The fact remains that the lever and the wheel are perhaps the greatest energy efficient inventions in the history of our species. “Communist human” seems to me a concept needed to replace the old concept of “socialist man,” although I have no opposition to how this “communist human” is sloganeered or articulated. “Socialist man” of the past century was said to be distinguished by his class consciousness and selflessness in the process of labor. The bourgeois critics decried that “socialist man” was a lifeless instrument of the state without individuality or the creative spirit, while reserving creativity and spirit to those with money and the power of capital. Above all “socialist man” was of course “man,” in as much as men occupied the industrial, intellectual and military fronts, but more than that, this man was industrial and imbued with the mechanical logic of the industrial epoch. Consequently, this socialist man love of the earth was a love - conscious, shaped and bound by the industrial epoch as it emerged upon a culture and the thought systems of medieval metaphysics of properties. This history of process logic is called into question. Communist human must freed from such logic and closely examine the complex that is ones environment. I am reminded of some words from Che’s “Socialism and Man in Cuba,” that I read in youth. “Our task is to prevent the current generation, torn asunder by its conflicts, from becoming perverted and from perverting new generations. We must not create either docile servants of official thought, or “scholarship students” who live at the expense of the state — practicing freedom in quotation marks. Revolutionaries will come who will sing the song of the new man and woman in the true voice of the people. This is a process that takes time.” Our current generation in America, has by design, been deprived of basic education and a fundamental sense of earth and species being. This generation has been deprived of a historical sense of process logic and even the mechanical logic of the industrial epoch, which can be acquired on the basis of the laboring process. This generation is perverted in a way where its individual rights and assumptions are running into the most basic laws of our species metabolic processes. Obesity is the face of the last and final stage of bourgeois rule. Universal over consumption and wrong eating in the imperial centers is mirrored in under consumption, wrong and no eating outside the imperial centers. This under consumption, wrong eating and no eating does not mean the simply the lack of things, but the lack of nutrient. The human body does not convert milk and meat stuff into nutrient for very sound scientific reasons, or rather the primary and only meaningful sources of human nutrient on earth springs from vegetation and fruits, sunlight and clean air - nitrates. Communism in America has never tackled this issue of universal over consumption (not overproduction or overcapacity of industry) and wrong consumption as a metabolic process defining the species behavior and the specific behavior of our own working class, as it becomes spontaneously driven to combat this destructive culture. It is not just the bourgeois driven concept of the consumer culture we face but a powerful collusion of history. Then there is Cuba - from a view within America. Cuba has within it some of the most beautiful people - human beings, on earth and their beauty and health stems from their biology and lack of over consumption. Cuba faces the full force of bourgeois ideology and propaganda and is under assault by its own reactionary bourgeois middle class, seeking to be breast fed the milk and meat of world imperialism. Cuba has much the world can learn from and can, if it chooses, market - export the hidden secrets of its beauty and small consumption, while communists in the imperial centers learn how to wage the struggle for beauty. Modern communism is a struggle for beauty in all its dimensions. The communist program of tearing socially necessary means of sustenance out of the market relations is not a dry and static determination of a quantitative magnitude of productive forces. Communism as a political and social idea has been fought out and for at every single stage of the human advance. Today is becoming increasingly clear that obesity is degeneracy and the ultimate human ugliness, although our bourgeoisie has been waging an unrelenting century’s long battle to convince humanity that plump rose colored cheeks and fat - too much body weight, is a sign of health and human vitality. It is of course easy to accuse this writer of advocating poverty and starvation policy for humanity outside the imperial centers, but this is not the case at all. The front of the battle against obesity - the final and deadly stage of bourgeois imperialism, is in the imperial centers. A dispassionate examination of what constitutes human beauty, even with all its variations, means a body with the least amount of obstructions to its harmonious metabolic processes. An utterly new form of the spontaneous movement - the class struggle, has arisen in America and we do not know exactly how to wage this battle for health, beauty and life. We are going to take countless mistakes but must take the first steps. In America - unlike Cuba, the average person carries with them for a lifetime, no less than 15/20 - 50 pounds of undigested dead matter in their body. The implications of this cultural fact are startling and mind boggling. Say, 30 pounds of this always present undigested death matter, requires a daily input of “X” amount of “food stuff” - which is not really the meaning of food, multiplied by 300,000, 000 people. This daily process requires “X” amount of direct water input for the individual - or death results and another “ X” amount of energy resources as configuration of the reproduction infrastructure. A heavy meat and milk diet is impossible to sustain and will lead to rapid death, without massive ritual alcohol consumption, which required reconfiguring our productivity infrastructure and system of reproduction a certain way. Alcohol production, distribution and consumption is one of the cornerstones of bourgeois imperialism long history of New World colonization and resulted in horrible destruction and