News & Views
Weekend OT ...
Posted by b on June 17, 2006 at 5:46 UTC | Permalink
« previous pagewomeone saw something so long ago so close to us
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 20 2006 1:37 utc | 102
proviso for arrow: I am not attacking your post above, but merely attempting to reduce what you said to my own preferred specificity. so, don't get your knickers twisted.
I don't know how it works in nz, though, as I understand it nz formerly was amomg the most generous welfare states. but in the u.s. in particular, permanent managed inflation has been the standard and the welfare state as much as the fed has been the means of such management. added to this has been the ideological use of the welfare state to purchase political legitimation of the status quo. this latter use has been accomplished in roughly two ways, by dividing entitlements (social security/medicaire) from subsidies (supplemental income/medicaid). entitlements are widely perceived to be that amount owed to retired and disabled workers, and subsidies are perceived to be temporary support for under- and unemployed workers. only entitlements enjoy sustaining support from the electorate.
the welfare state practically is used via both entitlements and subsidies to absorb the costs of unemployment by socializing those costs and thus contributing to the management of inflation. another way to say this: the welfare state is the principal means of maintaining the reserve army of workers.
this is all to say, in my "wont of trying" as you say, that inspiring the electorate to require expansion of the welfare state in an utterly unreformed and terminally moribund liberal capitalist democracy is to inspire the demand of the people for what most oppresses them. this is "hegemony" in its purest form.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765808609/qid=1150768167/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-0904015-1903046?s=books&v=glance&n=283155>james o'connor's brilliantly elegant little book is still a great way to understand all of what I here clumsily summarize.
again, I'm not accusing you of any bad faith, I'm merely trying to understand in my own way what you said.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 20 2006 1:52 utc | 103
Probably shouldn't add any more info to the confusion, but what the hell - a merger announced today exemplifies the situation:
Nokia and Siemens to merge their communications service provider businesses
June 19,2006 New global network leader for fixed-mobile convergence
"By 2008, some 2 billion people will be using mobile phones and devices, in many cases to access advanced data services." - Ajay R. Mishra (Nokia)
Chairman Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo
President and CEO of Nokia Corporation as from June 1, 2006.
BTW, Olli-Pekka is also a board member of EMC Corp. EMC has a 9,000-employee services division whose consultants help customers develop strategies for managing giant repositories of data. EMC calls this "information life cycle management."
link">http://press.nokia.com/PR/200606/1057716.xml">link
Birthday Arrow,
Some acquaintances of mine have started a band in San Francisco which is getting some buzz. They're best live, but they've got a pretty good recording of one of their shows here. My favorite song of theirs is at about the 45 minute mark. They're a mix of French, Spanish, English lyrics with varied pop/folk/tango/jazz/classical instrumentation. They kind of remind me of the Moon of Alabama in that way.
For something completely different, I've been listening to Marxist hip-hop group The Coup lately. So if you want a nice revolutionary anthem: My Favorite Mutiny.
Posted by: Rowan | Jun 20 2006 2:10 utc | 105
buckley was beautiful. nice catch.
i http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvR4Zh6b3vQ&search=jansch>found this a while back. i mean, you can't beat b. jansch, if you wanna do the titular folk thing.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 20 2006 2:21 utc | 107
completely off topic from anything anyone is discussing here, but i have a pertinent need to know. would the person who posted under the name sid perelman on friday please email me and tell me who you are? i may have confused you with someone else and, if so, i need to issue an apology.
Posted by: conchita | Jun 20 2006 2:53 utc | 108
Say, wouldn't this be a hoot if true?
From Wayne Madsen Report:
June 19, 2006 -- American Media, which owns the tabloids National Enquirer, The Star, and The Globe, and which scooped the mainstream media on Gary Hart's affair with Donna Rice on "Monkey Business II"; Bill Clinton's affair with Gennifer Flowers and salacious details about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky; and Jesse Jackson's illegitimate child has published details of the George W. Bush-Condoleezza Rice relationship and his problems with First Lady Laura Bush in the current, June 26, 2006 issue of The Globe. WMR is quoted in the story.
O. O. O. Just want to thank all for the exquisite music. I was about to get gushy with thanks.... And I won't stop myself, Thank you! Thank you so much!
Posted by: | Jun 20 2006 3:15 utc | 110
Japan has had enough I guess:
Japan PM announces Iraq withdrawal plan
...an order for the withdrawal to begin later Tuesday, for a planned completion by the end of July, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.
