Who is the P03T-1CP1-RAT3?
What is Piracy and Poesis? How can piracy be poetic? How can Poetry be piratic? What do we mean by Poetry? What is it to be a pirate in this day and age? Arggh!
What underlying violence is inherent in the very conception of language? Of speech? of writing? of discourse?
How do we respond to such violence? What are our tools?
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Politics and the wound pt. 1 (Old Blog repost)
Perverting Justice and Demanding a King
Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
1 Samuel 8:4 & 5
Judges successfully ruled and protected the people of Israel from the time of their original appointment until now. But what has changed? Why do the elders come to Samuel, the last Judge of Israel? They claim he is old, surely; and his sons do not walk in his ways. First they judge him unworthy in his ways because of age, but then uplift his position by stating that his sons do not walk in his ways.
Rather than blaming God, they seek to circumvent their own guilt (of blaming God) by blaming Samuel and his line. This is the same line of logic that Adam follows when God asks him about eating the fruit, “It was the woman you gave me.” Rather than blame himself (or Eve, which amounts to the same in this part of the text) Adam is blaming God, but simultaneously, it is through the woman, as if he weren’t really blaming God at all, but the woman (this is what blame is, cutting yourself out of the picture by doubling).
The elders reject Samuel because they can never be seen to reject God. But in their rejection of Samuel there intentions are clear: “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.” Rather than getting their own houses in order they beguile themselves by substituting Samuel’s house and his problems for their own (the mote and the plank). And this is their sin continued in the very asking for a king. Rather than remain special, as God’s chosen people, the elders desire to be “like all the nations.” Their rejection is come full circle, they reject God, hearth, and heritage. In their zeal to be like other nations they have now a true need for a messiah (in a realm that till now, stood outside of the Judaic, that is, the political). In their desire for a king they have lost their own regalia.
The argument the elders bring against Samuel’s house is but a picture of their own houses, a prophecy of the state of a nation turning from YHWH. “And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside, took bribes, and perverted justice.” Just as God commands Samuel to speak to the people about how the people will be treated by a King his words seem an explication of the elder’s accusal and an exacerbation of the same situation. But here the children of Israel have hedged their bet, rather than each man be judged by his own works the whole nation will be judged by the acts of a single king. So once again we see this shirking of responsibility in what seems, at first, to be a genuine request for justice; in what is attempting to pass for justice is a continuation of its perversion.
The Hebrew word translated perveted here is natah (H5186), literally meaning to stretch out, extend, and spread out. Whereas justice stems from the Hebrew root that caries the idea of setting up and erection (Gesenius compares the word to the German richten). We have already in the elder’s finger-pointing, as a sort of preliminary denouement, these two tensors perversion and justice whose corresponding force lies in the spatial movement of flattening and raising.
The flattening of justice makes it brittle and shifts its conceptual stance by means of subversion. Samuel’s sons are accused of re-appropriating justice for there own means, and the Elders –in their fear - seek to control and resituate the very meaning of the word justice. Conceptually, the word-signifier stays the same, however, being rooted in the very speech act is no surety for its meaning, justice will begin to mean something else. (Just as the “good” begins to mean something different after Adam eats of the fruit) And, rather than have justice be defined by Samuel and his sons or God, the elders will allow a king to take charge. It is in that place that Justice will change from being about solely the just and will now contain a connotation of rightness.
I want to say something about this rightness, that is, about the right to right. We should first of all not confuse this word with uprightness nor righteousness, though this new justice will seek to undermine and redefine these concepts by the rule of the king (this is what Divine Right means), rather, what is at stake here is the end of judgment without politics. Now all justice will be relatable and quantifiable, flattened as it were, the justice of the children of Israel will be commensurable with that of the nations.
Perhaps it is out of fear of diaspora that they do this, let us be like other nations, let us now make treaties and covenants with other peoples because our own covenant is not assured and, if ever we end up outside of our land again (as in Egypt) we will be at home. And this is what rightness is, making a home, to have the right to. But the right to what? And what sort of home?
Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
1 Samuel 8:4 & 5
Judges successfully ruled and protected the people of Israel from the time of their original appointment until now. But what has changed? Why do the elders come to Samuel, the last Judge of Israel? They claim he is old, surely; and his sons do not walk in his ways. First they judge him unworthy in his ways because of age, but then uplift his position by stating that his sons do not walk in his ways.
Rather than blaming God, they seek to circumvent their own guilt (of blaming God) by blaming Samuel and his line. This is the same line of logic that Adam follows when God asks him about eating the fruit, “It was the woman you gave me.” Rather than blame himself (or Eve, which amounts to the same in this part of the text) Adam is blaming God, but simultaneously, it is through the woman, as if he weren’t really blaming God at all, but the woman (this is what blame is, cutting yourself out of the picture by doubling).
The elders reject Samuel because they can never be seen to reject God. But in their rejection of Samuel there intentions are clear: “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.” Rather than getting their own houses in order they beguile themselves by substituting Samuel’s house and his problems for their own (the mote and the plank). And this is their sin continued in the very asking for a king. Rather than remain special, as God’s chosen people, the elders desire to be “like all the nations.” Their rejection is come full circle, they reject God, hearth, and heritage. In their zeal to be like other nations they have now a true need for a messiah (in a realm that till now, stood outside of the Judaic, that is, the political). In their desire for a king they have lost their own regalia.
The argument the elders bring against Samuel’s house is but a picture of their own houses, a prophecy of the state of a nation turning from YHWH. “And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside, took bribes, and perverted justice.” Just as God commands Samuel to speak to the people about how the people will be treated by a King his words seem an explication of the elder’s accusal and an exacerbation of the same situation. But here the children of Israel have hedged their bet, rather than each man be judged by his own works the whole nation will be judged by the acts of a single king. So once again we see this shirking of responsibility in what seems, at first, to be a genuine request for justice; in what is attempting to pass for justice is a continuation of its perversion.
The Hebrew word translated perveted here is natah (H5186), literally meaning to stretch out, extend, and spread out. Whereas justice stems from the Hebrew root that caries the idea of setting up and erection (Gesenius compares the word to the German richten). We have already in the elder’s finger-pointing, as a sort of preliminary denouement, these two tensors perversion and justice whose corresponding force lies in the spatial movement of flattening and raising.
