OVO

If you pick up some crap book about the history of punk rock, chances are there will be about 90 pages dedicated to Joe Strummer’s jackets but only two sentences about Crass. This is despite them selling millions of records, singlehandedly creating the DIY punk blueprint, and maintaining their hard-line libertarian and anarchy principles even as they reach their mid-60s today. A lot of you reading this will be aware of their logo and the fact that they were a punk band, but not a lot of people know their actual story. Because it’s so inspirational and so “anti-music” (in the sense that it was a total revolt against the established music industry of the time) we feel that everybody with even a passing interest in punk rock should hear it.

And so we interviewed founding members Penny Rimbaud and Steve Ignorant for a brief history of the group and to procure their ideas surrounding this issue’s theme. During the talks between myself and Penny that preceded this interview I discovered that the unthinkable has happened and that Crass, the most anti-authoritarian, anarchy-endorsing free spirits in the history of punk music, are on the verge of going to Crown Court to ask lawyers and judges to intervene in a huge row over some remastered CDs. Despite our efforts to include all sides of the story here, a couple of former members of Crass declined to participate. [...]

What was the reason the band folded?
We always all had the idea that ’84 was the mythical, Orwellian thing. And I think it largely folded because I was becoming interested in something broader than punk. Our interests were going out, and really it was after we’d done that last gig in Aberdare which was so disillusioning and so sad, which was the fucking result of Thatcher’s vicious Britain. And I think all of us felt that jumping up and down on a stage saying “No more war!” was a joke in light of the poverty and desperation we saw that night.

What happened?
It was a benefit gig for the sacked miners in Aberdare. We went down in the van as we usually did, loaded with bins of food because people were literally starving in those villages. It was inevitably raining, which it always does in those valleys, and it was just so sad, the sense of destruction and the sense of despair. There were lots of men who didn’t know what they were doing anymore. Lots of men who just didn’t know what had happened. It was horrible. And the gig was great and everyone enjoyed it, but it was still just so sad. It was the next morning that Andy came through and said, “I’m leaving the band, Pen,” and I didn’t react because I thought,“Fine, I completely understand.” So he sort of initiated what I think would’ve inevitably happened anyway. It was 1984 and we had said we were going to end then, which is what the countdown was all about in our catalog numbers. We’d said everything that was to be said in that context, fucking hell. The fact that it’s still just as pertinent today is indication that nothing’s changed. You can’t say more than what we’ve said, really, except possibly offering a few answers. But you know, I’m still looking for them. And they’re certainly not ones that will be found in the context of punk rock. I think within the context of punk rock we did everything we possibly could.

We’d been doing it since 1977. It had been all those years, nonstop. We lived at Dial House, the doors were always open, and who we were onstage wasn’t any different from who we were in life. It wasn’t like we could come off tour and have a week’s holiday. We were doing it all ourselves and running the other label, Corpus Christi. Pen was always in the studio; I was doing vocals with Conflict or something like that and writing songs for other people. And it wasn’t like a nine-to-five job. It went on and on forever. When Margaret Thatcher came in, it all went up a notch. It was endless. Looking at horrible images, living in a horrible time, dealing with things like the Falklands War, the miners’ strikes, unemployment. It was a horrible time. There was violence at gigs; I was wearing black clothes all the time. I got fed up. If I went out for a drink there was an unspoken responsibility I always felt that if I went and got drunk I couldn’t show it. If I fell over in the gutter it wasn’t just me falling over in the gutter, it was Crass. So there was this responsibility to not fuck it up.

A lot of “punk” was being proud of falling in the gutter. People would pretend to do it even if they weren’t drunk. What made Crass different?
Well, we thought that the message was important enough to make people come and listen and buy the records. We couldn’t shit all over that by being idiots in the pub afterward.

So it was anti everything that rock ’n’ roll stood for.
Yeah. I never got all that. I have been around people who should know better. I mean, throwing a TV out the window, nothing new. I have seen people throw food around, and that really annoys me. I mean, someone has taken the time to cook the stuff. I have seen people onstage giving it all large about “nonviolence,” and the next minute they are in the street fighting with someone who comes from Manchester because they are from down south. Complete and utter bullshit. I have never been into that rock ’n’ roll image. Yeah, you get a bit of adulation; fair enough, I can deal with that. But the limousines and paparazzi and all that? You can stick it! Stick it as far as it can go. Bullshit! I have seen musicians who have so many people around them telling them they are great that in the end the idiots actually think they are and that they can tell people what to do.

Did that ever happen to anyone in Crass?
No. But it happened to a couple of close friends of mine. So, in that sense, for us it was never about being a part of a rock ’n’ roll band, though sometimes I did want some of the things associated with it. I wanted the blonde girls and the free drinks, which I never got. The only people I spoke to at gigs were spotty blokes in anoraks asking me about anarchy.

Haha. But that’s what you signed up for. Do you regret that?
I suppose sometimes it’s a little thing, I don’t know. It would have been fun for it to happen now and again. Regret it? Not really, we did what we did. As you said, that’s what I signed up for. It was a commitment; and my own fault, really. [...]

And now you’ve remastered all the albums and Gee’s done new artwork and Southern is going to release it, but that’s all caused a bit of a hullabaloo, right?
Yes, well, in the remastering I’ve been doing of the Crass material, I’ve incorporated stuff which is otherwise only available as bootleg. And why is this stuff only available otherwise in bootleg? It’s because we never bothered to do it ourselves. We’re to blame, not the bootleggers. So what we’ve done now is to sort of reclaim that, give really good sound to it, as good as we can, and then put it out so that if people want our version of it they can buy it. The bootlegs will probably still be there.

I discussed the plan to remaster everything with John in the year that he was ill. I was visiting him once a week or so. We talked a lot, obviously, about the future and that. We fantasized about going in to remaster the entire catalog, remaster a lot of my own works like Acts of Love, do new material, but I have to say that most of the time I knew it was a fantasy because it was quite obvious he wasn’t going to survive. When he died, Southern had a lot of trouble coping with it all and during that time I spent a lot of time worrying about what the fuck was going to happen to our material because with John there’d never been any formalities, nothing had ever been signed, who owned what, what owned who. There was nothing to go by. What I was really worried about was the receivers being called in. I thought, “Well, if Southern goes down, they’re going to go in and all the fucking stuff’s going to get nicked. I want to know what’s ours so we can have it.” I sort of made halfhearted attempts, but really the place was such a fucking mess that I thought, “OK, I’ll back off and let them sort whatever they need to sort out, and then we’ll go from there.” That coincided with trying to stop the house being taken over by a lot of property investors, so I got very embroiled in a big legal battle.

Who has the house now?
We do.

You nearly didn’t?
Yeah, you know, several times over. During the era of the band, we could have sat down and said, “Look, we don’t own this house. Why don’t we buy it?” We could easily have done it, but it never even occurred to us. Every time we got any money we were like,“Oh, we’ve got a grand! Let’s go ask those people down the road if they want to put out a fanzine!”

It was the same when we did fucking gigs, actually, which I’m not so pleased about. Like we’d go and do a gig, pick out a place somewhere, hand all the money over to people in need or charities or whatever, and then realize we hadn’t left enough money to buy supper that evening. We were that stupid, seriously. We didn’t look after ourselves. If we had looked after ourselves, the house would’ve been ours and Gee and I wouldn’t be living in what’s close to poverty most of the time. We’d have looked after it, but we didn’t, and that’s because we weren’t interested and we’re still not interested, so I’m not complaining, it’s just that’s a fact. [...]

I was a 35-year-old man when a 17-year-old boy turned up and wanted to form a band, and the band that he and I formed together denied him everything he should’ve had. He should’ve been fucking the groupies, snorting coke, and having a laugh. He never had a laugh; he never had a fucking adolescence. It was denied him by our hard line. I realize that now, I didn’t realize it at the time. I thought we were having fun, but Jesus what fun it was. I mean, I suppose I could get more fun out of it because my fun has always been more cerebral and intellectual, so for me some of the conflict that we created with the state and that sort of stuff was fun. But Steve wanted to be having proper fun, and I can completely understand that now. And also I can’t actually believe that he is so underappreciated. I think the guy was brilliant, among the best of the punk voices.

