Daily HotShots! 22*11*06

Just a day before the turkeys thaw and the table's set for our yearly family sit-down. I'll be working all night tonight so it's gonna be late tomorrow when we sit down. Football will take a back seat to sleep.

Bush: I would understand if Israel chose to attack Iran - Haaretz - Israel News Don't go to sleep with this guy at the wheel. To mix metaphors, does this guy's psych nurse get any sleep? Who knows how dangerous he is to himself and others around him.

Sacrifice Israel to Win Iraq Despite the (intentionally?) provocative title, this posting suggests a quite modest proposal. It will earn the ire of many rabid Zionists but it suggests like a sacrifice of Israel, only the return of illegally occupied Palestinian territories.

civil war in lebanon If you've read my postings here for some time, you will remember that civil war in Lebanon is one of the potential causes that Israel will use to justify attacking Iran. I know, I'm paranoid--and anti-semitic to boot. .....

Israel ups the stakes in the propaganda war And you thought that war was about killing people. Wake up and smell the coffee, look at your newspaper and see the naked breakfast served up by the propaganda machines. Ho Chi Minh said this years ago--the Israelis and the Americans understand this quite well. Heard about the Pentagon's own internet propaganda effort? Look it up.

Grim prognostications from the dismal science Okay, I am what you'd call socially critical humanist/existentialist cynic. Economic arguments for change take a back seat to ethical and self-actualization issues in the bizarre book I read. Still, if you think you're sitting on a nest egg worth maybe $200K plus--ie, your house--this article is going to be a real bummer to read. Since I am semi-nomadic, this means little to me, although those dear to me will think I am being paranoid when I bring up facts like these.

US Special Forces Manual Ever wonder what those black ops guys do for a living? Want to see the reality behind fictional accounts like The Unit (CBS)? Well, even with most of the manual unavailable for public perusal (otherwise I'd have to shoot you), this description gives some insight. What I find a bot unsettling is that I think this guy is saying that special ops teams operate in the continental US. I thought that was illegal.

CBS on the "Group of Weirdos" Who Ran the GOP House So what's wrong with the press coverage of the carnage and disastrous undertaking in Iraq? How come the press doesn't cover the neocon putsch? This article suggests it's a matter of the press' sense of civility. They just don't want to talk brass tacks. I like this article because it calls the liberal mumbling points to task while taking the gloves off ... Have I used enough cliches yet?

Has a fresh look at 118-year-old evidence revealed the true face of Jack the Ripper? The century old fascination with this serial murderer deserves more comment. But seriously, if the main suspect is supposed to be a Polish immigrant, how come this guy looks... Arab! Talk about historical irony. I'm having flashbacks here evoking Orwell's 1984 and his description of the uber-enemy Goldmann.

The myth of the selfish gene Gritty gut check about our most basic nature or a way to salve guilty consciences and pin responsibility onto deterministic processes? That was a mouthful but you know what I mean, right?

The Weaponized Phallus (and five easy-to-remember steps) Okay, language is just one of those things that reflects the faults and unseen designs of deception--not to mention unheralded anger, violence, and baser instincts.

Thousands Of Evangelicals Rally To Reclaim Wal-Mart's "Biblical" Heritage Thank God for Walton beer, soda, and smiley faced-welfare. Do I hear an amen? Give me a shout-out!

Roskies on Neuroscientific Challenges to Free Will Those pesky academics have nothing better to do than doubt their own existence? Maybe they're right. Seriously, I am less free than I think; I am more free than I think--put that through your biological computer once called the mind.

Book Review: Overblown! Saying that the so-called war on terror is hyperbole might get some stony stares. Saying that the threat from terrorists is all hype and empty propagandizing could get you an ass-whipping. This guy's thesis that that is indeed the case is not exactly new, but it does have facts and facts and many more facts to back it up. The American Prospect blog beat me to it.

More Book Talk: Zen and the Art of Mo-Cycle Maint. The cult classic that tore up the book charts in the early 80s is still drawing readers. My son just read it and I had some time eliciting any meaning for him from my hazy memories. My memories of the work included more of a story of why I read the book in the first place: a fellow student dying from cancer recommended it; he eventually left school but his motorcycle sat unused near the back door to the kitchen all year. At night I'd hear a motorcyclist pass the Santa Fe foothills where the college sat like some ghostly reminder of the spirit that had passed. (The interview with Pirsig is here.)

Movie Review: Pan's Labyrinth I love the use of fantasy to present serious subjects. What better way to explore fascism than through the unwinding nightmares that plague the individual and communal unconscious? How long do I have to wait for it to get on Sundance or IFC? Not long I hope.

On-line Vote Against Torture There are so many reasons not to sign this petition aren't there? It won't do anything; it's not real political action; it's by a religious group. But then there's so much wrong about torture. Besides what you done about it that could really stop it?

In Memoriam: Robert Altman The man was a genius--and had a wicked wit, something I find amenable. MASH is still the funniest movie that quickly comes to mind when I think of such things. Needless to say, I hated the TV show based on what's a masterpiece movie. McCabe and Mrs. Miller set the next stage in how people did westerns, right Clint? As it is, for those who think that art has no impact on the "real world," I can tell you that MASH added much to the growing anti-war movement against VietNam. This goes to show that irony and satire can still play a part in how people develop their moral and political views. Did you ever doubt it? Read more!

moronic murti bing smile at the hollywood bazaar

the Iraqi dead are not happy. they seek justice that cries from the stones and sand and desert itself. happiness--as the philosopher once said--is best served cold. tho i do not seek vengeance justice demands to be cried from the roof tops.

divine love demands justice be done in the love that emanates from doing good to others and for others. when the assassin comes to your door give him a bed a meal but do not invite the dagger to strike your daughter. ...

it is only when the assassins have their hearts changed into neighbor-enemy love:that not done by human power--never ever will the gonads seek more than revelation in the tribal justice and blood land and eretz that population and culture propagate.

the moronic smile of murti bing sold at the hollywood bazaar is a cheap high and the plastic jesus hanging from the rearview mirror brings nothing but more dead more hate and vengeance-filled plates whose naked lunch few if any amurricans care to see.

methinks that divine imagination and creative poet who once walked jerusalem's alleys spoke a revolution that the moms and pops and their american pie true blue empire have muzaked into murti bing bliss pills.

happiness--what is that? is it some moronic smile that murti bing sells at the hollywood bazaar?

that holiness--that is not mine thine or any human. only the divine is holy:dare we try to share it in any way that would not offend?

am i deus ex machina? not a deus assuredly not:a machina yes but one that's more tin man and less borg. Read more!

Bring Back the Draft?

Representative Charlie Rangel of New York has recently proposed that America institute the draft.One point that I think many miss about Rangel's proposal is the social aspects. I believe that his proposal is a liberal response to something that the neo-cons have partly right: the threats to social cohesion and its inherent corruption. The neocons have made their case quite explicitly that the US faces the danger of fragmentation and moral corruption.

This type of civic fragmentation ultimately makes the US--they argue--incapable of defending itself from its enemies. Granted they emphasize and highlight the wrong points and their proposals verge on fascism, the issue they raise is a very real one. ...

Look at the world from Rangel's world: black America is torn by immense social problems. From vast swaths of of poverty to tremendous alienation among the young, all attachment to the American ethos or ideal is on the verge of death or already dead among many young people in the young Black community.

Take a look at perhaps the best show on TV, The Wire. You want to see the decline of America, the reality of many young Blacks is incredibly vicious, bleak, and ultimately threatening the social fabric--within the black community itself as well as to America as a whole.

Rangel's proposal certainly has many vectors to it. The type of corruption he sees seething among the young Black community also can be looked at from the perspective of white America and the millions of disaffected, alienated, and apathetic young.

