Saturday, June 06, 2020

GREEN ANARCHIST

World Gone Mad


by DERRICK JENSEN


I DON’T KNOW about you, but whenever I attend some “green” conference, I know I’m supposed to leave feeling inspired and energized, but instead I feel heartbroken, discouraged, defeated, and lied to. It’s not the inevitable talk about farmers (re)discovering organic farming; about plastic forks made from cornstarch; about solar photovoltaics; about relocalizing; about the joys of simple living; about grieving the murder of the planet; about “changing our stories”; and most especially about maintaining a positive attitude that gets me down. It’s that no one, and I mean no one, ever mentions psychopathology.

Why is this important? Because those in power destroy sustainable communities – and not just sustainable indigenous communities. If people develop new ways to live on their land more sustainably, and those in power decide that land is needed for roads and shopping malls and parking lots, those in power will seize that land. This is how the dominant culture works. Everything and everyone must be sacrificed to economic production, to economic growth, to the continuation of this culture.

A few months ago I was watching a documentary on David Parker Ray, a serial killer from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, who is suspected of killing up to sixty women. He kidnapped women and held them as rape slaves. He turned an entire tractor-trailer into a well-stocked torture chamber, where he videotaped what he did to them. In the documentary, an FBI profiler compared Ray’s attitudes toward his victims to those most people have toward tissues: Once you use them, are you concerned about what happens to them? Of course not, she said. And that was how Ray perceived – or rather didn’t perceive – his victims: simply as something to use and throw away.

When the profiler said this, my first thought was passenger pigeons. Then chinook salmon. Then oceans. How deeply do most members of this culture mourn passenger pigeons? Salmon? Oceans? This culture as a whole, and most of its members, gives no more consideration to the victims of this way of life than David Parker Ray gave to his victims. Blindness to suffering is one of this culture’s central defining characteristics. And it is a central defining characteristic of sociopathology.

The New Columbia Encyclopedia states that a sociopath can be defined as one who willfully does harm without remorse: “Such individuals are impulsive, insensitive to others’ needs, and unable to anticipate the consequences of their behavior, to follow long-term goals, or to tolerate frustration. The psychopathic individual is characterized by absence of the guilt feelings and anxiety that normally accompany an antisocial act.”

Um, how sensitive are members of this culture, on the whole, to the needs of native forests (98 percent gone), native grasslands (99 percent gone), ocean life (90 percent of the large fish gone)? How sensitive is this culture to indigenous land claims? How clearly are members of this culture able to anticipate the consequences of destroying forests, grasslands, oceans, or denying indigenous land claims? With sea level already rising and glaciers already disappearing, how capable are this culture’s decision makers of anticipating the consequences of global warming?

Dr. Robert Hare, an expert on sociopaths, states that “among the most devastating features of psychopathy are a callous disregard for the rights of others and a propensity for predatory and violent behaviors. Without remorse, psychopaths charm and exploit others for their own gain. They lack empathy and a sense of responsibility, and they manipulate, lie and con others with no regard for anyone’s feelings.” I’m reminded of something Red Cloud said: “They made us many promises, more than I can remember. They only kept but one. They promised they would take our land, and they took it.”

Hare also says, “Too many people hold the idea that psychopaths are essentially killers or convicts. The general public hasn’t been educated to see beyond the social stereotypes to understand that psychopaths can be entrepreneurs, politicians, CEOs and other successful individuals who may never see the inside of a prison.” They can be the president, a boss, a neighbor.

