Fact checking the Fact-checkers

What do Illinois people (at least those not livin' in the 'jects) think of Obamanomics? Not much.

"During his career in the Illinois Senate, Barack Obama never saw a tax increase that he didn't like. CBS News Jan 17, 2007 - 'Obama occasionally supported higher taxes, joining other Democrats in pushing to raise more than 300 taxes and fees on businesses in 2004 to help solve a budget deficit. The increases passed the Senate 30-28.' Fox News Feb. 27, 2008 - 'A new report says he supported more than 300 tax hikes during his eight years in the Illinois State Senate'.

Yet, these reports do not even begin to demonstrate the fiscal irresponsibility practiced by Obama. Facing a budget deficit in 2003, the newly anointed Illinois Governor, with the full support of Senator Obama who voted for his budget, increased the annual budget by more than $2 billion, as opposed to seeking spending limits or cuts. On April 9th, 2003, Blagojevich introduced his budget by stating, "WE WILL NOT BALANCE THE BUDGET BY SACRIFICING OUR VALUES. INSTEAD, WE WILL BALANCE THE BUDGET BY ENDING BUSINESS AS USUAL." Sound Familiar?

Over the course of the next two years Senator Obama would vote after tax increase after tax increase...."

Contingencies supports a healthy increase of taxes on capital gains and windfall profits for the wealthy (like Obama's pals Soros, Buffett, Gates, the Kennedys, etc.), and regulations on high-powered finance rackets. Obama, however, has had no problem implementing many taxes aimed at destroying small and medium sized businesses (and businessmen). The profit taxes mentioned in the article should especially trouble anyone forced by the f-ed up pirate-capitalist economy necessity to depend on commissions for a livelihood. Commission taxes may result in little or no damage to millionaires: instead, they destroy the middle class (and even working class); and that's what BO, corporate-socialist and Boston boy, specializes in. Ted Kennedy, ramped up: das ist Obama.


Another factoid: "...."{the facts do} back up McCain’s statements that Obama is spending more than $40 million on negative advertising, but it also shows that he’s spending nearly $30 million on positive advertising. According to this release, McCain is spending more than $27 million on negative ads and only $5 million on positive ads."""

So, Obama still outperforms McCain on the Negativity Metric, regardless if the neg-ads are a smaller proportion of ObamaCo's total advertising budget than McCain's neg-ads--BO's treasure chest greatly exceeds McCainCo's, and that's the most relevant factor. Too bad the reason-challenged dolts who operate most liberal blogs did not perceive that the "context" indicates that their guy BO has the corporate backing, the media power, the celebrity vibe. But to the typical dyslexicrat this seems to suggest that McCain's "more negative" when in fact it proves that Obama leads in negative ads, and has a great lead in total advertising shekels.

Paraphrasing Matt Stone from a few years ago, I might hate conservatives, but I really f-ing hate liberals. Best to stick with ~vote.

Bakunin for kix


Bakunin:

""""Between these two tendencies there exist the same conflicting conceptions and the same abyss that separate the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Is it surprising, therefore, that these irreconcilable adversaries clashed in the International, that the struggle between them, in all forms and on all possible occasions, is still going on? The Alliance, true to the program of the International, disdainfully rejected all collaboration with bourgeois politics, in however radical and socialist a disguise. They advised the proletariat that the only real emancipation, the only policy truly beneficial for them, is the exclusively negative policy of demolishing political institutions, political power, government in general, and the State, and that to do this it is necessary to unify the scattered forces of the proletariat into an International organization, a revolutionary power directed against the entrenched ]power of the bourgeoisie."""""




Your daddy

""""The German Social Democrats advocated a completely opposite policy. They told these workers, who unfortunately heeded them, that the first and most pressing task of their organization must be to win political rights by legal agitation. They thus subordinated the movement for economic emancipation to an exclusively political movement, and by this obvious reversal of the whole program of the International they filled in at a single stroke the abyss that the International had opened between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. They have done more. They have tied the proletariat to the bourgeois towline. For it is evident that this whole political movement so enthusiastically extolled by the German Socialists, since it must precede the economic revolution, can only be directed by the bourgeoisie, or what is still worse, by workers transformed into bourgeois by their vanity and ambition. And, in fact, this movement, like all its predecessors, will once more supersede the proletariat and condemn them to be the blind instruments, the victims. to be used and then sacrificed in the struggle between the rival bourgeois parties for the power and right to dominate and exploit the masses. To anyone who doubts this we have only to show what is happening now in Germany, where the organs of social democracy sing hymns of joy on seeing a congress of professors of bourgeois political economy entrusting the proletariat to the paternal protection of states, and it has occurred in parts of Switzerland where the Marxian program prevails – at Geneva, Zurich, Basel, where the International has declined to the point of being only an electoral ballot box for the profit of the radical bourgeois. These incontestable facts seem to me to be more eloquent than any words.

These facts are real and they are a natural effect of the triumph of Marxian propaganda. And it is for this reason that we fight the Marxian theories to the death, convinced that if they should triumph throughout the International, they would at the least kill its spirit, as they have already in great part done in the places I have referred to.""""

To reiterate: "it has occurred in parts of Switzerland where the Marxian program.... has declined to the point of being only an electoral ballot box for the profit of the radical bourgeois." MB could have been speaking about the American democrats, those delusional consumers who take Al Gore to be a "radical".

More MB: "We fight the Marxian theories to the death." Whoa. What's that entail in contemporary terms? Authentic anarchists--a rather sparse crowd, to be sure, tho' Chomsky admired MB, supposedly, as did Edward Abbey--support neither statist-welfare socialism and bureaucracy ala ObamaCo, nor the theocrats and monarchical-capitalism of the right (as Obama's support of the Bushco-Paulson-Pelosia sponsored Bailout indicates, Obama has no problem--in traditional marxist-hypocrite style--working alongside the rightists and financiers when needed).

It might also be recalled that during the spanish civil war, the republicanos drew inspiration from Bakunin, and opposed the soviet apparatchiks as well as the royalists and "phalange" nationalists; when stalinist atrocities mounted, many a republicano abandoned leftist ideology altogether (some going as far as joining the phalange...). In historical and Dialectical terms ala GWF Hegel, the battles between Being of the right (mind/human thinking), and Not-Being of left (nature, if you will), reveal themselves in Becomingness, in process, in temporality. The intelligent anarchist, aware that he's both a Dr. Jekyll AND Mr. Hyde, eros and thanatos (as are ALL humans), thrives in that Becomingness.

A race of convicts...

[Dr. Johnson] disliked the rebel colonists for their hatred of authority, their unseemly scramble for money, and especially their dependence on slaves. "I am willing to love all mankind, except an American," he wrote. "They are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging."

What means a consensus--a popular election--among a race of convicts (assuming for argument that Johnson's definition of Americans holds)? Hint: nada

Obamblicans

Cockburn on Baracknomics:

""""Obama helped arm-twist recalcitrant Democrats, particularly in the Congressional Black Caucus, to vote for the Paulson bailout, in the national interest, the line urged on House members by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank.

In fact it wasn’t in the national interest , nor in the interest of the Democrats in Congress. Until Republicans in the House rebelled and , with the help of 95 Democratic mutineers, voted the Paulson bill down on September 29, polls showed that the prospects for the Democrats wining a substantial number of new seats in the House were good. Not any more. Voters really hate the Bailout and think well of those who tried to beat it back. The Republicans are now within striking distance of recapturing the House, or so some polls show.""""

.

St. Barack backs Heinrich Paulson, and approves the Bushco-led bailout (corporate welfare as it was formerly known). Another reason for ~vote.

Tyranny of the majority (sic semper tyrannis)

Mencken on the absurdity of American democracy--"the domination of unreflective and timorous men, moved in vast herds by mob emotions":


"....when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental—men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself lost...""

""""The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.""""

What's that entail? NO on BO, the peoples' choice--that the peoples want BO does not imply he deserves to be wanted. Menckenian invective may illustrate the problem of the tyranny of the majority, but it's sort of a chestnut of political and philosophical thinking. As JS Mill-- Liberal par excellence--and other thinkers realized years ago, approval of a candidate (or policy) via majority decision does not imply that the most qualified person is selected (rather obvious, except maybe to ACORNocrats). What the Peoples decide upon has no necessary relation to the proper course of action, politically, economically or otherwise. During the early days of French Revolution, the extreme left of the Montagnards (mostly jacobins) had more voting power than did the moderate Girondists, yet were hardly doing the right thing--deposing the monarchy is one thing (agreed to by Girondists), killing them, and thousands of others (including girondists, like Condorcet), Nyet.

