"The deification of stupidity"
AC Grayling
"""""At the United Nations Council on Human Rights in Geneva, the OIC is trying again to have "defamation of religion" banned. The aim is a universal gag on free speech, blocking the right of anyone to criticise the too frequently negative effects of religion on individuals and society. The OIC has yet to appreciate that if it succeeds in its effort to protect Islam from legitimate challenges to its less attractive doctrines and practices – to say nothing of Islamism with its murderous extreme – the relentless antisemitism from its own side of the street will have to stop too.
If it succeeds in turning criticism of religion and its main beneficiaries into "defamation", we might not be free to express our condemnation of a sentence just handed down in Saudi Arabia against a 74-year-old woman, condemned to 45 lashes, three months in prison, and deportation to her native Jordan, for having two male visitors in her home who were not relatives.
And here is another thing we might not be able to discuss. The Pope's iteration of his church's doctrine on contraception, while on his way to visit Africa where 21 million people in sub-Saharan countries are infected with HIV, millions have died of Aids, and millions of Aids orphans live in frightful conditions of semi-slavery and destitution, has been rightly condemned by many around the world.
But the HIV/Aids tragedy of Africa is only the tip of an iceberg. Opposition to control of family size in the poorest part of the world condemns women to endless pregnancies if they are not – as many are – killed or incapacitated by childbearing in difficult circumstances. The difficulty of looking after numerous children in abject poverty is, on its own, a grinding oppression, to say nothing of the immense barriers to the opportunity for decent lives later on for the children. These brutal facts are as nothing to the Pope: in his view the blight of too many pregnancies, too many children, infant mortality, starvation, disease, poverty and immiseration is all part of the deity's plan. For anyone who goes by evidence, if there is a deity, this suggests that it devotes its spare time to pulling wings off flies.
The Pope's attitude to sex is mainly informed by having to deal with child-abusing priests (latest reports say that in the US complaints against abusive priests rose to 800 in 2008: that's more than a dozen a week), which is why his advice to them – abstinence – seems to be the only thing he can think to suggest to everyone else, and most of all as a guard against HIV infection. Plenty of people lack insight into the deep imperatives of human nature, so let us not blame the Pope for adding this particular deficit to his already rich repertoire of them: but let us ask whether a marrying clergy might not be part of the solution to sexually abusing priests, if there has to be a clergy at all. Best of all as a policy for the Pope and his church on matters of sex might be silence. To adapt Wittgenstein, "Wherof you know nothing, shut up."
The chief point is that Vatican policy on contraception is in every sense a hideous crime against humanity and ought to be treated as such.
And that takes us back to the OIC. The OIC dislikes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the very good reason that religion, not excluding their version of it, is a systematic violator of human rights, not least the rights of women – who are one half of the world, a fact the OIC does not notice, or if it does it applies religious arithmetic to solve the problem: one woman is worth half a man. The OIC is trying to change the Universal Declaration of Human Rights accordingly."""""
To reiterate: ""For anyone who goes by evidence, if there is a deity, this suggests that it devotes its spare time to pulling wings off flies."" An important point, however obvious to many non-believers (technically, the evidentiary problem of evil). Granting, for a few nano-seconds, the possibility of a monotheistic Deity (JHVH, JC, or Allah), He would by definition allow disease, plagues, natural disasters, the deaths of countless civilians during wartime, etc. That does not square with His supposed just nature, so doubts about a deity's presumed existence are more than justified. The faithful in effect pay homage to a Tamerlane- like fictive being (that is, Tamerlane, cubed). That the presumed King-God on occasion seems to afford some Good or justice (say, the allies winning WWII, or the beauty of nature, etc) to humanity does not at all compensate or out-weigh the substantial evidence of the injustice--unmerited suffering really--anymore than a Judge's previously clean record compensates for him taking a bribe, or wrongly convicting someone for a crime they did not commit. Justice doesn't even out in some quasi-utilitarian fashion (though even some high-ranking theologians such as Plantinga seem to think otherwise).
That said, there are possible defenses for the theist, though they depend on accepting supernatural premises. Were post-mortem existence to hold, then perhaps the victims of plagues or tidal waves or collateral damage could be redeemed or offered some spiritual compensation; or, as the "eschatological" sorts claim, in some future state, apparent evil will be compensated for. Until a Believer produces a snapshot of the Hereafter that hypothesis may be ignored, though, yes, some might believe in those mystic dreams, just as many believe in ethical objectivity (ethics a problem for the skeptic who affirms secular Justice, yet has no theological guarantee).
Ala Hume we can of course refuse to play chess (amateur chess, usually), with the theologian, and not grant his existence claim, which is hardly capable of confirmation. The events of Old and New Testaments themselves are not capable of confirmation. Hume takes the issue a bit further: an ancient narrative with writing suggesting the dead come back to life, or virgin births, or seas parting, of demons battling in the skies, or angels speaking to prophets shall not be considered reliable; it's hearsay at best, and also conflicts with the claims of other religions. Per Judge Hume, supernatural testimony shall be considered inadmissable as evidence.
Hume's great essay contra-miracles does not lack a Newtonian aspect: the uniformity of experience precludes the Resurrection, and Reanimated Jee-zuss (and all other supposed supernatural events), except as metaphor or myth (albeit somewhat grand, though probably related more to the arrival of La Primavera--or perhaps, a variation on Osiris).
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Einstein on philosophers
""""Hume saw that concepts which we must regard as essential, such as, for example, causal connection ,cannot be gained from material given to us by the senses. This insight led him to a sceptical attitude as concerns knowledge of any kind. If one reads Hume's books, one is amazed that many and sometimes even highly esteemed philosophers after him have been able to write so much obscure stuff and even find grateful readers for it. Hume has permanently influenced the development of the best philosophers who came after him. One senses him in the reading of Russell's philosophical analyses, whose acumen and simplicity of expression have often reminded me of Hume.
Man has an intense desire for assured knowledge. That is why Hume's clear message seems crushing: the sensory raw material, the only source of our knowledge, through habit may lead us to belief and expectation but not to the knowledge and still less to the understanding of lawful relations. Then Kant took the stage with an idea which, though certainly untenable in the form in which he put it, signified a step towards the solution of Hume's dilemma: whatever in knowledge is of empirical origin is never certain (Hume). If, therefore, we have definitely assured knowledge, it must be grounded in reason itself. This is held to be the case, for example, in the propositions of geometry and in the principle of causality. These and certain other types of knowledge are, so to speak, a part of the implements of thinking and therefore do not previously have to be gained from sense data (i. e., they are a priori knowledge). Today everyone knows, of course, that the mentioned concepts contain nothing of the certainty, of the inherent necessity, which Kant had attributed to them. The following, however, appears to me to be correct in Kant's statement of the problem: in thinking we use, with a certain "right," concepts to which there is no access from the materials of sensory experience, if the situation is viewed from the logical point of view.
As a matter of fact, I am convinced that even much more is to be asserted: the concepts which arise in our thought and in our linguistic expressions are all -- when viewed logically -- the free creations of thought which cannot inductively be gained from sense experiences. This is not so easily noticed only because we have the habit of combining certain concepts and conceptual relations (propositions) so definitely which certain sense experiences that we do not become conscious of the gulf -- logically unbridgeable -- which separates the world of sensory experiences from the world of concepts and propositions.
Thus, for example, the series of integers is obviously an invention of the human mind, a self-created tool which simplifies the ordering of certain sensory experiences. But there is no way in which this concept could be made to grow, as it were, directly out of sense experiences. It is deliberately that I choose here the concept of a number, because it belongs to the pre-scientific thinking and because, in spite of that fact, its constructive character is still easily recognizable. The more, however ,we turn to the most primitive concepts of everyday life, the more difficult it becomes amidst the mass of inveterate habits to recognize the concept as an independent creation of thinking. It was thus that the fateful conception -- fateful, that is to say, for an understanding of the here-existing conditions -- could arise, according to which the concepts originate from experience by way of "abstraction," i. e., through omission of a part of its content. I want to indicate now why this conception appears to me to be so fateful.
As soon as one is at home in Hume's critique one is easily led to believe that all those concepts and propositions which cannot be deduced from the sensory raw material are, on account of their "metaphysical" character, to be removed from thinking. For all thought acquires material content only through its relationship with that sensory material. This latter proposition I take to be entirely true; but I hold the prescription for thinking which is grounded on this proposition to be false. For this claim -- if only carried through consistently -- absolutely excludes thinking of any kind as "metaphysical."""""
Einstein/Russell/Hume
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Ayn Rand Re-ryn: The principle of individual rights is the only moral base of all groups or associations
"""
Miss Rand was not one for subtlety, but she at least understood the principles of the Founding Fathers. In terms of what we might call ontology, Rand was usually correct, though her arguments for her vaguely Aristotelian "axioms" could have been more fleshed out (Rand rejects any and all forms of skepticism, really). Miss Rand had no Kantian (or xtian) doubts of the reality of phenomena, and no truck with "altruists". Objectivism accepts scientific naturalism (though not exactly a Darwinian sort). Contrary to popular opinion, Objectivism rejects mysticism, whether in the form of organized religion, or the paranormal-quack sort (though a few quacks might be found among the Peikoff crew). Rand was a naturalist, par example (one problem for naturalists: what is Reason itself then, Fraulein Rand, given nada mas que .....Tio de Carne?). Her views are similar to Nietzsche, but she still has a faith in secular democracy, of some type (Rand also rejected the divine right of Kings, which Nietzsche himself would never have done).
Though many leftists view Rand as a symbol of conservative errors, Rand had no love for the biblethumping right--at one point Rand and the Objectivists broke with the hawks on 'Nam, and dissed Nixon and Reagan (unlike say the Buckley and Star-Kapitan Heinlein crew, and many LBJ/Humphrey type DINOs). She also well understood what sorts of disasters trade unionism and marxism resulted in. Really, I find Ayn Rand's character and writing fairly nauseating (and chock full of facile generalizations). In comparison to the usual leftist apparatchik or sunday-schooler GOP zombie, however, Rand seems about like a Condorcet or James Madison.
"""A group, as such, has no rights. A man can neither acquire new rights by joining a group nor lose the rights which he does possess. The principle of individual rights is the only moral base of all groups or associations.
Any group that does not recognize this principle is not an association, but a gang or a mob.
Any doctrine of group activities that does not recognize individual rights is a doctrine of mob rule or legalized lynching.
The notion of “collective rights” (the notion that rights belong to groups, not to individuals) means that “rights” belong to some men, but not to others—that some men have the “right” to dispose of others in any manner they please—and that the criterion of such privileged position consists of numerical superiority.
Nothing can ever justify or validate such a doctrine—and no one ever has. Like the altruist morality from which it is derived, this doctrine rests on mysticism: either on the old-fashioned mysticism of faith in supernatural edicts, like “The Divine Right of Kings”—or on the social mystique of modern collectivists who see society as a super-organism, as some supernatural entity apart from and superior to the sum of its individual members.
The amorality of that collectivist mystique is particularly obvious today in the issue of national rights.
A nation, like any other group, is only a number of individuals and can have no rights other than the rights of its individual citizens. A free nation—a nation that recognizes, respects and protects the individual rights of its citizens—has a right to its territorial integrity, its social system and its form of government. The government of such a nation is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of its citizens and has no rights other than the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific, delimited task (the task of protecting them from physical force, derived from their right of self-defense).
The citizens of a free nation may disagree about the specific legal procedures or methods of implementing their rights (which is a complex problem, the province of political science and of the philosophy of law), but they agree on the basic principle to be implemented: the principle of individual rights. When a country’s constitution places individual rights outside the reach of public authorities, the sphere of political power is severely delimited—and thus the citizens may, safely and properly, agree to abide by the decisions of a majority vote in this delimited sphere. The lives and property of minorities or dissenters are not at stake, are not subject to vote and are not endangered by any majority decision; no man or group holds a blank check on power over others.
"""
Miss Rand was not one for subtlety, but she at least understood the principles of the Founding Fathers. In terms of what we might call ontology, Rand was usually correct, though her arguments for her vaguely Aristotelian "axioms" could have been more fleshed out (Rand rejects any and all forms of skepticism, really). Miss Rand had no Kantian (or xtian) doubts of the reality of phenomena, and no truck with "altruists". Objectivism accepts scientific naturalism (though not exactly a Darwinian sort). Contrary to popular opinion, Objectivism rejects mysticism, whether in the form of organized religion, or the paranormal-quack sort (though a few quacks might be found among the Peikoff crew). Rand was a naturalist, par example (one problem for naturalists: what is Reason itself then, Fraulein Rand, given nada mas que .....Tio de Carne?). Her views are similar to Nietzsche, but she still has a faith in secular democracy, of some type (Rand also rejected the divine right of Kings, which Nietzsche himself would never have done).
Though many leftists view Rand as a symbol of conservative errors, Rand had no love for the biblethumping right--at one point Rand and the Objectivists broke with the hawks on 'Nam, and dissed Nixon and Reagan (unlike say the Buckley and Star-Kapitan Heinlein crew, and many LBJ/Humphrey type DINOs). She also well understood what sorts of disasters trade unionism and marxism resulted in. Really, I find Ayn Rand's character and writing fairly nauseating (and chock full of facile generalizations). In comparison to the usual leftist apparatchik or sunday-schooler GOP zombie, however, Rand seems about like a Condorcet or James Madison.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Make Bono Pay Taxes
EAMONN McCANN
"""More than 40 years ago, the Beatles followed Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to India in search of a spiritual haven. Three years ago, U2 followed him, in search of a tax haven. (By the time the Maharishi faded from mortal life in February 2006, he was living at his Dutch estate, presiding over a business empire worth more than a man who scorned money could be bothered to count. He’d moved to Holland in 1990 for tax purposes. Or, rather, no-tax purposes.”)
Cork-born British television super-star Graham Norton commented at the time: "People like Bono really annoy me. He goes to hell and back to avoid paying tax. He has a special accountant. He works out Irish tax loopholes. And then he's asking me to buy a well for an African village. Tarmac a road or pay for a school, you tight-wad!”
But Norton’s words of modest wisdom didn’t resonate with the media mainstream which endlessly celebrates Bono. They laud his selflessness in occasionally taking time off from counting the cash he had squirrelled away to berate the Irish authorities for refusing to give more of the money they had collected from tax-compliant citizens towards alleviating world hunger. They report worshipfully on Bono’s peregrinations around the planet in the company of the liars, murderers, thieves and whores who were have run the global economy into ruin.
