Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Stefan Heidenreich]

despite I would share amost all of the general goals of DiEM25, there
are some remarkable procedural inconsistencies:

- intransparency: how can you criticize the compositon of EU-closed
meetings and apply the very same practice with a totally intransparent
selection process for the core discussion group?

- closed meetings: where are the vidoes of the internal discussions
held during the day? how can we demand the EU to open their meetings
if we don't do it ourselves?

- paywall: how can you charge 12€ entry fee, excluding the poor, the
refugees ..., and demand more equality at the same time?

Stefan


Am 13.02.2016 um 11:29 schrieb Felix Stalder:

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256

I was also there at the Volksbühne (though not like Geert during the day).


<...>




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Re: what does monetary value indicate?

[Stefan Heidenreich]

could it be, that it's a kind of hoax?
Like: two bubbles trying trying to keep each other up by leaning against 
one another: a fragile bitcoin market on the one side and a 
dysfunctional art market on the other side.


with the simple idea idea to create those crazy prices and to to lure 
luring real world money into the game.


and to get back to Florian's initial question:
why not stick with the classic formula:
money comes as a promise to pay - money.
it's a recursive numerical operation under risk.

ontologically speaking: money IS not. but it can always flow once the 
recursive operation is being intiated. one can try to hoard it. but that 
doesn't make it a BEING. it may only become operational once it goes 
back to the flow [in case you find a paying successor to keep the 
recursion going].




Am 12.03.2021 um 17:57 schrieb Rachel O' Dwyer:



I haven’t followed the latest surge in NFTs as much as I’d like, but I 
wrote this, among other things, on cryptokitties, NFTs and art as a 
derivative 
https://circaartmagazine.net/a-celestial-cyberdimension-art-tokens-and-the-artwork-as-derivative/ 



I’m interested in why now though, beyond growing the speculation in crypto.

the past five years has seen a huge rise in art as an asset class and 
art is seen as a good hedge against market volatility. Tokens create 
situations where these art investments have greater liquidity.


But I'm interested in why everyday users are interested in NFTs. Is it 
pure desperation and precarity - you're in debt, you probably won't own 
a house so why not make a bet and invest in a token that might win big. 
Finn Brunton and I were talking about this last week for an upcoming 
issue of Neural.




On Fri, Mar 12, 2021 at 4:18 PM patrice riemens > wrote:


__
Aloha,

Let me say that First Dog on the Moon has, not for te first time,
the definitive, if not answer, then at last commentary on the issue:


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/12/cryptoart-what-is-it-and-can-you-eat-it




Enjoy!
have a nice day and don't become fungible!
p+7D!

ps: ALL FDotMoon cartoons (& merchandise too! ;-) on the website:

https://firstdogonthemoon.com.au/ 

(It's Australian, oeuf corse ...)


Op 11-03-2021 18:19 schreef Brian Holmes
mailto:bhcontinentaldr...@gmail.com>>:


I can't answer the second question, but as to the first I believe
that there are three distinct forms of money that currently
operate in a hierarchy:

-- Infinite money which is produced and deregulated in the
financial markets through the manipulation of information

-- Institutional money which is produced and regulated within
national frames by governments seeking to stabilize social
reproduction

-- Sweat money which is produced on the ground through the
exploitation of labor paid at the bear minimum of survivability

The last form of money is the most extensive one, it's the most
common coin, the basis of most livelihoods on earth. Institutional
money, however, has been carefully decoupled from sweat money; and
infinite money has been decoupled from institutional money in its
turn. Institutional money began to be produced through Keynesian
management of national economies from the 30s onward, it's
inseparable from social democracy. Infinite money started up after
the postwar gold standard was abandoned in 1971, and became what
it is today with the introduction of computerized trading.

What does infinite money mean to its owners? Financial capital is
power when it is applied to institutions or labor processes.
However it can also be used for status displays, what Veblen
called "conspicuous consumption." So you have to bring art back
in. For better and mostly worse, "high" culture remains the noisy
ghost at the top of the capitalist pyramid.

best, Brian

On Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 10:47 AM Felix Stalder
mailto:fe...@openflows.com>> wrote:

I'm sure many have followed the NFT art saga over the last
couple of
months and seen today's headline that somebody just paid $
69,346,250
for a NFT on a blockchain, meta-data to claim ownership of the
"originalcopy" of a digital art work.


https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/first-open-beeple/beeple-b-1981-1/112924




I don't want to start a discussion on the revolutionary vs
reactionary
character of this emerging art market. All of that has already
been
said. If you want a close approximation of my perspective, I

Re: The War to come ...

[Stefan Heidenreich]

why not cutting stuff short:
the war is going brilliantly. 3 goals have alread been achieved

1) keep the Russians out
2) the Americans in
3) the Germans down.
(Lord Ismay)

Now, please: harshest sanctions ever, in order to also reach the last goal:
4) Fuck the EU! (Nuland)

Mission almost accomplished!
s

Am 10.03.2022 um 17:52 schrieb Ted Byfield:

Felix gets it, imo.

Not sure about elsewhere, but the 'special relationship left' — the US 
certainly and the UK as well, I think — has been stuck in a rut. OT1H hard-ish 
doctrinaire 'anti-imperialist' formations robotically denounce NATO in the 
monolithic, one-sided terms Felix points out; OT0H milquetoast centrists revert 
to form and support all kinds of aggressive action, if not outfight 
belligerence (yet), with little or no introspection about how that relates to 
their other earlier stances. Both are backward-glancing in a way that Corey 
Robin put well a week ago on Facebook:


God, I hate left debates about international politics. More than any other kind 
of debate, they never have anything to do with the matter at hand but, instead, 
always seem to involve some attempt, on all sides, to remediate and redress 
some perceived failure or flaw of politics past.


I don't think the left will make much progress until it gets over its post-'70s 
anxiety over the use of force — always coercive, sometimes violent — to achieve 
its political ends. Until then, it'll necessarily marginalize itself with 
anti-statist denialism masquerading as warm-fuzzy idealism. The way out? Ditch 
the genealogical-moral hand-wringing and accept the fact that human 
institutions, all of them, are deeply flawed, but each in their own unique way. 
A bit like what Tolstoy said of families: All happy families are alike; each 
unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

The question is how can we work with the institutions we have toward *better* 
(NOT 'the best') political ends — in this case, fostering conditions that help 
Russian populations (very plural) to try once again to remake their society in 
more sustainable, fairer ways. If we had more than one major multilateral 
alliance and were asking which would be better suited to realizing that end, 
fine, let's debate whether NATO is the better choice; but we don't, really, so 
scholastic debates about whether NATO is Good or Evil lead nowhere.

