Paradigmatically

[Disposability]

Bodhi — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:36:08 GMT

dis·pos·a·bil·i·ty n. What Giroux begins to illustrate in his piece "Reading Hurricane Katrina: Race, Class, and the Biopolitics of Disposability" is a frighteningly under-acknowledged topic. In the marriage between liberal economic doctrines and the biopolitics of the state, the evolution of power has led us to a place where the ability to render entire populations invisible and in effect disposable has become tantamount. In so many aspects of life we are beginning to see this theme play out over and over again. From the effects of climate change on the global poor and low lying regions of the third world countries, to capitalizing on catastrophic damage, from the indirect effects of the policies of the IMF and the World Bank on populations of indigenous and lower classes, to the commodification of latin american youth by private security contractors. All walks of life are quickly falling under the blind footfall of the neoliberal craze. Many believe that this fundamentalist belief in market freedoms and free trade is leading the industrialized nations of the world in a downward spiral where the state no longer provides a safety net for the already marginalized poor, sick, elderly , and homeless. Instead it has been mutated into a system that at every turn will favor modernity golden rule of profit above all and leave the rest of us to survive on our own. The theme of disposability has it roots deep in the functioning of society but not until the mid 17th century did the advent of James Dadson's actuarial science make it possible to mathematically "determine" rules for regulating populations. In a world where disposition has become a fact of life, the state of exemption has become the ruling classes favored weapon. As we have seen many times before where the dialectic of disposability has been used to rationalize some of the worlds greatest atrocities; from the desaparecidos in Argentine's Dirty War, to the Nazi's use of disposable labor in death camps. This practice of disposability has gained momentum in recent years with the proliferation of capitalism and the exponentially growth of computational power. As we can see with the recent invention of catastrophic bonds the range of influence that statical analyses can play in everyday life in immense. We have reached a point were the future can be foretold and capitalized upon, the only problem is that those unwilling or unable to participate in this neoliberal crusade are increasingly cast aside, rendered invisible, and effectively cast into oblivion. However, there is a flaw in the overarching plan. As Foucault once said "Where there exists oppression, resistance will exist as well". As we can see in many of the poorest countries of world life will find a way. With the increasing populations of refugees, homeless, and exiled there resides an understanding of the world that comes from below and is willing to fight for a better world. From the emergence of diverse squatter communities to the simple act of volunteerism there are ways to boycott the dominate theme of todays capitalist lifestyle. The power of free labor cannot be challenged and the freedom to act and think as an individual has not yet been completely dominated.

Power of Illumination!

Bodhi — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 17:46:47 GMT

Hannah Arendt once argued that "the public realm has lost the power of illumination," and one result is that more and more people "have retreated from the world and their obligations within it" (1955, 4). The public realm is not merely a space where the political, social, economic, and cultural interconnect; it is also the pre-eminent space of public pedagogy—that is, a space where subjectivities are shaped, public commitments are formed, and choices are made. As sites of cultural politics and public pedagogy, public spaces offer a unique opportunity for critically engaged citizens, young people, academies, teachers, and various intellectuals to engage in pedagogical struggles that provide the conditions for social empowerment. Such struggles can be waged through the new media, films, publications, radio interviews, and a range of other forms of cultural production. It is especially crucial, as Mark Poster has argued, that scholars, teachers, public intellectuals, artists, and cultural theorists take on the challenge of understanding how the new media technologies construct subjects differently with multiple forms of literacy that engage a range of intellectual capacities (2001). This also means deploying new technologies of communication such as the Internet, camcorder, and cell phone in political and pedagogically strategic ways to build protracted struggles and reclaim the promise of a democracy that insists on racial, gender, and economic equality. The new technoculture is a powerful pedagogical tool that needs to be used, on the one hand, in the struggle against both dominant media and the hegemonic ideologies they produce, circulate, and legitimate, and, on the other hand, as a valuable tool in treating men and women as agents of change, mindful of the consequences of their actions, and utterly capable of pursuing truly egalitarian models of democracy.

[Biosociality]

Bodhi — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:09:16 GMT

Biosociality: The emergence of a social behavior at the level of society & population where individuals practice a ritualized mode of self-regulation and disciplining. Acting at the level of the two poles of biopower ("the anatomo-politics of the human body & the regulatory control of the population") proposed by Michel Foucault, biosociality is the goal oriented evolution of biopolitics, into a new realm of disciplinary practices acting on, and perpetuating within, a neo-libreal society. Examples may include the controversial research and patenting of the human gnomic code and the exploitation of Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis as a pretext for intervention by medical and insurance institutions. As Rabinow so elegantly explained biosociality can simply be seen as: "first, a mutation of social technologies that minimize direct therapeutic intervention, supplanted by an increasing emphasis on a preventive administrative management of populations at risk; and second, the promotion of working on oneself in a continuous fashion so as to produce an efficient and adaptable subject. These trends lead away from holistic approaches to the subject of social contextualism and move instead toward an instrumentalized approach to both environment and individual as a sum of diverse factors amenable to analysis by specialists" (Rabinow 7). Artificiality and Enlightenment: From Sociobiology to Biosociality : http://in.solit.us/archives/download/70112