The flattening of justice makes it brittle and shifts its conceptual stance by means of subversion. Samuel’s sons are accused of re-appropriating justice for there own means, and the Elders –in their fear - seek to control and resituate the very meaning of the word justice. Conceptually, the word-signifier stays the same, however, being rooted in the very speech act is no surety for its meaning, justice will begin to mean something else. (Just as the “good” begins to mean something different after Adam eats of the fruit) And, rather than have justice be defined by Samuel and his sons or God, the elders will allow a king to take charge. It is in that place that Justice will change from being about solely the just and will now contain a connotation of rightness.
I want to say something about this rightness, that is, about the right to right. We should first of all not confuse this word with uprightness nor righteousness, though this new justice will seek to undermine and redefine these concepts by the rule of the king (this is what Divine Right means), rather, what is at stake here is the end of judgment without politics. Now all justice will be relatable and quantifiable, flattened as it were, the justice of the children of Israel will be commensurable with that of the nations.
Perhaps it is out of fear of diaspora that they do this, let us be like other nations, let us now make treaties and covenants with other peoples because our own covenant is not assured and, if ever we end up outside of our land again (as in Egypt) we will be at home. And this is what rightness is, making a home, to have the right to. But the right to what? And what sort of home?
Monday, June 05, 2006
Same-Sex Marriages and Amendments thereof
The propositions are split in what looks like three separate paths, (1 The protection of “Traditional Marriage” by the Federal Government, (2 The protection of constitution itself by not allowing any stricturing amendments that might hinder the social-growth of the American People and Democracy itself, 3) The outright banning of “activist” judicial involvement for appropriation of new civil liberties and rights whether state or Federal.
In a time of war Congress is said to have no power, this filters through the judicial system and in short the people are the ones who have no power in a time of war. It is not fear alone that constrains us, but the strategic devices of the state that are built for the continued stratification of and distancing of the people and Nation State.
This is why right now is such an important time to continue to allow the elasticity of the constitution to pave a way for a more liberal and freeing people. I understand the want for protection of the “traditional Marriage”, yet it speaks of constricting gestures in the future, and forces the economic strategy of making those who are different “pay”. That is civil unions may continue to flourish, but the state legislature impeded by the federal definition will more likely to restrict those unions for lack of any constitutional basis. That is: why allow same-sex marriages if they belie no benefit other than a title (sexual union is a Joke, especially in most parts of Texas where anything from fellatio to anal-sex is prohibited).
The right for activist judges to include there view within the judicial branch I think is fitting. If George Bush may use his own views to stand on the side of “a man and a woman”, then surely the people may be empowered by that Federal governing body closest to them, the judiciary. Likewise those judges are subject to higher public standards due to the immediacy of their position within the States.
I ask use to stop and think, to stand there and do nothing, take a moment and Allow the thought of revolution to creep into you mind. Do we really wish to remove more power from the judicial branch and transfer it to the president and his military state. The senate is truly torn for most see the balance swinging and cry for the release of the constitution by smudged hands, and the re-appropriation of civil liberties, here the civil union traditional or non, for the inherent freedom of choosing and choices.
In a time of war Congress is said to have no power, this filters through the judicial system and in short the people are the ones who have no power in a time of war. It is not fear alone that constrains us, but the strategic devices of the state that are built for the continued stratification of and distancing of the people and Nation State.
This is why right now is such an important time to continue to allow the elasticity of the constitution to pave a way for a more liberal and freeing people. I understand the want for protection of the “traditional Marriage”, yet it speaks of constricting gestures in the future, and forces the economic strategy of making those who are different “pay”. That is civil unions may continue to flourish, but the state legislature impeded by the federal definition will more likely to restrict those unions for lack of any constitutional basis. That is: why allow same-sex marriages if they belie no benefit other than a title (sexual union is a Joke, especially in most parts of Texas where anything from fellatio to anal-sex is prohibited).
The right for activist judges to include there view within the judicial branch I think is fitting. If George Bush may use his own views to stand on the side of “a man and a woman”, then surely the people may be empowered by that Federal governing body closest to them, the judiciary. Likewise those judges are subject to higher public standards due to the immediacy of their position within the States.
I ask use to stop and think, to stand there and do nothing, take a moment and Allow the thought of revolution to creep into you mind. Do we really wish to remove more power from the judicial branch and transfer it to the president and his military state. The senate is truly torn for most see the balance swinging and cry for the release of the constitution by smudged hands, and the re-appropriation of civil liberties, here the civil union traditional or non, for the inherent freedom of choosing and choices.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Ethics and Aesthetics (Part 2)
To create a cypher is to create a border object. A mediation, from the media. In Being, media and brush may become one. Delueze was right to have said that all is immanent and in order for something be transcendent it still must project itself upon this plain of immanence*. A cypher is just that. Like untying a three-dimensional knot in four dimensions. A cypher is just this, a node, one that is not a tangled mess of connections but a fluid stroke, that is: all at once intersecting but not overlapping.
For us it is ourself, for ourself, that is the node and we see ourselves in true relation to the other, when we translate it, we share it. But it is not a true translation, like all translations something is lost, but something is also gained, communication. But a cypher to which only the other is the key, and where the secret is kept from none and all (This is why Deleuze argues for the multiple, if there be ignorance then we share in it).
Mediation has been accomplished in many ways that have created false modes of communication, and hidden simulacra (Baudrillard's not Delueze's) indeed masking "profound realities". Martin Buber shows us that responsibility is both the ability to respond, the responsibility to respond, but responsbility in responding. Inauthentic communication kills society and, in a very real way, it kills people. It creates apathy. Not hate, no, hate is just love in a different direction (for better or worse), apathy allows for no revolution. Is not just stillness without movement but it is movement without stillness, its root is busybodiness. Our answer to boredom has become a fake inauthentic thing. Like a phony it is worthy of nothing.
