Comment by don carlin on January 3, 2013 at 6:38pm

Hi Mark - guess that's something we all 'know' but its good to have the chapter and verse - thanks - any chance you can point me directly to that FOIA release so it can be used as a verifiable and credited source in my own writings? - i.e. "Understanding The Dominatrix"

best regards and yea we owe you great front liners so much - thanks - don

Comment by Mark E. Smith on January 3, 2013 at 10:04pm

The documents were obtained by Jason Leopold and TruthOut, so that's probably the best source:

http://truth-out.org/news/item/8667-department-of-homeland-security...

Somehow, people understand that the problem is corporate rule, but still seem to think that the government can control the corporations, when in reality the corporations own the government. So people vote for and make demands on government, as if the government wasn't owned by the corporations and wasn't put in place to provide a fig leaf of cover for corporate rule. When people vote to elect representatives, they are voting for officials who were funded by and therefore will represent the corporations. When people try to pressure the government, the corporations command the government to suppress the people. It has always been that way. During the West Virginia mine wars, the mining companies called out federal troops to kill the striking miners and their families.

People in federal government know that they must obey the corporations, and they act as a complaint department and shield their Wall Street bosses from having to deal with the public. The 1% who pushed through the Federalist Constitution ensured that they would alway retain power by vesting Supreme power in an unelected Supreme Court, instead of in the people, and establishing an electoral system where the people couldn't vote directly for the Presidents who appointed the Supreme Court in accordance with Wall Street's wishes, and the popular vote didn't have to be counted and wasn't the final say. At any time the Supreme Court can stop the vote count and select the President themselves (just as the President selects them), the way it did in 2000.

The 1% knew that taking power directly would lead to revolt, so they created a complex bureaucracy to fool the people into thinking that they had a civilian government and a voice in that government, which has never been the case in the US. Black voters really think that it was Obama's idea to recolonize Africa, and white voters really think it was Obama's idea to start more wars, bail out the banksters, and cut social programs. But the corporations that financed Obama's election would have him removed immediately if he ever disobeyed them. The corporate puppets that the US electorate thinks are their government, are just middle managers for Wall Street.

Comment by Mark E. Smith on January 4, 2013 at 9:08pm

I'm referring to the big multinational corporations whose interlocking boards of directors are directly or indirectly controlled by the same Rockefeller interests that control the Rockefeller founded policy making bodies that, by indicating whether or not they're inclined to fund them, approve or disapprove both major parties candidates and thus control US policy.

I don't know if it is stupidity or that people are easily led astray because they want to be. It is called "deliberate ignorance," when people simply refuse to face the facts that might discomfort them, but most people in the US still mistake the nations they create and the regimes they install, for the large corporate interests that own and control most of the world.

Did the President order the FBI to crack down on Occupy? Did Congress order the FBI to crack down on Occupy? Did Wall Street even bother to ask the President or Congress to crack down on Occupy? No! Wall Street went directly to the FBI and planned the DHS coordinated crackdown on Occupy.

Did the President or Congress say that Wall Street had to come to them for permission? No! The President and Congress are not going to antagonize the corporations that spend billions funding their election campaigns.

I don't think there is any way to awaken people. Some have compared political parties to religious beliefs. When people believe that their party is less evil than the other party, it doesn't matter if both parties have the same agenda, or if their party does worse things than the other party ever did, because religious beliefs are not susceptible to logic or facts. People believe what they want to believe. In the US, voters believe that they elect the government, and they don't question why corporations spend billions of dollars financing elections or why the government, in return, always favors corporations over voters. People believe that the bureaucracy created by the Federalists when they wrote the Constitution and pushed it through without going to the state legislators as they should have (but couldn't, as no state legislature would have ratified a federal power grab), is a government, rather than just a bureaucracy created to ensure corporate rule. People believe their uncounted, unverifiable votes for candidates selected in accordance with how much money the big corporations will donate to their political party, are a precious right and a voice in government. No matter how many times both Republican and Democratic administrations tell the US public that they do not allow public opinion to influence policy decisions, voters believe that they can influence policy decisions by voting and/or protesting.

