31.7.03
ken livingstone re: third wank
The Third Way is a product of its age. The collapse of the Soviet Union has completely disorientated the left. Many welcomed what they saw as the democratisation of Eastern Europe, regarding the reintroduction of capitalism into the USSR as the best chance of liberating the people there. The bi-polar world was abolished, and optimism reigned.
Seen in retrospect, this optimism was misplaced, and the illusions are having to be shed fast. The new world order has turned out to be a disaster for the vast majority of the people of the planet, with huge capital flows out of the third world, and a succession of irresponsible interventions by the dominant world power - the USA - allowed to go unopposed. Social democracy has looked on, impotent, and often supportive of the inroads being made by neoliberalism.
The Third Way is a product of its age. The collapse of the Soviet Union has completely disorientated the left. Many welcomed what they saw as the democratisation of Eastern Europe, regarding the reintroduction of capitalism into the USSR as the best chance of liberating the people there. The bi-polar world was abolished, and optimism reigned.
Seen in retrospect, this optimism was misplaced, and the illusions are having to be shed fast. The new world order has turned out to be a disaster for the vast majority of the people of the planet, with huge capital flows out of the third world, and a succession of irresponsible interventions by the dominant world power - the USA - allowed to go unopposed. Social democracy has looked on, impotent, and often supportive of the inroads being made by neoliberalism.
Umberto Eco:
In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.
this cited in essay on liberal fascism by subcommandante marcos
In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.
this cited in essay on liberal fascism by subcommandante marcos
Book Review: Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda during World War II, by Gerd Horten, Reviewed by Jesse Walker
The U.S. government entered World War II aware that Americans had grown wary of heavy-handed propaganda. If it wanted to keep the public dedicated to the war effort—and to fend off rival views of how the battle should be fought, in particular the notion that the United States should wage a strictly defensive war—it could not simply reprise the techniques it had used in World War I. (This difficulty pertained more to the European war than to the war in the Pacific, where, as Horten notes, popular racism toward the Japanese made it easier to engage in cruder forms of incitement.) At the same time, the feds now had much more practice at propaganda thanks to the New Deal: throughout the 1930s, “[t]hrough newsreels, documentary films, theater, murals, and radio, the state was reaching out to the American people” (p. 21). The National Recovery Administration had produced massive amounts of radio programming before the agency was ruled unconstitutional, paving the way for such subsequent innovations as Franklin Roosevelt's famous fireside chats. Nor was the government the only institution broadcasting its point of view: anti-Roosevelt material, much of it sponsored by the National Association of Manufacturers, was also widely aired.
=============
sick world we're living in
Article on new three-volume, 1,873-page Advertising Age Eycyclopedia of Advertising, edited by John McDonough and Museum of Broadcast Communications and Karen Egoff of Advertising Age magazine; photos (M) Cayce Packard, the heroine of William Gibson's recent novel, ''Pattern Recognition'' (Putnam), has a serious problem. Corporate symbols and logos make her ill. A glimpse of the bulbous Michelin Man is traumatic; even trademarks on the buttons of her Levis have to be sanded off.
But her hypersensitivity to commercial insignias also makes her eminently qualified to be a ''cool-hunter.'' She is hired by businesses to assess their logos and anticipate trends before they congeal into fads. She thus combines the cultural antennae of an advertising copywriter with the allergies of a Marxist: she helps create the very products that most disgust her.
The U.S. government entered World War II aware that Americans had grown wary of heavy-handed propaganda. If it wanted to keep the public dedicated to the war effort—and to fend off rival views of how the battle should be fought, in particular the notion that the United States should wage a strictly defensive war—it could not simply reprise the techniques it had used in World War I. (This difficulty pertained more to the European war than to the war in the Pacific, where, as Horten notes, popular racism toward the Japanese made it easier to engage in cruder forms of incitement.) At the same time, the feds now had much more practice at propaganda thanks to the New Deal: throughout the 1930s, “[t]hrough newsreels, documentary films, theater, murals, and radio, the state was reaching out to the American people” (p. 21). The National Recovery Administration had produced massive amounts of radio programming before the agency was ruled unconstitutional, paving the way for such subsequent innovations as Franklin Roosevelt's famous fireside chats. Nor was the government the only institution broadcasting its point of view: anti-Roosevelt material, much of it sponsored by the National Association of Manufacturers, was also widely aired.
=============
sick world we're living in
Article on new three-volume, 1,873-page Advertising Age Eycyclopedia of Advertising, edited by John McDonough and Museum of Broadcast Communications and Karen Egoff of Advertising Age magazine; photos (M) Cayce Packard, the heroine of William Gibson's recent novel, ''Pattern Recognition'' (Putnam), has a serious problem. Corporate symbols and logos make her ill. A glimpse of the bulbous Michelin Man is traumatic; even trademarks on the buttons of her Levis have to be sanded off.
But her hypersensitivity to commercial insignias also makes her eminently qualified to be a ''cool-hunter.'' She is hired by businesses to assess their logos and anticipate trends before they congeal into fads. She thus combines the cultural antennae of an advertising copywriter with the allergies of a Marxist: she helps create the very products that most disgust her.
Fidel Castro on "globalisation"
"Globalization is an objective reality underlining the fact that we are all passengers on the same vessel, that is, this planet where we all live. But passengers on this vessel are travelling in very different conditions.
Trifling minorities are travelling in luxurious cabins furnished with the Internet, cell phones and access to global communication networks. They enjoy a nutritional, abundant and balanced diet as well as clean water supplies. They have access to sophisticated medical care and to culture.
Overwhelming and hurting majorities are travelling in conditions that resemble the terrible slave trade from Africa to America in our colonial past. That is, 85% of the passengers on this ship are crowded together in its dirty hold suffering hunger, diseases and helplessness. Obviously, this vessel is carrying too much injustice to remain afloat and it pursues such an irrational and senseless route that it cannot call on a safe port. This vessel seems destined to clash with an iceberg. If that happened, we would all sink with it."
"Globalization is an objective reality underlining the fact that we are all passengers on the same vessel, that is, this planet where we all live. But passengers on this vessel are travelling in very different conditions.
Trifling minorities are travelling in luxurious cabins furnished with the Internet, cell phones and access to global communication networks. They enjoy a nutritional, abundant and balanced diet as well as clean water supplies. They have access to sophisticated medical care and to culture.
Overwhelming and hurting majorities are travelling in conditions that resemble the terrible slave trade from Africa to America in our colonial past. That is, 85% of the passengers on this ship are crowded together in its dirty hold suffering hunger, diseases and helplessness. Obviously, this vessel is carrying too much injustice to remain afloat and it pursues such an irrational and senseless route that it cannot call on a safe port. This vessel seems destined to clash with an iceberg. If that happened, we would all sink with it."
More than fifty years have passed since Orwell wrote of “the need to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end …” Tendentious political language, he went on, “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” This was written in 1946 at the height of Stalin’s power, and Orwell later developed his thoughts on this issue in his novel 1984. In the book’s appendix on The Principles of Newspeak he wrote that the special function of Oceania’s vocabulary “was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them.” Words could be destroyed, he said, by wantonly expanding their meanings so that they came completely to replace a whole range of older, more specific, and more definite terms and usages. This all sounds painfully familiar. One sees the term ‘civilization’ being deliberately expanded in order to embrace some very uncivilized behavior indeed.
interesting discussion of that "added s" on huntingtoss "clash of civilisations
interesting discussion of that "added s" on huntingtoss "clash of civilisations
He added: "The biggest problem ... is that a lot of people really don't believe that there is a threat arising from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. I think they think it is a convenient construct politically."
hehehe.. "i feel [more] threatened every single fucking day!"
hehehe.. "i feel [more] threatened every single fucking day!"
corporate greed
What is really disturbing is the mindset of board members who see no connection at all between paying themselves over 20% a year (from an already inflated base) while keeping the earnings of the people under them who do so much of the work down to 3.2%. Do they really think that they single-handedly earn all of this rather than the divisions below them? Some of the increases are so huge that if directors gave them up they could make a material difference to really low pay at the bottom. They seem quite impervious to criticism. Indeed it seems to act as a aphrodisiac on them.
What is really disturbing is the mindset of board members who see no connection at all between paying themselves over 20% a year (from an already inflated base) while keeping the earnings of the people under them who do so much of the work down to 3.2%. Do they really think that they single-handedly earn all of this rather than the divisions below them? Some of the increases are so huge that if directors gave them up they could make a material difference to really low pay at the bottom. They seem quite impervious to criticism. Indeed it seems to act as a aphrodisiac on them.
Where cars are concerned, the British traditionally lose their reason. Even the odd dead kiddy can be tolerated, so long as its life is extinguished by, say, a respectable moron in a tank-sized 4x4, as opposed to a pervert.
G2 re: IDSlag
G2 re: IDSlag
30.7.03
Was war links? Folge 1. Argument-Hrsg Haug: "Das ist wie wenn man in einem Gebäude die Statik verändert oder irgendwelche Stützelemente rausnimmt, und plötzlich stellt sich heraus, daran hing die Stabilität des Ganzen, das bricht jetzt zusammen. So wie weltweit die Entwicklungsregime zusammengebrochen sind, bis hin nach Indien, einem der großten Länder der Welt, die mußten sich dem Neoliberalismus öffnen, dem Freihandel, dem Freihandelsregime, und überall Schocktherapien, wie in Russland, erfahren. Das hat zu einer Zerstörung eines Netzwerkes alternativer Politikmöglichkeiten auf diesem Globus geführt, was ganz unersetzlich ist. Und das hat schon zur Schwächung der Linken beigetragen. Seither gibt es auf dieser Erde noch keine alternativen Vergesellschaftungsvorstellungen mit Aussicht auf Realität, alternativ zum Weltkapitalismus. Das ist schon eine gewaltige, nicht eine Desorientierung, sondern ein Perspektivverlust. Das Kind ist tot.'"
oh dear. watched WWL I w male parental unit- re: end of soviets: "da haben wir alle den schwanz eingezogen"
end of history?
revolution and thought!
oh dear. watched WWL I w male parental unit- re: end of soviets: "da haben wir alle den schwanz eingezogen"
end of history?
revolution and thought!
29.7.03
pop art:
This decadent stage in cultural history is comparable, to cite an example, to the "late Roman culture industry": the stereotyping of historical models in art, the consumption of ideals of beauty, the inflation of religious symbols, the mass accumulation of luxurious status symbols in the form of mechanically produced consumer articles, a sense of identity derived from an imperialist world power which held all the political and economic reins in its hand and whose attempt to improve the living standards of a consumer society turned progress and affluence into nothing short of an ideology.
This decadent stage in cultural history is comparable, to cite an example, to the "late Roman culture industry": the stereotyping of historical models in art, the consumption of ideals of beauty, the inflation of religious symbols, the mass accumulation of luxurious status symbols in the form of mechanically produced consumer articles, a sense of identity derived from an imperialist world power which held all the political and economic reins in its hand and whose attempt to improve the living standards of a consumer society turned progress and affluence into nothing short of an ideology.
dada II: "Dadaism demands:
1) The international revolutionary union of all creative and intellectual men and women on the basis of radical Communism.
2) The introduction of progressive unemployment through comprehensive mechanization of every field of activity. Only by unemployment does it become possible for the individual to achieve certainty as to the truth of life and finally become accustomed to experience;
3) The immediate expropriation of property (socialization) and/the communal feeding of all; further, the erection of cities of light, and gardens which will belong to society as a whole and prepare man for a state of freedom.
The Dadaist revolutionary central council - German group: Hausmann, Huelsenbeck"
? -> !
;-)
1) The international revolutionary union of all creative and intellectual men and women on the basis of radical Communism.
2) The introduction of progressive unemployment through comprehensive mechanization of every field of activity. Only by unemployment does it become possible for the individual to achieve certainty as to the truth of life and finally become accustomed to experience;
3) The immediate expropriation of property (socialization) and/the communal feeding of all; further, the erection of cities of light, and gardens which will belong to society as a whole and prepare man for a state of freedom.
The Dadaist revolutionary central council - German group: Hausmann, Huelsenbeck"
? -> !
