Socialist Quotes for Sunday Reflection pt 42

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From 'Marxism-Leninism on War and Army: Soviet Military Thought' 1972:

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“Capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of the financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the population of the world by a handful of “advanced” countries. And this “booty” is shared between two or” 

― Vladimir Ilich Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
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Wilberg on Wednesday - The Illness Is The Cure pt 24/46

Disease as ‘Organ Speech’

“Through the long succession of millennia, man has not known himself physiologically; he does not know himself even today.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Do failing organs or disturbances to the functioning of their physiological capacities lead to illness – or are organic or physiological functions and capacities the embodiment of capacities of another sort – capacities of feeling awareness ?

Thus when we speak of someone ‘losing heart’, feeling ‘disheartened’ or ‘heart-broken’, for example, we are not just using the language of a biological ‘organ’ – in this case the heart – as a mere metaphor for a psychological state or sense of ‘dis-ease ’. It is the other way round. Heart disease is itself a living biological metaphor of subjective states of dis-ease and distress such as feeling ‘heart-broken’, ‘heartless’ or ‘cold-hearted’.

Similarly, respiratory disorders such as asthma arise from a subjective sense of feeling ‘stifled’ or ‘having no room to breathe’ in our lives, just as digestive disorders are the expression of aspects of our lived experience and life world that we do not feel able to ‘stomach’ or ‘digest’ in our awareness.

Biological medicine seeks ‘organic’ causes for illness in dysfunctions of our physiological organs – and sees even psychological disorders as the result of such organic dysfunctions, as disorders of our brain chemistry. As a result, biological medicine is blind to the deeper meaning and truth of the bodily language and ‘metaphors’ we use to describe what are usually thought of only as ‘mental’ or ‘psychological’ feelings and states. It does not see that the language of these bodily metaphors is a way of recognising that the physical body and its organs are not a biological machine or a mere product of our genes but a living biological language of the human being.

In contrast, Freud spoke of bodily symptoms as a type of organic language or ‘organ speech’ (Organsprache). Similarly, Life Medicine recognises all organs and functions of the ‘physical’ body as the biological expression of organised capacities and functions of another body – our ‘lived body‘ – the body of our feeling awareness of all that we experience in our lives.

In German there are not one but two words for ‘the body’ – Körper and Leib. The only equivalents of Körper in English are the words ‘corpus’ and ‘corpse’. ‘Corpse’ is also the root meaning of the Greek word ‘soma’, from which the term ‘somatic’ derives. It refers of course to a dead body as opposed to a living one. There is however another German word for body – Leib – that can be translated as ‘lived body‘ or ‘life’ body – for it is part of a whole family of words to do with ‘life’ (Leben) and ‘living’ (leben). These words include erleben (‘to experience’) and Erlebnis (an experience). Through the inner lens of the German language in other words, life (Leben) and living (leben) are understood essentially as realm of subjective experiencing (er-leben). Thus the body as Leib or ‘lived body’ refers to our own ‘experienced’ and ‘experiencing’ body’ – the body of our living experience of ourselves, our lives and our entire life world. The basic ‘capacities’ of the lived body or Leib therefore have to do with what we are or are not able to do with our experience (Erlebnis) of living (leben), of life (Leben) and of our ‘life world’ (Lebenswelt).

In physiological terms, the capacities of the lived body are our capacity to sense, perceive, breathe in, digest and metabolise all that we experience, allowing it to circulate within our awareness and thus nourish our very being with life-giving meaning.

Both our sense organs and other biological organs such as our lungs, stomach and heart, together with their corresponding physiological functions, are essentially nothing but organic and physiological embodiments of capacities belonging to our lived body as a ‘psychical organism’ or ‘body of awareness’ – an awareness more or less open to or capable of sensuously embracing, feeling and perceiving, breathing in, digesting and metabolising all that we experience in our lives – and in this way extracting meaning from it.

On the other hand, any lack or dysfunction of these basic capacities of awareness belonging to the lived body may also embody itself – finding expression in what biomedicine then sees only as purely ‘physiological’ or ‘organic’ dysfunctions, disorders or ‘diseases’ – for example respiratory, digestive, metabolic or circulatory diseases.

“We cannot say that the organ has capacities, but must say that the capacity has organs… capability, articulating itself into capacities creating organs characterises the organism as such.”

Martin Heidegger

The idea that biological organs are a “creation” or embodiment of the very capabilities or capacities we associate with that organ is of course a radical one.

Yet along with the family of German words that includes the ‘lived body‘ (Leib), ‘life’ (Leben) and experiencing (er-leben) goes another word that hints at how this idea may be understood: the verb ‘to body’ (leiben).

For as Heidegger remarked in addressing a circle of doctors:

“We know by now a great deal – almost more than we can encompass – about what we call the body, without having seriously thought about what bodying is … The bodying of life is nothing separate by itself, encapsulated in the ‘physical mass’ in which the body can appear to us…”

Hence also the profound significance of another insight of his, namely that: “Every feeling is an embodiment attuned in this or that way, a mood that embodies in this or that way.”

It is through the lived body that we quite literally embody or ‘body’ felt tones or ‘moods’ of feeling awareness or ‘feeling tones’ – allowing them to find expression in cellular tone, skin tone, muscle and organ tone, i.e. in ‘organ speech’ – as well as in the tones of our vocal speech. The lived body then, is the very source and essence of the human ‘organism ’.

For it is that musical or tonal ‘instrument’ (the root meaning of the Greek word organon from which the term ‘organism’ is derived) through which we inwardly ‘speak’ or ‘utter’ our organs themselves from out of shaped and patterned tones of feeling awareness or ‘feeling tones’. For, what are sound, music and speech except a shaping or patterning of tone?

Yet feeling tones can be either healthy and ‘sound’ or else more or less muddied, discordant and ‘unsound’. This is also the reason we speak of someone’s health or a particular organ being or not being in ‘sound’ condition, and associate health with ‘soundness’, the words sound and soundness being the root meaning of the German words for ‘healthy’ and ‘health’ – gesund and Gesundheit.

