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Sunday, May 18th, 2008
| Time |
Event |
| 12:31a |
Murderous thieving hordes Who else but the peasants comrade? After all when you are just some petty-bourgeois scumbag puppet, what else can you pick on when you are busy posing as some fucking 'hero of the working masses'? The working class is fully entitled to fuck over the peasantry this I know - because Friedrich Factory owning Engels puppet told me so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_LutherAND http://www.google.com.au/Garibaldi+peasantTop down Revolution is not healthy for children and small landholders. | | 12:49a |
World war two ain't over till we say it is Fuck Italy About 70,000 Gypsies in Italy hold Italian passports, including about 30,000 descended from 15th-century Gypsy settlers in the country. The remainder have arrived since, many fleeing the Balkans during the 1990s. Another 10,000 Gypsies came from Romania after it joined the European Union in January 2007, according to an Italian human rights organisation, EveryOne, part of the approximately half million Romanians believed to be in Italy. Romanians were among the 268 immigrants rounded up in a nationwide police crackdown on prostitution and drug dealing this week, after new prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's likening of foreign criminals to "an army of evil". http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/17/italyOkay Monte fucking Cassino. You wanna get yr lame blackshirt ass kicked again? Touch one Roma we bomb Rome cunt. | | 1:05a |
Red fascist scum in our universities Louis Proyect is a resident of Manhattan and a longtime employee of Columbia University. '...Although I loved my mother dearly, her Zionism did drive me crazy. No matter how many times I asked her not to bring up Israel, she kept returning to the subject. Just a few days before she died, she mailed me a large envelope full of clippings from the local newspapers. Sandwiched in between such items as the status of Bald Eagles on the Delaware River was an article making the case for Israel. I told my wife that my mom was up to her old tricks. It was clear that I had inherited her zealotry gene...' FROM http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/reflections-on-my-mothers-death/How in fucking hell does fuckingred-fascist scum like Max Lane and Proyect get employed by universities!? | | 1:10a |
Porn-valley embraces scat-domination Faced with a persistent drought and the threat of tighter ripped supplies, Los Angeles porn-valley plans to begin using heavily cleansed sewage to increase porn content supplies, joining a growing number of cities like Berlin considering similar measures. One option off the table, Mr Staglioni said, is a repeat of the dirty city's troubled history, fictionalized in the movie "Chinatown," of diverting a distant river southward to slake the city's thirst for sex-crimes. The city, pushed by legal claims, is already paying millions to restore dried-up portions of the river, the Concrete Cunt. "There simply are no more holes or straws to pitch," Mr Staglioni said at a news conference at a water plant. 'Take it or fucking leave it'. http://www.experiment-x.com/preview/updates008.htmReichenbach Falls, a founder of the Breachwood Canyon Anal Neighborhood Association, one of the groups that opposed the scat-porn plan, said she remained unconvinced the shit would be safe to take in the mouth. "I appreciate them trying to save us in a time of ass-to-mouth shortage, but the fact remains the kind of toxins and chemicals that are created on daily basis cannot be tested for," Ms. Reichenbach said, disputing industry databank claims to the contrary. She said the group would push for independent testing and analysis of the Simon Thaur sludge. But Mr Staglioni and Herr Ralf, the general manager of the Berlin Department of Water and Power, said they would push forward. | | 1:34a |
Xtianity rebooted Figures Jesus John the Baptist Simon Peter Twelve Apostles James the Just-in-time Simeon of Jerusalem Jude Paul of Tarsus Patriarchs of Jerusalem Robert Zimmerman Louis Proyect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Torah-submissionMen, Women, Love, Hate and Justice: Parshat Ki Tetzeh a d’var Torah for parshat Ki Tetzeh (Deut. 21:10-25:19) Aryeh Cohen War, kidnap, rape, failed marriages, radically disobedient children, hatred. This sounds like a blurb for one of the tabloid TV shows. It also happens to be a list of some of the issues dealt with in this week’s Torah portion. The portions opens with an admonition about the laws of war (Deut. 21:10-14). “If you go out to war against your enemies, and God delivers them into your hands, and you take captives; And you see amongst the captives a beautiful woman after whom you lust and you take her to wife.” After the fear and uncertainty of battle, in the relief and exaltation of victory, a soldier is aroused by the sight of a beautiful captive woman, and he takes her. The man must then let the woman grieve and wear the garments of mourning for a month. If at the end of the month the man doesn’t want her, he must let her return home, and he has no further claim on her. http://judaism.ajula.edu/Content/ContentUnit.asp?CID=1701&u=6400&t=0As Marx once said, “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/reflections-on-my-mothers-death/Marx was a Jew; and when he was growing up in Trier the Jews, though not persecuted, were treated as second-class citizens and excluded from certain professions. No Jew could hold a commission in the Prussian army or practise as a lawyer at the bar. To continue as a member of the legal profession Marx's father became a Christian and was baptised by a Lutheran army chaplain. As a boy Marx realised that he was different from his fellows. He had been baptised, but he was "a Jew by race" and suffered from the anti-Semitism prevalent in Germany in his day. His reaction to the situation was an extraordinary one. He ranged himself with the anti-Semites and denounced his own people in a most violent fashion. His attitude towards the Jews was made clear in two articles which he wrote in 1843 at the age of 25. They were reviews of a book and