[kinn]

yes, if we had different governments we wouldn't have gone into iraq or afghanistan. the problem is we didn't. yes, other countries wouldn't have gone into iraq or afghanistan. no, a simple act of "everybody is a cunt so whatever" relativism is not enough.

don't blame me i didn't vote eh? i'm actually not trying to put the entire blame for 2 wars onto YOU personally. of course the ideological constraints of our western discourse might try to make this the inferred position.

[DeadDiscoDildo]

Tell me, what is your view on what should happen then? Hmm?

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by knox

yes, this particular institution has managed to change a lot of things, somethings are mentioned on the website.

these petitions have been used to pressure politicians, and they're even used in court - which could end up happening in this case. The idea is to let them know people know what is going on and giving assange unfair treatment is bad PR.

yeah, but i don't think the PR is that important to them (the baddies) on this issue, i.e. in comparison to covering their arses (i.e. covering the truth) and maintaining power

[Glice]

Originally Posted by kinn

there is no hope for an anti war movement in britain or the us at this point. most people simply want the genocide to continue as long as they don't have to know too much about it.

I was thinking about this today, as it happens. And I think you're right, but I also wonder what happens if the war is brought into people's actual frames of reference. We've seen with the student protests that enough of a change to the status quo and people get upset (putting it mildly). You change the oil prices and people blockade ports. In the case of war - and this requires a sort of ignoring of the technical bases of war now - if you had conscription I think you'd find a lot more people saying 'hang on, I don't want a part of this bollocks'. Of course, war is mired in the play of vulgar capitalism (that Thatcherite lie of war being good for the economy is only the beginning) so this is difficult. But I do - probably naively - feel that people aren't stupid, they're just largely rendered neuter.

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by Glice

I was thinking about this today, as it happens. And I think you're right

you think people abide the wars as a trade off for their creature comforts or they actually (secretly?) support them so they can have whatever? i don't disagree but i'm just wondering exactly what you mean

[kinn]

you bomb the iraqi children, and we'll extract the human rights from their corpses. this symbolic ritual is called "democracy".

the problem is thinking that people have a choice between abandoning their creature comforts stopping the war. the problem is thinking people give their consent or mandate to the governments of democracies. they don't. only a retard would think they do. consent is manufactured. discourse is commodified or it is not heard. there is no god or big other that is paying attention to what your opinions. that's why we have debates. so that nothing changes.

hedonism has replaced the social contract in post liberal societies. and so if the war and genocide makes you feel bad you change the channel. after all, if you feel bad there's no point in life, because life is ONLY about hedonism and anyone who says different is a fascist trying to take away your enjoyment/self/individualism.

individualism is fascism, if i say that loud enough on this board or any other i'll get shouted down and ripped apart but its true.

i'm still writing a response to ddd's post btw.

and to glice, yes i do see what you are saying about the protests in london these past few days. i'm just sceptical because as a leftist growing up in the 90's and 00's i have none NOTHING but defeat. and thus the idea of victory does not seem possible anymore, and frankly it is simply difficult to try and pyschologicaly adjust to the idea that victory could be possible. even though these protests are the best indications we've had of that for a long time. i am simply burnt out from building up my hopes and having them crushed endlessly.

i doubt we can return to social democracy. but what the hell COULD we return to? some sort of quasi socialist isolationist state that just hopes american won't nuke or invade it? they have their bases here, i highly doubt they would ALLOW a government hostile to their interests to form in the UK. we can maybe wait until they no longer really have the power to do so, but i still doubt the likelihood we will have a government here prepared to say "fuck off you utterly insane bunch of christians."

i mean what, fucking miliband? are we going to have another round of weak messianism for our new soft left saviour. i may be young but i'm not going to forget blair that easily.

it comes down to america, if i see the movement we've had in the past week here happening over there then i'll start to sit up and pay attention. i highly doubt america is heading for anything other than suicide thru outstretched empire tho. and i highly doubt any american is actually prepared to do anything to stop this. they will drink until the last coke can is gone and it makes them too depressed to see themselves as not "wanting to" because then they'd have to face up to how hopeless things are.