The human organism then – indeed any organism – is nothing ‘biological’ or ‘organic’ in the narrow scientific sense. It is ‘biological’ only in the essential sense of being that instrument or organon through which ‘life’ (bios) speaks itself in the form of fleshly organs – giving physical shape and tone to felt patterns, shapes, tones and textures of feeling awareness.

The essence of any organism consists of organising field patterns of awareness. These in turn are what give ordered and organised shape and form to that larger patterned field of awareness that constitutes the perceived ‘environment’ or life world of any organism.

Human language too is an organised and organising structure, one which shapes and patterns our specifically human awareness and perception of the world. And language itself is made up of ‘organising patterns of awareness’ that make it an integral part of the lived body – and not a mere function of something we call ‘the mind’ or of the brain as a biological organ.

It is because it is an integral part of the human organism that the body and its organs itself figure so strongly in language itself – in countless everyday expressions relating to bodily organs such as the heart (feeling ‘disheartened’ or ‘a stab in the heart), to parts of the body (‘having one’s feet on the ground’) and bodily functions such as respiration (feeling ‘stifled’ or having ‘no room to breathe’).

The body even figures in the mere use of simple prepositions such as ‘in’ and ‘out’, ‘on’ and ‘off’, ‘up’ and ‘down’ – for example being ‘onto’ or ‘into’ something’, feeling ‘up’ or ‘down’, ‘high’ and ‘low’, ‘off colour’ or ‘out of’ one’s mind. For all these expressions arise from and reflect our felt bodily relation to space – as also does the use of words such as ‘upset’, ‘unstable’ or ‘imbalanced’ and expressions such as ‘leaning to one side’, ‘finding one’s ground’ or ‘shifting’ one’s stance or attitude, posture or position.

This all-pervasive bodily dimension of language itself – and its roots in bodily experiencing – was first explored in depth by Lakoff and Johnson in their book Metaphors We Live By. Yet it also lends support to the basic principles of Life Medicine, as well as to Freud ’s notion of ‘organ speech ’. This notion is in turn closely associated with what, in his last years, he came to call ‘The Second Fundamental Principle of Psychoanalysis ’.

This is the principle that ‘bodily’ states and symptoms were not merely things that emerged ‘parallel’ with or ‘concomitant’ to unconscious mental or ‘psychic’ states. Instead what were previously thought of in psychoanalysis only as “somatic concomitants” of these states were recognised as “the truly psychical” (Freud ).

The radical implication of this principle is that the true foundation and focus of psychoanalysis is not ‘the interpretation of dreams’ or some mysterious entity called ‘the unconscious’ but the language of the body – which finds expression both in our waking life and in our dreams and ‘dreaming body’ and is the symbolic key to all forms and symptoms of illness.

Yet the significance of Freud’s new ‘foundational principle of psychoanalysis’ has still not been registered by most psychoanalysts or schools of psychoanalysis – and certainly not in medical theory and practice.

Only through the work of the Argentinean psychoanalyst Luis Chiozza did psychoanalysis come to both appreciate and apply this principle.

He did so by recognising, as Life Medicine does, that the two distinct but inseparable dimensions of what Freud called ‘organ speech’ – verbal expression such as ‘feeling stifled’ or ‘stabbed in the heart’ on the one hand, and experienced physical sensations or symptoms such as breathing difficulties or heart pains on the other – share a common source. In other words, symptoms of illness itself are not only reflected in language that describes felt states of dis-ease. Instead illness itself is a language.

As a psychoanalyst, Chiozza saw the common source of illness and language as ‘the unconscious’. In Life Medicine this common source is seen as life itself – as experienced through the lived body.

Yet it was Chiozza who also first developed a methodological approach to illness akin to Life Doctoring. Derived from Victor von Weizsäcker and called the ‘pathobiographical’ method, it involves seeking the ‘hidden story’ behind a patient’s illness by finding links between its biology on the one hand, and the biography or life story of the patient on the other. Such links can above all be sought and found through the language of illness and through understanding illness itself as a language.

References:

Chiozza, Luis A. Hidden Affects in Somatic Disorders

Chiozza, Luis A. Why Do We Fall Ill? – The Story Hiding in the Body

Heidegger, Martin, Zollikon Seminars

Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By

Socialist Quotes for Sunday Reflection pt 41

"The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards."

Sir William Francis Butler (1889)

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“There is no greater condemnation of capitalism than its inability to provide adequate housing for those who produce its wealth — the working class.”

“The ruling class explanation relies on blaming the victims, arguing that people experiencing homelessness are in some way individually incompetent.“

“The housing market would collapse if shelter was plentiful and affordable for everyone. ...the interlocking processes of deregulation and financialization turn homes from a living space into real estate — a commodity, manipulated by investors, banks and even some local governments. This occurs because there is no right to adequate housing in our Constitution or in federal law. If housing was a right and not a commodity, then shelter would be taken out of the private market.”

“Actually, the fear of homelessness helps capitalism maintain its power.”
Solidarity

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The Marshall Plan functioned, for the most part, as a collective credit card with the aim to make Western Europe a client of American industry and thus bound to the United States. From the economic point of view, the Marshall Plan allowed American industry to run at full capacity. It succeeded in making the Western part of Germany and Europe dependent on the United States, and [it succeeded] in integrating this part of the world into the new global economic system. For Europe, the Marshall Plan marked the beginning of the process of “Americanization”, or as they say in the Third World, “Coca-Colonization.”

Jacques R. Pauwels - Le mythe de la bonne guerre.

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"Liberalism, then, drives the attempt to displace the heterosexual norm.... But liberalism includes capitalism: in the end, liberalism defines people as simply property-owners, narcissistic self-owners, choosers and consumers....

And there is, naturally, money to be made out of all this. Husbands, wives, children and adolescents (this last an invention of the market) are more effective and exploitable consumers when they are isolated.

Fluctuating identities and fluid preferences, including as to sexual orientation, consume still more, more often and more variously in terms of products and services."

John Milbank

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Happy Winter Solstice, Happy Yule.

Happy Solstice to all SMPBI members and supporters.  This day also marks the first day of Yule.  These festivals are part of the very essence of the Motherland. 

