Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today
Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:32 am
Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment
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Mr. Ahmadinejad (provided the translation was correct) came across as right on tune with the "colored" people who remained. With the camera angles provided, I didn't see any darker shades leaving the hall.Diebert van Rhijn wrote:They missed the best part:
"...racism is rooted in the lack of knowledge concerning the truth of human existence ... the product of his deviation from the true path of human life and the obligations of mankind in the world of creation. Failing to consciously worship God, not being able to think about the philosophy of life or the path to perfection that are the main ingredients of divine and humanitarian values, have restricted the horizon of human outlook, making transient and limited interests a yardstick for his actions."
He should be invited to the reasoning show!
It's disturbing to witness how 90% of political and media discourse in the West & Israel nurtures idiotic and unrealistic views on what actually is happening in Iran.
Well, there you have it then. It is interesting: Instead of focusing on the stories that we weave to support and explain our existence---always a kind of fantasy performance, a rehearsal of idealisms---we might propose that '90%' of all human striving is an assertion strictly for power, on all the different levels that that is possible. To understand any dynamic, it makes more sense and is pragmatic to examine to basic power-relations. And, if this is true, it puts a peculiar pressure on so many idealisms.Underneath all the ideological fantasies lie more hard, more real power politics about dominance in the Middle East. The non-democratic regimes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia obtained various security guarantees from the US that the status quo would not change in their disadvantage. Iran is economically and socially an enormous threat to these "governments" and their specific and corrupt wealth distribution. It would destabilize them and eventually become a problem for the oil supply to the West as well as increased pressure on Israel, if you'd combine this with Iranian influence in Iraq and Afghanistan (which is the main reason the West would not leave, covered by humanitarian make-up). Underneath all the ideological fantasies lie more hard, more real power politics about dominance in the Middle East. The non-democratic regimes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia obtained various security guarantees from the US that the status quo would not change in their disadvantage. Iran is economically and socially an enormous threat to these "governments" and their specific and corrupt wealth distribution. It would destabilize them and eventually become a problem for the oil supply to the West as well as increased pressure on Israel, if you'd combine this with Iranian influence in Iraq and Afghanistan (which is the main reason the West would not leave, covered by humanitarian make-up).
This introduces the really interesting questions about the possible functions of the chatter. Venting? Blowing steam as release, to impress like an angry bull or as smoke screen? Like: don't look at the real motive as the whole social contract would stop functioning when we would. It would perfectly explain the increase and desire to increase the clip-clop.Talking Ass wrote: So much of our 'consciousness' is just the chatter and clip-clop of epiphenomena, like battery-powered castanets or chattering teeth. But underneath all that is the very real, the all-too-real, cellular drive and appetite, relentless need and desire, in the face of which we are powerless in just that ratio: 90 to 10.
It might just look that way. The ones bettering certain positions are the ones who live to show them or perpetuate them in some way through time.Talking Ass wrote:The way I see it, it is somewhat simple: as biological entities in a completely material framework, all that we do, or the greatest portion of it, has to do with bettering that material position.
The Gay Science - Book V - We Fearless Ones - 349.Around the whole of English Darwinism hangs something like the damp of English overpopulation, like the smell of the distress and overcrowding of small people. But one should, as naturalist, come out of his human nook: and in nature it is not the emergency that is dominant but the overflow and wastefulness, even to the point of becoming pointless. The struggle for existence is only an exception, a temporary restriction of the will to live; the great and small struggle always revolves around predominance, around growth and expansion, around power, in accordance with the will to power which is the will of life.
Loose lips sink ships.Talking Ass wrote:Biden Suggests US Not Standing in Israel's Way on Iran
In this article posted, I just don't trust someone like Joe Biden, he's as slippery as they get.Talking Ass wrote:That would be true, I guess, if Israel's intentions were not universally known. I also think that in these power-relation games, the players know much, much more than we know. We just witness the flicker of shadows of actions from the past.
It's more like a broken record. All he did was summarizing American foreign policy existing already under Clinton and other administrations. Which is the right to preemptively start wars of aggression or campaigns of destruction, the same thing Hitler and his henchmen were convicted for sixty years ago. You only need an excuse that is not too outrageous and of course you need to be in "our" ideological camp protected by one or two vetoes in the security council.Tomas wrote:Loose lips sink ships.Talking Ass wrote:Biden Suggests US Not Standing in Israel's Way on Iran
There are lots of forms of power, one of them is the power of seduction and illusion. For example the imagined "remodeling project". Only a few in the administrations you mention actually believe that, the ideological few. The real politicians just disable what could emerge as threat to what they think is status-quo. Most of the political process is geared conservatively: some method to guide, slow down, even hinder changes that could destabilize. Running on a platform of "change" is therefore the biggest campaign lie possible: per definition! Change is already there and government is always there to slow it, not to create any of it!Talking Ass wrote:Sometimes I think, Diebert, that you do not understand how power functions in this world.
