Translation People Revolution Together Happen World Crisis

http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=7559

Cau dude, I  use a dark green background for my Windows because I stare at the computer all day long and found that light text on top of this is much better for my eyes than the standard black text on white background, which has to do with the ancient technology of ink on bleached paper more than anything else. Hope you will be able to read this okay.

I've always admired your vast knowledge, but here I'll allow myself for a discourse. Just explaining the way I see things.

Witnessing the Decay of Western Hegemony and the Role of the Organic
Intellectual
PEJ News - Pablo Ouziel, Justice Editor - Abstract - While the
military might of the world’s leading nations continues to expand, it
has become apparent that western colonialism is abruptly coming to an
end, yet the consequences are still not clear to any of the pundits
traditionally involved in the discourse which has helped to build it.

???

“yet the consequences are still not clear to any of the pundits traditionally involved in the discourse which has helped to build it.”

What exactly does that mean?

It seems  distorted at best.

My impression is that the financial crisis and the way things are going may lead to a crises and revolution, which always comes about when the masses do not have enough work. The "pundits", those at the top who have not acted justly but rather selfishly, didn't see this coming.

For many decades in the west, we have thrived on imperial expansion
led by the United States of America and its allies, and legitimized by
international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund, The
World Bank and the United Nations.

Did we thrive?

Imperial expansion? Really, could you explain that to me?

I've been reading a lot of independent media and it seems clear to me that the west has been screwing the poor countries for centuries, basically robbing them of their natural resources and turning the domestic population into slaves, to help ship out these resources. Just think of the slave triangle across the Atlantic. Wherever oil or other precious resources are found, there quickly go the big boys and exploit it, where the locals suffer. Obviously, by living in the west, us citizens have reaped this raping by trickle down theory, because the west has gotten rich to a certain degree because of these "disadvantageous trading practices"

Today, this oligopoly of world domination

Oligopoly of world domination??

Monopoly is when one company controls the market, Oligopoly is when several companies get together behind closed doors (which is technically illegal but who the heck can control something like this, especially when these groups lobby (bribe) the government to death with their massive financial resources) and agree on charging monopoly prices, pretending to act as a single player on the market. So I see the "oligopoly of world domination" as the executive class which operates across borders in this new capitalistic era and crushes the small man everywhere – from the guy who puts the car together in Detroit, to the farmer in some third world country.

is rapidly deteriorating and what only a few months ago
seemed like the only option for humanity is today being severely put
to the test. The organic intellectual must face these challenging
times by offering viable alternatives to society so that a new world
order can emerge out of the rubble left behind by liberal democratic
capitalism.

OK so do you see any deterioration in the Western military expansionism?

And how can an “organic intellectual” help stop the military?

I don't see any deterioration yet, but with the USD plummeting further, and years of credit card living ready to bankrupt that nation, I think the coffers may run dry on that ever insatiable machine. Especially if they'll do something retarded like try to take on Iran. What I see is that this author hopes the organic intellectual (explained below next to your comments) can muster up some grass roots movement to overthrow the government or system and force through some radical and necessary changes, which can happen at times of revolution, which he is forecasting. But from memory I believe he cast doubt in the article whether this will happen. He is just trying to stir up people in that direction.

Introduction
Antonio Gramsci differentiated organic intellectuals from traditional
intellectuals,

And what is a traditional intellectual?

Someone who went to university?

Who was the last “intellectual” you heard of?

All the intellectuals have been killed off or hijacked by the Establishment.

I consider Chomsky an intellectual and am surprised he is still alive. During my independent journalistic reading I see there are a lot of others out there and hope that the internet will create a new media network to compete against the standard propaganda.

I think by "traditional intellectual" it could mean those pompous arses who talk a lot but do nothing. By "organic", I think he is referring to people who use their knowledge and intellect to get out there and teach people around them, in order to build up a grass roots movement, hopefully.

by emphasizing the role of the former in cultivating
roots within their communities to help develop a self-inspired organic
consciousness.