Majorities voted in Bush (at least popular vote in 2004). They voted in Feinstein (supposedly). Hitler and Mussolini were elected by majorities, initially (before ending voting). Even in small-scale situations a consensus often has no relationship to truth. Asking for a show of hands at Denny's to a supply curve problem will not generally produce the right answer. A consensus of baptists, millions of 'em, regarding the authenticity of the Book of Revelation does not magically make the bizarre visions of the Book true.

Similarly, if a person is a downright moron, his vote means nothing (and really might be viewed as a mistake). Obvious, except to like liberals on crack. Were society comprised of Menckens and Thomas Jeffersons and/or Jeffersonettes, yes, a popular vote would be meaningful. It's not. Society's comprised of downright morons (and moronettes), for the most part, many of whom, especially in Californication, who are HS dropouts, can't read write or solve pie graph problems (the peoples the DNCocrats bank on). Holy Pie Graph Problem at the Election Booth Batman.


The Founding Fathers concerned themselves with this issue; even the more "liberal" such as Jefferson realized the potential danger of democracy via mob rule. Madison (Publius) in the Federalist papers writes at length about the danger posed by "factions" (Hamilton, old-school Hobbesian I suspect, also favored more centralized control and less power to legislature) Fears of mob rule arguably resulted in the electoral college, and executive and judicial controls on the legislature. Problems may also arise with a Federalist model as well of course (exemplified by Il Duce scalia's theocratic control of the SCOTUS).

All rather obvious, except to the anti-rationalists and quasi-psychotic cyber-leftists spewing their bubblegum -marxism ad nauseum (Marx himself was profoundly anti-democratic, and thus opposed to the vote, for better or worse).

(BO seems too corporate to be a real communist, tho' he did pal around with some reds, as the Ayers connection shows. His record does show him to be Fed-statist, not afraid of denying civil liberties (ie pro FISA, PatAct, etc.) and pro-union at any cost, i.e. owned by Chevvy. Connect the dots. this message approved by Anarchists Not for Obama)

Spengler




""By the term "Caesarism" I mean that kind of government which, irrespective of any constitutional formulation that it may have, is in its inward self a return to thorough formlessness. It does not matter that Augustus in Rome, and Huang Ti in China, Amasis in Egypt and Alp Arslan in Baghdad disguised their position under antique forms. the spirit of these forms was dead, and so all institutions, however carefully maintained, were thenceforth destitute of all meaning and weight. Real importance centred in the wholly personal power exercised by the Caesar...
{281]With the formed state having finished its course, high history also lays itself down weary to sleep. Man becomes a plant again adhering to the soil, dumb and enduring. The timeless village and the "eternal" peasant reappear, begetting children and burying seed in Mother Earth.. Men live from hand to mouth, with petty thrifts and petty fortunes and endure...""

Morgan, as in JP Morgan

Holy credit default swaps batman:

"""They're called "Off-Site Weekends"—rituals of the high-finance world in which teams of bankers gather someplace sunny to blow off steam and celebrate their successes as Masters of the Universe. Think yacht parties, bikini models, $1,000 bottles of Cristal. One 1994 trip by a group of JPMorgan bankers to the tony Boca Raton Resort & Club in Florida has become the stuff of Wall Street legend—though not for the raucous partying (although there was plenty of that, too). Holed up for most of the weekend in a conference room at the pink, Spanish-style resort, the JPMorgan bankers were trying to get their heads around a question as old as banking itself: how do you mitigate your risk when you loan money to someone? By the mid-'90s, JPMorgan's books were loaded with tens of billions of dollars in loans to corporations and foreign governments, and by federal law it had to keep huge amounts of capital in reserve in case any of them went bad. But what if JPMorgan could create a device that would protect it if those loans defaulted, and free up that capital?

What the bankers hit on was a sort of insurance policy: a third party would assume the risk of the debt going sour, and in exchange would receive regular payments from the bank, similar to insurance premiums. JPMorgan would then get to remove the risk from its books and free up the reserves. The scheme was called a "credit default swap," and it was a twist on something bankers had been doing for a while to hedge against fluctuations in interest rates and commodity prices. While the concept had been floating around the markets for a couple of years, JPMorgan was the first bank to make a big bet on credit default swaps. It built up a "swaps" desk in the mid-'90s and hired young math and science grads from schools like MIT and Cambridge to create a market for the complex instruments. Within a few years, the credit default swap (CDS) became the hot financial instrument, the safest way to parse out risk while maintaining a steady return. "I've known people who worked on the Manhattan Project," says Mark Brickell, who at the time was a 40-year-old managing director at JPMorgan. "And for those of us on that trip, there was the same kind of feeling of being present at the creation of something incredibly important.....""""""

Verstehen zee das? Gut.

Alex Cockburn on the fall of Neo-liberalism

Alex Cockburn lays the blame for the lending/finance crisis on the bipartisan-backed move to de-regulation, and on Phil Gramm (as I have suggested for the last week or so). Bill Clinton, however, signed off on ALL of it. Cockburn can be fairly offensive and hotheaded on occasion, but he wields a fairly wicked Maratian plume:

"....And if you want to identify symbolic figures in the legislated career of deregulation, there are no more resplendent culprits than the man at McCain’s elbow, Phil Gramm, and the man standing at Obama’s elbow at his press conference, Robert Rubin.

Take Gramm first.

In 1999 John McCain’s friend and now his closest economic counselor, then a senator from Texas, was the prime Republican force pushing through the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. It repealed the old Glass-Steagall Act, passed in the Great Depression, which prohibited a commercial bank from being in the investment and insurance business. President Bill Clinton cheerfully signed it into law.

A year later Gramm, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, attached a 262-page amendment to an omnibus appropriations bill, voted on by Congress right before a recess. The amendment received no scrutiny and duly became the Commodity Futures Modernization Act which okayed deregulation of investment banks, exempting most over the counter derivatives, credit derivatives, credit defaults, and swaps from regulatory scrutiny. Thus were born the scams that produced the debacle of Enron, a company on whose board sat Gramm’s wife Wendy. She had served on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1983 to 1993 and devised many of the rules coded into law by her husband in 2000.

Somewhat stained by the Enron debacle Gramm quit the senate in 2002 and began to enjoy the fruits of his own deregulatory efforts. He became a vice chairman of the giant Swiss bank UBS’ new investment arm in the US, lobbying Congress, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department about banking and mortgage issues in 2005 and 2006, urging Congress to roll back strong state rules trying to crimp the predatory tactics of the subprime mortgage industry. UBS took a bath of about $20 billion in write offs from bad real estate loans this year.""

Gramm's the real Richard III of the lending/finance/GSE scam, though Clinton may be just as responsible, given his rubber-stamping of the GOP/Gramm schemes. At the same time, the loan sharks and underwriters themselves (whether corp., or cowtown) should also be held accountable, certainly from a business standpoint. A Gramm or Dodd or Barney Mac did not sign the notes: JP Morgan/AIG/G-Sach/Wachovia does.


----------------------------

Trials and Tribulations (Obama on Bailout).

Obama shows his Demopublican colors (the link to Obama's words via a Fox article implies neither support for GOP or McCaint-- or Fox-- except to DyslexiCrats):

“Democrats and Republicans, step up to the plate. Get it done,” Obama said, addressing his remarks to lawmakers in Washington. “And understand even as you get it done to stabilize the markets, we have more work to do to make sure that Main Street is getting the same kind of help that Wall Street is getting.”

Obama was 40 minutes late taking the stage, telling the crowd he’d been talking with Treasury Secretary Paulson and Speaker Pelosi following the bill’s defeat. “They are still trying to work through this rescue package. And obviously this is a very difficult thing to do. It’s difficult because we shouldn’t have gotten here in the first place,” he said.

“Democratic and Republican leaders have agreed, but members have not yet agreed. And there are going to be some bumps and trials and tribulations and ups and downs before we get this rescue package done,” Obama said. “It’s important for the American public and for the markets to stay calm because things are never smooth in Congress, and to understand that it will get done.”

Obama the insider, like his mentor Bill Clinton, apparently has no problem affirming the Bush-led bailout (McCaint also approves) and working alongside America's financial elite, though, yes, he does anticipate "trials and tribulations". (nothin' like a quote from the Book of Revelation to inspire the masses. Brutha be representin', y'all).


Obamaites often repeat the Accountability mantra of the PC left, not without some reason: BushCo should be held accountable, at least for IWE. Accountability would, presumably, also apply to economics and financial dealings. The New Deal legislation addressed to banking and speculation--the Glass Steagall Act, FHA, Fannie Mae, FDIC, etc.-- upheld the principle of Accountability as well, arguably. The GOP worked for years to overturn that legislation; it was Nixon who signed into effect FHLMC aka Freddie Mac, which privatized the older FanMae.