A very narrow viewpoint, heavily ideological. In fact the project doesn't exist as such, each imaginable trace of it being supposedly executed has miserably back-fired and it should be clear by any disinterested observer that the failure and the price is so immense, that whatever is happening there is actually something else entirely, perhaps unspeakable.It is folly and ignorance not to understand that the Mid East is at the core right now of a remodeling project, that it has to be done, and that it will be done.
Talking the familiar talk of last decade but will he ever walk the walk? The great challenge for the West as a whole where dishonesty and hypocrisy has become the major universal value that trumps all other.“But it is our commitment to certain universal values which allows us to correct our imperfections, to improve constantly and to grow stronger over time.”
Any final solutions in mind?Personally, I am convinced of one thing: Iran's nuclear and possible bomb-making program should be eliminated.
That is also what I meant by 'remodeling project'. It includes the pressure that the region perform its function in the global structure of things, by force if necessary. In the sense I mean. to remodel means to neutralize recalcitrant pockets of resistance to the inevitable forces that determine the role of the region. If one understands that this is the bottom-line power-reality (realpolitik) it helps a great deal in coming to understand what are the possibilities for (liberal) reform in the region. There is likely a great deal of room for 'democratic reform' and improvement, within reason, as long as the region serves the role that has been assigned to it. What I am doing is taking a basic Chomskian analysis (he speaks of 'roles' assigned to regions and the bitter results when they seek to 'disobey') and placing it in a Machiavellian realpolitik. It is very true that a great deal hinges on the fact of petroleum reserves and extraction: vital to the whole Earth's economy right now. To imagine (to hallucinate) that power will behave differently toward the region is not to exist in reality. (Again, straight Chomskian analysis there, nothing new under the sun). However, incredible opportunities are offered within the general narrative line offered to the region. Intelligence is knowing the limitations Fate has placed on one and working within those parameters. It is clear as day that the Dutch, for example, are masters at playing by the rules. There are many nations who 'play by the rules' and benefit tremendously by doing so.The real politicians just disable what could emerge as threat to what they think is status-quo.
Well, not in a Machiavellian sense. To change presentation and wrapping---at least form the look of it---has turned out to be a bold and intelligent choice. Bush & Company were unpopular int he extreme, no one could put up with the presentation. Now, the same forces are at work and the general goals are the same, but it is being carried out with a radically new 'make-over'. The power-structures of the whole Earth have welcomed this, it seems. All power-structures are involved in exACTLY the same game, Diebert. All of them. It is business-as-usual all the world over. I suggest that this fact be seen, be understood, be internalized, and we THEN return to our view of the world and see in what areas 'change' is possible. Many, many avenues are open. It's just that---and this is a choice made by all polities---some avenues are very clearly closed. And will remain closed.Running on a platform of "change" is therefore the biggest campaign lie possible: per definition! Change is already there and government is always there to slow it, not to create any of it!
In politics, it seems, it is the narrow viewpoints that win the day. Meaning, the defined, basic, 'sensible', practicable. Again, perhaps you could reexamine your Discourses (Machiavelli) and refresh your mind about the true basis of power. All theatre, all novels and stories, all the narratives by which we guide ourselves through terrestrial life are 'narrow' in the sense you are resisting. I am genuinely sorry that this offends your refined sensibilities! The American structure of view (again I will refer to Chomsky) that has been imposed on the post-war world is ideology condensed. Any structure of view, and any structure of view that is moulded into policy, is by definition ideological. What sort of drugs are you on, Diebert? The ideological views that underpin American post-war design of a world system have provided a platform for an astounding period of cultural growth and achievement. It would take an ideological position (yours for example) to fail to register what is positive in that achievement---which has been a shared achievement by the major powers. Read Power and Ideology by Noam Chomsky to get the essential blueprint for this post-war project. And it has been remarkably free of excessive violence, though there have been notable deviations. It is general stated though that the American alternative has been the better choice of all the post-war alternatives. I tend to think that is true.A very narrow viewpoint, heavily ideological.
Well, it could be an interesting exercise to examine the other players in the world-game (in the post-war era) and ask yourself if it is possible that they might have engaged in even greater hypocrisy. A great deal hinges on your answer. In history, you never get to see the alternatives---what was avoided---and we can only speculate. But it does seem pretty clear that the post-war alternative, engineered and implemented by the Americans in concert with the major powers, have created a pretty goddamned sane world out of some pretty frightening circumstances and chilling alternatives. It is wise to count one's blessings.Talking the familiar talk of last decade but will he ever walk the walk? The great challenge for the West as a whole where dishonesty and hypocrisy has become the major universal value that trumps all other.
These universal values are: to flourish within a defined structure, one that (through political machinations) all the players agree on, basically. The underpinning is purely 'Roman' but all sorts of nice things can be overlayed on top of that basic (brutal) structure. He might say 'We seek a consensus among the powerful to define the basic structure and then we ask that people play within those rules'. (And that is 'universal values'). The 'imperfections' (to translate) are too-bold declarations, too much Texan arrogance. But let a Harvard political scientist, with a far broader sweep of understanding, work his rhetorical magic and watch the world respond.“But it is our commitment to certain universal values which allows us to correct our imperfections, to improve constantly and to grow stronger over time.” ---Pres. Obama