Why do you think Pete is so opposed to the rereleases?
When the band broke up and we no longer had that common ground, it increasingly became obvious that there were distinct differences between the various members. That didn’t rest well, and so certain conflicts started developing in the house. Notably I would say between those who didn’t see the folding of the band as a collapse of security, the individuals who were secure in their own being and quite happily got on with whatever it was they might be doing or not doing, whereas another part of the band was worried, like: “Where’s the future now? Our security has suddenly been taken from beneath our feet.” I think that was the root of the conflict, but it became expressed in lifestyle arguments. I created this house as a center for anything anyone wanted to do with it, in a way. It wasn’t for me to define, it wasn’t for me to judge, it wasn’t… I’d found the house, I was quite happy to finance it, and everyone could do what they wanted within certain parameters. I’ve since been accused of standing back when I should’ve helped a situation. So the objection that Peter’s making, by his own admittance, is that I would not give support to his criticisms, some of which were probably just, but in large number were bloody infantile or impractical.

Such as?
Well, one infantile one was to not recognize a natural authority. A natural authority is one that produces 65 percent of the material that you’re making a living from. Not for their own ends, but for a genuine belief that there’s a shared purpose here, which is why I wrote all those Crass songs. I don’t take kindly to someone turning around and being critical of that authority when they’re not directly benefiting in the way they want to directly benefit, while at the same time benefiting in all sorts of ways in which they continue to benefit. I don’t think that’s graceful. I think it was infantile to feel that one could change a situation by stamping your foot and being rude. It’s not how to do it. I’m willing to sit and listen if someone is willing to sit and talk, but I’m not willing to be insulted by anyone. I don’t think it’s very graceful of people not to acknowledge that; to live somewhere for seven years, rent free, for fuck all, to use every little iota of space which could’ve been mine in a selfish way, and then to make a big cacophony about it all. [...]

There’s no question that during the period that we lived 15 people in the house with 25 cats there was unbelievable accord. Obviously there were occasional rows about something, but they were very, very rare and we managed somehow. We couldn’t have done what we’d done otherwise. However many albums, all of the stuff, it ran like a machine. We did it at the cost of our emotional lives, and we were very good at it. But when it all ended the emotional baggage wasn’t properly dug out from all the dark holes around the house and dealt with by us. We should have deprogrammed, but we didn’t. We deprogrammed in our own slow way and within that a lot of bitterness formed. [...]

No contracts were ever signed.
There’s no contract, there’s no written anything in the history of Crass and Southern, and there never was between any of the bands that Crass recorded. It was done on trust or it was not done at all. And in fairness to John, I think that was a principle he kept on Corpus Christi. If Pete wants to play the law, in the real sense of the word, it’s a very foolish line to take. If I were to play the law on a 65 percent ownership of the songs of Crass, I could be sitting with a swimming pool just close to us, rather than a cat bowl, and he would have to work a little bit harder at whatever part-time jobs he does now. That’s the truth of it. [...]

When was the last time you saw Pete?
I think it was the week John was dying. He knew he was going to die and I bumped into Pete at the studio, and I said, “Pete, we really need to talk,” so we went over to a café and sat down, and it was cordial enough. I said, “Look, John’s going to die, we need to sort out our material.” He said, “No we don’t, it’ll be all right.” He just wouldn’t even hear of it. [...]

To my mind, the dispute has its root in ideological differences that existed between the individual members of the band. In my understanding, Pete was fundamentally a socialist, and socialists like wagging their fingers at anyone except themselves. He claims to be an anarchist. Well, I claim to be an anarchist, but I’m fundamentally a libertarian and a fierce individualist. I think that does fit into an arena of anarchistic thought. I certainly draw a line at all this stupid anarchistic organization of industry and that sort of stuff, because I’m just not interested. If people want to do that, then I’m not going to criticize them. But frankly, it’s not my thing. My thing is rising with the angels and flying in the sky.

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OUTLAW CHRISTIANITY! DEATH TO ALL CHRISTIANS!

The above does not reflect the intention of OVO, and in fact stands opposite to it. The above is provided to feed the presuppositions of those who will not actually read this issue of OVO. Any review of this issue that quotes the words above is likely to have been written by someone who never read beyond them to learn what OVO actually states. This issue of OVO has a purpose, but the likelihood that it will be misrepresented is great enough that a clear statement of what the purpose is not is in order.

OVO does not advocate the criminalization of Christianity. Existing criminal law suffices to address what is harmful, and law is among the least appropriate means of addressing what is merely mistaken. Christians deserve equal sanction by the law, and voluntary and informed activities among consenting adults (including religion) should not be outlawed.
OVO does not advocate the murder of Christians except in self-defense. Because of the potential for legal error, capital punishment is immoral in all cases. War and murder are immoral in all cases except in self-defense. Except in self-defense, it is always immoral to kill (including killing Christians).

OVO does not advocate the replacement of the Christian God with another God, a Goddess, a pantheon of deities, nature worship, or similar substitution. OVO does not advocate worship, be it of the Christian God or any other. To any reader who uses OVO to build up their own superstition: your faith is equally contemptible.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because it does not understand it. Many years research went into this issue, and along the way misunderstandings about Christianity (whether in its favor or against it) were abandoned. OVO criticizes Christianity not because it does not understand it, but because it is worthy of criticism.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because the editor had a traumatic experience with Christianity. The editor had a generally positive experience with Christianity while growing up and has Christian friends today. It is a silent admission of defeat that Christians use this psychological, secular explanation for why someone might criticize their superstition. The editor came to reject Christianity the old fashioned way: by reading the Bible.

OVO is not critical of Christianity because the editor is possessed by Satan, demons or evil spirits. Such ghosts have never existed.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because it is a socialist publication. OVO is not a socialist publication.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because Christianity is false. Christianity is false, but that is not in itself sufficient reason to advocate that it wither away. There are many non-fiction books, films, plays, poems and recordings that are also false but serve to inspire humanity. But these false stories do not claim to be true, are not taught to impressionable children as true, and are not used to support legislation that meddles in the affairs of non-Christians. No one is arguing that the epics of Homer be taught as history; no one is legislating that Aesop’s fables be posted in courtrooms. These stories, though false, serve to inspire those who seek them out and are rightly preserved. It is the secular power of Christianity that is the problem, not merely its falsehood. Christianity does not attempt to identify and lessen its falsehoods: it revels in them as ‘tests of faith.’ Christianity is holding back science and art, culture and philosophy, tools that actually can and actually have improved humanity’s lot in an indifferent Universe.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because it is a good religion perverted to bad ends. It is much more the case that a few good people (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, perhaps) have perverted the bad religion of Christianity to good ends. All the good done in the name of Christianity could and does occur through entirely secular means. What remains distinctly Christian if such duplication of labor is removed? Threats of eternal damnation, denial of the pleasures and wonders of this short life, confusion and deception. When Christianity has supported individual rights it has done so only after a ‘revelation’ that (a) goes against its own history and (b) miraculously is in harmony with contemporary public opinion. For example, many Christians opposed slavery in the United States; but many more supported slavery and did so for much longer. Even today the Bible contains many passages supporting slavery and not one passage condemning it. Christianity is a slave religion, a misogynist religion, a queer-killing religion, a nonsense religion, but good people keep twisting their bad faith to good ends. Wouldn’t it be better to just do good deeds without wasted efforts to placate an invisible monster that lives in the sky?