The arrival of U2 confirmed Holland as the European Union’s number one tax haven. Corporations which have joined the band in establishing headquarters there to avoid paying tax in their home countries include Coca Cola, Ikea, Nike and Gucci.
The band is set to tour their new album, “No Line on the Horizon”. So stand by for the latest swirl of jangly guitar enclosed in a fog of undefined feeling. Expect no grit, no danger, nothing jagged or ragged to disturb tranquillity, but a toxic cloud of fluffy rhetoric, a soundtrack for the terminally self-satisfied, not forgetting heart-felt homilies on how to live a moral life. """""
Shades of James Connolly--or the Fein (No green beer, leprechauns, quasi-Molly Blooms, fiddles, or U2 needed). The Fein were not joiners, at least initially. Connolly himself (though I doubt McCann would approve of the comparison) remained somewhat aloof from the leftist-unionists--though a pen-pal of VI Lenin hisself--yet detested the loyal-royals. Connolly supposedly received catholic communion a few minutes before Churchill's men had him and his comrades shot via firing squad, and tossed into an open grave.
EAMONN McCANN
"""More than 40 years ago, the Beatles followed Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to India in search of a spiritual haven. Three years ago, U2 followed him, in search of a tax haven. (By the time the Maharishi faded from mortal life in February 2006, he was living at his Dutch estate, presiding over a business empire worth more than a man who scorned money could be bothered to count. He’d moved to Holland in 1990 for tax purposes. Or, rather, no-tax purposes.”)
Cork-born British television super-star Graham Norton commented at the time: "People like Bono really annoy me. He goes to hell and back to avoid paying tax. He has a special accountant. He works out Irish tax loopholes. And then he's asking me to buy a well for an African village. Tarmac a road or pay for a school, you tight-wad!”
But Norton’s words of modest wisdom didn’t resonate with the media mainstream which endlessly celebrates Bono. They laud his selflessness in occasionally taking time off from counting the cash he had squirrelled away to berate the Irish authorities for refusing to give more of the money they had collected from tax-compliant citizens towards alleviating world hunger. They report worshipfully on Bono’s peregrinations around the planet in the company of the liars, murderers, thieves and whores who were have run the global economy into ruin.
The arrival of U2 confirmed Holland as the European Union’s number one tax haven. Corporations which have joined the band in establishing headquarters there to avoid paying tax in their home countries include Coca Cola, Ikea, Nike and Gucci.
The band is set to tour their new album, “No Line on the Horizon”. So stand by for the latest swirl of jangly guitar enclosed in a fog of undefined feeling. Expect no grit, no danger, nothing jagged or ragged to disturb tranquillity, but a toxic cloud of fluffy rhetoric, a soundtrack for the terminally self-satisfied, not forgetting heart-felt homilies on how to live a moral life. """""
Shades of James Connolly--or the Fein (No green beer, leprechauns, quasi-Molly Blooms, fiddles, or U2 needed). The Fein were not joiners, at least initially. Connolly himself (though I doubt McCann would approve of the comparison) remained somewhat aloof from the leftist-unionists--though a pen-pal of VI Lenin hisself--yet detested the loyal-royals. Connolly supposedly received catholic communion a few minutes before Churchill's men had him and his comrades shot via firing squad, and tossed into an open grave.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
"DiFi Can't Handle The Truth"
(DDay from Calitics).
""""The previous President, aided by his allies, asserted broad executive powers far outside Constitutional strictures, and the results were illegal wiretapping, torture, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, and a series of other crimes against the state and violations practically every amendment in the Bill of Rights as well as international law.
But one member of the Judiciary Committee wasn't at the truth commission hearing yesterday - Dianne Feinstein. Through a spokesman, she sidestepped whether or not she supports a commission, saying she "hasn't seen a proposal." But she is instituting a competing investigation, from her perch at the Senate Intelligence Committee, that is bound to be a whitewash:
....."The Senate investigation will examine whether the detention and interrogation operations were carried out in ways that were consistent with the authorities and instructions issued in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said.
The panel will also look at whether lawmakers were kept fully informed. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the committee, and others have said that the Bush administration improperly withheld information from Congress on the CIA's operations.
This is basically a turf war. Feinstein wants control of the investigation process in her committee, over Patrick Leahy. And she wants the hearings to be private as well as the final report."""""
Princess Feinstein most likely wants control of Zee Investigation process and the TRUTH Commission because she wants immunity for.......Princess DiFi!, and DiFi's spouse Richard Blum, Perini Co executive, and war profiteer. Entrusting the Democrats--or DINOs, in Feinstein's case-- to handle the prosecution of BushCo and GOP seems about equivalent (on a less spectacular scale, of course) to the allies allowing Stalin and his henchmen in the NVDK to prosecute, and carry out the executions of nazi leaders (a situation a few cynics, including George Orwell, pondered during the Nuremburg trials).
The Orwellian viewpoint--recognizing the crimes of right, and left, and indeed all parties involved (even the party one happens to favor)--may not appeal to many Demopublicans. The events of the last seven or eight years, however, suggest bipartisan guilt--both in terms of war and the economy--and the present situation regarding the proposed Investigations does not lack Orwellian overtones, at least in terms of Ratness (a scribe such as Orwell often better understands the complexity of political corruption than do academic apparatchiks, whether scientific-naturalists, or SocratesCo). Nearly all the Demos supported the War Effort, and the related "security measures"; that some recanted, mostly during the rise of Obama, does not count for much, and generally the recanting sounded weak and hypocritical.
Feinstein in fact has consistently backed the CIA, the PatAct, FISA, the Homeland BS, and BushCo itself. She has called for checkpoints and for warrantless searches of anyone suspected of any connection to terrorists (read, muslims). Immediately following 9-11, DiFi pushed for national Cyber-ID cards, with support from pal Larry Ellison of Oracle. Given Feinstein's consistent conservative policies--if not police state tactics--she has no business being involved with an objective assessment of possible war crimes on the part of the Bush Administration.
(DDay from Calitics).
""""The previous President, aided by his allies, asserted broad executive powers far outside Constitutional strictures, and the results were illegal wiretapping, torture, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, and a series of other crimes against the state and violations practically every amendment in the Bill of Rights as well as international law.
But one member of the Judiciary Committee wasn't at the truth commission hearing yesterday - Dianne Feinstein. Through a spokesman, she sidestepped whether or not she supports a commission, saying she "hasn't seen a proposal." But she is instituting a competing investigation, from her perch at the Senate Intelligence Committee, that is bound to be a whitewash:
....."The Senate investigation will examine whether the detention and interrogation operations were carried out in ways that were consistent with the authorities and instructions issued in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said.
The panel will also look at whether lawmakers were kept fully informed. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the committee, and others have said that the Bush administration improperly withheld information from Congress on the CIA's operations.
This is basically a turf war. Feinstein wants control of the investigation process in her committee, over Patrick Leahy. And she wants the hearings to be private as well as the final report."""""
Princess Feinstein most likely wants control of Zee Investigation process and the TRUTH Commission because she wants immunity for.......Princess DiFi!, and DiFi's spouse Richard Blum, Perini Co executive, and war profiteer. Entrusting the Democrats--or DINOs, in Feinstein's case-- to handle the prosecution of BushCo and GOP seems about equivalent (on a less spectacular scale, of course) to the allies allowing Stalin and his henchmen in the NVDK to prosecute, and carry out the executions of nazi leaders (a situation a few cynics, including George Orwell, pondered during the Nuremburg trials).
The Orwellian viewpoint--recognizing the crimes of right, and left, and indeed all parties involved (even the party one happens to favor)--may not appeal to many Demopublicans. The events of the last seven or eight years, however, suggest bipartisan guilt--both in terms of war and the economy--and the present situation regarding the proposed Investigations does not lack Orwellian overtones, at least in terms of Ratness (a scribe such as Orwell often better understands the complexity of political corruption than do academic apparatchiks, whether scientific-naturalists, or SocratesCo). Nearly all the Demos supported the War Effort, and the related "security measures"; that some recanted, mostly during the rise of Obama, does not count for much, and generally the recanting sounded weak and hypocritical.
Feinstein in fact has consistently backed the CIA, the PatAct, FISA, the Homeland BS, and BushCo itself. She has called for checkpoints and for warrantless searches of anyone suspected of any connection to terrorists (read, muslims). Immediately following 9-11, DiFi pushed for national Cyber-ID cards, with support from pal Larry Ellison of Oracle. Given Feinstein's consistent conservative policies--if not police state tactics--she has no business being involved with an objective assessment of possible war crimes on the part of the Bush Administration.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Drytown
California Faces Water Rationing, Governor Proclaims Drought Emergency
"""SACRAMENTO, California, February 27, 2009 (ENS) - Parched California is a step closer to mandatory water rationing today as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed a state of emergency and ordered all government agencies to implement the state's emergency plan and provide help for people, communities and businesses impacted by the third consecutive year of drought.
"This drought is having a devastating impact on our people, our communities, our economy and our environment - making today's action absolutely necessary," Governor Schwarzenegger said. "This is a crisis, just as severe as an earthquake or raging wildfire, and we must treat it with the same urgency by upgrading California's water infrastructure to ensure a clean and reliable water supply for our growing state."
The governor's order directs that by March 30, the Department of Water Resources will provide an updated report on the state's drought conditions and water availability.
If the emergency conditions have not eased, the governor said he could start mandatory water rationing and mandatory reductions in water use.
Schwarzenegger said he could order reoperation of major reservoirs in the state to minimize impacts of the drought. He also could provide additional regulatory relief or permit streamlining as allowed under the Emergency Services Act. """""
The H20 experts and bureaucrats have begun moderating/curtailing the irrigation water to agriculture, the real water hog. Parks, golf courses, stadiums now rely on gray water (perhaps Ahhnuld will have the Dodgers play Torres-Ball on sand-lot). Really, the ag people are as much to blame as anyone (as is Schwarzenegger admin). Inessential produce (most fruits and vegetables, really) consumes a great deal of the H20, and the lack of planning and foresight resulted in this crisis as much as the lack of rainfall did.
A drought should remind all humans of their biological and economic dependencies; hydration issues seem rather Malthusian. The entire Central Valley economy has for years depended upon abundant agua, for fruits, vegetables, and legumes: drytown and dry farms mean jobs drying up as well. There's little time for metaphysical speculation when dying of thirst, and no non-locality or "quantum indeterminism" involved with our need for hydration. In severe droughts, political structure itself often becomes unstable and precarious: if things get bad enough maybe civil war will erupt in the Golden State.
California Faces Water Rationing, Governor Proclaims Drought Emergency
"""SACRAMENTO, California, February 27, 2009 (ENS) - Parched California is a step closer to mandatory water rationing today as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed a state of emergency and ordered all government agencies to implement the state's emergency plan and provide help for people, communities and businesses impacted by the third consecutive year of drought.
"This drought is having a devastating impact on our people, our communities, our economy and our environment - making today's action absolutely necessary," Governor Schwarzenegger said. "This is a crisis, just as severe as an earthquake or raging wildfire, and we must treat it with the same urgency by upgrading California's water infrastructure to ensure a clean and reliable water supply for our growing state."
The governor's order directs that by March 30, the Department of Water Resources will provide an updated report on the state's drought conditions and water availability.
If the emergency conditions have not eased, the governor said he could start mandatory water rationing and mandatory reductions in water use.
Schwarzenegger said he could order reoperation of major reservoirs in the state to minimize impacts of the drought. He also could provide additional regulatory relief or permit streamlining as allowed under the Emergency Services Act. """""
The H20 experts and bureaucrats have begun moderating/curtailing the irrigation water to agriculture, the real water hog. Parks, golf courses, stadiums now rely on gray water (perhaps Ahhnuld will have the Dodgers play Torres-Ball on sand-lot). Really, the ag people are as much to blame as anyone (as is Schwarzenegger admin). Inessential produce (most fruits and vegetables, really) consumes a great deal of the H20, and the lack of planning and foresight resulted in this crisis as much as the lack of rainfall did.
A drought should remind all humans of their biological and economic dependencies; hydration issues seem rather Malthusian. The entire Central Valley economy has for years depended upon abundant agua, for fruits, vegetables, and legumes: drytown and dry farms mean jobs drying up as well. There's little time for metaphysical speculation when dying of thirst, and no non-locality or "quantum indeterminism" involved with our need for hydration. In severe droughts, political structure itself often becomes unstable and precarious: if things get bad enough maybe civil war will erupt in the Golden State.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The Black-Robe Posse, continued
""""Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.
While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.
“In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything remotely approaching this,” said Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim, who was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003. Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention.""""
The Judiciary AKA Black-Robe Posse remains one of the most powerful forces in American organized crime. JudgesGuilty/NYT
You, mon lecteur, might not quite understand the significance of the term "Black Robe Posse." Sitting on the wrong side of a courtroom, and hearing some piece of calvinist trash sentence a person to 25 years to life--in the particular case, a hispanic convicted of possession of a few ounces of heroin, with a history of petty crimes, but no murders, rapes, or robberies--you begin to understand this.
-------------------------------
"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control."""
Jefferson's thoughts on judicial review, however quaint they might seem to some--or perhaps tainted by Jefferson's "ethical lapses"--still apply. The authentic progressive opposes the Judiciary, notwithstanding the fact that occasionally judicial review may result in good (or maximization of utility in Benthamspeak), by preventing populist hysteria of various sorts. Unfortunately, many contemporary vichy-crats now consider the Judiciary--really the most antiquated, feudal, and unscientific of the three branches-- the most crucial branch of govt.
The judiciary forms part of the 2nd Estate (deuxieme état) in French revolutionary terms. They are not always with the King, or the clerics, but usually with the nobles, estate holders, tories: the judge defends the aristocracy, and wealthy bourgeois. More than a few judicial barons lost their heads during the Reign of Terror.
""""Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.
While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.
“In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything remotely approaching this,” said Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim, who was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003. Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention.""""
The Judiciary AKA Black-Robe Posse remains one of the most powerful forces in American organized crime. JudgesGuilty/NYT
You, mon lecteur, might not quite understand the significance of the term "Black Robe Posse." Sitting on the wrong side of a courtroom, and hearing some piece of calvinist trash sentence a person to 25 years to life--in the particular case, a hispanic convicted of possession of a few ounces of heroin, with a history of petty crimes, but no murders, rapes, or robberies--you begin to understand this.
-------------------------------
"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control."""