Let’s now consider the dominant culture in relation to the characteristics of sociopaths as listed in section F60.2 of The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders, published by the World Health Organization, Geneva, 1992:

a) callous unconcern for the feelings of others. Where to start? Have members of this culture shown any concern for the feelings of the indigenous as they’ve stolen their land? How about the feelings of nonhumans being driven from their homes, or those being driven out of existence? Further, doesn’t the mainstream scientific community demand that emotion be removed from all scientific study? Aren’t we also told that emotions must not interfere with business decisions and economic policy? Do chickens in battery cages have feelings? What about dogs in vivisection labs? What about trees? Rain? Stones? The culture goes beyond “callous unconcern” for the feelings of these others to deny that their feelings even exist.

b) gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules and obligations. Is there an action more irresponsible than killing the planet? Now consider the norms, rules, and obligations of this culture. Norms: rape, abuse, destruction. Rules: a legal system created by the powerful to maintain their power. Obligations: to get as much money and power as possible.

c) incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them. I live on Tolowa land. The Tolowa had enduring relationships with their human and nonhuman neighbors for at least 12,500 years. When the dominant culture arrived here about 180 years ago, the place was a paradise; now the place is trashed. Exploitation is not an enduring relationship – whether with another animal or a landbase.

d) very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence. The civilized have been eradicating the indigenous for ten thousand years. The United States is constantly “discharging aggression” against (i.e., invading) other countries. Individuals and corporations and governments discharge aggression daily toward coyotes, prairie dogs, sea lions, wetlands, coal-bearing mountaintops, and oil-bearing coastal plains.

e) incapacity to experience guilt and to profit from experience, particularly punishment. How much guilt do you believe timber company CEOs experience over the destruction of ancient forests? And the word profit here does not mean the financial profit they derive from killing forests, oceans, and so on, but profit in terms of hindsight. After deforesting the Middle East, all of Europe, much of the Americas, Africa, and Asia, does it seem at all plausible that those in charge are learning from their past mistakes? Are they learning anything from their decisions and policies that are altering the climate through unrestrained burning of coal, oil, and natural gas?

f) marked proneness to blame others, or to offer plausible rationalizations, for the behaviour. Do CEOs take responsibility for their violence? The average rapist for his? George Bush blamed forest fires for his urge to deforest. Clinton said it was all the beetles’ fault. And many still rationalize their denial of our rapidly warming planet every time a winter storm slams the East Coast.

Of course we don’t all act this way. But those of us who are not sociopaths, who are trying to live differently, need to step up and call out the larger culture for the way it behaves.

Sharing our finite planet with this culture is like being stuck in a room with a psychopath. There is no exit. Although the psychopath may choose other targets first, eventually it will turn to us. Eventually we’ll have to fight for our lives. And so if we want access to a landbase we can inhabit, and want our descendants to be able to live there long into the future, we need to organize politically to stop this lethal culture in its tracks.

Derrick Jensen is the author of over twenty books, including Endgame. He is a former Orion columnist and contributor to dozens of publications.


The Industrial Revolution-Lost in Antiquity-Found in the Renaissance

https://books.google.ca/books?id=XfSuDwAAQBAJ&dq=The+Industrial+Republic+(1907)+PDF&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Cort MacLean Johns, Ph.D.-HSG
Lulu.com, Oct. 23, 2019 - History - 424 pages
"The Industrial Revolution-Lost in Antiquity-Found in the Renaissance" is a revisionist, well-researched work being a definitive account of the historical roots of the Industrial Revolution that began with Ctesibius in 270 BC at the onset of the Hellenistic Period and continued on with the invention of the steam engine by James Watt in 1776 and Oliver Evans in the early 19th-century, encompassing almost 2000 years of history.

THE FLIVVER KING A NOVEL OF FORD-AMERICA UPTON SINCLAIR


https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.149559/mode/2up
UPTON SINCLAIR APOLOGIST FOR STALINISM

Upton Sinclair on the Soviet Union
by Sinclair, Upton, 1878-1968. Lyons, Eugene,; 1898-1985.
Publication date 1938
Topics Communism. Soviet Union.
Publisher New York : Weekly Masses Co.,

Language English
https://archive.org/details/UptonSinclairOnTheSovietUnion/mode/2up

