It’s getting hard to get a word in, with Billmon on a roll… But here’s your chance to set the agenda!
Back to Main
June 8, 2005
OFF (Open Fifty Five)
Comments
Were Mark Twain alive today …
The Flag Is Not Polluted
I am not finding fault with this use of our flag; for in order not to seem eccentric I have swung around, now, and joined the nation in the conviction that nothing can sully a flag.
I was not properly reared, and had the illusion that a flag was a thing which must be sacredly guarded against shameful uses and unclean contacts, lest it suffer pollution; and so when it was sent out to Iraq to float over a wanton war and a robbing expedition I supposed it was polluted, and in an ignorant moment I said so.
But I stand corrected. I concede and acknowledge that it was only the government that sent it on such an errand that was polluted. Let us compromise on that. I am glad to have it that way.
For our flag could not well stand pollution, never having been used to it, but it is different with the administration. – Mark Twain, 1901.
Original source reference to the Phillipines substituted for Iraq.
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 8 2005 21:49 utc | 1
“The true citizenship is to protect the flag from dishonor — to make it the emblem of a nation that is known to all nations as true and honest and honorable.
And we should forever forget that old phrase
— ‘My country, right or wrong, my country!'”
– Mark Twain
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 8 2005 22:18 utc | 2
This is particularly for Anna Missed and Slothorp
Will there be a veritable Last Chance to Save Capitalism in America?
“One knows that the truth is all the more difficult to hear the longer it has been killed. Besides, we have too much past and present experience with the real play of forces in the heart of human societies to be counted among those who pretend, either by ingenuity or hypocrisy, that one can govern a State without secrets or deception. If we therefore reject this utopia, we resolutely reject nothing less than the pretension of governing a modern democratic country uniquely founded on the lie and the systematic bluff[1], as was tried with impunity by ex-President Nixon, who repented in the end. On the contrary, we have always firmly believed that the people, when they say that they want the truth, which democratic constitutions give them the right to have, they really want nothing more than explications: and then, why not give them? Why mislead the people into the impasse of the most maladriot lies, as was done, for example, with regards the bombing of Piazza Fontana?[2] Our governors, our magistrates, and those responsible for the forces of [law and] order too easily forget that there exists nothing in the world more noxious to power than those who engender within the spirit of the democratic citizen the feeling that he is continually being taken for an imbecile: because that is actually the spring that inevitably puts into action the subtle gears of passions and human resentments that inspires even the most timorous petite bourgeois to rebel and nourish radical ideas. It is then that the citizen comes to reclaim “justice,” less out of love for justice than out of fear of being the next victim of injustice.”
Posted by: drunk as a rule | Jun 8 2005 22:36 utc | 3
Sitting in Darkness:
An Unheeded Message About Rabid U.S. Militarism
———————————————————————-
Confronted with an enemy that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, the general in command of U.S. troops complained that “at one time they are in the ranks as soldiers and immediately thereafter are within American lines in the attitude of peaceful natives, absorbed in a dense mass of sympathetic people.” A domestic critic of the war stated that “we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater.” As the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon passed April 30, we heard similar echoes about our experience in Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan. But these statements were made about a war fought three generations earlier in the Philippines. The general was Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas MacArthur. The critic was Mark Twain, the most prominent literary opponent of the Philippine-American War.
The Philippine-American War was the United States’ first protracted counterinsurgency war in Asia. In our history texts, it is often called the “Philippine Insurrection” and treated as a postscript to the three-month Spanish-American War of 1898, but that is misleading. “Cuban freedom!.was the rallying cry during the Spanish-American War, but it resulted in a peace treaty that ceded Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. Of these, only Cuba was promised independence. The United States agreed to pay Spain twenty million dollars for the Philippines, a payment Mark Twain would later call the U.S. “entrance fee into society–the Society of Sceptred Thieves.” “We do not intend to free but to subjugate the people of the Philippines,” he concluded after studying the treaty. “And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”
Quickly labeled a traitor for his outspoken opposition to the war, Twain responded that “the country is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which.” It was a time when “to be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, ‘Our Country, right or wrong,’ and urge on the little war.” But the war was so unpopular that that phrase was not enough, and it was soon supported by another rationale: “Even if the war be wrong we are in it and must fight it out: we cannot retire from it without dishonor.” To this Twain replied: “An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war.”
Original (unedited) source >here
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 8 2005 22:40 utc | 4
the Society of Sceptred Thieves
“The new era is profoundly revolutionary, and it knows that it is. On every level of modern society, nobody can and nobody wants to continue as before. Nobody can peacefully manage the course of things from the top any longer, because it has been discovered that the first fruits of the supersession of the economy are not only ripe, but they have, in fact, begun to rot. At the base, nobody wants to submit to what is going on, and the demand for life has now become a revolutionary program. The secret of all the “wild” and “incomprehensible” negations that are mocking the old order is the determination to make one’s own history.”
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 8 2005 22:51 utc | 5
Speaking of saving capitalism …Blog software tracks consumer preferences
The skyrocketing popularity of personal Web logs is providing new insights into the buying habits, political interests, and the social and cultural attitudes of important segments of the U.S. marketplace.