Jefferson's thoughts on judicial review, however quaint they might seem to some--or perhaps tainted by Jefferson's "ethical lapses"--still apply. The authentic progressive opposes the Judiciary, notwithstanding the fact that occasionally judicial review may result in good (or maximization of utility in Benthamspeak), by preventing populist hysteria of various sorts. Unfortunately, many contemporary vichy-crats now consider the Judiciary--really the most antiquated, feudal, and unscientific of the three branches-- the most crucial branch of govt.
The judiciary forms part of the 2nd Estate (deuxieme état) in French revolutionary terms. They are not always with the King, or the clerics, but usually with the nobles, estate holders, tories: the judge defends the aristocracy, and wealthy bourgeois. More than a few judicial barons lost their heads during the Reign of Terror.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Anti-Trust the Aunty-Khrust
A modest proposal from Dave Lindorff of Counterpunch, one of the few remaining bastions of authentic progressive politics: implement Anti-trust. Unlike, say, the frat-boy liberal McFrauds of DailyKOS, Lindorff doesn't cut deals with the Demopublicans (and let's not forget Obama's deal with Henry Paulson, and his agreeing to the GOP-arranged bailout of America's financial giants).
"""Looking at the nation’s largest banks—Bank of America, Citicorp, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and others—it’s clear that some parts of them are functional. They have, for example, massive deposits. They also have massive debts, many of these toxic and pretty much worthless. Instead of bailing these failed institutions out, which is not going to work anyhow, and which only delays and makes more costly the final day of reckoning, the answer is to have the government carve out the profitable banking parts of these financial institutions, and set them up as free-standing banks, and then let the rest of the carcass of each bank go down the tubes, taking gullible shareholders and bondholders with them.
Then the remaining banks left from this process should be broken up by anti-trust actions into regional or even state entities."""
Lindorff/antitrust
A modest proposal from Dave Lindorff of Counterpunch, one of the few remaining bastions of authentic progressive politics: implement Anti-trust. Unlike, say, the frat-boy liberal McFrauds of DailyKOS, Lindorff doesn't cut deals with the Demopublicans (and let's not forget Obama's deal with Henry Paulson, and his agreeing to the GOP-arranged bailout of America's financial giants).
"""Looking at the nation’s largest banks—Bank of America, Citicorp, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and others—it’s clear that some parts of them are functional. They have, for example, massive deposits. They also have massive debts, many of these toxic and pretty much worthless. Instead of bailing these failed institutions out, which is not going to work anyhow, and which only delays and makes more costly the final day of reckoning, the answer is to have the government carve out the profitable banking parts of these financial institutions, and set them up as free-standing banks, and then let the rest of the carcass of each bank go down the tubes, taking gullible shareholders and bondholders with them.
Then the remaining banks left from this process should be broken up by anti-trust actions into regional or even state entities."""
Lindorff/antitrust
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
"Winston babyface Churchill": Ezra Pound's radio-reflections on Churchill, circa 1941
(Warning: not for the tame, PC snitchocrat, or Republo-piker)
"""Mr. Churchill, EVEN Mr. Churchill hasn’t had the brass to tell the American people WHY he wants ’em to die to save what.
He is fighting for the gold standard and MONOPOLY. Namely the power to starve the whole of mankind, and make it pay through the nose before it can eat the fruit of its own labor.
His gang, whether kike, gentile, or hybrid is not fit to govern. And the English OUGHT to be the only people ass enough, and brute enough to fight for him.
Now as to my personal habits, the few of you who know that I exist know that I have given most of my time to muggin’ up kulchur, that I have writ a few books, and spent my spare time trying to learn musical composition, or else playin’ tennis and floatin’ round the gulf of Tigullio, in which act I make, so far as I know, a nuisance of myself to no one whatever.
And in the mornings I write letters to and read letters from the most intelligent of my contemporaries, and Mr. Churchill and that brute Rosefield, and their kike postal spies and obstructors, kikarian and/or others annoy me by cuttin’ off my normal mental intercourse with my colleagues. But I am NOT going to starve, I am not going to starve mentally. The culture of the Occident came out of Europe and a LOT of it is still right here in Europe, and I don’t mean archeology either."""""
.........................
""""I try to tell you that Italy is carryin’ ON. La rivoluzione continua. This is the kind of thing Italians go on doing, despite that dirty mugged bleeder and betrayer of his allies, Winston babyface Churchill.
And his gangsters. Those blighters have never done one damn thing for civilization. They have rotted their country, and should not be allowed to rot anyone elses. They didn’t start the process of corruption, but they have been, everyone of ’em for it, all day and every day, and for the 24 hour period.""""..................
Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae.
EP/speeches
(Warning: not for the tame, PC snitchocrat, or Republo-piker)
"""Mr. Churchill, EVEN Mr. Churchill hasn’t had the brass to tell the American people WHY he wants ’em to die to save what.
He is fighting for the gold standard and MONOPOLY. Namely the power to starve the whole of mankind, and make it pay through the nose before it can eat the fruit of its own labor.
His gang, whether kike, gentile, or hybrid is not fit to govern. And the English OUGHT to be the only people ass enough, and brute enough to fight for him.
Now as to my personal habits, the few of you who know that I exist know that I have given most of my time to muggin’ up kulchur, that I have writ a few books, and spent my spare time trying to learn musical composition, or else playin’ tennis and floatin’ round the gulf of Tigullio, in which act I make, so far as I know, a nuisance of myself to no one whatever.
And in the mornings I write letters to and read letters from the most intelligent of my contemporaries, and Mr. Churchill and that brute Rosefield, and their kike postal spies and obstructors, kikarian and/or others annoy me by cuttin’ off my normal mental intercourse with my colleagues. But I am NOT going to starve, I am not going to starve mentally. The culture of the Occident came out of Europe and a LOT of it is still right here in Europe, and I don’t mean archeology either."""""
.........................
""""I try to tell you that Italy is carryin’ ON. La rivoluzione continua. This is the kind of thing Italians go on doing, despite that dirty mugged bleeder and betrayer of his allies, Winston babyface Churchill.
And his gangsters. Those blighters have never done one damn thing for civilization. They have rotted their country, and should not be allowed to rot anyone elses. They didn’t start the process of corruption, but they have been, everyone of ’em for it, all day and every day, and for the 24 hour period.""""..................
Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae.
EP/speeches
Sunday, February 15, 2009
The US of .....Masonry? (the politics of Oaths, cont.)
Malone/Slate:
"""""There are no particular rules on which Bible is used or how it's used for the ceremony. Up until Grover Cleveland, inaugurations were not BYOB—presidents arrived at the ceremony with the assumption a Bible would be provided for them. It's since become common for incoming executives to use their family Bibles, though a handful have opted for the Masonic Bible upon which George Washington swore his oath of office. That book is housed in New York City at the lodge that lent the Bible to Washington in the first place. The only other inauguration Bible held by the Library of Congress belonged to Chester A. Arthur, a gift of his descendents. Most inauguration Bibles belong either to the families of the presidents or to their presidential libraries or archives.""""""
While many Americans might consider the Masonic lodge a relic of the past or merely a topic for conspiracy quacks, freemasonry and secret societies remain a force. Dittoing Washington and a few other presidents, Bush Sr. took his oath on the Masonic Good Book in 1988. Read the fine print of American history, and one perceives an ongoing battle between the federalist/statist and masonic elements (as with Andrew Jackson, fundamentalist prezbyterian, Democrat, AND avid supporter of the Masons). Albert Pike, confederate general, belonged to the Masons. (modern masons still revere Pike). Yankee masons were not unknown, such as James Buchanan, a pennsylvania "doughface" --- northerner with southern sympathies. Masons did eventually become a bit multicultural--Count Basie was a Chicago lodgeman.
Albert Pike, Confederate general, freemason, pal of Bismarck and Mazzini.
FDR had a Mason membership, and knew the secret handshake, as did Winston Churchill, hero to neo-cons (such as these aspiring Mitt McRomneys), one-time eugenicist and one-time admirer of Hitler (in 1937 Churchill wrote ‘One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.’"). The Mormon racket does not lack in masonic elements either (the Nauvoo Lodge). Masons usually run the city halls of America, and the local economies (and the courts), unbeknownst to the locals (or tacitly approved). Masons arguably founded the protestant churches in England, Scotland and America.
While the german nationalist solution to freemasonry may have been a bit schwer---the nazis imprisoned and killed a few thousand freemasons (suspected, not without some justification, of collaboration with zionists)---masonry remains a issue, one generally overlooked by the usual academic narcissist or party-boy liberal. AS with, say, the history of organized crime, the history of masonry does not generally appear in university history courses (then, one might argue that academics are themselves masons of a sort, as are frat boys and sorority goils); though some cafe liberals will on occasion mention transparency, that transparency generally only applies to an obvious malefactor like Alberto Gonzales, not to say the mormon-zionist connection, or the doings of Feinstein and Richard Blum.
The American founders, contrary to popular history, were not all freemasons. Madison for one addressed "factionalism", and secret societies in the Federalist papers. JQ Adams campaigned on an anti-masonic platform, his arch-enemies being Jackson, and the presbyterian-masons and slave-owning south (tho' not all confederates belonged to masonic lodges, or protestant churches: e.g., Beauregard). The Ku Klax Klan also grew from a masonic foundation (we should recall that Klansmen, like masons, take various oaths, one being opposition to the papacy and french materialism [synonymous for most hick lodgemen]. They are as opposed to catholics as they are to the "colored." Klansmen generally had more hate for frenchmen, and catholics--even irish sort-- than they did for zionists).
As the freaks (authentic freaks, not the suburbocrats who mistake their Apple for progressive politics) formerly said, you can never be too paranoid.
Malone/Slate:
"""""There are no particular rules on which Bible is used or how it's used for the ceremony. Up until Grover Cleveland, inaugurations were not BYOB—presidents arrived at the ceremony with the assumption a Bible would be provided for them. It's since become common for incoming executives to use their family Bibles, though a handful have opted for the Masonic Bible upon which George Washington swore his oath of office. That book is housed in New York City at the lodge that lent the Bible to Washington in the first place. The only other inauguration Bible held by the Library of Congress belonged to Chester A. Arthur, a gift of his descendents. Most inauguration Bibles belong either to the families of the presidents or to their presidential libraries or archives.""""""
While many Americans might consider the Masonic lodge a relic of the past or merely a topic for conspiracy quacks, freemasonry and secret societies remain a force. Dittoing Washington and a few other presidents, Bush Sr. took his oath on the Masonic Good Book in 1988. Read the fine print of American history, and one perceives an ongoing battle between the federalist/statist and masonic elements (as with Andrew Jackson, fundamentalist prezbyterian, Democrat, AND avid supporter of the Masons). Albert Pike, confederate general, belonged to the Masons. (modern masons still revere Pike). Yankee masons were not unknown, such as James Buchanan, a pennsylvania "doughface" --- northerner with southern sympathies. Masons did eventually become a bit multicultural--Count Basie was a Chicago lodgeman.
Albert Pike, Confederate general, freemason, pal of Bismarck and Mazzini.
FDR had a Mason membership, and knew the secret handshake, as did Winston Churchill, hero to neo-cons (such as these aspiring Mitt McRomneys), one-time eugenicist and one-time admirer of Hitler (in 1937 Churchill wrote ‘One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.’"). The Mormon racket does not lack in masonic elements either (the Nauvoo Lodge). Masons usually run the city halls of America, and the local economies (and the courts), unbeknownst to the locals (or tacitly approved). Masons arguably founded the protestant churches in England, Scotland and America.
While the german nationalist solution to freemasonry may have been a bit schwer---the nazis imprisoned and killed a few thousand freemasons (suspected, not without some justification, of collaboration with zionists)---masonry remains a issue, one generally overlooked by the usual academic narcissist or party-boy liberal. AS with, say, the history of organized crime, the history of masonry does not generally appear in university history courses (then, one might argue that academics are themselves masons of a sort, as are frat boys and sorority goils); though some cafe liberals will on occasion mention transparency, that transparency generally only applies to an obvious malefactor like Alberto Gonzales, not to say the mormon-zionist connection, or the doings of Feinstein and Richard Blum.
The American founders, contrary to popular history, were not all freemasons. Madison for one addressed "factionalism", and secret societies in the Federalist papers. JQ Adams campaigned on an anti-masonic platform, his arch-enemies being Jackson, and the presbyterian-masons and slave-owning south (tho' not all confederates belonged to masonic lodges, or protestant churches: e.g., Beauregard). The Ku Klax Klan also grew from a masonic foundation (we should recall that Klansmen, like masons, take various oaths, one being opposition to the papacy and french materialism [synonymous for most hick lodgemen]. They are as opposed to catholics as they are to the "colored." Klansmen generally had more hate for frenchmen, and catholics--even irish sort-- than they did for zionists).
As the freaks (authentic freaks, not the suburbocrats who mistake their Apple for progressive politics) formerly said, you can never be too paranoid.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
From Project Censored...........
Feinstein/NeoCon
""""""""Dianne Feinstein-—the ninth wealthiest member of congress—-has been beset by monumental ethical conflicts of interest. As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 to the end of 2005, Senator Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions of dollars to her husband’s firms.
From 1997 through the end of 2005, Feinstein’s husband Richard C. Blum was a majority shareholder in both URS Corp. and Perini Corp. She lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were, or subsequently became, URS or Perini contracts. From 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by MILCON; Perini earned $759 million from such projects.
In 2000, Perini earned a mere $7 million from federal contracts. After 9/11, Perini was transformed into a major defense contractor. In 2004, the company earned $444 million for military construction work in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for improving airfields for the US Air Force in Europe and building base infrastructures for the US Navy around the globe. In a remarkable financial recovery, Perini shot from near penury in 1997 to logging gross revenues of $1.7 billion in 2005.
It is estimated that Perini now holds at least $2.5 billion worth of contracts tied to the worldwide expansion of the US military. Its largest Department of Defense contracts are “indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity” or “bundled” contracts carrying guaranteed profit margins. As of May 2006, Perini held a series of bundled contracts awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers for work in the Middle East worth $1.725 billion. Perini has also been awarded an open-ended contract by the US Air Force for military construction and cleaning the environment at closed military bases.
In 2003 hearings, MILCON approved various construction projects at sites where Perini and/or URS are contracted to perform engineering and military construction work. URS’s military construction work in 2000 earned it a mere $24 million. The next year, when Feinstein took over as MILCON chair, military construction earned URS $185 million. On top of that, the company’s architectural and engineering revenue from military construction projects grew from $108,726 in 2000 to $142 million in 2001, more than a thousand-fold increase in a single year. """"""
To reiterate: ""[Feinstein] lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were, or subsequently became, URS or Perini contracts."" That sounds about like a federal case, doesn't it? Were DiFi from texass instead of the priciest area of Fog Town, she'd be facing a war crimes trial along with Bush/Cheney, and the likes of Rove (as should her hubby, mystery-man financer Blum).
