Sane man !

Masterful

2006-09-15T09:15:00.000+01:00

Billmon
Quoting Gibbon...

Random 10

2006-06-15T17:07:00.001+01:00

Can't work, feel dizzy, so ~~Ipod~~ Iaudio random 10....

White Stripes: Jumble, Jumble (De Stijl)
The Avalanches: Diners only
Gorillaz: DARE
Radiohead: Lozenge of Love (Live) ...... It's RARE!
Nick Drake: Sunday (Bryter Later)
Beatles: Yer Blues
Radiohead: Treefingers
Phil Parnell: Barcelona (from You Are Here, Incidental records compilation)
Mogwai: O I Sleep (Rock Action)
Nirvana: Plateau (Unplugged)

Slip

2006-05-14T11:38:00.000+01:00

Lovely, revealing slip in the Guardian:

Downing Street said he was determined to find a way around such 'barmy' court rulings.

Ich bin das folk!
Who's the barmy one though I'll let anyone guess...

No peace in our time

2006-04-21T12:34:00.000+01:00

Scott Ritter sums up the crux of the Iraq/n matter really well:

That’s why when I speak of Iran, I say be careful of falling into the trap of nonproliferation, disarmament, weapons of mass destruction; this is a smokescreen. The Bush administration does not have policy of disarmament vis-à-vis Iran. They do have a policy of regime change. If we had a policy of disarmament, we would have engaged in unilateral or bilateral discussions with the Iranians a long time ago. But we put that off the table because we have no desire to resolve the situation we use to facilitate the military intervention necessary to achieve regime change. It’s the exact replay of the game plan used for Iraq, where we didn’t care what Saddam did, what he said, what the weapons inspectors found. We created the perception of a noncompliant Iraq, and we stuck with that perception, selling that perception until we achieved our ultimate objective, which was invasion that got rid of Saddam. With Iran, we are creating the perception of a noncompliant Iran, a threatening Iran. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. Now that we have successfully created that perception, the Bush administration will move forward aggressively until it achieves its ultimate objective, which is regime change.

That's what I keep coming back to and is little mentioned, particuarly amongst anti-war folks. The "containment of Saddam didn't work" and "would you have let him in power?" are critiques that come often, but the answer is that the situation was frame for a bad outcome and that all peaceful diplomatic options were more or less subtly aborted. This is what I sensed during the Bustani affair and made me oppose the war.

The latter affair was apparently on the behest of John Bolton, the moustachioed twit that keeps blabbering on about the weakness of the UN and how it constrains the US etc. But as in this case he is part of the problem.

If the UN is weak it's precisely because the big 5 permanents of the (so-called) security council castrate it for their own geopolitical reasons.
The UN has no army and no power! Well who will fund and provide that army: does anyone expect the big powers to relinquish theirs?
The UN could do nothing about Saddam! It could not do the right thing because it didn't fit the plans of the US. All peaceful paths were blocked, the inspectors taken out and regime change was then inevitable, despite the best efforts of rational people.

Quick learner

2006-04-05T10:26:00.000+01:00

Link:
"In an exclusive interview with the Guardian in Baghdad - his first since Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw pleaded with him and his rivals for an immediate agreement to prevent a slide to civil war - Ibrahim Jaafari insisted he would continue to carry out his duties.
"I heard their points of view even though I disagree with them," he said, referring to Ms Rice and Mr Straw's hectic arm-twisting visit to the Iraqi capital which ended on Monday."

Looks like the un-enlightened "natives" are quickly picking up UK-style democracy! The Blair-style mantra: "yes I understand what you are saying but I don't want to resign."
They'll be selling peerages anytime now...

Das Capita

2006-03-23T12:15:00.000Z

So the chairman from Capita resigns:

Capita's chief executive, Paul Pindar, said: "Rod has played a key role in establishing Capita as the leading service transformation partner to both public and private organisations across the UK."

At great cost!

Fantastic, I thought this aspect of the "loans controversy" was totally underplayed in the news. Who cares about the bloody lords and knights, all that rotting feudality, what matters is that many of these people bought access to the PM and shaped his decision-making. They expect us to believe that it was "just a loan, at commercial rates" with no afterthought...
All the crazy bloody-mindedness ("it is essential that this reform of the schools goes through (even though most of my party is against it)" suddenly makes sense: there was a debt to repay, in many ways, and only Blair knew it. This hidden guilt explains the stubborness.

What an ironic end to the Blair era: all these loans were to pay for an election campaign, desperatly trying to turn opinion and the labour hemorragy from the Iraq decision.

For the record...

2006-03-16T11:57:00.000Z

"Oh, it was breathtaking. I mean I was almost starting to think that we had become inured to everything that we'd seen of this war over the past three weeks; all this sort of saturation. And finally, when we saw that it was such a just true, genuine expression. It was reminiscent, I think, of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And just sort of that pure emotional expression, not choreographed, not stage-managed, the way so many things these days seem to be. Really breathtaking."
(Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly, appearing on Fox News Channel on 4/9/03, discussing the pulling down of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad, an event later revealed to have been a U.S. military PSYOPS operation [stunt]--Los Angeles Times, 7/3/04)

Breathtaking? If only...
link.

These other one show what the war was really about... and how successful it was.

"If image is everything, how can the Democratic presidential hopefuls compete with a president fresh from a war victory?"
(CNN's Judy Woodruff, 5/5/03)

"It is amazing how thorough the victory in Iraq really was in the broadest context..... And the silence, I think, is that it's clear that nobody can do anything about it. There isn't anybody who can stop him. The Democrats can't oppose--cannot oppose him politically."
(Washington Post reporter Jeff Birnbaum-- Fox News Channel, 5/2/03)

Isaac Hayes...

2006-03-14T15:43:00.000Z

a scientologist?
I can't dig that AT ALL, this is depressing...

The cranks' motto

2006-03-13T13:51:00.000Z

They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Darwin, they laughed at Edison … and they laughed at Punch and Judy.

From John Sladek’s 1974 book, The New Apocrypha (via).

The SAS...

2006-03-12T18:33:00.000Z

hates america!
Interesting interview...

Great quote

2006-03-12T09:36:00.000Z

From Sam in Lenin's comments. Says it all.

"Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions."
-(Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, in his opening statement to the tribunal)

Incidentally many times when the word "fascist" is used (as in islamofascist), it's not a proper use (ie in any way connected to the Francos and Mussolinis of this world) but a way to reconnect morally and politically with the second world war, the only just war in memory, as conventional wisdom goes. But I've been thinking recently even this is exaggerated and as pointed above there is no just wars, only just defense (hence the common Orwellian euphemism). WWII was not just, it was a necessary horror.

God on his side

2006-03-12T09:05:00.000Z

When I wrote that

If you are pushed to bomb people, out of reasons X or Y, it's a natural human instinct to hunt for rationalisations and to somehow make it fit into your moral universe. Of course, we kid ourselves into thinking it's the other way around, hence the confusion. A direct word from God is a pretty good justification...

concerning THE terrorists of course (yes the evil arabs!), we didn't have Blair's admission that he turned to prayer when trying to decide if it was good to cluser-bomb Iraq into democracy. It seems pretty relevant now...
Incidentally the column I linked to is stupid punditry. Of course Blair wasn't "told by god to do it", but it's never like that: you have doubts about a dubious moral decision, you turn to prayer i.e. a silent reflection about being one of God's chosen few, his people, Jesus's buddy... you can do no wrong. Dilemma closed.

Little circle-jerk

2006-03-12T08:13:00.000Z

The closed intellectual circle and self-proclaimed rational little atoms have now invited Johann Hari, having ran out of idiots from the "cluster-bomb left" group. He's the saner of the lot and his interview has many interesting things to say, if a bit shrill. But their riff on the "cartoon" controversy is stupid. They say it's a free speech issue, of course it is, and who can hate free speech? Those haters are insane, case closed. But it's not, and the racism angle is totally absent, and this is similar to the just as idiotic discussions of the hijab ban in France, and it's more of the same.