OVO does not criticize Christianity to criticize individual Christians. It is often the case that an attack on a person’s unconsidered beliefs is perceived as an attack on their person. If a person’s beliefs are profoundly unconsidered, to merely state that one holds differing beliefs is perceived as an attack. For example, Christians who see other superstitions get equal time in the eyes of the law sometimes complain that their freedom of religion is under attack. Those who hold considered beliefs are secure when challenged and (hopefully) willing to admit error. Those who hold unconsidered beliefs, who repeat what they have been told without deliberation, are more likely to confuse who they are with what they believe. Christianity, like all religions, encourages strong belief but also encourages a lack of consideration. Posturing, bullying and stubbornness are substitutes for consideration of belief among most Christians.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because its claims contradict the evidence of our senses, science, history, archeology, astronomy, mathematics, common sense and the like. It is true that Christianity is incompatible with all of these, but science progresses by way of challenges to all our claims. If Christianity challenges the evidence of our senses, all the better: let the challenges be considered and considered again. If the Bible contradicts science, science can be tested to see if the Bible has a better explanation for reality. Where the Bible holds true, the Bible holds true. Where the Bible is found to be false, it should either be re-written or re-classified as folk tales. Resolving contradictions between the Bible and the evidence of our senses can be of value to us all, and so the contradictions between the Bible and the evidence of our senses are not in themselves why the Bible should be criticized. Internal contradictions in the Bible, and holding on to falsehood when falsehood has been identified, are worthy of the greatest of criticisms.

OVO does not criticize Christianity as an argument for atheism. The editor is preparing an argument for atheism that is distinct from this argument against Christianity.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because Jesus Christ was a good person whose followers have gone astray, or because we do not have the secret teachings of Jesus, or because Jesus was a complex person with both good and bad qualities. Jesus never existed.

In 1991, the editor published A Call to Heresy on a BBS in Knoxville, Tennessee USA. The document found its way onto BBS’ around the world as well as other formats, including an Internet domain in Hong Kong and a CD-ROM of public domain texts published by Palm Computers. Various editions of the text can be found on the Internet today. Some of the research done for that text has found a new home here in OVO 16 AntiChrist.

OVO criticizes the Bible. Some Christians say that it is an error to overly attend to what the Bible says, and one should rely on the Bible as inspiration rather than fact. But the Bible itself makes claims of perfection, and so taking it at its word in claims of perfection are as justified as any other perspective; perhaps more justified than some ‘inspired’ interpretations. If any interpretation of the Bible is as good as any other, then Christians in no way can distance themselves from the worst among them. Having failed to amend the contradictions, atrocities and absurdities in the Bible with over two thousand years to do so, it is reasonable to conclude that the Bible is considered factual among Christians. Some Christians (called Dominionists or Fundamentalists or Conservatives or the Christian Right) are explicit in their claim that the Bible is factual, while the rest hold it to be factual but requiring ‘interpretation’ (often by way of asking the reader to simply ignore parts of the Bible).

But this issue of OVO does not limit itself to criticisms of the Bible. The Roman Catholic Church claims a history pre-dating the Bible. Martin Luther, founder of Protestant Christianity, wrote inspired texts. The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints and the Watchtower Society claim to have Christian revelations in modern times. All of these Christians are well deserving of criticism and contempt.

There are a set number of responses offered by Christians when confronted with their own beliefs. The first and most common is to be told that these Bible verses have been taken out of context. It is claimed that the verses surrounding these quotes give them a meaning other than their apparent meaning. If this is the case it will be easy to demonstrate; full citations for each quote are given throughout. The reader is encouraged to read the Bible. There is no more sure path to rejecting Christianity than understanding it. Some claim that the contexts of the times change how we should understand the Bible. But does the Bible say it is relevant only until the time of Job (the last time God speaks directly to humanity), or does it claim to be relevant to all times? Some claim that one translation of the Bible offers a more accurate account than another, but existing fragmentary early Christian texts contain their own contradictions, atrocities and absurdities.

The second common reply made by Christians when confronted with their own beliefs is that the Bible, God, Jesus and the rest are not to be understood by reason in the way math or science is. Christianity is to be understood by faith, by the heart, by the spirit, by the soul. Therefore any apparent contradictions, atrocities or absurdities should be ignored because those are all ‘reason’ and not ‘faith.’ But there is no ‘alternative to reason’ as faith is said to be. One can hope, one can wish, one can pretend and ignore, one can scream or run away or kill one’s critics, but none of these are alternatives to reason. Even if there were an alternative to reason, how is the ‘feeling’ that Christianity is true (and all other religions false) different from the ‘feeling’ that Islam is true (and all other religions are false)? Why is it that Christian ‘feelings’ are so regional – does God not inspire such ‘feelings’ everywhere equally? Why don’t children have that ‘feeling’ until an adult tells them to say they do, and why do adults spend so much effort making sure that ‘feeling’ is planted in children?

All religions claim to be the only true religion. Even the ecumenical religions claim to be the only true religion, by claiming that the non-ecumenical religions are false. But since all religions contradict each other at most only one can be the only true religion. Since all religions by definition put themselves outside what can be demonstrated as true, it would be unjust to establish any religion as secular law because the likelihood of error would be too great. Suppose Mithrism became the law of the United States when actually it was Ah Pook that was the real living God? Those countries that have a legal assumption of atheism serve freedom the most. At times this has been the case in the United States, where OVO originates. Christianity threatens the legal presupposition of atheism in the USA, necessitating this issue of OVO. Christianity is the superstition behind the US support of Israel, the war in Iraq, lack of access to Plan B and a vaccine for two strains of cancer-causing HPV, the removal of science from public education, the ongoing imprisonment of the West Memphis Three (among others), blue laws, laws forbidding atheists from holding elected office and more. Reform from within should occur in Christianity. Civil discourse should occur between Christians and non-Christians. But should Christianity elect to ignore the opportunities of positive reinforcement, let it learn the sting of negative reinforcement. OVO is not reforming Christianity from within, nor is it a civil discourse. It is an attack – using only Christianity’s own beliefs as weapons. When Mithrism or the faithful of Ah Pook establish their superstition as law in the USA, they will be equally worthy of criticism. Readers in countries where Islam or Judaism are the majority superstition are encouraged to make similar efforts.

This issue of OVO advocates the withering away of Christianity through reason and scorn. Reason alone withers Christianity to a hostile party guest that has long overstayed his welcome; scorn provide us with laughter and satisfaction as we show him to the door. Perhaps reason alone, or reason and compassion, might be a more noble endeavor. But any belief that cannot withstand a little mockery is perhaps not worth holding in the first place.

Subject religious organizations to the same requirements as secular non-profit organizations: demonstrate they perform a quantifiable public good to receive tax-exempt status. Do not donate any funds, labor or resources to Christian organizations: there are secular equivalents to any Christian organization for those who seek to aid others. Do not vote for politicians who make their Christianity a part of their platform. Oppose ‘faith based’ funding and theocratic laws. Learn more about Christianity than the Christians themselves. Confront Christians with their own claims and history.

OVO is fortunate to originate in the United States, where Christianity and other superstitions may be legally practiced and criticized. The United Kingdom, Holland, Sweden, Italy, Turkey, Norway, Canada and other countries forbid criticism of religion as a form of ‘hate crime,’ while China, North Korea and other countries forbid religion as a form of ‘thought crime.’ In the United States religion may be both practiced and criticized – for now. If Christianity continues to become the state religion of the United States, this may not be the case much longer.

OVO is a tool kit to disabuse the reader of Christianity.

(from OVO 16 ANTICHRIST January 2006)

Why do the results achieved by a conspiracy as a rule differ widely from the results aimed at? Because this is what usually happens in social life, conspiracy or no conspiracy. And this remark gives us an opportunity to formulate the main task of the theoretical social sciences. It is to trace the unintended social repercussions of intentional human actions. I may give a simple example. If a man wishes urgently to buy a house in a certain district, we can safely assume that he does not wish to raise the market price of houses in that district. But the very fact that he appears on the market as a buyer will tend to raise market prices. And analogous remarks hold for the seller. Or to take an example from a very different field, if a man decides to insure his life, he is unlikely to have the intention of encouraging other people to invest their money in insurance shares. But he will do so nevertheless.