DAMAGED GOODS

The Great Play “Les Avaries” of Eugene Brieux

Novelized with the approval of the author


by Upton Sinclair



BEING A SOCIAL REFORMER UPTON SINCLAIR WOULD WRITE HIS OWN SCANDALOUS REVIEWS OF THE PLAY DEALING WITH AN UNMENTIONABLE HEALTH PROBLEM, THAT OF SEXUALLY TRASMITTED DISEASE (STD/STI) IN THIS CASE SYPHILIS 

THE PRODUCTION OF EUGENE BRIEUX’S PLAY, “LES AVARIES,” OR, TO GIVE IT ITS ENGLISH TITLE, “DAMAGED GOODS,” HAS INITIATED A MOVEMENT IN THIS COUNTRY WHICH MUST BE REGARDED AS EPOCH-MAKING.—New York Times

+++Page 4 is a virtually unreadable letter in handwritten script from M. Brieux.+++



Contents






PREFACE

My endeavor has been to tell a simple story, preserving as closely as possible the spirit and feeling of the original. I have tried, as it were, to take the play to pieces, and build a novel out of the same material. I have not felt at liberty to embellish M. Brieux’s ideas, and I have used his dialogue word for word wherever possible. Unless I have mis-read the author, his sole purpose in writing LES AVARIES was to place a number of most important facts before the minds of the public, and to drive them home by means of intense emotion. If I have been able to assist him, this bit of literary carpentering will be worth while. I have to thank M. Brieux for his kind permission to make the attempt, and for the cordial spirit which he has manifested.
Upton Sinclair