Umbria Communications of Boulder has developed a Web crawler that monitors hundreds of thousands of blogs, turning the information from them, via natural language algorithms, into marketing data that is potentially much more reliable than traditional tools such as focus groups.
Umbria is tracking the market opinions of Generation Y — the uncreative label for the youth of the nation currently between the ages of 10 and 27.
“We can parse the speech in these blogs, break it down by nouns verbs, adjectives and phrases to derive meaning and understanding about the speech and the speaker,” David Howlett, Umbria’s product management vice president, told United press International. “We use machine-learning algorithms to show who the speaker is and their characteristics.”
Just thought barflies’d wanta know!!
Posted by: jj | Jun 9 2005 6:01 utc | 7
jj, if they’re trying to get consumer data from this place, good luck to them. I can’t imagine how much damage we’ll do to their numbers.
Although, if Nike launch a “Marx and the Reptiles” line of sportswear you’ll know what happened.
@Colman:
This Marx and the Reptiles line of footwear.
Are the labeled so I don’t put them on the wrong foot?
Posted by: Groucho | Jun 9 2005 6:39 utc | 9
I assume you saw the thread on Kos (and on Common Dreams too) about the US’ $500 billion, 50% of the world’s military spending, in ’04?
(And I wonder how much the ROTW spends *because* of the US.)
The surest, most convincing reason to believe that the country will totally crash within the next 5 years or so.
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 9 2005 6:44 utc | 10
another couple hours with Debord & this gem:
The basically tautological character of the spectacle flows from the simple fact that its means are simultaneously its ends. It is the sun which never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the world and bathes endlessly in its own glory.
…………………………
Have to admit, I never heard of this guy, and after reading up on this 40 — 20 year old stuff, like he just walked into this dark nights room with a great big flashlight, man oh man.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 9 2005 6:58 utc | 11
Heres the link to Debords Society of Spectacle. The whole damned thing.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 9 2005 7:03 utc | 13
And here drunk as a rule(s) link to the 1988 Debord rebut to Society…
link to critics. This one has some great insights on the media.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 9 2005 7:26 utc | 14
From Debord as quoted my a-missed earlier this morning: “The basically tautological character of the spectacle flows from the simple fact that its means are simultaneously its ends.”
I scanned thru some of that too a-missed, but haven’t enough patience for all of it. My question is, does he predict the demise of this spectacle, and if so, what can we look forward to as a next act?
Promise to read more of it myself.
Posted by: rapt | Jun 9 2005 14:39 utc | 15
rapt,
have’nt digested it all myself yet. seems he (his group the situationsts) thought the spectacle was too all pervading — infiltrating and co-opting all passive resistance neccesitating anarchchistic revolution on all fronts — what he has to say about the media culture in service to a government in service to capital and its ability to invert meaning is quite profound when one considers how his prediction has found such realization in todays political climate. its as if the msm is working from a playbook he predicted.– but then i’m still putting this together in my own head, and get a little excited when i stumble over writing that has anticipated my own current thinking on the subject.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 9 2005 18:54 utc | 16
Sorry, but I’m double posting from the last open thread. Things are going so fast around here that I getting dizzier than usual.
Re: EROEI
Oil and food: A new security challenge
The US food system uses over 10 quadrillion Btu (10,551 quadrillion Joules) of energy each year, as much as France’s total annual energy consumption. Growing food accounts for only one-fifth of this. The other four-fifths is used to move, process, package, sell, and store food after it leaves the farm. Some 28% of energy used in agriculture goes to fertilizer manufacturing, 7% goes to irrigation, and 34% is consumed as diesel and gasoline by farm vehicles used to plant, till, and harvest crops. The rest goes to pesticide production, grain drying, and facility operations.
The past half-century has witnessed a tripling in world grain production – from 631 million tons in 1950 to 2,029 million tons in 2004. While 80% of the increase is due to population growth raising demand, the remainder can be attributed to more people eating higher up the food chain, increasing per capita grain consumption by 24%. New grain demand has been met primarily by raising land productivity through higher yielding crop varieties in conjunction with more oil-intensive mechanization, irrigation, and fertilizer use, rather than by expanding cropland.
Posted by: Juannie | Jun 9 2005 18:58 utc | 17
@ jj & Colman
If the software technology is there to get the demography of our buying habits, it’s a short step to getting the political preferences of their enemies from the blogs.
Posted by: Juannie | Jun 9 2005 19:08 utc | 18
I think one point to keep in mind about “society of the spectacle” is SoS is not reducible to specular/visual but is a name for the social relations mediated by a highly commodified mode of producing and distributing knowledge. I share am’s view the spectacle seems totalizing. I think the reason for this is the kind of subject reproduced by the SoS is increasingly a subject for whom reason/truth/beauty is an impossibility–that is, the social relations of the spectacle are defined in an evermore inuring way by the reverse of Enlightenment. In this sense, the SoS is self-fulfilling.
The working poor and homosexuals vote republican, is an example of this irrationality.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 9 2005 19:20 utc | 19
This sort of totally fucked scenario of the “spectacle” seems to me similar to adorno & horkheimer’s “administered society”–the difference is the latter is oriented more specifically around the alienation of humans from objectivity. But, I’m not totally sure.