We see here clearly that not all consequences of our actions are intended consequences; and accordingly, that the conspiracy theory of society cannot be true because it amounts to the assertion that all events, even those which at first sight do not seem to be intended by anybody, are the intended results of the actions of people who are interested in these results.

It should be mentioned in this connection that Karl Marx himself was one of the first to emphasize the importance, for the social sciences, of these unintended consequences. In his more mature utterances, he says that we are all caught in the net of the social system. The capitalist is not a demoniac conspirator, but a man who is forced by circumstances to act as he does; he is no more responsible for the state of affairs than is the proletarian.

This view of Marx’s has been abandoned – perhaps for propagandist reasons, perhaps because people did not understand it – and a Vulgar Marxist Conspiracy theory has very largely replaced it. It is a come-down – the come-down from Marx to Goebbels. But it is clear that the adoption of the conspiracy theory can hardly be avoided by those who believe that they know how to make heaven on earth. The only explanation for their failure to produce this heaven is the malevolence of the devil who has a vested interest in hell.

First published in the Library of the10th International Congress of Philosophy, 1948. From Conjectures and Refutations. Routledge 1989

I was in my late twenties when I stopped identifying myself as a liberal. When evidence started mounting that shot machine-gun holes through the block of liberal cheese I’d purchased at the local liberal co-op, I concluded that liberalism was not a logically consistent belief system.

But it wasn’t only liberal illogic that caused me to dump the whole program – much of it had to do with gradual changes in liberal attitudes and behavior. I’m old enough to remember when liberals were free-speech absolutists and conservatives tended to be the book-burners. But historical forces can blur, erase, and often invert party lines.

Over the years, I watched as liberals slowly became the group most likely to flat-out refuse discussing certain topics and answering certain questions, their purportedly “open” minds snapping shut like a giant clam. They became the group most likely to try and silence their opponents by shouting them down, defaming them, assaulting them, and even urging legislation to ban the use and expression of certain terms and sentiments. They became the group most disposed toward emotional appeals, double standards, wishful thinking, and wretchedly malodorous sanctimony.

Up through my teens and twenties, I had considered liberals to be the most open-minded and free-thinking group in America, only to watch them morph into the most ideologically rigid pack of true believers I’d ever seen. With modern American liberalism, it’s as if their cute, multicolored, and sincerely curious little 1960s caterpillar had blossomed into a hardened grey butterfly fossil. Liberalism had become an emotion-driven folk religion that somehow had convinced itself science and logic were on its side.

These days, I suppose I’d rather hang out with conservatives than liberals, if only for the fact that I offend conservatives less, and it’s a drag to hang out with people who are always getting offended.

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President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917.  The United States joined World War One.  117,465 soldiers and civilians died from the United States alone.  Thousands upon thousands came home disabled.  Samuel Gompers was the founder and a president of the American Federation of Labor.  He was a supporter of WWI and of President Wilson.  Gompers influenced the Wilson administration to keep union members out of the draft pool and, at the same time, increase the pay of civilian union members.  The rate of pay for those who stayed home as union members compared to those who served in the military (sometimes involuntarily) was profound. Those who stayed home had opportunities in business and education that those who served were denied.

On 29 May 1924 Congress passed the Adjusted Service Certificate Law.  This law compensated WWI veterans for opportunities missed while serving in the military at the rate of $1.00 per day served and $1.25 per day served overseas.  The pay would be held to gather interest for twenty years.  Vets could borrow against their pay at interest, and many desperate vets did so at a great loss.  If a veteran died in the mean time, the full amount would be paid to their survivors and so it became known as the Tombstone Bonus.  The Wilson administration also wanted to replace disabled veterans benefits with an optional insurance policy to be paid by the soldier himself.  While Congress passed the Adjusted Service Certificate Law it was voted down by the Senate.  In 1929, Herbert Hoover became President and the Great Depression began.  Many disabled veterans were unable to perform the jobs they returned to.  Many veterans had already been out of work for eight years and were not content with waiting twenty more to be paid for work done long ago.

On 22 January 1932, President Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation as a means to address the Great Depression.  Between $1.5 and 2 billion dollars were given to banks and businesses.  Will Rogers described the scene: “You can’t get a room in Washington.  Every hotel is jammed to the doors with bankers from all over America to get their ‘hand out’ from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.  [The bankers] have the honor of being the first group to go on the ‘dole’ in America.”

Among the discontent not getting a hand out was Sergeant Walter W. Waters.  Walters was born in Burns, Oregon in 1898.  He served in the Idaho National Guard in 1910 against Francisco “Pancho” Villa.  In 1917 he served in the Oregon National Guard, shipping to France on Christmas Eve to fight in World War I.  He received an honorable discharge in 1919.  In 1925 he moved to Washington and then Portland, Oregon looking for work.  He picked fruit and worked in a cannery.  Wherever he went he listened to veterans unable to find work who were also not being paid for services rendered in war.  He met many other veterans who had lost their jobs and savings after the war.  Congress did pass a law allowing for a one-time half-payment borrowing (with interest until repayment) of the Adjusted Service Certificate.  Walters noted that special interest lobbyists got results in Washington, and conceived of a lobby of veterans to encourage the United States Government to deliver the payment the veterans were due.

On 11 March 1932 Waters called for a march on Washington and 250-300 men from Portland joined him.  They marched behind a banner reading “Portland Bonus March – On to Washington.” The veterans and their families had popular support and the support of some authorities.  A Portland railroad offered the use of dung-stained cattle cars to transport the Bonus Army.  The Indiana National Guard and the Pennsylvania National Guard used military vehicles to transport the Bonus Army.  Toll bridge operators let the Bonus Army march silently across bridges without pay, and police officers refused to arrest Bonus Army veterans for trespassing.  Thousands joined the Bonus Army as it marched towards Washington with Sergent Waters as their elected leader.  Waters forbade drinking, panhandling, and ‘anti-government’ or ‘radical’ talk.

Tombstone Bonus protest, Portland Oregon USA August 1932. SW 4th and Main Street facing west.

When Waters and his Bonus Army arrived in late May 1932 they were twenty thousand strong.  The veterans and their families camped in buildings abandoned during the Great Depression and in giant shantytowns. Communists showed up at the shantytowns and agitated for their cause among the veterans.  In reply, Bonus Army veterans seized the communists, held trials and sentenced them to fifteen lashes.  More than two hundred communists were expelled from the Bonus Army camps.  But supporters who were not communists showed up at the shantytown with material support.  Among them were eight German soldiers, each having fought against US soldiers, each wounded twice or more in World War I, all naturalized citizens and bearing a total of eight tons of food and supplies for the Bonus Army.

On 29 June the US Government announced it would not meet the demands of the Bonus Army and that the Bonus Army had to leave by 15 July.  By 5 July there was no food remaining.  On 7 July congress offered $10,000 to the Bonus Army if it would simply leave Washington DC.  Some did take the money and leave, but many more took the money and stayed while other veterans joined for the first time.  One thousand more veterans and their families had joined the Bonus Army in Washington and more were on their way.  On 17 July 1932 Congress voted down the bonus and then adjourned.  President Hoover went on a vacation.

Theodore Roosevelt had described Major General Smedley Butler as the ‘ideal soldier.’  At the time of his death, Butler was the most decorated Marine in U. S. history.  But he had also spoken disparagingly of Benito Mussolini in Italy, for which he was reprimanded and threatened with court marshal.  He retired in protest in 1931. Butler addressed the Bonus Army on 19 July 1932.  “Men, I ran for the Senate in Pennsylvania on a bonus ticket.  I got the hell beaten out of me.  But I haven’t changed my mind a damned bit.  I’m here because I’ve been a soldier for thirty-five years and I can’t resist the temptation to be among soldiers.  Hang together and stick it out till the gates of Hell freeze over; if you don’t, you’re no damn good.  Remember, by God, you didn’t win the war for a select class of a few financiers and high binders.  Don’t break any laws and allow people to say bad things about you.  If you slip over into lawlessness of any kind you will lose the sympathy of 120 million people in this nation.”

