The state is that entity which claims a legitimate monopoly on the use of violence in a given territory, according to Max Weber. The Hobbesian, Rousseauvian, Lockean perspectives are that the state arose from a world of chaos via a social contract that happens to empower a ruling class (for the good of the people, of course).

The funny thing is, nobody can point to the precise moment when the state arose. Perhaps it was a place like Çatalhöyük (ca. 7500 BC) or Sumer (ca. 2900 BC)—where a stratified society was structured on the basis of might and religious doctrine. The earliest monarchies, empires, and republics—they derive power from violence and the legitimacy of the erroneous inevitable.  Inalienable rights were unheard of – if you blasphemed God (or one of his temporal bureaucrats in the Vatican) within the Holy Roman Empire, you could be excommunicated and any schmuck could kill you without reprisal. Government is rule by some men [sic] over others, nothing more. So is ours—which, let the record show, was built out of slave labor justified by a profound sense of faith in the arbiters of White moral supremacy. In some sense, it still is.

One feature unique to states is taxation, or the forcible extraction of property to be used in a way that the victim would not use themselves. When other groups take your property (or money, which equals time plus energy), it is called theft. Social goods like roads, schools and medical care can be and are best provided by the market. The state has little incentive to provide a quality product because it has no competitors. Capital intensive projects are not better handled by the state due to diffusion of responsibility and bureaucratic opacity. Taxation is extortion at gunpoint, a vestige of tribute paid by a subservient group to conquering armies, according to David Graeber, in his 2011 treatise Debt: The First 5,000 Years.

The only way we justify taxation is to claw back the monopoly profits “earned” (stolen) by the class that has taken control of the machinery of the state (capitalists). But redistribution does not address the root of the problem: state-secured privilege conferred to the politically connected capital class. Capitalism is not to be conflated with free markets, which have existed in various forms (including really free exhange, like Marcel Mauss’ gift economies) throughout human history.

Although controversial, the present scheme, state-capitalism, has only been around since the Early Modern Period. To paraphrase Gary Chartier in Markets Not Capitalism, this system is a symbiosis between big business and government, where the workplace is ruled by an individual called a boss. It is not inevitable that we should live in a system where there are more empty houses than homeless people, or that there can be such a thing as a permanently impoverished working class.

Voters place their hope in God-Kings called Presidents, expecting them to lift them out of servitude. The funny thing is, the rulers are drawn from the same elite class that holds essentially the same ideology as the prior masters. There are exceptions – Presidents who grew up poor, but they became wealthy prior to their inauguration and executed policies that favor the elite. One cannot become president without selling out to corporate interests because of campaign financing. Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

What about the poor?

Saying nothing of colonialism and imperialism—strictly the purview of states, policies that originated much of the world’s destitution—capitalism requires poverty to function. Someone must do the dirty work, staff the military, and subjugate themselves to others in exchange for depressed wages.

The welfare / social safety net cash doled out to the poor covers only bare necessities; the Marxian opium das volkes, a mere placation of radical revolution that would threaten state-conferred capitalist privilege (Marx was an astute critic but a dreadful problem solver – state violence can’t be remedied by augmenting state power). Supporting the welfare state is rational on realpolitik grounds, but not as an endgame.  However, the deeper question is this: why are there so many working poor, when an entire class of people need not work at all yet find themselves stubbornly wealthy?

Jesus did not originate the welfare state in an act of benevolence. Rulers employed payouts to bribe the population under a structural-functionalist logic: to keep the system alive and buy their allegiance. In the 1870s, Otto von Bismarck crippled the German Socialist movement by offering a palliative concession, saying  ”my idea was to bribe the working classes, or shall I say, to win them over, to regard the state as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in their welfare.” To this day, oppressed people believe the state is looking out for them. The reality is that the state breaks the legs of the poor and hands out taxpayer-funded crutches.

The state is that entity which claims a legitimate monopoly on the use of violence in a given territory. (Philippe Leroyer/Flickr)

State Violence

State violence is proffered as a solution to the consequences of past state intervention, like these:

1. Creation of a legal entity called the limited-liability corporation, which absolves capitalists of crimes and protects their personal wealth from judicial penalty. The state recently decided to give these legal “persons” speech rights. Corporations are immortal, and enjoy considerable tax advantages. The wealthy pay a pittance in capital gains tax, the commoners pay the heftier income tax. Corporations were originally chartered to build bridges and public works and then disband; modern corporations live on – insatiably seeking greater profits regardless of social consequence – the “fiduciary responsibility.” This un-empathetic behavior characterizes psychopathy.