;-)
dada I
max ernst: "die jungfrau züchtigt das jesuskind vor drei zeugen" 1926
"the virgin spanking jesus (three witnesses)". hilarious review- with that funny conservative "reactionary- and pissed off" feel.. whether intentional or not.. this is pure satire.. actually- could this be dada? ;-)
a lot of fun material around here- an educational read. note the dadaist poem cited at the beginning. death to grammar and word: "name one greater danger to the world order other than international terrorism.." etc
jesse: please point out to ed upon arrival
max ernst: "die jungfrau züchtigt das jesuskind vor drei zeugen" 1926
"the virgin spanking jesus (three witnesses)". hilarious review- with that funny conservative "reactionary- and pissed off" feel.. whether intentional or not.. this is pure satire.. actually- could this be dada? ;-)
a lot of fun material around here- an educational read. note the dadaist poem cited at the beginning. death to grammar and word: "name one greater danger to the world order other than international terrorism.." etc
jesse: please point out to ed upon arrival
28.7.03
As for the systematic manipulation and control of the psyche in the advanced industrial society, manipulation and control for what, and by whom? Over and above all particular manipulation in the interest of certain businesses, policies, lobbies - the general objective purpose is to reconcile the individual with the mode of existence which his society imposes on him. Because of the high degree of surplus-repression involved in such reconciliation, it is necessary to achieve a libidinal cathexis of the merchandise the individual has to buy (or sell), the services he has to use (or perform), the fun he has to enjoy, the status symbols he has to carry - necessary, because the existence of the society depends on their uninterrupted production and consumption. In other words, social needs must become individual needs, instinctual needs. And to the degree to which the productivity of this society requires mass production and mass consumption, these needs must be standardized, coordinated, generalized. Certainly, these controls are not a conspiracy, they are not centralized in any agency or group of agencies (although the trend toward centralization is gaining momentum); they are rather diffused throughout the society, exercised by the neighbors, the community, the peer groups, mass media, corporations, and (perhaps least) by the government. But they are exercised with the help of, in fact rendered possible by, science, by the social and behavioral sciences, and especially by sociology and psychology. As industrial sociology and psychology, or, more euphemistically, as "science of human relations," these scientific efforts have become an indispensable tool in the hands of the powers that be.
aha
aha
Fromm's essay is primarily programmatic and does not specify in great detail how capitalist-bourgeois society reproduces its structures within its members. Rather he is concerned to outline a research program and to argue for the compatibility of psychoanalysis and Marxism proposing that psychoanalysis "can enrich the overall conception of historical materialism on one specific point. It can provide a more comprehensive knowledge of one of the factors that is operative in the social process: the nature of man himself" (CoP, p. 154). For Fromm, natural instincts are part of the base (Unterbau) of society, and he believes that our understanding of human behavior and social processes will be enriched by reciprocal knowledge of how society molds and adapts instincts to its structures, and how human beings shape and change their environments to meet their needs. "In certain fundamental respects, the instinctual apparatus itself is a biological given; but it is highly modifiable. The role of primary formative factors goes to the economic conditions. The family is the essential medium through which the economic situation exerts its formative influence on the individual's psyche. The task of social psychology is to explain the shared, socially relevant, psychic attitudes and ideologies -- and their unconscious roots in particular -- in terms of the influence of economic conditions on libido strivings" (CoP, p. 149).
exactly what it is
exactly what it is
"The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm. The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are 'still' possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge--unless it is the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable."
--Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," (Spring, 1940) trans. Harry Zohn.
An excellent link from Michael
--Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," (Spring, 1940) trans. Harry Zohn.
An excellent link from Michael
26.7.03
"Du bist der Baader, stimmts?" fragt das M?dchen. "Ich bin der Baader", bestaetigt der Befragte. "Wow", haucht das Maedchen.
raf ausstellung?
"Diese Bilderfolge erinnert an Wolf Biermanns Refrain: "Soldaten sind sich alle gleich lebendig und als Leich'". Sie negiert jedoch, dass diese Toten sich keineswegs gleich sind, dass man sehr wohl zwischen dem Mörder, auch wenn er später erschossen wurde oder sich selbst erschoss, und dem Ermordeten unterscheiden kann und muss. Es ist jene Gleichmacherei, die Noberto Bobbio in seiner Untersuchung "Rechts und Links - Gründe und Bedeutung einer politischen Unterscheidung" mit dem Begriff "Egalitarismus" als Kennzeichen der "Linken" charakterisierte, während er das kritische Befragen des Gleichheitsideal den "Rechten" zuerkennt.
In der Praxis - bis hin zur "kritischen Theorie" (und davon geprägt vor allen die Medien und die Künste) - herrscht allerdings jener "Egalitarismus" vor. "Der Geist weht links", "Links wo das Herz schlägt" oder "Der Feind steht rechts" (Reichskanzler Wirths Schlusswort zur Ermordung Rathenaus) haben sich deshalb zu Schlagworten entwickelt. Davon sind selbst Definitionen nicht frei, die sich wissenschaftlich gerieren, wie die Feststellung des Politologen Ekkehart Krippendorff: "Die Linke - und zwar auch die extremste Linke - hat darum immer das Element der historischen Wahrheit für sich, die Rechte - und zwar auch die nur gemäßigte Rechte - das Element der Unwahrheit und des Unrechts.""
so so
25.7.03
TO THE MUNICIPAL COURT MAGISTRATE:
Ticketed for wiping out on a motor scooter, Thompson refused to pay the fine. Instead, he fled West Milford, New Jersey - where the accident had occurred - and sent this letter of explanation of his actions.
November 6, 1959
Otisville, New York
Dear Sir,
Earlier today I was given a summons to appear before your court on November 9, on a charge of "leaving the scene of an accident". I shall have to decline this appearance, and I hope this letter will explain why. By November 9, I shall be well out of the state of New Jersey, but I don’t want to leave without explaining my position.
The accident occurred late at night. I was driving a friend's motor scooter, quite sober, within the speed limit, on an unfamiliar road. Suddenly, the road went over a small hill and turned sharply to the right. I touched my brakes, intending to slow down, and went into a long skid that came to an abrupt end when the scooter turned on its side and hurled me down on the asphalt. There was no damage done to anyone or anything except the scooter and my own body. No one witnessed the fall, and no one but me was involved.
For several moments I was stunned, dizzy, and in pain. Soon two men stopped in a car when they saw me lying in the road. They helped me up, saw that I was battered, but not severely hurt, and both men insisted that I ride in their car to my friend's cabin. Since I could not walk, they helped me into the car and took me to the place where I was staying.
Several minutes later the West Milford police arrived, very angry and without a warrant to enter the house. I was subsequently charged with leaving the scene of my accident, and told that I was lucky to be getting off with only one charge.
I called the Violations Clerk today and found out that the minimum fine for "leaving the scene of an accident" is $25.
So, faced with a choice of paying a minimum of $25 for falling off a motor scooter on a public road, and fleeing the state to avoid prosecution, I chose to leave the state. I am a freelance writer and simply cannot afford to pay a fine of $25 or more at this time. And, since I obviously left the scene and am therefore guilty, I would have no choice but to go to jail in lieu of paying the fine. Then too, since I could not walk after the accident, I had to have some help in accomplishing my crime. This would make the men who stopped to help me - and who were kind enough to ride me home - accomplices in this crime.
So, we are all criminals: those of us who skid and fall on damp, unmarked roads, and those others who stop to give aid to the injured. If this situation is not patently ridiculous to you, then I can only congratulate myself on having the good sense to avoid an appearance in your court. Frankly, I cannot believe that any thinking man would find me guilty as charged. My confidence in the mentality and reasoning processes of the law, however, is virtually nil. I feel sure that nothing but rouble would come from any appearance I might make in your courtroom.
If the thinking processes of the law were demonstrated by the fact that I was so charged with this crime - when I couldn't actually walk and had to be carried away from the scene of the accident by two men - then I feel quite sure that this same strange reasoning would lead to my conviction, in some way that would probably make just as much sense as the charge itself.
If I seem pessimistic, I can only say that these are my convictions and that I cannot apologise for them.
By the time you read this letter I will have left the state. I am purposefully not telling my friend where I am going, so that he can say in all honesty that he has no idea where I am.
In closing, let me say that I regret this situation tremendously. Ordinarily, I would come down to the courthouse and discuss it with you. Since I have no money, however, I can’t take the chance of going to jail - especially not for an offence like this, which makes no sense at all, no matter how you look at it.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
Extract from collection of letters, The Proud Highway
Ticketed for wiping out on a motor scooter, Thompson refused to pay the fine. Instead, he fled West Milford, New Jersey - where the accident had occurred - and sent this letter of explanation of his actions.
November 6, 1959
Otisville, New York
Dear Sir,
Earlier today I was given a summons to appear before your court on November 9, on a charge of "leaving the scene of an accident". I shall have to decline this appearance, and I hope this letter will explain why. By November 9, I shall be well out of the state of New Jersey, but I don’t want to leave without explaining my position.
The accident occurred late at night. I was driving a friend's motor scooter, quite sober, within the speed limit, on an unfamiliar road. Suddenly, the road went over a small hill and turned sharply to the right. I touched my brakes, intending to slow down, and went into a long skid that came to an abrupt end when the scooter turned on its side and hurled me down on the asphalt. There was no damage done to anyone or anything except the scooter and my own body. No one witnessed the fall, and no one but me was involved.
For several moments I was stunned, dizzy, and in pain. Soon two men stopped in a car when they saw me lying in the road. They helped me up, saw that I was battered, but not severely hurt, and both men insisted that I ride in their car to my friend's cabin. Since I could not walk, they helped me into the car and took me to the place where I was staying.
Several minutes later the West Milford police arrived, very angry and without a warrant to enter the house. I was subsequently charged with leaving the scene of my accident, and told that I was lucky to be getting off with only one charge.
I called the Violations Clerk today and found out that the minimum fine for "leaving the scene of an accident" is $25.
So, faced with a choice of paying a minimum of $25 for falling off a motor scooter on a public road, and fleeing the state to avoid prosecution, I chose to leave the state. I am a freelance writer and simply cannot afford to pay a fine of $25 or more at this time. And, since I obviously left the scene and am therefore guilty, I would have no choice but to go to jail in lieu of paying the fine. Then too, since I could not walk after the accident, I had to have some help in accomplishing my crime. This would make the men who stopped to help me - and who were kind enough to ride me home - accomplices in this crime.
So, we are all criminals: those of us who skid and fall on damp, unmarked roads, and those others who stop to give aid to the injured. If this situation is not patently ridiculous to you, then I can only congratulate myself on having the good sense to avoid an appearance in your court. Frankly, I cannot believe that any thinking man would find me guilty as charged. My confidence in the mentality and reasoning processes of the law, however, is virtually nil. I feel sure that nothing but rouble would come from any appearance I might make in your courtroom.
If the thinking processes of the law were demonstrated by the fact that I was so charged with this crime - when I couldn't actually walk and had to be carried away from the scene of the accident by two men - then I feel quite sure that this same strange reasoning would lead to my conviction, in some way that would probably make just as much sense as the charge itself.
If I seem pessimistic, I can only say that these are my convictions and that I cannot apologise for them.
By the time you read this letter I will have left the state. I am purposefully not telling my friend where I am going, so that he can say in all honesty that he has no idea where I am.
In closing, let me say that I regret this situation tremendously. Ordinarily, I would come down to the courthouse and discuss it with you. Since I have no money, however, I can’t take the chance of going to jail - especially not for an offence like this, which makes no sense at all, no matter how you look at it.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
Extract from collection of letters, The Proud Highway
mark twain re: evolution
It now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one...the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.
re: war
Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
It now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one...the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.
re: war
Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
24.7.03
Als Innensenator Lummer in einem frisch geräumten Haus in Siegerpose eine Pressekonferenz abhält, brüllen die angesichts der Übermacht eher friedlichen Demonstranten vor dem Haus in ohnmächtiger Wut. Sie werden mit Knüppeln und Hunden die Straße hinuntergejagt. Einer von ihnen wird dabei in einen BVG-Bus getrieben und stirbt unter den Rädern. Die Polizei räumt mit Wasserwerfern und Tränengas die Todesstelle, Stiefel zertreten die Blumen, die auf die Blutlache gelegt wurden. Am Abend demonstrieren über 20 000, und in der unvermeidlichen, brutalen Schlacht nehmen viele zum ersten Mal seit '68 wieder einen Stein in die Hand. Das allgemeine Erschrecken in den Tagen danach, die Betroffenheit, Krisensitzung zum Erhalt des inneren Friedens, schwere Vorwürfe gegen den "blutigen lnnensenator" können letztlich nicht darüber hinwegtäuschen, daß dieser Tag eine entscheidende Niederlage für die Bewegung ist. Ein Mythos ist gebrochen, der 12. 12. hat seine grausame staatliche Revance erlebt, der Aufbruchsstimmung folgt unwiderruflich das Rollback, und zwischen den Fronten liegt ein Toter: Klaus-Jürgen Rattay.
autonome szene potsdam 80er
autonome szene potsdam 80er
exodus and resistance;
'what we need is to create a new social body, which is a project that goes well beyond refusal. Our lines of flight, our exodus must be constituent and create a real alternative. Beyond the simple refusal, or as part of that refusal, we need also to construct a new mode of life and above all a new community'
[...]
'The movement can only be constructed on exodus, but it must also exercise resistance. This is because power does not let you practice exodus in peace; it continuously attacks. Hence either exodus becomes militant and combative or it loses. You must exercise force even when you’d rather not, especially when you would rather not: the adversary imposes it'
[...]
'To take leave means destroying all the transcendental barriers that give meaning to the commanding logic of political representation'
- Antonio Negri
'what we need is to create a new social body, which is a project that goes well beyond refusal. Our lines of flight, our exodus must be constituent and create a real alternative. Beyond the simple refusal, or as part of that refusal, we need also to construct a new mode of life and above all a new community'
[...]
'The movement can only be constructed on exodus, but it must also exercise resistance. This is because power does not let you practice exodus in peace; it continuously attacks. Hence either exodus becomes militant and combative or it loses. You must exercise force even when you’d rather not, especially when you would rather not: the adversary imposes it'
[...]