It is impossible to wake people up, Jerry, because if they woke up, they'd feel uncomfortable, unhappy, and angry, and people would rather feel comfortable, happy, and complacent. You can't help people understand that once they delegate their power to the representatives of corporations, they have no power, because people don't want to know that they are the cause of their own powerlessness, and they want to pretend they're powerful. So they watch TV, shoot up schools, go shopping, or join groups dedicated to personal success and prosperity, while the corporations make trillions of dollars in war profiteering by financing candidates committed to war in elections that can only result in more war.

I noticed that there's a topic this week about courage. It would take courage to oppose our government's militarism and environmental destruction, but it wouldn't take any courage at all to stop supporting militarism and environmental destruction if you were conscientiously against such things--to stop voting in elections where continued militarism and environmental destruction are the only possible outcome. What I see are people who consider themselves courageous because they keep battering their heads against brick walls, but who obstinately refuse to even consider walking around the walls. That would be too easy.

Statists believe that governments are necessary, just as workers believe that management is necessary. The first thing that worker/owners learn when they take over a factory, is that management was not necessary at all--that they work better without it, are more productive, have safer workplaces, earn more, and get more benefits than when management was making their lives hell and taking the lion's share of the profits. Governments are necessary to take the lion's share of the economy and use it for war--without governments we wouldn't have war because most people are opposed to war. But people believe that without government, we'd have chaos. How can we ever have peace, when people believe that peace would be chaos? It is war that is chaos. If people can't understand something that simple, they will, as Gurdjieff said, go right on beating one another's heads in. And as they vote to authorize the government to spend most of their resources on war and environmental destruction, they will continue to call themselves a civilized society, because that's what they believe they are and that's what it makes them feel good to believe.

Comment by Mark E. Smith on January 5, 2013 at 6:56pm

Jerry, I do have hope for the people.

I don't think a revolution or a savior is necessary.

You see, I happen to have some very healthy houseplants. I bought them to purify the air in my apartment because I live in a city and I smoke. I got ten of the plants on this list:

http://greenlandlady.com/site/residents/breathe-easier-12-houseplan...

They're all thriving, despite getting very little sunlight. But if I didn't want them any more, I wouldn't have to kill them. It isn't very complicated. All I'd have to do is stop watering them and they'd die.

Without our support and consent, government cannot exist.

It is nature that makes our lives possible. Nature existed before us, and before religions and governments. It is nature that we should respect, because without it, we have no future. Perhaps you believe in a future in some heavenly kingdom, but I want my grandchildren to have a future here on earth. And if corporate-owned governments keep destroying the planet, they won't.

I certainly don't believe that some deity's mysterious plan was to create a planet, create a species to destroy it, and then reward that species for destroying it.

I have hope that people will eventually figure that out.

Comment by Mark E. Smith on January 5, 2013 at 7:52pm

Jerry writes:

This is just new management, some were raised over others, the capital was brown noses instead of green backs.

No, Jerry. In collectives, decisions are made collectively.

People are not opposed to war, not in the beginning, just when its time to pay for it. If we had no government we could still go to war, just village against village. Governments allow war on a grander scale is all.

Wrong again. Most indigenous peoples were ecologically viable. They controlled their population growth in accordance with available resources to eliminate the need for war. It was religions and governments that subjugated females to provide cannon fodder for the wars they needed to maintain their malignant growth.

All towns elect a sheriff as soon as they get a church and a mayor.

Maybe all towns in your experience do that. But communities existed long before religions or governments.

Peace would be chaos, every one doing as they please. A teen home when the parents are gone.

Well, if you believe that peace would be chaos, you will continue supporting war and opposing peace.

War is the most organized people will ever get.

Not true. Iceland and Venezuela are very organized, but they are not at war and don't attack other countries.

It's even worse than that. Men will always turn, even on their brother, Cain and Able were prime examples. There are many more. (Civil War--Hatfields and McCoys)

Sure, in patriarchal societies based on war, there will always be wars. But people existed before patriarchy.

People need leadership. But not just any leadership. Define the qualities and understandings you want in your leaders and I will show the need for, congress-senate-executive office-supreme court all based upon a Good Constitution.

