..ah, yes....and war is peace, freedom is slavery, and torture is enhanced interrogation...tragicomedy at its finest..gotta laugh to keep from crying in these dark days.
Stay informed people.
OneLove
:::MME:::
Jul 30, 2014
Automatics For The People!
..ah, yes....and war is peace, freedom is slavery, and torture is enhanced interrogation...tragicomedy at its finest..gotta laugh to keep from crying in these dark days.
Stay informed people.
OneLove
:::MME:::
Poet's Nook: "Running Orders" by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
They call us now.
Before they drop the bombs.
The phone rings
and someone who knows my first name
calls and says in perfect Arabic
“This is David.”
And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass shattering symphonies
still smashing around in my head
I think “Do I know any Davids in Gaza?”
They call us now to say
Run.
You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.
Your house is next.
They think of it as some kind of
war time courtesy.
It doesn’t matter that
there is nowhere to run to.
It means nothing that the borders are closed
and your papers are worthless
and mark you only for a life sentence
in this prison by the sea
and the alleyways are narrow
and there are more human lives
packed one against the other
more than any other place on earth
Just run.
We aren’t trying to kill you.
It doesn’t matter that
you can’t call us back to tell us
the people we claim to want aren’t in your house
that there’s no one here
except you and your children
who were cheering for Argentina
sharing the last loaf of bread for this week
counting candles left in case the power goes out.
It doesn’t matter that you have children.
You live in the wrong place
and now is your chance to run
to nowhere.
It doesn’t matter
that 58 seconds isn’t long enough
to find your wedding album
or your son’s favorite blanket
or your daughter’s almost completed college application
or your shoes
or to gather everyone in the house.
It doesn’t matter what you had planned.
It doesn’t matter who you are
Prove you’re human.
Prove you stand on two legs.
Run.
*****************
(This poem is making the rounds on the Internet and it's easy to see why as it is a voice of pain & anguish from a Palestinian evacuee in Gaza. Poems like this help to humanize a people who have often been dehumanized and vilified to serve geopolitical aims, The poet, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, puts us in Gazan’s shoes as, minutes after watching the World Cup as many in the rest of the world were, she receives a phone call prompting her to immediately abandon her home. We are reminded from this devastating piece of the power of words at a time when reading just news stories about the situation in the Middle East fails to convey the deep human tragedy occurring for more than three weeks now (and years before that) in the world’s most populated strip of land. Let's not be lulled to sleep by the talking heads in the mainstream press who oftentimes blanket the whole region under a "terrorist" label. Remember they did this when South Africans were fighting against Apartheid. Never forget.)
OneLove
:::MME:::
Jul 29, 2014
Musings
 |
| Never underestimate the power of jealousy and the power of envy to destroy. Never underestimate that~~Oliver Stone |
OneLove
:::MME:::
Jul 28, 2014
Israel Has Chosen to be a "Racist Apartheid State" with U.S. Support
"The United States administration, previous administrations, the European governments, the whole official international community has been complicit with Israeli crimes, war crimes in Gaza and in other places, and silent about forty-one years of occupation. So, basically, people in Israel think they can do what they want. If they violate human rights in such a terrible manner and nobody is objecting, I think they think they can move forward towards racism and an apartheid system, and that is unfortunately the case today. And that gives you a very, very simple picture of how tragic the situation is in Israel today. And it puts us all, as Palestinians, in front of a very clear task: we have to struggle against this apartheid system. We have to break this apartheid system. But the challenge now is on the side of the whole international community, which has been either silent or complicit or trying to avoid the issue, when it is very clear."
-Haneen Zoabi
OneLove
:::MME:::
Jul 25, 2014
A Poet's Voice by Kahlil Gibran
“You are my brother, but why are you quarreling with me? Why do you
invade my country and try to subjugate me for the sake of pleasing those
who are seeking glory and authority?
Why do you leave your wife and children and follow Death to the distant
land for the sake of those who buy glory with your blood, and high honor
with your mother's tears?
Is it an honor for a man to kill his brother man? If you deem it an
honor, let it be an act of worship, and erect a temple to Cain who slew
his brother Abel.
Is self-preservation the first law of Nature? Why, then, does Greed urge
you to self-sacrifice in order only to achieve his aim in hurting your
brothers? Beware, my brother, of the leader who says, "Love of existence
obliges us to deprive the people of their rights!" I say unto you but
this: protecting others' rights is the noblest and most beautiful human
act; if my existence requires that I kill others, then death is more
honorable to me, and if I cannot find someone to kill me for the
protection of my honor, I will not hesitate to take my life by my own
hands for the sake of Eternity before Eternity comes.
Selfishness, my brother, is the cause of blind superiority, and
superiority creates clanship, and clanship creates authority which leads
to discord and subjugation.
The soul believes in the power of knowledge and justice over dark
ignorance; it denies the authority that supplies the swords to defend
and strengthen ignorance and oppression - that authority which destroyed
Babylon and shook the foundation of Jerusalem and left Rome in ruins.
It is that which made people call criminals great mean; made writers
respect their names; made historians relate the stories of their
inhumanity in manner of praise.
The only authority I obey is the knowledge of guarding and acquiescing in the Natural Law of Justice.
What justice does authority display when it kills the killer? When it
imprisons the robber? When it descends on a neighborhood country and
slays its people? What does justice think of the authority under which a
killer punishes the one who kills, and a thief sentences the one who
steals?
You are my brother, and I love you; and Love is justice with its full
intensity and dignity. If justice did not support my love for you,
regardless of your tribe and community, I would be a deceiver concealing
the ugliness of selfishness behind the outer garment of pure love.”
(See the full version here)
OneLove
:::MME:::
Bernaysian Manipulation Of The Human Psyche by Steven Macmillon
“Edward Bernays was the master of influencing and shaping public opinion
who developed upon the ideas of earlier social psychologists and the
work of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, in order to create techniques to
manipulate the subconscious desires of the masses. Throughout his
103-year lifespan, the "father of public relations" was at the pinnacle
of his field advising US Presidents Coolidge, Eisenhower, Hoover and
Wilson, as well as inventor Thomas Edison, US industrialist Henry Ford
and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. He also reportedly refused invitations
by Hitler and Franco to work on fascist propaganda campaigns in
Europe.
