Friday, October 27, 2006

Star Wars


Forget BMD, move over George Lucas, here comes the real Star Wars; The United States of Space.

A Dangerous Step toward Space Warfare

The release of the U.S. National Space Policy (NSP) on October 6 has worried many experts, who say the policy marks a strategic shift toward a more military-oriented, unilateral approach to space for the United States. They fear that the policy, if followed, could begin an arms race leading to catastrophic space warfare.

The NSP reads, in part, "The United States considers space capabilities… vital to its national interests. Consistent with this policy, the United States will: preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space; dissuade or deter others from either impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so; take those actions necessary to protect its space capabilities; respond to interference; and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests;

See:

Space



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Lumpenproletariat

In Marx's time they were called the Lumpenproletariat......

How Globalization Is Creating a New European Underclass

Rather, what stand out are the symptoms of intellectual neglect. The poor of today watch television for half the day. These days, television producers even refer to what they call "Underclass TV." The new proletariat eats a lot of fatty foods and he enjoys smoking and drinking -- a lot. About 8 percent of Germans consume 40 percent of all the alcohol sold in the country. While he may be a family man, his families are often broken. And on Election Day, he casts a protest vote for the extreme left or right wing party, sometimes switching quickly from one to the other.

But the main thing that sets the modern poor apart from the industrial age pauper is a sheer lack of interest in education. Today's proletariat has little education and no interest in obtaining more. Back in the early days of industrialization, the poor joined worker associations that often doubled as educational associations. The modern member of the underclass, by contrast, has completely shunned personal betterment.

He likewise makes little effort to open the door to the future for his own children. Their language skills are as bad as their ability to concentrate. The rising rate of illiteracy is matched by the shrinking opportunities to integrate the under class. The Americans, not ones to mince words, call them "white trash."


And the old debate on whether they are revolutionary or reactionary returns.
The Philosophical Roots of the Marx-Bakunin Conflict

The Revolutionary Agent

Another strategical disagreement dividing Marx and Bakunin centered around the question of who would lead the revolution. Both agreed that the proletariat would play a key role, but for Marx the proletariat was the exclusive, leading revolutionary agent while Bakunin entertained the possibility that the peasants and even the lumpenproletariat (the unemployed, common criminals, etc.) could rise to the occasion. Bakunin argued, for example, that the peasants were a revolutionary class for three reasons: (1) They have retained “the simple, robust temperament and the energy germane to the folk nature.” (2) They work with their hands and despise privilege. And (3) as toilers they have common interests with workers

In other words, being close to nature, the peasants are less alienated from their true, natural essence since they have suffered less corruption by the evils of society. Bakunin adopted a similar argument in relation to the lumpenproletariat:

“By flower of the proletariat, I mean precisely that eternal ‘meat’, ... that great rabble of the people (underdogs, ‘dregs of society’) ordinarily designated by Marx and Engels in the picturesque and contemptuous phrase lumpenproletariat. I have in mind the ‘riffraff’, that ‘rabble’ almost unpolluted by bourgeois civilization, which carries in its inner being and in its aspirations ... all the seeds of the socialism of the future....”

In both cases, Bakunin’s conclusions flow directly from his conviction that inherent in humanity is a natural essence which can be suppressed but never entirely extinguished. Those in society who are more distant from the State apparatus (the peasants are scattered throughout the countryside, the lumpenproletariat simply refuses to obey the laws) are accordingly natural leaders.

In contrast, Marx consistently argued that the proletariat alone was the revolutionary agent: “Of all classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.”Here again their different philosophical frameworks led these revolutionaries in opposed directions. Because Marx believed human nature was shaped by the economy, he analyzed the possible revolutionary agents by analyzing how the economy would influence their development. And economic considerations led him to conclude that the peasants could not play a leading revolutionary role. For example, they do not constitute a cohesive class. Some are large landowners and hire other peasants to work for them while the latter are often landless and destitute. Moreover, the desire for land by a majority of the peasants could serve as an anchor, holding them back from a truly revolutionary perspective. Rather than rallying for a thoroughgoing, socialist revolution where private ownership of land is abolished, they often veer in the direction of seeking to augment their own modest, private property land holdings at the expense of the large landowners. But aside from these economic considerations, Marx also believed that the situation of the peasants, not only prohibited them from attaining class consciousness, but from becoming a truly revolutionary class:

“The small holding peasants form a vast mass, the members of which live in similar conditions but without entering into manifold relations with one another. Their mode of production isolates them from one another instead of bringing them into mutual intercourse.... Their field of production, the small holding, admits of no division of labor in its cultivation, no application of science and, therefore, no diversity of development, no variety of talent, no wealth of social relationships. Each individual peasant family is almost self-sufficient; it itself directly produces the major part of its consumption and thus acquires its means of life more through exchange with nature than in intercourse with society. A small holding, a peasant and his family; alongside them another small holding, another peasant and another family.... In so far as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence that separate their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of other classes, and put them in hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class. In so far as there is a merely local interconnection among these small-holding peasants, and the identity of their interests begets no community, no national bond and no political organization among them, they do not form a class.”