But there is hope, these "profound realties" are cyphers, some of them even antinomes. It is not singular reality, but manifold, seperated but shared. Sharing is, in truth, recieving. The recieving of life, transcending the natural, the cogizable, the speakable, the readable, the writable; the unexpressable wonder, but imbued within everything. And as such, when we express the unexpressable, we recieve that life in order to do so we become authentic and open. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. (but it is a picture of a pipe). The expressed is a picture of that which unexpressable, just as a cypher is an immanent expression of transcedence. In a sense it is what the outer later of immanence is made out of, cyphers. Delueze calls them concepts, and like the wolves, and the Wolfman they are always near the edge, in fact, they make up the edge. They are indeed a piece of immanence if all is flat, for then all is made of the same thing and is "immanent to nothing" (emphasis mine).
*Edwin Abbot's Flatland is good justification that and any such intersection would be as a sphere to flatland; myself as A. Sqaure am surely sceptical of the Sphere while I remain immanent. Looks like a circle to me
For us it is ourself, for ourself, that is the node and we see ourselves in true relation to the other, when we translate it, we share it. But it is not a true translation, like all translations something is lost, but something is also gained, communication. But a cypher to which only the other is the key, and where the secret is kept from none and all (This is why Deleuze argues for the multiple, if there be ignorance then we share in it).
Mediation has been accomplished in many ways that have created false modes of communication, and hidden simulacra (Baudrillard's not Delueze's) indeed masking "profound realities". Martin Buber shows us that responsibility is both the ability to respond, the responsibility to respond, but responsbility in responding. Inauthentic communication kills society and, in a very real way, it kills people. It creates apathy. Not hate, no, hate is just love in a different direction (for better or worse), apathy allows for no revolution. Is not just stillness without movement but it is movement without stillness, its root is busybodiness. Our answer to boredom has become a fake inauthentic thing. Like a phony it is worthy of nothing.
But there is hope, these "profound realties" are cyphers, some of them even antinomes. It is not singular reality, but manifold, seperated but shared. Sharing is, in truth, recieving. The recieving of life, transcending the natural, the cogizable, the speakable, the readable, the writable; the unexpressable wonder, but imbued within everything. And as such, when we express the unexpressable, we recieve that life in order to do so we become authentic and open. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. (but it is a picture of a pipe). The expressed is a picture of that which unexpressable, just as a cypher is an immanent expression of transcedence. In a sense it is what the outer later of immanence is made out of, cyphers. Delueze calls them concepts, and like the wolves, and the Wolfman they are always near the edge, in fact, they make up the edge. They are indeed a piece of immanence if all is flat, for then all is made of the same thing and is "immanent to nothing" (emphasis mine).
*Edwin Abbot's Flatland is good justification that and any such intersection would be as a sphere to flatland; myself as A. Sqaure am surely sceptical of the Sphere while I remain immanent. Looks like a circle to me
Ethics and Aesthetics
If you stare at the w(hole) you will miss the piece.
I was walking down the street today thinking about a movie that I had recently watched, perhaps you have heard of it: Star Trek: Insurrection. A wonderfully done movie, well written by Mr. Frakes, and it has a good moral. Essentially, "stop and smell the roses".I realized that just as I was literally walking, moving, I was also moving through time I became aware of the speed of time. Indeed this is just a perception, a feeling from my being. This is pure movement, that is now, therefore stationary, still, and moving simultaneousness. Essentially we are feeling the passing of time. Just as velocity is movement of space across time, we too feel this literal passing of time as another Dimension, for us it is truly 4 dimensional. It is other to space, and yet they share in each other. So also, us traveling through time, standing here (Heidegger, Delueze is more Hieddergarrian than most think) and time passing, being varied over time. This is indeed becoming. Heidegger is also right to assert that Hericlitus and parminedes say the same thing. It is just a matter of saying it in two different ways. All is indeed in flux, but in order to operate upon time and through time, we be. We are Being, that is, now. Now is a movement, an area, a sample, a piece, and the moment passes and the now has become different, not older, but younger, newer, fresher, nothing is newer than now. Time is indeed multidimensional and we feel its effects as Beings. This alienates us all.
Nietzsche was right to say the closest we could become was an aesthetic stance.
It is from this aesthetic stance that we have no choice but to be artists of being. (This is the style dDeridda tries to spur, Nietszche's life overlapped his philosophy they were one, this is perhaps his only joy and the reason for the umbrella)
A cypher is made. In order to approach the subject (and here I mean the object) artistically we separate ourself from it in order to truly get as near as we can to it, it is the mating call of Being to the Other, Eros in the very sense that Socrates meant it. The separateness that is as near as it can be. This is also the very thing that makes true situatedness possible. True situatedness is false though, for it must transcend to unsituatedness due to the movement of time, due to the constant otherness of the other, we are different, and so will always be. This difference is what makes beauty possible. It is this that is human angst.
And so we must create concepts as Delueze say, but these concepts must remain real. These concepts must become cyphers if they are to be of any use to us. And Delueze himself does it, without truly saying it plainly, doing entirely as he is says. This is indeed honesty. Success and Failure are both Humiliating, Deleuze himself transcended them both in seeming and Being, and made Art, at last. He left this world not as man to the earth, not through the mouth, the door, but through the window, to the sky, to the clouds, to the stars. In his life he lived as close to Defenestration as possible, trying to pear through a non-existent window in the upper floor of his Baroque house, through the windowless monad, and into the beyond. It was only in the aporetic that he could truly do that, and his death became just as much art as his life was. May he rest forever in peace. At rest while moving.
Just as I could read my moments, I became a cypher reader that writes his ciphers. Historicity I pour into [the] now* in order to create, but these historicity is vague, and old as perhaps the hypothalamus. We have adapted, and in adaptation, we have made art. This was Andy Kaufman's and probably Spike Jonze's idea behind the movie Adaptation, and they literally practiced what they preached as they did it. Andy Kaufman read the cypher of his life in order to create a new cypher that could be shared, a cypher that became a border object, art is the sharing of ourselves in the closest, perhaps, we may come to one another. Or put another way: The closest we can become together is called art.
So the art that we share must remain genuine. What are we being, this effects what we are becoming, and what we are becoming effects who we are.
