My wish for the new year is that we might …
- be less busy
- have enough time and money to take the best care of ourselves and our loved ones
- be able to “save the world” and “save the earth” without feeling deprived, or even more over-worked and stressed out
- be aware of the important news of the world without losing heart
- have fun and a feeling of community easily, without having to work too hard for it
- have peace and justice in our world.
What might get in the way?
“El pueblo unido jamás será vencido.”
“The people united will never be defeated.”
BUT, the people divided WILL be defeated. This haiku came to me last week:
Divide and conquer,
a device that hurts us all.
Solidarity.
How do we let ourselves be divided?
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) differences, such as…
race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, national origin (ancestry), disability, size, sexual orientation, marital status, socioeconomic background, military status, or for any other discriminatory reason.
POLITICAL DIFFERENCES, such as
- political orientation
- citizenship/immigration status
- important issues, i.e. “my issue is the important issue, not yours”
- separating ourselves from our environment
SCAPEGOATING, including all of the above, has been used to promote destructive policies and laws, and to take our focus away from those oligarchs and control freaks who want more power and control in the world than anyone should have. Historic scapegoats have included:
- immigrants
- indigenous
- blacks
- other ethnic groups
- welfare mothers
- youth gangs
- poor people
- dissidents
- criminals (individual, not organized corporate or civic)
How do we do it to ourselves?
- believing the scapegoating messages
- rationalizing that the present situation is OK as it is
- rationalizing that if someone is struggling, it’s somehow their own dang fault
- falling into “cancel culture” and “purity fetish,” where work toward a better world is thrown out because it’s flawed
- falling for the “apparatus of persuasion”…
What is the “Apparatus of Persuasion”?
That phrase popped out at me in an essay from David Graeber’s book The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World. By that, he means that the world is “something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.” Graeber was a key figure in Occupy Wall Street in 2011. He also wrote Debt: The First 5,000 Years and The Dawn of Everything.
The essay “Soak the Rich” was a conversation between David Graeber and Thomas Piketty, a French economist who has written extensively on inequality. He said, “The apparatus of persuasion—or of repression, or a combination of the two, depending on what country you are considering—may allow the present situation to persist.” While he focuses on persuasion regarding economics, it is also used to divide us from one another in all the other ways.
The “apparatus of persuasion” refers to the powerful social and ideological mechanisms, including think tanks, economists, media (including movies and textbooks), and political communications, that convince people that extreme wealth inequality is normal, fair, and inevitable, allowing the wealthy to maintain their power and the system to continue without significant political challenge or revolution, often by promoting ideas that talent or hard work justifies vast riches, even when inherited wealth dominates.
Piketty argues that without this apparatus, deep inequality would create instability, forcing states to act or leading to societal upheaval.
In short, with solidarity, another world IS possible.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Registering, voting, and signing Green Party and Peace & Freedom Party candidate petitions will help “divest” from the oligarchy!
JANUARY 3: If you’re in the Bay Area, consider coming to an East Bay pub to attend a panel I’ll be on with Roger Harris. Zoom is also possible. Here are the details:
“What’s the Deal with Venezuela?” at the monthly Suds, Snacks, and Socialism Forum on January 3, Saturday, 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., at The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. Doors will open at 1:30 p.m. Free, though the pub has yummy food and/or drinks you can order if you wish. (For online only, register at https://bit.ly/SSS-Venezuela to receive your personal link to participate online.)