We reject all the commercial festivities which occur at this time of the year.  We reject the coca-cola 'santa claus' farce which encourages people to go into debt to pay for Chinese sweat-shop produced plastic rubbish which will inevitably end up discarded straight after the commercial holiday. 

Socialism is about breaking free from the tyranny of finance.  It is about looking after our people.  Yule is a festival of friendship and of unity with family.  The globalists have not been able to turn our ancient traditions into money-spinners. Because they are traditions which place emphasis on the natural socialism of helping each other, they have not been able to make them into a cash-generating mockery, like they have done with the major festivals occurring shortly.

We wish you all the very best.  Stand by tradition.  Stand in solidarity against the bourgeois liberal anti-culture.  The struggle is more than just economics.  Our revolutionary ideology is anchored in the bosom of family.  Raise a glass to nature, to the unbreakable bonds of past and future, and to the end of the decadent degenerate liberal sickness which is getting weaker all the time.

At Yule we cleanse our lives of the clutter which holds us back. The time is coming for the bourgeois parasitic identity-driven clutter which is holding us back as a nation to be swept aside.

The liberal nightmare is faltering.
The Socialist Motherland is rising.

Wilberg on Wednesday - The Illness Is The Cure pt 23/46

The Focus of Life Medicine –
The Lived 

“It is the great error of Western philosophers that they always regard the human body intellectually, from the outside, as though it were not indissolubly a part of the active self.”

Sato Tsuji

Which body is it with which we feel ourselves – our self?

Which body is it through which we feel ourselves inwardly ‘closer’ or more ‘distant’ to others, however near or far they are in physical space and time?

Which body is it with which we can feel ourselves to be inwardly ‘warmer’ or ‘cooler’ towards other people, irrespective of our physical temperature?

Which body is it with which we can feel ourselves inwardly as ‘heavier’ or ‘lighter’, ‘fatter’ or ‘thinner’, yet without any change to our physical weight or size?

Which body is it whose ‘heart’ can be inwardly felt as ‘big’ or ‘small’, ‘warm’ or ‘cold’, with which we or others can feel ‘heartened’ or ‘disheartened’, ‘lose heart’ or suffer ‘heartache’, seem ‘heartless’ or ‘big hearted’ – independently of the size or functioning of ‘the heart’ as a physical organ?

Which body is it with which we can feel ourselves ‘expanding’ or ‘shrinking’, ‘uplifted’ or ‘carried away’, ‘sucked in’ or ‘trapped’, ‘open’ or ‘closed off’, ‘full’ or ‘empty’, ‘shapeless’ or ‘spineless’, ‘exploding’ or ‘imploding’ – yet without our physical body moving or changing shape in any way?

Which body is it with which we can feel inwardly ‘drawn into’, ‘drawn out of’ – or ‘withdrawn into’ ourselves – as if into some warm and nurturing womb or else some cold and solitary prison or tomb?

Which body is it with which we feel ‘high’ or ‘low’, ‘up’ or ‘down’, ‘uplifted’ or ‘let down’, ‘beside ourselves’, ‘spaced out’ or confined in our skins?

Which body is it whose ‘skin‘ we feel more or less inwardly ‘at home’ in, which can make someone seem ‘thick- or thin-skinned’, that without any physical skin irritations can make us feel ‘prickly’, ‘edgy’ or ‘irritable’, ‘stretched’ or ‘frayed’, that can feel tight and constricting like a diving suit or straightjacket – or like a porous, comfortable and loose-fitting garment?

Which body is it that can be felt as more or less inwardly ‘solid’ or ‘firm’, ‘fluid’ or ‘airy’, ‘hard’ or ‘soft’, ‘smooth’ and ‘rounded’ or ‘jagged’ and ‘sharp edged’ – all independently of its physical shape and features?

Which body is it with which we feel the inner ‘brightness’ or ‘darkness’, ‘levity’ or ‘gravity’, ‘lightness’ or ‘heaviness’ of our own and other peoples’ moods?

Which body is it whose overall mood or ‘feeling tone’ – like its voice tone – can be felt as ‘bright or dark’, ‘light or heavy’, ‘sharp’ or ‘dull’ and ‘flat’, ‘resonant’ and ‘full’ or ‘hollow’ and ‘empty’?

Which body is it that we actually sense and feel from within, that is the source of all bodily self-perception or ‘proprioception’ – rather than a mere external object of perception?

The answer to all these questions is not our fleshly ‘physical’ body and its organs. It is not any body we can measure, weigh or apply any form of medical tests to.

Nor, however, is it some form of pseudo-physical ‘energy body’ of the sort that New Agers and practitioners of alternative medicine speak of (see ‘Life Medicine and ‘Energy Medicine’).

Instead it is our ‘felt body‘ or ‘lived body ’. To be more exact, it is not just a body we feel or are aware of. Instead it is a body of awareness – of feeling awareness or ‘soul’.

What I call feeling awareness is what used to be called ‘soul’ or ‘psyche’ – yet in a way that traditionally has failed to recognise the ‘soul’ or ‘psyche’ as a body in its own right – the ‘lived body’ that can also be called our ‘soul body’ or ‘psychic body’.

This body is not composed of tissue, bone and blood, cells and organs. Nor is it made up of some form of ‘etheric’ or ‘subtle’ matter. The ‘stuff’ of which it is made is the ‘stuff’ that Shakespeare spoke of – that “stuff on which dreams are made” – awareness.

The lived body is therefore also the body as we experience it in our dreams – what Arnold Mindell calls the ‘dreambody‘ or ‘dreaming body’.

It is also the very ‘life and soul’ of our so-called physical body – being also its soul or consciousness.

A portion of our ‘lived body’ or ‘psychic body’ makes up what can be called the ‘physical soul’ or ‘body consciousness ’, i.e. those patterns and qualities of molecular and cellular awareness that constitute the essence of the human organism.

As for the so-called ‘physical body’ this is just the lived body and its physical soul as perceived “from the outside”.