'To take leave means destroying all the transcendental barriers that give meaning to the commanding logic of political representation'
- Antonio Negri
23.7.03
"The change from the overt authority of the nineteenth century to the anonymous authority of the twentieth was determined by the organizational needs of our modern industrial society. The concentration of capital led to the formation of giant enterprises managed by hierarchically organized bureaucracies. Large conglomerations of workers and clerks work together, each individual a part of a vast organized production machine, which in order to run at all, must run smoothly and without interruption. The individual worker becomes merely a cog in this machine. In such a production organization, the individual is managed and manipulated.
And in the sphere of consumption (in which the individual allegedly expresses his free choice) he is likewise managed and manipulated. Whether it be the consumption of food, clothing, liquor, cigarettes, movies or television programs, a powerful suggestion apparatus is at work with two purposes: first, to constantly increase the individual's appetite for new commodities; and secondly, to direct these appetites into the channels most profitable for industry. Man is transformed into the consumer, the eternal suckling, whose one wish is to consume more and "better" things."
Foreword to A.S. Neill: "Summerhill - A Radical Approach to Child Rearing" by Erich Fromm (1960)
And in the sphere of consumption (in which the individual allegedly expresses his free choice) he is likewise managed and manipulated. Whether it be the consumption of food, clothing, liquor, cigarettes, movies or television programs, a powerful suggestion apparatus is at work with two purposes: first, to constantly increase the individual's appetite for new commodities; and secondly, to direct these appetites into the channels most profitable for industry. Man is transformed into the consumer, the eternal suckling, whose one wish is to consume more and "better" things."
Foreword to A.S. Neill: "Summerhill - A Radical Approach to Child Rearing" by Erich Fromm (1960)
Only just heard Ryan's soundclip of David Rubeinstein of Carlyle Group talking about how they gave Bush a job since he was "down on his luck... needed a few board directorships" and then dropped him after three years, since he clearly knew "nothing about the company". What little has changed my compliant stooge! Excellent stuff.
Quote du jour;
I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. - Paul Wolfowitz
Quote du jour;
I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. - Paul Wolfowitz
22.7.03
"Revolution is everywhere, in everything. It is infinite. There is no final revolution, no final number. The social revolution is only one of an infinite number of numbers. The law of revolution is not a social law, but an immeasureably greater one. It is a cosmic, universal law - like the laws of the conservation of energy and of the dissipation of energy (entrophy)..."
[....]
"Harmful literature is more useful than useful literature, for it is antientrophic, it is a means of combating calcification... It is utopian, absurd... It is right 150 years later."
[....]
The Revolution does not need dogs who "sit up" in expectation of a handout or because the fear the whip. Nor does it need trainers of such dogs. It needs writers who fear nothing... It needs writers in whom the Revolution awakens a true organic echo. And it does not matter if this echo is individual... if a writer ignores such-and-such a paragraph adapted at such-and-such a conference. What matters is that his work is sincere, that it leads the reader forward... that it disturb the reader rather than reassure and lull his mind.... But where forward? And how far forward? The father the better.... Reduction of prices, better sanitation on the cities...all this is very good... I can imagine an excellent newspaper article on these topics (an article that will be forgotten the next day). But I find it difficult to imagine a work by Leo Tolstoy or Romain Rolland based on the improvement of sanitation."
Selections from essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of We
[....]
"Harmful literature is more useful than useful literature, for it is antientrophic, it is a means of combating calcification... It is utopian, absurd... It is right 150 years later."
[....]
The Revolution does not need dogs who "sit up" in expectation of a handout or because the fear the whip. Nor does it need trainers of such dogs. It needs writers who fear nothing... It needs writers in whom the Revolution awakens a true organic echo. And it does not matter if this echo is individual... if a writer ignores such-and-such a paragraph adapted at such-and-such a conference. What matters is that his work is sincere, that it leads the reader forward... that it disturb the reader rather than reassure and lull his mind.... But where forward? And how far forward? The father the better.... Reduction of prices, better sanitation on the cities...all this is very good... I can imagine an excellent newspaper article on these topics (an article that will be forgotten the next day). But I find it difficult to imagine a work by Leo Tolstoy or Romain Rolland based on the improvement of sanitation."
Selections from essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of We
"As Penney admits: "The last time a UK pilot shot down an enemy aircraft was in 1982 in the Falklands." Since then, Britain's frequent wars have been fought against opponents either without air forces or without much chance to use them. Yet the Eurofighter was devised in a very different era: when massed formations of Russian aircraft were anticipated by western military planners as an accompaniment to an invasion of Europe.
With this threat, real or otherwise, having long receded, the Eurofighter's original role, using its manoeuvrability and clever weapons systems to perform Battle of Britain-style heroics, has been replaced by something more ambiguous. For critics of the international defence business and its political and military allies, the jet has become the perfect example of a well-connected industry's ability to make over-budget, redundant products and find a market for them regardless. "The Eurofighter is completely out of date," says Susan Willett, a defence analyst and "long-term sceptic" about the jet. "It's a cold-war beast.""
apparently new death machine useless for murdering non-airborne brownies, civilians or otherwise- hence no good for neocolonial warfare..
"As Professor Malcolm Chalmers, a defence economist at Bradford University, points out, "The average voter has much less connection with what works or not in defence than in schools or hospitals." At the same time, British military projects can draw on centuries of national pride about British prowess and ingenuity with weapons."
With this threat, real or otherwise, having long receded, the Eurofighter's original role, using its manoeuvrability and clever weapons systems to perform Battle of Britain-style heroics, has been replaced by something more ambiguous. For critics of the international defence business and its political and military allies, the jet has become the perfect example of a well-connected industry's ability to make over-budget, redundant products and find a market for them regardless. "The Eurofighter is completely out of date," says Susan Willett, a defence analyst and "long-term sceptic" about the jet. "It's a cold-war beast.""
apparently new death machine useless for murdering non-airborne brownies, civilians or otherwise- hence no good for neocolonial warfare..
"As Professor Malcolm Chalmers, a defence economist at Bradford University, points out, "The average voter has much less connection with what works or not in defence than in schools or hospitals." At the same time, British military projects can draw on centuries of national pride about British prowess and ingenuity with weapons."
21.7.03
Chancellor Schroeder, respected in some areas because of his rejection of the Iraq war - has long since been backing down from that position and trying to mend fences with the Bush band. But he has used temporary popularity based on his seeming courage to push an all-out program to tear apart the social net in Germany, a welfare system which, with ups and downs, goes back in history to conservative old Chancellor Bismarck in the 1880's.
The excuse for cutting unemployment payments, chopping medical and dental care, hitting at the incomes of pensioners and similar plans - cheered on by the right-wing parties who always opposed him otherwise - is the economic catastrophe in Germany, with over four million unemployed - a rate in eastern Germany of nearly 20 percent. Another snake oil remedy is the "tax cut" trick - a very little cut for some middle class groups, a big cut for the very wealthy.
With the leftwing Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) chopped down to two lonely deputies in the Bundestag and full of internal quarrels, the main opposition to the anti-social plans have been the unions, united in the German Union Association (DGB). But while some of them also have a habit of buckling to pressures from above, the two biggest unions had been full of fight. One was the young union called ver.di - not a musicians union but a federation of five public service unions including everything from nurses to garbagemen, from postal and railroad workers to writers. The other, traditionally very militant union is IG Metall - for metal and electrical manufacturing trades and one of the biggest labor unions in the world.
read up on the german condition here.. comparison to thatcher crack at unions raises frightening prospects..
"If we are wrong, then we will have destroyed a threat that was at its least responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering,' Blair said. "I am confident history will forgive.'
Blair's confidence is justified. History has forgiven U.K. leaders for plenty. How else, for example, could U.S. News and World Report have dubbed Winston Churchill "The Last Hero" in a 2000 cover story? In that article, Churchill was said to believe in "liberty, the rule of law, and the rights of the individual."
As Sir Winston himself declared: "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
This is precisely why so few of us ever discuss Churchill as a war criminal or racist. In 1910, in the capacity of Home Secretary, he put forth a proposal to sterilize roughly 100,000 "mental degenerates" and dispatch several thousand others to state-run labor camps. These actions were to take place in the name of saving the British race from inevitable decline as its inferior members bred.
History has forgiven Churchill for his role in the Allied invasion of the Soviet Union in 1917. England's Minister for War and Air during the time, Churchill described the mission as seeking to "strangle at its birth" the Bolshevik state. In 1929, he wrote: "Were [the Allies] at war with Soviet Russia? Certainly not; but they shot Soviet Russians at sight. They stood as invaders on Russian soil. They armed the enemies of the Soviet Government. They blockaded its ports, and sunk its battleships. They earnestly desired and schemed its downfall."
blair + history with some churchillian fascist lyrics that would have made adolf blush
ALTOONA, PA—Will Zimmerman stepped into a local supermarket Monday to purchase a pint of half-and-half, but before he could fully comprehend the situation, the 28-year-old repairman was a member of the Feltz Foods $uper $aver's Club.
"Yeah, I've got the card right here in my wallet," said a pale and dazed Zimmerman as he revealed the 3"x2" laminated induction into the $uper $aver family. "I guess I'm supposed to present it at any Feltz Supermarket for super savings."
The excuse for cutting unemployment payments, chopping medical and dental care, hitting at the incomes of pensioners and similar plans - cheered on by the right-wing parties who always opposed him otherwise - is the economic catastrophe in Germany, with over four million unemployed - a rate in eastern Germany of nearly 20 percent. Another snake oil remedy is the "tax cut" trick - a very little cut for some middle class groups, a big cut for the very wealthy.
With the leftwing Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) chopped down to two lonely deputies in the Bundestag and full of internal quarrels, the main opposition to the anti-social plans have been the unions, united in the German Union Association (DGB). But while some of them also have a habit of buckling to pressures from above, the two biggest unions had been full of fight. One was the young union called ver.di - not a musicians union but a federation of five public service unions including everything from nurses to garbagemen, from postal and railroad workers to writers. The other, traditionally very militant union is IG Metall - for metal and electrical manufacturing trades and one of the biggest labor unions in the world.
read up on the german condition here.. comparison to thatcher crack at unions raises frightening prospects..
"If we are wrong, then we will have destroyed a threat that was at its least responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering,' Blair said. "I am confident history will forgive.'
Blair's confidence is justified. History has forgiven U.K. leaders for plenty. How else, for example, could U.S. News and World Report have dubbed Winston Churchill "The Last Hero" in a 2000 cover story? In that article, Churchill was said to believe in "liberty, the rule of law, and the rights of the individual."
As Sir Winston himself declared: "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
This is precisely why so few of us ever discuss Churchill as a war criminal or racist. In 1910, in the capacity of Home Secretary, he put forth a proposal to sterilize roughly 100,000 "mental degenerates" and dispatch several thousand others to state-run labor camps. These actions were to take place in the name of saving the British race from inevitable decline as its inferior members bred.
History has forgiven Churchill for his role in the Allied invasion of the Soviet Union in 1917. England's Minister for War and Air during the time, Churchill described the mission as seeking to "strangle at its birth" the Bolshevik state. In 1929, he wrote: "Were [the Allies] at war with Soviet Russia? Certainly not; but they shot Soviet Russians at sight. They stood as invaders on Russian soil. They armed the enemies of the Soviet Government. They blockaded its ports, and sunk its battleships. They earnestly desired and schemed its downfall."
blair + history with some churchillian fascist lyrics that would have made adolf blush
ALTOONA, PA—Will Zimmerman stepped into a local supermarket Monday to purchase a pint of half-and-half, but before he could fully comprehend the situation, the 28-year-old repairman was a member of the Feltz Foods $uper $aver's Club.
"Yeah, I've got the card right here in my wallet," said a pale and dazed Zimmerman as he revealed the 3"x2" laminated induction into the $uper $aver family. "I guess I'm supposed to present it at any Feltz Supermarket for super savings."
Following on from Phil’s link “bring it on” below;
‘"It was the end of the world," said one officer Thursday. "It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers."
First lesson for the troops, it seemed: Don't ever talk to the media "on the record" -- that is, with your name attached -- unless you're giving the sort of chin-forward, everything's-great message the Pentagon loves to hear. ‘
And on the same theme, the courage the administration shows in spiteful back stabbing that its ringleaders never showed themselves in the field against an enemy - “No job to dirty. No depth to low”;
“Some folks in the White House were apparently hopping mad when ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman did a story on Tuesday's "World News Tonight" about the plummeting morale of U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq.
So angry, in fact, that the next day, a White House operative alerted cyber-gossip Matt Drudge to the fact that Kofman is not only openly gay, he's Canadian.”
From the same article as Phil’s quote – some encouraging news;
“This has hurt Bush's standing. A Washington Post/ABC News poll last week showed that support for Bush had dipped 9 percentage points in about two weeks, to 59 percent, mirroring a decline in support for his handling of the Iraq situation. A small majority for the first time found the level of casualties in Iraq unacceptable, while half thought the administration intentionally exaggerated evidence of Iraq's weapons programs. Another poll released last week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 23 percent of Americans thought the military effort in Iraq was going very well, down from 61 percent in mid-April.”
23 percent think its going well? The same percentage who believe in elvis/creationism/that bush is anti-washington… in fact who will agree with any statement you put in front of them because they’ve been patronised and ignored for so long they feel incapable of thinking for themselves and have been programmed to be passive objects – consumers who select from a menu of options provided to them by thieves.
‘"It was the end of the world," said one officer Thursday. "It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers."
