Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] re-evaluating Lysenko
JF:If you are going to bring up the Manhattan Project, then I think it ought to be compared with the German A-bomb project, which failed to produce a bomb. Why did it fail? My point was more than science is scattershot and sometimes it's a matter of getting lucky. Why did the Germans prove better at 'rocket science'? Why did the Soviet Union after the war make better use of this science and technology than the Americans? It looks like the US has run out of happy accidents anyway, and when it can't borrow anymore money, it won't be able to buy them from other parts of the world. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Arms Control Experts Applaud Announcement of New Nuclear Reductions Treaty with Russia
These arms control experts are people embedded in the very national security state that makes and maintains so many nukes in the first place. The US side of the bargain is simply: they like a world with fewer nukes because they hope they have technological edges that no other force can match (mostly a delusion as Iraq and Afganistan show, as Israel's periodic pulverizing of Gaza shows--their high-tech militaries are so expensive they aren't really very good for anything in the old imperialist mode). Also what is going on here is the Obama warpigs trying to get Russia lined up with them on Iran. You have to wonder what the real conversation between Obama and Netanyahu was: like, N. giving Obama a deadline, after which, Israel takes unilateral action against Iran--not, of course, because Iran would have a nuke on a missile capable of hitting Israel but because N. has to get re-elected or at least keep his party in power. Don't you wish they would invite Israel to multi-lateral talks on how all nuclear powers could eliminate nuclear weapons? CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] A healthcare time line
End most tendentiously. 1. Does it aim or can it achieve? 2. Extending federal plans to 30 million does not come anywhere near close to universal coverage or universal access to insured health care. 3. Directs federal subsidies towards and into the unsustained pricing bubbles centered on cost of prescription drugs (the profits of the pharmaceutical companies) and health care provision (the HMOs). So the coverage is not anywhere near universal, and, as O. himself said, you can't extend coverage without curbing costs (i.e., ending the bubbles). Even if the Repugs don't re-take control and repeal all this, we are now set up for 5 more years of bubbles in drugs and HMOs, subsidized by the bond-writing ability of the federal government. Meanwhile, if the economy turns down again and severely, look for up to 50 million Americans to lose their coverage (many of whom won't know they are out until they have to use it). The only way this could result in a public option and universal care would be if an HMO goes bust like an investment bank--or auto maker--and the federal government has to take over ownership of it. Finally, the bill seems to have created the possibility of a constitutional crisis in that people will question whether or not the federal government has the right to force you (or fine) to buy health insurance (duff policies at that) from for-profit HMOs. Now the HMOs aren't going to fight that--hell, they want the money from that too. So what will squelch any challenge to the constitutionality of it all is simply that the HMOs would cut off funding to any party that did challenge it. I have to agree with Biden: health care reform this time around? Big fucking deal. Or was Biden for once in his life not being ironic? CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] A healthcare time line
We can now add a new line to the time line: removed special deals, increased subsidies for previously mentioned duff policies, and got rid of loopholes affecting sick children. We can also add a new line to a different time line: kept university enrollment bubble going. (AP) Finalizing two major pieces of his agenda, President Barack Obama on Tuesday sealed his health care overhaul and made the government the primary lender to students by cutting banks out of the process. Both domestic priorities came in one bill, pushed through by Democrats in the House and Senate and signed into law by a beaming president. The new law makes a series of changes to the massive health insurance reform bill that he signed into law with even greater fanfare last week. Those fixes included removing some specials deals that had angered the public and providing more money for poorer and middle-income individuals and families to help them buy health insurance. -- CJ Japan Higher Education Outlook http://japanheo.blogspot.com/ ELT in Japan http://eltinjapan.blogspot.com/ We are Feral Cats http://wearechikineko.blogspot.com/ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Evolution of Culture
One interesting theory is about what separates our line of development from other homonids--co-evolution with another highly intelligent, highly social animal--dogs. This might lead us down other areas of inquiry, such as , if human language first devloped as gesture, did it develop with canines , with our interaction with canines? Did domestication of dogs help make us more communicatively capable? CJ http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/s/275/Science/Coevolution03.pdf Co-evolution of Humans and Canids http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-1405262/Co-Evolution-New-evidence-suggests.html If the DNA evidence is correct, it is creatures such as these that domesticated the wolf and turned it into a dog. People may have stolen wolf pups from their dens to play with or just to keep for the enjoyment of watching them. Like the young animals that are brought home as toys by tribal hunting peoples today, most of these pups probably had short lives. As Susan Crockford argues, some may have possessed the hormonal characteristics that produced dog-like behaviour and would have adapted to life in a human camp. (5) Those that survived to adulthood and produced pups of their own may have been the first ancestors of the dogs, which have lived with humans ever since. This was a new development in biology and history. For the first time, hunting parties and camp groups composed of two distinct species began to spread across the landscapes of the world. It makes little sense to think of this process as one in which early humans domesticated the wolf. Aside from the human use of simple tools, there was probably little difference in the complexity of hunting patterns or social organization between early human bands and wolf packs. If humans domesticated the wolf, is it not equally probable that wolves domesticated humans? Were the changes that developed between wolf and dog any more significant than those that occurred to early humans through their constant association with canids? In a recent article in the magazine Discovering Archaeology, biologist Wolfgang Schleidt notes the apparent temporal coincidence between the emergence of humankind and of dogkind, and suggests that, This intertwining process of hominization and caninisation suggests co-evolution. (6) Schleidt proposes a specific scenario, involving humans emulating wolves and eventually co-opting wolves in hunting the migratory reindeer of Ice Age Eurasia. Yet a much broader view of the interactions between humans and wolves, and the results of these interactions, might be envisaged. In comparing ourselves with other animals, we think of intelligence, self-awareness, the ability to conceive new ideas and foresee long-term consequences as traits that are uniquely human. In the animal world these traits are most clearly mirrored by the great apes, and in a lesser way by our other primate relatives. But are all the characteristics that we think of as making us human inherited only from our primate ancestry? What about qualities such as patience, endurance, unthinking loyalty, co-operation, devotion to family and social group? What of our abilities to organize co-operative activities based on a finely tuned sense of social hierarchy and mutual responsibilities? Wolves seem to do these things significantly better than humans, and at least as well as most non-human primates. The biologists who have made their life-work the study of wolves describe an animal that lives in a world of complex social hierarchies, with well-organized co-operative work patterns, finely tuned communication skills, and outbreaks of spontaneous joy. Together with their superior ability to scent prey, to run more swiftly and endure longer than humans, these social qualities are the basis of their successful adaptation as hunters. And these are also qualities that would have been useful in the environment that saw our early ancestors turn into true humans. Given the situation of hunting bands composed of early humans and their wolf-dog companions, animals with complementary character and abilities, can we be sure that the process of domestication acted in only one direction? The DNA evidence suggests that these animals lived and worked together for some 5000 human generations before the emergence of societies and cultures that we can describe as fully human. In the course of these generations wolves were transformed into dogs, but did their dogs also transform ancient people into humans? Would archaic humans have developed into such a successful and dominant species if we had not had the opportunity to learn from, imitate and absorb into our cultures the traits and abilities of the wolves with whom we lived? Hints of our unacknowledged debt to wolves may perhaps be found in the cultural memories of human societies. Wolves play contradictory roles in human folklore and in human emotions. On one side stands the wolf as arch-villain of the forest, the creature who tries to devour Peter, Red