It is the lived body or psychic body that quite literally ‘in-forms’ the physical soul. And yet the lived body as a whole is not in any way bounded by it, but is a much larger body of feeling awareness, one whose field of awareness that embraces our entire life world – including not just our own body but every other body within it – whether than of a person, animal, tree or any seemingly insentient object.

Our body consciousness or physical soul too, is in no way unaware of our external environment. Instead it is highly conscious of and sensitive to it – indeed more conscious of it than most people’s ‘conscious minds’ are.

The ‘lived body‘ or ‘felt body‘ should not be thought of simply as referring to the ‘physical body’ as we feel or experience it from within.

Instead it is the other way round. For again, what we call the ‘physical body’ is nothing but one dimension and one portion of the lived body as it appears to us and others “from the outside” – in the external form of the human body and its organs.

No amount of precise chemical or electromagnetic analysis of the ink marks on the pages of a book or the text on a computer screen will ever reveal the totally invisible, immeasurable and multi-dimensional world of meaning they express.

Similarly, no form of ‘objective’ external or even ‘internal’ examination or scanning of the physical body and its organs – which means viewing the inside of the physical body “from the outside” – will ever reveal the lived body – which is a distinct subjective body in its own right.

So to persuade a ‘scientific’ biologist that behind what appears “from the outside” as a mere 3-dimensional physical body lies an invisible body of living and feeling awareness is like trying to persuade someone who has not learned to read that behind the 3-dimensional ‘body’ of a book or a 2-dimensional screen of text lies an invisible, unbounded and multidimensional world of living and felt meaning.

Just as the physical body can be compared to a book or text, so is it also a speech organ of the soul and of its body – the lived body or ‘soul body’ and that portion of it that makes up our ‘physical soul’.

Body language or ‘body speech’, bodily metaphors and physical symptoms are all ways in which the human ‘physical’ body or organism reveals itself as a living bio-logical expression of the lived body and of that portion of it which constitutes our ‘physical soul’ or ‘body consciousness‘ – being quite literally its ‘life speech’ or bios logos - what Freud called ‘organ speech’ (Organsprache).

This truth finds expression in language itself - for example in bodily metaphor s such as ‘losing heart’ or finding something ‘hard to ‘stomach’. These verbal metaphors which are actually not ‘metaphors’ at all but express directly experienced states of the lived body.

These states also find symbolic expression in the illness – as for example ‘loss of heart’ can find expression in heart disease or finding something ‘difficult to stomach’ in digestive problems. Recognising this is the basis of Life Medicine and Life Doctoring.

Socialist Quotes for Sunday Reflection pt 40

Talk to the Senior Officials of the Central Committee
of the Workers’ Party of Korea

February 26 and 28, Juche 91 (2002)

It is important to have a correct understanding of nationalism. Only when they have such an understanding can people achieve national unity, champion the interests of the nation and contribute to the shaping of its destiny.

Nationalism came into being as an ideology for defending the interests of a nation in the course of the latter’s formation and development. Although nations differ from one another in the period of their formation, every nation is a social community which has been formed and consolidated historically on the basis of a common kinship descent, language, residential area and culture, and is composed of various classes and strata. There is no person in any country or in any society who exists outside his or her nation, separate from it. Every person belongs to a class or stratum, and at the same time to a nation, endowing that person with both a national and a class character. Class character and national character and the demands of classes and nation are inseparable from each other. As a matter of fact, the classes and strata of a nation entertain different demands and interests owing to their different social and economic functions. However, all the members of a nation have the same stake in championing the independence and character of the nation and attaining national prosperity without distinction of the interests of their classes and strata. This is because the destiny of a nation is precisely the destiny of its individual members; in other words, the latter is dependent on the former. None will be happy with the sovereignty and honour of his or her nation being trampled upon and national character disregarded. It is the common ideological feeling and psychology of the members of a nation to love their nation, cherish its characteristics and interests, and yearn for its prosperity. Nationalism reflects this feeling and psychology. In other words, nationalism is an ideology that advocates love for the nation and defence of its interests. Since people carve out their destiny while living within the nation-state as a unit, genuine nationalism constitutes patriotism. The progressive nature of nationalism lies in the fact that it is a patriotic ideology which advocates the defence of national interests.

Nationalism emerged as a progressive idea along with the formation and development of each nation. However, it was understood in the past as an ideology that defends bourgeois interests. It is true that in the days of the nationalist movement against feudalism, the newly-emergent bourgeoisie, upholding the banner of nationalism, stood in the van of the movement.

At that time, the interests of both the masses of the people and the newly-emergent bourgeoisie were basically coincident in their struggle against feudalism. Therefore, the banner of nationalism seemed to reflect the common interests of the nation. As capitalism developed and the bourgeoisie became the reactionary ruling class after victorious bourgeois revolutions in various countries, nationalism was used as a means of defending the interests of the bourgeois class.

The bourgeoisie disguised their class interests as national interests, and used nationalism as an ideological instrument for solidifying their class domination. This led nationalism to be understood, among the people, as a bourgeois ideology that runs counter to the national interests. We should distinguish clearly between true nationalism that loves the nation and defends its interests and bourgeois nationalism that advocates the interests of the bourgeois class. Bourgeois nationalism reveals itself as national egoism, national exclusivism and big-power chauvinism in the relationship between countries and nations; it is reactionary in that it creates antagonism and disagreement between countries and nations, and checks the development of friendly relations between the various peoples of the world.

The original revolutionary theory of the working class failed to give a correct explanation of nationalism. It paid major attention to strengthening the international unity and solidarity of the working class all over the world-the fundamental problem in the then socialist movement-failing to pay due attention to the national problem. It went so far as to regard nationalism as an anti-socialist ideological trend, because bourgeois nationalism was doing great harm to the socialist movement. This is why progressive people in the past rejected nationalism, considering it incompatible with communism.

It is wrong to view communism as incompatible with nationalism. Communism does not advocate only the interests of the working class; it also advocates the interests of the nation-hence it is an ideology of loving the country and the people. Nationalism is also an ideology of loving the country and the people, as it defends the interests of the country and the nation. Love of the country and the people is an ideological emotion common to communism and nationalism; herein lies the ideological basis on which they can ally with one another. Therefore, there is no reason or ground to pit one against the other, and reject nationalism.

