The Cranky Yankee Returns: Dumb Blood

 Real Southern Noir - “The Way Down” and “Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty”

“The Way Down”

This is a documentary about Gwen Shamblin, the Remnant Fellowship Church and the diet ministry The Weigh Down Workshop, centered in the upscale southern town of Brentwood, TN, just south of Nashville.  It might as well be a southern update of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood or The Violent Bear It Away, Erkine Caldwell’s Journeyman or Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry.  What can a leftist take away from this train wreck, which actually ends in a deadly plane crash in a local lake?

Well, a number of things.  It is a harsh reflection on the evangelical Christian mindset, which, in an attempt to lose weight, does not rely on any scientific information but that received from a minister or the Bible. Sound familiar? Gwen Shamblin, a big-haired preacher that began to look like a weird waitress in a truck-stop, said that when you’re hungry, ‘think of God.’  Her weight-loss ministry, started in 1986, grew through trying to get the weight off of mostly working class southern women.  It shamed those who could not lose weight; it advocated starvation diets; it discouraged exercise or physical work; it blamed over-eating on ‘emotional issues;’ it thought weight-gain a ‘sin.’  Prayer and looking to God or Shamblin was the answer.  Buying the books, tapes and videos was another.  Escapees from the Weigh Down cult report mental health problems and eating disorders, though some also lost weight for a while. 

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Another relevant detail, familiar to anyone who pays attention to ‘pay to pray’ outfits like this is the wealth accumulated by the leadership.  The Remnant Church Fellowship was the parent of Weigh Down, and above that, many trusts that held the property of the Shamblin family.  She had over $20M in real estate property, including a $4M mansion near the church when she got divorced from her first husband – though divorce was not allowed in the church, except evidently to her. Her will included nothing for the church.  The cultural image of Remnant was of smiling, happy, upper-middle class families dressed in frilly and proper clothes, with their nice cars and big houses, having a marvelous time.  Like so many southerners who drink and party, Gwen did too.  It’s like some bad 1950s charade, with the women sometimes described as Stepford Wives. 

The cultish aspects continue:  the church practiced shunning of any who left, accusing them of being heretics.  It provided free lawyers during divorces to those remaining in the church for full child custody against the leaving parent.  It ran many businesses like car repair, building, real estate, child care and the like, much of it for low pay or no pay.  It did not pay members for work ‘during church hours,’ including the hairdresser who repeatedly did Gwen’s beehive.  Marriages were encouraged within the church and potential brides or grooms had to join if they wanted to marry a member. Members were forced to put in their wills that their children would be put ‘in the custody of the Church’ in the event of their untimely death.  It practiced ‘obedient children’ parenting doctrine – which led to the beating death of a parishioner’s 8 year old son in 2003 after he had been abused for years with Church approval.  Children were treasured as long as they were ‘perfect.’

Multi-Culty

The Shamblin ministry at one point in 2000 decided to distinguish itself from other evangelicals by getting rid of ‘The Trinity’ and only focusing on God.  Now the trinity of ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ has never made sense to anyone except those drilled in fundamentalist Christian or Catholic doctrine.  Jettisoning Jesus reminds one of how some Southern Baptists now think Christ is too much of a liberal – too ‘woke.’  And who did God talk through?  The prophet Gwen Shamblin.  Most evangelical Christianity is male-based, so Shamblin was an exception, a weird form of conservative feminism.  She did urge her followers to be obedient to their husbands, which is the fundamentalist line.  That is why divorce was looked down upon except for her.  

That child’s death foretold what would happen to Gwen, her gold-digger husband Joe Lara, her son-in-law and 4 other top leaders in the Church when Joe’s jet went down in a lake east of Brentwood.  They all died.  They were headed to a 2021 MAGA event for Trump in Florida, which seems to be poetic justice.  Now you may think the accident was caused by low, thick clouds and Joe’s inadequate license and jet training and you’d be right, as he did not have a license to fly by instruments alone.  But when you’re an evangelical Christian, a magical thinker, you might blame it on God’s will.  Or to put it in the Hindu – karma. But the Church continues with Gwen’s pinch-faced, anemic daughter as one leader.  Because if there is anything else that is magical, it is that their own doctrine doesn’t apply to them.  It’s a cult for Chrissakes.  You’re in or you’re out.

(*Leftists stuck in these situations might want to change direction. Odd group think or fear of speaking out is a cult-like marker of a small group mentality.)

“The Low Country:  The Murdaugh Dynasty”

This is another southern noir documentary, set in the South Carolina ‘low country’ near the Atlantic, in a rural district with the small town of Hampton at its center. The town and high school are named after secessionist Wade Hampton - a planter’s son, Confederate cavalry general and segregationist Jim Crow senator. It was said that the Murdaugh clan, which had been the District Attorneys for 100 years in this area of 5 counties, were the local boss-hogs.  They dominated the biggest civil law firm and the criminal courts to boot.  They had long-time wealth, connections, influence with the police and courts, politicians and bankers - all the hall marks of power.  Grandpa ‘Big’ Buster Murdaugh was known to physically intimidate or ‘remove’ opponents back in the good ol’ days too.  So how did it all fall apart for these particular ‘good ‘ol boys’? 