an article by Bruno Bauer on the Jewish question, and they appeared in the Deutsch-Franzoesische Jahrbuecher (published in Paris in 1844) [2]. Marx regarded capitalism, as operated by the middle classes, as inherently evil; and he argued that Jewish money-making activities lay at the very heart of the obnoxious capitalist system. The following extracts from Marx's articles indicate his point of view of the Jewish question in his day. "What is the worldly raison d'etre of Jewry [Judaism]? The practical necessity of Jewry is self-interest." "What is the worldly religion of the Jews? It is the petty haggling of the hawker." "What is his worldly God?" "It is money." "So in Jewry we recognise a contemporary universal anti-social phenomenon, which has reached its present pitch through a process of, historical development in which the Jews have zealously co-operated. And this evil anti-social aspect of Jewry has grown to a stage at which: it must necessarily collapse." "The Jews have emancipated themselves in a Jewish fashion. Not only have they mastered the; power of money but - with or without the Jews - money has become a world power. The Jews have emancipated themselves by turning Christians into Jews:" "Money is the most zealous God of Israel and no other God can compete with him. Money debases all human Gods and turns them into goods. Money is the universal value of everything." "The God of the Jews has become secularised and bas become a World God. The bill of exchange is the real God of the Jews." "Jewry reaches its climax in the consummation of bourgeois society - and bourgeois society has reached its highest point in the Christian world." In 1845, in The Holy Family, Marx claimed that in his articles in the Deutsch-Franzoesische Jahrbuecher he had "proved that the task of abolishing the essence of Jewry is in truth the task of abolishing Jewry in civil society, abolishing the inhumanity of today's practice of life, the summit of which is the money system." In 1849 an article in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (of which Marx was the editor) criticised the notion that Jews living in Prussia's Polish provinces should be regarded as Germans. The article declared that these Jews were "the filthiest of all races." "Neither by speech nor by descent - but only by their greed for profit - can they be looked upon as relatives of the Germans in Frankfurt." FROM http://marxwords.blogspot.com/'...Now there's another problem. The ban on marriages with Benjaminites results in a shortage of women for the surviving six hundred men. This is of concern to the other tribes, lest a whole tribe of Israel go extinct. Taking note of the fact that no one from the town of Jabesh-gilead came to the Mizpah assembly, the tribes decide to send twelve thousand men to Jabesh-gilead, kill every male there and every female who has lain with one, and give all the virgins to Benjamin. This nets four hundred young virgins for the Benjaminites, which leaves them still two hundred women short. Then someone remembers the annual "feast of the Lord in Shiloh," where "the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance," in a place not far from the "highway." So the tribes send the two hundred still-wifeless Benjaminites to go hide there, with instructions to "catch you every man his wife." When the daughters of Shiloh start dancing, the hidden Benjaminites rush out of the vineyards and grab the women they want. Going home with new wives, these scions of the ravenous wolf may now repair and replenish their war-ravaged towns. Years later a Benjaminite of Gibeah, Saul, becomes the first king of Israel. (Judg. 19:1-21:23; 1 Sam. 10:17-27) http://www.ronaldecker.com/andb.htmLest I be accused of crass anti-semitism I naturally plead ' not guilty' as a fan of Emma Goldman, Albert Einstein and the Marx brothers, but note that respected Jews such as Phillip Roth have examined the Torah and found it lacking in certain essential respects. I take my cues from smart Jews - like Lenny Bruce bruce | | 2:02a |
Tom O\\\\Lincoln is a turd blossoming
One useful side-effect of vigorous bowel movements combined with a little wiggling and shaking is wot turds drop out. Turds like this arsehole Tom O'Lincoln. This over-the-hill-hump outs himself just recently...
'... Actually my discussion of Hamilton was (I thought) fairly generous, the reasons being:
1. It was written for the non-socialist Overland readership:...'
How Straussian of old uncle Tom!
' It was written for the non-socialist Overland readership..'
Short version - we Marxists are homo-superior - you fucking peasants are totally disposable scum.
This red maggot is all over this latest split like the white maggot Bob Gould. The reason is plain - they see a swollen vein and they plumb it for substanence...much like Herr Karl lived in Herr Engels bowel movements around the time of those mysterious Whitechapel murders. | | 2:12a |
Monitor spray warning
Woe unto Israel
I joked for days about what I’d do, given the opportunity. I joked seriously, half-seriously, “I’d be willing to martyr myself for this cause.” I’d throw tomatoes, a pie, drop a banner, talk trash to his face, strangle him with my bare hands. Something, anything.
I considered the pie my best option. Key lime, perhaps. Something messy, with a lot of cream and custard. Something he’d have to eat like the seven years of fecal waste we’ve been made to eat by his administration.
But in the end, I did nothing.
It was not out of respect for the medinat, its emissaries, Mr. Peres, or anything of the sort, though I like to believe it was, in part, out of respect for the people of Israel, who need not countenance any further disgrace. Certainly, it was not out of respect for the United States, it’s lost principles, nor the mythic notion of the Office of President. Nor was it for fear of repercussion, though no doubt I would have lost my job, been permanently banned from the state of Israel, and in all likelihood spent a fair amount of time in jail getting raped in every orifice. Maybe I’d have even gotten myself killed. In fact, I doubt I’d have even managed to raise the pie in my hand before I’d have been tackled and had a gun stuffed in my mouth.