[Marxism-Thaxis] Lewontin reviews Steven Rose's latest book (was Re-evaluating Lysenko)
I remember--it was actually about the same time Ayn Rand was making her last tour of universities--when Hofstadter visited my provincial podunk university, hawking his book. I recently just sold an autographed copy of the trade paperback (it didn't go for much but perhaps a hardback would be worth more?). GEB is one of those books that must have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and got read by dozens of people, with the author then proclaiming most people didn't understand what he was trying to say. I don't think that happens too often because for whatever reasons most people never get their collection of confused ideas into print form backed by a commercial publisher. Hofstadter did. I remember after his talk one philosophy professor getting enthusiastic that GEB was on the verge of an explanation of human consciousness--and of course it had to involve formal logics. He was the same guy who was sure Chomsky was close on an explanation of human language--and of course it had to involve formal logics. Also an interesting conversation I recall at the time of the lecture was a professor's wife--the dean's wife maybe--remarking that Hofstatdter himself showed the value of a an education in the 'humanities', to which the author replied, something like, Oh no, not at all. My education is in hard science. I think I made a comment to myself: yet note how it's just we humanities types who got suckered into coming to this lecture. The pure concentrated thesis that he never got around to stating very clearly in GEB is: we are conscious because we are strange loops. As an aside here, maybe my take on human consciousness has no value whatsoever, but my perspective is one that most people can not get: I'm an identical twin. And I always used to think that, even if I'm an exact genetic copy, we are not physically identical, not really. But what separated me from my brother is simply that I can not experience his being, his body, his life (unless ESP were possible, and nothing I ever thought or did made me think it was). That doesn't mean I thought that he and I have different souls. Rather, I always thought that even the simplest physical differences in the two copies helped bring this about. But later I thought --and still do--that even if the genes were the same and even if we were completely the same physically, we still couldn't experience each other's lives. Even if we were side by side, we weren't occupying the same space. But maybe this is attempting to contemplate an impossiblity. In the real world, we will always be different realizations, and different lived experiences, and different memories of those lived experiences adding to those lived experiences so long as life goes on. Oh, and even if DH is a significant thinker about such matters, I never did find his writing very interesting to read. Perhaps GEB really needed an editor that understood the author more? Or perhaps I ought to delve into his later stuff, now that he no longer sells hundreds of thousands of unread copies and he has stuck with 'cognitive science'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter Hofstadter's thesis about consciousness, first expressed in GEB but also present in several of his later books, is that it is an emergent consequence of seething lower-level activity in the brain. In GEB he draws an analogy between the social organization of a colony of ants and the mind seen as a coherent colony of neurons. In particular, Hofstadter claims that our sense of having (or being) an I comes from the abstract pattern he terms a strange loop, which is an abstract cousin of such concrete phenomena as audio and video feedback, and which Hofstadter has defined as a level-crossing feedback loop. The prototypical example of this abstract notion is the self-referential structure at the core of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Hofstadter's 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop carries his vision of consciousness considerably further, including the idea that each human I is distributed over numerous brains, rather than being limited to precisely one brain.[20] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop I Am a Strange Loop From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search I Am A Strange Loop Strageloop.jpg Author Douglas Hofstadter Country USA LanguageEnglish Subject(s) Consciousness, strange loops, intelligence Publisher Basic Books Publication dateMarch 26th, 2007 Media type Hardback Pages 412 pages ISBN978-0465030781 OCLC Number 64554976 LC Classification BD438.5 .H64 2007 Preceded by Gödel, Escher, Bach I Am a Strange Loop is a 2007 book by Douglas Hofstadter, examining in depth the concept of a strange loop originally developed in his 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach. “ In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference. ” — Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop p.363 Hofstadter had
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Lewontin reviews Steven Rose's latest book (was Re-evaluating Lysenko)
For what it is worth, Merleau Ponty appeals to some in cognitive science and in 'ecophenomenogy' (which I didn't know existed until today) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty#Anticognitivist_cognitive_science Anticognitivist cognitive science Despite Merleau-Ponty's own critical position with respect to science - he describes scientific points of view as always both naive and at the same time dishonest in his Preface to the Phenomenology - his work has become a touchstone for the anti-cognitivist strands of cognitive science, largely through the influence of Hubert Dreyfus. Dreyfus's seminal critique of cognitivism (or the computational account of the mind), What Computers Can't Do, consciously replays Merleau-Ponty's critique of intellectualist psychology to argue for the irreducibility of corporeal know-how to discrete, syntactic processes. Through the influence of Dreyfus's critique, and neurophysiological alternative, Merleau-Ponty became associated with neurophysiological, connectionist accounts of cognition. With the publication in 1991 of The Embodied Mind by Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, this association was extended, if only partially, to another strand of anti-cognitivist or post-representationalist cognitive science: embodied or enactive cognitive science, and later in the decade, to neurophenomenology. It was through this relationship with Merleau-Ponty's work that cognitive science's affair with phenomenology was born, which is represented by a growing number of works, including Andy Clark's Being There (1997), the collection Naturalizing Phenomenology edited by Petitot et al. (1999), Alva Noë's Action in Perception (2004), Shaun Gallagher's How the Body Shapes the Mind (2005), and the journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. Ecophenomenology Ecophenomenology can be described as the pursuit of the relationalities of worldly engagement, both human and those of other creatures (Brown Toadvine 2003). This engagement is situated in a kind of middle ground of relationality, a space that is neither purely objective, since it is reciprocally constituted by a diversity of lived experiences motivating the movements of countless organisms, nor purely subjective, since it is nonetheless a field of material relationships between bodies. It is governed exclusively neither by causality, nor by intentionality. In this space of in-betweenness phenomenology can overcome its inaugural opposition to naturalism.[5] David Abram explains Merleau-Ponty's concept of flesh (chair) as the mysterious tissue or matrix that underlies and gives rise to both the perceiver and the perceived as interdependent aspects of its spontaneous activity, and he identifies this elemental matrix with the interdependent web of earthly life.