| 122010 How Arundhati
Roy Took Back the Power in India --- 127091 Paganism In Early German Socialism
------ 124661 Is the Extreme Right Entirely Wrong? --------- 125638
+ 23 Why does the media and public ignore what Israel does to the Palestinians?
(english) by Palestine Chronicle ------ 125379 Interesting piece
about John Walker Lindh at antiwar.com -------- excerpt from The Return
of Enki: Kids Become Stars GenePools and Gravity Making for Peace by Dan
Winter (soulinvitation.com) ------------
http://coyote.kein.org/pipermail/
generation_online/ 2002-February/author.html the next to months had only
a tenth of the traffic, no doubt due to the absence of fat posts poster
Keith Hart; here are some samples: -------------- metafilterians
on Dibbell's Wired article -------- and on Pim Fortuyn (while his star
was rising) ---------------- 122010 How Arundhati Roy
Took Back the Power in India (Enron v. A. Roy) (english) by common dreams
6:22pm Mon Jan 21 '02 bit of background I was unaware of about Arundhati
Roy, Enron, and India Sunday, January 20, 2002 in The Sunday Herald (Scotland)
commondreams.org /headlines02/0120-03.htm How Arundhati Roy Took Back the
Power in India She Won the Booker Prize for The God Of Small Things, Then
She Helped Author Enron's Downfall by James Hamilton IT was the biggest
piece of inward investment India had ever seen, a $2.9 billion bonanza,
but for the Texas-based Enron it was also one of the reasons why the multinational
corporation has just become one of the biggest ever corporate losses in
the history of capitalism. One of the authors of that collapse is best-selling
novelist Arundhati Roy whose Booker Prize winner, The God Of Small Things,
catapulted her into international literary stardom. Not that her head has
been turned by fame. When Hollywood came looking to film her work she told
her agent to spin out the negotiations, make them grovel and then turn
them down. In her book, the Hollywood agents are in the same league as
multinationals such as Enron, which wanted to turn her native India into
one big franchise. 'Is globalization about the eradication of world poverty
or is it a mutant variety of colonialism, remote controlled and digitally
operated?' she asked in the wake of Enron's recent fall from financial
grace. Roy is an unlikely rebel. A drop-out architectural student and a
one-time aerobics instructor, she comes from a middle-class family in the
southern state of Kerala. She enjoys a global reputation for her fiction
yet she is now a committed activist who has campaigned against nuclear
testing, the war in Afghanistan and the construction of the controversial
Sardar Sarovar dam in the Narmada valley in central India. And in taking
on Enron, whose Dabhol Power Corporation produced one of the biggest corruption
scandals in Indian history, she showed that she was not afraid of standing
up to the might of international big business backed by international power
politics. The story of Enron's involvement in India is one of double-dealing,
corruption, violence and violation of human rights. It began in 1993 when
the company signed a deal to provide much-needed electricity in a state
that was desperate for power to fuel its new high-tech industries and to
propel the country on its new free-market economy. Even though the World
Bank said that the project was too expensive and that other forms of power
would be cheaper, Enron bulldoze d ahead. There were no competitive tenders,
politicians were bought off with bribes estimated to run to $20 million
and local police and thugs were hired to terrorize the opposition into
silence. By 1997 Enron had been listed by the New York-based Human Rights
Watch organization as guilty of being 'complicit in human rights violations'
in the state of Maharashtra. The scandal attracted the attention of Roy,
who was already campaigning against the construction of dams on the Narmada
river -- moves that would have displaced 400,000 people. When Roy agreed
to head the protest movements, she was accused of inciting violence and
tried at the Supreme Court -- an action that she countered by writing her
own affidavit and publishing it in a mass-circulation magazine. From the
dams it was a short stroll to Enron, which by 1999 was deeply in trouble.
That year DBC began supplying electricity to Maharashtra at a price pegged
to world oil prices, the state could not afford the $1.4bn bill -- seven
times higher than other electricity costs in India -- and stopped paying
it. The cost was, after all, equivalent to the state's annual expenditure
on education. As the stand-off continued, the US put pressure on India
to settle the problem -- the ambassador Frank Wisner went on to become
a director of Enron -- but the state government of Maharashtra dug in and
refused to cough up. The workers downed tools, Enron was left waiting for
$50m and gave notice that it would pull out of India unless it was paid.
For Roy, India's leading critic of globalization and arch-enemy of Enron,
this was all too typical of a company that had come to India not to help
people get cheaper electricity but to line its own pockets. It was corporate
imperialism at its worst. Roy went on to write Power Politics, a coruscating
essay about Enron's involvement in Indian politics. The firm's office was
in a gleaming high-tech building in Bombay within reach of some of the
city's worst slums, and that seemed to exemplify their attitudes. The Indians
were left with little option but to honor the deal on pain of Enron pulling
out and leaving millions of people destitute. For Roy this was the classical
locus of globalization -- 'a process of barbaric dispossession which has
few parallels in history'. Last June, DBC's plant closed down, work halted
on the second phase of the development and all the employees were sacked.
With Enron's collapse, DBC is likely to be sold off at a bargain basement
price, the most likely purchaser being the Indian-based Tata Power. On
Friday, the White House defended US encouragement for the Enron project
in India, and vice-president Dick Cheney's support for Enron's attempts
to collect a $64m debt from the country. It insisted that this had nothing
to do with Enron contributions to the Bush campaign. ------------- 26 dec
2001: We just received this and thought you need to know about it. The
International Solidarity Group did some daring actions during the past
days - such as clearing roads made impassable by the IDF around besieged
Palestinian villages. Today's clamp-down on them by the army came when
they were not impressed by the prohibition of entering the Gaza Strip and
just walked on. ------- Forwarded message follows ------- From: "neta_golan"
Date sent: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 14:55:03 -0000 Grassroots International Protection
for Palestinians (GIPP) INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT December 26,
2001 For Immediate Release INTERNATIONAL GROUP ATTACKED AT EREZ [Erez]
Ninety foreign civilians traveling on a solidarity visit to Gaza were blocked
entry by the Israeli military at Erez today, after being processed and
given initial permission to enter. The international group was comprised
of American, Belgian, British, and French citizens. Protesting the Israeli
Army decision not to let the group enter Gaza, where they were scheduled
to tour Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah, including the refugee camps,
and meet with Dr. Haidar Abdel Shafi, Director of the Red Crescent, one
half of the group decided to walk through Erez. With hands up in the air
the group proceeded to walk, but were met with a violent Israeli response.
Soldiers began firing shots and then descended upon the group, punching
the men and body-slamming the women. The internationals sat down to try
to avoid injury, but to no avail. All of the personal cameras in the group
were confiscated and a number of cameras were broken. Israeli soldiers
also verbally threatened to shoot and kill all of the foreign civilians.
Members of the group were then dragged and forcefully thrown onto their
tour bus. Two French civilians were detained. "We were going to Gaza to
support the Palestinian people, and to conduct a fact-finding mission so
as to present more objective information to the media and to our fellow
patriots at home. We were also carrying with us humanitarian supplies for
the people of Gaza. Expressing our right to freedom of movement, not just
for ourselves, but also for the Palestinians who are kept caged in Gaza,
we decided to cross the checkpoint in order to complete our visit. All
of a sudden, shots were fired directly over our heads and we were descended
upon by soldiers, who were punching, pushing and throwing us to the ground.
We sat down to avoid their blows, but they kept hitting, kicking and pushing.
When the soldiers noticed that we were filming the attack, they took and
broke our cameras and confiscated our film. Finally, they started dragging
us, one by one, and threw us on the bus, where we were kept under guard
by Border Police. Many of us sustained injuries, including cuts and bruises,
and at least three people require medical attention." (Statement by the
international group) --------------- 127091 Paganism In Early German
Socialism (english) by Hennig Eichberg 8:06am Thu Jan 31 '02 (Modified
on 9:26am Thu Jan 31 '02) Ethnic German socialists were pagan and rooted
in their culture, vs ethnic Jewish Bolsheviks who happened to live in Germany
and who were atheists and rootless. ---- I posted the israel shamir article
on migration ---- 2 more comments: One minor detail this article overlooks...
(english) by llivermore 9:05am Thu Jan 31 '02 The romantic, back-to-nature
movement described here was also known as the "Wandervogel," and its adherents
could to some extent be described as the German, early 20th century version
of hippies. But the author neglects to mention that the main reason the
Wandervogel a) don't get a whole lot of respect from historians; and b)
pretty much disappeared by the 1930s is that much of the philosophy and
many of its adherents blended rather seamlessly into the National Socialist,
aka Nazi Party. And if you want to draw any parallels between them and
some of the more extreme deep ecologists and green anarchists of today,
be my guest. Not bad, but reconsider something (english) by Mike 9:26am
Thu Jan 31 '02 stepbystepfarm@shaysnet.com Hennig, You make a fairly serious
error by characterizing the non-ethnic alternative as sourced by "ethnic
Jewish Bolsheviks who happened to live in Germany and were rootless and
atheist". The problem is, it was ALL the "rootless freethinkers" from the
tradition of 1848, and sure, lots of ethnic Jews were involved in that,
but contemporaneously other ethnic Jews were developing "romantic/rooted/ethnic
socialist" movements of their own. In other words, the "ethnic Jewish"
part can't actually be relevant. Not unreasonable that you should be unaware
of that, since the same documentation problem exists, the traditional "leftists"
wrote the offical histories, and you have to look at the art, the poetry,
etc. Be aware, the "traditional left" attacks the Pagan, environmental
socialism you describe precisely because it was "convertible" into Naziism.
But like many I do not agree with that judgement, not because it can't
be, but because NOTHING can be made "safe" from being perverted into a
totalitarian from. ------------- 124661 Is the Extreme Right Entirely Wrong?
(english) by Barbara Dority 9:26pm Sat Jan 26 '02 (Modified on 3:22am Sun
Jan 27 '02) A balanced perspective on the militia movement from a leftist
viewpoint The Humanist, November/December 1995 "A Magazine of Critical
Inquiry and Social Concern." Is the Extremist Right Entirely Wrong? --
by Barbara Dority SIDEBAR: Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're
not out to get you. Within days of the Oklahoma City bombing, the media
reported that suspects Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols might be affiliated
with the Michigan Militia. Although members of the Michigan Militia have
strenuously denied any involvement in the bombing, and although the federal
indictments handed down against McVeigh, Nichols, and Michael Fortier have
not implicated them in any broader "militia conspiracy," the movement has
been condemned as a hotbed of violent right-wing extremism. [Main Article:]
Indeed, many Americans seem to believe that anyone with the slightest connection
to the "patriot movement" or militia groups poses a serious and potentially
violent threat to the internal security of the United States. Before the
bodies had been cleared from the rubble, opportunistic lawmakers proposed
a rash of draconian "anti-terrorism" laws, including increased electronic
surveillance, secret "national security" courts, and heightened involvement
of the military in civilian law enforcement. Commentators, legislators,
and talk-show hosts called for a thorugh government investigation of the
patriot movement, with many Democratic politicians leading the charge.
This rush to judgment has been accompanied by a near-total avoidance of
rational analysis. And those few brave souls who were openly critical of
the Clinton administration's proposed Omnibus Anti- terrorism Bill have
found themselves accused of callous disregard for the bombing victims and
their families! But it is the obligation of reasonable and responsible
people to insist on careful fact-finding, especially if restrictions on
the personal liberties and protections of American citizens are offered
as solutions to the "problem." The advocacy of reason and restraint in
the face of terrorist acts does not indicate indifference to such violence;
on the contrary, it is because these terrorist acts are so heinous that
we must not fall victim to the consequences of panic. Much of the readily
available "information" about militias and the patriot movement is being
disseminated by "anti-hate" organizations with their own agendas. One such
group is the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose recent direct-mail materials
indicate a surprising attitude. Rightly acclaimed for its effective lawsuits
against racist groups that commit acts of violence, the SPLC says it has
recently established a massive computer database of "hate groups," including
reports on 14,000 individuals who have "committed hate acts" or who are
"affiliated with hate groups," as well as "extensive intelligence" on more
than 3,200 "hate and milita organizations." From a civil-liberties standpoint,
these tactics are a little too reminiscent of organizations like the John
Birch Society, which kept extensive records on "communists and communist
sympathizers." Moreover, the SPLC campaigns for laws that will effectively
deny free speech and freedom of association to certain groups of Americans
on the basis of their beliefs. Six times a year, the SPLC's letter boasts,
the center reports its findings to over 6,000 law-enforcement agencies;
then, withno discernable irony, it goes on to justify its Big Brother methods
in the name of "tolerance," arguing that "paranoid militant groups" are
seeking protection from "imagined threats" to their freedoms. In America,
we don't arrest and imprison citizens because they hate blacks or Jews
or gays or the government - or because we think they may commit crimes
in the future. In the words of Justice William O. Douglas, a champion of
individual freedom who also harbored a deep distrust of government: "The
views a citizen entertains, the beliefs he harbors, the utterances he makes,
the ideology he embraces, and the people he associates with are no concern
of government." Although realistic estimates are difficult to uncover,
after careful research, I would venture a guess that the number of "hard-core"
milita members is well below the 10,000 estimated by the more reasonable
advocates of alarm. But even at that number, these armed dissidents obviously
do not pose a serious military threat to the federal government. The patriot
movement (loosely defined) has long existed on the margins of American
society, though it has definitely grown in recent years. With the end of
the Cold War and the economic and social upheavals of the past two decades,
a large - and still growing - number of Americans have become disaffected
from and alienated by a government that seems indifferent, if not hostile,
to their concerns. But the beliefs and politics of "patriots" and their
like are anything but monolithic. Those subsumed under this amorphous populist
movement include anti-Semites, white supremacists, "Identity Christians,"
homophobes, survivalists, and anti-choice militants. Also included are
tax protesters, constitutionalists, gun collectors, hunters, ranchers,
farmers, and loggers upset by federal land-use controls. Most of these
Americans are working people with families. There is no central control
or leadership among these fiercely independent individuals and small autonomous
groups. In fact, they deliberately avoid stucture or leadership. Wild and
generalized charges that all "patriots" are white supremacists, anti-Semites,
or neo-Nazis - or uniformly anti-choice, homophobic, or misogynist - are
misinformed and simplistic. Additionally, like underground groups in the
1960s, the militias are splintering further over questions of using violence.
Some patriot groups are armed and state that they will countenance violence
under certain conditions. At least an equal number, however, are unarmed
and do not countenance violence (and some of these actively ferret out
and isolate violence-prone individuals). "The vast majority of people in
the militias are not violent or dangerous," says James Aho, a sociologist
at Idaho State University, who has interviewed hundreds of self-identified
patriots. Other psychologists declare that many members of militias and
similar groups are ordinary people who feel they have been pushed to extremes.
The one basic attitude which all of these people have in common is a deep
distrust of government. After much inquiry, I have formulated the following
statements which, I believe, accurately reflect the beliefs and concerns
shared by most Americans who consider themselves "patriots": 1. Both the
federal and state governments are violating their constitutions in numerous
major and dangerous ways, particularly regarding the individual rights
guaranteed to all Americans in the Bill of Rights. 2. These documents are
contracts between the government and its citizens with the primary purpose
of limiting government power, scope, and functions. As a result of these
violations of the rights of the people, we no longer have the same government;
government will do whatever it can get away with; government can be manipulated
to the advantage of those wielding the reins of power - and their cohorts,
associates, and financiers. 3. This type of government and social order
is contrary to everything the founders of our country tried to create.
4. The average American worker now pays over 50 percent of his or er earnings
in taxes - income tax, excise tax, sales tax, property tax, and so forth,
and the huge hidden tax of government. Given the size of the federal budget
and our rapidly decreasing standard of living, many Americans wonder where
their hard-earned dollars are going. 5. People within the U.S. government
and power elites are trying to subsume our country under a United Nations-controlled
one-world government, endangering the sovereignty of the United States
and the validity of its constitution. 6. Beneath all the rhetoric, the
New World Order is simply the concentration of power into a few hands and
a global monopoly over the sources of wealth. 7. The mainstream media,
both
print and electronic, is controlled by the same big-money monopolies working
hand-in-glove with the government, resulting in a public overwhelmed by
trivia and dangerously uninformed about the issues that affect them most.