Feinstein/NeoCon
""""""""Dianne Feinstein-—the ninth wealthiest member of congress—-has been beset by monumental ethical conflicts of interest. As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 to the end of 2005, Senator Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions of dollars to her husband’s firms.
From 1997 through the end of 2005, Feinstein’s husband Richard C. Blum was a majority shareholder in both URS Corp. and Perini Corp. She lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were, or subsequently became, URS or Perini contracts. From 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by MILCON; Perini earned $759 million from such projects.
In 2000, Perini earned a mere $7 million from federal contracts. After 9/11, Perini was transformed into a major defense contractor. In 2004, the company earned $444 million for military construction work in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for improving airfields for the US Air Force in Europe and building base infrastructures for the US Navy around the globe. In a remarkable financial recovery, Perini shot from near penury in 1997 to logging gross revenues of $1.7 billion in 2005.
It is estimated that Perini now holds at least $2.5 billion worth of contracts tied to the worldwide expansion of the US military. Its largest Department of Defense contracts are “indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity” or “bundled” contracts carrying guaranteed profit margins. As of May 2006, Perini held a series of bundled contracts awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers for work in the Middle East worth $1.725 billion. Perini has also been awarded an open-ended contract by the US Air Force for military construction and cleaning the environment at closed military bases.
In 2003 hearings, MILCON approved various construction projects at sites where Perini and/or URS are contracted to perform engineering and military construction work. URS’s military construction work in 2000 earned it a mere $24 million. The next year, when Feinstein took over as MILCON chair, military construction earned URS $185 million. On top of that, the company’s architectural and engineering revenue from military construction projects grew from $108,726 in 2000 to $142 million in 2001, more than a thousand-fold increase in a single year. """"""
To reiterate: ""[Feinstein] lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were, or subsequently became, URS or Perini contracts."" That sounds about like a federal case, doesn't it? Were DiFi from texass instead of the priciest area of Fog Town, she'd be facing a war crimes trial along with Bush/Cheney, and the likes of Rove (as should her hubby, mystery-man financer Blum).
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
MoroniCo
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. (Bierce)
Mormons are on the march. Mitt Romney, millionaire and mormon-fundamentalist, nearly captured the GOP nomination, running on a "McCain is really a liberal" ticket. Mormons also supported Prop. 8 in CA, spending about $20 million on the effort. That probably provided the margin enabling the proposition to pass.
As with most theocratic affairs, there was plenty of hypocrisy to the Prop 8 effort: consider Gary Lawrence, who led the Proposition 8 grassroots campaign for the Mormons. Lawrence's queer son, Matthew, resigned from the church to protest its anti-gay campaign.
The cult of Mormonism itself began with deceit and prevarication: while the Illinois pioneers who strung up Joseph Smith (and then mutilated his corpse) may have gone too far, Smith's deceit--specifically the bogus story of the golden plates, Angel Moroni, seer stones, etc--counts as one of the greatest frauds of US History. Mark Twain for one was not merely skeptical but troubled by the reign of Smtih's successor, King Brigham (Twain met with Young, his 20+ wives, 70 children, and then promptly climbed back into the train--or was it stagecoach). Twain's Roughing it, however quaint, features a few interesting reflections on Mormonism, and Mormon crimes--the Mountain Massacre only one (dead men tell no tales).
Secularists should keep in mind the dangers to liberty posed by expanding mormon theocracy (they are fairly thick in California), and Prop. 8-like measures. The liberal whines against 8 grew a bit tedious, but regardless of one's personal feelings on same-sex marriage, Prop 8 does "legislate morality" more or less. That it was placed on the ballot by fundies and mormons should bother anyone who values the First Amendment: which is to say, any measures supported by theocrats should offend. Paraphrasing Bonhoeffer, first they come for queers, then for the preterite (of whatever sort), and finally they come for you.
[Verstehen Sie das, Vacavillius?]
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. (Bierce)
Mormons are on the march. Mitt Romney, millionaire and mormon-fundamentalist, nearly captured the GOP nomination, running on a "McCain is really a liberal" ticket. Mormons also supported Prop. 8 in CA, spending about $20 million on the effort. That probably provided the margin enabling the proposition to pass.
As with most theocratic affairs, there was plenty of hypocrisy to the Prop 8 effort: consider Gary Lawrence, who led the Proposition 8 grassroots campaign for the Mormons. Lawrence's queer son, Matthew, resigned from the church to protest its anti-gay campaign.
The cult of Mormonism itself began with deceit and prevarication: while the Illinois pioneers who strung up Joseph Smith (and then mutilated his corpse) may have gone too far, Smith's deceit--specifically the bogus story of the golden plates, Angel Moroni, seer stones, etc--counts as one of the greatest frauds of US History. Mark Twain for one was not merely skeptical but troubled by the reign of Smtih's successor, King Brigham (Twain met with Young, his 20+ wives, 70 children, and then promptly climbed back into the train--or was it stagecoach). Twain's Roughing it, however quaint, features a few interesting reflections on Mormonism, and Mormon crimes--the Mountain Massacre only one (dead men tell no tales).
Secularists should keep in mind the dangers to liberty posed by expanding mormon theocracy (they are fairly thick in California), and Prop. 8-like measures. The liberal whines against 8 grew a bit tedious, but regardless of one's personal feelings on same-sex marriage, Prop 8 does "legislate morality" more or less. That it was placed on the ballot by fundies and mormons should bother anyone who values the First Amendment: which is to say, any measures supported by theocrats should offend. Paraphrasing Bonhoeffer, first they come for queers, then for the preterite (of whatever sort), and finally they come for you.
[Verstehen Sie das, Vacavillius?]
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Illusion of free will (Grayling)
Reinforcement ware via Gibbeting, circa 1700
"Almost every indication from sociobiology, evolutionary psychology and neurophilosophy supports the deterministic side of the argument, entailing that our sense of being choice-makers, deliberators, option-possessors, who could have done otherwise in most of our actions, is an illusion. On the evidence flooding in from these sources, we are as other social animals, only worse off in that we operate under an enormous error theory about our own nature, falsely thinking that we have free will and that we are therefore genuinely ethical creatures. It was from this error—if it is one—that Spinoza sought to free us by arguing in his Ethics that once we recognise that we live by necessity, we cease to repine, and thus are liberated from unhappiness.
For of course the very idea of ethics premises freedom of the will. There is no logic in praising or blaming individuals for what they do unless they could have done otherwise, any more than one would praise a pebble for rolling downhill upon being dislodged by rain...."
Reinforcement ware via Gibbeting, circa 1700
Friday, January 23, 2009
So Help me, Logos
John Quincy Adams did not swear the Oath of Allegiance on a Bible, believing
that the Bible should be reserved for strictly religious purposes. Instead, JQA
swore--quite properly, according to Contingencies--on the US Constitution. Given
the separation clause of First Amendment, it's questionable whether any
politician should be allowed to take an oath on a Bible, or Koran, or Torah, or
any religious text, or use religious language. JFK did not did not take the oath
on the bible, though he had a Douay Bible--french catholic version of Good
Book-- on the podium. Herbert Hoover, descendent of Quakers, affirmed, but did
not swear the oath: that was the tradition of many puritans and protestants, who
considered oath-swearing and pledging fealty to a worldly institution like the
State a type of pagan idolatry, or at least vaguely latinate--papist. On
President Obama's second time through the oath, he did not use a Bible--southern
baptists may be calling him Apollyon for that right this minute.
John Marshall, Caiaphas of American history, swore in Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, notwithstanding his dislike for the Democrats--including Madison, reportedly
(tho' Madison shifted his politics a few times, going from Federalist, to
Democrat, and then to a slightly more moderate position). Evidence suggests that
presidents and senators until about time of Abe Lincoln did NOT generally take
the oath on the Good book: Lincoln, closer to fundamentalism than many realize,
made it mandatory for many state officials. The Constitutional oath itself
probably follows more from royalist tradition than from say baptists, or the
more liberal founding fathers. Though the Federalist papers are not handy, I
suspect Alexander Hamilton, swashbuckler and duellist--at least until Burr put
an end to that-- had a say in retaining oaths for his yankee republic.
The oath was not a mere formality (and at least JQ Adams realized that),
but a solemn occasion, akin to the vassal-knights pledging fealty to a king, or
baron: ancien regime oaths were contracts--not so different than "touching the body" ala La Cosa Nostra-- and the contract signings were often attended by a sacrifice or ritual of some sort--cue the statist trumpeters, and tympani with somber Haydn-like concerto. Oaths also seem prima facie evidence of deliberation, and thus have something to do with liberty, and Intentionality, in the philosophical sense: a elected official promises to uphold a specific course of action. Promises, and other tokens of Honor, even as vague as an oath of office, aren't exactly phenomena: though perhaps some astute naturalist could conceivably interpret oaths as totems or meme, of some sort: statist-Ordnung totem. Alas, the great majority of Yokeli Amerikanus do not understand the meaning of Honor, and the discussions of ritualistic aspects of the oath (and inauguration itself) are left to obscure corners of blogdom.
“OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the
conscience by a penalty for perjury.” [Bierce]
John Quincy Adams did not swear the Oath of Allegiance on a Bible, believing
that the Bible should be reserved for strictly religious purposes. Instead, JQA
swore--quite properly, according to Contingencies--on the US Constitution. Given
the separation clause of First Amendment, it's questionable whether any
politician should be allowed to take an oath on a Bible, or Koran, or Torah, or
any religious text, or use religious language. JFK did not did not take the oath
on the bible, though he had a Douay Bible--french catholic version of Good
Book-- on the podium. Herbert Hoover, descendent of Quakers, affirmed, but did
not swear the oath: that was the tradition of many puritans and protestants, who
considered oath-swearing and pledging fealty to a worldly institution like the
State a type of pagan idolatry, or at least vaguely latinate--papist. On
President Obama's second time through the oath, he did not use a Bible--southern
baptists may be calling him Apollyon for that right this minute.
John Marshall, Caiaphas of American history, swore in Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, notwithstanding his dislike for the Democrats--including Madison, reportedly
(tho' Madison shifted his politics a few times, going from Federalist, to
Democrat, and then to a slightly more moderate position). Evidence suggests that
presidents and senators until about time of Abe Lincoln did NOT generally take
the oath on the Good book: Lincoln, closer to fundamentalism than many realize,
made it mandatory for many state officials. The Constitutional oath itself
probably follows more from royalist tradition than from say baptists, or the
more liberal founding fathers. Though the Federalist papers are not handy, I
suspect Alexander Hamilton, swashbuckler and duellist--at least until Burr put
an end to that-- had a say in retaining oaths for his yankee republic.
The oath was not a mere formality (and at least JQ Adams realized that),
but a solemn occasion, akin to the vassal-knights pledging fealty to a king, or
baron: ancien regime oaths were contracts--not so different than "touching the body" ala La Cosa Nostra-- and the contract signings were often attended by a sacrifice or ritual of some sort--cue the statist trumpeters, and tympani with somber Haydn-like concerto. Oaths also seem prima facie evidence of deliberation, and thus have something to do with liberty, and Intentionality, in the philosophical sense: a elected official promises to uphold a specific course of action. Promises, and other tokens of Honor, even as vague as an oath of office, aren't exactly phenomena: though perhaps some astute naturalist could conceivably interpret oaths as totems or meme, of some sort: statist-Ordnung totem. Alas, the great majority of Yokeli Amerikanus do not understand the meaning of Honor, and the discussions of ritualistic aspects of the oath (and inauguration itself) are left to obscure corners of blogdom.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Send your dilemmas........to AC Grayling
""""Can ethics be derived from evolution by natural selection?
""""Given that human beings have evolved by natural selection (with genetic drift and some other factors perhaps assisting), and are ethical creatures, it follows ab esse ad posse that ethics can be derived from evolution by natural selection.
That, though, might not be to answer the purport of the question, which asks: would natural selection be sufficient to produce creatures with a consciousness of ethical principles and a tendency to wish to observe them and see them observed?
The idea might be that whereas other social animals have evolved behaviours that subserve the interests of their sociality—dominance orderings, co-operation in hunting and watching for predators—this does not amount to ethics, the idea of which at least premises an awareness of the demands and responsibilities ethics involves, and the possibility of their non-observance, not least deliberately. Among other animals the evolved social behaviours are largely invariant and automatic; a putative "ethics" that is choicelessly a result of hard-wiring could not be ethics.
Immediately one says this, one has begged what is possibly the hardest question known to metaphysics and moral philosophy: that of free will. Almost every indication from sociobiology, evolutionary psychology and neurophilosophy supports the deterministic side of the argument, entailing that our sense of being choice-makers, deliberators, option-possessors, who could have done otherwise in most of our actions, is an illusion. On the evidence flooding in from these sources, we are as other social animals, only worse off in that we operate under an enormous error theory about our own nature, falsely thinking that we have free will and that we are therefore genuinely ethical creatures. It was from this error—if it is one—that Spinoza sought to free us by arguing in his Ethics that once we recognise that we live by necessity, we cease to repine, and thus are liberated from unhappiness.
For of course the very idea of ethics premises freedom of the will. There is no logic in praising or blaming individuals for what they do unless they could have done otherwise, any more than one would praise a pebble for rolling downhill upon being dislodged by rain. So this month's question becomes, by these selective pressures: could natural selection, resulting in the adaptations otherwise distinctive of human descent, have produced free will?
To answer that requires a clearer conception of "free will." Its formal identifier is the "genuinely could have done otherwise" requirement: but not only does that itself require unpacking, we also need to look for the fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) traces that suggest which structures in the brain import novelty into the world's causal chains, making their possessor a true agent, and not merely a patient—a sufferer—of the universe's history. So the question evolves yet again: could finding such a thing even be a possibility?"""""""
Let's hope so, AC. The contrary--proof that humans are automatons (or even mostly automatons)---would not bode well for those in religion business, or justice business (or academic business, really).
ACGrayling
""""Can ethics be derived from evolution by natural selection?
""""Given that human beings have evolved by natural selection (with genetic drift and some other factors perhaps assisting), and are ethical creatures, it follows ab esse ad posse that ethics can be derived from evolution by natural selection.
That, though, might not be to answer the purport of the question, which asks: would natural selection be sufficient to produce creatures with a consciousness of ethical principles and a tendency to wish to observe them and see them observed?
