17 posts tagged “america”

Whilst there are quite a few good things I could say about America, the ignorance of some of the people really does tend to piss me off sometimes.   Right now, we have quite a few Americans railing against Britain’s ‘socialist’ system in efforts to associate Obama’s plans to broaden governmental involvement in health care.  According to these ignoramuses, Britain’s ‘socialist’ system denies critical medical services to the elderly because their lives are less valuable than younger persons.

 

Firstly, this is not generally true.  Secondly, if it was, that is nothing to do with socialism.  And thirdly, Britain is not socialist though its health care might be considered pseudo-socialist as one needs to take on added ‘investments’ to get quicker medical attention.

 

Now, for the sake of some of those ill-educated Americans out there, let me put it simply.  Socialism has, at its heart, the belief in egalitarianism and in bringing about the conditions that enables equal access to those psychological and economic resources necessary for one to take equal advantage of opportunities.  This does not mean that everyone has to be the same, it just means that everyone has to be in a position to be as motivated as everyone else to do anything – which is not logically possible within a class-based system. At its core, it values human life whatever the race, age, height, gender, and so on.  If Britain gives preferential treatment to the young, then it ceases to be socialist in essence.  And if some are inclined to point to China or the former USSR and say that the way these states were run is evidence that I’m simply talking rubbish, then, let me say again, those were ‘state capitalist’ nations, not ‘commie’ or ‘socialist’ ones.  I’m sure everyone will agree that the state in those nations profit from the work of the people right.  By definition, that is the quintessence of the relationship between the capitalist and the worker.  In those states, instead of allowing everyone the opportunity to become as exploitative as them, they monopolise this role.  In America, this role is democratized.

 

 

Briefly, on the Orwellian State of America

 

Now before you go and link ‘socialism’ with an ‘Orwellian nightmare’, think about this.  I don’t know exactly what Orwell’s intentions were with 1984, and it doesn’t matter either.  All that matters is its significance and relevance.  If one was to do a psychological reading of it, we could say that the ‘Big Brother’ in the novel can very well refer to the human subconscious, the tyranny of the majority, and how the belief that we have arrived at modernity imposes a stern subconscious proscription on our questioning the fundamentals comprising the foundation upon which the current civilisation is based.  When we appreciate Orwell’s 1984 from this angle, the USA would quite qualify to be an Orwellian nightmare.  In 1984, the individual does not matter, only the collective right?  Wrong.  In 1984, it is the elite that matters and the will of the collective and the individuals comprising it become nothing more than a means for the aggrandizement of the elite.  Now ask yourself if that is not exactly what is happening in the USA right now.  Don’t you maintain the elite at all costs?  Aren’t you the champion of capitalism and celebrity-worship?  Is it really possible for you to love yourself without doing so at the expense of your neighbour?  Elitism cannot exist indefinitely unless its ethos is embedded within everyone and at all levels within society.  Greater evils are justified by popular participation.  That is how history has ‘progressed’ to the present mate.  And it is in that that the elite rule the subconscious of the populace.  At the end of the day, it is maintained – just as it is in Orwell’s 1984. 

 

There are so many parallels between 1984 and present civilisation that is truly worrying.  Ancient introspective exercises such as Yoga, pilates, etc, are utilised to create harmony with an elite-aggrandizing system.  The American vocabulary is becoming severely contracted with their ‘newspeak’ as evidenced in the usage of language where one word is repeated over and over again in place of justification (I so so so like that); the usage of words that confuses a statement of preference for a statement of explanation (cool); the ‘newthought’ dialogue in American films (a complement of ‘newspeak’) that takes away analysis and a sociological and psychological appreciation of things; focus on visual effects as opposed to intellectual content (that serves to promote reflex over thought); the elevation of the juvenile in films and popular culture that validates superficial and shallow perspectives on life; the worship of prominence; etc, etc, etc.  What does the combination of these do but deliver a popular psyche that is reflexive, thoughtless, unanalytic, juvenile, shallow, and overall, putty in the hands of an elite. 

The control of a populace’s emotions – Orwellian style – requires, first and foremost, that they are focused on it as opposed to objective thought.  When thought is subjected to emotions - as opposed to the inverse - and emotions are controlled by the media and popular culture, all the elite has to do is to effect control over the media of perceptions to exert control over it.

 

Tell me that that has not been largely achieved in the USA, and through its cultural hegemony, increasingly being realised throughout the world.   

 

 

according2,

 

Ed

 

 

 

 

“Earlier, Steve Killian, president of the Cambridge police patrol officers association, demanded an apology from Obama and the Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick, who is African-American and described the arrest as "every black man's nightmare".