Many have interpreted Rangel's proposal as a way of getting at the hypocrisy of the idle rich in their bloodthirsty demands for more war. Yet, I believe the more socially significant of his proposal is that it confronts the social anarchy that will finally bring about a decline in the American dream.

The media has glommed onto the military conscription aspects of his proposal. Yet, in interviews he continually makes clear that he is not just talking about military service. He is saying that there should be a term of service to the country in diverse ways, including those familiar to Americorps.

I personally do not believe that this type of mandatory social service will save America. Yet, to ignore the noble intentions and the wider extent of the social impact does a disservice to the reality that Rangel hopes to address. It also shows that those running this country and their Charley McCarthy puppets in the press wish to keep the country ignorant of the very real dangers that threaten the republic.

I agree that these economic inequalities are important factors. I'm very encouraged that Senators-elect like Jim Webb and John Tester are highlighting this very point, at least in their interview on Meet the Press Sunday.

I think that even were some form of economic equality to occur, though, the notion of service and sacrifice that Rangel seems to be advocating might still remain inert. Indeed, isn't that the point about the super-rich? They have plenty of money but they feel no need to pay back the society that has given them such bountiful plenty.

Some have mentioned Teddy Roosevelt. From what I have heard about him, as rich and privileged as he was, he felt that he must help others and repay the society that made it possible for him to have so much.

I think that Rangel sees the diversity of black Americans--perhaps better than you or I (who am not black). I imagine that he sees the social circumstances of many blacks in terms of his own personal experience of having served in the military and how that positively affected his life. You can point to many blacks in the military who have succeeded and continue to succeed after life there.

I think of the young soldier in John Sayles' "Lone Star." I paraphrase: she says that this (the military) is the best deal they (meaning whites) offer a young black person without any other way out of dire circumstances. I imagine it might be in that spirit that Rangel is proposing this "social service" draft. Read more!

Confessing America: The TV as Confessional

I used to think that the fascination that Americans have with popular detective shows is about a sense of justice--something related to the insecurity people feel in their lives. In my more radically social moments, I could even engage in a conversation that cop and detective shows exhibit a form of control underlying the class structure of American culture.

My attention has recently been caught in watching the various Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) spin-offs, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York. Amid the dazzling lighting, the sophisticated camera shots, the glamorization of technology, the music video touch to test tubes and microscopes, the underlying paean to the scientific method... amid all this, there's a strange sense of unease that permeates the certainty of the evidence, an unease that appears as a form of confession. …

After spending one Thanksgiving week at a monastery called Christ in the Desert, I penned the following words:

What is the guilt?
Is it that ancient
blood curse that wants
to kill the father,
marry the sister,
or have the mother?
Or is it a plastic doll
in whose cavity
I'd deposit my jism
of loneliness?

Or is it this face,
pitiful in want
and regret?
Horrible with tears,
reduced to act
and be
what others want.
Without time,
condemned to time.

The priest's witness
fills my question
with presence.
My confession
to a face
beyond the screen
of anonymity
or the social mask
stripped bare.

What is confession? Who do I confess to? If I confess must there be someone there to hear to make it legitimate? Or can I speak into the blank face of the dark night and confess my fears and despair and failings and expect some form of validity.

The German philosopher Wittgenstein once said that if someone confesses an intimate secret to you, the notion of truth or falsehood--what's known as verisimilitude--comes little into play. Instead, we talk of the truthfulness of a confession--not whether it accords in a way that you could videotape and show back to people to get a consensus on what's real, ostensibly the results of scientific study. Instead we talk about how much the person believes what they did, how they hid it from others and themselves and why—how truthful they’re being in their confession.

Wittgenstein would be the last person to endorse introducing biographical information into a grammatical discussion of the meaning of words. Hoping to transgress that peeve, I’d note that during bouts of suicidal despair he’d often seek out listeners to hear confessions of things he’d done. For Wittgenstein, confession meant telling someone—a perfect stranger perhaps—what I did and to hear my stuttered reasoning for why I did it.

In the Hebrew Testament, a seminal passage concerning confession includes the public recitation of the people’s sins by the high priest in the Temple. Part of this ritual included the transmission of those sins into the body of a scapegoat—a goat--which was then sent out into the wilderness, no doubt to be killed by predators.

And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send [him] away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:21-22)

Much sociological, theological, and ethnological literature has been written about the scapegoat. This appears to be a universal practice and is found among many cultures around the world. An excellent dramatic rendition of the ritual is seen in Wole Soyinka’s play, Death and the King's Horseman.

In Christianity, the notion of confession incorporates the Jewish social aspects of sinfulness but adds the further qualification of faith in God and Jesus as savior capable of taking away those sins, as well as the one whom one must acknowledge as the bearer of the meaning of God’s revelation.

Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God…

It is the social aspect of the scapegoat that perhaps provides the most promising way to understand the secularization of confession found in the cop shows I have mentioned.

The cop shows are geared to proving guilt and wrong-doing of an individual who will suffer society’s banishment (prison) for the wrongs committed by that individual. It’s perhaps important to bear in mind that the secularized version here of sin bears little resemblance to the way that some Christians would understand sin. For modern Americans, there’s not much difference between sin and moral failings.

Fixing people or getting away from sin is perhaps the most attractive part of crime shows like CSI. A clearly defined method at identifying evil and putting it under a microscope or distilling it in a test tube gives many the hope that why people do evil can also be identified and codified in some form of scientific operating procedure.

Whether these sins are simply those of the individual under investigation—showing the American notion of individuality—is questionable. For it’s during this investigation of one individual’s crimes that the confessions of the investigators themselves often make their appearance. These little confessions come in the form of bringing to light the failings or small slip-ups—the character quirks and morally ambiguous behavior that add greys to life.

No doubt, these little confessions play a dramaturgical role. They’re meant to display something of the character’s personality. Yet, within the context of the search for how and why someone committed a crime, the character defects take on the quality of confession. That is, the investigation into the crimes of a single individual serves as the context in which others face and proclaim to others their own faults (sins).

American culture thrives on confessions—whether it’s the confessions of music or film stars, wayward and corrupt politicians—an entire industry called entertainment news specializes in revealing the little secrets of people who apparently enjoy more of the American dream than we do. Carried in one direction, this fact can be understood along distinctly class lines; that is, the lower classes envying the power and status of those more fortunate. While this may form part of the phenomenon as form of of resentment, I do not think that it captures the full depth of it.

In the context in which I have been arguing, though, I think there’s a fruitful way of looking at this phenomenon as what I’ll call the de-subjectivization of America. One of the main assumptions of many is that it is a subjective process by which what’s inside us comes out for others to see. This assumption has come under increasingly critical questioning by philosophers who use scientific studies of the brain and various schools influenced by postmodern notions. For these thinkers, there is no subjectivity to be found—no inside there—and so the public confessional of the television makes as much sense in terms of the essentially social nature of human beings as anything else.

So what do Americans find worth confessing about? Even a cursory glance at the plots and themes of shows such as CSI, Law and Order, Monk, and The Closer—to mention a few—exhibit the diversity and level at which the various shows deal with America’s anxieties and despair. The fact that several of these shows draw many of their plot lines and subjects from news headlines points up the fact that they deal with America’s most pressing anxieties. The themes of these shows deal with the more sensational and spectacular cases. But, as Dostoievski knew, it is the exception that often points to the rule. If true, the source of many Americans’ anxieties revolve around sexuality, multiple murders, social ineptitude, and various forms of envy.