Marx was even less enthusiastic about the lumpenproletariat because it was not directly related to the production process at all, being comprised of the permanently unemployed, criminals, etc.





Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , ,

Ralph on Rae


King Ralph entered the Liberal Leadership race by saying Bob Rae was Dumb in a quote worthy of the high school drop out and academic palagarist....

"education bears no relationship to intelligence" said Ralph. And he should know since he lacks both.

Also See:

Ralph Klein

Alberta

Bob Rae

Liberal Leadership Race





Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , ,, , , , , , , , , ,
, , , ,



Drug Addict Attacks Fox

Drug addled, drug addict; Rush Limbaugh on Michael J. Fox: ‘I Take Back None of What I Said’





Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Money For Nothing

Is a song by Dire Straits. And it is the way oil companies and their partners in Africa do business. It's called Free Trade. And in Russia it's called Mafia Capitalism. Corruption by any other name....

African minister took cut of oil contracts

In an unusually frank admission about the mechanics of business in oil-rich West Africa, a top Equatorial ­Guinean official has said that companies owned by ministers often bid for ­government contracts with foreign groups and, if successful, receive “a percentage of the total contract the company gets”.

Teodorin Nguema Obiang, the 37-year-old son and likely successor of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, made the statement in a sworn affidavit to Cape Town’s High Court, where his lawyers will today oppose the seizure of two luxury houses he owns in the city. Equatorial Guinea is sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest oil producer.

However, in an extraordinary admission in his affidavit, the president’s son ­testified that ministers and public servants in Equatorial Guinea were allowed to own companies bidding for ­government contracts with foreign groups which, if ­successful, would receive “a percentage of the total contract the company gets”.

This, he told the court, “means that a cabinet minister ends up with a sizeable part of the contract price in his bank account”.

Non-governmental groups campaigning against corruption in the oil industry have long contended that officials in Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, and other oil-rich West African states have made untold sums by profiting from foreign business contracts, often in contravention of local laws.

However, statements to that effect by African officials themselves are rare.


And of course its not limited to just Guinea...

Nigeria’s Faltering Federal Experiment


Nigeria’s federal system and politics are deeply flawed, contributing to rising violence that threatens to destabilise one of Africa’s leading countries. Failing to encourage genuine power sharing, they have sparked dangerous rivalries between the centre and the 36 states over revenue from the country’s oil and other natural resources; promoted no-holds-barred struggles between interests groups to capture the state and its attendant wealth; and facilitated the emergence of violent ethnic militias, while politicians play on and exacerbate inter-communal tensions to cover up their corruption. The government has been quick to brand many of the symptoms, especially the rise of militancy, as simple criminality to be dealt with by more police and more troops. But unless it engages with the underlying issues of resource control, equal rights, power sharing and accountability, Nigeria will face an internal crisis of increasing proportions.


See:

Africa

Oil






Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Alberta State Capitalism

As the Government of Ralph Klein sleepwalks on until a new party leader is chosen, it begins to look like the old Getty government. Gone is the mantra Government has no business being in business as it gives millions to Cargill the global agribusiness giant to expand its beef processing plant in Spruce Grove. Of course Gargill and Tysons and other big beef processors already reaped millions during the BSE crisis.

And will reap millions more as the Federal Tories hand them taxpayers dollars to develop their ethanol and biodiesel programs here in Canada. Both the BSE program of the Alberta Tories and now the Federal Tories Hot Air plan are toutedto be helping farmers, when in reality it is big agribusiness giants like Tysons, Cargill and Archer Daniels Midlands (ADM) that really benefit.

This is another reason for the destruction of the Wheat Board, to open up Canada's grain market to Cargill and ADM. It all began way back with the last Conservative government.
The Ethanol Scam: ADM and Brian Mulroney


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Polygamy is NOT Polyamoury

Polygamy or as it is sometimes called plural marriage, is one man with many wives. It is an extension of monogamy and approved of in the old testament, along with holding of slaves. It is inherent in the Judeao-Christian-Islamic patriarchical religions. It is also a key element of Mormonism, which is a psuedo-Christian sect, one that is the largest fastest growing religions in the United States. While the Mormons today renounce polygamy, it is in Utah where it is practiced the most, as it once was in Canada.