At the end of World War 1 Bernays served as a propagandist for America
before going on to work with various government departments and
corporations throughout his lifetime, including: the US Department of
State, CBS, Procter and Gamble, and the American Tobacco Company, as
well as designing the propaganda campaign for the United Fruit Company
which led to the CIA coup against the Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz
in 1954.
Bernays combined the work of people such as the French social
psychologist Gustave Le Bon to create techniques which appeal to the
subconscious emotions of the public, as opposed to engaging the public
in rational and intellectual debate. Le Bon studied the mental
characteristics and the behaviour of the crowd, believing that when part
of a mass, individuals are subordinate to the crowd mind and that a
human behaves in a more emotive, irrational manner. Bernays observed
that if a propagandist could understand the "motives of the group mind",
they would possess the ability to "control and regiment the masses":
“The systematic study of mass psychology revealed to students the
potentialities of invisible government of society by the manipulation of
the motives which actuate man in the group. Trotter and Le Bon, who
approached the subject in a scientific manner, and Graham Wallas, Walter
Lippmann, and others who continued with searching studies of the group
mind, established that the group has mental characteristics distinct
from those of the individual, and is motivated by impulses and emotions
which cannot be explained on the basis of what we know of individual
psychology. So the question naturally arose: If we understand the
mechanism and the motives of the group mind, is it not possible to
control and regiment the masses according to our will without their
knowing of it?" (Bernays, 1928, p.71)
Bernays continues to reveal the growing ability of the propagandist to
understand and successfully alter "public opinion" way back in the
1920s, long before television sets were in every household and the
sophisticated modern media techniques of today: “The recent practice of
propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain
point and within certain limits. Mass psychology is as yet far from
being an exact science and the mysteries of human motivation are by no
means all revealed. But at least theory and practice have combined with
sufficient success to permit us to know that in certain cases we can
effect some change in public opinion with a fair degree of accuracy by
operating a certain mechanism, just as the motorist can regulate the
speed of a car by manipulating the flow of gasoline.” (Bernays, 1928,
p.71 & p.72)
The basic premise of Bernays thesis is that humans are "rarely aware" of
the true motivations and desires powering their actions, and if certain
individuals could uncover the real desires of the mass mind, the public
could be influenced and manipulated without their knowledge of it: "Men
are rarely aware of the real reasons which motivate their actions... It
is chiefly the psychologists of the school of Freud who have pointed
out that many of man's thoughts and actions are compensatory substitutes
for desires which has been obliged to suppress. A thing may be desired
not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because he has
unconsciously come to see it as a symbol of something else, the desire
for which he is ashamed to admit to himself... This general principle,
that men are very largely actuated by motives which they conceal from
themselves, is as true of mass as of individual psychology. It is
evident that the successful propagandist must understand the true
motives and not be content to accept the reasons which men give for what
they do... Human desires are the steam which makes the social machine
work. Only by understanding them can the propagandist control that
loose-jointed mechanism which is modern society. (Bernays, 1928, p. 74,
p.75 & p.76)
The study of mass psychology and herd behaviour were important areas
which had to be understood to intelligently manipulate the public: “The
whole basis of successful propaganda is to have an objective and then to
endeavour to arrive at it through an exact knowledge of the public and
modifying circumstances to manipulate and sway that public (Bernays,
1928, p.126). But clearly it is the intelligent minorities which need to
make use propaganda continuously and systematically... Small groups of
persons can, and do, make the rest of us think what they please about a
given subject.” (Bernays, 1928, p.57)
“In ancient times, leaders of a tribe, group or society processed
tremendous power over the rest of the people especially if they are
skilled in the art of persuasion. Political leaders in modern times have
the ability to shape and mould the psychology of their followers in a
truly profound manner, especially if they have the ability to use
propaganda effectively: The voice of the people expresses the mind of
the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom
it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of
public opinion. Fortunately, the sincere and gifted politician is able,
by the instrument of propaganda, to mould and form the will of the
people.” (Bernays, 1928, p. 109)
Bernays reveals the power propagandists have to manipulate and control
the "public mind" through understanding the techniques of managing the
public: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised
habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic
society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society
constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our
country. We are governed, our minds moulded, our tastes formed, our
ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of... Whatever
attitude one chooses toward this condition, it remains a fact that in
almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics
or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are
dominated by a relatively small number of persons - a trifling fraction
of our hundred and twenty million - who understand the mental processes
and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which
control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new
ways to bind and guide the world.” (Bernays, 1928, p.37 & p.38)"
◆
Free Download: Edward Bernays, “Propaganda,”
- https://archive.org/details/Propaganda1928
******
OneLove
:::::MME:::::
Jul 24, 2014
The Caribbean: A Clean Energy Revolution on the Front Lines of Climate Change
 |
| The volcanic island of St. Lucia plans to tap geothermal power trapped beneath sulfur springs and roiling mud pools in a rare attempt at developing alternative energy sources in the Caribbean. |
Lefties Food Stall, a pint-sized eatery serving Barbados’ signature flying-fish sandwiches, recently became the first snack shack on the Caribbean island to be fitted with a
Like many other small island nations, Barbados has to ship in all of the oil that it uses to produce electricity—making power over four times more costly than it is in the fuel-rich United States.
That high price has proven to be a boon for Barbados’ fledgling solar industry. Nearly half of all homes boast solar water heaters on their roofs, which pay for themselves in lower electric bills in less than two years. Increasingly, industries like the island’s small desalination plant are installing solar arrays to meet a portion of their power needs.
This move to solar is being driven by tax incentives for green businesses and consumers. In an address marking the United Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP) “World Environment Day” in Bridgetown’s Independence Square, Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart recently pledged that the island nation would produce 29 percent of its energy from renewables by the end of the next decade.
That rather conservative goal is still over twice what the United States currently produces with renewables. It won’t be hard to reach. Not only is the island blessed with abundant sunshine, it also has year-round trade winds to run wind turbines, and sugar cane waste—or bagasse—that can be used as a biofuel. The Barbados government is furthermore looking into harnessing the energy of the tides, as well as introducing ocean
Clean energy technologies are slowly making headway throughout the Caribbean. And the nearby United States, the world’s number-one historical emitter of carbon emissions, should pay attention.
