Capitalism was not, by any means, a “free market” evolving naturally or peacefully from the civilization of the high Middle Ages. As Oppenheimer argued, capitalism as a system of class exploitation was a direct successor to feudalism, and still displays the birth scars of its origins in late feudalism.
Romantic medievalists like Chesterton and Belloc recounted a process in the high Middle Ages by which serfdom had gradually withered away, and the peasants had transformed themselves into de facto freeholders who paid a nominal quit-rent. The feudal class system was disintegrating and being replaced by a much more libertarian and less exploitative one. Immanuel Wallerstein argued that the likely outcome would have been “a system of relatively equal small-scale producers, further flattening out the aristocracies and decentralizing the political structures” . . .
. . . Although such medievalists no doubt idealized that world considerably, it was still far superior to the world of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Kropotkin described, in terms evocative of William Morris, the rich life of the High Middle Ages, “with its virile affirmation of the individual, and which succeeded in creating a society through the free federation of men, of villages and of towns.” “In those cities, sheltered by their conquered liberties, inspired by the spirit of free agreement and of free initiative, a whole new civilization grew up and flourished in a way unparalleled to this day.” The free cities were virtually independent; although the crown “granted” them a charter in theory, in reality the charter was typically presented to the king and to the bishop of the surrounding diocese as a fait accompli, when “the inhabitants of a particular borough felt themselves to be sufficiently protected by their walls. . . .”
. . . The technical prerequisites of the industrial revolution had been anticipated by skilled craftsmen in the urban communes, scholars in the universities, and researchers in the monasteries; but the atmosphere of barbarism following the triumph of the centralized state set technical progress back by centuries. The nineteenth century was, in a sense, a technical and industrial “renaissance,” built atop the achievements of the High Middle Ages after a prolonged hiatus; but because of the intervening centuries of warfare on society, industrial technology was introduced into a society based on brutal exploitation and privilege, instead of flowering in a society where it might have benefited all . . .
. . . The Renaissance as it happened, G. K. Chesterton argued, was only an anemic ghost of what it might have been had it taken place under a democracy of guilds and peasant proprietors. Had Wat Tyler and John Ball been successful, Chesterton speculated, “our country would probably have had as happy a history as is possible to human nature. The Renascence, when it came, would have come as popular education and not the culture of a club of aesthetics. The New Learning might have been as democratic as the old learning in the old days of mediaeval Paris and Oxford. The exquisite artistry of Cellini might have been but the highest grade of the craft of a guild. The Shakespearean drama might have been acted by workmen on wooden stages set up in the street like Punch and Judy, the finer fulfillment of the miracle play as it was acted by a guild.”
The real advancement, the real humanism and progress of the High Middle Ages, has been neglected, and the barbarism and regression of the age of the absolute state disguised as a rebirth of civilization. In short, history has been not only rewritten, but stood on its head by the victors.
Carson then cites Kropotkin’s The State: Its Historic Role:
How many lies have been accumulated by Statist historians, in the pay of the State, in that period! Indeed have we not all learned at school for instance that the State had performed the great service of creating, out of the ruins of feudal society, national unions which had previously been made impossible by the rivalries between cities? . . .
And yet, now we learn that in spite of all the rivalries, medieval cities had already worked for four centuries toward building those unions, through federation, freely consented, and that they had succeeded.
Matthew Raphael Johnson describes the apparatus of lies used to obscure these crimes:
The purpose of The Third Rome is to alter the political universe of those who read it. In other words, it was to challenge the assumptions that underlie the liberal/ conservative consensus in western countries. Such assumptions include the superstitious belief in progress, the linear (i.e. evolutionary) development of history and, importantly, the continued dominance of the idea that western democracies are morally superior to not merely the rest of the globe, but also superior to all systems of rule that have ever existed . . .
. . . For the exoteria of western politics, one is routinely treated to myths about the linear development of European history from the “darkness” of the middle ages to the “light” of the Enlightenment, science and its progeny, postmodernism. The “tyranny” of medieval and early modern kings is contrasted to the benevolence of modern republics. The evils of feudalism are contrasted to the capital/state alliance. This makes up every introduction to political science in universities, and it is at the very nature of “civic discourse” as it is contrived in the west. The only difficulty is that it is nonsense . . .
. . . At no time in global history have ruling classes amassed such centralized power: surveillance techniques, media power, armies, advanced weapons, computers and a disciplined bureaucracy that can track each and every citizen with pinpoint accuracy throughout his life form the vulnerable underbelly of the tripe concerning “democracy” and “republicanism” in the west. Tyranny previous to modernity was largely impossible: the technological apparatus needed to create “totalitarianism” simply did not exist. Only modernity can create tyranny . . .