First lesson for the troops, it seemed: Don't ever talk to the media "on the record" -- that is, with your name attached -- unless you're giving the sort of chin-forward, everything's-great message the Pentagon loves to hear. ‘
And on the same theme, the courage the administration shows in spiteful back stabbing that its ringleaders never showed themselves in the field against an enemy - “No job to dirty. No depth to low”;
“Some folks in the White House were apparently hopping mad when ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman did a story on Tuesday's "World News Tonight" about the plummeting morale of U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq.
So angry, in fact, that the next day, a White House operative alerted cyber-gossip Matt Drudge to the fact that Kofman is not only openly gay, he's Canadian.”
From the same article as Phil’s quote – some encouraging news;
“This has hurt Bush's standing. A Washington Post/ABC News poll last week showed that support for Bush had dipped 9 percentage points in about two weeks, to 59 percent, mirroring a decline in support for his handling of the Iraq situation. A small majority for the first time found the level of casualties in Iraq unacceptable, while half thought the administration intentionally exaggerated evidence of Iraq's weapons programs. Another poll released last week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 23 percent of Americans thought the military effort in Iraq was going very well, down from 61 percent in mid-April.”
23 percent think its going well? The same percentage who believe in elvis/creationism/that bush is anti-washington… in fact who will agree with any statement you put in front of them because they’ve been patronised and ignored for so long they feel incapable of thinking for themselves and have been programmed to be passive objects – consumers who select from a menu of options provided to them by thieves.
20.7.03
Grieving Families on Bush:
"He Said 'Bring it On' - Well, They Brought it On"
ABC's "Good Morning America" showed soldiers from the Third Infantry Division in Iraq criticizing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and questioning their mission. Minnesota Public Radio this week quoted Mary Kewatt, the aunt of a soldier killed in Iraq, saying: "President Bush made a comment a week ago, and he said 'bring it on.' Well, they brought it on, and now my nephew is dead."
"He Said 'Bring it On' - Well, They Brought it On"
ABC's "Good Morning America" showed soldiers from the Third Infantry Division in Iraq criticizing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and questioning their mission. Minnesota Public Radio this week quoted Mary Kewatt, the aunt of a soldier killed in Iraq, saying: "President Bush made a comment a week ago, and he said 'bring it on.' Well, they brought it on, and now my nephew is dead."
interesting, to say the least, but unfortunately unauthorised biography of bush sr..
another bush sr source.. this guy gets a bit overexcited in my opinion. do take a look- like the coherent design
another bush sr source.. this guy gets a bit overexcited in my opinion. do take a look- like the coherent design
For Gadamer, the "knowledge" available through the Geisteswissenschaften ultimately derives from what he calls "tradition." The world of meanings found in art, philosophy, and history is far wider and deeper than anything the contemporary interpreter is able to imagine. We are, in effect, a product of that tradition. Even when arguing with it, we use concepts and language inherited from tradition. The most radical-sounding denunciations of Western thought may well be, upon inspection, echoes of Nietzsche -- whose work, in turn, involves an unrelenting argument with Plato.
For Gadamer's critics, the notion of a powerful and inescapable tradition sounds suspiciously authoritarian. So does his complaint that modern thought (which begins, for Gadamer, with Descartes) made a fatal mistake in trying to abolish "prejudice." Gadamer argues that we never approach the world with a blank slate. The process of understanding always begins with some established understanding already in place. Mr. Wolin points to this "rehabilitation of prejudice" as a particularly troubling element in the thought of a German philosopher of Gadamer's generation.
His defenders point out that Gadamer is not so much advocating prejudice as recognizing a fact of hermeneutic life. Prejudice must be accepted before it can be challenged through a "fusion of horizons" between the contemporary interpreter and the cultural tradition.
one name for the burden of history
For Gadamer's critics, the notion of a powerful and inescapable tradition sounds suspiciously authoritarian. So does his complaint that modern thought (which begins, for Gadamer, with Descartes) made a fatal mistake in trying to abolish "prejudice." Gadamer argues that we never approach the world with a blank slate. The process of understanding always begins with some established understanding already in place. Mr. Wolin points to this "rehabilitation of prejudice" as a particularly troubling element in the thought of a German philosopher of Gadamer's generation.
His defenders point out that Gadamer is not so much advocating prejudice as recognizing a fact of hermeneutic life. Prejudice must be accepted before it can be challenged through a "fusion of horizons" between the contemporary interpreter and the cultural tradition.
one name for the burden of history
art against imperialism... from an interesting looking Indian magazine (Frontline) I found linked on z-net, I haven´t read much of it but it looks interesting reading and is on-line.
the lies... the truth... the enqiry... lots of backstabbing and slagging off going on over there it seems
The Kelly Affair: a who´s who and what they said from the Observer
The Kelly Affair: a who´s who and what they said from the Observer
19.7.03
DIRTY WARS GETTING DIRTIER
The alleged BBC source on the dossier scandal has been found dead in what has been reported as a suicide, which has shocked his family who were "so sure, despite the pressure he was under that he would not take his own life".
MPs have claimed that Dr. Kelly (a Harold Shipman lookalike) has been used as a fall guy in the BBC/dossier scandal. It was the first thing that struck me when I heard about him admitting to be the source but claiming not to have told Gilligan what was eventually reported. It stinks to me of some kind of undercover smear and murder case to get the Government off the hook. The BBC seem to have maintained a convenient silence over this, presumably their criticism can only reach certain parts, or somebody has been warned not to look at this too closely... it looks very smelly to me.
The alleged BBC source on the dossier scandal has been found dead in what has been reported as a suicide, which has shocked his family who were "so sure, despite the pressure he was under that he would not take his own life".
MPs have claimed that Dr. Kelly (a Harold Shipman lookalike) has been used as a fall guy in the BBC/dossier scandal. It was the first thing that struck me when I heard about him admitting to be the source but claiming not to have told Gilligan what was eventually reported. It stinks to me of some kind of undercover smear and murder case to get the Government off the hook. The BBC seem to have maintained a convenient silence over this, presumably their criticism can only reach certain parts, or somebody has been warned not to look at this too closely... it looks very smelly to me.
18.7.03
A must read Fox News transcript, as broadcast, apparently there were cuts...
"O'REILLY: Cut his mic."
"O'REILLY: Cut his mic."
Saw this story on Tom Tomorrow's site. I know the word Orwellian gets far to many outings these days, but these really is an appropriate case, it has fascism/threats, stupidity, totalitarianism and paranoid spying;
"Careful: The FB-eye may be watching
Reading the wrong thing in public can get you in trouble"
"What could I have possibly been carrying?
Trippi's partner speaks up: "Any reading material? Papers?" I don't think so. Then Trippi decides to level with me: "I'll tell you what, Marc. Someone in the shop that day saw you reading something, and thought it looked suspicious enough to call us about. So that's why we're here, just checking it out. Like I said, there's no problem. We'd just like to get to the bottom of this. Now if we can't, then you may have a problem. And you don't want that."
You don't want that? Have I just been threatened by the FBI? Confusion and a light dusting of panic conspire to keep me speechless. Was I reading something that morning? Something that would constitute a problem?
The partner speaks up again: "Maybe a printout of some kind?"
Then it occurs to me: I was reading. It was an article my dad had printed off the Web."
I shall be buying Tom's book and I urge you to too.
"Careful: The FB-eye may be watching
Reading the wrong thing in public can get you in trouble"
"What could I have possibly been carrying?
Trippi's partner speaks up: "Any reading material? Papers?" I don't think so. Then Trippi decides to level with me: "I'll tell you what, Marc. Someone in the shop that day saw you reading something, and thought it looked suspicious enough to call us about. So that's why we're here, just checking it out. Like I said, there's no problem. We'd just like to get to the bottom of this. Now if we can't, then you may have a problem. And you don't want that."
You don't want that? Have I just been threatened by the FBI? Confusion and a light dusting of panic conspire to keep me speechless. Was I reading something that morning? Something that would constitute a problem?
The partner speaks up again: "Maybe a printout of some kind?"
Then it occurs to me: I was reading. It was an article my dad had printed off the Web."
I shall be buying Tom's book and I urge you to too.
"Bikini Girls With Machine Guns" - the cramps
i been a drag racer on LSD, and i rode bare-assed on top of the shpinx, i even had a gorilla on the slopes of kismet, and man, that was fun for a while you bet but... [chorus:] bikini girls with machine guns, bikini girls with machine guns, that stuff will kill ya, it's loaded with fun, bikini girls with machine guns well i savored many foriegn kinds of delicacies, intoxicated til i can't tell what the hell i could see, had all the violence and liquor within close reach, but all bars, pills and threeways lead me back to the beach and... now they say that virtue is it's own reward, but when that surf comes in i'm gunna get my board, got my own ideas about the righteous kick, you can keep the rewards, i'd just as soon stay sick...
i been a drag racer on LSD, and i rode bare-assed on top of the shpinx, i even had a gorilla on the slopes of kismet, and man, that was fun for a while you bet but... [chorus:] bikini girls with machine guns, bikini girls with machine guns, that stuff will kill ya, it's loaded with fun, bikini girls with machine guns well i savored many foriegn kinds of delicacies, intoxicated til i can't tell what the hell i could see, had all the violence and liquor within close reach, but all bars, pills and threeways lead me back to the beach and... now they say that virtue is it's own reward, but when that surf comes in i'm gunna get my board, got my own ideas about the righteous kick, you can keep the rewards, i'd just as soon stay sick...
"I am an intellectual fascist, so I won't attempt to engage you on a violent level, although leftist fools like you deserve such.
You, and all Europeans who are on the extreme left, are total fools. You are instruments of the Zionist and you don't even know it. Everything around me screams murder against our great and noble race and here I see anti-survivalistic fools like you contributing to your own demise. You are like hyenas who have relinquished control to the lions, seemingly lost in the stupid thought, that the lions are you friends.
It would take a year, or two, to deprogram a totally brainwashed instrument like you. I wasn't a Neo Nazi when I was young, but the darkening world around me has shown me that this is not a situation to be neither egalitarian nor weak...this current dilema, we face as a race, calls for total revolution and rebellious sedition. The more I see the enemy act, the more I come to the clear notion that Hitler was right. About everything."
poor baader-meinhof.com.. poor germany..
You, and all Europeans who are on the extreme left, are total fools. You are instruments of the Zionist and you don't even know it. Everything around me screams murder against our great and noble race and here I see anti-survivalistic fools like you contributing to your own demise. You are like hyenas who have relinquished control to the lions, seemingly lost in the stupid thought, that the lions are you friends.
It would take a year, or two, to deprogram a totally brainwashed instrument like you. I wasn't a Neo Nazi when I was young, but the darkening world around me has shown me that this is not a situation to be neither egalitarian nor weak...this current dilema, we face as a race, calls for total revolution and rebellious sedition. The more I see the enemy act, the more I come to the clear notion that Hitler was right. About everything."
poor baader-meinhof.com.. poor germany..
17.7.03
western marxist perspectives after the iraq war
"The two-day-long rebellion of African Americans against police abuse that broke out in Benton Harbor, Michigan on June 16-17 says more about the state of this country than the recent global summits and photo-ops meant to showcase the U.S. military “victory” in Iraq. The rebellion in Benton Harbor, a city of 12,000 that is 92% Black, occurred after Terrance Shurn, a Black man, died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident after being chased through the town by white police officers.
Residents say that the outburst was a result of years of police harassment against the African-American community. The depth of anger in the community is reflected in the fact that even the arrival of hundreds of police from around the state failed to “restore order” after the first night of violence. Many residents were so angry at police misconduct that they threatened to set the police headquarters on fire.
The events in Benton Harbor reflect the simmering unrest that exists in African-American communities across the U.S. which could explode at any time. Yet the news media barely mentioned the rebellion until 48 hours after it began. It is one more reflection of the servility of the mass media towards the prevailing powers in this country.
That servility is bound to get worse in light of the June 3 decision of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to dramatically relax limits on the ability of media conglomerates to own TV and radio stations, newspapers and cable operations. The FCC’s ruling shows that the concentration and centralization of capital in fewer hands that Karl Marx spoke of is neither merely theory nor related only to relations in production. It is immanent in the entire nature of the present stage of capitalism.
The key question facing us is whether the forces of revolt will project a viable alternative to this stage of capitalism. The fact that political protests have fallen off elsewhere in the U.S. since the end of the Iraq war does not mean that the hundreds of thousands who participated in anti-war protests have become quiescent. Many are thinking of what to do next and do not buy George W. Bush’s rhetoric that outside military intervention is the only way to “liberate” oppressed peoples. Yet the lopsided scale of the U.S. victory, which was able to blunt much of the anti-war opposition, combined with the failure to project an emancipatory alternative from the Left, is making it more difficult than ever to envision a transcendence of the present stage of capitalism.
If Marxist-Humanism is needed for anything at the present moment it is to help break through the ideological notion that masses of people cannot transcend capitalism, racism, and imperialist war through their own ideas and volition."
"The two-day-long rebellion of African Americans against police abuse that broke out in Benton Harbor, Michigan on June 16-17 says more about the state of this country than the recent global summits and photo-ops meant to showcase the U.S. military “victory” in Iraq. The rebellion in Benton Harbor, a city of 12,000 that is 92% Black, occurred after Terrance Shurn, a Black man, died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident after being chased through the town by white police officers.