A Frontline Region
Barbados is not alone in the Caribbean in its enthusiasm for green technology.
Aruba is planning a 3.5-MW solar airport, perhaps the largest such project in the world. The Dutch-speaking island has combined wind and
The volcanic islands of Nevis, Montserrat, and St. Vincent have contracted with Icelandic geothermal companies to conduct exploratory projects to determine how to tap their vast geothermal potential. Meanwhile, mountainous Dominica already meets about half of its energy demand with hydropower.
But the best reason to cut carbon emissions is the danger that these island nations face if climate change proceeds unchecked. And indeed, climate change is already having a big impact. In recent years, lower rainfall in the
At the World Environment Day event in Bridgetown, the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, called climate change “the most serious existential threat in the world today.”
That is certainly true for St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Successive storms ripped through the islands in 2010, 2011, and 2012, leading to a yearly loss of up to 17 percent of the developing country’s GDP, as well as destroying hundreds of homes and killing dozens of islanders. “If my people don’t get flooded out on the coast,” the prime minister observed ruefully, “they will be washed away in landslides.”
Barbados’ prime minister, Freundel Stuart, echoed his counterpart’s sense of urgency. “Since the issue involves our very survival,” Stuart told the crowd, “capitulation is not an option.” Stuart said he believes that the Caribbean should set “a shining example” for the world to follow. His government recently commissioned a Green Economy Scoping Study, prepared in partnership with UNEP and released in Bridgetown in June, which includes recommendations on how to make the island’s agriculture, fisheries, transportation, and energy systems more sustainable.
It makes sense: these islands are on the front line for climate change’s destructive forces, so they should also be on the front line in cutting their own carbon emissions. They need to demonstrate how seriously they take the threat, as an example to the rest of us.
A Marshall Plan for the Caribbean
Right now, energy production in the Caribbean is anything but sustainable. Venezuela’s late socialist president Hugo Chavez offered many islands long-term loans and concessionary rates for cheaper oil. His successor has done his best to maintain the modest subsidies.
But nobody can say how long this largesse will last, given Venezuela’s current financial crisis, and still less what will happen to already stressed island economies when they are forced to pay full price for crude.
The Caribbean needs to become energy-independent in order to thrive. But overhauling energy infrastructure does not come cheaply. There are knotty technical challenges related to the stability of the grid that few small nations are currently equipped to meet. And the small scale of the demand for electricity on many of the islands makes it hard to attract international investors.
Moreover, countries like Jamaica, St. Kitts-Nevis, Grenada, Barbados, and Antigua and Barbuda are saddled with public debts that often exceed their annual GDP. So unlike an industrial powerhouse like Germany, for example, few Caribbean nations are in a position to fully exploit their renewable energy potential.
The big industrial powers that are responsible for the problems of island nations should be lending a helping hand to the folks suffering the most from climate change. Loans from international development banks, as well as technology transfers and training from wealthier countries, would go a long way. International development banks also need to prime the pump with programs to encourage prudent investment.
This isn’t charity. By helping islands that are geographically close to the United States go green, Washington won’t just be cutting harmful greenhouse gases for everyone. It will also create opportunities to learn valuable lessons in overcoming technical challenges—about how, for example, to successfully integrate intermittent inputs from wind and solar into the power grid, a problem that has limited the United States’ own adoption of renewables.
The vulnerable islands of the Caribbean are a perfect laboratory to test solutions on a small scale that can eventually be applied to the far more complex U.S. energy infrastructure.
After World War II, America lent its economic muscle to help rebuild Europe’s shattered economies through the Marshall Plan. It is time to have a Marshall Plan for clean energy— not to rebuild war-torn nations, but to help protect our abused climate system from further damage. The Caribbean, blessed with a wealth of sun, wind, and geothermal energy, is a great place to start.
*********
OneLove
:::MME:::
The Strange Relationship Between Global Warming Denial and...Speaking English
Here in the United States, we fret a lot about
The global picture, however, is quite different. For instance, recently the UK-based
What do these four nations have in common? They all speak the language of Shakespeare.
Why would that be? After all, presumably there is nothing about English, in and of itself, that predisposes you to climate change denial. Words and phrases like "doubt," "natural causes," "climate models," and other sceptic mots are readily available in other languages. So what's the real cause?
One possible answer is that it's all about the political ideologies prevalent in these four countries.
The US climate change counter movement is comprised of 91 separate organizations, with annual funding, collectively, of "just over $900 million." And they all speak English.
"I do not find these results surprising," says Riley Dunlap, a sociologist at
Indeed, the English language media in three of these four countries are linked together by a single individual: Rupert Murdoch. An apparent climate sceptic or lukewarmer, Murdoch is the chairman of News Corp and 21st Century Fox. (You can watch him express his climate views here.) Some of the media outlets subsumed by the two conglomerates that he heads are responsible for quite a lot of English language climate scepticism and denial.
In the US, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal lead the way; research shows that Fox watching increases distrust of climate scientists. (You can also catch Fox News in Canada.) In Australia, a recent study found that slightly under a third of climate-related articles in 10 top Australian newspapers "did not accept" the scientific consensus on climate change, and that News Corp papers — the Australian, the Herald Sun, and the Daily Telegraph — were particular hotbeds of scepticism. "TheAustralian represents climate science as matter of opinion or debate rather than as a field for inquiry and investigation like all scientific fields," noted the study.
And then there's the UK. A 2010 academic study found that while News Corp outlets in this country from 1997 to 2007 did not produce as much strident climate scepticism as did their counterparts in the US and Australia, "the Sun newspaper offered a place for scornful sceptics on its opinion pages as did The Times and Sunday Times to a lesser extent." (There are also other outlets in the UK, such as the Daily Mail, that feature plenty of scepticism but aren't owned by News Corp.)
Thus, while there may not be anything inherent to the English language that impels climate denial, the fact that English language media are such a major source of that denial may in effect create a language barrier.
