excellent segue. not presenting Einstein's Why Socialism? as a critique against Barthlomew. however, some of his comments still resonate: Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong.
btw, David Gergen's (who i like listening too anyway) been stuck on CNN for over an hour saying: "I do think Al Gore is now again in the mix". actually, don't mind listening to that over and over and over again.
Nick - it's a punchy little text (which will of course be ignored by the moonbat fraternity because to reply to it would require a degree of clarity and realism).
Not sure about this bit though: "A society that widely regards capitalism as bad will, in due course, destroy it." It's far too dramatic. The worst case scenario is that capitalism is stifled and inefficient. Just how do you go about 'destroying' capitalism?
sd - broadly agree, but in part it depends what 'destroy capitalism' means. Of course, if black-markets etc are included, probably even North Korea has been unable to 'destroy' domestic capitalism entirely, but it hardly serves as a model of loving preservation either.
northanger - "Al Gore is now again in the mix" - Nooooooo!!
imho, Barthlomew dehistoricizes capitalism. why such a rosy revision? ok, capitalism is a good thing. let's teach that to our children, make sure we don't kill the goose that keeps laying those golden eggs.
you can turn anything into a religion. what's the problem with religion? monotheism. another hegemony.
nick. hehe. i've got this playing quietly in the background. remember, it's:
I do think Al Gore is now again in the mix . I do think Al Gore is now again in the mix . I do think Al Gore is now again in the mix . I do think Al Gore is now again in the mix . I do think Al Gore is now again in the mix . I do think Al Gore is now again in the mix
i should crunch that, shouldn't i?
650 is the area code where i used to live & Oracle corporate headquarters located at Redwood Shores, CA with 650 area code.
AQ 650 (11) = A-FORM AND B-FORM OF THE SODIUM SALT OF DNA (Rosalind Franklin) = HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENT COMBAT UNIT (Half-Life) = I DO THINK AL GORE IS NOW AGAIN IN THE MIX (David Gergen's endless loop on CNN, 24-25-May) = TERMINATOR-STYLE FRANKENSTEINING
Gergen's wikipedia entry:
David Richmond Gergen (born May 9, 1942) was a political consultant and presidential advisor during the Republican administrations of Nixon, Ford, and Reagan. He was also a campaign staffer for George H.W. Bush's 1980 presidential campaign. While remaining a Republican he also served as an advisor to Democratic President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Gergen earned his bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1963 and his law degree from Harvard University in 1967.
As of 2005 he serves as editor-at-large at U.S. News & World Report and a professor of public service and director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School of Government. A native of Durham, North Carolina, David Gergen has also taught at Duke University, where he is now a Trustee. He received an honorary doctorate of law degree from Ball State University in 2005.
In a surprise interview conducted by Alex Jones during the 2004 Republican National Convention, David Gergen openly admitted that he is a member of the select Bohemian Club located in Monte Rio, California. Other notable members include Nixon, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. This interview can be viewed in Jones' movie, Martial Law: 9/11 Rise of the Police State.
http://www.billheidrick.com/work...ks/
hgm4.htm#650
http://essenes.net/gem5.html
AQ 195 = DAVID GERGEN = ALL OSIRIS = BABBLE FACTOR = CUBE OF SPACE = FIVE-BAR GATE (CCRU; Zone 5) = HYPNAGOGIC = IPSISSIMA = KATASONIX = PURLOINED = STARLIGHT = STREPHEIN ("to turn", see strophe) = THE SQUARE = THE WIZARD (Alamantrah) = TRIGGER PAD (Peter-Paul Koch, JavaScript Triggers).
AQ 112 = AL GORE = ENDGAME = PECKER = VESTA = ZODIAC.
to, um, fully appreciate PECKER you'd have to be familiar with that notorious Rolling Stone cover.
hey! my lucky number is 4. ;)
area code for nashville, tn (where AL now lives & where i used to live) = 615.
650 - 615 = 35.
AQ 35 = EL = OB = Z.
35 GRADUATION [5x7=13] :: AHMANITE I (Word Theme): To make headway. To begin a journey or expand ones boundaries by moving on, enrolling or learning lessons. The restless desire to rise above ones present spiritual plateau. To walk away from peaceful rest and enjoyment to again engage in a battle with ones lower self. Dedication to the struggle for excellence and perfection which overrides all lethargy and contentment. One must see clearly the boundary and limits of their abilities and endowments. This entails careful registering of the opinions of the Temple officiators set over ones progression their. If one objectively can perceive their limits in Law and Temple Principle, then and only then can they properly prepare themselves for the next higher strata of the climb up Mount Nebalshon. Ones memory will deceive one as to their success in applying principle, only careful honest record keeping and hearkening to ones guides can give one the objective data one needs to plan their next spiritual foray.
El (??) is a northwest Semitic word and name translated into English as either 'god' or 'God'
OB (Hebrew, "sorcerer") is in magical philosophy one of the three forms of fire, associated with magnetism and electricity on the physical level and with the negative, magnetic form of subtle fire on the etheric level. Some sources link this fire to black magic, necromancy, and death.
Necromancy :: There were three classes of necromancers, "ob," "yidde'oni," and "doresh el ha-metim" (questioner of the dead), the first two usually being mentioned together. While the general meaning of "ob" and "yidde'oni" is clear, their etymology and exact connotation have not yet been determined. "Ob" is said to denote the soothsaying spirit (in this sense as early as Josephus, who lived A.D.37 to 100) or the ghost of the dead. The Septuagint generally translates the Hebrew word as "ventriloquist," deriving the meaning from the tone of voice adopted by the necromancer. Jewish tradition says, "Ob is the python, who speaks from his armpits; yidde'oni is he who speaks with his mouth." According to the Talmud, the yidde'oni used a bone of the animal called "yaddua'" in his mouth, which is made to speak by magic. The "possessor of the ob" stooped while speaking to make it appear as if the spirit spoke from his joints and arms. Two objects are mentioned by means of which the necromancer worked, one being a human skull.
Nick - humans seem to be irrevocably addicted to capitalism, and also seem to suffer from the guilt that comes packaged with addiction. Although the human brain is hard-wired to be pessimistic, and frequently meme-programmed to feel guilty about pleasure and excessive consumption, it is difficult to imagine humans abandoning capitalism's enticements (those evil mobiles, cheap flights and mp3 players), just as it is difficult to imagine people abandoning bronze, iron and farming in the past.
The more consumption there is, the more intellectuals and educators will spew forth guilt-ridden and guilt-inducing text. The guilt factories of academia thrive on consumption, and intellectuals wallow in in their guilt while having absolutely no effect on consumption, so it's difficult to see how capitalism is going to be destroyed (especially as Asia is not so hung up...)
btw, if you're bored:
http://loosavor.org/
Got to get loosavor onto out blogroll obviously (know how to do that?)
4:13 AM 05/25/2006 -- CNN returns.
think that Gergen loop lasted 5+ hours. it was getting sorta eerie.
dailykos on the blogroll!
Jingoistic, but true:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Arti...le.asp?
ID=22620
northanger - [sigh]
Nick - "know how to do that?" nope. think it requires access to system administration.
[sigh]-[humor me]
thoughtless clicking, sloppy scanning and semi-automated copying and pasting
hey, that's me!
Don't flatter yourself!
AQ 417 = AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH = CAPACITORS SEND SIGNALS (NACHIP) = CHRONODISINTEGRATION (Vermomancy) = DISPARATE SEXUALITIES (Logiques des mondes) = ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION (Gayatri Spivak) = EMPIRE OF THE SENSELESS (Kathy Acker) = ENFLESHED COMPLEXITIES = EVALUATE THE STATEMENT (David Sneek, The Weblog) = FEEL FREE TO NOT RESPOND (à gauche) = GEOPOLITICAL SOLIDITY (bmr) = MORE FRUITFUL THEORY (Intelligent Design) = SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION = THE NEXT AEON AFTER THIS = THE PROLETARIAT COGITO (k-punk) = WHITE FEATHER OF THE DOVE (Abuldiz) = YOU KNOW HE'S A PROPHET.