2. States subsidize politically connected businesses like Wal-Mart, Monsanto, Halliburton, Lockheed-Martin, Goldman Sachs and Exxon. These companies externalize their diseconomies of scale onto the taxpayers, including disproportionate use of roadways, government research, and monopolistic patents (which deprive people of access to vital generic forms of drugs, for example).

3. Weakening and co-opting labor unions, actively suppressing worker-owned modes of production (workers’ cooperatives). In the previous elections both Romney and Obama favored corporate plunder despite extensive evidence that worker-owned enterprises are far more efficient (no policing costs and workers have an incentive to increase revenue when they share in the profits).

4. Fake regulatory agencies like the FDA, EPA, USDA and SEC which protect corruption under the guise of consumer / taxpayer protection. They are foxes guarding the henhouse, made up of the same individuals that worked in the supposedly regulated industry just prior.  Phenomena known as “regulatory capture” and the “revolving door.”

5. And lets not forget: imperialism, conscription and mass murder. The CIA, the military-industrial complex, the FBI, NSA, Homeland Security, TSA, and the DEA. In sum, the modern welfare-warfare state that knows best for you.

6. Enforcing a monopoly on the issuance of a fiat currency, the value of which derives from government’s future ability to tax. This money is devalued by printing more, which transfers purchasing power from those who get the new money last to those that receive it before circulating (The Cantillon Effect). In this case, Federal Reserve member banks are the beneficiaries. This is an invisible tax.

Illusion of Choice and the Presidential Elections

The epic electoral battle staged every four years is meant to juxtapose two presidential candidates as polar opposites, like Zeus and Hades. But lest we forget, they were brothers. As rhetorical wars are fought and bought with corporate money, the truly substantive issues are never brought up because both teams have a vested interest in the statist quo.

Neither candidate exhibited reservations about a century of ongoing American imperialism, with 700 military bases spanning the globe, or that this country spends more than the next 19 largest spenders combined on the military-industrial-congressional complex. Instead, they bickered over social issues like an individual’s right to marry whomever they want. In an anarchist system, marriage exists outside of the state; couples don’t need state approval to declare their union legitimate.

The corporation-state is the dominant institution of modernity. The logic of state necessity and inevitability rests upon many uninvestigated premises. These assumptions must be interrogated; otherwise court-intellectuals and demagogue-pundits distract us by dramatically rearranging deck-chairs on the Titanic. As Noam Chomsky wrote, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”

The media always drum up the race as the most important election in history. Those that actually study the history of politics realize that platforms have been blending and triangulating—moving unceasingly in the direction of statism. Left and right may polarize, but they share essential authoritarian characteristics. For example, both candidates favored the National Defense Authorization Act – which strips Americans of their right to a trial before jury and allows for indefinite detainment. Furthermore, both parties are beholden to the dictates of the financial sector, empowered and cartelized by the Federal Reserve.

During the election, both Romney and Obama differed on a slim few substantive issues, and one candidate may be marginally better than the other. However, being forced to choose between these two candidates is like deciding to poison the well with either cyanide or arsenic; innocent people die either way.

Obama is a militaristic president. For example, Obama authorized the drone killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi (a United States citizen living in Yemen) in September 2011. The CIA killed his 16 year old son two weeks later. There was no due process – the President unilaterally assassinated a US citizen on foreign soil.

If any individual killed another person, it would be a heinous crime. When a state kills someone, it’s for the greater good and often remains secret for supposed “reasons of national security.”

Any military age male (18-35) is considered a militant by the U.S. army unless proven otherwise. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, from 2004 to 2012, between 2,562 and 3,325 people were killed in drone strikes in Pakistan alone. The U.S. also operates drones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.  Some 474 to 881 of those killed in Pakistan were civilians, including 176 children. Another 1,300 were wounded. These numbers are likely to be low, because the U.S. and Pakistani governments seek to obfuscate the severity of the carnage.