In truth, I’m not quite sure why I didn’t act. I kid myself, thinking it would have been worth it to be the most beloved man on the planet Earth for at least two weeks before I’d be forgotten. It would have been desperately needed positive PR for the Jews. The headlines would read: “Jew shames shameless pig on world stage, redeems his people.”
But instead, like a nightmare in which you find yourself paralyzed at a moment of imminent danger, I summoned every ounce of will in my body to restrain myself from outpouring the primal scream resonating within.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Tuesday night I stood in the same room, no more than 20 feet from President George W. Bush. The man himself. The Destroyer of Worlds. In the flesh. Sharing the very air I breathed. And yet somehow, somehow, I remained silent.
I am reminded of my visit to Buchenwald, a few years back. Fearing the likelihood of being overwhelmed emotionally by the spectre of the Shoah, I explored the site with my camera, which served as a buffer between me and the immediacy of the experience. Similarly, as I watched Bush that night through my camera’s viewfinder, I was able to soften the blow by creating the impression, “No, I’m not really here, witnessing this. I’m watching on television.”
But ultimately it was not so much Bush’s presence that troubled me ever so gravely. Nor was it the fact that Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert and Sheldon Adelson led the public fellation of this war criminal, hailing him, without any sense of irony, as a great and honorable American leader who has been “the best friend Israel has ever had.” “The best President” in American history even. This, despite Bush’s responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1 million Iraqi civilians. This, despite his strategic failures that have led directly to the strengthening of Islamic extremists around the globe. This, despite his authorization of torture by U.S. servicemen, his evisceration of the U.S. Constitution, and his years of inaction which contributed directly to the demise of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
No, this is not what angered and sickened me so, for what can we expect from our politicians and business leaders but bald faced lies?
What upset me so much so that, in all seriousness, I had to control my gag reflex to prevent myself from vomiting there on the spot, was the fact that as these men stood there with perfectly straight faces telling one lie after another, 3,500 Jewish leaders from around the world, in turn, stood and applauded after the delivery of each and every lie.
It was as if the speakers had each held up a red colored card, pointed to it and said, “This is green! This is sooooo green! This is the greenest green that green has ever been,” and everyone in the room applauded while nodding to each other and kvelling, “How true! It’s like crazy green!”
After three hours of this nonsense, after three hours of listening to self-congratulatory speeches and the thunderous applause given absurdly grandiose remarks like Sheldon Adelson’s statement, “All of the Jewish people throughout the world are thankful for your being the most supportive United States President in Israel’s 60 year history,” and Peres’ preposterous accolade, “You taught the world that it is possible to be powerful without being power hungry,” I was so exceedingly ill, so sick of heart, mind and body, that upon exiting the conference center, I nearly fell on my knees and vomited. “It’s Purim in Jerusalem!” I exclaimed.
The next morning I awoke so emotionally drained and physically depleted — my immune system was so worn down — that I could not get out of bed and I had broken out with a cold sore.
I am still parsing the experience — still trying to understand what I had witnessed, and really trying to decide if I want anything to do with the purportedly moderate Zionist community, these conventions, these leadership seminars, this absolute, utterly inane, mind-numbingly awful bullshit anymore.
May G-d have mercy on the Jewish people and on the people of Israel. And may G-d forgive me for my failure to take a stand.
ShareThis ( ANARCHOBLOGS ) | | 2:28a |
Lower Prices
I like how Price issues a
Submitted by anon on Fri, 2008-05-16 09:01.
I like how (Wayner) Price issues a sectarian challenge at the end of the intro: "If you are not at least curious about these ideas, do not bother to read this book." That's the kind of intellectual bullying I've come to expect from ex(?)-Trots and authoritarian anarchists. He's saying, in essence, "I dare you to refute anything that follows." He knows that a point-by-point response to his writings will take even longer than it took him to write them, and it'll make the responder look like s/he's obsessed with Price, making the response personal rather than political. Pretty shrewd.
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* reply
Price is his own refutation.
Submitted by Stan Marsh on Fri, 2008-05-16 14:17.
( Weiner) Price is his own refutation. You can tell by the tone of his writing that he is speaking out of fear. He knows perfectly well that anarchist thought has gone in radical new directions in recent years and that and that he is just staving off the inevitable. It is only a matter of time before Platformism disintegrates like a moth-eaten sweater and its remnants are swept into the dustbin of history.
"OH MY GOD! THEY DIALECTICALLY NEGATED KENNY!" | | 2:49a |
| | 3:33a |
Defend us from evil
THE rate of cancer deaths in a north Queensland town where the army tested chemical weapons at the start of the Vietnam War are 10 times the state average.
Australian military scientists sprayed the toxic defoliant Agent Orange on rainforest in the water catchment area of Innisfail in 1966, Fairfax reported.
The sprayed site, where jungle has never re-grown, lies on a ridge about 100 metres above the Johnstone River, which supplies water for the town in the state's far north.
Figures from the Queensland Health Department show 76 people died from cancer in the town of almost 12,000 in 2005, 10 times the state's average and four times the national average.
Researcher Jean Williams, who has been awarded the Order of Australia Medal for her work on the effects of chemicals on Vietnam War veterans, found details of the secret tests at Innisfail in Australian War Memorial archives.
"These test carried out between 1964 and 1966 were the first tests of Agent Orange and they were carried out at Gregory Falls near Innisfail,'' she told Fairfax.
"I was told there is a high rate of cancer there but no one can understand why.
"Perhaps now they will understand.''
