Who Does Schwarzenegger Represent?
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The most obvious question that arises in connection with Arnold Schwarzenegger is: who does he actually represent?

Fellow Republican candidate Tom McClintock at least has a real constituency. Some might claim that this constituency is, as a group, selfish and short-sighted on the issue of taxation, as well as hypocritical and mean-spirited on the issue of immigration, but it is nonetheless a real and substantial group of voters with actual interests at stake in the political process. And of course the Democratic and Green candidates have real constituencies, as well.

Schwarzenegger, by contrast, has no real base of support. As a candidate, he is entirely a media creation, an "Arnold Headroom" of sorts who, with no past history in government, has stepped through the flickering screen to convince voters that the only way out of the frying pan of the Davis Administration is to jump into the fire of his media-driven road show.

So, who does Schwarzenegger actually represent? To find out, we should ask who gains by his election. The answer lies outside of the Calfornia electorate and its legitimate distress with the Davis administration, for which Schwarzenegger offers no real solutions. Interested parties include, in particular, the Bush Administration, with its concerns about the coming presidential race, and, ironically, the very energy companies that were granted enormous chunks of our Treasury by Davis during the so-called "energy crisis." These companies are now engaged in a legal battle with Governor Davis and Lieutenant Governor Bustamante over the billions they stole during that manufactured crisis, and a new governor may be their only hope of keeping those ill-gotten gains.

The Bush administration and its energy allies are aligned in a well-known and mutually-supportive pact of self interest whose philosophy is: "Why settle for just a piece when we can have it all?" And both have reason to believe that a new Republican governor for California would provide them with welcome relief from their overlapping electoral, and legal, challenges.

In that connection, Schwarzenegger's meeting on April 12th with top Bush strategist Karl Rove, along with the involvement of Bush campaign advisors Noelia Rodriguez, Gerry Parsky, Mindy Tucker and others in the recall effort itself, takes on a truly troubling caste. Tucker is quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle of August 6th as saying, "We've identified some areas where the recall will help us build the party -- not only for the recall, but also for '04, which everyone believes is important." GOP strategist Sean Walsh is quoted in the same article as stating that "The Democrats (in California) are going to come unglued, and it's going to bleed over into the presidential race."

Such involvements raise the concern that the recall drive might be an attempt by the Bush Administration and its energy allies to eliminate Davis, who they can never completely own, and take direct control over "their" new state through a candidate who is beholden to no one but themselves, resulting in even less accountability than before, the release of energy companies from their financial obligations, and the possibility of a Florida-like corruption of California's electoral process during the coming presidential contest.

Perhaps that is why the Schwarzenegger campaign looks like nothing so much as an invasion by an aggressive foreign power. The candidate rides in a military vehicle, and claims that he is going to "terminate" the governor. His caravan includes three buses named "Predator", which is the name not only of a Schwarzenegger film, but of a remote-controlled attack drone that was used in the recent (some would say ongoing) war that has devastated both the nation of Iraq and our own national budget. And now, television reporters are bragging on the air that their "news" reporters will be traveling in one of those predatory buses, like the "embedded" reporters of the recent Iraq campaign.

When seen in this context, the litany of charges that have surfaced regarding Schwarzenegger's abuse of women, his sexist and racist comments, his opportunistic business practices, and so on, while indicative of a person whose scruples are dominated by his crass desires, are ultimately not the main point. Schwarzenegger never could have been a candidate in the first place solely on his merits, and so his deficits are, to a certain extent, equally "irrelevant," since the fundamental impetus for his candidacy lies not in his personal qualities, but in the interests that support him. Very telling in that regard is the protective response of the electronic media, which have endowed him with a Reagan-like Teflon immunity by spinning their coverage in his favor, and by granting him unlimited and unequal access to the air, presumably because they see in him a vehicle for their own corporate interests, from media deregulation to maintaining the present low rate of corporate taxation. One cannot help but be reminded of the role of the media as cheerleaders during the war on Iraq. What such coverage shows is that this candidate, *whatever* his personal failings, will continue to be deliberately imposed upon the electorate, warts and all.

But the media, while complicit, are not entirely to blame. As Jacques Ellul said in his classic work "Propaganda," you cannot successfully deceive a community unless, at some unconscious level, its members want to believe what you're saying. And the desire to be rid of Davis, and to believe that they can somehow, painlessly and without real struggle, re-assert their authority over a political process that has, in reality, slipped for the moment beyond their control, has caused voters to focus pathetically on "Arnold" as an empty receptacle into which they can pour all of their hopes and dreams for some kind of a voter resurgence. There is a deep emotional desire to avoid direct acknowledgement of, and engagement with, the unpleasant but very real loss of political power by the people of this state that culminated in the last election's Hobson's choice of Gray Davis as the better of two bad options. And this denial, like that of an alcoholic, is driving some voters toward a candidate who will only take them deeper into the powerlessness whose perception they are desperately trying to escape.