Residents say that the outburst was a result of years of police harassment against the African-American community. The depth of anger in the community is reflected in the fact that even the arrival of hundreds of police from around the state failed to “restore order” after the first night of violence. Many residents were so angry at police misconduct that they threatened to set the police headquarters on fire.
The events in Benton Harbor reflect the simmering unrest that exists in African-American communities across the U.S. which could explode at any time. Yet the news media barely mentioned the rebellion until 48 hours after it began. It is one more reflection of the servility of the mass media towards the prevailing powers in this country.
That servility is bound to get worse in light of the June 3 decision of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to dramatically relax limits on the ability of media conglomerates to own TV and radio stations, newspapers and cable operations. The FCC’s ruling shows that the concentration and centralization of capital in fewer hands that Karl Marx spoke of is neither merely theory nor related only to relations in production. It is immanent in the entire nature of the present stage of capitalism.
The key question facing us is whether the forces of revolt will project a viable alternative to this stage of capitalism. The fact that political protests have fallen off elsewhere in the U.S. since the end of the Iraq war does not mean that the hundreds of thousands who participated in anti-war protests have become quiescent. Many are thinking of what to do next and do not buy George W. Bush’s rhetoric that outside military intervention is the only way to “liberate” oppressed peoples. Yet the lopsided scale of the U.S. victory, which was able to blunt much of the anti-war opposition, combined with the failure to project an emancipatory alternative from the Left, is making it more difficult than ever to envision a transcendence of the present stage of capitalism.
If Marxist-Humanism is needed for anything at the present moment it is to help break through the ideological notion that masses of people cannot transcend capitalism, racism, and imperialist war through their own ideas and volition."
16.7.03
re: kosik reception
Rorty, dialectics, pragmatism's limits
"Today pragmatism arguably represents the greatest challenge to Marxist-Humanist thought in the U. S. Fredric Jameson once pointed out the Anglo-American tradition's profound hostility to dialectic. And what falls under the term postmodernism owes more to James and Dewey than to Heidegger's question of being. Richard Rorty is an important figure in this respect, because he has done the most to refurbish the pragmatist tradition and because he nevertheless shares a certain affinity to Marxist-Humanism.
Rorty vigorously attacks the idea of an intellectual vanguard. He writes that pragmatism is humanism applied to epistemology--truth is not SUB SPECIE AETERNITATIS but is what is useful to human beings. Furthermore, he comes from the same radical milieu as Raya Dunayevskaya, which shows itself obliquely in statements such as "still, the image of Lenin, that captured the hearts of our grandparents..." Like Lenin, Rorty insists that theory subordinate itself to practice, that it concern itself first and foremost with the concrete. And it is with his understanding of concreteness that we can begin to flesh out the differences between his pragmatism and dialectical thought.
[...]
From a dialectical perspective, Rorty indulges in his own form of abstraction. The world is an interrelated whole, and the attempt to grasp particular issues outside of this context will only mystify their inter-relational character. Rorty's pragmatism would be seen as a philosophy of the pseudoconcrete by the Czech philosopher Karel Kosik. In his work DIALECTICS OF THE CONCRETE, Kosik describes the pseudoconcrete as a world of fixed objects existing in apparent autonomy or indifference from one another. This autonomy conceals relationships that effect the particulars not just at their margins, so to speak, but in their very essence."
also interesting: whole paper quite rich
"As Ricoeur says (1988), the discourse-work-writing triad constitutes the tripod which bears the project of a world, the world opened by the text, however the world of the text goes far beyond the author’s world. The world of the text opens to the reader’s world, creating multiple possibilities. From this perspective, the term I used – appropriation – appears inadequate and restrictive, since it offers the idea of appropriating a single "true" sense. Regarding this "true sense" there is yet another point that I would like to discuss, which is the relationship between intellectuals and ideology. The theoretical framework which provided support for my scientific intentionality, was Critical Educational Theory (CET), whose inspiration comes from the idea, now rather heavily criticised, that the world of truth is deformed, obscured by mystifications which can be attributed to the effect of power interests and mechanisms, and it is up to the revolutionary (the word revolutionary is taken in the sense rendered explicit by Karel Kosik in The Dialectics of Concrete: of a change in human-social reality, performed by man himself who produced it) intellectuals to take the critical-reflective actions required to remove the ideological rubble covering up the truth, in order to allow true reality to appear, and that conditions should be created to overcome domination and inequalities, allowing people greater control over their lives. In the formulation of Paulo Freire, this critical operation of the intellect is expressed in the metaphor of removal of the veils that hide true reality. The process of conscientization of the oppressed would occur precisely in this approach of an essential truth which is to underlie the mystified facts and phenomena in the daily experience of domination. Unveiled, domination could be overcome and reality transformed."
Rorty, dialectics, pragmatism's limits
"Today pragmatism arguably represents the greatest challenge to Marxist-Humanist thought in the U. S. Fredric Jameson once pointed out the Anglo-American tradition's profound hostility to dialectic. And what falls under the term postmodernism owes more to James and Dewey than to Heidegger's question of being. Richard Rorty is an important figure in this respect, because he has done the most to refurbish the pragmatist tradition and because he nevertheless shares a certain affinity to Marxist-Humanism.
Rorty vigorously attacks the idea of an intellectual vanguard. He writes that pragmatism is humanism applied to epistemology--truth is not SUB SPECIE AETERNITATIS but is what is useful to human beings. Furthermore, he comes from the same radical milieu as Raya Dunayevskaya, which shows itself obliquely in statements such as "still, the image of Lenin, that captured the hearts of our grandparents..." Like Lenin, Rorty insists that theory subordinate itself to practice, that it concern itself first and foremost with the concrete. And it is with his understanding of concreteness that we can begin to flesh out the differences between his pragmatism and dialectical thought.
[...]
From a dialectical perspective, Rorty indulges in his own form of abstraction. The world is an interrelated whole, and the attempt to grasp particular issues outside of this context will only mystify their inter-relational character. Rorty's pragmatism would be seen as a philosophy of the pseudoconcrete by the Czech philosopher Karel Kosik. In his work DIALECTICS OF THE CONCRETE, Kosik describes the pseudoconcrete as a world of fixed objects existing in apparent autonomy or indifference from one another. This autonomy conceals relationships that effect the particulars not just at their margins, so to speak, but in their very essence."
also interesting: whole paper quite rich
"As Ricoeur says (1988), the discourse-work-writing triad constitutes the tripod which bears the project of a world, the world opened by the text, however the world of the text goes far beyond the author’s world. The world of the text opens to the reader’s world, creating multiple possibilities. From this perspective, the term I used – appropriation – appears inadequate and restrictive, since it offers the idea of appropriating a single "true" sense. Regarding this "true sense" there is yet another point that I would like to discuss, which is the relationship between intellectuals and ideology. The theoretical framework which provided support for my scientific intentionality, was Critical Educational Theory (CET), whose inspiration comes from the idea, now rather heavily criticised, that the world of truth is deformed, obscured by mystifications which can be attributed to the effect of power interests and mechanisms, and it is up to the revolutionary (the word revolutionary is taken in the sense rendered explicit by Karel Kosik in The Dialectics of Concrete: of a change in human-social reality, performed by man himself who produced it) intellectuals to take the critical-reflective actions required to remove the ideological rubble covering up the truth, in order to allow true reality to appear, and that conditions should be created to overcome domination and inequalities, allowing people greater control over their lives. In the formulation of Paulo Freire, this critical operation of the intellect is expressed in the metaphor of removal of the veils that hide true reality. The process of conscientization of the oppressed would occur precisely in this approach of an essential truth which is to underlie the mystified facts and phenomena in the daily experience of domination. Unveiled, domination could be overcome and reality transformed."
The real story about the black-and-white sequences is that we were filming in this chapel in Cheltenham, a very old chapel and we couldn't get the lights in there. So Lindsay said, 'Well, we'll shoot it in black and white'. When he saw it he said, 'Aah, I just love black and white, why don't we do it again tomorrow? Let's shoot it in black and white'. It was totally arbitrary. He said to me, 'Malcolm. In Cinderella when the clock strikes 12, why does the carriage turn back into a pumpkin?' I said, 'I don't know'. He said, 'It just does'. It was my first taste of surrealism.
cf clockwork orange. no specific intent to element other than directing awareness toward perception: "question your goggles. guardian says "visual/emotional transitions"-
"Like the film, Mick Travis and his two friends are apolitical [?]. They're in revolt against an autocracy that denies them individual freedom in the name of fossilised abstractions: Obedience, Team Spirit, Tradition, Duty. "When do we live?" Mick Travis asks. "That's what I want to know." They first start to live by celebrating erotic freedom (Mick's affair with a local waitress, Wallace's romance with a junior boy [missed that]), and finally erupt in furious, orgasmic liberation on Founders Day. In 1932, when Vigo's children hurled tin cans and old shoes from a rooftop, it was an innocent prank. In 1968, when the trio and their lovers open fire on school dignitaries, staff and parents, they mean business. But so does autocracy. Led by a military Founder, it fires back with superior weapons from the school armoury, and a close shot of Mick continuing to fire fades abruptly to a black screen, with If... reappearing in red letters. This final transition from fantasy to reality suggests that the revolution is doomed to failure, but a failure that's also a warning."
also,
The latter [Anderson] may have been part of British cinema's New Wave, but that didn't stop him from sometimes behaving as if he was a retired Brigadier. Surprisingly, this scourge of Albion lived for much of his life in a cottage in the heart of the Home Counties. "His favourite paper was The Daily Telegraph," says Sherwin. "He believed in hanging. I think he thought Mrs Thatcher was doing OK. I met some of his communist left-wing colleagues at a film festival in Portugal recently and I loved teasing them, saying he couldn't stand silly old fools like you."
[...]
The film-makers didn't let the school authorities know how the movie was going to end. Sherwin presented them with a dummy script and told them that the battle sequence would be filmed in Lindsay Anderson's "improvising documentary style". He pointedly declined to mention that the schoolboys would be turning their guns on the headmaster
If... (financed by Paramount after every British company had turned it down) won the Palme d'Or in Cannes despite the British Ambassador's demand that it be withdrawn from the festival. (He called it "an insult to the British nation".) It was embraced by audiences everywhere from Communist Czechoslovakia to Fascist Portugal. Back home at Cheltenham, the response was more muted. "They were very upset and a lot of boys were taken out of the school," Sherwin recalls dryly.
[...]
Sherwin and Anderson had their disagreements. The writer was extremely sceptical about the director's plans for making a sequel to If... in the early Nineties. "I'm afraid to use the phrase, but it was Lindsay's wank. It wasn't real. He was my greatest friend and so naturally I decided to do what I could."
re: free cinema..
Founded on the ideology and practice of Neorealism, the Free Cinema movement emerged with a larger social movement, assailing the British class structure and calling for the replacement of bourgeois elitism with liberal working-class values. In the cinema world, this anti-establishment agitation resulted in the New Cinema, or social realist movement, which was signaled by Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), the first British postwar film to have a working-class protagonist and proletarian themes.
Stylistically influenced by the New Wave, with which it was concurrent, the 'social realist' film was generally shot in black and white, on location in the industrial Midlands and cast with relatively unknown young actors and actresses. Like the New Wave films, social realist films were independently produced on low budgets (many of them for Woodfall Film Productions, the company Richardson and playwright John Osborne founded in 1958, principally to adapt the latter's Look Back in Anger), but their freshness of both content and form attracted an international audience. Some of the most famous were Richardson's A Taste of Honey (1961) and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), John Schlesinger's A Kind of Loving (1962) and Billy Liar (1963), Anderson's This Sporting Life (1963), and Reisz's Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966).
15.7.03
This piece won't contain much new info for regular readers of this blog, but it's a good place to find a number of links... I'm posting it more because I think it's good internet journalism, with numerous links to sources sited embedded in the article; what an internet article should be (and soon mostly well be) like.
This sound clip from the head of the Carlyle group about GW is pretty funny, calling him useless on the board...
This sound clip from the head of the Carlyle group about GW is pretty funny, calling him useless on the board...
Possible trail of voting fraud in the US... haven't had the time to fully research this, but certainly find it intriguing and worth a look...
This article doesn't say anything too new to any of the readers of this blog, but it puts a lot of things together with an enormous number of links to sources. I'm posting it more as a good base guide, and as an example of good internet journalism. This is the way all web-based articles ought to be (and someday will be) written.
14.7.03
?
A 12-year-old girl who has been missing since the weekend has flown to France with a 31-year-old former US marine, police said today.
[...]
A police spokeswoman today confirmed that the schoolgirl had met up with former US marine Toby Studebaker, who is originally from Michigan, and had flown to France on Saturday.
Mr Studebaker, who left the military last week, had flown to Manchester from Detroit before meeting up with the girl, to whom he had been writing for around a year after they met over the internet.
A 12-year-old girl who has been missing since the weekend has flown to France with a 31-year-old former US marine, police said today.
[...]
A police spokeswoman today confirmed that the schoolgirl had met up with former US marine Toby Studebaker, who is originally from Michigan, and had flown to France on Saturday.
Mr Studebaker, who left the military last week, had flown to Manchester from Detroit before meeting up with the girl, to whom he had been writing for around a year after they met over the internet.