With De-regocrat Bill Clinton at the helm, the Gramm/Gingrich led GOP finally managed to overturn the New Deal regs completely, thereby allowing the JP Morgans, AIGs and G-Sachs to convert Americans' mortgage and retirement savings into a fat stack of chips to be used at the speculator’s poker table. Given his support of Bush/Paulsen's corporate welfare plan, Mr. Obama has himself, at least implicitly, pulled up a chair at the speculator's table. (DFV).

While Mike Whitney doesn't quite match Prez-elect BO in terms of biblical invocation (or Comrade Cockburn's invective) Whitney believes the US "is headed into its worst recession in 60 years":

"Indeed, the $700 billion is just part of a massive "pump and dump" scheme engineered with the tacit approval of the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Once the banksters have offloaded their fraudulent securities and crappy paper on Uncle Sam, they will do whatever they need to do pad the bottom line and drive their stocks up. That means they will shovel capital into hard assets, foreign currencies, gold, interest rate swaps, carry trade swindles, and Swiss bank accounts. The notion that they will recapitalize so they can provide loans to US consumers and businesses in a slumping economy is a pipedream.

The US is headed into its worst recession in 60 years. The housing market is crashing, securitization is kaput, and the broader economy is drifting towards the reef. The banks are not going to waste their time trying to revive a moribund US market where consumers and businesses are already tapped out. No way; it's on to greener pastures. They'll move their capital wherever they think they can maximize their profits. In fact, a sizable portion of the $700 billion will likely be invested in commodities, which means that we'll see another round of hyperbolic speculation in food and energy futures pushing food and fuel prices into the stratosphere. Ironically, the taxpayers’ largesse will be used against them, making a bad situation even worse."

Yikes. Paranoia as Praxis. Whitney makes one important point: investment and speculation has some relation to the "real economy" of jobs and production (Samuelson's words), usually a negative relation for middle and lower class citizens (the great depression itself evidence of that relation). In effect the provisions of the bailout allow for a few dozen boxcars' worth of chips (700 billion dollars worth) to be doled out to the state-sponsored gamblers at the commodity casino, and Whitney believes that "means that we'll see another round of hyperbolic speculation in food and energy futures pushing food and fuel prices into the stratosphere." Es posible.

Blame Bill Clinton

One Mr. Meritocrat on the subprime meltdown (reply #6 in comments to article):

"....How did this happen? Economist Robert Kuttner has criticized the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as contributing to the subprime meltdown. 1. This act had since 1933 eliminated Conflicts of interest characterize the granting of credit – lending – and the use of credit – investing – by the same entity, which led to abuses in 1933 (Great Depression remember?). 2. Depository institutions possess enormous financial power, by virtue of their control of other people’s money; its extent was limited by the act to ensure soundness and competition in the market for funds, whether loans or investments. 3. The act kept banks out of the securities business. Securities activities can be risky, leading to enormous losses. Such losses could threaten the integrity of deposits. In turn, the Government insures deposits and could be required to pay large sums if depository institutions were to collapse as the result of securities losses. 4. The act made sure deposits and liabilities did on get out of balance. Depository institutions are supposed to be managed to limit risk. Their managers thus may not be conditioned to operate prudently in more speculative securities businesses. An example is the crash of real estate investment trusts sponsored by bank holding companies (in the 1970s and 1980s). Why was it repealed by the Republican Congress in 1999? So it could be replaced by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act, which allowed banks and insurance companies to do it all, investments - grant credit - lend - and use credit; which led to abuses and the fix we're in today. Who led this charge of Deregulation? Gramm? That's right, Phil Gramm: Mr. “nation of whiners” who is still advising McCain on economic matters. Senate Democrats Voted Against it 39 to 1 Senate Republicans voted it for it 44 to 1 McCain's vote on Gramm's bill - Yea.

This great act was followed by the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000" The Bill was slipped in and rammed through both the House and Senate without any debate. The way the latter passed was extraordinary: 262 pages of dense language slipped into an 11,000-page omnibus bill on the Friday before the Christmas recess. This act is widely known for creating the so-called "Enron Loophole," which exempts most over-the-counter energy trades and trading on electronic energy commodity markets.

The "loophole" was drafted by Enron Lobbyists working with senator Phil Gramm seeking a deregulated atmosphere for their new experiment, "Enron On-line" which helped bilk millions of dollars from California utilities customers. "The act freed complex derivatives from any regulation," said Michael Greenberger, who served in the Commodities and Futures Trading commission in the late 1990s. "It set the stage for the present mess and the problem is, no one knows how many of these instruments are still out there or who holds them." http://www.forbes.com/reuters/... Several Democratic Legislators introduced legislation to close the loophole from 2000-2006 but were unsuccessful due to Republican control of the House and Senate. Who led this charge of Deregulation? Gramm? Again, Phil Gramm, about whom John McCain said this on Jan 18, 2008, “I love him dearly. On issues of economics and ... family values, there's nobody that I know that's stronger.” Gramm and his wife were big friends of Ken Lay (died just before HE WENT TO JAIL); he collected more than $97,000 in campaign contributions from ENRON. Wendy Gramm was on ENRON’s board and was paid between $915,000 and $1.8 million in salary, attendance fees, stock options and dividends for helping ENRON implode.""""

Keep in mind Clinton could have vetoed the GOP-engineered repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, and Gramm's pro-financier alternative (and the Senate at least might have filibustered). He chose not to, and instead made deals with the likes of Gramm and Gingrich, America's first crypto-fascist. De-reg, courtesy of Bill Clinton, Mr. Demopublican. (Vote DFV! Don't F-ing Vote).

Jefferson it might be recalled battled with Hamilton and the Federalists for years over matters related to banking and finance. TJ on occasion penned some rather harsh criticism of financiers:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs." -- Thomas Jefferson.

Res Ipsa Loquitur.

Diogenes-Day

Ambrose Bierce's thoughts on the business of American Bidness:

CORPORATION. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

ECONOMY, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.

FINANCE, n. The art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager. The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of America's most precious discoveries and possessions.

INSURANCE: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.


OPTIMISM: The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.

RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections.

REVOLUTION: An abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

Heh heh.

Hitchens on a "boring contest":

"Interviewed by Rick Warren at the grotesque Saddleback megachurch a short while ago, Sen. Barack Obama announced that Jesus had died on the cross to redeem him personally. How he knew this he did not say. But it will make it exceedingly difficult for him, or his outriders and apologists, to ridicule Palin for her own ludicrous biblical literalist beliefs. She has inarticulately said that her gubernatorial work would be hampered "if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with god." Her local shout-and-holler tabernacle apparently believes that Jews can be converted to Jesus and homosexuals can be "cured." I cannot wait to see Obama and Biden explain how this isn't the case or how it's much worse than, and quite different from, Obama's own raving and ranting pastor in Chicago or Biden's lifelong allegiance to the most anti-"choice" church on the planet. The difference, if there is one, is that Palin is probably sincere whereas the Democratic team is almost certainly hypocritical. The same is true of the boring contest over who can be the most populist, and of the positively sinister race to see who can be the most demagogically anti-Washington. With this kind of immaturity right across both tickets, it's insulting to be asked to decide on the basis of experience, let alone "readiness."

"

Well-placed. The hordes of DNCocrats ranting and raving against Ms. Palin should remove the mote from their own, uh, eye (and from their candidate's).

The Valor-code (McCain's puffed-up POW experience).

”You see Barack Obama at that rally surrounded by all those Kennedys? Man, I couldn’t tell if he was running for president or bartender.”—Jay Leno

An article by Ted Rall from 2/08 offers up an interesting take on McCain's time at the Hanoi Hilton (that said, Contingencies does not affirm the eco-leftism of Common Dreams across the board). As Rall shows, McCaint, like most Miles Gloriosos, exaggerates the heroics, and leaves out the details, nor are his supporters overly concerned with historical accuracy (Fred Thompson greatly embellished McCain's POW experience during a RNC-Rant). AS with the stoical astronaut-heroes of space opera (Viva Johnny Rico!), a McCain may hint at the sacrifice demanded by War--reiterations of "dulce et decorum" etc.--during his Ode to Valor, yet rarely if ever addresses the real carnage.

Unlike most of the flagwaving pundits and bimbo commentators---including the Demo ones too spineless to take on the 'Nam---Rall addresses the historical context of Commander McCain's capture and imprisonment:

"McCain is lucky the locals didn't finish him off. U.S. bombs had killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians, many in Hanoi. Ultimately between one and two million innocents would be shredded, impaled, blown to bits and dissolved by American bombs. Now that one of their tormentors had fallen into their hands, they had a rare chance to get even. "About 40 people were standing there," On later recalled. "They were about to rush him with their fists and stones. I asked them not to kill him. He was beaten for a while before I could stop them." He was turned over to local policemen, who transferred him to the military."