Electoral reform and grass-roots organizing are the only roads to a true resurgence of voter control within California. In the meantime, action hero rescue fantasies can only lead the state into further distress. This recall is a trap, not a solution. Hopefully, California's voters will see through the ploy and defeat the recall initiative in this Tuesday's election.

I always disliked Arnie and identified him years ago as some kinda of Ayran superspecies..your country is heading in a very dangerous direction and arnie is guaranteed to get you there even faster. Maria Shivver is also another fascist reptile ,thats why she's married this Nazi .And i wander what else Robert Mapplethorpe captured on film apart from the Nazi clones over-developed muscles and ego to match..?

all the hipness undying aspects of naz(ion)ism has to offer:

Google up a few reviews for 'the case of california' for strarters; then peruse searchresults for 'organic agriculture in austria' (haven't myself but trust you'll hit upon 'biolit' etcetera to get an inkling of the tabooed and in any case truly underground aspects of .. . 'salvific(t)' body culture such as not dead either rockdust use for revitalizing substantially rather than the bombastic and psychopompous superficial shadowshow that is holowood

I'm sure you polygotters won't mind a few quotes from language in the german lingo (couldn't really find any rockdust refs in english and in relation to austria -- despite my encouragement in that direction, now of 7 years standing at http://poetpiet.tripod.com

Declining Organic Farmland...Why?
... Source: ERNTE Bio-landbou. What has happened to Austria , widely considered a leader in organic agriculture since its entry to the European Union in 1995? ...
www.organicmonitor.com/r2307.htm - 23k
---------- Lechner Joseph Auswirkungen einer Dolomit - Steinmehl - Düngung auf den Boden, die Bodenvegetation und Bäume im Bereich der Salzburger Rand- und Zentralalpen Dipl. 1994 http://woek.boku.ac.at/Forschung/DDD.htm (not online here though much is) ----------- Steine geben Brot: Kampf um Steinmehl: Mutter Erde: Biologischer Landbau / von Werner Zimmermann.- Lauf: Zitzmann Verlag, o.J. (ca. 1937).- 150 S. --------- good advice from tirol: Abfälle locker einfüllen (nicht verdichten), damit die Tonne leicht entleert werden kann und die Luft zwischen den Abfällen den Fäulnisprozess verhindert - Tonnen mit Deckel verwenden (wenn möglich mit zusätzlicher Dichtung), um Fliegenbefall zu unterbinden - Bioabfall oberflächlich mit einer Schicht Steinmehl, Erde oder Fertigkompost abdecken, um Madenbildung und Fliegenbefall zu verhindern - Tonnen einmal die Woche entleeren und regelmäßig mit heissem Wasser reinigen. ------------ Bodenkultur 52-1 ... Ergebnisse von drei 40-jährigen P-Dauerversuchen in Österreich - 1. Mitteilung ... sich
in der Behandlung der Gülle (Belüftung und Zusatz von Steinmehl in BE ...
www.boku.ac.at/bokujournal/inhalt/boku52-1.html - 36k


OK, here's the trump you winesucking killafearno ones, this is on non-toxic winegrowing; you'll soon have plenny of sorrow to drown - so join the natives:
[weinforum] Re: Biowein
... öfter im Wingert weil er öffter Spritzen muß, da er eine hochwirksamen "Chemie-Hammer"
zu verfügung hat sonder nur Steinmehl, Brennesselbrühe u.Ä. ...
www.wein-plus.de/archive/msg20699.html - 23k

Biolit Diabas Urgesteinsmehl
Produkte für die Landwirtschaft. Lava-Urgesteinsmehl aus feinst vermahlenem Diabas
(Bodenhilfsstoff und Güllezusatz). ... BIOLIT Vulkanlava oder Düngerkalk. ...
www.hwk.at/Produkte/biolit.htm

Deutsch sprachigen Werke bei Pietje Precies
... Studien zu Politik und Verwaltung 59), 83-100; Alternative Landwirtschaft/ Biologischer
Landbau. ... Machine viel mehr wie Ihr sehen koennt aber Biolit ist gar nit ...
members.lycos.nl/vadercats/viertes_auf_Deutsch.htm - 89k

I'll be back with some 'case of california' review urls in a minute, .. . . hell here it is already:

The Case of California by Aaron Beebe | PopMatters Book Review
The Case of California by Laurence Rickels, review by Aaron Beebe -- It's been 10
years since 'The Case of California' was introduced to an eager and hungry ...
www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/ c/case-of-california.html - 14k


Intro
... In the following interview and extensively in The Case of California,
Rickels shows how group psychology and the adolescent are related. ...
www.hydra.umn.edu/twd/catintro.html - 7k

a review at amazon:

You need to read this book...whoever you are!, March 28, 1999
Reviewer: Hethur Suval from Los Angeles, CA
Before I give you the back cover of this book, I have to tell you that this book is not necessarily an "easy read" despite its alliterated and enticing chapter titles. Having been a student of Laurence Rickels', I feel obligated to tell you that if you haven't read this book or any of his others (Aberrations of Mourning:Writing on German Crypts, Der unbetrauerbare Tod) you are absolutely missing out on some of the most interesting contemporary literary theory you can find!