Nationalism does not conflict with internationalism. Mutual help, support and alliance between countries and nations-this is internationalism. Every country has its borders, and every nation has its identity, and revolution and construction are carried on with the country and nation as a unit. For this reason, internationalism finds its expressions in the relationships between countries and between nations, a prerequisite for which is nationalism. Internationalism divorced from the concepts of nation and nationalism is merely an empty shell. A man who is unconcerned about the destiny of his country and nation cannot be faithful to internationalism.

Revolutionaries of each country should be faithful to internationalism by struggling, first of all, for the prosperity of their own country and nation.

For the first time in history, the great leader President Kim Il Sung gave a correct explanation of nationalism, and elucidated the relationship between communism and nationalism and between communists and nationalists in his revolutionary practice of carving out the destiny of his country and people. He said that in order to be a true communist one must first become a true nationalist. With a determination to devote his life to his country and fellow-countrymen, he embarked on the road of revolution in his early years and created the immortal Juche idea, on the basis of which he established a Juche-oriented outlook on the nation, and scientifically expounded the essence and progressive character of nationalism. Through a correct combination of class character with national character and of the destiny of socialism with that of the nation, he realized an alliance between communists and nationalists, cemented the class and national positions of our socialism and led the nationalists to join the efforts for socialist construction and national reunification. Attracted by his broad magnanimity and noble personality, many nationalists took the patriotic road to national unity and national reunification, making a clean break with their erroneous pasts. Kim Ku, a life-long anti-communist, allied with communists, a patriotic changeover, in the twilight of his life, and Choe Tok Sin, a nationalist, was able to find salvation as a patriot in the leader’s embrace. The great leader treasured and championed the independence not only of our nation but also of the peoples of the rest of the world. He devoted all his efforts to the cause of making the whole world independent, as well as to the Korean revolution. We can say that there has been no man in the world as great as him, who devoted his whole life to the nation’s independence and prosperity, and a bright future for mankind. He was the most steadfast communist and, at the same time, a peerless patriot, true nationalist and paragon among internationalists.

I also assert, as the leader instructed, that one must be an ardent patriot, a true nationalist, in order to become a genuine revolutionary, a communist. The communist who fights for the realization of the independence of the masses of the people must first of all be a true nationalist. Those who fight for their people, their country and their homeland are genuine communists, true nationalists and ardent patriots. Those who do not love their own parents, brothers and sisters cannot love their country and compatriots. Likewise, those who do not love their own homeland and people cannot become communists.

We are inheriting with fidelity the great leader’s noble idea of loving the country, the nation and the people, and making every effort to rally all the sections of the nation by dint of all-embracing politics, and lead them to the road of patriotism.

It is not communists but imperialists who oppose nationalism and place obstacles in the way of the independent development of nations at present. The imperialists are manoeuvring cunningly to realize their dominationist ambition on the plea of “globalization” and “integration.” They claim that the ideal of building a sovereign nation-state or the love for country and nation is a “national prejudice lagging behind the times,” and “globalization” and “integration” are the trend of the times in the present situation, when science and technology are developing rapidly and economic exchanges between countries are being conducted briskly on an international scale. Today, when every country and nation is carving out its own destiny with its own ideology, system and culture, there can never be a political, economic, ideological and cultural “integration” of the world. The manoeuvres of the US imperialists for “globalization” and “integration” are aimed at turning the world into what they call a “free” and “democratic” world styled after the United States, and thus bringing all countries and nations under their domination and subordination. The present era is one of independence. Human history is propelled by the struggle of the masses of the people for independence, not by the dominationist ambition and aggressive policy of the imperialists. The manoeuvres of the imperialists for “globalization” and “integration” are doomed to failure, as they are opposed by the vigorous efforts of the world’s peoples aspiring after independence.

We should resolutely oppose and reject the manoeuvres of the imperialists for “globalization” and “integration,” and staunchly fight to preserve the excellent characteristics of our nation and safeguard its independence. We frequently emphasize the Korean-nation-first principle so as to preserve the national character and defend the independence of the nation.

ON HAVING A CORRECT UNDERSTANDING OF NATIONALISM
-KIM JONG IL

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"Everyone knows that modern corporate entities love to wrap themselves in the imagery of social justice.

Some might say this is just a generational thing: the Boomers and Millenials both identify with the ideals of social justice movements and civil rights, and corporations go where the money is.

Or perhaps it is, as the biologists say, protective coloration. Google emphasizes its commitment to “Black Girls Code,” for example, to dismiss criticism and discourage litigation for hiring and empowering a mainly male, mainly white or Asian workforce. The sponsors of Aspen Ideas welcome Ta Nehisi Coates to come talk about reparations because it pushes off more uncongenial methods of redistribution of wealth.

Or, maybe this is money going where the power is. Barack Obama was re-elected president in 2012 helped by record non-white turnout, a majority non-white country is more-or-less assured in the next few decades- corporations know what is coming, in political terms as well as economic.

But maybe it is change itself that is welcomed: the blurring of lines of culture, nation, and even biology:

Capitalism always sells dreams. For a long period, those dreams centered around highly-leveraged, single family housing:

So the culture offers new dreams in its stead. An indefinite, urban extended adolescence for the empowered and native born:

And a new people to supplement the old:

As David Harvey says of Marx, “the circulation and accumulation of capital cannot abide limits. When it encounters limits it works assiduously to convert them into barriers that can be transcended or by-passed. This focuses our attention upon those points in the circulation of capital where potential limits, blockages and barriers might arise, since these can produce crises of one sort or another. Capital, Marx insists, is a process of circulation and not a thing. It is fundamentally about putting money into circulation to make more money.”

What college-town "socialists" call 'Neoliberalism' and what would-be reactionaries call 'The Cathedral' are just two signs of the same phenomenon - the restless desire of Capitalism to transcend its limits.

Nation and tradition, family and home are barriers that capital must transcend or bypass, not through a sinister cabal, but through the gradual transformation of culture, the blurring of distinctions, the eradication of the received self and the offer that a new, infinitely malleable self is available for purchase.”

