Instrumental Reason and Left Politics (tags)
In the neoliberal variant of capitalism, postmodern pluralism dominates and with it a reason that is no longer trusted to understand the whole.. For instrumental reason, the actual world is always the best of all possible worlds since the question of a better world cannot arise in it. No problem arises that makes another, not yet existing world necessary or desirable.
Critique of religion and market religion and Post-colonialism (tags)
Critique of religion as critique of fetishism is a critique of earthly gods, which are false gods. "Man is the highest being for man." Marx develops it further in other words and formulates his idea of the liberation of man in the Communist Manifesto.
Hysterical Populism and the Appetite of Leviathan (tags)
The relationship between economy and social order has been turned upside down: economy is no longer a function of an overarching culture, but conversely, "human society has sunk to being an accessory of the economic system" (Karl Polanyi). RK was founder of Exit & Krisis blogs.
Is China in danger of collapse? and Anti-economics and anti-politics (tags)
In the process of modernization, the relationship between market and state can be boiled down to the formula of a general law: the more market, the more state... The bloated market and the bloated state can only live or die together.
L'abîme se réactualise...
The four walls are not what we think they are (tags)
For Arendt, modernity in general is characterized by the loss of the world. The private home cannot compensate for all that is lost. The private home must be a part of the "world." By being imprisoned, we have lost our freedom and the world itself.
Les vedettes spectaculaires (tags)
C'est la misère qui engendre les stars...
The Military-Industrial Complex is the Greatest Threat for World Peace (tags)
Fighting the dominant culture of war that is promoted by all the media justifications of war and war propaganda is vital. This culture must be decoded as misanthropic and shattered. Building a culture of peace is the project of the century.
The Demonization of Dissent in the United States (tags)
On Oct. 3rd, 2012 Wired.Com’s (or Wired Magazine’s) Danger Room came out with Spencer Ackerman’s story of a leaked although unclassified U.S. Army “chart” that lists indicators and behaviors for identifying people who are supposedly becoming radicalized to terrorist potential. But what is so startling about this Army’s presumptively rational analysis (more like propagandic analysis) is its broad categorization of symptoms for identifying those thought alienated enough to become potential terrorist material.
Nos façons de vivre ne sont pas négociables ...
Capitalism and Democracy (tags)
Citizens are protected from incursions of the state and on the other side must accept the sovereignty of the state and the general law as prerequisites of property and security. Whoever has visions should be the physician. A good physician will urge changing one's way of life.
When Authors Are Authoritative (tags)
It is not mere coincidence the word authority takes command from the word author, or a group of authors acting as a united force. Both words are coequal and stem from the idea that some form of egotistic persuasion has come to dominate or rule. This authoritarian reality is true irrespective of whether people put their faith in law, religion, articulated ideology, or any other form of persuasive power. Yet there is little doubt that the most effective form of authority, if believed, is that which speaks fore an endgame result of lasting spiritual finality—namely those clerics, that is how their personalities, claim to speak for an ultimate power of religion, and the ego-will of God, Yahweh or Allah. What mere mortal can stand up to what Hobbes has described as the Leviathan or the iron-fisted state?
FERNANDO LUGO TRAS LOS PASOS DE MANUEL ZELAYA (tags)
Fernando Lugo tras los pasos de Manuel Zelaya
Ecological Justice Instead of Growth Economy for the Rich (tags)
"Now the market, the god of neoliberals, cannot help any more and speculators cry for the already instrumentalized state.. Studying pre-capitalist approaches is vital to develop a post-capitalist vision. The vision of the Bible is an economy of enough for all, an economy for life."
Between Russophobia and Russophilia (tags)
The neoconservative revolutionaries wanted to make the export of democracy into the absolute military hit and harvested bloody noses. Western values and western democracy cannot be simply exported for forced on foreign countries.
Greed is the Nature of the System (tags)
Politics was corrupted byt he economy and lost control to the economy. In the private enterprise system, there are too many incentives that oppose the public interest. When company pensions end, workers speculate. When high profits are the norm, companies speculate.
The Corporate State and the Welfare State (tags)
The idea of a "minimal state" may be passe. The author's two theses are: Liberalism is inconceivable without a strong state and liberalism undermines its own conditions of success. The modern welfare state is a child of democracy and can't be drowned in the bathtub.
