THE IRRELEVANCE OF POWER: Frank Seeburger

The Irrelevance of Power

Words are powerful and often have hidden meanings that some do not understand or comprehend at first. Words can often alter the way a person acts, responds or understands the world around him. Political leaders have a way of swaying the public for or against them by using powerful phrases that many understand, have heard before or other phrases that many thinks mean one thing but, it means something else.

This book focuses on language and the way we interpret words related to politics, life, government and freedom. The author defines power in many different contexts and this review will focus on the power of words, the definitions of love related to how we deal with people and finally many definitions of power in different contexts. For example: Fake News: Back from the present President abuse of it for his own personal grandstanding: it is the suggestion that mainland China is somehow to blame for our pandemic right now and the global health crisis and the abdication of all of his own responsibility for how disastrous that crisis is proving to be mainly here in the U.S. His actions and words are both morally and humanly reprehensible.

Let us begin with where politics take place. As the author states does it take place in the state, in the broad sense of some territorial locale presided over by some form of government? That is what we usually take to be where politics happens, happens as most of us relate as the form of such things as elections, campaigns to get elected and actions taken by those who have been elected. Does politics really occur in elections or somewhere else? The author relates that in the general sense of the word it does not occur within the State, nor is accomplished by such means as pertain to the governing of the States. Real politics he states is the building of a true human city as the word suggest, finds it true place and truly takes place outside of the State.

Real of genuine politics is the building of the polis as a place where human beings can live in a community with and for one another. For true politics and for the author as he states for true civilization, the State and its power are completely irrelevant.

Do you believe that politics is really no more than an affair of States and governments, to where real politics- politics in the original or as he says ordinary sense of building the truly human city takes place. Could politics really be utopian which means it takes place is nowhere at all, at least no place in relation to the places where we assume or think politics as usual takes place. It is not found on a map of global territories. It is nowhere in relation to what we usually find on map.

In other words he states what passes he relates for politics among us State-chained people, to say we cannot get from where we are not to that no place where genuine politics takes place amounts to denying that we can ever hope to achieve the goal of genuine life together in a true, fully human polis by any program of gradual reform of our current political institutions and conditions. Considering what we are facing and the disparities due to the protests, riots and the lockdowns we have no choice to adhere to, or at least most do, think about why it is unrealistic to think we can reach in the near future the utopia of such a polis by any possible political means.

The manipulation of language is powerful and can change or persuade people to side or not side with an issue or a political view.

The author shares a true account of when he was a police officer and how he wanted to arrest two youngsters for not adhering to the rules on the beach and not wearing shoes. After his discussion and altercation with them and he was going to arrest them, the author apologizes for his actions and what follows his heartwarming. He talks about forced rudeness; how frontline combat veterans sent to the rear with what was once called battle fatigue said symptomatically to display those yards stare. This is related on a trip he and his wife made to Las Vegas. Being in Las Vegas can produce the same emptiness behind the eyes of those who spend their time there, on the frontline of our consumer society, aptly put the Las Vegas Stare.

He describes the same stare in gambling addicts glued to the slot machine, roulette wheel, the dice and other gaming apparatus. Imagine how the homeless feel and the drug addict you can manifest on the LA Strip only during the deadness of early dawn when the streets are less crowded. He then tells about how he and his wife are lured by a helpful guide, promised all sorts of perks if they join them for several events but the primary target is to get them to buy a time share. So, why not get the free breakfast, see the places and in turn the  guide hoped to hook them to buy the time share.

He then defines self-abuse, followed by enforcing consumption.

The Power of the Closed Fist and the love of power: The power that the love of power is the power the states to subjugate, to impose one is will. The love of power is the love of dominance, of control, to one is willing to make into a means for achieving some selfish end. The power that the love of power lives is coercive power, the power of the closed fist.  Defined : coercive power is the power to coerce, to enclose, control, restrain and shut up all together. It is like an imprisoning power. He gives examples that follow related to anyone behind powers and how that power is exercised and the effect it has on the person behind bars. “ The greater coercive power grows, the great the number of those it puts behind bars.” Relate that to what is happening due to the protests and pandemic today.

He next explains and define the power of the open hand: Conductive power. It is the power of capacity which always capacitates whatever it gently touches. This power in love conducts what it touches, what it loves into opening and reaching and fulfilling its own potential, the fullness of its true being. This includes the love of work in the power of love has no desire to possess, to own, dominate and control. It is the love that does not as he states wants profit, nor seeks it. The power of love is love itself, the power of love seeks the wellbeing. This is a power chapter. He goes on to talk about language theft and the enclosure of the commons. Religion and revolution are discussed and then the use and abuse of blindness.

Freedom from confinement is discussed next in relation to an inmate named Kevin Cooper who talks about how he walked down the road called freedom, seeking a thing called freedom in land and country after emancipating him, reenslaved him by another name and misused him in its prison leasing system. This man was convicted of a quadruple murder and then two years later sentenced to death. His right to a fair trial was impugned when the prosecution withheld evidence from the defense that might have exonerated him. Appeals of the verdict and the sentence did not lead to a retrial, any release from being on death row. In his article he relates how it was in prison that he finally found his way to freedom or rather his way ack to the freedom that defines his very humanity. The chapter continues with how his case demonstrates that those who build prisons and then lock people away within them may, altogether irrespective the prison builders may intentions, end up liberating the very person they have imprisoned.

He continues to enlighten us with helping us understand the role of a witness which is to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless on which I am one. The question of authority is discussed in detail in chapter 9 and finally several thoughts on freedom.

This book would be great for group discussions related to each chapter and for book clubs to talk about the many topics that the author shares with readers. The question of authority comes to light at the end. Questioning of authority? Do we have it or not? Everyone he states has that authority. The question is to search, to seek and to put under question is to pen investigation, that is to open being searched. To question something is to open it to being investigated. This section is most relevant because many people tend to take things at face value and never question authority or what other claim or state.

To question is a universal human right. Freedom to me is another special power. But can we truly ever be free? As someone facing death or imprisoned we must be led or forced out of the darkness and into the light and once we do that will we strive or want to return to the darkness so many are used to. Will you accept freedom easily? A book that gives us much pause for thought and each person will take something different from what the author is sharing. All that matters and I quote him: When it comes to being happy is being open to the chance of life!

Fran Lewis: Just reviews