I have been debating with a few people about capitalism and they all seem to have very fascist views.

The basis of their arguments are:

[list]
[*]Socialism (welfare, communal land etc) is theft and slavery of the minority of capitalists
[*]Homeless people are lazy
[*]Remittance is great
[*]Augusto Pinochet has bought growth to Chile, he killed everyone who opposed him and stole all publicly held property to sell it, but you know, socialism is theft right?
[*]Vedanta are criminals for polluting rivers in Zambia – but that’s got nothing to do with capitalism of course…
[*]If you can’t afford to live here, why should landlords charge less? It’s not like you made money for them or anything…
[*]Chinese factory workers are free, that’s why when they try to kill themselves, we bring them back to life and send them back to work for $1.76 per hour
[/list]

Neoliberalism – Economics over Politics

A political spectrum is a system of classifying different political positions upon one or more geometric axes that symbolize independent political dimensions. Commonly we use the terms “left and right” to distinguish between political ideals and practices.

Neoliberalism’s ideological axiom is: Greed is good and that we all have to swallow this fact.

Since the 1970s however, this divide has become almost obsolete, politics is governed by economics and the Brexit backlash was a statement of resistance against this phenomenon, the people want a movement where politics grasps the reigns of economics once more, but there is another meta layer behind the left and the right that unifies them as bound to the same economic principles that produce the main causes of resentment and the drive for change towards their preferred political ideology.

Liberal?

You would think that a party with a name like “Liberal Democrats” would be considered as “left”, when we look at their main ideals, we see “classical liberalism” and “neoliberalism”, which all sounds very nice, after all “liberal” means willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas, favourable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms,  regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change. They are technically described as “center”, which I would dispute is now center right after the coalition government, blatantly once Nick Clegg leaned toward the Tories instead of Labour and definitely when he raised university fees.

In reality and practice however, “Liberal” is as deceptive as it gets. Mainly when we hear any one of these liberals and how they propose we sort out various problems in society, they end up acting in a way that is, well, quite right wing and conservative, which is confusing to say the least.

Classical Liberalism

So what is classical liberalism? It drew on the economics of Adam Smith and on a belief in natural law, utilitarianism, and progress. It is one of the main ideals behind American Conservatism. Historically, they were opposed to the movement of social liberalism, that  child labour was forbidden, minimum standards of worker safety were introduced, a minimum wage and old age pensions were established, and financial institutions were regulated with the goal of fighting cyclic depressions, monopolies, and cartels. Classical liberals opposed these new laws, which they viewed as an unjust interference of the state. They argued for what they called a “slim state”, limited to the following functions:

Protection against foreign invaders, extended to include protection of overseas markets through armed intervention,    protection of citizens from wrongs committed against them by other citizens, which included protection of private property, enforcement of contracts, and suppression of trade unions. They assert that rights are of a negative nature which require other individuals (and governments) to refrain from interfering with the free market, whereas social liberals assert that individuals have positive rights, such as the right to vote, the right to an education, the right to health care, and the right to a living wage. For society to guarantee positive rights requires taxation over and above the minimum needed to enforce negative rights.

We can see how these classical liberals have set the theme we see today. Economics over Politics. Which brings us to Neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism today

Neoliberalism became prevalent in its current meaning in the 1970s and ’80s by scholars in a wide variety of social sciences and critics primarily in reference to the resurgence of 19th century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism. Thatcher and Reagan are the prime examples of the neoliberal ideal.

Its advocates avoid the term “neoliberal”; they support extensive economic liberalization policies such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy.

The private finance initiative (PFI) is a way of creating “public–private partnerships” (PPPs) by funding public infrastructure projects with private capital. Developed initially by the governments of Australia and the United Kingdom, and used extensively there and in Spain, PFI and its variants have now been adopted in many countries as part of the wider programme of privatisation and financialisation driven by an increased need for accountability and efficiency for public spending.

Financialisation

The implementation of neoliberal policies and the acceptance of neoliberal economic theories in the 1970s are seen by some academics as the root of financialization, with the financial crisis of 2007–08 as one of the ultimate results.

‘It’s natural’

It’s quite surprising, when one takes into account that these are conservative or right wing ideals, yet it is under the guise of a liberal or left sounding name. It is essentially meritocratic, Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning. We can see how classical liberalism has informed this ideology.

Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.