Why should we give more power to the guys with the guns and expect that to solve our problems? We need human-scale solutions. We must dig to the root of the issue, which is state-capitalism itself; or the economic system where state power protects illegitimate ownership claims and creates artificial scarcity to protect profits. The state is what makes capitalism (but not markets) possible.

The state and the capitalist class are not antagonistic forces, and America is nowhere near a “free market.” Big business hates authentically free markets – capitalists prefer mercantilism. Unless you are member of the ruling class, you should do everything you can to bring about a less violent, non-statist paradigm—because states have a nasty tendency to start putting certain people in camps and you never know who will be next.

Si la elección presidencial hubiese resultado de otra manera, esta columna se habría enfocado en analizar a los que se llaman a sí mismos “conservadores”, acerca de las flagrantemente engañosas pretensiones que el movimiento tiene respecto al “gobierno limitado”, el “libre mercado” y el “individualismo”. Pero dado como terminó la elección en la realidad, la columna está dirigida a aquellos que se hacen llamar “progresistas”.

Disfruten plenamente este momento. Sáquenselo del sistema.

Si los hace sentir mejor, yo veo la victoria de Obama como considerablemente menos horrorosa que una victoria de Romney. El creciente autoritarismo de l estado de seguridad y los grandes rasgos de la aliazna corporativa-estatal se habrían mantenido iguales en cualquier escenario. Pero las vibras culturales del ala irregular del partido republicano, al mejor estilo de los camisas marrones de la Alemania de Weimar, me hacen temblar. Y Romney me da la impresión de ser el peor sociópata y mitómano que jamás haya visto en la historia de un partido mayoritario en toda mi vida.

Entiendo que Obama es un criminal peligroso, y lo odio a nivel intelectual. Puede que a ti te guste Obamacare. Si es así, no discutiré contigo. Como anarquista, en principio no tengo objeciones en cuanto a votar en defensa propia por el títere corporativo que uno encuentre lo menos intolerable posible.

Simplemente te pido que recuerdes que todo lo que hace a Obama y su partido más potables para los progresistas, también los hace más efectivos para favorecer la agenda explotadora de la clase capitalista regente.

Obama representa el ala “progresista” de esa clase. Esta ala apoya el derecho a decidir sobre el aborto y el matrimonio homosexual, en parte, porque sus miembros (a quienes David Brooks llamó “bobos”, yuppies con carreras gerenciales que compran en Whole Foods y escuchan la NPR) tienen cierta sensibilidad cultural típica de los estados azules. Pero ellos también saben que una clase regente que refleja los estándares culturales evolutivos de la mayoría, es más poderosa.

Hace un tiempo, la facción dominante de la clase corporativa regente usaba el racismo y la división racial para enfrentar a la clase trabajadora contra sí misma y facilitar su explotación. Pero el ala progresista de la clase regente ahora cree que el capitalismo puede funcionar de manera mucho más estable en el largo plazo si la clase dominante se hace más multirracial en su composición. Y francamente, estos idiotas con las bolsas de té, diciendo barbaridades y arrancándole la cabeza a pollos con los dientes, son una vergüenza.

Luego tenemos un fenómeno análogo a lo que sucedió cuando Nixon hizo su visita a China. En los años 90, Thomas Ferguson (en su libro The Golden Rule) especulaba que la razón por la que el capital financiero trasladó su apoyo hacia Clinton era que solo un demócrata podía salirse con la suya implementando la agenda neoliberal que la clase regente necesitaba (la ronda de Uruguay del GATT, el NAFTA, el DMCA) para consolidar el liderazgo del capital corporativo global en un orden mundial post-soviético. Clinton presidió el período de nacimiento del capitalismo global a ultranza, la erradicación de lo que quedaba del movimiento laboral estadounidense, la polarización del ingreso a niveles de la década de los años 20, y la explosión de la paga a los CEO’s a niveles que son 500 veces más altos que el salario del trabajador promedio. Pero los liberales siguen recordando a Clinton con nostalgia como “el buen presidente”.