During his ‘Nam rants, for instance, McCaint generally neglects to mention that while those few dozen POWs were suffering at the hands of the Viet Cong, the US military (with many LBJocrats at the helm) killed hundreds of thousands of north Vietnamese, mostly civilians (many with napalm, against Geneva accords). McCain's heroism and "scars" may be legitimate, but there's a certain honesty lacking. It should also be kept in mind that the anti-war movement of the 60s (rather different circumstances than present IWE) had broad support, and was not merely some SDS freaks, marxist drudges, or college kids on cannabis. Bertrand Russell for one supervised an important investigation into US Govt. war crimes. While some gauchistes were involved (such as Chomsky), that does not negate the force of the admonition. When Lord Russell takes up his bullhorn and and barks "chandala" at some yankee generals, the rational person does well to listen.

Palin: Creationist?

"... The pure spirit is the pure lie ... As long as the priest is considered a higher type of man—this professional negator, slanderer, and poisoner of life—there is no answer to the question: what is truth? For truth has been stood on its head when the conscious advocate of nothingness and negation is accepted as the representative of "truth" ..."(Nietzsche, from the Anti-christ)

McCain's choice of Ms. Palin does little to advance the cause of secularism, and religious-free science for that matter. At the same time, Ms. Palin's qualifications should be addressed in context; compared to a Beltway pro. and papist like Biden (not to say his pious boss, BO), she doesn't offend that much. Obama has sided with evangelicals on numerous occasions, and who can forget the Wright fiasco--which is to say, Americans now have a choice between two rival mafia factions, both with ties to religion. Philosophy, schmilosophy: the Dempublican par-tay has nothing to do with the principles of Madison, Jefferson & Co. (go with DFV). Here's one Darwinian's reflections on Palinology:

[Sarah Palin] thinks that creationism should be taught along side evolution in school… that in my book disqualifies her from my personal vote. This shows a lack of critical thinking on her part, as it is clear in the article she does not understand what a scientific theory is.

Palin was answering a question from the moderator near the conclusion of Wednesday night’s televised debate on KAKM Channel 7 when she said, “Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.”

The usual conservative appeasement. Given the creationist/ID hype, as well as Palin's pro-life stance and religious comments, it's fairly obvious that McCain decided to pick someone who would appeal to the protestant-boneheads biblethumpers. While in agreement with Darwinian accounts of evo.--called the fossil record and radiocarbon dating, BubbaBot--and do not agree with the so-called Argument from Design (or Screeptural accounts), we respect it, at least in original forms (the "Watchmaker" analogy), or in Dr. Behe's updating (Darwin hisself was no biochemist. Behe is). Behe agrees with most but not all aspects of the Darwinian account of Evo.. Behe errors not so much in his science but in his reliance on the ad ignorantium fallacy: Behe insists that since Darwinian natural selection cannot account for some complex aspects of evo (like blood clotting), a Designer must exist. Nyet. The fundies' "new earth" version of ID, on the other hand, has little or nothing to do with a Watchmaker or Behe's ideas (or Darwin). Palin, alas, seems to be siding with the new earth quacks, "the conscious advocates of nothingness" in FritzSpeak (tho' FN included monotheists of all types in that class).

Yet that hardly implies the superiority of the DNCocrat gangsters and Obamaites: when you hear some east coast liberal pundit-stein yap something like "How Closely Was Palin Vetted?" reach for a luger. Vet this.

One other point (directed to sentimental, liberal xtians): if X insists a omnipotent, monotheist God exists, X must agree that his God controls natural phenomena in some mysterious fashion (even say, a "Gustav"); in effect, logic requires it. Omnipotence entails, like, infinite power, knowledge and responsibility. If believer or theologian X denies that omnipotence, or suggests pantheism, or manichaeism, or some other ism as explanation, he in effect denies his own putative God His godliness: what sort of God can't see into the future for one, or prevent horrible natural or human disasters? (as Ivan Karamazov observed, in rather sublime section of Dostoyevsky's Bros. K).

Thus, anyone who attends a xtian, jewish, or muslim church, by implication upholds Design (tho' the spooky catholics have some subtle tricks to circumvent the problems with the argument), and he at least implicitly affirms other theological arguments related to causality. The fundies themselves realize that basic categorical point (ie their sunday school raindancing, or earthquake prayers, "the heavens reveal His handiwork," etc etc.). Any real Zeus-God would control tectonic plates--which is to say, any such Deity would needs be a murderous fiend, and so safe bet the noun "God" doesn't refer to some actual Being, but to a human-created concept, belief in which might prove useful, etc etc....)

Politeness police


Conservative - a statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce

From DU:

"......We started chatting about what a great pick Biden was, when the two of them walked into the store like a foul breeze, cutting right through the line without so much as an ‘excuse me,’ and made their way towards the soda coolers at the back of the store.

A nice looking couple, probably early 40’s, well dressed - I’ll just refer to them as ‘Ken’ and ‘Barbie.’ Right as they were barging through the line, I was saying to the woman with the button, “I am really excited about Obama - I can’t wait to see what he does once he takes office!”

Hearing this, Ken turned his eyes on me and snorted in disgust. Not one to back down from a challenge, I said, somewhat haughtily, “What - you have a problem with Obama?”

He stopped walking, turned on his heel, fixed me with a withering gaze, and said, rather loudly, “Like we’d ever elect a black guy as President.” He promptly turned on his heel, and stomped off towards Barbie.

I was only third in line at this point, and when the man said this, the line in front of me, and behind me, stirred a bit. No one said anything, and we could hear Ken and Barbie mumbling to each other over at the coolers.

It was then that I noticed the clerk. His eyes were smoldering, his mouth set tightly. He excused himself from the customer in front of him, and walked to the back of the store.

I don’t know what he said to Ken and Barbie, as he kept his voice low. But they left without buying anything, hackles up, and squealed their tires when they pulled out of the parking lot.

The clerk came back to the counter and resumed his duties. None of us in line said anything.

When I got in front of him, I commented about how rude Ken and barbie had been, and gently asked him what he said to them.

He said, “I told them to get out of my store.” He took my cash and rang in my purchase. “I own this place; I’m covering for an employee who couldn’t work today. And I don’t tolerate racism in my store.” He handed me my change, advised me to have a nice day, and turned his attention to the next customer, giving me the impression he did not want to talk politics.

I’ve thought about this all day, and I can’t decide if Ken and Barbie just didn’t notice that the man behind the counter was African-American, or if they felt so powerful and righteous that they didn’t care, and said what they said totally on purpose. Either way, it was quite nice to see them put in their place…just wish I’d have done it...."

Note a few things. First, a supposed "liberal" now gives her blessing to Biden, millionaire, abortion-foe, laissez-faire advocate, IWE supporter, and palsie of Commander McCain and his neo-con cronies. That said, I respect Sen. Biden to some extent--he did vote against the recent FISA update (unlike BO). 8 or 9 months ago, however, most hysteriocrats considered Biden to the right of Hillary: and DU regs themselves were generally opposed to his campaign. Then the writer's reaction to "Ken's" remark ("“Like we’d ever elect a black guy as President.”). Granted it is not PC, or polite, or tactful. At the same time, Ken merely expresses an opinion, and avoids any racial epithets (i.e. the n-word): it's rather tame compared to the usual political chat seen on many blogs. Hearing Ken's language, the storekeeper apparently decided to eject "Ken and Barbie" (rather racist language in itself) from the store (assuming the stor-ay is authentic).

The storekeeper's reaction should offend us at least as much as Ken's remark. Ken did not exactly shout Sieg Heil! Americans have the right to free speech, and to free expression, and dissent (at least in theory---tho' one wouldn't realize that on the hyper-moderated, mini-sanitoriums like DU or DailyKOS). Yes, there are limits to that free speech: had Ken started screaming in Hitleresque (or "Fire!"), he should have been booted. Ken did not scream, however; he did not swear. Were the tables turned (say a black customer saying "I will not vote for a cracker white man") it's unlikely the usual store manager (regardless of race) would have done anything.

The DU-o-cheks were not too troubled by the storekeeper's action. Regardless, the anecdote (and the lack of criticism, really) serves as another illustration of what we might term J-Edgarism. J-Edgarism also includes the bipartisan-supported PatAct, FISA, urban cops with GPS, Infragard, heavily moderated blogs and websites (Kens n Barbies everywhere given "troll ratings"), endless "captchas", registration, etc.

