Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Mr. Smith, may I introduce you to Mr. Kasper:

http://perelebrun.blogspot.com/2011/07/enjoying-your-symptom.html

Frankly Slav-oy is just a celeb version of the Marxy lecturers I had as a student. He's a bet-hedger. A professional. His career is what matters and he'll say what he has to to keep it going.* In other words, a hack.

*That is, flattering the academic left--which is a product of bourgeois society, by the way--while not offending the Masters.

If Obama and Cameron can do it, why can't the mob!? Burn down the orphanage, evil institution? Burn the hospice, they are gonna die anyhow? Bomb the weddings, the funerals, the ERs.... Burn the housing of Manhattan. The boats of the Hudson.

My sympathy for riot follows the inverse-inverse square law.
Closer the riot, lesser the sympathy. Your children, the first victims of the irrationality, mine running away from the very end of the queue....

Interesting that he and other pomo types (Sloterdijk, too, though he's more openly a boozhy neoliberal type; some Frankfurt School descedndant wrote a book on how skeptics of capitalism just don't understand economics http://www.amazon.com/Filthy-Lucre-Economics-People-Capitalism/dp/1554683955) often have these weird, incoherent politics that, when finally expressed straightforwardly, are notably reactionary or nihilist.

"...the response to such events is a pons asinorum, an infallible indicator of one's fundamental outlook."

Taking that observation, which I agree with, as the starting point for investigation rather than as a criticism, there's really little to be gained by giving thumbs up or down to the London riots. They are a symptom of "something", just as the Oslo massacre is a symptom and the fey responses of the usual talking-head suspects are more indicative of what the something is that the inchoate events themselves.

What interests the Sandwichman is the symmetry of designated "left" and "right" to the incidents in London and Oslo respectively. There are two characteristic moves. One is divorcing "legitimate grievances" from unconscionable (or "mindless") actions. The other is marrying delusions of persecution and instigating rhetorics. The right rends asunder what the left joins together and vice versa.

There is more. To become a celebrity of opinion -- a Zizek, Friedman, Krugman, Fell -- is to subscribe to this predictable practice of marrying and divorcing causes, effects, rhetorics and delusions.

"Let's have more riots, I say, and less hollow blether about 'worldlessness'. Oh, and more car-burning too. Lots and lots of car-burning, and the sooner the better."

Hear hear!

Given the direction of things these days I think you can just about count on it. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you!

More riots coming, to be sure. Enough the discussion and "analysis" of which will fill libraries with post post post post course and lecture catalogs.

The analysis and chin scratching gloriously irrelevant.

... So, what we get from the opinion celebrities -- flaneurs* -- is a kind of choreographed minuet. Where did they learn THOSE steps? How did this particular ideological dance in which events are transformed into commodities evolve?

"On the intellectuals' solidarity with the proletatariat, he [Walter Benjamin] insisted: 'political commitment, however revolutionary it may seem, functions in a counter-revolutionary way so long as the writer experiences his solidarity with the proletariat only in the mind and not as a producer'. Precisely this second lesson is the point of the historical montage of flaneur and sandwichman." -- Buck-Morss, The Flaneur, the Sandwichman and the Whore, p. 111.

*"The flaneur is the prototype of a new form of salaried employee who produces news/literature/advertisements for the purpose of information/entertainment/persuasion (the forms of both product and purpose are not clearly distinguished). These products fill the 'empty' hours which time-off from work has become in the modern city." -- Buck-Morss, p. 113.

From Sandwichman's perspective, the indistinguishability of the salaried intellectuals' products and purposes is key to their meaning and political tendency. That which is "marketable" becomes functionally counter-revolutionary by that fact alone. So how can this hollow blether be "re-functioned"? It can't. There is no ideological solution to this ideological puzzle. There is only a social one: the dis-employment of the salaried intellectuals and ideologists of all stripes so that their "time off from work" ceases to be an amusing bon-bon.

While we're on this subject, the Dead Kennedys once wrote a song called "Riot" which also lectured rioters for "burning down their own neighborhoods" and claimed they were just playing right into the hands of "the real slave-drivers", who were well-protected by the cops. Maybe they had a point, although it should be noted that Jello Biafra has certainly parroted pwog drivel before and still does.

sandy

i like riots and more so looting
they indicate
street level social dynamics are awakening

as to evaluating its "political content "
that seems secondary
in as much as the social dynamics moves on
either piping back down
or moving to higher forms
and if its to higher forms
once we're there
whether riots are the origins
or just the colaterals of the struggle crescendo
becomes what ??,,,,"academic"

no one likes a good riot more then
a declasse haute burger like myself

SO WHAT !!!!

sean had some points about
contradictions amomg the people
exacerbating post riot

but hey

no left politico pink or red
mistakes a riot for a rebellion

btw
it strikes me and i'm sure most all of u
as obvious
rioters and looters hardly need
to be lectured on the limitations of their "chosen " form of struggle

only hoody shrouded
black-block bohos
might need that lecture

it gives em a thrill
like 5th grade detention

"Anonymous" (albeit painefully): "...they indicate..."

Riots and looting only "indicate" if one assumes they are a mask behind which lucks some elusive essence. However, if they are instead understood as a screen, upon which commentators project their "physiologies", all essentialist bets are off.

Both mask and screen interpretations operate on the presumption that meaningful human action shares with text some of the features that distinguish text from speech in general -- i.e., the consequences of an action must endure if it is to be considered meaningful.

To turn that last statement around: what endures from an action becomes its meaning, regardless of any intention or lack of intention. Partisans of the mask are, in effect, making a prediction about what the legacy of the riots and looting will be. But in the same breath they are hedging their bets. Zizek also hedges his bets, confining himself to a purely negative analysis and committing himself to no concrete program.

"lucks" = lurks

Yes an indication
Is just an index
Dark clouds inidvate it might rain

Looking at a riot only as an
Index sugests
A concern with what in this case
A riot might be connected with

Ie what else might be in the event stream what else might be in the neighborhood of the riot
A mask ?
No a riot is an expressive collective action
But it stands quite nakedly for what it wants to exress
In the realm of expression
Very little else in fact is as naked

Its a howl of the people

Purely choral

The anon aspect
Is more about
Its purely group identity over indivdual statement

At any rate
Pre black block stage three stuff its indeed
Not a disguise party

_______

I have very little concern about the dance of existence and essence
Anyway

It always apeals to me how different
Foundational concerns arise between folks

I'm using my phone here btw
Not my won't

The bug seems not to like the word wont

Mayhaps the missing Lenin of the Ukriots was Smith himself.

Slight shift: Why don't all the riot enthusiasts commenting here riot? What is stopping youse?

Good point, Boink.

"Why don't all the riot enthusiasts commenting here riot? "

i have culottes !!!!!

one hears all too often the retort

"arm chairman arm chairman "

the light that casts on the subject here has long sense been well digested

one doesn't ask us
supporters of the verizon strike ..(now in a cloudy proteam state alas)
why don't you go on strike

its a matter of where you are
and who you are
i doubt more faux sans culotte bohos would add much to the recent looting
in fact we already know just how little the boho third wave added as it is

Has anybody else ever seen Zizek talk live, in person? I have, and the dude is as phony as a $4 bill. He sweats profusely. Why? He also reads his "talks," in a very wooden way. Again, why?

Need we ask what new insight he's ever produced, other than making hipsters feel that watching movies is somehow rebellious?

By the way, I never bothered to investigate, but I believe Zerozek's also recently begun to flatter Israel.

Total POS, waste of neurons.

If the rioting was "political work" as SMBIVA seems to suggest and as Zizek seems to deny. doesn't "I couldna find a brickbat" seem kinda lame for a riot fan?

I, too, don't see a point in the approbation/condemnation dichotomy, and Zizek is a tiresome fool who doesn't have opinions, per se. He manages a personal brand.