"I think when the time is right they should make an apology to us and to all law enforcement," said Killian. "Cambridge police are not stupid. It is a great department. I think everyone that knows us knows that." The Guardian

 

Was the arrest of Gates racist?  Perhaps not.  Was the arrest of Gates due to the arresting officer’s stupidity?  Perhaps not.  Was it due to the police wanting to promote the notion that they are above the people?  Yes indeed.

 

You know, I cannot but find this whole situation hilarious and indicative of the juvenile mentality of quite a few of the kids populating the so-called ‘greatest nation on earth’ – kids have a very low standard when it comes to greatness.  These people tend to laud individuality on the one hand, and yet deny it by viewing things from a group vs. group perspective the moment an individual is taken to task for an action.  We all remember the phrase that ushered the United States of America into the Drab and Droll Hall of Fame - ‘you are either with us or against us’ - don’t we.  It seems that quite a few of these people never seem to grow out of their insecurity-induced and insecurity-reinforcing ‘frat house mentality’, and which serves as just one training level amongst a host of other higher and subsidiary levels that actually strips one of individuality and renders one as little more than a walking billboard for an entity of which your typical and all too painfully average American is nothing but a cog and wheel. 

 

In this context, the, ‘you are either with us or against us’ nonsense rears its juvenile frat head once again.  Obama states that the officer ‘acted stupidly’ in arresting the black professor – Gates – after the latter had clarified to the officer that it was his own house that he was ‘breaking in to’.  We could say that the officer was just doing his job by checking on reports that ‘2 black men’ were seen trying to do the stated deed.  And yes, indeed he was.  Nothing wrong with that.  But after discovering that it was Gates’ house, the officer ought to have been a good little public servant, got into his car, and went tooting elsewhere.  But having been told off by Gates, he arrests him. 

At this point, what ought to be done is that one look into the reasons for this for the identification and allocation of irresponsibility.  But what the officers comprising what seems to be the ‘Cambridge Police Frat House’ have elected to do is to band around their brother and demand an apology from Obama for alleging that the officer ‘acted stupidly’.  Instead of investigating to see if the officer who arrested Gates had indeed ‘acted stupidly’, they have decided to ‘act stupidly’ themselves and take it as an insult to the entire department.  These boys obviously think that just because the institution of ‘the Force’ is supposed to be respectable, the individuals comprising it can behave in no other fashion even if they might have.  Americans did the same thing post-‘11/9’ (which the Americans call, ‘9/11’) with the ‘us vs. them’ approach, and which led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.  And, again, this ‘chicken comes home to roost’ in this ‘us vs. them’ situation within the U.S.A simply because the Cambridge police can't appreciate the detail of the trees for the blue of the sky. 

 

By the said department taking Obama’s remark as an insult without investigation, and taking it as a slur on the entire department, they are simply promoting the notion that they are infallible by association with a respectable institution.  And if this is the mentality of the department, then we can plausibly go on to assume that when the police officer arrested Gates, he was doing so not because Gates was breaking the law, but because he was speaking rudely to a representative of an infallible institution.  Both the reactions of the officer and the department thereafter, mirror each other.  If the reactions of the department can be concluded to be a claim to infallibility by association, as is evidenced by their demand for an apology when the 'insult' by Obama was levelled not at the entire department, but a single individual, then we could very plausibly allege that their officers would behave in a similar fashion and forget that they are public servants as opposed to its masters.

 

Hence, it is not surprising that the officer did not think that given a couple of hundred years of gross discrimination,, slavery, lynchings, segregation, etc, Gates did immediately acquire the right to suspect the officer’s intentions and react with a raised voice.  Why is it that the discriminated are expected to be more virtuous than those whom have profited from or reinforced discrimination?  Would Gates have been arrested for raising his voice at a vaccum-cleaner saleperson?  

Let’s not forget that any police force is only as blameless as the overarching status quo.  Let’s not forget that they are expected to enforce the law whatever the law is, and whatever its consequences.  In this, police forces all over the world will always be a legacy of the iniquities of the recent past as they are forced by their jobs to be insensitive to the consequences of the unjust laws and perspectives of the past.  It is only those generations of police wo/men whom have practice in life in a just society whom can claim to not be racist or bigoted in any fashion.  And it is only then that the people can logically assume that their being accosted by the police is not inspired by racism or any form of bigotry.  If racism is rife, or it is a relic of a past that is not far from the present, then, those forcibly desensitized to it by being in any institution that is forced to carry on with life within such a status quo without confronting it, will inevitably become its perpetrators in a more enlightened tomorrow.  They will, at most times, either be guilty of perpetrating it, or turning the apathetic cheek.  The only check on such a status quo is by way of ensuring that in intercourse with the people, or in effecting arrests, it must always be perceived to be reasonable given the immediate, historical, sociological context wherein it takes place.  It is not an easy task.  But any claim to institutional infallibility deserves nothing less than that for proof.  For the alternative is tyranny.