The idea might be that whereas other social animals have evolved behaviours that subserve the interests of their sociality—dominance orderings, co-operation in hunting and watching for predators—this does not amount to ethics, the idea of which at least premises an awareness of the demands and responsibilities ethics involves, and the possibility of their non-observance, not least deliberately. Among other animals the evolved social behaviours are largely invariant and automatic; a putative "ethics" that is choicelessly a result of hard-wiring could not be ethics.
Immediately one says this, one has begged what is possibly the hardest question known to metaphysics and moral philosophy: that of free will. Almost every indication from sociobiology, evolutionary psychology and neurophilosophy supports the deterministic side of the argument, entailing that our sense of being choice-makers, deliberators, option-possessors, who could have done otherwise in most of our actions, is an illusion. On the evidence flooding in from these sources, we are as other social animals, only worse off in that we operate under an enormous error theory about our own nature, falsely thinking that we have free will and that we are therefore genuinely ethical creatures. It was from this error—if it is one—that Spinoza sought to free us by arguing in his Ethics that once we recognise that we live by necessity, we cease to repine, and thus are liberated from unhappiness.
For of course the very idea of ethics premises freedom of the will. There is no logic in praising or blaming individuals for what they do unless they could have done otherwise, any more than one would praise a pebble for rolling downhill upon being dislodged by rain. So this month's question becomes, by these selective pressures: could natural selection, resulting in the adaptations otherwise distinctive of human descent, have produced free will?
To answer that requires a clearer conception of "free will." Its formal identifier is the "genuinely could have done otherwise" requirement: but not only does that itself require unpacking, we also need to look for the fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) traces that suggest which structures in the brain import novelty into the world's causal chains, making their possessor a true agent, and not merely a patient—a sufferer—of the universe's history. So the question evolves yet again: could finding such a thing even be a possibility?"""""""
Let's hope so, AC. The contrary--proof that humans are automatons (or even mostly automatons)---would not bode well for those in religion business, or justice business (or academic business, really).
ACGrayling
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Veblen on marxism
To reiterate: "Whether and how far these traits of human culture and the
institutional structure built out of them are the outgrowth of
material (economic) exigencies becomes a question of what kind
and degree of efficiency belongs to the economic exigencies among
the complex of circumstances that conduce to the formation of
habits." Sehr schoen. Pure Veblen-speak--.
"""The neo-Hegelian, romantic, Marxian standpoint was wholly
personal, whereas the evolutionistic -- it may be called
Darwinian -- standpoint is wholly impersonal. The continuity
sought in the facts of observation and imputed to them by the
earlier school of theory was a continuity of a personal kind, --
a continuity of reason and consequently of logic. The facts were
construed to take such a course as could be established by an
appeal to reason between intelligent and fair-minded men. They
were supposed to fall into a sequence of logical consistency. The
romantic (Marxian) sequence of theory is essentially an
intellectual sequence, and it is therefore of a teleological
character. The logical trend of it can be argued out. That is to
say, it tends to a goal. It must eventuate in a consummation, a
final term. On the other hand, in the Darwinian scheme of
thought, the continuity sought in and imputed to the facts is a
continuity of cause and effect. It is a scheme of blindly
cumulative causation, in which there is no trend, no final term,
no consummation. The sequence is controlled by nothing but the
vis a tergo of brute causation, and is essentially mechanical.
The neo-Hegelian (Marxian) scheme of development is drawn in the
image of the struggling ambitious human spirit: that of Darwinian
evolution is of the nature of a mechanical process.6
Va va voom, Venus
What difference, now, does it make if the materialistic
conception is translated from the romantic concepts of Marx into
the mechanical concepts of Darwinism? It distorts every feature
of the system in some degree, and throws a shadow of doubt on
every conclusion that once seemed secure.7 The first principle of
the Marxian scheme is the concept covered by the term
"Materialistic," to the effect that the exigencies of the
material means of life control the conduct of men in society
throughout, and thereby indefeasibly guide the growth of
institutions and shape every shifting trait of human culture.
This control of the life of society by the material exigencies
takes effect thru men's taking thought of material (economic)
advantages and disadvantages, and choosing that which will yield
the iller material measure of life. When the materialistic
conception passes under the Darwinian norm, of cumulative
causation, it happens, first, that this initial principle itself
is reduced to the rank of a habit of thought induced in the
speculator who depends on its light by the circumstances of his
life, in the way of hereditary bent, occupation, tradition,
education, climate, food supply, and the like. But under the
Darwinian norm the question of whether and how far material
exigencies control human conduct and cultural growth becomes a
question of the share which these material exigencies have in
shaping men's habits of thought; i.e., their ideals and
aspirations, their sense of the true, the beautiful, and the
good. Whether and how far these traits of human culture and the
institutional structure built out of them are the outgrowth of
material (economic) exigencies becomes a question of what kind
and degree of efficiency belongs to the economic exigencies among
the complex of circumstances that conduce to the formation of
habits. It is no longer a question of whether material exigencies
rationally should guide men's conduct, but whether, as a matter
of brute causation, they do induce such habits of thought in men
as the economic interpretation presumes, and whether in the last
analysis economic exigencies alone are, directly or indirectly,
effective in shaping human habits of thought.""""
To reiterate: "Whether and how far these traits of human culture and the
institutional structure built out of them are the outgrowth of
material (economic) exigencies becomes a question of what kind
and degree of efficiency belongs to the economic exigencies among
the complex of circumstances that conduce to the formation of
habits." Sehr schoen. Pure Veblen-speak--.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Smackdown: Rawls vs. Zizek(update!)
"The scary prospect that Žižek raises in Welcome to the Desert of the Real is that the status of Homo sacer (## note) does not so much pertain to the excluded as it does to the possibility of being excluded, i.e. the fact that, due to political contingencies, all of us—citizens—can at any time be stripped of our citizenship rights, i.e. that we can all be reduced to Homo sacer (95). Since Rawls defines men as those who can be citizens, there is always someone who cannot be a citizen."
Yes, scary: though not as scary as say the Bolsheviks circa 1917 denying the right to vote to various groups, whether bourgeois liberals, or peasant anarchists. There were always thousands who could not be citizens under Hegelian statism, whether of russian, or prussian variety. Zizek himself has often praised Bolshevik tactics, and has also suggested some may be excluded from the worker's utopia to come--whether the usual booj-wah villain, or "populists", whether romantic leftists, or presumably rightist wingnuts.
Zizek wants to caricature Rawls’ system by any means necessary and make it appear like hypocritical liberal capitalism, or something (when it’s really a type of socialism, rooted in social contract), and at the same time suggest his own quasi-Bolshevik theory as a real democratic alternative. Zizek's Rawls-bashing does not therefore concern the problems with the political theory per se, but, via the usual pomo-jester tactics, allows him to ridicule the yankee-yokels and Ivy League, if not Enlightenment tradition itself (repeat social contract, mention Locke, or Adam Smith, the Constitution, science, etc.). Rector Zizek in effect conducts a show trial of Rawls and Rawlsian theory, and by extension Anglo-American thought as a whole.
Rawl’s updating of his theory (from man to citizen) improved the ToJ, Contingencies avers, especially the original position: the ToJ left open the problem of rationality (really agency); with Pol-Lib, citizenship is granted to rational people, and rational people decide on the societal structure (in brief). Even James Madison--er, the good Madison--might agree to that. The two over-riding justice principles (see note 1) of Rawls' ToJ are left intact. It should be recalled that Rawls is not a utilitarian as some suggest, nor a libertarian ala Nozick or Locke: democratic socialism seems the most apt description, yet the rationality requirements would preclude, seemingly, complete collectivist equality , whether in terms of wealth or rights. A nurse is not a doctor. A custodian is not an engineer. Its not about empowering bums, but empowering skilled and qualified (and taking down the pimps). Rawls did not adequately address that meritocracy issue in the ToJ.
The question remains what rational people would actually choose if forced to make disinterested decisions regarding a just society: the real objections are not from Nozick's MBA-libertarianism, or from a Zizek-Marxism perspective (the orthodox marxist simply rejects any reforms anyway which allow capitalism, if not the bourgeois to exist; so even if Rawls' theory were sound, it's not as sound as insurrection). The Rawlsian "maximin" hinges on the hypothetical Original Position, and the veil of ignorance; the same criticism levelled against Hobbes' political ideas for years applies. For one, without any real binding force, the rational choice made under the Veil seems rather provisional if not capricious: one might choose monarchy, and non-cooperation of various sorts (even say, joining the mafia), just as in the Prisoner's Dilemma a perp might choose to rat out his buddy instead of cooperating, notwithstanding that the potential loss is substantially greater. (It could be set up to be binding, we suggest, using modern technology, and computing/the Net: a Rawls bot--).
Tho' the hypothetical may be a stretch for many, the Rawlsian social contract, like Hobbes', does hint that social institutions and economic transactions should be grounded in something like a social contract which presumes fairness--a level playing field and equality as starting point (thus the Rawlsian also in principle opposed to monopoly and dynasties of various sorts--as were the more liberal Founding fathers). The Constitution, while very important does not suffice; a more-than-minimal state then is required in order to implement distributive justice. Lacking some distributive justice maxims, we are left to libertarianism, if not anarcho-capitalism (not to say wall streets, bailouts, the Forbes 400 gang, billionaire brokers or porn producers living a few miles from starving teachers and other skilled workers, etc etc).
Although Zizek and most marxists might object to Rawls' Difference Principle (if they bother to read it at all) the DP offers a political mechanism whereby the rich provide substantial economic assistance to the impoverished and miserable--the working poor--not based on mere charity, or handouts, but on optimization (and on the Original Position OP--so accept the OP, then DP follows. A bit more schematic than British empiricists, emotional liberalism, or romantic marxism). It's Hobbes via Rousseau (and a bit of Kant--but only as an end, ie kingdom of ends) rather than Lockean. Locke's attacks on the Divine Right of Kings are and should remain commendable, yet what's needed is an attack on the Divine Right of Corporation (most leftist/progressives hint at that, but Rawls did the dirty work).
Rawls’s criteria of citizenship based on public reason (see note 2) offers a possible solution to the problem of the romantic masses, and ill-equipped, uneducated rebels: were some 3rd world “homo sacer” (really a typical Zizek straw man; the term is from Agamben, in latin means sacred man, but used to mean something like "loozer") as provably as intelligent or competent as Biff and Bunny in the ‘burbs, then he has the same rights to citizenship (and to political participation). Given Zizek’s own attacks on populism, he also seems to object to romantic marxism: so at times he suggests some shall be excluded from societal and/or political participation (tho it’s probably a lot more than he lets on)--thus, Zizek has his own "homo sacers"(and a mineshaft to toss 'em in). Rawls arguably did not go far enough in terms of specifying a citizenship criteria, but it’s quite more workable than the usual marxist hype (including Zizek’s–really on examination another romantic himself).
The ToJ does lack that spirit of romantic rebellion which many cafe-leftists mistake for politics, however. Rawls put his shoulder to the wheel, but he wasn’t a Che Guevara, Sartre, or Chomsky, or Zizek, etc. He was more like a Galbraith or Dewey than existentialist guru. That lack of continentalist swagger bothers Zizek more than anything; Rawls as symbol of academic reformist, etc, if not American mediocrity. Irregardless the TOJ’s a workable system, and given the history of botched Hegelianism–-stalin, nazis, mao, etc.– the TOJ should be given serious consideration as a type of progressive template.
1). Rawls definition of a just society:
(a) Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all; and
(b) Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle).)
2). public reason, per Jefferson: [I]t is proper that you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our government, and consequently those which ought to shape its administration . . . . [They include] the diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reasons..."
##: re "Homo sacer"-- "The meaning of the term sacer in Ancient Roman religion is not fully congruent with the meaning it took after Christianization, and which was adopted into English as sacred. In early Roman religion sacer means anything "set apart" from common society, which equally covers the meanings of "hallowed" and "cursed". The homo sacer was thus simply a man expunged from society and deprived of all civil rights and all functions in civil religion."" (not "homo," like well, your fatboy preacher worries about, Tammany McDreckson)
Yes, scary: though not as scary as say the Bolsheviks circa 1917 denying the right to vote to various groups, whether bourgeois liberals, or peasant anarchists. There were always thousands who could not be citizens under Hegelian statism, whether of russian, or prussian variety. Zizek himself has often praised Bolshevik tactics, and has also suggested some may be excluded from the worker's utopia to come--whether the usual booj-wah villain, or "populists", whether romantic leftists, or presumably rightist wingnuts.
Zizek wants to caricature Rawls’ system by any means necessary and make it appear like hypocritical liberal capitalism, or something (when it’s really a type of socialism, rooted in social contract), and at the same time suggest his own quasi-Bolshevik theory as a real democratic alternative. Zizek's Rawls-bashing does not therefore concern the problems with the political theory per se, but, via the usual pomo-jester tactics, allows him to ridicule the yankee-yokels and Ivy League, if not Enlightenment tradition itself (repeat social contract, mention Locke, or Adam Smith, the Constitution, science, etc.). Rector Zizek in effect conducts a show trial of Rawls and Rawlsian theory, and by extension Anglo-American thought as a whole.
Rawl’s updating of his theory (from man to citizen) improved the ToJ, Contingencies avers, especially the original position: the ToJ left open the problem of rationality (really agency); with Pol-Lib, citizenship is granted to rational people, and rational people decide on the societal structure (in brief). Even James Madison--er, the good Madison--might agree to that. The two over-riding justice principles (see note 1) of Rawls' ToJ are left intact. It should be recalled that Rawls is not a utilitarian as some suggest, nor a libertarian ala Nozick or Locke: democratic socialism seems the most apt description, yet the rationality requirements would preclude, seemingly, complete collectivist equality , whether in terms of wealth or rights. A nurse is not a doctor. A custodian is not an engineer. Its not about empowering bums, but empowering skilled and qualified (and taking down the pimps). Rawls did not adequately address that meritocracy issue in the ToJ.
The question remains what rational people would actually choose if forced to make disinterested decisions regarding a just society: the real objections are not from Nozick's MBA-libertarianism, or from a Zizek-Marxism perspective (the orthodox marxist simply rejects any reforms anyway which allow capitalism, if not the bourgeois to exist; so even if Rawls' theory were sound, it's not as sound as insurrection). The Rawlsian "maximin" hinges on the hypothetical Original Position, and the veil of ignorance; the same criticism levelled against Hobbes' political ideas for years applies. For one, without any real binding force, the rational choice made under the Veil seems rather provisional if not capricious: one might choose monarchy, and non-cooperation of various sorts (even say, joining the mafia), just as in the Prisoner's Dilemma a perp might choose to rat out his buddy instead of cooperating, notwithstanding that the potential loss is substantially greater. (It could be set up to be binding, we suggest, using modern technology, and computing/the Net: a Rawls bot--).