I am not usually a stickler for proscribed definitions of words, believing as I do that words often have meanings that verge on the meanings of other words and concepts. While it is true that many in the diminishing Judeo-Christian culture of modern America might mean by the crimes they witness in the news or see in TV as a kind of sin. Is American society’s televised confessional an occasion for displaying cultural artefacts that echo dying traditions passing into new expressions or do they perhaps reflect deeper, more durable traits that are part of what once used to be called human nature? I don’t hope to answer that question here but it is important to bear in mind while reading the following comments.

I am not usually a stickler for sticking strictly to proscribed definitions of words, believing as I do that words often have meanings that verge on the meanings of other words and concepts. While it is true that many in the diminishing Judeo-Christian culture of modern America might mean by the crimes they witness in the news or see in TV as a kind of sin, it is important to differentiate that understanding from what a Christian thinker like Kierkegaard might understand to be sin. It is important to differentiate that understanding from what a Christian thinker like Kierkegaard might understand to be sin.

As Christians like Kierkegaard understand sin, however, the notion of sinfulness is a willed desire to do evil—sometimes unconscious, often not—that characterizes the very basis of human decision-making. The ethical understanding assumed by many in post-Judeo-Christian America, though, assumes that if the reasoning can be gotten right then the sin can or proclivity to sin can be fixed.

Kierkegaard used to say that one characteristic of modern secular culture is what he called envy. By this he meant that people in modern societies continually compare themselves to what others are doing and gauge their own sense of who they are by how well they measure up to that comparison.

For Kierkegaard this is a basic feature of human nature. That is, the formation of our self is based on a continual imitation or mimicking of the actions of others. From the very earliest stages of development as children we are continually looking at those like our parents, our siblings, our friends, cultural icons and adapting ourselves to what we find that we wish we had and incorporating into our psychology.

In the ever continuing saga of televised confessional, perhaps it is this deep-seated envy and resentment that spurs the public on and on to witness its own destruction of its loss of moral and ethical clarity. Read more!

Notes on Cultural Pain, Liberty, and Military Paradigms

In an interview on Meet the Press, Jim Webb said something that I think is crucial for future use of the military in relationship to terrorism. He said that military might must only be used after diplomacy fails. That's probably part of what's become known as the Powell doctrine, a policy that the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld stratagem in Iraq has exuberantly derided with disastrous results.
Rumsfeld in particular seems to have spearheaded this effort at decapitating the Powell doctrine. In his effort to modernize the military, he's emphasized the integration of technology into the fighting units, expecting thereby to make units smaller but increasingly lethal by way of their ability to pinpoint the enemy and concentrate not only infantry firepower but augmented by air support. (See this LA Times article, which I saw after I wrote this posting.) ...

Of course, much of this is known to many who are on the ground. The efficacy of the approach has proven itself in the fact that few insurgents are willing to take US troops on in head-to-head fighting. They simply don't have the will or firepower to engage US troops at this level. Another result of this focus is that the attrition rate on US forces is low. Maximizing troop protection is a laudable objective in any form of warfare.

Another facet of US military strategy is that of massive lethality which I suggest informs the way that the US military strategizes. The very use of the phrase shock and awe used to describe the initial attacks on Iraq bear this out. The idea here seemed to be that the attack would stun the enemy into such shock that their will to fight would dissipate. Indeed, much of American strategy in Iraq has followed this model, with Falluja coming most quickly to mind.

I think the psychology of this strategy must be questioned. I do not know what studies, if any, this strategy is based on but it has so far been disproved dramatically in Iraq. Anyone familiar with history, however, could have seen how mistaken the policy is.

It appears that those who formulated this strategy are working under the paradigm of nuclear devastation. That is, the US holds within its power gargantuan military might in its nuclear arsenal and that fact of immense destructive power has infused the very strategy and thinking that goes into how the US faces its foes. After all, this thinking might go, no one is going to defeat us--if worse comes to worse, we can simply wipe them and their future generations from the face of existence.

The question is, how does this underlying assurance of destruction guide the unconscious thinking and planning that goes into military leaders' actions? I suggest that it has infused the entire Cheney/Rumsfeld war paradigm--from battle strategy to torture regimes.

I would like to know where this strategy has ever worked, however. It seems that humans have shown over and over that they are willing to die (and kill) to the last person if they believe that the stakes are high enough. Perhaps this has to do with cultural variables such as tribal versus individualist ethoses, but I imagine that these variables might prove less different than at first sight they seem.

One example that most Americans should know includes the use of massive force against Native American. In its expansion across the American continent, the US government relied on massive military superiority to quell and subdue Native American tribes. Contrary to the expected results, many groups and individual within the native population were willing to experience extermination rather than accept defeat and witness the death of their societies. Those who did not were forced into concentration camp style reservations. That experience shows that some humans are willing to die en masse--even to cultural death--to survive.

The psychological aspects of using massive lethality are probably incalculable. While one culture might buckle under the pressure of such lethal destruction, others would find such force more incentive to fight. The variables that come into play are perhaps more cultural than baldly biological.

With regard to the Iraq war, it appears that the US architects sorely underestimated the response of Iraqis to the use of such force. These architects were perhaps taking into account the fact that Iraq had withstood an 8-year war of attrition with Iran, a decade of economic sanctions imposed by western nations where over half a million people died, and decades of cruel tyranny by Saddam Hussein.

I do not have the exact quote available, but during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Iraq supreme commander Gen. Abizaid spoke briefly on Iraqi society’s ability to sustain pain. Until I find a transcript of that testimony I must rely on my impression of what he meant. It appears that US military commanders factor into their formulations of war an idea of how much pain and suffering a group of people or society can absorb. In Abizaid's estimation, it seems that US military architects underestimated that "absorption level" of Iraqis.

In his analysis of what elements are required for a republican form of government, Machiavelli considered cultural and behavioral factors such as those exhibited by the Native Americans and the Iraqi insurgents. For Machiavelli, it is factors such as these that show how much a particular grouping of humans will be able to "get" the notion of republican freedom. That is, who is willing to go to their deaths rather than accept others telling you what to do and imposing laws and prohibitions by fiat or force from outside.

Ultimately, these cultural factors will also determine how much a group can grasp and understand the interplay of forces that go into maintaining that "mixed polity" where the differentiated groupings that fall out from the workings of "fate" work together to protect the society as well as make it go forward.

These formulations may sound as though they buy into the argument put forward by those who say that the Muslims are not ready for democracy or that Islam is somehow immune to it. In fact, the resistance to US hegemonistic actions in the region, their resistance to an imposed peace by US forces, and the continuing fight suggest otherwise.

On a larger level, it seems that these cultural variables are not biologically determined. Instead, they result from various historical forces. As much as those forces are part of what go into the formation of social groupings in the first place, these forces also seem to play a large role in helping various groups develop the practices and behavioral responses required to encourage various styles of democratic institutions, traditions, and practices.

In the past, these features of human existence have been left to the vagaries of chance and happenstance. With the availability of historical awareness, however, the ability for humans to take control of those processes and inculcate them becomes a feature of human existence.

Related Links (all found after I wrote the above)

• Tech Terrible for Israeli Ops?
  
• Thinking about the future of war

Read more!

Daily HotShots! 19*11*06

Football day brings hot shots in oodles. In that spirit and without the mind to keep pace with the game on TV, computerized updates on my team, as well as news on RawStory and Bloglines, I put these together for your viewing pleasure.

Radical hospitality The notion of hospitality is crucial to ideas of how humans care for each other. This exegesis of Jewish scripture suggests how radical that experience can be.

From suicide bombings to bus routes: one mosque's journey out of extremism So when you hear people talking about the disease of jihadism, think about this and how humans are not vermin or germs.

Thoughts from Salman Rushdie He's on something of a personal crusade but it's important to remember that personal experience says much when it comes to showing other people what dangers

Olmert's drums of war Imagine that.

