Dialogue with Scuba

A conversation between scuba and I over Steam that was fun. It is rife with unresearched claims and misspellings.

Never tell your password to anyone.

Jimothy: dude

Scuba: dude

Jimothy: i just was reading this declassified military document about the effects of nuclear weapons on my kindle

Jimothy: and i figured out why you wearing black is functional

Jimothy: one sec i'll just copy it

Jimothy: "once the victim is beyond the radius at

which light-colored fabrics are directly ignited, even simple precautions can greatly

reduce the extent and seriousness of thermal injuries. Many examples exist of people

severely burned on their faces and arms, but unburned beneath even a thin shirt or

blouse."

Jimothy: so if you're outside the blast wave of a nuke

Jimothy: and wearing dark clothing

Scuba: will it retard the absorbsion of radioactive materials

Jimothy: and you do'nt look at the thing,

Jimothy: bam you're good

Jimothy: first of all light colored fabrics ignite

Jimothy: from the heat pulse

Jimothy: and then if you happen to be in the direct line of sight for the light pulse

Jimothy: if you have clothing it like won't burn u

Jimothy: the clothing stops the haet

Jimothy: i never knew that only light colored fabrics ignited at a certain distance

Jimothy: loooool

Scuba: that is so weird

Jimothy: http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/mctl98-2/p2sec06.pdf

Jimothy: pg 18

Scuba: do you think it has something to do witht he heat being reflected from the light colors?

Jimothy: i found this in this torrent it downlaoded awhile ago

Jimothy: it has to

Jimothy: liek some kind of spectrum is ok some kind is not

Jimothy: for this like super brief pulse of heat

Jimothy: like dark colors absorb it or reflect it or something

Jimothy: and light colors just ignite

Jimothy: amg

Jimothy: At about 0.1 second after detonation, the shock front becomes sufficiently transparent

that radiation from the innermost, hottest regions becomes visible, producing a

second thermal peak. Before the second peak begins the fireball has radiated only

about one quarter of its total energy. About 99 percent of the total thermal energy is

contained in the second pulse. The duration of this pulse depends on the yield of the

weapon and the height of burst (HOB); it ranges from only about 0.4 s for a 1 kT

airburst to more than 20 s for a 10 MT explosion.

Jimothy: i don't think its declassified actually, i think they mad eit public on purpose

Jimothy: for ppl everywehre to benefit from their nuke testing so they didn't feel they had to do their own nuke testing

Scuba: that makes sense. your commment that is

Jimothy: The response of any given system to the thermal pulse depends on the absorption

properties of the test subject but also to the distance from the burst and the atmospheric

conditions between fireball and target such as clouds, snow, aerosols, and dust. The

atmosphere is not equally transparent at all wavelengths, so the spectrum of the radiation

incident on a target must be correctly calculated and then simulated

Jimothy: so will aerosol protect us from nukes?

Scuba: so the first wave is the blinding light. then its the second wave with the heat

Jimothy: which contains most of the energy of the heat

Jimothy: so you have a chance to react

Scuba: right but a quater of all the energy is produced in the wave of light.

Jimothy: but hopedfully the news at least has the balls tob el ike, whast up nukes comin

Jimothy: so most of the energy when added all up is in the blast wave

Jimothy: the blast wave goes farther than the heat

Scuba: but the timing will only give you a few min at most

Jimothy: but it goes at the speed of sound so you can get behind shit

Jimothy: so you'd notice light colored fabrics igniting around you

Jimothy: that means get behind shit

Scuba: think the blast wave would turn you to vapor?

Jimothy: and you might have been far enuff awy to survive

Jimothy: no thast the heat when you're really realyl close

Jimothy: its like every megaton

Jimothy: is one mile of vaporizing it hink

Jimothy: or its one mile of like catching everytihg on fire, and a fraction of miles for vaporizing

Scuba: so why dont we still have bomb shelters?