Ms Williams found three boxes of files in the archives, with one file, marked "considered sensitive'', showing the chemicals 2,4-D, Diquat, Tordon and diemthyl sulphoxide (DMSO) were sprayed on the rainforest.
"It was considered sensitive because they were mixing together all the bad chemicals, which just made them worse,'' she said.
"They cause all the cancers.''
Ms Williams said another file which could indicate more testing as part of a project known as Operation Desert had gone missing, a fact confirmed by Australian War Memorial director Steve Gower.
The contents of the missing file were marked "too disturbing to ever be released'', Fairfax reports.
"The poor people of Innisfail have been kept in the dark about this,'' she said.
"But these chemicals cause cancer and deformities that are passed on for generations.''
Innisfail RSL president Reg Hamann, who suffers cancer after being exposed to Agent Orange while fighting in Vietnam, said his children had been born with health issues.
"I believe it must have something to do with the high cancer rates in Innisfail,'' he told Fairfax.
"The amount of young people in this area who die of leukaemia and similar cancers to what I got from Agent Orange is scary.
"The authorities are scared of digging into it as there would be lots of law suits.'' | | 3:41a |
' Yr dogmeat pal'
From little acorns big oaks grow
IN Washington a few days ago, a leading Republican Congressman presented a report to colleagues on the state of their party.
"The Republican brand is in the trash can," he wrote.
"If we were dog food, they would take us off the shelf."
If the Liberal Party in Australia was dog food, it would be removed from the shelf and tossed into the garbage bin as well. That is a large part of Liberal leader Brendan Nelson's burden.
A fellow Liberal told the Opposition leader recently: "The problem is not you. It's us."
That let Nelson off far too lightly, but there is considerable truth in it just the same.
Senior Liberals expect an unfavourable Newspoll next week. If they are right - if Labor does well and the Coalition does badly - the pundits will almost certainly interpret it as reflecting approval on Wayne Swan's Budget.
But Liberal hard-heads believe it is likely to be more a brand issue than a Budget verdict, a result of the mess their party is in, particularly at state level.
In recent polls, support in Western Australia has helped to prop up the Liberal Party's ratings nationally, but the embarrassment of a chair-sniffing state leader is bound to change that.
Civil war in the Victorian branch - complete with treacherous bloggers in head office and emails exposing anti-Semitism - will not help the party's Newspoll ratings either.
So it is hard to blame Nelson for jettisoning economic responsibility and taking the populist route in his Budget reply. These are desperate times for the Liberal Party.
Nelson's proposal to cut fuel excise by 5c a litre and his pledge to block the 70 per cent tax rise on pre-mixed alcoholic drinks - alcopops - would punch a massive financial hole in the Budget.
And he did not even try to identify other savings measures to maintain a Budget surplus of $21.7 billion - the level Swan achieved.
Having branded Swan's Budget inflationary, Nelson put forward a prescription that would make it much more so.
Not all Liberal MPs were impressed when the Opposition Leader resumed his seat. One said: "If the only ace left in the Coalition's deck is economic responsibility and credibility, what Brendan has proposed surely blows that out of the water."
The metaphor was mixed, but the meaning was clear.
Despite Peter Costello's public praise for Nelson's Budget response, it is difficult to believe that he, too, was not privately appalled.
Some members of the shadow Cabinet certainly had strong misgivings when Nelson told them, a few hours before delivering the speech, what it would contain.
Nelson's approach puts the Coalition in dangerous territory. It is very difficult now for the Liberals to cast themselves as the party of low inflation and budget discipline.
But overall the performance seemed to get a tick from those on the benches behind him.
One of the party's experienced campaigners said: "What Brendan did was aimed at the people who moved away from us in the suburbs at the election. It was designed to let them know that we're still around."
In other words, the priority is getting attention. Nelson is engaged in retail politics. He is targeting the punters, not the economic commentators.
Whether he is under-estimating those punters remains to be seen.
Budget week was a test of three men - Nelson, his Shadow Treasurer and leadership rival Malcolm Turnbull, and Swan.
Swan emerged with his confidence bolstered and his standing increased.
The Budget, generally, got good press and reasonable marks from economic experts.
Ripping into Turnbull in Parliament two days after delivering it, Swan looked like a different bloke to the uneasy performer of earlier in the year.
Turnbull, obviously keen to outshine Nelson and enhance his leadership claims, failed to dazzle. His confused and contradictory performance would have disappointed his followers.
And Nelson? Well, he exceeded expectations. That might not be saying a great deal, but his grip on the leadership does not appear to have been weakened.
That, I suspect, will come as a relief to those in the party organisation trying to do something to rehabilitate the Liberal brand.
It makes sense to get the party itself in order before worrying about the leadership.
Organisational reform is long overdue, but party president Alan Stockdale and Federal Director Brian Loughnane have now got things moving.
The disastrous events in Victoria and WA have provided further evidence of the urgent need for a stronger federal structure.
The Labor Party's national executive has the power to overrule a state branch when a crisis arises. The Liberal Party has no such mechanism.
A plan for structural reform will be put to a special federal convention of the Liberal Party in October or November.
The thinking seems to be that there will be time enough to address the leadership issue when those changes have been approved and bedded down.
SOME thoughts on the alcopops tax controversy.
When the GST was introduced in 2000 it raised the price of just about everything, except pre-mixed spirits-based drinks. In the rejigging of excise made necessary by application of the new tax to alcoholic beverages, alcopops got special treatment for reasons difficult to understand. Their prices dropped dramatically.