. . . [T]he day to day functioning of royal government, is not contrasted with the actual functioning of republican systems, but rather with idealistic theory of republicanism
. . . The peasant commune controlled the social life of the peasant, and was completely independent of the tsar. An “individual,” isolated from his commune or region, would, as in all “democracies,” be a meaningless legal fiction, easily exploited. This is the esoteria of “individualism” in political theory; it is easier for the oligarchy to dominate isolated individuals than to deal with larger and more powerful communal and municipal structures . . .
. . .In liberal democracies, those who have the most ambition to rule are those who run for office. Nicholas showed the opposite that, even when the crown was handed to him, he rejected it in favor of the (formal) heir apparent. Only under pressure did he accept the crown. In democratic thinking, only the ambitious and obnoxious are capable of doing what is necessary to get elected. American politicians are whores. They are forced to alter their views depending on the group with which the politician is meeting with or speaking. He is constantly asking for money with far less grace than a common prostitute . . .
. . . St. Nicholas II was brought to the throne in 1894. He found a Russia far from being “backward,” but, in a few years—by the start of World War I—was the envy of the world. She had the lowest taxes in all Europe. Direct taxation per capita amounted to 3.1 rubles per year, versus 13 for Germany, 10 for Austria, 12 in France and 27 in progressive, democratic and capitalist Britain. Indirect taxation was also the lowest in Europe, amounting to 6 rubles per capita for Russia, but 10 for Germany, 11 for Austria, 16 for France and 14 for Britain . . . Russia was just beginning her economic expansion into world markets. There can be no question that the refusal of the Romanovs to set up a central bank under the rule of the global financial elite marked them for extinction. Imperial Russia was the only major European power who refused to set up a Central Bank, though the Bolsheviks, as always, willingly obliged . . .
. . . in 1861, what took the American republic years and hundreds of thousands of American lives to accomplish (in the case of slavery), the Russian Tsar accomplished in one fell swoop, the elimination of serfdom and the liberation of the peasant . . . By 1917, the peasantry controlled the overwhelming majority
of farmland—more than three times what was controlled by the nobility. . . . “Free elections” are the easiest way for an oligarchy to enslave a population without them knowing it.
What Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn said of Russia might well apply to modern Western civilization as a whole:
Imagine a very popular, intelligent, conscientious, good-looking and responsible young man, obviously destined for a highly successful life. One day, having had a few drinks too many, he runs his car into a tree and ends up a paraplegic. Accidents happen not only in the lives of persons, but also in the lives of nations.
Perhaps a more appropriate analogy might be to compare the Western ruling classes to drunken drivers. Their respective nations might be compared to motor vehicles that have been crashed into a pile-up on the freeway. The producing classes are their casualties who have been maimed and dismembered.
In formulating a culture of resistance, we must not hesitate to pull out all of the stops. By all means, we should attempt to utilize peaceful and legal means of resistance of the type that I have thus far outlined. However, it is foolish to think that this will be enough. The neoconservative/cultural Marxist ruling class will never consent to the handing over of power to the type of libertarian-populist resistance coalition that I have argued for. Are we really going to believe that the ideological descendents of Robespierre, Trotsky, Adorno, Marcuse, and Strauss are simply going to step down without a fight? They would be much more inclined to repeat the Reign of Terror, the Kronstadt massacre, or the treachery of Barcelona. During the Reagan administration, plans were drawn up for the implementation of martial law by executive order. The present neocon regime is creating the pseudo-legal framework whereby the executive branch can simply ignore acts of Congress, court rulings, or international treaties and engage in indefinite detention without trial or access to counsel, conduct searches and seizures without warrant, engage in torture, hold secret tribunals, and, presumably, administrative death sentences and summary executions. The only remaining steps would be to cancel elections and abrogate constitutionally imposed presidential terms limits in favor of absolute despotism. Even if the neocons do not go all the way with this program, the cultural Marxists who succeed them might. Therefore, preparations must be made for such an occurrence.
Whenever I assert that an armed insurgency against the present US regime is not only feasible, but likely to result in the victory of the resistance forces provided they utilize the correct strategy and maintain the proper level of determination, the usual response I get is one of skepticism. I beg to differ. This is a regime that cannot even maintain “law and order” in its capital cities. This is a regime that cannot even maintain order in the event of natural disasters like the New Orleans floods of 2005 or uprisings like the “L.A. Riots” of 1992. In the latter event, the LAPD (the largest and best trained police department in the world) simply turned and ran for cover. The present regime is simply a house of cards that maintains an elaborate smoke and mirrors show as a means of hiding its fundamental weakness and incompetence. If the US military (the largest, most technologically advanced, and best equipped in history) can be defeated by ragtag insurgents in the jungles of Vietnam, the mountains of Afghanistan, or the streets of Baghdad, there is absolutely no military reason why the US regime cannot be defeated in the swamps of the Gulf Coast, the mountains of the Midwest, or the streets of New York, Los Angeles, or Miami. A Vietnam veteran, Bill Bridgewater, describes the possibilities here:
Is there even a shred of possibility that an armed citizenry could succeed against the strongest military power on Earth today? Perhaps we should review the years 1960– 1975 again. The United States blindly stuck its oar in the muddied waters of Viet Nam very shortly after the French got their heads handed to them on a platter and were invited not to be a colonial power in Viet Nam any more.
