Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

THERE WAS A REPORT on National Public Radio this morning about elections that are supposed to happen in Iraq soon. As NPR seems to often do, they make a couple of points in passing, without seeming to notice that they have implications worth exploring.

Without a deal by this weekend, Iraq will run out of time to organize an election before the government’s term expires. [NPR]

The report mentions this, and also reports the following:

1. The government’s term expires January first.
2. The Iraqi organization in charge of running elections says they need 90 days to organize a legitimate poll.

What NPR does not point out is that it is already October 29th.

Apparently, US diplomats are taking a hands-off approach, and letting the Iraqis run their own affairs. Although, as the NPR report mentions:

A long delay might even trip up the pace of American troop withdrawal. [NPR]

What NPR does not point out is that the US doesn’t always shy away from getting involved in foreign elections. No discussion of how US interests are served by a policy of either getting involved, or not getting involved, in a particular election. Other than the passing mention of delayed troop withdrawals.

[WSJ via J.R. Boyd]

[Prologue edited for clarity.] Years ago, before my ideas went out of fashion, I went around calling myself a Liberal. I also frequently submitted posts for the Carnival of the Liberals, and still do occasionally. Sometimes I manage to sneak one in there. The Carnival was the driving force behind my beginning a series of long form posts (one and two) in which I began to sketch out my political thoughts in an attempt to figure out what it all meant. Enough time has passed since the second of those posts, that I feel rather radically removed from the younger me that wrote them. This post serves as a continuation of that project, yet picks up not where that different me left off, but instead from where I find myself now.

I AM NOT A LIBERAL. Certainly not in the postmodern United States where words have no meaning beyond their commercial utility, where “Liberal” means “Progressive” means centrist corporate imperialism with a friendly face, and the “center” is nowhere near the middle of the full range of political possibilities.

I’m a Recovering Progressive

Classical Liberalism, if that term can still be used meaningfully, may be onto something in emphasizing individual liberty, but loses the thread in its devotion to free market, laissez-faire economics. A condition which may very well work on a much smaller scale, yet does not obtain in a society such as ours, large enough to necessitate the establishment of a ruling class, which in turn manipulates market conditions to enrich a powerful elite, and then globalizes that influence through military force.

My Liberal/Progressive friends acknowledge this on some level. They are concerned that the system is broken and they want to fix it. But it’s worse than broken: it works perfectly; in accordance with the demands of the powerful. The People have been rendered utterly powerless. It cannot be stated in any plainer or more direct terms. We. Have. No. Power. In directing the governing forces of our political-social-economic system.

Add to this competition over the dwindling, soon to be scarce resources necessary for human subsistence, and the problem comes into clear resolution. Our current situation is untenable. This fucker is too big. Not “too big to fail,” but “so big it must fail.”

One cannot rely on Big Coercion* to insure (sic) healthcare for all. (Or low oil prices, or safety, or whathaveyou.) It is worth examining whether it is right to even request such provisions, when by doing so one legitimizes an institution that directly expends hundreds of billions of dollars a year on military supremacy and conquest. The American Way of Life had a a good run there, but really, to quote myself, “Is it even right to ask for a bigger slice of the pie, when the pie is imperial plunder, taken through violence and exploitation?”

* It is appropriate to call it Big Coercion, when “big” has come to mean “evil” in the parlance of the postmodern commercial utility of vocabulary. Think “Big Oil,” “Big Insurance,” “Big Government,” and so on.

(more…)

Hey, look! It’s The Fall:

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

THIS ISN’T THAT SCENE from The Matrix where Laurence Fishburne says, “we know it was us that scorched the sky,” as he shows Neo for the first time what the “real” world looks like. No, this is our present.

China Hush posts a whole series of disturbing photos depicting industrial pollution in China.

What was it Owen Paine said the other day about simple import substitution?

WAR, AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY, is hell. J.R. Boyd reports that behind the subscription wall at the online Wall Street Journal, economic adviser to the president, Lawrence Summers has things to say about Wall Street profits and executive bonuses (bonii?)

Is this your homework, Larry?

“Just as in war, there are unintended victims so, too, in economic rescues, there are unintended beneficiaries.” [Summers]

What an apt that metaphor that turns out to be! Let’s break it down.

In war “unintended victims” are called collateral damage. However there is always some question over whether this is “unintentional” at all, as un-forthcoming our rulers can be with the true reasons they do anything.

The “unintended” aspect of collateral damage only relates to the stated purpose, (ie: intention,) of the aggression.

With the economic rescues, the stated purpose put forth by the president is “to keep on going until we make sure that every single American in this country who’s looking for work is going to be able to get the kind of well-paying job that supports their families.” (As un-forthcoming as ever, if not a bald lie. As our economy seems to always, even in the best of times, maintain some level of unemployment.)

Nonetheless there it is. If “beneficiaries” are equivalent to “victims” in the war comparison, then, yeah, Summers’ metaphor is dead on, (pun intended.) If the intention were truly to put people back to work, then the bank executives’ whose incomes are shored-up through profits and bonuses would be “unintended” beneficiaries. Would this be called collateral repair, perhaps?

Indeed, in keeping with Boyd’s conclusion at ladypoverty, the problem is most definitely not with Summers’ metaphor, but with the underlying fiction of the economic rescues.

Presidents, even the heroic liberal ones, always lie.

