http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflections_on_Violence
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924074961735#page/n5/mode/2up
http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=11972
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimfarmelant www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math
-------------------------------------------------- From: "Arthur Maisel" <arthurmaisel at gmail.com> Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 7:49 AM To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] hucksterism, the quick score, etc.
> I don't mean to dismiss the need for a vision, just thinking about how
> that
> particular vision has degraded. Am I right that among OWS's problems was
> that it didn't have a viable myth to enact? When people talk about
> something not having "traction," might they be talking (perhaps
> unconsciously) about the lack of a myth? I have in mind a principle that
> gives momentum to collective activity, one that can carry it past missteps
> and tactical errors.
>
> Maybe there are elements within the individual v. the system myth that can
> be given more emphasis so that it promotes collective action (the town
> rallies around George Bailey in his hour of need; etc.).
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 12:40 PM, JOANNA A. <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> There's no other vision than that of the individual against the system.
>>
>> J
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> Nice post. Aren't the luck trope and the loophole trope related on some
>> level? The post-Reformation/capitalist individual has both the "pluck and
>> luck" (to quote an Alger title), i.e., the luck to find an "opportunity"
>> (such as a loophole) and the pluck exploit it.
>>
>> This is mythic thinking, in which the system exists only to be overcome
>> or
>> evaded by the hero. And that it is mythic thinking I think goes a long
>> way
>> to explaining its grip.
>>
>> But the traditional hero was an atypical person, so if now everyone is to
>> be his/her own hero, the heroic feats have to undergo some devolution:
>> Odysseus' trickster-style evasion of the cyclops becomes finding a
>> loophole.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 8:09 AM, Andy <andy274 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2014/07/15/king-of-pain/
>> >
>> >
>> > As Jackson Lears and many other scholars and observers have noted, many
>> > Americans throughout the cultural history of the United States have
>> > accepted that the circumstances of life are inevitably determined by
>> luck,
>> > that economic life is a matter of good or ill fortune. Which some have
>> > suggested explains the current popular aversion to increased taxation
>> > on
>> > the rich: even the poor think they have a chance of being rich someday,
>> and
>> > want to keep all the imaginary money they might get.
>> >
>> > I think there’s a less-told but equally important trope in the American
>> > imaginary: the loophole. The finding of the trick, the turning of the
>> fine
>> > print back on the lawyer who wrote the contract. The victimless crime
>> > of
>> > cheating the government or the big company out of something it
>> > mindlessly
>> > and wastefully demanded of the little man. The free money, the thing
>> > that
>> > your friend fixed up for you. Topsy-turvy, the quick score that makes
>> > the
>> > smart and the sly rich without distress to anything. The
>> > beads-for-Manhattan.
>> >
>> > It’s that last I’m thinking about when I think about King Jeremiah
>> > Heaton
>> > <
>> >
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-man-plants-flag-claims-african-country-calling-it-kingdom-of-north-sudan/2014/07/12/abfbcef2-09fc-11e4-8a6a-19355c7e870a_story.html
>> > >,
>> > who became Internet-famous for a few days when he travelled to southern
>> > Egypt to plant a homemade flag on a small area of land that he believed
>> was
>> > unclaimed by any existing sovereign state and therefore his for the
>> taking.
>> > All for the sake of his 7-year old daughter, who wanted to be a
>> > princess.
>> >
>> > There’s a lot to say about the story, most of it properly accompanied
>> > by
>> > much rolling of the eyes. But I do think Heaton is a canary in the coal
>> > mine of sorts, a window into a psychic cauldron seething inside the
>> > consciousness of a fading empire. Heaton himself invoked history in the
>> > coverage: what he did, others had done, he acknowledged, but they did
>> > it
>> > out of greed or hatred. He did it for love, he says, love of his
>> daughter.
>> > But if ever first time tragedy, second time farce applied, this is it.
>> >
>> > [...]
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Andy
>> > "It's a testament to ketchup that there can be no confusion."
>> > ___________________________________
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