Jimothy: lol

Jimothy: no russia

Jimothy: but they still scare us with nukes

Jimothy: which would make more sense to have a bomb shelter

Scuba: but lots of countries with capability

Jimothy: bc if its a rogue state or terrorist

Jimothy: it would be highly localized the intial impact

Jimothy: and people would want to stay underground to swee which way the wend blew

Jimothy: i started reading thsi bc i'm interested in radiation

Jimothy: get this

Jimothy: so in debate

Jimothy: i'm judging and coaching i told u

Jimothy: but in debate you can have 2 types of impacts

Jimothy: overall

Jimothy: one is utilitarian the other is moral

Jimothy: for the most part, people stick with utilitarian

Jimothy: like "if you vote for me i save tons of lives"

Jimothy: instead of "if you vote for me my plan is morally right so fuck the people who ahve to die for it"

Jimothy: so because most of the arguments are utilitarian/consequentialist/body count

Jimothy: everyone links their shit to nuclear war

Jimothy: so there is this argument called "spark" and I don't know if it is an author's name or what but thats what everyone calls it

Jimothy: which says "nuclear war good"

Jimothy: it starts by claiming that nuclear war is survivable

Jimothy: then it says that our current use of energy leads to extinction

Jimothy: that there are type I type II and type III civilizations based on energy consumption

Jimothy: which is their ability to harness solar energy

Jimothy: then there is defense

Jimothy: like nukes get better with time so now is the best time to have a nuclear war

Jimothy: because if nukes get better nuke war won't be surivviable

Jimothy: then later they read cards about how in order for us to get off planet we have to become a type II civilization

Jimothy: lol

Jimothy: so i want to know how survivable long term a global nuclear war would be

Jimothy: because I think that a nuke war in which russia or the us launched any fraction of its stockpiles would lead to extinction

Jimothy: because it woudl kill off so many humans in different places and cause them to be infertile and cause a population bottleneck and kill the water and crops

Scuba: its not like they can target every area on the planet though. least not yet

Jimothy: i guess it depends on the amount launched, but I do believe ther eis a point at which extinction happens when a certain number of nukes of a certain number of megatons is launched

Jimothy: i dion't know what that numbe ris, but its somewher ein my head

Scuba: humans tend to be crafty though

Jimothy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nukecloud.png

Jimothy: our shits way bigger than 10 megatons

Jimothy: lets find out though

Jimothy: what we woudl launch

Jimothy: in my opion

Jimothy: is a trident sub

Jimothy: which could get cut off

Jimothy: i think they mad ea movie about htis

Jimothy: they thought they got orders for nukes

Scuba: trident subs are a fail safe

Jimothy: to make sure we have second strike capability

Scuba: bombers would be first

Jimothy: which means they always have to be ready to receiv ea signal to launch

Jimothy: what if that signal was sent

Scuba: yeah. they are the back up

Jimothy: somehow in some mistake

Jimothy: they woudl have no way to check it

Jimothy: ok

Jimothy: lets say

Jimothy: korea builds an icbm

Jimothy: would we retaliate?

Jimothy: if they could hit the us

Jimothy: if they nuked LA

Scuba: they dont have to hit the us.

Jimothy: if Iran nuked Israel?

Scuba: they would just have to hit japan

Jimothy: and we would retaliate with nuclear capability?

Jimothy: just for them nuking japan/.?

Jimothy: i mean japan is hearty when it comes to nukes

Jimothy: they're nuclear grizzled

Scuba: no. we have conventional weapons that would decimate that country

Jimothy: no we can't say that

Jimothy: we've seen that logic

Jimothy: in afghanistan the graveyard of empires

Jimothy: and mess o' potama

Jimothy: potamia*

Scuba: if we didnt have to worry about casualties. we would glass citys with thermoberic shits

Scuba: we wouldnt need nukes

Jimothy: bc thats all we'd do

Jimothy: is nuke civilians

Jimothy: ppl that are basicaly being held hostage by the powerful

Jimothy: especially evident in that country

Scuba: afganistan is fighting a guerilla war. armies are not good with guerilla

Jimothy: loose dark clothing i guess

Scuba: warfare

Jimothy: ick

Jimothy: afgthanistan is a tribal land

Jimothy: it was never afghanistan

Jimothy: it was a bunch of tribal and local governments

Jimothy: we shoudl just get the fuck out and stay out

Jimothy: iraq we're never leaving

Jimothy: ever

Jimothy: until the next hegemon takes over

Jimothy: its germany its japan its korea its kuwait

Scuba: isnt taking terrioties part of warfare?