"Why don't all the riot enthusiasts commenting here riot?"

Who say's were not? And what does a one man riot look like?

Eeeeeewwwwww. What a load of crap. To compare this doorknob to Thomas Friedman is an insult to Thomas Friedman -- and his moustache.

Still, I have to admit that the burning-down-your-own-neighborhood argument does make a teensy-schmeensy bit of sense, in the fashion of a busted clock being right twice a day.

I can remember watching the L.A. riots after the Rodney King police beating verdict, and thinking that it was awesome that they were rioting, except for one thing: why were they busting up their own neighborhood instead of hijacking a bunch of buses up to Rodeo Drive or Bel Air? Y'know... take it right to the backyards of the people responsible? For years that bunch has always been whining about "class war" every time someone makes the slightest squeak about them paying their fair share of taxes or not shitting on workers; why not give 'em their goddamn' class war?

Their neighborhoods, Mike? Put it out of your mind. Wondering why the blacks were burning South Central is like wondering why the Jews would burn their own little quartier of Warsaw.

Posted by JTG | August 20, 2011 3:13 PM:
While we're on this subject, the Dead Kennedys once wrote a song called "Riot" which also lectured rioters for "burning down their own neighborhoods" and claimed they were just playing right into the hands of "the real slave-drivers", who were well-protected by the cops. Maybe they had a point, although it should be noted that Jello Biafra has certainly parroted pwog drivel before and still does.

While we're on the subject of old-skook punk, I was just telling a friend of mine last week... the main problem with the riots wasn't that they were rioting, but that there were mobs of Johnny Rottens without a Joe Strummer to educate them.

"except for one thing: why were they busting up their own neighborhood instead of hijacking a bunch of buses up to Rodeo Drive or Bel Air? "
i'll be less oblique then brother ioz

the la cops blocked the exits with shoot to kill squads as i understand that
epic mayhemic moment

"I couldna find a brickbat"

who used that line here ??

really boink if you want to epater
gotta throw a better punch then that
sure it breaks your own constructed glass jaws
but the real ones here
are still jawin' away
in one piece
so far as i can see at least

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-08/asa-lea081511.php

seeming good news
on the churchianity front

"While religious service attendance has decreased for all white Americans since the early 1970s, the rate of decline has been more than twice as high for those without college degrees compared to those who graduated from college "

gem phrasing:

"Over the past 40 years
the moderately educated
have become less likely to hold
familistic beliefs "

as a devout anti familisticalist

i cheer the moderately educated on

like a drunken mariner
watching a lopsided cat fight

"There wasn't room in the pocket of culottes for a brickbat?"

Really it seems like "OK, enough talk, let's you and him fight. I'll be over by Cape Cod, watching."

Boink

Your point is well understood

-----------------------

"next"!
Col Q is in swan song mode

I hope father is saying a few prayers for him

Agreed, Boink.

The liberal and ostensibly leftist braying over Q's impending fall is unseemly. All that gold, those yummy Libyan dinars, the socialized infrastructure and the diamonds, oil, gas and cheap labor are about to be raided.

Yeah, yeah, yeah - Qadaffi's a bad dude. That doesn't mean jack fucking shit.

I've always felt events like this are a sort of pontus kickassinorum, reliably separating those who got their education on street violence by getting their asses kicked out on the street, and those whose opinions are grounded solidly in ideology, particularly the received wisdom of a mass-murdering Russian sociopath and his views on making a better society.

No sane person who has experienced violence would wish it on another, or glorify opportunistic acts of random sadism directed at the innocent as the act of a liberator.

The predators at the top will not go down easy and there may be a place for violence, but nothing could possibly be more counter-productive than mindless acts of stupidity and violence turned inward, rather than outward at the oppressor. I cheered when a mob assaulted Prince Charles and consort in the Royal Rolls. Just the fear they put in them, to remind them that they're mortal. I would never cheer for this.

I'm a firm believer in the school of hard knocks, and the quality of the education you receive there. Every liberal and leftist who glorifies random, mindless acts of violence would benefit immensely from a Reginald Denny-style beatdown, preferably from a random mob of "disaffected youth."

The conservative, by contrast, needs to receive his session of wall-to-wall therapy at the hands of a cop, preferably while picking up his prescription for 10 Vicodin for a whiplash injury. Only then, can either realize that the one is not a liberator, and the other a protector, but both sides of the same anti-social lumpen element the elite rely on to keep us divided and oppressed.

I wonder at the lack of enthusiam for the lumpen revolution over in Libya. There's a society with a leader who believes every family should own their own home, and own their own car, and most do. How, uh...capitalist! Should be lots of intellectual and literal fodder for the "revolutionary" fires there, no?

We have the same breed of "disaffected youth"—gang members, human traffickers, drug dealers, "fighting" in the ranks of the anti-Qaddafi militias, and expressing their rage at society by looting and burning their own communities while not posing for CNN. Okay, so those guys are lynching random blacks rather than elderly white male pensioners, but you can't have everything. It's the revolutionary dynamic that counts.

Here's one thumb up for Sean.

OK, Sean, now you need to explain. Who the fuck are you? What gives you such a license to make the pronouncements you make?

Nobody here is glorifying random violence.

Meanwhile, are you comfortable claiming that violence is always wrong? U.S. Civil War? What would you do if el mano blanco visited your village in El Salvador, circa 1979?

You keep talking like you're history's greatest example.

Meanwhile, what person you know has not experienced violence?

And WTF are you trying to say about Libya? On what basis?

Only an idiot would call the British riots "random" and "mindless."

It's one thing to question the strategy. It's another to deny the causes and the logic.

Wait -- news flash! Revolution has commenced!

http://www.tarsandsaction.org/

ROFLMFAO.

reactive misdirected sadistic violence

the riot as school yard bullying

the rampage of the left back d minus
colored students !!!!

sean
WE have consulted
party shrink
doctor psychlops
about .....YOU

after observation of YOUR comments
over this "struggle topic"
and the earlier ones on "homeowner skip "
she

http://www.aberthabusiness.com/blog/wp-content/uploads//wpsc/product_images/Calderon_Karen_Betty_12x16.5-2.jpg

suggests
you may possibly suffer from

PIC-AKS
(post intercommunal ass kick syndrome)

if so ...
no worry

the total war on the Oppressor
can wait till you attain
fuller self integration

---------------------

that's THEM
this is ME comrade

ME :

ask your self this sean

instead of "laughing off "
---white hat hollywood cow poke fashion--

that set of fairly common
early experiences

why have
you made a ritual initiation right
out of it ???

reminds me of those loud few
-- among
the many
on the peace/anti IMP left
that actually served in nam ---

you know the types that
no matter where how or to what consequence
they served there
claimed personal priority of insight
in any anti-empire deliberation

--------------

the virtual polit bureau in my head
as i type this
may need to take all this under consideration

the big brothers up there
usually react poorly
to stuck on X
self control mechanisms

maybe makes for unreliable cadre material

in particular
if assigned to the party intercommunity spontaneous
action department ...eh ???

despite your signifigant personal experience
in that area
no
let me be blunt
precisely because of your experience in that area

one needs to consider carefully and deeply just how poorly
you have assimilated that experience
into your set of inter penetrating
political templates

in short cpomrade sean
its a bad tell pal

if you insist on impulsively
witnessing
your personal tale of bank shot violence

( 1 to n
knocks away from the oppressor cue ball )

at any rate

i'll speak up for you
with the sub secretary
of the 13th party branch org committeeeee

alas despite my silver typing finger
if she might decide
all aspects considered
and for the good of the whole
branch and the whole struggle
to re assign
you ..ugh ...to a back burner cell ...

well

i'd hate to see that

you know doing ... campus square
spring session card tables
or nocturnal no contact trot spotting

or eeeh gads

pre Worker Action Front
fall gala banquet
potato peeling

------------------------------

watch
the PD -PWL

public display of personal wound licking

" a mass-murdering Russian sociopath "
oh dear there have been so
MMRS's in the msm yankee doodle history
narratives
just WHICH ONE might be giving some of us our remote control time tunnel
marching orders sean ??

i do hope its the generalissimo hizzseff
you have in mind

and not that tiresome
johnny one note
provincial pedant
OOLY YAWNOFF
that ticks off brother dawson

you wish on some of us

" a Reginald Denny-style beatdown"

".. would benefit immensely...
Only then, can realize (the rioter beat downer is not )... not a liberator..(
but just one side of a )... anti-social lumpen element the elite rely on to keep us divided and oppressed"

my my sean

the LA four and their ilk
are at least for
hapless
stuck in the midst of it
poor toiling class whitey
.... agents of the oppressors ??

next !!!