The DU and Kossack types insist it's the GOP "bumpkins" who do the most damage to civil liberties, but that is not so obvious. Robert Kennedy worked alongside McCarthy for years; J Edgar himself was close to democrats, starting with FDR. Recall that one of Chairgal Nancy's first acts upon becoming Speaker was to ban C-SPAN camera-crews from the House floor. She also refused to budge on investigations of the Bush Admin's possible misrepresentations in regards to IWE, a point even some moderates and non-Demos had supported: c'est J-Edgarism. None of that will likely trouble consumerland, at least until some sensitive, multicultural cyber-Feds politely kick down your door and politely escort you off to some underground gulag.

Brian-sandalistas (AC Grayling, continued)


Professor Grayling's thoughts on theistic encroachment:

The worshippers of Brian's sandal everywhere are tireless and persistent in their efforts to recapture the world for dogma. In America the creationists and so-called "intelligent design" votaries expend vast sums and energy on trying to drag us back into medieval times. Islamists have never left them – except of course in freely using today's technology to further their aims. Cherry-pickers all, the Brian-sandalistas want it all: they want the rest of us to think and act as they prescribe, and to make us do it by the means that infidel thinking has produced: for example, religious freakery is all over the internet like a rash.

If the Brian-sandalistas cannot succeed by direct assault, they will do it by constant nibbling and encroachments: prayers in American publicly-funded schools, headscarves in Turkish publicly-funded universities, a little bit of anti-evolutionary biology there, a little alcohol ban there – and if that doesn't work, they try more robust means. So it goes: creep creep, whisper, soothe, murmur a prayer with the kids in assembly, ecumenicalise, interfaith-schmooze, infiltrate, subvert, complain, campaign, scream, threaten, explode.


InterludeMysterioso

The asymmetry is stark. Secularists say, "believe whatever nonsense you want, but keep it to yourself and act responsibly". The Brian-sandalistas say, "believe what we want you to believe and act as we say". The psychopaths among them say, "believe what we want you to believe and act as we say or we will kill you". Meanwhile the residue of attitudes and practices once foisted on everyone by the zealous still dog and bedevil us, as witness the poor benighted Catholic Poles suffering at the sight of what - you have to larf - they presumably believe God created.

There is nothing trivial about the problem in Turkey; and the problem in Turkey is the problem for the world at large. It is about boundaries, about the place of religious belief in the public domain, its effects on individual lives, and its effect on public policy. The history of "the west" is in essence a history of secularisation, and most even of those who decry what they see as its imperfections would not willingly be without the huge advances it has wrought in scientific, social and political respects. Think: if the clocks could be turned back as the Brians want, the English would be ruled by two people: The Queen and Rowan Williams.

To reiterate: "The history of "the west" is in essence a history of secularisation, and most even of those who decry what they see as its imperfections would not willingly be without the huge advances it has wrought in scientific, social and political respects." Bravo. Madison, Jefferson, & Co would have approved of that (yes, they had issues as well).

RIP Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn


From Chris Floyd.com:

.....""""Again, one needn't agree with Solzhenitsyn's politics to admire him as a man and artist – as one does with, say, the even more problematical Dostoevsky – and to mourn his passing. Politics was forced upon him by historical circumstances, and were in some ways his ultimate undoing, killing off the artist in him. Certainly, after becoming a lightning rod of dissidence and then the exiled figure of conscience, he never wrote anything that even approached the level of his masterpieces of the 1960s, particularly the two great novels, The First Circle and Cancer Ward. But Solzhenitsyn was, for a time, a supreme literary artist, and in those two works particularly he fused his moral and political vision with the abiding wisdom and insight into our common human predicament that only great art can provide. It is for this that I will most warmly remember him."""""

Though he's now mostly out of favor with the hip gauchistes, Solzhenitsyn experienced the horrors of a modern police state first-hand: Solz. was all about authenticity, in the older parlance. In "One day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich" Solz. described the miseries of life in a siberian prison in precise, non-sentimental language (at least in translation). Floyd's pairing of Dostoyevsky and Solz. thus hits fairly close to the mark. Dostoyevsky.,like Solz. also had a few nasty run-ins with author-i-tays of the time. American scribes, however witty, simply do not produce a "Crime and Punishment" or "One day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich."


The eulogists have not addressed Solzhenitsyn's conservative political views, or his somewhat hawkish views on 'Nam in much depth. That he associated with WF Buckley might trouble some (AS's supposed anti-religious views probably irk the Coulter sort of jackbooted xtian). No matter. "Ivan Den." should be required reading for all: especially those (i.e., most Counterpunch writers) who remain convinced that Marxist revolution will magically transform corrupt western democracies into supremely efficient workers' utopias. An officer and engineer in the Red Army, Solz.'s writings on Zhukov's bloody march to Berlin circa 1945 also rather important (and cost him some years inside Stalinist pens).

Teddy Dreiser Nostalgia days

Dreiser anticipated many of the present-day debates over theocracy, and unlike many a contemporary pundit (links oder rechts) he rarely minced words. HL Mencken may have objected to the occasional bolshevik-like blast of DreiserSpeak, but praised him for the most part. Dreiser, in addition to penning fiction (Sister Carrie a bleak, amoral mashsterpiece), wrote competently on sociology and was not a half-bad arm-chair economist (is there any other type?). Straight, no chaser:

""""In sum, in America as elsewhere, the Church--speaking of all sects and creeds as one--has consistently expounded views calculated to make the
underdog content with his wretched lot, and in all crises which have meant hunger, abuse, and even death, as in our great labor wars, has left him to do as best he may. More, the Church, and particularly the Roman Catholic Church, is more concerned with a system of sins, confessions, judgment, punishment and rewards relating to the hereafter than it is with the world of to-day, its economics, polities, sociology and government; that is, in any honest or helpful way. More, it leaves, as it always has, the underdog to suffer as he may here, the while it seeks to turn his eye on supposed grace hereafter. So true is this that from an American Federation of Labor symposium on religion, influenced, of course, by the current religious attitude of Americans and their churches in general, I gather that its chief philosophy is that the poor should help the poor, since the rich will not, neither their trusts, banks nor government, and that in doing so they will bring about a Christlike contentment, if not better wages. And more than that, questioning a religionist voicing such views on a street corner a few years ago, I found from his own confession that he was then and there being paid by a certain religious organization to preach such views. But who was financing the religious organization? I have often since wondered!"

............


"And of course, and long since (always, in fact, I judge), politicians enlisted the
spell and domination of the Church as a means of finding favor with the people.
By this method, and under the leadership of President Harding and Secretary Hughes, the Washington Treaties relating to the Great War became very popular. And S. Parkes Cadmiln, a very popular if not any too well-informed, and maybe (I do not know) too sincere, Englishman functioning as a minister in the United States, has expressed the highly ideal economic view (an epitome of that of hundreds of ministers in America and elsewhere to-day, I think) that the Golden Rule is at this hour in practice because millionaires give to charity! Well, that makes this dear United States of ours a Utopia, doesn't it? And this book a joke! Just the same, though, if at another time this same Cadman had called the Communistic theory of Marx a very powerful economic analysis--which he did--how would he reconcile our present corporate economic state with that or with the Golden Rule? And if he could not, should not that cost him his present American religious prestige? I hope so!

P.S. I have tried here, by facts, to show the subtle relation of money and economic policy to religion and capital, also that capital has changed religion into a far different thing from the teachings of Jesus Christ. In conclusion now I offer the conviction that in due time this particular alliance of Church and capital is quite certain to result in the downfall of religion in its present secretarian and dogmatic form. And, may I add, good riddance! """"""""""

A few sections of that bear reiterating: """And of course, and long since (always, in fact, I judge), politicians enlisted the spell and domination of the Church as a means of finding favor with the people." Few Americun scribblers, even with an Ivy league pedigree, had a heart like that.............

AC Grayling on dualism

AC ...in da House:

"""""More reflective prompts to dualism turn on considerations about the essentially different nature of material and mental phenomena. Physical objects have locations, weights, heights, colours and odours, whereas thoughts and memories do not. A more modest form of dualism recognises that there are two kinds of things one can say about brains—that they are objects inside skulls, and that they are involved in the production of thoughts and desires. But this is not the metaphysical dualism of, for example, René Descartes, for whom mind and matter were two essentially different substances, and this latter is what is needed for afterlife beliefs.

What has rightly been called the "hard problem" of consciousness—how it arises from brain activity—has yet to be solved. But the shortest answer anyone can give to a dualist who hopes this leaves wriggle room for minds or souls is this: hit someone hard enough on the head, and a mental function regularly correlated with the resultantly damaged part of the brain will be lost or compromised. That covariance is enough to render profoundly unpersuasive any of the reasons offered in support of dualism."""""