post modern capitalism is in the same position sovietism was in its dying days. i even tried to hash out an article comparing irony/vice mag type humour to socialist realism. shit. pretend i didnt say that. that's MY idea and i need to keep it to myself until i can get a book deal.

read john gray. its millenarianism. end of history (ism) is being used to justify the insanity of infinite global expansion and liberal democracy at the barrel of gun after you've been bombed and your father has been shot in the head because he tried to stop soldiers from raping his wife. they will greet us as liberators. after all saddam was a dictator. therefore lets murder a million people and bomb their infastructure. well if you don't agree that's just your opinion and everything is just opinions because there's no truth. so shut up and leave me alone. we are murdering them so they can have the right to free speech. because noone can talk without the god democraticus bestowing the power of speech on them. so shut up and enjoy yourself.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

you think people abide the wars as a trade off for their creature comforts or they actually (secretly?) support them so they can have whatever? i don't disagree but i'm just wondering exactly what you mean

Well, I think it's generally quite complex - we're mostly aware that as a state we're involved in wars or military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I'm not so sure how far the awareness is of our military operations in, say, DRC. Which is to say nothing of our continued military presence as part of the Good Friday agreement. So how far consciousness of our complicity in war or military action, as a populace, goes I've no idea.

So I think 'secret' support for wars is a bit of a mis-nomer - I think complicity is a better (though more complex) way of looking at it. And that introduces things like our involvement in, say, price-setting for rice in impoverished Bangladeshi communities as an economic force.

In turn, I think one of the biggest problems facing the radical left now is how to reconcile all this information into a coherent position; we can only really chose parts of it to get angry about. I wouldn't equivocate PETA with Amnesty or the Fair Trade movement, but they're all part of a moderation of the excesses of vulgar capitalism. But hand-wringing 'we're all doing our bit' isn't really an answer either. We're all fucked, and we all use aspects of political economy (in a broadly non-financial sense) as trade for our psychological well-being. My only real answer is to just feel guilty about everything, but then I am a Catholic, after all.

[ann ashtray]

Originally Posted by DeadDiscoDildo

All governments spy. Are we unique in that aspect? The whole world is fucked. We are just on top of the pyramid of cunts. You think if another country had the power we did they'd be any different? All governments are SHIT man. SHIT.

And I did NOT vote for that asshole who started the war, so what are you trying to say?

I agree that there is some information the general public should have no right to know.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by kinn

individualism is fascism, if i say that loud enough on this board or any other i'll get shouted down and ripped apart but its true.

I broadly agree with your other points but I entirely agree with this. I struggle to articulate it without defaulting to socialist, Marxist or Christian terms, but there's a very definite threat that society per se is continually negated by the chimera of the individual. Removing the individual from dialogue is near impossible now, which is a very modern (capitalist) invention. To me the individual is the person who doesn't accept responsibility, who'll say it's not him contributing to global warming or that one packet of rice isn't killing small brown people or will be sat on the internet wanking while Rome burns. But I can't really define my point except in negative terms (which is precisely the position of the individual - the unitary event dislocated or subtracted from the social fabric).

[kinn]

Originally Posted by Glice

I broadly agree with your other points but I entirely agree with this. I struggle to articulate it without defaulting to socialist, Marxist or Christian terms, but there's a very definite threat that society per se is continually negated by the chimera of the individual. Removing the individual from dialogue is near impossible now, which is a very modern (capitalist) invention. To me the individual is the person who doesn't accept responsibility, who'll say it's not him contributing to global warming or that one packet of rice isn't killing small brown people or will be sat on the internet wanking while Rome burns. But I can't really define my point except in negative terms (which is precisely the position of the individual - the unitary event dislocated or subtracted from the social fabric).

