Islamist Fanatic or Anti-Globalization Activist?

[ChrisT]

I'm laughing because when I see JayB's posts my eyes tend to roll into the back of my head...

[foraker]

waitaminnit! are you saying tax money doesn't come from Smurfs!?! damn! those duplicitous little blue fuckers lied to me again!

[j_b]

a little added info that JayB apparently didn't think you should know (where is the link? heh?): the speaker of the diatribe in question is british born and raised (http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/ireland/Full_Story/did-sg-2ANzcSPWiIsglO-LCk0lQvU.asp). in this context, is the rhetoric all that surprising? of course not. so why did JayB leave out the link to the original story?

[prole]

 

With the exception of the "must be silenced" bit, I'd have to agree with you if it weren't for the fundamental distortion of the actual positions that we are talking about. Yes, the Islamists, bless their hearts, are indeed terribly upset about the commodification of women's bodies - as evinced by the honor killings, the stoning of pregnant women to death, the forced circumcission, the handy "I divorce thee" x3 precedent in the sharia that leaves women destitute and pennyless, the absence of the right to vote, to drive, etc - so it is completely natural and sensible for those who are horrified by the commodification of women's bodies here in the West to simultaneously hold their tongues with respect to the condition of women in the Muslim world, blather on about the moral equivalence of the two civilizations and the condition of women within them, and redirect their focus to the equally dreadful outcomes that ensue when women who choose to make their living by taking their clothes off are free to do so. It's just a shame that England's cultural sensitivities weren't refined by these fine sentiments in the days of the suttee. Sadly that gem of cultural diversity is already all but lost to the world.

 

Ditto for the "degradations of mind, body, and spirit, the environment wreaked by the globalization of capitalism," which are certainly in striking contrast to the splendid condition of all of the above under the various totalitarianisms or squalid paleosocialist kleptocracies that adorn or have adorned the globe at one time or another. Many things are uncertain in this world, but I am absolutely convinced that all of the citizens of the aforementioned countries take a profound measure of solace in the fact that their illiteracy, poverty, subjugation, and starvation are at least keeping the menace of being a slave to corporate interests at bay. That certainly explains the patterns of immigration we've witnessed for the past 100 years, the condition of the environment in England relative to anywhere in an equally populous region of China or the Soviet Union, and the fact that it has generally required nothing short of turning every socialist wonderland into a literal penitentiary in order to prevent the entire population from fleeing en masse.

 

Anyhow - back to me. I regret to admit that I actually don't even own a functioning TV, and will spend the next three years working on ways to rapidly identify and characterize compounds that disable a recently characterized protein that's critical for the progression of a disease that's killing off several million people a year. What is it that you do with your time?

 

And finally, you mentioned something about being serious, and on that note I have a serious senior/thesis project for you: Demonstrate that both economic calculation and the coordination of supply and demand are possible in the absence of market prices. Once you have demonstrated that those who presented this as an insurmountable difficulty confronting anyone looking to actually implement socialism, were in fact incorrect, I will gladly join you in your quest to jettison the present social, poltical, and economic order in favor of a superior alternative.

 

Ta,

 

I’ve been internet-less for a week, I’m almost sorry to resurrect this one. Jay B your post and responses are characteristic of so much of the Right’s attack strategy: lots of caustic bluster and posturing based on shaky or non-existent foundations to bludgeon some and strike fear in others, then follow it up with dangerously simplistic "black and white" "us vs. them" notions to close off any potential for real progress.

 

When I wrote about Western feminism’s opposition to the commodification of women’s bodies, you took that as an opportunity to describe atrocities against women perpetrated by fundamentalists, horrors we are all familiar with! What is missing is how the Left supports their continuation (your main argument). How exactly do you make the leap between the desire to push forward women’s freedom from gender oppression domestically and the desire to maintain it abroad?

 

One way this could be done is for you to believe that American aggression abroad is being waged on Muslim women’s behalf. Utter nonsense. Women’s groups in the West, and more importantly Afghani and Iraqi women’s groups inside and outside those countries, have complained bitterly of their marginalization by the US from decision-making processes associated with state-building. UN initiatives to further women’s rights globally have been undermined at every turn by the US for decades. Why are the same people touting the military victory over women’s oppression abroad working so hard to undermine women’s rights domestically as well as push a “family values” culture that keeps women subjugated?

 

The other way you justify your statements is to create phantom leftists and strawmen. You allude to “certain elements” and then condemn general “progressives” and women in Berkeley. Who are these elements? I’m sure there are folks out there that preach moral equivalence and postmodern relativism, but are they representative of the left as a whole? Can we even consider them part of the Left political and philosophical tradition? Check out Aijaz Ahmad’s excellent critiques of postmodernist thought from a leftist perspective. Maybe if you told us who you were talking about instead of the Hitchens-esque diatribe?