Troika

This definition scratches the surface of what Neoliberalism causes in our society, the other chief issues are how it views all citizens into a consumers. Then there is the European Troika, an organisation composed of the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The Troika, is policing the countries that got themselves into trouble; governments are constitutionally bound to the principles of good housekeeping. Greek unemployment remains the highest in Europe at almost 25% – and just under 50% among the young. Many companies are relocating to Bulgaria, Albania, Romania and Cyprus as a result of over-taxation.. In Spain, it is now commonplace for three generations to survive on a single salary or a grandparent’s pension; unemployment is running at 26 per cent, wages go unpaid and the rate for casual labour is down to €2 an hour. Italy has been in recession for years, after a decade of economic stagnation, and 42 per cent of the young are without a job. In Portugal, tens of thousands of small family businesses, the backbone of the economy, have shut down; more than half of those out of work are not entitled to unemployment benefits. As in Ireland, the twenty-some-things are looking for work abroad, a return to the patterns of emigration that helped lock their countries into conservatism and underdevelopment for so long.

The commission’s cure for the Eurozone crisis prescribes neoliberalism finessed by technocrats. Neither Remain nor Leave has a credible vision of how things would go, notably as regards the EU’s own future.

With all of this uncertainty, it’s not hard to see why Brexit would seem appealing, where do you think all of these people, who are the victims of ‘fiscal austerity’ across the EU, are going to go?

The EU has emerged significantly more autocratic, German-French-dominated and right-wing, while lacking any compensatory charm.

Not having a say in how Brussels will manage trade and fees could be a problem however. On a wider, farfetched worry, the collapse of the Euro currency could be disastrous too.

Composition fallacy

Any resistance to the EU has been met by a fierce wrath from the neoliberal intelligentsia, calling anything that resembles resistance, right wing, yet the EU and neoliberalism in general and the way it has emerged, is anything but ‘left’ in the sense of improving socialism, or even advocating socialism to regulate capitalism.

Neoliberal effects on the EU

The Troika – it has no official name – was scrambled together in April 2010 to take over direction of the Greek economy, as the condition for its first EFSF loan. Composed of functionaries from the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF, it now governs Portugal, Ireland, Cyprus and Greece, and has been permanently inscribed in the European Stability Mechanism. The Troika issues Memoranda of Understanding on the same model as the IMF, which dictate every detail of the member states’ legislative programmes: ‘The government will ensure that the legislation’ – for cuts in health and education, public sector redundancies, reductions in the state pension – ‘is presented to Parliament in Quarter 3 and agreed by Parliament in Quarter 4’; ‘the government will present a Privatisation Plan to Parliament and ensure it is speedily passed’; even, ‘the government will consult ex ante on the adoption of policies not included in this Memorandum.’

The Troika’s record of economic management has been abysmal. Greek GDP was forecast to fall by 5 per cent from 2009 to 2012; it dropped by 17 per cent and is still falling. Unemployment was supposed to peak at 15 per cent in 2012; it passed 25 per cent and is still rising. A V-shaped recovery was forecast for 2012, with Greek debt falling to sustainable levels; instead, the debt burden is larger than ever and the programme has been renewed. No one has been held to account for this debacle. Further rounds of cuts are scheduled for 2013, without any economic rationale. Another 15,000 public sector workers have to be sacked to meet the requirements of this summer’s quarterly review; the entire staff of the Greek broadcasting corporation has been dismissed. The number of doctors by headcount fell by another 10 per, as in 2012; hospital costs are to be cut by another 5 per cent, after 8 per cent in 2012, and the Troika wants to see a substantial further reduction in hospital beds.
Question everything…except liberalism and capitalism, you sophist!

So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power.

Austerity catch 22

The question is whether or not, Britain, in or out of the EU, can stand against austerity while neoliberalism is the dominant economic practice on both sides of the political spectrum. Left and right are now obsolete distinctions.

Both neoliberalism and neo-conservatism although disagreeing on amoral principles, uphold free markets, austerity and privatisation, making the left and right divide of the political spectrum a blurred continuum.
Political correctness and social justice

One major component of neoliberalism however is its political correctness ideology, that on the surface may seem like it is heading towards tolerance and understanding of diversity, but in truth, it is just another means of production, another trend to sell, a fad, a brand. Neoliberalism takes that which is profound and turns into the profane, neoliberalism has slickly achieved three things to ensure its robust longevity: “first, it has enabled the mutation of the state into a firm; second, it has given birth to the responsibilised and self-governing citizen; third, it has constantly projected experiences of human precarity and risk as entrepreneurial developmental funding opportunity”. These adaptions are infused with social identities and categories. Alliances built by neoliberal politicians to assist the flow of money up the economic hierarchy are complex, flexible, and shifting, yet the contexts of their concretion are always forged by “the meanings and effects of race, gender, sexuality, and other markers of difference”

Myth of the ‘posts’ in society

Commonplace discourses assume that western societies have largely overcome problems of racism, sexism, and heterosexism, homophobia. Political myths of “posts”, post feminism and fantasies of transcendence are espoused by both liberal and conservative forces.