Are McDonald's and Coke "Good"? No. Is their withdrawal from Russia the right thing in 
moral and practical terms? Yes. That wasn't so hard, now, was it? Why would we discuss NATO in any 
different way? Because, being a multilateral entity that's ultimately grounded in democratic 
national governments it "represents" us more than McDonald's and Coke? Good luck arguing 
that.

Cheers,
Ted

On 10 Mar 2022, at 7:21, Felix Stalder wrote:


On 10.03.22 06:02, Brian Holmes wrote:


Here's the thing though. Should Nato really have denied entry to all those 
Eastern European states that requested it? Remember that most of those states, 
they had been taken over but not absorbed by the Soviet Union. They lived for 
decades under significant degrees of political repression. Did they have a 
valid reason to want to join Nato after 1989? Looking at the brutality of the 
current war, it seems suddenly obvious to me that they did -- and by the same 
token, I have suddenly become less certain of what I always used to say, that 
Nato is an imperialist war machine that should be disbanded. Russia is also an 
imperialist war machine, for sure (and the two owe each other a lot). But maybe 
China is also an imperial war machine? And India, maybe not yet?


I don't think that NATO ever was an imperialist war machine. The US doesn't 
really need NATO for it's imperialist projects in Latin America or Asia.

NATO, it seems to me, was always a "cold war" war machine, aimed at confronting 
the SU/Russia, primarily in Europe. To the degree that this confrontation was not seen as 
vital after 1990 (either because the US read geopolitics as uni-polar, or the Europeans 
believed in trade leading to peace) NATO languished. Irrelevant for Trump, brain-dead for 
Macron, not worth investing for the Germans.

For the Eastern European countries, for very understandable, deep historical reasons, 
"confronting Russia" remained a vital concern also after the end of the cold 
war, hence NATO was always seen crucially important and they entered NATO voluntarily.

History has born them out, but was that really inevitable? Of course not, 
because nothing ever is, but the miss-conception of geopolitics as unipolar is 
certainly a big factor in this.

But the paradox is, to develop a real peace architecture in Europe, NATO would 
have had to deny Eastern European countries membership and work on some kind of 
large block-free zone between itself and Russia. I'm not sure such a project 
would have been popular in Poland, though.

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Re: FSB 'dissident' voice

[Stefan Heidenreich]

bcs it's most likely a British secret service related fakenews 
pseudo-activist astroturf propaganda site, sponsored by the integrity 
intiative:
here a bunch of links, of which Craig Murray is the most credible 
source, the others to be taken with a grain of salt:


https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/01/beware-the-cult-of-cadwalladr/

http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers/briefing-note-on-the-integrity-initiative

https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/war-propaganda-firm-bellingcat-continues-lying-about-syria-60e02587e66f


Am 14.03.2022 um 13:45 schrieb José María Mateos:

On Sun, Mar 13, 2022 at 11:50:44PM +0100, Felix Stalder wrote:

David,

thanks for pointing this out. Quite strange, because this is the same 
person from bellingcat who shared the text in the first place, 
including some background how he checked the authenticity. Now he does 
not even mention this when discounting the document and how the media 
fell for it.


A blog I've been following for a few years now (nakedcapitalism.com), 
and which I think does a pretty good job at reporting on current 
affairs, is typically very dismissive of Bellingcat. They tend to be 
quite contrarian, but not just for the sake of it, so while I think 
Bellingcat has very good press in the "mainstream media", I always 
wondered what they saw in them that they didn't like. I never found it 
explicitly stated.


Cheers,


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Re: Irregular Ukraine Linklist

[Stefan Heidenreich]

add this: Former senior advisor the Secretary of Defense Col. Doug 
Macgregor on the situation in Ukraine and Washington:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFngc_8RiVc


Am 16.03.2022 um 09:08 schrieb Geert Lovink:
Compiled for/by INC Ukraine page and more tech meets tactical media 
initiatives
https://networkcultures.org/blog/category/ukraine/ 



Donation campaign for Ukranian media
https://www.gofundme.com/f/keep-ukraines-media-going 



Send text messages from your phones directly to randomly selected Russians
https://1920.in/ 

Via INURA (thanks to Patrice):
https://urbanpolitical.podigee.io/49-ukrainian_cities_at_war 



Contacts for Ukrainians (via Janos Sugar)
https://www.contactsforukrainians.art/ 



Tools for communicating offline and in difficult circumstance (via Maja 
van der Velden)
https://changelog.complete.org/archives/10356-tools-for-communicating-offline-and-in-difficult-circumstances 



Liberal-conservative America discussing China’s role: Kaiser Kuo in 
conversation with Evan Feigenbaum (via Ned Rossiter) 
https://supchina.com/2022/03/09/china-tries-to-square-a-circle-in-ukraine/ 



Online Russian Anti-War Petitions collection: “In the name of the
Russian people, but against our will”: Russian voices against Russia’s
war in Ukraine:
https://medium.com/@dina.gusejnova/in-the-name-of-the-russian-people-but-against-our-will-russian-voices-against-russias-war-in-90ee7e3ca3f8 



Links from Micheal Dieter:

Recording of 'Ukrainian Dispatch - Solidarity as Cultural Praxis
during Wartime' event at bbk berlin, March 14th 2022 - Panelists /
Speakers: Vasyl Cherepanyn (director of the Visual Culture Research
Center (VCRC, Kyiv), Nikita Kadan (artist), Maria Isserlis (curator),
Marina Naprushkina (artist, founder of Neue Nachbarschaft/ Moabit),
Clemens von Wedemeyer (artist Berlin).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPMYU-COIik 



Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) report, Support from the
Conspiracy Corner: German-Language Disinformation about the Russian
Invasion of Ukraine on Telegram:
https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/support-from-the-conspiracy-corner-german-language-disinformation-about-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-on-telegram/ 



Report on Websites Blocked in Russia Since Ukraine Invasion:
https://www.top10vpn.com/research/websites-blocked-in-russia/ 



Global VPN use, live tracker - Russia: VPN demand increase: 2,088%
(peak), Dates: February 24-March 13; Ukraine: VPN demand increase:
609% (peak); Dates: February 15-March 9 -
https://www.top10vpn.com/research/vpn-demand-statistics/ 



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Re: Irregular Ukraine Linklist

[Stefan Heidenreich]

Hi Ted, I'm totally with you on one point: Macgregor is very doubtful 
and uttered a lot of terrible political nonsense. He comes from 
military, after all. I also detest his political views.


But: what if his assessment of the military situation on the ground and 
of the political situation in Washington DC is correct?


Could it be, that, following a progressive-liberal flag, we've been led 
by the military-industrial complex and the donor class into a hellhole?

I think it definitely merits to give a second thought to his possibility.

The issue at stake is:
- how can we terminate this war as quickly as possible?
- how can we save Europa from being turned into the battlefield between 
NATO and Russia/China?

