Then there’s my neighbor, out here in the rural South. He’s got 30 acres of pasture. Raises beef cattle. He and his boys hunt deer and squirrel and ‘coon and anything else that runs away.
He’s got 17 children, and his wife is pregnant again. Six of the kids are adopted; none of the kids is older than 14. The boys learn to shoot as soon as they can hold the rifle up.
They’re mean little buggers, them. Love to shoot birds off the barbed wire fences, love to shoot frogs and tin cans and bottles and anything else. Their goal in all this is to ‘git it! git it!’ They have aim in mind, not much else.
He’s a Natalist — a distinct breed of Bible-thumpers who believe the supreme spiritual virtue is to populate the earth with Christians ‘the old-fashioned way.’ All in faith that this pleases the Lord, causing Him to provide abundance for the tribe.
This redneck (he’s proud to call himself that) makes a point of adopting or arranging for a new child every year. You can definitely say he’s religious about it. He’s introduced me to his ‘spring babies’ several times over; they are his pride and joy.
Natalism directly expresses the concept, an animistic principle really, that one’s deeds or actions, one’s rituals or incantations — can cause God to respond. Guaranteed.
This fellow recites the fundie philosophy that no works can save a person, only grace can. But then he makes babies by the baker’s dozen because it is guaranteed to cause him to enjoy abundant earthly and heavenly rewards, now and hereafter.
Cause and effect. Make the babies, raise ’em right, and wealth will follow as sure as day follows night. ‘Course, it plainly ain’t here just yet, but it’s surely comin’ right along.
So — God can be driven to perform.
Like Christians who recite the Lord’s prayer ten times quickly and then thank Jesus when He finds them a good parking spot in return. That’s what a personal relationship with Jesus is good for.
Like Christians intent on building that next Temple on the ruins of the old one in Jerusalem — because that will force Jesus to return and begin the End Times real proper like.
My Natalist neighbor doesn’t say this. He lives it.
He has a house full of kids, none of whom he can offer more than ‘3 hots and a cot’ to on any given day of their lives. But abundance is surely coming.
No chance of college except on the public dime. But God will provide. Abundantly.
A Vietnam vet himself, he loads his own ammo, has a BIG Confederate flag in his truck window and another flying above his house, and food stamps are the major source of their food budget. Just until that abundance arrives.
His work is occasional, in the construction trades. No drinking, dancing, smoking or swearing goes on at his place. He’s raising ‘a crop of Christians for the Lord’ so none of that will do.
I understand the Pentagon is facing an ongoing recruiting shortage.
Is Natalism the answer?
Posted by: Antifa | Jul 10 2005 12:29 utc | 1
Antifa, you really made a picture here…that is exactly how I imagine these people all tho thanks God I never had chance to meet them…and I hope I will not have that chance…Especially cause I lost my patience some time ago…
Posted by: vbo | Jul 10 2005 13:44 utc | 2
Shows the importance of control of the local government. Without food stamps, cooperative judges/childrens services, he’d lose his land and be contemplating surplus labor theory in the trailer park.
Posted by: citizen k | Jul 10 2005 13:54 utc | 3
Dumber than dumb:
Mind Control
“To: Patrick Lang
Subject: RE: Anyone like Juan Cole in the FBI?
Sir:
I am in ——————————————————-.
FYI- Juan Cole’s site is being blocked at Ft ———- and other installations by the thought police.
How shall anything ever work in Iraq when the people who need to know are not allow to learn about Iraq?
What in the world, then is actually going on? In practice, I think the withdrawal plan implies a willingness to turn the five northern provinces over to the Kurdish Peshmerga paramilitary, and the 9 southern provinces over to a combination of Shiite militias and new Iraqi government security forces (Interior Ministry gendarmes and regular army). And, I think this obviously desperate plan really risks damaging the integrity of Iraq as a nation-state. But, it is unlikely that for the US to remain at its present force levels would help maintain that integrity, anyway.
The US has, it seems, exacerbated ethnic tensions institutionally (kurd constitution veto power, limiting majority power of shia in constitutional assembly, etc.). Whether the US policy is conquer or quit, in either case, dividing Iraq seems not only likely, but fully intended.
Two books by Robert Schaeffer (Warpaths and Severed States –really two ed. of the same material) demonstrates the disasters of partition: dislocation (palestine, bengal), lack of sovereignty (ulster, eritrea, taiwan), economic disparity (srpska/Herzegovina, bohemia/slovakia), and weapons proliferation (pakistan, India, israel, etc.).
But partition is an expedient means for external powers/hegemons to both devolve authority and preserve geopolitical aims. Britain “devolved” power rapidly in india, palestine, ireland. France, less rapidly (algeria, vietnam). In both cases, the former colonies continued to depend on the “metropolitan” powers, assured in different ways by the “postcolonial” arrangements of trade and security.
The Cold War saw partition used as a means to lock-in countries into superpower orbit. The examples of this are obvious.
This third-order partioning of Iraq is distinguished by several peculiarities: unilateral devolution of power by US reminiscent of British experience; the advantage US ostensibly has as guarantor of security for long oppressed majority: shia, and long oppressed ethnic minority: kurds. The british never, sfaik, had the benefit of such a post-occupation alliance of interests (favored protestant, jewish, moslem minorities in ireland, israel, india).
Of course, I hardly claim to know the complex counterforces confronting “successful” partition. The view Iran can “squeeze” the south at will in order to trouble US intentions, is countered by the observation, in places like shia-arabic speaking Khuzestan ethnic divisions and economic disparity visavis farsi-speaking Iran is already an historic animus the US might exploit.