Tho' the hypothetical may be a stretch for many, the Rawlsian social contract, like Hobbes', does hint that social institutions and economic transactions should be grounded in something like a social contract which presumes fairness--a level playing field and equality as starting point (thus the Rawlsian also in principle opposed to monopoly and dynasties of various sorts--as were the more liberal Founding fathers). The Constitution, while very important does not suffice; a more-than-minimal state then is required in order to implement distributive justice. Lacking some distributive justice maxims, we are left to libertarianism, if not anarcho-capitalism (not to say wall streets, bailouts, the Forbes 400 gang, billionaire brokers or porn producers living a few miles from starving teachers and other skilled workers, etc etc).
Although Zizek and most marxists might object to Rawls' Difference Principle (if they bother to read it at all) the DP offers a political mechanism whereby the rich provide substantial economic assistance to the impoverished and miserable--the working poor--not based on mere charity, or handouts, but on optimization (and on the Original Position OP--so accept the OP, then DP follows. A bit more schematic than British empiricists, emotional liberalism, or romantic marxism). It's Hobbes via Rousseau (and a bit of Kant--but only as an end, ie kingdom of ends) rather than Lockean. Locke's attacks on the Divine Right of Kings are and should remain commendable, yet what's needed is an attack on the Divine Right of Corporation (most leftist/progressives hint at that, but Rawls did the dirty work).
Rawls’s criteria of citizenship based on public reason (see note 2) offers a possible solution to the problem of the romantic masses, and ill-equipped, uneducated rebels: were some 3rd world “homo sacer” (really a typical Zizek straw man; the term is from Agamben, in latin means sacred man, but used to mean something like "loozer") as provably as intelligent or competent as Biff and Bunny in the ‘burbs, then he has the same rights to citizenship (and to political participation). Given Zizek’s own attacks on populism, he also seems to object to romantic marxism: so at times he suggests some shall be excluded from societal and/or political participation (tho it’s probably a lot more than he lets on)--thus, Zizek has his own "homo sacers"(and a mineshaft to toss 'em in). Rawls arguably did not go far enough in terms of specifying a citizenship criteria, but it’s quite more workable than the usual marxist hype (including Zizek’s–really on examination another romantic himself).
The ToJ does lack that spirit of romantic rebellion which many cafe-leftists mistake for politics, however. Rawls put his shoulder to the wheel, but he wasn’t a Che Guevara, Sartre, or Chomsky, or Zizek, etc. He was more like a Galbraith or Dewey than existentialist guru. That lack of continentalist swagger bothers Zizek more than anything; Rawls as symbol of academic reformist, etc, if not American mediocrity. Irregardless the TOJ’s a workable system, and given the history of botched Hegelianism–-stalin, nazis, mao, etc.– the TOJ should be given serious consideration as a type of progressive template.
1). Rawls definition of a just society:
(a) Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all; and
(b) Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle).)
2). public reason, per Jefferson: [I]t is proper that you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our government, and consequently those which ought to shape its administration . . . . [They include] the diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reasons..."
##: re "Homo sacer"-- "The meaning of the term sacer in Ancient Roman religion is not fully congruent with the meaning it took after Christianization, and which was adopted into English as sacred. In early Roman religion sacer means anything "set apart" from common society, which equally covers the meanings of "hallowed" and "cursed". The homo sacer was thus simply a man expunged from society and deprived of all civil rights and all functions in civil religion."" (not "homo," like well, your fatboy preacher worries about, Tammany McDreckson)
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Bush, Obama and the Gaza Blitz/Buchanan
Buchanan's wrong most of the time, but not wrong all of the time:
"""Unwilling to control its fighters, who fired scores of missiles into Israel at the end of their six-month ceasefire, Hamas gave Israel the provocation it needed to deliver a savage blow to the Palestinian enclave in Gaza.
Saturday was the bloodiest day in the history of the Palestinian people since being driven from their homes in the War of 1948. One thousand were killed or wounded, as the Israeli Air Force conducted over a hundred strikes — on graduation ceremonies for Hamas fighters, police stations and storage sites for rockets.
About Israel’s right and duty to defend its border towns, there is no dispute. When Hamas permits Gaza to be used as a launch pad for rockets, it must expect retaliation. Nor can Hamas claim some right to dictate the limits of that retaliation.
Yet the wisdom of so savage a retribution for rockets that killed not one Israeli is open to question. And crass Israeli politics seems to be behind this premeditated and planned blitz. With Likud’s hawkish “Bibi” Netanyahu ahead in the polls for the Feb. 10 election, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Labor’s candidate, had to show that he, too, could be ruthless with Hamas. Kadima Party candidate and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has an even greater need than the highly decorated Barak to show toughness. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, departing in scandal, wants to exit in a blaze of glory, to blot out the memory of a botched war against Hezbollah that he launched in the summer of 2006.
However, while Israel’s politicians all seem to have a stake in these devastating strikes, Israel herself will pay the price. Given the casualty toll, over 300 dead and 1,300 wounded as of this writing, Hamas will have to exact its pound of flesh. The Hamas wing that seeks renewed war with Israel will now shout into silence the wing working with Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak on a new ceasefire.
The moderate Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, who has been talking to Israel, testifying to her good faith, has been made to appear the puppet and fool. A new intifada spreading to the West Bank, with suicide attacks inside Israel, is now possible.
Moderate Arabs, who have recognized Israel or backed peace, will now be seen by the Arab street as appeasers impotent to stop the public suffering of the Palestinian people.
As for President Bush’s hopes of midwifing a peace that would create a Palestinian state, they are as dead as the Annapolis process he set in train. In advancing peace in the Middle East, Bush’s eight-year record is now a near-absolute failure.
For four years, Bush refused to talk to Yasir Arafat, though Bill Clinton had negotiated with him, as had four Israeli prime ministers, two of who shared a Nobel Prize with Arafat. In his second term, Bush, after insisting Hamas be included in free elections in Palestine, refused to recognize Hamas when it won those elections.
Arafat was a terrorist and Hamas is a terrorist organization, declared Bush, and we don’t negotiate with terrorists. Yet, Bush de-listed Libya as a state sponsor of terror and sent Condi Rice to chat up Col. Gadhafi, though Gadhafi still has on his hands the blood of scores of American school kids from the Lockerbie massacre of 1989 that Libya and Gadhafi engineered For eight years, like the “dummy” in a hand of bridge, Bush has sat mute as his Israeli partner, Sharon or Olmert, played America’s cards as well as their own. The Bush response to Saturday’s carnage, as anticipated, was to blame Hamas for causing it and urge Israelis to be careful about civilian casualties as they go about their reprisals.
Whatever Israel decides, we support. For eight years that has been the most reliable guide to U.S. Middle East policy. And Barack Obama? Forty-eight hours after the Israeli blitz began, he and his national security team remain silent.
Hopefully, Obama will bring with him a new Mideast policy, one made in the U.S.A., for the U.S.A. Hopefully, just as Israel has its private links to Syria through Turkey, to Hamas through Egypt and to Hezbollah, Obama will establish independent U.S. channels to all three, and adopt a separate U.S. policy toward all three, as Israel does.
While the United States must support Israel’s right to defend her towns and to strike bases from which Israelis are being attacked, Obama should denounce the collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, by Israel’s cutting off their electricity in the dead of winter and denying them the food and medicine many need to survive.
For us to remain silent in the face of this comports neither with our interests or our values. Israel’s policy of withholding from the weak and innocent of Gaza, women and children, the necessities of life, to punish the guilty who rule at the point of a gun, is a policy that Obama should declare the United States will no longer support with tax dollars.""""""
To reiterate: "....the wisdom of so savage a retribution for rockets that killed not one Israeli is open to question." Das stimmt. Lest we forget who the demopublicans work for, last week the Senate and House voted --unanimously in the Senate, and like 400 to 5 in the House--in favor of more or less unconditional support of AIPAC, and the Israeli military.
Buchanan's wrong most of the time, but not wrong all of the time:
"""Unwilling to control its fighters, who fired scores of missiles into Israel at the end of their six-month ceasefire, Hamas gave Israel the provocation it needed to deliver a savage blow to the Palestinian enclave in Gaza.
Saturday was the bloodiest day in the history of the Palestinian people since being driven from their homes in the War of 1948. One thousand were killed or wounded, as the Israeli Air Force conducted over a hundred strikes — on graduation ceremonies for Hamas fighters, police stations and storage sites for rockets.
About Israel’s right and duty to defend its border towns, there is no dispute. When Hamas permits Gaza to be used as a launch pad for rockets, it must expect retaliation. Nor can Hamas claim some right to dictate the limits of that retaliation.
Yet the wisdom of so savage a retribution for rockets that killed not one Israeli is open to question. And crass Israeli politics seems to be behind this premeditated and planned blitz. With Likud’s hawkish “Bibi” Netanyahu ahead in the polls for the Feb. 10 election, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Labor’s candidate, had to show that he, too, could be ruthless with Hamas. Kadima Party candidate and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has an even greater need than the highly decorated Barak to show toughness. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, departing in scandal, wants to exit in a blaze of glory, to blot out the memory of a botched war against Hezbollah that he launched in the summer of 2006.
However, while Israel’s politicians all seem to have a stake in these devastating strikes, Israel herself will pay the price. Given the casualty toll, over 300 dead and 1,300 wounded as of this writing, Hamas will have to exact its pound of flesh. The Hamas wing that seeks renewed war with Israel will now shout into silence the wing working with Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak on a new ceasefire.
The moderate Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, who has been talking to Israel, testifying to her good faith, has been made to appear the puppet and fool. A new intifada spreading to the West Bank, with suicide attacks inside Israel, is now possible.
Moderate Arabs, who have recognized Israel or backed peace, will now be seen by the Arab street as appeasers impotent to stop the public suffering of the Palestinian people.
As for President Bush’s hopes of midwifing a peace that would create a Palestinian state, they are as dead as the Annapolis process he set in train. In advancing peace in the Middle East, Bush’s eight-year record is now a near-absolute failure.
For four years, Bush refused to talk to Yasir Arafat, though Bill Clinton had negotiated with him, as had four Israeli prime ministers, two of who shared a Nobel Prize with Arafat. In his second term, Bush, after insisting Hamas be included in free elections in Palestine, refused to recognize Hamas when it won those elections.
Arafat was a terrorist and Hamas is a terrorist organization, declared Bush, and we don’t negotiate with terrorists. Yet, Bush de-listed Libya as a state sponsor of terror and sent Condi Rice to chat up Col. Gadhafi, though Gadhafi still has on his hands the blood of scores of American school kids from the Lockerbie massacre of 1989 that Libya and Gadhafi engineered For eight years, like the “dummy” in a hand of bridge, Bush has sat mute as his Israeli partner, Sharon or Olmert, played America’s cards as well as their own. The Bush response to Saturday’s carnage, as anticipated, was to blame Hamas for causing it and urge Israelis to be careful about civilian casualties as they go about their reprisals.
Whatever Israel decides, we support. For eight years that has been the most reliable guide to U.S. Middle East policy. And Barack Obama? Forty-eight hours after the Israeli blitz began, he and his national security team remain silent.
Hopefully, Obama will bring with him a new Mideast policy, one made in the U.S.A., for the U.S.A. Hopefully, just as Israel has its private links to Syria through Turkey, to Hamas through Egypt and to Hezbollah, Obama will establish independent U.S. channels to all three, and adopt a separate U.S. policy toward all three, as Israel does.
While the United States must support Israel’s right to defend her towns and to strike bases from which Israelis are being attacked, Obama should denounce the collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, by Israel’s cutting off their electricity in the dead of winter and denying them the food and medicine many need to survive.
For us to remain silent in the face of this comports neither with our interests or our values. Israel’s policy of withholding from the weak and innocent of Gaza, women and children, the necessities of life, to punish the guilty who rule at the point of a gun, is a policy that Obama should declare the United States will no longer support with tax dollars.""""""
To reiterate: "....the wisdom of so savage a retribution for rockets that killed not one Israeli is open to question." Das stimmt. Lest we forget who the demopublicans work for, last week the Senate and House voted --unanimously in the Senate, and like 400 to 5 in the House--in favor of more or less unconditional support of AIPAC, and the Israeli military.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Governor Girrly Mann
From the SFGate:
"""Schwarzenegger... resubmitted a proposal the Legislature rejected last year
to cut benefits for the children of welfare recipients if their parents fail to
get jobs. State subsidies for the elderly, blind and disabled also would be
frozen through the end of the decade, while Medi-Cal would be cut by $1 billion.
A large part of the savings would come from eliminating dental coverage
for 3 million adults.
In essence, the governor's budget proposes many of
the deep cuts economists have long said would be necessary to bring the state's
revenue and expenditures in line if the Republican governor would not raise
taxes, which he has pledged not to do.
But the cuts will be politically difficult if not impossible in a state controlled by Democrats, who have long championed robust spending on education and social programs.
The majority of the estimated $14.5 billion deficit would be closed by an
across-the-board cut of 10 percent to almost all state agencies and programs.
The move saves almost $10 billion.
The governor also proposes borrowing an additional $3.3 billion under bonds voters approved for deficit-relief in 2004. That would extend the state's repayment of the bonds, which were designed to cover the budget shortfall resulting from the dot-com bust well into the next decade. """Schwarzi's deficit now matches that of Davis; before CA voters
decided to curtail the state govt.'s ability to take on more
loans, AS borrowed billions more than Davis did. Government fidiciary
matters--budget-chat-- might be dull for many CA hipsters, yet the talking
points of the Recall show consisted primarily of budget-chat.
Schwarzi and the GOP yacht-club enjoy slashing programs--not merely
welfare-type programs, but public education, services to elderly and
disabled, parks--and he proposes to continue the slashing. Schwarzi has
also substantially increased tuition at community colleges, Cal
States (where most po' CA students go), and UCs; in effect, tuition
increases and higher state fees of all sorts (DMV, licensing etc. ) are a
shadow-tax on lower and middle classes.Schwarzi, however, has kept his promises to the aristocrats of Cali. Burdening
those gated enclaves and mansion-dwellers of
Westside LA, Malibu, Carmel, the Duchy of Palo Alto,
Fog town: das ist Verboten.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
FeinsteinVille
From Wiki-wonderland :
DF's record, especially regarding civil liberties, rates higher on the SnitchConservative-metric than that of many GOP hawks (and her CA congress-crony Pelosi, now doing the Search for Justice schtick with old motown hack Conyers, shares most of her views). The Kossacks clamoring for the heads of Rove and Cheney can't, however, quite grasp the concept of bipartisan guilt: on KOS and other mainstream liberal sites, a female Dem with a record nearly identical to that of say Trent Lott0--tho' Lott values the 2nd Amendment a bit more than DiFi does-- has some exemption (dare we say royalist) not granted to mere mortal rethugs.
