The “Illuminati” Is a Myth! Wake Up and Deal With the REAL Problem!

Enough With the (Poisonous) Bullshit

Editor’s Note:(1)

In the essay we reproduce below, Bob Avakian and the revolutionary educators of the RCP, brilliantly dispose of all the ways in which belief in the Illuminati is a dangerous thing for individuals or groups seeking authentic paths to liberation. The Illuminati is claptrap, insidious claptrap at that, and it should be treated as such.—PG

The “Illuminati” Is a Myth!

By Bob Avakian, REVCOM.US

Why do we live in such a fucked-up world? Why are decisions so clearly out of the hands of the masses of people? And why do these decisions always run so sharply against the interests of these masses? Why do a few people control enormous amounts of wealth… while many more swim frantically to keep their heads above water… and the vast majority are ground down and chained to a life of misery, no matter what they do? And why are we lied to about all this?

People seek answers to these questions. Urgently. One of the biggest, most widespread answers out there pins all this on a shadowy group called the “Illuminati.” This small but virtually all-powerful group, we are told, is bent on world domination. They have supposedly manipulated and rigged every war, every revolution, every economic or political crisis in accord with a master plan for world domination. There are 57 varieties of this explanation to be found on the Internet, differing in this or that detail and degree, but this is the basic framework you get from them all. (See sidebar for the actual history of the Illuminati.)

A Few Basic FactsThe Illuminati was a secret society in Bavaria, Germany, that arose in late 1776. Bavaria at that time was ruled by a monarch and Roman Catholicism was the official state religion. The Illuminati, by contrast, promoted values associated with the bourgeoisie during this period. The bourgeoisie was rising up against the feudal order—advocating republicanism rather than monarchy; rational thought and secularism rather than religion and a state church; and the beginnings, at least, of gender equality. The Illuminati were suppressed by the Bavarian government in 1785, and despite some efforts to re-form, never regained their footing.This was happening toward the peak of a period of transition and upheaval in Western Europe. The old order of feudalism—a social order in which the accumulation of wealth and power was based on land ownership and the exploitation of peasants (who are usually bound to the land, unable to move away, either by law or custom)—was being challenged. The rulers of this order were typically kings and other nobles—people who inherited their position, as a landlord inherited his land and even “his peasants”— and who defended the interests of the landlords.But for centuries, things had been changing underneath the surface. New ways of accumulating wealth, based on the further development of manufacture in the cities and on the exploitation of a new class (the proletariat) that had been driven off the land, had gained predominance. These new ways drew on international trade, and a world market came into being. All this, in turn, got a tremendous boost from the colonization of the Americas and the establishment of slavery within those colonies. Of course, this “boost” meant the genocide of the people living in North and South America and the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of people from Africa!For a while, these new capitalist ways could gain ground within the old social order. But the needs of this rising capitalist class increasingly ran up against the interests of the feudal lords and the laws and institutions that enforced those interests. The old structure of kings, backed by a state-sponsored church, had become an obstacle to the full growth and consolidation of the power of this new capitalist class. This rising new class—with its new ways of exploiting people’s labor and accumulating wealth—had new ideas on how things should be organized to foster this, and they came together in groups to discuss these and to plan how to get rid of the old feudal order. Revolutions were waged against the kings who defended feudal power—first in England in 1642 to 1651, and then over a century later in France.The French Revolution spread its influence to many different countries in Europe, and the authorities in those countries began labeling those who were revolutionary-minded as Illuminati—trying to sow fear of revolution by implying that they were part of a secret, “foreign-inspired” group. Over time, this became increasingly bound up with anti-Jewish thinking. In 1918, at a time when the communistrevolution had begun to win victories, a British woman named Nesta Webster wrapped together the nativism (prejudice against people not from one’s country of birth), anti-Semitism, and anticommunism into one big, ugly package. Today, in some cases, some of the rougher edges of anti-Semitism have been sanded down, but the message is conveyed through code words.

These “Illuminati theorists” focus a great deal on manipulation of the banking system. They do not really talk about any problems with the capitalist system apart from that. Almost all of them are either openly or just-below-the-surface anti-Semitic—that is, they focus people’s hatred against what they portray as a cabal of Jewish financial families. They do not talk about the capitalist class as a whole. They string together a lot of facts, pseudo-facts, and lies that they claim to be grounded in deep research—while in reality, these are marshaled to serve a thoroughly unscientific and, indeed,anti-scientific theory. Many connect this to the biblical Book of Revelation, with its lurid visions of apocalypse and mumbo-jumbo talk of Antichrists, to say that this is Satan’s plan; and there are other equally mystical and anti-rational theories advanced in other variants of the theory.

There is only one word to describe these theories: wrong. Actually, there’s another word, too: poisonous. Totally poisonous. These Illuminati theorists point to the wrong problem and the wrong solution. To them, the problem is not capitalism; it is a small group of people who are supposedly controlling and perverting capitalism. To them, the solution is not revolution; it is returning to the “purity” of capitalism (a “purity” which never existed and never can exist and wouldn’t be any good even if it could!). In actual fact, these theories have served as the foundations for reactionary, fascist, and racist movements for over a century.

These theories are not “a little bit right.” Yes, they take advantage of people’s correct sense that the answers to the questions we started this article with are hidden. But that’s just the point—they “take advantage.” They exploit the sense that people have of being lied to and use that to train people in reactionary, backward thinking and mislead them into acting against their own interests. They are no more neutral or harmless than a quack doctor who gives you arsenic for a highly contagious, fatal disease.

Why Do Things Happen?

According to the Illuminati theorists, there is no real logic to history other than these quasi-Satanic forces trying to get domination. Everything you can name—the U.S. Civil War, the Russian Revolution—happened because the Illuminati manipulated it.

Do powerful forces attempt to control events? Yes, they do. But these forces, in this day and age, are political representatives of a class—the capitalist-imperialist class. And they do not have total control. First off, the power of these capitalist-imperialists does not come from Satan—who doesn’t exist in the first place! Nor does it come from “secret knowledge,” numerology, aliens, etc. No, these capitalist-imperialists derive their power from something much more everyday. They own the vast material forces that create wealth in this society—the factories and mines, the agriculture, the means of transportation and communication, the banks and other instruments of finance, and so on. This ownership enables the capitalists to amass wealth through exploiting the labor of those who possess no means of creating wealth—the proletariat—which today numbers billions of people around the world. Exploitation means that the capitalists take what these billions create each day through their labor and pay them in return enough to survive (and sometimes barely that). This exploitation is where they get their profit.