Opening up Fortress Europe The German philosopher proposes that a more ethnically diverse Europe is the basis for freedom, not its threat as most Islamaphobes will have you believe.

Time Out with Nick Cohen: This week: Ted Honderich Honderich is one of the more logically rigorous and well-informed Leftists you will find, without being an ideologue.

Islam Recognizes Truth and Wisdom in Other Faiths Presents the views of a Muslim professor on how Islam understands other faiths. Contrary to anti-Islamic propaganda, this man's informed understanding of his faith shames the hate-mongers.

Report Links Homelessness To Federal Spending Priorities You mean they do want to work? and they really don't want to be homeless? Can't they just go somewhere out of sight, they make me nervous like MJ Fox does Rush Limbaugh.

The Uncovered War: Permanent Bases in Iraq When you hear the Democrats tackle this issue--one that should be front and center in the news--then you will know that they mean to carry through on serious questioning of the Bush admin. Mideast strategy. Anything else and it's just changing the picture on the TV.

The Hopeless Stupidity of 9/11 Conspiracies I am hopelessly skeptical about conspiracy theories, green men from alpha centauri, etc etc. A huge percentage of the US public believes that the government has covered something up about the bombings of 911. jodi dean studies these theories as part of a larger intellectual project. I think she gets it right.

Book Review: You Hide, They Seek Like much of my aesthetic tastes, it tends to the grotesque, the spoof and lampoon that spurs to serious thoughts. Pynchon has written some of the best literature in America in the last half century. Of course, I think he's a genius much as I do Sam Shepherd, someone the more learned despise. I once wrote NPR when they had someone on who was touting a 100 greatest characters of western literature. I said mine was Tyrone Slothrop, eponymous (anti)hero of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, one of the great American novels... okay, I'll stop now. But read the interview. This novel promises to be better than the last one Pynchon wrote, which I could not finish.

More Book Talk: The unbearable wait is over as Kundera's lost novel goes home I mean this in the best possible way: I loved the movie. Read more!

The Bane of Bush's Evil?

Brad Leiter just posted a joke that's germane to your comments Pat: Q: What's the difference between Iraq and Vietnam? A: Bush had a plan for getting out of Vietnam.

Be that as it may, my guess is that the deciderer has fuzzy notions about what he means. It's been obvious for some time that he's chickenhawked his way through life so why stop now? The patina of religiosity that he wears does little to hide the fact that he's an idealist who lets testosterone and guts (bred on the fields of battle at Yale as a cheerleader) determine what's right vs. what's wrong. ...

We can dump on the poor man forever; the jokes are too cruel and often demonize a fellow whose main fault is mediocrity and a hopeless mishmash of despair and megalomania. Hannah Arendt's study of evil of banality has become somewhat a cliche (sadly), but it applies to a nation and a leader whose most telling character trait is mumbling vacuous platitudes. (Yes, I know, that's a tautology, but it's true nonetheless; it's like saying empty to the nth degree.)

But seriously, to comment on Ken Larson's very sincere remarks (@ Sic Semper Tyrannis): I am reminded of the historical debate between the various Italian republicans during the time that machiavelli was formulating his ideas. The question revolved around whether a virtuous republic should resemble Sparta or Athens. The dichotomy here is that between a military-style ethos that prized simplicity and material asceticism over exhuberant and what could be called extravagant materialism.

Plato favored the former, Aristotle the latter. It seems that Machiavelli opted for Aristotle's view but used Roman imperial republicanism as the model for a "mixed polity." To make a long story short, the US founding fathers followed machiavelli in this view, realizing at the start that a state must adopt imperial ambitions to allow the greatest amount of liberty.

My guess is that the brick wall that Mr. Larson posits will by necessity face the US with something of a revision of the founding fathers' preises. In a country that consumes vast quantities of total world resources, where more is wasted than large swaths of the world's population need to survive, where obesity is a chronic health problem--that this country will ultimately fail due to its bloated self-conceit and inability to constrain its own appetites.

With that failure--probably temporary--the country will have to some form of self-analysis that might lead to an ethos much like Sparta's. The hope here then will become that it does not also adopt the military ethos whose ultimate expression seems to be some form of undemocratic control regime.

[xposted at Sic Semper Tyrannis's comments section] Read more!

scenes for the massacre of innocents:the jihadi-crusaders storm heaven

1.jesuits read benny's mail as memory dies in bazaar of lies

the jesuits have used their memory machines to remember that war is no longer the answer. they've been reading bin-laden's mail:sorry benny but the boys with romantic notions of dying for the jihad are dwindling or finding other lovers. the jihad sputters out and the moderates mumble their way to the top of the ash heap.

my relatives all died in the search for a truth that's been leveled beneath the public good. but then we're all human and that truth is as good and maybe moreso than any other in the interregnum between holocaust and the gehenna of rebirth.

2.hambone in the mouth doth drain the brain of gristle

si senor yo sabe il sacra biblia. me wonderest how much of the quote:dogma:unquote ye have read great hambone of the intellect. whose dogma anyway and for what reason hath thou thrown this steely bone in the face of a poor simpler hearted tinker? speaketh thou gristly purveyor of dogmatic lunacies.

3.gothic mansion in the proletariat's glorious death at the gate

u haven't been listening i guess for you mistake not only who u think you are talking to but also the object of your ridicule. frankenstein socialist and creator friend of republicans true revolutionaries:not the ilk spewing ideology and purity in its gotterdammerung of us foreign and domestic policy. eat that you slimy shade of the real:a man whose historical sense knows better than to impose ideology or crude and trite caricatures onto something he knew better of.

4.anal investigations god hating atheistic script in the word of design

commie fags expect u to learn sodomy anal investigations circle jerks while desecrating the bible:and no i speaketh not of the haggard tim or foley folly. repent thou babel-fish and learn the screed that that the secular hordes and barbaric godhaters expect thou to imbibe with mommas milk fed through a test tube of a cloned-cow-human using stem cells of babies born in a laboratory.

5.enter herr pseudo-spengler in cassandra drag eyes dripping on her sleeve

still waiting are we in the gloom of herr pseudo-spengler's false cassandra prediction that the us will slay the persians of the ruddy blood fields of the mideast? once a prophet's predictions die on the wing the prophet doth shrivel amongst the ruins.

doubt thine sense sayeth the brain in a vat. the cynical have said they'll not strike the persians:as the pseudo-spengler hath writ:his cassandra voice is a wee junko on the wing of pseudo-twilit eve.

6.universe on fire:heraclitus bites a clitoris

dare i dip a toe in that wading pool as the man of dark gnomic sayings who slept in dung to light the universe on fire once asked of a wider meandering stream that some will falsely call life?

7.Coda:machiavell got the blues

machiavelli got the blues
when the romans got their dues
when the republic fell
was what he'd tell
to those who asked
what caused the empire to stall
for polybius said it's round and round
that states do turn to ground
out their fate of rise and fall
only to begin once more in Gaul Read more!

Daily HotShots! 14*11*06

Setting up the Kierkegaard Carnival today, resorting to googling for contributors now. Have found several quite good pieces, not to mention Kierkegaard's MySpace entry (I kid you not).

The news is filled with more jockeying among the technocrats for power. One sign of idealistic--probably utopian--light is the suit brought against Donald Rumsfeld for war crimes.

Per usual, Glenn Greenwald is carrying on a great debate about torture and eternal damnation of prisoners in the US.

Why the Baker commission on Iraq doesn't matter Look at that statement by Panetta--about people "in the know" knowing how bad it is in Iraq for years.

First Things: Social Corruption It's not very often that you find the terms of the so-called "culture war" presented in such sociable terms. The nice thing about this is that it cuts to the nub of the emotional issues that really drive the more high-falutin rhetoric.

