#52

each other's business

we are each other's harvest :

we are each other’s

business:

we are each other's

magnitude and bond.

Gwendolyn Brooks

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Everything is my business.

That’s from Girls, season 3, I think. Hannah says it. I’ve always loved that line and have quoted it a lot since I first watched the series. It’s good. Resonates deeply.

Everything IS my business.

Everything is ALL of our businesses.

Sure, some of us are more curious than others. A consequence of living under capitalism is that you will be actively dissuaded, and shifted away from your natural curiosities. Denaturalized. Liberalism loves a third-party fact-check, respectability rules the roost. Don’t ask too many questions, and don’t you dare try to answer them yourself. Who are you, Alex Jones?

To quote from Michael Parenti’s book, Dirty Truths, published in 1996:

“Almost as an article of faith, some individuals believe that conspiracies are either kooky fantasies or unimportant aberrations. To be sure, wacko conspiracy theories do exist. There are people who believe the country is secretly controlled by Jews or gays or feminists or black nationalists or communists or extrterrestial aliens. But it does not logically follow that ALL conspiracies are imaginary.

Conspiracy is a legitimate concept in law: the collusion of two or more people pursuing illegal means to effect some illegal or immoral end. People go to jail for comitting conspirational acts. Conspiracies are a matter of public record, and some are of real political significance. The Watergate break-in was a conspiracy, as was the Watergate cover-up, which led to Nixon’s downfall. Iran-contra was a conspiracy of immense scope, much of it still unconvered. The savings and loan scandal was described by the Justice Department as “a thousand conspiracies of fraud, theft and bribery” the greatest financial crime in history.

Often the term “conspiracy” is applied dismissively whenever one suggests that people who occupy popsitions of political economic power are conciously dedicated to advancing their elite interest. Even when they openly profess their designs, there are those who deny that intentn is involved.

Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: “Do you actually think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?” For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together - on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And yes, they conciously plot, though they call it “planning” and “stratgeizing” - and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists.

To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have create a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.”

Conspiracy discourse is more impossible than ever. People aren’t simply afraid or in denial, but we have merged respectability politics into this as well. To recognize conspiracy now means you’re either a Q-an*n freak or a virulent anti-semite. This is a fake nightmare binary, but they’re such rooted, potent social fears that they effectively keep people in place. We call this villification “shit coating” and it works really, really well. The closer people get, the more dangerous it becomes for them personally, and so, fearing the ugliest of labels slapped onto them, they take a step back, they shut their mouths.

It is impossible to critique capitalism properly without a thorough understanding of conspiracy, of how wealth and power are protected. It is impossible to revolt if we don’t understand the magnitude of what we’re up against. A true portrait of the ruling class is necessary but almost impossible to paint. They don’t need to take away every tool you have, they only need to take away your credibility, and your respectability.