Tag Archives: Antonia Gramsci

The Real Meaning of Zimmerman

There is a subtext to the Zimmerman controversy that I have yet to see fully explored, but is probably the most important aspect of the trial.

Steve Roney (h/t: SDA) almost touches upon it, but it gets lost in his larger argument that Zimmerman was a working-class man acting uppity:

Of course, this is more or less what the police would do; and it is obviously not a hanging offence when they do it. The problem is that Zimmerman, though in fact legally entitled to do this, was not formally qualified. He was acting above his station, in the minds of the professional elite, including “professional” journalists.

One can see how this would ring all kinds of bells, if subconsciously, in the typical newsroom. What professional group is more threatened by citizen volunteerism these days than the media? Zimmerman and those like him are to them an existential threat. It was in their vital interests to take him down by whatever means necessary.

While Rebel University touches upon the fringes of the issue:

By suing the HOA and winning this settlement, Martin’s parents have helped ensure that the crime rates go up in their own community, since other HOAs will learn from this and determine that having a neighborhood watch is an unaffordable risk. Having a neighborhood watch guarantees that there will be confrontation between the watchers and the “suspicious people”.  That creates the possibility that the watchers will be attacked by the “suspicious people” and that creates the possibility that some of the watchers will defend themselves with lethal force.  It is unavoidable.  The HOA lawyers will determine that having any sort of neighborhood watch is unaffordable.

If you’ve been following the Zimmerman trial even slightly, you’ve probably seen the accusation that he was acting like a ‘wannabe rent-a-cop’ or something similar a number of times, due to his involvement in his local neighbourhood watch. As The Crimson Reach stated, the entire premise of the moral outrage against Zimmerman was due to the fact that “Zimmerman found Martin suspicious, followed him in his car, called it in, got out of his car.”

This is what the left finds offensive. This is what the Cathedral finds offensive. This kind of behaviour is what the Cathedral is trying to eliminate through Zimmerman’s show trial.

They do not want you to get out of the car.

Zimmerman did.

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If we look at the history of Zimmerman, he was a model citizen with a minor black mark or two from his youth:

At the time of the shooting, Zimmerman was employed as an insurance underwriter and was in his final semester at Seminole State College for an associate degree in Criminal Justice. In one of his interviews with police he stated his goal was to become a judge.

In early 2011, Zimmerman participated in a citizen forum at the Sanford City Hall, to protest the beating of a black homeless man by the son of a white Sanford police officer. During the meeting, Zimmerman called the behavior of officers on duty “disgusting” and detailed officers napping while on duty and refusing to take on difficult assignments.
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From January 1, 2011 through February 26, 2012, police were called to The Retreat at Twin Lakes 402 times. During the 18 months preceding the February 26 shooting, Zimmerman called the non-emergency police line seven times. On five of those calls, Zimmerman reported suspicious looking men in the area, but never offered the men’s race without first being asked by the dispatcher. Crimes committed at The Retreat in the year prior to Martin’s death included eight burglaries, nine thefts, and one shooting. Twin Lakes residents said there were dozens of reports of attempted break-ins, which had created an atmosphere of fear in their neighborhood.

In September 2011, the Twin Lakes residents held an organizational meeting to create a neighborhood watch program. Zimmerman was selected by neighbors as the program’s coordinator, according to Wendy Dorival, Neighborhood Watch organizer for the Sanford Police Department.

Zimmerman was a normal person who cared about his community and acted to protect it. He voluntarily took on the mantle to watch his neighbourhood for suspicious activity and to stand up against police corruption.

George Zimmerman worked to build organic community. Any normal person would be thrilled to have a neighbour like Zimmerman keeping an eye out on things.

That is why he was made an example of.

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In this particular case, he saw this suspicious-looking individual in his neighbourhood after a period of break-ins and other crimes. Like a concerned citizen who cared about his community, he reported the incident to police, then followed to keep a look out on the suspicious individual.

That was his crime. He cared about his community enough to try to keep it safe. He got out of the car.

And that is the whole point of this fiasco. It is the whole reason they rage against “stand your ground”. It’s the whole reason they fight gun freedom.

The Cathedral does not want you to get out of the car. The Cathedral does not want you to protect yourself or your community. The Cathedral does not want you to be able to trust your neighbours.

If you see Kitty Genovese, the Cathedral wants you to walk past. If you see a crime being committed against someone else, the Cathedral wants you to ignore it. If you see a suspicious person in your neighbourhood, the Cathedral wants you to ignore him.

Why?

So your neigbourhood loses social capital. So you can not trust your neighbours to watch out for you and your home. So you are forced to rely on the police and the state for safety rather than your neighbours.