PRESS COMMENTS ON THE PLAY

DAMAGED GOODS was first presented in America at a Friday matinee on March 14th, 1913, in the Fulton Theater, New York, before members of the Sociological Fund. Immediately it was acclaimed by public press and pulpit as the greatest contribution ever made by the Stage to the cause of humanity. Mr. Richard Bennett, the producer, who had the courage to present the play, with the aid of his co-workers, in the face of most savage criticism from the ignorant, was overwhelmed with requests for a repetition of the performance.
Before deciding whether of not to present DAMAGED GOODS before the general public, it was arranged that the highest officials in the United States should pass judgment upon the manner in which the play teaches its vital lesson. A special guest performance for members of the Cabinet, members of both houses of Congress, members of the United States Supreme Court, representatives of the Diplomatic corps and others prominent in national life was given in Washington, D.C.
Although the performance was given on a Sunday afternoon (April 6, 1913), the National Theater was crowded to the very doors with the most distinguished audience ever assembled in America, including exclusively the foremost men and women of the Capital. The most noted clergymen of Washington were among the spectators.
The result of this remarkable performance was a tremendous endorsement of the play and of the manner in which Mr. Bennett and his co-workers were presenting it.
This reception resulted in the continuance of the New York performances until mid-summer and is responsible for the decision on the part of Mr. Bennett to offer the play in every city in America where citizens feel that the ultimate welfare of the community is dependent upon a higher standard of morality and clearer understanding of the laws of health.
The WASHINGTON POST, commenting on the Washington performance, said:
The play was presented with all the impressiveness of a sermon; with all the vigor and dynamic force of a great drama; with all the earnestness and power of a vital truth.
In many respects the presentation of this dramatization of a great social evil assumed the aspects of a religious service. Dr. Donald C. Macleod, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, mounted the rostrum usually occupied by the leader of the orchestra, and announced that the nature of the performance, the sacredness of the play, and the character of the audience gave to the play the significance of a tremendous sermon in behalf of mankind, and that as such it was eminently fitting that a divine blessing be invoked. Dr. Earle Wilfley, pastor of the Vermont Avenue Christian Church, asked all persons in the audience to bow their heads in a prayer for the proper reception of the message to be presented from the stage. Dr. MacLeod then read the Bernard Shaw preface to the play, and asked that there be no applause during the performance, a suggestion which was rigidly followed, thus adding greatly to the effectiveness and the seriousness of the dramatic portrayal.
The impression made upon the audience by the remarkable play is reflected in such comments as the following expressions voiced after the performance:
RABBI SIMON, OF THE WASHINGTON HEBREW CONGREGATION—If I could preach from my pulpit a sermon one tenth as powerful, as convincing, as far-reaching, and as helpful as this performance of DAMAGED GOODS must be, I would consider that I had achieved the triumph of my life.
COMMISSIONER CUNO H. RUDOLPH—I was deeply impressed by what I saw, and I think that the drama should be repeated in every city, a matinee one day for father and son and the next day for mother and daughter.
REV. EARLE WILFLEY—I am confirmed in the opinion that we must take up our cudgels in a crusade against the modern problems brought to the fore by DAMAGED GOODS. The report that these diseases are increasing is enough to make us get busy on a campaign against them.
SURGEON GENERAL BLUE—It was a most striking and telling lesson. For years we have been fighting these condition in the navy. It is high time that civilians awakened to the dangers surrounding them and crusaded against them in a proper manner.
MRS. ARCHIBALD HOPKINS—The play was a powerful presentation of a very important question and was handled in a most admirable manner. The drama is a fine entering wedge for this crusade and is bound to do considerable good in conveying information of a very serious nature.
MINISTER PEZET, OF PERU—There can be no doubt but that the performance will have great uplifting power, and accomplish the good for which it was created. Fortunately, we do not have the prudery in South America that you of the north possess, and have open minds to consider these serious questions.
JUSTICE DANIEL THEW WRIGHT—I feel quite sure that DAMAGED GOODS will have considerable effect in educating the people of the nature of the danger that surrounds them.
SENATOR KERN, OF INDIANA—There can be no denial of the fact that it is time to look at the serious problems presented in the play with an open mind.
Brieux has been hailed by Bernard Shaw as “incomparably the greatest writer France has produced since Moliere,” and perhaps no writer ever wielded his pen more earnestly in the service of the race. To quote from an article by Edwin E. Slosson in the INDEPENDENT:
Brieux is not one who believes that social evils are to be cured by laws and yet more laws. He believes that most of the trouble is caused by ignorance and urges education, public enlightenment and franker recognition of existing conditions. All this may be needed, but still we may well doubt its effectiveness as a remedy. The drunken Helot argument is not a strong one, and those who lead a vicious life know more about its risks than any teacher or preacher could tell them. Brieux also urges the requirement of health certificates for marriage, such as many clergymen now insist upon and which doubtless will be made compulsory before long in many of our States.