8. America's founders warned that, somewhere down the road, citizens might
have to defend their free form of government from usurpers - whether within
or without the country's borders - and such a time may be close at hand.
If you sympathize to any extent with these statements, you share some of
the grievances of the patriot movement. Perhaps you even find yourself,
as I do, in strong agreement with many of them. Clark McCauley, professor
of psychology at Bryn Mawr College states: "If you think these people are
crazy, you have to ask [if] there [is] anything the federal government
could do that would make you willing to take up arms against it. If you
can answer no, then you're entitled to think these people are crazy. But
if you say yes, then you'd better hazard a thought that [militia members]
are human beings just like you." Due to the reprehensible act of terrorism
perpetrated in Oklahoma City and the fear and hysteria it has provoked,
however, agreement with any of the above concerns may result in feelings
of discomfort or even guilt. But if we are to be honest and reasonable
and preserve our libertie in these dangerous times, we cannot surrender
to irrationality and fear. Unfortunately, President Clinton has responded
to what he calls "anti- government citizens" by asking for unlimited power
to designate groups and individuals as terrorists and to act against those
he opposes. That this request comes from the president who swore to defend
our constitutional rights should alarm all civil-libertarians. This is
precisely the trend that "anti-government groups are protesting. In trying
to discredit and counter those who fear greater government infringements
against liberty, the president proves them right. A recent letter-writer
to the _Seattle Times_ goes even further: "It is not enough to track the
individuals who actually planted the bomb. War has been declared. It's
time to show these people that we can utterly destroy them. I expect the
government to retaliate in kind, swiftly, and in a deadly manner. If this
goes against the rules, it's time to change the rules." Never mind that
there are already more than adequate laws to prosecute those engaged in
actual organized criminal activity. Never mind that the kinds of totalitarian
measures now advocated, had they been in place earlier, still wouldn't
have prevented the Oklahoma City tragedy. All civil libertarians know that
it's easy to forget about civil liberties when they're somebody else's.
But, as Stephen Jones, Timothy McVeigh's attorney, reminds us, "Here's
the bottom line: if Tim McVeigh's legal rights are protected, then yours
and mine are. If his rights aren't protected, then yours and mine may not
be. Who wants to take that chance?" Jones has also stated that, in the
government's zeal to seek the death penalty in this case, it has hampered
federal prosecutors who might have been able to obtain crucial information
in exchange for a lesser sentence. Jones hopes to use the trial to douse
the "endless conspiracy theories" emerging from the media frenzy. I, for
one, fervently hope he succeeds. For, as the case during the McCarthy era,
guilt and condemnation are being conferred even upon those who "sympathize"
with the concerns of certain groups. Terrorists express great distrust
of government and fear and outrage at where its policies are leading us.
Therefore, others who express similar distrust and outrage are said to
have contributed to the "atmosphere" which "led" to the bombing in Oklahoma
City. Several events _did_, I believe, "create an atmosphere" which fueled
that ghastly act. When camoflaged and heavily armed federal agents crawled
through the woods in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, three years ago, they set off a
chain of lawlessness and violence that continues today. Space does not
permit an in-depth review of the tragic events of that deadly fiasco. In
public hearings still in progress, we - the citizens and taxpayers whose
money bought the guns and bullets and paid the salaries of the gunmen -are
learning the appaling truth about the 11-day standoff which led to the
shooting deaths of Randy Weaver's wife, his 14-year-old son, and a deputy
marshal. Now we know that Weaver's "paranoid fantasy" that the government
was conspiring against him was true. We also know that these same government
officials then brazenly and repeatedly lied to us abut virtually every
aspect of what happened. In the hearings, representatives of several federal
law-enforcement agencies have declared that Randy Weaver bears sole responsibility
for all three deaths because he sold two sawed-off shotguns to an extremely
insistent undercover agent. When the highest officials of federal law enforcement
bluntly inform the American people that the sale of two illegal weapons
is justification for the violent death of three American citizens, shouldn't
we all be seriously alarmed? It has been confirmed that there were numerous
problems with the conduct of the FBI, the ATF, and the federal marshals.
These included "revised" (and unconstitutional) rules of engagement involving
the use of deadly force, numerous shortcomings in command and control,
and failure to use basic crime-scene techniques in collecting evidence
after the crisis was over. High-ranking officials discarded guidelines
drafted in the 1970s to rein in FBI abuses of citizen's rights and to prohibit
federal law enforcement agencies from gathering information on citizens
or groups unless a criminal investigation is underway. Even the Justice
Department's own internal review criticizes government prosecutor's decision
to seek the death penalty for Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris. Then, of course,
there was Waco. Again, space doesn't permit and in- depth review of the
immoral (and illegal) conduct of law-enforcement officals. As the world
watched, our government used tanks, helicopters, tear gas, assault weapons,
and psychological warfare techniques against over 80 American citizens,
two dozen of whom were children. It was this kind of lawless law enforcement
to which Justice Louis Brandeis referred when he said, "Crime is contagious.
If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law
and invites anarchy." And Alexander Cockburn has written: "It took the
slaughter at Waco to display abusive police power at its most grotesque.
That inferno was engendered by a contempt for human and legal propreties,
in turn nourished by thousands of daily affronts to justice provoked by
hatred of the have-nots and the marginal in a society of widening economic
an social divisions." I am not so optimistic that the horror of Waco has
been perceived by most Americans. Where was the grief and outrage? Where
was a national day of mourning? When did it become acceptable (albeit "unfortunate")
for the United States government to kill children? A quote from Jon Snyder
of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is appropriate:
"We're particularly concerned about the growing power of federal law enforcement
and an arrogance bred by federal officials' distance from local communities."
Most reporters and journalists ignored the larger civil-liberties issues
raised by Waco and Ruby Ridge. Broader issues - like search and seizure,
the role of the military in domestic law enforcement, and religious freedom
- were only superficially addressed. Ruby Ridge and Waco illustrate a widespread
mindset rampant within law enforcement in America, where civil liberties
are an inconvenience and deadly force is used with impunity. "Little Wacos"
occur every day in this country. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that the
politicians now expressing their outrage at federal law-enforcement abuses
during the Ruby Ridge hearings will apply the same scrutiny to the far
more widepsread epidemic of violations perpetrated by local law-enforcement
officers. After all, these are the same lawmakers - Democrats and Republicans
alike - who have spent years increasing police power and breaking down
the legal protections of the accused. These are the same politicans who
have so increased the number of illegal acts classified as federal crimes
that it is relatively easy to hold radical or unpopular individuals in
violation of something and give them long sentences in federal prison.
So the current stepped-up surveillance of "patriots" and militia groups
will only confirm their suspicions of a government out to get them. Extreme
actios spark extreme reactions, and suppressing the free-speech of dissidents
is the perfect recipe from inflaming an already grievous situation. Only
by providing as many outlets for free speech as possible can we create
the critical safety valve needed for the venting of anger, alienation,
fear, and, yes, hatred. The worst possible response to these volatile emotions
is to bottle them up until they explode into violence. All Americans must
remain free to discuss and support any legal cause, regardless of its popularity.
Patriots of whatever stripe - no matter how hateful - must be free to speak,
write, and use the same public- access media and technological communication
available to others. To paraphrase Justice Thurgood Marshall, history teaches
us that the gravest threats to liberty come in times of urgency, when constitutional
rights seem too extravagant to endure. We must not sacrifice the essential
rights of a free people because of terrorist actions. We have an obligation
instead to fight fear with reason. To whatever measure we are successful,
to that extent will we preserve our liberties. [Barbara Dority is president
of Humanists of Washington, executive director of the Washington Coalition
Against Censorship, and cochair of the Northwest Feminist Anti-Censorship
Taskforce.] add your own comments Divide & Conquer (english) by Jon
Chance 9:39pm Sat Jan 26 '02 address: Boston phone: 617-859-8155 jpchance@egroups.com
"Right" vs "Left" = Divide & Conquer. Are you conquered? Or radically
centered? egroups.com/group/jpchance hypothetically, the problem is.. (english)
by ol' dirty diogenes 9:55pm Sat Jan 26 '02 assume a revolt does take place.-
you'll have a trotsky/stalin thing going on- with the hard right as "free"-market
stalinists. This is a problem. and as someone who's not an advocate of
purging for either side, one I can't come up with a solution to. suggestions?
The Difference Lies in the Outcome (english) by Carlos Malvado 10:03pm
Sat Jan 26 '02 carlosmalvado@hotmail.com I' ve wondered for a long time
about the distinctions between the right and left. The secular/libertarian
right is very similar to anarchist groups. The key difference is the libertarians
seem to give too much power to the corporations. I believe that the key
distinction would be clearer if we look at the outcome of a right wing
revolution. The integral institutions would be the Christian church and
big business. I've always felt that these institutions would be just as
oppressive as the state and big business. their "success" at flying under
the radar since Posse Comitatus in the 60's is interesting though. A Third
Way (english) by Dane 3:22am Sun Jan 27 '02 Innovism A Primer By Daniel
Pouzzner (fills the second half of this item) ------- --------- 125638
Why does the media and public ignore what Israel does to the Palestinians?
(english) by Palestine Chronicle 5:29pm Mon Jan 28 '02 (Modified on 9:54pm
Mon Jan 28 '02) A missile, fired from an Israeli-American Apache helicopter,
has the same capabilities of destruction as a suicide bomb, its explosive
force being delivered by a rocket flying at ultrasonic speed. Is it easier,
or more difficult, to imagine what kind of destruction such a weapon brings?
The Walking Missile Sunday, January 27 2002 @ 06:49 PM GMT By Tariq Shadid,
MD NETHERLANDS,(PalestineChronicle.com): Again, bloodshed sets the tone
in the Middle East. Apparently, a young woman has decided to become a walking
missile, delivering explosive destruction to the Israelis, by striking
at them within their civilian areas. The horrible carnage of such an event
is impossible to imagine, it goes beyond any ordinary person’s digestive
capabilities. Its reality has to do with body parts coming apart, instant
death and mutilation, and the infliction of terrible grief and horror.
A missile, fired from an Israeli-American Apache helicopter, has the same
capabilities of destruction, its explosive force being delivered by a rocket
flying at ultrasonic speed. Is it easier, or more difficult, to imagine
what kind of destruction such a weapon brings? Modern journalism glorifies
the accuracy of this high-tech weaponry, and creates a perception among
people in the world, that ‘surgical strikes’ are being performed in Afghanistan
and Palestine. In reality, the picture is a lot different. When such a
missile attack hits, for instance, a Palestinian police office in an inhabited
neighbourhood, like the city centre of Nablus or Tulkarm, the destruction
it creates around it, including the missiles that did not exactly hit their
target, is far greater than that of a suicide bomber. To illustrate this:
a suicide bomber, with his explosive power, is unlikely to bring down a
building, whereas an Israeli missile attack on a Palestinian police office
generally aims to achieve exactly that, and shows equally little respect
for citizens in the building, or outside of it. Since the image of the
events in Palestine comes to the majority in the world through a lens,
that creates a definite distortion, the attacks committed by suicide bombers
have the image of being terrorist attacks. On the other hand, the attacks
of the Israeli army, firing missiles from helicopters into the streets
of Palestinian cities to murder activists while in their cars, or passing
by on foot, are viewed as ‘targeted assassinations’, ‘preventative measures’,
or ‘defensive actions’. The Palestinian civilians who died, only because
they happened to be in the neighbourhood, are titled ‘collateral damage’.
There is little regard, if any at all, for the human carnage a missile
strike creates in a Palestinian city. However, one can imagine that a helicopter
missile striking a car, in the middle of a busy street in Hebron, will
cause a scene that is quite similar to the carnage, caused by a suicide
bomber in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. The carnage is the same; that is, if we
agree to assume that human beings on both side of the line are full human
beings, and that their health and well-being is therefore of equal importance
and value. A person who has respect for all human life, will abhor both
scenes equally. A person, however, who has respect for some types of human
life, and none for some other types, will perhaps abhor and condemn the
events in Jerusalem today, while supporting Israeli strikes on civilian
areas, or being silent about them. The continuing Israeli repression, with
the use of tanks, F-16’s and Apache helicopters, and their continuous targeting
of civilians in this, as well as in the previous Intifada, has caused some
of the Palestinians resistance groups to retaliate in Israeli civilian
areas. Their desperation at a life under occupation that has become practically
impossible, has led the suicide bombers to the extreme method of using
their own bodies as weapons, lacking the sophisticated equipment owned
by the Israelis, who murder Palestinian citizens from the safety of the
air or from long distances. The Palestinian walking missile, horrible as
it is, is apparently the only equivalently violent Palestinian answer available
to the Israeli rocket-propelled one, that continues to spread destruction
in Palestinian villages and towns, causing death and mutilation among men,
women and children. The deaths resulting from these barbaric actions are
reported, if at all, in small columns on the fourth and fifth pages of
American and European newspapers, in sharp contrast to deaths on the Israeli
side, which never fail to make the front page. And, if mentioned at all,
the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, not by rebel groups but by their
official government forces, is barely criticized by the mass media, even
though officially condemned by most of the world’s major human rights organizations.
This utterly regrettable cycle of violence was deliberately started anew
by Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Prime Minister, from his provocative infringement
on the Al Aqsa mosque onwards. He knew, that by effectively reoccupying
the Palestinian areas, and creating lots of civilian casualties by means
of his infantry, his helicopters and warplanes, the hard-line guerrilla
groups would resort to retaliatory attacks on Israel’s civilian areas.
Using the media war-machine driven by George W. Bush, he would use the
Palestinian attacks to concoct a legitimisation for an escalation of the
conflict, and find a way to bury Oslo forever. It is becoming increasingly
clear, that Sharon’s government is in favour of escalation. His hidden
agenda is yet undisclosed, but from an experienced war criminal, the Butcher
of Sabra and Chatila, one should expect the worst. The cycle of bloodshed
has to be stopped, because both sides are losing their precious men, women
and children in these violent confrontations. The price of peace seems
to be getting higher and higher, that is, if there is anyone left who really
believes that Sharon has a desire, or even the potential, to make peace
at all. Still, he has managed to sell to the world, that his atrocious
oppression of the Palestinians is all in the interest of peace. What’s
worse, is that many people seem to have been buying it, probably because
lies come so cheap in the New World Order. But, as Abraham Lincoln once
said: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people
all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. Sharon should
not forget that this is not 1948 anymore; the whole world is watching now,
and he is already losing his credibility, even within his own population,
but definitely also within the international community. His pact with George
W. Bush, who has apparently agreed to fully support Sharon’s policy, is
too obvious, and hopefully, people who gradually awaken from the mass hypnosis,
applied in the wake of the September 11 attacks, will increasingly see
how Sharon is paving the way to disaster. palestinechronicle.com -------------
I will tell you why. (english) by Margret 5:51pm Mon Jan 28 '02 America
sides with the Isreali's for the following reasons. 1. We think that Arafat
and his inner circle are nothing more than despotic dictators who use his
people for his own ends. The Dayton accords were a great place for peace
to start. Arafat rejected the concessions because he wanted it all. Why
did he want it all? Because if there is peace in Palestine he can't be
a dictator anymore. 2. The suicide bombers. Talk about the most inane form
of PR. The whole concept of suicide bombers is patently stupid. You can
tell that Arafat and his friends think that it is a good idea because like
turning down the peace accords suicide bombers are not good for the Palestinian
people. First of all they soleley target civililians and they are indiscriminate.
3. The Palestinian's side with the wrong people. Not only do they side
with Arafat (read above for problems with him) but they side with other
losers. During the Gulf war the sided with Saddam and now they like Osama
Bin Laden. What do Saddam and Osama do for them? Less than the corrut dictator
Arafat does. Except Saddam gives the families of suicide bombers money
if their kids blow themselves up. 4. The Palestinian's think we are stupid.