The argument against such dismal totalizing has been offered by Habermas. Humans, because of language, are essentially rational beings.
beats me.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 9 2005 19:27 utc | 20
Mercenaries Fire On Marines;
Then Whine About Mistreatment:
“They Treated Us Like Insurgents”
Zapata Engineering Security Convoy (CorpWatch)
[Thanks to John Gingerich, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in.]
June 9, 2005 Jamie Wilson in Washington, The Guardian & CNN & June 7th, 2005 David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch
Late one Saturday afternoon in May, a group of armed American private security guards in white Ford trucks and an Excursion sports utility vehicle barreled through the battle-scarred streets of Fallujah, Iraq.
The group of American security guards in Iraq have alleged they were beaten, stripped and threatened with a snarling dog by US marines when they were detained after an alleged shooting incident outside Falluja last month.
“I never in my career have treated anybody so inhumane,” one of the contractors, Rick Blanchard, a former Florida state trooper, wrote in an email quoted in the Los Angeles Times.
“They treated us like insurgents, roughed us up, took photos, hazed us, called us names.” [So, the mercenaries let slip they believe this is how insurgents are to be treated. Oops. To bad they escaped with their fucking lives.]
Full story/details here: GI Special
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 9 2005 20:09 utc | 21
have been listening to the unbearably beautiful & painful work of the iraq lute player – the genius – nassir shamma & his cd ‘le lutte de bagdad’ – where one of the tracks is about the bombardment of the shelter that the americans called a bunker – where the americans murdered hundreds of iraq women & children
whatever is being said & despite the reprimand from dm i will not – i refuse to forget that my connection to these people is through the heart & the heart is the motor & it is a clarifying instrument & it makes clear, absolutely clear – the obscenity of american politics
the indeceny of their clans fighting it out in sheltered workshops they call call a congress or a senate
that their politics means nothing, abslutely nothing. whatever comes out of their mouths is as filthy as anything julius streicher ever sd. they say nothing – they do nothing
jesse helms in his dementia is exactly what he fools are like sober & with their little gods
i will never ever forget that american troopps permiited the sacking of iraq’s museums, libraries, universities & galleries. the desecration of the culture that is also mine
i cannot breathe the detestation i feel at what they have done, at what they are doing & at what they will do
the murdered population of iraq will have their revenge. if not this day, tommorrow
as latin americans after 50 years of american supported tyranny are cleansing their country of the vileness of the american empire – so too will it pass with the arab people
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 9 2005 20:20 utc | 22
U.S. Gulag In Iraq Holds 6,000 Prisoners Convicted Of Nothing At All
09.06.2005 (Reuters)
Thousands of people are detained in Iraq without due process in apparent violation of international law, the United Nations said on Wednesday, adding that 6,000 of the country’s 10,000 prisoners were in the hands of the U.S. military.
In Iraq, “one of the major human rights challenges remains the detention of thousands of persons without due process,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council.
“Despite the release of some detainees, their number continues to grow. Prolonged detention without access to lawyers and courts is prohibited under international law including during states of emergency,” his report said.
A Security Council resolution adopted a year ago ending the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq let the U.S. military keep taking and holding prisoners even after the June 2004 handover of power to Iraqis, in apparent contradiction of the Geneva conventions.
The United States at the time of the handover held more than 8,000 “security and criminal detainees” in U.S.-controlled centers including the now-infamous Abu Ghraib detention center, where photographs of prisoners taken by U.S. soldiers documented a variety of gruesome human rights abuses.
The Fourth Geneva Convention, while allowing occupying forces to detain individuals, has no provision for internment by outside forces after an occupation has ended. [Obviously, there has been no end of the occupation. So whats the UN whining about?]
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 9 2005 20:34 utc | 23
what i want to say is that i do not care – i do not care at all for the small time politics that is occurring in your parliamentary ship of fools
their words like their lives are as meaningless as any nazi gaulieter in april 1945
they think of themselves as giants – they are on the contrary – little men, hollow men, miniscule men – men in minature
their evil banality would be of no moment – if they did not have the means to articulate their bully infested pulsions. sadly, they do. & a people, a culture or a civilisation is degraded, destroyed & diminished
in the next few months additions will be made to the the nazi patriot act & nothing will happen
in the next few months the old & diseased warrior of the right – the demential reenquist will be replaced by scalia & other judges will pack the supreme court & nothing will happen
halliburton in all its criminal forms & all its criminal partners will rip the guts out of iraq & nothing will happen
good & decent people all over the world & in america itself will have their lives & destinies destroyed & nothing will happen
th armies of imperial power will commit savagery after savagery, commit one barbarian act after another & nothing will happen
your empire will menace syria, it will menace iran & nothing will happen
your policy makers will prepare actively for the coming war with china that will surely pass within the next 50 years & nothing will happen
i am the first here to say we need detail – we need to define – but when we are imprisoned by those definitions – when our knowledge simple becomes another wall to protect ourselves from the horror of the day whether their names are hegel, habermas or hajek – then we dishonour what & who we are. we become prisoners. as sullied as any in guantanamo bay.
the worst is we are tying our own hands behind our back. we will be throwing sacred & necessary knowledge in the toilet of our own self absorption. or the absorption that our culture means anything
what happend in baghdad to our culture is as central a fact as the inhumane bombing oh hiroshima/nagasaki, the destruction of the czech town lidice; the human mountains of flesh at babi yar
i am completely unconcerned what wars occur between democrats & republicans. they are of the sam blood. the same ignorance. the same neglect. the dehumanisation of the american people has been their business – a business in which these small men have committed treason as real as any alger hiss
this night listening to nassir shamma. i know what civilisation is. i know what culture is. i know what memory is. & at its centre is the human heart
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 9 2005 21:18 utc | 24
@ Giap
I hope you find this message buried in this thread but I have been hunting up the exhibition catalogs of Colin McCahon and have found one in the christchurch city libraries It’s entitled Gates and Journeys.