Heh heh. Another method of disproving the theist or mystic (even ones who know their Descartes forwards and backwards, or their quantum physics for Mormons) who insists that he inhabits some immaterial realm apart from the brain: sew up his mouth. When he begins to grunt and gesticulate for food and water, make him admit defeat.

Gonzo-lite

Bob Cesca of TheAriannaDaily the HuffingtonPost on Corporate Media:

""""I'm not sure how he continues to be regarded as a very serious
Washington pundit given his obvious history of race-baiting, but somehow he
skulks his way onto MSNBC almost every day. Pat Buchanan on Hardball Monday
night wondered out loud about Senator Obama: "Is he one of us?"

If by "one of us" he means a cranky, elitist, white, corporate media, man-shaped
bunion who fashioned his career by demonizing brown people, the answer is a
certain 'no'. But we know what Buchanan meant by this. Is Senator Obama with
"us" or is he with the uppity blacks? Is he a real American like Senator McCain
or is he a Muslim terrorist like those e-mails suggest? Is he too European
(GAY!)? Is he like us: white, wealthy, conservative, elite?""""

Granted Pat Buchanan tends to be a buffoon; at the same time, he has for years argued for an isolationist perspective which does not represent the views of the mainstream GOP (he's also a catholic, unlike most of the WASPS of the GOP). He disses the neo-cons, and Bush's war policies. Buchanan's not overly telegenic of course: he resembles the stuffy, white conservative many leftists instinctively detest, and he does have some baggage from the Reagan years.

Cesca picks an obvious target for his invective-lite, in the usual HuffPo manner. In effect, Cesca offers the suburban progressive-lite crowd a mad magazine caricature of old honky Buchanan as representative of corporate media. That's stretching it. Buchanan may be a honky for Cesca and his cronies, but he hardly has the juice of a Limbaugh or a shrieking harpie such as Coulter; he now plays the moderate (though, yes, he's probably got some Wehrmacht in his marrow) . His "one of us" comment does not seem that out of context: many voters contemplating whether to vote for BO over The Commander McCain want reassurances (given these two hustlers, and the media's humiliation of HRC-- assisted by many Obamaites--Contingencies recommends the DFV criteria : Don't F-n Vote)

Apart from the racial issue (now being manipulated by both sides) Obama is wealthy, fairly conservative, elitist. B.O. quotes Reagan favorably, and has pleasant chitchats with David Brooks. Oprah pitched his candidacy from the start (that's the corporate media). Obama's writing appeared on HuffPo, and HuffPo does not exactly cater to traditional leftists, whether unionists, public-sector employees, the aged, or impoverished. Southsiders are not clicking on to homegrrl Adrianna's ad-glutted blog-paper either (more moderated than DailyKos if that can be believed); they're following the Lakers schedule....

Another blog-journalist following the gonzo-path of Hunter S Thompson, Cesca scribbles a sort of sportswriter-on-meth prose as HS Thompson did, though tamer, bourgeois, and featuring obvious targets such as Buchanan: pop-gonzo! It's not so much about reasoned dissent (ala Chomsky or a Hitchens), but about attitude, the pose, the vibe: Cesca, the bad-boy blog-journalist arrived to do some representin' about The Man for the homies. Hah. The Truth is that Cesca works for Adrianna nee Xenaxiupulos, a very wealthy westside conservative turned slightly liberal, and Adrianna's HuffPo defines the corporate media, and the Vichycrats for that matter.

Dykes on Karl Popper (update)

Contingencies announces an exciting new series of posts on Karl Popper, and Popper's mistakes, with assistance from one Nicholas Dykes, an English writer and philosopher of science (that does not mean, except to the dysfunctional, that we completely buy libertarianism, or the Objectivism that Dykes sometimes leans towards (as in Ayn-Randian Ob.). Regardless, Dykes brings up some important points criticizing Popper's "Critical Rationalism", as the following passages indicate:

""""Popper built his philosophy on foundations borrowed from Hume and Kant. His first premise was wholehearted acceptance of Hume's attack on induction. The second, to be addressed in the next section, was agreement with Kant's view that it is our ideas which give form to reality, not reality which gives form to our ideas.

Hume, whom Popper called "one of the most rational minds of all ages" [PKP2 1019], is renowned for elaborating the 'problem of induction' - a supposedly logical proof that generalisations from observation are invalid. Most later philosophers have accepted Hume's arguments, and libraries have been filled with attempts to solve his 'problem.'

Popper thought he had the answer. "I believed I had solved the problem of induction by the simple discovery that induction by repetition did not exist" [UNQ 52; c.f. OKN 1ff & PKP2 1115]. What really took place, according to Popper, was CR, knowledge advancing by means of conjecture and refutation: "... in my view here is no such thing as induction" [LSCD 40]; "what characterises the empirical method is its manner of exposing to falsification, in every conceivable way, the system to be tested" [LSCD 42].""""

Good, if a somewhat naive reading of Hume's points on induction. Not so naive readings would consist of awareness of undecidability of various issues, whether in sciences or social sciences. The current problems with identifying all the causal factors associated with global warming (ie CO2: culprit or benign? most likely benign) and atmospheric physics somewhat Humean. Few humans would care to wager on weather predictions for say October, or the stock market, or World Series). At the same time, unpredictable is not the same as undetermined (a point Bricmont makes, rather forcefully, and with boo-coo partial derivatives).

Dykes does not address falsification in much depth either; we might also question whether Hume's skepticism regarding induction entails Popper's falsification ("what characterises the empirical method is its manner of exposing to falsification, in every conceivable way, the system to be tested"). Popper tends to be a bit "conclusionary" himself; at the same time, much empirical research (whether in sciences, economics, social science, history, etc) does often relate to Popperian themes (even statisticians are ad hoc Popperians. Confidence intervals, margins of error, sampling problems---not to say reliability of any data. That is Popperian (or perhaps Kuhnian, who updates KP)).

""""Hume, said Popper, had shown that: "there is no argument of reason which permits an inference from one case to another... and I completely agree" [OKN 96]. Elsewhere he referred to induction as "a myth" which had been "exploded" by Hume [UNQ 80]. He further asserted that "There is no rule of inductive inference - inference leading to theories or universal laws - ever proposed which can be taken seriously even for a minute" [UNQ 146-7; see also RASC 31].

The Problem with 'The Problem'

Popper's solution was certainly correct in one respect. The problem of induction would indeed vanish if there were no such thing as induction. However, the issue would be resolved much more positively were it to turn out that Hume had been wrong, and that there never had been any problem with induction in the first place. And, in point of fact, this is the case. Despite his great skill as a thinker and writer, Hume missed the point. Induction does not depend for its validity on observation, but on the Law of Identity.

Hume stated, in essence, that since all ideas are derived from experience we cannot have any valid ideas about future events - which have yet to be experienced. He therefore denied that the past can give us any information about the future. He further denied that there is any necessary connection between cause and effect. We experience only repeated instances, we cannot experience any "power" that actually causes events to take place. Events are entirely "loose and separate.... conjoined but never connected."8

According to Hume, then, one has no guarantee that the hawthorn in an English hedge will not bear grapes next autumn, nor that the thistles in a nearby field won't produce figs. The expectation that the thorn will produce red berries, and the thistles purple flowers, is merely the result of "regular conjunction" which induces an "inference of the understanding."9 In Hume's view, there is no such thing as objective identity, there is only subjective "custom" or "habit."

However, Hume also wrote: "When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false"10 and the idea that one might gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles is surely absurd enough to qualify. And false is what Hume's opinions most certainly are. Left standing, they lead to what he himself called "the flattest of all contradictions, viz. that it is possible for the same thing both to be and not to be.""""""

OK, but at the same time, the law of identity is a logical law, and analytically true: 5 squared will always equal 25. The pythagorean theorem (identities regarding the relationship of a right triangle) holds whereever you are, as does modus ponens or the law of non-contradiction and other logical givens (some freaks might dispute the LONC: they are mistaken). But a rose might be red this year, white next year, or non-existent. The naive reader of Hume (or Popper) utters "the bastard's saying inductive knowledge, indeed science, is impossible"! Yet the real point concerns epistemology: whatever sort of knowledge induction is, it is NOT logical and mathematical. Yes, ceteris paribus as they say, the roses will probably be red, and our observations about regular order to nature will be confirmed, and we will grant, reluctantly, that Hume (and his disciple Popper) may have overstated the case for subjectivity. But that "that bush with red roses will, nearly with certainty, have red roses next year" is not necessary in the sense of 5 squared equals 25; a botanist knowledgable in Mendelian genetics could hardly predict the flower's exact shape or form or color.

