Month: July 2004

Heh. This is a very nice piece of satire. From the article:

Now the object of this article was not to make GNU/Linux appear perfect, but instead to demonstrate that it can provide a superior desktop experience for many over the traditional proprietary operating system. GNU/Linux has millions of users and is growing because of its ability to excel in so many different areas, so the next time someone tries to tell you that ‘GNU/Linux isn’t ready for the desktop’, ask them, ‘Whose desktop do you mean?’.

The biggest point of the article is one I’ve made before: when you install MS Windows, you have an operating system. That’s it. You still have to install all the applications you will be using.

But when you install a modern Linux distribution, it comes with hundreds and hundreds of applications. This concept is alien to most users; it’s difficult to believe that you install one thing, and then after that you have virtually everything you need to operate a computer.

I listened to John Kerry’s acceptance speech last night. It was the first speech from the DNC I’d listened to, though I’ve read transcripts of most of them. I’ve said it before, I so want to believe in this guy. But this is a guy who wants to increase the size of the military (he wants to add “40,000 active duty troops”), to continue to fight this ludicrous War On Some Nouns, claiming that he can fight a “smarter, more effective war on terror.” As if changing the President will mean we can now somehow fight this unintelligible war intelligently.

There are so many things that Kerry’s can’t even get right. Like, for example, opposing “democracy” and “communism” as binary opposites. He doesn’t even get that communism — in the Marxist, theoretical sense — requires democracy.

He defends the concept of “preemptive war,” saying that he will “get the terrorists before they get us.”

He wants to continue neoliberal economic policies: “we will trade and compete in the world. But our plan calls for a fair playing field — because if you give the American worker a fair playing field, there’s nobody in the world the American worker can’t compete against.” Sounds OK, but what is a “fair playing field?” Is this what is meant by Freedom? As in Free Markets? What exactly are the global labor relations at work here?

Kerry wants to “honor this nation’s diversity,” yet he said “I see us as one America — red, white and blue.” Can’t have it both ways. This just reaffirms the danger of political homogenization that results when there is a “two-party system” and both parties are very close in the political spectrum.

So I got to thinking, where do I fit in this spectrum? Who are my political affiliates? Who are my brethren, my comrades? Republicans or conservatives are so far beyond the threshold of consideration that I don’t even need to mention it. The liberals or the Democrats are so close to the Republicans to warrant no serious consideration either. The political climate of America is strange … all we have left are the bizarre, crossbred love children of a donkey and an elephant. I think I prefer “Donkephant” to “Elekey.”

Even the progressives are swallowing the “anybody but Bush” logic that is nothing more than an admission of defeat (do the math…if one is willing to accept “anybody but Bush,” then that individual has already lost).

That leaves the radicals, the anarchists, and the Marxists. But I suppose that leaves me in good company…

Those of you who know me through my Virtual Enclosures piece will not be surprised by this. Apparently, the Patriot act has been invoked by the FBI to gather evidence in a copyright infringement case. My first reaction is that this is proof that the Patriot Act has nothing to do with fighting terrorism, but rather is aimed at curtailing the civil rights of US citizens.

Read the story for yourself:

SG1Archive.com is one of the most popular fan-run websites among the Stargate community. In addition to providing very active fan discussion forums, broadcast schedules, production news, and episode guides, the site heavily promotes the sale of the show on DVD. As of this writing, direct links from SG1Archive.com to Amazon.com have resulted in the sale of over $100,000 worth of DVDs. Many more DVDs have been sold to international fans of the show through sites like Blackstar.co.uk. Upon hearing this news, Stargate executive producer Brad Wright called the site “cool” – which Adam took as an endorsement of his work.

However, instead of thanking Adam for his promotion of their product, officials at MGM and the MPAA have chosen to pressure the FBI into pursuing criminal charges. Adam was first tipped off about the investigation when the FBI raided his and his fiancee’s apartment in May of 2002 and seized thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment. Adam later received a copy of the affidavit filed in support of the search warrant, and was shocked to discover that this document, prepared by the FBI, contained significant amounts of erroneous and misleading information. For example, two social security numbers were listed for Adam, one of which is not his. References were made to a cease and desist letter sent by the MPAA to an email address that did not exist. His online friendship with other Stargate fans across the globe was portrayed as an international conspiracy against the MPAA. And perhaps most disturbing of all, it was later revealed that the FBI invoked a provision of the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial records from his ISP. The FBI’s abuse of its powers did not stop there. When they seized Adam’s computer equipment, he was given written documentation stating that it would be returned within 60 days. The equipment that they did return did not arrive until more than 8 months later, and only then after much prodding from his lawyer. Much of it was damaged beyond repair – one laptop had a shattered LCD screen, an empty tape backup drive was ripped apart for no apparent reason, his fiancee’s iBook was badly damaged when it was pried apart with a screwdriver. The FBI’s computer crimes staff is either incompetent (at least when it comes to Macintosh computer equipment) or else they just don’t give a damn.