An Inconvenient Truth :: What changed in the US with Hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences and that bitter cup will be offered to us again and again until we exert our moral authority and respond appropriately —Al Gore
nick. ok ok, so sometimes it's not so thoughtless, not so sloppy & not exactly semi-automated — nobody's perfect.
Inconvenient Truths Indeed:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article....aspx?
id=052406F
AQ 886 = A FEELING THAT WE HAVE ENTERED A PERIOD OF CONSEQUENCES
Hebrew 886; see 326 :: OVRYM (asses)
886 INITIATE [2x443p]
887 INEXHAUSTIBLE [PRIME]
888 HOLOCAUST [12x74,24x37p] — AHMANITE III(# Multiples): The midpoint between Thoth at #886 and Osiris at #890. Thoth-Osiris or Yeheshuah as a deity of truth and also redemption from the dead. The Law of Life and Rebirth wherein a Messianic HOLOCAUST can cover over the sins and raise and return souls up to a SUPERLUNARY level above normal humanity. To cover and protect from karmic justice (#30).(See #168 = 360 Dial)
889 REFRACT [7x127p]
890 OSIRIS [10x89p]
spaceweather.com :: SOMETHING COMING? If you have a solar telescope, keep an eye on the Sun's eastern edge. Holographic images of the Sun's farside dated May 18th-20th revealed a moderately large sunspot due to appear seven days hence—that is, May 25th-27th. If the spot still exists (sunspots can dissolve in less than seven days) the Sun's rotation will turn it toward Earth this week.
Place your bets, Gore vs the Sun:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/.../
ixnewstop.html
>> Inconvenient Truths Indeed:
wikipedia :: Roger Revelle (March 7, 1909 – July 15, 1991) was a scientist and scholar who was instrumental in the formative years of the University of California, San Diego and was one of the first scientists to study global warming and the movement of earth's tectonic plates. The six-foot-four Revelle was often referred to as a "scientific giant," both literally and figuratively. UC San Diego's first college was named Roger Revelle College in his honor. Roger Randall Dougan Revelle was born in Seattle to William Roger Revelle and Ella Dougan, and grew up in southern California, graduating from Pomona College in 1929 and earning a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of California, Berkeley. Much of his early work in oceanography took place at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, and he was that institution's director from 1950 to 1964.
heyheyhey ... i live in Pomona.
"The research adds weight to the views of David Bellamy, the conservationist. 'Global warming - at least the modern nightmare version - is a myth,' he said. 'I am sure of it and so are a growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world's politicians and policy-makers are not.
Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide - the principal so-called greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up. They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock.'"
Siegfried Frederick Singer (see pdf at Inconvenient Truths Indeed)
No Snows on Kilimanjaro & Lonnie Thompson
"Kilimanjaro Ice Core Records: Evidence of Holocene Climate Change in Tropical Africa" (PDF), Lonnie G. Thompson (PI), etc.. Science 18 October 2002: Vol. 298. no. 5593, pp. 589 - 593 DOI: 10.1126/science.1073198
The disappearance of Kilimanjaro’s ice fields, expected between 2015 and 2020, will be unprecedented for the Holocene. This will be even more remarkable given that the NIF [Northern Ice Field; the largest of the ice bodies] persisted through a severe ~300-year drought that so disrupted the course of human endeavors that it is detectable from the historical and archaeological records throughout many areas of the world. A comparison of the chemical and physical properties preserved in the NIF with those in the watersaturated, rapidly shrinking FWG [Furtwa¨ngler Glacier], coupled with the lack of melt features in the NIF and SIF [Southern Ice Field] cores, confirms that conditions similar to those of today have not existed in the past 11 millennia. The loss of Kilimanjaro’s permanent ice fields will have both climatological and hydrological implications for local populations, who depend on the water generated from the ice fields during the dry seasons and monsoon failures.
Thompson dismisses skeptics who contend that the current warming trend is due to a natural cycle. "Name one who has ever really studied climate or collected data," he says. "I bet you can't." Glaciers, he adds, "have no political agenda. They don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican. Science is about what is, not what we believe or hope. And it shows that global warming is wiping out invaluable geological archives right before our eyes."
Well, I hope we're not too messianic
Or a trifle too satanic
We love to play the blues
Power outage snarls Washington, New York trains (& CNN tv signal still keeps breaking up since 4:13am) :: The outage happened about 8 a.m. along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor line, affecting trains from Washington all the way to New York's Queens borough. Mike Kenny of West Windsor has been commuting to Manhattan for 30 years and said the outage was "shaping up as one of the worst ever."
"Glaciers, he adds, 'have no political agenda.'" - Unlike climate panic lobbies feeding off public ignorance and hysteria.
i agree. folks should inform themselves about the real issues & avoid all this junk science. where should they go? how about the Cooler Heads Coalition Global Warming Politics Updates? seems like a good place to start. it's published by Competitive Enterprise Institute in conjunction with the National Consumer Coalition. NCC coordinated by Fran Smith, currently an Adjunct Fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
CEI calls itself "a non-profit, non-partisan research and advocacy institute dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government." The Boston Globe has called it "one of Washington's feistiest think tanks." CEI's commentaries frequently appear in media venues such as ABC's 20/20, American Spectator, Christian Science Monitor, Consumers' Research, Crossfire, Forbes, Good Morning America, Larry King Live, MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, Moneyline, New York Times, Policy Review, PBS, Reader's Digest, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Washington Times. It postures as an advocate of "sound science" in the development of public policy. In fact, it is an ideologically-driven, well-funded front for corporations opposed to safety and environmental regulations that affect the way they do business. (PR Watch)
that should calm the hysteria.
mediatransparency.org :: To make a long story short, what I discovered was an interconnected web of conservative organizations spanning the gamut from academia to law to publishing to politics, all being funded and coordinated by a relatively small but wealthy group of philanthropies, chief among them the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Though the Center has only received about $310,000 directly from the philanthropies, nearly every one of its speakers and presenters is in some way connected to or funded by this movement.
Hotter Than You Think, or the dog ate my ozone layer
The Vision for Space Exploration: New Opportunities - A Speech by NASA ARC Director Simon P. Worden :: Let me close my discussion of future possibilities with a rather encompassing idea. Global warming is a big deal as I'm sure you all know. Damage caused by global warming could run into tens of trillions of dollars over the next half century. Most solutions for this purported global warming - and again, this is an open scientific issue as to how much global warming there is and what causes it. Most of the solutions proposed fall into either what I call the "grow strawberries in the backyard" School - or alternatively, the "return to nature" school or alternatively the complete restructure of the economy to use alternate fuels and so forth. Now, I think there is a third way on this.
Forecast for 2050: cloudy :: "It is already clear that the lifetime of large ground-based telescopes is finite and is set by global warming," Professor Gilmore, from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, told reporters recently in London. "There are two factors. Climate change is increasing the amount of cloud cover globally. The second factor is cheap air travel. "You get these contrails from the jets. The rate at which they're expanding in terms of their fractional cover of the stratosphere is so large that if predictions are right, in 40 years it won't be worth having telescopes on Earth anymore - it's that soon.
What to make of this?:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006...news/
taejon.php
nick. a wacky (& maybe psychological) display of capitalism.
discovering David Gergen on the advisory board of the Leadership Center at Morehouse College is really no big deal. but finding out, today, Kenneth Lay is also on the same advisory board is kinda weird.
Please excuse a brief spasm of copious vomiting:
http://
www.realclearpolitics.com...a_lovefest.html
This spot on from Melanie Phillips:
"... a Big Lie drives all before it. But that doesn’t explain why such a Big Lie has taken the hold it has among the western intelligentsia. This can only be explained, surely, by reference to the fact that this intelligentsia has a long and dishonourable history of telling itself lies and supporting evil movements – indeed, supporting not just communism but fascism, and totalitarian movements of various stripes going back at least to the French Revolution. Far from advancing the progress of the human race, the intelligentsia has played a notable part in endorsing and promoting misery, terror, violence and inhumanity ..."
http://www.melaniephillips.com/d...ves/
001717.html
nick. another fine example of solid reporting.
nick. ditto.