Walter W. Waters in Washington DC 1932

Waters, meanwhile, announced the formation of ‘shock troops’ within the Bonus Army to be called the Khaki Shirts.  “Inevitably such an organization brings up comparisons with the Facisti of Italy and the NAZI of Germany.  For five years Hitler was lampooned and derided, but today he controls Germany.  Mussolini, before the war, was a tramp printer driven from Italy because of his political views.  But today he is a world figure.  The Khaki Shirts, however, would be essentially American.”  Waters demanded “complete dictatorial powers” of the Bonus Army.  Like many of Waters’ demands, this did not come to pass.

Communists tried once more to force a confrontation with the US Government on 20 and 25 July by rushing the White House.  The Government responded by ordering Waters to evacuate several of the Bonus Army camps.  Waters agreed to leave with the promise the Bonus Army could leave in stages and would not be forced by fellow soldiers or police to do so.  Waters told his followers: “When you start defying the federal government, which don’t take any consideration of the human element, you’re going to get licked.  We can’t lick the United States Government, but when the United States troops are called to escort me out, I’m going out.”  After making this speech, Waters was informed that all of the Bonus Army needed to leave Washington immediately.  “There you are!  You’re double crossed!  I’m double crossed!”  The Bonus Army ceased all evacuation.

On 28 July 1932 United States soldiers attack United States veterans.  The charge against the Bonus Army was led by future General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, future President Dwight Eisenhower and future General of the Army George Patton.  Thousands of civil servants lines the streets to honor the Bonus Army, but they were also attacked.  MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton were supported by Washington police.

Police attack the Bonus Army 1932.

Four hundred infantry from the the 12th Infantry Regiment and two hundred cavalry from the 3rd Cavalry Regiment mobilized against the Bonus Army.  The infantry attacked with sabers, bayonets and tear gas.  Several Army trucks with machine guns and five or six tanks also moved against the veterans.

US Tanks mobilize against US veterans in Washington DC 1932.

In the streets of Washington DC, US soldier fought US soldier. Two veterans were shot.  The shantytowns were burned to the ground, including the American flags of the veterans and all the worldly possessions of their families.

Bonus Army shantytown burning in front of Capital Building 1932.

Bonus Army shantytown burning in front of Washington Monument 1932.

When the fighting started, the Communists fled.  Bonus Army soldiers remained, retaliating with brickbats and fists but never firing a shot nor returning the bayonet or saber attacks.

President Hoover later described the attack on the Bonus Army in this way: “A challenge to the authority of the United States Government has been met, swiftly and firmly. After months of patient indulgence, the Government met overt lawlessness as it always must be met if the cherished processes of self-government are to be preserved. We cannot tolerate the abuse of Constitutional rights by those who would destroy all government, no matter who they may be. Government cannot be coerced by mob rule.”  Hoover’s Attorney general William D. Mitchell described the Bonus Army as “the largest aggregation of criminals that had ever assembled in the city at one time.  A very much larger proportion of the Bonus Army than was realized at the time consisted of ex-convicts,  persons with criminal records, radicals and non-servicemen.”  MacArthur later described the attack on the Bonus Army in this way: “If there was one man in that group today who is a veteran, it would surprise me.  The mob down Pennsylvania Avenue looked bad.  They were animated by the spirit of revolution.  The gentleness and consideration with which they had been treated had been mistaken by them as weakness and they had come to the conclusion that they were about to take over the government in an arbitrary way or by indirect methods.”  The day after the eviction, a veteran approached Patton.  When Patton saw the veteran he said “Sergent, I do not know this man.  Take him away, and under no circumstances permit him to return!”  When the man left, Patton said this: “That man was my orderly during the war.  When I was wounded, he dragged me from a shell hole under fire.  I got him a decoration for it.  Since the war, my mother and I have more than supported him.  We have given him money.  We have set him up in business several times.  Can you imagine the headlines if the papers got wind of our meeting here this morning?  Of course, we’ll take care of him anyway.”

The Bonus Army veterans and their families scattered.  Some returned to their home states, whether or not they had a home there.  Some stayed in or near Washington.  The Bonus Army marched again, some of the men in the Bonus Army marched or petitioned under other names, but their back had been broken.

Hoover was not re-elected.  Franklin D. Roosevelt became the next President of the United States.  Roosevelt established the Civil Conservation Corps, the G. I. Bill, the Works Progress Administration and in 1936 he paid the bonus.  On average, $583 per soldier.

In 1930 the most prosperous nations in history were seized by widespread poverty.  War was blossoming around the globe.  At the same time, post-revolutionary Russia was rapidly evolving into a superpower.  There was a sense that a new beginning was both necessary and possible.  The economy could no longer be left to chance, and the downtrodden could no longer be left to their own devices.  Three nations – Germany, Italy and the United States – initiated ‘third way’ proposals that were not quite capitalism and not quite socialism.  The Khaki Shirts founded (then abandoned) by Waters had branches in Washington and Philadelphia.  Sir Oswald Mosley of England made a proposal but did not have the opportunity to implement it.  Roosevelt’s solution in the United States was called the New Deal.  Roosevelt and Mosley were friends, enjoying cruises and a playful vacation in Florida.

Cinny Mosley, Franklin Roosevelt and Oswald Mosley.

Bonus Army veterans had a different experience in Florida.  Roosevelt sent them to Florida to do construction work during hurricane season.  On 29 August 1935 the Labor Day Hurricane destroyed the area and killed hundreds of veterans.  Hurricane warnings had gone out all over the state but had been specifically withheld from the veterans camps.  The blowing sand had caused such abrasion to their bodies that many could not be identified.  Their bodies were anonymously burned en mass.

The New Deal did bring relief to many desperate Americans.  At the same time, the New Deal increased the burdens of the wealthy in America.  Some of the wealthy decided to follow the Bonus Army example and have a private army march on Washington.  This time, however, the private army would seize the city and install a new leader. In the Summer of 1933 General Smedley Butler was approached by Gerald MacGuire.  MacGuire said veterans should be paid in a gold-backed currency.  He also said he represented Robert Sterling Clark (heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune) and Grayson Murphy (a wealthy stockbroker).  MacGuire’s group, the American Liberty League, enjoyed the patronage of the Du Pont companies and other wealthy supporters.  They saw soldiers trusted Butler, and so they wanted Butler to lead a private army of 500,000 men to take over Washington DC.  Butler rejected the offer, saying “If you get those 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick the hell out of you, and we will have a real war right at home.”  Butler then warned the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars about the coup.  National Commander James E. Van Zandt replied that he had also been approached by MacGuire.  Butler went to Congress and reported the Business Plot, who investigated his claims.  MacGuire denied Bulter’s claims.  Congress found Butler’s claims largely credible, and no further action was taken.  Butler went on to write the book War is a Racket.

In 1783, the Continental Army at Newburgh, New York realized that they not only had not been paid in years but also that they would not be paid what they had been promised by the new United States Government.  The rate of pay for those who did not fight compared to those who served in the military was profound. Those who stayed home had opportunities in business and education that those who served were denied.  Some veterans of the Continental Army sent representatives to Congress demanding pay and compensation for missed opportunities.  Other Continental Army veterans surrounded the State House.  General George Washington advised them not to slip over into lawlessness.  The politicians left by back doors and under guard. The new United States Army then forcibly expelled the Continental Army from the area.  The expulsion of the “Newburgh Conspiracy” from Washington helped form the Posse Comitatus Act. The Posse Comitatus Act forbids the use of the military for police work except in the city of Washington DC.  This exception was created to expel the Continental Army and it was used again to expel the Bonus Army.