Intersectionality

The result is a contradictory political and cultural climate replete with ideals of equality, accompanied by an unbending refusal to see the persistence of deeply entrenched inequalities of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and citizenship-status. Framing social life not as collective, but as the interaction of individual social entrepreneurs, neoliberalism denies preconditions leading to structural inequalities; in consequence, it congratulates itself for dismantling policies and discrediting movements concerned with structures of injustice. Thus neoliberal assumptions create the conditions allowing the founding conceptions of intersectionality—as an analytical lens and political tool for fostering a radical social justice agenda—to become diluted, disciplined, and disarticulated.

Consumer citizens

Ultimately, we see how neoliberalism has been the illness that has destroyed social services across the UK and Europe through privatisation and has worshipped the free market in a very exploitative way that looks for cheap labour while advocating austerity, consumerism and debt slavery.

How can we destroy it?

As we have examined the ideology behind left and right, we should seek a form of politics that can tame economics, scrap the fiscal policies of austerity and preserve social services like health care and education, schools that are better equipped for tolerance and diversity without the inauthentic shade of marketing tolerance and diversity for the ends of laissez-faire capitalism.

A coherent alternative has to be proposed. the central task should be to develop an economic Apollo programme, a conscious attempt to design a new system, tailored to the demands of the 21st century.

This is a much simpler game compared to the surrealist word game on the forum and guaranteed to bring about some laughs!

Just post a short five line limerick – simple as that.

My turn(s):

There was a young fellow from manchester,
he looked just like a gay uncle fester,
in the gay bars,
he went up an arse,
the arse of his dog called chester!

There was a man we dare not utter,
who did some very strange things with some butter,
he stole someones bird,
so nobody heard,
him slide it up his dirty old gutter!

What a maniac!

First picture of London terror attack suspect

This is just a few notes I have made looking at a few texts, it’s by no means complete, but I thought I would share it anyway.

This term has a number of interesting meanings. γοητεία (anglicanised: goiteía) is a Greek term for charm and attractiveness. In other expressions that speak of this term in a past tense, instead of as a verb or adjective it can mean a state of beguilment and unbeguilment. A related term in a verbal usage απογοητεύω (apogoitévo) the negation is of a lack of enthrallment and describes the action of dissapointment and letting down.

αγοήτευτος (agoíteftos) is the undoing of a seduction, of a charming and beguilment. But the term for Goetia may derive from γοάω (goao) which means ‘moan’ with its related term γοήσεται (goisetai) which means ‘wail’ especially in lamentation for the dead. Also, the term τινά (tiná); (bewail/speak) is related to this term also.

These translations indicate language, especially in the form of speech which is able to charm, beguile and enthrall, along with the negation of such effects as well their affirmations. We also see the term τινά as being an expression of sadness, great regret and dissapointment which is how we can relate it to απογοητεύω.

Goetia of course, is the title of a certain book about low magic by S.L. MacGregor Mathers, Crowley translated the title. Another related book from the Lemegeton, ‘Ars Notoria’ has a different apporoach to what Michael Psellus called ‘Names delivered to Nations by God that have an unspeakable power’.

Of what efficacy words are.

There is so great Vertue, Power and Efficacy in certain Names and Words of God, that when you reade those very Words, it shall immediately increase and help your Eloquence, so that you shall be made eloquent of speech by them, and at length attain to the Effects of the powerful Sacred Names of God

This has placed a reversal of the priority for meaning in language from speech to reading as γοητεία, for ‘That these Orations cannot be expounded nor understood by humane sense:’ also leads to the implication of beguilement from Written text. But the Ars Notoria is convinced that eidetic memory is possible from its written texts alone. The text places the reader in a creative position, as a star showing a sudden large increase in brightness. Other readers wrote of caution against this text, most notably, John of Morigny

11.

About four years after my entry into the order, a certain book was passed on to me by a certain cleric in which there were contained many nefarious things of the necromantic art.  I took a copy from it of as much as I could get, and after that I returned [it] to the cleric.  I was noticed by the devil, and tempted, and blinded as the temptation prevailed, I began to think how I might be able to attain to the perfec-tion of this nefarious science.  I sought counsel about this from a certain Lombard medical expert named Jacob.

Later he complains ‘Notoria, is without doubt a fountainhead of malice, origin of deviation, teacher of error, bag of tricks, river of iniquity, false advocate of grace; in it peace is bound to hatred, faith to falsehood, hope to fear, and madness is mixed with reason.’ Although Morigny rejected the Notoria it was used as an influence on one of his own works that promise the same results through a series of fasts and prayers, Liber virginis marie follows from a highly influential Neo-Platonist tradition as Claire Fanger writes:

and since the angelic powers are products of that mind in the realm of spirit, each of the nine angelic orders can be identified with a branch of knowledge

His system was very much a petition for response and often focused on the importance of dreams for gaining specifics in knowledge as opposed to the general accumulation of knowledge the Ars Notoria promises, but in this process of dream interpretation John would only petition the Virgin Mary who would appear to him in the form of a statue among many other forms.