Lo mismo pasa con Obama. Tal como lo dijo recientemente el libertario de izquierda Arthur Silber (en su artículo Yeah, Yeah, Nobody Knows Anything):

“Tanta gente que no pertenece a clase regente cree que Obama está de su lado. Incluso cuando Obama ha traicionado sistemáticamente a toda esa gente común y corriente durante los últimos cuatro años, siguen creyendo que está de su lado. Simplemente él no pudo hacer lo que quería hacer (que resulta ser exactamente lo que todos esos buenos liberales y progresistas querían que hiciera) porque: a) Los republicanos son el demonio; b) Los demoníacos republicanos le dejaron un lío muy, muy feo; c) Los republicanos del demonio siempre se meten con él; d) Los republicanos demoníacos.”

Por lo tanto, Obama puede entonar sus cánticos al mejor estilo Kennedy acerca de hacer crecer la economía “del centro hacia afuera”, y sobre las “familias trabajadoras que se sientan a comer en la cocina”. Y mientras tanto, puede asesinar a miles con vehículos no tripulados e implementar un orden mundial corporativo. Puede armar un equipo económico con piltrafas humanas de Citigroup y Goldman-Sachs. Junto con Biden, puede aprobar el totalitario RIAA/MPAA y la concomitante agenda de “propiedad intelectual”, que es el monopolio estatista que hace de núcleo central del poder corporativo global. Pero mientras use suficiente retórica pseudo-izquierdista, los liberales complacientemente seguirán decorando sus autos con pegatinas de propaganda del partido demócrata.

Estas monstruosidades requieren justicia, independientemente de la afiliación partidista de los culpables. Si tú sientes que el reinado de este criminal de guerra y títere corporativo demócrata te pesa menos sobre el cuello que un republicano, no te reprocho tu celebración momentánea. Pero la verdadera cuestión es: ¿Qué vas a hacer cuando la celebración haya terminado?

Artículo oroginal publicado por Kevin Carson, el 08 de noviembre 2012.

Traducido del inglés por Alan Furth.

Мои поздравления. Ваш кандидат победил и стал президентом на второй срок. Я уверен, что сейчас вы слишком заняты танцами на улицах и победными кличами, чтобы читать что-то в интернете, но я пишу это на будущее, когда вы наконец закончите.

Теперь, когда Обама благополучно сел на второй срок, мне есть о чём с вами поговорить. У меня есть вопросы, которые мне нужно вам задать перед тем как вы двинетесь дальше по своему счастливому пути демократии.

1. Теперь, когда «год выборов» позади, обратите ли вы наконец внимание на бомбовые удары, ликвидационные списки, бессрочное содержание под стражей и массовые депортации нелегальных мигрантов?
2. Теперь, когда Обама благополучно занял Белый Дом до 2016 года, долго ли по-вашему ещё должен будет находиться в тюрьме рядовой Мэннинг?
3. Теперь, когда ваш человек выиграл, дадите ли вы критическую оценку его связам с паразитическими финансовыми институциями, которые уводят нашу экономику вниз по спирали ещё с 2008-го?
4. Теперь, когда предвыборная кампания Обамы закончена, присоединитесь ли вы к нашим протестам против всего вышеперечисленного?

Или вы просто останетесь дома, сложа руки и глядя как ваши друзья перестают с вами общаться из-за того что вам наплевать на все эти вещи, против которых даже люди из других стран справедливо восстают? Будете ли вы и дальше считать протестующих «непрактичными», «эмоционально нестабильными» или ещё кем-то похуже?

Будете ли вы просто ждать и меланхолично надеяться, что Обама наконец-то станет тем человеком, которым он обещал быть ещё в 2008-м?

Подсказка: не дождётесь.

Не обязательно быть анархистом, чтобы видеть как человеку, которого вы выбрали, якобы, потому что он «лучший» из двух, даже допуская что в некоторых областях он чем-то предпочтительнее своего соперника, тем не менее по-прежнему нечем похвалиться. «Меньшее зло» по-прежнему остаётся злом.

Всё, чего мы ждём от вас, это вытащить голову из песка, куда вы закопались всем коллективом, и, как минимум, помочь нам достичь уверенности в том, что его зло не возрастёт.

Вам не нужны антирекламщики из «Adbusters» чтобы советовать вам выйти на улицу. «Just do it» — просто сделайте.

Статья впервые опубликована Тревор Hultner, 6 ноября 2012.

Перевод с английского Tau Demetrious.