"I wonder at the lack of enthusiam for the lumpen revolution over in Libya"

explicate will you good buddy
just what in hell this over packet phrase
means

"There's a society with a leader who believes every family should own their own home, and own their own car, and most do."

" How, uh...capitalist!"

really ??? you and your endless train
of MSM MUDDLES

what a ridiculous twist on terms
i'd at least hope for "consumerist"
that utterly senseless label
i guess opposed to productionist
or is it
in our granite state genet's case

boho dirt bike green earth abstemi-istics ???

what an unholy trinity that makes
no matter how you carve up the beast

but
for one with an inner biedermeier conscience
like you display on occasion
hard to grasp

why you crypto famili-ist you

" Should be lots of intellectual and literal fodder for the "revolutionary" fires there, no?"

sean i think you are swinging at very swing at able targets
but for heaven's sake
take off the blind fold
or turn on the lights

you see these pink zombees everywhere

as often in cases like this

where an isolated but noble heart
finds itself
in a world no longer his own
and he tries killing off
this new world's normal inhabitants

i'm reminded of vincent price
in
last man on earth

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=vincent+price+last+man+on+earth&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1R2ADRA_enUS416&tbm=isch&tbnid=GzJwABQvWxklBM:&imgrefurl=http://mannaismayaadventure.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/sign-of-the-apocalypse-bunker-sales-increase-after-japan-earthquake/&docid=YhJXEUPEwDq3_M&w=611&h=404&ei=NoFSTtXVBqPr0gH8ybnFDw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1043&vpy=241&dur=15&hovh=182&hovw=276&tx=191&ty=107&page=6&tbnh=123&tbnw=162&start=112&ndsp=26&ved=1t:429,r:25,s:112&biw=1366&bih=566

come morgan ...join us

"We have the same breed of "disaffected youth"—gang members, human traffickers, drug dealers, "fighting" in the ranks of the anti-Qaddafi militias, and expressing their rage at society by looting and burning their own communities while not posing for CNN.'

' Okay, so those guys are lynching random blacks rather than elderly white male pensioners, but you can't have everything. It's the revolutionary dynamic that counts."

sean where do you get this panoramic
view of the topple-dangers from

Alex et posse over at fathers
virtual pink and black mosque ...
counter funk ??

yes i do mean to pick on you sean

i like you and your spunkenstein ways

homo erotic platonism ??

no

i'm not socrates
as my daughter pointed out to me years ago
i'm a gertrude stein wanna be
a don Q self delusion
thinking i'm a swashbuckling lesbian
when any sdancho can see
if just a terminal asshole spirit
lodged uncomfortably
in a fat guys body

Re: IOZ @ 1:40, op @ 2:10

It's a fair question. Why burn down our own little quartier of Warsaw (so to speak)? The ruling class is untouchable; therefore we engage in self-destructive behaviour in order to...what, entertain Mr. Smith?

Anon @ 1:05pm,

I think the point has far more to do with options at hand, than the vague volitionalism which assumes that people can just march around burning the right neighborhoods. The Warsaw Jews couldn't get out of the ghetto in any numbers that mattered. To fight the Nazis they had to destroy the ghetto within which the Nazis had stashed them.

But that's not fighting at all in any meaningful sense. It's just suicide. I'm not saying there's an alternative, i.e. people can and should burn the "right" neighborhoods. Just that, if there's nothing to do we might as well do nothing.

Anon,

Should Anielewicz et al have filed a grievance with the sector obergruppenfuhrer?

Jack, when I said nothing I meant *nothing*. Not complaints through official channels, not rioting, not--apropos of this site--voting. Consider this: tomorrow, a SWAT team could trash your home and murder your family in yet another "botched" raid. Will you burn it down tonight yourself, just to show 'em? Me, I'll enjoy what comforts I am permitted while I can. The scum will take my life, liberty, and/or property in their own good time. No reason to hurry things along.

Anon,

You're sort of missing the point of the Warsaw Ghetto, then.

It's a holding area pending extermination. You know what's coming for all of us; you've written about it. It's only recently dawned on Arthur Silber as well. Just goes to show even the keenest observers can overlook the obvious. For example, the utter futility of all resistance (or rather, playing at resistance) still hasn't sunken in to you.

Anonymous -- Though we're all very cynical and bummed-out here, I don't think you're going to find many takers for 'the utter futility of all resistance'.

If existence and resistance are futile, why even post on the intertubewebz? Isn't suicide the logical response?

Anyway,

Mr, Smith,

IOZ has done you a solid. In drumming up a reply over his way, I stumbled across this:

http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

Given the relationship to Zizek, thought you'd get a kick out of it.

MJS, do tell then, what does destroying our own neighborhood gain us? Your own amusement at seeing cars burn does not count.

Jack, suicide will be the logical response once nothing remains but the suffering. Right now, for me at least, life still brings some pleasure. But supposing it didn't, supposing life were pure, unending misery, how could rioting possibly improve the situation?

Sean has written a number of things that are worth going over. I'll grab two.

In a life lived down towards the bottom of the food chain, there's no qualitative difference between cops and thugs. Both fill a fundamentally reactionary role. Violent humiliation and violent destruction of belongings, whether procedurally prim (cops) or exuberantly dionysian (thugs), turn hardscrabble into hell.

Burning the bankster's car: good
Burning the bankster's janitor's car: bad

Are either of those wrong?

Anon,

Is "improvement" the right yard stick, under those circumstances?

Lots of missed connections here

I suggest some of us read up on the WG uprising
And the LA 90's
Rioting post the cop walk verdict

To suggest the rioters merely commited virtual neighborhood suicide
Misses some detail
Seriously misses it in fact

Even though he's characterized me as a Granite State Genet (hell, I laughed; that shit was clever), I am forced by decrepit Clio herself to agree with OP.

Jack very handsome of you

You are indeed your own man with a individualized mind
And not just a pile of poorly organized anarchist templates

testing

Having been beaten down quite a few times and then turned around and done some of my own beat downs on some others I'm here to tell you when the anger rises in your gall and you don't fucking give a shit anymore the last thing you're thinking of is who's shit you're breaking.

It's a dumb ass thing to say to even consider it. Hey, when you get so pissed you put your hands around a man's throat with the intent to fucking kill him the very last thing you're thinking about are the fucking consequences of your actions. You just want to fucking kill.

I'll tell ya, there are some folks around who just don't fucking get it.

Clue for the clueless... let's not have a society that turns out so many poor, disaffected, hopeless young men that they all just get pissed one day and say fuck it all and riot.

I mean the whole "why would you burn down your own neighborhood while rioting" question is so fucking stupid and clueless.

Bleah.

amen brother

If existence and resistance are futile, why even post on the intertubewebz? Isn't suicide the logical response?

Jack, you added "existence" where nonny didn't mention it. And then you used your trademark passive-aggressive snark. What a dick you are lately.

At least try to be funny when being a dick, okay?