We can’t of course, leave out the historical context here. John of Morigny was around when the Inquistion first formed in Europe and as he was a French Bennedictine Monk, he was part of the Monastic intelligensia of the times who would have first encountered these new texts coming from Eastern Europe.

So whereas the Goetia ‘howls’ and ‘wails’ in order to charm and beguile, the Ars Notoria recognises the power of a text itself to bring forth divine revelations and increase your knowledge.

Magic is the creation of something out of nothing. This means there is novelty which comes into being from an empty space created by the magician. The Goetia puts an emphasis on speech, the Ars Notoria puts an emphasis on reading. Both of them however, await the arrival of monsters, a monstrous arrivant. Recent philosophers in post-structuralism speak of monsters, by breaking up the incorporated rules of language and the way texts signify, they leave an empty space, ready for the montrous arrivant, a heraldic call for novelty. This ‘monster’ is not a literal creature however, it is the fear of the future – every reading of a text is anew and scary.

Ars Notoria was disregarded by S.L. Macgregor Mathers on the grounds that he deemed it unnecessary in the Lemegeton series, which indicates a privileging of speech over writing/reading in imporving these faculties of memory, true to the Platonist tradition, as Socrates himself in Phaedrus tells of the story of Thoth from Ancient Egypt who invented writing, Socrates explains he never writes anything down as it affects his memory in a negative way.

When a guy I was debating with saw the stats for Hispanic crime, he then claimed that only illegal immigrants were commiting crimes and being released under the catch and release policy. Also, that ‘more immigrants=more crime’. This is what I said:

Do you have any sources to show the magnitude of this problem?

I found these http://econofact.org/are-immigrants-more-likely-to-commit-crimes
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2911240/
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1533-8525.2001.tb01780.x/abstract
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10940-013-9210-5
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2004.tb00191.x/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1520-6688(199822)17:3%3C457::AID-PAM4%3E3.0.CO;2-F/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2004.tb00191.x/abstract
https://www.worldcat.org/title/international-migration-review-imr-a-quarterly-studying-sociological-demographic-economic-historical-and-legislative-aspects-of-human-migration-and-refugees/oclc/889376969
http://www.nber.org/papers/w13229
http://www.nber.org/papers/w6067
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X05000104
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0002716212438938
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10940-016-9294-9
https://academic.oup.com/aler/article/16/1/220/135207/What-is-the-Contribution-of-Mexican-Immigration-to
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/10/15/crime-rises-among-second-generation-immigrants-as-they-assimilate/ – this one says second generation immigrants are morelikely to commit crimes.
https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/56/3/447/1707591/Exploring-the-Connection-between-Immigration-and
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122416635667

All of them say the opposite to what you claim, in fact, these papers give evidence to show immigration makes crime less likely than from those who native born, or who are second generation immigrants.

It doesn’t say they never commit crimes, however, but these papers would suggest that immigrants coming to the US are coming here for economic reasons.

For sure, we should look after our own (I am not American) but the problems are more at the top than at the bottom – specifically the neoliberal regime and the amount of money spent on military intervention overseas (something I will get around to in my threads on capitalism).

First generation immigrants are more likely to keep low, for fear of getting caught and sent back to their countries. The problems are economic, poverty and enclosure due to capitalism is the problem. This is why I see Trump’s rhetoric as the standard nationalist witch hunt that stirs up patriotic feelings towards outsiders. These tactics usually end in more misery, as the indiginous population demands more laws, which can eventually be turned on them.
[hr]

That doesn’t apply to: Aliens who “pose a threat to national security, border security, or public safety.”

Aliens who are “misdemeanants and new immigration violators.”

It only applies to ‘Other Immigration Offences’. Those not in the first two categories of high risk, would not be detained and deported, and therefore CBP agents were advised to not waste resources arresting them but rather focus on priority one and priority two offenders.

Illegal migrants only take up 5% of the workforce, around 8,000,000 out of 11,000,000.

Mexican migration has been declining, but non-Mexican immigration increased by about 350,000 around 2014.

In the same debate I was having about ‘Hispanics and immigrants getting special treatment’, the same Trump supporter came out with this claim.

Here is what I said: (I have removed his username)

The bottom line is that immigrants do drain resources and break the law.

So do all humans.

As for the claim that they are a small part of the work force I’d scoff at any cite claiming that, come to Texas and tell me they’re a small part of the work force.

8,000,000 is not a small number, so of course, you will probably see them around. They grew by 32.7% in that state.

Also you did admit that immigrants were released correct? They should be deported not released as they’re here illegally.

