prole

Actually, I was refering to your equation of a possible terrorist designation applied to political dissenters lying down in the street and overturning garbage cans to prevent arms shipments for use in an illegal and unjust war to hate criminal designation to people who crucify gay children on fence-posts and drag black people behind their trucks until they're dead.

I think KK might have retired. I'd have voted for him not to, but I abstained. That's okay, I know he's watching.

Would the protests in Olympia and the thinking, discussion, and planning of them meet the definition of terrorism under the Homegrown Terrorism Bill? Would this discussion? I don't think I want an unelected, unreviewed, handpicked committee deciding these questions no matter who is in power.

Relativists rejoice! Anyways, here's a couple of articles about the bill. Less than ideal sources for some in this crowd, but there's not a whole lot being written about this bill in the mainstream press. Here are some choice bits:

Trent Lott's golden parachute. Ironically, this may mean that he'll actually be drafting legislation, rather than just rubber-stamping it.

And by extension, most bottled waters.

Actually, Sounds good to me.

I am an enemy of abstraction and theory when it contradicts anything resembling empirical reality. Nor am I interested in planned utopias, neither was Marx. You might check out his debates with Bakunin. Marx's main complaint against anarchism was its utopian foundations, utopianism stands in contradiction to any political practice with historical materialism at its foundation. But I'm sure you knew all this, after all you're the expert. Actually, I'd argue, as I did in the post itself, for a decentralization of political authority and more participatory political institutions. Calling all more rational, intelligent, better educated, better informed, etc. I didn't say they would, the issue was modest reforms that would mitigate the rule of a privileged elite. Read first, respond later. I actually agree with most of this. You seem to have misunderstood me, I was never making a case for militancy absent any number of legal activities politically acceptable to the mainstream that most, if not all, the Olympia protesters are already engaged in. That they were able to stop arms shipments for a short period (maybe longer) and achieve that goal makes the action a success in those terms. The media, police, and portions of the public's negative response shows that much "persuading" still needs to be done, a point made in the group's original communique. Whether or not this particular non-violent act of civil disobedience strengthens or undermines that effort remains to be seen. My point in the post was that tactics are tactics are tactics. Whether or not they are illegal is entirely irrelevant. When, where and by whom is exactly what is at issue. Does that mean that I would support suicide bombing? No. What you have unceasingly failed to show in this thread is how support for one group's tactics, illegal or otherwise, represents tacit support for another group's program when they use similar tactics. As one who rails against "relativism" on a regular basis, you must certainly see the point. Piecemeal reforms are exactly what I suggested. That you are suggesting the reforms I proposed are radically utopian speaks more of your own conservative fears than the fact that the US Constitution is a historical document that has been and continues to be revised and that other states that have adopted such proposals are politically more advanced, have more open, more democratic, more progressive "classically liberal" forms of governance than our own. Wake up Jay, the "End of History" has been abandoned by its own theorists and lies on its own "shitheap".

Spalding: I want a hamburger. No, a cheeseburger. I want a hot dog. I want a milkshake. Judge Smails: You'll get nothing and like it!

This is a disgrace. Clearly, we must hold our elected representatives to a higher standard! By the way, the kid on the right looks like he's going to make a helluva orator.