Doug Dowd's "At the Cliff's Edge" (tags)
an indictment of imperialism
Provocative Thoughts While Touring a Park: (tags)
From book subtitled: The Authoritarian Nature of the Three Abrahamic Religions: as When God Became the Terrorist: The major thesis of this book is that authoritarianism, as a “human” personality trait, throughout history, has influenced both the “creation” and the “interpretation”, of religious and political dogma, and that this was even more so before there was a constituted division between Church and State. In Judeo-Christianity and Islamic authority, to some extent, is the egotistic imprint of monotheism in which God basically is perceived to have a “psychological” ego consciousness able to understand and communicate with the human ego consciousness of mankind. Particularly, we will want to focus on the ideas of justice—both the ideas of divine metaphysical justice and human social justice. According to Daniel Defoe, in no trivial sense, “Justice is the end of government”.
A Short Introduction to Marx's Das Kapital (tags)
Marx’s analysis of capitalism, unlike bourgeois accounts, is conducted from a historical perspective. In other words, Marx was keenly aware that during the march of history, one economic system, because of internal, irreconcilable contradictions, has been replaced by another until it too falls victim to similar contradictions. Of course, when one is born and matures within a single economy and lacks knowledge of any other system, one tends to take one’s own for granted, believing that it will persevere forever. A historical perspective has the advantage of forcing us to rise above the provincial perspective that assumes economic systems are eternal. We survey from above the vast array of systems that have played their fleeting role on history’s stage. For this reason, Marx’s analysis of capitalism is specifically written with the purpose of unveiling its inner contradictions so that the possibility of its demise stands boldly in relief. This runs directly opposed to bourgeois portrayals of capitalism as “natural” and hence as unalterable as the law of gravity itself.
The Evolution of Violence (tags)
The field of evolutionary psychology offers no end of insights into the origins of social problems, and also into why they’re so hard to solve. The War on Terror and the invasion of Oaxaca are just two more repetitions of the same pattern of aggression and violence that has repeated itself throughout history all over the world.
Life is More than Capital (tags)
Ulrich Duchrow and Franz Hinkelammert focus on the mis-developments in the third world where privatization of the water supply led to higher prices. international conglomer-ates made profits and paid no local taxes.
Alito Confirmation: A Straussian Neocon Fait Accompli (tags)
if I was a betting man, I'd say this is precisely what will happen: another nine eleven, possibly one of a larger magnitude, will put the finishing touches on the murder of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
When is a War Justified? (tags)
What is the future of the United Nations when its most powerful member treats it with contempt? The law is still the law even when it is broken.. The conflict over anticipatory self-defense is the real reason for the crisis of the UN, not the skirmish over reform.
Jesus' model of the child could be a new beginning in a world of cynicism, permanent wars and universal insecurity. The world loses its mystery and becomes a steam-roller when the grand delusion of self-righteousness is accepted as a natural law and the penultimate pretends to be ultimate.
Liberals vs. Conservatives? It's the Corruption, Stupid (tags)
"...how about contrasting our noble beginnings to where we stand today? Thomas Jefferson's vision for our nation is imbued with John Locke's interpretation of government of, by and for the people. "Great mistakes in the ruling part, will be borne by the people without mutiny or murmur," Locke wrote. "But if a long train of abuses. . . . all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people . . . it is not to be wondered that they should then rouse themselves, and endeavorto put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the end for which government was at first erected."
Against Social Darwinism (tags)
"The conquest of Africa and large parts of Asia was not morally justified by anything. Only peace is morally justified. Today social Darwinism appears in the guise of Anglo-Saxon capitalism..Ecology and pure market ideology are in conflict.." Translated German
Against Social Darwinism (tags)
"The conquest of Africa and large parts of Asia by invading European forces was not morally justified. Only peace is morally justified..Today social Darwinism appears in the guise of Anglo-Saxon capitalism..Ecology and pure market ideology are in conflict."
The Appetite of Leviathan (tags)
Money replaces the `cosmos' as the unifying social characteristic. Every pack of wolves is more socially organized than free enterprise persons..The little monsters should be tamed by the enormous monster"Leviathan". The state share has increased everywhere.
How well do you know your real history?