Bay Area anarchists leave Marx standing in the dust Part I: redefining "parasite"

Clearly the image of a proud American, nurtured by American writers for so many years, is quite swiftly becoming a fond memory. I mean that American that believed in his/her personal freedoms, including the freedom to disregard the nanny state that ties your hands, enters your life, your kitchen, your bedroom, your brain and offers its ill-earned handouts, instead of letting you go out into the big bad world and work out your own way to feed yourself and your family. So far it looks like in the battle between the libertarian ideals and the state's unprecedented (in American history) growth the latter wins.

One of the reasons the state wins is, in my opinion, the successful encroachment of the Third Left* in the area neglected by the liberal and conservative political streams: education. Leaving many other regrettable results of the encroachment to separate discussions, I would like to focus on one of them: the unshakable sense of entitlement, carried out by an American youth from their places of learning.

Kevin Rose

There is nothing better (education-wise) than to illustrate one's thesis by a funny, albeit totally true, supportive story. So at this point the boring part of the post is practically over. And here is the story. There is an entrepreneur named Kevin Rose, whose illustrious history of entrepreneurship includes one successful venture: Digg; and several comparative failures. Still, the man has clearly an original mind, which brought him to attention of the mighty Google, where he is now a venture partner at Google Ventures. And thus he ended up on the receiving end of the Bay Area anarchists' ire.

It so happens that Google Ventures is held (by the anarchists) responsible for the (undeniable) sharp increase in housing prices in the Bay Area:

As a way of honoring the system that brought them their wealth, Brin and Page created Google Ventures, the venture capital wing of the corporation. The employees of Google Ventures select startups and existing companies to either fund or acquire. Many of these investments are located in the Bay Area and the employees of these newly funded or acquired startups have moved to San Francisco and parts of Oakland.

And thus:

Venture capitalists enable these tech-workers by funding their startups. With the success of each startup, more and more ambitious tech-workers flock to the city and displace underemployed service workers to the cities at the far reaches of the BART line. These workers must then commute back to San Francisco or Oakland every morning, in most cases to perform menial tasks for the entitled scum who drove them out in the first place.

So, the positioning of the good vs bad is clear: "underemployed service workers" (not clearly defined) vs the "entitled scum" who are defined precisely: the "tech-workers" employed by the start-ups. And, since Kevin Rose himself chose the neighborhood for his home, his presence close to the battlefield, so to say, his house is being picketed now:

The demo at Rose's place

Leaving aside the issue of Kevin Rose's "ballz" (you can read the linked article about it, suffice to say that Mr Rose is not necessarily an angel), his designation as a parasite should raise an eyebrow or two. Whatever he is, his life story doesn't look as that of a parasite... but this is not very important.

Of course, the anarchists, never being ones for fine nuance, made the disposition of forces on the battlefield to look as simple as possible, leaving out the housing market, the owners, the lack of rent protection, the indifference of the local elected authorities etc. Why bother, when there is a Kevin Rose close at hand to blame:

We are here today because a few of the thousands low-paid, underemployed service workers got fed up with Kevin Rose treating them like the shit one scrapes from their boot, not even worthy of eye contact or the basic pleasantries generally taken for granted in our culture.

Simple and straightforward: Kevin Rose as evil personified. Do you dig it, comrade? Sure do, bro...

And then the authors of the whole brew come up with a smashing statement - a single sentence that (almost, but not quite) takes the cake, at least in this story:

Unfortunate people like Kevin Rose have never known a world without capitalism and in their ignorance they only know how to fortify it.

Yep. Poor Mr Rose. I bet the fairly fashionably dressed ladies from that picket know a lot about living in the "world without capitalism", whatever it means for them. Probably could tell me a lot I don't know. Or simply don't grok.

And then the screed continues into painfully familiar:

Everything they do helps to extend the suicidal reign of this world system that renders all life into a commodity and replaces real life with digital distractions that lead people into narcosis, gluttony, and sociopathic greed. Kevin Rose and his employers at Google represent one part of a larger structure that keeps people enslaved to this single economic system that is literally killing the planet and decreasing the chances of continued life.

And more, much more of the same Third Left drivel. Yes, do yourself a favor: go buy and read that book by Barry Rubin (see the end of this post).

Well, you have seen the build-up to the end of the old era, the suicidal rein of greedy and unbridled "tech entrepreneurship" that enslaves, narcotizes, kills the planet and the life. But our friends The Counterforce (this is how the call themselves, at least in that article) have a fantastic plan for the new era, that of the shining future, where all will be well, no worries whatsoever. This will be disclosed in the second post on the subject.

(*) The Third Left is a term coined by the late prof Barry Rubin to designate the wildly successful new wave of leftist practice that culminated (so far) in election of Barak Obama. Read more in his book Silent Revolution: How the Left Rose to Political Power and Cultural Dominance.