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 10 2005 16:21 utc | 5
A nice, quick overview of “federalist” solutions can be found: Gunter, Michael M.; Yavuz, M. Hakan,
The continuing crisis in Iraqi Kurdistan; Iraq
Middle East Policy, March 22, 2005.
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 10 2005 16:32 utc | 6
A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties by Oded Yinon, 1982
23:
Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north.
b
and also Begin’s Irgun Campaign, driving the british away w/ unremitting terrorism, gave us partition.
As was said in one of outraged’s links to war college monographs, the Iraq insurgency must be reading Begin’s book. Perhaps, at the end of the day, a similar outcome, but ok for the USA.
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 10 2005 17:04 utc | 8
I think we’re living in an age of some serious black ops.
I mean, the similarity between the London bombings and 9-11 is a bit much.
Posted by: felix | Jul 10 2005 17:21 utc | 9
I also think US drawing forces down is bullshit, considering the ambition to confront iran.
but, I’m no tommy franks. Considering also the terrifying threat of the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, maybe we won’t need so many troops after all.
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 10 2005 17:22 utc | 10
From Billmon’s E2=Friend Update:
“I came across someone in the intelligence community talking about an emerging pattern, one in which a local group pulls off an attack, then publicly claims responsibility in Al Qaeda’s name — in essence, applying for a franchise from the original leadership.”
Which sounds exactly like the situation that Mr. Thompson wrote about in the nascent days of proliferating small time motorcycle gangs trying their darnedest to catch the eye of the big guys.
Could it be the Star-Maker Machinery at work all over again?
Iraq Suicide Bombings Kill at Least 40
Which leads me to ask if DeLong will fly an Iraqi flag on top of his blog today.
Yes, our dead have names too. They have faces and stories and memories. There was a time when they were among us, laughing and playing. They had dreams, just as you have. They had a tomorrow awaiting them. But today they sleep among us with no tomorrow on which to wake.
We don’t hate the British people or the peoples of the world. This war was imposed upon us, but we are now fighting it in defense of our selves. Because we want to live in our homeland – the free land of Iraq – and to live as we want to live, not as your government or the American government wish.
Fisk The Reality of This Barbaric Bombing
But here’s the problem. To go on pretending that Britain’s enemies want to destroy “what we hold dear” encourages racism; what we are confronting here is a specific, direct, centralised attack on London as a result of a “war on terror” which Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara has locked us into. Just before the US presidential elections, Bin Laden asked: “Why do we not attack Sweden?”
Lucky Sweden. No Osama bin Laden there. And no Tony Blair.
And the left turning on itself. You’re with us or…..
“In his intervention before last year’s American presidential election, bin Laden praised Robert Fisk of the Independent whose journalism he admired. ‘I consider him to be neutral,’ he said, so I suppose we could all resolve not to take the tube unless we can sit next to Mr Fisk. But as the killings are indiscriminate, I can’t see how that would help and, in any case, who wants to be stuck on a train with an Independent reporter?”
Nick Cohen today
Posted by: John | Jul 10 2005 22:26 utc | 15
Any comments or thoughts to add to Felix’s 1:21pm comment? I am actually rather stunned by the report that there was a simultaneous practice terror drill going on with identical locations, methods, etc. to the bombings in London. What do you all make of this?
Posted by: maxcrat | Jul 10 2005 22:36 utc | 16
Um, Maxcrat, Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery!!! But what I wondered when I saw that report yesterday, is, as always, are we confident about the reliability of the source?
Posted by: jj | Jul 10 2005 23:00 utc | 17
jj,
The report is a transcript from BBC Radio 5 Live.
It went out live on air.
If this man were not who he claims, this story would quickly be debunked.
He claimed a thousand were involved, so they cannot refute it if true.
Look how quickly they told us the three arrested at Heathrow were an unrelated matter.
The official silence on this is VERY disturbing. They know it is going around the world, but they’ve said nothing.
Which is why people here are reluctant to discuss it.
Posted by: John | Jul 10 2005 23:16 utc | 18
jj,
Here is the worst case scenario.
This is operation Gladio. It’s one of a piece with Bologna and Madrid.
Operation Gladio is what’s been uncovered in Italy. Rumsfeld’s Task Force 121 out of Fort Bragg (with local help).
Operation Gladio is a NATO operation.
Under the proposed European “constitution” national sovereignty is subordinated to NATO obligations.
Although the “constitution” has been rejected in France and Holland, it HAS been signed by heads of government. (Berlusconi and Fini)
Therefore its legal status is unclear.
Therefore they will continue to do what they want.
Posted by: John | Jul 10 2005 23:44 utc | 19
Searching for Perspective
I just got back from holidays (lucky me!) and found myself catching up on Billmon, and dipping into MoA before I caught up on my ‘day job’ email and online traffic. I realised that I really value the heartfelt and intellectually honest posting here, and have come to rely on it for maintaining a reality-based but compassionate, creative, and constructive orientation to the events of the day. I hope you don’t mind my imposing this particular meme on you, but I’ve been lurking on this blog for a long time and promised myself I’d post it when I got back.
What my holiday exposed for me is that blogs are like a river that I can only dip into from time to time. What I miss is gone forever, and there is no easy way to see the course of the river over the wider temporal landscape.
In particular, the news flows on and each crisis or scandal erases the last. (As an example, I read Billmon, truthout, dkos, Slashdot on the blog side; and all the major dailies (Google, NYT, IHT, CSM, BBC, WSJ) on the media side.) I found myself wondering how I would re-achieve an appropriate and accurate perspective if I missed a month, or six? Where is that higher level of analysis?