They want you to destroy your trust in your neighbours and your local community so you become dependent on the state for security.

The Cathedral can not simply outlaw organic community-building and looking-out for your neighbours because that would enrage too many and would show their hand, which depends, in a large way, on being subtle. But someone died in this case in a possibly questionable manner, so the Cathedral had an opportunity to make an example. Zimmerman was the example.

Zimmerman was persecuted by the state for the purpose of making you think twice about helping your neighbour.

If I see someone suspicious in my neighbourhood and think of keeping an eye out on him? I remember Zimmerman: maybe I shouldn’t, it could escalate and I could become the next 2-minute hate target.

I hear what might be a cry for distress? Not my problem, it’s probably nothing and even if I intervene I could become the next Zimmerman.

I see someone rooting around in my neighbour’s backyard? If I intervene I could be the next Zimmerman.

Then, once everyone’s to afraid to intervene, out come the Kitty Genovese stories. I cried for help, why did nobody came to my aid? Someone robbed my house in broad daylight, why did no one intervene? A dozen people saw me being mugged, why did no one help me? Crime and drugs are rampant in my neighbourhood, why is nothing being done? This is the tenth time my garage has been tagged and my garbage overturned, why are my neighbours doing this to me?

The inevitable conclusion, I can’t trust my neighbours. I’m not safe in my neighbourhood.

Whatever the useful idiots might parrot, that is the whole purpose of this farce.

They want you to question yourself when you hear someone in trouble. Eventually, when enough people question themselves and do not intervene because they do not want to go risk a year-long trial, death threats, and public opprobrium, community trust collapses, because nobody is intervening to keep neighbourhoods safe.

Eventually, organic community dies, and the police and the state can step in.

The long march progresses.

“You can’t trust your neighbours, but you can trust us. We’re from the government and we’re here to help you.”

The Collapse

XSplat asked, “what, EXACTLY, they mean by “society collapses”? (H/T: SAG)

Yesterday, I noted that government takeover and the collapse of the family from the “long march through culture” led to what you see in black America: high dependence on government, high violence, social problems, etc.

In response to a similar answer, he added:

“I want to know what happens to WHITE society. Show me a WHITE example.”

The trite answer is watch the riots in Greece and see what occurs to them over the next 5 years. There are already riots and they will likely get worse before they get better. The American collapse will be worse though, because there is no EU to bail the US out.

The not-quite-so-trite answer is Rome and the Dark Ages. Rome collapsed over centuries and Western civilization stagnated for centuries more. Collapse for the US will be different, because the US is separated by water from everybody but Mexico and Canada, and so has less of a problem of barbarians sacking them. But still, it’s one possibility.

The even-less-so-but-still-trite answer is that whites and non-whites are inter-mixed in most Western countries, so his point’s fairly irrelevant. If one group in society completely collapses, it negatively effects the other groups in society.

An almost-not-trite answer would be the Weimer Republic. Good times were had by all. The Soviet Union, it’s collapse, and Russia’s collapse into a corrupt oligarchy are another. Yob culture in Britain is another, and is not that far from the American ghetto.

I will come back to this and outline the likely scenarios for an answer that’s not trite, but first we will deal with other parts of his post.

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Someone else provides him with an answer, which I think is partially correct, which he then follows up with:

“But what these future predictions miss is technology. Where we are today is the result of technology. Future technological changes will change what options we have for our future. How far off do you think biotech is from altering society? What will happen when making designer babies is cheap and readily available? When electronic implants can affect our emotions?”

I’m going to start with this, just to get the objection out of the way, so I can concentrate on the collapse.

Essentially what he is talking about is either post-scarcity and/or the singularity. I’ve written of post-scarcity before, and I believe it to be nearly inevitable; eventually we will pass the threshold of scarcity to where we do not need to “work”. The other concept is the singularity, the point where we reach superintelligence through either AI, the mind/machine interface, or biotechnology. We already have very primitive M/MA, AI, and biotech, just as we have primitive 3D printers, but the endpoint of the three is the singularity.

There’s a good chance we will reach the singularity. The most optimistic predictions I’ve seen is about 2045. Many experts have put it between 2050 and 2100. Others only say the distant future. Many, such as Steven Pinker, an intellectual I respect, doubt it will ever occur. I lean towards the more optimistic side, I’d take a wild guess at before 2100 simply because technology has generally tended to advance faster than most experts think, but I think there’s some wishful thinking in the earlier dates. Of course, the wild guess of some random guy on the internet is not exactly gospel.