By all means, enjoy yourselves. Get it out of your system.

If it makes you feel any better, I find an Obama victory considerably less horrifying than a Romney victory. The creeping authoritarianism of the security state and the broad outlines of the corporate state alliance would likely have remained the same either way. But the Brownshirts-in-Weimar-Germany cultural vibes of the GOP irregular wing scares the living bejeezus out of me. And Romney strikes me as the worst pathological liar and sociopath I’ve seen on a major party ticket in my lifetime.

I understand Obama’s a dangerous criminal, and I hate him on an intellectual level. But if he weren’t a politician, I’d probably enjoy having a beer with him. Romney, on the other hand, triggers a visceral impulse to inflict bodily harm on him every time I see him. So I can understand where you’re coming from.

Maybe you voted Obama because you favor reproductive choice and marriage equality. Maybe you like Obamacare. If so, I’m not going to argue with you. As an anarchist, I have no objection in principle to voting in self-defense for the corporate stooge you find least personally intolerable.

Just bear in mind that everything about Obama that makes him and his party more tolerable to progressives, also makes him more effective in serving the exploitative agenda of the corporate capitalist ruling class.

Obama represents the “progressive” wing of that ruling class. This wing supports reproductive choice and marriage equality, in part, because its members (whom David Brooks called “bobos,” yuppie managerial-professional types who shop at Whole Foods and listen to NPR) have a Blue State cultural sensibility. But they also understand that a ruling class reflecting evolving majority cultural mores is a good thing.

At one time, the dominant strand of the corporate ruling class used racism and racial division to divide the working class against itself and make it more easily exploitable. But the progressive wing of the ruling class now believes capitalism can function most stably in the long run if the ruling class becomes more multracial in its composition. And frankly, all those red-faced yahoos with the teabags, speaking in tongues and biting the heads off chickens, are just embarrassing.

Then there’s the Nixon to China thing. Back in the ’90s, Thomas Ferguson (in The Golden Rule) speculated that one reason finance-capital shifted its support to Clinton was that only a Democrat could get away with implementing the neoliberal agenda they needed (the GATT Uruguay Round, NAFTA, the DMCA) to consolidate global corporate rule in a post-Soviet world order. Clinton presided over the birth of full-blown neoliberal global capitalism, the decimation of what was left of the American labor movement, the polarization of income to 1920s levels, and the explosion of CEO pay to 500 times that of the average worker. But liberals still wax nostalgic over Clinton as the “Good President.”

The same holds true for Obama. As left-libertarian Arthur Silber recently argued (“Yeah, Yeah, Nobody Knows Anything,” Once Upon a Time, November 5), from a ruling class perspective

“[S]o many people who are not members of the ruling class think that Obama is on their side. Even after Obama has systematically betrayed all those ‘ordinary’ people for the last four years, they still think he’s really on their side. He just couldn’t do what he wanted to do — which happens to be exactly what all those good liberals and progressives wanted him to do — because: a) evil Republicans; b) evil Republicans left a really, really, huge mess; c) evil Republicans kept messing with him; d) evil Republicans kept stealing his toys; and e) evil Republicans.”

So Obama can wax Kennedyesque about growing the economy “from the middle out,” and “working families sitting around the kitchen table.” And in the meantime, he can murder thousands with drones enforcing a corporate world order. He can appoint an economic policy team of recycled human detritus from Citigroup and Goldman-Sachs. He and Biden can rubber stamp the totalitarian RIAA/MPAA “intellectual property” agenda — the state-enforced monopoly by far most structurally central to global corporate power. But as long as he uses vaguely leftish rhetoric, liberals will complacently brandish their “Democrats Care” bumper stickers.

These monstrous things demand justice, regardless of the culprits’ party affiliations. If you feel the rule of this Democratic war criminal and corporate stooge weighs less heavily on your neck than a Republican, I don’t begrudge you your momentary celebration. The question is, what are you going to do now that the election’s over?

Translations for this article:

• Spanish, Y… ¿Qué vas a Hacer Cuando la Celebración Haya Terminado?

US President Barack Obama knocked down about 60.7 million votes.

GOP challenger Mitt Romney polled about 57.8 million.

Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, 1.14 million.

Green candidate Jill Stein, about 400,000.

A few others, a few thousands or tens of thousands.