And this capitalist class is the embodiment of the capitalist SYSTEM. As Bob Avakian breaks down in the Revolution Talk,¹ a system is like a game with certain rules. So think of capitalism as a game with three rules:

profit comes from exploiting people’s labor—therefore you must exploit to the maximum;
if you are a capitalist and you don’t grow bigger, then your competitor will and drive you under—therefore, you must expand or die; and
profit over everything—therefore you must plunder the earth and all its inhabitants and subordinate everything to the pursuit of profit.

On the basis of the wealth that they have amassed from exploitation, the capitalist class shapes and controls the official use of force in society (armies, police, prisons, courts) and decision-making (mainly through the executive branch of government, like the presidency). They wield this machinery—the state—to defend and enforce their interests. But because different capitalists have conflicting interests (see rule 2, above), they fight each other for control and advantage—even as they collaborate to keep down the masses.

In today’s world, where capitalism has developed into a global system of imperialism, this takes place on an international scale. They are like gangsters in a turf war, though the scale of their viciousness and destruction far exceeds what any gangster even dreams of. All this—thissystem—leads to horrific, widespread, and totally unnecessary suffering for billions of people. But all this is driven forward by the rules at the heart of the system that demand that the capitalists, in order to survive, exploit the vast majority of people ever more extremely as part of their cutthroat competition with other capitalists.

So what is the root of the problem? Not a tiny band of superhumanly evil beings. Not a small group of Jewish financiers. But a system in which a class of capitalists 1) controls the means of production and exploits the labor of many, 2) on that basis wields tremendous military force to dominate people, and 3) also uses that power to control and shape the media, education systems, etc. to influence and dominate the ways that people think. So long as this is the system, we will face the problems—exploitation of the billions, plunder of the environment, oppressive institutions, and ways that keep that exploitation going—that we face today.

Superhuman Masterminds—Or an Enemy That Is Powerful, but Riddled with Contradiction?

In the Illuminati version of the world, you have masterminds in near-total control of events. In the real world, the one in which we actually live, no one group of capitalists has total control; they fight with each other, and they also fight with the masses, trying to keep them suppressed and, when those masses rebel, trying to put them back into chains. Horrific, destructive wars go on as the concentration of all this. And sometimes, against tremendous odds, the masses break through the madness and make revolution.

No single capitalist or group of capitalists can predict the course of events; they cannot even predict whether this or that business will succeed. They try to, but they face a world of antagonistic forces and unintended consequences. The capitalist-imperialists fight for one reason: to defend, extend and expand their ability to accumulate capital in a world full of uncertainty and chaos. And they MUST fight—they are driven to do so by the “rules of the game.”

This gives rise to huge crises in society, where things seem to unravel. These crises can mean great and even deeper horrors… but they can also contain the openings, if there is leadership and a revolutionary people, to make huge, positive changes—to make revolution.

**What Is Really Behind the Lies and Hidden Agendas?**

Do these powerful forces—these capitalists—try to hide their real motives and their real interests? Yes… because their interests are against those of the masses of people. Let’s take war. The imperialists will never say that their wars are in the interests of defending and extending an empire which they control. Remember the U.S. war against Iraq? Hundreds of thousands died as a result of that war, and millions of people were violently uprooted. That war was labeled “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” not “Operation Extend and Deepen U.S. Imperial Domination of the Middle East in Order to Edge Out Rivals and Keep the Masses Suppressed.” The capitalist-imperialists will always invent pretexts or excuses for going to war, sometimes with absolutely no basis in reality—and this is true of Iraq, Vietnam, and almost every war you can name—because if they came out with the real reasons, it would incur much more opposition from the masses of people.

The Ugly Tradition of Anti-SemitismAnti-Semitism has a long and ugly history, one very well-documented in the article “Revolution Responds to Question on the Nature of the Holocaust.”In brief, Jews were very oppressed within Europe for centuries. Laws barred them from owning land and from living in certain countries, they were subjected to torture, imprisonment and death in cruel “Inquisitions,” and they were generally made one of the main scapegoats for society’s ills by the ruling Catholic Church. As “Revolution Responds” explains, this began to come into question during the conflict between the established feudal order (dominated by landlords and kings) and the rising class of capitalists. The rise of capitalism was accompanied by the Enlightenment—an intellectual and social movement that used reason and science to examine and challenge many of the traditions and prejudices of the feudal society that stood in the way of the rising capitalist class. The rise of capitalism also meant that in some cases professions and occupations to which Jews had been confined in the old order now came into more prominence and importance, and this opened up room for some Jewish people to advance their situation.The article points out:

The earth-shaking changes ushered in by the emergence of capitalism in Europe loosened and challenged, but did not come close to uprooting traditional theocratic-based fear and hatred of Jews. And even as great changes took place in the political and social landscape of Europe in the 1800s, and early 1900s, powerful forces in European society—including elements of the Christian establishment, along with feudal and other reactionary forces—lashed back at these changes, and, as part of that, targeted the Jews.

Sections of people were periodically enlisted in spasms of anti-Semitic violence. Peasants locked out of any scientific understanding of the forces that were upending their lives had their desperation channeled away from the ruling classes and towards the Jews. Even in the most cosmopolitan countries—like Germany— anti-Semitic demagoguery had an appeal among sections of small business owners and shopkeepers who tended to be blinded by their social and economic positions to the actual mainsprings of capitalist society.

This was also true in the U.S.—where Henry Ford published the phony “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a forgery that claimed to report on a meeting of Jewish rabbis to plot world domination. While spasms of anti-Semitic violence would occur in Europe, and while there was pervasive discrimination against Jews in all capitalist societies (including the U.S.), all this went to another level with the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, which eventually led to the genocidal extermination of six million Jews.

At the same time, there was and is a Zionist movement that arose among some Jewish people in reaction to this oppression. This movement attached itself to the interests of imperialism and, at the end of World War 2, different imperialist powers saw it in their interests to create the state of Israel in the Arab country of Palestine. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were violently driven from their land, and the Zionist state of Israel became an instrument of imperialism—especially U.S. imperialism—in the Middle East. While Israel pursues what is sees as its interests in the larger imperialist framework, to claim that Israel controls imperialism is to say that the tail wags the dog.

The state of Israel should be opposed by anyone with a sense of justice—both for what it does to the Palestinians and more broadly in the Middle Eastand for its overall role in the imperialist system.⁹ But for oppressed people today to fall into the trap of anti-Semitism—of hating Jews or in any way going along with or giving ground to “Jews are the problem” instead of focusing on the real problem—is not just foolish, but profoundly poisonous to the cause of human emancipation, and immoral.