 

You use a similar logic to handle the question of capitalist globalization. A vote against the predatory activities of multinational corporations and “free-trade” is a vote for “illiteracy, poverty, subjugation, and starvation”. Straight from the pages of the Economist and Department of Commerce press releases: Economic development is sure to follow the arrival of Western corporations! Again, no logical or historical link between the leftist critique of capitalist globalization and support for continued oppression. Perhaps you can tell us at exactly which point the manna is to fall from heaven on those who’ve lost their land to agri-business, those who live with the health and environmental problems of living on top of oil, gas, or metal deposits, those left unemployed by privatization schemes. These folks are already blessed with all the Western penetration they can stomach. Do you really need me to provide you a laundry-list of left-leaning organizations, scholars and individuals working on alternative development projects that place socially and environmentally sustainable practices at their core, rather than throwing lives and land to the whims of the capitalist market, multinationals, and politicians?

 

Jay B, you’ve presented us with the classic conservative Hobson’s choice based on false propositions and assumptions: Choose between barbarism or throw our lot in with a state and system that has proven incapable of providing a sensible, stable, compassionate, non-alienating way of life. For all your rhetorical flourish, your argument really only boils down to what we’ve been hearing all along: “You’re either with us or against us, good vs. evil, freedom or totalitarianism.” As if one cannot recognize and resist hypocrisy and oppression in multiple forms at the same time in different places. It's only when one believes completely in the American Crusade (a fundamentalist discourse we are becoming all too familiar with) that alternative positions of resistance become impossible. If you don’t want people to think you get your ideas from the TeeVee, then try to raise your argument above the level of Fox News punditry.

 

Ta yourself

[SneakySix]

prole, i think you should write a book, that last reply either made no sense, or total sense, i havent decided. maybe im too stoned

 

*shrug*

[Fairweather]

Prole smells like academia. Needs some fresh air. JayB smells like real-world.

[olyclimber]

What the hell you sniffing everyone for, Fairweather?

[Fairweather]

It is the customary greeting in my homeland.

[Fairweather]

Curious as to whether prole's username was a socialist acronym or abbreviation, I did what any hard-core cc.com research assistant would do: I googled it. The results were shocking, but not unexpected...

http://www.prole.info/

 

How do you plead, prole?? Hmmmm?

[olyclimber]

or maybe he is on parole and doesn't know how to spell. or maybe he is icefall/crampon/divot.

 

Lip my stalking!

[Dru]

You had to Google the slang for proletariat? Ignorant bourgeois oppressor!

[foraker]

Some of you are just jealous that he uses big words that you don't understand and it makes you feel all small and shit.

[Fairweather]

I don't trust people who use their obviously superior written language skills to intimidate those with whom they disagree.

 

They should stick to their own kind n' stuff. He spelled TV, TeeVee. That was funny n' stuff.

[olyclimber]

Actually, I've always thought that JayB has had some of the better formed arguments on this board. Not that I agree with it all, or care to engage in a serious argument in this venue, but....

[foraker]

There are plenty of people who don't match your language skill ability either. Are they not supposed to trust you then? I think that's a prejudice you might want to consider giving up.

[Billygoat]

You make the call...

 

"Oh people of the West, don’t be fooled by the lies of Blair and Bush that you are free nations, for the only freedom that you have is the freedom to be slaves of your whims and desires. Your children are free to be deprived of their childhood and their innocence. Your women are free to be used as tools of business and entertainment, and all of you as a whole are the slaves of con men and women who rule you. They are your real enemies. If you only knew – they are the ones who drag your countries to the pit of America’s group of scavengers, who seek to ravage the entire globe for the interests of a handful of gangsters and corporate companies. Democracy, human rights, and freedom are all but hollow illusions, with which they tranquilize inhabitants of the human farms which they control."

 

This guy doesn't know what the fuck he is talking about. He sounds about as culturally and geographically challenged as any good, red-blooded American.

 

[Fairweather]

JayB is and writes in a clear and concise manner void of deliberate intimidation. Of course, above I was referring to the excerpts of prole's dissertation.

 

Smart folks with whom I agree:

Pseudo-smart folks with whom I disagree:

 

[j_b]

 

This guy doesn't know what the fuck he is talking about. He sounds about as culturally and geographically challenged as any good, red-blooded American.

 

 

well ... he is probably british born. so you weren't too far off. which illustrates the inanity of what started this thread.

[j_b]

JayB's arguments suck. just ask me when you want to know about it.

[Fairweather]

You're just mad because he lied when he told you he wouldn't do that 'bad thing' in your mouth.

[Billygoat]

FW, you're just mad because I lied when I said I wouldn't do that "bad thing" in your ass

[foraker]

an impressive vocabulary is only 'intmidating' if you feel threatened by the ideas they encompass, or if you feel your masculinity is threatened because it shows up some lack in yourself. you don't have to agree with his ideas, but don't call people 'pseudo-smart' when they use words and style you can't fathom when what you really mean is you don't agree with him ideologically and never will.

[Billygoat]

Foraker = Bill Gates

[Fairweather]

Tongue-in-cheek. Humor.

 

Things like are meant to mitigate otherwise dry text.

 

Geeez, man. You need to relax.

[foraker]

fair enough, but, in the future, when I say I don't trust backward ass country fucks in pick up trucks who can't distinguish between "your" and "you're", well, then, I'm just being tongue-in-cheek