Just to be unequivocal on this issue, NO, Obama should not apologise.

It is up to the Cambridge Police to prove that the actions of the officer, and all that has transpired thereafter, is not racially-motivated, nor motivated by any assumed claim to infallibility - either of which can have caused either of the above.  But considering all that has happened so far with the arrest and the reactions of the all-white officials representing the officer from the union, one cannot but think that they are making a great case against themselves.  Public servants, given that they are administering the interests of the people, can never be assumed to be infallible as this can only serve to turn them into masters as opposed to servants.  Given their role as the servants of the people, and given the human ability to act out of self-interests, it is up to them to prove that they are acting in the interests of the people and not for the people to prove that they are not as information is not as freely available to the public as it is to government officials.  To enable public officials to hide behind civil laws of defamation or whatever is not unlike a housekeeper suing her/is employer for disparaging her/is integrity by running her/is finger on the window sill to check for dust.  Obama, since he is a public servant, is disqualified from suing those whom assume that he is not doing as he states because he administers the interests of the people as a public servant.  But, as a citizen, he certainly has the right to assume another public servant is not doing as s/he claims just as another citizen has the right to assume as much when it comes to him. 

 

ed

 

BBC : the US cannot impose its values on other countries.

 

This is what Obama has to say about the imposition of U.S. values on other countries.

 

“

that democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion ... are not simply principles of the West to be hoisted on these countries".

“

He said there were "obviously" human rights issues to address in some Middle Eastern countries, but there were some "universal principles that they can embrace and affirm as part of their national identity".

“

The danger, I think, is when the United States, or any country, thinks that we can simply impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture,"

“

Part of what we want to affirm to the world is that these are values that are important even when it's hard, maybe especially when it's hard and not just when it's easy."

 

 

Be afraid my people, when the term ‘reason’ is superimposed by an emboldened ‘imposition’. 

 

I do not believe in imposition, but in reason as a conduit for change.  When we talk about ‘culture’, ‘race’, ‘history’, etc, we evict the idea of reason and usher in the idea of imposition.  That is, telling our ‘culture’, ‘race’, ‘etc’, what to do is an affront to ‘our history’ and thus an ‘imposition’.    Reason is subjectivised, and culture and differentiated history is deemed to be reason enough for critique to be discounted. 

To all those countries, be they ‘asian democracies’, ‘middle-eastern democracies’, ‘african democracies’, ‘south-american democracies’, or ‘eastern-european democracies’, I ask, are these prefixes to ‘democracies’ put in place to provide a reason why democracy ought not to be introduced, or in cognizance of the varying means via which it is to be introduced.  Too often, cultural difference is used to dispel the spectre of democracy completely, or to reduce their population’s appreciation of themselves as human beings so that they might content themselves with little freedoms confused for the only ones worthy of being appreciated.

 

We ought to keep in mind that the relatively  and historically undemocratic past of the entirety of humanity would, in varying degrees and dimensions, have reared a people on the perspectival antibodies embedded within the cultures produced, and whom would thus be unable to appreciate democracy to its entire extent along with their individual potentials.  Hence, to accord unquestioning ‘respect to our culture’ is oftentimes a practice in replicating the perspectival circumstances necessary for the continuation of such a history.  And many a time, the respect of culture becomes little more than a top-down imposition that maintains a status quo that enables the elite to perpetuate their rule and profit-margin at the expense of a modern serfdom. 

 

In truth, s/he who respects culture simultaneously perpetuates the socio-politico conditions that enabled its flourishing.  Without taking an inquisitive and unbiased scalpel to ‘culture’, we will inevitably become the conduits via which the iniquities of the past will become the virtues of the xxx democracies of tomorrow.  We may have different means by which we practice democracy, but the underlying principle ought to be the universal principle, not by force of imposition, but by force of Reason that nothing less than that which delivers the maximal development of all, for all, and by all will do.  Anything less, I dare say, is treasonous to the potentials of humanity and perverts the meaning of Democracy.

 

Amen

 

 

 

view enlarged

A thought occurred to me when I came across an article promoting the ‘car of the future’. 

 

Hmm…I thought.  Are they telling us what the future holds or they circumscribing our vision of the future in consumerist terms?