And media aren't the only reason that denialist arguments are more readily available in the English language. There's also the Anglophone nations' concentration of climate "sceptic" think tanks, which provide the arguments and rationalisations necessary to feed this anti-science position.
According to a study in the journal Climatic Change earlier this year, the US is home to 91 different organisations (think tanks, advocacy groups, and trade associations) that collectively comprise a "climate change counter-movement." The annual funding of these organisations, collectively, is "just over $900 million." That is a truly massive amount of English-speaking climate "sceptic" activity, and while the study was limited to the US, it is hard to imagine that anything comparable exists in non-English speaking countries.
Ben Page, the chief executive of Ipsos MORI (which released the data) adds another possible causative factor behind the survey's results, noting that environmental concern is very high in China today, due to the omnipresent conditions of environmental pollution. By contrast, that's not a part of your everyday experience in England or Australia. "In many surveys in China, environment is the top concern," Page comments. "In contrast, in the west, it's a long way down the list behind the economy and crime."
Whatever the precise concatenation of causes, the evidence seems clear. We English speakers have a special problem when it comes to understanding and accepting climate science. In language, we're Anglophones; but in climate science, we're a bunch of Anglophonies.
(SOURCE)
*************
OneLove
:::MME:::
Jul 23, 2014
A Terrifying Reality
It really does appear to me that the entire globe is in a very dark place and will get darker still unless voices of conscience arise in resistance....As we've learned so many times throughout history, silence is complicity and defensiveness is ideological endorsement.
The good news is folks are waking up to the truth all over the world as demonstrations in South Africa, London, India, Turkey, Spain, South Korea, Greece, Germany, Tunisia, China, Indonesia & Washington D.C have erupted with righteous indignation towards Israel’s deadly assault on the Gaza Strip. This has to stop. Much like how the world united and boycotted South Africa during the Apartheid era, the same has to be done to Israel.
Wake up & resist the Darkness......
OneLove
:::MME:::
Jul 22, 2014
Poet's Nook: "On a White Horse" by Mike Galsworthy
The hooves, they drummed a devil's tattoo
Upon the woodland path.
The mechanical horse, it was angel white
And never had had a sin in its mind.
The rider, he was the admired man
And he saw no end to his sight --
A captain of industry with bags of golden leaves
That he ripped from the trees
As he kicked his horse to ride on ride on
To the rhythm, the rhythm, the rhythm of hooves;
The gathering of leaves and the rhythm of hooves.
"I built this horse for riding," said he.
"This horse, I built for riding."
But the weather-clerk stepped across his path:
"Stop!" he said, "look around.
Your riding whips the winds and strips the trees
It shifts the rains and lifts the seas!
Slow down," he said "or change course"
"No! I cannot risk that I'll be overtaken",
The rider he said to the clerk
"There are other riders chasing me
And I built this horse for riding," said he
"So move out of my way, I ride on."
To the rhythm, the rhythm, the rhythm of hooves.
To the gathering of leaves and the rhythm of hooves.
"I built this horse for riding," said he.
"I built this horse for riding."
But one mile on, people cluttered his path
Crying "We've seen the darkening skies!
Please hook back some leaves onto our trees
To catch the winds that bring disease
And rot the fish in our waters!"
"But it's not just me," the rider said.
"There are too many people on this earth
And when they crawl and breed in the mud,
they bring the winds and the rains and the floods.
I earned these leaves, now move out of my way"
And the rider just rode on.
The rider just rode on.
To the rhythm, the rhythm, the rhythm of hooves.
To the gathering of leaves and the rhythm of hooves.
"I built this horse for riding," said he
"I built this horse for riding"
But then the air turned dark and the rain it poured down;
And the horse it broke and stumbled and fell
Deep into the mud it stumbled and fell
With the rider, it stumbled and fell.
The rider then saw his daughter
And called out to her in the panicking crowd --
"My daughter, come see, I have the leaves
To buy an ark to sail the seas when the waters rise.
Though others perish, we will survive."
But as he put his hand into the bag,
Those leaves crumbled to dust and blew away.
Up to the dark storm they blew away.
So strangely from his hand they blew away.
"Oh father," said the daughter
"Your leaves, they have no magic now
Because nobody will trade them.
The farmer gives his food to men-at-arms
To keep off the jackals of jagged towns
That come running through the ragged woods
Since the rats overran the granaries
From the flagstones to the rafters,
When the miller's children all fell sick in the squalid dereliction.
And where's the doctor? He's fled to higher grounds
To drink the untouched rains --
Because poisoned rivers run overland
Through eye sockets and open mouths
Of people fallen in burning famine upon the putrid earth.
And this is not how it was meant to be;
That our once green earth should rot to black like this
And our children walk the rain, drenched in war, fear and pain.
It is a dark time
It's a dark time for humankind.
And you, father - you led in the other horsemen
To the rhythm, the rhythm, the rhythm of hooves,
Riding, riding, on your white horse."
OneLove
:::MME:::
The Lottery of Birth
Do you shape the world or does it shape you? Drawing on leading thinkers from around the world, and with a torrent of mind-expanding ideas and information, THE LOTTERY OF BIRTH will make you think again about what it means to be free.The conclusion of this documentary will rock your world...
OneLove
:::MME:::
Jul 18, 2014
Thinking Dangerously in an Age of Political Betrayal by Henry A.Giroux
Thinking is not the intellectual reproduction of what already exists anyway. As long as it doesn't break off, thinking has a secure hold on possibility. . . . Open thinking points beyond itself.- Theodor Adorno
That is, there are no dangerous thoughts for the simple reason that thinking itself is such a dangerous enterprise. . . . nonthinking is even more dangerous.
- Hannah Arendt
Thinking has become dangerous in the United States. As Paul Stoller observes, the symptoms are everywhere including a Texas GOP Party platform that states, "We oppose teaching of Higher order Thinking Skills [because they] have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental control" to a Tennessee bill that "allows the teaching of creationism in state's classrooms."