[6] This concept unites subject and object dialectically as determinations within a more primordial reality, which Merleau-Ponty calls the flesh, and which Abram refers to variously as the animate earth, the breathing biosphere, or the more-than-human natural world. Yet this is not nature or the biosphere conceived as a complex set of objects and objective processes, but rather the biosphere as it is experienced and lived from within by the intelligent body — by the attentive human animal who is entirely a part of the world that he, or she, experiences. Merleau-Ponty's ecophenemonology with its emphasis on holistic dialog within the larger than-human world also has implications for the ontogenesis and phylogenesis of language, indeed he states that language is the very voice of the trees, the waves and the forest. [7] Merleau-Ponty himself refers to that primordial being which is not yet the subject-being nor the object-being and which in every respect baffles reflection. From this primordial being to us, there is no derivation, nor any break...[8] Among the many working notes found on his desk at the time of his death, and published with the half-complete manuscript of The Visible and the Invisible, several make evident that Merleau-Ponty himself recognized a deep affinity between his notion of a primordial flesh and a radically transformed understanding of nature. Hence in November 1960 he writes: Do a psychoanalysis of Nature: it is the flesh, the mother. [9] And in the last published working note, written in March 1961, he writes: Nature as the other side of humanity (as flesh, nowise as 'matter').[10] ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Riddle of the Self
Thanks for that CeJ. I went to that first link, and I could see how M-P is complementary to M'ist tradition. Levi-Strauss was associated with M-P , though I never studied their connection much. He sounds left existential, and before Sartre was so left, maybe. I'm wondering if thinking of myself as part of infinite Nature cognizing and transforming itself is a good mental hygene technique. :) On 3/31/10, CeJ jann...@gmail.com wrote: I was reading through this online just before you posted this CB. I think for a complementary thinker who could be put in the Marxist traditions, it is Merleau-Ponty. M-P died at a relatively young 53. http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/merleaup.htm http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/merleau-ponty/#6 It is Merleau-Ponty's contention that it is not possible to achieve this return to subjectivity. Reflection is always secondary, that is, it must recognize itself as founded on a pre-reflective experience of Being that cannot be assimilated, employing the felicitous phrase of Adorno, without remainder. This reflection which must always be mindful of its own situated character is what Merleau-Ponty names hyper-reflection. This sort of reflection is expressed in an excellent manner by a line of Kafka, cited by Lefort in his Preface to The Visible and the Invisible, that things present themselves to him not by their roots, but by some point or another situated towards the middle of them (VI, xvvi). Merleau-Ponty evokes our ineluctable inherence in Being as evidence that Husserl's project of free variation, while being useful, was not able to accomplish what Husserl desired of it. Free variation was Husserl's way to move from the register of ‘fact’ to that of ‘essence’. One begins with a real factual experience, then by means of free variation one transforms it in imagination up to the point where it is no longer an object of the same type. At this point, Husserl claims that we intuit its essential structure. Merleau-Ponty agrees that we can vary our experience in imagination, that we can move from the real to the virtual, that is, we can give ourselves leeway. However, we cannot complete the circuit by which the real would become simply a variant of the possible. He writes, On the contrary, it is the possible worlds and possible things that are variants and doubles of the actual world and of actual beings (VI, 112). It is the ineluctability of our inherence in the world that forecloses both the attempt to move from the fact to the essential structure and the project of completing the phenomenological reduction. In the last chapter of the never completed The Visible and the Invisible entitled The Intertwining--the Chiasm, Merleau-Ponty begins to give a positive elaboration of the ontological position to which he has been led. In a number of respects, his last work distances itself from certain central notions in the phenomenological tradition. Nonetheless, in one respect it is mindful of Husserl's injunction, Return to the things themselves. Merleau-Ponty wishes to begin in a dimension of experience which has not been worked over, that offers us, all at once, pell-mell, both subject and object--both existence and essence--and, hence, gives philosophy resources to redefine them (VI, 130). When Merleau-Ponty speaks of perceptual faith his notion of faith is perhaps the very opposite of the agonized Kierkegaardian leap of faith. It is a faith the commitment of which has ‘always already’ been made, a faith which subtends the avowal of responsibility by which personal identity is formed. Perceptual faith is a faith that I am in no danger of losing, except in the philosophical interpretation of it which portrays it as knowledge. This chapter on what Merleau-Ponty calls the Chiasm is a continuation of his study of perception, however, at first viewing it may not appear as such. In the Phenomenology of Perception, he insisted upon making a distinction between operative intentionality and act intentionality, but in The Visible and the Invisible this distinction is deepened in such a way that the concept of intentionality itself is thrown into question. In his critical reflections on Sartre, which due to spatial constraints we have not been able to develop here, Merleau-Ponty said that for a subject defined as For-itself, as consciousness of itself, passivity could have no meaning. He argues that, defined as such, consciousness could not but be sovereign. In his late thought, Merleau-Ponty poses the question whether a consciousness, defined as intentional, is adequate to think a notion of perception viewed as the self-revelation of the sense of a world in and through a being which is itself a part of the world, flesh of its flesh, a world which ... is much more than the correlative of my vision, such that it imposes my vision upon me as a continuation of its own sovereign existence (VI,
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Arms Control Experts Applaud Announcement of New Nuclear Reductions Treaty with Russia
Nope. Nuclear disarmament is still species-being project numero uno. On 3/31/10, CeJ jann...@gmail.com wrote: These arms control experts are people embedded in the very national security state that makes and maintains so many nukes in the first place. The US side of the bargain is simply: they like a world with fewer nukes because they hope they have technological edges that no other force can match (mostly a delusion as Iraq and Afganistan show, as Israel's periodic pulverizing of Gaza shows--their high-tech militaries are so expensive they aren't really very good for anything in the old imperialist mode). Also what is going on here is the Obama warpigs trying to get Russia lined up with them on Iran. You have to wonder what the real conversation between Obama and Netanyahu was: like, N. giving Obama a deadline, after which, Israel takes unilateral action against Iran--not, of course, because Iran would have a nuke on a missile capable of hitting Israel but because N. has to get re-elected or at least keep his party in power. Don't you wish they would invite Israel to multi-lateral talks on how all nuclear powers could eliminate nuclear weapons? CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] A healthcare time line