The Israel Lobby
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mea...06/
mear01_.html
How Powerful is it Really?
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3270
the intelligentsia, how powerful is it really?
the intelligentsia's spluttering impotence doesn't make it any less repulsive
... and you're not still banging on about that M&W nonsense, jeez, it's not as if American Jews were 90% squidgy donk liberals or anything
Nick - 'What to make of this?
re-packaging communism is good business. Maybe you've heard of Grutas Park?
http://www.grutoparkas.lt/index-en.htm
http://www.balticsworldwide.com/
...talin_world.htm
Retro-Communist bars are fairly common over here, with great doses of irony.
"Proletaryat
A tongue-in-cheek tribute to the dark days of communism. Sit amid portraits of Stalin and busts of Lenin while staff, wearing Red Army caps, deliver quality local beer to the permanently occupied tables. The only downside: expect an eye-stinging fog of smoke, and a queue stationed outside the only toilet. Music ranges from Guns'n'Roses to stirring Soviet military songs. Amazing place."
http://www.inyourpocket.com/pola...1&
page_index=40
http://www.proletaryat.pl/
nick. guess there is something to be said about keeping an eye on one's inferior enemies. they can & do surprise you.
nick. when did i ever talk about that M&W nonsense? this is the first time i've ever mentioned it before.
nick. come to think on it, you seem to infer i think American Jews are squidgy donks. that primary position is reserved for extremely special cases, and American Jews don't come close to fulfilling those complex requirements. thank you very much [sniff].
nick. seriously. think a lot of us would like to stop worrying about Israel & Palestine so we can deal with the big asian elephant cranking along on its rickety bicycle.
northanger - don't sniff ;)
I take full repsonsibility for saying American Jews are (by-and-large) squidgy donks
sd - yes, there's a Chinese version too, called 'Red Capitalist' (ludicrously overstated conspicuous consumption plus Mao kitsch) - since I've met some fairly ghastly (expat) champagne socialists over here, nausea tends to overwhelm amusement
life's ironies: six days after FBI search Democratic Rep. William Jefferson office at the Rayburn House office complex, one day after Bush directs DOJ to seal all materials recovered from the search: House offices searched after gunfire report
nick. thanks for reminding me. sniffing around your pukefest & wobbly elephants isn't exactly a good idea.
nick. are squidgy donks a class?
"are squidgy donks a class?"
IMHO depends on definition (of 'class' for starters) but it's interesting the way the cigar-chomping plutocracy leans so obviously left.
.. that was confusing (in context) - I'm not meaning to equate American Jews in with the cigar-chomping plutocracy (Soros and a few others excepted), they're generally an altogether different type of squidgy donk ...
The analysis of class is far more complex than the marxoid rhetoricians would have everyone believe of course. Marx attempted to synthesize economic and sociological definitions of class, with results that were superficially elegant but empirically more-or-less useless - given the lack of any discernible trend towards binary social polarization of the kind Marx anticipated (which would have led to a covergence of sociological and economic class categories) not much remains except unstrung political polemic. All sociological indices suggest the 'working class' in the sense that is self-identified and sociologically pertinent is disappearing in direct proportion to the post-industrialization of capital (factory work, private sector trade unionism, etc). Outside the West the 'industrial proletariat' never amounted to much anyway, and certainly never provided the material for any kind of revolution ...
In view of the fact Bellamy endorsed the seercentre some years ago (which received large grant to prove/illustrate/document the Hamaker thesis, very much to do with manmade climate change, the only way possible: by inference from exemplarily measured and modulated microclimaticontrol: first there was a burning sun then there was shadespending tree, then a neoconianan came by and bulldozed it aside looking for oil) the section nick quoted is a mixed message that distracts from a cause he no apparantly no longer champions if not flat out denies. Curious.
nick. i'm slowly reading Vanity Fair's December 2005 issue. in it is Hitchen's Let Them Eat Pork Rinds with him going on about tumbril remarks. imho, Harris' Why Isn't Socialism Dead?, & similar reports about the glories of capitalism, falls into this category. they deny the problems of capitalism, which includes the problem of class in capitalism.
piet. 1989 article by Robert Gilman from IN CONTEXT (Quarterly of Humane Sustainable Culture):
"Having said all this, I also want to say that I respect the scope and ingenuity of Hamaker's theory, and I am well aware that much of the material that now makes this theory look so doubtful was not available when Hamaker first proposed it. As often happens with interesting theories that turn out to be wrong, it has stimulated its adherents to ask valuable questions and to develop useful perspectives: time is short, the coming changes could be massive, and one good way to rapidly increase the CO2-capturing power of vegetation is to improve the health of the soil. Indeed the emotional heart of Hamaker's theory seems to be his program for rebuilding the soil by adding minerals to it in the form of rock dust. It is a good idea, deserving of much more attention than it has gotten so far. Theories are often like a scaffolding - they allow you to build something that you could not have built without them, but the time comes when the new building must stand on its own. My hope is that Hamaker and his followers will now let the urgency of soil remineralization stand on it own. It is as important and as urgent in a warming world as in a cooling one."
northanger - that's sheer Piet but with a kind of intelligibility thing thrown in
On class, don't think I can affirm your conclusion without some definition. What is class? Unequal social outcomes? How exactly is that going to be abolished without going all Pol Pot (I'm serious)? If people are going to be stripped of all liberty to screw up their lives the result will be worse than the most Dickensian capitalist distribution. Or, flipping to the other possibility of leftist adjustment, is there going to be a 100% social fuckup subsidy? Once again, the consequence will be simply unsustainable, a society whose policing powers are entirely devoted to eradicating every imaginable incentive to productive behaviour.
'Class' a major problem with capitalism? I need a helluva lot more convincing.
PS. Unequal societies are actually much more fun than equal ones, as long as there's plenty of social mobility. A full social spectrum keeps people on their toes, incarnates their dreams, gives them options, gives them a sense of achievement if they move forward, adds a sense of locomative dynamism, works better economically and thus adds an ambient commercial buzz, explores social differentiation - poverty is problem, but I really don't see why inequality is.
Hong Kong or Sweden? If that question perplexes you then we lack a certain amount of common ground ;)
nick. very sensibly intelligible, & more edible too.
re: Hong Kong or Sweden?
don't get it. how about defining Class from a programming pov? really put a wedge in that common ground thingy.
"how about defining Class from a programming pov?" ??
I'm not sure at all where you're coming from on this - if (also) from a quasi-marxist context then the first step is a bath in oceanic suspicion.
1) When marxoids say (for e.g.) "we've got to get the whole discussion back to class, that's a topic neoliberal running-dogs of capital can't win" then they're obviously assuming a class template broadly approximating to the bourgoisie/proletarian one defined by Marx: Owners of businesses (and industrial managers) over against workers (industrial labourers). Problem for them:
1a. This was only ever a crude approximation of Western class structures even at the high tide of industrial capitalism. It was always bad sociology, redeemed by its eschatalogical promise of convergence with empirical reality, but in fact it has only drifted off topic more and more embarasssingly (only true believers even bother to 'dispute' that, and they don't dispute anything in my experience, they just chant in unison while covering their eyes).
1b. As capitalism post-industrializes (characterized by retail equity investors and high-skill self-managing workers). It fails at all to comprehend the distinction between ownership and management that revolutionized the structure of companies in the late 19th century (with populist polemics typically lashing out at fat-cat 'bosses' - meaning managers - rather than the genuine 'capitalists' (retail investors, pension funds, etc etc) who employ them as senior 'workers'). Now it is missing a second fundemental revolution in the organization of capitalism, as computers dismantle work-spaces, marketizing and virtualizing the internal structure of 'the corporation' into a web of microcontracts.
1c. Perhaps most importantly, the global 'class' structure of capitalism is nothing like the mid-19th century European model. The three most basic components are peasants, government officials and entrpreneurs (all social catergories radically misunderstood by Marx).
