Ideas & Essays

If there is one thinker who has most shaped my own political evolution over the years, then it is the German-Jewish anarchist Gustav Landauer.I first came across his ideas three decades ago, at a crucial period when I was building up my understanding of the anarchist tradition and sketching out, in my mind, the shape of my own personal anarchist vision.I would say that Landauer has influenced me in three important ways.Firstly, he showed me that spirituality is not, as some claim, incompatible with anarchism but, on the contrary, essential to its authenticity.Secondly, he pointed me to the importance of combining an overall sense of belonging to the human species with an appreciation of particular, rooted, cultures and communities.He confirmed for me that this conception of an organic society cannot honestly be dismissed, as it sadly and absurdly sometimes is, as some kind of “crypto-fascism”.Landauer’s worldview (like mine) in fact represents the exact opposite of the cult of dehumanising authoritarian industrial-militarism which was to grab control of his home country 14 years after his untimely death.Thirdly, the story of his political life, in which he was largely spurned by members of his own movement who were trapped inside the conformist ...

A lot of people in France are unhappy about the prospect of this summer’s Olympic (and then Paralympic) Games.Part of this, I suppose, stems from a widespread dislike of anything associated with authoritarian plutocratic president Emmanuel Macron, the diminuitive former Rothschild [1] banker with an ego the size of the Eiffel Tower.But there is also unease about the way the country, its capital in particular, is effectively being rented out, prostituted if you like, to The Global Community.This impression was confirmed by an official poster for Paris 2024, depicting the city as an amusement park constructed for the passing pleasure of the international leisured classes.Ordinary Parisians are being asked to pay the price in a variety of ways.While a lot of talk has been of the removal of the famous book stalls from the banks of the Seine, this is just the tip of the iceberg.Workplace rights are coming under serious attack, with government threats to ban strikes during the Games and even to prevent certain employees, such as shopworkers, from having their usual weekly day off or from going on holiday during that part of the summer. [2]Meanwhile, it is planned to dislodge 2,000 students from their accommodation at ...

Research to develop a capability in the covert use of bio-logical and chemical materials. This also involves the production of various physiological conditions which could support present or future clandestine operations. Aside from the offensive potential, the development of a comprehensive capability in this field of covert chemical and biological warfare gives us a thorough knowledge of the enemy's theoretical potential, thus enabling us to defend ourselves against a foe who might not be as restrained in the use of these techniques as we are. Part of the rationale for the establishment of this special funding mechanism was its extreme sensitivity. The Inspector General's survey of MKULTRA in 1963and noted the following reasons for this sensitivity. Research in the manipulation of human behavior is considered by many authorities in medicine and related fieldsto be professionally unethical, therefore the reputation of professional participants in the MIKULTRA-program are on occasion in jeopardy. Some MKILTRA activities raise questions of legality implicit in the original charter. A final phase of the testing of MKULTRA products places the rights and interests of U.S. citizens in jeopardy. Public disclosure of some aspects of MKULTRA activity could induce serious adverse reaction in U.S. public opinion, as well ...

It’s no mean feat to have embedded no fewer than three false assumptions in the title of a single book!And yet this is the case with Far-Right Newspeak and the Future of Liberal Democracy, edited by A. James McAdams and Samuel Piccolo (Routledge, 2024).This is not to say that there is no value in the actual content, as I will go on to explain.But, first, I do have to take issue with that trinity of tiresome terms…The most obvious problem, I think, is the use of “Liberal Democracy” and, in particular, the assumption that this is what we are currently living in, here in “the West”.The editors, two US academics, double down on this assumption in their introduction.They explain: “By ‘democracy’, we mean a variety of fully functioning institutions such as courts, parliaments, constitutions, and constitutional principles that allow citizens to play an active role in public affairs.“By ‘liberal’, we refer to the principles that democratic leaders are obliged to follow in their interactions with citizens.“These principles include the rights to free speech, assembly, religious practice, and privacy as well as the guarantee of full equality.“These values are also based upon universal norms, such as political tolerance and respect for ...