(Rove and Cheney are hardly the only one in the tumbril (the tumbrils of the Mind). It's the US Govt and US Military. So take it the Hague, crimefighters, or STFU)
From Wiki-wonderland :
"[CA Senator Diane] Feinstein voted to give the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the power to approve international surveillance of the communications of Americans entirely within the executive branch, rather than through the special intelligence court established by FISA. Many privacy advocates have decried this law and Senator Feinstein's vote in favor of it... In February 2008, Feinstein joined Republicans in the Senate in voting "Nay" to strike the provisions providing immunity from civil liability to electronic communication service providers for certain assistance provided to the Government.... On July 9, 2008, Feinstein broke with counterpart Sen. Barbara Boxer and voted for the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, H.R. 6304.
Feinstein was the original Democratic cosponsor of a bill to extend the USA PATRIOT Act. In a December 2005 statement, Senator Feinstein stated, "I believe the Patriot Act is vital to the protection of the American people." She was the main Democratic sponsor of the failed 2006 constitutional Flag Desecration Amendment. In November 2007, Feinstein was one of only six Democrats to vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as Attorney General.""""
DF's record, especially regarding civil liberties, rates higher on the SnitchConservative-metric than that of many GOP hawks (and her CA congress-crony Pelosi, now doing the Search for Justice schtick with old motown hack Conyers, shares most of her views). The Kossacks clamoring for the heads of Rove and Cheney can't, however, quite grasp the concept of bipartisan guilt: on KOS and other mainstream liberal sites, a female Dem with a record nearly identical to that of say Trent Lott0--tho' Lott values the 2nd Amendment a bit more than DiFi does-- has some exemption (dare we say royalist) not granted to mere mortal rethugs.
(Rove and Cheney are hardly the only one in the tumbril (the tumbrils of the Mind). It's the US Govt and US Military. So take it the Hague, crimefighters, or STFU)
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
El libro de arena
Utopía de un hombre que está cansado (un cuento escrito de JL Borges , en El libro de arena)
""En el cuento, Eudoro Acevedo, de la ciudad de Buenos Aires y nacido en 1897, visita una finca en medio de una llanura desierta, en el futuro. Su anfitrión, que habla en latín, le cuenta la vida del futuro, en la que los hombres viven el tiempo que desean, prefieren la soledad y el arte. Acevedo retorna al presente con una pintura de su anfitrión."""
Utopía de un hombre que está cansado (un cuento escrito de JL Borges , en El libro de arena)
""En el cuento, Eudoro Acevedo, de la ciudad de Buenos Aires y nacido en 1897, visita una finca en medio de una llanura desierta, en el futuro. Su anfitrión, que habla en latín, le cuenta la vida del futuro, en la que los hombres viven el tiempo que desean, prefieren la soledad y el arte. Acevedo retorna al presente con una pintura de su anfitrión."""
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Mike Whitney re Obama and Gaza
Uno momento de la Izquierda autentica:
"""""....[Obama's] nothing more than an ambitious and well-spoken young man who's being used to conceal the genocidal operation of the imperial machine; a fact that is particularly poignant on a day like December 29, the 118th anniversary of Wounded Knee, when more than 200 Lakota Sioux were mowed down by the 7th Cavalry on the Pine Ridge Reservation marking the end of the Indian Wars. Like the Palestinians, the Indians were guilty of nothing more than having been born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Needless to say, if Obama had been around then, he would have looked askance and bit his tongue just as he has today. The truth is Obama is a "cool guy" who doesn't really feel that strongly about anything. That's why Obama's moral authority has been gravely eroded before he's even been sworn in. The bloody streets of Gaza are an indictment of Obama not Hamas.
When people see the photos of the Palestinian children being extracted from the debris of bombed-out buildings in Gaza; they should ask themselves whether Obama could have saved a few lives by just speaking out. The fact is, he had a chance to defend the people who can't defend themselves, but chose silence and complicity instead...."""""
Viva Malatesta! Recuerde, La Señora Feinstein - La Porcina del CA--es el primer orador en el fiesta de Obama. No, nos se no puedan....
Thursday, January 01, 2009
AC Grayling blogs the UDHR
Hear, hear. 'Mericans could do worse than to sublimate their instinct for British-bashing and study a bit of GraylingSpeak. Multicultural leftists generally dismiss the secular-progressivism and rights-talk of a Grayling, regarding about any British academic--whether a Keynes, Bertrand Russell, or even Dawkins--as imperialist anathema, whereas the US yokel is probably reminded of Hannibal Lector, or Winnie Churchill, assuming they read Guardian-level English at all (--tho of course Grayling not exactly competing with like Paturkno State vs TrojanCo, or ...Bill n Hillary Iguana tripping the light phantastic to Sinatra drones.... Hymn to La Cosa Nostra).
Regardless, Grayling does correctly note the importance of free speech/expression rights. However bor-reeng, trite, or liberal rights-speak seems to some gauchistes (or boring to Coulteresque vichy wannabes, or neo-confederates, etc.), intelligent humans have a fundamental right to express their viewpoints, their objections, their dissent--whether that's via local metro-newspaper (hardly a vehicle for democracy), blogs, magazines, academic journals. Those rights also apply, arguably, to academia, which often controls or purges discussion of various issues (such as the academic bureaucracy itself).
Professor Grayling has a bit of the old Fabian sensibility: that tends to offend romantics, whether marxist, or mafiosi. He's dissed the royals and even that supposed saint Rowan Williams. He's rather well-read in many of the current scientific/evolutionary debates. To people who consider a Bertrand Russell a manifestation of Apollyon, he probably seems demonic; to those of us who would rather sink with the ship--the USS Fabian--with the likes of Bertrand Russell, Keynes, Dewey, Orwell, even Chomsky, than side with stalinists, or jihadists, he's the voice of reason.
"""""The importance of freedom of speech – which includes, as the jurisprudence of the US's first amendment shows, all forms of expression – is so great that it cannot be overstated. First, though, one must accept that it is not absolute: the hoary old example, no less compelling for being so, is that one cannot shout "fire!" in a crowded theatre where there is no fire. But the circumstances in
which some greater benefit is served by limiting freedom of expression have to
be such that, on a strictly individual and one-off basis, an overwhelming case
can be made for doing it on that occasion alone. There should, in short, never
be a blanket proscription of expression. When such expression is libelous or
damaging, there can be remedy after the fact, as when someone sues for
defamation. Prior restraint on expression, by contrast, should be a rare and
exceptional event, as just suggested. And emphatically, the fact that someone
"feels offended" by someone else's utterances – or cartoons or theatre
performances – ought never to be grounds for quelling free speech.
Why all these shoulds and should nots regarding free speech? Why is article 19 so
important? Because our other rights depend on it. Without free speech you cannot
claim, assert or protect your other rights. You cannot defend yourself in court
or accuse those who harm you. You cannot have democracy, which turns upon the
statement and discussion of policies and challenge to those who propose them.
There cannot be education worth the name when some things cannot be said, when
some information is suppressed, and when enquiry and debate is stifled. There
cannot be fully flourishing literature or theatre or broadcasting services if
there are gags over mouths and blindfolds over eyes.""""""
Hear, hear. 'Mericans could do worse than to sublimate their instinct for British-bashing and study a bit of GraylingSpeak. Multicultural leftists generally dismiss the secular-progressivism and rights-talk of a Grayling, regarding about any British academic--whether a Keynes, Bertrand Russell, or even Dawkins--as imperialist anathema, whereas the US yokel is probably reminded of Hannibal Lector, or Winnie Churchill, assuming they read Guardian-level English at all (--tho of course Grayling not exactly competing with like Paturkno State vs TrojanCo, or ...Bill n Hillary Iguana tripping the light phantastic to Sinatra drones.... Hymn to La Cosa Nostra).
Regardless, Grayling does correctly note the importance of free speech/expression rights. However bor-reeng, trite, or liberal rights-speak seems to some gauchistes (or boring to Coulteresque vichy wannabes, or neo-confederates, etc.), intelligent humans have a fundamental right to express their viewpoints, their objections, their dissent--whether that's via local metro-newspaper (hardly a vehicle for democracy), blogs, magazines, academic journals. Those rights also apply, arguably, to academia, which often controls or purges discussion of various issues (such as the academic bureaucracy itself).
Professor Grayling has a bit of the old Fabian sensibility: that tends to offend romantics, whether marxist, or mafiosi. He's dissed the royals and even that supposed saint Rowan Williams. He's rather well-read in many of the current scientific/evolutionary debates. To people who consider a Bertrand Russell a manifestation of Apollyon, he probably seems demonic; to those of us who would rather sink with the ship--the USS Fabian--with the likes of Bertrand Russell, Keynes, Dewey, Orwell, even Chomsky, than side with stalinists, or jihadists, he's the voice of reason.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Kossacks tackle the existence of G*d and other matters
from terry2wa :
Rather eloquent for a Kossack.
from terry2wa :
""I find Dawkins' works to be solidly scientific and logical, but
like so many of his intellectual mentors from the Post-War era, there is a
profound sense of existential despair lying just below the surface. He is excellent with explanations of process and hypotheses of causality, but he is simply mute on the wonder of it all. His work is intellectually compelling, but spiritually sterile and flat. He's like Camus in a lab coat.
Hitchens is, in my opinion, simply a contrarian who, if he does not actually actively
despise any human interaction which could be deemed altruistic or noble or self-abnegating, is so skeptical of motive as to be little more than a misanthrope. If his aim is to win converts to atheism, then I am fairly certain eventually Evangelicals like Rick Warren will pass out copies of God Is Not Great along with their religious tracts, because after reading Hitchens the usual reaction is, after taking one long and very hot shower and scrubbing off most one's epidermis, to pray devoutly for the existence of a God who can lock Hitchens safely away for eternity in Hell with the other demons who roam the world seeking the ruin of souls.
That said, I find Daniel Dennett's upbeat and almost lyrical atheist credo, as outlined in Breaking The Spell, to be the most compelling and accessible. His personal philosophy has accomplished the almost miraculous feat of combining a rigorous scientifically-grounded agnosticism with the best elements of Humanist thought. Like EO Wilson, his science flows from his curiosity, awe and wonder at the natural world, and he is able to acknowledge that Beauty, Truth and Goodness are the cornerstones of a fulfilling human existence, the foundation of human ethics, and the lynchpins of civilization. One comes away from Dennett's books with the impression that he has enjoyed life, in spite of being godless, and that you are the better for
having made his acquaintance.
Of course, all I've said here should be tempered by the admission that I remain, in spite of everything, a believer. The Apostle's Creed has long since fallen into disuse and disrepair in this jaded soul, but I continue to judge the affairs of Mankind by the standards of the rebel Jesus. And while I no longer cling to the conviction that anything awaits me after death except recycling, my soul refuses to accept the proposition that life, even individual life, is without purpose or meaning. It may be Freud's "illusion", but I'm too damned old now to care.
That said, I have a great deal of respect for an honest disbeliever. Like Paul Tillich, I believe that no faith exists without doubt, and I join many of you in stating my firm conviction that organized religion is the fountainhead of a large portion of this world's temporal suffering.
Still, as I get older and closer to whatever eternity is, I am absolutely certain that the hunger and thirst for justice which those old Dominican nuns drilled into my dense and feral little head all those years back was a good thing, and I am grateful for the part of me which yearns to see every human given his due and holds all people accountable for the gifts received, in the measure they have received them."""
Rather eloquent for a Kossack.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Hegel-mass
(from GWFH's Phil of History)
""""“Eh bien,” said Napoleon, “we shall go to mass again, and my good fellows will say: ‘That is the word of command!’” This is the leading feature in the character of these nations – the separation of the religious from the secular interest, i.e., from the special interest of individuality; and the ground of this separation lies in their inmost soul, which has lost its independent entireness of being, its profoundest unity. Catholicism does not claim the essential direction of the Secular; religion remains an indifferent matter on the one side, while the other side of life is dissociated from it, and occupies a sphere exclusively its own. Cultivated Frenchmen therefore feel an antipathy to Protestantism because it seems to them something pedantic, dull, minutely captious in its morality; since it requires that Spirit and Thought should be directly engaged in religion: in attending mass and other ceremonies, on the contrary, no exertion of thought is required, but an imposing sensuous spectacle is presented to the eye, which does not make such a demand on one’s attention as entirely to exclude a little chat, while yet the duties of the occasion are not neglected.""""
O Schweigen KristallNacht. Yo BubbaBot: that's sort of like you, blasting bombastically away on a trumpet. GWFH tho' plays Beethoven (or maybe Wagner), and you, alas, play like "Lil Light of Mine." And GWF knows 4 or 5 languages fluently (Deutsch, Latin, greek, romance tongues, probably a bit of sanskrit, chinese, even arabic--and you can barely manage Anglo-preacher speak), has mastered most of the sciences of the time (quite adept with derivatives and integrals), and knows world history, greek and roman thinkers (Caesar one of his faves) up and down. BubbaRon x 10.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/index.htm
(from GWFH's Phil of History)
""""“Eh bien,” said Napoleon, “we shall go to mass again, and my good fellows will say: ‘That is the word of command!’” This is the leading feature in the character of these nations – the separation of the religious from the secular interest, i.e., from the special interest of individuality; and the ground of this separation lies in their inmost soul, which has lost its independent entireness of being, its profoundest unity. Catholicism does not claim the essential direction of the Secular; religion remains an indifferent matter on the one side, while the other side of life is dissociated from it, and occupies a sphere exclusively its own. Cultivated Frenchmen therefore feel an antipathy to Protestantism because it seems to them something pedantic, dull, minutely captious in its morality; since it requires that Spirit and Thought should be directly engaged in religion: in attending mass and other ceremonies, on the contrary, no exertion of thought is required, but an imposing sensuous spectacle is presented to the eye, which does not make such a demand on one’s attention as entirely to exclude a little chat, while yet the duties of the occasion are not neglected.""""
