I think this idea is tempting but incorrect. Some just hate people that are different. Some people hate Mexicans but don't harbor feelings of repressed Mexicaniality.

I think homophobia has too many reasons to exist to pin it down to just repression.

That was pretty awesome. This is the best way to cure the world of homophobia; make every macho showing representative of repressed homosexuality. Awesome.

But that's just not true.

Firstly I'm not defending either US sponsored coup to install Pinochet or his repression. Purely the economic policies.

The fact is, Chile has the highest GDP per capita, the highest literacy rate and the highest Human Development Index of all major South American countries. It's also the least corrupt.

http://tinyurl.com/lf22scc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2013/results/

Admittedly most of the growth came about in the past 2 decades after Pinochet, but an honest reading of history shows that most of the groundwork was laid while he was in power.I don't take any comfort in attributing economic success to a mass murderer but those are the facts.

Frankly, while I agree with Naomi Klein on a number of things, she is absolutely clueless when it comes to economic policy. You can argue on certain specific policy choices (say restricting labour unions) or on the speed of reforms (which was also a major problem in Russia), but taken as a whole, you can't argue with the results.

"I know shit is very complicated and the answers aren't easy, but we can EASILY do better than this."

Sigh.

And who, now, tell me, are the "good guys" in Syria? We can't even get aid into the country; when we do, where is it going? Is it being diverted? Into whose hands? Is it feeding the troops, on either or both sides, who, rejuvenated by supplies, rally to fight and make it worse for everyone else?

The collapse of the Cold War has let the repressed sectarian and religious hatreds of a hundred years or more (the Serbians still fixate on a glorious defeat that happened in 1389...I'm not kidding) boil over across the planet...

This and the Norwegian bus stop advertisement for Syrian aid are amazing pieces---and I applaud them...

Two random factoids I can't quite resolve in my head:
1) American's think we spend 25% of our national budget on foreign; we actually spend somewhere between 1.5% and under 1 % depending on how you include certain payments (the Nordic countries embarrass us by spending 2-3X as much as us as percentage of GDP)...and

2) It is pretty much a demonstrable fact that we are now living in the most peaceful time in human history. How horrifying it must have been to live in any other time---
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence

Yes, repression is always the answer. Just ask Catholic priests.

...and married men should never masturbate. That's why God invented hos.

Fascinating to hear the history of this.

Around his point of the labourer being paid less than their worth: I think he closes over the point of "capital" in the first place. No matter what you produce, be it cars, hammers, phones or even intangibles like software or movies, someone had to invest money in it or there would be no output. Simply saying that the initial investment is in the value of the output is gross oversimplification (ignoring the reality of things like time for return on investment, etc.)

I would consider myself fairly left leaning, but even I don't have a problem with that. What I DO have a problem with is how inequal it's become.

It used to be that an employee was paid x% of their value add. These days it has been repressed down to .5x%.

Add to that, large parts of the economy produce nothing, simply shifting money around generating capital that is grossly disproportionate to their economic input (i.e. they're making lots of money, but not employing people or buying plant).

#1 I clicked "ignore" after responding to his post. That is what I have no problem with doing.

#2 Bullshit. (sorry but it is) Hundreds if not thousands of people get arrested and prosecuted regularly for drug possession, drug selling, and even drug use. Tell me what's been decriminalized!

#3 The state is doing quite a bit in Oakland, actually, like preventing the private institutions that would solve these problems from arising in the fist place from setting up there (but instead hold failed monopolies over those industries). For example, there are no legalized drug dealers (See bullshit #2). Again, that kind of gang activity happens on a "public" street. It does not happen on private property. And even if it did, it'd be no one's business but the owners'.

#4 If this was even close to true, then it's even more proof of the superiority of private police over "public" law enforcement. Because, like I said, you don't see this kind of thing happening on private property, do you?

#5. Wrong. Businesses will take care of that if given an incentive to move there. Have you not heard of people complaining about (so-called) "gentrification?"

#6. Huh? Really? So, are there no business permits needed to set up a business in Oakland? Do the business owners and residents of Oakland not have to pay taxes? Is there no open carry for law-abiding citizens? (now there will be it seems). Is there no enforced rent control in Oakland? If you don't see any regulations being enforced, then you are willfully ignorant.

#7. There are no gangs at Disney because it is private property and its owners will not put up with something so bad for business as gangs. Disneyland and Google have gentrified the neighborhoods they are in -- they were not always low crime areas as they were before they moved in.

"Oakland is a high crime area with little money for security."