For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is ‘God’s Foreign Policy’ I find it somewhat ironic--of course, I see everything in terms of irony these days--that the universal message of the early Christian church has apparently come full-circle and includes only the US and Israel.

Netanyahu: It's 1938 and Iran is Germany; Ahmadinejad is preparing another Holocaust This not news. Netanyahu has been finding Nazis under every bush for years. Besides, he hopes to unseat Olmert when the latter's government implodes from charges of corruption. OTOH Israel has been sending mixed signals about its plan to bomb Iran, hoping perhaps to draw the US into the fire. How perfect would that be? Whether Repubs or Dems are in power, there're few politicians that are going to stand up to the Israel Lobby when Israel's "existential" viability is at stake.

Islami Samizdat - Shaykh Daoud Online: An Essay on Redhouse's Pamphlet on the Ottoman Caliphate Interesting essay by a Muslim Tory on what the caliphate could possibly mean in the modern world.

The Top 10 Books on the Crusades
Promising historical reading on a subject that Islamaphobes and jihadists have attempted to twist to their own interests.

The Bush Regime from Elections to Detentions: A Bootstrapped Moral Economy of Carl Schmitt and Human Rights by David Abraham A somewhat forbidding title that hides a pretty clearly argued analysis of the corrupt Bush/neocon morality.

The Gospel According to Bush A very good discussion of some of the theologico-political premises upon which much of Bush's rhetoric rests.

Who Will Pay for Iraq and When? So why hasn't this been exploited by the Dems? While I'm usually averse to making moral arguments based on economics, from my growing appreciation for republican Machialvellism I think someone should start discussing this issue. Or is this a cluster-bomb waiting to blow up in the Dems face? That is, when the notices go out, who's going to have to pay the bill and who'll get tagged with being responsible for raising taxes to pay for it? Perhaps the Dems deserve everything they get, since they seemed to go along with the Iraq charade for so long.

Why Intellectuals Love Defeat (h/t Blackfive) I lve the "you can't handle the truth" nature of much of this branch of the Right's apologists. Not exactly anti-intellectualism this. Obviously, the author here means Leftist intellectuals, not the Right intellectual he quotes.

The dark side of the 'Good War' Explores the truly terroristic methods used by all sides in WWII. Makes you wonder how many years it'll take to learn about the atrocities committed in US name during this Iraq war. Can you say Falluja?

The Name of the Genre: Philosophy Meets Mystery One of my favorite books is Eco's Name of the Rose. I cut some teeth on Dorothy L Sayers' detective novels. Doesn't Chesterton's Father Brown rate some mention? And what about that rather opportunistically titled detective novel, A Philosophical Investigation? Wittgenstein forms the basis for the so-called rationale of the criminal there. We're even supposed to feel sympathy for him since he's killing other serial killers. Oh... spoiler alert. Read more!

Daily HotShots! 13*11*06

Watching the dedication of the Martin Luther King memorial in Washington. CNN is airing all of the President's speech, having shown some of Bill Clinton's (who signed the legislation for the memorial) and some of Oprah Winfrey's.

Architecturally, the monument looks quite inspired. Hopefully, once it takes shape it will equal the power of the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials between which it will stand.

Just a random thought: Martin inspired much of my childhood. I cannot tell you how much I tried to organize and train my soul to accord with the meaning of his words. Perhaps it's trite, but the notion that it's that spirit that is the true memorial says something.

Anyway, I'm finding that few bloggers are covering this event--right or left. RawStory doesn't even have a blurb up on it.

[h/t to Mike for the picture at the right]

US ELECTIONS AND IRAQ Summarizing John Boyd's comments, this piece provides a useful framework within which to orient thoughts about moving into the future. Of note is the conclusion that confrontation with Iran seems a live issue. Without going into the political aspects of this issue, the author appears to assume that a Democratic Congress will be playing catch-up for some time and ultimately might buy into the prevailing mind-set about how to solve the Mideast chaos, ie, attack Iran. I oversimplify though. This author's view would seem to align itself with Pat Lang's assessment vis a via GW's next two years; that is, that GW intends in no way to change his policy towards the mideast and we can expect continuing escalation in violence and perhaps greater regional instability.

God's Terrorists A very short intro to the Wahhabis. The author says there's a known and unknown history of this group--known for its most famous adherents, the Saudi royal family and Osama bin-Laden.

Labouchere of Arabia As the somewhat predictable title indicates, this is a story about a French military officer who has adopted some unconventional military tactics in fighting the insurgents. Provides some compelling descriptions of problems and possible solutions for how to fight a counter-insurgency. Of course, this assumes that being there in the first place is what should be.

Trading the First Amendment? Another installment in a discussion at this blog on a much larger subject that I wish would gain some public debate: the need to revisit the constitution through some form of national convention.

Revolution of World-View in the 21st Century Some academic statements by a noted Japanese scholar on how Marx's later world-view sees nature as the source of true value and not labor. Includes some interesting side-remarks on Heidegger.

spontaneity as our innermost 'nature' Insightful remarks on bio-genetic engineering and its effects on our true identity by sociologist/philosopher Habermas. Very interesting comments from a thinker whose work has influenced the left.

Movie Review: Babel A mixed review of the film I haven't seen yet from the neo-conservative, theocon magazine, First Things. It drubs the director for inadequately capturing the presence of God in the world. ...but that's the point isn't it?

Book Review: Finkelstein on Jimmy Carter's Peace Not Apartheid (New York: 2006) The controversial critic of the so-called Holocaust industry reviews former President Jimmy Carter's chapter on the Israeli policy of persecuting Palestinians.

Evangelicals in a Post-Haggard, Post-Rumsfeld World Wouldn't you know it? As soon as I make the wise-crack about NT Wright bringing biblical scholarship into the public sphere in his comments on terrorism, I find biblical scholar Ben Witherington discussing Ted Haggard, no less! Now that's relevance. Seriously, Witherington gets to the heart of the issue: those Xtians who seem to confuse true blue apple pie and the belief in the true Jerusalem. Read more!

Daily HotShots! 11*11*06

The days bring news of the technocrats vying for power. Each side accuses the other of having no plan for Iraq. But what's a plan and who gets to define its objectives and methodology? The worst plans are compromise documents worked out without all interested parties--the people killing each other--getting involved. There can be no imposed peace just as democracy cannot be imposed.

I heard an Iraqi sociologist on the radio talk about American long-term interests in the region being hurt if the right plan is not drawn up. Jim Webb--perhaps the smartest guy on the subject right now--says the US should pull out soon, build no permanent bases, and let the Iraqis duke it out. Let the chips fall where they may.

When people talk about American interests, they usually mean oil. At least that's what those insiders who know mean. How far can the Democratic technocrats go away from this bottom-line issue without seeming to be wandering in la-la land? Yet, confronting the American public with the stark choices of energy policy is something few politicians will have the stomach for. But it's this type of honesty that's required to forestall future debacles in the Mideast not to mention the prospect of dark days for future generations.

NB The US continues its record of supporting Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian occupied territories.

The Post-Election Price of Oil: Up, Up, and Away? Those crafty--or is it greedy?--oil companies. Who says politics and business don't mix?

Victory Without Vision
That was a short honeymoon--now let's get to work. But what's going to drive this insurrection of the middle in US politics, as the pundits might put it? (h/t Leiter)

Western Iowa Republican Meltdown - This is BIG! People have predicted for a while that the evangelicals would break from the Republican party and create their own. Is this the start of that?

Politics & Evangelicals I'm not sure that Ali has his facts right on this, but the point still stands I think.
Muslim women find their voice If there's one voice for moderation in the Muslim world that stands out, it is the voice of Muslim women.