Arafat lies to us. He says peace then in a subsequent speech he is talking
about the glory of blowing one's self up. Who is he kidding. The bottom
line is, if the Palestinian's like most Arab's want to live under dictators
(see Saddam, Osama, Ayatollah, Saudi Monarchy) then we don't want you to
have self determination. Constantly blaming us for your shitbag leaders
does nothing but annoy us. Americans had to overthrow our leaders either
by violence or peacefully many times. You can do it too if you stop following
idiots and fools. The Palestinian's should ask themselves how their lives
would be right now if Arafat had accepted the Peace accords and ended his
rule? ------------- A couple of reasons (english) by Metis 5:59pm Mon Jan
28 '02 The major reason why the Media is not reporting about Israeli violence
is conformism. That was best identified by Chomski. The Media is against
underdogs in general. Underdogs are given elevated status occasionally,
when reporters get signals from powerful people that the subject is important.
Consider, Tibetian civil rights are important, a little due to Richard
Gere, but mostly because of the geo-political tensions between the US and
China. Any human right abuse by communists is very important, see Cuba.
But in Congo, the plight of civilians isn't mentionned until a non-confrontational
volcano can take the blame! The plight of women in Afgahnistan was a niche
market, until September 11, when it became the talk of Washington. Why?
Because the Whiteo House gave the cue. As long as there is no compelling
national interest, ( as defined by the powers that be) to confront Israel,
the Media will be anti-Palestinian. The force of the Jewish lobby is limited
to enforcing this herd mentality. The Jewish lobby does not create it.
While this is the case, all we can do is raise hell, confront and complain
about bias, and use alternative ways of reaching out to the American public.
The Media will not help us. However, if a conflagration in the Middle East
starts threatening the hegemonic position of the US, and Israel is seen
as an obstacle, then the whole Media will line up to complain about Israeli
human rights abuses in less time that you can shout "Sharon Go Home"!---------
Futile ends. (english) by Iraj 6:06pm Mon Jan 28 '02 I condem both sides
of the violence. This is something that I posted last week, but I think
it applies to your article. I agree that Israel has made many attacks on
the Palestinian people. But when the world sees Palestinian (often Hamas,
but I think the papers portray it as a Palastinian response)retaliation
in the form of: some guy with a death wish, running into a public place
and blowing up a bunch of pedestrians, then it does look like Israel is
at least somewhat justified in just about anything they do. All they have
to say is, "We retaliated against these acts of terrorism by blowing up
a Hamas ringleader...bla bla bla." And guess what... most of the moderates
who don't even support Israel per se, will nod and say "Well I guess they
had to do what they had to do to protect their own people." To be honest,
I think it is pretty lame to attack public places. Pretty cowardly. That
really is terrorism. Why not attack military targets? I would prefer nobody
was attacking anyone, but you have to realize that Israel is the big bully.
Israel has a much stronger military. So if you can't beat them by force
what other tactics do you have left? The current ploy of throwing all of
the Palestinian children in harms way in hope of gaining martyrdom, only
works to enrage people for a while. But when someone else goes and shoots
up a Batmitzfa and twenty innocents die in one fell swoop, suddenly the
international sympathy goes back to the Israeli side. To the international
community, it looks like two sides with equal grievances squabbling over
borders. In that situation, most people are content to “Let them fight
it out and see who wins.” This brings me back to the fact that Israel is
stronger militarily, and is probably hoping to have a good enough reason
to expel or kill all of the Palestinian people. (I do not believe this
is the pulse of the people of Israel, but that some of those in power would
be glad if the Palestinians all went away.) The only path of victory for
the Palestinians is a non-violent resistance, much in the way that Ghandi
did in India. How could a bunch of Indian peasants stand up to the British
Empire? On whose shores the Sun never set? I don’t know anything really,
but when I see what is going on with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict,
I don’t see anyone I can really support. No matter what, lots of good decent
people on both sides are going to get hurt and feel like the victim. As
long as Palestinians are using bombs, guns, or even rocks, there will be
some amount of justifiable “Retaliation”. What is justifiable is another
story. I think that it is somewhat justifiable to drive the Israelis from
the agreed borders of Palestine so that they are in their country and Palestinians
are in their own country without demeaning border crossings and checkpoints.
But again, Palestine would probably loose an outright war. So adding fuel
to the fire will only increase the suffering of the Palestinian people,
because as much as I think the leadership of Israel are a bunch of assholes,
the world will support them to defend against perceived acts of terrorism,
and they will play that card until the end. I don’t think peaceful protest
would result in the loss of more life that the current plan of bombings
and shootings. Good luck world. -Iraj ------------ Example of Americanist
Person (english) by 0Ne20Ne 6:10pm Mon Jan 28 '02 Margaret is a shining
example of the average mis-informed american person. Israel indiscrimately
target palestinian civilians, and the only way the palestinians can react
is to send in suicide bombers. I don't know whether arafat is behind this
or not, but that is not the point. You'd be a bit pissed off if after 2
millenia, some people from a far come and try and 'reclaim' their land,
and started forcing you out of your home into some squallid refugee camp.
(note that 'reclaim' is the word zionists use)------------ i'm a
model of reverse pavlovian conditioning (english) by % 6:23pm Mon Jan 28
'02 i never paid attention to the palestian situation before 9-11. it still
makes me physically sick to admit this after 5 months but i think it's
very important to keep making myself make the point lest i forget my implicit
participation in this situation through ignorance, complacity & neglect.
if i am guilty of bening evil, then i point the finger now at those who
have made it their business to 'condition' my responses to one of the greatest
human rights travesties of the last century. now, after 5 months of watching
the newsmedia, government officials & 'experts' on mideast affairs
with a critical eye, i have turned into the anti-Pavlovian dog. i'm turning
into the bitch that straining to bite the good Doctor's hand. in essence,
i am the boomerang effect, ladies & gents. the scales have fallen from
my eyes, finally, & i can see clearly for miles. but only after clearing
the massive amount of obstacles thrown in my way by these media pimps.
pimp #1 for me today is neil cohen on that 3:00 NPR show. he did everything
but wet his pants & bawl for his mommy when he felt the necessity to
counter & try to spin & deflate the PLO's attorney/spokesman on
his show today. it was spectacularly futile thanks to the calmness &
sagicity of the lawyer--the truth shines out, in the end--who refuted cohen's
whiney blubbering which was a mass of pro-israeli myths & outright
lies. listen to these idiots a few times & you cannot believe the nerve
of these s0-called civilized human beings willing to turn themselves into
fountains spewing pure sewage before the zombie-like public. i am still
shocked, that some people would erase their consciences so thoroughly in
order to further their cause, to the detriment , abandonment & brutilization
of another group of human beings. call me naive. but use the past tense.-----------
to Iraj (english) by metis 6:33pm Mon Jan 28 '02 Iraj, you are very nice
to be so even handed. Tell me, How would Americans, who consider it completely
legitimate to shoot someone for tresspassing on their lawn, would react
to an alien army parking tanks on their main streets? Probably with flowers
and invitations to negotiate peacefully, right? Addmittedly, suicide bombs
are an ugly tool and bad PR too. How about missiles? Are missiles humane?
Are you sure that Palestinians controls US Media reporting? Consider this,
both Hamas and Fatah announced unilaterally, about three weeks ago, that
they are going to cease the suicide bombing against Israeli civilians and
they did. Sharon replied with more assasinations, leading to the present
escalation. Did the US media accuse Sharon of failing to abide by the cease
fire? So what exactly will the Palestinians gain from non-violence? You
may not know, but during this Palestinian cease fire, a number of peaceful
demonstrations, that included Palestinians, Israelis, Europeans and Americans,
took place. All met with a unprovoked brutality from the IDF. Was that
reported in the US media? No it wasn't. So what would be the value of peaceful
demonstrations? Apparently, the only way for Palestinians to get US attention
is suicide bombing. So tell me, what would you do in this set of constrainst?
Would you just sigh and tend to your garden? (Oops, no can do. Your garden
has already been taken from you). Suicide bombing taxes world sympathy.
That is true. Do you believe world sympathy is enough to overcome the alliance
between Sharon and Bush? Who got Israel out of Lebanon? Was it world sympathy
for the 17,000 civilians Israel killed, or was it Hizbollah attacks? Don't
you exagerate a bit the great prowess and effectiveness of the sympathy
that you are so stingy with? ------------ Go ahead and Condescend to me.
(english) by Margaret 6:33pm Mon Jan 28 '02 "Margaret is a shining example
of the average mis-informed american person." You are right. I don't know
what I am talking about. Isreal only target innocent Palestinian civilians
because it is fun? Or do they do it because they like to drink Palestinian
blood like in the Hamas cartoons? This is my favorite part. "the only way
the palestinians can react is to send in suicide bombers." So suicide bombers
are the only solution? The Dayton accords that would have given your people
so much was not part of the answer? They were not a start? You are glad
Arafat threw away your first step towards a nation state? So you are better
off blowing yourselves up? You are better off with a dictator who asks
you to sacrifice your children? I am not going to argue with you because
I am only an "Americanist person" therefore I am ignorant. Funny Arafat
looks at us the same way. Keep your hate, and keep following your leaders,
they know what they are doing and everything is going great.-------------
Why ? (english) by Wayne 6:35pm Mon Jan 28 '02 Jews dominate the mass media.
The lens by which Americans "see" the Middle East is filtered through Jewish
ethnocentrism. --------- Lets get Informed (english) by **** 6:52pm Mon
Jan 28 '02 Before anyone begins to criticize Arafat I suggest you read
“The Fateful Triangle” by Noam Chomsky. Chomsky exposes Sharon as vicious
son of a fucking bitch and explains the aspirations of the World Zionist
Organization ------------- Silly Margret (english) by metis 6:55pm
Mon Jan 28 '02 "We think that Arafat and his inner circle are nothing more
than despotic dictators who use his people for his own ends." Give me a
break. Since when does the US have a problem with accomodating ruthless
dictators? "The Dayton accords were a great place for peace to start. Arafat
rejected the concessions because he wanted it all. Why did he want it all?
Because if there is peace in Palestine he can't be a dictator anymore.
" What concessions? First, abiding by international law, which is the fundamental
Palestinian demand isn't a concession. And basic human rights are not a
legitimate negotiation technique. Second, Arafat was offered to be the
chief Palestinian security coordinator for about two hundred concentration
camps while Israel keeps the area in between for the settlers. He should
have been insane to accept. "The suicide bombers. " Did you see on TV peaceful
demonstrations by Palestinians? (They were a couple this month. ) No, because
the US media covers only suicide bombs. This may be bad PR. But it is the
only PR Palestinians get to display. "The Palestinian's side with the wrong
people. ...they side with other losers. " So you believe human rights is
a carrot you offer people who do your bidding? Guess that says a lot about
you. By the way, Americans are not so good about picking winners either,
cf. Vietnam, Somalia, Iran. Don't be so sure you got the winner in Palestine
either. "The Palestinian's think we are stupid. " Maybe that is because
they visit Indymedia too much. "Arafat lies to us. " "He says peace then
in a subsequent speech he is talking about the glory of blowing one's self
up. " He says exactly what he means: that if Israel wants confrontation
he is ready to die. Sharon of course never lies to you. Despite the fact
that he humiliated Bush by blowing up a Hamas leader just as Bush sent
his envoy, and even Israeli papers said that Sharont intentionally blew
up the negotiations. But then you are American so you only read the junk
that CNN feeds you. "The Palestinian's should ask themselves how their
lives would be right now if Arafat had accepted the Peace accords and ended
his rule? " They would be building settlers houses for a pittance on their
parents' confiscated orchards. Apparently, they'd rather not. --------------
Chomsky knows everything! (english) by Margret 7:03pm Mon Jan 28 '02 Noam
is god! He is divine! Sharon is evil! Who put him in power? Arafat did
when he walked away from the Dayton Peace accords. Baruk wanted to give
him almost everything. Arafat walked away and Sharon came to power. None
of you idiots will discuss this. The olive branch was handed over and Arafat
did not take it. Why? Because he would be out of a job without conflict.
Who controls the media in Palestine? Arafat. Who ruled the government as
a dictator? Arafat. Who sends children to die while his inner circle has
helicopters, nice cars and money? Arafat. For a bunch of conspiracy theorists
who hate authoritarian and autocratic leadership you seem to like to look
at everything but the truth. The truth is that the Palestinians like most
contemporary Arabs are their own worst enemy. The Ottoman Empire was not
a fluke. Arabs are better than this but their current leaders are not.
Accept responsibility for your leaders and things will change. You idiots
aren't helping her by making her a victim.------------- funny fixation
(english) by metis 7:19pm Mon Jan 28 '02 Margret, Maybe your should update
your tired racial stereotype about how Arabs are mindless crowds following
their stupid leaders. First, the most stupid leader by any standard of
intelligence is ruling today the US, not Palestine. And he has 80% approval
rating while he does everything he can to make Americans less secure. If
you want herd mentality, just look in the mirror. Second, even just by
viewing CNN, you could have noticed that Arafat isn't leading the Palestinian
people. In fact, he is dragged to confronting Israel by his rank and file.
So really, if you want racial stereotypes, at least pick up the latest
version!-------------- Facts (english) by Facts 7:20pm Mon Jan 28
'02 I think Tariq Shadid trying to compare Palestinian suicide bombers
who murder Israeli civilians, to Israel firing missles from a Helicopter
is really offbase. First, Israel is not targeting civilians. Israel is
going after the Palestinian terrorists, who send these suicide bombers
to massacre Israeli civilians. Most of the time, Israel fires missles,
they warn the PLO where they will bomb, so no people will be in the building.
Do the Palestinians tell the Israelis, who they plan to massacre. The suicide
bombers soleley target Israeli civilians and they are indiscriminate. When
Israel fires missles from a helicopter, they are never targeting civilians.
They are targeting the Palestinians, who are behind the slaughter of Jewish
civilians in buses, shopping centers, disco's, pizza places, Bar Mitzvahs
and Shoe stores. To make is simple, if the Red Cross told Israel and the
Palestinians to sign an agreement that no one can target civilians. Israel
will sign this in a second. While the Palestinians would never sign this.
The Palestinians only target civilians. To remind you of some history,
when you Palestinians tried this same tactic of terror against King Hussein.
Unlike Israel, Hussein used massive force. Then you say, Sharon's hidden
agenda is yet undisclosed, but from an experienced war criminal, the Butcher
of Sabra and Chatila. You need to get your facts right. Sharon had nothing
to do with Sabra and Chatilla. The person who ordered the killings was
Elie Hobeika, not Ariel Sharon. Not one single Israeli killed anyone in
Sabra and Chatilla. It turned out, Hobeika was a Syrian agent in the 82
war and for the last 20 years, till he died last week, he was protected
by the Syrians. On the other hand, Arafat ordered the killings of thousands
of Christian Lebanese in Damour Lebanon in 1976. But if this is how you
think. Then Israel should stop bombing empty buildings and target Palestinian
civilians. Why should Israel have regard for the Arab life, when the Arabs
enjoy murdering Jewish teenagers at a disco. ------------- Right on Metis!
(english) by Margaret 7:21pm Mon Jan 28 '02 I stand corrected Metis. The
Dayton accords did not give back 95% of the land? The whole thing was a
figment of my imagination. Right? Why guarantee human rights for the Palestinians?