I can’t link directly to the book as the library search engine won’t allow direct links from outside the site. It is about page 3 of all the McCahon stuff.
Let me know if this is the one you are after and I will track down a copy. Some of these books are hard to find in libraries now since a bunch of sociopaths in NZ went around borrowing them under false ID’s and selling them on Ebay. However there are quite a few secondhand artbook shops in this town so that if the catalog is out of print as it probably will be since the exhibition was back in 89 I should be able to track down a copy.
The whole McCahon thing has gone pretty insane. I remember as a kid going round to my cousin’s house whose walls were hung solidly with McCahon paintings. Most of those are undoubtedly in overseas collections now but there is still a solid body of his major works in public hands thank goodness. However in this privatised economy you can never be certain some curator isn’t going to flog off a few to pay his performance bonus.
Anyway let me know if this is the volume you are after otherwise I will keep looking.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 9 2005 22:34 utc | 26
Really drunk this time 😉
The ppl in Bolivia who have just declared self rule are doing what Debord and his crew saw as the only way out. Workers Councils.
It’s a lot more than 68.
This is my little pseudo-spectacle-fiction for entertainment of slothorp and anna missed
‘thorp’ has strange and disturbing resonances when one is east coast irish.
Posted by: drunk as a rule | Jun 9 2005 22:37 utc | 27
debs
yes, that is the catalogue – yes ‘gates & journeys’ – i would be very interested if you can find out whether it is still available
sometimes it is difficult to desribe the grandeur & the teerrible knowledge he possessed
guston, twomby are cartoons compared to his work he had no contemporaries
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 9 2005 22:45 utc | 28
Giap he had an amazing insight into the human condition an insight which he died from as he tried to numb it with alcohol It would be crazy to either sanctify mccahon or to allow him to be relegated to the mad misunderstood artist cliche. Above all he was just another person, another human on this planet filling in the space between birth and death as best he could, albeit by opening his consciousness to the beauty and horror of humanity in a way that few others have dared to do.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 9 2005 22:57 utc | 29
nassir shamma & his cd ‘le luth de bagdad’
the track where he does wih the oud what jimi hendrix tried to do in ‘machine gun’ & the ‘star spangled banner’
unbelievable. absolutely unbelievable. insoutenable
L’Abri D’Al -‘Amiriyya 15:17
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 9 2005 23:03 utc | 30
@ remembereringgiap 09:18 PM
Bravo, Sir, Bravo.
Animal activists on trial under terrorism law
It is the first New Jersey trial in which federal prosecutors are using a law that says aggressive activists who disrupt a company can be charged as terrorists.
Prosecutors charged the six and their organization called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, with violating the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, which was amended in 2002 to include the crime of “animal enterprise terrorism.”
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 9 2005 23:04 utc | 31
Enough of this art talk I’m gonna shoot out n find that book but before I do does anyone else find it hugely ironic that since the good ol boys have been so busy in the mid east they have lost control of their back yard ie Latin America? Under normal circumstances a quick ‘police action’ against the ‘narco terrorists’ in Bolivia would solve this problem but these aint normal times. There’s insufficient resources to do a hard fast and brutal action plus they appear to have lost control of the media in Latin America so it’s difficult to justify too much particularly considering the “war on Terra” rhetoric. That Posada thing has already made BushCo look even more hypocritical than usual.
It’s hard not to imagine a picture of a maniac running around flicking off switches as fast as he can yet as soon as he’s dealing with one crisis another he hasn’t considered in years starts up over behind him. Shades of Donald Duck.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 9 2005 23:11 utc | 32
@ Debs is dead
No its no great surprise … the US Intelligence services are not the omnipotent creatures the rhetoric makes them out to be … in fact after the end of the Cold War they entered into a sustained period of mailaise and lack of direction/focus … coincide this with the gradual removal of and backlash to the previous US installed/controlled Latin American dictatorships as well as the reality of the IMF, World Bank and SOA programs and its not surprising at all.
There’s more than a century of resentment at exploitation, interference and brutalization that’s bubbling to the surface … all it takes is someone to call the bullies bluff and suddenly the numbers of those who will acquiese diminishes rapidly.
The Military throughout South America has progressively learnt its lesson too … military co-operation programs with the US are little more than recruiting/suborning Ops to support future coups.
The end of days of the US as the worlds ‘policeman’ are fast approaching … simply examine the complete lack of influence with the OAS of the US or how it is publicly and openly mocked by Venezuela or the growing contempt for the blocake of Cuba.