At a time when anti-intellectualism runs rampant throughout popular culture and the political landscape, it seems imperative to once again remind ourselves of how important critical thought as a crucible for thinking analytically can be both a resource and an indispensable tool. If critical thought, sometimes disparaged as theory, gets a bad name, it is not because it is inherently dogmatic, jargonistic or rigidly specialized, but because it is often abused or because it becomes a tool of irrelevancy - a form of theoreticism in which theory becomes an end in itself. This abuse of critical thought appears to have a particularly strong hold in the humanities, especially among many graduate students in English departments who often succumb to surrendering their own voices to class projects and dissertations filled with obtuse jargon associated with the most fashionable theorists of the moment. Such work is largely rewarded less for its originality than the fact that it threatens no one.
At the same time there are many students who find the esoteric language associated with dangerous thinking and critical thought to be too difficult to master or engage. The latter points to the fact that some theories may be useless because they are too impenetrable to decipher or that there are theories which support bad practices such as high-stakes testing, creationism, faith-based evidence, the spanking of children, incarcerating children as adults and other assumptions and policies that are equally poisonous. Theory is not inherently good or bad. Its meaning and efficacy are rooted in a politics of usefulness, accessibility and whether it can be used resourcefully to articulate frameworks and tools that deepen the possibility of self-reflection, critical thought and a sense of social responsibility. For instance, a theory is bad if it inadequately grasps the forces at work in the world and simply reproduces it as it is. Theory is also injurious when it is used to legitimate modes of inquiry and research that are bought by corporations, the military and other state and private institutions to legitimate dangerous products, policies and social practices.
Theory has no guarantees, and like any other mode of thought, it has to be problematized, critically engaged and judged in terms of its interests, effects and value as part of a broader enhancement of human agency and democratization. At their best, theory, thinking dangerously and critical thought have the power to shift the questions, provide the tools for offering historical and relational contexts, and "push at the frontiers . . . of the human imagination." Moreover, theory functions as a critical resource when it can intervene in the "continuity of commonsense, unsettle strategies of domination" and work to promote strategies of transformation. As Theodor Adorno observes, "Theory speaks for what is not narrow-minded - and commonsense most certainly is." As such, theory is not only analytical in its search for understanding and truth, it is also critical and subversive, always employing modes of self and social critique necessary to examine its own grounds and those poisonous fundamentalisms in the larger society haunting the body politic. As Michael Payne observes, theory should be cast in the language of hints, dialogue and an openness to other positions, rather than be "cast in the language or orders."
It is important to note that defending critical thought, thinking dangerously and theory is not the same as solely mounting a defense of academics as public intellectuals, or the university as the only site of critical thought, though both are important. When defined this way, theory is easily dismissed as an academic exercise and practice mediated through an impenetrable and often incomprehensible vocabulary. Theory and the frameworks it supports are just one important political register that keeps alive the notion that critical reflection and thought are necessary not only to address the diverse symbolic and material realities of power, but also for engaging in informed action willing to address important social issues. In this respect, as Lawrence Grossberg has brilliantly argued, theory is a crucial tool that enables one to respond to and provide a better understanding of problems as they emerge in a variety of historical and distinctive contexts. Hence, theory becomes a toolbox that guides the work of many artists, journalists and other cultural workers in a variety of public spheres who are well aware that their work has consequences when translated into daily life and must be the object of self-reflection. Paraphrasing Grossberg, theory is not simply about the production of meaning but also the making of effects. At the same time, critical thought functions to "lift . . . human beings above the evidence of our senses and sets appearances apart from the truth."Salmon Rushdie gestures toward the political necessity of critical thought, informed action and its effects by insisting that "It's a vexing time for those of us who believe in the right of artists, intellectuals and ordinary, affronted citizens to push boundaries and take risks and so, at times, to change the way we see the world."
Theory is at its weakest and most oppressive when it supports a commonsense understanding of the framing mechanisms that guide the actions of human beings. One consequence is that it disavows dialogue and critique, and shapes knowledge and ideas into fixed and absolute meanings. It also shuts down analysis and poisons the culture with an orthodoxy that limits critical agency to following the orders of others. As such, it is transformed into a pedagogical parasite on the body of democracy. This is quite different than a call for modes of theory and critical thought that practice rigorous analytic work enabling students, intellectuals, artists and journalists to be attentive to how they function as individual and social agents. Bad theory is also at fault for failing to address and engage the layered, complex social, political, economic and cultural forces that shape not only our desires, values and modes of identification, but also guide, direct, and the commanding ideologies and institutions of society.”
As a form of intellectual inquiry, theory thrives in those public spaces that both legitimate the world of ideas and refuse to separate them from addressing the major troubles of our time. At the same time, it is an important register, if not reminder in such perilous times, for determining as Judith Butler observes, "not only the question of whether certain kinds of ideas and positions can be permitted in public space, but how public space is itself defined by certain kinds of exclusions, certain emerging patterns of censoriousness and censorship." (9) Rather than being a mechanistic enterprise, offering formulas and recipes, theory should provide the frameworks and tools for what it means to be a thoughtful, judicious, layered, complex and critical thinker willing to engage in communicative and collective action. Theory does not resemble the discourse of blind action, a stripped down instrumental rationality, or the vision of accountants. Nor, in this instance, does theory become an end in itself, an ossified discourse that defines itself to the degree to which it is removed from the world and vanishes in a black hole of irrelevancy and opaqueness. Theory as a critical enterprise is about both a search for the truth and a commitment to the practice of freedom. Not one or the other but both. Theory should be used to both understand and engage the major upheavals people face and to connect such problems to larger political, structural and economic issues. In addition, theory is invaluable as a response to particular problems, allowing intellectuals, artists, academics, students and others to connect their intellectual work and critical inquiries to the daily realities and struggles of a world in upheaval, one that is moving quickly into the clutches of a new type of authoritarianism.