Paul, Mom, Alex, Little Buddy of the Murdaughs

These rural counties are heavily class-stratified, not just between dark and light skinned, but within European-Americans, with the wealthy ones being popular in high school and powerful outside it.  A series of crimes showed this in spades.  We have a boating accident, killing one girl, in a speed-boat driven by a drunken, teenaged Paul Murdaugh.  A subsequent double-homicide of Paul and his mother at their family hunting lodge is ‘discovered’ by the husband, Alex.  Next, a suspicious drive-by shooting of Alex, who survived. Years earlier there was a body dump on a lonely rural road of a working-class gay teenager; and a suspicious fall of a Murdaugh housekeeper that led to a huge insurance payout.

Suspicions    

This family of hubris is surrounded by blood.  The documentary shows all the suspicious goings-on.  After the boat accident Paul’s father Alex and grandfather haunt the hospital telling the kids not to say anything.  The Murdaughs offer a lawyer friend of theirs to the family whose son they later accuse of really driving the boat. The boyfriend of the dead girl notes that on the bridge Paul said ‘he was sorry’ – Paul knew he'd been driving.  The judge allows Paul to get off without any jail or handcuffs, a small bond, the ability to travel and a case that never goes to trial.  A few months later Alex ‘finds’ his wife and son Paul dead at their lodge dog kennels and no suspects are found.  Alex is mysteriously injured a few months later in a drive-by shooting. 

Six years earlier a gay teenager, Stephen Smith, was found dead on a road with no physical evidence of a ‘hit and run.’  No car parts, skid marks, paint chips, glass, no physical damage except to the head.  His car was supposedly out of gas, but he had a cell phone and left his wallet in his car 3 miles away.  He’s found dumped on a road that does not lead to a gas station. The State Highway Patrol are barred from investigating the case by the Hampton County sheriff.  The Hampton County coroner confirms it’s a ‘hit and run’ because the body was on a road, and for no other reason.  Lawyer Randy Murdaugh offers the grieving family of the boy his legal assistance ‘for free.’  He’s usually a personal injury attorney, so the offer is odd. A Murdaugh investigator shows up to spy on the Highway Patrol as they comb the site for some sign of the non-existent accident.

Paul’s brother, little ‘Buster’ Murdaugh, becomes a suspect in the beating death of Smith after rumors fly around Hampton and witnesses won’t talk. It is possible that Buster had a sexual relationship with Smith.  Little Buster Murdaugh was never charged or interviewed by police according to the documentary and left town after the murder.

Investigators finally nail a suspect in the shooting of Alex Murdaugh.  He is actually a friend who was hired to wing Murdough for sympathy and to beef up the fiction about a vigilante killing his wife and son.  Alex then admits he’s been an opiod addict for 20 years, ‘quits’ his law firm for a time and goes into rehab.  His law firm had actually fired him for misappropriating funds.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

3 years prior to this the Murdough’s long-time housekeeper died on the front steps of their house due to a ‘fall,’ though Paul’s comments to the dispatcher on the phone were suspiciously defensive.  The housekeeper’s sons were promised support by the Murdaughs, again from one of Murdaugh’s lawyer friends.  A claim of $4.3M was made on the umbrella insurance policy over the death – but not a cent went to the two sons.  All the money was actually funneled back through a corporate shell to Alex Murdaugh himself.  Insurance fraud … and murder?  Later it came out he’d also been stealing from poor, black and injured clients and was hit with 70+ charges for stealing nearly $10M. 

Then there is the ‘big reveal’ which you’ve probably already guessed about the double homicide.  There are indications that his wife was contemplating divorce and divorce would entail a forensic financial inquiry into Alex’s assets – assets which have never been found.  The case continues.

You cannot make this stuff up, except in the corrupt, bloody, backward world of rural South Carolina.  I don’t think any rich, small-town ruling family in the North has this kind of record, anywhere, ever.

Prior blog reviews on this topic, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms:  “Florida Will Sink,” “A Minnesota Yankee in King Trump’s Court,” “Drivin’ Dixie Down,” “U.S. Army Bases Named After Confederates,” “Southern Cultural Nationalism and Southern Liberals,” “Monument,” “The Potlikker Papers,” “Cooltown,” “Monroeville, Alabama & To Kill a Mockingjay.”   

The Cranky Yankee

September 28, 2023

"Industrially-produced edible substances..."

 “Ultra-Processed People – the Science Behind Food That Isn’t Food” by Chris Van Tulleken, 2023

This is a scientific look at the over-processing of food – specifically ‘ultra-high processed food’ (UPF).  The author, who was a biologist and is now a food scientist, takes a look at the various foods available to people across the world and claims that 60% of the calories ingested in the U.S. and U.K. are from UPFs.  He becomes a guinea pig for studying how this affects the body, based on work by a Brazilian scientist Carlos Monteiro, and goes on a diet of 80% UPFs - sort of a ‘Super Size Me.’  He’s a conventional person, a bit of a food addict, someone who is still eating the same food he ate as a child and had never read an ingredient list until this experiment. (!)

What the statistics show is that poor workers across the world are eating UPFs due to their cheapness.  This is a class issue and another form of malnutrition. Cheap toxic snacks and fast food have replaced real food in countries like India, Mexico and Nigeria for many, not to mention the U.S. and U.K..  90% in the U.K. eat ‘ready to eat’ microwave meals from Big Food like Nestle’s laughably-named Lean Cuisine. 