Given your most recent posts, your relationship to the liberal tradition is tenuous at best. I believe he was refering to the historical definition ace. Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the definition of liberalism and its uses and misuses in the American political scene. What I'm not familiar with, and maybe you guys can help me here, is where "extra-normal influence" over the political process based on wealth, status, and prestige fits into that picture. Arguments for a political system that rejects meaningful participation based on the fear of "mob rule", while justifying an economic and political elite represents the least democratic traditions in liberal thought. Fetishizing the rule of law in the context of gross systemic political and economic inequality, glorifying the existing order as an open forum of rational and civil debate when it is clear to all that it is anything but, and demonizing dissenters as ill-informed hooligans is clearly a step backward from the best that the "classic liberal" tradition has to offer. It deserves a better spokesperson. Where in the liberal tradition is there a justification for groups of people who have been deprived of no rights, who have full recourse to both the courts of law and public opinion, and the voting booth - taking the law into their own hands because they have failed to persuade either the public, their representatives, or the courts to support their agenda? As for supernormal influence, how would you devise a system in which this could be neutralized, and how would that be an improvement over the existing order? Unless you grant some central administrative body the power to suppress them, how are you going to limit the appeal and influence over a great thinker, writer, artist, orator, statesman, or entrepeneur - or the ideals that they represent, or the ideas that they bring forth? Whatever power any of these have, they acquire with the consent of the voting public, who is free to accept or reject them as they see fit. Again, in spite of ample evidence obvious to all, you suggest that we envision our current political landscape as some idealized high-school debate meet. Are we to believe, in contradiction to our very senses that we are living in some modern-day Athenian democracy, that Cheney, Limbaugh, Murdoch, Exxon, Lay, Raytheon, Wackenhut, WR Grace, Walton, Clinton, Cargill, Monsanto, etc. and all their lobbyists on K Street represent the modern equivalents of great orators and statesman who've gained influence by swaying public opinion through their mastery over rational debate? That US policy is determined by rational and informed representatives of educated and engaged voters with their best interests in mind? That power is determined by persuasion to the most reasonable, enlightened course of action? Answering yes to any of these questions would indicate either a complete disassociation from historical reality or a willful obfuscation of how our political system actually works and has worked for quite some time. Personally, I don't think you're fool enough to believe your own crap, so it must be the latter. You think the system is working for you and others in your tax bracket? Fine, but don't try to dazzle us with abstraction and theory. As for the use of extra-legal tactics, civil disobedience, illegal demonstrations, turning over garbage cans, terrorism, armed revolt, revolution, sit-ins, illegal wars for empire, bombing of civilian targets from space, whatever, have been and will continue to be used in the service of white-power, black power, free-trade, anti-colonialists, antiwar protesters, abortionists, anti-abortionists, tax revolters, religious wackos, peasants, monarchists, fascists, corporate paramilitaries, and (not least) by freely elected officials. That such tactics are, by definition, illegal is a matter of fact. That they are simply "politics by other means" is also a matter of fact, and one that is certainly not lost on the current political administration. The question is when such tactics are appropriate and for whom. Okay, a bunch of students blocked arms shipments with their unarmed, (mostly) peaceful bodies and garbage cans against an obviously corrupt (though God help us, freely elected) government body waging an unjust and illegal war in contradiction to overwhelming public opinion. Nope, can't say I have a problem with that. They've drawn attention to their community's participation in the war machine and may have stopped the shipments out of Olympia to boot. Well done. Do I support religious anti-abortion white supremacist monarchists doing the same thing? No. I don't have to, nor does anyone else. Through your posts, it seems as if you've found your personal threshold. But despite all of your protestations to the contrary, I don't think we all have the same access to the formation of public opinion through the media, recourse through the legal system, or the shaping of the laws that we are subject to. If we did, you wouldn't be backpedaling like a motherfucker trying to find justifications for "supernormal influence" while disregarding the evidence of your own (and everyone else's) senses. As for the mitigation of elite rule, lest I sound like some utopian, I think some modest reforms would be helpful in the short and medium term. Including, but not limited to, abolition of the electoral college, a more balanced division of labor between the branches of Congress, breaking the stranglehold of the two major parties and winner-take-all victories over American politics through some form of proportional representation, and rolling back Bush's concentration of power in the executive branch, federal funding of election campaigns, and more transparency in the lobbying industry.

Given your most recent posts, your relationship to the liberal tradition is tenuous at best. I believe he was refering to the historical definition ace. Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the definition of liberalism and its uses and misuses in the American political scene. What I'm not familiar with, and maybe you guys can help me here, is where "extra-normal influence" over the political process based on wealth, status, and prestige fits into that picture. Arguments for a political system that rejects meaningful participation based on the fear of "mob rule", while justifying an economic and political elite represents the least democratic traditions in liberal thought. Fetishizing the rule of law in the context of gross systemic political and economic inequality, glorifying the existing order as an open forum of rational and civil debate when it is clear to all that it is anything but, and demonizing dissenters as ill-informed hooligans is clearly a step backward from the best that the "classic liberal" tradition has to offer. It deserves a better spokesperson.

Given your most recent posts, your relationship to the liberal tradition is tenuous at best.

No big surprise here. "Perhaps forlorn Jets fans, who have rarely had a winning team to support, are seeking alternative entertainment on game days. “This is the game,” said Patrick Scofield, a 20-year-old from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., who has attended several Jets games the last two seasons."

Quick, call Dirty Harry!

Indeed, well said. Thanks for offering a grim peek into that ideological freakshow that you call a worldview. Your disconnection from the realities of American democracy in the 21st century is only outdone by your bloated justifications for the rule of the few over the many. Your argument can be reduced to: "those who own the country ought to run it, the rest are just street-drunks anyway". Be sure, those in power with such a view, for whom you are a flunky, can only expect more "mob activity" in the future.