People sense this—but here come the Illuminati theorists and their ilk to say that the real motives of these wars were to further enrich “Jewish financial interests,” or to cement control of the so-called “Bilderberg group,” or to bring in one-world government under the United Nations.² No! The real reasons for the wars mentioned above were 1) to impose U.S. domination over rival imperialists (or to risk being edged out or even subordinated by those imperialists)… or 2) to crush liberation struggles of the people in the nations which they have been oppressing, as was the case in Vietnam, or 3) some combination of the first two. But if the imperialists just came out and said that, people would be far less likely to go along with these wars. And if the Illuminati theorists just said that, it would imply that there is something wrong with the system of capitalismand not just the behavior of this or that capitalist or group of capitalists. So think about it—why do the Illuminati theorists invent all kinds of explanations which lead you awayfrom looking at the forces within the system’s functioning? And remember—the “normal” functioning of the capitalist system must mean the untold suffering of billions, and this has been true since its earliest days.

Are we taught the real motive forces of history? No, we are not. We are taught in school that “Abraham Lincoln fought the U.S. Civil War to free the slaves and to realize the true promise of America.” We sense there is more to it than that. So here come the Illuminati theorists once more to say that the Civil War happened as a result of the Rothschilds—again, a family of Jewish bankers in Europe—egging both sides on against each other so that they could take over the U.S. financial system. Oooh, sounds heavy… sounds deep.

Just one problem: this is totally wrong… and dangerously misleading. The Civil War, in fact, arose out of deep contradictions at the very heart and foundation of the capitalist system as it developed in the U.S., namely the enslavement of millions of Africans. The northern capitalists and southern slaveholders waged an extremely bitter and bloody struggle. Why? Because as the northern capitalists grew in strength over the first decades of this country, they increasingly ran up against constraints imposed on their expansion by the southern slave system. They needed to control the whole economy and nation in order to fully consolidate capitalism. The southern slaveholders needed to dig in and not just consolidate slavery but expand its reach and power. All this is shown in some depth in our current series on the U.S. Constitution,³ as well as in Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy⁴ by Bob Avakian and “The Oppression of Black People, the Crimes of This System and the Revolution We Need.”⁵ Those two antagonistic claims could finally only be settled by war.

Now, did a lot of capitalists—including banker-capitalists—make huge fortunes, and extend their individual power and influence off the Civil War? Of course! But to claim that was thecause of the Civil War is like saying that umbrella salesmen are the cause of the rain because they make extra money during downpours.

But there’s actually more that this Illuminati theory hides. The northern capitalists, who eventually triumphed, quickly decided NOT to grant the newly free slaves the rights that they had fought for. Instead, they decided that it was more in their class interests to bring back the former slaveholders as “junior partners” and to put the African-American people into a new set of chains as sharecroppers tied to plantations (and convict-laborers—slavery in a new name—to build roads and industry in the South). This fit in with their interests—to politically “stabilize the home base” and extract super-profits from sharecropping agriculture, while they conquered the remaining Native American peoples in the West and prepared to contend as a world power.

This oppression of African-Americans, though going through many changes, has been the red thread running through the whole history of the U.S. and the colonies before it. It continues to be at the heart of U.S. society today. And the further development of this contradiction at the heart of America could still lead to, or certainly be a big part of, a major crisis in U.S. society, on the order of the Civil War, or the 1960s… or even beyond those earth-shaking days of change.

That fact has tremendous implications. It shows the depth of the oppression of the African-American people in this society. It shows the critical importance of the struggle against this oppression in a revolution to actually get free of this capitalist-imperialist madness. It shows how the capitalist-imperialist class in the U.S. has continually been driven to restore and rebuild institutions of white supremacy, even as these institutions go through changes. Understanding the true causes of the Civil War lets people see how there are times when these contradictions can come to a head in such a way so as to plunge all of society into crisis… and open up opportunities for huge and even truly revolutionary change.

But Illuminati theory covers up that understanding. It opposes that understanding. It leads people away from that understanding. According to it, the problem is not the deep-seated white supremacy built into the very heart of this system, which periodically leads to crisis and conflict and, yes, opportunity for radical and even revolutionary change; it is some comic book demon who “just happens” to have a Jewish name. Why do you suppose the Illuminati theorists want people to believe that the whole thing could have been settled were it not for the Jews (or in more “polite versions” some nameless financial capitalists)—instead of showing people the real reasons that go to the roots of the matter, with all the implications for the present and future that we just laid out?

Imperialism and Illuminati Theory… and Why Illuminati Theory HATES Revolution

Some people get taken in because these theorists talk about “big financial groups” and “hidden agendas.” But where do those big financial groups come from and what drives their agendas? Their agendas are nothing but the expansion and extension of their particular bloc of capital or, on the international plane, their home nation. And why did these blocs of finance capital arise? This was actually explained by Lenin, in his analysis of imperialism.

Now this leads to another question: who is Lenin? V.I. Lenin was the person who carried on and carried further Marx’s great insights into the workings of capitalism and the need for revolution. On the basis of these further advances in theory, Lenin led the first great revolution against capitalism in 1917. Lenin led this revolution against tremendous opposition and tremendous odds.

You wanna talk about conspiracies? Okay, how about this one: 14 capitalist powers all banded together to send their armies to crush this revolution. But the masses of people, in a terrible war that cost millions of lives, defeated this counter-revolution and went on to build socialism for four decades. This was a tremendous victory, unparalleled in human history up to that point. There was nothing pre-determined or neat about it.

But not if you listen to the Illuminati-types. According to them, Lenin—who led this incredible and heroic achievement of the masses—was nothing but a tool of… you guessed it… the Jewish financiers, once again… who were supposedly using him to implant total domination by the Illuminati.