CeJ wrote: End most tendentiously. 1. Does it aim or can it achieve? 2. Extending federal plans to 30 million does not come anywhere near close to universal coverage or universal access to insured health care. 3. Directs federal subsidies towards and into the unsustained pricing bubbles centered on cost of prescription drugs (the profits of the pharmaceutical companies) and health care provision (the HMOs). So the coverage is not anywhere near universal, and, as O. himself said, you can't extend coverage without curbing costs (i.e., ending the bubbles). Even if the Repugs don't re-take control and repeal all this, we are now set up for 5 more years of bubbles in drugs and HMOs, subsidized by the bond-writing ability of the federal government. ^^^ CB; Bubbles _always_ burst. When this one bursts, it'll real socialized medicine, like a real Swedish model, not a bailout. The worst , the better ! ^ Meanwhile, if the economy turns down again and severely, look for up to 50 million Americans to lose their coverage (many of whom won't know they are out until they have to use it). The only way this could result in a public option and universal care would be if an HMO goes bust like an investment bank--or auto maker--and the federal government has to take over ownership of it. CB: See above comment ^^^ Finally, the bill seems to have created the possibility of a constitutional crisis in that people will question whether or not the federal government has the right to force you (or fine) to buy health insurance (duff policies at that) from for-profit HMOs. Now the HMOs aren't going to fight that--hell, they want the money from that too. So what will squelch any challenge to the constitutionality of it all is simply that the HMOs would cut off funding to any party that did challenge it. CB: We like constitutional crises, in general, but that sounds like a hokey militia/Confederate/states rights Tenth Amendment theory, like the Confederates and segregationist put forward. Michigan's Attorney General is trying to sign on to something. There's something of a political exorcism, purging of the rightwing taint , in all this healthcare hullabaloo. The reactionaries are jumping out of the wood work. Healthcare is like a Full moon of the political season. Ideological wherewolves flash their teeth and reveal themselves for what they are. I have to agree with Biden: health care reform this time around? Big fucking deal. Or was Biden for once in his life not being ironic? CJ CB: Well, I'm glad he said fuck on national tv /internet. That's a good sign (smile) ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Lewontin reviews Steven Rose's latest book (was Re-evaluating Lysenko)
CeJ jann...@gmail.com wrote: The pure concentrated thesis that he never got around to stating very clearly in GEB is: we are conscious because we are strange loops. CB: OK Yeah. Self-reference seems to be the culprit in generating insoluable paradoxes in mathematics. The set of all sets that don't contain _themselves_ (Russell). The liar's paradox entails referring to one_self_ as a liar (Goedel) The self _is_ riddles Or any reference to self leads to riddles,or strange loops. Although I'm not sure how there is self-reference in Bach's strange loops or Escher's. That would be interesting to look for that. I think I will. As an aside here, maybe my take on human consciousness has no value whatsoever, but my perspective is one that most people can not get: I'm an identical twin. And I always used to think that, even if I'm an exact genetic copy, we are not physically identical, not really. But what separated me from my brother is simply that I can not experience his being, his body, his life (unless ESP were possible, and nothing I ever thought or did made me think it was). That doesn't mean I thought that he and I have different souls. Rather, I always thought that even the simplest physical differences in the two copies helped bring this about. But later I thought --and still do--that even if the genes were the same and even if we were completely the same physically, we still couldn't experience each other's lives. Even if we were side by side, we weren't occupying the same space. ^^^ CB: This sounds like a Merleau-Ponty type of observation. ^^^ But maybe this is attempting to contemplate an impossiblity. In the real world, we will always be different realizations, and different lived experiences, and different memories of those lived experiences adding to those lived experiences so long as life goes on. Oh, and even if DH is a significant thinker about such matters, I never did find his writing very interesting to read. Perhaps GEB really needed an editor that understood the author more? Or perhaps I ought to delve into his later stuff, now that he no longer sells hundreds of thousands of unread copies and he has stuck with 'cognitive science'. CB: I happened to have had a personal intellectual history of studying paradoxes, going back to when I heard of Russell's paradox as a college freshman. This was before I studied dialectics , wherein paradoxical contradiction is central. So, I was interested in the focus on strange loops. By and large, I don't read for the writing style of the writer. I'm not much of a reacreational reader of books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter Hofstadter's thesis about consciousness, first expressed in GEB but also present in several of his later books, is that it is an emergent consequence of seething lower-level activity in the brain. In GEB he draws an analogy between the social organization of a colony of ants and the mind seen as a coherent colony of neurons. In particular, Hofstadter claims that our sense of having (or being) an I comes from the abstract pattern he terms a strange loop, which is an abstract cousin of such concrete phenomena as audio and video feedback, and which Hofstadter has defined as a level-crossing feedback loop. The prototypical example of this abstract notion is the self-referential structure at the core of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Hofstadter's 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop carries his vision of consciousness considerably further, including the idea that each human I is distributed over numerous brains, rather than being limited to precisely one brain.[20] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop I Am a Strange Loop From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search I Am A Strange Loop Strageloop.jpg Author Douglas Hofstadter Country USA LanguageEnglish Subject(s) Consciousness, strange loops, intelligence Publisher Basic Books Publication dateMarch 26th, 2007 Media type Hardback Pages 412 pages ISBN978-0465030781 OCLC Number 64554976 LC Classification BD438.5 .H64 2007 Preceded by Gödel, Escher, Bach I Am a Strange Loop is a 2007 book by Douglas Hofstadter, examining in depth the concept of a strange loop originally developed in his 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach. “ In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference. ” — Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop p.363 Hofstadter had previously expressed disappointment with how Gödel, Escher, Bach, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for general nonfiction, was received. In the preface to the twentieth-anniversary edition, Hofstadter laments that his book has been misperceived as a hodge-podge of neat things with no central theme. He states: GEB is a very personal attempt to say how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Evolution of Culture
Why did we need dogs to develop gesturing. We could gesture to people. On 3/31/10, CeJ jann...@gmail.com wrote: One interesting theory is about what separates our line of development from other homonids--co-evolution with another highly intelligent, highly social animal--dogs. This might lead us down other areas of inquiry, such as , if human language first devloped as gesture, did it develop with canines , with our interaction with canines? Did domestication of dogs help make us more communicatively capable? CJ http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/s/275/Science/Coevolution03.pdf Co-evolution of Humans and Canids http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-1405262/Co-Evolution-New-evidence-suggests.html If the DNA evidence is correct, it is creatures such as these that domesticated the wolf and turned it into a dog. People may have stolen wolf pups from their dens to play with or just to keep for the enjoyment of watching them. Like the young animals that are brought home as toys by tribal hunting peoples today, most of these pups probably had short lives. As Susan Crockford argues, some may have possessed the hormonal characteristics that produced dog-like behaviour and would have adapted to life in a human camp. (5) Those that survived to adulthood and produced pups of their own may have been the first ancestors of the dogs, which have lived with humans ever since. This was a new development in biology and history. For the first time, hunting parties and camp groups composed of two distinct species began to spread across the landscapes of the world. It makes little sense to think of this process as one in which early humans domesticated the wolf. Aside from the human use of simple tools, there was probably little difference in the complexity of hunting patterns or social organization between early human bands and wolf packs. If humans domesticated the wolf, is it not equally probable that wolves domesticated humans? Were the changes that developed between wolf and dog any more significant than those that occurred to early humans through their constant