People can learn to self-govern. During the Spanish revolution there was one town that established anarchy for a week before the government came in and killed most of them. During that week there was no government, no money, and no violence. Everyone went to work as before, used scrip instead of money, and got along just fine.

We need air to breathe, fish need water to swim in, but it would be wrong to extrapolate and say that every living thing needs air or water. There are anaerobic lifeforms that do not. Perhaps they will inherit what's left after the religions and kings that fools obey have tricked them into destroying the planet. The first thief to steal what was until then the common property of all, and go unpunished, was the first prophet. He said that he had stolen because god told him to, and instead of punishing him, the fools asked him who or what god was, so he made up a story to justify the theft of the commons and people still believe it.

Native Americans lived here on Turtle Island for thousands of years without destroying it. There were huge forests teeming with wildlife and enough to sustain everyone. Then European predators came, and in the name of their gods and their kings, turned the place into a barren, toxic, radioactive wasteland, where everyone has to work in order to eat. The biggest problem the Europeans had was that every time one of them went to live with the Natives, they wouldn't come back. Unable to enslave the Natives, the Europeans killed 97% of them so that they could destroy 97% of the country. This was a resource rich land and now most things are imported.

The plants were here before people were, Jerry. We know who created the stories about who created everything, people who were using their lies to justify destroying everything. Liars and thieves justified appropriating that which existed free for everyone, and keeping it to themselves, by creating a god who said they could. They gained followers by only allowing those who agreed with them to share in their stolen loot. And they set about attacking everyone and everything so that they could have material things and power and so that they could feel superior to those they had deprived of life's necessities. Smug, arrogant thieves and liars who know that they have the right to kill and steal because they wrote a book saying that they could. But they pretend that they didn't write the book.

You are partially correct, Jerry. Those who cannot think, will continue to believe the lies and there is no hope for those who cannot use the brains they were given. Those who benefit from tyranny will continue to support tyranny in hopes that their might be a more benevolent tyranny some day, because tyrants don't want to even consider life without tyranny. They're rather kill every living being and destroy the planet totally than live as friends and equals with everyone else. They want eugenics so that everyone will be the "superior" thieves and liars they are. They consider those who share to be criminals and subversives. Who was the priest who said that when he fed the poor, people called him a saint, but when he questioned why people were poor, they called him a Communist?

I'm an atheist and an anarchist, Jerry. There is nothing we agree on. I know that without religions and governments, people are naturally empathic and therefore naturally good. You believe that goodness is chaos and must be governed and forced by violence into more violence. I would never vote for a government that would kill you because of your beliefs, but you will always vote for any government that kills people for their beliefs, because you are a person of belief, who believes that beliefs are necessary and that therefore it you can't force people to believe the lies, god says you have to kill them. Your god, your "prince of peace," is a murderer and more wars have been waged in his name than any true deity could ever forgive. Religions, like nationalities, governments, and political parties, are divisive. They lead inevitably to war. They cannot exist without war. War is their true religion, their true god, and it is waged for the purpose of enslaving people and destroying nature.

There will always be the fascist ubermenschen who believe they are superior to everyone else, and who cannot for a moment consider being mere equals with those they consider their inferiors. They believe that hierarchy is natural, that war is natural, that sidewalks are natural, that shopping malls are natural, that nuclear reactors are natural, and that things are as they are because they couldn't be any other way. Therefore they cannot change, and for them there is no hope.

Comment by Mark E. Smith on January 5, 2013 at 9:48pm

Voting to make decisions on issues, not to elect mandarins to make decisions. Voting where the votes actually have to be counted. Voting where money cannot influence the vote. Voting among people with a common purpose on the best ways to achieve that purpose.

Real votes, Jerry, not sham votes. In 2000, the Supreme Court said that Constitutionally, the popular vote doesn't have to be counted. A vote that doesn't have to be counted, isn't a vote, Jerry, and anyone who thinks that a vote which doesn't have to be counted is a real vote, is stupid enough to be a voter.