First they are missing a lot of context, about hated, scapegoat minorities. Secondly, a bit of transposition can help you see the argument in a clearer way (discarding more or less conscious irrationalities): if a newspaper in china (say) had published a (non-agressive) cartoon of the prophet, would there be world-wide violence protesting this sacrilegous iconoclasm? When people were saying that the outcome of the 2002 election in France was wrong because of the obvious victory for the racist/fascist (not lightly used terms!) FN, were they against "free elections"? Is there any question of the state or anyone censoring the provocative magazine?

There is a lot of dismay at a series of provocative racist attacks in a charged atmosphere. This generates more hatred and violence which feeds back on the racism, just as they wanted. It's all part of the war on rationality, and you think little atoms would catch up on this but I fear they are blinded by they subconscious islamophobia.

Life according to Ben Franklin

2006-02-28T12:58:00.000Z

Here.

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation.

2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order: Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.

4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.

6. Industry: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice: Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation: Avoid extremes. Forebear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.

11. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; Never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.

12. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates

Battle

2006-02-16T15:41:00.000Z

London
versus... Scotland

the man can write

2006-02-07T23:12:00.000Z

This is fantastic.

Now, during our catastrophically idiotic war in Vietnam, the music kept getting better and better and better. We lost that war, by the way. Order couldn’t be restored in Indochina until the people kicked us out.
That war only made billionaires out of millionaires. Today’s war is making trillionaires out of billionaires. Now I call that progress.

The more you look at this story...

2006-02-06T20:55:00.000Z

the more it stinks!
Shame that most people will get a totally different view of the situation from a glance at the news...

Trouble Brewing

2006-02-05T10:41:00.000Z

Pitch: reservoir dogs meet beer-brewing in the desert

A rag-tag band of characters (Daisy thinks you can sell beer anywhere, the brothers like to travel cool with their own licensed car) all get together to brew a lovely beer...
Trouble ensues, and will they managed to avoid being ripped off by the distributor?

Crazy dreams I have, it's not out of query letters.

internalising

2006-01-31T10:24:00.000Z

Lenin in his comments:
[W]hile "most people" have not been "trained" in liberal guilt and relativism and all the rest, they have had ample training in internalising the purview of power, in screening out information that is not compatible with it, in refusal to acknowledge inconvenient facts and their import, in subtly racialising what purports to be 'universalist' discourse (hence, Hamas' "apologists" are damned as relativists, even by the same people who apply different, and lower, standards for Israel).

Most people are perfectly trained to understand that Muslims and Arabs are less rational than we are (even if Shuggy sarcastically implies that he himself is not prone to such constructions), less capable of having a coherent political programme, less capable of tactical voting, more prone to 'violent mood-swings' (like the Barbarians of Boris Johnson's programme about Rome), more hardened to war, always ready to take by force what they have never earned by sweat (like the Barbarians...), lazy, opulent, decadent, cunning, yet loyal as a dog if you feed them regularly...

more sense than his usual marxist boilerplate when he doesn't try to shock.

No-one

2006-01-29T22:00:00.000Z

No-one likes a fart at the dinner table. Don't talk too loud, you might spoil the atmosphere.

gallopiffle

2006-01-26T12:03:00.000Z

"The British parliament is full of people who jet around the world on fact-finding junkets to exotic places every day of the week and they are never hauled over the coals," Mr Galloway claimed.

That's exactly it.
I get through cycles of being exposed to vacuous bullshit about Galloway, and getting an increasing impression that he is somehow distasteful... and then I actually go through all the stuff that people are accusing him of, and find it half of it to be rubbish and the rest to be totally disproportionate to all the anger generated, and generally irrational.
"He didn't attend a vote!!" Sure, he's the only MP doing that because, well, we never hear about this happenning usually do we?
"He dressed up in ridiculous clothes!!" Must be the only one in the BB house to have done that...

Still not a fan of the cigar-chomping marxist, but to me all this noise is a clear manifestation of one of the features of our modern Western societies: anyone who articulates any deep social criticism or "radical" progressive opinion is excoriated. (deep not in the intellectual sense necessarily, but far-reaching). Don't you dare cause anyone some even remotely degree of guilt or you will be strip-searched for any fault, which will be inflated into the equivalent of an accusation of hypocrisy.

Galloway is continually shouted at by the media and the comfortable population because he is seen as issuing serious criticism. The latter are hardly ever heard or discussed, but a volley of bullshit is constantly repeated and passed around.
"Sure, Galloway got money from Saddam... well, everyone is saying this." A quotes B, and B quotes A and we have a nice media circle-jerk of hate, with nearly zero substance.
Of course the cluster-bomb lefties lap it up, since it plugs the bleeding holes in their worldview....

Unhinged

2006-01-19T10:07:00.000Z

So funny, just read that column from Nicky and it sounded nuts... and it was!

Typo?

2006-01-18T13:28:00.000Z

The prime minister's official spokesman [..] said: "Part of the education secretary's job is to deal with matters like this and to reassure the public that the government is taking all the action it can to reassure the public and to make sure ... this issue is dealt with.

I hope that's a typo, if yes it is highly ironic, and if not that guy should be flushed out together with Kelly the Opus Dei breeder...
This pedophile scandal is probably another bureaucracy fuck-up blown up by the press, but another explanation is that the nu-lab government is stacking up on pedos to fill up all these new private catholic schools and thus bypass that whole maturing process that takes centuries. Another glorious fast-track project from Tony.

Golden rule corollary

2006-01-12T15:53:00.000Z

If you should draft any public policy or recommandation, re-evaluate it putting yourself top of the list of affected people.

Theory of relativity for work-time

2006-01-12T11:42:00.000Z

Any mass of work will distort space-time locally.

This means that your private space decreases and the flow of time increases in speed, from your (and your immediate colleagues') point of view.
A consequence of this is that workload increases exponentially, eventually leading to the black hole of infinite despair (from which you can't turn back!)...

Put that in your head

2006-01-10T09:29:00.000Z

If there was any justice, all the cluster-bomb lefties (flocking to and cuddling together on the "meeting place for the anti-fascist left", makes you wanna puke) would be forced, abu ghraib-style, to continuously be exposed to a tape with this thing running on repeat:

Before the invasion, regime change was never cited as a reason for going to war. Indeed, Mr Blair insisted that regime change was not, nor ever could be, a reason for going to war. Had such a justification been fully debated in parliament, it is exceedingly unlikely that the necessary political support would have been forthcoming. It was the apparent need to defend ourselves against a dire threat - so vividly described by Mr Blair in the Commons - that finally won the political argument.

(Oh irony, this comes from:

General Sir Michael Rose [] adjutant general of the British army and commander of the UN protection force in Bosnia

Why doesn't he understand the "anti-fascist" and humanitarian urgency of the Iraq war? I suspect he loved that genocide in Bosnia...)

After 10 hours of this, you could put to them the simple question:
"Did you believe that the US was going to spend 100 to 200 BILLION $$ for the sole well-being of the habitants of a middle-eastern country? Were you that naive?"
Of course they make the reverse argument, helped by fuzzy logic thinking they convince themselves otherwise.
Luckily there is Rupert Murdoch's Times and the Evening Standard, last remaining bastions of the Left, where they expand on their brave hatred of fascism! And all these anecdotes about those scary darkies...

A madman in his most incandescent bloom

2006-01-08T19:23:00.000Z

Listening to Charle Mingus' Town hall concert and this fantastic poem:
(thanks for the transcription)

This mule ain't from Moscow, this mule ain't from the South,
But this mule's got some learning - mostly from mouth to mouth.
This mule could be called stubborn and lazy.
But in a clever sort of way, this mule's been waiting and planning,
And working - in seclusion - for a sacred kind of day.

the day that burning sticks - or crosses - is not mere child's play,
but a madman in his most incandescent bloom,
whose loveless soul is imperfection
in its most lustrous bloom.

Stand fast, old mule, soothe in contemplation, Thy burning hole and aching thigh.
That your stubbornness is of the living
And cruel anxiety is about to die.
Stand fast young old mule. Stand fast.

The band (as congregation) then sings in moaning church style: "Freedom for your mama, freedom for your daddy, freedom for your brother and sister, but no freedom for me." ...

Great acoustics story

2006-01-05T14:25:00.000Z

Here on wired. Lovely story.
Although... Boingboing's take on this is semi-idiotic: he did not "hack" his machine, but uploaded some clever models, developed quite independantly of him, by boffins in research departments.