*[The] Now: this is obviously ambiguous but for purposes of making the sentence more readable. Also: History is added to now to create the future, this is just the dialectic, it is to say the sky is blue or something, it is tautological, what we must realize is that we have grown, and we have real choices and real responsibilities as humans, to ourselves, to the other, to our inside and our outside. This is why art is ethical, and why ethics must remain artistic.
I was walking down the street today thinking about a movie that I had recently watched, perhaps you have heard of it: Star Trek: Insurrection. A wonderfully done movie, well written by Mr. Frakes, and it has a good moral. Essentially, "stop and smell the roses".I realized that just as I was literally walking, moving, I was also moving through time I became aware of the speed of time. Indeed this is just a perception, a feeling from my being. This is pure movement, that is now, therefore stationary, still, and moving simultaneousness. Essentially we are feeling the passing of time. Just as velocity is movement of space across time, we too feel this literal passing of time as another Dimension, for us it is truly 4 dimensional. It is other to space, and yet they share in each other. So also, us traveling through time, standing here (Heidegger, Delueze is more Hieddergarrian than most think) and time passing, being varied over time. This is indeed becoming. Heidegger is also right to assert that Hericlitus and parminedes say the same thing. It is just a matter of saying it in two different ways. All is indeed in flux, but in order to operate upon time and through time, we be. We are Being, that is, now. Now is a movement, an area, a sample, a piece, and the moment passes and the now has become different, not older, but younger, newer, fresher, nothing is newer than now. Time is indeed multidimensional and we feel its effects as Beings. This alienates us all.
Nietzsche was right to say the closest we could become was an aesthetic stance.
It is from this aesthetic stance that we have no choice but to be artists of being. (This is the style dDeridda tries to spur, Nietszche's life overlapped his philosophy they were one, this is perhaps his only joy and the reason for the umbrella)
A cypher is made. In order to approach the subject (and here I mean the object) artistically we separate ourself from it in order to truly get as near as we can to it, it is the mating call of Being to the Other, Eros in the very sense that Socrates meant it. The separateness that is as near as it can be. This is also the very thing that makes true situatedness possible. True situatedness is false though, for it must transcend to unsituatedness due to the movement of time, due to the constant otherness of the other, we are different, and so will always be. This difference is what makes beauty possible. It is this that is human angst.
And so we must create concepts as Delueze say, but these concepts must remain real. These concepts must become cyphers if they are to be of any use to us. And Delueze himself does it, without truly saying it plainly, doing entirely as he is says. This is indeed honesty. Success and Failure are both Humiliating, Deleuze himself transcended them both in seeming and Being, and made Art, at last. He left this world not as man to the earth, not through the mouth, the door, but through the window, to the sky, to the clouds, to the stars. In his life he lived as close to Defenestration as possible, trying to pear through a non-existent window in the upper floor of his Baroque house, through the windowless monad, and into the beyond. It was only in the aporetic that he could truly do that, and his death became just as much art as his life was. May he rest forever in peace. At rest while moving.
Just as I could read my moments, I became a cypher reader that writes his ciphers. Historicity I pour into [the] now* in order to create, but these historicity is vague, and old as perhaps the hypothalamus. We have adapted, and in adaptation, we have made art. This was Andy Kaufman's and probably Spike Jonze's idea behind the movie Adaptation, and they literally practiced what they preached as they did it. Andy Kaufman read the cypher of his life in order to create a new cypher that could be shared, a cypher that became a border object, art is the sharing of ourselves in the closest, perhaps, we may come to one another. Or put another way: The closest we can become together is called art.
So the art that we share must remain genuine. What are we being, this effects what we are becoming, and what we are becoming effects who we are.
*[The] Now: this is obviously ambiguous but for purposes of making the sentence more readable. Also: History is added to now to create the future, this is just the dialectic, it is to say the sky is blue or something, it is tautological, what we must realize is that we have grown, and we have real choices and real responsibilities as humans, to ourselves, to the other, to our inside and our outside. This is why art is ethical, and why ethics must remain artistic.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
The Nullification of the Constitution
[Note: I wrote this Article Earlier in the Year as an email, Thought that with Gonzalez “threatening” to resign it was appropriate and poignant]
The Attorney General confirmed yesterday February 6,2006 that the administration was officially violating Liberty. Now many will argue, as Mr. Gonzalez attested, that the Bush administration is in fact protecting liberty by spying upon its own country’s citizens. There were several points made about the FISA, the September 13 meeting and the patriot act. It seems such a spit in the face of an American people that have an approval rating of 42%, as if he were daring someone to do something about it. The most humiliating part is the lack of responsibility taken by the administration for failure within the war itself, and failure to activate proper legislation. Though perhaps the worst is the shift in power in the implication of the current NSA surveillance. Such a travesty must not be allowed to continue. FISA clearly states that the governing powers must
acquire a warrant before electronic surveillance is implemented; approved usually with the head of the FBI. Though the resources once shared with the FBI and NSA have long be diffused due to complications in the sharing of resources, the approval of such an invasive investigation into the homes of the American people is still to be authorized by either congress or the Supreme Court. Cell phones and emailas well as all other electronic surveillance is being monitored by a literarily incommensurable amount.
In order to properly combat the questions such behavior natural raises I propose that one of three things will happen, either 1) the administration allow the negotiation of a system of checks and balances properly in line with the true spirit of the constitution, 2) the administration will properly convince Congress that it is entirely under jurisdiction by law and liberty will continue to be null, or 3) the solving of the issue with congressional prosecution for such an obvious violation of the United states Constitution and the amendments thereof.
As a personal note, as I email this particular statement, what could indeed be the consequences. The though of the President perhaps using military force to harm me in any way scares me deeply; and as such my Liberty is stepped on again, I live in fear, fear that the administration that is pledged to protect me will continue to violate me until my very spirit is quashed. That he will continue to make
America a laughingstock to the nations. That he will continue, with bigotry, force a form of government that by its very creed must be “For the people”, not to say the least about “by the People.”
The whole thing smells like coups in South America, McCarthyism, and downright Fascism. In fact the democracy in America has officially become plainly fascist (as if such a thing could not have already been viewed, it is now readily enough seen).