..........................

Wilberg on Wednesday - The Illness Is The Cure pt 22/46

Illness as Pregnancy and
the Life Doctor as Midwife

If we understand illness in the framework of Life Medicine, i.e. as a life process comparable to gestation, then all forms of medical treatment or ‘cure’ are equivalent to an attempt to medically ‘terminate’ or ‘abort’ the new bodily sense of self or ‘body identity‘ that is pregnant in the patient’s dis-ease. Such premature medical termination or abortion of an illness has the immediate ‘side effect’ of preventing the patient from taking time to explore, understand and identify more clearly the new sense of self they are gestating and pregnant with – and to find ways of giving birth to it through a new way of living and relating. Abortive biomedical treatment may and does also frequently ‘miscarry’ in several others ways – not just through other side effects but also through actually intensifying the ‘illness process’ – the process by which a felt dis-ease is ‘somatised’ and as a result may take the form of ever more chronic or acute medical symptoms and diseases. Finally, even if a disease or its symptoms are cured – whether through conventional medicine, alternative medicine or ‘spiritual’ healing – if the underlying dis-ease behind it is not explored, the result may well be that the patient simply gives expression to this dis-ease through other symptoms or another disease – one that may be worse or more serious than the one supposedly ‘cured’.

The ‘health process’ is a process of giving ourselves time to feel ourselves more deeply into a felt dis-ease with the aim of sensing it as an expression of a different bodily sense of self – rather than simply seeking to counteract or cure, suppress or exorcise its symptoms. Since so few people are able to approach any felt sense of dis-ease in this way however – through ‘the health process’ – this dis-ease may need to take the form of ever more acute or chronic disease symptoms for them to begin to do so. The illness process therefore, can also provide a spur for the health process. Yet if, through the illness process, an individual’s dis-ease has already reached the point of transforming itself into a serious biological disease, then some form of biomedical intervention may be unavoidable, if only to alleviate its symptoms.

This is precisely the point at which Life Doctoring becomes so vital and relevant – even if conducted in parallel with medical doctoring. For only Life Doctoring can ensure a true ‘healing process’ is set into train. Here the role of the Life Doctor is to serve as midwife for the patient – helping them to give birth to changes in their sense of self or body identity and not just their body, and to changes in their life as a whole and not just their bodily life.

Life Doctoring sessions serve to support this healing and birthing process by offering times and ways for the patient to step back from purely biomedical diagnoses, prognoses and treatments of their illness and by helping them both feel into and come to understand the deeper meaning and purpose of their illness – thus restoring the health process in place of the illness process. The Life Doctor can also play a vital role in helping the patient to consider more carefully and if necessary reject potentially dangerous or high-risk forms of diagnostic testing, treatment or surgery. For the danger is that these may either miscarry, worsen the patient’s symptoms or hasten the progression of their disease – and in any one of these ways result in their premature death. On the other hand, even if medical treatments for serious or terminal diseases are ‘successful’ in purely biomedical terms, they may massively reduce the patient’s quality of life – merely to extend that life for what is often only a very minimal period.

Round up 11.12.18: London Unit, Poetry & Human Rights, Twitter ban, Theresa May = Lady Haw Haw, and more

LONDON UNIT

The SMPBI is pleased to confirm that Comrades in London are building an active unit for the current capital.  Anyone who wishes to get involved should email the party at the main contact address - jointhesmpbi@gmail.com.  Activists in the Home Counties are urged to help out the London Unit as it gets established.

Party Artist

We would like to welcome on board Sean Cundy, who is taking up the role of SMPBI Art Director.  He will be adding to the skills of our other artistic Comrades, and bringing in his own distinct style which will be utilised in making very visually impressive propaganda.  For those who are not aware of Sean's work, have a look at his website:
https://www.seanrcundy.com/


Poetry and Human Rights

Yesterday evening, SMPBI Culture Officer, David Parry, held a very successful event at Fitzroy House, London. 

Actresses Gerry Skeens and Julia Munrow at our "Poetry and Human Rights" event...

Actor and poet Valentine R. Hripko at our "Poetry and Human Rights" event...

The event was hosted by Sarah from Fitzroy House, who put on free food as well as providing the venue.  This was a very successful event, putting focus upon the very important issue of Human Rights, looking into the subject through the medium of Poetry.

Banned from Twitter for stating FACTS

Our Twitter account was temporarily suspended by the biology denial bigots of Twitter, for stating the undeniable fact that an individual born with ovaries is female, and an individual who can at any time in his life produce sperm, is male. The identity politics obsessives will use all manner of pseudo-scientific gymnastics to justify an ideology which is effectively the enshrinement of paedophilia and a cross-dressing fetish as a virtue.  The SMPBI stands up for sanity, nature, and the protection of children.  We will not bow to transfascism and to the identity cult which push the nonsense that 'feelings' matter more than biology.  This puts us at odds with the liberal extremists who dominate social media, and this is something to take pleasure from.

Tellingly, although our account was put on a ban, the mentally ill men who made threats of violence against the party, were not sanctioned.  The sooner the diseased liberal society is replaced by the wholesome healthy Socialist Motherland we crave, the better.

Message to May: just go
Source: http://www.cpbml.org.uk/news/message-may-just-go

There’s only one way of making sense of Theresa May’s bizarre behaviour: she is doing her utmost to block the only real Brexit – no deal, just walk away. Delay, delay, until lack of preparedness twists the arms of her timid MPs.

She had to postpone the vote on her agreement with Brussels. She was going to lose by a large margin, pinned between a revolt from her own side with MPs under huge pressure from their constituencies, and a Labour Party under similar pressure but bent only on manoeuvring its way into power.

There’s an elephant in the parliamentary chamber: the 17.4 million who voted to leave, and who won’t go away.

If she’s allowed to remain in office, May’s next move will be to revoke or postpone Article 50. Given the European Court of Justice ruling yesterday (Monday), that’s clearly the tactic. With no effective deadline there will be no leaving, just interminable pretend negotiations. Nothing will progress while she is prime minister.