Don't know precisely why, but the news that Ray Nagin has called in the Guard to stem spiralling street crime in N.O. put me in mind of that growing chorus of those who "support the war but not the methods". According to those who embrace the latest meme that the US just isn't using a big enough dose of Shock and Awe to deal with anything, we find that
Now, I provided the above quote's context in the link so that nobody can accuse me of making this an entirely apples-and-oranges argument. The sociopath who made that statement was talking about Iraqi looters, of course, and it has nothing to do with a US domestic situation in which upstanding, wealthy lootees need to be protected from... well... the little people. We can clearly see, however, that there are little people (Iraqi, Afghani, Serb and yes, even American)and then there are People; a government is designed to protect the People from... well... the little people. The only problem is that the upstanding, wealthy and respectable People that a government is set up to protect and promote against... well... the little people are becoming something of an endangered species these days.
So Nagin can release the hounds on the growing number of disenfranchised in an attempt to keep the peace-for-the-privileged, but those hounds are getting stretched">http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/06/14/guard_faces_doubts_about_readiness/">stretched a bit thin these days. There's only so much Shock and Awe to go around, it would seem, and the US, in its infallible wisdom, has sent so many of them off to fight the little people abroad so that they don't have to fight them at home. Maybe they should implement a flypaper strategy for hungry and homeless people since that is working so very, very well against the "terrorists".
Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 20 2006 3:57 utc | 112
rowan, i'm listening to your friends now, thanks, i recommend
b. i'm getting a little worried about you. you are missed here. i hope everything is ok....
Posted by: annie | Jun 20 2006 4:03 utc | 113
FROM: PRESS SECRETARY AND SPIRITUAL ADVISER TO THE EMPEROR, DR FU MANCHU:
THE EMPEROR OF THE WORLD is at rest.
Praise the EMPEROR!
You are creating loud noise that disturbs His sleep.
I will present a Powerpoint presentation on the EMPEROR'S Plan
for Human Salvation, or some fascimile thereof, +-0600 HRS GMT Wednesday 21 June, titled:
DR. FU'S WAY OR THE HIGHWAY.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED TWICE!
YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE LEFT BEHIND!
Posted by: MULLAH MARMOSET | Jun 20 2006 4:06 utc | 114
Oh mighty MULLAH, wilt thou save us? Must we wet our tongues with the zam zam jar? No ZamZam no Mecca no cuban cigar, no ports... er, uh well...
Dubai still controls American ports
CNN reports that Dubai is still controlling the ports, and that Congress silently killed legislation that would have helped ensure the ports stay American-owned. Lou Dobbs thinks the Republican Congress and the Bush White House have played a fast one on the American people.and the entropy keeps on coming and the beat goes on...
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 20 2006 4:21 utc | 115
mullah, i don't have a calendar or a clock, could you please give an email wake up call?
Posted by: annie | Jun 20 2006 4:27 utc | 116
thanks annie, I can somehow see you getting along well with "I Like To Dance."
Posted by: Rowan | Jun 20 2006 5:51 utc | 117
@annie, with regards to happiness
here's how it was explained to me which is a cut and paste, however it resonates on so many levels for me at least..thought you might get some mileage out of it as well:
Regarding Seligman...there has always been an ideological critique of cognitive therapy as being subtly and implicity reactionary. It "empowers" the individual by encouraging an adjustment to stifling norms and structures rather than encouraging an opposition to those structures. In particular, it's ideologically trapped in the methodological individualism of American social science of the mid-20c. It begins with the individual and sees groups as simple additive aggregates of individuals, etc. So its notion of "empowerment" is individualistic and apolitical: hey, you can't change your job but you can change the way you FEEL about your job!The conception of self in American cognitive and social psych is basically a truncated version of economic man choosing between consumer options. Therapeutically, collective politics are unthinkable as a response to an oppressive environment UNLESS they already exist as an obvious consumer option.
Depressed person goes to therapist, hates job.
Is there a venue for expressing jobrelated grievances at work, or big powerful union you can join?
--you kiddin', doc?
Well can you afford to quit?
--no way!
Then I'm sure you'll agree the only thing you can change is your attitude!I think the connection you sense has to do with this anomic, fragmenting individualism: the notion of "what can be changed" is reduced to "what I can change all by myself," which structually speaking is nothing at all. (Add to that the increasingly simplistic definition of emotive distress as "irrational thinking" rather than a signal about some distressing aspect of the external world; add to that the prejudice for the quickest and most proximal intervention against the emotion; add to that the American sense of entitlement to feel happy 100% of the time. It's bound to turn ugly.)
Now making this critique against cognitive psych in the 80s, you felt you were pushing a little unreasonably because back then, someone depressed by their job would likely have been counselled to have the courage to find something better and more supporting, or to undergo what used to be called assertiveness training. The undercurrent of blaming the victim was a potentiality more than an obvious agenda.