In a real election, the votes not only have to be counted, but they are the final say and cannot be overturned. When people vote directly on issues, not for "leaders" to make their decisions for them, they are people, not sheeple.

Comment by Mark E. Smith on January 6, 2013 at 5:50pm

When I came to Occupy Cafe I was not an anarchist. Then I met some true anarchists, began reading anarchist literature, and found out why anarchists, unlike their statist neighbors, are such good people. That's when I became an anarchist.

The only reason the people don't have time to run their own lives is because they have to spend most of their time paying for the government's wars.

You didn't respond to my explanation of why sham votes are not real votes.

And I just noticed that you've posted a discussion about Wounded Knee. The treacherous genocide that the US government committed there is no different from the treacherous genocide the US government committed in Iraq and Libya and is committing in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Mali, Sudan, Somalia, and Syria now. It is the same government committing the same treacherous genocide wherever it goes. The government never changed and the genocide never stopped. It was never necessary and is not necessary now.

The genocide continues because people believe that government is necessary, but government cannot exist without genocide to either force people to give up their land and become slaves or wage-slaves, or to kill them if they refuse. Governments are the bureaucracies that corporations form in order to pretend that they are not directly using military intervention to obtain whatever they want. But when they want something, sometimes, as in the original topic above, they slip up and forget to get their wholly-owned bureaucracies to pretend to be in charge, and order the violence directly.

Comment by Mark E. Smith on January 6, 2013 at 5:55pm

When Occupy Wall Street began, it recognized that Wall Street was not acting in the interests of the people.

What Occupy Wall Street failed to recognize is that Wall Street, funds, owns, and controls the government, and that therefore government also cannot act in the interests of the people.

Comment by Mark E. Smith on January 6, 2013 at 8:01pm

Jerry writes: "Check out your deities from the past and you will see all of them waged war."

That's why they're not my deities. I don't worship war gods. They're all war gods, so I'm an atheist. In fact, I oppose war, so I'm an anti-theist.

Jerry: "But then, who would drill the wells for our water, create the structure for our benefits, and the other things we demand of government."

The same people who do it now. No President or Member of Congress created anything or does any actual work.

Jerry: "MONEY----Get by without it for about 5 years."

I got by without it for over twenty years. When I needed food, I looked for food, not for money to buy food. When I needed sleep, I looked for a place to sleep, not for money to rent a place to sleep. If people simply went for what they need, instead of trying to get money to buy what they need, or to elect people who might or might not give them what they need, they'd have everything they need.

Comment by Mark E. Smith on January 7, 2013 at 7:19pm

Anarchists aren't lemmings and have no need to join the herd. Read Kropotkin and Bakunin, There are many anarchist book clubs anyone can join--I belong to one on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/41424-anarchist-radical-book-club But you don't have to join to check out their reading list and see what books anarchists recommend.

There are also two anarchist publishing collectives. For $20 a month http://www.akpress.org/ or $25 a month http://pmpress.org/content/ they'll send you everything they publish each month. Included in that is a 50% discount on their entire backlist.

Anyone can be a lemming by joining a group and following a leader, although that always leads to disaster. Anarchists have to become their own leaders. Anarchists don't lead or follow, we reject the competition of social hierarchy and prefer a cooperative equalitarian model of society. Pecking orders are for chickens.

Statists can never progress beyond war because states only exist due to war and war is their primary purpose.

War-profiteering governments and religions always depict anarchists as dangerous because we are the biggest threat to their war profiteering. What if they gave a war and nobody came? Once people stop believing the lies of governments and religions, and learn to think for themselves, they never go back. If religions and governments were natural, they wouldn't have to convert and conquer people at gunpoint. And they wouldn't have to use the full violence of the state to suppress social movements. Thinking and sharing are natural, and that's why religions and governments have killed billions of people, enslaving us by violently suppressing our natural instincts.

Jerry, I moderate my blog posts and I'm not going to approve any further comments from you. If people want to know what you have to say, there are other places on Occupy Cafe they can find it, or they can just read the Bible and go to one of the numerous survivalist sites on the web. The repetition of lies and false assumptions made without research, adds nothing constructive to a discussion.

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