*****

I agree with DP at 9:59 pm, I too am tired of the PowerNoggins pontificating about this magical moment of high consciousness when one is in full testosterone rampage mode. It's fucking absurd.

Just ask head-kicker Jackie Crowbar -- if you can get him to stop playing the Big Cock.

Sorry Karl's importing his meltdown "discovery" that I'm not a glibertarian or a fan of his vaunted smallholder class of perpetual victim/Uncle fed whiteys to this discussion, folks.

I'm surprised he took time off from calling my wife a baby killer to continue his juvenile tirade onto a fifth site.

Jack, I thought you were supposed to be a peruvian bear fucker, not a head-kicking crowbar person. But, whatever. It's all good.

Owen, I think you're missing the gist of what Sean has been saying. It's a lot of stress and work to be working class. Any security you can eke out is going to be very fragile, under constant threat. It's costly to the people attempting it. Everyone you can work with on it is also going through terrible stress. You can be fucked over with impunity at any moment, and the odds of being "collateral damage" are high.

@Dawson,

I am not your dog. Don't bark orders at me.

At the risk of launching into another pointless round of meaningless insults, you really need to calm down before you post. You should stop worrying who the fuck I am and should start focusing on why every one of your replies here is either:

1. Neurotic and emotional far beyond what is warranted.
2. Insulting.
3. Full of strawman arguments.
4. Willfully obtuse to a painfully obvious degree.
5. Sequestered in non sequiturs
6. Dedicated to finding the most parsimonious interpretation of your opponent's remarks you can imagine.

If you've ever made a comment here that doesn't fit one or all of the categories above I have yet to see it. Following behind you with a shovel trying to clean off the shit you fling in the vain hope some of it will stick is an exercise in self-flagellation. Thanks, but I'll pass.

Op, as I've said before, I have little patience for this shit. If you want to piss on your best friend's blog by trolling the comments section, looking for targets on which to vent your peculiar literary monomania, knock yourself out. But find yourself another dance partner.

Having to two-step through 50 paragraphs of hieroglyphics just to find your amateur analysis of my psyche just isn't a productive use of my time. Dawkins at least has the decency to ask me who the fuck I am. You presume to tell me. Neither opinion interests me. It's just tiresome in the way having to deal with a two-year-old constantly screaming for attention is. You just want to turn it off.

Whatever amusement anyone else gets out of this I've long since abandoned. Been there, done that, and have no desire to cater to your "asshole spirit."

Now, you want to have an honest discussion based on what I actually wrote in plain English and without the endless speculation about my character and motivations, I'm game. But that ain't gonna happen.

If there is anything that is self-evidently true, it is that the rioters are burning their own neighborhoods, and attacking the people who live there. Is there somewhere else they've burned we haven't heard about? I go back to my original point of this shit rarely if ever being directed at the elite.

The idea that the majority of people, when angered, will reach for the closest neck to strangle or shit to break is without basis in reality. That isn't happening here and it hasn't happened anywhere. If that were true there would be daily massacres, most of them directed at bosses, cops, and other assorted scumbags. Even in wartime people can show restraint. This is the definition of "mindless violence."

If there is anything that is clueless, it is the idea those Pakistani and Bangledeshi candy store owners being burned out and beaten are legitimate targets of anybody's wrath. Fuck all this doctrinaire bullshit about shopkeepers. It's callous and demented. If the BNP were out on the streets pulling this shit (and I don't know that they aren't) you sure as fuck wouldn't be rooting for them and you know it.

The Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto did everything they could to establish a degree of civilized normalcy in the midst of obscene barbarism. They even had an orchestra. They stuck together as a group and worked and fought together with a common purpose against a common enemy, even if in the end their revolt failed. They didn't rampage through the streets, attacking the innocent and burning what few shops they had. They threw their molotovs at SS soldiers. It was the Nazis who burned Warsaw and provided the thugs for that drama, not the Jews.

Boy howdy, am I ever loving this here thread!!!

The history of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising is not as neat and tidy as it might appear in "historically correct" accounts as the Warsaw-born Israel Shahak noted:

Nearly all the work of administration, and later the work of transporting hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths, was carried out by Jewish collaborators. Before the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising…the Jewish underground killed, with perfect justification, every Jewish collaborator they could find. If they had not done so the Uprising could never have started. The majority of the population of the Ghetto hated the collaborators far more than the German Nazis….

The entire Nazi success in easy and continued rule over millions of people stemmed from the subtle and diabolical use of collaborators…This, and not what is 'instilled' was the reality. Of the Yad Vashem (official state Holocaust museum in Jerusalem) theater, I do not wish to speak, at all. It, and its vile exploits, such as honoring South Africa collaborators with the Nazis (the visit of South African Premier John Vorster to Israel) are truly beneath contempt.

(Vorster, who sang praises of the Fuhrer during WWII waxed eloquent during the visit about the shared Israeli and Afrikaaner settler-colonial struggle–to the extent of shared nuclear secrets–against a "predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples.")

Incidentally, this was also the reason why the "mob–intellectual or otherwise" went after Hannah Arendt and not her alleged "coldness and lack of sympathy for the victims of the Holocaust":

Certainly Arendt's ideas about Eichmann and his "banality" were kindling for a fire. But it was the material she drew from Hilberg on the Jewish councils–less than twenty of the nearly 300 pages of her book–that ignited the furor. The implication of her account was that whereas Nazis like Eichmann were merely banal bureaucrats, Jews had experienced a moral collapse during the war by failing to resist totalitarianism. The Anti-Defamation League distributed a letter urging local offices to denounce her, the World Jewish Congress released a pamphlet about the book and multiple Jewish organizations hired researchers to find errors in it. Nearly every Jewish publication in America ran articles attacking her views.

A mainstream Israeli newspaper 'quoted an Israeli officer exhorting his men to study the tactics adopted by the Nazis during the Second World War: "If our job is to seize a densely packed refugee camp or take over the Nablus Casbah, and if this job is to be given to an Israeli officer to carry out without casualties he must before all else analyze and bring together the lessons of past battles, even–shocking though this might appear–to analyze how the German Army operated in the Warsaw Ghetto."'

Super Al
I agree of course with u and Sean got that across quite nicely here on many prior occasions
The inter communal contradictions among the job class and in particular among the job class wage only division
If they live cheek by jowl and if the job attended similarly or alternatively

Thesecontradictions can produce nasty reactions in some sense the long hot summers of the 60's "produced" a big whitey back lash

School integration up north after these uprisings certainly was a liberal induced perfect storm

The naked blunt fact of a riot as an index
of sharpening conflict tra la .....
Conflict suddenly

taking an active collective if spontaneous and radioactive temporary form

Even after gathering in all these secondary off setting contradictions among the people
Sean witnesses with a seriously deflected cautions his own inner scars bleat at him

Well we'd like to set in progressive motion all this rage
But that has it's usual array of problematics

Many uprisings but we only need one to morph by stages into revolution

Weser in the Arab world much closer calls for the bourgeois comprador state
No ??

It encourages some of us
Like a sun rise
?

