and subjects of the same State, whenever the welfare of the State demands it from him.

The morality of the State then is the reversal of human justice and human morality.

This anti-human morality of the State requires the corruption of men who are charged with carrying on State functions.

The triumph of human morality can be realized only through the destruction of the State." - Mikhail Bakunin

[-] 3 points by francismjenkins (3713) 11 years ago

I don't think we can say patriotism runs counter to human morality, I think it's a simple manifestation of tribalism (something that's been with us for a very long time). But calling something natural does not automatically make it good (that's a classic naturalistic fallacy). I don't mind calling anarchist ideas the byproduct of better thinking, rather than trying to show that it represents some sort of innate, more natural human state (which seems pretty hard to prove) :)

[-] 1 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

I liked your comment 'fmj' and it got me thinking that perhaps in the face of the perpetual psychopathic and parasitic Predation by Malign Alien-Human Hybrids (0.01%) ... Global Pro-Homo Sapiens Patriotism (The 99.9%) - is the way to go !!! ROFLMAO !!

e tenebris, lux ... et verum ex absurdo ?!

[-] 2 points by francismjenkins (3713) 11 years ago

I think, simply stated, the merit of ideas like participatory democracy, working for the betterment of mankind (all mankind, not just 1% of mankind) is sort of self-evident. I think any system that sets up a conflict between individual self-interest and the good of the whole society, is inherently flawed. I mean, we can regulate (and that is somewhat effective in preventing bad behavior), and until we have a better world, we need to regulate things like banks, but ideally we'd have a system where there's no conflict between self interest and the good of society.

[-] 1 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Re. "Mittens Romulan" - see above, lol !!! verb. sat. sap. !! i l 0 l ! ~*~

[-] 1 points by JohnRichardsonMeadows (8) 11 years ago

The police, bureaucrats and others should keep in mind that the use of governmental power, at any level, to violate any law or human right, is neither a privilege of office nor of position, nor a legitimate tool nor function, but is capital crime, sedition, a more effective destroyer of nations than treason or military invasion, as it undermines, from within, to destroy the legitimate government, the viability of the society, and human lives, and it merits the capital punishment that legitimate government may impose. La police, les bureaucrates et d'autres devraient garder présent à l'esprit que l'usage de pouvoir gouvernemental, à n'importe quel niveau, pour violer n'importe quelle loi ou n'importe quelle droit humain (droit de l'Homme), est ni un privilège de bureau ni de position, ni un outil ni une fonction légitime, mais est un crime capital, la sédition, le destructeur de nations qui est plus efficace que la trahison ou l'invasion militaire, pendant qu'elle mine, de dedans, pour détruire le gouvernement légitime, la viabilité de la société, et les vies humaines, et elle mérite la punition capitale que le gouvernement légitime peut imposer. jfdrp.webs.com

[-] 2 points by JohnRichardsonMeadows (8) 11 years ago

Historiquement, la première étape de la restauration de la société viable naturelle est la reconnaissance du droit humain à la vie, le droit humain de participer en les relations économiques exigée pour vivre, pour tenir la vie et la bonne vie. Avec cette étape accomplie, les autres injustices sont plus facilement surmontées et les autres droits de l’Homme plus facilement accomplis. Nous ne serons pas les premiers gens du monde, ni même de cette société, qui restaurent l'économie universelle et la viabilité naturelle de la société en légiférant l'emploi plein, le salaire plein et les bénéfices pleines assurés par le Trésor public du gouvernement central. Il n'y a pas d'alternative ; nous ne devons pas permettre l'avidité et l'élitisme d'un peu de quelques-uns à détruire cette nation et eux-m^mes. Nous devons restaurer l'économie universelle naturelle et le gouvernement légitime égalitariste universellement représentatif et démocratique . C'est tout à fait simple pour faire : jfdrp.webs.com Nous honorons les droits de l’Homme.

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Thanx and Very Interesting ! Re."Il n'y a pas d'alternative" - really ? multum in parvo ...