Islamic Fundamentalism: Time to act, before it is too late

Bodhi — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:07:46 GMT

September 11th. A date everyone remembers. Whether it be due to the terrorist attacks in the USA in 2001, or the CIA-sponsored terrorist attack which murdered Salvador Allende, the democratically elected Marxist President of Chile, on the same date in 1973. It is here the story begins. To debate the question of terrorism, it is necessary to lay down fundamental principles for discussion and the most basic of these must be that the terminlogy be the same for all cases. To admit that Al-Qaeda sponsored terrorist attacks are wrong, one has also to condemn the state terrorism practised by the United States of America and its allies in the last 60 years, along with the globalization of state terrorism – Imperialism, practised by Western European nations for centuries. These are the basic causes of fundamentalism. Interference in foreign cultures, intrusion into foreign customs, imposition of foreign values in areas where they were bound to fail, the insistence to draw lines on maps, dividing peoples and creating imbalances which did not respect centuries of local history, culture and sociology. These sowed the seeds for natural trends to be set in place later on, to correct the imbalances as all nations were granted equal rights under the auspices of the UNO. With the gradual advance of scientific research and the globalization of knowledge, the power of the individual to challenge the State became greater. Whereas one hundred years ago, an African tribe wishing to protect its territory against European imperialists found that its spears and shields were useless against machine-guns, today, the nail bomb, a gas cylinder, a vial of cyanide, material from nuclear reactors, an automobile or a back-pack full of explosives, deployed by a single individual, can have a devastating effect upon public opinion – the main aim of terrorism. To claim that the terrorists are winning is wrong, whichever “terrorist” is under scrutiny. State terrorism, sponsored by Washington in Iraq, whose cast includes Lynndie England, the Great American Heroine, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo concentration camps, torture, rape, war crimes, mass murder, criminal damage, targeting civilian structures with military equipment, has met its nemesis in Iraq. Iraq, the country which Saddam Hussein kept clear of terrorists, the country which now crawls with every fundamentalist from Morocco to Indonesia, is out of control and daily, we see more incidents across the globe. To name a recent few, the attempts in London and Glasgow, the Red Mosque siege in Islamabad, the decapitation of 10 marines by Abu Sayyaf and Moro Islamic Militant Front guerrillas in the Philippines. However, these are isolated incidents and have not yet created a climate of panic among public opinion in the societies which they have targeted, precisely the societies which created the problems in the first place by destabilising peoples and communities. Therefore neither the state terrorism expounded and practised by Washington has been successful, neither have the many attempts by various fundamentalist organizations done more than provoke loss of innocent lives, making those who perpetrate such acts murderers and heretics, because for those who know how to read the Koran, the basic message is to protect and honour life. Today and tomorrow This is the situation today. And tomorrow? While calls for massive uprisings by Al Qaeda fall upon the deaf ears of the vast majority of populations who wish to continue with their lives in peace, the tiny fraction of people willing to blow themselves up and take out as many civilians as possible in the process remains worrying, the more so because there appears to be a ready supply of people fanatical enough to do it. Despite massive security operations costing millions of dollars, those willing to plan and carry out terrorist attacks are able to mount successful operations across worldwide, and nobody should forget the horrific attacks Al Qaeda has managed to launch before and after 9/11. They continue to plan, they continue to operate and however much money and resources is spent on security, the attacks will continue, and for many years to come, because a cause has been created. When, not if Therefore it would be well for the international community to realise that its current policy is no more than a delaying tactic until there is a serious incident somewhere occasioning a tremendous loss of life. The security officials themselves, in many countries, agree that despite all their efforts, it is a case of “When and not if”. History cannot be changed, but apologies can be made and retributions paid, while a process of sincere and mutually respectful dialogue can ease tensions at a time when Humanity should be coming together, embracing other peoples as brothers and not blowing each other up – and here no distinction is made between an Iraqi child having his legs blown off, his face blown away and his family murdered by an American pilot, or a western civilian losing loved ones to some crazed young man screaming Allahu Akhbar before he connects the wires. Six fundamental steps All those countries or peoples which engaged in slavery – including the Africans, should sign a Charter of Apology, admitting what was done and admitting it was wrong; All the nations which engaged in imperialist activity should similarly sign a collective Charter and commit themselves to clearly defined goals for the countries which they “civilised” in the name of the Bible and the bullet. It is wholly unacceptable, for instance, that the Millennium Development Goals might not be reached by 2015; The United States of America should admit its part in fanning the flames of Islamist fundamentalism in arming, aiding and abetting the Mujaheddin against the progressive Government of Dr. Najibullah in Afghanistan and should recognise that Al Qaeda and the Taleban were a natural development of the monster it had created; The international community must admit once and for all the inviolabity of all establised frontiers and this goes as much for Kosovo, as Israel. It is wholly unacceptable that Israel violates international law by remaining in control of terrorities it seized in war, unless it wants to justify violent acts against it to claim the lands back. Therefore there must be a phased and timed total withdrawal of all Israeli elements from the occupied territories; The Islamic communities themselves should be allowed time and space to solve the question of the fundamentalist cause through a process of dialogue with the angry young men who fuel the cause of the opportunists who make a comfortable living out of terror; Finally, a Global Charter of Fundamental Human Rights should clearly set out the framework for every human being to have a) the right to non-violation of the person; b) the right to adequate nourishment; c) the right to an education which produces results inside the local community, namely a satisfying job and sufficient remuneration to build a life in comfort and d) a healthcare systm which guarantees basic global human rights. With these four fundamental precepts, the questions of child abuse, female genital mutilation, immigration, crime, hunger and disease, among many others, are addressed. With good will, it can be done. It takes a mere 12 years, for instance, to implement an education system. None of this is possible without debate and discussion, all of this is possible through dialogue and mutual understanding. Continue as we are, and we are sowing the seeds today for a tomorrow in which our children grow up in a climate of hatred. Is this what we have striven for, for two thousand years? Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru

