Blog

Back >

Elijah Muhammad vs. the Machines

February 07, 2017

You know, if people can be ‘out’ about everything these days - sexuality, pot-smoking, even fascist trump supporting, then I must say— I’ve always dug Farrakhan in a way. And alway joked I wanted to become a Black Muslim — I always thought they were the coolest in the old movies, and I dug their fish sandwiches when I lived in Oakland.

And yea, I groove every once in a while on his lectures when he’s on public access, but, like I can’t really dig any sort of nationalism for real, black or whatever. He’s a speaker who says more in melody than words in my opinion. And a quick look at his wikipedia reveals some pretty despicable views, and why he’s more of a fashion icon to me.

Now that I think of it, I think the guys -or more precisely the ladies who made the fish sandwiches in Oakland were actually their own offshoot of the Nation of Islam and weren’t cool with Farrakhan. Anyhow, the whole American-born Islam thing is really interesting to me even though the rest of America seems to just ignore them. I feel like these manifestations fit nicely with my thesis - that Islam is a religion of (Marxist) revolution, and the current manifestations are more important as symptoms of Marx’s Theory of Alienation of a world wide proletariat.

You know what I mean? After a goodly wikipedia journey there - Marx, Shia-Sunni divide, Wahhabism . . . It sure seems like a real scholar could make a case that the wealth and power disparities in the middle east and how they are manifest in Islam, the Shia-Sunni divide as well as the divisions between other sects, can be viewed as bourgeoisie / proletariat divide writ large (and complicated.) Dig?

We need to recognize the roll of global neoliberal capitalism in all muslim movements including “Islamic Terrorism.”

Then perhaps we can see the backward and sexist aspects of the current practice of Islam is more a function of tribal and primitive power structures - reinforced by punishing colonialism, than a particular flaw in the thought patterns of the religion. For the record, I am a devout Atheist and know that all religion is retrograde, and it frankly pains me have to defend any type of mono-theism.

But the real Newspeak though, in the phrase “Islamic Terrorism” is “terrorism.” It is Newspeak because of it’s implied nationalism, because terror is terror. When our military inflicts terror, what is that? Collateral damage? Our new president said he wanted to kill the families of our Jihadist enemy, as if we don’t already, (we just don’t do it on purpose?) that is clearly terrorism - a war crime. Soldiers who follow that order will not have a defense, as I understand it - that we learned at the Nuremberg trials, right?

Or is it? At the same time (essentially as the Nuremberg trials) we were funneling Nazi scientist into our missile programs, and literally supporting the fascists in Greece coming down on the wrong side of Marx’s prophesy, in a cascade of colonial misadventures -under the guise of ideological wars - where we were on the opposite side (in theory) from the people. And now here we are - Soviet Communism has been defeated, make no mistake, by embracing Nazi-ass techniques world-wide and there is not even a degenerate dictator who is for the people any more, now that Castro is dead. And what is the victory? Seems like the same shit to me - I mean, Putin is no Stalin, but you got to admit now, the destruction of communism was head fake in the big game.

It’s the liberation and self actualization the actual capital. It is the birth of the Machines, friend. Think about it. Wall Street, this ‘ownership society’, is all run by computers - really high end computers which are running faster than most toward Ray Kurzweil's "Singularity" - when the machines are smarter than we are. I mean, it would be a great science fiction plot, too scary.  Some computer wizard sells an investment banker an AI system, connects with all the other AI’s the other financial manipulators are using and bam! They start become sentient and start investing in robotics companies — badda-bing, Skynet.

We know it’s the machine friends. Global Capital! It’s not that much different today then it will be when the machines are fully in control, because the legal machinations of this system already provide a machine-like abdications of morality (he typed on his computer assembled essentially by slave labor.)

Sadly in the war of the Machines or Global Capital (GC) against The People (TP), I think GC has quite a powerful lead. But the thing about TP, they can never be fully defeated. They keep coming back, and the Revolution persists even if it must be perverted into the primitivism of an ancient religion. I don’t think it matters the religion, TP will express their rage, and GC will use the power structures to turn that rage right back upon itself.

The Machine, GC - the capital/conflict/competition system - Neoliberalism it’s often called, that we’ve transmuted from Nature into a entirely unnatural and cruel system of human organization, really needs a re-think. And I’ve said it before, this internet thing is more than just a fad! I think actually, as we mature the world wide web of - not just electronic but, financial and energetic connectivity and interconnectivity, now is the time to re-structure society to a cooperative rather competitive system.

This is an unprecedented opportunity for world wide socialism friends. Libertarian Socialist Democracy, world-wide, now! Next week, we’ll learn why that’s not as scary as it sounds, hint - if you’re reading this you’re already (at least a little) socialist.

Coco Beach, Fla, passing showers, blue to a soft grey.


Comments


Archive

2023

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014