Solidarity

Wind blew my fedora away, today. And I walked away without looking back, as if it was an explosion. :D

May 11

May 08

I’m in a hateful mood :D and my potential internet activities are a good illustration of that.

Backdrop: You know when they conduct research on famous intellectuals’ personal lives, and gather little bits and pieces that seem to explain why it is they thought the way they thought? Like I’ll tell 2 silly ones but the 3rd one is true. Like when they said that Darwin shagged a monkey and just constructed a theory to justify that, or Freud shagged his mum, or that shit. No, but the one about Marx is true, that he had a disease, or sickness or whatever it is that that made him a miserable bastard. I’ve read this somewhere when I was a kid, and basically the conclusion was “we now know why he had such a pessimistic view on life” and I revolted at that conclusion! Like what the fuck, I hate Marx I always hated Marx I don’t know why, even though as of time of writing I’ve probably read less than 300 pages of Marx, but I hate his guts okay? Prejudice, what do you want? Anyway, I hate the man, but I couldn’t stand for that bullshit: The value of a theory has nothing to do with the authors’ state of mind at the time of writing, it’s either a good theory, that explains shit properly, or it isn’t. Whether the author is mental or sane has little value in judging the theory. Basically Adolf Fucking Hitler said it best when he was 10: “The truth is the truth whether spoken by a 10 year old country boy or an ancient professor in Vienna, what possible difference does it make how old I am?” It makes no difference at all you cunt, you were a pathetic ignoramus at 10 and a pathetic ignoramus at 40. But the reason I tell this is because this was my reaction when I learned about Marx’s condition. I thought “what fucking difference does it make? Surely we can still judge the theories for what they are?”. Such a pathetic bourgeois argument this, eh? The pretending of materialism. Like that fucking Zionist literary critic on French TV, who always finds progressive literature to be shite, and when someone gets offended and says hey but that book helped alot of ppl, that Album meant alot for a lot of us, etc. he pffts and brushes off any such sentiments by saying “I deplore ppl like you the most, my critique is not based on moral judgement, but on the literary value of the work in question”. What literary value you fucking cunt, stop hiding behind theories and rhetoric, you’re a reactionary heap of crap, and yeah that’s a moral judgement, fuck you.

The Hitler quote is made up of course, but it made me rethink “what possible difference does it make how old I am?”, “what possible difference does it make the reading on the thermometer?”, “what possible difference does it make that me and Amy just broke up?” It makes all the difference in the world, that’s what possible difference it makes. Anyway back to MY story, because that’s all that matters; ME.

After the rally and march last Tuesday, on my way home, I slept on the bus with the red scarf from the demo around my neck. Too fucking tiered of all the shouting, no not really tiered of shouting, I never tire of shouting, I don’t mean I can shout for 9 hours straight, I mean I normally stop shouting when I start to get tiered of it. What I was tiered of was probably something else, but shouting is the excuse I gave myself. I said “sleeping warm, even on a bus, will help me in not losing my voice the next morning”. And I slept, like a baby as they say, on the bus, as if they know what a baby sleeps like, how do you know it’s not having nightmares, or closing its eyes for hours, even trying the face down and under the pillow trick, and still nothing? Like a baby! So when I finally woke up, I had missed my stop, I called the next stop, couldn’t have picked a worst one. Deserted stretch of road, 4 fascists got off the bus with me, they beat me senseless, and stole my wallet. Admit it, it’s the wallet that made you gasp, I can always heal and get back to normal, but the wallet is never coming back. And it’s a nice wallet, gift from an ex-girlfriend, the only tangible thing I can remember her by, a symbol of how positive our break-up was; that wallet was the 1st compliment I got from the next girl. But unlike you, I wasn’t worried about the wallet, aside from the emotional value, I couldn’t give a shit about the little bit of money in it, you see I have a technique for not feeling sorry when I lose money. Of course I use “lose” in a very loose fashion here, it could mean anything from dropping a couple bills in the gutter, or giving a donation to World Vision. Basically the technique is that I would compare the amount to how many drinks it would’ve bought me at the pub, and all of a sudden it feels like nothing. All the IDs and cards? I couldn’t give a fuck, I can literally renew them all immediately, what else? The credit cards? Why do ppl even stress out about losing a credit card, you see a bank really appreciates its cu$tomer$$$. Last time mine was ‘stolen’, the bank gave me back all the stolen money, plus the amount I paid at the ghetto Grocery Store where my information was hacked. The heist was about $1,500 of movies and petrol! Unbelievable! I really never had the slightest doubt that I’m not gonna have to pay a penny for it, but it still got me in the most conservative republican state of mind “I’m working fucking overtime on Christmas, while these whores are driving around in their V8 and watching Hollywood filth off of my back” hahaha, I’d make a great redneck! Moral of the story, I’m not worried about the wallet, I’m worried about the pain all over my body. No matter how many times you tell me to man-up, that it’s nothing, that it’s gonna go away, to stop being such a girl about it, I’m not gonna stop complaining until the pain is completely gone. Until I can jump and run comfortably again.