About a year after I received the implant, I asked one implant engineer how much of the device's hardware capacity was being used. "Five percent, maybe." He shrugged. "Ten, tops."

I was determined to use that other 90 percent. I set out on a crusade to explore the edges of auditory science. For two years tugging on the sleeves of scientists and engineers around the country, offering myself as a guinea pig for their experiments. I wanted to hear Boléro again.

2006-01-05T09:43:00.000Z

This book looks stunning. Unbelievably, the gulags are back.

He spent three years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement, and was subjected to over three hundred interrogations, death threats and torture, witnessing the killings of two detainees. He was released early in 2005 without explanation or apology.

polarity shattered

2006-01-05T09:27:00.000Z

There is a great article in January's Monde Diplo by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, about the recent dramatic shift in Israelo-palestine politics.
Basically the situation has been reversed, with the palestinians confused divided and hesitant, and Israel opinion solidifying around Sharon which is becoming an incarnation of the state, as the rais Arafat was. The situation had been moving at least in one direction, of course not fair to the palestinian but moving at least, with Abbas the negociator left powerless and lost.

Many would say that Sharon's moving to the centre is a sham given his past behaviour, but an optimist take would be that he has been forced to incorporate the large movement of public opinion (mostly on the left) in favor of a better solution. This is how democracy should work after all. It's stupid to reduce Israeli opinion to the vocal and insane emanations of the hardline likudniks.

But just after this masterful analysis was published, it will probably be thrown off-course totally by Sharon's huge stroke. 8 hours surgery! Even if he comes out unscarred a lot of trust will be lost...

Cold!

2006-01-02T16:34:00.000Z

Hug, Kiss or ...

2005-12-21T14:22:00.000Z

I'm being told that young kids in Scotland have a game called "Hug, Kiss or Torture?". When doing it to a girl (yuck!) you prefer "torture" of course...

This explains all that has happened in Iraq and elsewhere: all harmless, innocent childish fun! It was those dumb Iraqis were guilty of giving the wrong answer, another proof that they really can't govern themselves...

Pot not so harmless

2005-12-16T11:30:00.000Z

Very interesting and sadly true. There are complicating factors and it's not universal but it's a definite trend. Just had another anecdotal tale the other day... The recent increase and change of perception seems to come from the arrival of skunk. Most of the interviewees are still for legalisation (and regulation).

Zerrin Atakan, of the National Psychosis Unit, summarises the findings: "Does cannabis trigger an earlier onset of psychosis in predisposed people? Yes. Does cannabis exacerbate the symptoms generally? Yes. Does cannabis use worsen the outcome and progress the illness? Yes."

The mental-health charity Mind's advisory pamphlet on cannabis details the symptoms it can induce - hallucinations, fantasies, voices, depersonalisation, loss of control, irrational panic and paranoia.

It is not just that the statistics do not seem to justify the widespread panic: current figures suggest that cannabis use increases the incidence of psychosis from 1% to 3% at most, and that the life-time incidence of schizophrenia per se remains at one in 100 (or 0.4% of population at any one time). There is also the vexed issue of causality. And what most of the research has so far established is correlation, not cause.

Shallow

2005-12-15T09:09:00.000Z

That is the problematic of shallowness: dealing with peripheral knowledge, information, entertainment, etc, taking the base as granted, while notknowing it. Paddling at the surface of a sea of unfathomable depth.

No need for conspiracies

2005-12-11T13:45:00.000Z

Following this post, I wanted to expand on the support of the West for Israel.
Short version is: most of the strong support for Israel in "the West" has nothing to do with the Jewish religion but is simply a support for a similar developed and modern society, akin to ours. Problems arise from ordinary racism and not religious wranglings. The fairness of the situation is secondary.

I got started on this subject (often thought about) reading another obtuse argument from O. Kamm's blunt razor. He once again labours (only in that sense could he really be considered a labour supporter) to misread one of the arguments of Chomsky, who reveals that he is... (surprise) a Jewish anti-semite! But the subject at heart of this rubbish is interesting.

References are too often made nowadays to the holocaust, simply because it is a convenient moral absolute in political discussions (which will nearly always lack such certainties). It is casually thrown around to add "strength" to a (strongly felt) argument through tagging. In all this (rarely) grave or (more often) incensed rethoric is lost the crucial problem at the heart of this act: the scapegoating of a minority. The fanatic strength and the determination of the nazis was borne out of their humiliation after thetragedy of WW1, and this folly was applied to the "jewish question", ie "all our problems are caused by this population there!", a massive transfer of their chauvinistic pride, inflated by the dogs of war and then destroyed. To see now the same kind of racist scapegoating all accross Europe (let alone the world) is depressing. Most of the accusations of antisemitism flying around have nothing to do with this, hence Chomsky's remark that it had really disappeared in Europe.

This post also fits in rather well with the debate about the "discovered" Protocols of the Elder Muslim Brotherhood.

Anyway, what I feel strongly about is this: no need to resort to Jewish conspiracies when discussing Israel; it's much more simple than that.

It is simply a case of "us" vs "them". Israel is modern, industralised society. It has technology centres, universities, beaches, discos, concerts, etc. We can see images of (pale-skinned) people, living a life very similar to ours (at least in the protection of the enclaves and the army). Images of palestine show dusty refugee camps, with swarthy/arabic people wandering amid torn concrete debris. Now who the hell is the average westerner going to relate to? The ancestral part of our brain has a tendency to associate and feel empathy with people similar to ourselves. It is a good-old racism problem, ties in nicely with this other discussion at CT.

More importantly, which western business will work with the palestinians? Which American politician will side with the brown guys and hope to keep his seat (especially today)? The Israeli's religion has nothing to do with all this.

Many pro-palestinians lefties mutter darkly about zinonists and the jewish lobbies in the US. Are they that powerful? Would the US policy move in a certain way just because of peripheral lobbying efforts? Marxists particularly should know that there must be deeper, global structural incentives of some kind...
This goes for both sides: the pro-israelis who throw silly "anti-semitism" attacks all around, which represents a ridiculous loss of perspective as evoqued above, miss the mark totally.

When a discotheque is bombed, the West feels more empathy than when a slum is attacked by an army helicopter: most do not live in slums and have been to a disco. But what about the "targeting of innocents", they say? It happens on both sides, but the palestinians don't have a traditional army (nor a state) to which we can relate to. Yet a war is fought on both sides, with people targeted.

Yet the palestinian side is quite clearly the oppressed one, ironically and particularly because of its lack of ressources and army, so most of the more rational observers and politicians in Europe do plead for the palestinian cause, and the UN has passed many resolutions against Israel.

As for where the fault resides? That's an easy one: the English again! We messed that one up didn't we... add it to the list of post-colonial disasters.

Lo and behold

2005-12-09T17:17:00.000Z

The invisible hand of the market has got fat fingers...
But it's still always right. The market had to have this blip, and it's self-correcting like crazy!

The death of philosophy

2005-11-28T10:40:00.000Z

Deeply symbolic and sickening...

Staying the course

2005-11-19T20:33:00.000Z

Looks like Bush doesn't want to leave Iraq...
It seems the US bloggers think this all depends on the strange whim of the Cheney admin... but there are deeper reasons, which they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge because they are out of the bounds of reasonable discourse in the US (and common sense in Europe!). This is why the discussion they have seems surreal and will never get past the baby stage.

The geopolitics haven't changed. The war was:

in line with the interests of Israel, the beacon of democracy in the middle east... all the talk of "spreading democracy" is the euphemism for this.
for the oil of course, the 2nd largest reserves in the world, under lock of the old dictator? Unthinkable! The talk of turning Iraq in a "modern, open democracy" is the euphemism for this
against Saddam: he was a player, but he turned. Now they still need a player, and won't leave before they get one.

To think that the US spent hundreds of billions of dollars and will just leave before satisfying at least partially some these interests is pure lunacy. Unless they are forced to of course.

Bien joue Chichi.

2005-11-07T17:41:00.000Z

From this timeline:

Nov 6 – Jacques Chirac makes his first public comments on the riots, demanding the “restoration of security and public order”.