[-] 1 points by JohnRichardsonMeadows (8) 11 years ago

The alternative to honoring the human right to life, honoring the human right to participate in the economic intercourse requisite to life, is the continuation and worsening of the elitist exclusion, inequity and human sacrifice (killing by any name). There is no alternative to honoring the human right to life, if the goal is a society of peace, goodwill and universal economy. L'alternative à honorer le droit humain à la vie, à honorer le droit humain pour participer en l'économie exigée pour la vie, pour vivre, est le prolongement et empirement de l'exclusion élitiste, l'injustice et le sacrifice humain (tuant, faire la mort, dans n'importe quel nom). Il n'y a pas d'alternative à honorer le droit humain à la vie, si l'objectif est une société de paix, de la bienveillance et de l'économie universelle. jfdrp.webs.com

[-] 2 points by JohnRichardsonMeadows (8) 11 years ago

Historically, the first step in restoration of the natural viable society is recognition of the human right to life, the human right to participate in the economic intercourse requisite to life and a good life. With this step accomplished the other inequities are more easily overcome and the other human rights more easily accomplished. We will not be the first people of the world, nor even of this society, to restore the natural universal economy and viability of the society by legislating full employment, full pay and full benefits assured by the central government's treasury. There is no alternative; we must not allow the greed and elitism of a few to destroy this nation and themselves. We must restore the universal economy and the legitimate egalitarian universally representative democratic government. It is quite simple to do: jfdrp.webs.com We honor human rights.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Merci et très intéressantes ! Re. "There is no alternative" - vraiment ? minima maxima sunt ...

[-] 2 points by Marlow (1141) 11 years ago

U forgot Madam Blavatsky,.. she would have told us.. .. 'What You Believe, is What you Get'.. ..so Be Careful Out there!

[-] 2 points by TheEvilFuckaire (208) 11 years ago

The greatest brainwash in the history of America was convincing us that capitalism and democracy are the same thing.

[-] 1 points by JohnRichardsonMeadows (8) 11 years ago

Rosa, Lucy and Emma: The time has come to examine the support of the "one percent,." to facilitate requisite social-economic action that can not be achieved by centering attention upon Kings, Princes and CEO's. We now review the factual history, records and data of the "ten percent," the exclusive clan or class, or minority, the oligarchy called the "ruling class" and "upper class" who sustain and serve the one percent. The professional families, Ph-Dr's in families of Ph-Dr's, medical doctors in families of medical doctors, lawyers and judges in families of lawyers and judges, and some few other subordinate professionals in families of like titled and ranked subordinates, parent, issue, sibling, cousin, spouse and in-law to one another, since 1946, when began the abolition of the controls of the Roosevelt legislations, controls that ended the "Great Depression" and most of the causes of the ever-growing poverty, suffering, early deaths, generalized desperation, violence, crime and institutional violations of human rights, restored the natural universal economy and permitted the American people to become the most affluant people of the world and America to become the prominent nation, have progressively monopolized the representative, executive and effective positions of the government, institutions, corporations and industrial enterprises, have progressively increased profits, dividends, executive and professional salaries, benefits and bonuses, by progressively increasing prices, taxes, fines, fees, rents, usury, foreclosures, repossessions, attachments, seizures, unemployment, low paid and temporary and part-time jobs with no benefits, causing progressively increasing poverty, homelessness, suffering, early deaths, generalized desperation, violence, crime and institutional violations of human rights to destroy the natural universal economy, the natural viability of the society, its peace and goodwill and cooperation among the people, and the legitimate egalitarian universally representative democratic government. The common majority are left without representation in the affairs of government, institutions, corporations and industrial enterprises. If the professional families will not honor the human right to life, the human right to participate in the economic intercourse requisite to life and a good life, full employment, full pay and full benefits assured by the national treasury, legislation and committees of common people, as was provided by the Roosevelt legislation, if they will not honor legitimate egalitarian universally representative democratic government, they will destroy the nation, causing millions of early deaths, great suffering and destruction, and in that destruction, like the Jews of Germany and the Aristocrats and Royals of Europe, be themselves destroyed, genocide, extinction, the innocent with the guilty, their genetic strains removed from the gene pool of the species. The religious (Jews, Christian, Muslims et al) are advised to "stand down," to abandon the executive and effective positions and posts, and to refrain from elitist religious violations of human rights, lest they face the same consequences). The teaching and implementation of the antisocial uneconmic religious philosophy of elitism, inequity, exclusion and human sacrifice, embodied in the religious doctrine of the three religions of the same origins and embodied in the Protocols of Capital and Greenspan-Rand Theories of Capitalist Economy, and the use of governmental or associated corporate, industrial or institutional executive or effective power to violate any law or any human right, are capital crimes, sedition, that merit the capital punishment* that legitimate egalitarian universally representative democratic government can impose. Legitimate government does not kill, cause harm or violate any human right. The legitimate egalitarian universally representative democratic government and viable society of peace, goodwill, universal economy, and honor for all human rights is ever at hand, within reach, attainable. jfdrp.webs.com