Plenty of concern was expressed at the time.
The then federal Labor MP for Newcastle, Alan Morris, told Parliament: "It is difficult to believe any modern government could knowingly legislate in a way that will impact on the drinking habits of young people."
Dr Kerryn Phelps, then AMA president, warned that the price cut for so-called alcoholic soft drinks could have a disastrous impact on youth drinking problems.
Within two months, there were reports of sales of some alcopops rising by as much as 80 per cent. News reports from the time quote publicans talking about the big rise in sales of such drinks to young people.
The 2001 national drug household survey found that pre-mixed drinks were the most popular beverage for girls aged 14 to 19.
In August 2002, Trish Worth - parliamentary secretary for health in the coalition government - issued a press release saying: "Over the past three years, tracking studies for the National Alcohol Campaign have seen the proportion of 15- to 17-year-olds drinking pre-mixed spirits dramatically increase from 6 per cent to 22 per cent for boys and from 10 per cent to 37 per cent for girls."
So the problem was not invented by Kevin Rudd to justify a tax grab.
It has just taken a very long time for someone to tackle a problem that should not have been created in the first place.
* Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. He appears each week on the Sunday program and his column appears every Saturday in The Daily Telegraph. | | 3:55a |
Peacemaker
Jordanian University lecturer Ibrahim Alloush recommended on Al-Jazeera television this week that suicide bombers be equipped with small nuclear bombs.
According to a transcript provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Dr. Alloush said, "Whoever managed to get a martyrdom-seeker into Dimona, should consider how to get martyrdom-seekers into Dimona and elsewhere armed with non-conventional explosives - and perhaps even small nuclear bombs," he stated. "We should think in this direction." | | 4:05a |
World championship wrestling claims another sorry life
Police broke into a flat to check who lived there 42 years after its owner was reported missing - and found the woman's mummified remains sitting in front of her TV.
Croatian police say Hedviga Golik, who was born in 1924, had apparently made herself a cuppa and sat down to watch channel nine on her black-and-white television before she died.
Officers believe that would have been in 1966, when she was last seen by neighbours. They said one day she seemed to have just disappeared and they thought she had moved to the capital Zagreb.
But they found her remains in the tiny 13sq m flat after breaking in with bailiffs.
A police spokesman said: "So far we have no idea how it is possible that someone officially reported missing by Mario Milano so long ago was not found before in the same apartment she used to live in." | | 4:52a |
I am yr father Luke Come join me on the dark-side '...A personal, political note to Luke Weyland. I don't mean to be too tough on you, mate, but in your political naivete, you set yourself up for political analysis. By your own statements in previous posts, you're relatively new to socialist politics. At one point you rattled off a long list of religious groups you had dabbled in, in your personal quest for truth, before you discovered socialism. I don't want to dismiss that kind of personal quest, because that's how some people find their way, but I'd make a general political point that the sphere of Marxist and labour movement politics is thoroughly different to the sphere of religion. You seem to me to carry over an essentially religious approach into Marxist politics, which is a pain in the neck, politically. Wisely, you've stopped babbling about Luke Skywaker, and somebody seems to be editing your thoughts a bit, which is all to the good. I'd make a point a bit similar to that made by Shane Hopkinson and take it a bit further. In your earlier posts, you ignored all real questions of strategy and concrete political organisation and regroupment in favour of a highly moralistic and extremely religious call to all and sundry, both inside and outside the DSP, to drop their different practical orientations and join the DSP, presumably in the same semi-religious way you have. That seems pretty weird, and rather presumptuous, because you brush aside real differences on practical and theoretical questions in favour of this totally religious appeal. That approach cuts no ice at all with people who have been around in socialist politics for more than a short time, other than with people who share your religious approach and a few cynical bureaucrats who exploit semi-religious people in politics for factional objectives. As Shane Hopkinson noted pretty effectively, as the split has unfolded you've dropped your rhetoric about appealing to all and sundry to join you in political salvation in favour of a much more brutal factionalism towards the Percy group, which has obviously violated, in your mind, the organic unity of the outfit to which you now attach yourself, but obstinately pressing their own necessity to find public practical expression of the political activities in which they differ from the DSP leadership. You have swung over in a week or so from your idealistic and unrealistic appeal to uncritically join your quest for salvation to treating them as rather hardened enemies, and I have no doubt that you're encouraged in this transition by your mentors in the Boyle bunch. In a long and active political life on the left I've been through more than one split and I know the landscape pretty well. New recruits like yourself are often rounded up by cynical factional leaders to build up a witch-hunt atmosphere against articulate dissidents, particularly old hands who've been active in the movement for some time. The ignorance of past struggles of people like yourself is pitted against the "troublesome backsliders", and the rather ignorant newcomers are often persuaded that they know and understand more than the old-timers by a mixture of personal flattery and appeals to the party patriotism of new converts. That stuff is a very nasty political combination, and I've seen it more than once, and I've occasionally had to weather witch-hunts of that sort myself. People like yourself are often attracted by the excitement of the political blood sport of hunting oppositionists. The strategic and political content of the issues involved tends to be completely overlooked in this process. It's also my experience that people like yourself, with such an enthusiastic and religious approach to politics, don't tend to last very long, as the initial enthusiasm of a quasi-religious conversion, combined with the blood-sport entertainment aspect, is usually replaced by equally mercurial disillusionment with the reality of the labour movement and the class struggle. I've seen a lot of people like yourself pass through socialist politics at considerable speed. The small number who do stay, in my experience, evolve into the most aggressive sectarians. Your essentially religious approach to socialist politics would be much more psychologically suited to an organisation such as the Hillsong church. I make these observations with no personal antagonism, but with the view that one of these days someone like you might snap out of that frame of mind and approach socialist politics more dialectically and objectively, but I'm not holding my breath. I am personally hostile to the cynical, small-time socialist bureaucrats who exploit the attitudes of people such as yourself for the narrowest of factional purposes. Darth Bob http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/message/54010 | | 8:27a |
More years for the cockroach
The recent purging of the entire Palestine action team by Australia's largest Leninist sect gives me a chance to note the dire situation for red-fascism in the Middle-East. Two markers being MEK and the Kurdish Commies.