I say they’re fascists, for the Martyrdom only, but really they were just crackheads, and honestly they were probably at the march too. Whole point is, I’m the 10 year old now, I’m the one who shagged a monkey, I’m the one whose circumstances will influence her writing. And I was faced with two internet phenomenons that incited me to write hateful shit. On tumblr and facebook. On tumblr, a band that everyone says is amazing, but only a few ppl actually have listened to it at all, was filling up my dash. They don’t even have 1 hit that they’re famous for, and causes everyone to assume they’re great. No they, as a name and a s a band, are much more known then their songs. That’s the worst band you can get. I’m sure they have a genuine cult following, I’m sure those ppl have every right to love their music, as it’s probably a wallet to them. But I’m gonna be a Zionist Frenchie for a second and say “stop it with the emotional bullshit, that is no proper way to critique a band. Truth of the matter is their song-writing is a lousy imitation of Bob Dylan’s and their recordings are flat and numbingly boring. Their attempt, like their contemporaries, at parodying the POP formula, didn’t turn out to be a parody at all, just a second grade instance of that formula. Their only good song is about the drug that probably caused their mediocrity”. Alright, all done hater? Well I didn’t reblog and add that, because let’s face it, I only say this because I’m in a hateful mood. Yes I clearly dislike the band, and no matter the mood I would never thrash Metallica on the other hand if it filled my Tumblr dashboard, even though I have a lot of material to back me up. It would’ve actually cheered me up if it was Metallica. The reason why I didn’t make a hateful post about it though, is a social reason. The same reason why on a dinner table I don’t say “actually her handbag is shite, just because it’s flashy doesn’t mean you have to compliment her on it, and no this colour doesn’t suit her better, her hair always looks best when she dyes it red, and we all know that, because we’ve known her for years including you, and I think you can agree that that has always been the silent consensus” I didn’t reblog for the same reason why you never give an honest opinion to the bloke you barely know how says “hey mate, give me your honest opinion” he’s already bought the fucking rings, what are you gonna tell him? Just because he insisted, you make it sound honest: “Wow, bro, it’s fuckin’ awesome! I mean to be honest, the price you told me is a bit too high but…” put the most genuine smile on your face “she deserves it! You deserve it” and hug him and pat him on the back. Because even though you’re really thinking “it’s supposed to be an engagement ring not a tribal tattoo, you thick moron” the former is the only thing you can do that’s socially acceptable. The facebook incident involved a link to an article that says “The revolution needs 6 people: The activist, the intellectual, the artist, the insider, the disaffected elite, and the masses” Oh fuck off, I read the first line of every paragraph, and it’s just the most foul wordpiss I ever smelled. Written in the style of someone who knows what she’s talking about, but with the content of someone who knows fuck all. But what got my blood boiling is the comments it garnered from “Occupy” turds who for the most part, I know personally. “On May day i heard a group chanting that police were part of the 1%, which i think is a bit ridiculous, cause there’s a solid 15% of the population that makes more than $100,000 a year.” or “i define the 1% as the system in which people are abused, but i do not blame the system, i blame people who abuse it. Those are the 1% of us who would do us harm for their own gain. We also must not confuse them with people who are genuinely honest about contributing to society.” or “If someone found a cure for cancer, i’d be quite happy for he/she to be a billionaire” or agh!!! “In my opinion, we need wealth as a driver of the economy. I have no issues with a corporation exec making 10 - 15 million a year, as that person is responsible for running a business that quite possibly transacts billions of dollars a day. That person is the head of a corporation that may have tens of thousands of employees , that CEo most likely works 16 hour days and at the end of the day, if things go bad, its the CEO who has his or her head on the line.” or “gives away billions of OUR tax dollars as loans to countries that have absolutely no prospect over being able to repay these loans” the fuck? You moron! Stop being amused at lenders giving loans to ppl who can’t possibly give it back, that’s the whole point you idiot! They get it back faster than you think, whether in cash or in other forms, what has no prospect of being payed back is the inter… No, no, no, no, no, I’ve fallen for my temper. Why am I calling him a moron and idiot, I only learned what I’m saying 3 weeks ago! But I didn’t comment on the thread. So there, I kept my cool, and didn’t let the circumstances influence my expression! or did I?