So by emphasizing someones roots will help develop a self-inspired organic consciousness.

Bullshit.

The guy likes the sound of his own big words

He didn't say "emphasis roots" but "emphasise on the organic intellectual" who cultivates roots, going back to the concept of teaching others around us to think, and act responsibly, rather than just stare at the dummy tube and eat McDonalds, gorging out on all the goodies the capitalists monsters can spit out without thinking about the consequences of a rapidly devouring planet.

Accepting their position within the dominant ideology,
according to Gramsci, organic intellectuals will ultimately support
the working-class in developing an alternative hegemony within civil
society.

The guy spent to much time at university instead of spending time with the “working class”

And why should an organic intellectual accept their position within the dominant ideology?

etc etc

A bit beyond me. Possibly the case where the intellectuals, like Marx, sincerely hoped to help the working class, but his ideas were robbed by the Communists and used to make themselves nice and fat. After every revolution, I'm sure the swift and crafty at the top will figure out a way how to capitalize on it. Just look at all the communists who are still in power in Czech and Russia etc.  But after every revolution at least things make a jump for the better, until the powers at the top practically make the jump (take the American constitution as an example) obsolete. It will certainly take a revolution for those crackerpots over there to consider a change to it (their "holy" constitution). I actually have my own radical propositions for what a real democracy can be, due to the existence of the internet, but that would require a whole other "article".

For many decades, society has been indoctrinated with the belief that
liberal democratic capitalism was the benevolent solution to all world
problems.

News to me.

Well, that is certainly the platform ol' Bushy boy was riding on while surfing like a cowboy through the Arab states. Talking about "freedom" every third word (in between the words "smoking him out"), when in fact he could be the world's greatest terrorist at the moment.

Through this model of society, hunger was going to be
eradicated, wars would come to an end, the environment would be saved,
and justice would be distributed equally amongst all members of the
human species.

That is the thought that the western media has been telling us. Whitey.

Tell it to someone not from the West. Tell it to an Iraqi or Iranian, for instance.

I think the western executive class, which controls a lot of the media (outright owns it, or through advertising, where newspaper subscriptions only contribute to one third of revenues), would love that the Iraqis and Iranians would jump on board of this belief, start buying lots of stupid and unnecessary goods to make the factory owners richer, and give up their oil in the process (trade).

Entering the new century, western society celebrated
the new millennium with the euphoria of success, once and for all; we
had entered the final face of existence, the one, which would bring
upon the earth the mythical wonders of the Kingdom of Heaven.

What?

I think that's what the media was portraying before year 2000 came around, and many were sort of starry eyed thinking that maybe this will happen.

 However,
without having witnessed the passing of the first decade of the 21st
century, this dogma has been broken and as many across the globe
struggle for survival and society is marred by the continuous threat
of revolving crisis, the time for the revolutionary transformation of
the western ideal is upon us.

To much time at university again!

Yet, the fundamental questions remain to
be answered, how can we act? What can we do?
It is the role of the organic intellectual to answer these questions.
Is it.

I warn against even thinking about it.

Not unless you like prison(at best)

 

True. Revolutionaries are always at risk of that. Justice always comes at the price of sacrifice. There are those who are willing to make that sacrifice, while most rather turn a blind eye, like when Hitler was rising, so as not to threaten their comfort and security. Most of our freedoms are because of people like that who have made the sacrifice. If people like Martin Luther King just shut his mouth and didn't say anything, I am sure the Nazi ideology of "the strongest shall rule" would reign the world over if it wasn't for such sacrifice.

If there are any left who have not yet awaken (awakened, awoken) from their slumber, the
time has come for them to abandon the petit bourgeois existence of the
petty professor attending wine tasting events, the government
bureaucrat justifying the wonders of his mind while working on the
golf swing at the local country club, or the 1960s hippie, that after
a stint in the Berkeley student movements went on to become a
prosperous businessman.

Hang on wasn't this idiot talking about the “working class” just a second ago?