I don't even think anyone on the Marxmail list-serve even noted for the record that democratic Turkey had settled some scores with the Kurdish red-fash. Meanwhile MEK is said to be set to receive CIA aid - good luck with that Iranian revolution comrades!
Of course its not all doom and glom. Alexander the talking cockroach took a little break from his regular global warming holocaust denial, to bring us all up to speed on the terrific prospects in Lebanon. The place even had its very own Che Guevara! ( Nasrallah!) Alex then went on to pay homage to his father by getting a few revolutionaries murdered. Luckily he's not quite the bare-faced liar his dad was. Robert Fisks ' Great war for civilization' is a great read on the rise of Islamic resistance and decline and failure of the Fatah types.
' Journalists' like Alexander Cockroach are not a real writers sphincter. And Marxists being Marxists will continue in their terminal death roil in spite of taking over Nepal. ( With a little help from the second last buda-bing heir to the throne.) | | 9:11a |
The Heinrich maneuver FIREDOGLAKE - We first met Martin Heinrich here at FDL in March right after he routed the competition at the New Mexico pre-primary convention. We decided to ask Martin if he'd come back today for two reasons. First of all, he's one of the few Democrats running proactively against warrantless wiretaps and retroactive immunity and it looks like the Bush/Steny Hoyer FISA bill is rearing its ugly head again. While shady GOP front groups have tried to use the security ploy against Democrats, Martin has turned the tables on them and run a model campaign that has them on the run. Instead of fudging the issue the way many Blue Dogs and other cowering Vichy Dems do, Martin goes right after it. When White questioned Martin's patriotism, Martin slammed right back at him and sent him reeling: "I stand with the American people who say fear mongering is not acceptable. Not acceptable from George Bush, not acceptable from Karl Rove and not acceptable from Darren White. I agree with Bill Richardson that we can keep our country safe without resorting to unconstitutional, warrantless wiretaps...' - Cont http://firedoglake.com/2008/05/17/blue-america-welcomes-back-martin-heinrich-nm-01/This Jackass party seems to be fudging the key issue of protectionism. NAFTA needs beefing up not tearing down. A Shengen passport-free travel style arrangement and a common currency ( The Euro? ) are real concrete progressive policies. Building new fucking Berlin walls is just reactionary and borderline psycho - fuck me, not even those flaming bourgeois arseholes Marx and Engels were ever in favor of protectionism. | | 9:39a |
Don't know much about geography
"Hillary Clinton won the West Virginia primary with nearly 70% of the vote. That's a lot. Yeah, apparently Hillary would've gotten even more votes from the West Virginians, but on the way to the polls, some of their houses got a flat tire." --Conan O'Brien
"You can tell Hillary was kind of pandering to voters in West Virginia. Like today, she promised if elected, she would impose a heavy tax on anybody with teeth." --Jay Leno
More bad news for Hillary. Just a few hours ago, John Edwards announced he will be endorsing Barack Obama. Well, the rumor is that Barack Obama promised him, if elected, he would offer him the cabinet position of Secretary of Shampoo and Highlights." --Jay Leno
"Although, Hillary Clinton was quick to point out Dennis Kucinich still has not endorsed anyone yet. Still on the fence there. I don't want to say Hillary is doing badly in the delegate count, but she's so far behind, her Secret Service code name is now NBC." --Jay Leno
"Where is President Bush? Well, I'll tell you where President Bush is today. President Bush is in Israel. That's where he is today. He is there looking for kinishes of mass destruction." --David Letterman
"John McCain, of course, no one is really paying attention to him right now, but he's everywhere, trying to get attention. Yesterday on 'Live with Regis and Kelly,' John McCain showed one of his baby pictures. That was nice. Yeah, the picture was on loan from the Museum of Natural History. Yeah, it was beautiful. It shows him discovering fire and bringing it to the village." --Conan O'Brien | | 10:32a |
Two legs good - Four legs bad "As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America. Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. … Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance." - Karl Marx (Letter to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov, December 28, 1846) "… the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror." - Karl Marx ("The Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, November 7, 1848) "All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm… these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character… [A general war will] wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names. The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward." - Friedrich Engels ("The Magyar Struggle," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, January 13, 1849) "… only by the most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we [Germans], jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution… there will be a struggle, an ‘inexorable life-and-death struggle,’ against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and ruthless terror - not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!" - Friedrich Engels ("Democratic Pan-Slavism, Cont.," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, February 16, 1849) "We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror." - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ("Suppression of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, May 19, 1849) There's obviously a crying need for a good book by a well respected author on the numerous close links between Marxism and National-Socialism or Nazism. SEE... http://marxwords.blogspot.com/Also William Shirer's ' Berlin diary', Michael Burleigh's, ' The Third Reich - a new history' and ' Earthly Powers' that links both brands of fascism closely with religion and the dire religious wars of the Dark Ages. | | 10:44a |
Chattal slavery on the Memo plantation
I be workin' massa Josh! Please don't whup me massa Josh!