About 38.8% of the population supported one of the candidates; about 19.5% of the population supported the alleged “winner.”

61.2% of the population did not consent to be ruled at all, and fewer than one in five Americans consented to be ruled by Barack Obama. The figures are likely similar for most or all of the 435 US Representatives and 33 US Senators “elected” on Tuesday.

If these politicians support the system of government they claim to support — one in which governments “deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed” — then the only order of business they have to discuss is who will turn the lights off as they depart Washington.

Don’t bet the ranch on it.

Congratulações. O candidato favorito de vocês conseguiu segundo mandato como presidente. Estou certo de que vocês estão todos ocupados demais, dançando nas ruas, chorando de alegria e coisas que tais, para estarem na Internet neste momento, mas isto continuará aqui quando tudo isso aí terminar.

Agora que Obama obteve segundo mandato, vocês e eu precisamos ter uma conversa. Tenho apenas algumas perguntas que preciso fazer e, então, vocês poderão prosseguir por seu alegre caminho Democrata.

1. Agora que este não mais é “ano de eleições,” vocês prestarão mais atenção aos ataques com aviões não tripulados [drones], listas de assassínios, permissão para detenção por tempo indefinido e deportação em massa de imigrantes sem documentos?
2. Agora que Obama está garantido na Casa Branca até 2016, vocês prestarão atenção à continuada reclusão do soldado Manning?
3. Agora que seu janota ganhou, vocês abordarão de maneira crítica as conexões dele com as instituições financeiras parasitárias que lançaram nossa economia em espiral fora de controle em 2008?
4. Agora que nunca mais haverá outra campanha de Obama, vocês protestarão, junto conosco, contra todo o acima?

Ou ficarão em casa, retorcendo as mãos, quedando-se parecendo preocupados com que seus amigos não se agradem se vocês falarem abertamente contra todas essas coisas, coisas com as quais pessoas de outros países estão com razão enfurecidas? Continuarão vocês a chamar pessoas que protestam contra essas coisas de pouco práticas, “progressistas emocionais,” ou coisa pior?

Ficarão vocês lá, esperando, meditabundos, que Obama se torne o homem que prometeu seria em 2008?

Eis aqui uma dica: ele não o fará.

Não é preciso ser anarquista para ver que o homem que vocês elegeram, embora aparentemente “melhor,” de algumas maneiras defensavelmente importantes, do que o homem contra o qual competia, é contudo muito medíocre. O “mal menor” continua sendo mal.

Tudo o que pedimos é que tirem a cabeça do traseiro coletivo e, no mínimo, nos ajudem a assegurar que o mal não aumente.

Vocês não precisam que a Adbusters diga-lhes para tomarem as ruas. Simplesmente façam-no.

Artigo original afixado por Trevor Hultner em 6 de novembro de 2012.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

Grattis. Kandidaten ni föredrog vann en andra mandatperiod som president. Jag är säker på att ni allihop är upptagna med att dansa på gatorna och gråt-smila och sånt för att vara på internet just nu, men det här kommer vara uppe när allt det där är färdigt.

Nu när Obama har fått en andra mandatperiod, så behöver du och jag ta ett snack. Jag har några frågor som jag behöver ställa, och sen kan du lyckligt fortsätta din väg.

1. Nu när det inte längre är ett ”valår,” kommer du uppmärksamma drönar-attackerna, döds-listan, understöd för obegränsad arrest, och rekord-deporteringen av papperslösa invandrare?
2. Nu när Obama är säker i Vita Huset tills 2016, kommer du uppmärksamma den fortsatta fängslande av Menig Manning?
3. Nu när din kille vann, kommer du se kritiskt på hans anslutningar till parasitiska finansiella institutioner som skickade ekonomin in i ett kaos 2008?
4. Nu när det aldrig kommer bli någon mer Obama-kampanj, kommer du protestera med oss mot allt som ovan nämnt?

Eller kommer du stanna hemma, rycka på axlarna och sitta där i oro för att dina vänner kanske inte kommer gilla dig mer om du talar ut mot dessa ting, ting som människor i andra länder är med rätt arga på? Kommer du fortfarande kalla alla som protesterar mot dessa ting opraktiska, ”emo-progressiver”, eller värre?