Sorry, Illuminati theorists, you’re wrong again—Lenin was a great revolutionary, a great champion for humanity, someone who gave us insight into how the modern world works and what it takes to fundamentally change it, for real. Lenin should be cherished and learned from by everyone who really wants to understand the world and change the world for the better. (And to those of you taken in by this other, lying shit, including those of you in the world of hip-hop who don’t want to go along with the system: maybe you should ask yourselves whatclass interests are served by getting people who are searching for change to hate or at least have a totally false understanding of Lenin… and wake up to the fact that you are being played for something really vile and that your influence is being used to mislead others.⁶ )

To return to the point we started with—what is imperialism—before Lenin led the revolution, he developed a theory that explained several big changes in how capitalism functioned. First, the small, individual capitalists of prior times, through the process of relentless competition that is built into capitalism and “makes it run,” so to speak, had been mainly wiped out. Big monopolies—one or a few capitalists, or blocs of capital, controlling huge industries—arose in their place. Second, banking and industrial capital had merged into “finance capital.” The capitals of what had been different and smaller capitalists were now pooled into huge blocs which shifted capital in and out of different industries, different regions, etc. Third, capital itself began to be exported to the oppressed regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The capitalist states of Europe, North America and Japan began to militarily occupy these countries and fight with each other over “spheres of influence,” to defend the interests of the capitalist-imperialists of their respective countries. This in turn led to wars on a scale never before seen: wars between the imperialists as well as wars of liberation and revolution waged by the oppressed masses. All this meant that capitalism had emerged into a new stage: imperialism.

In addition to the effects briefly outlined above, imperialism also means that the huge blocs of finance capital exert power over the smaller capitalists. Imperialist capital controls credit, they make large decisions about economic priorities and practices that affect these smaller capitalists, etc. These smaller capitalists feed off the imperialist system for their very existence but are also extremely vulnerable to getting wiped out, and resent all this. At the same time, their class interests and position can set them in opposition to the people on the bottom of society—the proletariat, who in many cases they exploit. They can feel “caught in the middle.”⁷

Illuminati theory reflects the position of this class of small capitalists. And this theory can also take root among others “in the middle”—including small business people who employ a few people, professionals and managers, self-employed, etc. This is NOT to say that every person in this class position thinks this way—many do not and many can be and have been won to be allies and partisans of the revolution. But this theory crystallizes and represents the fantasies and aspirations that spontaneously arise out of the social conditions of this class. As a class it can not envision and lead the way to a world without exploitation; it can only dream of a “more level playing field” in which to carry out that exploitation.

There Are No “Good Old Days”—Either We Make a Whole New World or Humanity Remains Stuck in a World of Horrors

The Illuminati theorists want to bring back the “good old days” of early capitalism. Now, you remember the “good old days,” don’t you? The days of slavery… the days of the extermination of the Indians…the days when women had no rights whatsoever… the days of… well, you get the picture. The “good old days of America” were no fucking good in the first place! Yet these are what these people want to bring back! This is why so many of these theoreticians are fixated on the founding of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913, which was put into place in order to facilitate the abilities of finance capital. These Illuminati theorists are not against capitalism. They’re against the ways that other capitalists—in this case, certain financial interests—hamper them and hold them back, or at least seem to hamper them.

But even if these theories ultimately reflect the position and aspirations of the petty-capitalist class, their influence goes broader into society. And in recent years these kinds of explanations have gained a hearing among the oppressed. Why is this so? For a long time now, a lot of people have been discouraged about the prospects of revolution in the U.S. The defeat of the first socialist revolutions—with counter-revolutions taking place in the Soviet Union in the mid-’50s, and then in China in 1976—has enabled the ruling class to wildly distort and suppress history, to slander revolution, and to proclaim themselves to be all-powerful. The defeat of the heroic struggles of the 1960s within the U.S. has also had a huge effect. In particular, there is the fact that African-Americans were lied to, and lied about. They, along with Latinos, have been targeted by a “war on drugs” that has served as a pretext to institute a new form of Jim Crow, mass incarceration—while all around the official line was that “racism is over, if you can’t make it now it’s because of your own bad choices.” People often feel hopeless—and helpless—in the face of all this.

A parable:Two people go to a casino, play blackjack, and lose all their money.One spends all his time trying to figure out if the dealer was cheating; he then decides to see if there is a way that he can become so good at the game that maybe he can win. He may get real lucky… he may come out a little bit ahead, in the short run… or (most likely scenario) he may, if he keeps playing, lose everything. It doesn’t matter. The casino continues.The other notices that no matter how people play the game, many people lose everything… a few people win a little… and the house takes the lion’s share. She studies the rules of blackjack and understands that this result is built into the very rules themselves. It doesn’t matter whether the casino cheats and the house always wins so long as the game is blackjack. She decides we need a different game altogether, and a world without casinos.Which one are you?

Illuminati theory reflects part of this reality—the part about people being lied to, about hidden forces with hidden agendas determining the real shape of people’s lives. At the same time, Illuminati theory also represents going along with and reinforcing this ideological offensive against the people. It is NOT in any way, shape or form a way out of it. It slanders and lies about revolution. It spreads contempt for the masses and their ability to change history, especially through revolution. It directs people’s anger against other ethnic groups that have supposedly “made it,” while at the same time accepting that “making it” under capitalism should be people’s highest goal. It spreads lies about and antagonism against communism and science, while it promotes mysticism and religion. How is ANY of that any good? It is NOT—it is poison.

Illuminati theory can seem to reflect a part of reality, but it does so like the fun-house mirrors in a carnival, giving you a distorted view. It does so in the service of a very unreal, very false and extremely reactionary explanation. The ruling class is powerful, but it is not all-powerful; as Bob Avakian (BA) recently has pointed out, “they are powerful, but their system is riddled with contradictions.”⁸ History is not the plaything of a handful of men with secret knowledge; most of all, it is the struggle between contending classes, representing different ways to organize the production of what humans need to live, and different social and political and cultural lives that correspond to those different ways. There never was a golden age to go back to. Humanity will either remain locked in the endless horrors of capitalism-imperialism or go forward to something far better… communism, a society in which people carry out their lives without exploitation or oppression or antagonistic social conflict, a society in which people can rise to their full heights.

So how about instead of trying to go back to “good old days” that never existed and that we should certainly never go back to… how about we go forward? How about we quit getting taken in, or letting others get taken in, by people who worship capitalism and whose ultimate agenda is fascist and white supremacist? How about we call out the bullshit fantasy theories and worse that get people to focus on something other than the REAL source of the problem: capitalism? How about we eliminate the REAL source of the problem, capitalism, and bring in the REAL solution: socialism, as a transition to communism? And how about we promote and build a movement for revolution to bring in that new society, whenever the conditions emerge?

And how about, as a big step toward doing all that, we get with and deeply check out someone who actually has gone deeply into the problem, with REAL science… someone who has put forward a visionary and viable solution… who’s developed a strategy to get there… and who leads a party that is bound and determined to lead millions on that road?

How about we get with BA?