Peasants mix inertia - as reservoirs of social backwardness/tradition (they 'are' all the inefficiencies capitalism sorcerously resolves) - with extraodinary magmic dynamism under positive circumstances. The 10% hypergrowth rates on the periphery are all peasant phenomena as a latent demographic force drastically volatilizes itself in the market-economy, discovering the most powerful mass-libidinization phenomenon in human history: call it 'urbanization' 'social mobility (as a new thing)' or 'the local version of the American Dream'. Peasants are not proletarians - they are traditionally self-managing, they can actually do real revolution (guerrilla warfare), in their volatile phase they dynamize social relations (where proles crystallize an anterior peasant-based dynamism (in Britain 'enclosure')), they're far more bullshit-proofed and difficult to lead, they don't whinge anything like as much, or dream of nirvanoid dissolution into the w
[damn - lost a huge disquisition there]
"w ..." was "welfare megastate" followed by reams on government officials and entrepreneurs, which will have to wait ... But I'm sure you get the gist.
Demystify class - for real, not into marxoid superstition.
File under lying donk bastards.
Gore:
http://
article.nationalreview.co...mFhZDA0ODg4ZjM=
Kerry:
http://
justoneminute.typepad.com...ring_it_on.html
Hillary's looking better every minute, even though she's a communist fanatic.
nick.
>>not sure at all where you're coming from on this
computer programming. we can identify W-GROUP="EMPLOYER" + X-GROUP="EMPLOYEE" + Y-GROUP="CUSTOMER" + Z="INVESTOR", etc. each group may include subgroups. eg, DOGS; MUTT & PUREBREED being the major subgroups.
1) a 10-year-old can probably identify white, blue & pink collar workers & know they belong in the EMPLOYEE group. (can't get much better than that since i haven't read Marx). before we get into 1a., 1b., 1c., &c — why would we need to identify all these groups? taxes, for one thing. if we look at income, instead of looking at what a person does, we can also identify groups by their tax brackets.
my republican friend told me that the primary benefit of american capitalism is the ability to move from EMPLOYEE to EMPLOYER to OWNER. no other country provides the fluidity necessary to support "the pursuit of happiness".
imho, the primary problem is when capitalism becomes politicized AND THERE ARE NO CHECKS OR BALANCES against that political influence.
"imho, the primary problem is when capitalism becomes politicized AND THERE ARE NO CHECKS OR BALANCES against that political influence"
- Another reason to loathe John Fricking Kerry
Although shockingly, depite the increasingly frenzied donk bashing, I basically agree with this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp...6052601595.html
(It would have to be someone tough though (Hillary?))
These guys would be OK I guess:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opin...omment-
opinions
Naomi Klein on disaster capitalism will tell you how iresponsible and shortsighted footprint:demographics ratezios are aggravated by/when the mechaNicon's pounce; they certainly don't destroy nor restore (depanne, entsorg) more squalor than they create
capitalism capitalizes on politics more like
... a worse mistake is to confuse urbanization with reloc(aliz)@ion; I'd like to see you tuck the latter into the former without resorting to hydroponic factory food. Not that I think you're bothered about looking like one of 'm ugly aliens for real soon (all those pushing that diarection prolly feelin thus already).
hey mistel, the clapitalism you oldeled:
http://youwhores.com/oddjobs.html
Test explosion in Nevada put on indefinite hold -- The Divine Straker warhead will be tested under combat conditions, IndianaGreen, May-26-06 07:35 PM, #11. Yeah settin off a fuckin atom bomb close to mid ...
http://
www.democraticunderground...ess=102x2308539 - 82k - 27 May 2006 - Cached - Similar pages
Bad for the midterms? Then the USA has gone more pinko-kumbayah than I'd imagined.
Anyone heard of the Singaporean socio-political essayist Kishore Mahbubani? He's absolutely superb. Just reading his collection 'Can Asians Think?' and finding it hard to intellectually resist a single word.
Interview:
http://dir.salon.com/story/books...ians/
index.html
(Ignore this preliminary howler, which isn't Mahbubani's: "... some experts believe that the size of the economies of Asia will surpass that of the West by 2050. By then ... will be 90 percent of the world's population and Europeans and North Americans will make up only 10 percent.")
Interview a little too diplomatic to really get the message, which is:
a) Put growth first
b) Don't allow an arrogant press corps or utopian human rights activists to destroy things that are working in the name of utopian perfection
c) Communism is a dying joke in the East
d) Political correctness is a cognitive disorder that poses an obstacle to practical problem-solving
e) East Asia already has a lot of useful things to teach the world, without the need for legitimation through tokenistic multiculturalism or victimological projection
>>Divine Straker
"OMG I miss being a deluded optomist."
{cracking up}
Nick -
a) Mahbubani's distinction between human rights organisations and the human rights agendas of national governments is important. In the interview at least, he is positive about the former and supsicious of the latter :"But when human rights campaigns are pushed by national governments, they do so for national interest. This leads to double standards... These double standards hurt."
Human rights is a mess: on the one hand there are the hypocritical double standards and self-interest of national governments (which is damaging to perception of the West), and on the other there are the utopian organisations which don't seem to understand that the optimal package of human rights can only come at a late stage in the evolution of civil society.
b) "tokenistic multiculturalism or victimological projection" - this is worth exploring.
In the inteview, Mahbubani rejects the Western imposed civilisation-conveyor-belt and to be pro-dialogue: "After Sept. 11, I feel that the need for developing cross-cultural understanding has never been greater. There is more than one mental universe out there; it's not just the Western universe..." This suggests that 'multiculturalism' is essential in some form, i.e. as the rise of variety and positive (and maybe more efficient) alternatives (and not as the suicidal-libertarian tolerance for all views, even totalitarians who would annihilate the libertarians...)
sd - on 'multiculturalism' - think this means more than just cosmopolitan openness to other cultures (which is inseparable from civilization IMHO), it means a government sponsored effort to encourage cultural separatism over against hybridization, assimilation, and 'melting pot' convergence, typically supported by a variety of affirmative action programmes, victimological narratives, grievance bureaucracies and fossilization of 'the Other' within an exotic, conservative and resentment-choked mode.
Mahbubani seems to be looking for flat, honest, productive cross-cultural communication, which shares almost nothing with the pathology of multiculturalism as far as I can see - in fact it is almost exactly the opposite
go for a cruxcruise: http://home.iprimus.com.au/
telos...hypothesis.html
Nick - well I'd really appreciate any input on the differences between 'cross-cultural communication' and multiculturalism (so if you have any juicy links...).
btw, I like this bit from Mahbubani:
"The guns have been silent in East Asia for quite a while. That again is no small achievement. This is a result of what I call the tidal wave of common sense that has swept through the region."
...particularly relevant for Traxus4420 and the mistrust of common sense ;)
sd - "I'd really appreciate any input on the differences between 'cross-cultural communication' and multiculturalism"
OK, links will take a while, but the difference is extremely straightforward.
Cross-cultural communication (and hybridization) was what preceded multiculturalism historically, what made the US a polycultural melange taking influences from every continent in the world for e.g.
Multiculturalism, in sharp contrast, is the policy that has led to and entrenches hermetically-sealed ethnic enclaves, preaches that immigrant cultures should be preserved in their most conservative form as if in formaldehyde, raises their most backward and resentful members as 'offical spokespeople [actually men]' and generally destroys the prospects of cross-cultural communication, as with Islamics everywhere multicult reigns or the Mexo-chauvenist irredentists now appearing in the USA. Outside the West the grotesque Malaysian model of State ethnic meddling and affirmative action is an example.
Multiculturalism is a species of PoMo relativism which effectively prohibits communication in theory, by axiomatizing the impossibility of cross-cultural protocols for criticism, evaluation, absorption and - yes - 'common sense'. The principle of multiculturalism is that cultures actually have nothing to learn from each other, because each is an autonomous cognitive universe with its own standards of ethical and rational evaluation. To contest any feature of an alien culture from with is, of course, 'imperialist.'