association with canids? In a recent article in the magazine Discovering Archaeology, biologist Wolfgang Schleidt notes the apparent temporal coincidence between the emergence of humankind and of dogkind, and suggests that, This intertwining process of hominization and caninisation suggests co-evolution. (6) Schleidt proposes a specific scenario, involving humans emulating wolves and eventually co-opting wolves in hunting the migratory reindeer of Ice Age Eurasia. Yet a much broader view of the interactions between humans and wolves, and the results of these interactions, might be envisaged. In comparing ourselves with other animals, we think of intelligence, self-awareness, the ability to conceive new ideas and foresee long-term consequences as traits that are uniquely human. In the animal world these traits are most clearly mirrored by the great apes, and in a lesser way by our other primate relatives. But are all the characteristics that we think of as making us human inherited only from our primate ancestry? What about qualities such as patience, endurance, unthinking loyalty, co-operation, devotion to family and social group? What of our abilities to organize co-operative activities based on a finely tuned sense of social hierarchy and mutual responsibilities? Wolves seem to do these things significantly better than humans, and at least as well as most non-human primates. The biologists who have made their life-work the study of wolves describe an animal that lives in a world of complex social hierarchies, with well-organized co-operative work patterns, finely tuned communication skills, and outbreaks of spontaneous joy. Together with their superior ability to scent prey, to run more swiftly and endure longer than humans, these social qualities are the basis of their successful adaptation as hunters. And these are also qualities that would have been useful in the environment that saw our early ancestors turn into true humans. Given the situation of hunting bands composed of early humans and their wolf-dog companions, animals with complementary character and abilities, can we be sure that the process of domestication acted in only one direction? The DNA evidence suggests that these animals lived and worked together for some 5000 human generations before the emergence of societies and cultures that we can describe as fully human. In the course of these generations wolves were transformed into dogs, but did their dogs also transform ancient people into humans? Would archaic humans have developed into such a successful and dominant species if we had not had the opportunity to learn from, imitate and absorb into our cultures the traits and abilities of the wolves with whom we lived? Hints of our unacknowledged debt to wolves may perhaps be found in the cultural memories of human
[Marxism-Thaxis] AlterNet
Top Stories, Video and Blog Posts for AlterNet March 31st, 2010 http://www.alternet.org ___ Exposing the Deep Swamp of Republican Hypocrisy -- How a Party Alienated the Nation By Russell King, Russ' Filtered News I grew up in a profoundly Republican home so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. http://www.alternet.org/story/146237/dear_gop%2C_you%27re_irrational_hypocrites%3A_how_you_lost_me_and_you_lost_america OBAMA AND DEMS PUT A STOP TO THE REPUBLICANS' KICKBACK CASH COW IN THE COLLEGE LOAN INDUSTRY By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet For years, Sallie Mae fed on taxpayers to finance Republican campaigns and private golf courses for their executives. No more. http://www.alternet.org/story/146234/obama_and_dems_put_a_stop_to_the_republicans%27_kickback_cash_cow_in_the_college_loan_industry HOW AFRAID ARE YOU? By Don Hazen, AlterNet Threats of violence are stinking up the air in America -- and they need to be taken seriously. We need your help. http://www.alternet.org/story/146241/how_afraid_are_you DISSIDENT CATHOLIC BISHOP CALLS FOR POPE TO RESIGN OVER SEX ABUSE SCANDAL By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! Prominent Catholics say the Pope must be ready to answer questions about the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history. http://www.alternet.org/story/146239/dissident_catholic_bishop_calls_for_pope_to_resign_over_sex_abuse_scandal HEDGES: IS AMERICA YEARNING FOR FASCISM? By Chris Hedges, Truthdig We can laugh at the desperate people who threaten violence against elected officials. But they are not the fools. We are. http://www.alternet.org/story/146226/hedges%3A_is_america_yearning_for_fascism MOBY ON WHY HE WENT VEGAN AND WHAT HE THINKS OF 'CONSCIENTIOUS CARNIVORES' By Kerry Trueman, AlterNet The author of 'Gristle' discusses his biggest food influences, why we should stop subsidizing support factory farms and agribusiness, and why he's optimistic about the future. http://www.alternet.org/story/146189/moby_on_why_he_went_vegan_and_what_he_thinks_of_%27conscientious_carnivores%27_ OUR GOVERNMENT IS PLANNING TO STAY AT WAR FOR THE NEXT 80 YEARS -- ANYONE GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? By Tom Hayden, LA Times Without public debate and without congressional hearings, a segment of the Pentagon and fellow travelers have embraced a doctrine known as the Long War. http://www.alternet.org/story/146236/our_government_is_planning_to_stay_at_war_for_the_next_80_years_--_anyone_got_a_problem_with_that WHY I TRIED TO PUT THE CUFFS ON KARL ROVE By Jodie Evans, AlterNet We could not allow this war criminal to tout his book around the country and get away with describing anything tied to Bush as courageous. http://www.alternet.org/story/146231/why_i_tried_to_put_the_cuffs_on_karl_rove OBAMA'S NEXT MAJOR TASK: JOBS By Robert B. Reich, Robert Reich's Blog We need $300 billion for jobs, and we need it now. http://www.alternet.org/story/146233/obama%27s_next_major_task%3A_jobs WHAT IF FOX NEWS ACTUALLY WANTS MOB VIOLENCE? By Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America Fox News talkers did their best to trivialize the illegal, terrorist threats made against elected officials, and implied they were deserved. http://www.alternet.org/story/146232/what_if_fox_news_actually_wants_mob_violence ?THE $250,000 JOINT By Anthony Papa, AlterNet A single joint smoked by Amir Varick Amma cost him an additional 5 years in prison, and taxpayers roughly $250,000. http://www.alternet.org/story/146215/%EF%BB%BFthe_%24250%2C000_joint ___ AlterNet Blogs: Conservative Conspiracy Fearmongering to Cost GOP Seats? Tana Ganeva http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/conservative-conspiracy-fearmongering-to-cost-gop-seats/ Priests Pedophilia: What Authoritarian Religion, Families Schools Have Wrought Tikkun Daily http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/priests-pedophilia-what-authoritarian-religion-families-schools-have-wrought/ Hey, Tea Partiers and Catholic Faithful: Blind Trust Just Isn't Enough - Try Looking at Facts lauraflanders http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/the-f-word-trust-just-isnt-enough/ French President Sarkozy: Welcome to the Club of States Who Don't Turn Their Back on the Sick and the Poor. zaidjilani http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/french-president-sarkozy-welcome-to-the-club-of-states-who-don%e2%80%99t-turn-their-back-on-the-sick-and-the-poor/ When Teenagers Seek Abortion Care: 5 Myths Exposed RH Reality Check http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/when-teenagers-seek-abortion-care-the-myths-are-exposed/ Jon Stewart Takes on the Right's Violent, Post-Health Care Hysteria AlterNet Staff http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/jon-stewart-takes-on-the-rights-violent-post-health-care-hysteria/ USA Today: 52% Still Want Public Option in Health Care Adele Stan
[Marxism-Thaxis] Alternet