NOTES

1. Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About, a film of a talk by Bob Avakian, revolutiontalk.net. [back]

2. Many also say that the war was waged at the behest of Israel. While Israel certainly supported the war and in some ways benefited from it, they were not the motive force in it. For more on the relation between Israel and the world imperialist system, see the box on anti-Semitism. [back]

3. “The U.S. Constitution and the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal): Two Constitutions, Two Different Systems, Two Different Futures for African-American People.” “Part 1: A Slaveholders’ Union,”Revolution #270, May 27, 2012; Part 2: “Reconstruction, and the First Great Betrayal, 1867-1896,” Revolution #271, June 10, 2012; and Part 3: “Battleground Over Segregated Education in the 1950s and 1960s,” Revolution #272, June 17, 2012. [back]

4. Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, Bob Avakian, RCP Publications, 2008. Also available at revcom.us. [back]

5. The Oppression of Black People, the Crimes of This System and the Revolution We Need,” Revolution #144, October 5, 2008. [back]

6. To learn the true history of the 20th century’s socialist revolutions, see thisiscommunism.org. [back]

7. This used to get expressed when such theorists would say that “there is an international conspiracy of finance capital and communists working together to rule the world.” Despite the fact that imperialism and the communist movement are actually deadly antagonists, from the narrow view of the representative of the small capitalist (who has contradictions with both of these classes, but for diametrically opposed reasons) they seem to be in alliance—against him. [back]

8. “What Humanity Needs: Revolution, and the New Synthesis of Communism,” an interview with Bob Avakian, revcom.us. [back]

9. Special Issue on Israel: “Bastion of Enlightenment… or Enforcer for Imperialism: The Case of ISRAEL,” Revolution #213, October 10, 2010. [back]

Source: Revolution #272, June 17, 2012
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^₍₁₎ See God’s Illuminati

‘Free Market’ Ayn Rand Ideology Was a Root Cause of the Horrific Explosion in Texas

Empty Wheel [1] / By Marcy Wheeler [2]

On Thursday, I wrote about the central role that absolute free market libertarianism, as personified by the fictional John Galt, played in the horrific explosion in West [3], Texas that took the lives of fourteen people, most of whom were volunteer firefighters [4] fighting a fire at an unregulated fertilizer facility. We have now learned that the facility had a checkered history of ignoring regulations and had 1350 times more ammonium nitrate on hand than the amount that triggers a legal requirement to report the facility to Department of Homeland Security [5]. Of course, the facility’s owner chose to ignore that regulation along with the many other regulations he chose to ignore. Sadly, some press accounts of the owner chose to focus more on his role as a church elder [6] (Update: he was even at Bible study when the fire broke out!) than on how his choice to flout regulations and good sense led directly to this tragedy. Whatever the cause of the original fire that eventually triggered the explosion, the plant owner’s decision to maintain such a large and unreported amount of highly explosive ammonium nitrate so close to so many people played a huge role in how this tragedy played out.

Those deaths, and their roots in blatant disregard for government regulation in the belief that it harms business, are sadly just a small part of the larger picture of how free marketeers have corrupted the public marketplace of ideas to sow widespread death and destruction so that the “job creators” can go about their usual business of pocketing massive profits while refusing to make microscopic investments in small steps that would save many lives.

Remember the other, larger Massachusetts tragedy that killed at least 50 and injured 722 [7]? No? It was discovered last fall that New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts had been flaunting the rules on drug manufacturing and in their haste to reap maximum profits shipped out vials of steroids contaminated with fungus [8]. Thousands of patients around the country were injected with contaminated material and deaths and injuries followed.

You would think that since this tragedy played out last fall, the government would have realized the error of letting companies call themselves compounders when they are in reality manufacturing drugs on a large scale. Drug manufacturers are subject rigid FDA standards while compounders are regulated as if they are simple neighborhood pharmacies where the druggist might mix single vials of drugs into a form a local doctor has requested for individualized treatment of a patient. But no, because of massive lobbying on the part of compounders, who have become a huge presence because of the vast sums of money they can earn by working the margins of regulation, lawmakers pocket the proceeds of the lobbying and proclaim themselves powerless to harm the job creators as they bring these products to market. It should be viewed as no surprise then, that a different compounder, this time in Florida, now is recalling all of its products because it has been found to have been shipping product that was contaminated with bacteria. It is not yet known if any patients have been harmed by products from this compounder, but at least today’s article on the recall was able to update the death toll from the Massachusetts compounder to 53 [9].

The Boston Marathon bombing and the subsequent search for the perpetrators also was touched by John Galt. Technology has existed for nearly 20 years that can make individual production lots of explosives traceable. But when it came time to implement the technology, the NRA and other gun enthusiasts managed to limit the inclusion of taggants to plastic explosives and to specifically exempt black powder [10] (otherwise known as gunpowder) from being required to be traceable. The Boston bombs used black powder. If investigators had been able to know within hours of the blast where and when the black powder was purchased, would they have been able to arrest the bombers sooner and without the subsequent death of one police officer and near death of another? The full shutdown of Boston on Friday would not have happened if the brothers had been arrested Wednesday or Thursday through tracing the black powder they purchased. But no, John Galt said that gunpowder manufacturers shouldn’t have to spend the extra pennies to tag production lots and the inclusion of taggants in gunpowder infringes the rights of gun owners in a de facto registration of their ammunition, so society has to suffer the consequences of this freedom.

Oh and all that gun freedom. It appears that we have five more gun freedom victims in Seattle today [11].

John Galt is a very busy guy, sowing death and destruction from one side of the country to the other. But since he continues to make good money, we have to give him his freedom and keep those markets wide open. Praise the lord of the free market and pass the untagged ammunition.

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/economy/free-market-ayn-rand-ideology-was-root-cause-horrific-explosion-texas

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fda [20],

florida [21],

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subsequent search [38]

Unanswered questions in Boston bombings

By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother.

The Boston Marathon bombings last week, which killed three and wounded over 170, were seized on to implement a far-reaching attack on democratic rights, including a police lockdown of an entire city. As with previous incidents, much remains unknown, including the motive of those who allegedly carried it out, whether others were involved and what connection the FBI and other government agencies had to them.

In a televised statement immediately after the capture of 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the bombings, President Barack Obama told the American public: “Obviously, tonight there are still many unanswered questions. Among them, why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country, resort to such violence? How did they plan and carry out these attacks, and did they receive any help?”

However, it is the government that has released very little information about what it knows. Moreover, the Obama administration has decreed that Dzhokhar will be denied his Miranda rights, allowing CIA, FBI and military interrogators to question him without the presence of an attorney, thereby further limiting any information surfacing outside of what is vetted by the government and its intelligence agencies.