What's distinctive about Seligman is that the potentiality has been made fully ideological and VERY aggressive. There are some grownups in the positive psychology movement who dislike Seligman because of the way he defines all negative emotion as something bad and maladaptive, to be corrected or displaced from their first appearance. But they're voiceless and without influence because Selgiman inserted his project into the Oprah-Dr. Phil-Tony Robbins circuit from the start, garnering an audience who want an opiate but also want to be told it's mature and gratification-delaying and "scientific."
It's all very selfish, but that fact can be kept in abeyance if converts are ushered into the Candide podworld where the enthusiasm for enthusiasm is reflected back at them from every social surface and people are encouraged to do a trival good deed occasionally because it clears up their cholesterol. It's utterly telling that Seligman took his "new science" to corporations and that his Master's seminars in positive psychology read all the old pop management books. He himself marketed it as a form of social control of employees, not as tools for autonomy given generously to workers.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 20 2006 6:03 utc | 118
@slothrop I'm not getting my knickers in a twist, if I appear to on other occasions it is when I feel response to a post has been ad hominem rather than a genuine debate on the issues.
Now you are perfectly correct when you say the welfare state morphed into a subsidy sort of arrangement where workers on a liveable wage subsidised those on an unliveable wage so they could still eat, and therefore work.
In effect the workers weren't being subsidised nearly as much as the corporations employing the low paid workers were.
That said it wasn't always so and as I alluded to above the welfare state only became confirmed in that role when unemployment was used as a method to keep workers wages low.
Prior to that most people earned within a quite limited range. I'll try and give an example.
My father was a dentist working for himself in his own practise. Now although there was no dental benefits scheme by which dental treatment was covered by the state, obviously he couldn't charge too much or the population couldn't afford to use him.
So in the early 60's he would have had a take home pay of around 25 pounds ($50) a week. At that time an unskilled male manual worker, would have taken home about 6-7 pounds a week ($12-14). So he earned a bit over thrice as much as the person at the bottom of the earnings ladder. There were no servants except maybe one of the neighbours would get the maintenence man off his business's factory floor to clean up around his property from time to time. When we were very young and our old bugger had sailed off for greener pastures, Mom found an old bloke from the artists' colony that lived out bush a bit, who would come and keep our property chopped back and the lawns mowed etc, in return for some some food and beer money. Childcare didn't exist there as anywhere else, one of the reasons for that was that it wouldn't have been possible to make a profit on the difference between selling your labour and paying someone else to look after your children. Yes there were other really oppressive reasons for keeping women out of the workforce, but even if they did overcome those, if they had children, they still wouldn't have been able to make working worthwhile.
I point that out because this was no idyllic existence. people were still as awful to each other as anywhere else, although there was much less violence and desperation about than now, but that is true everywhere. However our existence didn't depend on the brutal exploitation of others. That cannot be said about contemporary life in NZ.
My mates who are dentists nowadays would net around $500,000 a year, at least depending on how cold they want to be, whereas an unskilled manual labourer would be very lucky indeed to net $40,000, many would net $30,000 or less and have their pay topped up by the workers on $45-$70,000 being unable to avoid taxation.
Now anyone standing back and analysing the system would see that the lower middle classes are subsidising the elites, but for those caught up in it seems more like they are supporting the 'no-hopers' so the great economic debate is about tax cuts once again. Forget the fact that NZ's economy has been growing by over 4% per annum for the last decade, and wage increases have amounted to less than a third of that. Forget that the infrastructure needs major expansion and refurbishment. The solution for infrastructure costs is to privatise the institutions so people won't complain to their govts anymore that things don't work. Once they are privatised of course people pay more for a whole lot less service, so the backlash has been so strong that 'privatisation' is in hiatus until the real assholes jag an election win.
The welfare state was purely a safety net much of it under-utilised until the stagflation end to keynsian economic models placed it under far too much stress. The cause of stagflation we are told was inflation. However as I have written in the piece on the collapse of keynsianism and the impending collapse of the current market economy, the real cause is more that both models were predicated on resources costing no more than the the cost of their extraction and transportation.
The NZ economy which was largely agricultural was knocked sideways in the late 60's by the establishment of the EU which meant NZ lost it's customer base. They probably would have traded out of that into new markets particularly in the middle east if the 'oil crisis' of the early 70's hadn't struck right then, and certain outside influences committed a couple of deliberate interventions in the leadership hierachy which allowed a tyrannical economic illiterate in charge. The pooch was royally screwed and the only escape by cosying up to globalisation and trans-national corporations.
