7 Comments

• 1. RanDomino  |  October 29th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

  I’ve got a message for this radio host:

  FUCK THE POLITICIANS

  seriously what’s with this guy around 19:54 saying we don’t need to get too radical. All “radical” means is “oriented toward the root of the issue” from Latin ‘radix’, root. Anything NOT radical is looking at SUPERFICIAL issues!

  Our choices are not between Democratic Party and Republican Party. We can’t reform the Democratic Party. It’s a machine, and it has been for at least a hundred years, since the days when it pressed recent immigrants for votes. It takes vibrant activists and turns them into soulless corporate pawns. Barack Obama is the absolute best we could hope for from the Democrats, because the party’s machinery is controlled by corporate tools. So fuck them.

  If we’re comparing the Great Recession to the Great Depression, then let’s look at what worked. Penny Auctions. The great strikes of 1934. The Flint strike of 1936-37. Do you see a pattern? Organized industrial unions fought for real every-day reform to improve the material condition of the working class. There were an infinite number of things that didn’t work but organizing for concrete goals was one of the few things that did.

  There’s a difference today, though, though maybe not such a large one as it might seem. The traditional unions are totally under the control of the establishment. But on the other hand, even in the ’30s the revolutionary opposition Communists were taking marching orders from Moscow. The real successes came because people organized in their own communities.

  On some other story a person suggested in the comments a “couch potato revolution” where people simply fail to pay their bills or go to work or pay taxes. I think that’s a great idea, but it’s not enough to go it alone, because you’ll just be arrested and they’ll take all your stuff anyway.

  So don’t just not pay taxes which are then stolen by banksters; organize your entire community to do it. They can’t arrest a whole city! If they cut off your water, get the utilities workers to turn it back on. If they are threatened with being fired, support them with everything they need that you can provide- and an entire resisting community has all the resources in the vicinity, regardless of who owns them. Don’t just resist for a while with a fatalistic idea that defeat is inevitable; to try and lose is just as bad as not trying. Fight to win!

  There are hundreds of thousands of people with this idea and they need to come out of the woodwork and start asserting themselves. But who wants to be the first? It took 300 to die in the Easter Rising for Ireland to sing a new tune. But then again the February Revolution in Russia was as successful as it was spontaneous- but only because there were strongly-organized groups already in existence.

  This is our only possible strategy in my opinion, but it’s so expansive that it may be impossible. But it’s not necessary to carry out all at once- organizing realistically and pragmatically can be as simple as seriously discussing with other local malcontents.

• 2. svensvenson  |  October 30th, 2009 at 12:06 am

  couch potato revolution! i like that. i steal most of my food or get it out of dumpsters behind grocery stores…i spend about 20 dollars a month on food and never get sick…really, not paying your bills is not that hard, you don’t even need to get arrested if you are clever. i barely work. i’m not part of the shit storm. if you want consumer goods, then work your ass off and be part of the shit storm. as guy debord said, “presented with the choice between love and a garbage disposal unit, young people today opt for garbage disposal units.”
  i think it is too hard now to fight things head on…the cops are too well trained, have too much money, and too much equipment. dropping out is a good alternative. just make sure you can fuck a lot and make some art or something with your hands or you’ll get depressed. the only problem is the suckers who say “oh, there’s no one filling these jobs now, it’ll be easy for me now that they’ve dropped out; i’ll get to the top!” yes…what to do about them?

• 3. RanDomino  |  October 30th, 2009 at 3:04 pm

  What to do about them? If we build the new world in the shell of the old, they’ll gradually become less and less relevant. I’d say the invisible society is a much more enjoyable and fulfilling one than the society of the Spectacle.

• 4. Pud  |  November 2nd, 2009 at 10:03 am

  Maybe Ames can start you know….discussing Obama’s involvement with the housing implosion, which had something to do with creating the current economic disaster.

  But that isn’t as sexy as goofing on Tea Bagger’s. Ofcourse, that wouldn’t get him back on the Daily Show with Moshie Yanklestein so….

  Too bad. I used to look to the Exiled for witty, fair and balanced news.

• 5. Rubicon  |  November 2nd, 2009 at 12:40 pm

  In addition to the Couch Potato thing, remember to remove your money from Fed-member banks. You can use a local credit union, or just cash your paychecks. If you really want to fuck up the gummint’s stats, you get a patch of land (only need a few acres) and either have a trailer or slowly build up a small house and live off the land. Then you aren’t adding shit the GDP since you aren’t a wage slave and spending half your pay on interest payments, but you are beholden to no one. You can barter with neighbors or, as svensvenson suggests, get the occasional “5-finger discount”. Obviously it doesn’t all happen over a weekend, but we didn’t get this badly in trouble over night either. Read or youtube “Confessions of an economic hitman”, also very enlightening.

• 6. Don  |  November 3rd, 2009 at 8:01 am

  Regarding shedding more light on the Fed, bailout money, et al, I’m convinced at this point that should all dirty laundry be exposed tomorrow Americans will blink once and then go about their business.

  If the tea baggers had half a brain they’d be camped out on the lawns of Goldman execs but since they plundered the education system first they are perfectly safe.

• 7. UUUUULTra Violet  |  November 3rd, 2009 at 3:30 pm

  ‘KPFK’?

  It’s deja fuckin’ vu 1968 L.A. all over again. I thought KPFK had been bought by the darling Miss Miyoko at http://www.shoperotic.com/indexMISTER.htm

  Guess not. Maybe KPFK has some archival shots of Ames and his M-1.

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