In addition to the questions raised by Obama, there are a number of others that bear serious scrutiny.

How did the two brothers obtain the explosives used in the bombings?
What relationship existed between the Tsarnaev brothers and the FBI and other US intelligence agencies?
Did US authorities have any knowledge about the Boston bombing plot before it was executed?
What role did US policy in relation to Russia and the separatist movements in Chechnya and other parts of the North Caucasus play in the US government’s attitude toward the Tsarnaevs?

While much remains murky about these and other issues, one thing is clear: the Boston bombing, like virtually every other major terrorist incident, real or invented, since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, was carried out by someone who was known to and under surveillance by US intelligence agencies.

•••

Armored vehicles in downtown Boston [Photo: Jeff Cutler]

There have been increasing questions raised concerning the FBI’s handling of a request from a foreign government, presumed to be Russia, that it investigate Tamerlan Tsarnaev on suspicion of involvement in Islamist terrorism.

The request came in advance of a six-month visit that Tamerlan made to Russia beginning in January of last year, during which he stayed with his father in Dagestan and visited Chechnya, where several members of the family live.

In a statement released in the wake of the Boston bombings, the FBI acknowledged that Russian authorities had determined that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a “follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.”

The FBI said that in response to this request it “checked US government databases and other information to look for such things as derogatory telephone communications, possible use of online sites associated with the promotion of radical activity, associations with other persons of interest, travel history and plans, and education history.”

The statement concluded that the FBI “did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign, and those results were provided to the foreign government in the summer of 2011.”

The Russian media has reported that Russian security services again contacted the FBI about Tamerlan Tsarnaev in November of last year.

Both of the parents of the two suspects have provided accounts of the FBI’s role that contradict the agency’s public statement.

The mother of the two brothers, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, a naturalized US citizen, told Russia Today that the FBI agents had told her that “Tamerlan was an extremist leader and they were afraid of him. They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremists’ web sites.”

“It is a setup,” she added. “He was controlled by FBI for three to five years. They knew what my son was doing. They knew what actions and what sites on the Internet he was going… So how could this happen? How could they, they were controlling his every step, and they are telling today that this is a terrorist act.”

In an interview with the Reuters news agency, the young men’s father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said that the FBI had visited the family’s home in Cambridge, Massachusetts at least five times looking for Tamerlan. He said: “They said there were doing preventive work. They were afraid there might be some explosions on the streets of Boston.”

The father said that he had been present at one FBI interrogation in which agents had told his son, “We know what sites you are on, we know where you are calling, we know everything about you. Everything.” Like the mother, he insisted that his sons had been “framed up.”

Russian sources reported that both parents had subsequently been questioned by Russia’s Federal Security Service, after which they cut off further contact with the Western media.

Reports of FBI involvement with Tamerlan Tsarnaev have led to criticism by US lawmakers, including South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has called for the younger brother to be treated as an “enemy combatant” and turned over to the US military. He said in a Sunday television interview that “the ball was dropped” by the FBI.

There have been no explanations forthcoming about how “the ball was dropped.” And without either of the two suspects or anyone else providing a motive for the bombings, much is unclear.

Among the explanations that have been suggested is one from the Israeli web site Debka, citing “counterterrorism and intelligence sources,” who it said had concluded that the two brothers were “recruited by US intelligence as penetration agents” to gain access to jihadist networks in the Russian Caucasus, but then “turned coat and bit their recruiters.”

It has been widely charged that Washington has offered covert support to Chechen and other Islamist separatists in the Caucasus, who have waged two wars with Russian forces in 1994-1996 and again in 1999.

Chechen fighters have also been reportedly active in the Western-backed Islamist militias fighting to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Videos supporting this war for regime change were found on Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s YouTube channel, along with other Islamist material. The channel had some 700 subscribers. Moscow Times quoted Russian “intelligence expert” Andrei Soldatov as questioning the FBI’s handling of the case. “He was very open about his beliefs,” he said of Tamerlan. “I’m at a loss as to why the FBI didn’t pay attention to him then.”

A web site backing the Islamist groups in the North Caucasus posted a statement on Sunday denying any link between them and those who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings. “The Caucasus fighters are not waging any military activities against the United States of America,” the Kavkazcenter.com web site said. Servers for the site are located in the US.

Tamerlan, lying dead from wounds received in encounters with the police. End of the line for a tragic project that had no winners.

A Russian intelligence source also told AFP, “At the moment we have no credible information about the Tsarnaev brothers’ involvement with the Caucasus Emirate movement,” the main Islamist organization in the region. The group has previously claimed responsibility for terrorist attacks such as the bombing of the Moscow airport in January 2011 in which 37 died and bombings of its metro system in 2010, which killed over 40.

As to whether the government had prior knowledge of the Boston bombing plot before last Monday’s explosions at the Marathon finish line, participants in the event have cited what they saw at the time as unusual developments. The coach of the University of Mobile’s cross-country team, Ali Stevenson, told the Alabama media that he found it odd that bomb-sniffing dogs were brought out at both the starting and finish lines.

“They kept making announcements to the participants do not worry, it’s just a training exercise,” he said. He added that he had also observed “law enforcement spotters” on roofs at the start of the race. “Evidently, I don’t believe they were just having a training exercise,” Stevenson said. “I think they must have had some sort of threat or suspicion called in.”

If such prior knowledge did exist, this raises another question. In all but a handful of cases, every major terrorist plot reported in the US over the past decade has been the product of a sting operation organized by the FBI or other police agencies. In almost all of these cases, those arrested and prosecuted for terrorism would never have had either means or even the intention of carrying out such acts without the guiding hand of covert informers and agent provocateurs.

This pattern goes back at least to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, in which a former Egyptian army officer, Emad Salem acting as a paid FBI informant, had actually participated in building the bomb, claiming that the original plan had been to substitute harmless powder for the explosives.

Were the Boston bombings the result of such an operation that got out of control? Or did sections of the state know about it and it was allowed to go forward?

How the Boston Marathon bombing plot unfolded and what motives lay behind it are still not known. Only one thing is certain: whatever the source of this terrorist atrocity, it will be used by the US government as a pretext for further escalating militarism abroad and repression at home.

Obama’s Dog Whistle Politics

Zelig at the Top of his Game
“[Obama] realizes this issue is not only music to the ears of all those security-minded parents out there (is there any other kind left after ten years of non-stop fear-mongering?) but that it will–and here’s the truly important part–evoke little, if any backlash from the business oligarchy that invented him and that determines the parameters of his ‘leadership'”.