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 9 2005 23:31 utc | 34
US Foreign Aid Greatly Exaggerated, Says New Study
27 May 2005 19:23:00 GMT
Source: NGO latest
ActionAid International
(c) ActionAid International
ActionAid – USA
Website: http://www.actionaidusa.org or http://www.actionaid.org.uk
The world’s richest nations greatly exaggerate their aid to poor countries – with the US, the worst offender, giving only 0.02% of its income in real assistance, says a study released today by ActionAid International.
The report, which can be downloaded at Action Aid Real Aid.pdf says that some two-thirds of the money donated by the world’s wealthiest countries is in actuality “phantom aid” that is not genuinely available for poverty reduction in developing countries
In total, says the study, at least 61% of all donor assistance from G7 nations is phantom aid, with real aid in 2003 accounting for just US$27 billion, or only 0.1% of combined donor income. Nearly 90% of all contributions coming from the United States and France are considered phantom aid.
Says ActionAid International USA Policy Analyst, Rick Rowden, “what this comes down to is that the US government is spending the tax dollars of well meaning Americans on bloated, inefficient, and manipulative programs that do little to help the poor. This is inexcusable when you consider that a child dies every two seconds from hunger somewhere in the world.”
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 9 2005 23:38 utc | 35
capital has no human heart. only the pulse of machines & the military showing their mifwife faces full of sweetness
& as karl marx understood clearly ;
“avec un profit adéquat, le capital est très audacieux. une certitude de 10% assure son emploi n’importe où; 20% suscitent l’empressement ; 50% une audace réelle ; 100% le disposeront à piétiner toutes les lois humaines ; pour 300%, il n’est pas crime qui l’arrêtera”
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 9 2005 23:42 utc | 36
The whole aid ugly duckling is one story that ordinary ppl would be horrified by if they knew how it works. I’m talking about government to government aid, I don’t have enough personal knowledge of NGO’s to be able say that everything they do is self serving, wasteful and totally corrupt. I was still working for the Australians in the early 90’s when the ‘evil empire’ collapsed and the Australian government of the day (allegedly leftist) made these huge aid undertakings to the new central asian republics. You know the ones that are currently getting upset because as far as they can see old Joe Stalin is still alive and well. Our organisation was charged with training public servants in these republics to run a competitive labour market intervention agency. God I’m slipping into the jargon. It boiled down to a whole mob of middle class Australians trying to set up a high tech organisation in an area where not only was there no viable labor market generally a photo copier was considered ‘luxury’. Of course once the pointlessness of the task was apparent there was nothing else for it but to get paralytic on the local plonk. In an Islam culture! Speaking to the guys who had returned their ignorance after months living in country was amazing. They had no difficulty getting on with the russian speaking functionaries but couldn’t understand why the locals were so ‘prickly’.
The aid scandal has always been a verboten subject since the only people likely to care enough about it are on the left and the main perpetrators come from the left.
Years before my union offered me a ‘study tour’ of unionism in the Philipines as a reward for something they imagined I had done. Fortunately they organised a meeting with the year before’s tourists and I discovered that a lot of the touring was around the brothels of Angeles City. It’s not being prudish to imagine that it would be somewhat disappointing for a hard working Filipino union official, daily putting his or her life on the line, may be dispointed to find the comrades from Australia would rather discuss jig-a-jig than the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Yeah I know that some of the repugs have been carrying on about the UN but that’s strictly mild in comparison to what really happens and it suits the repugs at the moment to taunt and threaten rather than attempt to straighten it out. That way they can get obedience from the worst of these low lifes and it is in their interest that aid plans fail anyhow.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 10 2005 0:57 utc | 37
A Good News Story/Activity for Children
Big Brother cut down to size
26 May 2005 11:36:00 GMT
Source: NGO latest
Christian Aid – UK
Website: http://www.globalgang.org.uk
Christian Aid is offering to cure young people suffering from the Big Brother syndrome. All they need to do is visit http://www.globalgang.org.uk/games – its special website for 8 to 12 year olds – which will take them on an anti-Big Brother journey of discovery.
After a storm at sea, survival skills are needed to get the ‘Global Gang’ home safely. The only way back to land is by completing a series of tasks, including building a shelter, fishing for food, collecting water and navigating through dangerous waters. Swimming is not an option as there are whirlpools, high seas and monsters of the deep in the way.
The game is the antithesis to the Big Brother TV concept and its spin-offs that seem to dominate the small screen. Nobody gets voted out.
Sophie Shirt, editor of Globangang.org.uk, said: ‘Instead of voting out members of the group, one by one, the game requires respect and co-operation. The strength of the group is what the individuals bring to it. Success is dependent on team work and co-operation and recognition of what individuals contribute to the action – rather than forcing them to compete to win.’
Full article here
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 10 2005 1:05 utc | 38
@Outraged
LOL there’s probably something positive to be found in curing sufferers of BigBrothermania but it’s hardly up there with “Ridding the World of all known diseases”
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 10 2005 1:21 utc | 39
@outraged
Actually, I find nothing amusing about “Big Brother” and this sort of shit. I’m no sociologist, but reinforcing to a generation (world wide) that the sleaziest schmuck wins can’t be all that good.