Mahbubani, in contrast, makes a number of very telling criticisms of Western cultures - alongside other more positive evaluations. According to the tenets of multiculturalism these should be rigorously unintelligible (not that intellectual consistency should be expected from a romanticized projective third-worldism - attracted always to the very worst on offer elsewhere on the planet - designed to intensify Western self-flagellation, break reason, contest the authority of scientific thinking and destroy capitalism)
Nick - thanks [think this topic merits a post of its own...]. So it would be good to trace multiculturalist policies from their intellectual inception (if there was such a thing), to their launch as policies, and the their outcomes. Can multicultural policies be pinned down that precisely? Is the distinction between multiculturalism and cross-cultural communication hard and fast? I'm thinking of the difference between France's and the UK's immigration policies - wass this just a difference of degree, or was there a deeper principle at work?
Cross-cultural communication seems to succeed precisely because it is not an explicit program - there is an invitation and it just happens, the relationship is left to sort itself out.
I guess the other 'problem' bundled up in all this is how different cultures can absorb influences and ideas - assimilate - and yet retain their own 'identity' without resorting to fanatical tribalism. Cross-cultural communication has its dark side too - for example when the transmission is predominantly one-directional or imposed from above (e.g. the Shah's Westernisation program in Iran). There are inferiority complexes and resentment which are not necessarily reducible to the label 'victimhood'.
Cross-cultural communication, being unregulated and out of the hands of government, is Darwinian in nature - yes there will be symbiotic alliances and trading, but the base-level drive comes from a culture's will to replicate itself, or elements of itself, into the future. Communication would be subordinate to that aim, unless communication becomes the defining characteristic of the culture, but even then ... the Oankali always have the upper hand in their trading.
"the Oankali always have the upper hand in their trading"
- I confess to feeling absolutely OK about that (not that there is a human culture worthy of such uncompromized affirmation, although the Sino-English secular hybrid city-state capitalism of HK and Singapore is approaching that status for me).
As far 'darwinism' - definitely important, for at least two reasons.
1) One-way flow is adaptively negative for the communicator, even if its 'memes' get propagated, the culture learns less than it teaches and thus subjects itself to relative decay. Karma of arrogance, I guess.
2) If some arbitrary memetic core is theoretically treated as the 'agent' of the communication, the dynamics are adaptively neutral - 'viral' - rather than intrinsically adaptive. Nobody except exoticist masochists should want to be infected by the random traditions of anybody else, the only desirable stuff is functional technique, including practical solutions to political, social and cultural problems, as well as obvious mathematico/techno/scientific insights. That's why religion is basically just noisy brain-plague to be filtered out - 'screw your idiot faith' (stated as politely as possible of course) - its technonumeracy that's worth having.
On a technical issue, starting a new thread seems a bit random until we get the comments box back. My tendency is just to shore up stuff until then (while ploughing through the gargantuan freelance editing task I've got heaped up at the moment).
Uncomfortable truths from Thomas Sowell:
http://
www.realclearpolitics.com...ral_vision.html
>>On a technical issue, starting a new thread seems a bit random until we get the comments box back. My tendency is just to shore up stuff until then
oh yea, the hyperstitional levees. hope blogs don't have a hurricane season.
piet.
DON'T WORRY
Stop worrying now, whatever the problem is, don't worry - I'll do it for you. Charges are £5 per worry, each additional worry £2.50. Don't worry how I charge such low prices, I'll do that. And don't worry that I won't worry for you, I'll worry about that too along with your original worry.
{cracking up}
Scare your monkey
You got a monkey that needs to be scared? Look no further, 'cause I'm your man! I'll scare any kind of monkey (though no apes, including the naked beach kind, or seamonkeys) for as many times as you want and for as long as you want! I'll scare them crazy, shitless, wierd and/or senseless. I'll scare them back to lemur state or into christians. All this for the cheapo price of 10$ per hour! So go ahead, book your monkey scaring today. What are you waiting for!
>>cross-cultural communication & multiculturalism
Ten Myths That Prevent Collaboration Across Cultures
1. That simply by virtue of membership in a cultural group, a person will be able to deal with others of that population in a culturally competent way. Not true.
2. That a member of a minority community who works in a mainstream agency is able to represent his or her community. Not true.
3. That a single member of "the" minority community can represent the whole. Not true.
4. That an agency should chose a representative from a minority community to represent that community's interests to the agency. Not true.
5. That, because there are so many ethnic communities, it is not feasible, or cost-effective to have working relationships with them. Not true.
6. That the Anglo or dominant culture is the U.S. culture, not simply a culture. Not true.
7. That the key differences in culture are lifestyle, language, foods, and similar visible evidence of diversity, often taught in "diversity appreciation" classes in public schools. Not true.
8. That cultural competence is something we each pick up, with time, by working with persons who are different from ourselves. Not true.
9. That collecting information from a community can be "task-based" rather than "relationship-based." Not True.
10. That written information is more reliable, valid, and substantial than verbal information.
from the intro for above:
Assimilation is actually a false game; at some level we all know this. The real choice is not "assimilation" or "traditional values." We know that we can learn to understand and appreciate the values, expectations, and communication styles of other traditions without giving up our own. We can adjust appropriately and effectively to different values and communication styles if we learn how to first perceive and then adapt to them. Such understanding is called multicultural competence. Virtually all of us lack it.
assimilation is futile?
Down with meritocracy by Michael Young
Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy: A Biologist’s Response
EU Committee Ruling Endorses Tighter Rules on Genetic Trade
Arguelles is rallying forces to tempt extraterrestrials (coming ‘green day’) into ‘signing’ (or and/or something) as they did wave and whatever .. waddle perhaps, wisp, waft and whirl no doubt .. .while Woodstock and Hendrix in Hawaai was ‘taking place’, or so he claims. Look, assimilation is indeed as futile and fabulatory as all holy hell but just as unreal(alized). When colonialists insist on staying rather than organizing an orderly and peaceful repatriation we must continue to endure an onslaught of these cargo cults cause they justify staying put and carrying on with their culture destroying interpryzschinscene stacked styzone. Even Arguelles(’ ES) does not realize he is emitting mixed and mangled messages here.
Don Weaver rawfood and remineralizing brother:
This morning I had an opportunity to revisit the archives and other articles that have been recently posted on the web page here. It is heartening to think that we are picking up the baton of remineralizing the earth from the articles that were written about 10 years ago.
Piet: yeah rite, nearly zip happened in 10 years time.
The need was critical then but is so much more critical now. One article was: "Where Do We Go From Here?"
I want to articulate the energy of being an advocate for the environment and what we are all trying to do through this Forum and web site. I have recently participated and been initiated into the Mankind Project. The web site is: www.mkp.org I was introduced into this by David Yarrow and would like to offer an article about putting it in the context of our becoming "new warriors".
Piet: nah .. .don't worry bout me, too old by now. Besides, you are a little outdated yourself. What is a 'food as medicine' man to do in the 'feed frankenstein' frenzy?
Lakshmi Chaundri criticizes Madison Av:
> The market also has little time for the old-fashioned male virtue of
> self-denial, the imperative to do the "right thing" at the expense of
> pleasure.
Rob Schaap: Well, he may be popular again soon - just a credit crunch away, really
Piet: rockdust as crescendoing credence crunch anybody?
They are doing everything they can to obstruct circulation of the Prophecy. Help us spread the word.
Da Vinci Code traces a lineage family tree for Jesus:
DC 2003: …scholars of that era chronicled Mary Magdalene's days in France, including the birth of Sarah and the subsequent family tree…Christ's line grew quietly under cover in France until making a bold move in the fifth century, when it intermarried with French royal blood and created a lineage known as the Merovingian bloodline…
Rock Prophecy traces a lineage family tree for Jimi:
RP 1999: The Hendrix family tree has roots in Africa and Georgia. Jimi's lineage is also Cherokee and Irish, and Irish/African lore is at the core of blues and Voodoo history. This Afro-Irish cauldron, within an American Cherokee melting pot, constitutes Jimi's classic lineage… encoded with images and rhythms from Afro-Celtic Voodoo.