Image: crossesandchristmas.com

CULTURE IS SORT OF a dead institution, isn’t it? At least the kind of culture Catholic League President Bill Donohue writes about in America’s secular saboteurs in the Washington Post:

[Emphasis added.] Yesterday’s radicals wanted to tear down the economic structure of capitalism and replace it with socialism, and eventually communism. Today’s radicals are intellectually spent: they want to annihilate American culture, having absolutely nothing to put in its place. In that regard, these moral anarchists are an even bigger menace than the Marxists who came before them.

If societal destruction is the goal, then it makes no sense to waste time by attacking the political or economic structure: the key to any society is its culture, and the heart of any culture is religion. In this society, that means Christianity, the big prize being Catholicism. Which explains why secular saboteurs are waging war against it. [Donohue]

Societal destruction would be great and all, but us “nihilists” don’t have to bother with attacking religion or culture. To hear Guy Debord tell it, that shit’ll burn itself down. Debord says* “[The] whole triumphant history of culture can be understood as a progressive revelation of the inadequacy of culture, as a march toward culture’s self-abolition.”

Donohue is making a bit much of the alleged persecution of Catholicism. Religion and culture are targets only insomuch as they are entrenched in the political and economic structure. The system appropriates culture and bends it to its own ends, while the cultural elite, Donohue et al, in turn embrace the power they are granted in reward for their service to the system. The result is a culture alienated from the very people that culture is supposed to regulate. In this alienation, culture becomes obsolete.

The culture warriors won’t go quietly though. Donohue’s parting shot:

The culture war is up for grabs. The good news is that religious conservatives continue to breed like rabbits, while secular saboteurs have shut down: they’re too busy walking their dogs, going to bathhouses and aborting their kids. Time, it seems, is on the side of the angels. [Donohue]

Good thing about cultural self-negation! It was always to be expected that this, along with the provision of cannon fodder for the system, (a la the quid pro quo mentioned above,) was the impetus behind the pro-life movement.

Screw that! Annihilate American culture!

* 180. Culture is the general sphere of knowledge and of representations of lived experiences within historical societies divided into classes. It is a generalizing power which itself exists as a separate entity, as division of intellectual labor and as intellectual labor of division. Culture detached itself from the unity of myth-based society “when human life lost its unifying power and when opposites lost their living connections and interactions and became autonomous” (The Difference Between the Systems of Fichte and Schelling). In thus gaining its independence, culture embarked on an imperialistic career of self-enrichment that ultimately led to the decline of that independence. The history that gave rise to the relative autonomy of culture, and to the ideological illusions regarding that autonomy, is also expressed as the history of culture. And this whole triumphant history of culture can be understood as a progressive revelation of the inadequacy of culture, as a march toward culture’s self-abolition. Culture is the terrain of the quest for lost unity. In the course of this quest, culture as a separate sphere is obliged to negate itself. [Debord]

OPINIONS LIKE THOSE most often expressed on this website, regarding society, the economy, domestic and foreign policy, are more marginalized now than they were during the Bush years.

Under Bush, these views were enthusiastically embraced by many as they were antithetic to the concerns served by the bumbling monkey and his deranged puppeteer in the white house. Today they are rejected as radical and unreasonable, not just by conservatives, but by liberals as well.

It was to be expected from the Democrats now engaged in ruling the world, as these views oppose the very power they now wield. True to form, Barack Obama has acted not one whit better (in any regard!) than his predecessor. This too, was to be expected. But really, My Obama Loving Friends, is this the best you could Hope™ for?

The issues discussed here all revolve around a single aspect of our society. You might say it’s the defining principle. It’s about power* not party. Of those two things, how many do you have?

* For “power” see the lovely Jack London quote in the sidebar menu.

The Anonymous Democrat Complaint Box @ Something Awful.

THERE ARE THINGS that could be said about kayinmaine of White Noise Insanity’s peculiar brand of myopia. Though, when one really looks at it, the condition isn’t myopic at all. It’s less a problem of nearsightedness, than of not seeing what is right before one’s eyes. What’s more, it goes beyond merely that of a vision problem. It’s a tone deafness to one’s own White Noise. Some of that ringing we hear is dissonance. It’s the dissonance between the world that can easily be observed for oneself, and the world our rulers (yes, even one’s favorite preferred leaders,) instruct must be observed.

While it’s all well and good to not believe in anonymous white house sources saying the administration views liberals on the internet(!) as fringe figures who “need to take off [their] pajamas and get dressed,” is there any evidence in the administration’s actions since taking office that would indicate they could truthfully say otherwise?

Though Kay correctly doubts the veracity of what right wing gasbags say on television, it is far wiser to doubt, (better yet ignore,) everything in the ‘political’ realm. “Don’t believe them, don’t fear them, don’t ask anything of them.”

Nonetheless, keep spittin’ those mad rants, Kay, and we’ll keep on reading!

PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS WON the Nobel Peace Prize, and here is what the prize committee had to say for itself:

“We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future but for what he has done in the previous year. We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do.” [New York Times]

And also this:

[Emphasis added.] He mentioned in particular the recent United Nations Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament and the announcement of the prize noted the special importance the Nobel committee attached to President Obama’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons. [NYT]

Big deal! Lots of people have spoken about nuclear disarmament in the past. And lots of those people’s first inclination to reach the goal isn’t killing Iran for weapons related thought crimes. But that’s all in the future.

The committee chooses to look only backward and not forward. The Peace Laureate himself, on the other hand, prefers to look forward, not back. That leaves only the present. Carpe Diem!

Today we bomb the Moon for suspected water-related activities. The intelligence community has learned that the moon may be concealing significant stores of water in underground facilities. Water is really only suitable for use inside nuclear reactors. Kill the Moon!