The 3 branches of the government that rule the people have now been replaced by a small group (of one feather) meeting in a single executive room. I have heard it be said that 3 or more people in the same room tripping on LSD constitute and validate an Act of Conspiracy and is punishable by the same penalty of High treason, death on the spot; now whether or not this is true is debatable, I do not know, but it does bring to mind a strong contrast of the government’s requirements of the American people and the loosening of its own self regulating laws. Democracy in American is falling apart, if a shred of it remains it is merely in the hearts of a people who may not only remember a better time, but hope for the best time still to come, but it seems even such a shred cannot stay the fear that a single man, certainly unworthy of the name King of America, is running our country.
I am reminded of the late Patrick Henry asking for
“Liberty or death”, and it is poignant that I would say the same to King Bush, for what happens when Liberty itself has died? then I too have died.
The Attorney General confirmed yesterday February 6,2006 that the administration was officially violating Liberty. Now many will argue, as Mr. Gonzalez attested, that the Bush administration is in fact protecting liberty by spying upon its own country’s citizens. There were several points made about the FISA, the September 13 meeting and the patriot act. It seems such a spit in the face of an American people that have an approval rating of 42%, as if he were daring someone to do something about it. The most humiliating part is the lack of responsibility taken by the administration for failure within the war itself, and failure to activate proper legislation. Though perhaps the worst is the shift in power in the implication of the current NSA surveillance. Such a travesty must not be allowed to continue. FISA clearly states that the governing powers must
acquire a warrant before electronic surveillance is implemented; approved usually with the head of the FBI. Though the resources once shared with the FBI and NSA have long be diffused due to complications in the sharing of resources, the approval of such an invasive investigation into the homes of the American people is still to be authorized by either congress or the Supreme Court. Cell phones and emailas well as all other electronic surveillance is being monitored by a literarily incommensurable amount.
In order to properly combat the questions such behavior natural raises I propose that one of three things will happen, either 1) the administration allow the negotiation of a system of checks and balances properly in line with the true spirit of the constitution, 2) the administration will properly convince Congress that it is entirely under jurisdiction by law and liberty will continue to be null, or 3) the solving of the issue with congressional prosecution for such an obvious violation of the United states Constitution and the amendments thereof.
As a personal note, as I email this particular statement, what could indeed be the consequences. The though of the President perhaps using military force to harm me in any way scares me deeply; and as such my Liberty is stepped on again, I live in fear, fear that the administration that is pledged to protect me will continue to violate me until my very spirit is quashed. That he will continue to make
America a laughingstock to the nations. That he will continue, with bigotry, force a form of government that by its very creed must be “For the people”, not to say the least about “by the People.”
The whole thing smells like coups in South America, McCarthyism, and downright Fascism. In fact the democracy in America has officially become plainly fascist (as if such a thing could not have already been viewed, it is now readily enough seen).
The 3 branches of the government that rule the people have now been replaced by a small group (of one feather) meeting in a single executive room. I have heard it be said that 3 or more people in the same room tripping on LSD constitute and validate an Act of Conspiracy and is punishable by the same penalty of High treason, death on the spot; now whether or not this is true is debatable, I do not know, but it does bring to mind a strong contrast of the government’s requirements of the American people and the loosening of its own self regulating laws. Democracy in American is falling apart, if a shred of it remains it is merely in the hearts of a people who may not only remember a better time, but hope for the best time still to come, but it seems even such a shred cannot stay the fear that a single man, certainly unworthy of the name King of America, is running our country.
I am reminded of the late Patrick Henry asking for
“Liberty or death”, and it is poignant that I would say the same to King Bush, for what happens when Liberty itself has died? then I too have died.
Does anybody really give a shit anymore?
By Tony Long. Copy chief of Wired magazine.
1968. It was the height of the Vietnam War, the year of My Lai and the Tet offensive. Student riots in Paris nearly brought down the French government. Soviet tanks put a premature end to Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring.
In the United States, the streets were teeming with antiwar protesters and civil rights demonstrators. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated within two months of each other. The Democratic convention in Chicago dissolved into chaos. And by the summer, America's cities were in flames.
The world was seething, and for good reason. There was a lot to be angry about. It was a lousy year, 1968.
I was in high school then. I quit the baseball team because, frankly, sports seemed frivolous. In 1968, there were more important things to worry about than perfecting a curveball. All very high-minded and, in retrospect, more than a little pompous. But nearly 40 years down the road I don't regret having done it. My political consciousness was awakened and I was actively engaged in the world around me.
But as bad as things were then, they seem infinitely worse now.
So why aren't the streets clogged with angry Americans demanding to know why their president lied and deceived them so he could attack a country that had absolutely nothing to do with his so-called war on terror? To an extent, we got suckered into Vietnam. We can't make that claim about Iraq. Iraq was the premeditated, willful invasion of a sovereign nation that was threatening nobody. "Saddam Hussein is a prick who treats the Kurds miserably" is no justification. By the principles established by the Nuremberg Tribunal and international law, our president is a war criminal.
Why aren't we marching to demand an end to the illegal surveillance of American citizens by their own government, again under the pretext of waging war on terror? Why do we so blithely surrender our civil liberties -- the very thing that supposedly separates us from other societies -- to the illusion of security? All the high-tech snooping in the world won't stop a determined terrorist from striking. If it could, Israel would be the safest country on earth.
Why aren't irate Americans camping out in the lobby of every newspaper and TV station from coast to coast, demanding that the press reassert the right to perform its single most important function, that of government watchdog? The ghost of Richard Nixon, and a very corporeal Bill Clinton, must be cursing their rotten luck.
Why aren't enraged college students occupying their campus administration buildings, demanding that the United States sign the Kyoto Protocol? Hell, it might already be too late, but is the luxury of driving your mom's SUV really worth the coming dystopian world that you, more than I, will inherit?
Why aren't we storming the battlements of every filthy oil company in America, demanding that their executives be tossed into fetid dungeons for cynically manipulating gas prices while raking in obscene profits?