The United States has moved a great distance away from the critical theories of thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, Jacques Derrida, Theodor Adorno, Edward Said, Herbert Marcuse, Leo Lowenthal, Ellen Willis, Simone de Beauvoir and others. At the current historical moment, critical thinking is utterly devalued, viewed either as a nostalgic leftover of the weighty ideological and political battles that characterized the period roughly extending from the 1960s to the late 1980s, or theory is dismissed as the province of overly privileged and pampered academics. Critical ideas and concepts in support of a equality, justice, freedom and democracy, in particular, have lost their material and political grounding and have become sound bites either scorned by mainstream politicians or appropriated only to be turned into their opposite. Unfortunately for the promise of democracy, those who advocate theory and critical thought in the service of civic courage, engaged citizenship and social responsibility are now either viewed as eggheads, elitist or traitors. In this instance, theory is disdained and used as a form of self-sabotage, reduced to politically illiterate narratives couched in the discourse of critical thinking. How else to explain the disingenuous portrayal in the mainstream press of George Will, Thomas Friedman and David Brooks as public intellectuals, despite the fact that they trade in a kind of ersatz theory. In the latter case, theory becomes a weapon used to empty language of any meaning, employed primarily to make war on the possibility of real communication, all the while reinforcing the ideology of demagogues.
If theory once inspired critical practice both in and out of the university, it seems that the heyday of critically informed thinking is over. As higher education has become corporatized, teaching and learning are increasingly defined through the metrics of commerce and profit, while students are viewed largely as consumers. Critical thought and dangerous thinking are now viewed as beyond the pale of market considerations and are thereby seen as having little value. This is particularly true since the radical right has not only taken seriously the notion that pedagogy and changing consciousness is the essence of politics, but also has developed cultural apparatuses outside of the university that function as powerful forms of public pedagogy in promoting the values of a number of fundamentalisms, including religious, educational and market-driven ideologies. Culture for the right wing has always been a crucial site of power in the modern world and they have used this machinery of public pedagogy to create market-addicted subjects who appear hopelessly captive to the illiterate ideologies and slogans pumped out of Fox News, right-wing talk radio and the editorial section of The Wall Street Journal. Ideas matter in this instance, but not in the service of freedom or justice.
Sound bites now pass for erudite commentary and merge with the banality of celebrity culture, which produces its own self-serving illiteracy and cult of privatization and consumerism. Moreover, as the power of communication and language wanes, collapsing into the seepage of hateful discourses, the eager cheerleaders of casino capitalism along with the ever-present anti-public intellectuals dominate the airwaves and screen culture in order to aggressively wage a war against all public institutions, youth, women, immigrants, unions, poor minorities, the homeless, gays, workers, the unemployed, poor children and others. In this instance, thinking degenerates into forms of ideological boosterism and the crucial potential of thinking to serve as a dynamic resource disappears from the American cultural and academic landscapes. When thinking itself becomes dangerous, society loses its ability to question itself and paves the way for authoritarian regimes of power. The success of conservatives in colonizing, if not undermining, any model of critical reflection often takes place by reducing thought to a matter of commonsense while supporting rampant forms of anti-intellectualism - most evident in the Republican Party's recent war on evidence-based arguments, science and reason. At the same time, the success on the part of right-wing ideologues, conservative foundations, and anti-public intellectuals to shape domestic and foreign policy and gain the support of most Americans for doing so speaks to a roundly successful pedagogical and political strategy to manipulate public opinion while legitimating the rise of an authoritarian social order. At the least, this war on reason and politics raises serious questions about the failure of the academy to counter such views. In particular, it raises questions about the alienating nature of what passes for critical thought, theory and informed commentary in the academy. Moreover, the issue here is not whether critical intellectuals can use theory to solve the myriad problems facing the United States and the larger world, but what role critical thought plays in various sites as crucial to developing the formative culture that produces critical modes of agency and makes democracy possible.
The assault on critical thought is taking place in a variety of spheres, including higher education, especially at a time when corporatism, a mad empiricism and market-driven ideologies are the dominant forces at work in defining what counts as labor, research, pedagogy, journalism and learning. The notion that thinking dangerously produces forms of literacy in which knowledge is related to issues of agency, public values and social problems is quickly disappearing from higher education and other sites. For example, Republican governors in states such as Texas, Maine and Florida have defunded those fields of study in higher education that cannot be measured in economic terms, while redefining the mission of the university as merely an adjunct of corporations, the military-industrial complex and government intelligence agencies. Unfortunately, higher education houses an increasing number of intellectuals who have slipped into diverse forms of unprincipled careerism in which matters of critical thought have less to do with politics and power, or social justice for that matter, than with a kind of arcane cleverness - a sort of ineffectual performance that allows them to threaten no one. This probably sounds harsh, but personally I have seen this trend growing since the 1980s and actually believe it has a lot do with the cultural capital and investment in careerism that many academics now bring to the academy and their roles as intellectuals - partly a response to the corporatization of the university. These are middle and ruling class intellectuals on the move, always looking for new opportunities, all too willing to be quiet, safe and ready and eager for the next promotion. In addition, too many academics are giving in to the seductions and rewards of corporate power, and are complicit in destroying theory and critical thought as tools that enable faculty and students to relate the self to others, public values and the demands of a robust democracy. Of course, what often happens in this case is that by not having any viable vision or sense of the political, for that matter, such academics do an incredible injustice not to their roles as potential public intellectuals, but to critical thought itself. As Larry Grossberg once put it, they are clueless in taking up the challenge of theorizing the political and politicizing theory.
What is sad about this state of affairs is that theorizing the politics of the 21st century may be the most important challenge facing the academy and any other public sphere committed to critical thinking, thoughtfulness, dialogue and the radical imagination. If we lose control of those spheres that cultivate the knowledge and skills necessary for rigorous analysis along with a culture of questioning, it will become more and more difficult for students and others to question authority, challenge commonsense assumptions and hold power accountable. Thinking, theory and ideas become critical and transformative when they become meaningful and have some purchase on peoples' lives. They also play a powerful role in shaping the formative cultures necessary to keep the spirit of democracy alive in a society. Theory or general frameworks of thought are always at work in what we say and practice. The question is whether we are aware of them and whether they constitute a hidden dimension of thought or are critically engaged frameworks. But the so-called abuse of theory and critical thought in the academy is not simply the fault of errant professionalism and careerism. Defining theory and dangerous thinking as part of a critical pedagogy and emancipatory project becomes increasingly difficult for part-time faculty and those not on the tenure line who are harnessed with the increased pressures posed by the corporate university coupled with the market-driven production of an ongoing culture of uncertainty, insecurity and fear which makes the black hole of despair more paralyzing and crippling.