(Maybe not by following the calls of the military-complex fake liberalism)

for that matter: if there is only a glimpse of truth in what Macgregor 
says, one should think very careful about whom and what to support.


s

Am 16.03.2022 um 12:05 schrieb Ted Byfield:

On 16 Mar 2022, at 4:45, Stefan Heidenreich wrote:


add this: Former senior advisor the Secretary of Defense Col. Doug Macgregor on 
the situation in Ukraine and Washington:


It seems strange to see this on nettime.

Macgregor is a Putin apologist who's called Zelensky a "puppet," accused him of using the Ukrainian 
people as "human shields," described the wanton destruction as "surprisingly little 
damage," and argued that the Russian military should have been *more* violent in the opening days of the 
war. He's a fixture on Fox News because he makes hosts like Tucker Carlson sound moderate.

The Secretary of Defense that Macgregor advised (for a few months) was Chris 
Miller, who Trump installed just days after losing the election as part of a 
larger purge of mil/intel leadership. There's good reason to think that 
Macgregor actively involved in Trump’s attempted coup.

 From Wikipedia on Macgregor’s failed nomination (by Trump) to be ambassador to 
Germany:


He has asserted that Muslim immigrants (referred to as "Muslim invaders") come to Europe "with the goal 
of eventually turning Europe into an Islamic state". Macgregor has argued that the German concept of 
Vergangenheitsbewältigung, used to cope with Germany's Nazi past and its atrocities during World War II, is a 
"sick mentality." Macgregor has also stated that martial law should be instituted on the U.S.-Mexico border 
and argued for the extrajudicial execution of those who cross the border at unofficial ports of entry. Macgregor has 
also made statements in support of Israel having defensible borders, the annexation of the Golan Heights, and the 
decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. In a column in The Washington Post he was described as "a racist 
crackpot who is pro-Russia, anti-Merkel, anti-Muslim and anti-Mexican."


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Macgregor?wprov=sfti1

Admittedly, Wikipedia is a problematic source — in this case because it understates 
Macgregor's extremism. His view that Ukraine should serve as a "neutral" buffer 
between NATO/EU and RU is consistent with his advocacy for summary executions of 
undocumented migrants at the US/Mex border: he doesn't like change, and he's happy to 
exchange others' lives en masse to prevent it.

Your suggestion that the INC should add some random rightist-noise YT video to 
their list of practical Ukraine resources seems a bit...tone-deaf?

Ted
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Re: nettime-l Digest, Vol 174, Issue 40

[Stefan Heidenreich]

it's a double bind + cognitive dissonance problem:

for most western intellectuals, after years of fighting for the right 
causes (which I also supported and keep supporting) it is very difficult 
to realize that one has been gaslighted as useful idiot for the 
military-industrial complex.



Am 17.03.2022 um 18:06 schrieb Miro Visic:

So nettime turned into NATO shit list.

On Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 09:48 <mailto:nettime-l-requ...@mail.kein.org>> wrote:


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Today's Topics:

    1. Re: Irregular Ukraine Linklist (Ted Byfield)
    2. Re: Irregular Ukraine Linklist (Stefan Heidenreich)
    3. More Ukraine links (Michael Benson)



-- Forwarded message --
From: Ted Byfield mailto:tedbyfi...@gmail.com>>
To: nettime-l@mail.kein.org <mailto:nettime-l@mail.kein.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2022 07:05:58 -0400
Subject: Re:  Irregular Ukraine Linklist
On 16 Mar 2022, at 4:45, Stefan Heidenreich wrote:

 > add this: Former senior advisor the Secretary of Defense Col.
Doug Macgregor on the situation in Ukraine and Washington:

It seems strange to see this on nettime.

Macgregor is a Putin apologist who's called Zelensky a "puppet,"
accused him of using the Ukrainian people as "human shields,"
described the wanton destruction as "surprisingly little damage,"
and argued that the Russian military should have been *more* violent
in the opening days of the war. He's a fixture on Fox News because
he makes hosts like Tucker Carlson sound moderate.

The Secretary of Defense that Macgregor advised (for a few months)
was Chris Miller, who Trump installed just days after losing the
election as part of a larger purge of mil/intel leadership. There's
good reason to think that Macgregor actively involved in Trump’s
attempted coup.

 From Wikipedia on Macgregor’s failed nomination (by Trump) to be
ambassador to Germany:

 > He has asserted that Muslim immigrants (referred to as "Muslim
invaders") come to Europe "with the goal of eventually turning
Europe into an Islamic state". Macgregor has argued that the German
concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, used to cope with Germany's
Nazi past and its atrocities during World War II, is a "sick
mentality." Macgregor has also stated that martial law should be
instituted on the U.S.-Mexico border and argued for the
extrajudicial execution of those who cross the border at unofficial
ports of entry. Macgregor has also made statements in support of
Israel having defensible borders, the annexation of the Golan
Heights, and the decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. In
a column in The Washington Post he was described as "a racist
crackpot who is pro-Russia, anti-Merkel, anti-Muslim and anti-Mexican."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Macgregor?wprov=sfti1
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Macgregor?wprov=sfti1>

Admittedly, Wikipedia is a problematic source — in this case because
it understates Macgregor's extremism. His view that Ukraine should
serve as a "neutral" buffer between NATO/EU and RU is consistent
with his advocacy for summary executions of undocumented migrants at
the US/Mex border: he doesn't like change, and he's happy to
exchange others' lives en masse to prevent it.

Your suggestion that the INC should add some random rightist-noise
YT video to their list of practical Ukraine resources seems a
bit...tone-deaf?

Ted




-- Forwarded message --
From: Stefan Heidenreich mailto:m...@stefanheidenreich.de>>
To: nettime-l@mail.kein.org <mailto:nettime-l@mail.kein.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2022 12:50:48 +0100
Subject: Re:  Irregular Ukraine Linklist
Hi Ted, I'm totally with you on one point: Macgregor is very doubtful
and uttered a lot of terrible political nonsense. He comes from
military, after all. I also detest his political views.

But: what if his assessment of the military situation on the ground and
of the political situation in Washington DC is correct?

Re: nettime-l Digest, Vol 174, Issue 40

[Stefan Heidenreich]

qed
:)

Am 18.03.2022 um 00:00 schrieb Ted Byfield:
This is my favorite debate strategy: when you don’t have a substantive 
argument, just say your interlocutors are incapable of understanding the 
truth.  It works for Macgregor’s fanboys on Fox, no reason it shouldn’t 
work on nettime.


Cheers,
Ted
On Mar 17, 2022, 18:26 -0400, Stefan Heidenreich 
, wrote:


it's a double bind + cognitive dissonance problem:

for most western intellectuals, after years of fighting for the right
causes (which I also supported and keep supporting) it is very difficult
to realize that one has been gaslighted as useful idiot for the
military-industrial complex.