Sean

We really don't have very much to worry about here
We both have a similar ultimate target
Maybe we even both see a party as the means to transmute un and mis directed rage into progressive sled sustaining channels
Of course it's often hard to see the process here as different in kind from co optation
Until we reach the moment of truth
Time for action

I really reject personal history
And you might review your witnessing here
It opens that door

Personal experience looms large in your convictions at least as you present it here

MD does lather up some
But like you he has a lot of conviction

And reallyyour list looks applicable to many of us

To be specific I agree we out to follow also method of sympathetic broad and generous interpretation of each other here

Shall we all look into ourselves on this

I'll admit you strike me as a saw offer shotgun mind
Love you to prove me wrong

One thing I try not to reveal
Is just how carefully I try to read all of you

It's not smart to display too much sympathy if it derails the main thrust

In this case your caveats do just that
Derail or attempt to derail
The main thrust

It's good to rise up and strike out
Even if it's in the neighborhood breaking the elites system of law and order has it's own inchoate glory

Any act thar violators THEIR social peace
Has a primary positive that deserves celebration

Breaking the peace trumps the secondary contradictions among the people that peace breaking may spark

Btw
Have you really studied a full narrative of a race riot or anti cop explosion
Have you bothered to slice up the rooters into analytic categories

Sort out the record for types of action

You seem only to see the well over stated MSM accounts of just those anecdotes that push your buttons

Hmmmmm eh?

except as insults and displays of willfully
contempt for an interlocutor

Al,

I'd love to know how the peruvian bear fucker search chain arrived at its conclusions.

OP,

At the point of the individual, I don't think we can neglect personal history. Not from the perspective of the broad view, but organizationally. Assuming a historical development significant enough to justify concerted action, there are any number of people's personal histories it'd be useful to know before coordinating with them.

Jack

Karl is okay in fact he and Sean make a nice charm bracelet additions here

Aren't you happy he has convictions
I am

The drama he repeats indicates a certain tail chasing
But we can admire the rate of spin

My guess as a capable pro bono shrink that believes our actions suggest inner states at least to some extent

In Karl like most of us
If with a great deal more resistence

The boy is tyrant to the man
Like all of us Sean and Karl
Are only partially willing captives of their personal experience and the

Inner ramifications that experience has had on their head quarters

As a side bar it's always wondrous to see rsiistence to self awareness take the form

"you don't know me "

As if any of us are utter mysteries to each other

"The idea that the majority of people, when angered, will reach for the closest neck to strangle or shit to break is without basis in reality."

Straw man...

We're not talking about the majority of people are we?

"If there is anything that is clueless, it is the idea those Pakistani and Bangledeshi candy store owners being burned out and beaten are legitimate targets of anybody's wrath."

Straw man...

Nobody said rioters are seeking legitimate targets, in fact that is exactly the point.

To quote a famous line from the movies "Why are you being so obtuse? Is it deliberate?"

Sean, you have repeatedly implied that you are some kind of Medgar Evers, a victim of racist violence prominent enough to warrant some special attention and respect. But you refuse to specify what happened to you, and why you think your own personal reaction ought to be an obvious lesson for everybody. Do tell. Aw, but perhaps your psychoanalysis doesn't quite reach back onto you? Perhaps you think because you are you, then no explanation is needed. Now who's hyperbolic?

As to your point, it seems to me that the problem is your blanket condemnation of rioting. Once again, nobody here, not even JC, is an uncritical fan of rioting. But you can't be unaware of the fact that not all riots have been pointless, can you? The Bastille was a riot, and it led to good things.

Likewise, I am an almost-Gandhian, so I appreciate the effort to use peaceful tactics. But what did happen to the Jews in Warsaw? In hindsight, might some good old fashioned fury have grabbed some headlines of a good kind? Probably not, but it certainly isn't clear that trudging quietly to the trains did anything but lend aid and comfort to the Nazis.

And what about this? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/16/austerity-programmes-cause-riots Do you admit this point, that the blame for the riots is not exclusively on the rioters? If so, why the solipsistic preaching? This is a complex topic. But you sound like David Cameron.

DP, Sean not only uses straw men, but he is nakedly cherry-picking his examples. One wonders if he can even see the Bastille or the riots in Managua circa 1978.

It's certainly true that rioting is a low-efficiency tactic. But it is not a guaranteed form of suicide, either.

The Bastille was a riot? OP, please issue a bull.

not exactly oliver twist :

"Over the years, I have paid a significant portion of my income to the various federal, state and local jurisdictions in which I have lived, and I deeply resent that President Obama has decided that I don't need all the money I've not paid in taxes over the years, or that I should leave less for my children and grandchildren and give more to him to spend as he thinks fit. I also resent that Warren Buffett and others who have created massive wealth for themselves think I'm "coddled" because they believe they should pay more in taxes. I certainly don't feel "coddled" because these various governments have not imposed a higher income tax. After all, I did earn it.

Now that I'm 72 years old, I can look forward to paying a significant portion of my accumulated wealth in estate taxes to the federal government and, depending on the state I live in at the time, to that state government as well. Of my current income this year, I expect to pay 80%-90% in federal income taxes, state income taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, and federal and state estate taxes. Isn't that enough?

Others could pay higher taxes if they choose. They could voluntarily write a check or they could advocate that their gifts to foundations should be made with after-tax dollars and not be deductible. They could also pay higher taxes if they were not allowed to set up foundations to avoid capital gains and estate taxes.

View Full Image

Bloomberg News
.What gets me most upset is two other things about this argument: the unfair way taxes are collected, and the violation of the implicit social contract between me and my government that my taxes will be spent—effectively and efficiently—on purposes that support the general needs of the country. Before you call me greedy, make sure you operate fairly on both fronts.

Today, top earners—the 250,000 people who earn $1 million or more—pay 20% of all income taxes, and the 3% who earn more than $200,000 pay almost half. Almost half of all filers pay no income taxes at all. Clearly they earn less and should pay less. But they should pay something and have a stake in our government spending their money too.

In addition, the extraordinarily complex tax code is replete with favors to various interest groups and industries, favors granted by politicians seeking to retain power. Mortgage interest deductions support the private housing industry at the expense of renters. Generous fringe benefits are not taxed at all, in order to support union and government workers at the expense of people who buy their own insurance with after-tax dollars. Gifts to charities are deductible but gifts to grandchildren are not. That's just a short list, and all of it is unfair.

Governments have an obligation to spend our tax money on programs that work. They fail at this fundamental task. Do we really need dozens of retraining programs with no measure of performance or results? Do we really need to spend money on solar panels, windmills and battery-operated cars when we have ample energy supplies in this country? Do we really need all the regulations that put an estimated $2 trillion burden on our economy by raising the price of things we buy? Do we really need subsidies for domestic sugar farmers and ethanol producers?

Why do we require that public projects pay above-market labor costs? Why do we spend billions on trains that no one will ride? Why do we keep post offices open in places no one lives? Why do we subsidize small airports in communities close to larger ones? Why do we pay government workers above-market rates and outlandish benefits? Do we really need an energy department or an education department at all?

Here's my message: Before you "ask" for more tax money from me and others, raise the $2.2 trillion you already collect each year more fairly and spend it more wisely. Then you'll need less of my money."

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=harvey+golub&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1R2ADRA_enUS416&tbm=isch&tbnid=zQEFtf7Y3OTriM:&imgrefurl=http://ifawebnews.com/2009/08/07/former-amex-ceo-golub-named-aig-chairman/&docid=f7-1Ikxb1qJRZM&w=150&h=200&ei=HhRUTs7VAsP2gAfMs7xJ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=149&vpy=78&dur=62&hovh=160&hovw=120&tx=108&ty=126&page=1&tbnh=123&tbnw=94&start=0&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&biw=911&bih=358

harvey Golub former chairman and CEO of American Express

the seizure of the arms in the bastille
was .....not a riot nor a looting
but an act of insurrection

try the draft uprisings in manhattan
in july 1863

looting of arms or seizure ???

riot or failed insurrection ???

great railroad strike of 1877

pittsburgh
scene of riots or insurrection

an inchoate commune snuffed out ??

http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/uen_1877.html

Jack, as a non braying lefty with no dog in the Col Q hunt, I don't think Uncle and the usual suspects will have their way with
Libya. What's sweeping through the whole region will leave Uncle and the West with much less influence. Allowing for the usual twists,turns, and setbacks, I think what we'll see in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere is self determination.

I also think Q had become a neolib stooge anyway.

Uncle no doubt meddled with the rebels via the CIA. That's to be expected. But Uncle and his Western cronies will see unintended consequences.