 

We hear about ‘next gen’ games, the ‘car of the future’, a ‘new world order’ that we must head toward from our present position.   We watch the new BSG – Battlestar Galactica – and are basically told that what we are used to here is what is far across the universe.  ‘What the f*ck’ is ‘What the frack’ deep in the ocean of space.  Capitalism, American accent, brash and brawn, everything that is similar to this civilisation is the same over yonder where no hubble telescopic vision has ever ventured.  The genders may have changed - the current 'female' Starbuck is a more masculine version of the original 'male' character - the props may be different, the ‘terrorists’ may be in shiny metal, but the underlying attitude and character is still in the character of all that you’ve ever been led to know….and hence the perspectival paradigm through which you’ve learnt to make sense of reality remains as intact as the pyramidal pile of rocks in Giza. 

 

What the frack!

Is not the only possible reaction in the face of something surprising or distasteful.  How about a ‘hmm’, that is incited by a deeply thoughtful or philosophical mind.   I remember watching Ted Danson in Gulliver’s Travels a couple of decades ago (I think), and it helped me imagine more than the present ‘modern’ milieu enabled me to.  What’s happened to ‘sci-fi’? 

 

What I see is the attempt to incorporate the human imagination, as opposed to pushing it beyond current perspectival boundaries. 

 

We are in the final days of a modernity of the elite’s making.   Be afraid.  And try to do so in ways that you’ve not been taught to be afraid.  And do something about it in ways that you’ve yet to be taught to imagine.

 

 

updated : 24th April 2009, 9.45pm

 

 

I was delivering a lecture to an acquaintance a short while ago – I call it a ‘lecture’ because when I speak of anything non-trivial to most here, I generally get silence – on the incident in singapore where some bloke doused a minister or MP with flammable liquid and set him on fire.  I recall quite a few people in the neighbourhood coffeeshop sniggering amongst themselves when the news about it came on.  I also heard some, ‘deserve it’, phrases.   Whilst I believe that none of those who sniggered or said it would act similarly, their reaction, nevertheless, begs the question, ‘why such a reaction?’  Personally, I don’t really care much about local goings on as I see both the proposition and oppositional voices, in varying degrees, as part of the same problem.  But this still sparked my curiosity.  Well, off the top of my head….

 

I told the acquaintance that this incident really plays into the government’s hands doesn’t it. 

 

If one was to think about it a bit, one might find that this, fortunately non-fatal, incendiary approach most conducive to the aims of any government with authoritarian tendencies. 

 

When you keep a people perspectivally-retarded through fear and miseducation, as and when a few amongst them get irate, they will quite likely do so irrationally whilst focusing on their own personal interests.  And in doing so irrationally, such as setting a mandarin afire, punching him in the nose, or kicking her/is dog, three things are achieved to further institutionalise the political impotence of the people and reinforce an 'Asian Democracy'. 

 

Firstly, more laws favourable to government officials may be instituted, such as imposing harsher sentences on those who threaten or injure them as opposed to the common serf on the street.  Psychologically, this has the impact of further reinforcing any tendencies amongst the people to view the government as above the people, ruling by the ‘mandate of heaven’, etc, whilst further and dynamically reinforcing similar self-perceptions by the government.

 

Secondly, the government can use such incidents to bolster their argument against the expansion of democratic rights as the people will be deemed to have yet to come of age and be able express their rights sensibly. 

 

Thirdly, the people themselves will begin to see this as a reason why they ought not to support movements for greater democracy.  This will especially be the case if their cultural history has little or no democratic flavour to it, and if so, provided they identify strongly with the culture of their biological ancestors.  Additionally, if the people are given the opportunity to survive economically, albeit through gross opportunism, they will tend to shun democratic impulses for near-sighted concerns.

 

An important point to appreciate here is that what is most publicised is not the thoughts of local activists and writers, but the primitive actions of people who don’t know how else to express their ire given the general underdeveloped state of democratic intelligence, institutions and checks in this country.  In this, 'democracy' and 'freedom' are associated with such actions in the popular professionalised imagination.  And such associations find most fertile ground in the imagination of those whom are trained to embrace cultures that have little or no historical democratic flavour to it.  In this, we get the phenomenon called ‘Asian-style Democracy’ – which, for the sake of definitional accuracy, ought to be termed ‘Chinese-style Democracy’, as the only other ancient Asian civilisation, India, bears little cultural resemblance to its sino counterpart. 

 

 

So what happens in the 'Democratic Asian' mind?

 

On the political side, the mandarins religiously adopt the notion that the people are too stupid to be able to express themselves rationally and must have their freedoms curtailed, and the identity that can appreciate it, culled – which is a perspective borne of the syncretised Confucianism and Han Fei’s Legalism adopted in 221b.c. in China.  In this perspective, and the actions that issue forth, a self-fulfilling prophecy is effected via the institution of an environment that actually ensures that the people remain just that and nothing besides for the interests of the elite. 