Brieux paints in black colors yet is no fanatic; in fact, he will be criticised by many as being too tolerant of human weakness. The conditions of society and the moral standards of France are so different from those of America that his point of view and his proposals for reform will not meet with general acceptance, but it is encouraging to find a dramatist who realizes the importance of being earnest and who uses his art in defense of virtue instead of its destruction.
Other comments follow, showing the great interest manifested in the play and the belief in the highest seriousness of its purpose:
There is no uncleanness in facts. The uncleanness is in the glamour, in the secret imagination. It is in hints, half-truths, and suggestions the threat to life lies.
This play puts the horrible truth in so living a way, with such clean, artistic force, that the mind is impressed as it could possibly be impressed in no other manner.
Best of all, it is the physician who dominates the action. There is no sentimentalizing. There is no weak and morbid handling of the theme. The doctor appears in his ideal function, as the modern high-priest of truth. Around him writhe the victims of ignorance and the criminals of conventional cruelty. Kind, stern, high-minded, clear-headed, yet human-hearted, he towers over all, as the master.
This is as it should be. The man to say the word to save the world of ignorant wretches, cursed by the clouds and darkness a mistaken modesty has thrown around a life-and-death instinct, is the physician.
The only question is this: Is this play decent? My answer is that it is the decentest play that has been in New York for a year. It is so decent that it is religious.—HEARST’S MAGAZINE.
The play is, above all, a powerful plea for the tearing away of the veil of mystery that has so universally shrouded this subject of the penalty of sexual immorality. It is a plea for light on this hidden danger, that fathers and mothers, young men and young women, may know the terrible price that must be paid, not only by the generation that violates the law, but by the generations to come. It is a serious question just how the education of men and women, especially young men and young women, in the vital matters of sex relationship should be carried on. One thing is sure, however. The worst possible way is the one which has so often been followed in the past—not to carry it on at all but to ignore it.—THE OUTLOOK.
It (DAMAGED GOODS) is, of course, a masterpiece of “thesis drama,”—an argument, dogmatic, insistent, inescapable, cumulative, between science and common sense, on one side, and love, of various types, on the other. It is what Mr. Bernard Shaw has called a “drama of discussion”; it has the splendid movement of the best Shaw plays, unrelieved—and undiluted—by Shavian paradox, wit, and irony. We imagine that many audiences at the Fulton Theater were astonished at the play’s showing of sheer strength as acted drama. Possibly it might not interest the general public; probably it would be inadvisable to present it to them. But no thinking person, with the most casual interest in current social evils, could listen to the version of Richard Bennett, Wilton Lackaye, and their associates, without being gripped by the power of Brieux’s message.—THE DIAL.
It is a wonder that the world has been so long in getting hold of this play, which is one of France’s most valuable contributions to the drama. Its history is interesting. Brieux wrote it over ten years ago. Antoine produced it at his theater and Paris immediately censored it, but soon thought better of it and removed the ban. During the summer of 1910 it was played in Brussels before crowded houses, for then the city was thronged with visitors to the exposition. Finally New York got it last spring and eugenic enthusiasts and doctors everywhere have welcomed it. —THE INDEPENDENT.
A letter to Mr. Bennett from Dr. Hills, Pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn.
23 Monroe Street Bklyn. August 1, 1913.
Mr. Richard Bennett, New York City, N.Y. My Dear Mr. Bennett:
During the past twenty-one years since I entered public life, I have experienced many exciting hours under the influence of reformer, orator and actor, but, in this mood of retrospection, I do not know that I have ever passed through a more thrilling, terrible, and yet hopeful experience than last evening, while I listened to your interpretation of Eugene Brieux’ “DAMAGED GOODS.”
I have been following your work with ever deepening interest. It is not too much to say that you have changed the thinking of the people of our country as to the social evil. At last, thank God, this conspiracy of silence is ended. No young man who sees “Damaged Goods” will ever be the same again. If I wanted to build around an innocent boy buttresses of fire and granite, and lend him triple armour against temptation and the assaults of evil, I would put him for one evening under your influence. That which the teacher, the preacher and the parent have failed to accomplish it has been given to you to achieve. You have done a work for which your generation owes you an immeasurable debt of gratitude.
I shall be delighted to have you use my Study of Social Diseases and Heredity in connection with your great reform.
With all good wishes, I am, my dear Mr. Bennett, Faithfully yours,
Newell Dwight Hillis