Finally, we found ourselves in the position of guaranteeing the survival of an independent South Viet Nam when the Northern part of the country made it clear that they were interested in reuniting the country under their particular brand of socialism. For a decade and a half, we changed the leadership of South Viet Nam quite regularly; increased the pressure on the Johnson thumbscrews; bombed, quit, bombed, quit, ad infinitum; quantified the war; and finally turned it into an electronic war. At home we kept telling the citizens that we were just about to win decisively and elected another president to drive crazy with this goofy little war.
Finally the president declared that all was over and the troops could come home. But they did not return home in triumph with the bugles blaring. They came home with their tails between their legs just like every other defeated army in the history of the world. And the reason that they did so, my friends, was that the world’s most powerful nation got its backside severely whipped by a small, backward, agrarian nation who started the war against us with an assortment of ancient bolt-action rifles, no lines of support, no manufacturing base, and no infrastructure that the country absolutely depended upon.
It is not a joke that they made sandals from cut-up truck tires—it’s the truth. They fought the only kind of war they could hope to fight and win successfully—a guerrilla war. They had two good models: the American colonies against the British in our war for independence, and the American Indian wars, where the value of slash-and-run against a superior foe was escalated to a fine art by the world’s finest light cavalry. Twice the North Vietnamese allowed themselves to be suckered into main force set-piece battles, and they got cut into ribbons for doing it. Otherwise, they stuck to General Giap’s plan of guerrilla warfare to the finish. The North finally did get to mass their troops and tanks during their final sweep to victory into Saigon.
Why did this happen? Why did the world’s most powerful nation get its teeth kicked in and sent home in disgrace? Because we forgot our very own origins! We forgot that we were the ones who hid behind logs, berms, and bushes and shot British troops and their mercenaries as targets of opportunity while denying our opponents a target of any kind. We used the skills of the mountain and plains Indians against an Army that was trained in only one form of combat. We refused to engage in the British methods of combat until we had superior forces and the odds were highly in our favor. General Vo Nguyen Giap did exactly the same thing against us in the 1960s and 1970s while we used our superior firepower and technology to create ten million deaf monkeys and water buffalo. We defoliated tens of thousands of acres of jungle forest to prove that Giap’s troops weren’t there. We constructed every kind of trap known to mankind to capture and destroy divisions of enemy troops where there weren’t any. We very patiently fought a European theater-type of warfare against a steadfast foe who fought a completely different kind of war that simply made our complex weapons systems useless. By inflexibly insisting on doing it our way, we lost the whole shooting match to a man who played it his way and won . . .
. . . A revolution could be waged against the current American government far easier than you might imagine without careful examination. Consider:
The sheer numbers of firearms of all kinds in the hands of the American public would have made the American commanders in Viet Nam quake in their boots. We’re not talking junk equipment here, either. The average deer hunter with a .270 or .308 could give a platoon of regular troops more grief than they want. There was a special on the tube recently about military armaments on sale in the black market (including Stingers).
The population base from which revolutionaries could be recruited is massive—250 million.
There are literally millions of well-trained men who served as officers and NCOs who learned face-to-face how guerrilla warfare works. They haven’t forgotten it, either.
There are millions of young men out there with military training and experience with weapons of every conceivable kind, who would make top-quality guerrilla troops.
Every one of the 100 counties in the state of North Carolina could field at least one full company that would be formidable in capability. If one ass
umes that North Carolina is no more capable than other states, that could amount to 180 divisions. These potential rebel troops would be fast-moving light infantry, with the capability of melting into the general population when necessary. American military leaders would be in the position of having an inventory of high-tech weapons that they would be dependent upon your son or nephew to use against you. There would be no enemy states in which you could say that any weapon could be used against the rebels. They would be from each and every state and major city.
By the same token, there would be no sanctuary for the federal troops anywhere in the land. No matter where stationed, they would be subject to attack and harassment. The infrastructure on which the federal government depends would be rather easily disrupted by those who live there. Airfields and major lines of communications could be shut down and kept down for days at a time. Disruption of supplies to major bases and to centers of government would be simple. You don’t have to cut them off, just keep them hungry. The federal government would be denied the use of all their major weaponry because they would still “own” the cities and villages. How do you justify bombing your own city just because there is a rebel company in it? One bombing would be the biggest recruiting drive ever for the rebel forces. Now just how powerful do those 12 Army divisions and those three Marine divisions really look to you? Just how scary is the Air Force against America? What will the Navy do, shell all coastal cities? I don’t think so.
Attack the System Page 25