He's trying to get the responsible intellectual to get among the "working class", or just people around, and start a revolution.

In today’s holistic global crisis,

holistic crisis? WTF?

Had to look that one up in the dictionary: relating to or concerned with wholes or with complete systems rather than with the analysis of, treatment of, or dissection into parts

Guess he's just doing his standard fancy talk.

one which threatens every single aspect of our existence

He doesn't get it. The recent “crisis” was deliberate and will be survived.

I think it will be survived, but if unemployment gets high enough, the disgruntled masses get restless and start joining every possible fanatic movement, like Hitler took advantage of. Like the recent Greek riots. I don't think the upcoming recession will be that bad, but I do think that at some point a revolution can happen.

from the food we eat,
to the air we breath, and to the way we interact between each other –

Not in the way he thinks

Bouncing around between a lot of text (his, yours and mine) but perhaps he is referring to the pollution of manufacturing and how we interact with each other under this new technology etc. Just guessing.

those who in their youth considered themselves conscious individuals
fighting towards change, can no longer hide behind the mask of the
liberal democratic ideal of a capitalist society striving towards
justice, peace and prosperity.

It's the media fool. No one believes that shit. Maybe someone who's making money out of it on wall street. But no one else.

I dunno, my parents seem to eat that all up pretty happily. Trying to educate them on alternative media than what's delivered to their front doorstep (religious readers of Time Magazine), but quite the hard nuts to crack. Always have been. As Czechs who escaped communism, they embrace the west and all its supposed freedoms like gold. Many Czechs I've met in the west are the most brutal and hardcore capitalists. Wasn't the guy who started McD's Czech?

All of these having remained ideals,
while a reality of extreme misery for
the majority, coexists today with the growing prosperity of a
shrinking minority capitalizing on the growing pains of humanity.

In one paragraph it's us. Then it's them and then back again

He should decide who he is talking to, or about.

Seems like he's talking about the same dudes to me. You writing this while at your bar with no one there and few beers down yer belly?

In today’s crisis, we will all perish together or we will overcome it
together, and as professor Chomsky often states, “so much depends on
will and choice”.

Todays crisis?  What crisis? The crisis, is much different than what he thinks it is.

And Chomsky. I like his stuff but, I can't afford his books. (Some irony there no?)

I read all his stuff for free online, from his website. His books are the property of MIT and sold through the university bookstore, which is why it is expensive. I guess his ideas are sort of the property of MIT since he is on hire there. Teaching linguistics.

Yet, the choice at this point is between prolonged
misery, constant crisis, environmental deterioration and continual
war, or the possibility of working together in unison to overcome the
hurdles, which we are facing. If we are to honestly look at what is
happening in society, on any given day we can observe that the
interests of the majority are not being respected and instead, the
elites benefiting themselves, pitch to society the benefits of their
choices by attributing everything to the trickledown effect – a warped
inversion of reality which supports investing on those at the top in
order to protect people at the bottom.

ONLY in Bushes america.

This dude is from Victoria, BC, Canada, and they write like this, often firing at the US, their very close and mighty neighbour. Canada has a fairly good political system, relatively.

I often wonder

Do you?

Really?

when I hear such
discourse bombarded by government officials and experts through the
traditional channels of propaganda, whether the rest of society is
awake and paying attention, or simply asleep and indifferent. I can never be quite sure, because if
indeed society is awake and paying attention, then we live in a world
of fools, yet, if the indifference is attributable to being asleep,
the task of waking up is a daunting one.

???? What?

Shall I even try on that one?

He expresses little hope in waking up the American public to clue into what is happening around them.

One, which can only be
carried out by the organic intellectual committed to revolutionary
social transformation.

He likes himself this one.

So,only he is going to save the world??

 

Decay of Western Hegemony

Hmmm.

As western society

America

struggles with rising tensions, both within and
outside of its borders,

Nothing new there

as those being colonized begin to throw their
shoes in despair

What?