I think post-scarcity will come well before the singularity simply because the mechanical is easier for man to master than the genetic, biological, electronic, and quantam. Post-scarcity is less discussed than the singularity, so the only projected date I’ve seen is 2050-75, but thbe post-scarcity from that prediction is a bit different from the post-scarcity I posited.

But anyway, let’s, for the sake of argument, say that post-scarcity will occur by 2050 and the singularity by 2080 (70 years from now, a common prediction).

The question then becomes, when is “the collapse”?

This is more difficult. The collapse, which is probably more accurately referred to as the end of the world as we know it, is a political belief of those on the alt-right, that is not accepted by most of the mainstream, so it’s less looked at by what we would term futurists. Despite this, there’s been some predictions. Patrick Buchanan, probably the best known of those predicting the Death of the West, posits it will occur by 2050, but has since wondered if it could occur by 2025. Mark Steyn’s After America didn’t give a date, but it’s obvious he expects it in the next few decades if there are no changes. If you ask anybody on the alt-right, they’ll probably have a prediction of some sort.

Outside the alt-right, Niall Ferguson has posited the beginning of the collapse of the American Empire within the next five years and Alternet posits it by 2025, but the collapse of empire is somewhat different from societal collapse, even if both are related.

The most important point is nobody really knows when the collapse will come, only that there is a good possibility of it. Just like nobody knows when post-scarcity or the singularity will come. Predicting the future accurately is extremely difficult, we can only look at current trends, extrapolate, prepare, and then take whatever chaotic occurrences come upon us.

But if we look at the predictions, 2025-2050 is earlier than 2050-2100. So, the majority opinion seems to be that the collapse comes first.

If the singularity or post-scarcity occurs, there will be no collapse. If the economy grows rapidly enough that it covers over any other problems we might have, there will be no collapse. If the collapse comes first, there will be some bad years before post-scarcity and it might delay or prevent post-scarcity.

The question is not will technology prevent the coming collapse, the question is which will hit first?

It is a race between science and economic progress on one hand and societal collapse on the other.

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Wait, X-Splat’s talking of collapse due to family, you’re talking about collapse of empire, collapse due to debt, and economic collapse.

There’s no difference. It’s all related.

The collapse of family, the collapse of empire, the debt bomb, the growth of government, the housing bust, etc. are all the same collapse due to the same reason: they are all symptoms of the collapse of civil society and civic virtue. Civil society is what keeps a free society together and stops it from collapsing on itself. (A tyranny can keep society together through fear and violence, but only until someone else overthrows the tyrant). Civil society is the bonds that hold a community together and civic virtue are the values that keep society from ripping itself apart.

When civil society dies, charity dries up, family collapses, social capital disappears, churches and other traditional institutions die off, business become corrupt, society becomes corrupt, and self-organization withers. When civic virtue dies, people become corrupt, they vote themselves money at others’ expense, refuse to contribute to society, abandon family, stop volunteering, refuse public service in the military, take on huge unrepayable debt, become irresponsible, pursue decadence and hedonism, etc.

No society can survive the collapse of civic virtue and civil society and remain free.

The banging of sluts and the collapse of family are just one aspect of the greater collapse of civic virtue and civil society.

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So what happens in the collapse?

The answer: that depends. There are simply to many variables to make any conclusive answers. I will give what I think are some of the likelier potentials.

(Note: I am going to focus on North American collapse, to reduce the scope. For the rest of the Western world, the answers are similar on the broad strokes, but many details might be different.)

1) Great Depression Part 2: The Great Recession turns into a Great Depression. The US sinks into a long economic malaise but still has enough civic virtue and civil society to get through it as a free nation. There are rough spots, poverty increases, there’s some minor violence and riots, and it’s tough on everybody, especially seniors for whom SS and Medicare have been drastically reduced, but the US continues to be a more-or-less free and functioning society. Eventually either pulls through or reaches economic scarcity.

This is the best of the collapse scenarios. There is no radical change to American life, just some very tough belt tightening and the occasional spot of violence. This is what blue-pill fiscal conservatives like Paul Ryan are trying to do and are failing at.

2) Brave New World: This is less a collapse than a drawn out decline. Big Brother slowly takes over and America loses its freedom. I don’t think America will slip into outright dictatorship, but democracy will become increasingly a formality rather than a reality, life will become increasingly less free, and the state will slowly replace civil society. The courts will gradually hand more power over to government and government will progressively control more of American life. Americans will essentially live in a gilded cage. Consumer goods and pop entertainment will keep most American’s sated. There will be some illusion of freedom; you will still be able to choose which brand of government approved video games you desire. You will still be free to read most books (except some of those that are “hateful” or “obscene”). You will be able to use the internet for pornography and whatnot, but some sites will be blocked.  Most people will be sated with their illusion of freedom and their consumer goods. Those that aren’t will either be jailed/put on probation for technical regulatory violations or will be given little outlets apart from society as a whole where they can be somewhat free of societal constraints (within reason) without impacting society as a whole (ex. the army). This is essentially the Bonobo Masturbation Society.