So here we go. A fan site, that increases the revenue of the show being promoted, is being persecuted.

The logic here is all too clear. In this case, the desire for social control supersedes even profit. This is the virtual enclosures in action.

The Stylist feature in OpenOffice writer is, in my view, what sets it apart from Word. It allows documents to stay consistent as they grow in size. This is a good thing. Once you get used to it, it’s very easy to format documents consistently as they grow in size.

There are two articles by Bruce Byfield, Part One and Part Two that explain the use of the Stylist quite well. If you are at all considering moving away from the bloatedness and inconsistency of MS Word, go read these articles, download OpenOffice, and get cracking.

Thomas Cahill’s article, War Is Good Business, Invest Your Sons and Daughters: A Thumbnail History of America’s Dark Side And Suggestions To Save The Planet, was forwarded to me on one of the listservs I’m on. It’s a great article.

I tried to google it, but it isn’t up anywhere. But it’s important enough that I decided to put a copy up on this here site. Go read it.

This article provides an interesting analysis of the recent political rhetoric of the BuShites, comparing the political rhetoric to techniques of mass hypnosis, specifically those used by Hitler. It’s an interesting comparison, actually. The article makes several good points:

Perhaps the clearest likeness between the two men [Bush Jr. and Hitler] lies in their use of emotionally induced hypnosis to plant in the mass consciousness an image of themselves as protectors of their subjects from threats to national survival both inside and outside the fatherland.

Change “fatherland” to “homeland,” and you begin to see the parallels. This strategy, appropriated by Bush in his demonization of Saddam Hussein, reflects some advice given by Hitler in his book, Mein Kampf: “The efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of the attention of the people, and always in concentrating it on a single enemy.”

A salient example of Bush’s technique can be found in this analysis of his state of the Union address in 2003:

In search of support for shaky WMD charges against Saddam, Bush found the torture issue and put it on the front burner in his January 2003 State of the Union address: “This dictator who is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues and rape.”

Bush went on to urge Americans to come together in an orgy of fear induced self hypnosis by mentally imaging the dreadful prospect of Iraqi sponsored terrorists attacking the U. S., and tried again to link the Iraqi leader to the 9/11 attack on the twin towers: “Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans – this time armed by Saddam….We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.” If Saddam had not existed, Bush would have invented him.

The key point of hypnotism is the nature of the information being expressed in the address. On one hand, there is the clear, reasoned transfer of information. On the other hand, hypnosis is the intential limiting of the listener’s consciousness, which can take several forms. Intentionally oversimplifying the problem to narrow or dualistic terms is probably the simplest, ie, “you’re either with us or you’re with The Terrorists(tm).”

The author of the article is himself familiar with hypnosis. Regardless, an interesting analysis.

I just came across this article, called Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War. Looks interesting. DU could be responsible for the Gulf War Syndrome. Hard to say. But this issue — a form of nuclear war — needs to be addressed in the American consciousness.

I just discovered the writings of John Chuckman. From his bio statement:

John Chuckman is former chief economist for a large Canadian oil company. He has many interests and is a lifelong student of history. He writes with a passionate desire for honesty, the rule of reason, and concern for human decency. He is a member of no political party and takes exception to what has been called America’s “culture of complaint” with its habit of reducing every important issue to an unproductive argument between two simplistically defined groups. John left the United States as a poor young man from the South Side of Chicago when the government embarked on the murder of millions of Vietnamese in their own land because they happened to embrace the wrong economic loyalties. He lives in Canada, which he is fond of calling “the peaceable kingdom.”

Interesting background. He’s certainly angry at America, his tone is seething. There are two articles. The first is Insanity In America, where he gloats over recent reports “that there is more mental illness and insanity, far more, in America than you find in other advanced societies.” In the study,
“a Harvard Medical School researcher, found evidence of mental problems in 26.4% of people in the United States, versus, for example, 8.2% of people in Italy.” I can’t say I’m surprised. The structure of American society requires such intense cognitive dissonance that millions of people crack and go bugfuck. I wonder how many of those 26.4% are Bush supporters?