How much does it cost to send them back, detain them etc? The catch and release for those particular categories has taken that cost into account.

I also have to point out that statistics can be manipulated and lied about, one paper can say those cities have low crime rates while others say other wise (He had given a link to some Daily Mail and Fox Sources)

The link you gave from Fox of all sources, is misleading. Violent crimes did rise, but that doesn’t mean it was illegal immigrants who did it, there’s no source to support their implied assertion – I found the 10% rise to be true, but there are no demographics.

The sources I gave you show how illegal migration actually shows a decrease in crime.

The idea for the $10 million fund was announced by Mayor Eric Garcetti in December, with $3 million coming from Los Angeles County and $5 million from the private sector.

LA has a budget for this of $6 billion, if they can afford $10 million, they should go for it. Los Angeles City Councilman Curren Price Wednesday announced a plan to create a $1 million fund aimed at helping immigrants with naturalization applications and other services, including deportation defense help.

So they would be able to become legal with the help available here, I know these numbers look really high to everyday people, I find sharing these numbers doesn’t do much for people to make sense of things, but in the context of how large budgets are, it’s nothing, plus, $5 million of it isn’t coming from LA, it’s coming from the private sector, so at the moment, only $1 million has been laid down and with the private sector deduction, it’s only $5 million or so coming from the city.

It doesn’t mean they will get legal defence funds for commiting crimes of a violent nature and the catch and release policy does not apply to these types of migrant criminals.

Also I’d like to say it’s not that they release those guys because it’s a waste of resources, it’s likely a political move as I stated earlier.

Based on previous analysis from the Center for American Progress, a mass deportation strategy would cost an average of $10,070 per person, for a total of $114 billion to remove 11.3 million people. So I disagree, based on these figures that it was a political move and not a cost vs. benefits judgement. It costs $1450~ to naturalise a citizen.

Also, capitalist neoliberal economies keep unemployment high to keep inflation down, if you removed that 5% of workers, you woud have massive inflation, then there’s the problems with Trumps’ taxation policy.

One last point I actually know people who come here just to have anchor babies, just because they’re not criminals does this mean they should be allowed to be here as many of them have taken advantage of Medicare etc fir their kids?

3.8 trillion is the US budget – migrants cost around $113 billion a year. That leaves $3.6 trillion – hardly put a dent in it.

Military spending however, which is the most risky investment the US has blundered over the years and is the main reason (apart from outsourcing and China’s growing economy) the USA is no longer the hegemon, is $611 billion, which still leaves 3.19 trillion. It’s this spending on the military that is causing the influx of refugee migrants by the way. The two policies of anti-immigration and pro-overseas military intervention are incompatible.

$3 trillion was the amount the US paid out to the bank after the 2008 crisis.

We live in a globalised world, these people are doing what anyone would do to survive. That’s a personal acceptence of this phenomenon on my part, I don’t see the need for borders at all, nationalism is an outdated concept in its death throws – especially if Trump tries all out protectionism – the US will enter trade death.

The problems are at the top, jumping a border is not a crime, as you admitted –

just because they’re not criminals

Compared to the damage capitalism is doing to the countries of these people who migrate, immigrants are the victims and require understanding. There’s enough to go around for everyone, it’s just neoliberal economics that has destroyed opportunities for everyone.

http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states

The numbers in this link are the same as the ones I have seen, so as regards your earlier quote:

I also have to point out that statistics can be manipulated and lied about, one paper can say those cities have low crime rates while others say other wise

This has no relevance to our discussion, apart from how Fox blew an already disclosed piece of information out of proportion, with racist implications.

Also the rate of foreign workers has increased, the reason for this is because even in America a big corporation can pay them lower wages.  Why do you think Filipino and Indian workers are brought in?

 

Yes, to keep inflation down. You are angry at the free market, not immigrants.

Because they’re more competent or will happily take the lower wages.

 

Because they have no choice – capitalism is really taking off over in their countries and they have been enclosed the same way we were 200-300 years ago during the industrial revolution. Forced away from simpler, more sustainable ways of living that were locally operated, because of enclosure and land grabs.

It’s the same principle behind opening a factory in Mexico rather then in the USA.  A USA worker will get paid maybe 30 dollars an hourwhile a Mexican will get paid three dollars an hour.  I assume this influx of foreign workers has also caused minimum wage to remain at an all time low.

Yes, so the problem is outsourcing and consumer capitalism, debt markets etc – not immigration. The problems are at the top – the capitalists are the real criminals, not migrants. It’s all exploitation and immigrants are being scapegoated – the facts are in the figures.

So I was in a debate a few weeks ago on another forum, it was a thread about the various issues that are raging in US politics and one of the guys in the debate claimed that Hispanics and immigrants were given preferential treatment, so I looked into it – the results were surprising.