Movie Review: Confederate States of America With people saying that the Republican party is turning into a regional--read southern--party, perhaps it is time to rent this DVD.

N. T. Wright and the War on Terror It's not every day that a specialist scholar tries to adapt their views to real issues in the real world. How much so with NT biblical scholars. The bishop of Durham--and world-recognized scholar--Wright rightly does so, for better or worse. A little better than worse, I think.

Related Links

• Finding Lessons in GOP Reign
  
  
• Virginia's Webb May Be Senate Maverick

Read more!

This Is Supposed to be Funny...

Islamophobic humor is in vogue across Europe it seems. Read more!

HotShots! 10*11*06

Somewhat lighter in spirit these days, with the weight of the republic's health in somewhat better hands, I can begin to take on subjects that I'd rather spend time doing: poetry, drama, philosophy. Maybe I shouldn't, though; maybe that's the task set for me, this frenetic angst--up to my ears and beyond in the details of disentangling the terrible webs of deceit perpetrated on my fellow citizens by those thrones and principalities the necromancer power-mongers bow down to.

How many votes? So how does the vote--as a gross number--look in comparison to other elections?

A Mass Delusion? This is what I love about Pat Lang. Put it on the line, no-holds barred. You think Bush is going to give up his Oedipal traipse through history? Get it in writing before you take it to the bank, Lang reminds us.

BLACKFIVE: Bush is an idiot This is from a pro-Bush soldier, obviously expressing his frustration with the great decider after the devastating defeat in the midterm elections and the sacrifice of Rumsfeld. Take a look at the comments section too.

Larval Subjects: Post-Election Grogginess Yes, this guy's an egg-head, but he's very clear in this piece and presents some unique angles on the election results.

U.S. Election Post-Mortem Thoughts (Leiter) Decent observations about what's ahead on the political scene.

Where is Ike? I'm not one for tears in the eye, heart-jerk patriotism, and I think that Robert Lowell was unfair when he decried the moribund nature of Einsenhower's presidency, but remembering people who stand up for principle--as Eisenhower did in opposing the Israeli invasion of Egypt--is worth remembering.

What happened when Democrats in Congress cut off funding for the Vietnam War? They say it won't get to this point in Congress in the confrontation over Iraq; if it does, here's how they did it last time.

EM Woods: "Democracy as the Ideology of Empire" Yes, you knew I'd sneak something in here by the commies at Lenin's Tomb. It's not necessarily that I agree with everything he says--nor that I disagree--it's just that his selection of topics is so great and his ability to write heady stuff for a general public is so well done.

Number of Jewish parliamentarians worldwide reaches record high Yes, there are people keeping track of these things--and they're jewish. I was thinking about this the other day. Of course, many of the jews in Congress run the gamut in their religious identity--most perhaps are so-called secular jews.

Another Apostasy Hadith Revealed First part of an exegesis of a Hadith that many see as the heart of the extremism of Islam. Eteraz argues against that interpretation.

More On The Apostasy Hadith Continues the exegesis of the apostasy Hadith.

Austrolabe: Are We Victims of Our Own Abstinence? Interesting stories about what it means to be an observant Muslim in secular society.

Can it be that it was all so simple then? Exploring the nostalgia for better days, the land that childhood once knew, the times and spaces never to be again.

A Review of John's Yoo's WAR BY OTHER MEANS: AN INSIDER'S ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ON TERRORIt's hard not to spit at the same time as I say Yoo's name, but Geoffrey Stone is right: these men are only human though they preach inhumanity. Learn to unravel the evil they do. Read more!

Beit Hanoun 11/8/06

A Palestinian mother and her two babies lay together in the drawer of the morgue fridge as workers prepare the bodies for burial in the Beit Hanun hospital following an Israeli military operation in which Israeli tanks fired on homes in the northern Gaza Strip. The world reacted with horrified shock to an Israeli army attack on Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip that killed 18 civilians, eight of them children. Foto: Mahmud Hams/AFP
Read more!

Rove's Alice Cooper Moment?

The rock band Alice Cooper used to be one of my adolescent favorites. I even saw them in concert twice--unfortunately the last time on their Million Dollar Babies tour. One of the legends--which I believe has been verified--about the band is that during their earliest concerts Alice would whip the crowd into frenzy and at the right moment throw a chikcen into the writhing masses. They then proceeded to tear the animal to pieces. ...

I bring up this little biographical tidbit because it seems to me that we've just witnessed a similar action by Karl Rove and George Bush. That is, with the frenzied democrats dancing in the aisles of the Capitol, Karl has thrown them and the press Donald Rumsfeld as a sacrifice. No doubt, Rove hopes to obviate anger and calls for investigations of the Bush admin by scapegoating Rumsfeld.

The scapegoat phenomenon is a powerful ritual by which some societies symbolically transfer communal guilt to an animal and either sacrifice it or banish it to the wilderness. In scapegoating Rumsfeld, Rove hopes that Bushco's sins will be expiated before the public. In this way, he and his boss hope to have their own sins forgiven and see the way forward to no accountability for all the lies and deception they have perpetrated upon the public.

As mikevotes puts it:

Now begins the ugly process of scapegoating wherein every bad decision will be tied to Rumsfeld in hopes they will sink with him.

Read more!

The "Thumpin"

People really should not be underestimating what the Emanuel and Schumer team did to "thump" the Bush regime. In a gerrymandered political void, they pulled out not just a one-or-two shot eke out but a full-bore ass-kicking.

They snuck some kind of Trojan horse inside that overblown corpse and watched it disintegrate from within. Amazing...

One big loser was the Rove myth--that is, that Rove's some kind of unbeatable genius. My nomination for geniuses are Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer. Schumer especially seems to be the point man in this counter-attack.

I suggest that the opening volley in the beginning of the end of this Evil Regime (ER) 1.0 was Schumer's Dubai Ports embarrassment for the Bushco. That was a humiliating defeat and it showed that the ER 1.0 was vulnerable.

That vulnerability involved the inherent corruption that floats this regime's boat. That is, Dubai Ports showed that while the Bush talks about defense and terrorism, there are people behind the scenes making money and exploiting the situation for their own enrichment.

People don't like being lied to. Especially when it means killing other people. they also don't like being considered as killers. With the continuous tissue of lies and deception purveyed by the admin for its justification for the so-called war in Iraq and then for staying the course, the American public was left in a continual, uneasy state of confusion. While they are willing to accept a modicum of spin and hyperbole from their leaders, they are not willing to accept outright lies. The Bush admin's lies became so apparent that people finally had enough.

The Foley scandal brought simply reinforced the feeling the growing realization of the public that the Bush admin says one thing but does another. The idea that a man could seemingly champion sexually abused children while secretly engaging in sexually predatory behavior towards adolescent boys surely struck a chord in people. The fact that the Reps attempted to cover up this fact and did so for several years only exacerbated the growing sense that people had that this admin lies and cheats to hypocritically sustain a facade of uprightness but secretly behaves otherwise. Needless to say, the Ted Haggard story deepened these feelings of being deceived.

Exit polls of voters during the election showed that corruption was the #1 point of many voters. Imagine that--while the press was being cornholed in the corner by Rove, the voters were sensing--where else would they have heard about it?--that someone was getting rich.

The war profiteers stink wherever they go: the public caught the odor even though the Press was having connubial bliss with Rove and the Bush honey pot. The Press was surprised--surprised mind you!--that this was even an issue. Well duh--they sure as hell didn't cover it for six years.

The president's recent announcement and press conference on Rumsfeld are a charade. Much like a vampire's epigones sacrifice themselves for their creator, Rumsfeld has taken the poison pill. All of this is a diversion whose point is to give the impression that Bush is willing to compromise and work with the new legislature. Perhaps it's a stalling tactic to slow down investigations of the Cheney/Rumsfeld's cabal.