Perhaps our differences on this issue stem from the fact that I am under no such illusion that in this day and age, in this time and place that we all have "the same opportunity to influence the laws that (we are) subject to." Legalistically, yes. Substantively, no.

The fact that the Olympia protests were overwhelmingly peaceful (on the part of the protesters, at least) seems to be entirely lost on you. Does the time-honored American tradition of non-violent civil disobedience represent a hate-crime for you? If so, I suggest you contact your congressperson and suggest they draft up some legislation to that effect. I'm sure Bushco. would see the benefits. They can protest peacefully on the side of the road. Once they physically block a public space and take it upon themselves to determine which uses are and are not permissible, and who can and cannot pass, they have overstepped their bounds and assumed rights that only properly belong to the legislature. They've also entered into a realm where although they are not resorting to physical violence, they are using physical force in an attempt to impose their agenda, rather than the force of their arguments alone. Once you cross that bridge, you will and should be forcibly removed by the people that the freely elected legislature have authorized to do so in order to uphold these same laws. "Those members of our community who attend or are employed at Evergreen and who participate in the port protests, do so as individual citizens, exercising their conscience on their own time. That is their right. It is the right of all of us as members of a democratic society. The expression of political views through protest has a long history in our democracy and is widely understood as a fundamental civil right. However, when those engaging in protest express their views by breaking the law either through peaceful civil disobedience, or, regrettably, by destroying property in the community or on campus, they should expect to be held accountable by our legal system with the attendant due process." That these people are breaking the law and are subject to it is obvious to all, not least by those risking their liberty by engaging in civil disobedience. What is not so obvious is when and where such "extralegal" action is and has been an appropriate tactic. This cannot be determined by legalistic definition as civil disobedience is illegal according to existing laws by definition. Many famous examples in American history of such actions, while derided at the time, are now deemed to have been necessary and appropriate in the court of public opinion. Rosa Parks, lunch-counter sit-ins, Boston Tea Party, etc. Your point regarding access to representation, courts, etc. in liberal democracies is well taken, but I think that the actual substance of this access needs to be addressed in the age of "the decider" when overwhelming public opinion is dismissed as "focus-group politics".

The fact that the Olympia protests were overwhelmingly peaceful (on the part of the protesters, at least) seems to be entirely lost on you. Does the time-honored American tradition of non-violent civil disobedience represent a hate-crime for you? If so, I suggest you contact your congressperson and suggest they draft up some legislation to that effect. I'm sure Bushco. would see the benefits.

...This private moment used without permission for political purposes by prole. User makes no claim as to what lies inside the hearts of these two newlyweds or as to the depth of the love they share. This "private moment" won the World Press Photo Award last year. It and other photographs are part of a series centered around the return, rehabilitation, marriage, and reintegration of Ty Ziegel, the wounded vet. They have been published in dozens of magazines and websites. The entire series and others can be found here. You are correct that I make no claim to what lies in these peoples hearts, I posted the photo without a caption. Draw your own conclusion. Personally, and in the context of this "discussion", the photograph reminds me what is at stake when we struggle around the meaning of the war and its aftermath. Political? Yes. Disrespectful? You tell me. But when you do, don't forget your own transgressions:

Wait a second, I thought that the stability purchased at the expense of certain understandingswith less than savory regimes in the Middle East was the problem, comrade. Quite surprising to see an impassioned defense of these condorcats emerging from such quarters. You call that a reply? You're a waste of skin and a waste of my time.

Funny that the people in the photos that you depicted were probably ones that were better informed than you were and were actively opposed to the war from the beginning. Called bullshit on Colin Powell's UN powerpoint presentation, Saddam's nukes, realized the potential for destabilization of the Mideast and civil war in Iraq, etc, etc, etc. All this while you were blowing smoke up each others asses and trying to recruit others for your idiotic crusade and its entirely predictable outcome. Well, good luck trying to sell your kids these cheap chuckles when they realize what a dumb fuck you were and how their legacy has been diminished as a result.

Oh, didn't you hear?

Ouch. Rapper Jay Z Dissing the Dollar Wads of dollar bills are usually as much a part of rap videos as fast cars, diamond-encrusted jewellery and scantily-clad models. But in an apparent nod to the low value of the dollar, rapper Jay-Z's new video Blue Magic features another currency. He is seen cruising the streets of New York in Bentleys and Rolls Royces (now owned by Germany's Volkswagen and BMW) with a briefcase of 500 euro notes. It follows reports that the supermodel Gisele Bündchen also favours euros. The catwalk star's twin sister and manager Patricia told Bloomberg in September that: "Contracts starting now are more attractive in euros because we don't know what will happen to the dollar." --from BBC 11/16/07