Posted by: DM | Jun 10 2005 2:10 utc | 40
@ DM
Agreed, Hence:
Sophie Shirt, editor of Globangang.org.uk: ‘The game creates a sense of global citizenship – an understanding that we are all members of one worldwide community, represented by the Global Gang. The site aims to develop empathy between the player and children across the world. They all have similar needs – food, clean water, shelter, education, healthcare, and, of course, friends,’ Sophie added.’
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 10 2005 2:47 utc | 41
This is how hard it really is to predict the future.
There is really no way of knowing if it will be when the Coalition Casualty list reaches 2000 (on August 5 2005) – or if it will be when the US Casualty list reaches 2000 (on October 15 2005)- that there will be a 2-column spread in the NY Times and a 2 minute segment on the 6 o’clock news.
Posted by: DM | Jun 10 2005 3:42 utc | 42
The Bolivian Peasants put the Western Industrial World to shame. It’s Springtime in Latin America, since the Empire is bogged down elsewhere – not to mention being a bit overt!! Pres. of Brazil just told Billy Gates to stuff his software, opting instead to go w/open source. When Gates asked to speak to him in Davos, he declined!! Link
I keep wondering if Americans will wake up before it’s too late??
Posted by: jj | Jun 10 2005 6:09 utc | 43
@jj
Hmm! If only it was that simple. Linux (ripped-off Unix) will save them nothing. $120M? I’ve seen larger sums than that drain down the sink-hole – and nothing to do with Microsoft (but more to do with any “government” IT project).
Microsoft may or may not be the answer for some IT projects – but the money spent on Microsoft, Oracle, whatever – pales to insignificance with the total cost of government IT Systems. The cost is in people and productivity – even with Brasilian wages.
Open Source has it’s uses – but a lot of it is just junk. Created by amateurs and academics, it is guaranteed to cost a lot more in the long-run.
That said – other than MS as an OS platform (or hey, Linux if you like) – Brasil might do better to look to Europe for some of the most productive development environments available. I’m thinking of stuff that costs 3 x the equivalent of MS.NET – but the end result has the potential to save a lot more.
DeAnander and others might believe that there is something intrinsically “bad” about commercial software – but I guess you can distill some of this back to the endless debates on MoA about the capitalist Vs. the socialist models. With the profit motive, you can at least have some confidence that somehow, someday, the bugs might be fixed. Open Source projects are for the most part for dilettantes, and they soon tire of the mind-numbing attention to detail and wander off over the horizon.
Posted by: DM | Jun 10 2005 7:42 utc | 44
Immad Khadduri’s Free Iraq site has some very interesting observations
on recent items in the Guardian.
Pepe Escobar’s piece in
today’s ATOL is also worth reading. Indeed, ATOL seems
to be what the NYTimes would like to be if its editors were capable of dishing out something better than the U.S.D.A. certified grade A mush (Krugman excepted, of course).
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jun 10 2005 7:58 utc | 45
DM, I’m not driven by ideology here – I despise seeing garbage win out, as is the case in the PC market.
The cost is in people and productivity – even with Brasilian wages.
I don’t know what Linux is like, but by those standards it can’t be worse than Microtrash. Had they been judged by those standards in America Sharky would’ve long since gone bankrupt – that’s why he’s such a bloody shark.
Comparing Macs to Clones w/Microtrash OS’s, esp. using those standards, is comparing a jet plane to an oxcart. Always has been – that’s well known in the industry. Microtrash survived in spite of their horrific effect upon productivity & personnel because: IBM signed on immediately, companies only looked at their initial cash outlay for hardware, which was vastly less for clones, not at the endless amounts of time lost by employees trying to run the garbage OS, & ‘cuz of Sharkey’s business tactics vs. Job’s lack of business sense.
In short, They won by default, not on the merits of their OS – Apple’s stupidity + IBM.
Posted by: jj | Jun 10 2005 8:39 utc | 46
DM. I’m not going to bother getting into this in detail. I’m not in the mood right now. Suffice to say that Microsoft decided they’d better fix Internet Explorer when they discovered that Firefox was beating the crap out it.
@jj/Colman
Well, you know, they suckered some schmuck out of DOS, and Windows is a rip-off from Xerox, and Microsoft is the world’s largest virus .. but .. if Unix didn’t have (say) a suitable printer driver for server-side reports – then Windows NT won again. Why MS wins is that it is a de facto standard. Trying to program around some non-standard interface will certainly cost a lot more than buying MS. There is a bit more to this than their crappy HTML browser. This is boring, but I have spent my entire life working with this shit, and unfortunately, I know what I am talking about.
Posted by: DM | Jun 10 2005 10:10 utc | 48
I’m not computer expert, but since OSX is compatible and based upon open source, I do not see how MS offers anything better. I’ve used both recently, (but will admit that I am a Mackie from my first computer) and MS is crap in comparison to Mac. In addition, unix has a looooong history, was not invented by “amateurs” and is available to everyone. It works really well and it’s really useful to get away from graphical interfaces, esp. if you want to control your own computer destiny.
and as far as those academics who don’t know what they’re doing…well, they trained all those systems analysts, so I guess they can’t be that stupid. Not only that, they do the theoretical development, for the most part, which is then given away to be used for profit by others.
If Brazil wants to utilize a great portion of its workforce and train them to deal with open source, I think that’s a great idea. Empowering. Puts people to work and gives them skills that are useful in many ways.