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Re: What is Eurasianism?

[Stefan Heidenreich]

bcs we shouldn't (care about it)

my impression is that the current ruins Eurasian modell give a noisy 
echo of old Mackinder / Mahan / Spykman ideas, plus a Schmittian 
worldwiew. Old times: different technology, different media, different 
military. Maybe it still prevails in the Military-Oil-Complex of the US 
and in certain Dugin phantasies.


The network-centric view rather converges on the Chinese model of 
"Tianxia". And the Eurocrats are operating under similar terms, maybe 
without having it properly reflected (at least as far as I can tell). 
Post-Schmittian practice of standards and contracts.


s

Am 12.03.2022 um 08:12 schrieb Brian Holmes:

What is Eurasianism?

And why should you care about it?

The short answer is that Eurasianism is the set of strategic questions 
and partial answers that have arisen since the center of global economic 
gravity shifted away from the Atlantic Ocean, but not toward the 
American-dominated Pacific. Today, economic growth is centered somewhere 
in the middle of the earth's greatest landmass, what Mackinder called 
the "World Island," Eurasia. China occupies the eastern coast of this 
landmass; Europe, the western one. The middle is where the questions of 
Eurasianism lie.


OK, presumably you still don't care about it. But consider this: Since 
2015, Russia has established a Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) comprising 
itself, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. Russia has given 
direct and significant military support to three of these member states 
(with a much less significant incursion into Kyrgyzstan). Ukraine, 
Moldova and Georgia were invited to join the EAEU during the planning 
phase, and each has attended meetings with observer status; indeed, 
under pressure from Russia, the former Ukrainian president Viktor 
Yanukovych suddenly decided to bring Ukraine into the EAEU in late 2013, 
before the EuroMaidan protesters said no. By the time the EAEU got off 
the ground, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia were already dealing with 
separatist Russian-speaking enclaves, which had already been supported 
militarily by Russia, with the exception (so far as I know) of 
Transnistria in Moldova.


Now look at the EAEU on the map (bit.ly/36cejNI 
): it is a vast space with enormous mineral and 
agricultural resources, bridging Europe and China. Notice the big gap on 
its western flank: that's Ukraine. The EAEU is the logical, economically 
rational version of the mystical quest to revive the Russky Mir (or of 
Aleksandr Dugin's equally mystical White Russian geopolitics). Check out 
the video of Putin inaugurating a new railroad bridge to Crimea 
(bit.ly/366YnfH ): this is the pragmatic, 
methodical version of what the Western press presents as a fevered 
medieval dream. The aim is to constitute an enlarged economic space with 
internal security cooperation, able to profit from Chinese high 
technology and markets, and willing to support China's positions 
vis-a-vis the Euro-American world -- not least by ensuring the flow of 
energy and mineral resources to the Middle Kingdom. For sure, the EAEU 
is not a done deal. Ukraine is the grand prize that would complete the 
Eurasian Economic Union. Or would have completed it, I think/hope one 
can say.


If all you're thinking about is Russia's war on Ukraine and if you 
believe, like me, that it will ultimately fail at Ukraine's great cost, 
then you still may not care about Eurasianism. Yet Putin's rather 
desperate bid for Eurasia is made possible by the alliance with China, 
which has launched a serious and feasible strategy for Eurasian 
hegemony, the Belt and Road initiative. An incredible 
civilization-building campaign, the Belt and Road aims to link the 
development of China's vast West with industrial modernization programs 
running throughout Central Asia and into the maritime region known as 
"the Indo Pacific." Crucial to this plan is access to the gigantic 
European market; and for European countries, Chinese growth also 
provides the crucial market. In both cases, that's a 
business-to-business market, ie producer sector, and not only a market 
for consumer goods (which it also is). The world is tooling up for a new 
round of development, maybe its last one, we'll see. The issue at hand, 
right now, is not whether Eurasian integration will happen (it's 
underway), but how and according to which rule-sets.


Returning to the war, China has not yet disavowed its recent 
rapprochement with Russia and it likely will not, for reasons of 
economic strategy and security vis-a-vis "the West." However China's 
Eurasian strategy is subtle, far-reaching and largely based on economic 
cooperation, with (putatively) win-win outcomes. No one can doubt that 
China will be the major actor of Eurasian development, and that it will 
be the key partner/competitor/enemy of Europe, the United States, and 
perhaps first of all, India, whose significance is also expected to 

Re: CfP: Critical reflections on pandemic politics: left-wing, feminist and anti-racist critiques

[Stefan Heidenreich]

Science thrives with doubts and diversity. And ends with apodictic calls 
to stop discussions.
Sorry to say, Florian: your statement sounds to me like an attempt to 
block a very much needed debate. The comparison with intelligent design 
is itself a propagandistic trope. Even being "provax", I'd stilll feel 
much safer in a scientific environment that allows for doubts and 
discussions.


Best
Stefan


Am 20.01.2022 um 16:54 schrieb Florian Cramer:

I feel there exists a distinct and problematic form of boundary
policing from what identifies as 'the left' today, resulting inany
critique of lockdowns and provax sentiment starting from left-wing
values being too easily dismissed as 'right-wing.' A better critique
of class in relation to all this is especially sorely missing. Hence
my retort of 'knee-jerk.'


The word "provax" itself is a propaganda framing, similar to framing 
evolution as 'just a theory' next to 'intelligent design', and a 
complete giveaway of your ideology; just as your list of research 
questions was, in its sum, rhetorical.


Any critical discussion ends here.

-F



Cheers, Ingrid.

Get Outlook for Android 

*From:* Ana Teixeira Pinto
mailto:a.n.a.t.e.i.x.e.i.r.a.p.i.n@gmail.com>>
*Sent:* Thursday, January 20, 2022 2:00:52 PM
*To:* Hoofd, I.M. (Ingrid) mailto:i.m.ho...@uu.nl>>
*Cc:* nettim...@kein.org 
mailto:nettim...@kein.org>>
*Subject:* Re:  CfP: Critical reflections on pandemic
politics: left-wing, feminist and anti-racist critiques
I would not call Florian's response a knee-jerk reaction, and also
find it difficult to sketch out an anti-racist position without
addressing vaccine equity, or the adjacency of anti-vaccine rhetoric
to narratives of reverse colonialism entailing the subjugation of
white people; not to mention their rabid antisemitism. I would not
foreclose a left-wing critique of government policy but would agree
with Florian that its dangerous to couch far-right sentiment in left
wing discourse.




On Thu, Jan 20, 2022 at 1:06 PM Hoofd, I.M. (Ingrid)
mailto:i.m.ho...@uu.nl>> wrote:

Your knee-jerk response is an excellent example of elitist and
false-oppositional ‘left’ thinking that has completely fallen
for the government and big-pharma propaganda, and forgets to
think critically about power structures, knowing very well that
right-wing and left-wing, while also entertaining huge
differences, are not pure opposites. Baudet would be proud of
you; he can rake in the spoils.