Tulleken's a pretty naïve fellow, and for him the realization that ‘profit’ might affect the manufacture and sale of foods is some kind of ‘light bulb’ moment.  After all, he’d not seen the concept in the science literature.  UPFs are additives and ingredients that are cheaper than the original ‘natural’ sources; they preserve the food for transport and long shelf life; they are addictive and widespread; they focus on unhealthy fats, sugars and salts; they’re low-fiber, branded and convenient.  Like many mainstream scientists, he only studies one tree in the food forest.  He begins to understand the role of money, corporations and how quick ‘food’ gets workers back to work faster. He’s oblivious to vegan and vegetarian approaches or other food threats to health.  So let’s take a look at what he discovers in his ‘one tree.’  It’s a pretty fascinating look. 

Ultra-Processed Non-Food

Monteiro gave Tulleken the idea that profit, not nutrition, was the key point, something unheard of in capitalist nutritionally analysis.  Monteiro developed a NOVA system that categorized the level of processing as a way to understand worsening health impacts of foods, with UPF the worst level at #4. Synthetic factory ‘frankenfood’ ingredients at this level are “refined, bleached, deodorised, hydrogenated and interesterified, hydrolysed, modified … moulded, extruded and pressured.”  They are flavoured, colored, preserved, emulsified and stabilized. Molecules and ingredients are broken down in industrial processes, creating new compounds.  It’s reflected in that long list of strange ingredients on the labels of UPFs that you’d never use in home cooking.  Tulleken’s first point is that margarines sold in mainstream supermarkets are full of UPFs – one of the first products manhandled by food engineering. The next is that ‘low-fat’ and ‘zero-fat’ products are filled with these ingredients and processed through these methods too.

Tulleken discovers many more studies that back up the NOVA conclusion about ultra processing.  The health results of level #4 UPFs are obesity and strong links to death, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, among others.  The mental health effects possible are depression, dementia and Alzheimer’s. The few scientific papers critical of this negative view list scientists linked to food companies like Nestle, or diet and nutrition organizations funded by corporate food conglomerates, like the falsely ‘independent’ Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.  They are one outfit key in crafting ‘Dietary Guidelines’ for the U.S., along with others like the American Nutrition Association, which trumpets their links to food corporations.

Tulleken goes into a history of the first synthetic food – fat from coal – developed in Nazi Germany during the war.  He has another on the 3 ages of food, concluding with the idea that eating is no longer a purely instinctive survival drive, as the body and intellect work to make us ‘self-regulating’ eaters.  Studies have shown that hedonic pleasure is driving some over-eating, but evidence is coming out that UPF’s override the body’s ability to regulate intake.

Experiments & Studies

Tulleken contests the idea that fat, salt or sugar are the main problems and also takes on the ‘low-carb’ keto craze.  Studies have shown there are no differences re weight gain or loss in low-carb diets v. carb ones.  Tulleken oddly does not distinguish between complex and simple carbs, as UPF’s do have ultra-simple, low fiber carbs, i.e. mush.  Humans have been eating different forms of carbohydrates since the beginning of time, and obesity has only recently become a mass problem. 

A food 'swamp'

Tulleken takes on another explanation, the lack of exercise, as it’s been going down for years due to the change of jobs in ‘advanced’ capitalist countries.  A study tried to show that people are actually eating less in the U.K. and the U.S. but still gaining weight, so it could only be exercise that was the culprit.  He notes a caveat in the study – the amount of calories eaten were being under-reported by participants by about 30% or more.  Other studies showed that hunter-gatherers in Tanzania used about the same amount of calories as a housewife in Liverpool.  This is because the body allocates calories to many functions… with the housewife probably having more energy put into stress.  So exercise reduces stress, anxiety and depression, but does not alter weight.  There is also ‘stress eating,’ which is more common among low-income workers.  He discovered that many studies on exercise are funded by the sugar industry, mainly Atlanta’s Coca-Cola Company.  They seek to blame consumers’ lack of activity as the source of their problems, not their shitty drinks.  Coke has a huge number of hidden and not so hidden researchers on their payroll.

Studies on genes versus ‘will-power’ have shown that the food environment is key.  He describes areas of town that are ‘food swamps’ full of many fast food outlets, with advertising, cartoon characters and advergames directed at working-class children and teenagers.  He concludes that the main cause of obesity in these situations, no matter the genes, is poverty.     

Back to the Guinea Pig

After 3 weeks of the UPF diet, Tulleken starts to dislike what he’s eating because of all the information he’s received from experts.  Previously he’d been gobbling it down, even having snacks in the middle of the night.  He realizes he’s eating garbage.  As one scientist told him “Most UPF is not food Chris.  It an industrially-produced edible substance.”  I myself label this stuff ‘shit food’ in my mind, which helps too. His children were also gobbling down the UPF products he’d brought into the home and he wonders what a lifetime of this stuff will do to them. He begins to feel anxious, has bad dreams and poor sleep, gets constipated and at the end, gains 6 Kg. (13.2 lbs.) in weight after a month.  He immediately quits the diet.