Night of Nov 6/7 – The worst night of violence to date as 1,408 vehicles are set on fire, 395 people are arrested and 36 policemen are injured, as riots affect 274 towns.

The joy of bingo

2005-11-06T16:19:00.000Z

Prescience!

2005-11-06T11:24:00.000Z

Kevin lays out the wet and centrist case against war as "You know, they did not fully disclose the truth when selling the Iraq war, did they?". Of course he's got his conscience as an ex-semi-kinda-hawk to wrestle with.

Sure, many people thought that Iraq had a few CW canisters lying around. But how did guys like me know it was all rubbish and wrong?
Well, I'm used to being right, so it's kinda hard to say. But my opinion centered an undereported event that has totally disappeared from mainstream consciousness: the removal of Jose Bustani.

This agressive attitude, long before 9-11, against the guy who wanted to sign up Iraq to CW anti-proliferation treaties was a clear indicator that the US did not want to remove weapons in a sensible way (also because it meant starting at home) but wanted to takeover the playground of their old friend.
It was all in the air, if you cared to look at it, and the long-planned war of choice was tagged-on to the dead of the WTC and led to many disasters including the re-election of Dubya. But the discussion of WMD only revolves around the silly sullied mainstream version. Most people now are luckily wise to it now.

Finally, more from Monbiot, who was really on the ball on this (in 2002!):

War would enable the US to re-establish its authority in an increasingly wayward Middle East, while asserting control over Iraq's vast oil reserves. Iraq is also daddy's unfinished business: for George W, it's personal. War is popular: the more bellicose President Bush becomes, the higher his ratings rise. It justifies increasing state support for the politically important defense industry. Arguably, war also serves as a re-legitimization of the state itself. The Republicans argued so forcefully in the 1990s for a "minimal state" that they almost did themselves out of a job, as many Americans began to wonder why they were paying taxes at all. War is the sole irreducible function of the state, and the ultimate justification of the greatly concentrated powers and resources this "minimal" entity in the US has accumulated. But the underlying reason for these unilateral breaches of the law is that the rest of the world allows them to happen. Hundreds of readers of last week's column wrote to the foreign secretary asking him to stand up to the US. Brian Eno organized a petition signed by celebrities as diverse as Robbie Williams, Damien Hirst, Salman Rushdie and Bianca Jagger, in the hope that, even if it won't listen to anyone else, our government might at least respond to Cool Britannia. But on Friday, the first member state to co-sponsor the US resolution to sack Mr Bustani was the United Kingdom.

Irony

2005-11-04T15:03:00.000Z

bund (bnd, bnd) n.

1. An association, especially a political association.

2. often Bund A pro-Nazi German-American organization of the 1930s.

3. often Bund A European Jewish socialist movement founded in Russia in 1897.

Great synchronicity moment #351352

2005-11-03T15:09:00.000Z

While reading this:

AN aide to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and an intelligence director were to appear before a parliamentary commission last night to respond to allegations that Italy knowingly gave the US and Britain forged documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa.

(not really surprising, it does make sense, but still stunning allegations...)

...this song comes up on my headphones:

As soon as you sound like him
Give me a call
When you're so sensitive
Its a long way to fall

Whenever you reach for me
I'll be your guide
Whenever you need someone
To keep it inside

You're just a poor misguided fool
Who thinks they know what I should do
A line for me and a line for you
I lose my right to a point of view

Berlusconi, you played the misguided fool, I hope you lose you point of view being forced in front of Italian eyes for a long time...

The Chomsky-Hater's Handbook.

2005-10-31T14:02:00.000Z

The Chomsky-Hater's Handbook.: "A Halloween hatchet-job was in order and is kindly supplied by The Guardian this morning, in the form of an 'interview' with Noam Chomsky by Emma Brockes." Update: It is actually much worse than I thought. What is it about Chomsky that drives people coo-coo??

It is indeed quite a hack job, could have been cut-up by O.Kamm's blunt razor. But in there Brockes neatly quotes what is my beef with Chomsky and many shades of left-wing thought:

"his low opinion of the mainstream media (to summarise: it is undermined by a "systematic bias in terms of structural economic causes rather than a conspiracy of people"."

It's a subtle disagreement and not the core of Chomsky's polemics, but I tend to think that sub-optimal outcomes can emerge out of complex situations from the complex interactions of semi-honest actors, and not from the ultra-devious actions of the few powerful.

There are some very real power structures, and it's foolish to ignore them (that's all that Marx was saying after all).
But, roughly, Chomskyites will tend to blame the elites in power, and assume the common man will be blameless. That is quite an elitist approach: the mighty ideological fight of the intellectuals! The idealised "proletariat" can do no wrong.

But often, the elites in power are just on the end of the combined interests of a large part of the population, who would agree with them if they were within the same constraints. Remove G dubya, a Marxist nightmare made reality, and the "structural economic causes" which pushed his decisions remain. Sometimes it's easier to blame a few evil people than to point the finger (however partially!) at the beloved masses. Which the greens are usually happy to do, so maybe this is another red vs green phenomenon.

Anyway: expand on this general "cockup not conspiracy" paradigm later...

Down

2005-10-31T11:55:00.000Z

Man, is Bush shot down at the moment. No more than he should, actually quite less. (In a just world [...] and a pony etc.)

But when even Berlusconi and his ex-semi-fascist colleagues are distancing himself from him!

Silvio Berlusconi, one of George Bush's closest allies, says he repeatedly tried to talk the US president out of invading Iraq, in comments to be broadcast today.

His version of events [...] was backed by his deputy, Gianfranco Fini, leader of the former neo-fascist party, who said: "We tried right up to the end to persuade Bush and Blair not to launch a military attack."

"That Bush guy, he just went too far..." said the semifascist!

Of course it's pre-election hogwash, and about 100000 lives too late, but this is significant. The world's not gone so insane after all, normal rules are still operative.

Mystery solved

2005-10-26T14:43:00.000+01:00

Although I like reading the Guardian, with a pretty unrivalled depth of reporting, it always annoys me to constantly see the Blairite spin on things pushed to constantly in the headlines. It is not systematic, but dreadfully obvious when it happens, and it intensified lately.

I think I've found an explanation:
Guardian photographer Martin Argles is given rare access behind the scenes at No 10.

Uh-huh. Were all these crap headlines a good price to pay for these never-before seen photos of the corridors of power? To see their living room you need to give in to them, how telling...

lisa bailey betrays

2005-10-26T07:50:00.000+01:00

Why do the good ones die so soon?

2005-10-13T13:16:00.000+01:00

Let us keep for reference Robin Cook's resignation speech. No spin, no lies, and he was right on every single count, long before a shot was fired in Iraq. This honesty and integrity can only be admired.
Some highlights:

It is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany wants more time for inspections; Russia wants more time for inspections; indeed, at no time have we signed up even the minimum necessary to carry a second resolution.
I have heard some parallels between military action in these circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo[...] It was supported by NATO; it was supported by the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven neighbours in the region. France and Germany were our active allies.

For four years as foreign secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment.
Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam's medium and long-range missiles programmes.

We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.
Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.

Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create? Why is it necessary to resort to war this week, while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of UN inspectors?
it is more than 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.We do not express the same impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply.

But he could not forsee that the Iraq war would be a total success...

Trends

2005-10-11T15:33:00.000+01:00

Trends: "Richard Tomkins in the FT notes that the growing belief that cancer is becoming more common is at odds with the facts, similarly the view that more people are self-employed than they used to be.
[...]
The classic case of this is crime, he says. The longer you live, the more you are likely to have been a victim of crime, or know someone else who is. So you find it harder to believe crime rates are falling."

This is similar to one of the notions I have at heart: people get the impression that things are getting (really) more expensive all the time because of inflation. Despite the vague knowledge that inflation is involved, they then get more selfish and reactionary...

Buse rides used to be 50p in my day! Actually, bad example, bus fares are inflating crazily to help the Oyster blitz...

With or without You?

2005-10-11T12:40:00.000+01:00

Monbiot discusses the age-old problem: If God doesn't exist, then we can do what we want?
Sure you can, but the question is: do you want to bad things? And why not? God doesn't really come into it.
And as he points out, if you think you know what God thinks, you generally end up doing bad things...