It is not the communist polygamy that Engels speaks of as existing prior to the privatization of property relations. That form of common property holding was held by women, and was the basis of matrilinear descent.

Nor is it polyamoury the movement begun in the sixties with the writings of Robert Rimmer and Robert Heinlein. The new ployamoury movement is about equality, and open marriage, a recognition that monotheism=monogamy. While real human relationships are communal, cooperative and voluntary. It is the libertarian ideal of Free Love taken to its logical communist conclusion.

See my aticles: Marx on Bygamy and What Has Love Got To Do With It.

So polygamy is back in the news again..... Whats interesting is that it is being discussed in the context of rights. Womens and childrens rights versus religious rights (of the religious right, since Mormons are strong supporters of the neo-con right). The B.C. government avoids the religious issue by dealing with it as a criminal case of abuse.


Polygamy violates rights: Ottawa

Study says Canada breaking international law by turning blind eye to polygamist communities
A Canadian report says that the country's laissez-faire attitude towards a polygamist community violates its obligation to protect women and children.

The practice of polygamy is illegal. But men in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints have been allowed to have multiple wives without prosecution, Canwest News Service said.

"Polygamy is a violation of international law," Rebecca Cook, a University of Toronto law professor who wrote the report, said. "Canada has an obligation as a matter of international law to take all appropriate steps."

Her report was commissioned by the former Liberal government.

BC attorney general says he's more worried about sex assault than polygamy


But what about the boys eraised in polygamous marriages?

Global Televsion does a documentary on the fact that patriarchical religious polygamy replicates the pack tradition of other species like male lions, where the old men chase away the younger men to keep their pride to themselves. As it is written in the Old Testament. All the patriarchs who had multiple wives were the old men of Judah.

'Lost boys' of polygamy tell their stories
It's simple arithmetic in polygamous societies such as Bountiful, B.C. Some men get many wives, others get none.

It's usually older men who get second, third and sometimes more wives -- brides who are usually teenagers.

Left behind are angry, frustrated young men. Not only can they not choose their mates, they have been told that it's against Church rules to date or even socialize with girls their age.

A few lucky young men do get wives. But it can feel like entrapment. One day they wake up and are told they're marrying a stranger for "time and all eternity" in the words of the fundamentalist Mormon faith's marriage ceremony.

There was one exception, to David and the patriarchs practice of polygamy. Solomon who was crowned by his mother and who practiced a different kind of polygamy, one that recognized the power and prestige of the priestesses of the Goddess cults that surrounded Jerusalem. Solomon was a matriaist, and followed matrilineal descent for his power base, hence Israel was finally at peace with its neighbours and Solomon could build the famous temple that would become the icon for all time for the power of Israel within Jewish and Christian mythology. See my article: Historical Revisionism

Back in February the right wing neo-cons were outraged over the initial report that found polygamy did not violate Canadian laws because of the contradiction between religious freedom, something of course they demand we practice as long as its their brand of Judeo-Christianity, and criminal civil law. Hence the Cook report.

They used the inital report to denounce Canada's liberal same sex laws as leading to the decline of Western Civilization, that is the acceptance of polygamy. Except that they avoided dealing with ther simple fact that polygamy is based on the Old Testament testament teachings, whether it is practiced by Mormons, who like them are social conservatives, or by Muslims, who like them are Abrahamic patriarchs.

In the case of Stanley Kurtz he deliberately confused polyamoury with polygamy. His purpose was clear, to attack open marriage as advocated by the polyamourists, to attack free love, just as his predecesors did a century ago when they attacked the free love movement that was about allowing women the right to choose whom they married and the right to divorce. See my Happy Birthday Mrs. Satan.



Dissolving Marriage
If everything is marriage, then nothing is.

Ultimate Goal

Bailey may not openly flog her ultimate goal of abolishing marriage in this report. Yet what Bailey’s up to is clear enough when she carefully describes a 1998 report by the British Columbia Law Institute in which a “significant minority” of members favored a “multiple domestic partnership” system detached from the patriarchal “baggage” of traditional polygamy. This is exactly what Bailey is hoping to establish. Yet she brackets the proposal by saying that at the moment there is “no demand” for such a system.

Not so, as this 2005 Macleans article on Canadian polyamory explains. According to Macleans, polyamory “seems increasingly common” in Canada. And as organized polyamory groups proliferate, there has already been discussion “about creating a system of legal contracts around issues such as child custody and family rights.”