Koreans develop android (be careful what you wish for out there):
http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=...01020&
sort=date
http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=...01022&
sort=date 'sexaroid' - quoted from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
and yet another wickedwar reader: http://www.zeppotron.com/
unnovat...kissmammal.html (file under Yiuewhores)
sorry all out of whacky wickwar wreathers already
sorry all out of whacky wickwar wreathers already
How to land a crosscountaerial, semi-warwickian warwickedness warningck in yaller lap? . .. . MMmmm, this poorhopes:
Summary: Analyzes Can Xue's brilliant 1983 novel, Yellow Mud Street, as one of the touchstone documents of the East Asian media culture. Themes include late Maoism, the rise of the Chinese developmental state, narratives of mediatization and Americanization, the role of the Hong Kong films and mass media in 1980s China, East Asia's video and cinema culture, and the politics of East Asian consumerism.
Download: Yellow River, Blue Pacific
http://www.efn.org/~dredmond/canxue.html
Redmond dude pissed me off the other day .. . .
Bitch on vegetarianism: "I don't want a list of books to read, I want references to legit sources and quotes."
Dennis Redmond on a section of the stop and go Churchill thread insist on evidence too.
I am frankly tick and sired over this moronic non-visionary and even less pro-visionary evidenzsche of insecurity and lack of intuition. How am I gonna find written evidence of housing cycles that involve 1000 year old pleached trees, huh? Does that mean they never existed and/or will never again and/or anyway. NO!!!!!!
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipe...522/
039095.html Thornton in support of WC
Marshall Shord gets a check for $55,907 for a critical thesis on Thomas Pynchon.
OK northanger, but this is ghastly multiculturalist whinging:
"Immigrant and other cultural groups in the U.S. have been and are forced to play a "game." The game is called "Assimilation." It means giving up your own values and adopting the values of others, as a means to "success" or economic survival. No one enjoys forced or coerced assimilation, by the Borg, the dominant culture, or anyone else. The process is not only uncomfortable, it hurts; it is a violation of another’s identity and inner self."
If people are so injured by the melting pot, how about staying home in the first place?
>>If people are so injured by the melting pot, how about staying home in the first place?
nick. coz you have to get here & experience somebody getting up in your face telling you to stop all that ghastly multiculturalist whinging. seriously, it's as bad as learning english.
shocking to me that this bleeding-heart drivel is being spewed out by the education system in such gargantuan quantities. US kids need telling:
"Toughen up. It's a jungle out there. Now here's how to do calculus ..."
Yeahhghghgh!!!!! Killcall(O)us; you find motivations to start such at the most canonical of canonicals. A way to put a face of decency (approval and protection to soften the bitter removal and projection pill. Peasants were distanced and separated from their flood precipitated sediment sustained embeddiment in a hurry by the man with the coat of many colours; a man who did to others what was done to them, onlhy upscale a bit; the rootroteroute of zionism way back in eyegapped land. Closest to open water talibunnies can get. www.jewdas.org/joseph.htm -
first ever funny spam subject line: All those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand..
Doing Zionism: http://www.wzo.org.il/
doingzioni...rstname=Bernard
I'll take richie havens over de 'brave hendrik' (not) anyday
nick. seriously, have you ever lived in america? can we decode this multicultural dribble?
"Toughen up. It's a jungle out there..."
Inspiring short portrait of Hitchens:
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/11908
northanger - you're not telling me you don't feel even a little nauseated by that "come on now children, let's all feel the other's pain" BS?
nick. yup, it can get nauseating. so can, "Toughen up. It's a jungle out there..."
& that's the whole point with cross-cultural communication & multiculturalism (prolly meritocracies too) - don't assume your shit smells so good or it's the prevailing wisdom. yadda yadda.
yes in fact cross cultural communication sort of requires both parties assume they have something to learn from the other side. I've always been distasteful of multiculti-ism -- basically where everyone gets to be totally chauvinist except without any consequence or effect whatsoever. Feminism and gay rights activism can fall into this trap as well. Hard to call it 'relativist' since there's no actual relating going on, no analysis of the real conditions that produced the different worldviews.
When the protective saran wrap of multiculturalism is lifted, however, the chauvinistic attitude can't continue -- because then it really does become imperialist, or more accurately, political (see U.S. vs. Iran for more details). Communication of any kind is an enormously complex exercise in diplomacy -- you have to multiply that by like a few billion to get an idea of what the difficulty and the stakes are globally. Little wonder the most common approach is to treat the whole thing like the latest version of DOOM (the video game) -- in other words, as if gorilla-like chest beating was still without consequence, or worse, as if said chest beating was a privilege granted by one's position on the power/knowledge scale.
Caveman discourse reconfigured for its eternal return...
(Obviously there is no 'sitting out' on this -- jeering from the right to the tune of 'if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen' is just cheap provocation.)
p.s.
'cross-culturalism' still requires that there be different cultures
Die Ferne - Fernbezug, Fernbeziehung (luxurieren/lieben) zu weit getrieben. Der Lebensleiter (von den vielen Kleinen zu den wenigen Grossen), An- und Verleitungen, ohne Ruecksicht auf Naehe, mit Naechste, Nachhaltigkeit, in zu grosser Laenge und Weite gezogen, das Verlangen unmoeglich verlaengert. Die unteren Stufen wieder Wert und Gewicht geben und sie nicht auf Kosten im Dienste von Soziale Verstaffelung und Stratifikation aufopfern und verbrauchen. Das Beste vom Besten faengt hautnah an und soll davon nit all zu weit veraeusserlicht und auf die Wege wegdeligiert zer- und verlegt werden. Wie viel und gern wir auch nicht immer weiterhin aber immerhin ab und weiter die von weitherkommenden und -kommende und weithingeratenen und -ratende Bestaunen, bestellen und bestehen koennen moegen.
tollensee lebenspark
T4420 - Don't feel at all in tune with the basic agonized tone of the scenario you present, after all 'cross-culturalism' is extremely normal throughout time and space wherever cosmopolitan societies exist and the basic motivations of trade and curiosity prevail.
To say "Communication of any kind is an enormously complex exercise in diplomacy ..." therefore seems utterly overstated. What is peculiar and pathological is the existence of chauvenistic monotheisms that interrupt the normal intercourse of peoples (an essentially pagan trait, of course), and who thus require quarantine where possible, or otherwise the crap bombed out of them ...
nick. i'm very very worried. agree with 99.99% with what you said.
Nick - no reply from Abe about the comments thread.
... more monotheistic chauvinism
British brigade of Islamists join Al-Qaeda foreign legion in Iraq
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
art...2209957,00.html
Men in black terrorise Iraq's women
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
art...2209866,00.html
Falafel banned in Baghdad:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/.../04/
ixnews.html
Cultural Coolies "Rocking the Casbah:" Review of Newsweek Feature (Dec. 20, 2004)
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/con...view/full/
12166
Democracy, after all, is all about having options.
June weddings: Just say 'I don't'
This is a good site for keeping up to date on the Religion of Peace:
http://counterterrorismblog.org/
From sd's first link:
"Last month Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, head of the DST, the French domestic security service, said that about 15 young French people remained in and around Iraq. At least nine had been killed."
So there's a positive side to the whole situation. May Allah bless as many of them with martyrdom as possible.
northanger -- would the .01% of disagreement be the 'bomb the crap out of them' part?
Nick -- i don't think your attempt at meta-understadning is really actionable within the situation outlined above without becoming analagous or even identical to these monotheistic chauvinisms you describe. Which is a pretty common attack on a pretty common proposition (so kind of boring).
But you see the basic conundrum -- how to stop potentially destructive 'chauvinism' without BECOMING THAT WHICH YOU MOST DESPISE!!!
What's the behavioral difference between monotheism and (molar) self-defense? (seems self-evident that the U.S., neoliberal ideology, and even neoclassical econ's reliance on the state presuppose a molar 'core' that must be violently 'defended,' pre-emptively and even perpetually)
Do we assume that if the state apparatus of capitalism 'wins' -- if the end of history arrives/is already here -- it will simply dissolve, it's work complete, or that it will splinter into violently competing entities, commencing another round of primitive accumulation?
It seems to me that if the state is eventually to dissolve, probably via its increasing inability to remain viable in the face of exponentially increasing technological innovation, some kind of individualist/communitarian hybrid 'paradigm' needs to be maintained, which means the ability to resist (unprecedentedly powerful) dominant beliefs by interpersonal reliance rather than allegiance to another deity, an insistence on fair trade over violence, and the ability to conceive of an uncertain but potential and actually different future.