Plus que francais

2005-10-10T11:48:00.000+01:00

Ca ne devrait pas etre etonnant que tant d'anciens collabos ont tourne au front-nationalisme: se vendre en plus francais que francais de base, et defendre une "certaine idee de la France" qui n'a jamais existe et dont il n'a jamais ete question. Je mettais ca instinctivement sous le compte d'une orientation vers la droite: de fachos nazis vers fachos des temps modernes... Mais la realite est bien plus complexe, la collaboration etait une lachete plus qu'une adherence au idees du Nazisme, et cette haine des etrangers serait en fait une reaction a leur trahison passee.

De la meme maniere beaucoup de nos comportements absurdes sont attribuables a une reaction inconsciente a une faiblesse percue.

Cf un des protagonistes du roman de Fred Vargas.

Good stuff in Eschaton comments:

2005-10-06T16:03:00.000+01:00

Athenae:

Bush, man, nobody's doubting that murder is bad.
We just think you suck at stopping it.
Classic conservative argument: address the question nobody's asking.

Dish!

And someone points to Leonard's Cohen Everybody Knows... will have to get an MP3.

Religious Confusions

2005-10-05T20:07:00.000+01:00

As much as I am opposed to religion, it is not up to the state to suppress it, it cannot be done. Change can only come from the private sphere, and the change will have to be gradual. Legislation or big initiatives are no match for the combined pop/science double punch: sciencific discoveries extend our horizons, and pop culture has broken down retrograde moral barriers and the rigid ethical strictures that were too often associated with religion.

That's why the fundamentalists, in America as in Iran, are so afraid of these. No wonder the Bush admin is so anti-science as well. It's funny to imagine the mullahs battle with Britney Spears in the heart of the average teenager. The reactionnary forces are still largely predominant, and any hope there is, if any, is in the private sphere, and not.

This is why I scoff at the secular part of the pro-war "leftists" arguments. Their obsession with the mullahs is only motivated by racism, and their appeals against religion (through state-sponsored war and repression!) falls on deaf ears.

Sad day

2005-09-16T12:21:00.000+01:00

Medecine can be a saviour and a curse.

Reflections in a slow meeting

2005-09-14T17:51:00.000+01:00

The key to a balanced and quite general view of religion IMHO is that it is a philosophy tagged to a myth.

A myth is often thought to be a lesson in story form which has deep explanatory or symbolic resonance for preliterate cultures, who preserve and cherish the wisdom of their elders through oral traditions by the use of skilled story tellers.

Religion is then a normalised, shared philosophy. Since every follower/believer shares the same myth, they inherit (in theory) the attached worldview, ethics, rituals etc. This allows great power through collective actions, which is why it can be so destructive or effective sometimes.

In practice: although the myth is shared, each person's philosophy does vary to a certain extent: people "shop around" to the ultra-conservative pope's dismay. Although the myth part is pretty solidly adhered to (bar the odd major schism), it is very hard to stop people from developing their worlview as they wish. Also, religious philos are often riddled with superstitions which are dysfunctional philos, with confusions between categories and levels of interpretations.

Positive and constructive atheism means developing a philosophy/worldview freed of the myths and attached superstitions of organised religion. Seen like this, there is nothing stopping anyone, it's just more difficult than the bible-munching version.

To develop...

Arg.

2005-09-07T17:09:00.000+01:00

That is all. All better soon...

The rising tide lifts all boats...

2005-09-07T08:17:00.000+01:00

...too bad if you have no boat to stand on.

I was listening to this yesterday:

Let me go 'way from the Mississippi
Let me go 'way from the white man boss
Show me that stream
Called the River Jordan
That's the old stream that I long to cross.

Ol' Man River, that Ol' Man River
He don't say nothin', but he must know somethin'
He just keeps rollin', he keeps on rollin' along

Hard left to nasty right...

2005-09-06T15:51:00.000+01:00

... seems to be a common phenomenon. For example Hitchens and the neo-cons (recently found supporting Bush on his recent catastrophic failure in New Orleans).
Or the ex-RCP turned corporate shills of Spiked.

The simplest explanation for the drift of many weak but fanatical assorted marxists to a nasty form right-wingery is that leftists like nothing better than to bicker amongst themselves. I suppose things are easier on the right aisle of the metaphorical chamber: look out for #1, and follow the money. No need to argue (much)!

Another aspect is an excessive reaction of people from the early simple ideas they had. Learning new things, disturbing the template, creates an unease/embarassement turned into hatred of their former selves (and the associated ideology). This is of course more severe for the more ideological politics: they must be taken as a whole or not at all! Hence the complete U-turns.
But I suspect it mainly helps a rationalisation of natural right-wing instincts described below.

Another point is that subservience instinct will result from fear. This happened to a large part of the US public, to universal bafflement. It is not really surprising it happened to several pundits, "lefties" or not. They also suddenly found themselves on the end of a much larger loudspeaker: being on the side of Power (ie the man) you get listened to much more and this is addictive for opinion-mongerers. So fear and power mingle, conscience can be made to follow suit and adapt...

People also get reactionary and selfish as they grow older. I'm attached to the idea that this is mainly due to inflation, and that this is a little recognised fact. I dunno.
Of course I suppose it is in large part because for every problem you get, or for every need that gets added to your list, the scope of our empathy diminishes. Having kids then plays a large part in this as well.

Now this is great

2005-09-05T17:16:00.000+01:00

You have to laugh:

"Almost every Republican I have spoken with is disappointed" in Bush's performance, said William Kristol, a conservative columnist with close White House ties. "He is a strong president . . . but he has never really focused on the importance of good execution. I think that is true in many parts of his presidency."

So... a very strong and resolute leader... apart from the actual executive bit. I'd agree with that!

With God

2005-08-23T10:58:00.000+01:00

So Sharon decides to expand the West bank, he has to really, pushed by the whole of Israel, angry at him for leaving that little strip of beach to the original squatters.
But the mentality of the settlers is interesting:

But Shlomit Ziv, a teacher and mother of eight children who has lived in the settlement for 13 years, says not. "Are we to say that we should not defend a part of Israel because soldiers are killed?" she said. "No one is happy to be living under terror but the value of the place is worth it. The people of Netzarim suffered from terror because we believed that even if it's hard, that's what God wants."

Not very nice for the soldiers (nevermind the gunned down palis), but I guess if you know what God wants...
Oh and how funny that these people are never tallked about as "religious fanatics"...

Great joke from Billmon

2005-08-20T22:04:00.000+01:00

Here:

I see that no less an imperial personage than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, has asked a federal judge to block the opening of the Abu Ghraib Film Festival of the Damned:

Myers . . . said in a statement put forth to support the Pentagon's case that he believed that "riots, violence and attacks by insurgents will result" if the images were released.
"It is probable that Al Qaeda and other groups will seize upon these images and videos as grist for their propaganda mill, which will result in, besides violent attacks, increased terrorist recruitment, continued financial support and exacerbation of tensions between Iraqi and Afghani populaces and U.S. and coalition forces," he said.
Sheesh. Suddenly everybody's a movie critic.

Billmon is one of the sanest and a fearless US bloggers... Longwinded sometimes but he doesn't feel forced to pay lip service to the troops/flag/freedom, he calls a spade a spade and proto-fascism proto-fascism. Best of all he is not on the defensive from the right-wing attacks, but constantly analysing the situation from an objective viewpoint, while still striking a reasonable and humble tone.

Trying to make it real... compared to what?

2005-08-20T14:37:00.000+01:00

I was going to say: stating the "obvious" is missing sometimes around blogs. This is because political or topical blogging is a reactive medium: basically a giant letters-to-the-editor page, without the newspaper. This reactive discourse always revolves around the tacit assumptions, on the terms and in the frame given by the mainstream, which mainly means the media or politicians. Both avoid basic unconfortable truths, as they are bad for sales/votes (few want to read about this) and often quite boring. Also, opinion-makers are constantly in the quest for some new "angles".