Yeah, those usually go together. The ultimate results of statist interventions are always poverty and crime.

#8 Much of the violent crime happens in the "public" spaces, like the streets. Sure, there are break-ins to private homes, etc. but as you say, the poverty does not let people hire private security, and the "public" police (that have monopolized that industry) are, like you point out, completely useless to the tax-paying residents who live there.


#9 I'd rather I wouldn't have to pay for taxes and pay for my own security than having to give the money to the state in exchange for getting nothing in return. In fact, I'm aware of several security services that are available to people living in the ghetto for as little as $35/month.


#10 So, only gangsters can afford guns now? Maybe it will be cheaper without the gun "permit" costs. Or the restrictions about buying them more cheaply online.

And I highly doubt the peoople in Oakland can't afford guns, given how many guns there are in Oakland. But, for the sake of argument, lets say it's true. If not for the illegality of the drug trade, then gangsters would also not be able to afford guns (the illegality of the drugs is what's driving up the price and, as a result, the profitability of gangsterism). And if it wasn't for the regulations, Walmart would make sure to provide more affordable armaments, just like they do in other states.

I recommend spending just a few minutes inside the Oakland traffic court and you'll see how many "hardworking upstanding people" there are who somehow manage to pay for hundreds of dollars in fines and/or do community service for an equivalent minimum wage to pay for these. You could easily get a gun at Walmart for much less.


"Before someone claims I have no idea of what I speak, my brother lived in East Oakland..."

Well, if you think Oakland is a libertarian "dream," then you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Having a brother who lived in Oakland for a year does not make you an expert on (or even vaguely familiar with) what a libertarian "dream" place looks like (or even -- as you apparently reveal -- what actually goes on in Oakland).


Just the fact that, as you say, Oakland is rather poor makes it a non-libertarian city at all. A free market society/economy (cronyism is not a free market, so don't even go there) has much less poverty than a 'regulated' one.

Sure, if you go from a state-dependent "economy" to a free market overnight, without having had time to rebuild the private institutions that the state demolished and/or took over and/or monopolized, then, sure you may have a chaotic transition period. That's why a controlled dismantlement is far more preferable to an anarchy that comes about by sudden collapse. But, you have to take what you can get.

(As we may find out first hand) the problem with a government going bankrupt is that, at first, it may seem like a good thing, but it can also bring about a worse repression from the state. Praxeology cannot answer the unknown. It falls more within the realm of thymological prediction/analysis.

Yes Thumper, and we'd remind shatterdrose that while averting one's fixation from a woman's breasts may be some torturing social anomaly adopted through repressed sexuality with a Dickensian flair, women that become insulted when a man happens to regard her breasts with appreciation are usually pretty dull and bitchy while the ones who draw attention to them with the wonderful variety of devices and lures, are generally more fun to be around and more likely to want to breed, hence keeping the species intact and prolific.


Smoke 'em if ya got' em ladies!

Frikkin' BRILLIANT!

Personally, I believe the heart of humanity's repression and shit-think comes form the lack of bonding with mothers in the form of titty-milk during infacy, many of whom inhabit this videoblog....

Because the car is the personification of your repressed sexuality.

@enoch,

I think our gap is from very disparate world views and taking for granted we'll each work out for ourselves more than we do.

I used to really hang onto the saying that war is the ultimate failure of democracy. It resonated with me, and it seems to me that it's very much were you are coming from? Looking at history more and more though, I've come to see that saying is more the way we would wish our world to be, and not how it really is. Instead I see our history telling out the truth that diplomacy is the ultimate goal of war.

Peace is a fleeting and pretty much impossible state of existence for us it seems. The only time peace ever lasts is when war and conquest simply won't lead to greater gains than it. Time and time and time again history has shown that the only time war and violence weren't followed was when the gains from it were not worth the cost. How many times in history did an invading nation turn back because the other side stood back and refused to fight back? It just doesn't happen, get enough people united and they will use whatever method is to their greatest advantage, and all too often that is violence.

In Pakistan the taliban are making huge gains through violent repression of everyone that opposes them. It is extremely effective because those living in the region are unable to fight back for lack of unity and numbers. The Pakistani military meanwhile is unwilling to fight back, because they have more to gain by letting the taliban kill Pakistani civilians while the elected government is nominally 'in power'. Negotiation with the Taliban is impossible to my eyes unless and until their use of violence no longer benefits them. The fastest and surest way of accomplishing that is meeting them with that same force and ensuring they lose more than they gain with each attack.