The Dems should not take the bait here but should aggressively and unstintingly unearth all of those lies and deceptions that represent the true corruption behind this admin. David Corn suggests how these investigations should proceed:

She will also have to make certain that the Democrats proceed with the appropriate inquiries. The goal is to hold the Bush administration accountable without appearing vindictive. (See Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay for a lesson in how not to do this.) My hunch is that many Americans--especially those outside the party faithful whom the Democrats will want to keep on their side for 2008--will prefer to see Democrats producing legislative accomplishments rather than acrimonious investigations. But there are plenty of probes that can proceed. Representative Henry Waxman, the new chairman of the government reform committee, should investigate thoroughly the failed reconstruction in Iraq. An estimated $45 billion of the $80 billion spent on Iraq reconstruction has gone down the drain of fraud and waste. What taxpayer would not like to see this fully investigated?

Pelosi and the Democrats--including those in the Senate, if they gain control there--ought to pick their investigations carefully and strategically. (Yes, this means staying away from any talk of impeachment.) But a prudent approach will hardly limit the opportunities. Take global warming. An investigation of how the Bush administration has suppressed scientific data showing the problem of global warming, coupled with hearings on the administrations refusal to do anything significant to redress this threat, could play well.

As hamlet_machine points out, the interim elections and their result have driven a stake through the Bushco vampyr's heart. Now the Dems need to cut the head off. Until that's accomplished, the vampyr still lives to suck kill and suck dry the life's blood of the republic.

PS Eric Rauchway has a cool historical chart that shows several ways to read the Dem victory:

Here is a chart (data here) showing Democratic representation in the Congress since the New Deal; the black bar indicates the threshold for a majority. It's way too soon to say anything really meaningful about this, but here are two of my thoughts:

1. You could spin this as a narrow, non-ideological, throw-the-bums out victory. On this read, the Congress would have a definite mandate to

a) pursue investigations of corruption in the administration and its predecessor Congresses,
b) restore limits on executive powers,
c) revive reality-based accounting and fiscal responsibility,

but not necessarily a mandate to legislate left-of-center solutions to, e.g., the ongoing imbroglio that is our national health insurance system.

2. Or you could spin this the other way, and say the Republican majorities from 1994 onward were themselves a throw-the-bums out, nonideological response, artificially prolonged by the politicization of 9/11 and the War on Terror. ...

Read more!

demos drives stake thru repub vampyr heart

so we see the vampyr who walked in the nightmares of the dead find their demise with a stake in the heart of their hate. vampyr reps find their terror and fear in the blood and suck it dry from the terror of their own addled fantasies. boytoys perdeast pages the vampyr sucks more than the vein but builds its empire on the pain and suffering of the innocent:the collateral it uses to buy an ersatz happiness a plastic jesus mind that seeks forgiveness for its filthy neuroses. ...

Iraq is one of the biggest reasons that the Republicans are losing tonight. With a unique combination of arrogance and incompetence Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney are proudly going full speed ahead in their deadly war in Iraq, despite the growing opposition from all sides of the political spectrum and even from the military. It must now be said that George Bush and his partners in the crime of Iraq are unnecessarily killing lots of people—both Americans and Iraqis—with no plan to stop the killing. So they must now be stopped, and that is a big part of tonight’s message.

Read more!

HotShots!

Disclaimer: I voted a straight Democratic line. It's like I told a young socialist coworker the other day who said she wasn't about to vote for a capitalist candidate: you have to understand that realizing longer term goals are built from short-term steps. This administration is a threat to every possible thing that any socialist might find repulsive. The Dems--while weasly, whining, and spineless--would not have passed the torture laws, Patriot Act, invasion of Iraq, consolidated immense power in the presidency, etc. For all those idealists out there--and believe me, I've been there--the country stands on the verge of tyranny and a form of soft fascism that could deteriorate into more forbidding forms of political oppression.

The Elections, National Security Policy, and Wars If the Dems win the midterm elections, will they work with Bush? Or will there be a constitutional meltdown that could equal a bloodless purge not seen since the heydays of the fascist demise in Germany?

'Allah is my Lord and yours': Talking with Ahmadinejad The President of Iran's challenge to George Bush to live by his faith was treated as a joke by much of the press, if they even mentioned it. But really George, what would Jesus do?

"Christian" politics Evangelicals love to quote CS Lewis. But would good old CS turn over in his grave thinking about the devil's pact the Religious Right has made with the Beast, Ubu-Bush?

A Brief History of Wedge Politics An excellent review of the way politics is machined in the US--all to guarantee that certain ruling class interests are not challenged.

"What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that practically I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all.....I have not got to answer for having read a single President's Message. A strange age of the word this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-beggin to a private man's door and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a newspaper but I find that some wretched goverment or other, hard pushed, and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to vote for it, - more inportunate than an Italian beggar." -- Henry David Thoreau, "Life Without Principle."

The lessons of Iraq 'state-building' Another decent posting by the commie atheists at Lenin's Tomb.

THE COMING CONSTITUTIONAL SHOWDOWN Okay, let's assume that the Reps don't intimidate, steal, deceive their way out of a Democratic win today. What might the Dems do to bring some real accountability to the political landscape, especially in getting the White House to account for its unconstitutional actions during the last six years?

Religion and Politics Analyzes recent Newsweek and Time cover stories on religion and politics--notes the odd fetish many Xtians for things sexual rather than social justice. Thank God Jesus wasn't that uni-dimensional, huh?

Religion and the Profane Investigates the intersection between the notions and how they play into the political.

Science & faith work together, Pope says The guy's got nute. While I don't believe it for a minute, it's good to hear the old dude say it and put some of the more odious neo-creationists in their place.

Dawkins Interviews Haggard Seriously. Hear the two go at it...

The Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals In case you had some spare reading time... These are what you might call "light"reading, written for popular consumption, which might explain their ability to "shape" evangelicals.

The New Testament and the 'State' Some will say that this piece by the good Bishop of Durham is dated, perhaps hearkening to days of a liberation theology that had already been brutally oppressed by secular and religious authorities. On the other hand, you could say that the hope it conveys in staid, pedantic terms cannot never be suppressed because it always lives in people's hearts. Read more!

Daily HotShots!

I'll be adding to the list throughout the day...

US lurches closer to recession before elections. The source in this report (an avowed Leftist), of course, will be the determining factor in who accepts the conclusions of the data presented. The data, though, is quite compelling.

The Haggard latest ... And I thought I'd get through this without linking to anything that has to do with this stupid story. But then I see Crunchy's got one of the best analyses I've seen on Haggard's boy-toy fetish. Yes, Ted's a creep, but his wife's frigid... The logic here is jaw dropping; even assuming that Mrs. Haggard is withholding her favors, Ted's preference tells me that it's not her frigidity that's the issue (if there IS an issue) but his proclivity. The guy likes men--maybe bi- or homo-sexually, whatever, you can't pin the problem for his issues onto Mrs. Haggard, whose will to stand beside and defend Ted earns my respect.

Israel's Large-Scale Killing of Palestinians Passes Unnoticed Those cynical Israeli politicians. Exploiting American indifference to anything having to do with Palestinians, they go on a killing rampage. This has been happening for 60 years, who cares? As I suggested in an earlier posting, after its defeat by Hizbullah Israel would take out its defeat by beating up (read "killing") Palestinians. Unfortunately, I think that has come true.

Minister Lieberman Calls for Separation from Arabs Disclaimer: This man is NOT related to Senator Joseph "Joe" Lieberman from Connecticut.