[-] 1 points by Misaki (893) 11 years ago

Re: "eight-hour day".

From the "21-hour work week" paper. Page 12 (or 14),

Utah, USA: The four-day week, 2008/2009
In June 2008, the state of Utah in the USA became the first to instigate a mandatory four-day week for public sector workers, in order to save energy and cut carbon and costs. The ‘Working4Utah’ initiative shifted the standard week from five 8-hour days to four 10-hour days, Monday to Thursday. So the total number of hours that people spent in paid employment stayed the same, while they had three full, consecutive days each week away from the workplace. Altogether, 18,000 of the state’s 25,000 employees were involved in the one- year experiment. Evaluations of the first year, reported for a symposium of the Connecticut Law Review, showed positive responses from employees as well as users of state services. Satisfaction rates increased as the experiment went on. In May 2009, more than half said they were more productive working a four-day week and three-quarters said they preferred the new arrangement. Reductions in absenteeism and overtime saved the state £4.1 million dollars. The four-day week helped reduce carbon emissions by 4,546 metric tons, other greenhouse gas emissions by 8,000 tons and petrol consumption by 744,000 gallons. Miles travelled in state-owned vehicles dropped by 3 million, saving Utah $1.4 million over the first year. Eighty-two per cent of employees said they wanted the four-day week to continue when the year was up.

If you want to work less, work conservation is how to accomplish that goal. Everyone does not need to work the same amount every week. Options are good.

Strike not for a few cents more an hour, because the price of living will be raised faster still

This person understands basic economics of supply and demand, and the consequences that high unemployment has on wages.

[-] 1 points by JohnRichardsonMeadows (8) 11 years ago

The police, bureaucrats and others should keep in mind that the use of governmental power, at any level, to violate any law or human right, is neither a privilege of office nor of position, nor a legitimate tool nor function, but is capital crime, sedition, a more effective destroyer of nations than treason or military invasion, as it undermines, from within, to destroy the legitimate government, the viability of the society, and human lives, and it merits the capital punishment that legitimate government may impose. La police, les bureaucrates et d'autres devraient garder présent à l'esprit que l'usage de pouvoir gouvernemental, à n'importe quel niveau, pour violer n'importe quelle loi ou n'importe quelle droit humain (droit de l'Homme), est ni un privilège de bureau ni de position, ni un outil ni une fonction légitime, mais c'est un crime capital, la sédition, le destructeur de nations qui est plus efficace que la trahison ou l'invasion militaire, pendant qu'il il mine, de dedans, pour détruire le gouvernement légitime, la viabilité de la société, et les vies humaines, et elle mérite la punition capitale que le gouvernement légitime peut imposer. jfdrp.webs.com

[-] 1 points by francismjenkins (3713) 11 years ago

I love Bakunin & Goldman (especially Bakunin).

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 11 years ago

Al QUADDA I am the lingering threat kept alive by stray bombs on innocent children

[-] 1 points by emmaemma (1) 11 years ago

Emma Goldman wouldn't have supported the "Robin Hood Tax" for goodness sake! She didn't believe in insuring the survival of economic institutions she wanted to abolish through progressive taxation. Stop digging up anarchists and playing puppet with their corpses. Enough already!

[-] 1 points by sufinaga (513) 11 years ago

look at history! remember how these colonial invaders treated the people. it is the same tyranny. they are using the same overwhelming violence against the people. let the drumming go global! bang the drum of eternity. we have them surrounded!

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