Top Stories, Video and Blog Posts for AlterNet March 31st, 2010 http://www.alternet.org ___ Exposing the Deep Swamp of Republican Hypocrisy -- How a Party Alienated the Nation By Russell King, Russ' Filtered News I grew up in a profoundly Republican home so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. http://www.alternet.org/story/146237/dear_gop%2C_you%27re_irrational_hypocrites%3A_how_you_lost_me_and_you_lost_america OBAMA AND DEMS PUT A STOP TO THE REPUBLICANS' KICKBACK CASH COW IN THE COLLEGE LOAN INDUSTRY By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet For years, Sallie Mae fed on taxpayers to finance Republican campaigns and private golf courses for their executives. No more. http://www.alternet.org/story/146234/obama_and_dems_put_a_stop_to_the_republicans%27_kickback_cash_cow_in_the_college_loan_industry HOW AFRAID ARE YOU? By Don Hazen, AlterNet Threats of violence are stinking up the air in America -- and they need to be taken seriously. We need your help. http://www.alternet.org/story/146241/how_afraid_are_you DISSIDENT CATHOLIC BISHOP CALLS FOR POPE TO RESIGN OVER SEX ABUSE SCANDAL By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! Prominent Catholics say the Pope must be ready to answer questions about the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history. http://www.alternet.org/story/146239/dissident_catholic_bishop_calls_for_pope_to_resign_over_sex_abuse_scandal HEDGES: IS AMERICA YEARNING FOR FASCISM? By Chris Hedges, Truthdig We can laugh at the desperate people who threaten violence against elected officials. But they are not the fools. We are. http://www.alternet.org/story/146226/hedges%3A_is_america_yearning_for_fascism MOBY ON WHY HE WENT VEGAN AND WHAT HE THINKS OF 'CONSCIENTIOUS CARNIVORES' By Kerry Trueman, AlterNet The author of 'Gristle' discusses his biggest food influences, why we should stop subsidizing support factory farms and agribusiness, and why he's optimistic about the future. http://www.alternet.org/story/146189/moby_on_why_he_went_vegan_and_what_he_thinks_of_%27conscientious_carnivores%27_ OUR GOVERNMENT IS PLANNING TO STAY AT WAR FOR THE NEXT 80 YEARS -- ANYONE GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? By Tom Hayden, LA Times Without public debate and without congressional hearings, a segment of the Pentagon and fellow travelers have embraced a doctrine known as the Long War. http://www.alternet.org/story/146236/our_government_is_planning_to_stay_at_war_for_the_next_80_years_--_anyone_got_a_problem_with_that WHY I TRIED TO PUT THE CUFFS ON KARL ROVE By Jodie Evans, AlterNet We could not allow this war criminal to tout his book around the country and get away with describing anything tied to Bush as courageous. http://www.alternet.org/story/146231/why_i_tried_to_put_the_cuffs_on_karl_rove OBAMA'S NEXT MAJOR TASK: JOBS By Robert B. Reich, Robert Reich's Blog We need $300 billion for jobs, and we need it now. http://www.alternet.org/story/146233/obama%27s_next_major_task%3A_jobs WHAT IF FOX NEWS ACTUALLY WANTS MOB VIOLENCE? By Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America Fox News talkers did their best to trivialize the illegal, terrorist threats made against elected officials, and implied they were deserved. http://www.alternet.org/story/146232/what_if_fox_news_actually_wants_mob_violence ?THE $250,000 JOINT By Anthony Papa, AlterNet A single joint smoked by Amir Varick Amma cost him an additional 5 years in prison, and taxpayers roughly $250,000. http://www.alternet.org/story/146215/%EF%BB%BFthe_%24250%2C000_joint ___ AlterNet Blogs: Conservative Conspiracy Fearmongering to Cost GOP Seats? Tana Ganeva http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/conservative-conspiracy-fearmongering-to-cost-gop-seats/ Priests Pedophilia: What Authoritarian Religion, Families Schools Have Wrought Tikkun Daily http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/priests-pedophilia-what-authoritarian-religion-families-schools-have-wrought/ Hey, Tea Partiers and Catholic Faithful: Blind Trust Just Isn't Enough - Try Looking at Facts lauraflanders http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/the-f-word-trust-just-isnt-enough/ French President Sarkozy: Welcome to the Club of States Who Don't Turn Their Back on the Sick and the Poor. zaidjilani http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/french-president-sarkozy-welcome-to-the-club-of-states-who-don%e2%80%99t-turn-their-back-on-the-sick-and-the-poor/ When Teenagers Seek Abortion Care: 5 Myths Exposed RH Reality Check http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/when-teenagers-seek-abortion-care-the-myths-are-exposed/ Jon Stewart Takes on the Right's Violent, Post-Health Care Hysteria AlterNet Staff http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/jon-stewart-takes-on-the-rights-violent-post-health-care-hysteria/ USA Today: 52% Still Want Public Option in Health Care Adele Stan
[Marxism-Thaxis] When a Union Acts Like a Big Corporation
When a Union Acts Like a Big Corporation by Carl Finamore, 2010-03-29 http://beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=7959 A Report From SEIU’s Civil Trial Against California Union Reformers The quiet decorum of a court room is a far cry from a union hall. But in San Francisco, it is precisely in a federal court where an extremely crucial and unprecedented debate is taking place that may fundamentally alter how much democratic control members exercise over local union chapters. The 1.8 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has brought a $25 million lawsuit alleging breach of fiduciary responsibilities under both national and state laws and for violations of the SEIU constitution against 26 former elected officers, staff and organizers of their third-largest national unit, the 150,000 member United Healthcare Workers –West (UHW). The 26 defendants are currently supporters of a new union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) which is also being sued. During the first week of the trial, both sides presented opening statements and SEIU then began presenting their testimony. Early this week, plaintiffs will rest their case and the 26 defendants will get their chance in front of the nine-person jury. SEIU claims the defendants “sabotaged our union, misused our dues money, and deliberately and directly harmed members.†Is it unlawful for locally elected union leaders to vigorously defend their members even when in sharp conflict with the international union?This is the real issue posed. Allegations of fiduciary malfeasance only shroud widely differing concepts of union democracy. In that sense, this is fundamentally a political trial and not about misappropriation of funds. It all started a few years ago when UHW expressed disagreement with the international union’s proposal to unilaterally remove 65,000 long-term healthcare workers from the local without the approval of these affected workers. Opposition began to particularly fester because SEIU President Andy Stern sought to transfer these UHW members into a local headed by his close ally, Tyrone Freeman, who was widely known to be corrupt and ineffective at improving workers’ wages and benefits. Actually, Freeman is now under criminal investigation by federal authorities and has been removed from office. Nonetheless, SEIU international officers ultimately pushed through their proposal by taking over the local and eliminating the opposition -the local UHW constitution was suspended and all elected officers removed. It was actively opposing these actions of the international, the defendants claim, that they are guilty of and nothing more. If SEIU is successful in inflicting these incredibly onerous financial damages on local union officials, it will obviously have an enormously chilling effect on future local union deliberations. A multi-million lawsuit is enough to make even the strongest local leader a little jittery about taking on their international officials. Corporate Model vs Democracy Countering arguments made by SEIU attorneys in their March 22 opening statement to the jury, defense counsel Dan Siegel shot back by asserting that “A local union is not the same as a corporate branch of Bank of America.†He is correct. In the corporate world, headquarters dictates to the branches so that the product retains uniformity from top to bottom. Everyone toes the line and everything is the same, from the size of each burger to the amount of ketchup splattered on each bun. But unions deal with people, not products or brands. Each local union affiliated with a national union also retains its own democratically-approved bylaws. Each local, as a result, is constitutionally responsible for defending the interests of its respective members who elect and pay salaries of local officers. Each local is, therefore, a distinct unit of the larger national organization, much like states operate within a federal structure. “This is a case unique in U.S. history,†Siegel told me in an interview. “An international union brought a lawsuit against union activists based upon actions they took as elected leaders of their local.†Defendants openly acknowledge that the UHW 100-member executive board did in fact vote, often unanimously, to devote local resources against threats by the International union to shift long-term healthcare workers out of their local. Later, as the dispute escalated, the fight melded into opposing attempts by the international union to impose the trusteeship or direct control over the local. SEIU Loses Ground But in a stunning development, SEIU attorneys were actually forced to admit in court, under direct questioning from US District Court Judge William Alsup, that none of this was illegal. The judge also admonished these same attorneys while the jury was out of the courtroom that “You are being too greedy!†He was referring to the outlandish damage claims against the defendants. The
[Marxism-Thaxis] Tea Party, Coffee Party: Why Not A Black Party?