Straw man...

We're not talking about the majority of people are we?

You were speaking in general, not specific, hence "the majority." Your remark strongly implied that anyone would react this way.

Straw man...

Nobody said rioters are seeking legitimate targets, in fact that is exactly the point.

People have justified and praised the riots here. That is the point of the original article, is it not?

Firstly, we are not talking about any riot in history, but the current riot and a few specific examples offered by people other than me. The cherry picking would have to be done by those looking to prove that rioting is generally a viable strategy to achieve anything, which so far, no one calling for "more riots" has done.

I have never made a condemnation of every "riot" everywhere, and before I could, we'd first have to have some consensus on what qualifies as a "riot." Quite the contrary, I made the point that if they had set 10 Downing on fire I would have approved.

You think the Bastille was a riot. I think it was a planned, premeditated act directed against a powerful political symbol of the regime--the very opposite of a "riot."

Not sure what Medgar Evans has to do with my original point, which was this: my family, alone, has endured more violence by angry minorities motivated by racial antagonism than the entire ruling elite in the US has in my lifetime. The point I am making here is obvious.

As for the causes of rioting, of course they are complex, nobody denies that. Obviously, if we had a more just and equitable system the likelihood of riots and every other form of social dysfunction would be reduced. Does that really need to be said here?

But something also needs to be said of the propensity of the working class to sabotage itself with counterproductive behavior, and how the elite actually encourages this behavior.

Liberal ideology (aka racism and classism for the self-styled "socially conscious"), with its demonization of the white working class as "rednecks," and "white trash" is often used to generate racial hostility among blacks and whites and deflect justified black anger towards the lower rung of white society. This rage is rarely directed at the top.

"Ghandians" don't think "Southern white 'Americans' " or Brits "had it all and more coming to them."

CZ,

You don't think concessions, structural adjustments and a freeing up of the dinar are in the works?

(Special forces were on the ground, coordinating this last push. At least according to Yahoo News, yesterday.

Today, the news is covering meetings between Sarkozy, Berlusconi, US officials and the new Libyan government, as recognized by NATO and 30 new countries).

Sean,

If you are so inclined, is it possible for you to spell why you think the riot situation must only be presented as an either/or?

Personal experience looms large in your convictions at least as you present it here

Far less than you think. The reason I brought up my personal history at all is to demonstrate that it is is filled with more experience of ethnic violence than that of the ruling elites during my lifetime. Not that I have some special insight into violence that tens of billions of others victimized by violence throughout history do not have. I mean, seriously, dudes.

Point being that most of these eruptions of violence are not revolutionary acts and are rarely directed at the right targets, thus they are futile and counterprdocutive, as well as wrongheaded. Again, I welcome anyone to challenge me on that point with something other than name-calling.

That is not to say that violent action isn't sometimes warranted or that it never leads to positive change. Again, seriously, dudes. Let's give each other some credit for being able to detect the obvious.

As far as your problem with "Karl and Sean" or, until recently, "Karl and Sean and Jack," well, *your* problem is what it is , and it's for you to deal with it, not me. I suspect the issue here is your inability to tolerate disagreement. Particularly given the degree to which you overcompensate in "welcoming" dissent after you've attacked the dissenter.

One thing I try not to reveal
Is just how carefully I try to read all of you

That's a laugh. Do you do anything else? Try shining the spotlight inward sometime.

Shall we all look into ourselves on this

I'll admit you strike me as a saw offer shotgun mind
Love you to prove me wrong

Love for you to explain what that means in plain English. But since we're making confessions, You always come across as fairly narcissistic, constantly angling for attention and imagining everyone else finds your endless attacks as witty as you do. Petty disagreements can always be expected to be pursued long past the point where anybody else would have dropped the matter and moved on, which is why every comment here by Karl or me can be expected to attract a minimum of 10 paragraphs of mocking free verse.

Love you to prove me wrong.

Now, you want to bury the hatchet, start off with a clean slate, that's cool with me. But don't spit in my face and complain when the response you get is less than polite.

Jack: Uncle and Co are no doubt meddling. To be expected. But
I wonder how successful they'll be in controlling this tribal conflict or in combatting the rise of dreaded "Islamism. Uncle had grand plans for Iraq too. The uprisings across the region have a different look and feel, and are happening against a backdrop of decades of Western
meddling, fresh in people's memory.

CZ,

I'm not sure "Islamism" is a problem. That's a growth industry for defense. USSOCOM probably actively welcomes it, as well.

Way I see it, the shattering of a relatively affluent regional oil/minerals state into competing and fractalizing dependents is far better for France, Italy, Germany, NATO and the US, than any single state would ever be. A single state can draw closer to Algeria the way Iraq has fallen into the Iranian orbit. A single state could renegotiate with China. China is already doing wonders for the Sudan and Chad, when it comes to concessions. Plus, the Chinese respect local customs, house their labor in barracks instead of infrastructure sinks with shopping malls and neon, and generally offer terms more favorable than American/Euro ones could offer.

From a resource extraction perspective, tribalism and internecine conflict are small prices to pay for the breaking of a single, organized, coherent domestic negotiator/opponent.

From a special forces perspective, a fracture Libya is perfect for the testing of emerging doctrine.

Or something like that.

The counter to my argument is the one you've already presented. For all the Q was fairly consistent when it came to socialization of transport, water, education and oil disbursements, his Libya was pretty effectively integrated into the Eurozone's neoliberal consensus.

I just think that the cost/benefit favors a broken Libya, in the intermediate.

Jack, I suspect you'd agree that history, particularly recent history, is littered with the remains of emerging doctrines.

Fair points on fractured vs unified states. But, yes, Libya was unified under an increasingly neolib stooge.

I dunno. With all of the political and market turmoil in the US and Europe, I guess I'm feeling optimistic that some folks will be liberating themselves from the yoke of the West, as seems to be happening vis a vis Uncle and parts of South America.

CZ,

I meant, by "doctrine" as related to the special forces, combat doctrine.

I think "liberation from the yoke" will solidify in South America long before it does in the Maghrib. Not that I think for a moment that a thousand irregulars and narco-smugglers fighting for CIA connected asset managers and bankers is anywhere close to "liberation from the yoke," in Libya.

That shit is a straight up extraction raid.

If you are so inclined, is it possible for you to spell why you think the riot situation must only be presented as an either/or?

I don't think that, so it would be impossible to make a case for it. It is possible some good might come from these riots, or it is possible it will make the situation far worse. I am making the case that if history is any guide, whatever positive benefits might in theory arise from this will be grossly overshadowed by the negative that is occurring in reality. In this riot, we have working class people attacking each other, interethnic violence and destruction focused entirely in the neighborhoods where the rioters live. As a result, there will be further racial antagonism, fear and loathing among all groups at at time when we need to get past ethnic, racial and even political differnces and unite together to have any chance of beating the system.

I am struggling to see any conceivable benefit of these riots that doesn't exist squarely in the realm of pure speculation.

The riots are directed at the wrong people, and serve the interests of the ruling elite by keeping people divided against each other. Never mind whether the anger is justified or there are deeper causes to the problems here. Of course there are deeper issues here. But this response is just fucked, and will tend to sabotage efforts by sane people whose motivations involve more than a free pair of sneakers to unite together and fight for justice.

It is hardly an important detail but the Old Battersea House of Malcolm Forbes is about 1 mile from Clapham Junction, scene of fierce looting. The freehold is on offer for ₤14,000,000. Houses and flats even closer to the scene go for about ₤400,000 (cheap and nasty modern stuff) to about ₤4,000,000 (un-heatable Victorian "barns" with hideous additions). This may have been a potential locus of revolutionary justice, but it all seems to have petered out after the shoes and 'mobiles' had been liberated.