Kommer du sitta där, tankfullt väntande på att Obama blir den man han lovade att and skulle vara år 2008?

Här är ett litet tips: det kommer han aldrig bli.

Du behöver inte bli en anarkist för att se att den mannen du valde, medans han var skenbart ”bättre” i en rad utan tvekan bättre sätt än mannen han vann emot, är inget att skriva hem om. Det mindre onda är fortfarande ont.

Allt vi efterfrågar är att ni avlägsnar ert huvud från er kollektiva bakända och är med oss i att se till att ondskan inte växer.

Ni behöver bli tillsagda av Adbusters för att ta upp striden. Gör det bara.

Originalartikeln publicerades från början av Trevor Hultner den 6:e November 2012.

Översatt från engelska av Jakob Pettersson

Felicidades. Vuestro candidato preferido ha conseguido un segundo mandato como presidente. Estoy seguro de que todos vosotros estáis muy ocupados bailando en las calles, llorando de alegría y demás como para estar ahora en Internet, pero esto seguirá aquí cuando todo eso termine.

Ahora que Obama ha obtenido un segundo mandato, tú y yo necesitamos tener una conversación. Hay un par de preguntas que necesito hacer, y después podrás seguir por tu alegre camino Demócrata.

1. Ahora que ya se ha terminado el “año de elecciones”, ¿prestaréis más atención a los ataques con drones, las listas de asesinatos, el permiso para la detención indefinida y la deportación masiva de inmigrantes indocumentados?
2.  Ahora que Obama está seguro en la Casa Blanca hasta 2016, ¿prestaréis más atención a la encarcelación continuada del soldado Manning?
3.  Ahora que vuestro colega ha ganado, ¿miraréis de forma crítica a sus conexiones con las instituciones financieras parasitarias que enviaron a nuestra economía hacia una espiral fuera de control en 2008?
4.  Ahora que nunca habrá otra campaña electoral de Obama, ¿protestaréis con nosotros contra todo lo de arriba?

¿U os quedaréis en casa, os retorceréis las manos y os sentaréis ahí viendo preocupados que no gustaréis a vuestros amigos si habláis claro contra todas esas cosas, cosas con las que la gente de otros países está justificadamente enfadada? ¿Seguiréis llamando a la gente que protesta contra esas cosas poco práctica, “progresistas emocionales”, o cosas peores?

¿Os sentaréis ahí esperando pensativamente a que Obama se convierta en el hombre que prometió ser en 2008?

Una pista: él no lo hará.

No tienes que ser anarquista para ver que el hombre al que has elegido, aunque ostensiblemente “mejor” en un par de temas discutiblemente importantes que el hombre contra el que ha competido, seguirá sin ser para tanto. El “mal menor” sigue siendo mal.

Todo lo que estamos pidiendo es que saques tu cabeza del colectivo que tienes detrás y, al menos, nos ayudes a estar seguros de que el mal no crece.

No necesitas que Adbusters te diga que tomes la calle. Sólo hazlo.

Artículo original publicado por Trevor Hultner 06 de noviembre 2012.

Traducido del inglés por Tomás Braña.

Now that Obama has got himself a second term, you and I need to have a chat. I just have a couple questions I need to ask, and then you can be on your merry Democrat way.

1. Now that this is no longer an “election year,” will you now pay attention to the drone strikes, kill lists, allowance of indefinite detention and mass deportation of undocumented immigrants?
2. Now that Obama is safe in the White House until 2016, will you pay attention to the continued incarceration of Private Manning?
3. Now that your dude has won, will you look critically at his connections to the parasitic financial institutions that sent our economy spiraling out of control in 2008?
4. Now that there will never be another Obama campaign, will you protest with us against all of the above?

Or will you stay home, wring your hands and sit there looking worried that your friends won’t like you anymore if you speak out against all of these things, things that people in other countries are justifiably mad at? Will you still call people who protest these things impractical, “emotional progressives,” or worse?

Will you sit there, pensively waiting for Obama to become the man he promised he would be in 2008?

Here’s a hint: he won’t.

You don’t have to be an anarchist to see that the man you elected, while ostensibly “better” in a couple of arguably important ways than the man he was running against, is still no one to write home about. The “lesser evil” is still evil.