Tulleken realizes that it is not food that is addictive, it is UPFs, and he was easily lured.  He discusses how ‘texture’ – specifically softness and dry density – allow people to eat quickly and eat more than they need.  He compares real sourdough bread from a good bakery to the UPF kind in a super market.  One is more expensive and very chewy, the other is soft mush and cheap, like the U.S. versions of good old Wonder Bread©.  The latter type is not actually a bread, as the EU has noticed, it’s an ‘edible substance.’ Because of overly-processed soft food, human jaws have actually become smaller recently, creating dental issues around molars and tooth crowding. Chemical ‘flavorings,’ odors and colors are added to UPFs to fool customers because industrial processing destroys the actual colors, tastes and smells of real food proteins, carbs and fats.  Micro-nutrients are also missing, which is a form of malnutrition.  Additionally, common emulsifiers, gums and industrial sugars harm the gut biome, key to digestion, made by outfits like ADM.  A U.K. potato crisp product by Pringles was declared by the company not actually made mostly of potatoes – this to avoid a V.A.T. tax.  Another sorry fact is that UPF foods destroy traditional diets across the world. The negative list is long. 

Industrial cooking

Regulate This!

In the U.S. more than 10,000 additives are allowed in food,  far more than the EU.  Many never were tested and some additives have been banned in the EU that are still used in the U.S.  Tulleken describes the many flaws and evasions of the U.S. FDA testing process, which allows toxic additives to be introduced into the food chain.  The latest development is that companies are now allowed to self-regulate their ingredients under a ‘self-determination’ rule finally adopted in 2016.  98.7% of additives are self-regulated and not checked by the corporate-captured FDA.  There is now, in effect, no UPF regulation in the U.S. – it is voluntary.  Tulleken eventually comes around to the environmental problems with industrial animal agriculture, palm oil, the unsustainability of UPFs, habitat destruction due to grazing, toxic ingredients in animal feed and then praises agro-ecology.  Shareholders and owners hold the power in nearly all food companies and their only consideration is profit.  Tulleken eventually calls for more regulation as the solution to UPFs.  Good luck on that.  His main personal suggestion is to go 'cold turkey' on all UPFs.  Just read the labels' 45 ingredients...

This is mass-market capitalist food, engineered for maximum profits no matter the effect on people, with the state and politicians hand in hand with the industry.  Tulleken implies that UPFs are linked to the unequal social class system we live in.  It’s another form of ‘environmental’ racism and classism, not just some odd issue relevant to hippies and ‘the crunchy granola set,’ as the reactionary slander goes.  In fact many mass-market granola products are now loaded with UPF ingredients.  Just read the label.

P.S. - The Guardian reports (10/7/23) on links between food giants and U.S. 'nutrition' groups:  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/oct/06/us-government-nutrition-panel-report  

The Guardian also reports on UPF links to food addictions:  https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/oct/10/addiction-to-ultra-processed-food-affects-14-of-adults-global-study-shows

*Tulleken Talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QOTBreQaIk

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms:  “Salt Sugar Fat,” “Animal, Vegetable, Junk,” “Foodopoly,” “A Foodies Guide to Capitalism,” “Vegan Freak,” “Kraft-Heinz,” “Oneness vs. the 1%” (Shiva); “John Bellamy Foster,” “Civilization Critical.”

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

September 25, 2023

Anarcho-Capitalist Paradises

 “Crack-Up Capitalism – Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy” by Quinn Slobodian, 2023

It’s rather an odd title but it perceives a trend in modern capitalism that understands capital does not need any kind of democratic system or rights.  This is not a secret to Marxists, as Marxists have always held that actual democratic tasks can only be carried out by the working classes in a struggle against capital.  This reactionary authoritarian vision has been pursued across the world and is picking-up steam, including in the U.S.  It is a form of complete corporate control under the rule of the dollar/ yuan/ pound etc., backed up by a state that nurtures that project in specific, usually small geographic areas.  It is the dream of neo-liberals, libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, Republican market zealots and authoritarian rulers across the globe.  It might remind one of the ‘Seastead’ plans of tech bros like Peter Theil – creating corporate nations on ocean platforms or desert islands free from all government.  After 'defeating communism' for a time, the next capitalist target is government itself, a form of hated ‘socialism.’  “First they came for the Communists…”

What this means is in certain geographic locations the elimination of taxes, regulations, unions, socialists, democrats, communists, liberals, critical newspapers, voting, elections, independent community organizations, socially-owned land and any government program that benefits the laboring classes.  Any left-over state is only there to guarantee the laws protect wealth and property, support the currency and fight foreign capitalists with a military. It is an authoritarian variant dominated by businessmen - a kinder form of quasi-fascism because it is imposed by money, not so much by brute force.  

The ‘crack’ is what Slobodian calls the many ‘zones’ across the world that allow intense geographic exploitation to exist – not just on a national basis. His colorful phrase is ‘pixilated geographies.’ This is under many names: ‘special export zones’ (SEZs) in China; tax havens on islands, in U.S. states and small countries; tax-free and tax-supported real-estate frenzy that is London’s Canary Wharf; ‘export processing zones’ in Ciskei, Singapore and the colony of Puerto Rico; or ‘tax free zones,’ free ports, enterprise zones, ‘foreign trade zones,’ ‘duty free’ spaces, gated communities - whatever you want to call them.  All point to places were national laws are suspended.