PS The above events are a 100% fictional; I have just watched Trainspotting, and “runny nose and a headache” just wasn’t gonna do.

May 07

This is really a fairy tale, that we, anti-authoritarian democrats would love to be true. The story as told above is a daydream. Nothing wrong with dreaming, just don’t mix it with reality. Really, just consult wikipedia and you’ll find that nothing close of what we wish would happen, has in fact happened in Iceland. It’s the sad truth, Iceland was screwed by its bankers and its upper class, and continues to be so screwed. To say that Iceland is now living in post-revolutionary bliss, is akin to saying that Egyptians are reaping the benefits of ousting Mubarak, neither of those statements are true.

The following is a more grumpy, and “Marxist” account of what happened, and although I would probably disagree with the authors ideology on almost everything, there’s more enlightening truth in the following block quote than in the previous:

One of the myths perpetrated by the organizers of the Puerta del Sol sit-in in Madrid and by commentators on the occupation of Syntagma Square in Athens is that the good citizens of Iceland simply refused to pay the banks’ debts, rejecting terms negotiated with the international bankers saddling every Icelandic family with thousands of dollars of long-term debt which would have taken years to pay off. The anarchist website kaosenlared (31 May) summed up the story like this:

“This is the brief story of the Icelandic Revolution: an entire government resigns in bloc, the banks are nationalized, a referendum is held so the people can decide on overriding economic issues, those responsible for the crisis are jailed and the constitution is rewritten by the citizens.”

A business website, El Confidencial (20 March), spoke of “the revolution without arms in Iceland, the country with the oldest democracy in the world (dating from 930), whose citizens managed to change it by demonstrations and banging pots and pans.”

An “Icelandic Revolution”?! Did we miss something? Not at all. This is a fairy tale worthy of Hans Christian Andersen, and the Icelandic people are far from living happily ever after. The fact that would-be leftists peddle such nonsense is a measure of their democratic illusions … and how distant they are from actual revolutionary struggle.

What is true is that in the wake of the September 2008 Wall Street crash following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, mass demonstrations forced the resignation of the conservative cabinet of Icelandic prime minister Geir Haarde, the first and so far only government to fall as a result of the economic crisis; that the banks were nationalized and several bankers arrested; and that the population has rejected terms of a settlement demanded by Britain and the Netherlands to pay off investors in those countries who lost billions of dollars deposited in what amounted to an on-line Ponzi scheme, Icesave, sponsored by Iceland’s leading bank, the Landsbanki. But that in no way means that the Icelandic population has painlessly escaped from the consequences of the world capitalist economic crisis.

On the contrary, the standard of living of Iceland has been cut in half, a far bigger fall than in Spain or even Greece, where wages have plunged by 30 percent. The economy as a whole declined by 10 percent in 2009-10. Stock market prices plunged by 98 percent, meaning that anyone who invested their savings there was completely wiped out. The Icelandic currency, the króna, has lost roughly 60 percent of its value, while exchange controls have been imposed so that foreign currency is available only for government-approved imports. Moreover, tens of thousands of home owners (out of a total population of only 330,000) stand to lose their houses to foreclosure by the banks. And neither the government nor companies and individuals can obtain credit from international financial markets (or from the “restructured” private banks, which are still reporting fat profits).