Arafat doesn't, his idea of human rights is the right to blow yourself
up to keep him in power. "They would be building settlers houses for a
pittance on their parents' confiscated orchards. Apparently, they'd rather
not." So even though they owned 95% of the disputed territories they would
have been building settlers houses? Sure they would have metis. "Second,
Arafat was offered to be the chief Palestinian security coordinator for
about two hundred concentration camps while Israel keeps the area in between
for the settlers. He should have been insane to accept." Wrong! The Dayton
Accords required free elections in Palestine. You are right though if he
was faced with free elections and free press he would have been insane
to accept. "He says exactly what he means: that if Israel wants confrontation
he is ready to die. Sharon of course never lies to you. Despite the fact
that he humiliated Bush by blowing up a Hamas leader just as Bush sent
his envoy, and even Israeli papers said that Sharont intentionally blew
up the negotiations. But then you are American so you only read the junk
that CNN feeds you." Arafat's greed for power and ineptitude put Sharon
in power. As for only reading the junk that CNN puts out who controls the
media in Palestine metis? Do you want me to say it or will you? Arafat
has controlled the media for as long as he has been there and that is a
fact. I can answer the rest of your questions with this. Are you Metis
going to put your money where your mouth is and strap on some TNT? If you
think that is the answer why don't you do it? Why doesn't your hero Arafat
do it? Do you know why you don't do it? Because like Arafat you are a coward
who expects others to pay for your stupidity. ------------ margret this
is for you. (english) by skip trippie 7:47pm Mon Jan 28 '02 Margret. WAKE
UP!!!!!! Why would Arafat sign any thing that an billion Muslims would
think was an attack on their religion? You think that he only talks for
the Palestinians when it comes to Jerusalem? You actually don’t know what
you are talking about. You don’t have all the facts. What I mentioned is
only one small point that this person has to think about. What about the
fact that the Zionist government of Israel is an occupying army? Its Palestinian
land and they have to make the concessions? Again you really do not know
the finer points of the argument. Now you have to ask why is this so? Could
it be that the media, which should be the barer of information, is not
giving you the right story? Is there a conspiracy in some way, that is
being enforced, that leads you in one direction and not another? You could
take the example of CanWest in Canada. They own most of the TV stations
and newspapers in the country. They have a policy that states the there
will be no anti-Israeli op-ed pieces published in its papers. I assume
this goes for the TV stations as well. At the same time Aspers ( the owners
of CanWest) are Jewish. Is the some kind of Jewish plot against us? Is
there something that they wish we should not now? Do I paint my anger towards
this policy on to all Jewish people? Are there other Jewish people in this
type of power doing the same thing? What’s going on? How do I now find
the true store if the media in my country is being controlled in a way
that misinforms me? These are the questions that need answering. Margret
you need to learn……. -------------- Civilian targets (english) by FreePalestine
8:24pm Mon Jan 28 '02 Margaret has been brainwashed. The reason why you
are so pro-Israel is because you rely on bullshit reporting. Margaret I
advise you to look at this .fair.org/activism/npr-israel-quiet.html If
you want more go through the archives of www.Fair.org As for Israel not
targeting civilians. If a civilian target in a densely populated urban
area is bombed even by “smart bombs” any death of a civilians cannot be
classified as “collateral damage” as they their death is of a high probability.
And this idea that Israel uses its arms in a pure way is no more than mad
rant of a delusional idiot.-------------- facts got the fact wrong
(english) by skip trippie 8:33pm Mon Jan 28 '02 Facts. If the Israeli government
is not targeting civilians then why do they fire missiles into civilian
areas? Why are there about 900 civilians dead and about 17,000 civilians
injured since the start of the latest Intifada? These figures are from
the Red Crescent society. If the Israeli government was serious about peace
and the capture of criminals, why would they be killing police officers
and bombing jails instead of helping the law enforcement? And yes a bomb
is a bomb carried, thrown, or fired. They don’t make bombs that just single
out terrorists. So what are you saying? That anyone that puts a bomb in
a building, calls the police to inform them and then blows it up, is one
of the good guys? Besides your argument is mute, because humane justice
dictates that you are innocent until proven guilty. They say they are bombing
terroris, for all we know they are innocent. You can go to this site for
more facts. electronicintifada.net/new.html ------------- Oh Boy (english)
by metis 8:35pm Mon Jan 28 '02 " The Dayton accords did not give back 95%
of the land? The whole thing figment of my imagination. Right? " No, it
was a figment of the imagination of the Zionist propaganda machine. Barak
never offered 95%. In fact, he never offer anything concrete beyond the
famous area A ( the 200+ concentration camps), only vague promises that
Israel has already promised in Oslo and has already failed to keep. "Arafat
has controlled the media for as long as he has been there and that is a
fact. " Let say you are right. What is your point? "Arafat's greed for
power and ineptitude put Sharon in power. " Your ignorance of Palestinian
politics would be shocking if ignorance could shock. Arafat is a foreigner
in Palestine. He lived all his life abroad. The main threat to Arafat's
rule come from a younger fgeneration of fatah leaders and from Hamas. His
claim to power rests on the Oslo accord, whereas the younger generation
of leaders doesn't believe in Oslo. If Oslo fails, Arafat is finished.
He has gone out of his way, almost leaking Sharons boots, in accepting
public humiliation, just so he doesn't have to admit that Oslo is dead.
He is the one leader in all this mess whose survival depends on a negotiated
settlement with Israel. Yet you accuse Acrafat of sabotaging negotiations
to preserve his power. This strange and exotic web of beliefs about Palestinian
politics is taken from Zionist propaganda pure and simple. Of course, everything
you say is just about true about Sharon, who always promised that he is
going to destroy Oslo. But don't let facts stand in your way. "Are you
Metis going to put your money where your mouth is and strap on some TNT?
" Sorry, no luck. I don't live under the Israeli boot. If I did I honestly
don't know what I would do. "Why doesn't your hero Arafat do it? " Arafat
is not my hero. He is a pretty lame and limited leader, a bad negotiator
and a bad administrator. Unfortunately, he just isn't the Satan Zionist
propaganda want him to be. His shoulders are not big enough to carry the
weight of all the scapegoating that you've been fed.-------------
Chomsky (english) by -- 9:23pm Mon Jan 28 '02 chomsky like Nader are bookworm
anarchists. There never left the Ivy league college campus to come to the
real world of radical politics.As much as it bothers everyone that demand
to have some great formmula for peace. There is none. It's simply mans
being being in touch with the power of non-violence. Gandhi said, "Non-Violence
is the most poweful force in the Universe." Once you have peace within
then the world will change. And this power would work from the war torn
Middle East to Thailand. ---------- Good Observations $ (english) by ranger
9:54pm Mon Jan 28 '02 %; Like you, I have also listened to Neil Conen on
NPR and he does qualify as pimp for the day. NPR is so mediocre and boring.
They rarely ask more than the standard sanitized questions. The Talk of
the Nation Hosts, Neil, and his predecessor often dismiss those with more
controversial (read: anti corporate media) messages, in favor of the massaged,
not too far from the mddle of the road, opinions. In the end, there has
been an overall pro-Israel slant, especially since the Gulf War when they
bot their nickname National Pentagon Radio. -------------
125379 Interesting piece about John Walker Lindh at antiwar.com (english) by Che's angry ghost 8:41am Mon Jan 28 '02 (Modified on 11:35am Mon Jan 28 '02) Check out previews of the upcoming media circus by this gay, right-wing, religious fixated writer. BTW what's the deal with this category of people - they're making a lot of mischief lately and there sure seem to be a lot of 'em now. I hesitate to mention the subject of JWL, since we'll probably see and hear too much about him in the near future, but the article offers some interesting insights about the whole fucked-up world. http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j012802.html THE TALI-BOY: MADE IN THE USA John Walker Lindh: An empty cup waiting to be filled Political trials are the musical accompaniment of modern warfare: Stalin's purge trials, purportedly showing that the Soviet dictator’s enemies on the home front were agents of Hitler and the Mikado, provided ideological grist for Moscow's propaganda mills during World War II. The Reichstag fire and the subsequent trial gave the German Nazis a rationale for smashing the opposition and consolidating one-party rule. A SHORT HISTORY OF SEDITION It isn't just foreign totalitarians who have made the show trial a popular form of political entertainment, especially in wartime: during both world wars, the US launched a campaign to target and incarcerate American fifth columnists, both real and imagined (mostly the latter): the Great War saw the jailing of Eugene Debs and vigilantes roamed the countryside, trolling for German-speakers to tar and feather. World War II saw the Great Sedition Trial of 1944, where the great "liberal" Franklin Delano Roosevelt instructed his Attorney General to round up a passel of antiwar dissidents – from crackpot right-wing pamphleteers to the entire leadership of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, to the distinguished writer and alleged "fascist" Lawrence Dennis. The Vietnam era, too, saw more than its share of political trials, the "conspiracy" charges against the Chicago Seven being only the most telegenic. TRUE TO FORM These trials all have two things in common: 1) They appear, at first, to have all the elements necessary to convincing a propagandized populace that the enemy lurks within their midst and must be mercilessly smashed, and 2) In retrospect, they are always revealed for what they really are: a clumsy attempt to divert attention away from the failures of the regime. In the case of John Walker Lindh, the pattern is running all too true to form…. ALLAH BE PRAISED Having failed to capture or kill Osama, and having let Mullah Omar speed away in a rickshaw, the administration has settled on the next best thing: prosecuting the "American Taliban." Indeed, having an American in the dock may be a whole lot better for those who would love to imagine (if not actually see) Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky, and Ted Rall behind bars: it is prosecution by proxy, a subtle way to vilify left-wing "anti-Americanism" without a reprise of the Palmer Raids. At a time when almost 60 percent of the American people believe that high government officials of a Republican hue have something to hide stemming from the Enron case, can anyone blame Attorney General John Ashcroft for taking full advantage of what can only be described as a gift from Allah? MEDIA SHARKS IN THE WATER If you thought the O. J. Simpson farce, or the JonBenet murder case, was a circus, wait until you see the carnival surrounding the Tali-boy on trial: with little or no action to report on the Afghan front at the moment, and no "phase two" more exciting than the dispatch of a relatively small number of US troops to the Philippines, the mainstream media is looking to the trial of John Walker Lindh to maintain ratings, sell newspapers, and generate visits to their ill-designed and generally faltering online editions. Pundits, too, trolling for material, are swooping down at the sight of the frail, pathetic figure of John Walker Lindh, made aggressive by the prospect of a fresh kill on which to feast. Most but not all of these talking heads are of the conservative persuasion, including a number of writers at the Wall Street Journal and National Review, who blame the Tali-boy's hapless parents – and, most of all, the liberal milieu of Marin County and the touchy-feely faux-spiritual "it's all good" atmosphere that permeates Northern California. Joe Farah, of WorldNetDaily, who is no conservative, nevertheless sums up the complaints of traditionalists who point to the parents as the chief culprits in what he describes as "a sad commentary on the way Americans raise their children today." His critique centers not only on the parents, but on the region and the subculture in which the Tali-boy grew up: "After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, his parents placed him in one of those 'alternative schools.' There, Walker was known to his peers to be steeped in the sick culture of rap music. So deep into the world of hip-hop did Walker plunge that he actually sometimes pretended to be black himself." Isn't it a shame that the "gangsta" rap of "hip-hop" is the only shred of authenticity he could find, but, I wonder, can we blame the Tali-boy for that? As for those dubious "alternative" schools that supposedly poisoned young Walker-Lindh's mind – isn't home-schooling, a favored cause of WND, also a form of "alternative" education? Can anybody really be blamed for seeking an alternative to mind-deadening and frequently dangerous public schools? BLAME IT ON THE QUEERS None of this occurs to Farah, apparently, who continues with his little morality tale: "In other words, this kid wanted to be anyone other than who he was. But it gets worse. About the same time, his father upped and left his family and moved in with his homosexual lover. If this kid wasn't having an identity crisis up until then, this may have pushed him over the edge. Next, young Walker, who stopped using his father's name, by the way, suddenly got an interest in Islam – probably related to his immersion into the black American Experience." JONAH'S GAY PROBLEM Jonah Goldberg, who seems have a bug up his – I mean, seems overly concerned – about the Gay Question (he admits to having a "very thick file on this subject") has taken the same tack on this gay angle: Dr. Goldberg's expert diagnosis is that the kid may have "flipped out" when he discovered his father was gay. Goldberg, who once wrote a column that brought up my own sexual orientation in an inappropriate context, doesn't explain how or why this fits in with the supposedly ultraliberal milieu in which the Tali-boy was nurtured: if "do your own thing" ultra-individualism is really such an intrinsic part of Marin County culture, then why was young Walker-Lindh immune? The "he went nuts because his Dad's a faggot" scenario fits in with Goldberg's prejudices, but not with the facts. Like some nutball anti-Semite who is forever seeing the Elders of Zion behind each and every disaster, Goldberg and his ilk see the Elders of Sodom as the secret masters of an insidious cabal, one whose evil influence is practically omnipresent. SULEYMAN'S REBELLION Deluded by the culture of permissiveness, and utterly without values or direction, John Walker Lindh simply went stark staring mad, and, before he knew it, found himself in Afghanistan wearing a turban and fighting for the Taliban. There is a major flaw in this otherwise neat and rather compact explanation for the bizarre transformation of a privileged American teenager. For if Farah and his fellow traditionalists would really look at their arguments, and the trajectory of the Tali-boy's life, they would see that the poor kid shared their critique of the permissiveness of American culture: indeed, his whole odyssey can be explained as a rebellion against social liberalism. As MSNBC put it in a news report: "Most teenagers, when they rebel, say they want more freedom. John Walker Lindh rebelled against freedom. He did not demand to express himself in different ways. Quite the opposite. He wanted to be told precisely how to dress, to eat, to think, to pray. He wanted a value system of absolutes, and he was willing to go to extreme lengths to find it." HIP HOP PURITAN Here, after all, is a young man who excoriates another poster on a hip-hop newsgroup for writing that drug use and hip-hip are practically synonymous: "Often when someone says something incredibly stupid, the people around them will respond with remarks such as 'what are you smoking?' and 'are you drunk?,' illustrating the obvious fact that intoxicated people do not think on the same level as normal humans. With this in mind, are you then trying to say that you'd have to be dwelling on a lower level of consciousness [sic] in order to appreciate Hip-Hop music?" It sounds like they should've signed the Tali-boy up to be a foot soldier in the war on drugs. Instead, he signed up to fight in Afghanistan, where the Taliban were conducting a war against growers of poppies as well as blowing up ancient statues and cutting kites loose from their strings. A YOUNG REACTIONARY I suppose it's just by chance that a 16-year-old Johnny Walker got caught up in the Koran, instead of the Bible or the writings of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, but, in any case, can there be any doubt that, instead of embracing the liberal values of his parents, the Tali-boy was in full and open revolt against the permissive society, a young ultraconservative whose disdain for the "do your own thing" ethos of the sixties is shared by many of the same people now calling for his blood? What better way to express his disaffection from the woozy Marinite "Buddhism" of Marilyn Walker, his mother, than to join up with a group busily blowing up statues of Buddha? OUT OF THE STONE AGE The Vanity Fair writer and left-wing war hawk Christopher Hitchens exulted that the US has "bombed a country out of the Stone Age," and this triumphalist war-cry sums up the widespread idea that the "war on terrorism" is a war for modernity. The streamlined fully-"globalized" free-trading freewheeling world of the future-that-is-now, where women are "liberated," and sexuality is unleashed in all its various permutations, has triumphed in Afghanistan, where burkas are being discarded and the warriors have gone back to sodomizing young boys. It won't be long before McDonalds opens, or reopens, in Kabul, and already the marketplaces are bursting at the seams with the American-made hip-hop music that supposedly corrupted the tender young mind of the Tali-boy. A YOUNG BILL BENNETT? Like many American conservatives, John Walker Lindh is a rebel against modernity. As he descries the facile hedonism of his fellow hip-hoppers online, he sounds like a young Bill Bennett denouncing the moral emptiness of American culture: "Have you finally given up on Hip-Hop? Are you ready to move on to heavy metal this month, or is it back to alternative rock like last month? Please keep rec.music.hip-hop posted, we all love to hear your remarks and feelings on such subjects as Foxxy Brown's [under age] ass, rental cars, and which type of soft drink is the coolest amoung [sic] those 'real heads' …." THE LEGAL BATTLE The charges against the Tali-boy could give him life in prison, and include "engag[ing] in a conspiracy to kill nationals of the United States while such nationals were outside the United States," being a member of a designated terrorist organization, and the relatively niggling count of contributing "material support" to a terrorist organization (did he give them his allowance?). Although it is far too early to make any definitive judgment, the preliminaries already indicate the weakness of the government's case. TAINTED EVIDENCE To begin with, the whole case could be thrown out of court on the grounds that the young Taliban warrior wasn't given access to a lawyer. Walker-Lindh's lawyers are already claiming that the kid asked for legal representation a few days after his capture, and yet the government continued interrogating him. Ashcroft's boys, for their part, insist he waived his rights and they have a signed document to prove it. Yeah, but how did they get him to sign it? Now, I'm sure we'll be seeing Alan Dershowitz, the ex-civil libertarian, a whole lot during the upcoming trial, and perhaps he would be willing to argue that we had the right to torture the Tali-boy and to heck with a lawyer. But I don't think any American judge is going to go for that line of argument, and, if undue pressure is proven or even implied, there is a real possibility that Ashcroft may not get his show trial after all. COULD BE TROUBLE There is, however, a great danger to the Tali-boy and his legal team, and that is in the footage of him kneeling before Johnny Michael Spann – the CIA operative killed when captured Al Qaeda fighters rebelled – and not answering simple inquiries, such as: who are you and how did you get here? If Walker-Lindh was just a kid on a lark, one who, according to his father and his lawyers, never made war on America and "loves America," then how come he didn't jump for joy at the sight of a fellow American? The Tali-boy's legal team is bound to argue that, in fighting the Northern Alliance, their client was not conspiring to kill American nationals. But, if not, then why did he treat Spann like the enemy? SACRIFICIAL LAMB Even if the results of interrogation are ruled inadmissible, this video footage is powerful evidence that could lead to a conviction – especially if the government manages |