In 2010 the most prosperous nations in history are seized by widespread poverty.  War is blossoming around the globe.  There is a sense that a new beginning is both necessary and possible.  The economy can no longer be left to chance, and the downtrodden can no longer be left to their own devices.  To that end, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has handed out nearly $800 billion dollars to banks and businesses.  There are an estimated 107,000 homeless veterans in the United States.  The Veterans Administration served 92,000 veterans in 2009, leaving over 100,000 veterans without care.  Payments allowing veterans to attend college are often late and college students are unable to complete their degrees.  Unemployment among veterans is two percent higher than civilians.  Two hundred thousand or more US soldiers will return from Iraq and Afghanistan looking for work while the US experiences a recession and scarcity of jobs.  So let’s all sing…

They used to tell me I was building a dream and so I followed the mob.
When there was earth to plow or guns to bear I was always there, right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream with peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad, now it’s done, brother can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower to the sun, brick and mortar and lime.
Once I built a tower, now it’s done, brother can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee, we looked swell, full of that yankee doodle de dum.
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell and I was the kid with the drum.
Say don’t you remember, they called me Al, it was Al all the time.
Say don’t you remember, I’m your pal, brother can you spare a dime?

- Brother Can You Spare a Dime? by E. Y. “Yip” Harburg and Jay Gorney, 1931

Video:
PBS: March of the Bonus Army via youtube [1][2][3] or purchase.
PBS: History Detectives Season 6, Episode 5. [video][transcript]
Bonus Army documentaries via youtube [1][2][3], sources unknown.
BBC 4: The Whitehouse Coup via youtube [1][2][3] or listen.
Graham Frye reads an excerpt from War is a Racket.
Library of Congress: Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen on 22 June 2005.

Books:
The Bonus Army.  Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen.  New York: Walker and Company 2004. [Paul Dickson] [Thomas B. Allen][New York Times][worldcat]
The Portland Red Guide.  Michael Munk.  Portland: Ooligan Press 2007. [Michael Munk][Ooligan Press]

In the modern world of controlled sexuality and rational mysticism, extremes in sensuality are basic tokens of interpersonal exchange. Visions of passion and desire that once produced states of unparalleled bliss appear bland and vapid. There is no longer any value in experiencing that which is directly obtainable. Eroticism has become a frontier whose boundaries must be expanded, and we have become explorers on this great sexual sea.

The need for increased sophistication in the methodologies of physical pleasure has led sensualists to carry out serious studies of sexual parameters (eg oriental traditions). These somewhat academic attempts at a polysexual historicity have been a great boon, providing us with a wide variety of exploratory devices (a toolkit for the backwoods ethno-eroticist). The easy accessibility of such inspirational devices in turn generated an entire body of modern folklore which has helped to make the various sexual undergrounds stronger, larger and more visible.

With the acceptance of the entire spectrum of sensual activities, it is only natural that the associated accessories enter the marketplace. Besides the commerce in the sensual items themselves, sensualist accoutrements have become increasingly important consumerist icons. The elemental nature of sexuality makes this association natural (soft tissue does indeed feel good). Virtually all products are associated with some sexual aspect and the particulars have only become more deviant.

By its very nature, the marketing of sensuality produces a valuation (price tags, sales, closeouts, seconds). In a free market, this also leads to a hierarchy of quality (you get what you pay for). The poor are forced to experience sensual pleasures with inferior products while the wealthy are able to choose from the gamut of sexual stimulants. Thus, different types or brands of sexual accessories have become identified with different socioeconomic classes and help to delineate the cultural hierarchy.

At the top of the sensual hierarchy lies the most sophisticated of sexual deviances.  Beautiful women, fiftyish, with snow white skin and ebony handled whips.  Tanned men with manicured hands holding platinum revolvers.  Coprophageous delights served in golden urns.  The smells of rotten offal kept in airtight crystal decanters.  Surgically altered individuals with all manor of appendages and self-lubricating orifices.  The gentrification of pain lies at the boundaries of sensual experience.  It presents a very appealing picture of physical pleasure that few can afford.

As sensuality becomes an increasingly open element of commerce its effect upon the definition of social classes will be more dramatic.  The disparities caused by the sensual hierarchy will become more dramatic.  Just as monetary socialism has helped to prevent economic stratification from causing cultural collapse, sensual socialism may be required to avert destruction of the social fabric.  It is only a matter of time before socialists or even communistic solutions to the problems of physical pleasure will have to be considered.

(from OVO 7 INFORMATION October 1989)

Plato was the theorist of an aristocratic form of absolute government. As the fundamental problem of political theory, he posed the following questions: ‘Who should rule? Who is to govern the state? The many, the mob, the masses, or the few, the elect, the elite?’

Once the question ‘Who should rule?’ is accepted as fundamental, then obviously there can be only one reasonable answer: not those who do not know, but those who do know, the sages; not the mob, but the few best. That is Plato’s theory of the rule by the best, of aristocracy.

It is somewhat odd that great theorists of democracy and great adversaries of this Platonic theory – such as Rousseau – adopted Plato’s statement of the problem instead of rejecting it as inadequate, for it is quite clear that the fundamental question in political theory is not the one Plato formulated. The question is not ‘Who should rule? or ‘Who is to have power? but ‘How much power should be granted to the government?’ or perhaps more precisely, ‘How can we develop our political institutions in  such a manner that even incompetent and dishonest rulers cannot do too much harm?’ In other words, the fundamental problem of political theory is the problem of checks and balances, of institutions by which political power, its arbitrariness and its abuse can be controlled and tamed.

I do not doubt that the kind of democracy in which we in the West believe is no more than a state in which power is in this sense, limited and controlled. For the kind of democracy in which we believe is by no means an ideal state; we know perfectly well that much happens that should not happen. It is childish to strive after ideals in politics, and any reasonable mature man in the West knows that ‘All political action consists in choosing  the lesser evil’ (to quote the Viennese poet Karl Kraus).

For us there are only two types of government: those in which the governed can get rid of their rulers without bloodshed, and those in which the governed can, if at all, get rid of their rulers only by bloodshed. The first of these types of government we call democracy, the second tyranny or dictatorship. But the names do not really matter here, only the facts do.

We in the West believe in democracy only in this sober sense: as the least evil form of government. This is also how the man described it who has done more than anyone to save democracy and the West: ‘Democracy is the worst form of government,’ Winston Churchill said once, ‘except of course all those other forms of government that have been tried from time to time.’

Thus we believe in democracy, but not because it is the rule of the people. Neither you nor I rule; on the contrary, both you and and I are being ruled, and sometimes more than we like. Yet we believe in democracy as the form of government which is compatible with peace and effective political opposition, and therefore with political freedom.

I have mentioned above the unfortunate fact that Plato’s misleading question ‘Who is to rule?’ was never clearly rejected by the philosophers of politics. Rousseau asked the same question, but give the opposite answer: ‘The will of the people shall rule – the will of the many, not of the few;’ a dangerous answer indeed, since it leads to the mythological deification of ‘The People’ and ‘The Will of the People.’ Marx too asks, quite in Plato’s vein: ‘Who shall rule, the capitalists or the proletarians?’ And he too gave the answer; ‘The many; not the few; the proletarians should rule, not the capitalists.’

Contrary to Rousseau and to Marx we see in the majority decision of a vote or of an election only a method of producing decision without bloodshed, and with the least possible restriction of freedom. Of course, majorities often arrive at mistaken decisions, and we must insist that minorities have rights and freedoms which no majority decision can overrule.

What I have said may support my suggestion that the fashionable terms ‘mass’, ‘elite’ and ‘uprising of the masses’ originate from the ideologies of Platonism and Marxism.

Just as Rousseau and Marx simply inverted the Platonic answer, so some opponents of Marx inverted the Marxist answer: they want to counteract the ‘revolt of the masses’ by a ‘revolt of the elite’, thereby reverting to the Platonic answer and the claim of the elite to rule. But this whole approach is mistaken. God save us from that anti-Marxism which simply inverts Marxism: we know it only too well; even Communism is no worse than the anti-Marxist ‘elite’ which ruled Italy, Germany and Japan and which it took a global war to remove.