 

On the popular side of things, the people will underdevelop perspectivally and view democracy and freedom as nothing more than the freedom to satisfy their self-interested economic, gastronomic and trivial concerns.  Freedom of expression and critical thought will be seen as threatening the popular desire to focus on nothing more than satisfying their said concerns, along with forcing them to think outside of related matters, which, their increasing political stupor will lead them to reject.  In such a milieu, people who question and challenge are commonly perceived as 'troublemakers'; people who forward intelligence and logical arguments, 'tongue twisters' and 'long-winded'.  Such people are weeded out gradually by discrimination against such people on all fronts be it the social, workplace, etc.  Believe me, this is what i've encountered personally, and have heard been encountered by similar others for quite a few decades. 

Additionally, freedom and democracy will be seen as aggression and violence inducing.  After all, democracy and freedom, in its most primitive form is exhibited in aggressive self-assertion.  Where it is in its infant stage, but where people are economically more advanced, such a link is popularly believed to be true.  And it is true that when you subtract relevant education from this primitive form of democracy, it can exhibit itself in such a politically delinquent manner.  Just as, say, socialism, has been linked to totalitarianism by the global media and thus contributed to global scepticism or/and rejection of it, the relatively greater publicity given linking violence and freedom of expression and democracy can lead the people to lower or associate the idea of democracy with its most primitive form and expression.  Given that their democratic imagination is grossly underdeveloped, coupled with the perception of themselves as merely economic units, they cannot imagine what one can do with democracy.  That is why the government can frequently ban democratic expressions with impunity with little reason other than stating that 'it can cause law and order problems'.  And as the idea of democracy is lowered, a goodness-of-fit between the thus-reduced human identity that is created, and thus reduced idea of democracy is achieved.  In this, democracy is not perceived as reduced, but as matching the identity that is fulfilled within it. 

 

We must remember that the refinement of democracy requires relevant education, exposure and practice.  Without such practice, we cannot expect the practice of democracy to be refined.  And without its refinement, and relevant education, the irate can quite likely cause 'law and order' problems and give the popular imagination, aided by a government-controlled media, to associate democracy with violence and reject any movement to expand democratic rights.  This is especially the case where the people have learnt to link economic success with intelligence.  Hence, they will reject all insinuations that they need more rights than they have been accustomed to as 'trouble-making'.  So the governmental method in maintaining such an intellectual status quo is quite simple.  Simply ensure that people have the opportunity to work, maintain a high cost of living, ensure that they are bereft of the relevant education, exposure and practice for and of democracy, and then associate aggression with democracy as and when the opportunity presents itself.  The only way to stop a horse from drinking is not keeping it away from the stream, but to get rid of its thirst.

 

That is the so-called ‘Asian-style democracy’. 

In a way, we cannot see the phase as paradoxical or oxymoronic.  Freedom is, after all, how you are developed to appreciate it - though it must be stated that 'Asian'-style 'democracy' does not give full expression for, or accomodate the maximal development of all human potentials.  If you perceive yourself as a self-sustaining economic unit and nothing more, democracy simply becomes a means via which you can express that identity.  And this is how ‘western democracy’ takes its irrelevant meaning in the ‘Asian’ mind.  That is why Kishore Mahbubani in HardTalk could denounce western calls for global democracy as 'imposition'.  That is why, most of the chinese I’ve spoken to over the years and whom I’ve directed to look at western-style democracy and how we too might be able to enjoy a similar political experience here, have discounted it with, ‘the west is the west, we are we’. 

 

 

The Development and Reinforcement of an Asian-style Democracy.

 

The methods are many.  But the following is one amongst.

 

First, (1)create or maintain a situation that will in turn give rise to a minority of (2)problems, i.e. irrational expressions of ire.  Then, utilise this minority of problems (3)to justify and maintain the prior situation.  After that, the (4)people themselves, underdeveloped by (1) and (3), and with the aid of their psychologically and culturally endowed ‘coping mechanism’, will step in and maintain it.  How else do you think that singapore turned out the way it has today from, say, the 70s till now?  I’m not saying that governments necessarily do this on purpose, but the consequences are nevertheless the case most of the time.  The Americans did it too with 11/9, but given the greater democratic consciousness of the people, nothing less than 11/9 was sufficient to deliver a similar result. (even if the government might not have directly inflict 11/9, there is sufficient evidence to render plausible the allegations that the government knew about it beforehand.)

 

After number 4, over time, all oppositional tendencies can cease – as it generally already has in singapore.  This would especially be the case amongst a people who don’t see themselves as cosmopolitans but are trained to identify with a culture that has little or no historical democratic flavour to it.  Cultural practice is, after all, a replication of the perspectives it took to create it, and a foundation upon which the political institutions that created these perspectives may be erected.  When oppositional tendencies become most pronounced in, say, an incendiary manner, that is not necessarily an indicator of the birth of a democracy, but can just as well signal its end. 