Obama striking a pose for gun control. Carefully staged photo-ops of high righteousness, empty gestures that do nothing to threaten the power of the oligarchies, nor alter the status quo.

by THOMAS S. HARRINGTON

One of the great mysteries of the Obama presidency, one that ever-hopeful Democratic voters think and talk about quite a lot, is: “To what extent does the man actually understand the techniques his opponents use to roll him time and time again?”

Or to put it slightly more specifically, “To what extent does he comprehend (or not) the single most self-evident truth of American political strategy over the last three decades, one that Republicans have used daily over this time to great effect: that only by “naming the game” of your opponents, and putting them on the defensive before the public, will you ever be able to push your agenda forward?”

Well, last Wednesday we got our answer.

As the statement (see below) he delivered following the Senate’s decision to quash legislation that would lead to further background checks for gun purchasers demonstrates, Obama understands this classic technique quite well. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that the speech—by far the most convincing I have ever heard him give—-is a small masterpiece of the genre.

So then the question becomes, why are we seeing him do this for the first time in the fifth year of his presidency? And why is he doing it for the first time on an issue that, as important as it may be, or may seem to us today, pales in long-run significance when compared to all the issues (continuing war, economic austerity, torture, climate change, the rule of law, Wall Street bailouts, the unemployment and mortgages crises etc.) he has let himself be rolled on?

The answer is to be found right there in the statement itself. He and his people have polling data that says 90% of the American people approve this measure.

In other words, he realizes this issue is not only music to the ears of all those security-minded parents out there (is there any other kind left after ten years of non-stop fear-mongering?) but that it will–and here’s the truly important part–evoke little, if any backlash from the business oligarchy that invented him and that determines the parameters of his “leadership”.

And thus is born (at least for a day) Barack Obama, dogged legislative tough guy fighting on principle, channeling the spirit of Lyndon Johnson.

But that’s not all. With Obama, such poll-driven “courage” always comes with an added bonus….that is, for society’s regressive forces.

After carefully identifying the invariably small and focus-group certified piece of political terrain he is “fighting for” (e.g. further background checks as opposed to any real restriction on the massive flow of firearms and munitions in the country), he always makes sure to ratify the underlying discursive logic (private gun ownership is a good thing unambiguously protected by the “well-regulated militia” clause of the Second Amendment or that his prime job as President is to “keep us safe”) of his supposed opponents.

Think of it as a new brand of dog-whistle politics. Under the old rules, the conservative political figures sought, through the use of code words, to assure the crackers in the audience that their hearts were actually with them and their beloved racial intolerance.

In the new version, the allegedly progressive “leader” signals to his elite masters his absolute fealty to the broader architecture of their endless assault on the lives of normal Americans, as well as brown people around the world who happen to live on top of the resources coveted by the Masters of the Universe.

Yes, for Barry it is all about messaging and massaging; finding messages that appeal, but do not offend, while giving warm rhetorical massages to the discourse generated by those at whose pleasure he truly serves.

Full transcript of President Obama’s statement on gun legislation defeat

A few months ago, in response to too many tragedies — including the shootings of a United States Congresswoman, Gabby Giffords, who’s here today, and the murder of 20 innocent schoolchildren and their teachers –- this country took up the cause of protecting more of our people from gun violence.

Families that know unspeakable grief summoned the courage to petition their elected leaders –- not just to honor the memory of their children, but to protect the lives of all our children. And a few minutes ago, a minority in the United States Senate decided it wasn’t worth it. They blocked common-sense gun reforms even while these families looked on from the Senate gallery.

By now, it’s well known that 90 percent of the American people support universal background checks that make it harder for a dangerous person to buy a gun. We’re talking about convicted felons, people convicted of domestic violence, people with a severe mental illness. Ninety percent of Americans support that idea. Most Americans think that’s already the law.

And a few minutes ago, 90 percent of Democrats in the Senate just voted for that idea. But it’s not going to happen because 90 percent of Republicans in the Senate just voted against that idea.

A majority of senators voted “yes” to protecting more of our citizens with smarter background checks. But by this continuing distortion of Senate rules, a minority was able to block it from moving forward.

I’m going to speak plainly and honestly about what’s happened here because the American people are trying to figure out how can something have 90 percent support and yet not happen. We had a Democrat and a Republican -– both gun owners, both fierce defenders of our Second Amendment, with “A” grades from the NRA — come together and worked together to write a common-sense compromise on background checks. And I want to thank Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey for their courage in doing that. That was not easy given their traditional strong support for Second Amendment rights.

Their legislation showed respect for gun owners, and it showed respect for the victims of gun violence. And Gabby Giffords, by the way, is both — she’s a gun owner and a victim of gun violence. She is a Westerner and a moderate. And she supports these background checks.

In fact, even the NRA used to support expanded background checks. The current leader of the NRA used to support these background checks. So while this compromise didn’t contain everything I wanted or everything that these families wanted, it did represent progress. It represented moderation and common sense. That’s why 90 percent of the American people supported it.

But instead of supporting this compromise, the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill. They claimed that it would create some sort of “big brother” gun registry, even though the bill did the opposite. This legislation, in fact, outlawed any registry. Plain and simple, right there in the text. But that didn’t matter.

And unfortunately, this pattern of spreading untruths about this legislation served a purpose, because those lies upset an intense minority of gun owners, and that in turn intimidated a lot of senators. And I talked to several of these senators over the past few weeks, and they’re all good people. I know all of them were shocked by tragedies like Newtown. And I also understand that they come from states that are strongly pro-gun. And I have consistently said that there are regional differences when it comes to guns, and that both sides have to listen to each other.

But the fact is most of these senators could not offer any good reason why we wouldn’t want to make it harder for criminals and those with severe mental illnesses to buy a gun. There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn’t do this. It came down to politics — the worry that that vocal minority of gun owners would come after them in future elections. They worried that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money and paint them as anti-Second Amendment.

And obviously, a lot of Republicans had that fear, but Democrats had that fear, too. And so they caved to the pressure, and they started looking for an excuse — any excuse — to vote “no.”

One common argument I heard was that this legislation wouldn’t prevent all future massacres. And that’s true. As I said from the start, no single piece of legislation can stop every act of violence and evil. We learned that tragically just two days ago. But if action by Congress could have saved one person, one child, a few hundred, a few thousand — if it could have prevented those people from losing their lives to gun violence in the future while preserving our Second Amendment rights, we had an obligation to try.