Did Bush and Blair deceive the public over the threat posed by Saddam? Julie Tannenbaum mounts a philosophical investigation
If... was inspired by zero de conduite and "the crusaders" which i assume is a book, but i haven't been able to track it down...
did very much enjoy neoliberal newspeak dictionary, as posted below, some translations into english although semantics culturally determined, so slightly skewed:
abstract - reflective, synthetic, concrete
archaic - not corresponding to neoliberal universe, resisting, modernistic
creative - commercial
liberal - monopolistic, social darwinist
modern - neoliberal, feudal-capitalistic, regressive
modernization - neoliberal assimilation, job cuts, reduction of public services, counter reform
pragmatic - technocratic, economically liberal
restucturing - job cuts
subjective (negative connotation) - breaking through uncritically accepted notions, objective
unideological - ideological, systemic
etc.
abstract - reflective, synthetic, concrete
archaic - not corresponding to neoliberal universe, resisting, modernistic
creative - commercial
liberal - monopolistic, social darwinist
modern - neoliberal, feudal-capitalistic, regressive
modernization - neoliberal assimilation, job cuts, reduction of public services, counter reform
pragmatic - technocratic, economically liberal
restucturing - job cuts
subjective (negative connotation) - breaking through uncritically accepted notions, objective
unideological - ideological, systemic
etc.
Principles of Revolutionary Syndicalism
Adopted December 1922 by the Berlin Congress
of the International Workers' Association
(Extracts)
i. Revolutionary Syndicalism, basing itself on the class struggle, seeks to establish the unity and solidarity of all manual and intellectual workers into economic organisations fighting for the abolition of both the wage system and the State. Neither the State nor political parties can achieve the economic organisation and emancipation of labour.
ii. Revolutionary Syndicalism maintains that economic and social monopolies must be replaced by free, self-managing federations of agricultural and industrial workers united in a system of councils.
iii. The twofold task of Revolutionary Syndicalism is to carry on the struggle for economic, social and intellectual improvement in the existing society, and to achieve independent self-managed production and distribution by taking possession of the earth and the means of production. Instead of the State and political parties, the economic organisation of labour. Instead of government over people, the administration of things.
iv. Revolutionary Syndicalism is based on the principles of federalism, free agreement and grassroots organisation from the base upwards into local, district, regional and international federations united by shared aspirations and common interests. Under federalism, each unit enjoys full autonomy and independence in its own sphere, while enjoying all the advantages of association.
v. Revolutionary Syndicalism rejects nationalism, the religion of the State and all arbitrary frontiers, recognising only the self-rule of natural communities freely enjoying their own way of life, constantly enriched by the benefits of free association with other federated communities.
vi. Revolutionary Syndicalism, basing itself on economic direct action, supports all struggles not in contradition with its principles - the abolition of economic monopoly and the domination of the State. The means of direct action are the strike, the boycott, the sit-in, and other forms of direc action developed by workers in the course of their struggles leading to labour's most effective weapon, the General Strike, prelude to Social Revolution.
Adopted December 1922 by the Berlin Congress
of the International Workers' Association
(Extracts)
i. Revolutionary Syndicalism, basing itself on the class struggle, seeks to establish the unity and solidarity of all manual and intellectual workers into economic organisations fighting for the abolition of both the wage system and the State. Neither the State nor political parties can achieve the economic organisation and emancipation of labour.
ii. Revolutionary Syndicalism maintains that economic and social monopolies must be replaced by free, self-managing federations of agricultural and industrial workers united in a system of councils.
iii. The twofold task of Revolutionary Syndicalism is to carry on the struggle for economic, social and intellectual improvement in the existing society, and to achieve independent self-managed production and distribution by taking possession of the earth and the means of production. Instead of the State and political parties, the economic organisation of labour. Instead of government over people, the administration of things.
iv. Revolutionary Syndicalism is based on the principles of federalism, free agreement and grassroots organisation from the base upwards into local, district, regional and international federations united by shared aspirations and common interests. Under federalism, each unit enjoys full autonomy and independence in its own sphere, while enjoying all the advantages of association.
v. Revolutionary Syndicalism rejects nationalism, the religion of the State and all arbitrary frontiers, recognising only the self-rule of natural communities freely enjoying their own way of life, constantly enriched by the benefits of free association with other federated communities.
vi. Revolutionary Syndicalism, basing itself on economic direct action, supports all struggles not in contradition with its principles - the abolition of economic monopoly and the domination of the State. The means of direct action are the strike, the boycott, the sit-in, and other forms of direc action developed by workers in the course of their struggles leading to labour's most effective weapon, the General Strike, prelude to Social Revolution.
analytic philosophy - accepting historicism one could call it "imperialist philosophy". a bit of a leap, yes, but let's.
"At Harvard, regarded by the analytic establishment as a premier department despite its weaknesses in history, W.V.O. Quine, analytic epistemology's towering figure, declared philosophy and history of philosophy to be separate fields ['fields'? - like organic chemistry and industrial chemistry?]. A Harvard professor teaching early modern philosophy could abashedly ask his charges, as one did, "Descartes -- was he before Newton or after Newton?" At Princeton, similar to Harvard in its ahistorical orientation, a philosophy professor famously posted a sign on his door, "Just Say No to the History of Philosophy!"
[...]
"Over the past 20 years, however, a new generation of philosophers -- including a surprising number trained at those two institutions -- have tried, in the words of Princeton's own current expert in early modern philosophy, Daniel Garber, "to find a more historical way of doing the history of philosophy." [indicative really, 'history of philosophy' must be historical - is this the insight? to 'do' philosophy]."
language indicates rigid lock-up in analytical epistemology. simple reflection within the boundaries of the epistemic frame in order to grasp historical totality via object produces linguistically pragmatic construct, reflection via oppressed language -> deceptive enlightenment - sounds like trying to mate a dog with a cat. absence of history in anglo-american philosophy and sole epistemic reception of most any magnum opus in western tradition indicative of political culture. analytical philosophy is merely scientific theory, which, in light of idealist argumentation is a rather spurious corner of the object, unreflectively corresponding to advanced industrial society. semantics of history based on positivist set of assumptions -> downward spiral into meaninglessness -> result: functionalist interpretation of (doing) history. self has nothing to do with anything -> interpretation feeds status quo. essentially: fascist ideology.
subject, anyone?
"At Harvard, regarded by the analytic establishment as a premier department despite its weaknesses in history, W.V.O. Quine, analytic epistemology's towering figure, declared philosophy and history of philosophy to be separate fields ['fields'? - like organic chemistry and industrial chemistry?]. A Harvard professor teaching early modern philosophy could abashedly ask his charges, as one did, "Descartes -- was he before Newton or after Newton?" At Princeton, similar to Harvard in its ahistorical orientation, a philosophy professor famously posted a sign on his door, "Just Say No to the History of Philosophy!"
[...]
"Over the past 20 years, however, a new generation of philosophers -- including a surprising number trained at those two institutions -- have tried, in the words of Princeton's own current expert in early modern philosophy, Daniel Garber, "to find a more historical way of doing the history of philosophy." [indicative really, 'history of philosophy' must be historical - is this the insight? to 'do' philosophy]."
language indicates rigid lock-up in analytical epistemology. simple reflection within the boundaries of the epistemic frame in order to grasp historical totality via object produces linguistically pragmatic construct, reflection via oppressed language -> deceptive enlightenment - sounds like trying to mate a dog with a cat. absence of history in anglo-american philosophy and sole epistemic reception of most any magnum opus in western tradition indicative of political culture. analytical philosophy is merely scientific theory, which, in light of idealist argumentation is a rather spurious corner of the object, unreflectively corresponding to advanced industrial society. semantics of history based on positivist set of assumptions -> downward spiral into meaninglessness -> result: functionalist interpretation of (doing) history. self has nothing to do with anything -> interpretation feeds status quo. essentially: fascist ideology.
subject, anyone?
13.7.03
Medien im Lebenszusammenhang
Medien sind in Lebenszusammenhänge eingebunden und interagieren mit gesellschaftlichen Prozessen. Dies gilt für die professionellen Handlungsroutinen und Selbstkonzeptionen der Medienschaffenden in ihren jeweiligen politischen und kulturellen Rahmenbedingungen ebenso wie für die Rezipienten, die Medien individuell in ihren Alltag integrieren. Die Cultural Studies haben zur Untersuchung dieser Phänomene ein wissenschaftliches Instrumentarium bereitgestellt. Ob die Medien innerhalb der Gesellschaft integrierend oder fragmentierend wirken, hängt letztlich stark von der individuellen Nutzung ab. Die Beiträge des Dossiers 19 legen aktuelle Forschungsergebnisse vor.
abc des anarchismus sehr vernünftig
Medien sind in Lebenszusammenhänge eingebunden und interagieren mit gesellschaftlichen Prozessen. Dies gilt für die professionellen Handlungsroutinen und Selbstkonzeptionen der Medienschaffenden in ihren jeweiligen politischen und kulturellen Rahmenbedingungen ebenso wie für die Rezipienten, die Medien individuell in ihren Alltag integrieren. Die Cultural Studies haben zur Untersuchung dieser Phänomene ein wissenschaftliches Instrumentarium bereitgestellt. Ob die Medien innerhalb der Gesellschaft integrierend oder fragmentierend wirken, hängt letztlich stark von der individuellen Nutzung ab. Die Beiträge des Dossiers 19 legen aktuelle Forschungsergebnisse vor.
abc des anarchismus sehr vernünftig
second European Social Forum, which will take place from 12th-15th November 2003 in Paris as well as the towns of St Denis , as well as Bobigny ( Seine-Saint-Denis) and Ivry (Val de Marne).
Well, when you see it back to back like this...
"(The Bush administration)... is the first administration to openly declare a policy of unilateral aggression, a "Pax Americana" where the presence of allies (whether England or Bulgaria) is agreeable but unimportant; where international treaties no longer apply to the United States; and where-- for the first time in history-- this country reserves the right to non-defensive, "pre-emptive" strikes against any nation on earth, for whatever reason it declares.
It is the first-- since the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II-- to enact special laws for a specific ethnic group. Non-citizen young Muslim men are now required to register and subject themselves to interrogation. Many hundreds have been arrested and held without trial or access to legal assistance-- a violation of another pillar of American democracy: habeas corpus. Many have been taken from their families and deported on minor technical immigration violations; the whereabouts of many others are still unknown. And, in Guantanamo Bay, where it is said that they are now preparing execution chambers, hundreds of foreign nationals -- including a 13-year-old and a man who claims to be 100-- have been kept for almost two years in a limbo that clearly contravenes the Geneva Convention.
Similar to the Reagan era, it is an administration openly devoted to helping the rich and ignoring the poor, one that has turned the surplus of the Clinton years into a massive deficit through its combination of enormous tax cuts for the wealthy (particularly those who earn more than a million dollars a year) and increases in defense spending. (And, although Republicans always campaign on "less government," it has created the largest new government bureaucracy in history: the Department of Homeland Security.) The Financial Times of England, hardly a hotbed of leftists, has categorized this economic policy as "the lunatics taking over the asylum."
"(The Bush administration)... is the first administration to openly declare a policy of unilateral aggression, a "Pax Americana" where the presence of allies (whether England or Bulgaria) is agreeable but unimportant; where international treaties no longer apply to the United States; and where-- for the first time in history-- this country reserves the right to non-defensive, "pre-emptive" strikes against any nation on earth, for whatever reason it declares.
It is the first-- since the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II-- to enact special laws for a specific ethnic group. Non-citizen young Muslim men are now required to register and subject themselves to interrogation. Many hundreds have been arrested and held without trial or access to legal assistance-- a violation of another pillar of American democracy: habeas corpus. Many have been taken from their families and deported on minor technical immigration violations; the whereabouts of many others are still unknown. And, in Guantanamo Bay, where it is said that they are now preparing execution chambers, hundreds of foreign nationals -- including a 13-year-old and a man who claims to be 100-- have been kept for almost two years in a limbo that clearly contravenes the Geneva Convention.
Similar to the Reagan era, it is an administration openly devoted to helping the rich and ignoring the poor, one that has turned the surplus of the Clinton years into a massive deficit through its combination of enormous tax cuts for the wealthy (particularly those who earn more than a million dollars a year) and increases in defense spending. (And, although Republicans always campaign on "less government," it has created the largest new government bureaucracy in history: the Department of Homeland Security.) The Financial Times of England, hardly a hotbed of leftists, has categorized this economic policy as "the lunatics taking over the asylum."
12.7.03
Even though it grew at very high rates in the past, Brazil still has one of the most unequal distributions of income in the world. This situation must be reversed. A lack of economic and social democracy threatens democracy as a whole. The values of social solidarity are in decline. State institutions, politics and politicians are viewed with increasing hostility.
Brazil's experiment shows full democracy requires social justice - Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva
Brazil's experiment shows full democracy requires social justice - Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva
Early scholars who studied propaganda called it a "hypodermic needle approach" to communication, in which the communicator's objective was to "inject" his ideas into the minds of the target population. Since propaganda is often aimed at persuading people to do things that are not in their own best interests, it frequently seeks to bypass the rational brain altogether and manipulate us on a more primitive level, appealing to emotional symbolism.