Cheers, Ingrid.

__ __

__ __

*From:*Florian Cramer mailto:flrnc...@gmail.com>>
*Sent:* Thursday, 20 January 2022 13:00
*To:* Hoofd, I.M. (Ingrid) mailto:i.m.ho...@uu.nl>>
*Cc:* nettim...@kein.org 
*Subject:* Re:  CfP: Critical reflections on pandemic
politics: left-wing, feminist and anti-racist critiques

__ __


- Government propaganda and censorship around lockdown and
vaccination

[...] 

- The role of mass and social media in anti- or pro-lockdown
or vaccine propaganda, political polarization and forms of
media virality (eg. via covid-19 memes)

[...] 

- Mandatory vaccine rollouts as assaults to the feminist
appeal to bodily autonomy

[...] 

- Ethical considerations regarding mass experimentation,
moral shaming and lateral citizen surveillance

[...]

- Teleological and theological narratives of science as
salvation (eg. via vaccinations)

__ __

All beautiful examples of a "Querfront" discourse where extreme
right positions are packaged  in left-wing rhetoric. Not a
single point, however, on minorities and vulnerable people and
communities endangered by anti-vaccer egoism, and neo-Darwinist
politics - for example in the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands, of
"herd immunity" through survival of the fittest.

__ __

You should invite Dutch experts Willem Engel and Thierry Baudet
as keynote speakers.

__ __

-F



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Re: Germany's geopolitics

[Stefan Heidenreich]

Hi  Pit,
with the thread firmly back in the closet, I thought to give a second 
look at your text.
Let me try to better point out the Schmittian fallcy: it looks at the 
situation assuming the wrong actors, as in realist 'nations'. Parts of 
the world operate indeed 'post-westphalian' - but not necessarily in the 
sense of Bratton. Rather, think of 'rules-based'-tyranny.


In this environment, vasall states are not supposed to run their own 
geopolitics. They're not even allowed to make a distinction of friend 
and enemy of their own. That is why, in Germany, one is supposed to look 
the other way when 'friends' destroy critical infrastructure.


For now, all that is left are clandestine interests and political 
double-speak. As in Scholz purportedly flying to China, Brazil, and 
India, just to get slapped in the face. Or Merkel lying about MinskII to 
save her ass.


So, the big question is: which interests will emerge once that war is 
over / lost. And who of the relevant actors will be able to make the 
next steps. A Schmittian view will not be of much help in that 
situation, because it hides networks of interests behind binary 
destinctions. You'd need a Bayesian, not a binary decision tree.


When it comes to the result, I'm with you on this point:

So transatlanticism needs to be balanced with tianxia - especially to
enable the shared green transition and to give the global south a more
confident and dynamic position, not just as a lithium resource.
A "prussian" and European version of tianxia would be the political 
economy of Friedrich List, or the MMT forerunners Knapp and Stützel, not 
to speak of the unnamable ...



the Silk Road and big infrastructure projects, the Kantian
Konfuzianism of "under one sky", need to be repositioned against the
ever-fading American dream.
No. Not against. That's exactly the Schmittian trap. Once Washington 
succeeds to liberate itself from the Neocon-cabal that has taken over 
the uni-party, one should rebuild relations across the Atlantic, as much 
as across Europe and Asia. That is the 'geopolitics'-background from 
which I tend to read the recent travels of Scholz, assuming the widely 
communicated slaps in the face were just double-speak messaging to the 
overlord. But maybe I'm too optimistic.


S


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Re: Stormy weather?

[Stefan Heidenreich]

Black Soil

white money


...  a short summer of the end of the history of
(neoliberal) globalisation, mediated, of course, by the rise of the
Internet.
to be followed by an ugly autumn of global warming, pandemic 
profiteering, reactionary autocrats challenging the liberal white 
oligarch supremacy, neocons blowing up pipelines, social media turned 
into deep state cyber-tools of political control ...


winter is coming. what are your predictions?



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Re: Germany's geopolitics

[Stefan Heidenreich]

oh yes: we're being prepared to see China rise and shine as the next big 
enemy. You can bet on "Chinagate" coming soon :)


but: that's exactly how far the Schmittian aproach holds. No inch 
further. Let's face it: the reference to Schmitt builds an intellectual 
phantasy with very little explanatory power (and that counts also for 
all the Schmittians: Dugin ...)


given the fact we're dealing with former democracies turned into 
oligarchies and former semi-sovereigns downgraded to vasalls - one 
cannot simply ascribe each nation its own homogenuous agency. that is 
utterly naive. the chessboard image derived from this kind of analysis 
is an intellectual disgrace with no real world correspondance.


which are the oligarch fractions fighting each other? how does the flow 
of decision making work? where do economic interests gang up?


could we please leave the sandbox of Schmittian toddlers and upgrade to 
a network-centric view of the geo-economic situation?


s


Am 01.03.23 um 07:44 schrieb Pit Schultz:

Tentative Annihilationism

As written before, the main global conflict today is between the US
and China, and the bridging role of Europe, and within the "dynamo" of
Germany and France, would be to take a more decisive stance towards
China (and thus towards the BRICS and the Global South), of course
without leaving NATO or breaking ties with the US, these transitions
need to be peaceful, non-violent and not just based on apocalyptic
deterrence.

If the future world markets were reduced to those "friendly" countries
that supported the sanctions against Russia, the German export model
would be doomed and would lose its capacity to facilitate a green
transition.

Ukraine has become a pledge for the unhealthy expansion of Western
democracy (including NATO and the EU) to effectively distract Europe
from finding a better geopolitical position in a post-neoliberal,
post-globalised, new multipolar world order. The current expansion is
not organic and too homogeneous, as the US capitalist (Wallstreet)
system, as the main motor of the externalized costs of climate crisis,
isn't sustainable enough to run a planetary order.

It is clear that China is no longer just an extended workbench, but a
partner in science and technology that is at least as relevant as the
US. after the Trump experience and the flawed democracy of Russiagate
vs. MAGA, the risks of China's autocracy should not be underestimated
either. it should not need any more shock doctrines to complete the
"Zeitenwende" that could be provided by the unfolding of Russia's
attack on Ukraine to an open endedness.

China will be needed again to put a decisive pressure on Russia. The
goal is not merely territorial as it iseems, but to pressure the west
to renegotiate its hegemonial claims, and open up to a less
hirarchical more multilateral planetary order, not at last to
coordinate climate change processes, and facilitate legitimate
institutions, this time without a complete capitulation and the
annihilation of millions.