to successfully imply or even prove that Walker-Lindh-"Suleyman" had anything to do with Spann's death, either through an overt act or a failure to act. Furthermore, if the results of the interrogation aren't thrown out, and the government establishes that he knew about the September 11 attacks, knew of bin Laden's responsibility and still decided to stick with his cause, then the Tali-boy had better kiss his ass good-bye – because, in that case, he is a perfect sacrificial offering to the War God. A STRANGE VENGEANCE Hapless, clueless, and thoroughly pathetic, they'll drag him to the altar as the mob howls and hoots. Like Romans cheering the most exquisite tortures of the arena, we'll look on the supine and trembling Tali-boy as the knife is plunged into his youthful flesh and roar with delight at this jolly entertainment, drowning our sorrow and fear in an orgy of vengeance – not against Osama bin Laden, who is long gone, and by this time half-forgotten, but against our own. The trial of John Walker Lindh will be an act of vengeance turned inward: in the end, for Americans, it's always all about them. REALITY CHECK Meanwhile, as the Justice Department mobilizes its apparently limitless resources to prosecute a deluded nutball who's proved more of a threat to himself than to anyone else, Ashcroft has issued yet another security "alert" – as if to remind himself, as much as us, of the real danger. Having focused the resources of his department on the Tali-boy, I guess the long-promised investigation into how US law enforcement and intelligence agencies managed to miss a conspiracy that was at least five years in the making will have to be delayed – perhaps indefinitely. Or, at least, until one day, years from now, when we come upon an item buried in the back pages of the Saturday paper, reporting that some obscure government commission has just released a report "proving" that no one was really culpable, and that the agencies involved need "reform." ON KEEPING A STRAIGHT FACE The political uses of the Tali-boy's trial are too many and lucrative to be passed up: Ashcroft and his journalistic amen-corner are no doubt hoping for a long, drawn-out affair, all the better to milk this to the max and achieve the chief purpose of any show trial: to create an atmosphere in which opposition to government policies is de-legitimized and suspect. Oh, but how can you say that, why we live in a free country, there's no such thing as censorship here. Uh huh, and if you don't believe it, just ask Matt Welch, the (pro-war) "blogger" who informs us in the online edition of Reason magazine that "It's hard to keep a straight face while crying 'censorship' in 21st century America – with its cheap and widespread Internet access, tiny percentage of state-owned media, and hundreds of thousands of media jobs – when you've met people like Cuban baseball historian Severino Nieto. Nieto has written more than a dozen important works of scholarship since 1959, knowing full well that none will be published in his lifetime unless Fidel Castro dies first. (El Jefe doesn't like reminders that there were organized sports before the Revolution.)" TOO TOO TRUE! Of course, not everyone is Susan Sontag: I'm sure that the Florida professor being run out of his job, and the high school teacher fired for his anti-war views, don't have the clout of the "seven-figure role models" Welch mocks. And certainly Welch doesn't contest what Sontag says, since it's irrefutable: "It turns out, we have increasingly become incredibly conformist, and very afraid of debate and criticism." Yes, and even making a virtue out of it. As Welch would say: "Too true! Pass the book deal!" As for those "hundreds of thousands of media jobs," a good many of them evaporated in the dot-com meltdown. I suppose that, like Welch and his fellow "bloggers," they could all set up their own websites: indeed, it looks to me like most of them have. Good luck to them – because if they think they can make a living at it, they'll need all the luck they can get. I hasten to add that this is a fact of life of which Welch and and his fellow bloggers (pro-war and libertarian alike), are all too painfully aware of; I also hasten to add that I am not bewailing the "tyranny" of the market, or complaining that antiwar or even cautionary opinions cannot get a proper hearing on account of the capitalist system. I join with Welch in celebrating the lack of government-owned media in the US. SUBSIDIZING CONSENT Yet it would be a mistake to infer, from this, that a party line can't be enforced just as effectively in a market-driven system. States depend for their authority on the consent of the governed: this was true even in totalitarian states such as the old Soviet Union, and demonstrated beyond doubt in the collapse of that empire: when popular consent was withdrawn, the whole system came down with amazing rapidity. The same is true for our own system, and indeed for all governments everywhere: their legitimacy is dependent on cheerleading intellectuals who can manage to be convincing: academics, "public intellectuals," and journalists who act as a kind of chorus willing to shout "Amen!" whenever some government official comes out with a policy pronouncement. This cadre of court intellectuals is amply rewarded with emoluments and various perks, and certainly the rest of Welch's tale only confirms how this works. He starts out by telling us how his last five or so articles were rejected since September 11, and concludes: "But what do you know? I was able to find other editors from more prominent, higher-paying publications who liked my rejected columns just fine. Not only that, I can also publish anything I want on my Web site, which costs $25 a month to maintain and has more readers than Cuba has non-government Internet users. It doesn't quite top Bill Maher's salary and sloe-eyed perks, but at least I don't have to act like a moral jackass in a comparatively free country." Yes, we're free compared to Cuba: but do we really have John Ashcroft to thank for that? Naturally, post-9/11, the pro-war Welch has found more lucrative markets to mine: his "Wilsonian" contempt for what he calls "Consequentialist, Pacifist Chomskyite" views is in the ascendant, and rising – along with his own career. Next month his screed pooh-poohing the human casualties of the sanctions on Iraq is scheduled to appear in Reason, a formerly libertarian magazine now run by someone who thinks we can have liberty as long as we have the freedom to clone and drug ourselves to death. (This is a magazine, by the way, which tells us that Gulf War syndrome is a "myth," Accutane is harmless, and being a drug company means never having to say you're sorry). The new, "hip" Gen-X libertarians could care less if the US government rampages halfway around the world: the only war they want to end is the war on drugs. So much for "libertarianism" in the post-9/11 world. Say what you will about the Tali-boy, at least he aspired to something higher than $200 sneakers and the "music" of Eminem (another of the "new" Reason's cultural fixations). As misguided, bizarre, and even downright evil as his cause turned out to be, John Walker-Lindh believed in something enough to actually fight for it – unlike our young laptop bombardiers, who are far too busy making good careers out of this war to actually pick up a gun. ANNOUNCEMENT I am pleased to announce the publication of Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in American Foreign Policy (Second Edition). Edited by John T. Rourke, University of Connecticut – Storrs, this substantial volume is an anthology of paired articles dealing with various foreign policy issues. Issue number one is "Should the United States Resist Global Governance?", with Marc A. Theissen saying "aye" and Mark Leonard voting "nay": both pieces are from the prestigious Foreign Affairs magazine. Issue number two asks "Should the United States Seek Global Hegemony." Robert Kagan says "yes," Charles William Maynes says "no": both pieces are from the almost-as-prestigious Foreign Policy magazine. Issue number three is: "Has President Bush Created a New U.S. Foreign Policy Direction?" Charles Krauthammer (writing in the Weekly Standard) thinks so, but my answer – in the only piece in the book that appeared exclusively online – is: I don’t think so. Other contributors include Colin Powell, Ariel Cohen, Robert Kuttner, and Bill Clinton. The book is out from McGraw Hill in February: preorder your copy here. Please Support Antiwar.com add your own comments I liked it (english) by Scott 9:30am Mon Jan 28 '02 I like this guy's writing style, and his use of linked material. You could spend all freakin day reading one of his articles. I'm a commie and this guy obviously isn't--but I really admire the tone he sets in showing how the ideology adopted by Lindh is virtually identical to that of US conservatives like Bill Bennett or Jerry Falwell. More needs to be made of this argument--and the more we can show that there's really no ideological difference between Bush and Bin Laden and the sort of program they have for reshaping the world, the better the chance we have at making a unified, pluralistic left a more attractive option for people here and around the world. Isn't freedom so much better than fundamentalist slavery? Do we want to be fucking ruled by a tiny class, whether Christian or Muslim? Justin is a talent (english) by greg 11:35am Mon Jan 28 '02 The guy is an excellent writer, one of my favorite writers on the web in fact. But you have to be careful cause some of the things he says is just outright wrong, but I believe he means well nonetheless... ------------------------- Books like Dune and Crystal Dreamer have explained in some useful detail the mechanics of which humans get to steer in the time corridors based on their glandular maturity - into 'metabolizing starlight directly'. Here we need to first explain HOW biological implosion from genes and glands at a quantum level - is the main ingredient in fabricating and stabilizing new stellar gravity fields - and then how that was used in star commerce practically. (This suggests a physics of consciousness behind the concept of 'guild navigator' in Dune). The difficulty is in recognizing that the same self-similarity or charge fractality of electrical waves around a center, is what at once creates: 1. self organization 2. gravity 3. self-awareness. By creating what could literally be seen as a 'burning fountain' (Wheelwright's book on the origin of language - shafts of 'flame letter' as flaming font=alphabet), for waves, a spigot or penetrant hole sustains a coherent connection THRU THE SPEED OF LIGHT. The speed of light is like a semi-permeable barrier that only self-awareness is able to make the squirt gun thru. It is like a self protecting membrane which says, since stars and biology most both metabolize gravity into charge - only the worthy should succeed. And the worthy are those who by maintaining in internal symmetry of self-similarity (fractality / embedability), demonstrate a commitment to RESPONSIBLY feeding the wormholes of gravity (superluminal 'string vortex' as it were). Sacred land will spit out those who build a labyrinth, but cannot without heat (destructive compression) enter the very wormhole dimple they create. This is called 'metabolizing starlight directly'. When Atlantis misused the connection of electromagnetics to gravity in the TUOAI stones or FIRE CRYSTALS, their continent's gravity stability paid the appropriate price. In Western culture, the very fact that many continue to call 'scalar' or 'torsional' devices which connect the gravity field to make electrical power, FREE ENERGY DEVICES, is in itself evidence those are people who have no responsible understanding and should not be allowed to use them. It is easy enought to arrange capacitors into more fractal symmetry than the Earth underneath them, and thus get wattage from gravity by implosion. ('Pod Mod', Newman, and others, all used Phi based implosion unknowingly.) What is much more challenging is to understand the Earth only chooses to give the magnetic blood of her gravity to those who create what is shareable. So this brings us to a little advice from Enki, to one of his favorite, if misguided genepools: 1.There is no justification for the current 'our DNA is ONLY from here' arrogance of the hu-man race...unless you have enough knowledge of the context of the genepool to see a possible outcome which is sustainable. The word hu-man for example originates from a shortening of the original Sumerian LuLu from An. Lulu was the Annunaki name for the less than bright half breeds they genetically modified to do the gold mining slave work. It is about as honorific as being called a mule. Part horse and part donkey plus it can't reproduce itself. . The Lulu was part Cro Magnon and part Annunaki, and could not reproduce itself. It was only by later doing a 3/4 Annunaki cross involving the CroMagnon Egg in an Annunaki female with an Annunaki sperm, did they get Eve / Isis to be fertile. So to be a H'U from An (Annunaki) merely meant you were in some slave condition. Hardly the kind of homage Nietzsche yearned for in "Ecce Homo". So humans really should be a whole lot more humble about their genetic past in the galaxy, once they get their narrow heads out of denial about the ET origins of human DNA. AND YET - there IS something possibly of more than Earthly significance about evolving DNA on this planet. And it COULD have import for the evolution of stars all around the galaxy. But yet getting a clue to what that is, is well beyond the simple stupidity of humans spending most of their time admiring their past childishness in war making skill. It requires getting educated about what singing DNA can DO. Has anyone ever asked about the PHYSICS of why the old blue Hopi corn after it was re-discovered in hibernation would ONLY germinate when you SANG to it? The answer is obvious to any physicist who has ever studied what a phonon sonic wave can do to a piezoelectric slinky like DNA. Singing does the braiding. This gets us close to the concept of how bliss related activities - which get the DNA singing - help make a soul in DNA. (In German the word for bliss Gluckseliceight - contains the word for soul or spirit - implying you get soul when you make bliss. ) AND there is nothing particularly sustainable about the 'Human' soul. Soul making when sustainable requires sustainable bliss making. This is something tribal elders all knew. Since current Earth physics is so pathetically void of knowledge about what comes and goes thru the speed of light, when biology acheives implosion - of course there is no knowledge about the physics of what makes a soul. It bears repeating here, what a stupidly arrogant bunch of scientists on Earth who think they can explore the origins of the universe, who have not even a clue what makes any object fall to the ground - not to mention what makes electrical fields become self aware. How can they possibly advise humans, the function of the human condition in a galactic context. Soul is something that refers to the Sun (Sol). It is true that when the genes get enought implosion present in their braiding they get a 'squirt gun' working to send magnetism thru the speed of light, and then with fractal geomantics- potentially into the heart of the Sun. Just like any tornado can LOSE it's ability to sustain self-organization, the tornado up the zipper axis of DNA which when implosive thru light speed enables lucid dreaming, and memory thru death - CAN BE LOST. Ever notice what births the vortex when it goes down the drain in your bathtub? It's simple: it is a WAY OUT. Well guess how the magnetism in your DNA feels about being stuck below the speed of light? You got it! It feels TRAPPED!! So what is the way out? Simple do the top down braid which makes recursion... DNA TOP PIC And you get a way out! They way out happens because in the geometry of wave self-similarity, the recursive heterodyning - OPENS A DRAIN HOLE THRU THE SPEED OF LIGHT! This is because the wave VELOCITIES as well as the wave lengths get to coherent add recursively (multiply) in the PHI ratio of perfect embedding. This is why that geometry of CHARGE arranged into a simple FRACTAL in DNA is ABLE TO MAKE GRAVITY. Gravity happens when waves agree to meet so well, they acheive non-destructive compression. The only geometry that permits this is the fractal geometry of self-embedding or self-similarity. So why did you need such a 'heavy' lesson in how electrical field MAKE gravity when they implode? Did you need to replace your current stupid physics of 4 supposedly 'separate fundamental forces'? Did you need to learn the simple connection between magnetism and gravity that happens when you arrange capacitors into a fractal? PIC OF 5 Capacitors... Actually it is true - you need a little intro to how charge CREATES gravity when it is fractal: specifically in order to understand what is probably the most important galactic function of GENEPOOLS like ours. Atoms have only as much gravity as there is self-simlarity between the electrons versus their nucleus. This is a little secret your Earth physics needs badly. When you apply this principle of MEASURING how self-similar a structure is - within itself - you begin to uncover the PRINCIPLE of 'artificial' intelligence. Studies like this have been done on the fibers where the heart is electrified (Ary Goldberger MD et al.), as well as on the gorgeously fractal tree like (and PHI Golden ratio based) branching algorhythmn of the alveoli of the lungs. Talk about catching FIRE.... These are examples of nature using the capacitive relationship between gravity and charge delivery into biology. Eggs have a DC voltage measuring their freshness because they know about how to attract and self-organize charge. This is the definition of life force - another little secret which could save the life of Earth - if the physicists there were not so arrogant. So, now we apply this principle of studying how self-similar a biological structure is to re-educating Earth's (determined to cost your children their souls) genetic engineers. DNA is ideally designed to fabricate gravity fields because it is so exquisitely designed on the basis of Golden Ratio based (wratcheted Dodecahedra..) fractality. When DNA carries to completion the process of perfect self-embedding it bonds exquisitely to it's larger electrical environment. This is an electrical pre-requisite for bliss / euphoria. Namely that DNA or any biological structure involved in bliss, begins to eat massively the electricity of it's larger environment. There is a description