Killing the imagination and the quest for truth is not too difficult when faculty are struggling to survive the tasks of teaching too many courses, receiving poverty wages for their teaching, laboring under savage debts, and excluded from the power relations that govern their time. Under such circumstance, time becomes a burden rather than a luxury to be used to enable one to be self-reflective, thoughtful and capable of critically examining the assumptions and institutions that shape our lives. Of course, at the same time, there are still a number of public intellectuals, from Cornel West, Chris Hedges and Stanley Aronowitz to Gayatri Spivak and Dorothy Roberts, who use theory to address a range of social problems both in and outside of the university, including issues such as right-wing fundamentalism, the attack on the welfare state, racism in the United States and a host of other issues.
Moreover, there has been a resurgence of public intellectuals in and outside of the academy who are refiguring the role of dangerous thinking and critical thought as central pedagogical elements in fashioning a new language for politics, one that begins with the question of what a democracy should look like and in whose interest it should operate. Such intellectuals refuse the notion that any appeal to theory automatically makes them suspect. All of these intellectuals accept the notion that thinking becomes critical when it "brings theory into the focus of analysis by refusing to accept its authority without proof, by denuding that the grounds on which is authority is claimed be revealed, and, eventually, by questioning those grounds . . . theory is an activity rather than a body of knowledge . . . in that it produces practices" and refuses to be satisfied with the world as it is.(10)
On the other side, the diatribes against theory and dangerous thinking by the press, media, etc. can be construed as a kind of resentment, the product of a turf war, a defense of neoliberal fundamentalism, or an expression of ignorance and anti-intellectualism in the service of power. Of course, it is all these and more, but I think one important issue highlighted by Bob McChesney and others lies in the corporatizing of the media and its ongoing refusal to address important problems with intellectual rigor and theoretical depth - not to mention any simple honesty (Fox being the most obvious and horrible example).(11) The dominant media has become lap dogs to corporate power, serving largely as a source of entertainment, hate and militarism, all provided in ways that resemble barking commands. Public spaces are simply being eaten up and turned into offshoots of what Fox News and hate right-wing talk radio have become, a toxic advertisement for various elements of right-wing and fundamentalist discourses. Of course, there are alternative public spheres and one should never underestimate the power of resistance, even in times such as ours, but the colonizing of alternative views, ideas and knowledge available to people constitutes not only a crisis of theory and critical thought but a crisis of pedagogy and democracy itself. This is not new, but it has become more intensified and dangerous. But in the current historical conjuncture, serious questions have to be raised about what role artists, intellectuals, journalists, writers and other cultural workers might play in challenging the authoritarian state and while deepening and expanding the process of democratization. One answer might be found in the important work of people like Edward Said, Pierre Bourdieu, Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Naomi Klein, Stanley Aronowitz, Bill McKibben and others.
One important function of dangerous thinking is that it foregrounds the responsibility of artists, intellectuals, academics and others who use it. Mapping the full range of how power is used and how it can be made accountable represents a productive pedagogical and political use of theory. Theorizing the political, economic and cultural landscapes is central to any form of political activism and suggests that theory is like oxygen. That is, a valuable resource, which one has to become conscious of in order to realize how necessary it is to have it. Where we should take pause is when academic culture uses critical thought in the service of ideological purity and in doing so transforms pedagogy in to forms of poisonous indoctrination for students. Critical thought in this case ossifies from a practice to a form of political dogmatism. The cheerleaders for casino capitalism hate critical theory and thought because they contain the possibility of politicizing everyday life and exposing those savage market-driven ideologies, practices and social relations that hide behind an appeal to commonsense. Both the fetishism of thinking and its dismissal are part of the same coin, the overall refusal to link conception and practice, agency and intervention, all aggravated by neoliberalism's hatred of all things social and public.
While there is more than enough evidence to distrust the appeal to democracy, especially in light of how the term is utterly debased at all levels of mainstream politics and in the culture in general, I think it is a term with a long legacy of struggle and needs to be reclaimed and fought over rather than abandoned. Derrida is particularly instructive in his insistence on distinguishing between the reality and promise of democracy - a distinction that points to democracy as a signpost that anticipates something better and in doing so offers a political and moral referent to think and act otherwise. I also think that the left and liberals have lost sight of the power of democracy as a term that can bring together a variety of diverse struggles, thus providing a referent for moving beyond particularized struggles while not abandoning them.
As part of an appeal to radical democracy, I think it is crucial for educators and other cultural workers to find ways to talk about the social contract as a means of both invoking matters of the social and justice, or what John Rawls once called "the infrastructure of justice," and also affirming freedom as a constitutive part of the social, rather than in opposition to the social. Young people have raised serious questions about what a democracy looks like and whom it might serve. Critically interrogating the meaning, reality, misappropriation and promise of democracy along with the necessary agents to have it come into fruition is an important political task.
The right wing in its various guises have so devalued any democratic notion of the social and critical thought that it has become difficult to think in terms outside of the survival-of the-fittest ethic and culture of cruelty that now dominates reality TV, the bullies who set policy in Washington and the sycophants who are media cheerleaders for Obama, the bankers and corporate America. Fortunately, we have a number of brave souls in and out of the academy who refuse to give up the language of democracy - from Harvey Kay and Chris Hedges to the indomitable and courageous Bill Moyers.
Needless to say, ideas without institutions in which they can be nurtured tend to fall to the margins of society. This is all the more reason to defend public and higher education and all of those public spheres where democratic ideas, values and practices are taken seriously, and intellectual rigor becomes the norm rather than a sideshow. Think of the informed critical writing and interviews one can find in Truthout, Salon, Truthdig, Monthly Review Zine and a range of other online sites that refuse prescriptions and barking commands. These are the new cultural apparatuses of freedom for the 21st century and they need to be defended in the name of dangerous forms of thinking that are self-reflective, infused with democratic values and expanding the public good.