I gather he's referring to the recent Iraqi dude (my hero), who threw his shoes at Bush's face, and called him a dog, the two worst things you can do to a person under Islam. Gotta like the guy. Hope they let him out. I'm hoping for a presidential pardon from Bush himself. After all, he's stepping out of office and these sorts like to do last ditch goodies to look good in history, and feel better about themselves.

and those who thought they belonged to the empire
begin to realize that their dream is no longer sustainable,

Who exactly?

Perhaps those in the west who are ravaging consumers (5% of the population consuming 25% of the earth's resources) and may realize that this colonialism of third world resources cannot be sustained, especially in light of global warming and all that.

the organic intellectual is able to grasp the severity of the global
crisis.

Oh there he goes again saving the world single handedly

As bankers announce their losses,

Only the “outsiders

the banking cartel slowly collapses.

The bank cartels are only growing stronger through this “crisis” they created

Probably. They are certainly getting lots of tax money to bail them out. Might as well dig into the pension funds too. I've never had faith in any government pension scheme. I'm a solo.

First, the major investment banks and hedge funds, then
their traditional counterparts, all showing loses which only a year
ago had been presented as ground breaking profits, as slowly the deck
of cards unfolds and everything crumbles.

Where is he getting his information from?

The very media he is trying to denounce!

Soon the job cuts begin,
across continents furious workers revel against their enslaving
owners, demonstrations, walkouts, sit-ins, failed negotiations between
trade unions and shareholders.

Oh he's on about the workers again!

The sky is falling and the capitalist always strives to win.

The shy is falling? Now he is repeating the lie of the capitalist media.

And it is not the capitalist who is striving to win. Where does he come to that conclusion?

For a while, dormant workers watch their
colleagues being laid-off, at first it seems an
unavoidable aspect of capitalism, the dirty side of a casino culture,
which rewards some at the expense of others.

Dormant workers?

Dormant as in not taking things to the streets while their peers get laid off, only to act when it might be too late.

But then, neighbourhoods
begin to witness empty houses, people evicted, squatters moving in,
the law can do little to prevent it, the numbers are too big to
contain.

He's is making this up now.

This is his forecast of what could happen if a deep recession hits the planet, fueling his hoped-for revolution.

The lobbyists in Washington are eagerly fighting for pieces
of the bailout money prepared by a government, which faced with
complete anarchy must regain a foothold in the corridors of power.

The lobbyists? What IS he talking about?

The lobbyists representing the corporations, as per Chomsky and Nader. Grabbing the cookies, essentially stolen from the tax paying workers. Personally though, so far I'm convinced that massive spending needs to be made to avoid a deep depression. But it needs to be done wisely. And just for the record, I'm still for Bush having gone into Iraq. I'm just not happy about the disrespectful way he went about it. Could have been managed much better.

Confidence must never be lost.

He needs to read “Lombard Street” and then he could try to explain confidence in what.

Hence, a new face in the White House,

It was an election!!!!!!!!

Idiot.

Guess he's placing hopes in this new intellectual, which so far seems a remarkable upgrade from the previous baboon.

A new man, a new dream, perpetuated by the chanting of hope. But things
will never be the same in America, as young bankers spend their
holidays in despair not knowing if their job awaits them in the coming

year, the dark thoughts of unemployment begin to creep in.

Oh I give up.

(Had to chuckle at that one, heh heh)

Charlie the guy is a twat. He seems to be writing a letter to himself.

He doesn't know what he is talking about.

I could go through the rest of this a pick it apart bit by bit. But, you seem to want to find something to believe in.

Read some Chomsky [link to..]. He is funny at least. And he is talking form inside the Establishment, so has an idea what he is talking about.

This guy is an IDIOT of the first class.

Anyway.

How are you?

Where are you.

Regards

S.

Well, maybe I'm a total idiot then. Read Chomsky as well. But I haven't read as much as you. Maybe I was wowed by his words. Open to your feedback.

How am I doing? Long story and that would need a separate letter. Off to attach to email and respond separately there.