Tea Party, Coffee Party: Why Not A Black Party? By Ron Walters NNPA Columnist http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=smenu=76twindow=Defaultmad=Nosdetail=8428wpage=1skeyword=sidate=ccat=ccatm=restate=restatus=reoption=retype=repmin=repmax=rebed=rebath=subname=pform=sc=1070hn=michigancitizenhe=.com Now we have the Coffee Party, which I suppose is a liberal counterpart to the Tea Party that emerged in the Washington, D.C., area by folks led by Annabel Park, a documentary filmmaker who was horrified by the ugly, menacing, anti-government spirit of the Tea Party crowd that emerged to disrupt the flow of civil discussion about important issues. I’ve been asking, ‘Where are the folks who voted for Barack Obama, believing in Hope and Change and pinning for a new post-Bush, post-Conservative America?’ Well, many of the ground troops of the Obama movement that were responsible for its grass roots organizing were young adults who went back to school, back to their professional desks or somewhere back to their normal pursuits, but away from politics. In their de-mobilization, they left the field open to the crazies who have mounted a movement not designed to be a force for change, but for the status quo and even for retrogression, wanting to “take back America” from a future they fear. Organizing for Change, the organization created as the repository of the Obama campaign, has largely been ineffective in my evaluation and David Plouffe, its head and Obama’s campaign manager, has recently gone into the White House. So, what is developing is a discussion at the community level across the country about the role of government and the Tea Party, and now the Coffee Party. The Republican party seems to be attempting to grab hold of the Tea Party movement and turn it into an election day force against Democrats vulnerable to elections in this cycle. At this point, the Coffee party has not come that far and the Democratic party has not made its move. Where does this put Blacks? There is a healthy discussion going on in the Black community about the role of President Obama and his responsibility, or the lack of it, to the Black community, but with the exception of Tavis Smiley for all the folks who believe that they have to make him accountable to a Black agenda, they have not yet put a mechanism on the ground to do it. There has been a long discussion about the efficacy of a Black political party and many years ago, I joined Ron Daniels and others in an attempt to create one. The irony of that experiment was while half of the people attracted to the idea wanted it to serve as a power-base for elections, others wanted to only exist as a grass roots organizing tool. It eventually split apart along those lines. Today, it is clear, however, that beyond the general discussion about accountability, there needs to be not only a place where you get down to the “nuts and bolts” about exactly who should be accountable about what, but how to develop effective methodologies of tactics and strategies to achieve it. Thus, whether you call it a party or a posse doesn’t matter, the point is that there is a necessity to mobilize to achieve the ends people are talking about. A Black party could enable the discussion about accountability to focus on the cabinet agencies where the Federal budget exist to achieve some of the things needed by the Black community. Some of the specific programs being rolled out around jobs and a new focus on home foreclosure and etc. look good, but others, such as “race to the top” as an educational program, looks questionable to me — and the issue is that few of these programs across the board have been developed with the vigorous input and engagement of those for whom the programs are supposed to be designed. A Black party could also monitor and engage local initiatives more effectively. Where the rubber meets the road is in the local communities and there, mayors, county officials, state legislators and others presumably have some idea of what it takes to make Black communities whole, what resources are addressed to that task and what is lacking. A mobilized force could assist in this task of projecting community needs and monitoring whether or to what extent they are met. What I am suggesting has been happening to some extent with the vigilance of our Civil Rights organizations, the Institute of the Black World 21st Century and the action of progressive Black officials at the national, state and local levels. However, there should be a greater role for citizen engagement and a Black party mechanism could be the key. What we are witnessing is the rush of media attention to these movements, a dynamic that gives them power and places our interests farther and farther into the background. Mobilizing would give us the power to regain the footing to address the truth of our condition. Dr. Ron Walters is a Political Analysts and Professor Emeritus of the University of
[Marxism-Thaxis] Exposing the Deep Swamp of Republican Hypocrisy -- How a Party Alienated the Nation
AlterNet Exposing the Deep Swamp of Republican Hypocrisy -- How a Party Alienated the Nation By Russell King, Russ' Filtered News Posted on March 31, 2010, Printed on March 31, 2010 http://www.alternet.org/story/146237/ Dear Conservative Americans, The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You’ve lost me and you’ve lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I’d like to give you some advice and an invitation. First, the invitation: Come back to us. Now the advice. You’re going to have to come up with a platform that isn’t built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from yours; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task. Your party — the GOP — and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it’s tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples – by no means an exhaustive list — of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred. If you’re going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you’ll have to start by draining this swamp: Hypocrisy You can’t flip out — and threaten impeachment – when Dems use a parliamentary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that’s centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all. You can’t vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it’s done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against is especially ugly) — 114 of you (at last count) did just that — and it’s even worse when you secretly beg for more. You can’t fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal. You can’t call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas. Are they “unlawful enemy combatants” or are they “prisoners of war” at Gitmo? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts. You can’t refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn’t meet with you. You can’t rail against using teleprompters while using teleprompters. Repeatedly. You can’t rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening. You can’t be for immigration reform, then against it . You can’t enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it. You can’t flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Ford. You can’t complain that the president hasn’t closed Gitmo yet when you’ve campaigned to keep Gitmo open. You can’t flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Nixon. Ike. You didn’t even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed leaders of a country that’s not on “kissing terms” with the US. You can’t complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent. (And, no, Newt — the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.) You can’t attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hours when you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn’t issue any condemnation). *The Obama administration did the day of the event. You can’t throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when — in fact — only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack. You can’t condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attempted terror attack on his. You can’t mount a boycott against singers who say they’re ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he’s ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Maoist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail. You can’t cry that the health care bill is too long, then cry that it’s
[Marxism-Thaxis] Brits tune to telly for look at Detroit's 'dytopia'
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/detroitcityhallinsider/index.php Category: Life in Detroit Posted by Joel Kurth (The Detroit News) on Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 3:00 PM Brits tune to telly for look at Detroit's 'dytopia' Call it ruin porn or decay worship, but the Euro fascination with Detroit continued Saturday with the debut of director Julien Temple's documentary, 'Requiem for Detroit?' on BBC2. Aging hipsters no doubt recall Temple from numerous documentaries of the Sex Pistols, Joe Strummer, music videos for Whitney Houston and David Bowie and forays into Hollywood including Earth Girls Are Easy. The movie isn't yet available in the states, but judging by the few clips that have trickled out on YouTube and elsewhere, it looks like a familiar tale: Bloody 'ell. The city that invented the working class sure is dodgy, all right? The film is getting good buzz on the Internet, but Temple may not have done himself any favors with an op-ed last week in The Guardian that the Independent Film Channel dismissed as 'shockingly naive.'. The piece reveals that Temple didn't know of Detroit's decline until he visited the city and he relies on language that some might consider purple prose: Detroit is an Alice-like journey into a severely dystopian future. the giant rubber tyre that dwarfs the nonexistent traffic in ironic testament to the busted hubris of Motown's auto-makers, the city's ripped backside begins to glide past outside the windows. Temple draws pat conculsions to complex issues. He blames racial problems on the greed-fuelled willingness of the auto barons who siphoned black workers and treat(ed) them like subhuman citizens. Some might quibble with that description, arguing the Great Migration saved African-Americans from economic despair, Jim Crow and the boll weevil and helped create a new middle class. Judging from the article, it's also unclear whether Temple set foot in the Renaissance Center or MGM Grand Casino. If he had, he could have sipped a Venti Iced Cinnamon Dolce Latte and avoided this sentence: People have virtually nowhere to buy fresh produce. Starbucks? Forget it. City Hall and the Census may also take issue with his claim that The population of Detroit ... is almost two-thirds down on its overall peak in the early 50s. The city .. cannot afford to cut the grass or light its streets, let alone educate or feed its citizens. Really? In fairness, Temple is known as a far better better director than writer, and the early clips indicate the documentary includes a Who's Who of Detroiters, including activist Grace Lee Boggs, Heidelberg Project maestro Tyree Guyton, hippie agitator John Sinclair, Detroityes guru Lowell Boileau and ex-Councilwoman Martha Reeves. Here's a few quick peeks that have emerged online: From The Detroit News: http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/detroitcityhallinsider/index.php#ixzz0jlzk6dMA ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Janpaksh: Stop the Corporate Terror Against the Adivasis of Kalingnagar