Regarding hispanic ‘preferential treatment’, I found this PDF: https://static.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sp/1051.pdf
Compare with : https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14_Summary.pdf

The first PDF is from 2002 and the second link gives us data from 2014. The first sources says Hispanics, who are ambigiously labelled as such, more on that later, account for 15% of inmate population, but in each prison, on average, 1 in 3 prisoners are ‘Hispanic’, which accounts for 32% of persons held in federal prisons.

The second source is from 2014 ~ and we can see a rise in ‘Hispanics’ 22% were in custody (compare to previous 15%). This is a rise of 7% in 13 years.

As of 2014, there are 55 million Hispanics in the US. Only 308,000 of them were in custody as of 2014. That’s only 0.556% of their population.

Hispanic can refer to any person too, they may be of any race!

Whites make up 63.7% of the whole population and African Americans make up 12.2% of the whole population, whereas Hispanics make up around 16.3%.

Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762156.html

There is a fair amount of inconsistency in measuring Hispanic jail and prison populations, as
they are frequently counted in conflicting or contradictory methods; e.g. Hispanics measured racially as black or white and not as a distinct group.  It is commonly suspected that the actual number of Hispanics incarcerated is higher than what is accounted for by reporting agencies.

There are 453,500 whites and 516,900 blacks in jail, but let’s look at the proportion of the popualation.

0.23% of the white population is in custody as of 2014.
1.38% of the black population is in custody as of 2014.
So ‘Hispanics’ are in the middle, 0.556%.

Given the rate of population, the numbers seem to show up how they would be expected. The higher the population, the more people on average will be convicted of a crime.

Each of these demographics make up 1 in 3 people in custody, so no preference shows up there either.

Although ‘Hispanics’ are sort of inbetween, what is alarming is Hispanics are the fastest growing group being imprisoned, increasing from 10.9% of all State and Federal inmates in 1985 to 15.6% in 2001 (Source One) – but as we know from Source Two: They now make up 22%, this makes sense because the population in 2000 was     35,305,818, which was 55,000,000 by 2010.

As of 2001, 4% of Hispanic males in their twenties and early thirties were in prison or jail – as compared to 1.8% of white males.

I see no preference here either, white population decreased, although it is always the largest amount in population from 211,460,626 to 196,817,552 from 2000-2010 – that’s a drop of 14,643,074, funny, because it’s only 1 million or so off the rise in ‘Hispanic’ population, which increased by 15,171,776 over the same period! Joking aside though, if anything it’s the whites who are getting preferential treatment, according to these stats.

A smaller percentage of whites were in state prison for violent offenses (48%) than blacks (57%) and Hispanics (59%).

Hispanics are mostly hit with drug dealing and immigration related convictions- Among Hispanics, 57% of federal inmates were convicted drug offenders, and 26% were sentenced for immigration offenses.

That means 175,959 of them were convicted for drugs and 80,262 were convicted for immigration reasons. That’s only 0.32% of all Hispanics in the USA were convicted for drugs and a measely 0.15% were convicted for immigration reasons.

The number of white inmates (78,500 prisoners) serving time in state prison for rape or other sexual offenses was more than the combined total of blacks (39,700) and Hispanics (37,300).

As for the ladies, who make up 7% of the prison population:

Fifty percent of the female prison population was white and 21% was black. However, black females were between 1.6 and 4.1 times more likely to be imprisoned than white females across all age groups. Among females in state prisons, 24% were convicted drug offenders and 37% were serving sentences for violent crimes at year end 2013.

There is nothing significant about these numbers when it comes to ‘Hispanic’ people, they are imprisoned in numbers that would be expected considering the size of the population, which concurs with the rise in population of all demographics (with the exception of black males), but there is a greater rise of ‘Hispanics’ going to prison than any of the other demographics.

In my opinion, when we look at history, nationalism has always been used by capitalist elites to stir up patriotic feelings and resentment, politics in the Schmittean sense is always about ‘friends and enemies’, ‘us and them’ ‘us and the other’. When we look away from media hype, which is just confirmation bias, we can see from these stats that are not far off other sources I briefly checked, the error margin was not significant, there is nothing truly significant in regards to preferenetial treatment. I’m not saying that this never happens, no doubt I will be given examples from selected areas where whites or blacks are imprisoned more than hispanics dispropotionately in particular areas, which is why I looked at the whole of the United States for context.

Poverty plays a major factor into this of course, so in my opinion, no one is getting preferential treatment, it’s an economic problem.

I will check out the welfare spending claims later at some point.

Faust is perhaps my favorite play and story. I have uploaded the script to the ‘The Tragical Hisory of Docktor Faustus’ by Christopher Marlowe and also the Goethe version ‘Faust’ parts one and two.

I will be reading these texts soon and making threads about them.

