Peace Is Not An Evil Foreign Conspiracy
And we are not beset by a 'fifth column' of traitors among our working classes - the rot is at the very top, just like always.
Photographic proof of the latest kartufler-transmogrifier installation! (top photo)
Hi folks!
Welcome to new and old friends (and all other curious readers). Some of you will have been redirected to this substack, from my long-running original LargeEssSmallPress website – no mistake, this is indeed my new home for fresh writing about politics, history, art, culture and philosophy.
I should begin with an apology for my long time readers – I thought the auto ingestion of my old site worked better – but now I realize that hundreds of my old stories are missing key images, and are also in a less readable format. I'm working on restoring every single piece – and as I go, I am employing the new format options to make several of them nicer looking and easier to read than ever.
I’m up to mid 2019 now – and I'll be working on it all week (many of my most viewed and shared, and frankly my strongest pieces also, are coming up soon – very inspiring summer, just before).
Please consider subscribing – free is just fine. You won't get any spam-emails (substack is EXCELLENT about respect for creators and readers both) but you also won't ever miss any of my new pieces. Plus, it is genuinely encouraging to me (and that main-driver, is much appreciated).
I've discovered something interesting, as I read through tons of old work. My key principles (pacifism, working class dignity, ecology, culture and fair-play economics) have remained consistent throughout – but I have also been learning a great deal, and shedding lots of foul dogma and tribalism as I go.
This means that some of my older pieces say thing that I no longer would - even though my basic goals and principles have remained. I’ll even attach a sublime little piece below, about how probabilities are not subjective – except insofar as we change the problem itself, to find the conclusion we favour!
There is of course a small temptation to re-write particularly embarrassing things, to make them reflect my current (expanded) awareness of the problems and solutions, but I think it is both more honest and interesting, if they remain the flawed way they were, and thus reveal the signs of making progress over time – and remind people that we are all supposed to be learning constantly, none of us are fixed points or known quantities – we are dynamic like music, not solid like rocks!
And yes, principle remains (motif), but you wouldn’t want to just loop one groove forever, right?
Another thing I realized, from reading through so many old pieces, is that I’ve been limiting myself, with a false requirement – which is to say, yes, I do realize I’ve been doing an awful lot of ten-page heavies, lately – neglecting the art, wonder and enchantment side of the equation.
I won’t stop doing the serious stuff (that does present as duty), but I’ll try to be a bit more open, and also post things which aren’t as weighty, and sometimes things like this entry – which do a lot of offstage reference, because the world is being so badly misrepresented, in this weird moment.
First and foremost on the – you really have to see this – front – is the trial of the Uhuru three. American black nationalists, who have been preaching against the war state, and for more citizen realization of the aims of the constitution, for literally decades now – and are suddenly accused of being – wait for it – Russian Spies.
As a history keener I have to stop to note – the whole legal framework about censorship (literally, the ‘fire in a crowded theatre’ precedent) comes from incredibly paranoid legislation enacted to drag the American public into world war one, by criminalizing all opposition to that war.
Churchill himself famously remarked that the war was close to settlement by all exhausted parties at the time – and it was American claims after the war, which made the Treaty of Versailles not just dangerous to German political stability, but an absolute driver of the second world war. (Keynes saw this too, as you will see in another interview I’ll point you to, just down the page). The point is, America shredded the constitution and citizen rights a hundred years ago, to grab foreign booty – the long tradition of saying all opposition to war is ‘foreign interference’ started there. Belongs to crazy people like J Edgar Hoover, who used government force (again, in grotesque violation of constitutional rights) to do sustained harm and violence to the civil rights movement, and of course the infamous McCarthy, who single-handedly castrated American culture for many years, by spreading hysterical charges of treason, based entirely on constitutionally protected variance of philosophy.
Now for something really wonderful.
Below, I'm going to attach one of the most amazing interviews I've seen in many years (of watching many interviews) because it is a rare example in which you can actually see, over the course of the talk, one man (conservative jar-head, no less) making real progress in his awareness and thinking (in this case, about the perspective of genuine revolutionary Black Americans). Thrilling stuff – and also a strong reminder about how much growth value a real genuine discussion can have.
