September 18, 2010
September 13, 2010
Israel-Palestine peace talks to clear way for bombing Iran
As Sam Smith points at Undernews, the point of these very unserious peace talks seems really to be to declare their failure, thus clearing the way for the next round of atrocities by the U.S. and/or Israel. Next stop, Iran!
September 12, 2010
Stock exchange versus the economy
"You have to distinguish between two things — the Swedish economy and the Swedish stock market. The Swedish economy is the sum of all the goods and services that are produced in this country every day. ... That's the Swedish economy, and it's just as strong or weak today as it was a week ago. ...
"The Stock Exchange is something very different. There is no economy and no production of goods and services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many billions, more or less. It doesn't have a thing to do with reality or with the Swedish economy."
—The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
"The Stock Exchange is something very different. There is no economy and no production of goods and services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many billions, more or less. It doesn't have a thing to do with reality or with the Swedish economy."
—The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
September 8, 2010
Burning Qurans
While everybody gets all morally righteous against the ignorant fearful hatefulness of marking September 11 with a pyre of Korans, or against the ignorant fearful hatefulness against a Islamic community center in downtown New York . . .
Let's not forget that these are just reflections of the greater ignorant fearful hatefulness of fact of the U.S. military invading and occupying two large Muslim countries in southwest Asia, abetting one small one (Israel) in its campaign against the mostly Muslim people whose land they took and want more of, and supporting antidemocratic Muslim autocracies in crass return for oil.
A lot more, a lot worse, than Korans have been burned and will be burned.
As a recent cartoon by Jeff Danziger suggests, the Koran burners in Florida reveal the truth of the U.S. mission, its crusade, this auto da fé.
Let's not forget that these are just reflections of the greater ignorant fearful hatefulness of fact of the U.S. military invading and occupying two large Muslim countries in southwest Asia, abetting one small one (Israel) in its campaign against the mostly Muslim people whose land they took and want more of, and supporting antidemocratic Muslim autocracies in crass return for oil.
A lot more, a lot worse, than Korans have been burned and will be burned.
As a recent cartoon by Jeff Danziger suggests, the Koran burners in Florida reveal the truth of the U.S. mission, its crusade, this auto da fé.
September 7, 2010
Let them eat meat
Speaking of Affiliation, a correspondent writes about yesterday's column in The Guardian by George Monbiot (click the title of this post):
I always felt that there was something quite peculiar about Monbiot and how he never quite "gets" things that should seem so obvious, as in his dogged touting of industrial wind and his dumb war on Agas etc etc -- in this case in his bizarre, chillingly analytical defense of meat-eating (undoubtedly this is very convenient to his own tastes), he seems almost as if he suffers from Asbergers or autism in his precise, desperate totting up of percentages, ratios, and economics of "efficient" corpse production. Talk about missing the point of veganism, all the while he ignores the elephant sitting in the corner of this very tiny windowless room -- the abject horror, routine abuse, suffering and medieval cruelty that these living sentient beings are subjected to, on factory "farms" and little "happy farms" alike, and the fact that all of this nightmarish cruelty is utterly unnecessary, and that we have no right to take another creature's life and even their sense of well being. Monbiot would have made a very good accountant for Hitler -- what a truly dreadful little man he is, a very useful idiot for one destructive industry after another. And this is why I have so little hope for this planet and any evolution to a higher way of thinking about our fellow creatures -- because people like Monbiot, draped in the lurid polyester green flag of what passes these days for "environmentalism" or "sustainable light footprint" living, are listened to by people who used to see this kind of thing as blatant corporate brainwashing of the masses. But alas, no more; now they have joined the rest of the brainwashed greedy conformists -- we live in a real life world of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where everyone really does increasingly seem like drooling idiot zombies.
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism
I always felt that there was something quite peculiar about Monbiot and how he never quite "gets" things that should seem so obvious, as in his dogged touting of industrial wind and his dumb war on Agas etc etc -- in this case in his bizarre, chillingly analytical defense of meat-eating (undoubtedly this is very convenient to his own tastes), he seems almost as if he suffers from Asbergers or autism in his precise, desperate totting up of percentages, ratios, and economics of "efficient" corpse production. Talk about missing the point of veganism, all the while he ignores the elephant sitting in the corner of this very tiny windowless room -- the abject horror, routine abuse, suffering and medieval cruelty that these living sentient beings are subjected to, on factory "farms" and little "happy farms" alike, and the fact that all of this nightmarish cruelty is utterly unnecessary, and that we have no right to take another creature's life and even their sense of well being. Monbiot would have made a very good accountant for Hitler -- what a truly dreadful little man he is, a very useful idiot for one destructive industry after another. And this is why I have so little hope for this planet and any evolution to a higher way of thinking about our fellow creatures -- because people like Monbiot, draped in the lurid polyester green flag of what passes these days for "environmentalism" or "sustainable light footprint" living, are listened to by people who used to see this kind of thing as blatant corporate brainwashing of the masses. But alas, no more; now they have joined the rest of the brainwashed greedy conformists -- we live in a real life world of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where everyone really does increasingly seem like drooling idiot zombies.