Des Espace Autres

Bodhi — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 21:36:41 GMT

The great obsession of the nineteenth century was, as we know, history: with its themes of development and of suspension, of crisis, and cycle, themes of the ever-accumulating past, with its great preponderance of dead men and the menacing glaciation of the world. The nineteenth century found its essential mythological resources in the second principle of thermaldynamics- The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed. We are at a moment. I believe, when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein. One could perhaps say that certain ideological conflicts animating present-day polemics oppose the pious descendents of time and the determined inhabitants of space. Structuralism, or at least which is grouped under this slightly too general name, is the effort to establish, between elements that could have been connected on a temporal axis, an ensemble of relations that makes them appear as juxtaposed, set off against one another, implicated by each other-that makes them appear, in short, as a sort of configuration. Actually, structuralism does not entail denial of time; it does involve a certain manner of dealing with what we call time and what we call history. —Michel Foucault in March 1967

A snippet from my Terror & Torture discussion :

Bodhi — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 23:19:06 GMT

http://www.breakfornews.com/iraqatrix.htm Check out the pictures too, on the site. They're important. By now, you must know the Nick Berg beheading video was some kind of fake or scam. How could you not know? The Internet is abuzz with details of a host of video anomalies. Face it. You have just been PsyOped. Brutally. Shrewdly. The Berg video was part of a PsyOp which has escalated in recent months. The aim is to traumatize you with images of brutal abuse --to foster a facsist social mindset in support of the so-called War on Terror. The alternative media in the US is fumbling to put it's finger on why it all seems so wierd. But the crafted misdirection that the abuse photos were 'revealed' by a CBS investigation, cleverly covers the reality that the photos were designed from the beginning for public release. The latest Psyop peak featured the beheading of a victim in a orange jumpsuit. That's where this PsyOp began: with the orange jumpsuits of Guantanamo Bay prisoners. As was the case in Abu Ghraib, the abuse in Guantanamo was also filmed, and some photos of abuse were actually published in 2002. That was no leak. Those photos were deliberately released. As were the abuse photos from Abu Ghraib deliberately released. Any blowback to the reputation of the USA is well compensated by the intimidation of internal and external opponents of the US War Party --which the PsyOp is designed to ensure. Not to mention that the very real and now very public abuse of Iraqi prisoners recruits more rebel cannon fodder. Angry pawns whose suicial response will help turn Iraq into Palestine. The abuse scandal is the US equivalent of Ariel Sharon's provocative assassinations and Gaza onslaughts. The Israel-Palestine dynamic is the model for US strategic aims in Iraq. They started out with abuse of Al- Queda 'suspects' in Guantanamo Bay. If you saw photos of chained, blindfolded prisoners in Guantanamo, you already got the velvet glove component of the intimidation message. With the beheading of Nick Berg, the gloves came off. The Guantanamo-clad victim, Nick Berg turned out to be one of YOU. One of you college intellectuals. One of you humanitarians. One of you middle-class liberals. One of you anti-war movement types. One of you resistors of civil liberty theft by Patriot Act. From Guantanamo to Berg has been one massive PsyOp to ensure you get the message that resistance is useless and downright dangerous. Don't be fooled by the words around the images. It's the images which matter. You see, it's your subliminal consciousness at which all this is aimed. The images depict a brutal authority. The beheading images also send your subconscious a message that you should loose your head. Live in the body instead. The world of emotion. The home of the rage which the next elements of the PsyOp will trigger. Come to think of it, the Abu Ghraib prisoners had no heads either, now did they? Most of them were hooded. You saw those images too, didn't you? Which indicates that the beheading of Nick Berg was in the plan from the beginning. From the time back before 9/11 when Nick Berg was deliberately linked peripherally to suspected hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui. That's the same MO used in the peripheral linking of Lee Harvey Oswald to a whole raft of murky connections. It muddies the waters. That's how far back the planning goes. Berg looks like a groomed patsy with both real and red herring intell connections. All this did not start when the torture and abuse scandal broke. The weeks before were full of something now very familiar. They were full of torture and abuse. Remember? It was called the Passion of Christ. It was blood-drenched, wall to