(This could be confused with the idiots ranting about the "MSM" and how it won't report (for example) that all arabs are killers... They use the same type of reasoning to rationalise their ranting about the media.
I suppose common sense is needed (hence the problem) and also a clear motivation. There is a good reason for the BBC to be subservient to the government, and they have a clear incentive for sensationally overselling and hyping up non-stories, while avoiding unpleasant truths (as explained above). I find that the various conspiracies about the "liberal" or PC media are quite lacking in that respect...)

In fact "The Media" is also very reactive: Tv, and (to a lesser extent) newspapers. As has been wildly noted, they sell only news, and often lack basic truths and context. They describe only correctives to an assumed universal base. It also complicated by the political filtering to cater for the political template of their readers. This is also true of blogs of course, in an even more strident way. As the blogs react to media reports, the trends are amplified as much.

I think the main conclusion is that reading only reactive media such as blogs or newspapers will twist your perspective and make you lose objectivity. RTFM!
This is true of the corporate media as well as the lefty indymedias, which portray struggles and under-reported facets of commercial activities: if you only read this kind of thing...

The problem with the internet is that there is so little common sense. All the empty talk about its potential is belied by the vast proportion of asocial people with little contact with the outside world contributing to it intensely and regularly. Hence the disporportionate amount of "Libertarians", and the vacuity and nerdy unreality of many of the political debate.

A random example is the "new you"...controversy!!!: Why does the media report insist on reporting A while B is true, as you can clearly see, and as these google links prove beyond any doubt!?! Why are the police and the BBC lying???!?

So with a demographic biased against common sense, and reading only the hyper-reactive media that is blogs, and filtering out those you don't like... well, you might end up (unconsciously) totally cut-off from reality... and loving it!

Slightly reactionary quote...

2005-08-18T21:27:00.000+01:00

[T]here is no reason, art should gain the point of honour of our great and puissant mother Nature. We have so much by our inventions, surcharged the beauties and riches of her works, that we have altogether over-choked her: yet wherever her purity shineth, she makes our vain and frivolous enterprises wonderfully ashamed.
-MONTAIGNE, 'OF THE CANNIBALs', FROM THE ESSAYS, TRANSLATED BY JOHN FLORIO, 1603

More from Vonnegut:

2005-08-15T15:10:00.000+01:00

2 other great quotes from Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.:

All people are insane. they will do anything at any time, and god help anybody who looks for reasons.

It's no doubt a great flaw in my personality but i can't think in terms of boundaries. Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves or pixies. I can't believe that they mark the beginning or the end of anything of real concern to the human soul. Virtues and vices, pleasures and pains cross boundaries at will.

I really feel a great affinity to this last quote, I have felt like this since I was young...

The tagging fallacy

2005-08-15T08:38:00.000+01:00

Tentative def: basing your evaluation on something good/bad tagged to the end of an (abstract) object, and more or less separated from its main body. As opposed to doing a complete evaluation, in context.

This is based on a logical fallacy, ie B in A does not mean A in B. Do a lot of math and you learn to spot these...

For ex: Prince Charles and the biodynamics...

It starts pretty reasonably:

Biodynamic farming was founded early last century by Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher, scientist and social reformer. Steiner is best known for his schools, founded on the philosophy that the “whole child” should be nurtured.

A holistic view of the garden? That seems like a pretty good idea, owrthy of consideration! The problem for Steiner is that holistic thinking is pretty tough, and to find good rules governing the way a garden works as a whole would take a lot of work and time. The solution? Make some shit up with astrology!

[...]the sowing of crops should be timed to fit in with the cycles of the moon, planets and signs of the zodiac. Steiner’s Biodynamic Agricultural Association draws up a day-by-day timetable for planting. This is sent out annually to the 140 biodynamic farmers registered in Britain.
Under the Steiner system each crop type is linked to one of the four traditional elements: earth, water, wind and fire. Root crops such as carrots are seen as earth plants while fruits such as apples are linked with fire. Leaf crops, including lettuce, are associated with water.

This is utter rubbish of course. But only seeing the tag above, you might be drawn into it (like poor Charles).

Other example: some liberal descriptions of religions... "The Bible says you should help the poor and the needy, and that you should turn the other cheek. Surely you can't disagree with this?" But it's a big book, and the admittedly good ethics are only a sideshow to the main tenets of theism: the revelation, salvation, and the mystical caracter of the immanent God.
There is of course the reverse: those who lead a bigoted life of selfishness, hate, treachery etc, and who still feel good about themselves because they are "good christians", ie they've done the right prayers and been to church (or even less than that). They've put the Jaysus tag on their unethical life, so all is peachy.

Or of course the hawkish Iraq War arguments (as opposed to the passive ones): "Surely you'd agree that Saddam is a bad man? You'd like him gone? Then you must subscribe to the US/UK plan..."

zzzzz

2005-08-12T12:32:00.000+01:00

If it's true that for every difficult problem, there is a simple solution that is wrong, it's also often true that there is a right solution that is boring.

Incompetent hegemony snapshot

2005-08-10T10:12:00.000+01:00

On my google RSS readout:

Reuters: Top News

-Four US soldiers killed, 6 wounded in Iraq attack
-Defiant Iran to proceed with more atomic work
-Bush, advisers paint rosy picture of US economy

Is it just me hearing a sarcastic tone in that last headline?

Nice one

2005-08-08T09:23:00.000+01:00

It's worth sometimes trawling through the bitchfests happening in the comments of Crooked Timber, to find some pearls, like the Vaclav Havel quote, or this from "jasmindad":

All these questions about “what facts” changed Hitchens’, Cohen’s or Anthony’s opinions arise from a misunderstanding of the logic of political side-taking. Everyone here assumes, in a way that is flattering to themselves, that their own political positions are based on a relentless application of rational inference to the million facts about this or that. What in fact happens is that by various heuristic means, we organize the facts and assign significance before seriously processing them. One such means is use of templates we inherit from our peers with whom we feel comfortable or with whom we agree on other things. Another might be an earlier template that we felt comfortable with in a similar but different situation. And so on. What these templates do is help organize the facts in various ways, including assignment of credibility, significance and so on. This way one person might regard Blair as sincere in his expressed concern for democracy and human rights in Iraq—a fact—, while another one might view this simply a cover for other real motives. Facts get interpreted and collated and processed in different ways. The template does most of the work. This is why political discussions are so frustrating. We hurl “facts” at each other and are amazed that the other person doesn’t make of them what seems so obvious to us. The only explanation we can think of is idiocy or immorality.

Several things might happen to shake this up in individual cases. In my own case, e.g., I had long taken a certain political position on some issue, and that framework required that people who take an opposite position need to be some combination of cretin and moral monster. But then I met someone whom I dearly loved who was neither a cretin nor a monster, but who subscribed to the opposite view. This particular event reverberated through my template in a certain way that I became much more ambivalent about my own position in that matter.

So I’m willing to believe that an evening with a Kurd shook Hitchens up and tore up his template. But what I’d have hoped this event might have done for Hitchens is to make him question his own style of argument in which anyone who is not completely on his side on any political issue is a moron or a person of bad faith. It is also disappointing that he has not gone over his earlier political positions, once expressed with equal disdain for opponents, and given himself and others an honest account off how his earlier template had misled him, and perhaps express something like a regret for his earlier disdain for opponents. But as far as I can make out, he has always been right in every position.

Logic of terrorists

2005-08-07T00:22:00.000+01:00

ane analysis:

[E]very major suicide-terrorist campaign has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw [from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland].

Another really good article from "Lenin". It is really annoying to hear so much nonsense about these terrorists, especially given the dangers involved. We have to fight against them without the slightest idea of what's going on?

But an analysis on different levels is necessary. Our brains are quite simple and are usually only comfortable with linear, A->B->C thinking and causal relations. But many objects have more complex structures: either composite/multipartite (horizontal structure) or spanning several levels of abstraction (vertical structure). Most of the problems and arguments we entertain come from confusions between these different levels: selective picking, or subsequent switching between them. More on this later.

In fact, the different Qutbist (and related!) terrorists all have different aspects to motivate them:

Reactionary: against modern "western" values, ie the post-60's liberal progress faught by about half the Western world!
Anti-colonialism: cf above. Military geo-strategy and its discontents. It is tinted by religion, as some sites are more important than others...
Political: thirst for power and the creation of a global califate.
Personal situation: whatever personal motivations come from the particular history of the person.