Scott Ritter Interviews Chairman Omali and Penny Hess of the Uhuru Three
(The US Marine who tried to stop the Iraq war, talks to a guy who has been trying to stop war itself, since the 1960s)
Free speech is not some luxury product which is granted to us from on high – and can simply be removed whenever "our betters" see fit, for our own protection (always actually meaning the protection of their own corrupt rackets) - it is THE ESSENTIAL TOOL WITH WHICH THE POWERLESS RESIST THE POWERFUL. Even simpler, the ones most hysterical about ‘misinformation’ are themselves, without exception, proven liars and sometimes outright gleeful killers. No high-ground in sight.
Nothing else can replace open citizen discourse – and state-mediated speech always means fascism, even when a party which says many other things which flatter you emotionally, advocates for it. (Dark side of the force stuff - bad-touch!)
Now here’s something else that you almost never see – someone in journalism admitting that they got someone wrong, recognizing their error, then talking it out, with the actual person they misjudged in such a loud and public way.
In this case it’s a thousand times better than just that, though, because the two people interviewed – Jeffery Sachs and Matt Taibbi, were first-hand witnesses to key history, that pretty much no one here understands.
The interview is superb – and OMG do I ever wish I could have a guy like Sachs for a professor (THAT IS WHAT ACADEME IS FOR!) so smart, articulate, and so courageously humane in his wide-ranging interest and understandings.
Do watch - but I strongly encourage you to read the essays they each wrote, also.
Sachs’ piece is incredible – the guy in the room, at so many crucial moments (saw so much potential progress for the entire world, squandered by ‘the inter-agency’).
But Matt Taibbi is an absolute treat, truly, as close as our moment has, to a Hunter Thompson wit – though in no way derivative. Super smart, well-read, courageous and reflective – a delight for any reader. And wow, what he saw in Russia in the nineties, will not ever leave you again. This is first-hand witness with real bite!
Caitlin Johnstone is one of my favourite writers on the internet. Courageously pacifist for many years anyhow, and no less nervy now that the flames of war have been lit so widely, and threats and accusations from honourless hypocrites are flying, insisting that critical speech one way only is now punishable bias.
Once again – opposing war is and MUST BE protected speech – talk to me about politeness and hurt feelings later – when civilians are no longer being murdered with American money, bullets and bombs.
I’ll share two of hers – both very rude, in a way some of my older peacenik stalwarts are guaranteed to find heartening.
(Then again, she’s rude on principle to many, very different constituencies of conformists and repressors – which is also just so damn incredibly heartening).
Finally, as I have mentioned many times, in recent years especially, I read A LOT. Actually checked on my substack subscription list the other day, and I was surprised to find it has more than a hundred names on it now – and several of those publications have multiple great writers. And that’s not counting many wise and wacky people whose commentary I enjoy in video form on youtube or rumble. So many voices.
One thing I know now, that I did not know when I started Large Ess Small Press, is that in this fraught moment, you cannot have any hope of getting a clear picture of reality, unless you regularly listen to plenty of people who piss you off.
In fairness, I should note, some people are upset with me for reading and sharing people like Caitlin Johnstone, but I also read Ha’aretz, Tablet Magazine and the Free Press (Bari Weiss drives me CRAZY, but she remains the best commissioning editor alive, as far as I can tell). I don’t come down where I do by ignoring half the story, but by hearing out both sides, and then applying principle.
Many of my Jewish friends are upset right now – I get that – I just know that they’ll regret how this moment is being handled for many many years to come – same as I saw that about Afghanistan and Iraq and said so to my American friends – AT THE TIME. That’s how pacifists operate – any other means is better than war.
WE ARE ALLOWED TO BELIEVE THIS, AND REPRESENT THIS VIEW.
Here’s one very smart writer, with whom I frequently disagree, making an incredibly important point about how we distort our reasoning, but pretend it is still rational.
Now, because it’s just so juicy and on theme, I have to share one of my stranger reads (with the second best title on my whole subscription list – “Tell Me How This Ends”). Chris Bray is an unapologetically ornery writer – and I think I disagree with him way more than half the time – but when he does nail it – the guy is golden!
Try this one out – for all that I say about our addiction to indignation being infantilizing to our culture – sometimes you really do need to fume!
(In fact – sometimes, if you’re silent, you’ll stay that way for good).
All Voices Cry Out With Joy as Cabbage Production Soars to 29% of Quota in Glorious Victory for Five-Year Plan
(and don’t blame me, if he makes you mad, next time)
Cheers folks – many more beautifully restored archives and fresh pieces of widely variegated OMG and wonder, coming up soon!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
PS – yeah okay, here’s a bit of pretty-pretty for the art lovers and long walk meditators (sometimes, a nice night walk is just the ticket, right?)