*Please find below statement from **Janpaksh **(People's Side)* on the recent armed action against the inhabitants of Kalingnagar in Orrisa (India). On April 1st at Jantar Mantar a protest rally is being organised at 11 AM to protest against this action. * Fraternally, Damodar --- * * Statement of Protest by Janpaksh * *Stop the Corporate Terror Against the Adivasis of Kalingnagar* Yesterday (31^st March, 2010) in Kalinga Nagar industrial complex in Orissa's Jajpur district heavily armed para-military force brutally attacked the adivasis who are resisting the construction of 7.5 km road, being constructed for Tata's (the biggest Indian industrial house) upcoming project. The adivasi villages have been razed and houses demolished. In Balligotha village firing on adivasis took place injuring about 15 persons. One of them who is seriously injured has been whisked away by the police. This brutal attack is organized after days of preparation in order to put down the resistance of adivasis against Tata's project which will displace thousands of families. About 25 platoons of police and paramilitary forces have been deployed and the district administration has started construction in Kalinga Nagar industrial area of Common Corridor Road (CCR). The state government has been falsely claiming that the land it wants to acquire is wasteland, while the reality is something diametrically different. This area that has been called as the core zone consists of green hills with rich forests, tribal settlements of more than ten thousand people spread over two gram panchayats, agricultural lands, ancient tanks, grazing fields, village common lands and roads. Twenty per cent of the Project area has quality forest where timber species like Sal, Kuruma, Vandan, Ashan and Piasal, besides Mahula, Kendu are plentily available. The total area of waste land is less than 5 acres on the Northern side. The Orissa government till date has signed nearly 40 MoUs with various industrial houses and groups to set up their plants in Orissa out of which 13 plants are planned in Kalinga Nagar of Jajpur district The government has been equally brutal against the tribal communities gathered at Maikanch and Kashipur in protest against Utkal Alumina Project, whereby three tribals were killed in Maikanch in the recent past. The government has come out openly as the hireling of the exploitative capitalists, at the expense of the poor and the voiceless. It has been brazenly trampling upon the basic right of livelihood of the local population with impunity This is not the first time in Kaling Nagar that the state and its armed forces have proved to be so brazenly vindictive, aligning with the industrialists at the cost of local communities. In the past also it has used its force to silence the resistance of the poor. Four years ago in police firing 14 tribals, including three women, were murdered, on January 2, 2006 while opposing forcible land acquisition by the Tata Steel for its proposed steel project in the area. The same saga is being repeated today. We severely condemn this barbarous attack on adivasis by the police and para-military forces who are acting as a hired mercenary of Tata Steel company and demand that it should immediately stop the construction work of the Common Corridor Road project as it will be built on fertile farm land and the community land of the tribals who are the real owner of this land. We appeal to all the organizations and concerned citizens to raise their voice against the Fascist predatory tendencies of the Govt and express solidarity with the belligerent tribals of Kalinga Nagar. Sd/ Convenor Janpaksh - ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Evolution of Culture
Why did we need dogs to develop gesturing. We could gesture to people. But drove forward that development? There is a really cute program on TV here in Japan that shows the adventures of a chimpanzee (who is very socialized to humans) who is paired up with a bull dog. The two animals do communicate, but they have to learn to read each other's body language and gestures. The question here being, does their communication constitute something outside of what chimps usually use, what dogs usually use, to communicate? One particular theory about the possible gestural origins of human language says that humans developed gestural routines and phonetic skills, and the gestural routines basically migrated over to the phonetic realm (we use our faces, vocal tracts and upper body to SPEAK a language). If two species like hominids and wolves interact, it might overall mean that their paths of evolutions only partly converge. A recent development in human-dog development, or at least one that is obvious, is the fairly recent creation of cute, child-like breeds (while the archetypal dog is still wolf-like in appearance--the Alsatian, the Husky, the Japanese Akita, etc.). Has the co-evolutionary story of humans-dogs more or less hit a deadend for both species (with wolves themselves threatened by extinction and the future of dogs totally dependent on humans' abilities to feed and house them). I'm simply speculating that co-evolution with dogs might well have aided the human development of language--both in a cultural evolutionary and biological evolutionary sense. Since, for example, groups built around humans and dogs would have had to develop a two-species of communication in order to hunt and herd. If you watch a skilled herder with a skilled border collie, you might see something that is quite analogous or even a holdover from when this sort of interaction was how hominids in the human line of developed lived. CJ -- Japan Higher Education Outlook http://japanheo.blogspot.com/ ELT in Japan http://eltinjapan.blogspot.com/ We are Feral Cats http://wearechikineko.blogspot.com/ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Riddle of the Self
CB: Is this excerpt sort of what's in a name ? A rose by any other name has an ineluctable essence remainder. To put it schematically, in his last work, M-P is moving beyond his re-working of Husserlian phenomenlogy and Sartre's existentialism. I can't help but think he has taken on here structuralist approaches to semantics, via Levi-Strauss integration of such approaches into anthropology. This would have been about the same time Levi-Strauss was taking up a lot of Althusser's attention too. It seems Sartre was in a L-S phase as well (we had discussions about this last year here at M-T). Perhaps much of what M-P is working out here (before he dies of a stroke, about a month before I was born) is best placed in dialogic relationships with Sartre and L-S. That anthropological phase of Sartre tends to get dismissed in philosophical circles (but then again MOST of Sartre gets slagged anyway). I think I need to quote more of the original M-P text, but so far my online resources have proved too limited. It's a pain to have to go to print sources right now, as having had to move offices twice in the last year, much of the collection is in opaque boxes stacked high so the cats can climb on them. Make a note: follow up on M-P re: embodied cognition and semantics. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] US health care reform: cash for clunkers
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/21/health-care-vote-business-beltway-congress.html?partner=whiteglove_google Private Insurers America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry group for private insurers, has complained that health care reform leaves 23 million Americans uninsured, imposes drastic cuts in Medicare Advantage and levies a $70 billion tax hike (over 10 years) on the industry. While HMOs whine a lot, they actually came out OK. Their biggest nightmare was long ago removed from the legislation: a government-run plan to compete with private companies. Better yet, health insurers get 32 million new taxpayer-subsidized customers. In essence, it's a big Cash for Clunkers program for HMOs. Among the HMOs, the biggest winners are Cigna ( CI - news - people ), Aetna ( AET - news - people ) and UnitedHealthcare ( UNH - news - people ) because they are concentrated in big employer markets that will be largely unaffected by the bill. The bill is more likely to have a negative impact on WellPoint ( WLP - news - people ) and Humana ( HUM - news - people ). WellPoint could lose shelf space in the individual market it now dominates in many states. Humana has a big Medicare Advantage business and will get hammered by the reimbursement cuts. Drug and Biotech Companies Drug companies like Merck ( MRK - news - people ), Pfizer ( PFE - news - people ) and Amgen ( AMGN - news - people ) are among the biggest industry winners in the legislation. They suddenly will have tens of millions more insured customers who can afford their expensive medicines. The pharmaceutical industry's trade group was a big supporter of the legislation, and any threats to the industry were stripped out early or never included. There's no real plan for comparing treatments to one another, one approach that could lower costs, or for giving the government power to bargain for lower prices. The bill also gives drug makers extra layers of monopoly protection for protein-based biotech drugs, one of the industry's hottest areas. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