And this legislation met that test. And too many senators failed theirs.

I’ve heard some say that blocking this step would be a victory. And my question is, a victory for who? A victory for what? All that happened today was the preservation of the loophole that lets dangerous criminals buy guns without a background check. That didn’t make our kids safer. Victory for not doing something that 90 percent of Americans, 80 percent of Republicans, the vast majority of your constituents wanted to get done? It begs the question, who are we here to represent?

I’ve heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced. “A prop,” somebody called them. “Emotional blackmail,” some outlet said. Are they serious? Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don’t have a right to weigh in on this issue? Do we think their emotions, their loss is not relevant to this debate?

So all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.

But this effort is not over. I want to make it clear to the American people we can still bring about meaningful changes that reduce gun violence, so long as the American people don’t give up on it. Even without Congress, my administration will keep doing everything it can to protect more of our communities. We’re going to address the barriers that prevent states from participating in the existing background check system. We’re going to give law enforcement more information about lost and stolen guns so it can do its job. We’re going to help to put in place emergency plans to protect our children in their schools.

But we can do more if Congress gets its act together. And if this Congress refuses to listen to the American people and pass common-sense gun legislation, then the real impact is going to have to come from the voters.

To all the people who supported this legislation — law enforcement and responsible gun owners, Democrats and Republicans, urban moms, rural hunters, whoever you are — you need to let your representatives in Congress know that you are disappointed, and that if they don’t act this time, you will remember come election time.

To the wide majority of NRA households who supported this legislation, you need to let your leadership and lobbyists in Washington know they didn’t represent your views on this one.

The point is those who care deeply about preventing more and more gun violence will have to be as passionate, and as organized, and as vocal as those who blocked these common-sense steps to help keep our kids safe. Ultimately, you outnumber those who argued the other way. But they’re better organized. They’re better financed. They’ve been at it longer. And they make sure to stay focused on this one issue during election time. And that’s the reason why you can have something that 90 percent of Americans support and you can’t get it through the Senate or the House of Representatives.

So to change Washington, you, the American people, are going to have to sustain some passion about this. And when necessary, you’ve got to send the right people to Washington. And that requires strength, and it requires persistence.

And that’s the one thing that these families should have inspired in all of us. I still don’t know how they have been able to muster up the strength to do what they’ve doing over the last several weeks, last several months.

And I see this as just round one. When Newtown happened, I met with these families and I spoke to the community, and I said, something must be different right now. We’re going to have to change. That’s what the whole country said. Everybody talked about how we were going to change something to make sure this didn’t happen again, just like everybody talked about how we needed to do something after Aurora. Everybody talked about we needed change something after Tucson.

And I’m assuming that the emotions that we’ve all felt since Newtown, the emotions that we’ve all felt since Tucson and Aurora and Chicago — the pain we share with these families and families all across the country who’ve lost a loved one to gun violence — I’m assuming that’s not a temporary thing. I’m assuming our expressions of grief and our commitment to do something different to prevent these things from happening are not empty words.

I believe we’re going to be able to get this done. Sooner or later, we are going to get this right. The memories of these children demand it. And so do the American people.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Thomas S. Harrington teaches in the Department of Hispanic Studies at Trinity College.

Controversy: Stop Getting Gagged by Animal Ag

Time to Disengage From an Oppressive System

by LEE HALL

“Ag-gag” bills—introduced in more than a dozen states and already enacted in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and Utah—are reviled for good reason. By prohibiting undercover filming at animal agribusinesses, they impede the free flow of information.

But fighting these bills does not an animal-rights campaign make.

It slants the matter of who will face the police—the deviant animal handler or the one who filmed the deed—but it won’t protect animals.

Internet petitions can proliferate, insisting on our a right to images of the worst animal abuses and exhorting states to prove their largest factory farms have nothing to hide. Yet somebody will always be committing the worst animal abuses as long as animal agribusiness continues. And the slaughter plant that follows the regulations to the letter is still a place of horror.

Where ag-gag laws flounder, people can resume applying for agribusiness jobs, and continue supplying footage to advocacy groups. That means many years of gory videos ahead of us, lest anyone has not seen enough.

Again, let me be clear: repressing information isn’t good. These laws are overprotective of business owners, and nasty to whistleblowers. But policing the farm is hardly a radical idea; indeed, corporate interests can find something to like in it because criminalizing anything is lucrative. Meanwhile, the investigation role turns activists into components of what they strive to expose, caught up in an endless symbiotic relationship between the farm-watchers and the farms they watch.

The Whole Foods Covenant

While big ag would like to banish pesky videographers in the interest of profit protection, plenty of animal handling and slaughtering benefits from sickening videos. Whole Foods Market jumps to mind. This multinational retailer makes a fortune with its “Animal Welfare Rating” concept and CEO John Mackey has even scored a spot on the Humane Society of the United States Board of Directors. And a pig farmer named Joe Maxwell, hired by the Humane Society to advance the expansion of the “humane” meat market, is one of Whole Foods Market’s suppliers.

At Whole Foods Market, you pay extra to obtain milk from a “happy herd,” buy a turkey from a farmer who promises to cry when slicing the bird’s artery, or carry eggs in a bag proclaiming “Chicks Dig Cage-Free” through aisles festooned with images of salt-of-the-Earth animal suppliers. This corporation benefits from public access to shocking agribusiness exposés because it purports to offer the uncruel alternatives, winning praise and PR from the many of the same advocates who finish and release the undercover videos about other suppliers.

Whole Foods’ hogwash nothwithstanding, low-volume farms can be as brutal as their high-volume counterparts. There’s no legally binding definition for cage-free eggs, for example, and stuffing birds into a shed isn’t much better than jamming them into a cage. And even if the supplier is actually using pasture lands, consider the ramifications. Just like suburban development, pasture development eats up land. The happy herders are yet another form of sprawl. (No points for guessing what happens to free-living predators around “Animal Welfare Rating 1” suppliers.)

We can vanquish ag gag lawmaking and happy-meat flackery all at once: Let’s just stop buying the stuff. Engage the demand side: the power of people to disengage from oppressive systems. It’s completely within our power to withhold our support from animal agribusiness. It might be inconvenient, but it’s the truth: nothing else is going to stop the abuse.

Lee Hall is Legal VP for Friends of Animals, a candidate for Vermont Law School’s LL.M. in environmental law (2014); and the author of On Their Own Terms: Bringing Animal-Rights Philosophy Down to Earth (2010). Follow Lee on Twitter: @Animal_Law.

Photo of bag by Ginger Burr.