Current excuse for 'individualism' is a) assume all individuals are at base 'chauvinistic' and need to be protected from themselves b) quarantine them off from each other by mediating all social relationships and all perception of the world and c) distract them with a constantly running simulation of that which they are farthest from.
Lois Rodden's astro-chart for Dick Cheney
edit: 'constantly running hyperstitional simulation of that which they are farthest from.'
trsx. "would the .01% of disagreement be the 'bomb the crap out of them' part?"
pretty much. but since nick lays it on kinda think it's closer to 100% & that's way too close to that which i most depise. sigh.
trsx=trax
oopsie
You won't beat terror with tolerance
Jasper Gerard meets Ayaan Hirsi Ali
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/art...92-
2209592.html
T4420 - Since IMHO the only function of human political structures is to get the planet to Technocommercial Singularity, the problem you pose about the capacity of neoliberal culture to move on beyond our present revolting monkey-politics seems a false one. Passing the torch onto nano-engineered hyper-intelligent Shoggoth will no doubt create a whole range of new problems, but they will all be strightforwardly unintelligible to a species of higher primate genetically locked in the pleistocene, so why worry?
To attempt to make this point more clearly:
Since the core of the Capitalist process is intelligenic runaway, so the future it makes is by definition always better at solving problems than any prior stage of its development, it is - again definitionally - irrational to waste extremely limited cognitive resources on difficulties that can be dealt with further up the road, where intelligence abundance reigns. Pro-capitalists are thus wasting their own and everybody else's time angsting about the future, they should dedicate their attention to present obstacles, not emerging threats (beyond the short-term). Anything beyond a 10-year time-horizon should be considered a matter for intelligences far more capable than our own.
Just in case anyone was ever deluded enough to believe John Kerry:
http://
www.realclearpolitics.com..._and_the_n.html
Fareed Zakaria on the US position in the world:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/1312.../site/newsweek/
This seemed especially astutue observation:
"The genius of America's success is that the United States is a rich country with many of the attributes of a scrappy, developing society. It is open, flexible and adventurous, often unmindful of history and tradition. Its people work hard, putting in longer hours than those in other rich countries. Much of this has do to with the history and culture of the society. A huge amount of it has to do with immigration, which keeps America constantly renewed by streams of hardworking people, desperate to succeed."
Great War Nerd column:
http://www.exile.ru/2006-June-
02..._and_nukes.html
Nick - War Nerd is not exactly a good example of how the US could foster postive cross-cultural communication.
'Smart genocide' and/or nukes? I mean c'mon:
"Mao would have nodded approvingly, and so would the Brit officers who wiped out 1/4 of the Boers' civilian population and pioneered the Concentration Camp. Stalin said it best: "No people, no problem." Trouble is, one little USMC fire team just doesn't have the weapons to really do the job. If we were serious about transforming Iraq or the Muslim World, we could do it in minutes, just by turning the whole Sunni Triangle into radioactive glass, one big skating rink that could double as a tanning parlor. Wouldn't even need artificial lights at night, you could skate just by the glow."
Traxus has got a valid point here - about "BECOMING THAT WHICH YOU MOST DESPISE." If Mao and Stalin would have nodded with approval it's a sure sign its exactly the wrong option. It's a path of near total annihilation - the only people left standing being Bible thumping neocon hawks. Thanks, but no thanks.
War Nerd's grasp of history is pathetic. History is full of 'massacres' precisely because people tend to remember them and bear grudges over centuries. The argument that Iraqis don't mind dying because they're young is just a tad suspect. From what I've read it seem most people in the Sunni Triangle just want to go about living their lives. His analogies don't work because this war is taking place in a hypersensitive mediaplex in which the movements of a president's eyebrows are interpreted. The US military has to evolve to cope with this degree of observation, and the US government has to become a bit more consistent - or they could 'bomb the crap' out of everyone, of course.
sd - Think you're misunderstanding the spirit of War Nerd's writing, there's an extremely large measure of Swiftian satire involved. Obviously taken at face value his claims are outrageously tendentious, at best (I certainly don't subscribe to them, although the utter political incorrectness of his stance is highly refreshhing). That said, your criticisms are of course correct.
Nick - Swiftian irony, as far as I understand it, either aggressively lampoons a certain kind of thinking, pushing it to absurd dimensions (A Modest Proposal) or attacks other point of view with a barrage of withering sarcasm (the attack on guns in Gulliver's travels) - in other words there is a point of clarity at which a reader equipped with common sense (ahem) knows what Swift is getting at. (Obviously a dedicated PoMonaut would gently unpick all of that.)
War Nerd's satire is more difficult to pin down and, heaven forbid, irresponsible - you know he's along this line somewhere, but just how far? where does the joke begin? - and it's a dangerous egg-each-other-on, who-can-go-furthest schoolboy kind of game, where before you know it you're in the territories where some people actually do think like that.
sd - Curmudgeon Con Lawrence Auster described him as "bright, but a nihilist" - which is probably right. I suspect some species of quasi-pacifist libertarian, but I'm guessing. But you're probably right too, my taste for 'brutal truths' is simply perverse when they're not even true. I'll try to grow out of it.
'some species of quasi-pacifist libertarian' - really? if that's the case, I fell for it hook line and sinker. as an exercise in pushing PC buttons War Nerd suddenly becomes more intriguing.
Agree with Nick on War Nerd -- reminds me a bit of Vice magazine, except there's some dissonance between his deliberately tasteless delivery and his left-libertarian political stance (which hardly seems as firm as I just made it sound). Vice takes the libertarian pos pretty much whole hog (with a healthy does of racism/misogyny/homophobia) and there was a time when it was steadily inching its way up to the point where the words lost all meaning, used only for their ability to shock, establishing sort of an S&M relationship with its readers.
I feel like it's started being less coy and eased off the brutalizing for brutalizing's sake lately, though.
You'll love this, Nick: http://www.viceland.com/issues/v...cs/
the_vice.php
(has this zine been mentioned here before? don't remember)
Capitalists vs. Marxists = boring
Think your reasoning on the point of capitalist politics/disaster management is pretty specious -- my rule is that if you can find the approximation of a given opinion in a 'Economics for Dummies' or 'Marketing Made Easy' book it's probably all wrong --
ok, sure, it's foolish to think you can accurately predict the future, but we can notice trends, can't we -- and trends can be adjusted without necessarily resorting to drastic overhaul. Greater intelligence isn't always necessary to solve problems, and it's always hindsight that's 20/20 -- to think all problems are best solved in a single blow (idealism) or that eventually they'll be completely different so there's no point in even bothering (fatalism) is to make very similar mistakes, even if they do appeal to very different personality types.
Conceptualizing this 'technocommercial singularity' as if it is an unknowable final horizon either to be deleriously embraced or catastrophically resisted leads to a set of assumptions about behavior and policy in the present that seem little different from the Kojeve/Hegelian 'inevitable advance of machinic reason vs. crazed irrationalism' formula that I would think people on this blog should dismiss as irrational romanticism. Knowing change is coming isn't enough; in almost all cases it has to be prepared for adequately as well to avoid disastrous consequences. Not even exponential change = absolute (infinite) difference.
T4420 - you're straw-manning like crazy, I'm not at all saying we don't have to prepare for TS, on the contrary, my entire position is that we should do everything possible to accelerate the process (and there's lots we can do). My poiunt is solely that we shouldn't waste time on specific problems up the road which will be far more easily dealt with at the time - 'Global Warming' being exhibit A in this regards.
... oh, and: enjoyed the link.
Anti-boomer generational hate has a HUGE future, especially given the self-bankrupting self-indulgent marxo-naracissistic entitlement-culture virtual train-wreck heading down the line at the poor saps reaching working age now
Absurdity of political correctness:
http://
article.nationalreview.co...mVkOTUwMzExZTA=
"Such is the state of contemporary political correctness that it’s now safe to flub a once salient multicultural distinction—whether a particular South Asian was Pakistani or Bengali (or the even more hip Bangla)—as long as it’s for the greater good of obscuring that an apparent terrorist is a Muslim."