Is anyone in the community aware of an online source or community – blog, newsletter or otherwise – that debates, compiles and documents a running tally of key events, political or otherwise, by month and year? How about for each US administration? When 2008 rolls around I would like to have in front of me an up-to-date list of the Top 10 fuck-ups (from the perspective of the average US (or world) citizen) of the US Administration.
Present contenders for the dishonor roll would read something like:
1) Ignoring intelligence on Al Qaeda in the run-up to 911.
2) Diverting US resources from Al Qaeda to Iraq in the aftermath of 911.
3) Undermining US civil liberties via the Patriot Act.
4) Invading Iraq (illegally, without a plan, etc.).
5) Lying to Congress & the UN about WMD.
6) Disgracing the US via Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, etc.
7) Passing tax cuts for the wealthy and cutting services for the poor.
8) Trying to gut social security.
9) Working to undermine world action on global warming.
10) Accelerating the liquidation of world water and forest resources.
11) Demolishing ethical standards for lobbying and Congress.
12) Pushing the Chinese and Russians (Europe and Japan?) to a rapprochment.
13)…
It’s too easy to be swept up in the latest and not hold a medium-term historical view. I know this particular list may seem partisan, but I envision a useful role for this exercise regardless of the party of the moment, and perhaps for additional countries and time scales. Perhaps it could usefully be matched by a corresponding list of achievements. Ideally, this list would be a work continually in progress (with a Wiki format and voting a la community blogs?) and posted semi-regularly for world-wide comment, like an open thread.
Any takers or pointers? Has this been done?
Posted by: PeeDee | Jul 10 2005 23:50 utc | 20
B. Got news for you, dude.
*Nothing* isn’t being blocked at our US overseas military bases. There’s only one base TV station, AFRTS. It shows Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Lawrence Welk and PGA/NFL. The AFRTS radio station plays (only a-political) 70’s hard rock and country-western. Ted Nugent and Merl Haggart. The Internet is completely blocked against Left.
Military enlistees and their civilian contractors eat the shrimp cocktails, new york strips steaks, endive salads and slam down Bud talls, all on the taxpayer nickel, which, (choke) these same folks don’t have to pay a single red penny for, since they’re expatriate status, so income-tax exempt.
All you can eat and drink.
Then they drive off-base to the local bar and strip-club scene to bang some 15-year old hottie, for a five-dollah sucky-sucky, or if they sniff around pre-pube’s, for a beer or a candy bar.
All you can rape and f–k.
And that’s why the war goes on, dude.
That’s why war has *always* gone on.
And now that war is big business, and Big Business controls US Federal Government,
and Federal Government is big on Deficit,
why war will always *continue* to go on.
Posted by: tante aime | Jul 10 2005 23:55 utc | 21
@Antifa — yr neighbour sounds like the kind of guy who in earlier times killed two or three wives in the course of his life, through excessive childbirth or overwork and malnutrition. But thanks to the welfare state — which I’m sure he despises and spits upon — his lifeway can now be sustained (sort of) with the taxpayer’s help and the wonders of modern medicine…
sometimes you gotta wonder, what we did it all for — the whole weary slog from rubbing two sticks together, to grinding lenses, to analysing the spectral signature of distant stars…
Canada has recently opened a ‘warts and all’ War Museum. It includes an exhibit about the torture death of a 16 year old Somali at the hands of some of the 1st Airborne and another about war, and its companion VD, in Korea.
Both exhibits have veterans and others in a froth. These people want their romantic vision of war restored. According to them, the warts are ‘hurtful’ and have nothing to do with soldiering or the quality of our troops. While there may ne some truth to these arguments, it doesn’t belie the fact that torture and VD have been, and always will be, aspects of war.
One of the most vocal opponents is a vet of WW2 and Korea that actually had the temerity to write in one of his columns “is any war illegal?”. This ‘journalist’ has no qualms about repeating the bleatings of those opposed that ask if VD is so important, why only stats about Korea?
This ‘journalist’ ‘investigated’ and crows that the stats for Korea came from a novel and therefore the museum owes an apology – as if VD did not happen. He could have easily found, as I did, that the US alone had over 600 cases of VD a day during WW2 and the rate was 30 times higher in WW1. He might have also found that the 25th Canadian Regiment, while in Korea, confronted a “VD epidemic unparalleled in Canadian military history.”
His son-in-law wrote the ‘axis of eeeevil’ tripe for the Chimpster. That explains much.