 

You can be sure that even more people will link the event between ‘the minister and the match’ as a further justification for the continuation of an ‘Asian democracy’, and, in the worst case, view oppositional voices, however relatively intelligent, as being inciters of such behaviour.  Since the only well-publicised manifestation of political awareness in recent times is the said incident, professionalised and thus irrelevantly educated people will tend to equate democracy or political awareness with instability and chaos.  And if few are seen to be engaging politically with their heads (perhaps due to perspectival debility or censorship), the vocal will be perceived as inciters of violence.  The equation is simple.  Political Awareness = Lit matches.  Those inciting political awareness = inciters of violence.  This will especially be the case in a country with little or no political education in schools, or a perspectival infrastructure that promotes it.

 

Remember George Bush, the President a sizeable portion of Americans voted into the white house?  Well, a similar parallel can be seen with his illogical, ‘you’re either with us for against us’.  Same thing applies here.  People will just begin to think that those whom are against the government are simply inciting others to light a match.  The same thing happened with ‘sensitive racial issues’.  The riots of the 60s were used to quell all speech and thought with regards to the issue.  And all those actually attempting to undermine the basis for racial hatred by speaking about discrimination are now seen as inciters of racial hatred.  All logic has been turned topsy-turvy.  Local ‘activists’ and ‘oppositional’ voices ought to start appreciating other nation’s interests more.  As I’ve always said, the solutions to your problems lie in the appreciation of another’s backyard.

 

The trade-off between the political and popular will be perceived as acceptable within an 'Asian'-style 'Democracy'.  The former gets is fill of power and profit, and the popular get the security of cultural refuge.  There is nothing new in this.  The British have their 'Queen', the Americans have their 'celebrities', and most of the global population have their ambitions for wealth and fame, which, i suppose, would qualify much of the global political status quo,  in part, as 'Asian Democracies'.  But that is not to say that the most pronounced of 'Asian' 'Democracies' also fail to give the most room for the maximal development of human potentials.  At the end of the day, an 'Asian Democracy' is nothing more than a socio-economic status quo that seeks to replicate the privilege of the elite of the past and have it viewed as natural by a subservient mass.  It seeks to reduce the human persona to an economic unit and have it appreciate its existence and expressions as being completely fulfilled within the realms of the trivial.    

 

 

 

Ed

 

 

postscript: Whilst this situation is most irksome to the democratically enlightened mind, I do however appreciate the opportunity to study this evolution, from the 70s through to the present, from a sociological point of view.  Most interesting indeed.  I may not have learnt much from singaporeans or the 'uniquely singapore' experience, but I have most certainly learnt much through them.

 

The above is not a complete analysis of the phenomenon of 'Asian Democracy', just a brief observation of some factors and the interrelationships between them.

Well, it's friday night.  I'm off to do a 10min speed-cycling trip round the hometown, before settling down at the neighbourhood coffeeshop for a glass of tea, and some conspiracy theory and political philosophy videos for entertainment on my portable writebook, aka, 'netbook'.

 

 

 

 

 

...'I didn't see nothin!

Phrases we've oftentimes heard in American films.

Find a problem with that?  No?  Alright, imagine an episode of NYPD Blue starring ed as one of the detectives.

american: "I didn't see nothin!'

ed:  Great!  So what did you see?

american: "but i tell you, i didn't see nothin!'

ed: So you keep telling me.  So get on with it.  What did you see?

american: "I told you i didn't see nothin!  Duh!'

ed: well, if you did not see nothing, and therefore do not know nothing, that means you saw and know something mate. (as he cuffs him and takes him 'downtown')

The best way to disable a people's objective sense is to train them to see sense in oxymorons by simple association of phrases with opposite meanings.  Once done, people will be led more by the familiar then by sense itself...and in time, associate what is sensible with what is familiar.

Ed

 

I hate it when people throw words like ‘pragmatic’ about. 

 

That simply means that doing what you can or are allowed to do or trained to do within a socio/economic/cultural system that does not enable you to do more…even though you could.  For instance, the chinese are called pragmatic, but in my studied opinion, they are what I term ‘short-sighted pragmatists’ who take the weather(the political milieu, authoritarianism) for a given and just invest in umbrellas (insurance, ‘nest-eggs’, property, opportunism, etc).   True pragmatism involves identifying the source of your woes, and then coming up with the necessary strategies to counter it.   Being trained in collective empathy, one would be immediately be trained to look beyond the self for solutions – and vice versa.    