O Schweigen KristallNacht. Yo BubbaBot: that's sort of like you, blasting bombastically away on a trumpet. GWFH tho' plays Beethoven (or maybe Wagner), and you, alas, play like "Lil Light of Mine." And GWF knows 4 or 5 languages fluently (Deutsch, Latin, greek, romance tongues, probably a bit of sanskrit, chinese, even arabic--and you can barely manage Anglo-preacher speak), has mastered most of the sciences of the time (quite adept with derivatives and integrals), and knows world history, greek and roman thinkers (Caesar one of his faves) up and down. BubbaRon x 10.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/index.htm
Saturday, December 20, 2008
LPOE
4:17 Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker? 4:18 Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly: 4:19 How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth? 4:20 They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it. (from the Book of Job)
The LPOE has been known for centuries. The Book of Job presents the issue in some form; greek and roman scribes alluded to it. Voltaire, pal of Franklin and Hume had some awareness of the issue , as that great surreal graphic novel Candide reveals. (Jefferson kept a bust of Voltaire, Marquis de Arouet in his Monticello study his entire life). Dr. Pangloss, V's parody of that brilliant mystic-windbag Leibniz, insists this is the best of all possible worlds, even in the face of wars, earthquakes and tidal waves killing untold thousands.
Most modern theologians--Dr. Panglosses are still around--would probably uphold Leibniz's rather optimistic view, and claim that, even apres-Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and the Bush Administration, their God chose the best of possible worlds (how do they know, without knowing of other worlds??), and at the same time grant that God does allow evil (another problematic normative concept). He does not intervene to stop the suffering of the innocent, say, when by definition He could; and obviously history affords a monumental amount of evidence showing the suffering of innocent (or mostly innocent), via pain, poverty, natural disasters, disease, collateral damage in wars, etc. ("Free will" does not offer the theologian an escape in the above cases).
In short, God's putative Justice, Perfection and Omnipotence are not consistent, or evident or provable in any normal sense of proof, i.e. via axiom, or observation (here is a brief synopsis of the logical problem of evil). The inconsistency of the premises suggests that JHVH (assuming He exists for sake of irritating the pious) is either Omnipotent, but not Just (or "perfect" really), OR he is not Omnipotent (and then not really God), or simply does not exist.
So, God either won't prevent undue suffering, though He could--which seems to suggest an amoral KingGod, sort of a Tamerlane on high---or He can't (which denies his omnipotence, or perhaps suggest a manicheanism, or polydeism, or other oddities), OR since that all seems rather preposterous, we can safely claim He does not exist. However ancient and obscure manicheanism seems, a battle between opposing forces seems a rather more plausible religious model (even somewhat evolutionary) when considering the absurd implications of a monotheist Being. Given a century of brutal wars, genocide, political oppression of all sorts, the conclusion of the LPOE seems rather a fortiori (as do Voltaire's points).
There are other anti-theological tactics of course--such as the Darwinian tactic. Darwin and Lyell did not merely advance biological science: they established the fallibility of the dogma of Old Testament (and all theological texts purporting to account for natural history). Radiocarbon dating disproved the rabbinical and xtian accounts of creation (ie 4000 bc, etc.), and confirmed Darwinian accounts of a very old world, and of common descent with modifications (problems there are with naive Darwinism--McDarwinism--as evidenced by TH Huxley's simplifications. For that matter Darwin himself waffled on the religious question, and at times appears to have agreed with the 'teleological' argument).
The LPOE does something quite different than Darwinism does: the LPOE shows the inconsistencies of the theologians' own assumptions via a fairly obvious set of premises. The correct conclusions drawn from LPOE will not likely phase many biblethumpers, or koranthumpers, most of whom have no problem upholding the code of Credo que Absurdum:theists are generally great romantics. That our elected officials also uphold the Credo q.A. (ie asking fundies to offer invocations and benedictions), however, should concern all Non-Churchians.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Dr. Chu
Dolores May, commenting on Obama's appointment of Dr. Chu to Sec. of Energy(HuffPo):
Meet the new Energy Czar, same as the old Energy czar. Chu also supports nuclear energy. That said, Chu's scientific credentials appear impressive, and Contingencies does not automatically dismiss the potential viability of nuclear power. (Emo-crats usually do, however--except when Chairman BO assures them it's ok). Obama also has selected former Clintonite EPA boss Carol Browner (Miss Browner's the actual E-Czar--Czarina?) for an eco-bureaucrat position, along with Nancy Sutley, an assistant to Browner: all Clintonites. Hope and Change.
The nerdier DailyKOS sorts approve of Chu for the most part, believing that a real "geek" has taken over the reins of Energy. Chu, however, like most high-powered laboratory scientists, has ties to oil corporations such as BP, as did his predecessors in Bush admin. (BP has in fact greatly profited from the Iraqi war--). The implication seems to be that a pro-nuclear Asian scientist with ties to Big Oil is to be preferred to the pro-nuclear American scientist with ties to Big Oil.
One Counterpuncher, Karl Grossman doesn't seem overly thrilled with the appointment of Dr. Chu: “He’s really big on efficiency and renewables,” says Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, of Chu. But he is “looking at nuclear as well. He and President-elect Obama are not anti-nuclear, and not perhaps as versed on it as they should be.” Mariotte has a major concern that “they will accede to demands to fund nuclear power made by Congress”—awash in contributions from the nuclear power industry and with many members loyal to the national nuclear laboratories in their districts.""
One of the Dept. of Energy's founding members, Admiral Rickover--hardly some tofu-munching, birkenstock'd Greenpeacer--ultimately took a stance against nuclear power, and suggested banning nuclear reactors.
....................................
Cockburn on Politix, Chicago-style. When he keeps his VI Lenin fetish under control, Alex Cockburn actually can scribble a bit. Blogging Blago:
""""Top storyline has been the impact of Blagojevich’s indictment on Obama. At the very moment the president-elect proclaims an era of uplift and constitutional propriety, the slimy tentacles of old-style Chicago corruption snake towards his ankles. The chortles of outgoing President George Bush Jr., himself harassed by US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in the Scooter Libby affair, must be rich and prolonged.
Blagojevich did Obama the enormous favor of denouncing him on the government’s tapes. “F--- him,” bellowed the governor during a call with top aides and Patti, covertly recorded by the FBI on November 10th, “For nothing? F--- him.” The governor was peeved that Obama’s representatives weren’t offering him any material incentives to nominate Obama’s political associate and Chicago powerhouse, Valerie Jarrett, for the senate seat vacated by Obama. The president elect can thank his stars for the expletive, but potential embarrassments still loom.....""
We suspect Kid Obama's closer--much closer--to this than most of the Emo-crats realize. So BO goes with Emanuel--and thus ratted out his one-time ally Blago. Blago then puts BO's Senatorial position on the block. F--- him, indeed. Alas, facts, historical facts interfere with that gleaming Progressive futurity.
Darwin. Marx. Darwin and/or Marx.
Dolores May, commenting on Obama's appointment of Dr. Chu to Sec. of Energy(HuffPo):
Progressives should be aware that Dr. Chu's energy research is entirely funded by British Petroleum, through a controversial $500 million dollar contract with UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Labs (as well as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). The emphasis at the BP-created initiative is mainly on biofuels. The deal has come under heavy criticism for potentially ensuring that a major oil company will be setting much of the agenda for energy research in the coming century (not to mention setting the agenda for the public universities involved). Not an entirely evil enterprise, perhaps, but hardly free of distortion by economic interests. And Dr. Chu was a major force creating the deal. So not to rain on anyone's parade, but just to add a little perspective. This appointment is very much in the mold of other Obama appointments: Super-smart, super-qualified guy - but no progressive.
Meet the new Energy Czar, same as the old Energy czar. Chu also supports nuclear energy. That said, Chu's scientific credentials appear impressive, and Contingencies does not automatically dismiss the potential viability of nuclear power. (Emo-crats usually do, however--except when Chairman BO assures them it's ok). Obama also has selected former Clintonite EPA boss Carol Browner (Miss Browner's the actual E-Czar--Czarina?) for an eco-bureaucrat position, along with Nancy Sutley, an assistant to Browner: all Clintonites. Hope and Change.
The nerdier DailyKOS sorts approve of Chu for the most part, believing that a real "geek" has taken over the reins of Energy. Chu, however, like most high-powered laboratory scientists, has ties to oil corporations such as BP, as did his predecessors in Bush admin. (BP has in fact greatly profited from the Iraqi war--). The implication seems to be that a pro-nuclear Asian scientist with ties to Big Oil is to be preferred to the pro-nuclear American scientist with ties to Big Oil.
One Counterpuncher, Karl Grossman doesn't seem overly thrilled with the appointment of Dr. Chu: “He’s really big on efficiency and renewables,” says Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, of Chu. But he is “looking at nuclear as well. He and President-elect Obama are not anti-nuclear, and not perhaps as versed on it as they should be.” Mariotte has a major concern that “they will accede to demands to fund nuclear power made by Congress”—awash in contributions from the nuclear power industry and with many members loyal to the national nuclear laboratories in their districts.""
One of the Dept. of Energy's founding members, Admiral Rickover--hardly some tofu-munching, birkenstock'd Greenpeacer--ultimately took a stance against nuclear power, and suggested banning nuclear reactors.
....................................
Cockburn on Politix, Chicago-style. When he keeps his VI Lenin fetish under control, Alex Cockburn actually can scribble a bit. Blogging Blago:
""""Top storyline has been the impact of Blagojevich’s indictment on Obama. At the very moment the president-elect proclaims an era of uplift and constitutional propriety, the slimy tentacles of old-style Chicago corruption snake towards his ankles. The chortles of outgoing President George Bush Jr., himself harassed by US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in the Scooter Libby affair, must be rich and prolonged.
Blagojevich did Obama the enormous favor of denouncing him on the government’s tapes. “F--- him,” bellowed the governor during a call with top aides and Patti, covertly recorded by the FBI on November 10th, “For nothing? F--- him.” The governor was peeved that Obama’s representatives weren’t offering him any material incentives to nominate Obama’s political associate and Chicago powerhouse, Valerie Jarrett, for the senate seat vacated by Obama. The president elect can thank his stars for the expletive, but potential embarrassments still loom.....""
We suspect Kid Obama's closer--much closer--to this than most of the Emo-crats realize. So BO goes with Emanuel--and thus ratted out his one-time ally Blago. Blago then puts BO's Senatorial position on the block. F--- him, indeed. Alas, facts, historical facts interfere with that gleaming Progressive futurity.
Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.
Engels, Speech at the Grave of Karl Marx
Darwin. Marx. Darwin and/or Marx.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
One Susan Jacoby on American Unreason:
Contingencies-approved.
"""The debasement of the nation's speech is evident in virtually everything, on every subject, broadcast and podcast on radio, television, and the Internet. In this true, all-encompassing public square, homogenized language and homogenized thought reinforce each other in circular fashion. As George Orwell noted in 1946, “A man may take to drink because he feels himself a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts” In this continuous blurring of clarity and intellectual discrimination, political speech is always ahead of the curve—especially because today’s media possess the power to amplify and spread error with an efficiency that might have astonished even Orwell. Consider the near-universal substitution, by the media and politicians, of “troop” and “troops” for “soldier” and “soldiers.” As every dictionary makes plain, the word “troop” is always a collective noun; the “s” is added when referring to a particularly large military force. Yet each night on the television news, correspondents report that “X troops were killed in Iraq today.” This is more than a grammatical error; turning a soldier—an individual with whom one may identify—into an anonymous-sounding troop encourages the public to think about war and its casualties in a more abstract way. Who lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Troop? It is difficult to determine exactly how, why, or when this locution began to enter the common language. Soldiers were almost never described as troops during the Second World War, except when a large military operation (like the Allied landing on D-Day) was being discussed, and the term remained extremely uncommon throughout the Vietnam era. My guess is that some dimwits in the military and the media (perhaps the military media) decided, at some point in the 1980s, that the word “soldier” implied the masculine gender and that all soldiers, out of respect for the growing presence of women in the military, must henceforth be called troops. Like unremitting appeals to folks, the victory of troops over soldiers offers an impressive illustration of the relationship between fuzzy thinking and the debasement of everyday speech."""
Contingencies-approved.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Meet the new Madame Hillary; same as the old Madame Hillary
Josh Frank on Madame Hillary:
Those nasty Demopublicans. The choice of Miss Clinton for the rather crucial position ofReceptionistSecretary of State should not shock. That the "liberal" blogging horde did not raise their voice at Obama's selection of Hillary does not shock either (and GOPers already have said they will confirm): that's how the contemporary political process works at this stage, with American politicians shifting from a phony puritanical pacifism (i.e. Obama a year ago), to hard-boiled RealPolitik in a matter of weeks.
One year ago, Obamaites portrayed Hillary as a neo-con, ally of Lieberman, if not the equivalent of Dick Cheney in terms of foreign policy. The hack satirists of DailyKOS and similar DINO.com sites had Hillary outfitted in the She-Wolf of the SS gear. Team Obama removed her jackboots, and she's now an experienced asset, carrying on the noble tradition of Condi Rice. That said, Miss Hillary, does possess some spine, and really more of a Truman-style Dem. than most of Obama's cronies. Perhaps she'll send a message of Love across the earth, like along with the aircraft carriers: the USS Jeee-zuss
Josh Frank on Madame Hillary:
"""It’s official.
Barack Obama has chosen Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State; a choice that confirms US foreign policy is not about to change significantly under the forthcoming Democratic administration. The US will continue to pander to Israel and the War on Terror will still be the rallying cry for our foreign interventions.
In a letter to her constituents in November 2005, Clinton expressed her belief that the war in Iraq shouldn’t be “open-ended,” but was clear that she would never “pull out of Iraq immediately.” She wrote that she wouldn’t accept any timetable for withdrawal and won’t even embrace a “redeployment” of US troops along the lines of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.).""""
Those nasty Demopublicans. The choice of Miss Clinton for the rather crucial position of
One year ago, Obamaites portrayed Hillary as a neo-con, ally of Lieberman, if not the equivalent of Dick Cheney in terms of foreign policy. The hack satirists of DailyKOS and similar DINO.com sites had Hillary outfitted in the She-Wolf of the SS gear. Team Obama removed her jackboots, and she's now an experienced asset, carrying on the noble tradition of Condi Rice. That said, Miss Hillary, does possess some spine, and really more of a Truman-style Dem. than most of Obama's cronies. Perhaps she'll send a message of Love across the earth, like along with the aircraft carriers: the USS Jeee-zuss
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Congressman Kevin "Kern Guy" McCarthy,
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