disfigurement of the earlier peoples of this hemisphere. Here is the inner impulse logic of on what basis the bourgeoisie has configured the energy infrastructure, which is not reducible to just its technological design. I do not know what to call this specific configuration of the food stuff component of the market and in my lack of knowing described this as “the specific character of the market pattern.” I do possess a hazy and rudimentary concept of the grow of early temple cities dependent on developing stores of grain - food stuff, and trade routes for the flow of species - food preservatives, in rough correspondence to the growth of money economy as exchange r elations between the upper and ruling classes. In today’s environment, any society that follows this specific form of consumption, that is “the specific character of the market pattern,” will produce the same or similar results that exist in America and be thrown into conflict with the metabolic process governing our species existence and that of the earth. All the bourgeois capitalist elements in the society, especially amongst the middle classes and section of the military and intelligence agencies with the opportunity to eat from the table of the imperialists will be strengthened. Little by little reports are coming out of China of the slow growth of obesity amongst it middle classes. In addition a similar generalized form of behavior and awareness - spontaneous consciousness, as understanding of species relations, will be spun. Here market relations as a form of spontaneous consciousness or what Marx called the fetishism that attaches itself to commodity production (social relations of production appearing as material relations between things) is not being spoken of. That is to say, the human body is not and cannot be conceptualized as an electromechanical machine, driven by the dumping of “food stuff” into it and “ burning” up this food stuff and then discarding it as waste. Such a view, properly speaking is “the metaphysics of prosperities” or in plain language states that one must drink milk to make milk or one must eat meat to make protein and what is discarded from the human body is a waste with its “energy components” stripped away. The human body cannot assimilate one single molecule that has not been made organic or transmigrated through sunlight, soil and vegetation. The metaphysics of properties or the “science of the change of matter,” as the human organism is the most dangerous and absurd theory and doctrine every imposed on mankind and will in its last instance result in the further decay and destruction of “Western civilization.” This mechanical logic is extended as justification for our configuration of industrial society. The erroneous idea that the cells of the body are used up as the process of life, in their essential substance as protein and must be replaced by high protein food, means that human beings should not even exists, because we are not meat eaters in our species nature and a full 90% of everything we eat in America, did not exist 400 years ago. Most of the food stuff we eat in America is poisonous to the human body and this included all meat, no matter how clean and freed of chemicals, although meat is not the worse thing to eat. The apparent strength one experiences from eating “wholesome food” is the spontaneous metabolic reaction of the body to poison. The spontaneous metabolic process or metabolism is not a conception of the body organism “burning fuel” and “converting matter from one state to another,” but rather, the process of eliminating obstructions from the “ rubber like” elastic body structure and assimilating the organic substance of fruits and vegetables. The “Western bourgeois ” notion of the meaning of metabolism (it is not exclusively western or exclusively bourgeois but a historical ignorance in our long quest for nutrient), must be replaced by the communist notion of efficiency or the science and art of removing obstructions from the path of the body’s and earth’s spontaneous metabolic process. Even the pre-industrial, pre-western conquered societies of this hemisphere could not rise to the level of science, what their life experience of sustenance, more than less trained them to spontaneously understand and live as ritual: eat right and eat little of the earth. Here the issue is not simply exchange within the world market but a new cultural consciousness as the battle for human beauty. Exchange on it own, when detached from what is exchanged, why it is produced in the first place, the environment in which it is produced and how it is produced, does not generate conscious understanding of process or conscience. The practical approach of communists has always been to confront and master the spontaneous movement, in all its diverse forms, that is in front of it. And then to try and disclose the key link or links in a chain of events and grab hold of the key link, in order to pull the entire chain forward. In America the practical communist approach has varied and historically deviated from the world communist movement, at all the various junctures of its evolution. Much is this is because America did not evolve and develop against a feudal backdrop as a political, social and economic environment. Our development is as pure capitalistic as one can get, at least in this hemisphere and probably the world. Most communists in America reflect upon Cuba virtually every waking day. Kuba. Energy conservation and efficiency are important. The more efficient production and distribution of meat and milk, - and everything else, most certainly entails eliminating obstructions and shortening design in production, transportation and distribution. In as much as we in America suffer from over consumption of everything, the question of critically examining everything produced and why it is produced is important. Not just how it is produced - the technological infrastructure, or on what basis the products are distributed - class, but why it is produced in the first place.
The very first thing I am going to do when our reactionary government lifts its embargo against Cuba is purchase its vegetation, fruits and herbal products and regularly visit her to regain a sense of beauty. ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