It's not a particularly unique story but don't fall for the canard that it was the inefficiency of the welfare state which alone precipitated the collapse of the old order.
When people such as dentists have to pay large sums to learn to be dentists, (yes anyone with the grades can still learn, the money is loaned to them by the state), of course they aren't content with such a small economic advantage.
In fact today the junior doctors, interns and the like around NZ have just gone back to work after a 5 day strike throughout NZ. They only earn $100,000 a year for the first few years which doesn't reward them sufficiently well to pay back their loan and still obtain the economic status they feel they are entitled to. Any idea of a social benefit around careers such as that is long gone, who can blame the kids, they are only acting out what they see around them. it's the same most places in the world nowadays.
But going back to the original thrust of this whole thing, the current NZ government has strayed onto the track of imagining NZ's best interests are served by making it as 'economically efficient' as possible. There was a time when the success of the nation was measured by the proportion of people who had successfully achieved what they had most desired in life.
It sounds corny and it certainly isn't peculiar to NZ, but may seem more apparent here because material success was once considered so much less than other forms of success.
Of course the leadership of NZ would claim that a successful economy is the device by which most people can achieve their 'mission in life'. I reckon they are wrong, and will remain wrong for quite a while yet no matter how much they force along a change.
I will try and explain why I think that this is the main obstacle to governments successfully meeting their population's wishes in the the failure of the current economic model rant, and am quite aware that at first glance much of this can seem totally idealistic and unrealistic, until one does actually check out the population and find that for many economic self actualisation is the only goal they strive for because they believe it is the only goal they can achieve.
That and the continual background chatter of "c'mon be real, everyone is greedy at heart" which fills up most gaps in contemporary community's sound.
It is a chicken and egg thing but unless people demand a change and refuse compromise, we will slowly descend down the gurgler blaming everything but ourselves for the failure of mankind's empire on earth.
Posted by: | Jun 20 2006 6:31 utc | 119
Good rant mp3 here of Mike Malloy Monday night on Air America, going off on left gatekeepers and kosniks...
okay, I'm exhausted , I have saturated this board today gotten some research done and flipped my own mind, so I'll rest now.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 20 2006 6:45 utc | 120
So the U.S. is involved in the largest movement of troops in Iraq since the invasion -- some 8,000+ -- not sweeping up Baghdad, not trashing Ramadi, not looking for Zarqawi's next up -- but looking for the 2 soldiers "kidnapped" now so called. Doesnt take a wild imagination to deduce the panic that must have just swept through the administration; post abu-ghraib, post guantanamo, post Haditha, post salvador option in whatever, we shall see, blowback reversal of fortune poster-boy immitation, played live on international media. We shall see.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 20 2006 7:31 utc | 121
@anna missed they'll be fighting to rovian this one. They had Bush doin the 'bring it on Iran' at the merchant navy academy, in Iraq the great let's pretend that the 57th security clampdown on Baghdad is somehow different and will work, not forgetting some part of Iraq down south that comprises 63 goats and two shia families and absolutely no oil but lots of desert, which the japanese had been minding has just been announced was going to be handed back for Iraq's new army to mind and now this 'two of our boys have been kidnapped' bump in the road.
The real concern for those tired of seeing Iraqis die is that last night's BBC story was that there was no way Ramadi would become another Fallujah. USuk were trying to avoid any of that backlash this attempt to sequester the black gold for once and for all. We're talking about a crew that would willingly sacrifice a couple of their own to win the freedom to level Ramadi or any other part of Iraq and slaughter every last sentient being within if it would give them an edge to grab the oil.
Hell they could give the two kids a few posthumous medals not a M.O.H. cause lets face it they did let themselves get caught but still a pretty good result for the average dead cannonfodder, make everything copacetic.
Posted by: | Jun 20 2006 9:54 utc | 122
Maybe slightly off topic but regarding Corporations and data, this poor soul writes on slashdot.org late last night:
"Today, I received a letter from a student loan provider notifying me that my name and social security number had been stolen along with a contractor's computer. This makes -four- agencies that have lost my personal information, in the last year. Today's letter was the most disappointing yet: the company, Texas Guaranteed, did not offer any credit report monitoring like the previous three had. Their advice? Send a letter to the credit bureaus. Gee, thanks. Clearly, mass identity theft is completely out of hand and there doesn't seem to be any government regulation for handling these situations, nor does there seem to be any punitive action against businesses that lose customers' data. Do we, as consumers, have any recourse against these businesses?"