Television uses sudden, loud noises to provoke a startled response, bright colours, violence - not because these things are inherently appealing, but because they catch our attention and keep us watching. When these practices are criticised, advertisers and TV executives respond that they do this because this is what their "audience wants". In fact, however, they are appealing selectively to certain aspects of human nature - the most primitive aspects, because those are the most predictable. Fear is one of the most primitive emotions in the human psyche, and it definitely keeps us watching. If the mere ability to keep people watching were really synonymous with "giving audiences what they want", we would have to conclude that people "want" terrorism. On September 11, Osama bin Laden kept the entire world watching. As much as people hated what they were seeing, the power of their emotions kept them from turning away.
war + PR
Television uses sudden, loud noises to provoke a startled response, bright colours, violence - not because these things are inherently appealing, but because they catch our attention and keep us watching. When these practices are criticised, advertisers and TV executives respond that they do this because this is what their "audience wants". In fact, however, they are appealing selectively to certain aspects of human nature - the most primitive aspects, because those are the most predictable. Fear is one of the most primitive emotions in the human psyche, and it definitely keeps us watching. If the mere ability to keep people watching were really synonymous with "giving audiences what they want", we would have to conclude that people "want" terrorism. On September 11, Osama bin Laden kept the entire world watching. As much as people hated what they were seeing, the power of their emotions kept them from turning away.
war + PR
Millionaire Thinks Of Self As Upper-Middle Class
GROSSE POINT WOODS, MI—Jim Blakeley, 43, a Ford Motor Company executive with personal assets totalling roughly $5.5 million, described himself as "upper-middle class" Monday. "I guess I'm pretty well-off. I make a decent upper-middle-class living, but I'm certainly not what you'd call super-rich," said Blakeley, whose annual salary of $675,000 puts him in the top one-half of 1 percent of Americans. "I know plenty of people who make way more than I do, but I get by with what I have."
GROSSE POINT WOODS, MI—Jim Blakeley, 43, a Ford Motor Company executive with personal assets totalling roughly $5.5 million, described himself as "upper-middle class" Monday. "I guess I'm pretty well-off. I make a decent upper-middle-class living, but I'm certainly not what you'd call super-rich," said Blakeley, whose annual salary of $675,000 puts him in the top one-half of 1 percent of Americans. "I know plenty of people who make way more than I do, but I get by with what I have."
Time will tell, of course, if Gallo was even near correct in his doubts about U.S. policy. But the haste with which he arrived at such sweeping conclusions leads one to suspect that they were based far more on a pre-existing view of America than on an analysis of the situation at hand. Indeed, they were an expression of one of the most powerful modes of thought in the world today: anti-Americanism. According to the French analyst Jean François Revel, "If you remove anti-Americanism, nothing remains of French political thought today, either on the Left or on the Right." Revel might just as well have said the same thing about German political thought or the thought of almost any Western European country, where anti-Americanism reigns as the lingua franca of the intellectual class.
genealogy of anti-americanism very telling, funny, sickening, all at once: enjoy
genealogy of anti-americanism very telling, funny, sickening, all at once: enjoy
11.7.03
Ex-Intelligence chief calls operation "cheeky";
“And then the real overselling were the continual assessments of an imminent terrorist attack in London, advising housewives to lay in stocks of water and food, I mean all that stuff ... tanks at Heathrow. I mean that, I call that overselling."
A coherent account of the oil argument;
“America's war on terrorism is often viewed as a scramble for black gold. There is a logic to this.”
“And then the real overselling were the continual assessments of an imminent terrorist attack in London, advising housewives to lay in stocks of water and food, I mean all that stuff ... tanks at Heathrow. I mean that, I call that overselling."
A coherent account of the oil argument;
“America's war on terrorism is often viewed as a scramble for black gold. There is a logic to this.”
"A chickenhawk is a term often applied to public persons - generally male - who (1) tend to advocate, or are fervent supporters of those who advocate, military solutions to political problems, and who have personally (2) declined to take advantage of a significant opportunity to serve in uniform during wartime."
10.7.03
Students at the school had been revolting since 1967. They called it a "pedagogic gerontocracy", and demanded power on academic committees and changes to certain courses. But why did it all happen anyway? Surely this was a secure generation without material worries? Colin Crouch puts the whole movement down to challenges to the status quo. "We resented the exercise of authority and power without participation, and believed that we could assert that demand without fear".
"Human nature is not a given but infinitely malleable" LSE 68
"Human nature is not a given but infinitely malleable" LSE 68
The MediaGuardian 100 list is the definitive guide to the most powerful movers and shakers in one of the UK's most vibrant industries.This, the third year of its publication, has been the most controversial so far with the BBC director general, Greg Dyke, taking on the mantle of Rupert Murdoch as the UK's most powerful media executive.A panel of experienced media watchers gleaned from the worlds of politics, journalism, advertising and the internet judged entrants using three criteria: cultural influence, economic clout and political power.
9.7.03
"AABA is concerned with the poverty of accountancy and business education"
Website of a remarkable chap who night schooled his way to become a professorship of accountancy. But rather than use this as leverage to have it nice for himself, nodding at corporate accounts, he instead campaigns against corporate abuse of the tax system and governments complicity in doing nothing. See also Socialism in Reverse.
Website of a remarkable chap who night schooled his way to become a professorship of accountancy. But rather than use this as leverage to have it nice for himself, nodding at corporate accounts, he instead campaigns against corporate abuse of the tax system and governments complicity in doing nothing. See also Socialism in Reverse.
8.7.03
you're the devil in disguise, oh yes you are;
"There is something else our "leftist" critics should bear in mind: we must not only create and preserve social justice for those living and working today, but also consider future generations. Faced with changing our means to social justice - not, I repeat, our principles - we know the future has more rights than the past. We must resist those who hold that the welfare state and workers' and trade union rights are the source of all evil, but our resistance to these neo-liberals will be all the more successful if we tackle the task of restructuring the welfare state in order to modernise it. "
"There is something else our "leftist" critics should bear in mind: we must not only create and preserve social justice for those living and working today, but also consider future generations. Faced with changing our means to social justice - not, I repeat, our principles - we know the future has more rights than the past. We must resist those who hold that the welfare state and workers' and trade union rights are the source of all evil, but our resistance to these neo-liberals will be all the more successful if we tackle the task of restructuring the welfare state in order to modernise it. "
Sir John Stanley, the most argumentative of the Tories, said: "We reached the conclusion, unanimously, that the jury is still out."
The confused conclusion of the brain dead. Contrast with this or this.
The confused conclusion of the brain dead. Contrast with this or this.
"I always thought that Howl was a very exuberant and positive and funny poem. But at the time it was taken to be the ravings of this angry, rebellious jerk."
enjoyed phil reflections below enormously. "youth movement" what's it about? no one is quite sure. where's it going? down the shops i suspect. the ubiquitous nature of the affluent middle class rasta has not even passed by me, in my hermit like ranch-state, so i give you something that made me chuckle from the stereo of a friend. if you give me a call i'll be happy to sing it to you in my unforgettable faux patois;
Inglan Is a Bitch
by Linton Kwesi Johnson
w'en mi jus' come to Landan toun
mi use to work pan di andahgroun
but workin' pan di andahgroun
y'u don't get fi know your way aroun'
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin' it
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no runnin' whey fram it
mi get a lickle jab in a big 'otell
an' awftah a while, mi woz doin' quite well
dem staat mi aaf as a dish-washah
but w'en mi tek a stack, mi noh tun clack-watchah!
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch
noh baddah try fi hide fram it
w'en dem gi' you di lickle wage packit
fus dem rab it wid dem big tax rackit
y'u haffi struggle fi mek en's meet
an' w'en y'u goh a y'u bed y'u jus' cant sleep
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch fi true
a noh lie mi a tell, a true
mi use to work dig ditch w'en it cowl noh bitch
mi did strang like a mule, but, bwoy, mi did fool
den awftah a while mi jus' stap dhu ovahtime
den aftah a while mi jus' phu dung mi tool
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch
y'u haffi know how fi suvvive in it
well mi dhu day wok an' mid dhu nite wok
mi dhu clean wok an' mid dhu dutty wok
dem seh dat black man is very lazy
but it y'u si how mi wok y'u woulda sey mi crazy
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch
y'u bettah face up to it
dem have a lickle facktri up inna Brackly
inna disya facktri all dem dhu is pack crackry
fi di laas fifteen years dem get mi laybah
now awftah fiteen years mi fall out a fayvah
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no runnin' whey fram it
mi know dem have work, work in abundant
yet still, dem mek mi redundant
now, at fifty-five mi gettin' quite ol'
yet still, dem sen' mi fi goh draw dole
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch fi true
is whey wi a goh dhu 'bout it?
Inglan Is a Bitch
by Linton Kwesi Johnson
w'en mi jus' come to Landan toun
mi use to work pan di andahgroun
but workin' pan di andahgroun
y'u don't get fi know your way aroun'
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin' it
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no runnin' whey fram it
mi get a lickle jab in a big 'otell
an' awftah a while, mi woz doin' quite well
dem staat mi aaf as a dish-washah
but w'en mi tek a stack, mi noh tun clack-watchah!
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch
noh baddah try fi hide fram it
w'en dem gi' you di lickle wage packit
fus dem rab it wid dem big tax rackit
y'u haffi struggle fi mek en's meet
an' w'en y'u goh a y'u bed y'u jus' cant sleep
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch fi true
a noh lie mi a tell, a true
mi use to work dig ditch w'en it cowl noh bitch
mi did strang like a mule, but, bwoy, mi did fool
den awftah a while mi jus' stap dhu ovahtime
den aftah a while mi jus' phu dung mi tool
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch
y'u haffi know how fi suvvive in it
well mi dhu day wok an' mid dhu nite wok
mi dhu clean wok an' mid dhu dutty wok
dem seh dat black man is very lazy
but it y'u si how mi wok y'u woulda sey mi crazy
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch
y'u bettah face up to it
dem have a lickle facktri up inna Brackly
inna disya facktri all dem dhu is pack crackry
fi di laas fifteen years dem get mi laybah
now awftah fiteen years mi fall out a fayvah
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no runnin' whey fram it
mi know dem have work, work in abundant
yet still, dem mek mi redundant
now, at fifty-five mi gettin' quite ol'
yet still, dem sen' mi fi goh draw dole
Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch fi true
is whey wi a goh dhu 'bout it?
7.7.03
In the past, he has been called a prophet. "Yeah, yeah, I don’t take these things seriously. I just think it’s another media tag," he says dismissively. "The music is compatible with the poetry in so far as I am writing out of the reggae tradition and some of the poems are written are within the perimeters of the reggae structure. And it’s oral poetry and oral poetry lends itself to the rhythms of music."
"When one thinks of all these things, yeah, Inglan is a Bitch"
i have seen this very one sizzla in action a couple of times and popular opinion around here suggests elements of hatred beyond the homophobia (endemic beyond this guy)- he alledgedly likes making anti-white noises when he visits which only few of the attendants are able to understand or fully participate in. you see around here, bourgois white rastafarians display very limited appreciation of content- the language barrier between english as a foreign language and dancehall styled jamaican is fairly tough- whilst association is cheap (outfit, hairdo).
information is a very real problem throughout the range of post-modern identity narratives up for "choice" post-advent of mtv youth culture (calling it "youth movement" would be cynical). there certainly is an anti-something feel about it, but no-one's really all that sure about anything. you can say this about the late punk scene around but white bourgeois rastafarians in this instance means fairly well educated (banking method unfortunately) group of people collectively and half-heartedly, yet loudly agreeing about nothing in particular at all. the re-introduced christian pattern is very amusing (post-protestants bubbling on about "jah")
i spent the last weekend at such an event and i can tell you i wasn't all that impressed. to a people with a feel for the comedy of this smelly ironic thing it does offer an exceptionally liberal space due to the numbers game and demographics (hence repeat attendance even!), but personal achievement really does boil down to playing around with the scheme whilst there is some sort of background noise with a number of signifiers to it which you can, if you can, then read over into a narrative, belong it, belong to it, ride it, whatever you want to call it (consumption pattern?).
to contrast above with "that other thing", the bit behind the "da roots" on t-shirts at your shopping mall, real world for some, i'd refer to it as a form of post-colonial resolve- comparable to the mexican nationalist movement in anthropological terms. a proper and very legimitate totality, collective spiritual resolve in freirean terms. and also a highly specific movement- universal applicability i'd deny to it. black supremacy is the right hand end of this movement- an unhappy side-effect of any nationalist move to counter oppression, usually not even notable. sometimes it does come out. and then its pain-time for the palestinians.
lyndon kwesi johnson (am able to like this one- enjoy his pol stance in interview) re: rastafari:
Rasta has influenced Jamaican culture in a very big way. Not only in terms of the music but in terms of spirituality that it lent to reggae. Also in terms of the language, the Rastafari that has become a part of everyday Jamaican parlance, spoken by non-Rastafarians. My very first group was, in fact, called Rasta Love, which was a group of rasta drummers. We used to accompany my poetry with bass drum, funde drum and repeater drum. In all of my albums, there's also some repeater playing percussion in the background. Rasta is important for me on that level- as a cultural force that broadened our consciousness and opened our consciousness to our African hertitage and our African ancestry.
IN AMERICA, AFRO-CENTRIC TEACHING HAS BECOME POPULAR RECENTLY. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS MOVEMENT?