Since polyamory is free of the “patriarchal baggage” attached to traditional polygamy, most of the arguments against multi-partner unions in the four just-released polygamy reports would not apply. Of course there are arguments against polyamory, it’s just that liberal law professors don’t know how to make them. In any case, Bailey is shrewd enough to see that, if she can only get Canada to set aside its laws against polygamy, the goal of supplementing (and eventually replacing) marriage with a modern domestic partnership system (allowing any combination of number or gender) would be achievable.

I’ve focused on Bailey, while touching only lightly on the three other polygamy reports. Yet taken together, these four extraordinary documents launch a serious public debate about polygamy. (I’ll have more to say about the other reports in time.) The four Canadian polygamy studies are a time-capsule from the future, a preview of the argument we’ll be having should same-sex marriage be fully established here in the United States. Once we’re there, we’ll be well on our way toward “removing conjugality as a marker for determining legal rights and obligations.” Translation? By now I think you get it.


A marriage of many?
Is gay marriage a slippery slope toward legal polygamy, or are conservative warnings a red herring?

By RYAN LEE
Friday, February 24, 2006

Each time Dani Eyer attends a forum to advocate marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples, she knows the first question to expect at the end of her speech.


A 'Conservative' Shows Her Liberalism, Opposing Polygamy Rights
Date: Feb 16, 2006
Word Count: 3000 words
Cross-Reference: Debra Saunders, "same sex marriage", polygamy rights


Three's a crowd, four's a marriage

*HBO's "Big Love" probes the polygamists next door. It's family values of the provocative kind.




Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tax The Social Conservatives

Here we go again tax free charitable associations violating the Revenue Canada Act which says they cannot engage in "partisan" political activities such as endorsing specific political parties or candidates for public office, making contributions to political parties and candidates, or participating in fundraisers for such individuals.

So when will that happen to these creeps who ran McVety against Garth Turner with the tacit support of the Harpocrites.

Same-sex supporters, opponents battle

Brian Rushfeld of the Canadian Family Action Committee, said the same-sex law poses a danger in schools, because teachers are being forced to teach students that gay marriages are the same as heterosexual marriages.

“Bill C-38 is now being used as a hammer to hammer homosexual teachings into public education.” he said. “That’s a great concern to us.”

Charles McVety, president of Canadian Christian College and a member of the executive committee of Rushfeld’s committee


See:

Tax The Churches

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Whose Family Values?










Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Begging Bowl


























Oh this is rich, pardon the pun, Cherniak is begging online for folks to pay his way to the Liberal Convention.

I thought there were laws against panhandling.

But of course he is not a poor person........


Private Needs and Public Space: Politics, Poverty, and Anti-Panhandling By-Laws in Canadian Cities" by Damian Collins and Nicholas Blomley,
examines the recent rise in anti-panhandling regulations in Canadian cities within the greater context of a North American movement to purify public spaces. Being geographers, their focus is the interaction of geography and law. Their stated aim in this essay is to spatialize anti-panhandling by-laws.
They are intrigued that the individual transaction of begging for money is politicized and regulated because it occurs in a space that is public. Their argument focuses specifically on Canadian downtown spaces, highlighting as dynamics in this contemporary situation the great financial investment in urban spaces, growing economic disparities between the inhabitants of city cores, and moral apprehensions about how the homeless spend this money. There is fear that allowing certain marginalized people to pursue their lives in our streets will promote socio-economic decline, and prevent the majority from being able to engage in legitimate public activities. The authors suggest that this regulatory movement is more than a further privatizing of public space. The private actions of the panhandlers have become enmeshed in public values regarding the appropriate use of public space. Examining the interaction of law within society as well as the space it occupies is key to a greater comprehension of the issue.

See:

Cherniak


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Voodoo Doll

This is just what everyone needs. The ultimate Voodoo Doll of the Self-Righteous Right Wing. Unfortunately you can't tell it to STFU. Because like the real Dr. Laura it just keeps on talking. But you can stick pins in it

Also available the Ann Coulter Love Doll.


"Dr. Laura Talking Action Figure" by Talking Presidents

Our Price: $29.95
add to cart

Product Details:
Type: Book and Doll
Item#: c6766
ISBN#: 0




Preorder now and be among the first to own a "Dr. Laura Talking Action Figure" when they ship in early November!

"Dr. Laura Talking Action Figure"

Dr. Laura Schlessinger is not only one of the most popular radio personalities in America, she is also a best selling author of 14 books, including 4 children's books. Best known for her no-nonsense approach to parenting and her unwavering commitment to children, Dr. Laura always believes everyone should "go do the right thing". Now you can share Dr. Laura’s wit and wisdom with your friends and family with the "Dr. Laura Talking Action Figure".





Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,