It is clear that new forms of semi-war economy and top-down Keynesian
planning are emerging to emulate the ability to organise rapid
technological/industrial transformation, as in China. It is not the
end of capitalism, but a fundamental change in its oligarchic
superstructure, the ideology of the invisible hand, the Washington
Consensus.

The Schmittian Grossraum is in a perspective of interlocking
worst-case scenarios, of reterritorialisation along telluric
identitarianism, of digging into polarised camps and deciding the fate
of countries, disregarding their autonomy, drawing borders and trade
flows from the point of view of a handful of superpowers. i am not an
advocate of this, but neither am  an advocate of green neoliberalism
and the moral superiority narratives of the german greens.

What is needed are new types of assemblies that will facilitate the
green transition in record time, which at first has to be a
technological project, and from there is engineered by social,
cultural, political, economic processes. the planetary organisation
that will facilitate this is most likely not simply following the USA
as the internal systemic contradictions are obviously too great.
Specific geographical inequalities, which today translate into
climatic dependencies and weather catastrophes, are more likely to be
redressed when the financial mechanisms of the IMF/World Bank are
likely to be replaced by a network of recalibrated CBDCs.

So transatlanticism needs to be balanced with tianxia - especially to
enable the shared green transition and to give the global south a more
confident and dynamic position, not just as a lithium resource.  So
the Silk Road and big infrastructure projects, the Kantian
Konfuzianism of "under one sky", need to be repositioned against the
ever-fading American dream.

This is not in the tradition of anti-Americanism, but of American
romanticism, which is quite common in post-war Germany and which,
strangely enough, 

Re: Stormy weather?

[Stefan Heidenreich]

Hi Brian,
thank you so much for this very reasonable request for comments. I've 
had already written off nettime (as "NATO-shit-list" .. as one 
participant used to frame it).


Your bleak view looks very likely, but it's not the only possible 
outcome. So, against all odds, let me sketch a vaguely 'positive' 
possibility.


- the fact that most of the world does not align with the "West" makes 
it possible to a) avoid the NeoCon-project of a war against China (bcs 
it is already lost) and to b) overcome the phase of finance colonization 
that exploited most the world for the last 60 years.


- the defeat of NATO could lead to a "decolonization" of Western Euroipe 
(not that this by itself leads to positive results. Repressive "liberal" 
fascism remains as likely an outcome as some sort of independence.)


- inflation could remain a one-time price shock (after having cut living 
standards by 15%), switching back to debt deflation. (bad enough)


- the US could see a replacement of the failed NeoCons by ... I don't 
know what ... either Isolationists for the better ... or worse the 
MAGA-Bannon-Trump-Armageddon fraction.


- a post-hegemonial multi-polar world could finally create the 
conditions to get together and to tackle the real problems like climate 
change.


- it increasingly looks as if AI is at the top of its current hype cycle.

What to do: align with the South to overcome Western oligarchy. 
Re-create democratic conditions in those countries that like to call 
themselves "democratic".


However, my impression is that there are very many people whose doubts 
about neocon nato-ism keep growing.

Stefan


Am 12.02.23 um 20:50 schrieb Brian Holmes:
I wonder how nettimers from different perspectives around the world see 
the current, remarkably tense international situation? Where do you 
think all the anxieties of war, economic competition, natural disaster 
and climate change are going to lead in the near future? How do you 
think one should intervene?


-- There's a war on in Europe, which is a proxy war that pits NATO 
against Russia, via the fighting force of Ukraine. Definitely check out 
the list of equipment which the US alone has sent: 
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/sleepwalking-elites 
 (list 
begins in paragraph 3)


-- There's likely to be a second refugee crisis in the EU due to the 
earthquake in Turkey and Syria as well (I mean, added to the exodus from 
Ukraine).


-- There are rapidly rising tensions between the US and China, with this 
week's US airspace-defence operations visibly influenced by domestic 
get-tough politics, and a lot of uncertainty as to whether China will 
try to use a nationalist, rally-around-the-flag effect to quash the 
social protest and state-delegitimation brought by the zero-covid 
fiasco. As part of all this, an industrial re-orientation is being 
attempted from the US side (CHIPS act, electric-car subsidies for 
nationally made products). I am not clear if the EU, and especially 
Germany, participates in this reorientation, or not.


-- Lower-income countries dependent on international finance have had to 
absorb the interest-rate consequences of pandemic inflation in the rich 
countries, leading to stalled development and left-right conflicts.


-- Fires, droughts and floods have made climate change into an openly 
admitted crisis, an economic factor in its own right, and a crucial 
element in strategic economic military planning.


-- And in parallel to all that, another technology shift is coming 
through the application of AI to existing industrial and communications 
technologies.


I think those are undeniable factors whose spillovers must affect most 
people somehow, wherever you live, so I'm totally curious what you make 
of this conjuncture.


 From my viewpoint, I think that the neoliberal model of society has now 
irretrievably broken down, leaving vast psycho-social disarray and 
increasing conflict as state and corporate actors begin trying new 
strategies. Currently there is a lot of happy talk about "solving the 
climate crisis" with solar panels and electric cars, and I'm glad about 
it too, but I think this masks the enormity of the changes ahead. On the 
one hand, the reason of state calls simultaneously for protective 
reterritorialization (nationalism, militarized borders, renegotiated 
alliances) and, in a diametrically opposite way, for intensified 
international regulatory and planning regimes, as well as a certain 
coordination of production to achieve energy transitions. On the other 
hand, populations at all class levels seem to sense that these changes 
will again be highly disruptive (I mean, as they were in the 80s-90s 
when neoliberalism came in) - so you have an incredible repositioning 
going on at the molecular level, not only politically but above all, 
psychologically. It's noteworthy that in the US, almost none of the 
sprawling social-welfare 

Re: Stormy weather?

[Stefan Heidenreich]

- the defeat of NATO could lead to a "decolonization" of Western
Europe (not that this by itself leads to positive results. Repressive
"liberal" fascism remains as likely an outcome as some sort of
independence.)


Oh my, what this is supposed to mean, only chatGPT can explain.



well, people who think that this war does not primarily serve as a proxy 
war, may indeed also consider chatGPT a reliable source ... :)

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Re: Stormy weather?

[Stefan Heidenreich]

it makes a difference though if it's proxy war or not:

- if it's a struggle for a nation's survival, one should probably follow 
the advice of RAND and go for negotiations asap (as the war looks 
increasingly unwinable, according to their recent report).


- if it's a proxy war, the West may keep sending as many weapons as 
possible with the aim to "ruin Russia" (Baerbock). Regrettably, this 
entails the sacrifice of many more Ukrainian soldiers, most likely 
without achieving the goal.


To get back to what De-Colonizing Western Europe could mean: for example 
the sovereign freedom to choose one's sources of energy, and to sue 
so-called "friends" for damage compensation for the pipeline blown up in 
an act of state terrorism.


