Bruce E. Levine

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not “set them free” but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States? Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further? What forces have created a demoralized, passive, disCouraged U.S. population? Can anything be done to turn this around?

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not “set them free” but instead further demoralize them?

YES. It is called the “abuse syndrome.” How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims’ faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker; and so the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.

Does the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes? NO. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing -- it can feel shameful; and there is nothing more painful than shame. And when one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one’s humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.

Read more »

Yaniv Reich

We have all heard it a million times: Israel does not target civilians; it only attacks military targets. I can barely count the number of times I have heard this argument from my family and friends. When all evidence of the Israeli destruction of Beirut or Gaza or wherever comes to light, this is the pillar to which uncritical Israel-supporters cling. As if the destruction of entire neighborhoods is justified through the assertion that civilians weren’t targeted, they just got in the way.

There is just one big problem with the argument: It is patently false. Moreover, Israeli leaders know its false, which therefore means this argument, when heard from Netanyahu/Livni/Olmert/Barak/Peres and all other Israeli leaders, is also a conscious lie.

Next time you hear this naive and propagandistic assertion, you should respond with a single, emphatic point: “That’s not what the Dahiya Doctrine says.”

Read more »

Jaisal Noor

A BIG SLICE OF PROFIT: A Huesitos de Wilde employee slices
sheets of cured leather into strips that will be dyed, rolled and baked
into dog treats. Workers have direct control of their profits.

Maria Alejendra, a factory worker in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, Argentina, spends her days cutting pieces of rawhide at the Huesitos de Wilde Cooperative. Along with the 33 other original workers at the dog treat factory, Alejandra now makes twice as much money — 2,000 pesos a month — as she did under her former boss. Alejandra, 41, who has worked at the factory for 14 years, is now able to listen to music and drink maté, a South American herbal tea, while she works.

The Huesitos de Wilde Cooperative is just one of more than 250 worker-recovered businesses in Argentina, which employ a total of 13,000 workers. Part of a broader effort to recover factories, which started after the country’s economic collapse in 2001, the workers at Huesitos de Wilde first occupied the factory and took over production in January 2007. Though Argentina’s economy has improved since the crash, the current economic downturn has caused a recent increase in factory take overs, with a significant uptick since February.

Read more »