Under her deal, the EU would keep our cash and control of our laws, trade, borders and waters – and, backstop or not, even of our defence. This is the deal that the EU has always wanted, a deal that seals us back into the EU, paying it however much it wants, with no rebate. A deal under which we would have no say, no vote, no control.

And, so far, only two Cabinet ministers have resigned since the publication of the deal. Such are the political depths to which government in Britain has sunk. So low is the public’s expectation of politicians that no one is surprised. It’s hard to imagine a further decline in standards. But just wait: it will surely come.

Now May is off to Brussels again, arms raised up in mock supplication. She should stay there, and leave the job of implementing Brexit to someone who believes in it.

And then the machinery of government at national and local levels must break out of May-induced paralysis and get down to planning, as some have already done.

Above all, the people must stand up loudly and defend Brexit. They must enforce their will.

The Forum
(Link to the Forum: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/smpbiforum/index.php)

The Forum is steadily building up.  There is still an issue with SMPBI members not taking a moment to register.  To be fair - and you will know who this refers to! - we have members who are not computer literate, members who do not like social media, and members who have a very hectic work/family life.  If you are able to join the forum, please do so.  If you are not comfortable with the idea of joining the forum or cannot for any reason, please think of ways you would like to contribute (ideally in real world activities) and we can arrange something which is more to your liking.

The technical difficulties of posts going to approval, have been fixed.  You can now post at will.  The forum is home now to a a mixture of SMPBI members and Socialists/Communists who are not members but are of a similar mind.  The old Socialist Phalanx pretty much died. Our forum can be a new home to decent Comrades who are awake to the lies of Trotskyism and who reject the bourgeois impostor which has become a thorn in the side of the anti-globalist Socialist movement.

Recommended Reading

Georges Sorel – Reflections on Violence

Georges Sorel - Social Foundations of Contemporary Economics

Georges Sorel - Illusions of Progress

Georges Sorel - From Georges Sorel

Hegel – Elements of the Philosophy of Right

Hegel - Lectures on the Philosophy of History

Marx – Das Kapital

Marx - On the Jewish Question

Marx- Notes on James Mill

Marx - Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Marx- Theories of Surplus Value

Marx - Value, Price and Profit

Marx - Grundrisse

Marx- A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

Alexander Dugin – The Fourth Political Theory

Alexander Dugin – The Rise of the Fourth Political Theory: Vol.II

Alexander Dugin - Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning

Alexander Dugin - Last War of the World-Island: The Geopolitics of Contemporary Russia

Alexander Dugin - Eurasian Mission: An Introduction to Neo-Eurasianism

Alexander Dugin - Ethnos and Society

Roberto Fiore & Gabriele Adinolfi - Noi terza posizione

Ernst Niekisch - Der Weg der deutschen Arbeiterschaft zum Staat

Ernst Niekisch - Politik und Idee

Fritz Wolffheim - First Address to the German Proletariat

Fritz Wolffheim – Factory Organisations? Or Trade Unions?

Heinrich Laufenberg - Zwischen der ersten und zweiten
Revolution

D. S. Mirsky - A History of Russian Literature: From Its Beginnings to 1900

Alceste De Ambris - Il Dannunzianesimo dopo Fiume

Sergio Panunzio - Stato nazionale e sindacati

Sergio Panunzio - La Persistenza del Diritto (Discutendo di Sindacalismo e di Anarchismo)

David D. Roberts - The Syndicalist Tradition and Italian Fascism

Robert Michels - Syndicalisme & socialisme en Allemagne

Robert Michels- Sozialismus und Faschismus in Italien

Timothy S. Brown - Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists Between Authenticity and Performance

Eduard Limonov - My Political Biography

Lyndon Larouche - Basic Economics for Conservative
Democrats

Lyndon Larouche - Dialectical Economics An Introduction to Marxist Political Economy

Lyndon Larouche -The Rothschilds, from Pitt to Rockefeller

Thomas D. Grant - Stormtroopers and Crisis in the Nazi
Movement: Activism, Ideology and Dissolution

Douglas Reed – Nemesis?: The Story of Otto Strasser

Otto Strasser – My Struggle

Otto Strasser – Hitler and I

Otto Strasser - Germany Tommorrow

Francis Parker Yockey – Imperium

David Brandenberger - National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass
Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity 1931-1956

Vilfredo Pareto – Sociological Writings

Vilfredo Pareto - The Rise and Fall of Elites: Application of Theoretical Sociology

Werner Sombart – The Jews and Modern Capitalism

Mikhail Agursky - The Third Rome: National Bolshevism In The USSR

Alec Nove - The Economics of Feasible Socialism

Alec Nove – An Economic History of the USSR

Theodor Fritsch – The Sins of High Finance

Andrzej Walicki - Stanislaw Brzozowski and the Polish
Beginnings of 'Western Marxism'

Nikolay Chernyshevsky – What is to Be Done

Oswald Spengler – Prussianism and Socialism

Julius Evola – Metaphysics of War

Ernst Junger – The Worker: Dominion and Form

Ernst Junger - Storm of Steel

René de Chambrun - Pierre Laval, Traitor or Patriot?

Émile Janvion - Du syndicat de fonctionnaires

Thomas Carlyle – Selected Writings

Michel Aflaq - On the Way of Resurrection

Zeev Sternhell - Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France

Peter Dodge - Beyond Marxism: The Faith and Works of Hendrik de Man

Gilbert Allardyce - "The Political Transitions of Jacques Doriot." Journal of Contemporary History. 1

Michael B. Loughlin - "Gustave Hervé's Transition from Socialism to National Socialism: Another Example of French Fascism?". Journal of Contemporary History. 36 (1): 5–39.