I think the individual was the creation capitalist creative industries made up, and the reasons for this were largely due to a mixture of capitalist industrial interest and good old racial politics. because the modern individual is ALL ABOUT being their own hitler and not having to say sieg heil. the racial politics is just white western people trying to cast their russian or german enemies as culturally alien and hostile. remember the equation of the borg, sorry, communism with the erasure of individuality under some monochrome modernist socialist hell? in order to escape the nightmare that communism was failing and we were stuck with capitalism, its industries turned to the aggressive assertion of inner life and miniscule differences in individual preferences as some sort of holy freedom. its biopolitics but it's also about the personalization of what is effectively just inanimate matter in order for capital to expand into new areas.

these are all tactics capital has been using since the 60's to win. and it did see off those 2 threats. that there was some reason for this inherent to its character and its "way of life" is of course the kind of bs cultures are going to use to perpetuate themselves.

the modern individual is basically hitler, but he gets to choose how to be his own hitler and noone else can tell him what to do BECAUSE HE ENJOYS HIMSELF AND DOES WHAT HE WANTS FUCK YOU DAD. he says "I AM WHAT I AM!" instead of sieg heil. and his freedom consists in being able to design whatever unique swastika he wants! oh joy! have you not seen his facebook page?

people will slowly wake up to this because capitalism has been in a state since probably the late 90's wherein novelty is just not possible. it is pricing the majority of us into slums and out of existence. will there be a revolt? possibly, but what it can achieve i do not know. do i think it will be something much better than some soft left new blair? i highly doubt it but if it were possible i would be willing to fight for it.

Now I have a MASSIVE problem with what you say about the rice and global warming. THIS is the ideological trap. this is zizek 101 stuff. The idea that capitalism COULD work but it CAN'T because of our human nature. if only we were more nice. we must look for this moral progress from within! this is the lie. from this it follows "oh we're all just so greedy, it's all OUR fault as consumers, but you can't change human nature, how depressing..." not only does this let the corporations off the hook, it basically casts the system as benevolent BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY HUMAN NATURE AS INHERENT AND SEPARATE FROM THE SYSTEM AND NOT MANUFACTURED BY IT. boom. can i have my zero books deal now.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to kinn again.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by DeadDiscoDildo

And I did NOT vote for that asshole who started the war, so what are you trying to say?

what asshole was that in particular? The US finds itself in Afghanistan, first and foremost as a geopolitical consequence of the US interest and investment in heroin, which is how we ended up in Vietnam. The US war in Vietnam forced the heroin production to shift westward, inevitably finding Afghanistan (just as US involvement in Peru pushed coca to Colombia). So the Russians jumped into Afghanistan because they love heroin about as much as Americans, and so the US found itself arming and funding the mujihadeen (and those leaders today we call the Taliban, Al Queda, and bin Laden). We also funded the Iraqis to counter the Iranians..

These came to a head in the 1990s, when the Taliban took over and when the US fought its first war against Saddam.. Then Clinton got the US military covertly involved in a lot places across the globe, so much so that more US military personnel were killed overseas under Clinton than under Bush II (surprising isn't it)..

These geopolitics stimulated the "terrorists" and so there were a series of bombings and such that culminated in so-called "9/11" and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan (and Pakistan) and Iraq (and other places in the region for our military bases and logistics)..

So blame who Bush II? Take that shit all the way back the Truman and the OSS involvement in the former French-Indochina, take it up until Reagan and all his bullshit, and don't forget Bush I, and Clinton's trickster ways, and then we get Bush II escalating the trend. Is Obama off the hook by default? Fucking nonsense, its been TWO YEARS already, and the war(s) are far from over, in fact they are further destabilizing and escalating..

I say blame ourselves for being so damned complacent

Originally Posted by knox

yes.

well, that is a shit of a plan if you ask me, and is honestly quite counter-productive

[kinn]

i was just thinking more about a british left there. actually - if the future entails a return to manufacturing at home and less exporting, that means we will see a lot of more powerful trade union interests and a more powerful labour party. neo liberal london is all finance, so it is all smoke and mirrors, it could effectively go from being THE fucking unshakeable power base to some sort of dramatic loss of clout... it would shock and surprise us but it could happen.

what it comes down to is energy - the most important factor is energy -

basically the next ultimate test of capitalism comes when the oil runs out. does this "naturally" cause the market to switch to alternatives or not? this is the issue i am waiting to see about. if it is capitalism that makes the transition to other mostly renewable sources of energy/nuclear then that's me officially switching my allegiance to capitalism. you heard it here first lol. if the market can do this, then i do not care about messy and difficult socialist modernisation movements. i will just associate them with stalinist purges and ineffectual failed states.