A mix of all these elements is probably found in most terrorists, with a varying proportion.
The people who go on and on about "Islamo-fascism" just focus on item 3, mostly confined to some of the leadership, add a bit of 1, and attach this to the whole Qutbist movement. But it varies for different individuals, at different levels at the hierarchy, hence the confusions and the spurious debates about "apologists" etc.

Religion binds all these things together, but is not the impulse. The terrorism is not "essentially Islamic" as the racists keep telling themselves. The religion provides the essential objective context, which allows the soldier (not the Bin-Ladens!) to forget his self and forget his life to fight for the "higher cause". Suicide bombing is just the limit form of this selflessness, with its deadly efficiency, as it is near-impossible to stop in modern societies. The religious impulse replaces the nationalist impulse, which is actually another form of "objectivism" (I mean implanting the objective in the subjective).
Islam becomes a new national identity, which is why it's so stupid to force people to choose it as an identity versus the default nationality.

Decently scared

2005-08-03T13:43:00.000+01:00

It's quite funny that the weblog cranks clamoring the loudest over the Horrible Islamic Threat; going on about "Islamo-fascists"; saying you have to denounce, denounce denounce; saying you cannot explain or "excuse" what is just pure evil; mutter darkly about the intrinsic properties of Islam and the general instances of violence from its followers; constantly putting this threat over any other consideration...
...are the one who are the most scared of terrorists!

What they call a "strong, resolute stand" is often just an aimless expression of fear-fuelled hatred. Any cool, rational analysis is perceived as weakness, simply because it doesn't reiterate meaningless revenge fantasies.

It is of the major aim of terrorists attacks to cause this fear and insecurity, increasing divisions, and prompting stupid responses. Hence the actions of the US since 9/11, falling right into UBL's Middle-Eastern trap.

Case in effing point!

But look, to be against terror you first have to acknowledge that it exists.

How funny, exactly my point... Brendan in comments actually brings up a great text from Vaclav Havel, right to the point:

Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display the slogan, ‘I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient’, he would not be nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the statement would reflect the truth. … To overcome this complication, his expression of loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at least on its textual surface, indicates a level of disinterested conviction. It must allow the greengrocer to say, ‘What’s wrong with the workers of the world uniting?’

There is a also a clear racist element which fuels these reactions; on this more later.

Added: they get pre-verbal now! Fantastic piece from Andrew... But it fails to really explain the central irrationality and fear at the centre of all this behaviour, it just circles around it... Mushy Americans, they don't want to offend their fellow nut-cases.

Why do we find these terrorist attacks so horrible?

2005-08-01T10:15:00.000+01:00

I wasn't sure about this but now that the second bombers team's intentions seem to be clear...

Half of the answer is that they are happening to "us", ie someone similar to us, close in the ethnico-cultural space represented in our reptilian brains. This is normal, and the way empathy works.

But it is often said that the attacks are particularly evil because they target innocents, civilians... like me. I'm pretty innocent I guess. But this is absurd: would it be less "evil" if they had targeted the military, bombed some soldier's barracks in Hampshire? Would it have been better if they had come down Oxford street with some tanks? Of course not. Is it the surprise effect? It increases the terror but not the nature of the acts.

The problem, and unpleasant truth, is more that we think we're out of any war. We live in a peacetime, thriving economy where the biggest concern is what to consume, how to fine-tune our governmental expenditure, and the house prices. But there is an ongoing war, waged far away from our direct awareness.
Foreign wars are a distant abstract, the full nature of which it is quite easy to ignore.

The same people would also say that the traditional wars are not aimed at civilians, but they have been lulled by the military euphemisms ("capture", "progress", "neutralise" etc). Wars impose by force and death some political aims.
The major aim of the terrorist attacks wasn't to kill civilians, but was strategic, politic, etc.

War is brought back into Babylon...
This is not to diminish the horror of the act of course. But the Iraq War was pretty horrible as well, and it is quite sickening to read endless one-sided discussions by people who keep going on about one half of the world, and wondering about those horrible events while ignoring the other half quite easily. I wished none would happen.

This is like foreign slave labour and the failure of socialism in modern western societies: this is a failure of empathy in a globalised world, which is a fairly new but crucial phenomenon. It is quite easy for us to ignore the sufferings of labourers in third world countries that bring us the cheap products we enjoy... And no "working class" here will fight for the rights of others over there.

Is there any kind of study or theory...

2005-07-31T19:04:00.000+01:00

...on the moral hazards of the division of labour ?

It must be one of the fundamental limitations of the modern economic organisation, along with the limits of hierarchies. Although the specialisation bring some increased efficiency (in theory), there will be some "leaks" because of the moral hazards. There are no reasons why this way of organising our economies would be perfect, after all it has only quite recently been pushed to such an extreme.

Ex: people in the finance industry are in charge of dealing with money, specialised in that area, and dedicated to the task... but they will have more occasions to steal or appropriate some, more abilities to do it. Just as the potato peeler will have more occasions to nick some 'tatties! All moral hazards are not equal.
Similarly, managers are necessary, but the pays of the people setting the payrolls will of course be inflated...

This is related to Arrow and Stiglitz's asymmetries of information, similar I suppose... Of course the question would be: is the system still overall more efficient than if less specialisation is used?

Apposite Quote

2005-07-30T09:36:00.000+01:00

"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting," I said, "but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive.
"It's that part of an imbecile," I said, "that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly."
[...]
"If you want to be a soldier in the Legions of God so much," I told him, "try the Salvation Army."
-Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Killer writing from Vonnegut, that neatly slays both of the sides in the war on rationality...

2005-07-29T14:33:00.000+01:00

Great new installment of the 1-minute MBA from D^2.

Another universal rule I'd like to add, although not applicable to the shooting incident:
we are only ever prepared for the catastrophes that have already happened.
This isn't of course a criticism but a basic constraint.

For example: you could see policemen patrolling the tube yesterday in case they blew it up on a Thursday again. And security is pretty tight for airport bagages! The 9/11 attacks managed to hit the Pentagon, which many would consider to be one of the most protected buildings on the planet.
Of course a repeated terror attack has a very powerful effectand that's what they did in London, but in general surprise is their greatest asset. And in general, catastrophies must be considered as random events, essentially unpredictable.

But to tie in with what d2 says, it's even more idiotic to push for zero risk in an area where heuristics will tend to be wrong, because biased towards past occurrences. The risk assessement must consider the diffuse and subjectively random nature of these disasters: hence the importance of soft, low-level approaches... and the ridiculous nature of the strident, panicked calls for "strong measures!!" to be taken.

Relatedly, what will happen when Al-Qaeda (or an offshoot) recruits an angry black- or white-skinned Muslim? If he doesn't look Arabic, he will not likely be stopped... It's quite likely, actually surprising it's never happened before. Just imagine a slightly insane follower of Malcom X (I've met one once).

London united?

2005-07-28T19:21:00.000+01:00

This was taken on the Thursday when the 2nd attack half-failed. No-one died but the psychological effect was terrible of course.

That morning, the Evening standard, which was running out of juicy terrorist-related headlines, had planned a special bombing extravaganza edition: "London stands united". I thought the contrast with their placards and the stunned Tottenham court road was quite striking. There's a lot there...

Thought for the day

2005-07-28T09:09:00.000+01:00

London is a cristal in the mud.

2005-07-20T11:54:00.000+01:00

One of the major problems with post-60 music, and the explosion of genres and styles, is that some modes of music which are good to play are not good to listen to.

By modes I don't mean genre or styles, but some sub-genres, some artists, or parts of tracks. This can be remedied by working on improving the listener's ear, and it's not as bad if you're a musician as you can have a certain empathy with the playing (up to a point!)

I don't mean that only immediate or pop music is good to listen to... There is a fundamental imbalance between the artist and the receiver (as in all arts), which is more important in this case because of the pleasure linked to playing the instrument. The latter comes from technical achievements (a by-product of learning to play), or from the nice synchronicities occuring when playing in a band, etc.

This is the problem for some long jazz solos, modern classical music parts, jam bands, introspective self-indulgent indie, etc.