I think this is the most likely scenario. This is the Gramscian long march I talked of yesterday. The end game will eventually resemble something like Brave New World. It won’t be hellish; it will actually be somewhat pleasurable, but there will always be that thought in the back of your mind: “isn’t there something more?” and there will always be that edge of emptiness in your life, but, thankfully, the pills and VR will make it barely noticeable.

3) Demographic Violence: As the US economy worsens and people lose their government benefits as it can no longer afford to pay them, various groups will begin to engage in protest and violence. The well-off will separate themselves from it geographically, but the lower and middle classes will be engaged. This violence will take one of three forms: ideological, racial, or generational. Essentially, there will be a long, drawn-out series of riots and low-level violence.  If it’s ideological,it will occur primarily between conservatives and liberals and between fringe groups; it lead to further ideological segregation in society. Racial violence would occur between blacks, latinos, and whites, with Asians caught in the crossfire. Generational violence will occur as seniors protest the death of the social security and medicare they paid for their whole life and the younger victimize the elderly as blame for causing the collapse. Most likely it will be some combination of the three.

There will be violence either way, the question is what level of violence. In this scenario, society still functions, but violence, like the Rodney King Riots, Brehivik, or the English Riots will become much more common. Political protests become more common and often degrade into violence and rioting. This kind of violence will likely accompany any of the other scenarios to varying degrees. Eventually, this sorts itself out politically and economically with reforms or it degrades into revolution or civil war.

4) Revolution: A group revolts and takes control of the government. This could follow demographic violence, replace it, or be a part of it. What kind of society follows will depend on who does the coup.

I think this is highly unlikely. The US is too well-armed and ideologically, ethnically, and regionally divided for any single group to simply have a coup. If a coup occurs, it will most likely result in dissolution and/or civil war.

5) Balkanization and/or Civil War: Due either to demographic violence, revolution, or the reaching of some political or economic tipping point. The US dissolves itself; various states and/or regions balkanize, declare independence, and assert their own governance. This could be peaceful or violent. If done peacefully, it will not be too bad. People will move to whichever region they prefer and there will be some temporary economic and political disruption, but no real long-run problems. If done violently, it could tip into civil war. This could be relatively light war, such as in the books State of Disobedience or Empire, or it could be a major war to rival or surpass the American Civil War.

I think there’s a decent chance of dissolution. Most likely, if it does occur, it will come with some light violence. There will be some riots, a few massacres, and some firefights not really on the level of battles, that will cause the the states agree to dissolve more or less peacefully.

6) A Renewing War: A war in Europe occurs due to similar economic and political collapse. Or a war in Asia due to population imbalances, resource disputes, and ancient grudges. Or a war in the Middle East, because it’s the Middle East. Or a war against Mexico because as the drug war troubles slip out of control into full on civil war, which spills over into the US. Whatever the war, the US becomes involved, and unlike the limited wars of Iraq or Afghanistan, it reaches the level of (near) total war.  The masculine virtues reassert themselves. Unemployment disappears as the war gobbles up all available industry and manpower. Civic virtue and civil society are renewed as people handle the sacrifices of war. Men die en masse and become rarer; society realigns back towards patriarchy as female competition for men increases. Society is forged in the flame and returns renewed and invigorated.

This seems possible. It would also probably follow either #1 or #3 and would be the way past them. (Note: War could occur in other scenarios, but in those scenarios they would not have a renewing effect, it would simply be an adjunct to the rest).

Personally, I think #1 and #2 are the most likely collapse scenarios, with low-levels of scenario three involved in either of them, but none of the others are implausible. What happens depends on the circumstances of the collapse which I can not predict.

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Any of scenarios #1-5 will result in the end of American hegemony. The US will simply not be able to continue to act as the world police, destabilizing the rest of the world.

Europe will no longer be able to rely on the US’ protection and if the EU dissolves, might become unstable. China will no longer have a check to it’s power in Southeast Asia, while Japan will have to restart it’s own military. India and Pakistan will lose the US’ calming influence. The Middle East will become even more unstable without the US supporting Israel and keeping tabs on the Arab countries. Who knows what will Russia will do.

The UN and NATO will lose their hard power, so international emergency response and nation-building will collapse. The international aid system will collapse without US hegemony protecting it. Africa will become even more unstable than it already is.