Hong Kong and Singapore

According to Slobodian, it all started in Hong Kong, which Milton Friedman praised to the sky in the 1970s at the same time he was lauding the bloody Chilean coup. In Hong Kong – to this day – the large landlords and capitalists are basically allowed to run the city directly, providing a cash window to China in both directions. They were one of the first to adopt a ‘flat tax’ for instance. The Chinese SEZs of Shenzhen, which provided long-term land leases for private corporations, were initially a product of Hong Kong capital. The Chinese government was inspired by Singapore’s example too, sending hundreds of groups to study their economy and methods of “Confucian capitalism.” Slobodian considers China to be ‘state capitalist,’ instead of a deformed workers’ state trying to manage a huge capitalist sector.  Even Brexit was inspired by Singapore, an attempt to make the U.K. an unfettered free-trade paradise with the British capitalists not burdened by any EU laws. What the Brexiteers ignored was that Singapore’s state actually planned for the citizen population, putting 80% in public housing. This does not jive with the Tories desire to destroy the ‘nanny’ state. Singapore’s treatment does not extend to the huge immigrant workforce though, which is kept in fenced dormitories, echoing a familiar legal binary of citizen/immigrant.

Neo-Confederate 'protest'

Fragmentation is the Goal

Slobodian tracks other Freidmanite paradises – for instance the Ciskei Bantustan inside South Africa, which was promoted by libertarians as a site of apartheid ‘freedom.’ It fit into the libertarian ethos of ‘cracking-up’ national states.  They celebrated the legitimization of micro-states like Lesotho, Andorra; Lichtenstein, Monaco and San Marino; the destruction of Yugoslavia and the USSR; the splitting of Czechoslovakia; the neo-Confederate plans in the U.S. for a separate racist, anti-labor Republican South or a ‘Greater Idaho.’ A libertarian goal is ‘the unlimited right of secession’ - so national division, not unity, is the plan or hope.  It’s anarcho-capitalism based on capitalist control and ethnic identity, bent to weaken, then end national and international ‘states.’

Slobodian ties together the Mont Pelerin Society; the von Mises Institute; Ron Paul, David Freidman, the Neo-Confederate League of the South and various libertarian, ‘paleo-libertarian,’ ‘paleo-conservative,’ racist, fascist and Alt-right ideologues.  They are based on survivalist, gold-standard economics; a geography of city-states and villages a la the Middle-Ages; the ideas of small business, clan law and mercenary greed wrapped in a stateless fantasy.  Universal suffrage and labor are invisible to them, while (white) identity politics are key to their plans for unity in the U.S.  The neo-Confederate dream is based on the real movement of capital south looking for higher profits on cheap labor, corporate welfare from states and lower taxes – to Memphis, Louisville, Atlanta, North Carolina, Dallas and the rest of Texas.  

Gated Communities and a Gated ‘Country’

Slobodian takes a look at private gated communities in the U.S. South and West; the archaic country of Liechtenstein and the atrocity that is Dubai; the situation in Somalia and the popes of Silicon Valley and their ‘metaverse.’  For Slobodian these are all examples of the current ‘crack-up’ of national boundaries - a ‘soft-secession’ so to speak.  Some of the theorists he cites desire to go back to pagan tribal or Medieval law, not national laws. You might see echoes of this in the current glut of Teutonic, Celtic or Viking pagan historical fiction on streaming or green ‘deep ecology’ and survivalist thinkers. “Back to the Past!” is their slogan.  The rules of segregated gated communities – blooming in the West and South - were developed by lawyers, property developers and insurance companies, not by ‘free individuals.’  Company towns and company stores are the ‘modern’ result…even child labor and forms of slavery.  "I owe my soul..."

Liechtenstein is a medieval ‘principality’ ruled by a billionaire monarch enthused about libertarianism.  It is in a tiny European mountain valley and one of the largest tax havens in the world.  It provides complete secrecy, tax evasion, money-laundering and security for a roll-call of dictators, famous people and criminals.  Corporations also find it beneficial.  Liechtenstein imports its workers every day, like so many other wealthy enclaves.  This principality is beloved of knuckle-draggers, perhaps because they can cosplay royalty.  In certain ways it’s very similar to Dubai – the tiny size, the royal family, a homeland for the rich and the every-present imported workers, who make up the vast majority of the Dubai population.

The creepy emirate of Dubai

Somalia, Dubai

Failed states are actually not so horrible to the far libertarian right, which seems to make sense given the Republican ‘Freedom’ Caucus vow to shut-down the U.S. government.  According to Slobodian they were enthused about the Somali state breakdown in the 1990s, which forced the country into competing ethnic enclaves and Islamist violence.  A libertarian ideologist developed a plan to create a ‘White Clan” in northern Somalia running a ‘free port’ on the ocean, which would become a business hub, with rules laid down by his ‘clan.’  That fantasy failed, like so many others.  The unrecognized Somaliland Republic in the north of Somalia already had a key trading port at Berbera. They did economically better than the rest of the country, with the massive help of Dubai and an actual local government.

Dubai is a monarchy, a multi-billion emirate sitting on the Persian Gulf, part of the UAE. In the 2000s its economy grew at an average of 13% a year, faster than China. It has been called the poster child for capitalism without democracy.  The emirate is run by a sheikh with a council of unelected business heads, as Dubai, Inc.  There are no elections, labor unions, political parties, income taxes, a free press or anything that might impinge on capital. It is built based on oil-wealth and the exploitation of the labor of hundreds of thousands of workers imported into the tiny enclave in the Kafala system.  This has created a vast and absurd city playground for the rich, Islamic and not. Even the idiotic movie “Sex and the City 2” had to visit.  