Dykes errors at least slightly here: evolution itself shows adaptationism (as Popper, often somewhat Darwinian, realized). What appear to be regularities often are not (especially over centuries); probability always enters the picture with inductive knowledge, and in many cases, even with hard sciences (say medicine) things may remain unresolved; Wittgenstein in the Tractatus often seemed somewhat Humean: "We cannot infer the events of the future from those of the present. Superstition is nothing but belief in the causal nexus." (TLP, 5.1361). At the very least inductive knowledge is NOT the same as the axiomatic knowledge of logic and mathematics, whether one holds that axiomatic knolwedge to be a priori or not.

"""""The crux of the case against Hume was stated in 1916 by H.W.B. Joseph in An Introduction to Logic: "A thing, to be at all, must be something, and can only be what it is. To assert a causal connexion between a and x implies that a acts as it does because it is what it is; because, in fact, it is a. So long therefore as it is a, it must act thus; and to assert that it may act otherwise on a subsequent occasion is to assert that what is a is something else than the a which it is declared to be."12 Hume's whole argument - persuasive though it may be - is, to borrow Joseph's words, "in flat conflict with the Law of Identity."13

Existence implies identity. It is not possible to exist without being something, and a thing can only be what it is: A is A. Any actions of that thing form part of its identity: "the way in which it acts must be regarded as a partial expression of what it is."14 Thus to deny any connection between a thing, its actions, and their consequences, is to assert that the thing is not what it is; it is to defy the Law of Identity.

It is not necessary to prolong this discussion. Entities exist. They possess identity. By careful observation - free from preconception - we are able to discover the identities of the entities we observe. Thereafter, we are fully entitled to assume that like entities will cause like events, the form of inference we call induction. And, because it rests on the axiom of the Law of Identity, correct induction - free from contradiction - is a valid route to knowledge. The first premise of CR is therefore false."""""

That "law" works with equations, functions, numbers, argument forms. Does it work with roses or roosters? Not quite. There's an egg. Safe bet that if a chick hatches it will have one head. Then after a few years, a two-headed bird appears! Sacre bleu! St. Hume at work again.

"""""There is nonetheless a substantial grain of truth in Hume's position, or few philosophers would have followed him. The grain lies in the precision of our knowledge of future events. Hume denied all knowledge of the future because we can have no experience of it. As we have seen, this is not true, it overlooks the Law of Identity. What is true, is that our prediction of events is limited by the unforeseeable. An 'O' ring may fail and destroy an otherwise reliable spacecraft; an icy road surface may cause a pristine Rolls-Royce to crash. For, no matter how sound our judgement nor wide our experience, we cannot possibly have complete, certain and absolute knowledge of future events. We are not omniscient: all kinds of unforeseen happenings may intervene to spoil even the best laid of our plans. Further, new information about old subjects continuously comes to light and, over time, things can evolve or change. Nonetheless, armed with the Law of Identity, there is no reason to allow the unforeseeable to turn us into sceptics. The universe is not a series of "loose and separate events" any more than time is a series of discrete, unrelated segments of duration.

It should also be noted that, in fact, all knowledge of entities, and all knowledge of language, is acquired inductively. A child's knowledge of apples, for example, is based on a very limited sampling. A student's knowledge of the word 'inference' is founded on a similarly narrow acquaintance. If it were true that induction is a myth, then all knowledge of external reality, all language, and all human thought - which depends on knowledge of reality and on language - would be myths as well, including, of course, CR...."

That's the naive reading of Hume again. Hume read his Newton fairly closely (supposedly), and does not really suggest radical skepticism: he's saying inductive knowledge, whatever it is, does not operate like deductive knowledge operates. Yes, the cannonball trajectory, if we know all the parameters and initial conditions (another problem), will nearly with certainty follow a predictable parabolic path. Yet whatever it is that gives that regularity is not at all the same as the pythagorean theorem. It's damn near certain, but not necessary (that's not to suggest that we take a naive reading of quantum physics and uphold "non-locality" either; locality appears to be the default position (as Bricmont also argues). Hume arguably does not deny determinism, and is not as subjective as Dykes believes, nor is Popper: Hume's doing epistemology, not physics. If determinism does hold for physical reality and our knowledge of the physical world, it's a quite a different type of thinking than the axiomatic thinking of logic and mathematics (though that's not to make claims for any quasi-platonic dualism either).

Reverend Obama, continued.

From Yahoo news:

""""On Tuesday, touring Presbyterian Church-based social services facility, the Democratic senator said he would get religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty efforts if elected.

"We need an all-hands-on-deck approach," he said at Eastside Community Ministry.

The event was part of a series leading into Friday's Fourth of July holiday aimed at reassuring skeptical voters and shifting away from being stamped as part of the Democratic Party's most liberal wing.

He said the connection of religion and public service was nothing new in his personal life.

Obama showed he was comfortable using the kind of language that is familiar in evangelical churches and Bible studies by calling his faith "a personal commitment to Christ." He said that his time as a community organizer in decimated Chicago neighborhoods, supported in part by a Catholic group, brought him to a deeper faith and also convinced him that faith is useless without works.....yada yada yada"""""""

The BO-Train, proceeding according to planz. ObamaCo played the hipster leftist-progressive while at battle with Hillary (and humiliated her as often as possible), and now does the switcheroo to biblethumper (invoke "faith and communi-tay," quote Reagan, appease neo-cons like David Brooks, etc.) to get the xtian hicks on his side. Hustling the presbyterians, no less: prezbo's sort of like baptist trash who passed an accounting course or two (see Voltaire on Presbyterian England and scotland for details, or Hume, for that matter (presbo's circa 18th century carried torches outside DH's chateau).

(update: anyone who reads this or any other posts critical of B.O. as pro-McCain or GOP should be locked down and sedated. Opposing B.O.'s move to vichycratism (google "Feinstein" for a definition) does not at all imply supporting McLame's rather more alarming Reaganist-hawk perspective, or joining his supporters at the WF Buckley Hall. It means, more than likely, supporting the DFV party. Don't F-n Vote. (that's not exactly a vote for that libertarian quack Ron Paul either, yet at least his hands are mostly clean)

Barack Obama's homie, David Brooks

Alex Cockburn recently penned some thoughts on Obama's supposed shift to the right:

"...one of the New York Times’s extensive stable of neo-conservative columnists, David Brooks, was fretting that a statement Obama had made after Bush’s Knesset speech did indeed constitute “appeasement”, indicating he had drifted off into “Noam Chomskyland”. Obama’s sin had been to say that “it’s time to engage in diplomatic efforts to build a new Lebanese consensus,” focusing on electoral reform, an end to a corrupt patronage system and the promotion of an equitable economy.

So anguished was Brooks by these dread prospects that he phoned Obama who promptly furnished answers resoundingly mollifying the columnist’s suspicions. According to Brooks, Obama said that “in some ways he’d be tougher than the Bush administration”, doing more, to take one specific example, to arm the Lebanese military. (This schedules a bloodbath in Lebanon in Year One or Two of the Obama administration.) Obama’s bottom line to Brooks was straight-up Caesarism: “The [U.S.] generals are light-years ahead of the civilians. They are trying to get the job done rather than look tough.”

Representin', y'all

Those few dissenting anti-B.O. voices on KOS (now mostly moderated, banned, deleted) do not appear to be so off-the-mark after all. Obama's response to Bush's Knesset speech featured other interesting allusions which Cockburn neglected to mention, including a positive reference to those two GOP hepcats, Reagan and Nixon: "Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power - including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy - to pressure countries like Iran and Syria." Contingencies doesn't really trip on that, but it would seem that many an old-school Demo might.

Americans should expect General Obama to appear a few weeks after his electoral victory in 11/2008. (insta-qualification: though one might object to Cockburn's occasional Leninist aspects {tho' Cockburn seems une petite romantique for marxist orthodoxy), A.C. did, with assistance from quite a few respected scientists, point out corp-shill Al Gore's shoddy research in regards to global warming. Of course that hasn't stopped Obama from embracing Gore's pop-green agenda....(sponsored by Chevy, Chevron, Occi, and many others)

Oratory of Power


In architecture the pride of man, his triumph over gravitation, his will to power, assume a visible form. Architecture is a sort of oratory of power by means of forms.
- Friedrich Nietzsche




Papal mass at Yankee stadium (the "cathedral").