Posted by: gmac | Jul 11 2005 1:07 utc | 23
sometimes you gotta wonder, what we did it all for — the whole weary slog from rubbing two sticks together, to grinding lenses, to analysing the spectral signature of distant stars…
Posted by: DeAnander | July 10, 2005 09:06 PM | #
yes sometimes dear deanander – in the midst of life – i really wonder deeply whether it is is worth it at all
& then in the midst of life – love walks into life as unexpectedly – as men devour each other in it seems at times at all points of the globe
love walks in & tears down the walls – once again it tears down the walls & it tears it all apart & that heart – that motor – that exquisite engine – which here i cann assure you is without sentiment or illussion – that terrible mechanism proves to you profoundly as in the first time you opened the sacred texts of that german jew karl marx & knew without question – without reservation – whose side you were on & that first moment on the streets of some god forsaken town the olds steelworker held you in his arms & admitted you to what he sd was the company of only the highest, the most exemplary of individuals. & this old steelworker said to you that you were now part of what would change the world forever
& you believed because you had no childhood – you never had the tales & contes or the alphabet of others – yes you believed – & you believed in uncle ho & you spoke of his poems as if you had written them & you wondered over the great helmsman & a pople who thought a century was a short time & you believed & you fell in love, deeply you fell in love with the other, that which was not you yet. you loved that idea with such rigorous & undying passion that even as a an adolescent you were prepared to risk everything -prepared to die as any soldier – for that idea & you were surrounded literally surrounded by proofs of why you chose that idea that it is truer to say you felt then that that idea chose you & that it was correct to choose you – because you would make that dea proud of what you were & what you would become
yes you fell deeply you feel as deeply as any vanquished city – you fell in love & you remained in love tho all the walls came falling down – falling down everywhere & they told you another world was being born but you saw just the old world only dumber more cruel less vision. you saw finally the world that old beautiful damned & cunning karl had written so laboriously in the british museum – you saw the world he spoke of – you saw it so clearly & in the midst of life you fell in love again – yes in the midst of life you fell in love again
& you knew al the tools , all the weapons all the instincts you were trained for were more necessary than they ever were – you had walked welcomingly towards death just to end with this fatigue – you had welcomed violence because it was proof that you were not dead – that the world lived & then in themidst of life the heart opened in a way you could never have imagined – that the heart once again as if in a novel by that old mystic hermann hesse – yes you were goldmund taking to the route once again & you were surrounded by goldmunds & you were encercled by stupidity so venal only tears could really wash away the grime that had accumulated over everything you could touch
& in the midst of life you allowed another – who came from far away – who came from some space where words wept & where walter benjamin was watching with those beautiful & learned eyes – pushing you on & you were reminded of his ove for the ukranian communist ajca – how walter too fell in love & how his heart opened – not to sentiment nor to power but to transcendence & not the transcendance that scholem mistook for mysticism – but transcedental in an implacable love for the other in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. yes an implacable love for the other & he fell i imagine as i have fallen in the midst of life for another who is not ajca but who could be if i undertook toi tear the frontiers & barriers down & i took wilhelm reich at his word about eros & rd laings search for common decency
& in the midst of life – you fell as if in fallujah & knew that you – & the people were stronger that you would outlive these tyrants – you would outlive their immorality, that you would as a people, a mass, a crowd, a mob a foule be always in possession of the most powerful of weapons that only the toughest of us call love. that when we kiss. when we touch. when we surrender we become the blessed fighters of our dreams & tho the melancholia stays well in place because she is there to protect us from falling vertically – we understand as if for the first time how two bodies sing in a way tyrants never can
& in the midst of life we remember we are not so different from the ancient slaves of greece or rome – that we sing – tragoidia – that our interiorority is so profoundly deep it can measured one heart at a time but that can only be understood with all the beating hearts & you know that today they might control the cities but tommorow they will most certainly fall & it is love for the other predicated on touching on kissing on surrendering that all of us – all of us who try to build something decent with this world whether we are here in the west or deep in mosul or somewher in china or in andulusia or even in salzbourg we will live longer than these tryrants & there world will come to an end
& we have no grandeur with all that because in the midst of life we know it is breath simplê breath that seperates us from these monsters who have made of power the most impoverished of overcoats
& that in the midst of life we are given love & are capable of giving love precisely beacause we listen to that breath
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 11 2005 1:46 utc | 26
Falling in love is a total disaster, remembereringgiap, and the older you get, the worse the disaster gets. You feel like you’re falling upwards, but you know that you’re actually dropping into a mineshaft, from which you’ll eventually have to pull yourself in a technical climb of 2,500 feet or so–lacking all the while the proper tools and adequate upper-body development to do the job at all. When we’re quite young it’s also a vertical climb, but the drop is only about 500 feet from the level ground, and the tools are ready-to-hand. You also have lots of time to work with at that age (the shorter distance in those early days is a very misleading experience). I envy the lucky person who doesn’t take that fall in the first place…no, I admire that lucky person: folks who can stay out of trouble are the stars that leading out of the mineshaft (and I take it on faith that such people really exist). I say this in all good humor, mindful of the fact that I probably have one or two more climbs ahead of me, and that I’m not altogether suicidal by nature.
Posted by: alabama | Jul 11 2005 2:47 utc | 27
In recent times there’s been more discussion & fewer links. We’ve missed 2 of vague interest from the Observer on successive Sundays.
1) Last Sun. Will Hutton wrote a brief but very helpful art. on China’s grab for US Oil Co. US and China Slipping Into a Conflict Over Oil
…
Now that the boot is on the other foot — China buying an American oil company and its reserves — US congressmen and senators are deploying President Putin’s arguments as their own. America’s oil, jobs and national security are at issue, they blaze, and an investigation is already under way to see whether China’s bid should be blocked on national security grounds. It is rigged to take months.
The Chinese, for their part, implausibly plead innocence. Assuming the improbable rhetoric of a Wall Street investment banker, the chairman of CNOOC, 71 percent owned by the communist People’s Republic of China, says that the bid will be good for shareholders on both sides of the Pacific. It certainly offers Unocal shareholders more cash than rival American oil company Chevron was offering, but only because the Chinese government has lent CNOOC a $2.5 billion interest-free loan to support the loan and subsidized billions more. This is hardly fair play but Unocal shareholders aren’t complaining.
…. The Chinese want oil very badly.
And they want it to be imported into China by oil pipeline and not by tankers from the Middle East under the watchful eye of the US navy. The US controls the sea lanes and thus the viability of China’s economy, as it regularly lets the Chinese know by shadowing Chinese oil tankers.
The US has pre-empted China’s attempts to build oil pipelines from the Caspian into China. Unocal’s attraction is that its oil reserves are all in Central and Southeast Asia, and once owned by China can be moved into China overland.