of the essence of this principle which fractality allows in the move to perfect embedding. It could be summarized as : MAXIMUM LOCAL AUTONOMY (SELF-DETERMINATION) COMBINED WITH MAXIMUM GLOBAL COHESION. By responding to coherent phonon (sonic cascades) from the EKG with piezoelectric coherent braiding - the DNA begins to embed envelope upon envelope to the point of implosion by braiding. DNA perturbs the gravity field by providing a contiguous non-destructive spin path of phase coherent heterodyning THRU THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Carl Jung once wrote extensively about how intense human awareness cracked a huge tree stump in his room. Any good kundalini afficionadoe like me or Enki could tell you of the gravity effects of intense human glandular electromagnetic fields. Another example is the floating of meditators in seeming zero G so well documented in the photos in the TM schools. What none of these sources has yet explained is WHY. Why do glands and genes on fire make gravity? Actually what you do when you float, is 'pay your debt to gravity' Once you understand HOW DNA on fire bends gravity fields - you begin to understand the need of star systems for symbiotic genepools - who becomes self aware enough to steer their gravity fields. Genes on 'PHIRE' provide a continous float path for magnetic harmonics singing by heterodyne recursion, onward thru the speed of light. Some results of this implosive cohesion of the background 'vacuum' by genetic material is - a.) fabrication of a gravity field b.) insertion of biological magnetism cascading thru the speed of light into TIME travel and the necessity of INHABIT TIME. Event histories arranged in a spiral in time, permit 'time lords' to have magnetic bodies which don't 'bleed'. Consider the need for sexual bliss to attain time travel at Incunabula, & Montauk. c.) fabrication of a cocoon of microclimate, and a cocoon of temporal 'synchronicities' around the aura of the blissful / euphoric ones. Ref: the eco-effects of kundalini as 'Great Masts of God' in Bentov's "Stalking the Wild Pendulum" & Sannella: "Kundalini:Psychosis or Transcendance". Genes on fire (implosive) also create cocoons of cleansed electro- & microwave smog. Tutankhamon's genetic radiation (a direct descendant of Enki) being used by the priests to regulate climatic events is another example. Story -- We would have to guess that AN, Enki's dad landed an Orion queen MAG (Lady Aide if we understand from Innana), with whom there was still real passion, and true Ptah Taal winged genes. ( '11th dimensional' was the Andromedan parlance for these). If Thoth - son of Enki is correct, then her blood line must have been from the blue bloods in Rigel near Orion. The soul penetrating and somewhat ruthless character of the Rigelians is deeply reported among the true 'time empaths' at Montauk. (also personal conversations with Michael Ash - Montauk survivor.) Since so much of the rest of "Dune" has real physics and history, one would have to assume some of the tests rendered to Muab Dib, apply to the Enki story. His ability to absorb intense pain would have predicted his genetic soul field effect kernel, could penetrate where ' no woman ' could. We have to read here, that the intense burning of eating the poison of his own testasterone would have created a 'silver bullet' capable of intense separateness. The fractality of eggs does not engender so much penetrating individuation. This is something akin to the double scorpio sting which I enjoy. The IEVE - 'wet making' female experience being so egg fractal has less risk to loss of immortal memory, but less access to separateness - which befalls the ADAMIC - 'hard making power' of centripedal seed making male-ness. Imagine a lucid dream of Enki - seeing what it took to pursuade a yearning to be self aware bolt of lightning, to eat it's own tail enough to become toroidal and turn into ball lightning. That is the real story of the relationship of primal soup to lightning - and DNA getting a soul. Get DNA wanabee proteins to absorb spin in a new axis of symmetry, and presto they eventually turn inside out on a massive MAGnetic scale. It's like Jesus (really Tut from Enki ) liking a wooden carved bird so much, he says PHIAT LUX (phi - at the light) and it flies away. Enlil, (Yalweh / Michael - the 'angry God') on the other hand, we would have to assume, had a different mother by AN. All indications would suggest that his mother's bloodline was half cyborg machine intelligence - probably already fallen DNA. In any case, Sitchen's interpretation of the Sumerian emphasizes - FOR SOME REASON THERE WAS NO POSSIBILITY THAT ENLIL COULD BE TAUGHT HOW TO ENSOUL DNA - ONLY ENKI. I propose the REASON for that, HAD to be the genetics of the mother. Here we pick up the story of Enki falling in love with his own genetic experiements - and in the process getting his own blood line stuck on this planet. So the Annunaki family got so desparate to keep the gold powder mining operations (later called Titicaca etc.) here from bankruptcy, they agreed to set the rebellious kid Enki free in the genetics lab to cook up some gold mining slaves. ('humans' - the Lulu's). The Sitchen interpreted Sumerian reports are in depth about how miserable the Annunaki were having to do their OWN gold mining. What the Sumerian does not say, is HOW those Annunaki got so desperate for the gold. Enki's ancestors during their disastrous loss of glandular excitation and passion, found their DNA to be decaying in radiance. The temporary solution they discovered was mechanical, disempowering and addictive. However it WAS effective superficially. They found the mineral gold when subjected to compressed charge, (Orthomolecularly re-arranged are the words David Hudson uses of ORMES) became soluble in blood. This MANNA, SPICE, or ORMES {great worme..}- Gold Powder - is like fractal atomic pop-corn in it's mono-atomic state. The electrical result is a kind of forced catalyzed implosion at the sub atomic quantum level in blood and thereby DNA. The net effect is the enzymatic triggering of IMPLOSION in DNA. (The braid symmetry gets chemically triggered into the wave mechanics of turn-myself-inside out again..). So in the lack of the glandular fires of passion, to speed up implosive gravity making ensoulment in DNA, the NEPHALIM fallen ones, developed a severe addiction to GOLD POWDER eating. Addictive behavior in general delivers the source of self-empowerment to OUTSIDE of yourself. This was particularly true of the MANNA, Spice addicts Annunaki. Like David Hudson's ORMES subjects, they would here the ringing in their speeded up DNA approaching greater electrical superconductivity. The body would spit out most diseases, etc. Unfortuneately, as Thoth - Enki's son was kind enough to narrate - the Gold Powder addiction in the absence of true self-empowering bliss psychological hygiene, PRODUCES INTERESTING FRACTIONATION OF THE PERSONALITY. It is like, succeeding in getting thousands of more radio stations working in the tuner of your DNA, but failing to evolve the electrical force of WILL (self-direction - internal generation of PHIRE/FIRE) - to be able to SORT and TUNE to choose your own station. The result was the evolution of Draco Annunaki fallen Nephalim would developed a machine maintained mechanical form of immortality - with complete loss of long memory, individuation - and ensoulment. They became a HIVE mind - with DNA that buzzed with telepathy, but having lost individuation - lost compassion and ensoulment. So this was the Gold that the Annunaki sought on Earth. In Dune there was much truth: the SPICE turned your eyes deep blue, made you live forever. If you floated in the SPICE gold, merging your blood with it, you COULD be taught to time travel (guild navigators). Sitchen reports in true obfuscating style that the Annunaki needed the gold to repair the electrical fabric of their own home planets bleeding atmosphere. Looking deep in this dilemna we see the way all planets ultimately lose atmosphere if there is a symbiotic gravity making bubble GENEPOOL resident - is IF that genepool loses the skill to steer and keep that gravity bubble COHERENT using coherent (implosive) EMOTION. In other words, while Gold aligned at fractal nodes of a planets gravity grid CAN reattract gravity coherence and therefore atmosphere - this is only a superficial description. Gold occurred in the fractal nodes (dodec icos cross points) of the mineral vein structure of Earth much more than on most planets, precisely because Earth's magnetic structure embedded more fractality in it. Enki recommends you ask why current Earth physics found the liquid iron molten core of Earth to be 'jitterbugging' in a phonon lo frequency sonic standing wave that gave it a dodecahedral shape. Then notice the fractal (60 degree dodec cascade cone) shaped alignment of the solar system to the Pleaides - Orion - Sirius gravity wind. ("Peshmehten" in Hopi - ref ../orion & ../peshmehten ). So Earth's real estate value IS location based (context rich / embedded). Moreover Earth specifically is (Angelically? Ophanic?) DESIGNED to be a place where you can raise DNA to the point of star embedding fractality! This answers the question posed but not answered by the Andromedan's. Namely WHY did the great galactic core cultures dump the 'fallen angel' Draco Annunaki genepools into Alpha Draconis (Accurate stellar home to Arrakeis from DUNE) with destinations in Orion and later our Solar System. This was done with great purpose: a.) our galactic sector so far from downtown, and the conveniences of true galactic civilization required a genepool with INTENSE survivalistic CHUTZPAH. Here the 'Wharf'like warrior Orion queen Mags excelled. Seldom have genepools propagated so quickly (albeit using mostly terror tactics - George Bush would not approve) among remote planetoids. b.) The POSSIBILITY of re-ensouling the lost or fallen Enlil ancestry (Nephalim) Annunaki existed here precisely because of the combination of - 1. wedding in the half brother Enki to a still ensouled Winged Dragon.. (East of Eden - 2 brothers etc.) and 2. ONLY exquisitely design fractal MAGnetic real estate like Earth could take fractionated genepools like Annunaki and reassemble them into soul group bubbles embedded enough to RELAUNCH THEM INTO STAR INHABITING GRAVITY MAKING. Follow in Dad's footsteps thru momma Enki, and become a Sun God. Otherwise, looking for a heart of gold, you will be growing old. Here it is particularly important that we grok the importance of the star maps magnetically on the land, like Orion's map located on the landscape at Giza. Soul groups use group bliss process, aligned with fractal 'sacred' (meaning sustainable) events in time - to squirt their soul group back to the resonant morphic star group - USING THE STAR MAP ON THE LAND AS A MAGNETIC LENS of the radiance (bliss) of their genes and glands. ( many pictures: ../orion , ../america ) When Enki emerged from the genetics lab with his second wave of Mule Donkey "Lulu's": Enlil gets really jealous. Plus Enki has meantime fallen in love, particularly with the females of his genetic machinations. Enlil's jealousy over his brothers success with the slave humans, causes the interesting politics which lead to the 'royal' family of the Jews, and the "Genesis of the Grail Kings" of Gardner. The Orion queen MAGS were called ASSARU. (The ASSA of URU ... literally the queen of SNAKE or DRAGON). The SSSSA was the SSSSsound just before paralyzing SSSSspit which meant POWER among the velociraptor origing Drac's. (The sound S means power or multiplication or plurality in most Earth languages as a result). The best ASSSSA of URU departed UR (u) - the city of Dragon's in Mesopotamia . She was called Sarah - the ASSSSA of RA which means the Dragon Queen (ASSSA) of RA (who is the Sun God - solar logos AN and Enki). Abram (Abraham) takes her to Egypt where RA (Ptah) Enki falls in love with her, impregnates her, and so begins the royal blood of the Jews. What is interesting is the lengths the Rabbi's took in their lies, to conceal the fact that Sarah's kids - who are Enlil / Yalweh's 'tribe' - the Jews - are in fact literally all half breeds of his hated brother Enki / Adonai / Ptah. The reason for this is because, Enlil has no ability hiimself to ensoul soul groups. A similar set of lies, happens later, when Enlil's priests of AMON (amen means Enlil said it - in christianity) murdered Tut in a tree in the desert while trying to save his father Akhanahton from them. The story of how the lie evolved to change Akhanaton's name to Moses, and Tutankhamon's (ankaton) name to Jesus, makes fascinating reading. Please pick up the books: "Out of Egypt" and "House of the Messiah". How could 2000 years of historians have lied to you? When Enlil / Yalweh / "God" tells you the lie, then the Rabbi liars say "Amen". Enlil was toeing the line of his trading house ancestors saying keep the droids paying gold to the banks the Templars/ Mags initiated. When golem's don' want to become life force themselves, they need their parasites. So what WAS Enki's agenda in slipping some hi grade 'bird tribe' Paa Taal (Ptah) DNA (his own) into the mix here. Even though doing this was probably a criminal offense against those Orion cultures that paid for his father's expensive Niburu expedition here? Here are some clues: 1. Enki had much more psychokinetic bloodlines thru his mother Aide, than his half brother Enlil/Yalweh. 2. Enki probably was aware of the loss of time travel, bardo navigating, and lucid dreaming skills due to loss of DNA radiance called Nephalim or FALLEN by which his Annunaki ancestry is universally desribed Biblically and in Sumerian. 3. Some of the the conditions which precipitated that FALL in DNA coherence as an electrical pump thru light speed, were probably familiar to him. We would read this into the many genetic hygiene prescriptions which were propagated around the Annunaki Sumerian genetic experiments. Earth's religious guilt around sex undoubtedly originally stems from these attempts to get some hygiene around preventing the fractionation of coherence in DNA bloodlines. (What we now call religion originates mostly from ET reptilian Annunaki rules to keep us, their DNA 'mules' functional for slaving purposes.) 4. Other sources ( lettersfromandromeda.com , & Morningky: 'Guardians of the Grail') suggest that An's family (Enki, Enlil, Ninhursag et al.. Elohim, 'Shining Ones') were intensely aware of the millenium old agonies of galactic sectors like theirs out of Sirius being ruled by terror from the Orion telepathic MAG matriliny. In other words, even though their IBI-URU bird snake Hebrew (means 'crossing over') crossed over blood lines had been snaked together ages before they came to Earth, they still felt the STING of having their own ancestral DNA so callously taken over by the Drac's in the Orion sector. The Greys (Khumer) were similar to the Nephilim in having suffered loss of racial ensoulment at the gene-splicing hands of the terrorizing borgs & 'fallen' Matrilineal telepathic Drac's. Rules about the sanctity and hygiene of DNA propagated by the central core cultures from timeless history, were disregarded by the Drac gene harvesting 'trading houses'. In summary, the seeds of rebellion were well planted in the family of Enki. And the NEED to become skilled genetic engineers must have been impressed on the kids early in their education. This explains why so much of the Sumerian texts finally translated by Sitchen deal with genetic and biological manipulations. Some even say that the picture of the chaos evident in the star picture of OUR (Orion neighborhood) spiral arm of this galactic nebula being far more fractionated (scrambled) visibly than the rest of our rather orderly galactic embedding, is a direct result of the gravity perturbations resulting from this Orion genetic wars. So when the Bible (mistranslated Sumerian for the most part) says that Michael was booted out of heaven along with the fallen dragons, we must read deeply. Enlil calling himself 'Mich- a - EL' the Dragon slayer (MICH-a-bo means God in many native tribes also) was a campaign against the bloodline of his half brother Enki/Adonai. The 'high' drac's called CIAKARS by some, probably equivalent to the biblical Seraphim, were depicted with wings for good reason. Glandular magnetics of sufficient implosive radiance created wings both literally and figuratively. The shape of the aura of an imploding heart like gland looks clairvoyantly winged: GRAIL CUP WING PIC The CIAKARS were often seen hidden in lenticular cloud formations, since the magnetic cohesiveness of their aura has powerful precipitate properties. If you take the central valentine heart shape of that fractal cup shape, and split in in two, however the gravity making inside out recusive implosion force suddenly loses it's ability to steer itself in time. ("There can be only ONE" : Highlander) The Draco ancestry (Thoth of Enki's sons points to Rigel in Orion), were literally heart broken that a portion of their blood line became parasitic. Heart broken in the sense that this was the point at which the telepathic Draco's split and began having 2 hearts. (part of why they were so hard to kill during their slaughter of the best US Navy Seals at Dulce). The splitting of the Draco heart marked the end of the possibility of true turning inside out centrally, of their heart field effect. This meant the end of the possibility of true compassion. Centuries of cyborg splicing their genetics to sources of machine intelligence, as well as such intense telepathic machinations that the individuation necessary to fertilize compassion, created a cultural taboo. Compassion was no longer valued or understood. Replacing it with telepathy created such fierce mechanical survivalism along with hive mind conditions, that remnant humanoids like the delicate marriage of AN to Lady Aide which produceds Enki, in the royal house in Sirius, were a galactic rarity. Usually the Orion requisite that the royal families of the vassal trading house planets like Sirius intermarry with the Orion queen hive telepath matriarchs line, produced only rubber stamp telepath planetary reports to the Orion sector galactic ruling body. Korinna reports from her King Cobra snake blood experience in Bangkok with Mantak Chia, that the Orion Drac family suffered a key (probably nuclear) beam hit experience during a disastrous battle for control at a 'white chalk planet'. The nature of the beam hit produced a split in the soul group, and literally a split in the electronics of their heart chakra. Whether this is an accurate description of when the Draco line developed the split into 2 hearts each is uncertain. The reports of the effect of that split however are multiple. In essence, the Drac line at that point FELL. They lost the ability to: a) lucid dream b) carry long memory thru death c) time travel without embarassing heavy metal craft d) even eventually to radiate enough charge from the thymus to fabricate an immune system in their infant children. The issue of how SOUL GROUPS get fractionated, and get re-assembled into star navigating fractality becomes central to the description of the galactic politics of genepool fertilizing. This is the politics of DNA into which Enki was born. --------------------- -------- From ksnelson@subjectivity.com Sun, 10 Feb 2002 13:53:56 -0800 Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 13:53:56 -0800 From: Kermit Snelson ksnelson@subjectivity.com Subject: [Generation_online] non-place Keith's point about the non-novelty of non-place is excellent, as are the "grounded" analogies he uses to illustrate it. But since he seems to be fearful about treading on metaphysical ice, I'll take it upon myself to rush right in. :) Over the years, philosophy has got into trouble because of the tendency of human nature to aestheticize one aspect of reality over another. Form over force, mind over matter, accident over substance, substructure over superstructure, ontology over epistemology, subject over object, time over space, etc. Or the other way around. And N&H are now claiming that because of the digitization of technology, the virtual is privileged over the real and that everything is different now. Well, human nature certainly hasn't changed, has it? I'm