The Internet is destroying journalism, according to Internet journalist Joshua Micah Marshall, the award-winning founder of TalkingPointsMemo (TPM). In a Friday speech at a Harvard conference on the future of the web, Marshall said traditional reporters are "terrorized" by economic and competitive challenges, living with a mix of "denial and fatalism" about the future of their craft -- and their livelihoods. When openings for entry-level jobs are posted at Marshall's site, for example, he said applications come in from senior investigate journalists struggling to find a job. The industry changes are bad for journalists, Marshall argued, but good for journalism.
As traditional journalism breaks apart, a new form of open, interactive, networked and, most importantly, iterative reporting is thriving online. 2008-05-16-Picture8.png
TPM is powered by an energetic band of readers and activists who participate in gathering news. Marshall calls it "intimacy" -- a collaboration between writers and readers -- and it clearly drives research, traffic and stickiness. In complex, long-term stories like the U.S. attorney scandal and the fight over privatizing social security, TPM tapped readers to gather information, interview congressional staff and upload evolving political intelligence. While readers may be motivated by policy or political goals, their work product can still be objective information. For social security, Marshall said readers built a better virtual list of politicians' stances than anything tabulated by the traditional media or the White House.
Open reporting can also diversify and democratize the sources that reporters use. Journalists come to rely on "professional sources," Marshall explained, both for expertise (they know something) and convenience (they know how to deal with the press and speak in quotes). Interactive media websites can draw on more sources with more niche expertise, even if they don't speak in quotes. So why should non-media people care?
I think this is good for public discourse because it can (slowly) shift authority from a small clique of connected experts to a larger universe of niche experts and informed participants. The modern spin industry embeds itself in all kinds of media via these "professional sources," along with think tanks, shadow groups and online astroturf. Open reporting can organically route around that spin. (Or at least make it more transparent and expensive, if people try to game comment sections.)
Finally, when asked by a conference attendee to define the new role he built, Marshall stressed that he is still a traditional "journalist." He just operates in a different landscape.
Ari Melber @huffpo | | 10:52a |
Peter Costello's work experience
The naked Bunyip Petering out?
Sometimes I wonder whether its just me or whether Priscilla Costello isn't very funny. Michael Krogers character has been around for over fifty years and she still keeps getting TV time, including last years, ' Priscilla, Queen of the political desert'. Clearly she must be doing something right in the musical genre.
I just can't fathom what exactly it is.
The ' Super treasurer condescendingly getting among the people' act is amusing at times, but really isn't making fun of Botswana rather passe?
Still I keep looking at the unraveling road show in anticipation some laughter-worthy bon mot from the sot.
She performs in a special series of explicit sex-acts on the backsides of workers at Baked Beans factory that delivers a couple of solid belly laughs - parental guidance recommended. No one can spit a double-entendre out sideways quite like our Dame and never let it be said that he doesn't put his balls into his act.
But its hard to know why the aristocrats producers bothered with the obvious Dorothy-Dixers from the audience. These are so planted you could water them ...and at one stage Peter/Priscilla does actually tinkle on the cheap seats from the balcony. The funniest moments are demonstrations on several varieties of German cannibalism and these are all XXX-rated of course!
It might be better if they were off the cuff in the theater's toilet stalls but isn't it fun watching Peter fellate Kroger randy like 'guess whose Mums got a whirlpool' and go ' around the world' without batting a reptilian eye-lid. A Dutch oven with an alarm that tells you when the buns are done hon - now that could take off.
The creature from the black billabong will be on till July. | | 11:49a |
Chinese whispers
Chatter out of Singapore seems to indicate a serious breach of core security at the Totalitarian Information Agency South. Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter himself is rumored to be profiting from the sale of stolen data-base disks to the Chinese though he's allegedly using extensive cut-outs and tradecraft to cover his tracks. Poindexter appears to see the main player in the future of mass spying as the Peoples Republic of China as he is learning Mandarin and even receiving subtle plastic surgery to make himself look more oriental. This will soon be a major international scandal that will lead to the instant liquidation of spy-base Singapore.
DEVELOPING... | | 6:18p |
Marxist in a coma
I know
THE DYING statement of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) Irrigation Minister Subhas Naskar's nephew's wife Gauri, that bombs hurled by Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI – M) backed goons set the house ablaze where she received 80 per cent burns may nail the Marxists contention that bombs kept in her house by the RSP had exploded. Such a dying statement would be taken cognizance by a court.
She died in the wee ours of Friday at the SSKM hospital after receiving serious burn injuries in bomb explosions in her home Kumrokhali, in Basanti, South 24-Parganas, a strong of CPI (M) ally in the Left Front the RSP.
There were conflicting versions of the gruesome incident. The RSP claimed that motor cycle borne CPI (M) cadres beat up the womenfolk of the RSP gram panchayat candidate in the area and threw bombs. After this, they proceeded to the house of the state irrigation minister's brother and started hurling bombs. The mud and hatched home caught fire and Gauri rushed out in flames to collapse outside. The house was completely gutted.