If you think that a capitalist faction dreaming of ending democracy is some kind of silly scare show, this book might set you right.  You could also try to turn a whole country into an ethnic free fire zone for capital, like Modi is doing in India.  The book doesn’t get to the level of looking at fascism either, as Slobodian ignores that possibility, but that is another avenue that capital can take in its quest to crush the proletariat. I think the latter is much more likely due to the opposition that will – and is – developing against authoritarian capital.  But these enclaves tell a tale about the present goal of the wealthy.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms:  “Marxism versus Libertarianism,” “Who is Ron Paul?” “RFK Jr. the Libertarian,” “Anarchism and its Aspirations,” “Slave States,” “Modern DeFacto Slavery,” “The Wealth Hoarders,” “Monument,” “The Neo-Confederate States,”  “A Confederacy of Dunces?”  “A Minnesota Yankee in King Trump’s Court,” “Against the Fascist Creep,” “Shrinking the Technosphere” (Orlov). 

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

September 20, 2023

The United Cities of the World

“Beyond Plague Urbanism” by Andy Merrifield, 2023

This book grows out of the CoVid epidemic in New York City, reflecting on its empty streets, lack of traffic, howling sirens, fear of infection and isolation. As you might remember in New York, many got sick or died until masking, distancing and vaccines became prominent. It is written in an overly literary style and references, which should probably be banned when talking about social policy, as it becomes more about the writer’s erudition than the issue.  But I digress. 

What does Merrifield suggest, outside of the Baudelaire, Rimbaud and flâneur references?

    1.   The ‘social contract’ is necessary for a city to live together.  ‘Freedom’ without responsibility to others is not possible.  That is anti-social individualism.

     2.   Rent control.

     3.   Rent control for small businesses, which are disappearing.

     4.   City seizure of property that is handled badly by landlord capital.

     5.   Referencing Henri Lefebvre and the Paris Commune, he insists ‘the city’ is a festival of the citizens, not a hostile power over them.

     6.   Lefebvre demanded a ‘right to the city’ where public-use values not corporate exchange-values dominate in the “secondary circuits of capital” of rent and real estate speculation.

     7.   Merrifield goes into the benefits of density and the problems of overcrowding.  Overcrowding inside small living spaces due to poverty led to more CoVid deaths

8.   He celebrates main streets, high streets, promenades, malecons, boardwalks and boulevards that draw social crowds.

9.   Studies showed that communities that came together to deal with CoVid did better health-wise.

10.         Urban removal and evictions deeply affect those who lose their homes.

11.         Corporate chains brought sterility and sameness to high streets.  Merrifeld’s hilarious 3 mile trek through ‘ye olde London’ is full of chain stores, glass and steel high-rises & empty store-fronts until he gets to a real street – Marchmont Street.

12.         New York corporations find it cheaper to work remotely than renting office space, killing street life and small businesses in the city, along with taxes and transit.

13.         Billions in public money in New York went to a Buffalo Bill’s sports stadium and mega-projects like the ‘luxurious’ Hudson Yards – an empty joke seemingly imported from corrupt desert kingdoms like Abu Dhabi.

14.         Merrifield, riffing off of Leopold Bloom’s favorite bar in Ulysses, Barney Kiernan’s pub, discusses a similar ‘moral’ New York bar, Coogan’s, a ‘third’ social space.  Coogan’s closed after CoVid. 

15.          He goes to an Eco-Cities conference in Australia where everything essential is removed from the conference document – about coal, oil, meat, degrowth.  The ‘most livable cities’ like Sydney and Melbourne are sometimes also the most expensive.

16.         Somehow ‘livability,’ ‘sustainability’ and affordability don’t go together.

17.         Due to climate change, war and political hostility, up to a billion people will become refugees, seeking solace in a city.  It is already happening. Instead they will find temporary shanty-towns located ‘nowhere’ outside cities.

18.         Cities are more progressive than capitalist nation states according to Merrifield, pointing to a “United Cities of America.”

19.         Memory of times before harsh neo-liberalism are necessary in order to combat landlords, city collaborators and lawyers.

20.         He promotes Melanchon’s French party, the “New Popular Union of Greens and Socialists.”  But as to overall solutions, they are only hinted at.

No mention in the book of the word ‘gentrification,’ urban gardening, the damage of capitalist-generated poverty and the unhoused or the need to ban many high rises and skyscrapers.  Others might find similar absences, like who runs cities?  Who runs the police force?  City councils?  Or the power of real estate developers and corporations, though this is hinted at.  The issue of who owns the land is never approached.

Climate change is telling us our urban and especially sub-urban housing and business environments are improperly built and car-dependent, leading to sprawl and building in improper locations.  While the ’15 minute city’ without cars is still possible in many places, including New York and London, it’s not in many more, especially in the U.S.  New construction or retrofitting of housing is also lacking.  There are no controls on new housing – requirements for grey or cistern water systems, heat pumps, electric / induction stoves and electric water heaters, solar panels, hemp concrete, reusable materials or limitations on size, among other things. This is all left to the stupid ‘market’ - which is one reason why climate change will destroy us. He mentions none of this.  

The book is basically a celebration of and a plea for the renewal of cities, which are really the heart of societies all over the world. Merrifield celebrates Jane Jacobs and Mindy Fullilove; Theolonius Monk, Jackson Pollock, Ulysses, Andre Kertesz and Surrealism, along with others.  He’s some kind of traditional left-liberal urbanist and if that is your thing, buy the book. 