And the underside of power, ala Jameson:

"Of all the arts, architecture is the closest constitutively to the economic, with which, in the form of commissions and land values, it has a virtually unmediated relationship. It will therefore not be surprising to find the extraordinary flowering of the new postmodern architecture grounded in the patronage of multinational business, whose expansion and development is strictly contemporaneous with it. Later I will suggest that these two new phenomena have an even deeper dialectical interrelationship than the simple one-to-one financing of this or that individual project. Yet this is the point at which I must remind the reader of the obvious; namely, that this whole global, yet American, postmodern culture is the internal and superstructural expression of a whole new wave of American military and economic domination throughout the world: in this sense, as throughout class history, the underside of culture is blood, torture, death, and terror....."

Buchanan's thesis

Pat Buchanan--not one of Contingencies' fave pundits--recently produced a tome which has created a bit of a stir among the east coast literati. PJB suggests that WWII was an unnecessary exercise for the most part, and that the real culprit behind the tragedies of the 20th century was none other than Winston Churchill. To a certain degree, this is not, prima facie, such an outrageous claim. Tho' lacking the time (and energy) to engage in some lengthy quasi-Spenglerian analysis of the causal factors leading to the Sausage Grinder circa 1914 to 1945, I would advise the bright Biff and Bunny's out in ConsumerLand (budding history buffs, like most petite-booj-wah) to read between the lines of the official Boneheadburg Jr. College history text, and soon, yass, soon Biff will realize that the Brits were definitely aiding and abetting the wolf-packs of the Kaiser, and of the brownshirts, and finally those of Der Fuhrer (indeed, Contingencies includes the sinking of RMS Lusitania on the Conspiracy Inc. laundry list).

At the same time, any reasonable non-nihilist should take issue with the Buchanan sort of isolationism (or pop-isolationism. Even that much maligned do-gooder Woodrow Wilson took issue with isolationism back in the dark days of 1917-18). Blog-lands' favorite cynic du jour, Christopher Hitchens, takes issue with Buchanan's thesis. Hitch. vs PJB and we lean towards the oxford dweeb rather than that old Reaganite orator, PJB, tho' with some reservations. Here's some of PJB's sancto-speak:

PJB: Morality — Trotskyite vs. Christian
(by Patrick J. Buchanan)

"""""Did Hitler’s crimes justify the Allies’ terror-bombing of Germany?
Indeed they did, answers Christopher Hitchens in his Newsweek response to my new book, “Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War“: “The stark evidence of the Final Solution has ever since been enough to dispel most doubts about, say, the wisdom or morality of carpet-bombing German cities.”

Atheist, Trotskyite and newborn neocon, Hitchens embraces the morality of lex talionis: an eye for an eye. If Germans murdered women and children, the British were morally justified in killing German women and children.

According to British historians, however, Churchill ordered the initial bombing of German cities on his first day in office, the very first day of the Battle of France, on May 10, 1940.

After the fall of France, Churchill wrote Lord Beaverbrook, minister of air
production: “When I look round to see how we can win the war, I see that there is only one sure path … an absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland.”

“Exterminating attack,” said Churchill. By late 1940, writes historian Paul Johnson, “British bombers were being used on a great and increasing scale to kill and frighten the German civilian population in their homes.” “The adoption of terror bombing was a measure of Britain’s desperation,” writes Johnson. “So far as air strategy was concerned,” adds British historian A.J.P. Taylor, “the British outdid German frightfulness first in theory, later in practice, and a nation which claimed to be fighting for a moral cause gloried in the extent of its immoral acts.”

The chronology is crucial to Hitchens’ case.

Late 1940 was a full year before the mass deportations from the Polish ghettos to Treblinka and Sobibor began. Churchill had ordered the indiscriminate bombing of German cities and civilians before the Nazis had begun to execute the Final Solution.
By Hitchens’ morality and logic, Germans at Nuremberg might have asserted a right to kill women and children because that is what the British were doing to their women and children.

After the fire-bombing of Dresden in 1945, Churchill memoed his air chiefs: “It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed.”

Churchill concedes here what the British had been about in Dresden. Under Christian and just-war theory, the deliberate killing of civilians in wartime is forbidden. Nazis were hanged for such war crimes.

Did the Allies commit acts of war for which we hanged Germans?

When we recall that Josef Stalin’s judges sat beside American and British judges at Nuremberg, and one of the prosecutors there was Andrei Vishinsky, chief prosecutor in Stalin’s show trails, the answer has to be yes.

While Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were surely guilty of waging aggressive war in September 1939, Stalin and his comrades had joined the Nazis in the rape of Poland, and had raped Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, as well. Scores of thousands of civilians in the three Baltic countries were murdered.
Yet, at Nuremberg, Soviets sat in judgment of their Nazi accomplices, and had the temerity to accuse the Nazis of the Katyn Forest massacre of the Polish officer corps that the Soviets themselves had committed.

Americans fought alongside British soldiers in a just and moral war from 1941 to 1945. But we had as allies a Bolshevik monster whose hands dripped with the blood of millions of innocents murdered in peacetime. And to have Stalin’s judges sit beside Americans at Nuremberg gave those trials an aspect of hypocrisy that can never be erased.

At Nuremberg, Adm. Erich Raeder was sentenced to prison for life for the invasion of neutral Norway. Yet Raeder’s ships arrived 24 hours before British ships and marines of an operation championed by Winston Churchill.

The British had planned to violate Norwegian neutrality first and seize Norwegian ports to deny Germany access to the Swedish iron ore being transshipped through them. For succeeding where Churchill failed, Raeder was condemned as a war criminal and sent to prison.

The London Charter of the International Military Tribunal decided that at Nuremberg only the crimes of Axis powers would be prosecuted and that among those crimes would be a newly invented “crimes against humanity.” This decree was issued Aug. 8, 1945, 48 hours after we dropped the first atom bomb on Hiroshima and 24 hours before we dropped the second on Nagasaki.

We and the British judiciously decided not to prosecute the Nazis for the bombing of London and Coventry.

It was an understandable decision, and one that surely Gen. Curtis LeMay concurred in, as LeMay had boasted at war’s end, “We scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo that night of March 9-10 than went up in vapor in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.”

After the war, a lone Senate voice arose to decry what was taking place at Nuremberg as “victor’s justice.” Ten years later, a young colleague would declare the late Robert A. Taft “A Profile in Courage” for having spoken up against ex post facto justice. The young senator was John F. Kennedy.""""""

Hitchens may be a bit callous: Buchanan, on the other hand, tends to the absurd. It is rather absurd to suppose the Brits would not retaliate with, like, as heavy bombing and invasion as was feasible at the time (tho' yeah Dresden was probably not phunn. Nor was Nagasaki. C'est le guerre). So Hitch. at least scores by noting Buchanan's own myopia: PJB complains about the Allies' bombing while not bothering to mention the liquidation of jewish, polish, roma, czechs, russian, POWs, and even non-nazi germans. The drah-mah may be trite at this stage, yet at the same time, stare at some pics of the mass graves, and like , er, forward your packet of Ted Kacynski to PJB's addy.................

Freeman Dyson on The Dogma of Global Warming


Ah some clear-headed thinking from Doc Dyson guaran-f-n-teed to irk the faithful of the Church of Al-Gore-in-the-Field:

"""My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models."""""



Dyson

"All America is an asylum.""

Ez in da house ("with usura.....")

""""By the mid-1950's various influential figures and magazines were campaigning for Pound's release. After 13 years confinement, Pound's treason indictment was dismissed on 18 April 1958...On 30 June he set sail for Italy, giving the Fascist salute to journalists when he reached Naples, and declaring "all America is an asylum.""




"Exitus acta probat"

Evangelicals, Inc.


B.O. representin' for old-time religion:

""""" Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promised a more active approach to faith-based social programs on Tuesday in a bid to bolster his support among evangelical and religious voters.

Obama visited a community ministry in a conservative region of the election battleground state of Ohio to unveil a plan to reinvigorate faith-based community programs first pioneered by President George W. Bush.

The Illinois senator, who will face Republican John McCain in November's presidential election, said he would put more money and emphasis on strengthening the link between government and community faith programs.


BILLY SUNDAY?

"The fact is, the challenges we face today -- from saving our planet to ending poverty -- are simply too big for government to solve alone," Obama said. "We need an all-hands-on-deck approach."

McCain and Obama are gearing up for a pitched battle for evangelical support in November's election. Neither candidate has inspired strong enthusiasm in the religious community, normally a core Republican bloc. """""


Americuns will be asked to decide on their choice of protestant Rapture, links oder rechts: Obama, and Reverend Wright, Phleger, Rev. Oprah, Jackson, Sharpton etc. OR McCain, and Rev. Hagee, and the rest of the GOP biblethumpers-- Or the Contingencies write-in, Senor N.O.T.A. Halle-loo-jah (see HL Mencken's prognostications regarding a calvinist regime for details).