Why aren't we demanding that religion return to the pulpit, where it belongs, and keep out of the White House and the courts?
In short, where the hell is everybody?
I'll tell you where they are. They're at home, tuning in to root for the next "American idol." They're plugged into their iPods, utterly self-involved and disconnected from what lies just outside their doors. They're spending 25 hours a week playing video games in virtual worlds instead of fighting to save the only world that really matters. They're surfing porn. They're text messaging and e-mailing and scheming to close that next big deal. They're flogging their useless crap on eBay.
All that technology at their fingertips, and they're completely blind. Two terms for George W. Bush? They're deaf and dumb, too.
Bread and circuses. The government and the corporations are giving us bread and circuses to keep us sufficiently distracted so the powers that be can pursue their agendas. Television (flat screens only, please) serves up Donald Trump and Paris Hilton as role models, and gives us the abomination of Fox News, which is more a wolf in sheep's clothing than any Vulpes vulpes you're likely to encounter.
Hollywood only cares about blockbusters, chick flicks and inane buddy movies. Tiresome reality doesn't make for good escapism and, more importantly, it doesn't fill coffers. And George Clooney can't be expected to produce every movie.
Whither the press? Forget it. Britney Spears gets more ink -- and better play -- than global warming does.
The real voices of dissent and engagement are found on the internet these days, but the internet is simply too diffuse to effectively galvanize a revolution.
And we desperately need a revolution.
In the United States, the streets were teeming with antiwar protesters and civil rights demonstrators. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated within two months of each other. The Democratic convention in Chicago dissolved into chaos. And by the summer, America's cities were in flames.
The world was seething, and for good reason. There was a lot to be angry about. It was a lousy year, 1968.
I was in high school then. I quit the baseball team because, frankly, sports seemed frivolous. In 1968, there were more important things to worry about than perfecting a curveball. All very high-minded and, in retrospect, more than a little pompous. But nearly 40 years down the road I don't regret having done it. My political consciousness was awakened and I was actively engaged in the world around me.
But as bad as things were then, they seem infinitely worse now.
So why aren't the streets clogged with angry Americans demanding to know why their president lied and deceived them so he could attack a country that had absolutely nothing to do with his so-called war on terror? To an extent, we got suckered into Vietnam. We can't make that claim about Iraq. Iraq was the premeditated, willful invasion of a sovereign nation that was threatening nobody. "Saddam Hussein is a prick who treats the Kurds miserably" is no justification. By the principles established by the Nuremberg Tribunal and international law, our president is a war criminal.
Why aren't we marching to demand an end to the illegal surveillance of American citizens by their own government, again under the pretext of waging war on terror? Why do we so blithely surrender our civil liberties -- the very thing that supposedly separates us from other societies -- to the illusion of security? All the high-tech snooping in the world won't stop a determined terrorist from striking. If it could, Israel would be the safest country on earth.
Why aren't irate Americans camping out in the lobby of every newspaper and TV station from coast to coast, demanding that the press reassert the right to perform its single most important function, that of government watchdog? The ghost of Richard Nixon, and a very corporeal Bill Clinton, must be cursing their rotten luck.
Why aren't enraged college students occupying their campus administration buildings, demanding that the United States sign the Kyoto Protocol? Hell, it might already be too late, but is the luxury of driving your mom's SUV really worth the coming dystopian world that you, more than I, will inherit?
Why aren't we storming the battlements of every filthy oil company in America, demanding that their executives be tossed into fetid dungeons for cynically manipulating gas prices while raking in obscene profits?
Why aren't we demanding that religion return to the pulpit, where it belongs, and keep out of the White House and the courts?
In short, where the hell is everybody?
I'll tell you where they are. They're at home, tuning in to root for the next "American idol." They're plugged into their iPods, utterly self-involved and disconnected from what lies just outside their doors. They're spending 25 hours a week playing video games in virtual worlds instead of fighting to save the only world that really matters. They're surfing porn. They're text messaging and e-mailing and scheming to close that next big deal. They're flogging their useless crap on eBay.
All that technology at their fingertips, and they're completely blind. Two terms for George W. Bush? They're deaf and dumb, too.
Bread and circuses. The government and the corporations are giving us bread and circuses to keep us sufficiently distracted so the powers that be can pursue their agendas. Television (flat screens only, please) serves up Donald Trump and Paris Hilton as role models, and gives us the abomination of Fox News, which is more a wolf in sheep's clothing than any Vulpes vulpes you're likely to encounter.
Hollywood only cares about blockbusters, chick flicks and inane buddy movies. Tiresome reality doesn't make for good escapism and, more importantly, it doesn't fill coffers. And George Clooney can't be expected to produce every movie.
Whither the press? Forget it. Britney Spears gets more ink -- and better play -- than global warming does.
The real voices of dissent and engagement are found on the internet these days, but the internet is simply too diffuse to effectively galvanize a revolution.
And we desperately need a revolution.
When Cops Rape Children
Here's Officer Perv, folks. A Cop-a-Feel straight from my home county. I wonder how many marijuana-related arrests this alleged rapist notched-up during his tenure as constable...
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story contains graphic details.