It's a brutal, but also very simple assessment I think. It also leads to drone attacks being the one method of fighting back directly at them that leaves the least number of collateral casualties in it's wake. It takes more than a year for drones to kill as many people as the Taliban do in a month. Of those killed by drones, from 50-90%(depending who's counts you believe) are identifialy Taliban militants and leaders. That includes taking out the Taliban's top leader twice in the last 5 years with them, and if you include American actions in Pakistan in general, it nets Bin Laden as well.

I'd urge you not to take that as a western or American centric goal or objective. The thousands killed each month I list as justification and wanting protection for are nearly 100% Pakistani Muslims.

I don't think the people who think the Republican party is doomed understand just how brainwashed their people are. I have to hear Fox news every day, and hear comments from conservatives every day about how everything is going to hell in a hand basket and only the Republican party can save them. It's becoming clear that all this is just galvanizing the core. They think they are being repressed, they think there is a war against Christianity (which is funny since the Republican party is perhaps the most polar opposite of the 4 larger parties, and certainly of the two majors, to the teachings of Jesus) and only Republicans will help stop that war. Their churches are telling them there is a war against Christians and how they are being repressed and to vote Republican to save them. These people, once they can no longer deny that the climate is warming and is man made, will just point how it is the end times and continue to ignore it, because Jesus is coming soon anyhow. It's like that cartoon where the rich man takes 99 of the 100 cookies, the middle class guy takes one and the poor guy has just crumbs and the rich man warns the middle class guy to watch out, that the poor guy wants his cookie, and rather than be mad at the guy who took 99 of the cookies, he actually gets mad at the poor guy for wanting one. They don't care that a rich man fires over 1000 people and keeps everyone else at minimum for 4 years without raises so he can have a jet, they see those minimum wage workers and the people he fired as the enemy.They honestly believe the big corporate media machine is the "liberal media", disregarding the fact they are very much interested in keeping the status qua going, rather than expose the truth of growing income gap in this country. By 2016 most people will have forgotten the shutdown and those that remember it won't remember it is the Republican's fault, yes, the progressives will remember, but the conservatives blame the Democrats, liberals and progressives anyhow, and the rest won't care by then. The Fox News watchers, Rush listeners are just more solidly believing now that everything is the fault of the poor and the needy and the liberals, Democrats and progressives that want to help them.

TLDR: Those seeing the end of the Republican party, must not be around the hard core enough to see how brainwashed they are by Fox, Rush and their churches. All this just solidifies their anger.

Sorry, but the whole "we were all in it together during the depression" thing is bullshit. Sure, everyone banded together and looked after each other.... unless you were black, gay, Irish, Jewish or even female.

He's totally right about wage repression though.

Also,I'd point out that his list of resentments: the poor, black people, immigrants, unions, intellectuals and government; that's a list of resentments of the right.

Sorry, but this isn't some vast idealogical gulf between fringes. It's a gap between a centre-right party (the democrats) and insane people.

About the song from Wikipedia:
The title (46 and 2) references an idea first conceived by Carl Jung and later expounded upon by Drunvalo Melchizedek concerning the possibility of reaching a state of evolution at which the body would have two more than the normal 46 total chromosomes and leave a currently disharmonious state. The premise is that humans would deviate from the current state of human DNA which contains 44 autosomes and 2 sex chromosomes. The next step of evolution would likely result in human DNA being reorganized into 46 and 2 chromosomes, according to Melchizedek.
Furthermore, the song references a wish to experience change through the "shadow"; an idea which represents the parts of one's identity that one hates, fears, and represses, this exists as a recurring theme in the work of Carl Jung.



My shadow's

Shedding skin and
I've been picking
Scabs again.
I'm down
Digging through
My old muscles
Looking for a clue.

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own confused
And insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over
Or a word to guide me in.
I wanna feel the changes coming down.
I wanna know what I've been hiding in

My shadow.
Change is coming through my shadow.
My shadow's shedding skin
I've been picking
My scabs again.

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own chaotic
And insecure delusions.

I wanna feel the change consume me,
Feel the outside turning in.
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
Cleansing I've endured within

My shadow
Change is coming.
Now is my time.
Listen to my muscle memory.
Contemplate what I've been clinging to.
Forty-six and two ahead of me.

I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be paranoid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through.

I choose to live and to
Lie, kill and give and to
Die, learn and love and to
Do what it takes to step through.

See my shadow changing,
Stretching up and over me.
Soften this old armor.
Hoping I can clear the way
By stepping through my shadow,
Coming out the other side.
Step into the shadow.
Forty six and two are just ahead of me.