wall, non-stop, technicolor abuse and torture. Sort of set the scene didn't it? Then we moved on to the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib. Before we climaxed with the beheading of the Christ figure. The lamb unto the slaughter. You. Someone is messing with your Judeo-Christian mind. You have been swimming in a media sea of manipulation. A sea of well-funded, well-planned, ruthless PsyOp - the indespensible enabling tool of modern warfare. You better wake up to the implications. You better watch what you let into your mind. The theme is a descent into the body. The loss of the 'head' is the loss of intellect leading to the triumph of emotion. The PsyOp is analagous to the burning of books and the killing of intellectuals which are classic precursors of the rise of fascism. Yet no books have been burned. Apart from Berg, no intellectuals killed. It's all effectively done with PsyOps. The overlay is kinky sexual humiliation. The overlay is like some twisted wartime porn movie. We even had some war porn mixed into Abu Ghraib abuse scenes to emphasize the point. When cultural fantasy S&M meets very real and horrific war --you better watch out for the synergy. It's lethal. In a wartime context this evokes the mood and tone of the movie "Cabaret," starring Lisa Minelli. It's virtually a clichי that the iconography and subtext of S&M is culturally rooted in Nazi imagery. We are in an agenda of induced depravity. It's a virtual certainty that the entry of S&M into the mainstream culture in recent years, was greased by the people behind this PsyOp. Now this is payoff time --as a 'socially acceptable' S&M veneer smooths the social mindset for blatant fascism. Welcome to the New World Order.

Brundtland Commision (Report)

Bodhi — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 18:42:40 GMT

If you have not read this report its very worth it! Although it is 318 pages long you can get the idea within the first 20 to 75. This report was done in the early 80's, it's just a little scary to think about how little we have done. It really gets you thinking how weak the UN actually is. There is in fact no one at the wheel of spaceship earth... For Unhygienics < pay attention to the responsibility laid on NGO's > gAh apocalyptic vision rack my feeble mind. The east coast is not where i want to be when resource war fire up! The Brundtland Commission - formally the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), known by the name of its Chair Gro Harlem Brundtland, was convened by the United Nations in response to the 1983 General Assembly Resolution A/38/161 - "Process of preparation of the Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and Beyond" welcoming the establishment of such a Commission. In A/38/161, the General Assembly: "8. Suggests that the Special Commission, when established, should focus mainly on the following terms of reference for its work: (a) To propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development to the year 2000 and beyond; (b) To recommend ways in which concern for the environment may be translated into greater cooperation among developing countries and between countries at different stages of economic and social development and lead to the achievement of common and mutually supportive objectives which take account of the interrelationships between people, resources, environment and development; (c) To consider ways and means by which the international community can deal more effectively with environmental concerns, in the light of the other recommendations in its report; (d) To help to define shared perceptions of long-term environmental issues and of the appropriate efforts needed to deal successfully with the problems of protecting and enhancing the environment, a long-term agenda for action during the coming decades, and aspirational goals for the world community, taking into account the relevant resolutions of the session of a special character of the Governing Council in 1982;" By googling 'Brundtland' you should come up with a pdf. I'll upload it to my file server anyway. -0

The Violence of Reductionist Science

Bodhi — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 18:02:04 GMT

An article by Vandana Shiva concerning the worldview of current scientific knowledge and application. Vandana Shiva (b. November 5, 1952, Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand), is an ecofeminist, environmental activist and author. Shiva, currently based in New Delhi, is author of over 300 papers in leading scientific and technical journals. Shiva participated in the nonviolent Chipko movement during the 1970s. The movement, whose main participants were women, adopted the tactic of hugging trees to prevent their felling. She is one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization, (along with Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith, Ralph Nader, Jeremy Rifkin, et al.), and a figure of the global solidarity movement known as the anti-globalization movement. She has argued for the wisdom of many traditional practices, as is evident from her book Vedic Ecology that draws upon India's Vedic heritage.