Who was Herbert Spencer?

Herbert Spencer’s ashes are buried in Highgate Cemetary (I took this picture myself)

Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era. As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, literature, astronomy, biology, sociology, and psychology.

He is best known for his ‘survival of the fittest’ projection of Aristocratic virtues in a socio-economic theory inspired by the works of Charles Darwin. Darwin is often misrepresented on this matter, although he did declare ‘survival of the fittest’ meaning ‘the species that survives adapted best to the environment’ in his theory of evolution, it was Spencer who created a social theory known as Social Darwinism. This was typical of many philosophers of his time to retroject their own values throughout time and form a social and political economic theory based on this idiosyncracy and then turn it into a natural law that applied to society and culture. Spencer was part of the aristocracy and so he equated ‘fittest’ with ‘white and rich’. Spencer solidified these values in the form of Social Darwinism and his work was influential for those who wanted to justify slavery and a slim state solution with no social welfare program.

Anyway, this isn’t important here as such, the only part that has relevance is how influential he was at the time of Crowley, which is probably why Crowley chose him as the representitive of the scientific community.

Crowley and Spencer

Crowley first mentions Spencer in his essay in order to explain how an illusion is the result of at least some cause. He then explains how here is a difference in the way Westerners are taught about the Universe and the cosmos to say, Hindu children and that the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte was in the opinion of Crowley, opening a dialogue between these two cultures.

In my first essay, I concluded that Crowley was trying to define the spirits of the Goetia to those who were not initiated into the Occult and Ceremonial Magic and he explains them in a way that is very similar to Immanuel Kant’s Transcendental Idealism – as active components of our percpetion and cognition that can be evoked to give us knowledge and so it sounds like a glorified form of psychology. The ‘some cause’ is from a combination of insences and symbols performed in a ritual ceremony that when combined and enacted, produce an effect of a spirit, or they at least produce the desire.

I want to skip to the end of the essay for a brief moment, as this part of the essay fulfils why he bought Fichte into the discussion:

Brahma flew at the rate of 84,000 yojanas a second for 84,000 mahakalpas, down. Yet never reached an end. Yet I reach an end.

He unites Fichte with Paracelsus when he says ‘there is nothing in the heavens of earth which does not exist in man’. His main point is that in the East the effects he speaks of are achieved through meditation, in the West, they are arrived at through Ceremonial Magic. The entire essay was orginally from this book http://files.vsociety.net/data/library/Section%201%20(A,G,M,S,Z)/Crowley,%20Alester/Unknown%20Album/The%20Sword%20of%20Song.pdf The Sword and the Song Volume II.

So, back to Spencer and in particular, the mentioning of ‘Spencer’s projected cube’.

Their seals therefore represent (Mr. Spencer’s projected cube) methods of stimulating or regulating those particular spots (through the eye).

What is the projected cube?

Here is an extended extract from a book called The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer by Michael Taylor. Spencer is attempting to put forward a case for Realism against Subjectivism.

‘In the second edition of the Psychology, Spencer offered a more sophisticated defence of Realism, arguing that, even if it were the case that our sensations do actually depend on the nature and conditions of our sense organs, and that they cannot be interpreted as identitical with what exists in the external world, one could only establish this on the basis of realistic assumptions.

Spencer called this position Transfigured Realism which ‘simply asserts objective existence as separate from and independent of subjective existence. But it affirms niether that any one mode of this objective existence is in reality that which it seems, nor that the connexions among its modes are objectively what they seem.’

So Spencer is saying there is a similarity between subjects and objects (our experience and reality independent of our senses) although the actual reality is unknowable due to limitations in our perception of its appearance. This doesn’t stray too far from the limits of knowledge that Kant had put in place, but he had placed the subjective experience of human beings at the center of philosophical inquiry, but the ‘thing in itself’ could not be known by science, so again he posits the unknowable.

So Transfigured Realism says there are limits to our perception of the appearance of reality, but there is a more elevated form and shape that we can’t know, but it isomorphically corresponds with the components of the subject.

What is this Realism which is established as a datum long before reasoning begins, which immeasurably transcends reasoning in certainty, and which reasoning cannot justify, further than by finding that its own deliverances are wrong when at variance with it? Is it the Realism of common life–the Realism of the child or the rustic? By no means. The Realism we are committed to is one which simply asserts objective existence as separate from, and independent of, subjective existence. But it affirms neither that any one mode of this objective existence is in reality that which it seems, nor that the connexions among its modes are objectively what they seem. Thus it stands widely distinguished from Crude Realism; and to mark the distinction it may properly be called Transfigured Realism. It is possible to represent geometrically the relations which exist among the several hypotheses we have discussed–between Crude Realism, the idealistic and skeptical forms of Anti-Realism, and the Transfigured Realism which reconciles them. The geometrical analogy thus helps us to see how Transfigured Realism reconciles what appear to be irreconcilable views. It was lately shown that existence, in the accepted sense of the word, can be affirmed only of that variously conditioned substratum called the Object and that other substratum variously acted on by it, called the Subject; while the effects of the one on the other, known as perceptions, are changes having but transitory existences. In the diagram we similarly see that the permanent existences are the cube and the surface; while the projected image, varying with every change in the relation between the cube and the surface, has no permanent existence.