I would love to have been born into a stable society – a calm, healthy, wise society – rather than one rattling chaotically downhill at an ever-accelerating rate towards a doom that is increasingly impossible to ignore.For me, real progress would not be the replacement of human beings by machines, but the nurturing of human beings so as to release their full potential, the patient fine-tuning of our outlooks and habits so that we can live better together.The community to which I would like to belong would not look like any other community.It would have evolved in harmony with the specific qualities of its place, its history, the tastes and desires of the people who made it up.It would be through this rooted belonging that the community could achieve its flowering – its myths, its music, its crafts, its food, its drink, its festivals, its ethos.In such a society, people would decide for themselves, among themselves, how they wanted to live.There would be no remote central “authority” demanding data and taxes, imposing its rigid requirements, ensuring that everything and everybody conformed to its mechanical model of what life should look like.People would grow up to feel free and instinctively resistant ...

To be modern is to accept that which you should refuse; to adapt to evil rather than to resist it.To be modern is to have been melted down and poured into somebody else’s mould.To be modern is to have forgotten how to remember.To be modern is to be more detached from nature, more helpless, more dependent, more wasteful, more destructive, more short-sighted than your ancestors could ever have imagined, and yet to feel proud of yourself and your era.To be modern is to prefer artifice to organicity, surface to depth, quantity to quality.To be modern is to have absorbed so many meaningless facts that there is no more room in your head for meaningful knowledge.To be modern is to turn your back on common sense and conform to the collective insanity.To be modern is to be convinced that all change is necessarily good and to refuse to recognise the instinct that tells you otherwise.To be modern is to be at home both everywhere and nowhere; to be somebody and nobody; to be still alive and yet already dead.[Audio version]See also: The world out of kilter: occupation and zombificationComing soon: The world out of kilter: reclaim our lives!Thanks for reading Paul ...

The kind of society I long for is an organic one, in which people live in the way they see fit, guided by their own inclinations, the customs they have inherited and the circumstances of place.As an anarchist, I am obviously opposed to all authority imposed from above, to any kind of formalised, entrenched power, but that does not mean that there could be no kind of moral “authority” or guidance in the world I want to see.Traditional societies often look to village elders, wise women, and other respected individuals to help steer their decision-making.The advice they give arises from within the community concerned and, in order to be followed, will have to correspond to a generally-shared sense that the proposed direction is the right one.This is not the case with those who exercise power over us today. Due to the corruption of our society, authority is wielded in the interests of a group which neither identifies with the people as a whole nor is prepared to be guided by its wishes.Instead, it seeks to impose its own agenda on the population by any means necessary – by propaganda and persuasion, if possible, or otherwise by outright deceit, intimidation and ...

At the end of 2022 I brought out a 100-page booklet entitled ‘Enemies of the People: The Rothschilds and their corrupt global empire‘.To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive about publishing it, as I knew that it would probably lead to me being labelled not just a “conspiracy theorist” but an “anti-semite” as well.This did actually happen, despite my insistence right at the start of the booklet that “I am not singling out the Rothschilds because they are Jewish, but rather in spite of that fact”.Before publishing it, I made very sure that I was completely certain about everything I stated.I was confident that I had marshalled enough facts and reliable historical analysis to demonstrate the reality of the very disturbing situation that I presented in the final section:“The Rothschilds have, as I have shown, amassed vast wealth at the expense of the rest of us, consistently put themselves before others, profiteered from war after war, grabbed hold of industrial infrastructure, exploited humanity, destroyed nature, corrupted political life, used royalty for their own purposes, privatised the public sector, imposed their global control in a secretive manner and now imagine that they can dictate our future, confining us to a ...