[SpaceCadetHayden]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

If illegally leaking stolen government and corporate material isn't piracy, and using the DIY internet model for public distribution isn't hacking, what is?

Wikileaks is arguably not doing anything illegal. Yes, giving out confidential documents is illegal HOWEVER receiving and publishing them is not illegal.

They didn't download these from the government, they received and then published them.

[Toilet & Bowels]

these cables are getting out of hand

[pbradley]

Well, of course, now I know who kinn is. Fancy that.

[pbradley]

individualism is fascism, if i say that loud enough on this board or any other i'll get shouted down and ripped apart but its true.

I could only see this happening if people were confused over what you mean by 'individualism,' i.e. their own subjective substance rather than hedonistic egoism.

[SpaceCadetHayden]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

these cables are getting out of hand

hahahaha. thanks. i needed a lol

[Glice]

Originally Posted by kinn

basically the next ultimate test of capitalism comes when the oil runs out. does this "naturally" cause the market to switch to alternatives or not? this is the issue i am waiting to see about. if it is capitalism that makes the transition to other mostly renewable sources of energy/nuclear then that's me officially switching my allegiance to capitalism. you heard it here first lol. if the market can do this, then i do not care about messy and difficult socialist modernisation movements. i will just associate them with stalinist purges and ineffectual failed states.

I think this is part of the helplessness of the situation of resisting capitalism in toto. We already have, as a late capitalist development, plenty of absurd developments. I'm thinking of things like CERN, a technological research group that's absorbed absolutely astonishing costs for a minimum of direct financial gain -which, in the context of a British society that's moving towards an education system governed by the market, is wildly perverse. I'm not saying CERN is un-profitable, it's just odd that thousands of people, including governments, have seen fit to throw billions at it.

In that context, I think much of the development of non-oil-based technologies is coming from high capitalism. The last 30-40 years have seen silicon (which I think is our most stocked resource) grow to be a huge player. I think it's a research group of Ford's which is heading up 'renewable' alternatives to oil. In this case, it's a question of their looking 20, 30 years in the future and their still wanting market dominance. Do the alternatives to oil come from some agrarian return or from Ford? I suspect the answer is both, and neither. We already know that capitalism will change its shape to suit its owners - it's done this countless times already. The question of whether it retains that name is an interesting one, but only because it's failed to change its name since early industrialism.

I've thought for a while that a form of fascism is necessary in the face of climate change - I don't really trust people to give up their oil-based lifestyles in the face of impending catastrophe without statist intervention. Simple cases of that being places like Athens' approach to pollution (which had minimal effect) or Switzerland (I think?) making idling illegal. Small examples, but definite examples of the state confronting 'climate' issues (both in the name of vanity). But that fascism, as with many state fascisms, will take place under capitalism's gaze and name. Not that of the free market though.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by kinn

Now I have a MASSIVE problem with what you say about the rice and global warming. THIS is the ideological trap. this is zizek 101 stuff. The idea that capitalism COULD work but it CAN'T because of our human nature. if only we were more nice. we must look for this moral progress from within! this is the lie. from this it follows "oh we're all just so greedy, it's all OUR fault as consumers, but you can't change human nature, how depressing..." not only does this let the corporations off the hook, it basically casts the system as benevolent BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY HUMAN NATURE AS INHERENT AND SEPARATE FROM THE SYSTEM AND NOT MANUFACTURED BY IT. boom. can i have my zero books deal now.

The struggle I have is to identify what capitalism is; I don't feel its a single edifice to be removed, it's a million things, beyond the multiplicity and into the sublime. I don't disagree with what you've said above, except to say that capitalism doesn't have a single definition. Sometimes, capitalism is that version you're negating above. That isn't the one we should emphasise, I agree, and I've likely mis-represented myself if you've got that impression from what I wrote last night.