Funny thing, but I recently learned that I know (knew, used to come to my house, etc) the owner of one of India’s biggest companies that is causing so many IT people to suddenly empathize with blue collar workers whose jobs were “outsourced” to Mexico, etc. during the last decade. He was trained in the US, got a PhD here studying with one of those useless academics, and, to the aggravation of (formerly?) libertarian computer geeks, is helping to develop India’s population into a nation that can compete with the US.
So, if Bolivia wants to go that route, more power to them. We need a multi-polar world to hold people like Gates, as well as people like Cheney in check.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 10 2005 12:28 utc | 51
State of the Iraqi defense Forces.
Good longer Pravda on the Potomac article:
LINK
They’re Bitching; They Must Be Happy.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Jun 10 2005 13:29 utc | 52
@fauxreal
You really seem to have your nose out of joint at a perceived disparaging remark to academics. If you are talking about the mathematics behind image compression algorithms, concurrency control and real time systems, and the original development of almost everything including most programming languages, Unix, relational database technology – whatever – then you have no argument from me. But there is a world of difference from original research and some of the crap technologies that are required in modern computing environments (most of the crap is from Microsoft, but companies like SUN and IBM have their fair share of cobbled-together disasters).
I use open-source (where appropriate). But I stand by my assertion that most of it is junk. Every budding PhD and his brown dog think that some open source project might be good for his thesis. You don’t need to be a computer expert to check out the open source directories – 99% are abandoned projects – the junk open source category that I am referring to.
And although we need the Bourne’s, Kernighan’s, Richie’s, and CJ Date’s of this world, the academic world doesn’t train all these Systems Analysts. Better to hire a technical college graduate than a university graduate if you want any work done.
I’m not exactly sure what portions of OSX (Unix) are now considered as open source, but the point is that it did not get to this point of its evolution with nobody paying for it.
As of “today” – it may be possible to “eliminate” MS – and things might get even more interesting when MAC goes Intel – but all of this is just to say that you have missed the point.
This stuff about if Brazil wants to utilize a great portion of its workforce and train them to deal with open source .. Empowering. Puts people to work and gives them skills .. is not a sensible approach. A sensible approach is to build the most cost-effective system. No point in being smug about not handing over $120M to Microsoft just to shoot yourself in the foot.
Neither I, nor anyone in this business, has much love for what’s under the hood in Microsoft, but currently, large government office deployments of Wintel systems may be more cost-effective than trail-blazing Linux and employing ‘a great portion of its workforce’. That wont feed anyone. And these ‘skills’ have a half-life of about 5 years anyway.
Finally, I wouldn’t loose too much sleep about the rise and rise of Bill Gates. Things can change pretty quickly in this business.
Posted by: DM | Jun 10 2005 14:16 utc | 53
As bad as things are in America, I’ve always felt safe in saying I’d consider leaving the country only in the unfathomable event Dubya started offering vocabulary lessons.
So…when’s the next flight to Costa Rica?
LINK
Posted by: Groucho | Jun 10 2005 14:19 utc | 54
large government office deployments of Wintel systems may be more cost-effective than trail-blazing Linux
Depends who’s paying for the study, doesn’t it? But I guess that’s ok. Capitalism works, right?
No Colman, it doesn’t depend on who’s paying for the study. It depends on what sort of desktop and back-end systems you have to support, and if all this is going to run on Linux, and you don’t run into brick-walls because some printer driver doesn’t work, or some department just has to run some Microsoft software.
And the snide remark about capitalism works is rather puerile. Economics works whether you are a rabid capitalist or a Marxist. I await the post-implementation report from Brazil – but as it’s a government (any government) IT project – it will be the usual disaster with the usual cost overruns, and if Microsoft don’t make any money out of it, you can be as sure as hell that someone wil.
Posted by: DM | Jun 10 2005 14:52 utc | 57
does anyone else find it hugely ironic that since the good ol boys have been so busy in the mid east they have lost control of their back yard ie Latin America?
I was just working on a report on Venezuela, and my god Chavez is going for it.
He’s done a deal with Castro to borrow 20,000 Cuban doctors (the Cubans are a bit miffed that their hospitals are suddenly a little understaffed, but they do have the highest GP per head of population ratio in the world, so I guess they’ll get by), plus literacy workers and various other technical workers. The results are beginning to be apparent to Venezuela’s poor, and Chavez’s approval ratings are through the roof (70% in his second term in March 2005, that is, about 25 points over Dubya’s).
As the social and healthcare programs he’s instituted are being floated on a raft of oil money that doesn’t look like it’s going to disappear any time soon, Chavez is likely to win for a third time in 2006, and then change the constitution thereafter to secure a 4th term.
The Venezuelans are also at the point of looking at workers’ councils in any business in which the state holds a stake. And I believe that includes oil.
Chavez is also looking at setting up a pan-Latin American oil and gas interest, which would potentially include Trinidad (oil, gas) and Bolivia (gas). He’s already set up Petrocaribe to trade w/ Caribbean islands over oil.