Hubert Lagardelle - The Agrarian Question and Socialism

Georges Valois - L'Homme contre l'argent

Ramiro Ledesma Ramos - Escritos filosóficos

Keith Preston – El Salvador: A War by Proxy

Keith Preston - The Tyranny of the Politically Correct: Totalitarianism in the Postmodern Age

Troy Southgate – Tradition and Revolution

Norman Finkelstein – The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on
the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering

Norman Finkelstein - Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Norman Finkelstein - Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-semitism and the Abuse of History

Kevin Macdonald – The Culture of Critique

Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera - Selected Writings

Richard Wolin – The Politics of Being: The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger

Gottfried Feder - Manifesto on Breaking the Shackles of Interest

Kerry Bolton – Peron and Peronism

Kerry Bolton - Stalin: The Enduring Legacy

Kerry Bolton - The Banking Swindle: Money Creation and the State

Kerry Bolton - Russia and the Fight Against Globalisation

Thomas Piketty – Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Carl Schmitt – Dictatorship

Carl Schmitt – The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy

Alain de Benoist - On the Brink of the Abyss: The Imminent Bankruptcy of the Financial System

Alain de Benoist – The Problem of Democracy

Giovanni Gentile - The Philosophy of Marx

Giovanni Gentile - Hegelian Controversy

Giovanni Gentile - Marxism of Benedict Croce

Mao Zedong - Collected Sayings (Little Red Book)

Ho Chi Minh - Selected Writings 1920-1969

Leszek Kołakowski - Main Currents of Marxism

Dermot Hudson - In Defence of Juche Korea

Muammar al-Gaddafi - The Green Book

Enver Hoxha - The Artful Albanian: The Memoirs Of Enver Hoxha

Yanis Varoufakis - The Global Minotaur

Yanis Varoufakis - Modern Political Economics

Stanisław Brzozowski - Legenda Młodej Polski. Studia o strukturze duszy kulturalnej ("The Legend of Young Poland. Studies on the Structure of the Cultural Spirit")

Stephen Velychenko - Painting Imperialism and Nationalism Red: The Ukrainian Marxist Critique of Russian Communist Rule in Ukraine, 1918-1925

Kim Il Sung - For the Independent, Peaceful Reunification of the Country

Alexandre A. Bennigsen - Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World

Katherine Verdery - National Ideology Under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceausescu's Romania

Troy Southgate - Le Salon: Journal du Cercle de la Rose Noire, Volumes 1 & 2

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon - Property Is Theft!: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Reader

Charles Fourier - The Theory of the Four Movements

Robert Owen - A New View of Society and Other Writings

Fidel Castro - My Life

Sadaam Hussein - On Democracy

Kees Boterbloem - The Life and Times of Andrei Zhdanov, 1896-1948

David P. Chandler - Brother Number One, a Political Biography of Pol Pot

Martin Heidegger - Black Notebooks

Martin Heidegger - Being And Time

Antonio Gramsci - Prison Notebooks

Maxim Gorky - The Mother

Mikhail Sholokhov - And Quiet Flows the Don

Jens Schöne - The GDR: A History of the Arbeiter- und Bauernstaat

Klaus Morgenstern - DDR In Color

Frederic Chaubin - Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed

Nikolai Ostrovsky - How the Steel Was Tempered

Erich Honecker - Cross Examined

Eric Hobsbawm - Revolutionaries

EP Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class

Christopher Hill - The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution

Malcolm X - The Autobiography of Malcolm X

M.K. Gandhi - An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth

Costas Lapavitsas - Profiting without Producing: How Finance Exploits Us All

Costas Lapavitsas - Marxist Monetary Theory Collected Papers

Karl Polanyi - The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time

John Reed - Ten Days That Shook the World

Giambattista Vico - New Science: Principles of the New Science Concerning the Common Nature of Nations

Alison Weir - Against Our Better Judgment: The hidden history of how the United States was used to create Israel

Johann Gottlieb Fichte - Addresses to the German Nation

Slavoj Žižek - Trouble in Paradise: From the End of History to the End of Capitalism

Slavoj Žižek - Violence

Ilan Pappe - The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Grover Furr - Khrushchev Lied

Stephen Mitford Goodson - A History of Central Banking & The Enslavement of Mankind

Stephen Mitford Goodson - Inside the South African Reserve Bank: Its Origins and Secrets Exposed

M. N. Roy - Selected Works

Tan Malaka - Naar de 'Republiek Indonesia

Guillaume Faye - A Global Coup

Hugo Chavez and Simon Bolivar - Hugo Chávez presents Simon Bolivar: The Bolivarian Revolution (Revolutions Series)

Hugo Chavez - My First Life

John J Mearsheimer - The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy

Harry E. Vanden - National Marxism in Latin America

Jose Carlos Mariategui & Harry E. Vanden (Translator) - Jose Carlos Mariategui: An Anthology

José Carlos Mariátegui - Seven Essays of Interpretation of Peruvian Reality

Louis Auguste Blanqui - Blanqui Reader (Verso edition)

Moses Hess - The Holy History of Mankind and Other Writings

Ernesto Che Guevara - Guerrilla Warfare

Virtue and Terror - Maximillian Robespierre

J.R. Jennings - Georges Sorel: The Character and Development of his Thought

Richard D Humphrey - Georges Sorel: Prophet Without Honor- A Study in Anti-Intellectualism

David Ohana - Georges Sorel and the Rise of Political Myth: Nihilist Order v. II

Michael Curtis - Three Against the Third Republic: Sorel, Barres and Maurras

Julian L. Laychuk - Ilya Ehrenburg: An Idealist in an Age of Realism

Joshua Rubenstein - Tangled Loyalties: The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg

Anatol Goldberg - Ilya Ehrenburg: Writing, Politics and the Art of Survival

Anatol Goldberg - Ilya Ehrenburg: Revolutionary- Novelist- Poet- War Correspondent- Propagandist: The Extraordinary Epic of a Russian Survivor

Ilya Ehernburg - First Years Of Revolution 1918-21 Vol Two Of "Men, Years - Life"

Vladimir Lenin - State and Revolution

Vladimir Lenin - The Right of Nations to Self-Determination

J.V. Stalin - Trotskyism or Leninism?

Erik Van Ree - The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin: A Study in 20th Century Revolutionary

Karl Otto Paetel - National-bolschewismus und nationalrevolutionäre Bewegungen in Deutschland

Jean-François Thiriart - The Great Nation: Unitarian Europe - From Brest to Bucharest

Allen Douglas - From Fascism to Libertarian Communism: George Valois Against the Third Republic