Her dying statement, however, may complicate things for the CPI (M).
The two allies have been at daggers drawn, especially since the Nandigram violence and over the Left Front government's insistence in acquiring agricultural land for industry. The RSP state PWD minister Kshiti Goswami had threatened to resign over the violent "recapture of Nandigram" but was persuaded by his party leadership to stay on.
There were serious differences among the allies, especially between the CPI (M) on the one hand and the Forward Bloc and the RSP on the other over seat distribution in the panchayat polls. The difference over the rural polls snowballed into violence on April 14, when South 24- Parganas and four other districts went to the panchayat polls in the second phase. Bloody mayhem was let loose by either side but with the Marxists being the stronger of the two in terms of muscle power, three RSP activists were shot dead while a CPI (M) local leader was killed. The incident of bomb throwing or explosions, whoever may have been the perpetrators, came the day after.
That the fissures have widened considerably and may lead to a split in the Left Front is being hotly debated in political circles. As it is the smaller left partners have always resented the big brotherly attitude of the CP (M) all of 30 years. The partners, including the CPI, had gone ahead and formed a front within the front calling it the mini front.
To add fuel to the fire, Marxist icon and nonagenarian leader Jyoti Basu has chipped in. Deeply disturbed at the disturbances, the Marxist patriarch said on Friday that it was more than time to reshape the alliance with CPI (M)'s partners in the Left Front. He was of the opinion that the relationship, especially between the CPI (M) and the RSP has hit an all time low and needs to be urgently reviewed. Basu felt that a lesson needs to be learnt to avoid fresh violence in the third phase of the panchayat polls. - END article
MEANTIME...
Deccan Herald - Bangalore,India
Veteran Marxist leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet, who was admitted to a hospital here with an acute respiratory problem, has slipped into coma...DEVELOPING | | 6:59p |
Face to face with the Gestapo pigs
Spanish police on Saturday announced the arrest of five suspected hackers, including two 16-year-olds, who are accused of attacking government websites in the United States, Asia and Latin America.
The youths belonged to "one of the most active groups of hackers on the Internet," having disabled 21,000 Web pages over a two-year period, a police statement said.
"They would substitute the contents of the Web pages attacked with protest messages and included the same anarchist symbols," it added.
Although the group had never met, it is alleged that they organised and coordinated their attacks over the Internet, working in particular with hackers in Latin America.
Police did not identify which government sites were targeted, but the online edition of the El Mundo newspaper reported that the Internet sites of NASA and the Venezuelan national telephone company were among the targets.
The five were arrested this week in the Spanish cities of Barcelona, Burgos, Malaga and Valencia.
The arrests follow a probe launched after the website of the left-wing alliance Izquierda Unida (United Left) was hacked and caricatures of politicians inserted, days ahead of the March 9 Spanish elections.
If convicted, they face jail terms of between one and three years. END
Resistance organized on Facebook crushed in Egypt...Ecuadorian police detained five journalists associated with Ecuador Indymedia late Tuesday night, May 6th. Four of the five were released from custody on Wednesday afternoon. The government says that the four activists were detained because of their relationship with the fifth detainee, Ecuadorian resident and Colombian national Antonio Alcívar.
The government at first refused to issue a statement on the matter or inform the detainees of the reason for their arrests. The Regional Foundation for Assistance in Human Rights (INREDH) noted that this was a violation of the detainees' constitutional right to be clearly informed of the reason for their detention along with the identities of those who ordered and carried out the arrests.
We're finally on our own. | | 7:40p |
Stay out the Xtian invasion
Presidential Candidates Should Not Mix Religion and Politics (thanks to New Hampshire Insider)
WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 15, 2008) – Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama should stop distributing fliers expressing his religious qualifications to be president, says the Interfaith Alliance, a leading religious freedom advocacy organization. This week, Senator Obama’s campaign began distributing fliers in Kentucky describing Senator Obama as a “Committed Christian” and telling voters how Senator Obama’s religious upbringing will affect his decisions in the White House. Unfortunately, this is just the latest example of political candidates from both parties misusing religion to gain support in this year’s campaign. The flier is similar to other Obama campaign publications distributed earlier this year in South Carolina. The Interfaith Alliance is opposed to candidates exploiting their religious beliefs to gain electoral support. | | 9:08p |
Erotic comics http://lambiek.net/comics/erotic_comics.htmShe Saw the World's Fair - and how! - An eight-pager about a lady who visits the New York Fair in 1939. An excellent site about Tijuana Bibles is www.tijuanabibles.org. | | 10:45p |
Scientific socialists unite
Anarchism is a kind of open laboratory for direct democracy. It's a way to experiment with the ideals of our developing societies. For example, in the anarchist tradition you must accept the fact that you live in a community that makes the ultimate judgment as to the worth of your work. But at the same time, everybody's judgment is his or her own. The ethics of the community require that you argue for what you believe and that you try as hard as you can to get results to test your hunches, but you have to be honest in reporting the results, whatever they are. You have the freedom and independence to do whatever you want, as long as in the end you accept the judgment of the community. Good results sometimes even come from the collision of contradictory ideas, from great diversity and even conflict. From people trying to do better than their predecessors did, and I think in Spain 36 we have a model for what a more democratic society is about becoming. Certainly the greatest period of rapid evolution the human race has ever recorded in one time and place. There's a great strength in our anarchist way of life, and appropriate science is at the root of it. |
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