 

So getting back to this context, when Obama starts to throw words like ‘pragmatic’ around, I’m going to start worrying.  Not because he used the ‘p’ word, but for fear that people aren’t going to reflexively baulk at the usage of the word.  The late great Sherlock Holmes once said (yeah I know he’s a fictional character, but he is less of a fiction than the fiction that are most of the people of today who believe they are acting according to their own volition, but whom are actually compensating and recuperating from the consequences of acting according to the program written in their heads via culture, the media, taking the system as a natural, and taking their governments at face-value.), a true logician can, looking at a drop of water, logically argue for the existence of the ocean even though he has never seen or heard about it.  ‘Wow!’, isn’t it?  If the people aren’t going to react with the said ‘baulk’, then they are not going to ask the following important questions,

 

“"It is clear that the less we do in the near-term, the more we have to do in the long-term. But if we set a target that is un-meetable technically, or we can't pass it politically, then we're in the same position we are in now”

 

1. Why is it ‘un-meetable technically’ and why can’t it be ‘passed politically’?  Do we not have the technological know-how to do something about it given that it is our misuse of this technological know-how that is largely responsible for it?  Are the buttons for the said technological know-how located wherein no wo/man has or will go before? 

2. Why can’t it be ‘passed politically’?  Are not the politicans an extension of the will of the people, for the people and by the people?  Or is ‘passed politically’ just another term for ‘the capitalist class not having their interests served by it’.  And following from this, will not be amenable to depressing the ‘off-button’ as it will compromise their profit/power-motive.

 

"We want to be in (the regime), we want to be pragmatic, we want to look at the science. There is a small window of where they overlap. We hope to find it."

 

3.  Is being ‘pragmatic’ synonymous with seeking a compromise between keeping much of the world alive and maintaining an acceptable level of those actions that will keep the profit/power motive of the few at a level where their hegemony can continue unabated?  

 

Competition fuels this economy and its emissions fuel the planet’s destruction.  When you put this ‘short-sighted’ or ‘one-sided’ pragmatism and the competition it engenders aside for just a while, and share technology with the rest of the world, and keep competition, not competitors, out, we’ll be collaborating, not competing.  And with this, the main cause of ecological degeneration, competition, will cease to function would it not?  You might say, well, we still need to carry on with the industries that cause ecological degeneration.  To this, I say, yes we will.  But without the urgency of competition, we will be able to focus on finding the best way to sustain natural exploitation indefinitely.  With the urgency of competition, we are just going to utilise the well-worn and earth-wearing methods to keep up or keep ahead of competitors because we can’t waste time in looking for the best and earth-friendly methods.  “We are under economic seige, so fuck the planet mate.”  Right now your rulers are seeking a compromise between ecological destruction and the profit/power-motive.  Without competition, we will be seeking a compromise between ecological destruction and the interests of a people without competitive borders.  That is when we’re truly going to begin to learn to appreciate the notion of ‘sustainable exploitation’.  Right now, and within the current understanding of ‘pragmatism’, that takes it meaning from our taking the current system as a natural, ‘sustainability’ takes on a wholly different meaning – how to sustain the profit/power-motive in the face of ecological degeneration.

 

For those who allege that Obama is a socialist, go and do the relevant studies.  He is, at best, definitionally-speaking, a ‘bourgeois socialist’.  That is not unlike an angelic devil.  A true socialist would never bandy about the word ‘pragmatic’ within such a context.  I am not a Marxist, but I must say that his statement,

“The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” ~ Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 1, ‘Bourgeois and Proletarians’.

…seems to ring true with regards to Obama’s ‘pragmatism’.

Where the profit/power-motive is paramount, the search for solutions is dependent on its potential for generating power/profit.  In other words, if a way can be found to profit from ecological degeneration, even if it means through the sale of gas masks where the atmosphere becomes poisonous, then it will be deemed a solution. 

Be warned people.  If anything, the main cause of global degeneration is your ignorance.  So, as the americans would put, 'get your heads out of your asses' and start to be pragmatic about the idea of pragmatism. 

Ed

 

    

The BBC elected to place the second of the two on the top-right hand corner of their home page whereas the former of the two was featured in the Socialist Worker site.  A chinese friend of mine working in the UK told me, 'I don't know how it was there when you were studying there, but the people are becoming more american now.'  Yes, given the increasingly juvenile posturing of their media produce in recent years, i suspect she is right. 

Michele Obama?  ‘Who cares.’ Was my first reaction.  Oh lots of people apparently.  There is an 'aura' about her eh?  Yes, and only those who are reared to treat america as the first amongst celebrities, prior to which they have to be underdeveloped enough to be receptive to this celebrity-worshipping nonsense, are able to detect this aura – just as a child is more receptive to fanfare and fairy lights as opposed to logic and reason.   For myself, I'm appealed to by the aura of, say, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Marx, Jesus, the Buddha, Guru Nanak, amongst others. But it's not enough to be american, you also have to be rich, and hog a limelight that is managed by the americans themselves.  Do it long enough, and the rest of the world will be queueing to maintain the flame of worship around this hadean altar.  But i suppose considering that quite a few brits do not see anything amiss with maintaining a monarchy at the door of their economic plight, i suppose they would be more receptive to the religion of celebrity-worship.