Racism as secularism

2005-07-15T22:01:00.000+01:00

This is Lenin talking good sense:

blatant racism has been sold under the guise of secularism

Although I don't fully swallow the Marxist frame he will stuff everything into, he and the SWPers sound much more sensible than a lot of traditional moderates and liberals... Here, he's skewering the nasty kind of lefty "hawk" that decided after 9/11 that the really dangerous thing was all those scary darkies, you know, over there, and that this trumps any other kind of argument. This type of islamophobia has been dissected in detail, and it's not really worth arguing with that kind of people and their prejudice-driven sophistry. Do we talk of "catholic terrorism" about the IRA? (Once again) terrorist bomb NY and London because of their hatred of rock music and women showing their hair?

But Lenin's phrase also goes to the heart to what bothered me in the French scarf ban debate: some deep-rooted racist motivations, dressed in secularism. Let's not forget that around 15% of the French regularly vote for the racist Front National. It is easy to stick the "muslim" label on the population of Algerian or vaguely Arabic origin, even if it isn't true for most, particularly in the younger generation. But did it even bring some politic credit to embattled Chirac and his party? Hardly, they're too incompetent for that, and the racists will always prefer their hatred uncut (from the FN) rather than the shameless but limp centrist imitations... they never learn!

I love France's secular spirit generally, and hate all types of religious superstition, and the idea of making women cover themselves is a pretty nasty example of how religions tend to degenerate into more or less the preservation of patriarchy (I mean, "family values").
But the "laicity" concept concerns the provider, ie the state, and not the user. The idea is not to coerce the latter into a secular state, as this is counter-productive. It's about the separation of church and state.

This type of stupid, wrong-headed forceful removing of a few headscarves (and crosses!) will induce more divisions and wrong-headedness than miraculous conversions to darwinists brights. Indeed sticking a muslim label on a population that wasn't that bothered will probably be a self-fulfilling idiocy, because the group in question isn't properly integrated and is looking for an identity... and will turn to hardline "Islam".

Creeps

2005-07-15T11:30:00.000+01:00

Getting on the picadilly line at south kensington, because most of it is still shut down. I see the train approaching and it seems like a soldier that survived, still running dutifully, nearly empty.
Going in, I make an amazing discovery: pages from the Guardian, dated 07-07-05. It must have stayed there all this time. What was the G2 supplement carelessely examining that morning, what were some reading before those crazies blew up? It was a description of the $billions lost in Iraq by Bremer's CPA, the corruption, suitcases full of money...
In a very creepy and cynical way, it all made sense.

2005-07-13T18:09:00.000+01:00

There is a current of opinion (for example) basically saying that the London attack was crap because it killed very few people. That's showing admirable resilience, and it's the right attitude to have; but as far as analysis goes, it misses the point.

The 9/11 attacks were also really bad as far as killing is concerned (the towers were practically empty, it could have been far far worse during the day), and this is naturally the aspect we focus on emotionally: those deaths are tragic. But the intended effect is much more political, emotional, economic etc. The humiliating aspect it had is also rarely discussed, for obvious reasons.
On the whole, it did what no ground attack by an "Al Qaeda army" could have ever dreamed to do. If the intention was just to kill a lot of Americans, then they could have proceeded otherwise with much more "success".

It's the same for the London attacks. It's not the deaths that count strategically, but the fear, acrimony, and political ends created.

test post

2005-07-12T14:38:00.000+01:00

On good days, I'd say religion is just caused by subtle, superficial philosophical mis-interpretations and confusions between levels of interpretation, and that once a few semantics questions are clarified, I'd agree with a lot of it really.

On bad days, it becomes a contagious mental disease, evolutionarily selected: ie, it spreads because it is good at spreading.

Both attitudes are compatible... I think?

2005-07-12T10:15:00.000+01:00

Interesting chapter on companies in Six Degrees.

It discusses hierarchical networks in companies and how "looser" hierarchies with additional horizontal and vertical connecting links are much more able to cope with uncertainties and even random catastrophies: super-robustness.
This connectivity at all scales incurres a loss of productivity as the tasks are less specialised and from the communication cost for all the different actors. But this diminishes the costs of risk. This ties in with the problems of risk and how hard it is for the short-term sighted to take it into account materially...

2005-07-11T10:01:00.000+01:00

Why do this? I can't write clearly to save my life...
A good braindump, where thoughts can remain (until the giant crash of the internet). And thoughts are clearer when actually expressed, and not remaining half-hidden in your head. Although this should not be like this, it is somehow... Maybe this will help to clarify and objectify thoughts.

2005-07-11T09:06:00.000+01:00

Concerning the terrorists' side: the attack on rationality in question is not exclusively religious.
As much as I detest religious fundamentalism, it has more of a secondary role, particularly an attack like last thursdays. The "soccer ball" faction likes to underline the reactionary nature of fundamentalist Islam, and to tie it to the different terrorist activities.
But the religious fervour comes 2nd, providing a bind, a pretext, a deep well of irrationality, certainty and justifications from which to pick, but anyone who thinks bombs went off because these people didn't like the short skirts, booze and pop music we have in the west is another kind of loony.

If you are pushed to bomb people, out of reasons X or Y, it's a natural human instinct to hunt for rationalisations and to somehow make it fit into your moral universe. Of course, we kid ourselves into thinking it's the other way around, hence the confusion. A direct word from God is a pretty good justification...

Many people have recently pointed out the nationalist or political dimensions of the attacks..
For example see the fantastic Karen Amstrong who knows a thing or two about fundamentalists.

There are too many lazy, unexamined assumptions about Islam, which tends to be regarded as an amorphous, monolithic entity. Remarks such as "They hate our freedom" may give some a righteous glow, but they are not useful, because they are rarely accompanied by a rigorous analysis of who exactly "they" are.
The story of Qutb is also instructive as a reminder that militant religiosity is often the product of social, economic and political factors. Qutb was imprisoned for 15 years in one of Nasser's vile concentration camps, where he and thousands of other members of the Muslim Brotherhood were subjected to physical and mental torture. He entered the camp as a moderate, but the prison made him a fundamentalist. Modern secularism, as he had experienced it under Nasser, seemed a great evil and a lethal assault on faith.

Or Juan Cole:

Zarqawi's Salafi group would never celebrate "Arabism" or speak of "heroes" (abtal) when referring to the "holy warriors" or mujahidin. Urubah and batal, Arabism and hero, are typical of the vocabulary of secular Arab nationalism-- in, say, the tradition of Gamal Abdel Nasser. That message is coming from a group of terrorists that is much more comfortable with this language than are typically the extremist Salafis like Zarqawi. "Hero" would sem a term of humanistic pride to them, and Arabism would seem narrow and idolatrous as a competitor with Islam. There are Muslim thinkers who meld political Islam and Arabism-- this is common in Egypt, e.g. But they belong to a different religious and intellectual tradition than Zarqawi.

They are not trying to create religious but good old nationalist irrationality, the kind that leads to divisions and wars.

You're either with us, or against us.

2005-07-08T13:37:00.000+01:00

When the consensus view about the bombing emerged (terrorism!), I was strangely baffled. Thinking about some anarchists "doing something" about the G8, I just could not see what they were trying to achieve through murder. Surely this would only push UK and the US towards more drastic, stupid moves ... what a pointless crime! Then of course, in the afternoon, I realised that's exactly what an Al-Qaeda ofshoot was trying to achieve. More polarisation, violence, hatred will be generated in the western side, more idiotic policy idly justifed and reservations righteously brushed aside.

Then this morning it hit me. What both sides are doing is:

A war on rationality

This goes for both sides. While we can't do much about the Al-Qaeda crazies, we concentrate on our western leaders. And the cowboy-in-chief, alpha male of the sad western (imagine a good Morriconne music going with this) is waging his own little reactionnary crusade on science, reason, reality, peace... Both sides are as destructive and feed of each other. The Enlightenment prinples which are dear to me are needed more than ever.

This was eerily confirmed by all the missionaries out on the prowl today: doe-eyed generic christian, and the scientology recruiters (which I almost pity). I swear they were never there before. They could sense an occasion, an opportunity: nice day for recruiting. All this fear and doubts in the air: we could lock in a few londoners to our peculiar thought-patterns and chain them to our myths. Get them while they're down.