CANON CITY, Colo. - A former Denton County constable shared sordid tales of sexual assaults against young girls and other sex crimes dating back to his military service in Vietnam, according to prosecution motions filed Monday. The details come from Larry Dale Floyd's alleged conversations with two cellmates in the Fremont County Detention Center in Colorado, where he has been held since his arrest last July on charges of soliciting to have sex with a child. Prosecutors also hope to admit into evidence the statements from a former bartender in Lewisville and Lake Dallas. She told police that Floyd showed her child pornography and invited her to sex parties with children in 1990 and 1991. Floyd's attorney, Philip DuBois of Colorado Springs, could not be reached for comment. The motions ask that Floyd's incriminating statements be admitted as evidence to show a pattern of behavior as well as to refute his claims that he was in Colorado working an undercover sting when he was arrested. Floyd, 62, of The Colony, has pleaded not guilty to one count of soliciting for child prostitution, three counts of enticement of a child and three counts of attempted sexual assault on a child. He is accused of arranging to have sex with an 8-year-old girl by soliciting an undercover officer in Colorado via Internet and phone conversations. He also faces charges in Texas of possession of child pornography found on his home computer. Earlier this year, public defender Daniel Zettler asked to be removed as Floyd's attorney because of a conflict with another of his clients, William Johnson. In a videotaped interview last week, Johnson told police he shared a cell with Floyd at the detention center between November and February. During that time, Floyd stated that he purchased sex from locals while he was in the Army in Vietnam and he could have a woman and any of her kids for a few dollars, according to documents. Floyd also told Mr. Johnson how he and other soldiers in Vietnam chained a girl to a pole and repeatedly had sex with her before killing her, the documents stated. Floyd told Johnson that he hoped to get out on probation so he could "buy a RV and travel around to nudist colonies," according to documents. Johnson and another cellmate, Justin Lopez, also stated that Floyd made inappropriate comments about Lopez's three children, who visited him in prison. Lopez, who is jailed on a sex-assault charge, said he would not trust Floyd with his children. Johnson is facing 12 counts of fraud and deceit related to the theft of prescription drugs meant for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Both inmates said they came forward because they didn't want Floyd to have any more contact with children. Johnson told prosecutors that Floyd changed stories about his arrest, first saying that he had gone onto the Internet to find a travel companion and then saying he came here on a sting operation that no one in Texas was aware of. Floyd also told Johnson that he brought boxes of Viagra, pain medication, tranquilizers and sleeping pills to Colorado, the documents state. Assistant District Attorney Kathy Eberling expects to argue at a May 4 hearing to have the statements admitted as evidence at trial, which is set for September. She also seeks to admit "similar bad acts" with testimony from two of Floyd's Texas relatives as well as statements from a former bartender. The woman contacted prosecutors after hearing about Floyd's arrest in the news. She said Floyd showed her a photo album with children posing naked or in lingerie and invited her 10 different times to join them in parties. When she asked what they did, Floyd "talked about tying up the children and dressing them in certain ways; he also said their parents were involved," the documents stated. The woman said she did not come forward earlier because Floyd said she "wouldn't breathe anymore" if she told anyone. Floyd remains jailed on a $100,000 cash-only bail at the Fremont County Detention Center. TRACY HARMON is a freelance writer based in Caon City, Colo.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story contains graphic details.
CANON CITY, Colo. - A former Denton County constable shared sordid tales of sexual assaults against young girls and other sex crimes dating back to his military service in Vietnam, according to prosecution motions filed Monday. The details come from Larry Dale Floyd's alleged conversations with two cellmates in the Fremont County Detention Center in Colorado, where he has been held since his arrest last July on charges of soliciting to have sex with a child. Prosecutors also hope to admit into evidence the statements from a former bartender in Lewisville and Lake Dallas. She told police that Floyd showed her child pornography and invited her to sex parties with children in 1990 and 1991. Floyd's attorney, Philip DuBois of Colorado Springs, could not be reached for comment. The motions ask that Floyd's incriminating statements be admitted as evidence to show a pattern of behavior as well as to refute his claims that he was in Colorado working an undercover sting when he was arrested. Floyd, 62, of The Colony, has pleaded not guilty to one count of soliciting for child prostitution, three counts of enticement of a child and three counts of attempted sexual assault on a child. He is accused of arranging to have sex with an 8-year-old girl by soliciting an undercover officer in Colorado via Internet and phone conversations. He also faces charges in Texas of possession of child pornography found on his home computer. Earlier this year, public defender Daniel Zettler asked to be removed as Floyd's attorney because of a conflict with another of his clients, William Johnson. In a videotaped interview last week, Johnson told police he shared a cell with Floyd at the detention center between November and February. During that time, Floyd stated that he purchased sex from locals while he was in the Army in Vietnam and he could have a woman and any of her kids for a few dollars, according to documents. Floyd also told Mr. Johnson how he and other soldiers in Vietnam chained a girl to a pole and repeatedly had sex with her before killing her, the documents stated. Floyd told Johnson that he hoped to get out on probation so he could "buy a RV and travel around to nudist colonies," according to documents. Johnson and another cellmate, Justin Lopez, also stated that Floyd made inappropriate comments about Lopez's three children, who visited him in prison. Lopez, who is jailed on a sex-assault charge, said he would not trust Floyd with his children. Johnson is facing 12 counts of fraud and deceit related to the theft of prescription drugs meant for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Both inmates said they came forward because they didn't want Floyd to have any more contact with children. Johnson told prosecutors that Floyd changed stories about his arrest, first saying that he had gone onto the Internet to find a travel companion and then saying he came here on a sting operation that no one in Texas was aware of. Floyd also told Johnson that he brought boxes of Viagra, pain medication, tranquilizers and sleeping pills to Colorado, the documents state. Assistant District Attorney Kathy Eberling expects to argue at a May 4 hearing to have the statements admitted as evidence at trial, which is set for September. She also seeks to admit "similar bad acts" with testimony from two of Floyd's Texas relatives as well as statements from a former bartender. The woman contacted prosecutors after hearing about Floyd's arrest in the news. She said Floyd showed her a photo album with children posing naked or in lingerie and invited her 10 different times to join them in parties. When she asked what they did, Floyd "talked about tying up the children and dressing them in certain ways; he also said their parents were involved," the documents stated. The woman said she did not come forward earlier because Floyd said she "wouldn't breathe anymore" if she told anyone. Floyd remains jailed on a $100,000 cash-only bail at the Fremont County Detention Center. TRACY HARMON is a freelance writer based in Caon City, Colo.
Repost: Pee-Pee Police Procure Public Payola
Although only 5% of public schools currently force students to submit to random urine tests in order to participate in extra-curricular activities, Uncle Sam is on a crusade to extract every drop of yellow gold from bladders of children everywhere. The Office of National Drug Control Policy has been sponsoring seminars in school districts across the country, offering tax dollars to districts that comply and implement urine monitoring, all in the name of "protecting the children".