This is a new great geopolitical game and neither the Chinese nor American military are impressed by arguments that the market must rule and that great powers in today’s globalized world no longer need strategic oil reserves.The US keeps six nuclear battle fleets permanently at sea supported by an unparalleled network of global bases not because of irrational chauvinism or the needs of the military-industrial complex, but because of the pressure they place on upstart countries like China.
Japan’s decision this year to abandon its effort to build its own oil company and attempted strategic reserve was an overt acceptance of its dependent position. China is not ready to make the same admission of defeat. No country has offered such a comparable challenge to the world order since Germany’s rise at the end of the 19th century. Like China today, it wanted markets and raw materials; like China today, it confronted a world ordered around the needs of the existing powers; like China today, its gigantic size and explosive growth could not be ignored. Germany built fleets and scrambled for colonies in Africa. Today, China builds fleets and scrambles for oil reserves. The open question is whether it will end in another 1914.
…
2) Not entirely unrelated, today’s Observer has an uncritical & not particularly interesting interview w/one of the World’s pre-eminent Vampires, Soros. Same old bullshit. (Lest anyone think there was any reason for optimism about the future the Soros party holds for us, this will disabuse you.) Apropos of 1) he says there’ll be a trade war w/China if they don’t revalue their currency in 6-9 mos.
What’s worrisome about his take is that it reminds me that he & his minions are big on repatriating some of the money the Pirates are stealing from around the world via taxing those of us who are getting screwed & sending that money back – though, of course, he doesn’t say that here. (I heard Gary Hart lay that out. If his party comes back to power, one could imagine them shielding WTO w/Parliamentary facade that would impose it. That was also discussed by Ben Barber, Howie Dean’s advisor.) Free market champion calls for fair play
Posted by: jj | Jul 11 2005 3:07 utc | 28
@Bama:
I think the sheep harem rejected RGs courtship earlier this week, with finality, speaking of falling.
Just a joke RG, but I couldn’t resist. Don’t beat me to death with Das Kapital, please.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Jul 11 2005 3:08 utc | 29
Pee Dee, don’t know that it’s been done, but scanning the Cursor Archives might be a place to start. If you’re looking for a job, you’ve got one doing a NewsCompactor.
Posted by: jj | Jul 11 2005 3:17 utc | 30
Meant to add:
Have made an acquaintance with a dowager Merino heiress-titles, lands, trust funds and all.
Wouldn’t want my hair or face up in the next few days!
Posted by: FlashHarry | Jul 11 2005 3:23 utc | 31
Sorry, that above was “messed up”.
Love does strange things to a lad.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Jul 11 2005 3:26 utc | 32
here I am bein a wet blanket now that everyone has lifted the spirit but while youse have been joshin I’ve been fulminating (a tiresomely lengthy procedure) to wit:
heh heh The self delusion of the human race continues unabated. We can build new better cheaper mousetraps and somehow expect that a simple concrete and one dimensional act will cause a modification in the complex inherited and learned behaviours that move each of us through each day.
It is not unreasonable to argue that the further our technological change takes us from original homo sapiens lifestyle, the greater the dissonance between our innate behaviour and expected contemporaneous action.
Of course there can be ‘catch-up’ but who the hell are we to imagine that psychological evolution can stay apace with our mad rush to consume all before us. If we are very fortunate that failure to ‘catch up’ will be exactly what saves us from extinction.
Back to Antifa’s neighbour, the self appointed Xtian tribal leader. Antifa’s sketch doesn’t evoke an image of some totally self obsessed, unethical, narcissist but rather a picture of a human trying desperately to translate his world view however corrupted and subjective we may see it, into his lifestyle. In other words just another human trying to do the best he/she can. A person Australians call a ‘battler’.
I confess I am disturbed by the frequent references in this thread to “the public dime” “foodstamps” and “the taxpayers help”. Quite frankly I expected better from MoA posters.
If this is a sore point with me it is because over the years I must have worked with literally thousands of people in receipt of what is frequently disparagingly and incorrectly called welfare.
There were as many reasons for these people’s state as there were people and rarely was what the bourgeoisie so ignorantly refers to as laziness anywhere near the top of the list.
Firstly let me point out even if this fellow’s call on food stamps (what a foul term for a foul method of doling out a meagre portion of society’s surplus) was due to lack of motivation are all his children to be left starving because of the perceived sins of the father? Since we’re talking about human beings here I’m willing to bet that at least one of this fellows offspring will make a positive contribution to humanity. Oh cry the naysayers “what about the ones who don’t, that grow up to become ignorant parasitical asocial nonentities like dad?” Apart from the fact that there is no way of identifying what any of the particular offspring may grow into, does anyone seriously imagine that starvation, compounded with the humiliation I can guarantee they already feel directed at them from their community, will provide a better outcome?
The tiny amounts of largesse directed at families which for whatever reason aren’t capable of generating enough to support themselves are always the bare minimum that a community believes it can get away with before lawlessness overwhelms it.
Yes some poor people’s situation is a result of attitudinal factors, otherwise known amongst the ignorant as laziness. After working with many people my experience has been that while the causes of these attitudes are frequently ugly and complex; assisting someone to alter those attitudes is often quite simple. But such assistance rarely occurs for the simple reason that the identification of the attitudes can be a time consuming and expensive process. Even more worrying is the thought that the degree of ‘social engineering’ that would have to take place to ‘reform’ a substantial amount of these ‘no-hopers’ would reduce our communities to the sort of Orwellian nightmare most of us here are most fearful of.