The second article, America’s Pathetic Liberals: The Sequel, is the most scathing critique yet not only of Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11, but of the American Liberal culture I’ve ever seen. From the article:

Michael Moore’s role is to make American liberals feel good about themselves without having to question the practices of a society which cast an increasingly long, cold, dark shadow over the planet. The job pays well, and Moore is becoming a wealthy man, a kind of well-kept court jester for those with occasional twinges of liberal conscience or human decency.

Moore’s film revels in exactly the kind of inconsistent thinking, full of unwarranted assumptions, thick with suggestions of undefined conspiracy, typical to one degree or another of most media in the United States. The thinking also is typical of a President who keeps telling us he decimated Iraq and spent a hundred billion dollars to save American lives.

You may ask, we know Bush is a brutal, rather psychopathic man, so how can he be like so much of middle America? You see, middle America is not the harmless, gentle place it seems in Hollywood’s confections. It is the place where thirty-year old couples assume they are entitled to a five-bedroom home on a sprawling lot in the suburbs with at least two lumbering vehicles in the driveway. It is the place which ignores the ugly parts of its own society, the ghettos, the broken-down schools, the lack of healthcare. It is the place where the relentless demand for still more endangers the planet’s future. And it is the place that drives America to global empire.

Bush is not, as so many American liberals claim, out of step with American history. Childish slogans about taking back America or, even worse, “Dude, Where’s My Country?” are just that, childish. Bush is an awkward, unpleasant exemplar of enduring American behavior and values. Did the invasion of Iraq represent different values or attitudes than the “Remember the Maine” invasion of Cuba? How about the invasion of Mexico, or the seizure of Hawaii, or the holocaust in Vietnam and Cambodia? Does the Patriot Act represent anything different than the Alien and Sedition laws of John Adam’s day or the dark excesses of the FBI under Hoover?

Be very careful how you vote to get rid of Bush. Kerry has never so much as condemned the war. He has never condemned Bush, except by repeating official-report findings all thinking people on the planet understood a year before the official report. Kerry’s view of the Middle East, frantic pandering to Israel’s darkest interests, promises no end to future troubles. He is an unrepentant, unimaginative supporter of global empire.

That brings us to the real tragedy of America and the real cause of 9/11 and so many other horrors: America’s swaggering readiness to play the game of global empire with all the brutality and incivility that it implies. You tell me how a confused film like Moore’s, even if it contributes to toppling a confused President like Bush, adds anything to resolving America’s great dilemma of insatiable greed and willingness to do terrible deeds while mouthing high-sounding ideals.

Not much to add to that. Though I do think that Chuckman is conflating “the people” and “the government” into something called “America.” You have to distinguish the two; despite the illusion the the government is “of, by, and for the people,” it clearly is not these days.

Furthermore, if it is indeed true that America has thrice the insanity rate of the rest of the west, then it follows that there is an external cause to this insanity. Therefore, these “American nutcases” are victims, and are therefore worthy of compassion. Mr. Chuckman doesn’t seem to be exhibiting much in the way of sympathy. It’s easy to rail agaist those at the top of the hill, but the question is, what can be done about it?

OK, yet another good definition of neoliberalism. This one comes from George Caffentzis, in his piece (credited to Midnight Notes), called Respect Your Enemies–The First Rule of Peace: An Essay Addressed to the U.S. Anti-War Movement. George says the following of neoliberalism:

We are told that Communism collapsed in 1989, but many have argued
that the political economy of post-WWII capitalism, Keynesianism,
collapsed a decade before to be replaced by a system that was called
at first Thatcherism and Reaganism, and later neoliberalism and/or
globalization. This system claimed that the basic institution of
modern society ought to be the Market not the State, and that the best
form of all social interactions is the commodity form. This conception
of social life had a great propaganda triumph with the dissolution of
the Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist bloc. More
importantly, it set into motion a remarkable shift in the economic
policies of most Third World countries (under the name of Structural
Adjustment Policies) that opened them to foreign investment, lower
tariffs, and unrestricted movement of money across their borders.
Finally, it undermined the guarantees of subsistence (early
retirement, unemployment benefits, health care, free education, etc.)
that the working class in Western Europe and North America had won in
a century of struggle (Midnight Notes, 1992).

The early 1990s was a remarkable period of triumph for neoliberalism
and globalization. Never before had the economic policies of the
planet been so homogenous, while institutions like the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization were
given the financial and legal power to keep the governments of the
planet true to the rules of the neoliberal global economy.