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism
September 6, 2010
Affiliation
In Witz, Joshua Cohen calls all religious Jews "Affiliated". After the sabbath meal a week before Christmas, Benjamin is born to Israel and Hanna Israelien in Joysey, the first son after 12 girls. This winter is particularly hard and in fact persists year round. Benjamin is born full grown, with a beard and glasses. His foreskin continually sheds itself and grows back. Already too big for his father's shirts, he takes to his mother's maternity robes. On Christmas Eve, all of the Affiliated die except first-born sons. The Israelien's maid, Wanda, drives Benjamin down to Florida to live with his grandfather, Isaac, who is Unaffiliated. Meanwhile, a cabal of government operatives are quarantining all of the first-borns on Ellis Island, now called "The Garden" (incorporated), capitalized with the property of the dead. A week later, they come for Benjamin. Isaac dies from a heart attack. Benjamin escapes at a rest stop but is eventually caught and taken to The Garden, where they have moved the entire Israelien house, complete with Sabbath guest still on one of the toilets. The Garden markets Benjamin as the messiah. A team of unaffiliated women are trained to act as his mother and sisters and see to his needs.
Then the first-borns start dying, and by Passover Benjamin is the only one remaining. It is arranged that he marry the President's daughter in Las Vegas, but Benjamin escapes again, to wander the country in his mother's robe. Back in New York, his "sisters" catch up with him, and during cunnilingus with his "Hanna", his tongue gets stuck and is torn off when his sisters try to separate them. The scandal destroys The Garden, and Benjamin is shunned by all (he and the operators of The Garden are Disaffiliated).
Without real Jews around to complicate things, America, and soon, the world, has become Affiliated. The President becomes chief of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. Those who refuse to Affiliate are sent to their "homeland", Polandland, to be killed. Benjamin finds his way there, too, visiting the towns of his mother's and his father's ancestors. In his wanderings, he sprouts the horns of a cow and ultimately he turns into a woman. The Affiliated, however, revive the cult of his tongue, now displayed as a relic. And Wanda, now Affiliated, with a son of her own, remembers the visitor that Benjamin had every night from his birth: Isaiah in the form of Santa Claus.
25 years later, we hear from a 108-year-old Jewish man who was in Auschwitz ... He has listed the punch line of a joke, who needs the setup any more, for every year that he has lived. Because what should you do only laugh.
(((( ))))
Today, affiliation means with Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, whatever Judaism. Cohen reminds the reader of the bloody record of The Bible: the flood, the almost-sacrifice of Isaac, the havoc wrought on the Egyptians, the conquest of Palestine. It is a model of single-minded imperial action by the self-chosen. When all of the Jews die, a singular Affiliation provides the complete means to realize the hegemony that has turned out to be the true American experiment. Indeed, after the destruction of The Twin Towers in New York in 2001, the world said "We are New York", but Israel said "Now you are Israel", which was prescient. Israel had already become everything that some thought it was supposed to stand against: it is a paranoid belligerent power instead of a voice for the oppressed and shunned. And America, seeing in Israel their own history (cf. the Indians), is wallowing even deeper into the madness of self-declared uniqueness that absolves it of all judgement. We are indeed marching headlong toward Affiliation: Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer. God's Work.
Then the first-borns start dying, and by Passover Benjamin is the only one remaining. It is arranged that he marry the President's daughter in Las Vegas, but Benjamin escapes again, to wander the country in his mother's robe. Back in New York, his "sisters" catch up with him, and during cunnilingus with his "Hanna", his tongue gets stuck and is torn off when his sisters try to separate them. The scandal destroys The Garden, and Benjamin is shunned by all (he and the operators of The Garden are Disaffiliated).
Without real Jews around to complicate things, America, and soon, the world, has become Affiliated. The President becomes chief of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. Those who refuse to Affiliate are sent to their "homeland", Polandland, to be killed. Benjamin finds his way there, too, visiting the towns of his mother's and his father's ancestors. In his wanderings, he sprouts the horns of a cow and ultimately he turns into a woman. The Affiliated, however, revive the cult of his tongue, now displayed as a relic. And Wanda, now Affiliated, with a son of her own, remembers the visitor that Benjamin had every night from his birth: Isaiah in the form of Santa Claus.
25 years later, we hear from a 108-year-old Jewish man who was in Auschwitz ... He has listed the punch line of a joke, who needs the setup any more, for every year that he has lived. Because what should you do only laugh.
Today, affiliation means with Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, whatever Judaism. Cohen reminds the reader of the bloody record of The Bible: the flood, the almost-sacrifice of Isaac, the havoc wrought on the Egyptians, the conquest of Palestine. It is a model of single-minded imperial action by the self-chosen. When all of the Jews die, a singular Affiliation provides the complete means to realize the hegemony that has turned out to be the true American experiment. Indeed, after the destruction of The Twin Towers in New York in 2001, the world said "We are New York", but Israel said "Now you are Israel", which was prescient. Israel had already become everything that some thought it was supposed to stand against: it is a paranoid belligerent power instead of a voice for the oppressed and shunned. And America, seeing in Israel their own history (cf. the Indians), is wallowing even deeper into the madness of self-declared uniqueness that absolves it of all judgement. We are indeed marching headlong toward Affiliation: Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer. God's Work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)