All is not black though because the steps required to prevent large numbers of humans from falling into the attitudinal abyss that leads to welfare dependency are desperately simple. They don’t involve either selfishly hoarding every last scrap of western societies’ careless abundance or allowing the knowledge of who gets what from whom to become public to the point where the least advantaged are pressured to feel gratitude towards a community that has failed them at least as much as that community feels they have failed it.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 11 2005 3:35 utc | 33
al-Qu’eda or al-a’diversion?
William Bowles of GlobalResearch.ca talks about the use of agent provocateurs and the ‘suspicious nature’ of the London bombings.
Oh, and kos can bite me…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 4:56 utc | 34
“It will signal the beginning of outsourcing from China to drill oil and gas wells in the Rocky Mountains. Over the next couple of years, 10 Chinese rigs – and crews to operate at least half of those rigs – will be imported from China to this region”
Rocky Mountain News
Posted by: correlator | Jul 11 2005 5:28 utc | 35
Blair rejects calls for probe into bombings
Now why do you suppose…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 5:43 utc | 36
Bush Administration Claims Presidential Privilege for LBJ Documents WTF?
Man, these fuckers go way back…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 6:12 utc | 37
@debs, sorry, of course I am all in favour of baseline support for those who need assistance to feed self or kids. the irony I was trying clumsily to point out is that the demographic this guy represents (wingnut xtians) is usually one of the most vocal in its condemnation of government, “welfare,” etc. — the most convinced that “black welfare queen drug dealers” are sponging off society, blah blah, and that private charity organised through churches is the correct way to do public relief.
just like the Waltons, big fans of laissez-faire capitalism that they are, rely on welfare to support the workers to whom they pay mingy sub-survival wages. grmph. sorry if this sounded like I was straying into reflexive antisocialism myself (tut, you should know better, I’ve been redbaited often enough in full sight of the whole bar)…
Bush Administration Claims Presidential Privilege for LBJ Documents
Posted by: Uncle | Jul 11 2005 6:17 utc | 39
Well, if the Brit. State isn’t going to investigate, hell maybe it was run out of Cheney’s office too!! Wonder if they can get away w/that in Britain.
Wanted to respond to yr. Wm. Bowles posting w/this one from his own website. Much is very weak, but wanted to bring to the bar his concept of “virtual fascism”.
Posted by: jj | Jul 11 2005 6:21 utc | 40
@jj
You may be correct in that Wm. Bowles may be weak but, as they say “take what you can use and leave the rest”… is my motto,
On a somewhat different note?
Funny, how all roads seem to lead to rome
Fortunes made on bombing
p.s. I still pondering on my earlier post about LBJ…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 6:49 utc | 41
I haven’t gotten to that one yet, $cam, but this one is mind blowing in it’s implications. Will all sorts of rich guys/ailing institutions now start hiring bombers to blow up people in Western Capitals whenever they want to make a few extra bucks in the market? Co. wants to buy back its stock cheaply – no problemo – hire some bombers – Italian company, bomb Rome…
Posted by: jj | Jul 11 2005 6:59 utc | 42
Forever after reading that article, Uncle, I will think of the British PM as
Tony “Ludicrous Diversion” Blair
Yup, wouldn’t want to investigate an attack that coincided with a perfect play acting of the attack. That would be a ludicrous diversion from the tragedy play we’re currently putting on, and comedy, as we all know, is not actually the policy forte of our lead players. Happy endings? Bad. The same names from the Bay of Tonkin still turning up 4 decades later? Hilarious.
I just keep reminding myself lately – this is the world I’m already used to thinking of as normal, in the 19th century.
Posted by: citizen | Jul 11 2005 7:17 utc | 44
Scam, you were asking about Kos somewhere, Rigorous Intuition has a post, see the *comments*.
Rigorous
Posted by: Noisette | Jul 11 2005 10:42 utc | 45
Love is in the air, and
Meanwhile:
TERRORISM WITHOUT END, AMEN
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 11 2005 13:10 utc | 46
Marc Faber: The Destruction of Old and Creation of New Bubbles!
.. when markets move for a while in a direction, then analysts and strategists, and at the very end of the trend, even TV personalities will jump on the subject. They will then write extensive studies and make comments that justify and explain the price increases. In fact, the longer the price of a stock or industry goes up, the thicker the research reports will become.
Thus, as an investor, you need to buy a post office scale. When all the reports on a stock or sector are light, it means “buy”. Conversely, when weekly the reports you receive on an industry add to several kilos then “sell”! So, after all, brokerage research does have a very useful function but not through its content but weight.
Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven
S.P.I.N.E. : The Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven
Members of the Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-eleven come from a variety of professional backgrounds. Some investigate aspects of the 9/11 attacks, others search the web for useful information, and some write up new material. We have tried to maintain professional standards in both the analysis and presentation of the evidence we have assembled, as well as in the scenarios we have constructed.
General Statement by the Panel:
“We have found solid scientific grounds on which to question the interpretation put upon the events of September 11, 2001 by the Office of the President of the United States of America and subsequently propagated by the major media of western nations. Our analysis of the detailed evidence implies a staged attack employing a variety of deceptive arrangements. Indeed, every element of the September 11 attacks, including cellphone calls from fast-moving aircraft, has an alternate means of creation.”
Panel members are scientists, engineers, and other professionals. All contribute through search and research. Members of S.P.I.N.E. may be contacted by clicking here and entering the name of the member you’d like to contact, along with a brief message.
Believe what you want to believe and disregard the rest.
Posted by: DM | Jul 11 2005 14:31 utc | 48
For anyone that wants to actually DO something to fight back I suggest you get over to Jeff Wells site (Rigorous Intuition).