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms:  “How to Kill a City,” “Rebel Cities” (Harvey); “Extreme Cities,” “Capital City,” “From Factory to Metropolis” (Negri); “Tales of Two Cities,” “Minneapolis 2040 Housing Plan,” “A Walk Through Paris,” “The Beach Beneath the Street.”

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

September 16, 2023

With Friends Like These ...

 “Friendship” by Michal Herer, 2023

This is an anti-capitalist essay that explores alienation and the answer to it.  Herer is doubtful that a social movement full of people who can’t get along or close to neighbors, co-workers, fellow cadre or organizational associates, even spouses and children - is capable of having the necessary social cohesion to build a powerful movement towards socialism.  That is what you might think by reading the book, but he has a broader point about friendship.

Capital has given us the false or inadequate social ‘cohesions’ of family; of nation; of work; of perhaps a neo-liberal NGO or social organization.  He does not mention churches or unions oddly enough.  Herer rejects his list as not leading to ‘common living’ and common struggle. He rightly opposes the faux-leftist hostility to counter-culture communalism and cooperation in the 1960s and 1970s.  These leftists thought this movement led to neo-liberalism but these were actually anti-capitalist trends.  He cites Foucault (you knew this was coming) as becoming concerned with the concept of friendship in several essays.  Herer wants to follow up.

It’s not about the liberal and religious idealism of ‘love’ as a political angle or even the practical, proletarian goal of ‘working together’ that will bind people together in his estimation.  Herer is mostly interested in a philosophic dialog, so goes into a discussion of the differences between love – erotic, neurotic and true love – and friendship, which has some parallels with certain kinds of love.  Herer provides few  facts or examples in his dialog, which is problematic as he looks at the present situation.  He even admits he is working at a too high level of generalization. He quotes Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Freud, Foucault, Fromm, Barthes, Derrida and for Marxists, Wilhelm Reich.  Reich posited that prior to the patriarchal family and the subsequent development of class society, there was a free sexuality practiced in communal, primitive communism.  As Engels put it, prior to “the world-historical defeat of the female sex.” The development of the bourgeois nuclear family under capitalism brought repression and suffocation. Herer is not convinced Reich’s history has enough of a factual background but it does illustrate some well-known limitations of ‘the family.’ 

Friendship shares these characteristics:  It allows distance; it is non-compulsive; it is without thought of gain or sex.  At present it is defined as a personal issue. At least that is a sketch, as even he can’t define it.  Herer however believes ‘friendship’ should be a ‘transcendent’ social and eventually political goal, a sort of soft version of love.  This kind of ‘transcendent’ utopian liberal-anarchism seems to be more fit for relations within socialism or communism than the present.  

Let’s think of a few obvious examples, some of which he deals with. Herer mentions how some men reject the family and women and join the military or fascist groups to find ‘friendship.’ In that vein is “Band of Brothers,” a concept purely male and oriented towards violence.  Or the solidarity of group sports, which is based on winning against others. “Libertié, Egalitié, Franternité!” is a slogan of the French Revolution. Fraternity here is seen as solidarity of some sort, yet aimed at royalty and the rich.  It eventually ended up in the triumph of partial reaction under Napoleon I, a former fraternal brother.  (Fraternity is closely related to friendship according to Herer.) “Brothers and Sisters” is a union greeting and is a bit better, but it is in the context of class struggle against people who are not brothers and sisters.  In fact Herer doesn’t use the words ‘class struggle’ once because this contradiction upsets his transcendent claim.  All he can come up with is the ‘99% versus the 1% once.  In the present social context, ‘friends’ are sometimes understood as those who oppose the same ‘enemies’ – again limiting the concept of transcendent friendships.  A fraternity on a campus is male and attempts to bind frat boys together, perhaps through hazing, joint housing, parties and group dynamics.  Fraternity houses are problematic places as we all know. “Brother versus brother” was one of the concepts of the U.S. Civil War - no more need to be said. Until reversals in the Soviet 1930s, a new version of the family, love, housing, gay rights, abortion, child-care and the like existed. Yet the revolutionary solidarity of the Russian Revolution ended in one faction destroying the other and reversing these policies…something he vaguely refers to.  

The problem with friendship as a ‘transcendent,’ ‘supra-individual,’ ‘egalitarian-libertarian’ or utopian prospect is that it is not dialectical or historically-based.  Herer at one point says friendship is a ‘luxury’ yet actual friends have also been involved in literal survival.  He claims his discourse is not to adopt ‘harmony and unity that would mask conflict” but that is what it seems to do.

This book is not really dealing with present mass struggle against capital, but a more intimate approach to alienation, which might lead to closer relations between smaller groups of people.  Friendship really helps in stressful or military situations, such as strikes, demonstrations, occupations and political combat - as it brings closer cooperation between individuals in difficult circumstances.  But it also helps in normal operating. It allows stronger ties within ‘working’ groups, sinews of muscle so to speak.  Experience has shown that friendship on the Left is limited, not wide-spread, nor could it possibly be widespread – though it certainly beats the idiotic Democratic slogan of abstract ‘love.’  Smaller groups might be more susceptible to friendship, but that is it.  Friendships sometimes underlie political relationships, and not always in a good way.  Witness cronies and boot-lickers getting plum jobs in political contexts. Friendship is really a ‘sliding scale’ of less or more cooperation and unity.  It is not an overall social goal except in a future socialistic way… an intimation of what Herer calls the coming ‘hyper-democracy.’       