Misinformation Intern: My summer as a military propagandist in Iraq Ever wonder what a real-life Winston Smith (Orwell's double in 1984) might feel like? This story gives another small window into the world of information manufacturing and propaganda creation--the main way that US politicians create political reality.

Muslim Propaganda at the University of Chicago Okay, let's assume for the moment that this historian is right. Can you really see anti-Semitism (or is it anti-Israelism) in the arrangement of artifacts in a museum exhibit?


US DEFENDS itself on global warming at annual U.N. climate conference.

Islamism's failure, Islamists' future Roy has written intelligently about threats, trends, and scenarios of the Islamist project for over a decade. His remarks on the Islamists' dilemma shows that they do indeed adapt to historical circumstance, contrary to many of the Islamophobic paranoiac revelations.

Presidential IQ Adams, Jefferson, Kennedy, Clinton--all very smart guys. But you really want to know where GW is on the list, don't you?

Frantz Fanon - On Culture The African political philosopher lectures about what some have called the more important issue.

It's Getting Better All the Time -- Dawkins on Morality Richard says morality happens.

God's War: A New History of the Crusades A new history of the Crusades is welcome indeed, especially when you have Islamophobes out there passing along revisionist versions of the crusades that strangely resemble the so-called war on terror. Of course, the details of history always belie cliches and stereotypes. This is not your father's Crusades nor the liberal or Xtian version either.

The Misunderstood Jew That Jesus was a Jew is a no-brainer. The question in many historical-critical circles is whether he was talking for only Jews or for something else, whatever that might be. This book argues for the former; the reviewer frames it in terms of the latter.

I See Dead People: The Theory-Industry and Revolutionary Practice Okay, hold your nose with both fingers, remember to breathe through your mouth, and wade through this article that actually says some intelligent things, especially if you lean way left. Read more!

Daily HotShots!

In this season when the political stakes are so high, when the republic's fate hangs by a thread ... when clichés rule the day, it helps to know there’re people out there really dealing with these issues.

Two Texts: An Election Eve Meditation The intersection of morality and politics has never seemed so relevant. Kant comes in handy in dissecting the mess the US finds itself in. And you thought philosophers just did circle jerks.


FRAME GAME A knock-em-out, string-em-up academic debate that has caused many college freshmen heart palpitations of political revelation. I note the mention of Pocock and Skinner--serious philosopher-historians whose work is worth a 1,000 Lakoffs, Chomskys or Pinkers.

Between Hope and Terror: Derrida and Habermas Plead for the Im/Possible Those old Europeans have centuries of terror in the blood. Is it possible to imagine the impossible and hope?

The Language Game of Responsible Agency and the Problem of Free Will Okay, the Wittgensteinian jargon might sound cute, but everyone wants to know about free will, right?

Neocon/Theocon Ruminations Theocon Richard Neuhaus on some background of the neocon/theocon alliance and the bad blood with the liberal press.

Liberal Realpolitik Covers Islamism and the biases and propaganda of how nuclear politics is formulated.

BOOK REVIEW: Annihilation from Within You might not like the conclusions, but the subject--again--is important. Didn't they used to tell us in high school history class about causes of wars in the past being the proliferation of weaponry? Well, this is a variation on that theme, except here the weapons are biological, nuclear, etc. Anyway, when the history of this era is written, I really do believe that a major discussion will be the exponential growth in weapons available to huge numbers of people with any and every possible political grievance. That sounds almost reactionary doesn’t it, especially since there might be people with just grievances who will want to resort to violence. The disaster of these weapons came home to me once gain when I watched The Constant Gardener this morning. BTW Here's an article that shows I'm not just making this up.

moral-order.pdf -- morality and capitalism I know it almost makes you want to do that George Carlin imitation about oxymorons—you know, like military intelligence (oh, that’s what John Kerry was doing…).

It Depends on What the Definition of "Victory" Is One of the subjects that needs to get out of the brains of specialisis and into the public sphere in terms that non-specialists can understand is how communication experts manipulate the news for political purposes. This link gives a n inkling insight into how that’s done. Contrary to the view expressed by Mojo, I don’t think it’s a matter of those in power not thinking that we can’t handle the truth but rather a matter of just good old lying and deception.

James Petras' New Book - The Power Of Israel In The United States Any book on this subject will be attacked as anti-Semitic as a matter of course. There is the danger of this subject buying into that ugly and shameful bias. Yet, that fear should not forestall undertaking a common-sense, fact-based analysis of political exploitation of those fears.

Baptist Convention told: Muslims 'are here to take over our country' They are.

Richard Dawkins on South Park The guy’s made plenty of cash enlightening us dull bulbs about religion’s delusion, so South Park returns the favor.

Paradise Now - A Review I doubt you'll see this film at your local playhouse, but if you see it in the bargain bin, you might have a look-see.

Culture Corner: Disparate Posts on Pasolini's Porcile -- The writer's religious, affects some fin de siecle dandyism that's redolent of Huysmans but he writes really well 1, 2, 3, 4 Read more!

Daily Hotshots!

Disclaimer: Irony alert

I'm adding a new feature to the blog: Daily HotShots! Following in the footsteps of Born at the Crest of the Empire, Defense Tech, and Juan Cole, I find this synoptic quick-see at articles I'm reading somewhat more efficient and perhaps more effective than posting separate entries.

Reminder to Voters: Neocons Want to Bomb Iran Steve Clemons links to an article by a neocon brain whose assessment of failure in Iraq entails invading Iran. No shit...

Aljazeera.Net - Pandemic fear over new bird flu strain Reports that a new, vaccine-resistant Bird Flu has mutated and raised the anxiety levels of epidemiologists who've been prophesying a worldwide pandemic for some time now.

God and the Welfare State - The MIT Press Book purports to document the history of the Religious Right in various strategizing and ideas of religious and political leaders opposed to the Welfare State.

Long Sunday: The Liberal Manifesto An excellent counter-counter-argument by jodi dean against the liberal manifesto formulated by Ackerman et al. as a riposte to the Euston Manifesto.

BBC NEWS | UK | Security firms 'abusing Iraqis' More reporting on the running amok of private security forces--aka mercenaries--in Iraq.

Fears over huge growth in Iraq's unregulated private armies More on western mercenary armies in Iraq.

Clifford Geertz Obituary A giant in the field of ethnography has died. I cut my teeth on several of Geertz's writings and have an unpublished paper somewhere critical of Geertz's notion of religion as a cultural system. I also studied with one of Geertz's native American pupils, Alfonso Ortiz.

The Myth that Low Taxes and Liberty Go Hand in Hand Provides historical background of anti-tax movements, showing that the present political movement against taxes is a recent phenomenon and is contrary to historical trends in post-Revolutionary America.

INTERVIEW-US tactics swelling Al Qaeda in Iraq-Sunni moderate Interview with Iraqi moderate that suggests that al-Qaeda has gained immensely in regions of Iraq where previously they were effectively non-existent.

Common Article 3, Torture, and Specific Intent Argues that inconsistencies in recent torture legislation leave open the possibility that the international laws against war crimes will be broken. It's a more subtle analysis than mainstream news reports of the various international conventions that apply and how the recent torture legislation passed by the Congress is inadequate.

How Can A Democrat Talk To An Islamist Posted by one of my hate-filled, irrational Muslim, this article explains what strategy might actually work in stemming the tide of Islamism in the Mideast and (I hope) around the world.

The Washington Note - Dismantling Cheney's Control Argues that job #1 if the Dems win Tuesday is to cut the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal off at the knees--as they say in the corridors of power.

Movie Review: Syriana Another piece by Ali Eteraz; read it, you'll find something surprising.

How neoconservative moralism works Tries to get a proper perspective on the neconservative political philosophy and related issues. Read more!