Please don't get me wrong, folks. I don't want to see children become addicted to drugs, but I also know for a fact that many of our schools aren't as safe as our shopping malls (it seems children are less valuable than property), when it comes to preventing random shooters, bomb-wielding terrorists, and escaped pedophiles that might wander onto campus (or get a job there). So if tax dollars are going to be used to protect children at school, isn't freedom from violent predators and pedophiles more important than being drug-free?
Speaking of pedophiles, it just so happens that many child rapists are further perverted by a not-so-golden fetish - watching children urinate (unfortunately it's true). Wouldn't they relish the opportunity to earn $15 per hour to watch children squat and pee all day? And we know from numerous recent news reports that teachers and school officials are not automatically above raping a child or two (which makes sense, as predators gravitate to positions of power). Urine collector would be a pedophile's dream job, no?
As a survivor of child abuse, I find it appalling that school officials will force kids (one in five of whom will be or have been sexually assaulted, and may be retraumatized by this coerced urination) to drop their drawers in the vicinity of adult stangers, without any probable cause or judicial (or for that matter, parental) oversight. Mark my words - justified lawsuits will be the inevitable result of devastated kids.
Consider this... If you are a parent, do you let your child go into bathroom stalls alone with strangers? Do you let them tinkle in the immediate vicinity of distant family members you don't know so well? Then why in the world would you trust Big Brother in the potty stall alone with your kid?
A more moderate approach would allow public school districts to make these drug tests available to parents who request them when they notice warning signs in their own kids. But nothing about our current federal administration is moderate - they understand brute force. And ironically, their heavy-handed approach may drive kids away from the very extra-curricular activities shown to reduce substance abuse.
You may access the following link to learn more about the federal potty police, and to let your public drug officials hear your voice:
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/studentdrugtesting/index.html
PLEASE REPOST!
Your Iconoclast,
Chris Largen
www.Building-Block.org
Please don't get me wrong, folks. I don't want to see children become addicted to drugs, but I also know for a fact that many of our schools aren't as safe as our shopping malls (it seems children are less valuable than property), when it comes to preventing random shooters, bomb-wielding terrorists, and escaped pedophiles that might wander onto campus (or get a job there). So if tax dollars are going to be used to protect children at school, isn't freedom from violent predators and pedophiles more important than being drug-free?
Speaking of pedophiles, it just so happens that many child rapists are further perverted by a not-so-golden fetish - watching children urinate (unfortunately it's true). Wouldn't they relish the opportunity to earn $15 per hour to watch children squat and pee all day? And we know from numerous recent news reports that teachers and school officials are not automatically above raping a child or two (which makes sense, as predators gravitate to positions of power). Urine collector would be a pedophile's dream job, no?
As a survivor of child abuse, I find it appalling that school officials will force kids (one in five of whom will be or have been sexually assaulted, and may be retraumatized by this coerced urination) to drop their drawers in the vicinity of adult stangers, without any probable cause or judicial (or for that matter, parental) oversight. Mark my words - justified lawsuits will be the inevitable result of devastated kids.
Consider this... If you are a parent, do you let your child go into bathroom stalls alone with strangers? Do you let them tinkle in the immediate vicinity of distant family members you don't know so well? Then why in the world would you trust Big Brother in the potty stall alone with your kid?
A more moderate approach would allow public school districts to make these drug tests available to parents who request them when they notice warning signs in their own kids. But nothing about our current federal administration is moderate - they understand brute force. And ironically, their heavy-handed approach may drive kids away from the very extra-curricular activities shown to reduce substance abuse.
You may access the following link to learn more about the federal potty police, and to let your public drug officials hear your voice:
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/studentdrugtesting/index.html
PLEASE REPOST!
Your Iconoclast,
Chris Largen
www.Building-Block.org
Notes on Singularities
Conceptualization of one is in relation to many. The they-self reaffirming itself through geistic movement transcends the many as mere Nietzschean “herd” to Jasperian “Existenz” communication. It is more than the limit of identity less than the din of situatedness, it is solitude, silence, it is not the zero, but the coming near to zero, it is oneness. Oneness must be considered outside of normal Dasein, outside of Consciousness as Such and Extra geistic, though it encompasses all three, it is the outside-inside the intersubjective singularity. Kierkegaard's conception of the unique one ventures close, Nietzsche was close, both as Existenz draw the limits of there own existence, particularly in relation to the whole, it is from the phenomenal ground of the many that singularness leaps from. The ground is both the phenomenal many and the metaphysical many as such, and its movement gives a picture of the shifting of intersubjectivity that occurs within the transcendent event. The movement is extra-identical and extra-unitical: the sameness, which is transcendentally different rather than immanently present, and the unification that is freeing rather than binding.
This is the checking of ourselves in our own self-imposed objectification against the subject that objectifies, however without full consideration of this movement and relationship simulacra of the subject occurs. This is the crisis that Phenomenology sought to fix. Starting from the noetic act itself from the backgrounding of the subject Husserl and others sought to open up the horizon of possibility that they themselves saw. Unfortunately, this has been skewed and many have been misled (perhaps the psychologism of Husserl is more rampant than even thought before).
Martin Buber points out the beginnings of it in his piece titled "Between man and Man", particularly in dialogue as responsibility of Existenz, or as he calls them, quite literally, "the ones". Here responsibility is the ability to respond and the responsibility to respond.
So starting with the situated geistic movement, towards the possibility of transcendence in Existenz communication the very nature of responsibility is that which re-affirms and inflects oneness with the being-open.
This is the checking of ourselves in our own self-imposed objectification against the subject that objectifies, however without full consideration of this movement and relationship simulacra of the subject occurs. This is the crisis that Phenomenology sought to fix. Starting from the noetic act itself from the backgrounding of the subject Husserl and others sought to open up the horizon of possibility that they themselves saw. Unfortunately, this has been skewed and many have been misled (perhaps the psychologism of Husserl is more rampant than even thought before).
Martin Buber points out the beginnings of it in his piece titled "Between man and Man", particularly in dialogue as responsibility of Existenz, or as he calls them, quite literally, "the ones". Here responsibility is the ability to respond and the responsibility to respond.
So starting with the situated geistic movement, towards the possibility of transcendence in Existenz communication the very nature of responsibility is that which re-affirms and inflects oneness with the being-open.
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