Herer is closer to anarchism than anything else, claiming they are “testing solutions for a possible future.” If this kind of thinking is your cup of tea, you might like this book.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms:  “Three Essays by Alexandra Kollontai,” “Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism” (Ghodsee); “Missoula – Rape and Justice in a College Town” (Krakauer).     

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

September 13, 2023

OxyCoffin

 “Painkiller,” directed by Peter Berg, 2023

This is a semi-fictional limited series based on the actual facts of the Sackler family's production and sale of OxyContin. It features a relentless African-American investigator, Edie Flowers, who represents the state of Virginia. She is tracking one doctor's very high claims for x-rays, only to discover that he's fabricating 50 x-rays a day in order to rake in state money. He claims there is nothing else untoward going on at his clinic, but then she discovers he's writing tons of script for a 'new' opiod painkiller called Oxycontin. And he's not alone. She also finds out young, cute former sorority sisters are pitching Oxy to male doctors to prescribe and then 'up' the dose of the Oxy pills they dole out. Some of them snort Oxy and sleep with the doctors to get their commissions, and the higher the dose, the more profit to Sackler's Purdue Pharma. Flowers calls them 'the Barbies.'

The sorry facts of the epidemic are laid out in personal detail in the story of a tire repair shop owner whose injured at work, and becomes addicted, losing his wife, family and business to his addiction. OxyContin was basically a legal form of heroin. People crushed the pills and snorted them. Crimes are committed to get more drugs, and some rave into violence. It became a street drug sold by dealers. Overdoses become common-place in some towns and cities. Between 350-500K died from Oxy and other opioids. Now Fentanyl has taken OxyContin's place and overdoses continue, as the social context has not changed.

How did OxyContin happen? Sackler bribed the one scientist in the FDA in charge of Ok'ing OxyContin with a $400k job to get it finally approved. They hired the first open anti-Oxy politician from Maine to become a lucrative Sackler 'consultant' instead. This is a good snapshot of obvious 'regulatory capture.' Since Oxycontin was 'legal' the Virginia DA and eventually the U.S. DOJ had to find what the crime was. This was the investigator's final job and Flowers finds external and internal sources to make the case.

Mathew Broderick plays the vile greed-bag 'Dr.' Richard Sackler whose first principle is never admit wrong, always deny and instead attack and blame the druggies and junkies for their addiction. This is advice he gets from the 'ghost' of his hard-ass uncle, who constantly primes him to defend the honor and reputation of the Sackler name. That name is scattered across many art museums, including one I found on the French Riviera town of Antibes in a Picasso museum of all places.

The name will live on in infamy

One of the creepiest scenes is a Purdue 'sales' convention in a Florida hotel where all the sales reps are invited. It's a little like rah-rah conventions celebrating pyramid schemes. Everyone is cheering, drinking, some snorting Oxy, dancing along with a blue stuffed pill as confetti rains down and Richard Sackler smirks. Holy shit! It's a banner year for sales.

The Sackler defendants were represented in court at the first trial in 2007 by a high-end team – among them: Mary Jo White, former SDNY DA and now head of the SEC appointed by Obama; Rudy Giuliani, former SDNY DA and now indicted and disgraced Trump lawyer. The prosecution spent countless hours reading documents, texts and e-mails; viewing training videos; interviewing witnesses; making phone calls trying to accumulate enough facts to indict. The settlement got the Sacklers small fines, a slap on the wrist and were still allowed to crank out Oxy pills, even after being criminally charged with false advertising! And that advertising continued... This weak settlement was after a Sackler lawyer's phone call to the tops of the DOJ, who then contacted the Bush White House. The DOJ then counseled the DOJ attorney handling the case on the appropriate weak 'settlement.' This shows you that the legal system is vulnerable to 'legal capture' by corporations and powerful individuals.

This sad result basically irritated the investigator to the point Flowers could no longer pursue the matter to justice, handing off the baton to others. Later, state attorney-generals – with the notable absence of southern states – got settlements from the firm. The 'others' in this series are a battery of high-priced lawyers who finally get reclusive Richard Sackler into a deposition, and so they interview Flowers too. The DOJ never actually subpoenaed Sackler.

The OxyContin / Sackler saga continues to this day, as the state fines and subsequent bankruptcy of Purdue still left the family with millions, along with guaranteed personal immunity. They took money out of Purdue before declaring bankruptcy, looting the firm to enrich themselves. The main settlement is paid by their fortune's interest over 9 years, so it avoids their capital. Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy settlement and the Sackler's personal immunity provision were astonishingly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court last month in August 2023. So the legal case continues long after 2007, reflecting our wretched legal system.

This entertaining 6 part series is worth watching, if only to see how one branch of Big Pharma functioned. The no-nonsense investigator, Flowers, is the main draw. She's experienced drug addiction in her family, so its personal.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms: “The Truth About the Drug Companies," "Drug War Capitalism," "Lost Connections" (Hari); "Dallas Buyers Club," "The Marijuana Manifesto" (Ventura); "American Made," "The Long, Strange Trip."  

The Cultural Marxist

September 8, 2023