THERE IS A BATTLE GOING ON RIGHT NOW
Everybody is reporting the same thing. They try to post the evidence about the “training exercise”, and it gets removed.
No reason. No explanation.
The fight is going on here and now.
Don’t you want to know the truth? Don’t you want to do something to help?
Posted by: John | Jul 11 2005 15:27 utc | 49
“Guns, Germs & Steel” premieres tonight on PBS.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by
Jared Diamond, and hosted by the same. The mini-series consists of three, one-hour episodes tackling many of the same issues in the book.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 16:19 utc | 51
“Guns, Germs & Steel” premieres tonight on PBS.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by
Jared Diamond, and hosted by the same. The mini-series consists of three, one-hour episodes tackling many of the same issues in the book.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 16:22 utc | 52
“Guns, Germs & Steel” premieres tonight on PBS.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by
Jared Diamond, and hosted by the same. The mini-series consists of three, one-hour episodes tackling many of the same issues in the book.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 16:23 utc | 53
“Guns, Germs & Steel” premieres tonight on PBS.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by
Jared Diamond, and hosted by the same. The mini-series consists of three, one-hour episodes tackling many of the same issues in the book.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 16:24 utc | 54
“Guns, Germs & Steel” premieres tonight on PBS.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by
Jared Diamond, and hosted by the same. The mini-series consists of three, one-hour episodes tackling many of the same issues in the book.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 16:24 utc | 55
“Guns, Germs & Steel” premieres tonight on PBS.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by
Jared Diamond, and hosted by the same. The mini-series consists of three, one-hour episodes tackling many of the same issues in the book.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 16:24 utc | 56
“Guns, Germs & Steel” premieres tonight on PBS.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by
Jared Diamond, and hosted by the same. The mini-series consists of three, one-hour episodes tackling many of the same issues in the book.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 16:25 utc | 57
“Guns, Germs & Steel” premieres tonight on PBS.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by
Jared Diamond, and hosted by the same. The mini-series consists of three, one-hour episodes tackling many of the same issues in the book.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 16:26 utc | 58
“Guns, Germs & Steel” premieres tonight on PBS.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by
Jared Diamond, and hosted by the same. The mini-series consists of three, one-hour episodes tackling many of the same issues in the book.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 16:27 utc | 59
“Guns, Germs & Steel” premieres tonight on PBS.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by
Jared Diamond, and hosted by the same. The mini-series consists of three, one-hour episodes tackling many of the same issues in the book.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 16:34 utc | 61
omg! I’m sorry guys feel free to delete, for some reason when ever I post anything lately it just sits there and does nothing.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2005 16:38 utc | 63
Damned Uncle:
And I wondered why TP was constipated today.
Anyway, thanks for the heads up.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Jul 11 2005 16:38 utc | 64
alabama
intrigued by what you say – for the opposite has been the truth for me since it all began – i remain comrades with the other from as far back as that time. & there was that time. perhaps it is the fact that i have moved almost constantly actually & through disciplines that the falling is something other
the living/loving dialectic was always intertwined for me – also from the beginning – there could be no love worthy of that name without political engagement – perhaps it demystified it but it never took away the mystery. not at all. & that is true at almost every level of work of amité & of loving
it is darker for me today because the world is infitisimally darker. in the middle of war i did not feel the menace we live under today. & not only the menace but the pourriture of the day to day life. at a minimum i try to follow the counsel of deanander & refuse to watch visual imagery – through television & even film to some degree. i read & i have the fortune to be able to read for the work that i do
i was famous at fifteen – so notions of success were not an encumbrance for me – there was simply work to do – what has changed from that time is the absence of agitation & the facility of meditation & concentration. of being still
i feel worn out often for the same reasons as everybody else here. mere accumulation. obscenity piled on obscenity. when what you are trying to achieve is a simple form of decency. not so complicated but enormously difficult in practice & it remains difficult
there appears & i maybe wrong – with you sometimes alabama i am almost always wrong – but there seems to be great predetermination & i this life of mine – ragged as it is it is still done – day from day. i presume nothing & i take nothing for granted
i try not to underestimate i try not to be underestimated
i construct whatever i construct in the full face of the community;
i lived with death as a constant for so long that these last ten years have been a form of blessing – a bonus i thought would never come & i am certainly more productive today thatn 20 years ago – so in that sense i do not fear – anything – anything at all
but yes until recently i have felt that i was like pablo neruda in his garden in septmner 1973 watching everything he built & aspired to being destroyed
& u s imperialism is nothing if not destructive & at a pace & an accleration that awes me but not in the way they imagine
i come from proletarian stock but i would never have imaégined the world could become as vulgar as it has become – because in those proletarian origins there was great refinement – i am still a student of that but it is almost totally absent today. giants once walked the earth but i do not see them
& i think that was the essence of my post is the profundity of the melancholia can stop you seeing that there are still giants who walk the earth – in venuezala, uruguay, in sammarrah, in mosul – in a hundred thousand places where breath breathes
& there is nothing like the touch of an other to remind ou of the community of breath
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 11 2005 20:11 utc | 65
Falling in love is a total disaster, remembereringgiap, and the older you get, the worse the disaster gets. You feel like you’re falling upwards, but you know that you’re actually dropping into a mineshaft, from which you’ll eventually have to pull yourself in a technical climb of 2,500 feet or so–lacking all the while the proper tools and adequate upper-body development to do the job at all.
oh ‘bama, I don’t think you have ever posted anything that spoke to directly to me 🙂 thanks for that. (speaking from halfway up the mineshaft with only a rusty screwdriver and a cheap pocket knife).