There are far more important things to concern ourselves with than a so-called 'fahionable' woman.  Perhaps it might ease the psychological impact of the economic crisis to distract ourselves with this woman who has enough change of clothes to feed quite a few families for a year and a half, but it is exactly this nurtured ability to be distracted by such rubbish that comprises the foundation of our woes.  Wake up people.

And i have to add, with regards to the first article, the rich do not want you to pay for their crisis.  The crisis is yours.  They just want you to pay enough to maintain their privilege of getting you to maintain your status relative to theirs.

Ed

 

It’s about time. 

I was most disappointed with the British when they went in with the americans post 11/9.  They had always struck me as being quite the rational people compared to the americans – who oftentimes strike me as comparatively juvenile, i.e., visual as opposed to intellectual-based content; overlydramatic historical documentaries with little analytic content; preference for brawn over brain in many films; discriminating against those who don’t possess the ‘right’ looks in just about all media; simplistic dialogue in films; childish speech-styles, i.e. 'i so' this and that, cool, weird, geek, nerd, etc; refusal to pronounce the words of other cultures the way they do, i.e. 'eye-rack' as opposed to 'ee-ruck'; penchant for big cars, bling; gross ignorance or disinterest in the affairs of other regions unless it pertains to their own interests, etc, etc, etc.  Thus, I was surprised that the British linked crotches with the Americans on this one.  

 

It was a verifiable and quantifiable fact that the Americans had been, putting it colloquially, going around pissing off the Muslim world since Palestine was unjustifiably taken from the Palestinians and given to the Jews to compensate them for what the Europeans had been doing to them for 2000 years.  Amongst others, 400,000 child deaths in Iraq emerging from u.s.-led embargoes for 10 years before the most recent invasion.  And which Madeline Albright said was ‘worth the price’, or something to that effect, and which the BBC saw as ‘just’ 375,000 child deaths and not the claimed million.  What on earth did the Americans think was going to happen?  A John-Lennon style sleep-in in the Arab world with chants of, ‘all we are saying is give peace a chance’?  I’m not saying that 11/9 is justifiable – though those who subscribe to the illogical, ‘you are either with us or against us’, rubbish would inevitably be perspectivally lobotomised enough to think that is what I'm attempting to do.  What I am saying is that given the human propensity to not smile toothless at its assailant after a battering, it is understandable – just as it is understandable that the americans might feel upset enough to call for an invasion of purported ‘terrorist’ states after 11/9.  That's simple psychology mate.  Personally, I’ll feel quite the hypocrite if I take the victim to task if I did not do likewise with the assailant.  The late great Malcolm X’s phrase, ‘chickens coming home to roost’ comes to mind.  Whatever the americans are trained to think, or not think, there is such a thing as a scientific ‘cause and effect’ which is not dependent on the value they place on their own lives as opposed to others. 

To the British, I’m glad you’re finally pulling out.  You never ought to have gone in in the first place.  And those who died there, did so for nothing.  Or perhaps ‘nothing’ is not accurate.  If anything, it simply showed the world that a few thousand american lives is worth more than a hundred times that of the lives of 'others'.....and that the bigoted spirit of the colonial era still lives on.

 

Ed

 

 

“…the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of ‘bringing democracy to the Cuban people’” ?

 

 

Extremely ironic, methinks. 

 

I would certainly agree that the USA’s unilateral embargo has failed to bring ‘democracy to the Cuban people’.  Without the embargo, democracy might indeed have been achieved in Cuba as the government there might not have taken the oppressive measures it did to protect the Communism it had attempted to bring about from the embargo-induced disgruntlement. 

 

Think about it.  If the USA was the only capitalist nation in the world, and all the communist nations placed an embargo on the USA, would the USA not take similar oppressive steps to protect the socio-economic stance of the elite?  Would the n.American people then not naturally be led to view communism as democracy since it delivered them out of embargo-induced oppression and deprivation?  

 

The USA’s embargo was never meant to bring about democracy in Cuba.  Rather, and amongst others, it was meant to ensure that communism never developed and that the people would confuse embargo-induced deprivation and the oppressive attempts to contain the ensuing disaffection with the communist system itself.  One question which has never been answered, let alone asked, by the global populace is that if capitalist nations’ attempts to destabilize these nations through embargos, sabotage, and all other attempts that aided in creating a siege mentality amongst them ceased, which nation would be able to deliver true democracy and the maximal development of all. 

 

 

ed