Ron Suskind's
The">http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/books/20kaku.html/">The One Percent Doctrine
In "The One Percent Doctrine," Mr. Suskind discloses that First Data Corporation — one of the world's largest processors of credit card transactions and the parent company of Western Union — began cooperating with the F.B.I. in the wake of 9/11, providing information on financial transactions and wire transfers from around the world. The huge data-gathering operation in some respects complemented the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program (secretly authorized by Mr. Bush months after the Sept. 11 attacks), which monitored specific conversations as well as combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might lead to terrorism suspects.Despite initial misgivings on the part of Western Union executives, Mr. Suskind reports, the company also worked with the C.I.A. and provided real-time information on financial transactions as they occurred.
...
Just as disturbing as Al Qaeda's plans and capabilities are the descriptions of the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror and its willful determination to go to war against Iraq. That war, according to the author's sources who attended National Security Council briefings in 2002, was primarily waged "to make an example" of Saddam Hussein, to "create a demonstration model to guide the behavior of anyone with the temerity to acquire destructive weapons or, in any way, flout the authority of the United States."
What does this "demonstration model" prove to those already in possession of such weapons - those who have already flouted "the authority of the United States" other than the US is willing to step into the tar pits in order to shock and awe.
Posted by: Hamburger | Jun 20 2006 13:08 utc | 124
@Hamburger:
So much meat there.
Why don't you drag this one up to the next open thread.
@Dr. scam the head shrinker man:
Think the best advances in your field of study are being made in the prescription drug field, actually. Wish I had a couple ludes right now myself. I'm tired to.
Posted by: Jared Diamond | Jun 20 2006 14:27 utc | 125
Just want to say, I will never forget last night. I know it sounds over the top, but kindness effects....it made my world a different place.
Posted by: Amurra | Jun 20 2006 14:47 utc | 126
b real,
Your post about the Derrick Jenson book has been echoing in my head for days. It is an alternate and much more developed version of my political philosophy, which is basically the old adage of "power corrupts." I'd been pondering the viability of city-states in a modern world, but now I'm thinking that would be a worse idea. Especially if they had nukes.
I'll try to pick it up if I remember. Maybe it's time I got a library card. Much cheaper.
Posted by: Rowan | Jun 21 2006 6:43 utc | 127
Rowan- i haven't decided what to think of this new book yet - am barely 200 pages into it's 900 pages (split into two volumes) - but it's definately going to force you to think. if you've read any of jensen's previous titles, which i would heartily recommend if you haven't, he has been developing some very compelling critiques of civilization. i am interested in seeing where he's headed in this book, though in a way, i'm almost hesitant to get too deep into it. it's heavy (no pun intended) stuff. not the writing style, but the substance. it'll also be very controversial - in the way that ward churchill's pacifism as pathology and the unibomber's manifesto were. in his past titles, jensen has come across as a most intelligent, thoughtful, and sane person. as i said, it'll be interesting to see where he's taking his readers.
Posted by: b real | Jun 21 2006 14:57 utc | 128
@B Real:
I'll check the book out.
BTW: Your understanding of verbal maneuver and envelopment is quite impressive. I was laughing my ass off watching that little display.
Posted by: | Jun 21 2006 15:47 utc | 129
The comments to this entry are closed.
As I have eluded to before, the vast majority of people either do not see what is happening for and by various tactics or are in complete denial, as a means of self protection. However, my anthropological training has taught me to look for pattern in an emic/etic (direct and indirect) way however after reading The Social Production of Indifference: Exploring the Symbolic Roots of Western Bureaucracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. I have grown more aware of the conditioning taking place. As I have stated, I keep seeing an almost generational incremental, piecemeal, and continuous conditioning taking place above and beyond the mudane. I know it sounds crazy, but it feels like a methodical relentless and systemic herding the masses into an ideology, a symbolic buffalo Jump; or a 'mental plantation' if you will. And I think the pattern is pending resolution but is morphing and thereby becoming clearer. Kafka's anxieties in The Castle and The Trial arise because his status is always pending resolution. 'Continuous assessment' is the mode by which Control operates.
Today, security imposes itself as the basic principle of state politics. It is becoming the sole criterion of political legitimation. A self perpetuating meme (read: mind virus; collective mind virus). It is not anymore a measure of public administration among several others. No, the state's only task and only source of legitimacy is now Security.
But when politics reduces itself to security, the difference between state and terrorism threatens to disappear, because the state can be provoked by terrorism to turn itself terroristic. That's what is happening now:Security and terrorism are forming a system in which they justify each others' killings. We are institutionalizing terror inside the state apparatus.
And an indirect affect is national anhedonia; a society of apathy in which we except any form of absurdity and madness
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 20 2006 1:19 utc | 101