Or one may ask chatGPT for a more comfortable geopolitical assessment.
s


Am 13.02.23 um 18:52 schrieb Ana Teixeira Pinto:
surely not mutually exclusive, most wars of independence were both 
struggles for self determination and proxy wars between the great powers,

there are always many wars within each war...

Oh my, what this is supposed to mean, only chatGPT can explain

fies aber lustig

x Ana

On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 6:00 PM Stefan Heidenreich 
mailto:m...@stefanheidenreich.de>> wrote:



 >> - the defeat of NATO could lead to a "decolonization" of Western
 >> Europe (not that this by itself leads to positive results.
Repressive
 >> "liberal" fascism remains as likely an outcome as some sort of
 >> independence.)
 >
 > Oh my, what this is supposed to mean, only chatGPT can explain.
 >

well, people who think that this war does not primarily serve as a
proxy
war, may indeed also consider chatGPT a reliable source ... :)
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Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Stefan Heidenreich]

ians in their war against Russian aggression. I 
think it's a necessary war for NATO to engage in, as I've said before. 
I also agree the term "liberal fascism" is meaningless, btw.


But this is also a great power war, fought with NATO weapons in 
Ukrainian hands. Up to now that's been called a proxy war, but if 
there's a better term, I'll take it. The point is definitely not to 
wallow in outdated concepts, but to grasp what's happening now.


I think this war is perceived by US and other Western strategists as 
the means for the installation of a new global security system in the 
face of increasing challenges to the post-WWII order. That order, 
originally defined by the US and cemented by NATO, is now 
fundamentally threatened by climate change and by the rise of East 
Asia. The intense bellicose signalling between China and the US 
reveals the larger stakes. Putin attempted to take advantage of this 
situation by establishing a partnership with China, but he failed.


Victory in Ukraine would reestablish uncontested Western military 
superiority at the global level, and allow the NATO countries to 
organize the next phase of capitalist development, just as the Gulf 
War did at the outset of neoliberalism in the 90s. But the world is 
now far more unstable than in the 90s. The Ukrainians are pushing for 
total victory,  which is hard to imagine without Putin's fall. I doubt 
it is possible to achieve regime change in Russia without NATO troops 
on the ground.


My point is that this is a dangerous time with immense future 
consequences. It would be important to analyze the new security system 
as it emerges. Support for the Ukrainians does not mean turning a 
blind eye to what the most powerful countries are doing. The 
international system that emerges from this war will be the one that 
deals with the existential challenge of climate change.


Thoughtfully, Brian

On Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 11:41 Felix Stalder <mailto:fe...@openflows.com>> wrote:



On 12.02.23 20:50, Brian Holmes wrote:
> -- There's a war on in Europe, which is a proxy war that pits NATO
> against Russia, via the fighting force of Ukraine. Definitely check
> out the list of equipment which the US alone has sent:
> https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/sleepwalking-elites
<https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/sleepwalking-elites>
> <https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/sleepwalking-elites
<https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/sleepwalking-elites>> (list
> begins in paragraph 3)


I know this is not your point here, but to see this only as a proxy
war really reductive and reeks of a "great powers" analysis in which
some countries/people are just have to accept the fact that they are
subordinate.

The author of the NLR article comes right out with this world view:

> Ten years ago, nobody could have imagined that Europe would risk
> such a catastrophe for the sake of the Donbass – a region that
few of
> us would have been able to locate on a map.

I'm sure most Ukrainians knew already 10 years ago where the
Donbas was,
but why bother with their view. Also, the war in the Donbas started
2008, so not to know where the Donbas was in 2012 is really an act
of metropolitan ignorance. It happens, nothing to be proud of.

So, this war is primarily one of Ukrainian survival. I'm sure that
many
in the US security apparatus see it also as a proxy-war, but I think
also Biden's theme of democracy-vs-authoritarianism plays a role. I
don't think it's a given that a republican administration under Trump
would have done the same (even if some in the military would still
have
liked to fight a proxy war).


On 13.02.23 08:45, Stefan Heidenreich wrote:

> - the defeat of NATO could lead to a "decolonization" of Western
> Europe (not that this by itself leads to positive results.
Repressive
> "liberal" fascism remains as likely an outcome as some sort of
> independence.)

Oh my, what this is supposed to mean, only chatGPT can explain.








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Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Stefan Heidenreich]

I invite Stefan to explain what he suggests we should do instead.


nothing.
Let people make their own judgement and cite whomever they want to cite.

Best
Stefan
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Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Stefan Heidenreich]

so you call it
"giving context" (which would be ok)
when in fact you try to silence an inconvenient voice
(make links disappear, erase references, suppress ...)

that's a euphemism I've never came across so far.

Admitting Ganser can be edgy. you want want to cancel everyone "edgy"? 
where do you start? where do you end?


s

Am 14.02.23 um 15:33 schrieb Michael Guggenheim:

If he only would “complain”: “liberal fascism” and "totalitarianism” is now the 
minimum charge.

Just in case you want more context, Ganser now (as in: last week) likens 
himself to Sophie Scholl, another person he thinks, who, like him, needed 
courage to say the truth and to fight against war.
Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3HdoLppnTI
 From minute 5.15 onwards
“Even if you have truth on your side, you can be killed”.
“It is a good life: You meet other people who have courage…”

(And in case you need context (I know, I know, another liberal fascist misstep) 
to the YouTube platform “Mutigmacher” (the guys who interview Ganser): one of 
the two people is Dirk Helwig, who was a core member of “Widerstand 2020”, a 
farcical short-lived right-wing corona-sceptic party in Germany.

But let’s all stop giving context to stuff, it will only lead us directly into 
fascist and totalitarian hell. It’s so much better to be the Scholls of our 
time and fight the dark forces and shed light on the hidden networks of power! 
And how can I be an anti-semite, when I am the intellectual and activist heir 
of Sophie Scholl?

Cite whomever they want to cite.

m



On 14 Feb 2023, at 13:32, José María Mateos  wrote:

On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 01:21:54PM +0100, Stefan Heidenreich wrote:

I invite Stefan to explain what he suggests we should do instead.


nothing.
Let people make their own judgement and cite whomever they want to cite.


And by all means complain when someone provides additional context.


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Re: Stormy weather?

[Stefan Heidenreich]

Hi Felix,
there is a problem in your analysis: your framing is only one amongst 
many others, equally possible.


For example, from the viewpoint of the realist school (Mearsheimer) or 
the geo-economic perspective (M. Hudson) the situation looks very 
different. Let me sketch it briefly:


Well, in autocracies, autocrats matters. 

what matters in liberal democratic oligarchies?