Up until July 1997, the supporters of this political economy seemed
invincible. Then, the “Asian Financial Crisis” struck. Ever since,
there have been breathtaking reversals that have put neoliberalism
into question more rapidly than the rapid pace of its triumphs. We
need not detail the recent stock market bubble burstings, the
recessions, the financial system collapses, the dramatic devaluations,
and the dot.com fiascoes. They constitute an international crisis of
neoliberalism and globalization — but not simply because the 1990s
globalization boom ended in the “loss” of trillions of dollars in a
very short time.

That’s a much more concise history than I gave. Read the rest of the article if you’re curious.

OK. So the definition of neoliberalism in the previous entry is verbose and not at all concise, though I still think it’s valuable. I want to give it another go.

So what is neoliberalism? And why am I so obsessed with it?

The best answer to this question requires some background. I come from a fairly white-bread, middle class background. When I was a kid, I thought I’d be a lawyer or an engineer, and be making 6 figures by now. After all, I was an intelligent kid, and an intelligent kid in my situation of white, upper-middle-class privilege should dream about how he will be able to profit from The System, right? I was a Republican. I hated cats. I can actually remember cheering when the US bombed Libya in 1986.

So what has this to do with neoliberalism?

First of all, neoliberalism is an economic term, and not precisely a political one, except to the extant that economics is politics. Secondly, the “liberal” in neoliberalism does not apply to what Rush Limbaugh calls “liberals.” Funny, but the rest of the world regards the term “liberal” to be very different from how it is regarded in the US. In the US, “liberal” means roughly “left wing,” whereas throughout the rest of the world “liberal” indicates a stance on the right.

Liberalism, from an economic perspective, refers to the laissez-faire attitude in capitalism, that the market governed by Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” phantom will take care of itself. It is the fundamental belief that the profit motive is the best way to ensure progress as a society. That by encouraging the relentless pursuit of profit for personal, selfish gain, society is best served, because people will strive to be most productive, which benefits everyone in society.

Sounds OK, on the surface.

But there problems with it, and most of the problems have to do with how this attitude has developed historically. Around the end of the 19th century, the notion of a “corporation” came into being in the way it exists today; basically from a legal perspective, corporations are equivalent to persons, and are entitled to the same legal protections under the US Constitution that people receive. This was decided in 1886 by the US Supreme Court, in the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company decision. If you’re interested, you should read the previous link. The basic story is that the judge in that case asserted without question the doctrine of corporate personhood, and since that doctrine ended up “on the record,” it was assumed by law from then on. This case has been the foundation for corporate law since.

So I ask again: what has this to do with neoliberalism?

The problem comes when you apply the classical liberal economic principles of “free market” economy to the present political/economic climate, in which corporations are persons.

If a person — or a corporation; there is no distinction in the eyes of the law — can operate freely without government intervention, then the relentless pursuit of profit (the goal of any corporation) can run unfettered. And since a corporation is just another kind of person, then there is no putting the needs of people ahead of the needs of corporations.

So this is the essence of neoliberalism. Liberal economic policies, applied anew to corporations. Neo-liberalism.

Now even still, what’s wrong with that? You also have to consider the notion of globalization. Corporations are now multinational, although most corporations are controlled in the US. Virtually all the land in the US (and for that matter the world) is already owned. The corporations cannot continue to grow their profit margins with only the US population as its customer base. Furthermore, American workers have, by global standards, high wages and decent working conditions, a result of a very long labor struggle. Labor is much cheaper overseas, so we see more and more products being made in different countries from where they are sold.

Furthermore, there are international money organizations that control how these international commerce situations develop. These are the IMF (International Monetary Fund), The WB (World Bank), etc. These organizations are largely controlled by the US, and more specifically by US corporate interests. So while corporations are, legally, on an “equal level” with persons, the reality is that these organizations manipulate global economic conditions to favor the corporations over the people. Their biggest tool for doing so is the “Structural Adjustment Program,” which has historically had very negative effects on poor people worldwide.

So it comes back to the title of Chomsky’s book excerpted below: profits over people.

This mode of capitalism (neoliberalism) took hold in the early to mid 1970s, replacing Keynesianism which was dominant from WWII until then. It can be no coincidence that 1973 was also the peak of the earning power of the American working class. The oil crisis took hold then. The upheaval and hope of the 60s gave way to the complacency and consumerism of the 1980s. Underlying all of these changes is the spectre of neoliberalism.