Plus he and Fidel have got together to set up ALBA, a trade association in response to the US-backed FTAA, which has never really got off the ground owing to the intransigence (read sense) of the Brazilians, who in particular reject the intellectual property (IP) regime that the FTAA would impose. This is not just because of software, but also because of drugs – Brazil has one of the world’s most successful anti-HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment regimes in the world, which is predicated on free distribution of drugs on the basis of having declared the HIV epidemic a “national health emergency”. Such a stance is of course not favored by the drug multinationals, who faced down South Africa (where HIV/AIDS is ravaging the population – CIA estimates that 1 in 4 South Africans aged 15 years in 2015 will be infected) in court on the issue.
Given that US policy in LatAm has always been “kill the poor if they ask for more”, it looks like rocky times ahead.
Posted by: Dismal Science | Jun 10 2005 15:25 utc | 59
South America, Aid…
Debs, I have a friend in Argentina. People there sometimes secretely wish the war in Iraq would last – they have been free of interference and many (most?) feel Nestor Kirchner is doing a good job. They say, while the cat is away, the mice will play… My friend works in the education-humanitarian sector (for children), as a State paid employee. These people are always scrabbling for money but will never borrow.
China, I hear, is stepping up to the plate. My friend says they don’t care, they need food, snowshoes, books, new schools, (etc.) if the money is free they take it.
It is odd. Think of a Chinese official (likely a woman) in the mountains in Argentina – tromping about in snow shoes – saying wo shi laoshi – si si! (I’m a teacher too! with Spanish touch…)
Dem Chinks have it all figgered out.
(no racial slur intended – yikes I take it back! – delete the last sentence!)
It will be very interesting to see how the Chinese manage the Aid biz, particularly in Africa. They are there already (though I don’t know much about it) and it is evident a sort of African struggle is getting going.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 10 2005 15:31 utc | 60
Terrorism, Russia.
People may remember that one of the terrorists survived the Beslan school massacre. Officially, 344 dead, 172 of them children.
His trial is ongoing.
The bereaved mothers have taken the decision to address him directly. He has not looked one of them in the eye yet. He gazes at his laceless tennis shoes.
Nourpachi, you, you have nothing left to loose. But here there are people who have to go on living after what happened…Please, I beg you: tell us the truth. Tell us what brought you to that point, tell us the conversations you overheard, tell us….
Nourpachi, you know that you, just like us, are worth nothing in this country. For that reason, if only that reason, you must help us..
Nourpachi, tell us who ordered the attack?
from Le Temps, 10 june 2005.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 10 2005 15:34 utc | 61
Given that US policy in LatAm has always been “kill the poor if they ask for more”, it looks like rocky times ahead.
What’s the US going to do? Invade?
Yea, I know, black ops, bribery, encouraging local “resistance” groups, all that good stuff. Let’s hope Chavez and co know how to play that game better than the US.
And I know Chavez is far from perfect. He seems better than any of the recent alternatives though.
@ Colman I quite agree; besides we usually get to learn a lot more about the failings of those who are not in favor with what Slothrop
would call the American ruling elite, than those of its faithful allies.
Posted by: “Hannah K. O’Luthon” | Jun 10 2005 15:47 utc | 63
On 16 May 2005, Bill Gates opened the 58th world assembly of the World Health Organisation, which took place here in Geneva. This is the top meeting, for WHO people / gvmts only, where they fix policy for the coming year.
An unprecedented event: Someone from the private sector! – for the first time I guess.
He was treated like a King.
He announced he, that is the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, would give 250 million dollars more for ‘medical research’ and/or ‘treatment’ (reports vary), for, or rather against (reports vary), malaria and AIDS.
Curiously, none of the press reports mentioned to whom he would give this sum. The reader was supposed to infer that the money would go to WHO or to the UN.
In fact, it goes to another private foundation, called the Global Fund. Afaik.
Link
If you look at the board, you can see that that the DG of WHO as well as Piot, director of UN – AIDS, are 2 of the 4 members without voting rights. The other two are a World Bank chap and a Swiss lawyer. The last is necesary to ensure that they don’t do anthing that would contravene Swiss law.
Link
I am not impugning B. Gates here, I don’t know enough about it.
It sure looks like an institutional take-over though. Seen enough of them to recognize the signs. The secrecy is classic: it is in the interest of neither party to admit it is happening! Some busy bodies might agitate or interfere.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 10 2005 17:00 utc | 64
Chinese and Africa
This was built by the Chinese in the 70’s right into the heart of Africa.
I know because I travelled on it and consulted about privatisation.
TAZARA
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jun 10 2005 18:16 utc | 65
Noisette, I’ve never seen one – would you elaborate a bit?
DM, you missed the point. There’s nothing intrinsically bad about commercial software, but there’s much intrinsically bad about not having Control of it. That’s more important than cost for them. Assuming they have the talent to pull it off, they’re far better off forming their own institute – or whatever the form is – and bring in people who know Linux to develop for them what they want. This is entirely different than just grabbing some off the shelf “freeware” that some amateurs played w/while it amused them.
Posted by: jj | Jun 11 2005 3:12 utc | 66
@jj I doubt Brazil would have to ‘bring people in’ with Linux ‘know-how’. It’s pretty much a level playing field worldwide these days. Anyway, rather than boring everyone shitless, we might have to wait until b opens up a geek thread.
Posted by: DM | Jun 11 2005 4:25 utc | 67