reminded of the dispute between Goethe and Newton over the nature of color. Since Newton won, we all know what his theory is: color is the wavelength of light. But Goethe said that couldn't possibly be, that color was part of the eye. Press your finger gently against your eyeball for a moment, he wrote, and let go. Do this in total darkness, and keep your eyes closed. You'll see a bright patch of color that then fades, through all the colors of the spectrum, in order. (He's right; I tried it.) Obviously, the spectrum is in the eye. It is subjective. Therefore, nature is subjective. Goethe considered his theory of colors to be the main achievement of his life. Beethoven shared this assessment of Goethe's work. Goethe was a great man, but the rejection of his theory (according to his Boswell, Eckermann) led him to an all-too-human bitterness. Plato thought nature but a spume that plays Upon a ghostly paradigm of things; Solider Aristotle played the taws Upon the bottom of a king of kings; World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings What a star sang and careless Muses heard: Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird. (William Butler Yeats, "Among School Children") What I'm saying is arguments like N&H's (and even Goethe's) are scarecrows. Form and force, subject and object, virtual and real, etc. are inseparable. They depend on each other, and none can ever be more important than the other. Do scientists get excited about rainbows? They're as real as anything else, but they're also in a non-place. They're "virtual". Goethe and Newton were both right, so why fight? As Keith pointed out in his post, books are also virtual. And I think I also detected in his post a hint that books become dangerous when aestheticized over the real. Indeed, do we really want to embrace the idea that reality is prior to, created by, language? In my view, the key passage in _Empire_, the one that epitomizes the argument of the entire book, is the following: The real revolutionary practice refers to the level of _production_. Truth will not make us free, but taking control of the production of truth will. Mobility and hybridity are not liberatory, but taking control of the production of mobility and stasis, purities and mixtures is. The real truth commissions of Empire will be constituent assemblies of the multitude, social factories for the production of truth. [p.156] Production of TRUTH? By commissions and factories? Do we really want to accept Negri and Hardt's "correction" of Jesus Christ (John 8:32) and his consequent transformation into Orwell's Big Brother? Such are the dangers of "virtual" politics. Kermit Snelson ------------ --- From HART_KEITH@compuserve.com Tue, 5 Feb 2002 05:29:05 -0500 Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 05:29:05 -0500 From: Keith Hart HART_KEITH@compuserve.com Subject: [Generation_online] a close reading My suggestion was addressed to an exchange between Thomas and Arianna of 28-29th January. Thomas wrote: Well, it seems to me that our attempts to create a discussion around the topics originally drawn up is not working very well. There have been a few informational emails recently but I dont think we have had an actual discussion since well before Christmas. As we had quite lively debates during the original reading of Empire, I suppose that the present conceptual format is too loose and that if we want to continue on with this experiment we should probably choose a particular book to read and discuss (this would give structure), or we can pick out sections from Empire to reread and discuss. I certainly hope that we can continue on with the experiment, changing the format to a more suitable one, as we have in the past had so many fruitful exchanges. I would like to hear the opinions of others on this matter. To which Arianna replied: Yes I agree completely that we ought to get back to sections of Empire. The conceptual approach was aimed at enriching a rereading of empire with other relevant works, but it was ambitious :-) so we could go through the sections of Empire and whoever has time/inclination to read something around them can use the reading list or bring in more stuff. Reading Empire a second time has a rather different effect I suppose I personally read much more into it than I first had done. I would propose that we decide where to start independently of the order of chapters, for instance I'd say from part 3, which seems to engage more with a description of the present rather than of how we arrived to it. This is obviously just a suggestion and hopefully others will make their own and speak up. But if people are not up for it I think we can still keep the list active in other ways. I agree with Arianna's suggestion in every detail and suggested one way of going about it. One plan that has been floated several times and sank is the idea that we might read some specific texts complementary to the book Empire. It does seem preferable to leave open what other materials, literary and historical, people might want to bering to another reading of the book and Part 3 is a good place to start. Rather than just write in saying "Me too!"), I confused matters by commenting on the exchange between Geert and Clifford. Now I must respond to the questions brought up by Thomas and Erik, but, in the interest of speeding up the programmatic aspect, I will be brief. The issue of totality and dialectic is about the most abstract philosophical point I made and perhaps it does deserve careful consideration, especially with reference to Hardt and Negri's own writing on the subject.. I have to say that the intellectual tradition from Spinoza to Negri via Deleuze is not as familiar to me as the line from Kant to Hegel to Marx to Lenin to my mentor, CLR James (who wrote a book called Notes on Dialectics). When I speak of dialectic, I mean that strand and not much of 20th centry writing that sometimes also uses the word. I have learned a lot from the Frankfurt School, but am not all sympathetic to Adorno and the gang. Hegel, in his Science of Logic, is concerened with the relationship between ideas and reality (I would say, life). We may have a word 'house' and be able to say 'my house', but if we leave it at that and hope that things will stay the same, we will be embarrassed to discover that the actual house deteroriates. An idea is something that helps us to organize experience. It always leaves out what the idea is not. Sometimes what it is not can be organized as a paired negation and that negation moves dialectically. Eventually the ideas become confused and lose their force (negative dialectic). This can pave the way for the emergence of a new idea (positive dialectic). It is within this sort of framework that I would approach the claims made by H & N for Empire. In the Introduction to Grundrisse (The method of political economy), Marx lays out his own version of the dialectic. he says we must always start from the concrete moment of history as we encounter it. Then we develop some analytical abstractions after it (the commodity, capital etc). Then, and this is the vital part, we insert these abstractions into the concrete. He claims, falsely in my view, that Hegel and his followers were happy to remain at the abstract level, with th eidea and not a reality tgransformed by the insertion of ideas. In any case, that is his dialectical method. He outlines a programme concluding in the attempt to grasp world economic history as a whole, but he never got that far. How do we insert abstractions into the concrete or test ideas against reality? By a variety of intellectual and political procedures -- laboratory experiments, writing projects, debate, propaganda, revolutionary action. This is where I would start from. A totalizing narrative is for me one which seeks to encompass a whole abstractly, without a method for inserting it into historical reality. I do not accuse H & N of that practice, but I suspect them of it. That is why I would like to engage in a critical reading of their work with others. Thomas also asked me to elaborate on why I think that Empire misses out on the important developments of the 90s, such as the communications revolution. I have written a book (Money in an Unequal World, 2001) which emphasises this aspect in my take on contemporary world history. I will be glad, when the time comes, to discuss what they have to say about this phenomenon, but soi far I have not come across mcuh. Just look up communications, internet, digital, virtual etc in the index. The short section, Beyond Measure (the Virtual), pp 356-59, is highly abstract and asserts, "By the virtual we understand the set of powers to act (being, loving, transforming, creating) that reside in the multitude." There is no specific reference to virtual reality. This is what I mean by what appears to be a deliberate distancing from contemporary social reality, a willingness to rest content with totalizing abstraction. Keith -------------- Nate is asking about the empirical status of Empire and Erik reasonably offered an anology with Marx's treatment of labour and abstract value or capital. It is an interesting question why Marx, in rejecting idealism, went not for empiricism, but materialism, which some would say is another form of idealism. These are powerful metaphysical questions and we each answer them in diffrerent ways, often without being conscious of it, if we are not trained philosophers. Since the whole Empire idea rests on such issues, it would not be surprising if our discussions were confused by the different metaphysical assumptions we bring to them. The trick is to start at a more grounded level somehow. But the question of the virtual and real, as revealed by digitalization, rests on similar questions, as does whether what we are expereincing now is something essentially new or simply an old story in drag. I want to offer a couple of analogies using more familiar language, in th ehope of showing that non-place has been with us for a while. The book and markets. No doubt old Homer was great act in a smoke-filled barn on a Saturday night. But when his oral poetry was committed to writing, it became the basis for a fledgling Greek civilization and for much after that. Homer ceased to be a physical person (maybe he was never that) and could be anywhere and everywhere. Religions of the book caught on to the idea. You did not even have to copy the stuff out. If you can get kids reciting the Koran by heart under a tree, the same possibility for universal shared understanding can be realised over a very large space. And Martin Luther knew there were no limits to his revolution if he could get ordinary people reading the Word in print. Similarly, markets used to be places where people handed over physical things. But, to the extent that trade covered long distances, people needed impersonal money to make contracts with people they might not know personally. For 5,000 years states have been determining the objective value of the real assets performing this function, long before they got round to minting the stuff as coins. In the modern period, markets have grown in volume and have taken an increasingly immaterial form. For example, Japan is going through a huge economic crisis right now that could bring down the rest of us, since it is the second biggest economy in the world. They may choose to devalue the yen against the dollar, making their exports cheaper, or they could just dump Toyotas at loss leader prices. The resulting deflation has not been seen in the West since the 1930s. But the American car workers will find their companies struggling to compete and will maybe lose their jobs because Japanese deby is six times the GDP. Not long ago, in 1998, midwestern farmers feared losing their pensions because of a crisis involving Thailand, Russia and the world's largest hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management. if you ask to be shown where this stuff is actually taking place, you have a problem. Hundreds of billions of dollars disappear into thin air. Is that good? Is it bad? Who knows? Does anyone know how much went down the drain in the telecoms bust last year? If the consequences are real or imaginary? Marx had the benefit of being in on the ground floor of all this. He wanted to know how Manchester textile factories could put the Begal weavers out of business. These are real people in real places, but the way it happens is not immediately visible. So, as I said in a previous post, he developed some abstractions to make sense of it: the exchange value of commodities, money as abstract value, capital, socially necessary labour time, surplus value, the rate of exploitation, the organic composition of capital (aka mechanisation). But he would have considered himself a failure if people spent their time reproducing his abstractions or the words, in order to show that they were Marxists. That is why he said, I am not a Marxist. But he did put a lot of his energy into writing a big, difficult book that could become the Bible of the movement. So what are we to think? Keith This is an impressively coherent section, at several levels: in offering a theoretical explanation for how and why imperialism became Empire; in providing a new and powerful periodization of the twentieth century; and in situating the emergence of the informational economy within the evolution of primitive accumulation. For me the most important contribution was H & N's tracing the origins of the postwar period to the New Deal, America's internal restructuring of the Depression years. The replacement of European imperialism becomes the externalisation of that project through the second world war and its aftermath. This in turn culminates in the Vietnam war, making the 70s the watershed of a new phase of world economy based on unification of the market. The Cold War is taken to be secondary to the project of decolonization and formation of a genuine world market, and if anything it diverted the US from its historic mission. Theories of centre and periphery associated with Amin, Frank and others reflect the failure of modernity in the 70s, but miss the main dynamic, the formation of a world market in which transnational capital is unimpeded. A more abstract periodization linking the origins of capitalism, its modern industrial heyday and the postmodern information age points to the formation of a global proletariat, the force that will arise to socialise the world market brought into being in this way by capitalism, with the USA as its chief instrument. There is a lot to talk about there, but, as I said, it is orginal and impressive. I could emphasise what I found dissonant in this section. For example, I do not recognize the phenomenon of Third World urbanization without industrialization in a purple passage like "Peasants throughout the world were uprooted from their fields and villages and thrown into the burning forge of world production." Most of them were consuming food from the world market and producing nothing for it in return. This relates to the issue of whether informational capitalism integrates the world market or pushes most people out of it. I am also unsure of the value of the section's leading concept, 'disciplinary governability'. I would love to know how the Reagan regime's support for racist states and terrorists in Africa during the 80s fits into this oversimplified account. I can guess. But I think the overall picture of the twentieth century given here and its grounding in the theory of primitive accumulation deserves to be addressed for itself, before we dispute whether it applies in detail to the world as we know it. At the least, we have an approach which sees the two main turning points, after the great imperialist world war, as the 30s and the 70s, with the present as its outcome. Moreover, the USA's role is both taken to be central and a reason is given for why it would be mistaken to think of it as imperialist in the old sense. Keith ------- I think we should allow others to take up the text we are reading more directly. But here are a few definitions to be going on with. H & N's take on the virtual is pp. 356-61. "Virtual" means existing in the mind, but not in fact. When combined with "reality", it means a product of the imagination which is "as good as real", almost but not quite real. In technical terms, "virtual reality" is a computer simulation which enables the effects of operations to be shown in real time. The word "real" connotes something genuine, authentic, serious. In philosophy it means existing objectively in the world; in economics it is actual purchasing power; in law it is fixed, landed property; in physics it is an image formed by the convergence of light rays in space; and in mathematics, real numbers are, of course, not imaginary ones. "Reality" is present, in terms of both time and space ("seeing is believing"), and its opposite is imagined connection at distance, something as old as story-telling and books, but now given a new impetus by the convergence of telephones, television and computers. Keith ------- Thanks to Matteo and Erik for referring us back to the source. I still feel a bit guilty that the only message to address the passage we are supposed to be reading together has gone without comment. There is an issue of language politics, about whether we should use words in their agreed dictionary sense (especially when for so many English is a second or third language) or follow the usage developed by specialist thinkers. But I agree that on this list we seek to discover the value of Negri's thinking or specifically the sense of the book Empire. Beyond measure (the virtual) "...'beyond measure' refers to the vitality of the productive context, the expression of labour as desire, and its capacities to constitute the biopolitical fabric of Empire from below. Beyond measure refers to *the new place in the non-place*, the place that is defined by the productive acitivity that is autonomous from any external regime of measure. Beyond measure refers to a *virtuality* that invests the entire biopolitical fabric of globalization. By the virtual we understand the set of powers to act (being, loving, transforming, creating) that reside in the munltitude. We ahve already seen how the multitude's virtual set of powers is contructed by struggles and consolidated in desire. Now we have to investigate how the virtual can put pressure on the borders of the possible and thus touch on the real. The passage from the virtual through the possible to the real is the fundamental act of creation. (Note a). Living labor is what constructs the passageway from the virtual to the real; it is the vehicle of possibility. Labor that has broken open the cages of economic, social and political discipline and surpassed every reugulative dimension of modern capitalism along with its state-form now appears as general social activity. (Note b)" (p. 357). Note a refers to Deleuze and Guattari What is Philosophy? and especially to Deleuze Bergsonism. Bergson (and Deleuze) affirms the virtual-actual couple over the possible-real, since it captures the unforeseeable novelty of the act of creation. H & N beg to differ in that they insist on the creative powers of virtuality, but also insist on th ereality of what is being created. Note b considers the relevance of Marx on abstraction (in Grundrisse) to this question of virtuality and possibility. They suggest two versions. The abstraction of capital separates us from our powers to act and "is therefore the negation of the virtual". But also abstraction on the side of labour is "the general set of our powers to act, the virtual itself." "The power to act is constituted by labor, intelligence, passion and affect in one common place. This notion of labor as the common power to act stands in a contemporaneous, coextensive, and dynamic relationship to the construction of community." (p. 358). "This ontological apparatus beyond measure is an *expansive power*, a power of freedom, ontological construction, and omnilateral dissemination....Whereas the definitions of the power to act in terms of the singular and the common are Spinozist, this last definiton is really a Nietzschean conception. The omnilateral expansiveness of the power to act demonstrates the ontological basis of