Did fossil-dependent Russia have to invade Ukraine because of that?
did Russia have to invade because of the NATO-expansion and subsequent 
weaponization of Ukraine? (for comparison: think of a russian-supported 
Ottawa-Maidan followed by a hypothetical weaponization of Canada. How 
would the US react?)


Was he walking into a trap > that NATO created and he was too stupid to 
see?
Was he clever enough to see that he could turn the Nato-trap into 
reverse by invading at a moment of choice, with diplomatic relations 
(very little support for Western sanctions around the globe, stable 
alignment with China & India), economic conditions (ability to bypass 
financial and trade sanctions), and military conditions (war of 
attrition overstretching NATO) in his favor?


In the reading of

the US (and Europe), the conflicts of 2008 (Donbas) and 2014 (Crimea)
were regional conflicts, while the 2022 invasion had a clear
geopolitical dimension, with power in Europe and control over the global
food supply at stake. 
In the reading of Mearsheimer 2008 and 2014 were mere defensive steps 
against an ongoing NATO-expansion that made it clear to Moscow, that the 
US wanted to overextend Russia (cf Rand-Paper from 2019) and that a 
bigger war was unfortunately the only defense against the slow-motion 
assault.
That veiw follows more or less the reading of Mearsheimer (just to say, 
before I am accused of Putinism...)


I guess the Ukrainians understood quickly that

aligning themselves with this reading and portraying themselves as
defenders of freedom is their only chance for survival.
Or, the Ukrainians will have to understand that sacrificing their lives 
following a deeply miscalculated plan of the Neocons in charge at the 
State Dept in Washington they will be doomed.


Just to give another perspective that leads to very different conlusions.
Most likely we can agree, when it comes to Climate Change. But given the 
turn of even the Green party from preserving nature to deliver weapons, 
one may as well take the coming Climate catastrophe as a given and 
prepare for the worst.


s




On 15.02.23 13:44, d.gar...@new-tactical-research.co.uk wrote:

It may not offer us much, but it just seemed that Clark’s approach 
might help us guard against us so over-regarding the explanatory power 
of large-scale historical forces that we underestimate the importance 
of amplifying our own collective and individual agency in confronting 
the power wielded by key (or elite) political actors. It might 
mitigate against the overwhelming feeling of impotence that sometimes 
seems to turn the least and the best us all into sleepwalkers.


















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Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Stefan Heidenreich]

Funny, that mail sounds in tone and attitude to me like something I've 
encountered last time in the Berlin Stasi-archive.

The censor has spoken ...

s


Am 14.02.23 um 17:07 schrieb Ted Byfield:

On 14 Feb 2023, at 4:48, Michael Guggenheim wrote:


I sent an email to NLR alerting them to this quote. Maybe I was not the only 
one. I was hoping, and suggesting, they would add a comment to D’Eramo’s text, 
explaining who Ganser is, and maybe asking D’Eramo to explain to the reader why 
he included the passage. Instead they deleted it, without leaving a note as to 
the alteration of the text.

I understand that the editors of NLR may not know who Ganser is, and that they 
cannot be expected to check every reference in every text.


Michael, I appreciate your conciliatory gesture here, but they *can* be expected to do 
exactly that. Not every reference, you're right: for mentions of some arcane scholarly 
debates about Jane Austen or whatever, no. But D'Eramo's piece is a broadside in a debate 
where counter/charges of antisemitism are rife all around. The piece has only a handful 
of references — to Financial Times, to Foreign Policy, and to a well-known, decade-old 
book by an established Oxbridge historian. It's running in a journal in the UK, where the 
Labour Party has been riven with accusations of baked-in antisemitism. And, as you note, 
it's an ad for a book with a recent publication date and a title that couldn't be more 
blunt: D'Eramo's own words were "Daniele Ganser’s 2022 book _NATO’s Illegal 
Wars_." This is *exactly* the kind of situation where an editor should check that 
one, odd reference.

For ref, here's a screenshot of the D'Eramo piece before and after, side by 
side:

https://tldr.nettime.org/@tb/109863202886355396

Checking D'Eramo's reference took a few minutes: Ganser > amazon[dot]de > title > publisher (Westend) > author 
bio > link to his "Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy Research." And what did I find? The lead story on 
SIPER's site is about the "9/11 debate," which claims "WTC7 was blown up, says the Hulsey study from 2019. 
The history of the terrorist attacks must be rewritten." Uh, OK.

Here's my take as an editor: In a journal a closing paragraph should distill 
what needs to be said. In D'Eramo's piece, the ( ) around the Ganser reference 
mean *by definition* this doesn't need to be said. They got there one of two 
ways: either (1) D'Eramo included them, in which case the editor should have 
said nope, cut it, or (2) NLR's editor *did* take it up with D'Eramo but gave 
in, then added them. My $5 says (2) is what happened, but it doesn't matter 
because NLR's later decision to cut the reference without comment works equally 
well with both.

Since D'Eramo likes to cast his argument in terms of US militarism, here's another: When 
Clark Clifford, the famously fastidious adviser to decades of US presidents, got caught 
up in the BCCI scandal, he said, "I have a choice of either seeming stupid or 
venal." (I was working on the book where he said that while the scandal was breaking 
and I proposed a draft for that footnote — but not that wording, which became a sort of 
ur-meme in East Coast power-corridor circles.) That more or less sums up the NLR's 
predicament here: compromised or stupid — or maybe both.

This 'forensicky' micro-stuff is ridiculous, but for one thing: It suggests 
that NLR still has at least one foot stuck in the muck of tankie horseshoe 
nonsense. They aren't alone. In the US, The Nation does too, as Duncan Campbell 
recently documented in gruesome detail for a less rump-y UK left outlet, Byline 
Times:


https://bylinetimes.com/2023/02/04/russia-and-the-us-press-the-article-the-cjr-didnt-publish/

Bigger picture: D'Eramo's list of weaponry — which, after all, is why Brian cited the 
article to begin with — is the kind of crude "Soviet tank-counting exercise" I 
would have expected from the Brookings Institution in the mid-'80s. And that's basically 
D'Eramo's argument, isn't it? But for a war that's almost universally seen as 
inaugurating a radically new era of conflict — drones — that kind of 'untimely' analysis 
is itself plainly nostalgic. That says a lot about the school of thought D'Eramo follows: 
rather than face the future, it faces the past. There are lots of reasons to be 
pessimistic, but people who actively and explicitly embrace the past so they reduce the 
present to known categories aren't likely to find much room for optimism, are they?

This is one of the main problems that dogs so much establishment leftism now. 
The other is a categorical rejection of the use of force to achieve  their 
political ends, a leftover of the excesses of the hard left of the late '60s / 
early '70s, which the chronically culturalist 'new new left' shares, 
unfortunately. It's not that force is good, right, or even acceptable; rather, 
it's that rejecting force as such concedes it to the right, whose vanguard is 
happily embracing