Lecture in Zurich 1958 at invitation of Albert Hunold. From In Search of a Better World. Routledge 1984

For centuries Great Britain has served as a safe haven for refugees from political persecution. The reason Britain has been so attractive is its long tradition of political tolerance. This is history Britain ought to be proud of, even if it has been abused by people such as Karl Marx.  What made Britain unique was that the British public was tolerant of larger issues such as politics and religion while remaining decidedly intolerant of petty issues. The curtain-twitching disapproval of “alternative lifestyles” remained strong in Britain until the 60s generation rebelled against such moral sternness. While Britain in the 50s was a repressive society in many ways that many could not accept, just because Britain has a proud tradition of tolerance, it does not mean that intolerance does not have its own advantages.

To see what a society looks like when tolerance goes wild, observers only have to look at southern Europe or much of the third world. China shows what a socially tolerant society looks like. While China is not tolerant of political differences, the people are generally tolerant of behaviours that would not be acceptable in Britain. In China, smoking, talking loudly, using mobile phones in theatres or restaurants is perfectly normal behaviour. This is extended to a nearly complete indifference to public spaces and to other people that comes as a surprise to any newly arrived visitor to the People’s Republic. Driving in China is usually a shock even to those used to third world traffic as other drivers simply ignore anything not a direct danger to themselves.  As an example of the problems of excessive tolerance just compare the status of larger social issues such as crypto-science. While anyone in Britain who makes dubious claims for medical treatments can expect both the wrath of the authorities and public disapproval, in most of the rest of the world tolerance is extended to those claiming they can cure cancer or HIV with herbs.

In fact in China belief in the benefits of Chinese herbal medicines is extremely common, despite a noticeably lack of evidence to support such views. This extends up and down the social scale with the most educated Chinese often also being the most credulous towards such claims. Qian Xuesen, the American-educated founder of China’s rocket programme, for instance, was also a strong supporter of various Qigong groups, including Falun Gong before it was banned.  This tolerant attitude may well have played a part in China’s lack of an industrial revolution. For while British tolerance has not allowed the persecution of heretics in recent times, that has not been extended to their ideas. British scientists have inherited the Christian tradition of intolerance and that has driven technological progress. [...]

As the British have become more tolerant of petty transgressions it is no surprise that such behaviours have increased. Litter is much more common than it was 50 years ago, as is antisocial behaviour in general. However, this increasing tolerance extends from the housing estates to the Houses of Parliament. Behaviour that would have led to resignation half a century ago is now viewed with benign tolerance. Civil servants are not dismissed no matter how badly they manage public projects; politicians no longer resign no matter how badly they have behaved.

None of this is inevitable. Litter is not unavoidable and should not be tolerated. The waste of billions of pounds in badly designed IT projects is not a fact of nature but a blot on society we choose to accept rather than challenge. We can find our inner Inquisitor and we should express disapproval of behaviour that we do not need to tolerate. Britain can be the tidy, clean and safe place it was 50 years ago if only we, as a society, have the will to embrace intolerance for antisocial behaviour.

[Article continues.]

The Cold War was an attempt, using every means possible, by the United States and its allies in North America and Western Europe, along with other countries that had their own reasons for joining in, to prevent the expansion of Soviet power through military means or through other means, including the spread of the ideology of Communism. That Cold War began after World War II, even though from the earliest days of the Bolsheviks it had always been clear to some that Soviet Communism was inherently expansionist, totalitarian, and aggressive, and lasted until the time of Gorbachev, when the rulers of the Soviet Union conceded that on its own terms Communism had not delivered the goods, had failed. [...] Communism failed in the Soviet Union because it could not deliver. And instead of continuing to believe the stories that the stage of Communism had not yet been reached, and so it would be unfair and premature to judge Communism a failure, too many of those in the know, and in the Party itself, or close to those in the Party, realized that Communism was a political, economic, and moral disaster.

[...] Now the United States is the leader of a group of nations that are threatened in different ways by those employing different weapons, but animated by an ideology that in many respects, in its claim to regulate every area of life, may be called totalitarian, and that has hundreds of millions, indeed more than a billion, of claimed adherents. Those adherents control and dominate a large part of the world, and are moving aggressively, in every way they can, to make the rest of us, those who do not share that ideology, concede to their demands, and to make the world safe for the adherents of that ideology to work to remove all obstacles to its spread and then to its dominance. That ideology, with its Complete Explanation of the Universe (an explanation even more far-reaching than Communism, that limited itself to the sphere of economics relations and its natural epiphenomena) and its Total Regulation of Life, has a remarkable hold on the minds of its adherents. And unlike Communism, there is no one thing that Islam must deliver to prove itself. It is multidimensional and hydra-headed, and there is no one thing, no one failure, that would lead its adherents to question, much less abandon it.

[...] Along with Peace, the other great theme of Soviet propaganda was Colonialism, An End To. Since the main colonial powers were Great Britain and France, the most important allies of the United States, taking the side of all those seeking to be independent – ready or not, and no matter what the outcome – was a way to profitably exploit what was seen, too easily, as on-the-side-of-the-angels decolonialism. Furthermore, this was said to be the Side of History. The “winds of change” were blowing, said Harold Macmillan, and no one could stop it. It was not the Soviet Marxists who were the only determinists. Though a grouping of countries in Africa and Asia and Latin America became known as the Non-Aligned, those Non-Aligned, in solemn conclave assembled at Bandung or elsewhere, always seemed to pass resolutions against the West for its supposed machinations. But the machinations that counted were those of the Soviets and their collaborators, who manipulated these gatherings for their own ends. The Non-Aligned never seemed to worry about the Soviet Union, or about the new and unfamiliar kind of “colonialism” (therefore not recognized as such) that the Soviets practiced in Eastern Europe.

The Nonaligned Nations became, over time, what was called the Third World, and the playing off of the United States and the Soviet Union, or the invocation of the threat of now one, and now the other, allowed countries that were in fact always playing their own game to obtain aid, and then still more aid from the other side, in a bidding war for political affections. Unlike the economic aid given to the countries of Western Europe, countries that were part of the West, much of the economic aid given to countries outside that historic West was misused, or appropriated by local rulers, or spent on inappropriate projects. But this does not take away from the achievements of the original Marshall Plan, even as it should make one wary of invoking that Plan — as so many Muslim leaders, from Al-Jaafari (who preceded Al-Maliki) to Karzai, to Zardari, or their associates do. They fondly think they can inveigle still more money out of the by-now disabused Americans for a “Muslim Marshall Plan” that makes no sense, unless one really believes that “poverty” and “joblessness,” and not Islam itself, are the cause of Muslim economic backwardness and, especially, the cause of Muslim hostility to Infidels, including the Infidel Americans.

[...] The other part of the Cold War – the propaganda part that was fought – does not yet have an analogue in the war being fought, without a declaration of such a war (which is understandable) but even, alas, without a recognition of the nature of the war now being waged on us, but that many are still too tongue-tied or inhibited to discuss, even obliquely, metonymically. That propaganda during the Cold War was directed at two different audiences. The first was behind the Iron Curtain. To that audience, through Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and all sorts of publishing ventures, the American government provided material of many different kinds. It published émigré writers, and had those writers broadcast on Radio Liberty, or Radio Free Europe, to show that outside the confines of Communism, Russian and Polish and Czech and Bulgarian and other writers, even in their exile, had managed to continue their work, and some of that work was even about the miseries of totalitarianism. News stories about Western achievements were contrasted with stories about repeated failures – crop failures, technical failures, failures of every kind in the Communist world – were also beamed into the satellite nations and the Soviet Union. Special attention was given to those who had, like Arthur Koestler and others who contributed to “The God That Failed,” once been Communists, even fanatical Communists, but had managed to grasp the nature of the system and to fight their way out of it, and to become its most cogent because most knowledgeable critics.

And the other audience to which American and other Western propaganda was aimed, was those in the West who might have been most vulnerable to the siren-song of Communism, or Marxist-Leninism, or whatever it called itself. This audience included not only members of the Communist Parties in the Western world, but also those who, as members of left-leaning parties, were deemed in some cases insufficiently vigilant about Communist influence and Communist propaganda. It was understood that Soviet propaganda was clever, not clumsy, and that it would take an effort to counter it – one directed in the main by those who were advised by, or themselves had been, refugees from Soviet Communism, from the Soviet Union or from the Soviet-controlled nations.