The collapse of Pax Americana will have massive repercussions throughout the world and will lead to a large increase in instability and violence.

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If there are no changes to society as it stands and we continue on our current trajectory, the collapse will occur. What form it may take is an unanswerable question, but a free society not simply survive the combination of massive debt levels, mass dependence on the state, and the dissolution of civic virtue and civil society that is becoming the norm in the West.

But collapse is not inevitable. There’s numerous ways for it to be avoided and the Futurist has outlined a likely path out. All we need is to change the trajectory just enough to delay the collapse long enough for post-scarcity to occur.

47%: The Liberal Goal

Recently, all the big political news has been about Romney’s 47% comments.

It has already been noted that this is true, the vast majority of federal income taxes are paid by the rich, while almost half pay noting. Even liberal “fact-checkers” don’t disagree.

Some liberals quibble that the poor pay comparatively more in payroll taxes, but this is a fallacious comparison, as payroll taxes are specifically designated to social security, unemployment insurance, and medicare. These are not general taxes (or at least shouldn’t be), they are taxed premiums dedicated to providing  insurance and retirement guarantees and should be treated as such. Comparing payroll taxes to general taxation is idiotic.

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Everybody reading this already knows that a society where more than half the people do not contribute to general taxation and a significant population receive more in government benefits than are contributing can not sustain itself for long. Eventually the ability to pay for bread and circuses collapses.

The US is on it’s way there. 1/16 people are on disability, 1/7 on food stamps, and almost alf of people receive some sort of government benefits. Half of young workers are either unemployed or underemployed. In addition, the government controls about 2/5 of the economy and 1/5 of the employed work for the the government. Almost half of people don’t pay income taxes.  And government  is growing.

That’s not what I want to talk about today. If you can’t figure out why this is unhealthy for society, I’m not quite sure what I could say to convince you.

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It has also been noted that getting people dependent on government is the liberal strategy and has been the liberal strategy since FDR.

So why are liberals so angry over Romney’s quote, when it’s been their strategy for decades?

For exactly that reason; they do not want people to understand their strategy. Liberalism is the ideology of the state; that is all the various interests that make up liberalism have in common. For a core of elite individuals, the expansion of the state is their reason d’etre. Their purpose is the Gramscian “slow march through culture” to destroy traditional “oppressive” institutions and replace it with the state.

But pointing that the expansion of the state is the goal, harms their ability to expand the state. They can’t come right out and say their purpose in the anglosphere. Englishmen are culturally suspicious of and hostile towards the state and inclined towards classical liberalism or liberal conservatism, with American Englishmen being the most hostile.

Even most liberals do not agree with the end goal of the Gramscian march. They are mostly decent people (ie: the “useful idiots“) who want to help the poor (or some other cause) but are either too lazy, too soft-hearteded, and/or too misinformed to realize the final outcomes of the policies they propose.

So, the left-liberals  can not come out and say their true goals, which is the expansion of the state. So, they cloak their desire to expand the state behind other justifications: keynesian economics, feminism, anti-poverty, anti-racism, the environment, equality, etc.

No matter what justification they use or what problem they say they want to solve, though, the answer is always the same: expand the state.

And the the useful idiots all line up in support.

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The Gramscian strategy works well. Each time the government expands, it is almost impossible to destroy that expansion in the future, so you only have to take it a bit at a time. A temporary expansion here and a minor intrusion there and eventually the government controls half the economy. As the government takes over more control of life, opportunities to live life outside government decrease. Individuals become increasingly dependent on government at levels they themselves don’t even realize. Eventually, the government becomes the only thing holding society together, however poorly.

The government begins to replace parents, it replaces family, it replaces local charity, it replaces local churches, it replaces local community. Eventually,  it replaces the entirety of civil society.

If you want to see the end state of the Gramscian march, simply look at the black community in the US. Their families are destroyed, most of their children grow up without a father, a large proportion of their males end up criminals, dependence on the state is high, and their civil society is destroyed. The black community has been destroyed by the welfare society government has put onto it.

And guess what, blacks vote almost entirely Democrat, the party that fought for their enslavement and for Jim Crow, just so the state benefits that are destroying them keep flowing.

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The left- liberal ideologues are intent on forcing the government on you, so that you become dependent on it, so you will support government’s further intrusion into and control of your life. That is and has been their strategy for decades.

They want you dependent.

Romney simply pointed out the results of the strategy. This is why they are attacking him so violently, because once you know that government dependency is, you might ask why it is.
If you ask why it is, you might understand their strategy. Once you understand their strategy, you might resist it.

So, the question is, do you want to be dependent on government as they manipulate you?