"In 'cultural clips' that fast-forward and rewind through a variety of images, disciplines,and time zones, Laurence Rickels explores 'California' as both an empirical place and a symbolic configuration. Focusing on the changing image of the West Coast to study politics, sexuality, and the effects of mass media in modern culture, The Case of California is Rickels' dizzying psychohistory of postmodernity.

In California, Rickels locates 'the intersection between technology and the unconscious' and thus reconstructs the political front of pshoanalysis which arose to combat National Socialism. California and Germany, he contends, are two coasts of an era that 'lets roll' in the Enlightenment and continues to this day. Kafka is the 'ultimate Kalifornian'. The fall of the Berlin wall and the San Francisco Earthquake appear 'symptomatically in sync'. And the invention of the California teenager - the archetypical adolescent - begins with 'a certain central European refusal of death'.

As he addresses an array of popcultural phenomena, Rickels situates the Frankfurt School of Adorno Benjamin, Horkheimer, and Marcuse within the Freudian system - and within the critical boundaries of deconstruction. Along the way he explores music and sound, mourning and the charge of sexual abuse, group and adolescent psychology, female sexuality, the convergence of religious and hysterical conversion, and the shifting status of writing and literature brought about through the rise of 'reproductive' media such as photography, film, and television."

"The Case of California is one of the most powerful attempts we have so far to establish connections between contemporary culture and certain German texts that are inseparable from modernity." - Samuel Weber, University of California, Los Angeles --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title


the prettiest piece of his writing shows up at gooooooogleth: http://members.lycos.nl/vadercats/miscs-n-logs/Musicphantoms_printerfriendly.htm


here's an austrian url for a c-theory piece: http://www.monochrom.at/bagasch/archiv/6064.html on psychoanalysis as the uncrowned winner of the second world war

help ‘blackhoeman’ reach deep into his genes here folks – I’ve already started and would like to complete the report of my perusal (trying to find links from the world champion when it comes to small healthy farms, not in the last place bycause the use of powdered rock is statutory with the biggest brand (bioland) spread throughout the german speaking countries, the anglo world got stuck with the cheapskate weirdies like BD):

www.mr-evergreen.de is a german lingo encyclopedia wherein many a mention of ‘urggesteinsmehl’ for which google has 356 hits, most of them related to garden vitality, etc.

A whole book in german is to be had here: http://www.regenwurm.de/pdf/zimmermann-steine-geben-brot.pfd (stones give bread a variant on ‘brot aus steine’ by the better known Hensel (from a generation earlier), translations of which can be found around the web.

I wrote this years ago:
Mettle: Why lift dead weight into the live body's build, draft the lively and brash into the deadly brawl, why whip organs and glands into despair for buck sake????? Why not try whiptongue grafting a scion of some promise into your congenitoralhood; say after me: I will be squeezing those rough, tough and tumble impervials, those uptight skin and boney marble stoney rocks, to set them rumble-crumbling and soaking up water thoroughly. They are brutish in brunt (preglacial), yet once wet will become politely servile. Bodybuilding works with the painbarrier mystery in an inverted narcissistic way, causing egos to bloat and muscles to bulge leaving dead weight as an idle fixture to be lifted and lowered in an endlessly musclebound, identity calousing and sterile repetition. You can't win or lose very much without pain says Schwarzenegger, but he don't seem to mean it the same way I or Ray do. Real ease from released trauma takes mental clarity to see the pain in, pain out delay that constitutes the rift between heaven and earth. So much diddely squat for looks since they kill the core of sensitivity. A better way of pumping iron is rearing Excalibur, the rockgearing and obstruct clearing quickness fitting fix for livelyness, no idle fixture that even when lifted lets and puts down dead weight still very much the way it found it.

if not the only such way, to wit:

http://www.goatworld.com/store/books/au4024.shtml

Hensel's book in english

here too:
Bread From Stones
A New and Rational System of Land Fertilization and Physical Regeneration. Julius
Hensel. Paperback, 102 pages, 155 x 230mm, USA, 1991, translated from German. ...
touchwoodbooks.co.nz/tbread.html - 3k

and here:
Bread From Stones
**Eco Agriculture. Bread From Stones, Price: * AUD *Plus P&H. See
Delivery. Bread From Stones. by Julius Hensel Softcover, 102p. This ...
www.acresaustralia.com.au/prod62.htm -

be sure to check out this one too: SEER Centre - Research
... publisher of Remineralize the Earth (Northampton, MA), reviewed the history of soil
remineralisation efforts extending from the work of Julius Hensel in the ...
www.seercentre.org.uk/ research-soil-remineralisation.html - 41k