Bringing this back to Fichte, who declares ‘in consciousness representation is distinguished through the subject from both object and subject and is related to both’, Fichte claims that ‘the essence of an I lies in the assertion of one’s own self-identity, i.e., that consciousness presupposes self-consciousness. Such immediate self-identity, however, cannot be understood as a psychological fact, nor as an act or accident of some previously existing substance or being.’ So this is a self-positing-I and is the elementary fact that Fichte bases his whole philosophy on.

So Fichte severes as does Kant, the passage between objects and subjects and says that everything that occurs in the mind can be comprehended within the basis of the mind itself.

So going back to the quote at the end of the essay:

I trust that the explanation will enable many students who have hitherto, by a puerile objectivity in their view of the question, obtained no results, to succeed; that the apology may impress upon our scornful men of science that the study of the bacillus should give place to that of the baculum, the little to the great — how great one only realises when one identifies the wand with the Mahalingam,<> up which Brahma flew at the rate of 84,000 yojanas a second for 84,000 mahakalpas, down which Visnu flew at the rate of 84,000 crores of yojanas a second for 84,000 crores of mahakalpas — yet neither reached an end.   But I reach an end.

What he has compared, is the two philosophies and sciences of his time:

[list=1]
[*]1. That perception is limited to appearance and there is an unknowable elevated shape or form which must isomorphically relate to the subject
[*]2. That consciousness posits itself, it distinguishes itself and so can be explained in its own terms entirely
[/list]
So he is using these two views to explain how one can begin to approach the spirits of the Goetia, as parts of a whole and the seals are isomorphically linked to the physical body, namely the brain (more on this is another thread).

He discards with the childish view of what those outside of the occult assume spirits to be, namely monsters and devil creatures that are part of the superstitious idea of magical spirits. He mentions the middle pillar of the tree of life, which is about the unity of force, rest and motion, Creation, Destruction and Harmony. He seems to be uniting the unknowable between subject and object, or at least beyond the mental and physical and bringing them side by side.

Before I wrap up, I want to mentions that when Crowley says ‘The spirits of the Goetia are portions of the human brain’, it is important to note the use of the term ‘brain’ as opposed to mind. Later on he declares:

And this is a purely materialistic rational statement; it is independent of any objective hierarchy at all.  Philosophy has nothing to say; and Science can only suspend judgment, pending a proper and methodical investigation of the facts alleged.

This is very new for his time. You see, Fichte was a German Idealist and declares the properties we discover in objects depend on the way that those objects appear to us, as perceiving subjects, and not something they possess “in themselves”, apart from our experience of them. The question of what properties a thing might have “independently of the mind” is thus unknowable and a moot point within the idealist tradition. Spencer on the other hand, claims that we can known parts of this unknowable aspect through isomorphism and that we can explain the connection through inferring what we know about physics and physiology.

Crowley unites the two by saying it is materialistic and rational, which in philosophical terms means ‘that reason does not require experience in order to be understood and that all of the truths of the world exist in innate forms’, so the spirits are a priori and physically operating parts of the body and so the understanding of Crowley’s explanation as psychology goes out the window.

He’s uniting the seals with the spirits as a methodology for stimulation and regulation in a physical sense and that they can be evoked because they exist whether we experience them or not. As we are part of the Universe, the spirits have evolved in an isomorphic relation to our physiology and the gateway that unites this physical system is through the eye, or the essence of the universe, akasha.

He does say that they are independent of any objective hierarchy and so shifts the focus of science and philosophy (the uninitiated) from looking to a micro-physical system, to a greater whole view of seals and magical instruments as parts of a physical system on the macro level and that ‘some cause’ through these physical means produces an illusion of some kind in the same sense that the self is an illusion yet part of a physical system, he is describing it as a kind of physicalist supervenience. Crowley explains a process that ‘dislodges’ these unknowable components that are inbetween physical configurations.

‘There is a Lion in the way’, is Crowley’s way of saying he has no need to practice what he has explained as he has all that he needs and desires. His essay is an apology, a defence of Ceremonial Magic.

Crowley is explaining a Dialectical Monism:

None… and two. For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union. This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.

There is a whole that necessarily expresses itself in separate dualistic parts, completely dissolving the subject-object confusion of Spencer and Fichte.