There is nothing inherently “anti-capitalist” about nationalization of the banks by a bourgeois government. In fact, such action is usually done to save the capitalists from the disaster of bankruptcy by socializing losses. In Iceland, when the three main banks (Landsbanki, Glitner and Kaupthing) were nationalized in September-October 2008, this meant that the billions of euros they owed to foreign investors suddenly became the responsibility of the government, and taxpayers would foot the bill. And while voters twice turned thumbs down on a deal over the Icesave debt with the British and Dutch banks (the first time by 93% to 2%), in response the international ratings agencies reduced Iceland’s “sovereign” (government) debt to “sub-investment grade,” and they may further reduce it to junk bond status when over $1 billion in bond and loan debt comes due later this year, making it impossible to refinance in the market.

The dozen or so bankers arrested are mostly operations-level managers while the so-called “Viking” banker/investors and top government officials are still free. Former Kaupthing chief Sigurdur Einarsson is holed up in London, while Jon Asgeir Johannesson, the main shareholder in the Glitnir bank and head of Baugur investments, who bought up high street stores in London and Gramercy Park real estate in New York, is still jet-setting around. Former prime minister David Oddson, who ran the country for 14 years before naming himself head of the central bank in 2004, a main architect of Iceland’s bank privatization, is editor in chief of the main bourgeois daily, Morgunbladid, which one commentator quipped would be like “appointing Nixon editor of the Washington Post during Watergate” (quoted by Robert Wade and Silla Sigurgeirsdottir, “Lessons from Iceland,” New Left Review, September-October 2010). And while the most drastic cutbacks in public employment and services were postponed until this year, the hammer will soon come down, sending unemployment (already eight times its pre-crisis level) skyrocketing.

So the conservative government was toppled, but what has Iceland got instead? The British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) speaks of a “saucepan revolution” resulting in the installation of a government coalition between the Social Democratic Alliance (SDA) and the Left Green Movement (LGM). Yet it was these reformist leftists who agreed to the 2009 deal to pay billions to the British and Dutch banks, and then when that was turned down they agreed to a second deal, which was also rejected by the voters. Social-democratic prime minister Johanna Sigurdardottir vows that “We need to keep going…. We have to get an agreement” to pay the Icesave bill, which amounts to $17,500 for every man, woman and child in the country. Some “revolution,” and some “socialists” and leftists these are, who would mortgage the future of the working people to pay off the bankers!

At the end of 2008, Iceland’s overall external debt stood at €50 billion, almost six times the the GDP (down to €8.5 billion in 2010). This debt is literally unpayable, no matter how much budgets are cut or exports increased. Iceland exists today solely at the pleasure of Washington, of the White House and the bankers cartel known as the International Monetary Fund. They know the money will not be repaid, but figure the amounts involved are piddling on an international scale. The external debt of Greece, on the other hand, and even more so of Portugal and Spain, are large enough that financial authorities worry that a default could trigger a general financial collapse. So long as national governments are subject to the world market, no matter how “progressive” or “leftist” their rhetoric, they cannot break the stranglehold of finance capital. The experience of the non-existent “Icelandic Revolution” demonstrates it.

The idea, pushed by liberals, anarchists, pseudo-socialists and the “citizen’s movement” in Spanish cities, that one could get out from under the crushing burden of debt simply by voting not to pay is a deadly dangerous “democratic” illusion. Not only revolutionary Marxists but mainstream economists know that this is not how capitalism works. In a country like Spain, the imperialists would stage a military coup (as the CIA is reportedly weighing in Greece today) and send the Guardia Civil into the streets to deal with petty-bourgeois youth in the Puerta del Sol rather than let a major country refuse to pay the bankers “their” interest and principal. The demand to repudiate the imperialist debt is thoroughly justified, and utterly necessary. But it will take workers revolution to achieve it, and international socialist revolution to secure it. ■

May 06

“In the painful tumult of daily protests, an entire generation of Québécois youth is learning a political lesson no class would ever teach: violence underlies all of society’s inequalities, and power doesn’t yield an inch without a fight” — Martin Lukacs