Posted by: DeAnander | Jul 11 2005 20:29 utc | 66
There’s never a need, remembereringgiap, to justify anything you say, because it always needs to be said, and no one else could possibly ever say it–not ever.
I’m with you, DeAnander! I know you’ll make it out okay, but try not to be surprised–or indignant?–at all the time it takes. Our hard-wiring has something to do with this, I should suppose.
Posted by: alabama | Jul 11 2005 20:51 utc | 67
ô dea
i don’t know whether it is because i am a particularly beautiful specimen but i have never had my heart broken – not by another – perhaps that time will come
my hearts was broken once in this life – when i believed a university was a home of knowledge & found out that it was the complete opposite. & perhaps there was a broken heart when i heard my comrades lie about what was happening in chile to defend a maoist position. yes perhaps my heart was broken then
but that which tore it asunder was that first year at university realising it was the complete opposiet of everything i had dreamed of – i dremt i would find hegel – what i found was hogans heroes – i was a gifted child & i understood my gifts belonged in the street not so far from the gutter
but i have never dremt of another as redemption, as an escape, as a filter – the frontiers were always perfectly clear
ues there was & is mystery & yes to cite tim buckley – there is the energetic desire to ‘make it right again’ but aren’t they the harmless illussions that do no damage that isnot worth it
i have no regrets of anything i have done & the love of others, least of all
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 11 2005 20:57 utc | 68
& i want to say that these posts were framed by the sordid scenes that i cannot call information in the last month & also by the presence here of people who were appearing to destroy something i value very highly – this community
& you could feel it last week – all of us so so so tired – even the news of rove – taken ecstatically – in the first instance quickly dissapeared into the general montage of the miserable melodrama that the tyrants call politics as usual
& the pure heaviness of it all & we are not being faced with armoured personel carriers – is sometimes too much.
& then something opens yet another door that you thought was closed
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 11 2005 21:05 utc | 69
Asja Lacis
Benjamin was a bit of a scoundrel in matters of love. But aren’t we all, I suppose.
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 11 2005 21:05 utc | 70
slothrop
i though with asja it was what the greeks call ‘kaymos’ – unrequited love – it has been a long time but i remember he loved her profoundly but she loved the revolution more
it is hard to think of walter as a scoundrel – a bit of ‘maya’ as the indians would have it – a little jeu du guerre
it is with him & althusser that i sometimes have problems of frontiers
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 11 2005 21:13 utc | 71
@deanander
Sorry if I was a bit rabid last night. I guess the thing is I feel strongly that when some is on any sort of income support it is their business and no one elses. Perhaps Antifa’s neighbour is a hypocrite. I/we have no way of knowing. In here I enjoy that we don’t resort to personal invective amongst each other so I would never accuse someone else whose life I didn’t fully comprehend for being a hypocrite by deriving income be it a pension , superannuation, or straight out stocks and shares, from industries involved in the military industrial complex. I’m pointing no fingers here because as I said I have absolutely no knowledge of anyone else’s life. If the contributors in here are a cross section of internet users we can be sure that at least some will be however indirectly deriving benefit from a conflict they profess to abhor. Does that make them hypocrites or does it make them like Antifa’s neighbour; doing the best they can for their families in a world where if you want to live totally by your ideals you must be prepared to sacrifice the best for your loved ones?
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 11 2005 22:16 utc | 72
The attack in London was an attack on the civilized world. And the civilized world is united in its resolve: We will not yield. We will defend our freedom.
President Discusses War on Terror at FBI Academy
Well you know, bombs on Iraq are not exactly on a “civilized world” you know….
watching the c span of mcllelan is really the epitome of what i’m sayingabout the density of lies of words being drenched in lies & of those lies being drenched in blood
drenched in the blood of a people it is our duty to try to hear as b real & anna missed hade suggested to hear the ghosts who are haunting us – the ghosts of the cities & towns & villages of iraq & afghanistan
the lies, the bloody lies & the sick – the pathological morality plays that are being run through the media as if we were born yesterday & did not know speech & did not know what human breath is
& it is that day after day week after week year after year – lies so profane they seserve the harshest of punishments – a profanity so vulgar that its very baseness – you think would turn ordinary people away & “then you see how this tide of murder has no heartbeat” – that in this moment – they cry for revenge but what they do is a walk away from any normal conception of decency
as we have sd many times – there is the precedent of 1933-1945 germany. people can walk away from their decency but it will take a thousand years to clean the skins of the generations that follow
& in this tide of muder – we try to breath to speak to communicate & we do as we must each day in our lives & we try to make sense of all this – we attempt to use constructs that need to be more transformative but that must not hide the terrible reality under the metaphors of moderation & reasonableness
bcause our times are neither moderate or reasonable
our times are so dark it is lucky that we can breathe at all
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 12 2005 0:59 utc | 74
Just Testing. Post to another thread rejected as “comment spam”. Let’s see how this thread works…Anyone else having this problem?
Posted by: jj | Jul 12 2005 5:42 utc | 75
@jj,
Thanks for the pointer to Cursor.org – very useful if still too high a level of granularity. I use buzztracker, which compiles weights for news by location, but in real time. Slashdot does a great job of weighing news daily, but then starts over again each day. I’ve seen people graph the rise and fall of a particular meme through time via google hits etc. etc….
I guess I’m looking for more of a considered judgement (and discussion) as to what is truly significant from people I have learned to respect, hence the community search. I guess that is what elections are supposed to have been all about, but they seem to quickly get sidetracked into haircuts and botox issues.
Still searching… but thanks.
Posted by: PeeDee | Jul 13 2005 0:58 utc | 76