Some video of terrified 6 year olds also made some observers rather uncomfortable.

key sean point
contradictions among the people
stated here rather completely

" we have working class people attacking each other, interethnic violence and destruction focused entirely in the neighborhoods where the rioters live."

aspect or core of the disturbances
still the case and indeed
studies indicate
mixed or fluxing neighborhoods are more volatile

" As a result, there will be further racial antagonism, fear and loathing among all groups"
doubtless

but history suggests inter ethnic rioots often lead to a resolution of inter communal conflicts
after all unlike class conflict
they are contradictions among the people not between the people and their exploiting classes

" at a time when we need to get past ethnic, racial and even political differnces and unite together to have any chance of beating the system."
getting past has often included fighting thru differences

collective discovery of a socialo verity often has a stage of sense less violence

hitting bottom spo to speak

assuming the inter communal poison ought to be peacefully drawn off
or even can be peacefully drawn off
hardly makes the full aspectual appraisal of riots into
a sudden spontaneous set of muggings burnings
beatings
that are qualitatively identical to a serial scatter of these micro events

the riot is not equivalent to a years worth of the usual violent "criminality"

and it is precisely this suddenly self granted license to break the peace and act in simultaneously if not wholey in concert
that makes the riot a macro event that is a rebuke to the social order of a quite different quality then as i suggest a long set of police blotter entries from the prior 4 quarters

to be perfectly clear

riots are an index of underlying conditions intensfying
upheaval is on the agenda
inchoate misdirected aspectually counter productive
but as a fat han was wont to point out

out of great disorder may come great order

that is what is cause for celebration
the POSSIBILITY
of a new self organization of struggle

often after riots these mixed communities get their shit together

btw

the out break of a riot is not a planned event ..right ?

its not like the seizing of an arsenal
that riotous times might include
as the macro event begins to morph thru its stages of development

a peaceful protest may come apart at the seams
and morph into a riot
though usually its provocateurs and riotous cops that inititate such explosions

the spread of rioting like a contagion is the element of self granted license
that shares not only qualties with rebellion
but is the bridge to its morph into rebellion
no ???

--------------
if there's anything about seans take that seems tro me 180 degrees off
its the personalization of what is inherently a social whole
the riot is not simply the sum of its incidents looked at one by one
i repeat these because for sean apparently there are only personal incidents

the use of the idiotic term classism
reveals a panorama of personalized
inner feely feel
atomized my soul/your soul
to be all

tear drop horse shit !!!!

and if anything more needs adding
to the portrait/inner landscape....

no the hatchet need not be buried

but a lot of buck shot sized humanist confetti
needs sweeping away sean

after this trigger happy
bout of self expression

the invocation of "my family "
gets that done with bathetic efficiency

---------------------

btw
might we all realize
invoking
the personality
dis order
beginning with an N
prolly adds zero to the discussion
in a aviary like this

ever so full of plume and strut

"It is hardly an important detail but the Old Battersea House of Malcolm Forbes is about 1 mile from Clapham Junction, scene of fierce looting"

are you suggesting the cops would have allowed a march on the rich neighborhoods or gracious public areas
if so
london is no LA or MIAMI

cop rule one for riot control

seal off the area
block the self conveyance of the rioters
out of their own neighborhoods
by any means necessary

now a peaceful demo down town
has this advantage over a neighborhood action
if it blows up
we're already there
so to speak

seattle is the recent gem of this sort

riot control like podiatry
is based on
a crudely empirical clinical science

the pigs can get caught knapping on occasion
mostly after a long interval of
national civil sluggishness

nothing better describes clintonian seattle
prior to the sudden dramatic and effective
"outsider " down town disturbance

one finds royal french troops
and a squadron of the french king's fleet
at yorktown

i see little evidence
that precluded national liberation

playing off great powers is part
of the little indy state game

eritrea and nepal
have both local regional ands global hazards to confront

i doubt the chinese politbureau
despite via and inveying agin it

failed to understand
the 60-70's
cuban and viet
soviet connections

they'd had one of their own
until
1959 or so
---------------

" A single state can draw closer to Algeria "

if that contains anything pwog like
you must include the time tunnel back to the early 60's

Algeria pwog and indy ???

today ??? ring up sarko

---------------------

balkinization occurs when several
non co operating great power empires
contend for the same "space"

the nato league has libya sewed up

big western oil knows how to cooperate

china and russia simply lack the mojo
to contradict west oiler doings there

the Algerians will never go all iranian on nato
ala syria ...

russia and china have no leverage in the great Med region these days

hence their excluded great power
"principled" griping

OP,

I didn't suggest balkanization. I suggested fragmentation. I'm not making an argument that Libya will be broken up into official statelets. I think it serves the extraction regime just fine if Libya is fragmented.

still and all
there is no boplshy crowd that arrived at the scene in a sealed train
that might look like nato traitors
but prove to be quite something else

i see every reason to assume
this apparently motley and incohesive grouping
of opportunistic fragments
that are " the freedom fighter" rebels here
will play nicely if covertly
with their nato benefactors

soon enough
al;l willl filter into place as with egypt and tunisia

but obviously in the longer haul
one relies on deeper contradictions
and more enduring lessons
from the arab spring
then leadership animosity or cordiality
toward the nato-ites
or various arab league cliques
for that matter

looking either way now seems prudent

from tel aviv all looks dangerous
such is the baneful structural paranoia
of the expansion minded settler society

the sunni arabs can deal
with jewitic communities in their midst
much like they have shia coptic berber etc
of course not without uber ethnic rough edges
rough edges that
draw unofficially
much pain and some blood from
these alien bounded areas
but with time and reproduction
these "areas and communities
develop state sponsorship
in fact come to rely on state sponsorship
yes they are in the long run integrated
like vacuoles in a cell body

but zionic settlements ??

now that is quite another matter ..
am i right ??

fragmented as in

pluralized
like the society that completes a color rev ??

if that i agree completely

hugo has provided us with a nice
step by step
slow motion
struggle against this process
better then nicaragua and chile and cuba
precisely because it is so slow

the attempt to resist the dark side of plurality and "the open society"
by the progressive job class or peasant/artisan rooted state
leads step by step
toward institutional closure to the outside MNC "interests and opportunities "

his oil has allowed hugo's posse
this slowness

i felt nicaragua was most eluminating
to the science of the state
after they lost the second election
and resigned gobmint office to the united pro yankee clowns
but pro tem
retained the military and police power

aggressive yuankee elements voice boxed
by ythe likes of jesse helms
nicely suggested
"real power has not yet been transfered"

a certain intricacy of detail declension and allowable departure from template
doesn't remove the spinal elements ...eh ??

hold on to the essentials

I sez in previous post:

"Straw man...

We're not talking about the majority of people are we?"

Sean tells me:

"You were speaking in general, not specific, hence "the majority." Your remark strongly implied that anyone would react this way."

But what I really said was this: (go ahead and scroll up Sean, you'll see for yourself)

"let's not have a society that turns out so many poor, disaffected, hopeless young men that they all just get pissed one day and say fuck it all and riot."

You see, I specifically mentioned poor, disaffected, hopeless young men. Sean, are you telling me that poor, disaffected, hopeless young men are the "majority"? Or do you not know how to read?

I also said:

"Straw man...

Nobody said rioters are seeking legitimate targets, in fact that is exactly the point."

And Mr. Sean retorted:

"People have justified and praised the riots here. That is the point of the original article, is it not?"

Well, that's not how *I* read it, but then I know how to read and let's be honest, you apparently do not. Or as I suggested elsewhere you are being deliberately obtuse.

In either case, I think I'll wish you a fine day and move on to something less wasteful of my time than conversing with a stranger on the internets who either can't read or is being deliberately obtuse.

Good Day Sir!

One notes that Sean still hasn't disclosed why he's a Mandela.