Whole article is excellent. Ever more people are reaching snapping point with this ludicrous media censorship of obvious and pertinent facts.
Jeff Jarvis is also less than impressed (great comment thread):
http://www.buzzmachine.com/index...04/the-first-w/
Simply beyond parody:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/...enominator&
only
obvious and pertinent facts.
hmm.
CSIS: Canada Joins the Intel Op Club
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=391
Bush Declares War on Canada
http://southernhermit.blogspot.c...ada-
citing.html
But still, it's all about TS -- you're projecting it as a Final Horizon, right? At least in terms of our ability to look ahead -- am I reading you wrong? If you decide to subvert all your action to this particular end, I don't get how the main thrust of my criticism is straw manning you.
Global Warming is more of a trend, the way I like to look at it, than an apocalypse. Same with technological innovation. There are other currents in motion besides just one or two, and not all of them require herculean efforts to prepare for effectively (multitasking is possible, though it may appear self-contradictory to monocultures). This is where 'diversity' comes in.
Speaking of which,
U.S.'s most-fucked minority speaks for itself:
http://www.viceland.com/issues/v.../htdocs/
one.php
and here's an example of some of the stuff that borders on extreme for extreme's sake (while coyly hinting at actual meaning) I was talking about earlier, in the name of completeness:
http://www.viceland.com/issues/v...1/htdocs/
me.php
That McCarthy is so penetrating in his analysis of the media and yet so childishly simplistic in his analysis of the tur'rists is evidence for me of how difficult it is for most people to understand other cultures without slipping them into prearranged slots in the agend-ometer.
"TS -- you're projecting it as a Final Horizon, right?" - that's what a singularity is, isn't it? And if the whole conceptuality seems wrong to you, I'm losing what you even mean by a trend.
"That McCarthy is so penetrating in his analysis of the media and yet so childishly simplistic in his analysis of the tur'rists ..." - this will take more to be persuasive. Seems to me he's soberly realistic about the Jihadis, where do you think he goes wrong?
... on the Vice stuff, at least people are desensitizing themselves for the unbelievable horrors that lie up the road.
The whole Vice thing - as high-octane Internet in-your-face-ism - is quite interesting, clearly representing an irresistable trend to maximum all-round offensiveness (rednecks and jihadis both well-represented, in a heady stew with sexual perverts and free-floating wind-up artists). Seems to me this is the extreme expression of a phenomenon at the heart of the war - the Internet-driven impossibility of cultural quarantine.
My problem with the McCarthy thing is, ok, above all else, it's their belief system that unifies them and gives them a similar purpose. Fine, but if all jihadis are violently fundamentalist muslims and all violently fundamentalist muslims are jihadis, then so what? No one is actually recommending that we not stop terrorists. The public debates are on strategy more than the on the validity of the broad objective -- ending the threat raised by terrorists. He seems to want to suggest that Islam is 'in itself' fundamentally wrong -- but this statement is only (actionably) true when applied to a fundamentalist.
He wants to replace a thorough grasp of their belief system and the various ways it manifests itself with a content-less signifier that can then be applied across nations and cultures, justifying whatever violent act we (the West/U.S.) feel like. The mirror image of what 'they' want, in other words.
THe whole thing falls apart when you try to figure out how you would apply this 'knowledge' he supposedly provides (which is really just replacing an unknown with a single variable -- x -- then the statement x=evil). Invariably it leads to some sort of repression of Islam, intensifying resentment, nuking the forest to take out a tree, etc. What else can you do with it? He's presenting us with a closed system and pretending that it reflects reality. This is how propaganda works.
A trend does not determine a point further along its axis unless you take only that single trend into account (why prediction is impossible -- we aren't able to take enough trends into account). Working from a single highly detailed scenario that combines several factors is making one mistake, taking a fuzzy generalized prediction (singularity) and then treating it as if it were a certainty (a variable that can be plugged into equations) is another.
These are of course necessary mistakes, but the important things here are flexibility, and knowing the difference between the reality of a trend (set of interactions that appear to be progressing/iterating) and the the always overdetermined status of all predictions based on that trend. Global warming has a reality and a fantasy element, so does TS. Reality, which often can be addressed through minor adjustments, takes precedence over fantasy, which always seems to require revolutions or absolutism.
World's Most Common Error is to treat as reality only that which falls under a certain closed system and radically dismiss everything else.
T4420 - "No one is actually recommending that we not stop terrorists." - you need to get out more, they're icons of resistance to capitalist-imperialist oppression who deserve devoted propaganda support according to very considerable chunks of the left.
Also, the whole discussion of the relation between mainstream Islam and Jihadi aggression has a vast literature behind it now, going well beyond the bromides you proffer. All Islam is fundamentalist by definition (if you don't believe the Koran was dictated word-perfect to Mohammed by Allah via Gabriel, you're not a Muslim but an apostate). Furthermore, quiescent (rather than the meaningless 'moderate') Muslims typically find it hard to distance themselves from Jihadi warfare, because the Koran so clearly justifies almost any level of aggression when it can be construed as 'in defence of Islam' and that for all practical purposes just means 'is inbflicted on infidels.' That's why spokesmen of 'the Islamic community' inevitably respond to a Jihadi operation with a denunciation of 'Islamophobia' and any possible infidel counter-measures rather than of the outrage itself, although fogged perhaps by a little taqqiya. These are straightforward if awkward facts, and McCarthy should be commended from noting them.
On the trends issue, I can't see you're saying anything Kurzweil isn't already saying more rigrously, with more empirical substantiation and with more predictive value. Your argument is far more vague, generalized and (in a non-complementary sense) 'philosophical' - amounting basically to "we can't really say anything without making crude assumptions." Kurzweil's trends are poly-factorial, rigorously mathematized, empirically detailed, and theoretically overdeteremined. All you seem to offer in response is strategic fuzzification.
[apologies for typos]
Can you point out any of these pro-terrorist leftists who aren't just sloppy relativists watching TV?
I've read people express despair that Islamic terrorism is the public face of anti-capitalist resistance worldwide (Chomsky, Retort, et al), but no one seems very happy about it. Who am I missing?
There are plenty of Christians who have similarly fundamentalist notions about their religion who can find ample support in the Bible. There are other, social factors involved, obviously. NY Times maximizes them, NRO minimizes them -- figuring out how to stop terrorism is difficult, dammit -- it's not a problem that will be solved by hecklers. I conceded already that his undressing of a liberal bias in the MSM is correct, and I'll even agree this bias is harmful -- but that's all he gets from me, because his conclusion is not useful to anyone except a fellow traveler. He's doing what conservative pundits do best: giving ideologues conceptual beatsticks to replace all that wusssy nuance. Totalitarianism = bad = Islam = yawwwwwwnnnnnn
If Kurzweil does what you have previously suggested is impossible -- accurately predict some future happening -- then I'll have to wait until after I've read him to continue the futurist dialogue. I'm just going to go on record saying that I highly doubt what he has to say is going to make every other planetary trend seem irrelevant. Obviously every definite position risks fanaticism, and I know you are 'prone to exaggeration' in your commentary, but when you bring up TS I have a very hard time distinguishing you from a believer.
T4420 - well go on, read the man (Kurzweil) - there's a link in our blogroll, his piece on acclerating returns is excellent.
If I sound like a 'true believer' it's because his basic thesis, that regenerative cybernetics is the key to understanding modernity, is something I stongly supported long before reading his work. I'm certainly not going to cease to be a 'true believr' until confronted by something remotely functioning as a counter-argument (and Kurzweil himself easily demolishes those I'm aware of so far, at link mentioned)
But the topic of 'belief' is an interesting one, and still not really explored here IMHO. It's typically not possible to believe something without ceasing to believe in something else (in TS terms, that historical time is of uniform intensity, that historical meaning is anthropomorphic with man is the principal agent of revolutionary change, that today's 'serious' problems matter ...)
sigh.......FINE
(as probably expected, agree with everything except that last bit)
(or i should say -- DISagree with everything except that last bit)
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