All we are asking is that you remove your head from your collective behind and, at the very least, help us make sure that his evil doesn’t grow.

You don’t need Adbusters to tell you to take to the streets. Just do it.

Translations for this article:

• Spanish, Queridos partidarios de Obama: carta de un anarquista.
• Dutch, Beste Obama supporters: een brief van een anarchist.
• Swedish, Kära Obama-Supporters: Ett brev från en anarkist.
• Portuguese, Caros Partidários de Obama: carta de um anarquista.
• Russian, Уважаемым сторонникам Обамы: послание от анархиста.

It’s hard to guess whether Mittens is really this abysmally ignorant or just pandering to his estimate of his audience’s stupidity.

Let’s start with Chavez. He’s certainly shown a dismaying tendency toward authoritarianism and caudillismo as president of Venezuela. But it’s a safe guess his “Bolivarian Socialism” is nowhere near as godawful as the regime the United States would have replaced him with — and still would — had its attempted coup in 2002 succeeded. At best it would reenact the corporate looting of state assets, rubber-stamping of fake “free trade” treaties, and union busting carried out by Paul Bremer’s Iraq Provisional Authority. At worst, it would resort to the same secret police and death squad murders of labor activists as other Latin American regimes installed by U.S.-backed coups in previous decades. Either way, you could count on massive transfer of peasant land back to landed oligarchs.

Apparently the U.S. state’s main criterion for a “bad actor” is someone who doesn’t take orders from Washington — and worse yet, manages to retain power when Washington decides to punish him for it.

As for that bit about “freeing countries from dictators” bit, my eyes hurt from rolling so much. Yeah, the U.S. freed the hell out of Guatemala, Iran and Indonesia. Mobutu built pyramids of the skulls of those he liberated. Starting with Goulart in Brazil and Allende in Chile, and proceeding through Operation Condor in the 1970s, the United States “freed” one country after another from left-leaning elected governments and replaced them with military dictatorships. In those days you could identify the “Free World” by all the dictatorships installed by the United States, rather than by the Soviet Union.

And any time you see a U.S. government ranking of “state sponsors of terrorism,” you should always remember to fill in the unspoken “except for the United States.” From the military regime that supplanted Arbenz in 1954 to the Contras in Nicaragua thirty years later, the systematic use of death squads to terrorize labor and landless peasant activists into docility has been a favorite weapon in the American arsenal.

Never mind the direct use of state military power as a terrorist weapon — deliberately blowing up electrical plants and water purification facilities. When it comes to the murder of hundreds of thousands through fire-bombing as an instrument of state terror, the U.S. has been the unchallenged heavyweight champion since 1945.

Not that Obama is any better. Liberal Democrats, just as much as Republicans, make foreign policy on the assumption stated by Chomsky as “America owns the world.” Obama, as much as Romney, believes the United States bears some sort of messianic obligation to maintain “global security” by determining the outcomes of international disputes, installing “responsible” governments, and deciding who’s allowed to have nukes. Obama, as much as Romney, believes America is the one country whose “defense” capability should be based, not on “legitimate defensive needs,” but on the capability of enforcing its will on the entire rest of the world combined. Obama believes, every bit as much as Madeline Albright did when she was raining death from the skies over Yugoslavia, that “America is the world’s indispensable nation.”

Obama may believe that America sometimes “makes mistakes” in carrying out this messianic destiny, but he doesn’t question the rightfulness of the destiny itself. Romney uses red meat rhetoric to appeal to the jingoist bigots in his base. But Obama’s more pacific rhetoric amounts to little more, in practice, than James T. Kirk’s attitude as expressed in the novelty song “Star Trekkin'”: “We come in peace — shoot to kill, shoot to kill …”

However the 2012 race comes out, the winner will believe America has a unique role in telling the other countries of the world what to do. He’ll murder people — including American citizens — by the thousands with drones with no oversight whatsoever. And he’ll treat the ability to defend against an American attack as a “threat.”

The foreign policy will be the same. But you get to choose whether you want it packaged in idealistic Kennedy liberal rhetoric, or troglodytic “kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out” rhetoric. So which is it? Coke or Pepsi?

Translations for this article:

• Spanish, El Debate de Política Exterior en Estados Unidos: ¿Coca-Cola o Pepsi?