Mental Radio

by Upton Sinclair

[1930]

ALTERNATIVE SCIENCE AKA SCIENCE FICTION AND PARA-PSYCHOLOGY ARE ALSO UTOPIAN ASPECTS OF THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIALISTS IN CALIFORNIA


Contents    Start Reading    Page Index    Text [Zipped]

...I don't like to believe in telepathy, because I don't know what to make of it... and I would a whole lot rather give all my time to my muckraking...I don't expect to sell especially large quantities of this book... In short, there isn't a thing in the world that leads me to this act, except the conviction which has been forced upon me that telepathy is real...--p. 229Upton Sinclair took a gamble publishing this book. A lifelong Socialist who ran for high office several times, a muckraking author who had exposed the abuses of capitalism, was dabbling with what was seen as the occult. The impetus for this was his dear wife, Mary Craig Sinclair, known as 'Craig,' who had been aware all her life that she could sense things that had not yet happened, or which she had no rational access to. In the late 1920s, this came to light when Craig had an odd feeling that their friend Jack London was in mental turmoil, just prior to London's suicide. The Sinclairs started to investigate how deep this particular rabbit hole went...
The core of this book is a series of doodles which Upton and others made outside Craig's presence, which she was able to duplicate, apparently telepathically or through clairvoyance. Sinclair claims that Craig had over a 75% success rate over 290 tests, including 25% matches, and 50% partial matches. This success rate is obviously a lot higher than probability, considering that the potential set of drawings is a lot larger than, say, a deck of cards.
Sinclair's top reputation as a 'speaker of truth to power' was actually a compelling reason to take this book seriously. The response to Mental Radio was very positive, impressing academics in the field of psychology and other scientists, including Albert Einstein, who wrote the introduction to the German edition. William McDougal, Chair of the Psychology Department at Duke University, who wrote the introduction for this edition, conducted his own experiments with Craig. McDougal and J.B. Rhine later went on to found the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke, which conducted the first academic investigations of ESP. Walter Franklin Price, founder of the Boston Society for Psychical Research, asked the Sinclairs if he could analyze their research notes. In April 1932, Price published an analysis of the Sinclair experiments in the Society's Bulletin in which he concluded that the data could not be explained by coincidence or fraud.
Production notes: In order to effectively display the large number of images in this book, I've embedded the images in each file, rather than thumbnailing them as usual. This is possible because these images are monochrome line drawings and smaller than an equivalent grey-scale file. However, be aware that some of these chapters may take awhile to load on a slow Internet connection.--J.B. Hare, May 15, 2008.

Title Page
Introduction
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
THE JUNGLE, UPTON SINCLAIR'S JOURNALISTIC NOVEL OF THE MEAT PACKING INDUSTRY IN CHICAGO, WHICH LED TO MEAT PACKING HEALTH AND SAFETY LAWS
Plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose?
https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=140

THE JUNGLE


by Upton Sinclair


(1906)




CONTENTS


ALONG WITH ALTERNATIVE DIETS, PROGRESSIVE SOCIALIST UTOPIANS ALSO PRACTICED ALTERNATIVE SPIRITUALITY,  SOCIALIST MORALS, CREEDS AND ETHICS
https://archive.org/details/bookoflifemindbo00sinciala/page/n7/mode/2up








THE PROFITS OF RELIGION

An Essay in Economic Interpretation


By Upton Sinclair







THE PROFITS OF RELIGION




OFFERTORY

This book is a study of Supernaturalism from a new point of view—as a Source of Income and a Shield to Privilege. I have searched the libraries through, and no one has done it before. If you read it, you will see that it needed to be done. It has meant twenty-five years of thought and a year of investigation. It contains the facts.
I publish the book myself, so that it may be available at the lowest possible price. I am giving my time and energy, in return for one thing which you may give me—the joy of speaking a true word and getting it heard.
The present volume is the first of a series, which will do for Education, Journalism and Literature what has here been done for the Church: the four volumes making a work of revolutionary criticism, an Economic Interpretation of Culture under the general title of "The Dead Hand."



CONTENTS









ALTERNATIVE POLITICS ALTERNATIVE DIETS 

The Fasting Cure

Sinclair, Upton
Original publication date: circa 1920
Original publisher: Originally published by the author
Publication status: Public domain
A famous author’s personal experience with the fasting cure. The main chapter of this book, "Perfect Health" is also offered in French, the translation, Parfaite Santé!, translation courtesy of Paul Barbu & Diane Hébert.
Click for PDF file size: 2.04 Mb

The Fasting Cure
Sinclair, Upton

Original publication date: circa 1920
Original publisher: Originally published by the author
Publication status: Public domain
A famous author’s personal experience with the fasting cure. The main chapter of this book, "Perfect Health" is also offered in French, the translation, Parfaite Santé!, translation courtesy of Paul Barbu & Diane Hébert.