Where is such a propaganda effort today? Who are the analogues of those refugees from Communism, from the world of Islam? And up till now, what has the American government done about disseminating, not behind some Iron Curtain, but simply by all the means now so widely available – radio, satellite television, the Internet, audiocassettes and videotapes – news about Islam’s failures, or the failures of states where Islam rules? How many Muslims have been told, again and again, about how much money the Muslim members of OPEC have taken in, and how little they have managed to do with it, save spend it on armaments, and luxury goods, and palaces, and every sort of decadence that goes far beyond anything the non-Islamic rich are known to routinely indulge in? How many Muslims have listened, in broadcasts from abroad, to economists discuss the economic performance of Muslim states, compared to non-Muslim states, and discussions of the reasons for this – the inshallah-fatalism, and the hatred of bid’a (innovation)? How many programs do you know of where the moral failures of Islam are discussed, discussed regularly, not intermittently, by the likes of Wafa Sultan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali?

[Article continues.]

I have a proposal for Western women – the American variety in particular. Given that you have a “wealth of life” relative to men in your societies and to women in less-developed countries, perhaps you should redistribute some of that longevity. Cut a couple years off of your lives so that a woman in Sierra Leone or Bhutan can live a few more. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released a study showing that women around the world are in need of health care. Numerous articles and blog posts have been written decrying the shameful state of women’s health. This is a problem because women tend to live longer than men in regular conditions; a reversal of that trend is cause for action. Granted, many female deaths are the result of male aggression towards women; steps should be made to prevent these atrocities. Regardless, the WHO and feminists seek to shore up medical care differences despite seemingly gynocentric health coverage. My recommendation seeks to minimize the gap strictly between health care opportunities in developed and under-developed countries. [...]

Assuming those underdeveloped nations have increasing marginal returns to health care expenditures vis a vis Western society (an extra dollar spent on health care for women of underdeveloped nations creates more “health” and adds more benefit than an extra dollar spent on healthier Western women), wouldn’t it make sense – from an egalitarian and utilitarian viewpoint – to redistribute health care overseas? I mean, its only right. So I say unto you, Western women, stop hoarding all of the breast exams, PAP smears, disease treatments, birth control devices, and tampons. After all, you only came by those luxuries by luck or by birth. Let’s start a drive. Next year, instead of getting your annual breast exam, donate the money to the Red Cross or some other international health organization with the designation that it pay for a breast exam for a less fortunate woman in another country. Encourage American doctors’ offices to send their sonogram machines to remote parts of Africa telling its patients that, despite the danger created for their child, African mothers and children will have better access to health care.

Article continues.

I think that the people who approach the social sciences with a ready-made conspiracy theory [...] deny themselves the possibility of ever understanding what the task of the social sciences is, for they assume that we can explain practically everything in society by asking who wanted it, whereas the real task of the social sciences is to explain those things which nobody wants – such as, for example, a war, or a depression. (Lenin’s revolution, and especially Hitler’s revolution and Hitler’s war are, I think, exceptions. These were indeed conspiracies. But they were consequences of the fact that conspiracy theoreticians came to power – who, most significantly, failed to consummate their conspiracies.)

Lecture delivered to the Third Annual Conference of the Rationalist Press Association on 26 July 1984.  From Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge 1963.

You may have noticed that people who convert to religion after the age of 20 or so are generally more zealous than people who grew up with the same religion.  People who grow up with a religion learn how to cope with its more inconvenient parts by partitioning them off, rationalizing them away, or forgetting about them.  Religious communities actually protect their members from religion in one sense – they develop an unspoken consensus on which parts of their religion members can legitimately ignore.  New converts sometimes try to actually do what their religion tells them to do.  I remember many times growing up when missionaries described the crazy things their new converts in remote areas did on reading the Bible for the first time – they refused to be taught by female missionaries; they insisted on following Old Testament commandments; they decided that everyone in the village had to confess all of their sins against everyone else in the village; they prayed to God and assumed He would do what they asked; they believed the Christian God would cure their diseases.  We would always laugh a little at the naivete of these new converts; I could barely hear the tiny voice in my head saying but they’re just believing that the Bible means what it says…

How do we explain the blindness of people to a religion they grew up with? Cultural immunity. Europe has lived with Christianity for nearly 2000 years. European culture has co-evolved with Christianity. Culturally, memetically, it’s developed a tolerance for Christianity. These new Christian converts, in Uganda, Papua New Guinea, and other remote parts of the world, were being exposed to Christian memes for the first time, and had no immunity to them. [...]

The reason I bring this up is that intelligent people sometimes do things more stupid than stupid people are capable of.  There are a variety of reasons for this; but one has to do with the fact that all cultures have dangerous memes circulating in them, and cultural antibodies to those memes.  The trouble is that these antibodies are not logical.  On the contrary; these antibodies are often highly illogical.  They are the blind spots that let us live with a dangerous meme without being impelled to action by it.  The dangerous effects of these memes are most obvious with religion; but I think there is an element of this in many social norms.  We have a powerful cultural norm in America that says that all people are equal (whatever that means); originally, this powerful and ambiguous belief was counterbalanced by a set of blind spots so large that this belief did not even impel us to free slaves or let women or non-property-owners vote.  We have another cultural norm that says that hard work reliably and exclusively leads to success; and another set of blind spots that prevent this belief from turning us all into Objectivists.

A little reason can be a dangerous thing.  The landscape of rationality is not smooth; there is no guarantee that removing one false belief will improve your reasoning instead of degrading it.  Sometimes, reason lets us see the dangerous aspects of our memes, but not the blind spots that protect us from them.  Sometimes, it lets us see the blind spots, but not the dangerous memes.  Either of these ways, reason can lead an individual to be unbalanced, no longer adapted to their memetic environment, and free to follow previously-dormant memes through to their logical conclusions.    (To paraphrase Steve Weinberg, “For a smart person to do something truly stupid, they need a theory.”  Actually, I could have quoted him directly – “stupid” is just a lighter shade of “evil”.  Communism and fascism both begin by exercising complete control over the memetic environment, in order to create a new man stripped of cultural immunity, who will do whatever they tell him to.)

Article continues.  High recommendations to Less Wrong and Overcoming Bias. – Trevor

his creed was “Koranic Marxism” [HOORAY!]

Jesus Plus Nothing, Minus Somalia < Killing the Buddha

“Let the wife fear the husband!” What can be more shameful in our days, what can be worse than this malicious chatter? The priest and sectarian do not stand around gawking, but foment trouble with a clever lie that exhorts evil husbands to beat their submissive wives….

Triptych: the tri-college digital library : Item Viewer

Some totalitarian governments are forgiven, others are not.

The Rise of Communist Chic ~ Trend de la Creme

Defiance of Youth. Members of the Communist Youth League are still paying very little attention to the anti-religious front – such is the common news from where our correspondents are. Member of the Communist Youth League: “We shall climb up to heaven, and chase away all the gods!” Editor: “It would be much better, comrade, if you looked at what is going on in the world, and how on earth, under your very nose, priests, protestant preachers, mullahs and rabbis are trying to attract the youth into their dens. We must struggle with religion with deeds, not with loud words.” – 15 February 1931.

[Art and translation from a collection of anti-religious Soviet posters at Bryn Mawr college.]

So-so scans of soviet anti-religious posters.

Triptych: the tri-college digital library : Search Results

Memoirs of Tiananmen Square

6/4: We have not forgotten | MetaFilter

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced Wednesday that it will no longer stand by the ceasefire agreement ending the 1950-53 Korean War, in response to South Korea’s participation to the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).

DPRK declares to tear up truce agreement_English_Xinhua

With the recent announcement of the US and Canadian Government takeovers of Chrysler and GM it seems appropriate to revisit some government produced automobiles from the past and how they performed

GM – Government Motors || kuro5hin.org