Category Archives: A - BLOG - Page 27

Image of the month: The Apple Weigher

12-03-01 BLOG Image of the month

Sunday, February 28, 2012 — Made For Each Other: The Conservative Love Affair with Communism and How It Is Destroying Us

This is a blog, not an aca­d­e­m­ic paper, and the con­tent is dri­ven by per­son­al pas­sion. I am very angry about what is hap­pen­ing to my coun­try, and to North Amer­i­can soci­ety as a whole, and this blog will not be tem­per­ate in tone. 

Con­tem­plate the fol­low­ing details very close­ly, because they are what is planned for you. 

You are an employ­ee in a fac­to­ry. You have no union. Any­one who attempts to form one, or even casu­al­ly speaks of the pos­si­bil­i­ty, will be arrest­ed and sent to a con­cen­tra­tion camp. In fact, all sorts of polit­i­cal and reli­gious dis­si­dents are sent to camps, where they are often dis­as­sem­bled for med­ical parts [1]. This sug­gests cau­tion is in order. Any­way, the issue nev­er comes up, for noth­ing along those lines has ever hap­pened in your fac­to­ry, and you have no notion of how work­ers could chal­lenge or influ­ence any­thing. Your employ­er mon­i­tors and con­trols every aspect of your per­son­al life. You have no “pri­vate” life. You are unmar­ried, and will remain so. You live in sex­u­al­ly seg­re­gat­ed bar­racks. There is lit­tle free time to do any­thing about it, any­way, because your work shifts occu­py most of your time awake. If there is a sud­den need for some change in pro­duc­tion, you are roused by supe­ri­ors at four in the morn­ing and sent to the assem­bly line. If you are injured on the job, or expo­sure to pol­lu­tants ren­ders you inca­pable of work­ing, you are sim­ply thrown out with­out com­pen­sa­tion. You earn a pit­tance. The shiny prod­ucts you pro­duce are for export, and you could not afford to buy any of them. Not that you care. All you are con­cerned with is keep­ing this “good” job, which is actu­al­ly one of the cov­et­ed ones. All the oth­er alter­na­tives are worse. Read more »

Saturday, February 18, 2012 — The Fading Memory of the Vietnam War

As time moves for­ward, the mem­o­ry of the Viet­nam War slips away, and is replaced with a car­toon ver­sion. Almost entire­ly for­got­ten, now, after a tidal wave of Con­ser­v­a­tive filth has been unleashed upon the world, is that a major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans came to oppose that war, and were revolt­ed by its futil­i­ty and bar­barism. The wars of recent times have been just as cor­rupt and bru­tal, but jour­nal­ists are now tamed and “embed­ded”, and a gen­er­a­tion raised on infan­tile war fan­tasies does­n’t want to know what’s real. Con­ser­v­a­tive ide­o­log­i­cal hacks are now busy crank­ing out lie-filled revi­sion­ist accounts of the war, and the social con­flict that it brought to Amer­i­cans. These “revi­sions” are the exact equiv­a­lent of Com­mu­nist pro­pa­gan­da. Read more »

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 ― Flurpamka: An Italic Puzzle

Flur­pam­ka, noun

def­i­n­i­tion: the coin­ing and use of a self-ref­er­en­tial noun, with arbi­trar­i­ly cho­sen syl­la­bles, with­out regard to ety­mol­o­gy or usage. Read more »

Image of the month: A Kanembu woman of Lake Tchad

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 — Some Real Protest For a Change

As of this mid­night, Wikipedia is not avail­able on the Inter­net. This is a protest being made by the peo­ple who admin­is­ter Wikipedia. It will last for 24 hours. Read more »

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 — The Reality Behind Ideology, Religious Fundamentalism, and Military Glory

Monday, January 2, 2012 — We Need More Intelligent Protest, Part 4

There’s an impor­tant dif­fer­ence between polit­i­cal protests tak­ing place with­in a demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly ordered soci­ety and those tak­ing place with­in a crude dic­ta­tor­ship, or a fun­da­men­tal­ly cor­rupt and crim­i­nal regime. This dif­fer­ence is rarely acknowl­edged by the media, or by the­o­rists who casu­al­ly lump all acts of protest togeth­er. But sure­ly, the fact that one process is extreme­ly dan­ger­ous and the oth­er is not should loom large in any analy­sis. Read more »

Image of the month:

12-01-01 BLOG Image of the month

Monday, December 18, 2011 — We Need More Intelligent Protest, Part 3

We will pause in mem­o­ry of some­one who knew the mean­ing of protest.

Václav Hav­el — Octo­ber 5, 1936 – 18 Decem­ber 18, 2011

Truth and love must pre­vail over lies and hate.” — V.H.

Read this fine sum­ma­tion of Havel’s char­ac­ter and career by John Keane. Par­tic­u­lar­ly worth not­ing is this paragraph:

So, giv­en his mul­ti­ple per­son­al­i­ties and abun­dant achieve­ments, what is the best way to remem­ber Václav Hav­el? We should mourn his pass­ing, cer­tain­ly. But democ­ra­cies shouldn’t immor­tal­ize their lead­ers, past or present. They mustn’t allow any­body to sit on thrones. Yes, they need to pre­serve mem­o­ries of fig­ures like Hav­el, par­tic­u­lar­ly in our dark­en­ing times, when more than a few democ­ra­cies find them­selves in trou­ble. Yet democ­rats should try to live with­out polit­i­cal heroes and myths of great leaders.