Notwithstanding that, one also notes that Sean is now in full retreat from his former statements.

"It is possible some good might come from these riots"

Of course, Sean then reverts into his usual litany of assumptions and tropes, despites Sean's own acknowledgement that these riots, which have brought inequality at least fleetingly onto mainstream newscasts in this market-totalitarian age, are merely burning your own granny's car.

What you said Dp is this:

"Having been beaten down quite a few times and then turned around and done some of my own beat downs on some others I'm here to tell you when the anger rises in your gall and you don't fucking give a shit anymore the last thing you're thinking of is who's shit you're breaking.

It's a dumb ass thing to say to even consider it. Hey, when you get so pissed you put your hands around a man's throat with the intent to fucking kill him the very last thing you're thinking about are the fucking consequences of your actions. You just want to fucking kill."

There isn't much room for interpretation here. You are projecting your own emotions and reactions onto others. Who are these others? That would be the "you" which is a general, not a specific, term and implies that anyone would react this way. I responded that not only is this not true in general, it is not even true for most of the rioters. Where you get a "strawman" or lack of reading comprehension out of this is beyond me. At least have the honesty to admit that your comment was vague.

In respose to MJS's comment:

"Let's have more riots, I say, and less hollow blether about 'worldlessness'. Oh, and more car-burning too. Lots and lots of car-burning, and the sooner the better."

You wrote:

Hear hear!

You don't get to call for "more riots" and then distance yourself from the victims. Either you approve of the rioting or you don't. Endorsing the call for "more riots" strongly implies that you do. I'm not sure what interpretation of that comment I'm supposed to have, that you don't actually approve of the rioting?

While it's obvious that you are not interested in an honest debate at this point, why don't you try clarifying your position rather than making the bogus claim that I am deliberately twisting it into something that it is not?

Do you approve of the riots or don't you? If you don't, then explain why you are endorsing the call for more of them.

If you do, then do you think shopkeepers and car-owners are a legitimate targets for the rioters or don't you?

If you don't, then please explain how you can endorse the process that leads to their victimization. Do you regard them as acceptable collateral damage in a bigger process? Spell it out to me.

(Note: none of the questions I ask should imply anything about what DP does or does not believe. I am asking questions, not making statements)

come now sean
surely a good celt like yourself knows
mjs was not literally calling for more car burnings in the way i might call for a plant occupation

no he was using the sum up to take
a jokey swipe at the hated
nature browning personal people conveyance

like i might say with my fondness for soft footwear
and by all means steal more sneakers

-------------------

you and drunk pundit are really
not so far apart i suspect on
the human-isticals here

i don't consider dp a brute
keening over beat downs fore and aft

give him that consideration

he's not an oafish self involved
lizard like monstrosity like say ...moi

i'll admit to loving the notion of some
worthy sub continental shoptender
screeching like an owl
in over played sit com agony

"oh v'ere ah all my fresh stock of bass v'eegans ..
deese wretched gobs
got all my 50 quid ..cost mind you ...my 50 quid bass v'eegans ...oh no oh no and my 6 three box of official hotspur football lids and my clark desert boots ..(time passes ...
the homeric list goes on ...then)
and to think mama
i failed to pay my theft/fire/water and pilfer insurance ...

ohhhh let us hope 'the state ' has funds for me ..."

trudging about in a self serious
only semi permiable morose haze
with your flesh all full of prickles
and the weight
of man's inhumanity to man
on your shoulders....

must be quite the mirth killer
sean me boyo

a heavy well watered blanket

i must admit such states of the mind
give me the yips

must be the reason
i stay clear
of sunday mass and all that
even after a nite at the disco

ahhh
the booth the wafer and the wine

not for me
if i must say so myself

errr
despite a soul such as can only expect
most frightful
long term prospects

Sean seems to equate property damage with attacks on persons. Just like his doppelganger, D.Cameron. In fact, let's talk about how many people have died in these "riots." How many is it? Not many at all, and hardly distinguishable from the nightly club harvest. But Sean Mandela is only sensitive to it all when his sensibilities are inflamed.

Am I in favor more? Hell yes.

Glad you think a few deaths and beatings are a small price to pay, Madame Albright. The line between the authoritarian lefty fanatic and the fascist is a thin one indeed.

If I later cite this post as evidence that you endorse the riots, I will no doubt be accused of making a 'strawman," as if a strawman were necessary to refute your bubble-headed and frenetic rantings.

You truly are a remarkably dishonest little shit, Dawson.

I think it's endlessly funny that Dilly-Dali Dawson thinks "Sean" is me.

Funny... and humiliating to him.

Clearly, "Sean" is written by someone other than me. I don't know how to write in that pompous style "Sean" uses; I don't know how to get into the mindset "Sean" posts from; and I don't have any reason to use the name "Sean" here.

I guess Dawson's just pissed off that I and maybe one or two other people find his comments to be utter bullshit. Why that would piss him off is a great mystery -- the comments ARE utter bullshit. Nothing but vitriol, angry spittle-casting, because apparently whomever resides behind pseudo-Perrineau can't bear to have someone see the world differently than pseudo-Perrineau sees it.

And the Scrappy-Doo behavior of following around Ouchy Pain-as-Scooby Doo... "arf arf arf ME TOO OUCHY arf arf arf" -- sad, and not really indicating someone with much self-confidence.

A completely externalized person, pseudo-Perrineau. 1,000 tiny violins play a sad song, to commemorate this thread following suit with many others before it, where Dilly-Dali Dawson lost his cool and began accusing everyone in the world of being against him!

Sorry Karl's importing his meltdown "discovery" that I'm not a glibertarian or a fan of his vaunted smallholder class of perpetual victim/Uncle fed whiteys to this discussion, folks.

Hilarious!

"meltdown"!

If Jackie Crowbar, former Drug Kingpin, moneyfund manager of millions, and GOP brainboy says something... clearly it's true! He's told us all about his fabricated past on these here Toobz! Thus, he's a real character of real heft and merit!

Meltdown... hah.

More like comic take on a fabricated life. No need to imply I'm melting down, when you're the one dissembling!

Poor Jackie, can't imagine anyone not buying his schtick! The pity! The grandiose, lace-hanky-saturating-with-profuse-tears pity of it all!

Melting down so badly, I can't stop laughing about it!

It is very keen, however, that Jackie Crowbar needs to assume that I assumed he was a libertarian.

Never assumed anything like that.

What I did assume, however, was that Jackie Crowbar was interested in deconstructing power. But it appears that what he really intends to do is access power for himself, and not deconstruct anything exceept "crackers" and "Christers" and ...oh, let's see... who else is on his hit list these days... "primitivists" and that elusive, vaguely defined class of "smallholders".

I love that lingo he uses. So clever! Hey man, you're a smallholder!"

Boy, does that ever sting, while also telling some ugly truths! Small holdings! So small! And held, too!

No, I'm not melting down or "just now realizing" anything about Jackie not being a smallholder-lover, or "glibertarian" or any such thing. Never assumed anything like those classifications about him.

It's a testament to his arrogance (hiding behind I feel your pain Slick Willie rhetoric) that he needs to assume I'm upset by his ripping on rednecks.

I'm not upset. I'm rather pleased to see the true person behind Jackie Crowbar, Super-Polymath actually showing what he's up to here on the toobz.

It's an amusing development.

...and I don't have any reason to use the name "Sean" here.

Neither do I, other than the fact it is my real life name, which is why I have to wonder why so many here are prone to putting my name in scare quotes. Would it shock you to find out it's a pseudonym or like Dawson do you think I'm a secret operative posing as somebody else to undermine SMBIVA?

Operation Connery, Sean Connery.

Are you sure you're not Michael Dawson? ;)

It would be sweet if SMBIVA were considered worth infiltrating and undermining. Though I'm not sure how anyone would go about the undermining part.