Frankly, I don't know what Afro-centric means.
BLACK CHILDREN ARE TAUGHT THAT CIVILIZATION BEGAN IN AFRICA.
So, once you learn that, so what? That's my attitude. Once you know that black people were a part of ancient cilivization in Africa and that African civilization has contributed a lot to world, what next? That's my position. Where do we go from there?"
and in western european pop culture, "african heritage", can be acquired fairly cheaply whilst we're certainly lacking the ancestry around here. the bit where it gets really funny is when sizzla comes on stage here, makes his "introductiory remarks", and you get thousands of dressed up whiteys greeting him with delight. whatever he's saying, it doesn't even matter
bigging up, don thereof - what a title
"Certainly the single event in this century which resonated with the multiple cultural, political, and religious dimensions of Ethiopianism was the coronation of Ras Tafari Makonnen, the then Prince Regent of Ethiopia. In November of 1930, the biblical enthronement of Ras Tafari as His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie I, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, became an internationally publicized event which was unique in the African world. The news of a black regent claiming descent through the biblical lineage of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, stirred the imaginations of an entire generation of African Americans and refocused attention upon ancient Ethiopia. The second Italian invasion of Ethiopia in October of 1935 produced an enormous wave of pro-Ethiopianist sentiments [...] In Harlem, thousands of African Americans marched and signed petitions asking the U.S. government to allow them to fight on behalf of the Ethiopian cause. In Trinidad, this crisis in the black world coincided with the emergence of calypso and a fledgling Caribbean music industry. Calypsos which described the crisis from a black perspective were carried by West Indian seamen from port to port throughout the black world. Music--always an integral part of African and African American culture--served to crystallize shared sentiments of racial pride in support of the Ethiopian cause."
Week by week, Cook says, the US is proving its inexperience in handling the situation in countries following such conflicts. "I was astonished at the decision to disband the Iraqi army without any jobs, and initially without pay, which released 400,000 men into Iraq with the knowledge of how to use weapons and nothing else to do." It is a mistake, he insists, that "no UN official would have made".
vietnam veterans -> rambo I?
vietnam veterans -> rambo I?
“At a meeting organised last month by the Corporate Council on Africa, a senior CIA official, David Gordon, predicted that over the next decade African oil would be potentially more important to the US than Russia or the Caucasus. According to other participants at the meeting, he went on to warn however that over the following decade the oil industry ran the risk of imploding as a result of the region's inherent instability, unless the US did more to prop it up. “
Phil ... if you want some good, hardcore, righteous, revolutionary, Ragga check out Sizzla (although he is unfortunately homophobic) and Macka B who is hilarious. I might try and get some lyrics and post them. He has a song about Regan and Thatcher, P.W. Botha and the contras in Nicaragua... which includes a prophetic line written in the 1980´s saying "terrorism seems ok if you´re doing it for America". Macka B also has a good one about drinking, `Don´t drink too much if you cant take it´. Another good one off the top of my head is `Burn down Rome´ by Sizzla.
More fire!
More fire!
Unless the leading industrial countries get their act together and pursue compatible economic policies, the world economy may be threatened by 1930s-style competitive devaluation and an outbreak of protectionism.
This warning comes from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), one of the world's most prestigious international financial institutions.
In its authoritative annual report, the BIS warns that: 'The global economy faces a fundamental dilemma, which is becoming more acute with time. How can imbalances in growth and external accounts across the major economic regions be resolved while maintaining robust global growth overall?'
The bank suggests that the rest of the world has been far too dependent on the economic stimulus provided by the United States and that the ongoing decline in the dollar is going to make life much more difficult for Europe and Japan.
The report warns that unless other countries supplement fashionable 'structural reforms' [neo-lib- low growth, low inflation] with 'more expansionary demand management policies' [keynesian- give workers money to buy (their) products] there must be a question mark over 'whether domestic demand will expand elsewhere, notably in continental Europe and Japan, after a long period of weakness'
Sinking US dollar 'could drag world under'
This warning comes from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), one of the world's most prestigious international financial institutions.
In its authoritative annual report, the BIS warns that: 'The global economy faces a fundamental dilemma, which is becoming more acute with time. How can imbalances in growth and external accounts across the major economic regions be resolved while maintaining robust global growth overall?'
The bank suggests that the rest of the world has been far too dependent on the economic stimulus provided by the United States and that the ongoing decline in the dollar is going to make life much more difficult for Europe and Japan.
The report warns that unless other countries supplement fashionable 'structural reforms' [neo-lib- low growth, low inflation] with 'more expansionary demand management policies' [keynesian- give workers money to buy (their) products] there must be a question mark over 'whether domestic demand will expand elsewhere, notably in continental Europe and Japan, after a long period of weakness'
Sinking US dollar 'could drag world under'
6.7.03
The two British terrorist suspects facing a secret US military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay will be given a choice: plead guilty and accept a 20-year prison sentence, or be executed if found guilty.
American legal sources close to the process said that the prisoners' dilemma was intended to encourage maximum 'co-operation'.
god, should you exist, save my soul, should i have one
The concerns follow allegations by Amnesty and other human rights groups that US detainees in Guantanamo Bay have suffered severe abuse, including beatings that may have led to the death of two men held at the US detention facility at Bagram.
In March, Amnesty wrote to President Bush to complain about the treatment of detainees after US military officials reportedly confirmed that post-mortem reports in the cases of the two men who died at Bagram gave cause of death as 'homicide' and 'blunt force injuries'.
reminiscent of "non-people" in australian refugee camps killing selves in (un)necessarily elaborate ways
American legal sources close to the process said that the prisoners' dilemma was intended to encourage maximum 'co-operation'.
god, should you exist, save my soul, should i have one
The concerns follow allegations by Amnesty and other human rights groups that US detainees in Guantanamo Bay have suffered severe abuse, including beatings that may have led to the death of two men held at the US detention facility at Bagram.
In March, Amnesty wrote to President Bush to complain about the treatment of detainees after US military officials reportedly confirmed that post-mortem reports in the cases of the two men who died at Bagram gave cause of death as 'homicide' and 'blunt force injuries'.
reminiscent of "non-people" in australian refugee camps killing selves in (un)necessarily elaborate ways
An internal CIA investigation has revealed that the US intelligence agency lacked hard intelligence when it concluded that Saddam Hussein still had illegal weapons during the build-up to war, the Press Association reported today.
According to the inquiry's preliminary findings, analysts had little up to date information following the expulsion of United Nations inspectors from Iraq in 1998. Instead, they "inferred" from evidence uncovered during the early and mid-1990s that Saddam still had a chemical, biological and nuclear arms programme in early 2003.
But Richard Kerr, a former CIA deputy director who heads the four-person review panel, said intelligence officials were "pretty much on the mark" with their conclusions.
"doubleplusgood, sir. carry on!"
According to the inquiry's preliminary findings, analysts had little up to date information following the expulsion of United Nations inspectors from Iraq in 1998. Instead, they "inferred" from evidence uncovered during the early and mid-1990s that Saddam still had a chemical, biological and nuclear arms programme in early 2003.
But Richard Kerr, a former CIA deputy director who heads the four-person review panel, said intelligence officials were "pretty much on the mark" with their conclusions.
"doubleplusgood, sir. carry on!"
4.7.03
thanks for report benji- always pleasing to hear people are engaging with the dirty manifestations of the system. decades of US-installed dictatorship should have left some traces in the legislative system.. your friend is less likely to get british governmental support than those poor trainspotters to say the least.
contemporary reggae, well, song is called "i'm a man of my own and i do what i want", dancehall-style noise with a little bit of content. i actually started listening to the lyrics when a bit on "poor getting poorer and rich richer" came up
contemporary reggae, well, song is called "i'm a man of my own and i do what i want", dancehall-style noise with a little bit of content. i actually started listening to the lyrics when a bit on "poor getting poorer and rich richer" came up
corporatism
In this case, Mr Berlusconi was on the receiving end long before he responded so gauchely to German social democrat MEP Martin Schulz [local mp from aachen] who had questioned his suitability [trials back home?] to lead the EU.
schröder announced last night "berlusconi said sorry". today, berlusconi told italian newspaper his version: "i said i was sorry that my remarks were misunderstood".
In this case, Mr Berlusconi was on the receiving end long before he responded so gauchely to German social democrat MEP Martin Schulz [local mp from aachen] who had questioned his suitability [trials back home?] to lead the EU.
schröder announced last night "berlusconi said sorry". today, berlusconi told italian newspaper his version: "i said i was sorry that my remarks were misunderstood".
Here is an e-mail I recieved from a friend in Greece, he was there for the EU summit in Thessaloniki...
And the memory-feeling of the soft sand filters through my hands. we've returned from our paradise beach to the stifling city of thessaloniki to sort out our friend jonathan's deportation and criminal charges. like all those arrested during the anti-eu protests he has been lumped with the blanket charge of 'possessing explosives, resisting authority and rioting'. jonathan was on his way to the peaceful social forum concert, happening at the same time as the anti-e.u riot, when he was arrested by undercover cops. he has an archetypal terrorist appearance: dreddlokks, unconventional. he looks set to be deported.
another friend, simon, faces even harsher futures. he is charged with the same felony but, to make matters worse, he 'had molotov cocktails in his bag'. friends took a mainstream media video to court showing a riot policeman placing molotovs in simon's bag while he was kicked by other police. the judge didn't want to watch the evidence because he had 'seen enough news already'. simon faces 7-25 years in a metal and cement cage.
me and friends have been sorting the legal issues and will continue to do so for the next few days. we're setting up a bank account to help all those arrested during the protests. we've got an address dealing specifically with this state terrorism: nojusticeingreece@hushmail.com .. we've splashed articles on this repression all over indymedia sites globally..
for the article
general coverage of the thessaloniki protests on indymedia
and then reflect on the paranoia of the state when its legitimacy is challenged by the eyes of the future. reflect on the desperation of the power-drunk when we attempt to smash their bottle.
good article on spain below... seems well considered and balanced.
Phil... what is the contemporary reggae quote about, who is it from?
And the memory-feeling of the soft sand filters through my hands. we've returned from our paradise beach to the stifling city of thessaloniki to sort out our friend jonathan's deportation and criminal charges. like all those arrested during the anti-eu protests he has been lumped with the blanket charge of 'possessing explosives, resisting authority and rioting'. jonathan was on his way to the peaceful social forum concert, happening at the same time as the anti-e.u riot, when he was arrested by undercover cops. he has an archetypal terrorist appearance: dreddlokks, unconventional. he looks set to be deported.
another friend, simon, faces even harsher futures. he is charged with the same felony but, to make matters worse, he 'had molotov cocktails in his bag'. friends took a mainstream media video to court showing a riot policeman placing molotovs in simon's bag while he was kicked by other police. the judge didn't want to watch the evidence because he had 'seen enough news already'. simon faces 7-25 years in a metal and cement cage.
me and friends have been sorting the legal issues and will continue to do so for the next few days. we're setting up a bank account to help all those arrested during the protests. we've got an address dealing specifically with this state terrorism: nojusticeingreece@hushmail.com .. we've splashed articles on this repression all over indymedia sites globally..
for the article
general coverage of the thessaloniki protests on indymedia
and then reflect on the paranoia of the state when its legitimacy is challenged by the eyes of the future. reflect on the desperation of the power-drunk when we attempt to smash their bottle.
good article on spain below... seems well considered and balanced.
Phil... what is the contemporary reggae quote about, who is it from?
ironic
Downing Street's complaints about anti-war bias within the BBC appear to be disproved by an academic analysis that shows the corporation displayed the most "pro-war" agenda of any broadcaster.
A detailed study of peak-time television news bulletins during the course of the Iraq war shows that the BBC was more reliant than any of its rivals on government and military sources.
The findings, by academics at Cardiff University, give little support to the deep-rooted suspicions in government circles that lie at the heart of the row with the BBC. Instead, ahead of the report by the foreign affairs select committee into the government's use of intelligence, they give comfort to the corporation.
Over the three weeks of conflict, 11% of the sources quoted by the BBC were of coalition government or military origin, the highest proportion of all the main television broadcasters. The BBC was the least likely to quote official Iraqi sources, and less likely than Sky, ITV or Channel 4 News to use independent (and often sceptical) sources such as the Red Cross.
Downing Street's complaints about anti-war bias within the BBC appear to be disproved by an academic analysis that shows the corporation displayed the most "pro-war" agenda of any broadcaster.
A detailed study of peak-time television news bulletins during the course of the Iraq war shows that the BBC was more reliant than any of its rivals on government and military sources.
The findings, by academics at Cardiff University, give little support to the deep-rooted suspicions in government circles that lie at the heart of the row with the BBC. Instead, ahead of the report by the foreign affairs select committee into the government's use of intelligence, they give comfort to the corporation.
Over the three weeks of conflict, 11% of the sources quoted by the BBC were of coalition government or military origin, the highest proportion of all the main television broadcasters. The BBC was the least likely to quote official Iraqi sources, and less likely than Sky, ITV or Channel 4 News to use independent (and often sceptical) sources such as the Red Cross.
Claiming to fight terrorism on two fronts, both internationally and at home against Basque separatists, president José María Aznar's government is limiting the right to free speech and peaceful political activity in Spain. James Badcock reports.
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