Critical thought and thinking dangerously are not just about reading texts and screen culture closely or for that matter using abstract models of language to explain the arc of history, politics and human behavior. They are also about the frameworks we develop in terms of how we deal with power, treat one another and develop a sense of compassion for others and the planet. I was so taken a few years ago by a similar sentiment reflected in a story that Jürgen Habermas told about being at Herbert Marcuse's side as he was dying and being moved by Marcuse's last few words: "I know wherein our most basic value judgment are rooted - in compassion, in our sense of the suffering of others."(12) While it makes little sense to be trapped in a kind of ossified intellectual rigor, there is no excuse to believe that action uninformed by theory is anything but an expression of thoughtlessness.
We live in an era when conservatives and the financial elite collapse public concerns into private interests, define people largely as consumers and consider everyone potential terrorists. Moreover, the apostles of neoliberal capitalism militarize and commodify the entire society, consider youth as nothing more than a source of profit, define education as training, undermine the welfare state in favor of a warfare state and define democracy as synonymous with the language of capital. We live in a period that the late Gil Scott-Heron once called "winter in America." As the forces of authoritarianism sweep over every major US institution, the time for widespread resistance and radical democratic change has never been so urgent. Such change will not come unless the call for political and economic change is matched by a change in subjectivity, consciousness and the desire for a better world. This is, in part, a theoretical challenge and supports individual and collective efforts to reconfigure those public spheres where theory can emerge and be refined into modes of critique, understanding and collective action. As a mode of resistance, dangerous thinking is the basis for a formative and pedagogical culture of questioning and politics that takes seriously how knowledge can become central to the practice of freedom, justice and democratic change. At a time of lowered expectations, thinking dangerously raises the bar and points to making the impossible, once again, all the more possible.
Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Ryerson University.
Blindness
Asiya is a schoolgirl.
She is also now blind.
An Israeli bomb
fired on Gaza
hit her schoolyard
and flying shrapnel
struck both her eyes.
But now unable to see,
she still has vision.
“I want my
Palestinian people
to be free,” Asiya says.
“I want us to be able
to live in our land
safe from bombs
and terror.
I want all peoples
to live in peace.
I do not hate the
Israelis personally,
but I hate
what the Israelis
have done to me,
what they have done
to my people.”
Far away from
Asiya’s school,
Israeli generals
pore over maps,
view aerial photographs,
study charts
and logistics lists;
they look at the
photos of the
demolished buildings
and the piles of corpses,
but do not see
what were once
living human beings
who reared children,
cared for neighbors,
tried to scrounge
enough to eat.
All these generals have
perfect sight;
they see clearly,
yet have no vision.
They are all
She is also now blind.
An Israeli bomb
fired on Gaza
hit her schoolyard
and flying shrapnel
struck both her eyes.
But now unable to see,
she still has vision.
“I want my
Palestinian people
to be free,” Asiya says.
“I want us to be able
to live in our land
safe from bombs
and terror.
I want all peoples
to live in peace.
I do not hate the
Israelis personally,
but I hate
what the Israelis
have done to me,
what they have done
to my people.”
Far away from
Asiya’s school,
Israeli generals
pore over maps,
view aerial photographs,
study charts
and logistics lists;
they look at the
photos of the
demolished buildings
and the piles of corpses,
but do not see
what were once
living human beings
who reared children,
cared for neighbors,
tried to scrounge
enough to eat.
All these generals have
perfect sight;
they see clearly,
yet have no vision.
They are all
more blind than Asiya.
by George Fish
OneLove
::::MME::::
The Rise Of The Non-working Rich By Robert Reich
In a new Pew poll, more than three quarters of self-described conservatives believe “poor people have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything.”
In reality, most of America’s poor work hard, often in two or more
The real non-workers are the wealthy who inherit their fortunes. And their ranks are growing.
In fact, we’re on the cusp of the largest inter-generational wealth transfer in history.
The wealth is coming from those who over the last three decades earned huge amounts on Wall Street, in corporate boardrooms, or as high-tech entrepreneurs.
It’s going to their children, who did nothing except be born into the right family.
The “self-made” man or woman, the symbol of American meritocracy, is disappearing. Six of today’s ten wealthiest Americans are heirs to prominent fortunes. Just six Walmart heirs have more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined (up from 30 percent in 2007).
The U.S. Trust bank just released a poll of Americans with more than $3 million of investable assets.
Nearly three-quarters of those over age 69, and 61 per cent of boomers (between the ages of 50 and 68), were the first in their generation to accumulate significant wealth.
But the bank found inherited wealth far more common among rich millennials under age 35.This is the dynastic form of wealth French economist Thomas Piketty warns about. It’s been the major source of wealth in Europe for centuries. It’s about to become the major source in America – unless, that is, we do something about it.
As income from work has become more concentrated in America, the super rich have invested in businesses, real estate, art, and other assets. The income from these assets is now concentrating even faster than income from work.
In 1979, the richest 1 percent of households accounted for 17 percent of business income. By 2007 they were getting 43 percent. They were also taking in 75 percent of
Both political parties have encouraged this great wealth transfer, as
But Republicans have been even more ardent than Democrats.
For example,
George W. Bush’s biggest
Barack Obama rolled back some of these cuts, but many remain.
Before George W. Bush, the estate tax kicked in at $2 million of assets per couple, and then applied a 55 percent rate. Now it kicks in at $10 million per couple, with a 40 percent rate.
House Republicans want to go even further than Bush did.
Rep. Paul Ryan’s “road map,” which continues to be the bible of Republican economic policy, eliminates all taxes on interest, dividends, capital gains, and estates.
Yet the specter of an entire generation who do nothing for their money other than speed-dial their wealth management advisors isn’t particularly attractive.
It’s also dangerous to our democracy, as dynastic wealth inevitably accumulates political influence.
What to do? First, restore the estate tax in full.
Second, eliminate the “stepped-up-basis on death” rule. This obscure tax provision allows heirs to avoid paying capital gains taxes on the increased value of assets accumulated during the life of the deceased. Such untaxed gains account for more than half of the value of estates worth more than $100 million, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Third, institute a wealth tax. We already have an annual wealth tax on homes, the major asset of the middle class. It’s called the property tax. Why not a small annual tax on the value of stocks and bonds, the major assets of the wealthy?
We don’t have to sit by and watch our meritocracy be replaced by a permanent aristocracy, and our democracy be undermined by dynastic wealth. We can and must take action — before it’s too late.
*******
OneLove
:::MME:::
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