We have seen how the Bolsheviks in Russia repressed the grassroots revolutionary movement and imposed a centralised authoritarian regime that declared war on small farmers and hitherto independent individuals, turning most of the population into powerless slaves to a giant industrial machine.We have also learned that they were funded and assisted by the global mafia, which obviously stood to gain by creating a forerunner of the dehumanised totalitarian industrial prison camp which they are currently trying to build via their Great Reset or Fourth Industrial Revolution.One question that still hangs in the air, however, is whether the Bolshevik example is really a fair representation of the communist philosophy as initially set out by Karl Marx.To address this matter, I will first call as a witness Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876), the freedom-loving Russian revolutionary who was a one-time associate of Marx before falling out with him in a big way.By the time he wrote the pamphlet ‘Statism and Anarchism’ in 1873, Bakunin had noticed the dangers lurking in the Marxist creed and astutely foresaw the nightmare that would be inflicted on his own home country when these authoritarian communists later came to power.He warned: “They will concentrate all the powers of government ...

Anyone wishing to understand what lay behind the brutal political repression and totalitarian industrial slavery imposed by the Bolsheviks would do well to read the work of historian Antony C. Sutton, notably his book Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. [73]He shows, with solid evidence, that the communist seizure of power was encouraged and funded by financial interests outside Russia.This is not to say that there were not genuine revolutionary forces at play in the country and that the tsarist regime would not have been toppled in any case.But the specific role of the Bolsheviks was to seize power, crush the genuine popular revolt and ensure that Russia was turned into an authoritarian centralised state – under the ultimate control of these financial interests – which could then impose their Great Project.This project was, of course, all about making money.Communist Russia was regarded as a “golden opportunity” [74] in certain circles.An enciphered telegram sent by David Francis, US ambassador in Petrograd (St Petersburg), a year before the revolution began, is very telling for a couple of reasons.Firstly because he sent it to the State Department in Washington, DC, to be deciphered and forwarded to Frank Arthur Vanderlip, the chairman of ...

By way of half-way interlude in my serialised article 'The false red flag', I'd just like to announce a real-life event coming up.On Thursday May 30, 2024, from 7.30pm, I will be giving a talk in the Scottish capital on 'the Organic Radical tradition'.The evening, organised by Common Knowledge Edinbugh, is free to attend, although people are asked to sign up in advance for their place.For anyone unfamiliar with the organic radical concept, the orgrad website explains: "In broad terms, organic radicalism is a political ideology deeply opposed to the modern industrial world."Its vision of human society is based not on money, greed and authority but on mutual aid, freedom and community; a way of living which would restore humankind’s well-being and its harmony with the rest of nature".Or, in the words of W.D. James in his latest essay on the Winter Oak site: "The Organic Radical school of thought hinges on the possibility of an organic social order which, in turn, provides the basis and motivation for radical critique and revolutionary change. "We might like to think that an emergent natural order will just happen. In a sense, it does; in the same sense that a plant just grows ...

Leo Tolstoy, with his dreams of a free Russian peasantry, had realised before his death in 1910 that the communists aimed to launch an assault on traditional rural life.Having analysed Karl Marx’s Capital and studied the new “scientific” socialism, he spoke out about what Pierre Thiesset calls the communists’ “industrialised, urbanised and technocratised horizon, where Progress becomes a new religion”. [45]“He had felt that the revolutionaries were going to fool the people by leading them into a dead end: that of the modernisation of the country and the end of the peasantry.“What is the point in socialising the means of production if it is to proletarianise the population, to send modern slaves to live in filthy cities and become appendages of machines?“The writer called on people to resist this development, to struggle against this so-called ‘civilization’.” [46]This, of course, made Tolstoy a “reactionary” in the eyes of the Bolsheviks, while those who supported his call for land and freedom were labelled “naive” and “retrograde”. [47]Vladimir Lenin, while recognising that Tolstoy (pictured) was a spokesman for the ideas and desires of millions of Russian peasants, declared that his ideas were, as a whole, “harmful”. [48]He announced, 15 years before his party ...