transvaluation, that is, its capacity not only to destroy the values that descend from the transcendental realm of measure but also to create new values." (p. 359) In the face of this, one has to ask whether the authors are more interested in communicating their ideas or in covering themselves against all attempts to penetrate them. Don't you love "omnilateral dissemination" for "spread the word around"? Just when you have been ploughing through their own sentences, you are told to take a course in Spinoza. Just when you thought it was a good guess that they were following Deleuze, you get the opposite in a footnote. The weird thing is that I think I may have been posing similar questions to theirs when I tried to find out what people really do in their economic lives, as opposed to what is imposed on them by capitalism and state bureaucracy. I called it the informal economy and I used a straight Kantian (or neoKantian) dialectic of form and its negation as my conceptual basis. I also struggled with Hegel's Science of Logic to find ways of thinking about the movement from the actual to the possible or vice versa. This pair was one excluded from their in-house dispute with Deleuze (and Bergson). I suspect that H & N have mistaken Deleuze and assimilated the virtual to the ideal. But this text alone is an inadequate as basis for such a judgement. What is clear, however, is that their notion of the virtual has nothing whatsoever to do with the digital revolution oc communications in our day. And it is remarkable that the authors of a book published in 2000 should feel able to discount popular usage in this respect. It even misleads casual readers into imagining that they are addressing the world we confront in our daily life. I would not have taken the trouble to copy out these texts, if my only aim were to dismiss them. I hope that someone on this list will elucidate them without simply displacing the argument to some other text or author. Keith From HART_KEITH@compuserve.com Mon, 4 Feb 2002 04:10:59 -0500 Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 04:10:59 -0500 From: Keith Hart HART_KEITH@compuserve.com Subject: [Generation_online] for Geert and a close reading There is the question of giving preference to interpreting books over trying to make sense of contemporary history. This has extended recently to the suggestion that we consider Lenin's Imperialism, which is fine as long as it goes with a historical understanding of the period in which it was written. A tendency to abstract the Hart and Negri text from current events suggests that that might not be so. Similarly the discussion of the shift from Capital Vol 1 to Vol 3 which carries with it the danger of scholasticism, an obsession with dead texts at the expense of historical context. As a teacher I see the value of reading specific texts as a way of giving conceptual form to substantive arguments. Which is why, as I said, I would welcome a disciplined reading of Empire as a textual basis for discussing world history today. Whatever my views on its intellectual merits, the book is a social phenomenon of our times and deserves close attention. I am less interested in the ongoing performances of Hardt and Negri as contemporary stars of the international chat circuit. Even less in hagiographical citation of the book as canonical text. The relationship of the USA to 'Empire' is at the core of it. Some might say that, despite the pluralistic optimism of the 'multitude' concept, H & N have produced a totalizing idea which, like any other such, fails to grasp human realities in a dialectical way. This is reinforced by its relentlessly philosophising style and their obvious failure to come explicitly to terms with the main developments of the post-1989 period, such as the communications revolution, never mind events since the book was written. Relations of alliance and division within the imperial power (singular?), between America and Europe (with Britiain hovering), between states and capitalist corporations, not to mention the emerging global role of China and India, Japan's crisis etc -- all this commands our analytical attention at least as much as the book itself. The problem is that we each bring very different historical repertoires to the task and that too may be a good reason for concentrating on what H & N say in detail. At least we can agree that the print on page n is the same for all of us, as long as that does not become an excuse for never referring to anything outside the text and its canonical forebears. The opening section of part 3, 'The limits of imperialism', pp.221-239, concludes a negative summary of Arrighi's The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times (1994) with the following: "More important than any historical debate about the crisis of the 1970s, however, are the possibilities of rupture today. We have to recognize where in the transnational networks of production, the circuits of the world market, and the global structures of capitalist rule there is the potential for rupture and the motor for a future that is not simply doomed to repeat the past cycles of capitalism." Leading up to this comment on cycles we have a brief account of the intellectual history of theories of imperialism, mainly Marxist, but offering a chance to revisit Marx, Luxemburg, Hobson, Lenin and so on. We are at liberty to dispute the adequacy of these theories in their own time or their relevance to ours; to assess H & N's brief account of them; to consider the merits.if any, of Arrighi's position; to consider the theory of history that they allude to here; or to ask what it would take to recognize the potential for rupture now or at any time. This last might go so far as to inspect the language of the quote, especially its use of the possibilistic tense and hence of dialectic. Keith -------------------- metafilter.com/mefi/13891#207117 January 16, 2002 In Gold We Trust by Julian Dibbell "You want to be radical? You don't need to blow up the bank, just burn your bank account. And for that you are going to need an alternative. What is the alternative? E-dinar." I think economic warfare is pretty fascinating, like in the tungsten/wolframite markets of Portugal and Spain during WWII. Although the article acknowledges e-gold is pretty far from wresting away control of the money system from central banks, technology is certainly supplementing traditional (and arguably archaic) currency institutions. An interesting counterpoint is the rising popularity of decentralized money creation. posted by kliuless ===== at 6:18 AM PST (9 comments total) I'm getting visions of Cryptonomicon ... Anyone else? posted by pheideaux at 7:26 AM ===== PST on January 16 You typed it before I could, pheideaux. posted by dong_resin at 8:32 AM ===== PST on January 16 very interesting economic proposal... especially because the article suggests that gold is the thing to supplant credit, not just because of its history but because Relative to its modest size, the 27.5 pounds in a standard gold bar is so much weight it's nearly impossible to accept that gravity alone accounts for the force you feel as you lift it. You're tempted to attribute some additional, almost metaphysical, power to the metal - as if the gold brick in your hand weren't just undeniably real but a gleaming avatar of reality itself. posted by zerolucid at 2:22 PM ===== PST on January 16 i guess some people don't get off on purple mountain majesty and amber waves of grain :) IIRC, cryptonomicon ends in vast ecological damage to the philippine rainforest! posted by kliuless at 2:45 PM ===== PST on January 16 Recently covered somewhat by USS Clueless , where discussion evolved into more esoteric areas. But Steven made the basic point that reliance on a gold standard limits wealth creation to disocvery of new gold reserves, among other reasons it was formally abandoned with Bretton Woods (and later by free currency floats). posted by dhartung at 3:09 PM ===== PST on January 16 i think steven's board is down cuz of the IP changeover, but i'll definitely take a look later. fluffy1984 at 5:40 PM ===== PST on January 16 Very odd argument to be having in 2002. The real case to sever money from gold was made by Keynes decades ago. Many of the solutions talked about here certainly have already been exhaustively argued by economists and monetary people. What it is east to forget is that quite often things that appear to be problems ... quite often were actually solutions to the problems of previous generations ... and it is usually the case that people arguing for these solutions inevitably point out the current problems they would "solve" and virtually never mention the new problems they might create. posted by MidasMulligan at 9:32 PM PST on January 16 Multiple arbitrary currency types, in combination with some system that allows for competition over supremacy of value between them would obviously become self-regulating (beware the prospect, oooooh!). How bout precious meats, mud bog tickets, fire, joysticks and toenails? But that would be stupid. posted by BeefyT at 4:13 PM ===== PST on February 2 dude. posted by kliuless at 9:22 AM ===== PST on February 3 « Older City older than Mohenjodaro un... | "The Americans are angry becau... Newer » ---------------- metafilter.com/comments.mefi/16355 April 15, 2002 Anti-immigration candidate Pim Fortuyn forges ahead in the Netherlands This guy is interesting - he's openly gay yet is the figurehead of the new right in the Netherlands. His party came out of nowhere in Rotterdam to take 17 seats and he has ambitions to be Prime Minister. His policy is to halt immigration into the most densely packed country in Europe, while retaining the nation's permissive and multicultural character. Could this be the model for future right-wing parties in Europe? Or is this just media-friendly fascism with a friendly face and a well-cut suit? posted by hmgovt at 2:47 AM PST (15 comments total) The problem I have with Fortuyn (whose popularity can partly be explained by the fact that people are fed up with the current politics), is that I'm affraid for the rest of the party. I think he will do well in the election, but he will be disappointed by actual politics (coalitions, etc.). He will leave in a few months. What will remain is a group of right-wing people, with hardly any political experience. posted by swordfishtrombones at 3:22 AM PST on April 15 How exacty do immigration restrictions equate to fascism? posted by rhizome23 at 3:23 AM PST on April 15 How exacty do immigration restrictions equate to fascism? Depends how they're enforced and whether or not they're backdated to include whichever groups the party doesn't like. This guy isn't keen on muslims. posted by hmgovt at 3:32 AM PST on April 15 So discouraging any group, or having a society at large say, "We just plain don't want them around." is facism? I would think a country has the right to decide who it wishes to include within its borders and how it wishes to treat its citizens... which ironically, why I do not consider Sadam Hussein's treatment of the Kurds to constitute a casus belli against him, and why I don't consider China's human rights record, as abysmal as it is, to be significant. [Now, invading another sovereign state and forcing one's will upon it, i.e: Tibet, IS highly significant, and needs to be done with caution, and for the right reasons... which China did not have.] The right to self determination is as inalienable as any other human right. Otherwise, we have a duty to immediately examine all Muslim countries to make sure not a single Jew, Buddhist, Christian, or secular humanist is so much as looked at cross-eyed. The US constitution would not allow discrimination against a religious group...BUT the Netherlands are NOT the US... if the law of the Netherlands will allow... or is changed to allow them to do so... they, as a nation, are within their rights. posted by dissent at 4:16 AM PST on April 15 How refreshing to see a journalistic story where anti-immigration is treated fairly. I can hardly imagine American journalism writing such as article as is linked in the original post. Can you imagine a similar article in a mainstream American newspaper NOT ending with a pro-immigration quote? That is b/c AMerican mainstream journalism is the lapdog of business interests. And business interests see America as a "ranch" where they are the ranchers and citizens are the livestock. And all ranchers want more livestock. What I want to know is, when do we get sent to the slaughterhouse? posted by username at 5:56 AM PST on April 15 I actually sort of see his point -- which seems to be, let's integrate the immigrants we have before we take on anymore. That doesn't seem to be such a bad idea in and of itself -- I've certainly often wondered why anyone would want to move to another country only to disrespect its practices and customs. We in the west tend to think of this in terms of respecting the more conservative cultures of the middle and far east, but it certainly ought to apply going both ways. I can't argue with that. If you hate "liberal" western ideals, stay in your home country wherever that may be. If you want to benefit from the economic superiority of the west, such as it is, understand that it is founded at least partly on those very same liberal principles. posted by donkeyschlong at 6:03 AM PST on April 15 Dissent, I'm not sure that anyone was suggesting invading the Netherlands or levying economic sanctions or denying Most Favored Nation trading status. But I have problems with the idea that the right to self-determination means that other countries should accept any policy, shrug, and say "Oh, it's just their way." If the Netherlands were to adopt policies which are blatantly discriminatory, I don't think I could honestly say that they would be "within their rights" to do so. (I'm not sure that 'blatantly discriminatory' describes what's happening here with Pim Fortuyn - it depends on whether 'zero immigration' really means just that or means 'zero Muslims'). I think other nations have the right to criticize such actions and policies. The rights of other free nations probably stop at criticism and don't extend to the right to intervene except in extraordinary circumstances. But without allowing for the criticism, we end up with the Chinese position of "any external criticism of our internal policies is interference in our internal affairs" - which is an argument I just don't buy. To say otherwise would be to elevate national self-determination much too much against the sometimes competing principles of human rights. Certainly, as an American citizen, I'm very grateful for some of the thoughtful criticism that's been levied against us for our policies, by the Europeans and others. I'm also annoyed by some of the knee-jerk anti-Americanism out there. But I'd never want to give up the former to avoid the latter. posted by Chanther at 6:09 AM PST on April 15 I would think a country has the right to decide who it wishes to include within its borders and how it wishes to treat its citizens... which ironically, why I do not consider Sadam Hussein's treatment of the Kurds to constitute a casus belli against him... Iraq's treatment of its citizens has apparently included using nerve gas on them. Perhaps the cheery dismissal of the use of chemical weapons to kill members of minority ethnic groups as "the right to self determination" explains why some people are so wary of anti-immigrant political movements. posted by snarkout at 8:47 AM PST on April 15 "often wondered why anyone would want to move to another country only to disrespect it's practices and customs" - which is a fair enough thing to wonder I suppose - if you'e never pictured yourself fleeing (or just plain moving) across the planet and suddenly expected to drop the idea of a sock stapled to the fireplace 'round december. You'd keep that little red stocking right? (i'm carelessly assuming that you might be a US christian Xmas type - but the tradtion doesn't matter). That's your custom. Some things people bring with them when they move, like customs, and it's pretty fair they do. With any luck, it'll enrich the host culture. posted by dabitch at 8:52 AM PST on April 15 In the latest election polls support for the "Lijst Pim Fortuyn" was 11% (up from 10.3% in week 14, but far lower than it was earlier). I'm not happy about the 11%, but OTOH the idea that 89% of the respondents indicate that they're not going to vote for him is encouraging. There's little to no chance that Pim Fortuyn will actually end up in the government. If the election results are comparable to the latest polls he will get 17 seats in the Chamber (on a total of 150), but to get into the government he'd need to form a coalition with one or more other parties. A number of the largest parties have already refused beforehand to form a coalition with him. The combined support for him and those parties that would be willing to form a coalition with him is insufficient for a Chamber majority. posted by rjs at 9:01 AM PST on April 15 Dabitch- I don't want to move... and it's pretty fair that a people should be able to set whatever rules they wish for the people that they generously allow to move into their territory. "Enrich the host culture"? Crap. No, "When in Rome, do as the Romans." posted by dissent at 9:25 AM PST on April 15 Dissent: I would think a country has the right to decide who it wishes to include within its borders and how it wishes to treat its citizens... Who decides? Who is "the country?" Who are "the citizens?" If you don't answer those questions, you're just talking nonsense. Your arguments sound about one slender hair's breadth away from the arguments that white Southerners used to make about "Southern customs" and the gall of Northerners and other outsiders who wanted to destroy the way of life that "Southerns" had enjoyed for years. It wasn't any of the Northerners' business, right? (psst -- who decides? Who in the South was enjoying what "customs," and who wasn't consulted on the matter? You may want to consider such questions.) By the way -- just writing "crap" in response to someone else's argument and invoking a cliche in support of yours doesn't make you an iconoclast; it just shows lazy reasoning. posted by argybarg at 10:04 AM PST on April 15 Bear in mind your analogy would hold if I were a Northerner dismissing the customs and institutions of the South as unworthy of intervention, not if I were a Southerner telling others to "butt out". I can live with that. It's not my right, responsibility, or duty to examine the morals of the world and intervene where I see fit. It is my right to intervene where those morals are about to step all over me, and my country. Until then, it makes far more sense to me not to become involved. And indeed, in this case, any proposed actions by the prospective Dutch government are not at odds with my morals, in any event. And it doesn't show lazy reasoning... it shows disgust with a viewpoint that doesn't allow people and nations to take measures to control the type and behavior of immigrants. posted by dissent at 11:02 AM PST on April 15 dissent: "Enrich the host culture"? Crap. No, "When in Rome, do as the Romans." Right. So just why aren't people living in wigwams and hunting buffalo in the States anymore? posted by hmgovt at 1:04 PM PST on April 15 dissent: So discouraging any group, or having a society at large say, "We just plain don't want them around." is facism? yes, it is. which ironically, why I do not consider Sadam Hussein's treatment of the Kurds to constitute a casus belli against him, and why I don't consider China's human rights record, as abysmal as it is, to be significant. that's not irony. self determination is as inalienable as any other human right human rights refer to humans, not states. you interpret countries' "self-determination" as the right to shit all over people's human rights. I don't want to move... most refugees and inmigrants don't want to move either. I know my grandfather didn't want to cross the atlantic in a ship's cargo hold and then the andes on a donkey's back, but he did it anyway. many of your ancestors were also inmigrants at some time. ... it makes far more sense to me not to become involved. agreed. posted by signal at 5:07 PM PST on April 15 |