Scuba: strategery speaking

Jimothy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions#Summary_of_the_effects

Jimothy: but this isn't warfare

Jimothy: its not a state

Jimothy: they've acknowledged that

Jimothy: its a failed state

Scuba: i guess we would have to nuke afganistan

Jimothy: thats the logic behind their "enemy combatant" bullshit

Jimothy: its police action

Jimothy: its fucking weird

Jimothy: its a manhunt

Jimothy: think about htat fuck

Jimothy: this is an effort to prosecute someone for a crime

Jimothy: and it turned in tot he longest war in US history

Scuba: so yeah. we are still at war right. and 8 year long war right

Jimothy: they call it conflagaration on this chart when u burn up

Scuba: why did we ever cut taxes?

Jimothy: yes...

Jimothy: and i suppose it worked

Jimothy: he got bitpartisanship

Jimothy: got dadt repeal passed

Jimothy: got start passed

Jimothy: but nobody will notice those things

Jimothy: or realize how amazing they are

Jimothy: and in order to do it we pay a really high cost in my opinion which is another tax cut for millionaires

Jimothy: he was also over a barrel, he had to get unemployment benefits extended

Jimothy: that would have crushed the economy if it wasn't passed

Scuba: but the start treaty and the 9/11 bill should have been nonissues.

Jimothy: there would be fucking bread lines

Jimothy: exactly

Jimothy: so republicans have better political maneuvers

Jimothy: they're more cohesive than democrats

Jimothy: democrats are pussies

Jimothy: they're not allowed to be liberal

Jimothy: or else they're soft on crime or pinkos or fuckin whatever

Scuba: they dont need to be liberal though.

Scuba: or very liberal

Jimothy: but people should have noticed that republicans were going to force a recession if they didn't get a tax cut for millionaires

Jimothy: everybody should have notied that

Jimothy: but the media is conservative

Jimothy: the myth of the liberla media is shattered again

Jimothy: except for msnbc's marketing strategy now

Jimothy: which just spits the weak ass liberal shit

Jimothy: the colmes bullshit

Jimothy: bounding the debate on the left

Scuba: the media isnt liberal or conservative. they are just trendy and shallow

Jimothy: dude the media is controlled by a few corporations

Jimothy: those corporations are very wealthy

Jimothy: many of those corporations have actualy companies they own that produce weapons

Scuba: i know that.

Jimothy: if they don't actually directly own them they have huge investments in the military industricla complex

Jimothy: the media will therefore be pro business, whcih means anti-labor

Jimothy: the media willb e pro-war, which means anti-dissent

Jimothy: the media will be pro prison, which means they'll be anti common sense drug laws

Scuba: thats why npr is so epic.

Jimothy: true

Jimothy: lots of politicians trying to shut them down

Jimothy: they say "starve the government"

Jimothy: thats their platform

Jimothy: but the things the govenrment is gorging itself on they don't touch

Jimothy: they kill little tiny social programs like a subisdy for npr and shit like that

Scuba: dude all news orgs and hospitals need to be nonprofit. thats my new belief

Jimothy: i'm pissed at obama and republican and democrats!

Jimothy: th;at could be a good middle ground between public and private

Jimothy: i don't disagree

Jimothy: i'd support a policy like that

Jimothy: did you see that thing the loner stoner put on my facebook?

Jimothy: about julian assange's next target being a bank?

Scuba: things that are for the peoples benifit should not be allowed to make large profits

Scuba: yeah. heard about that in october

Jimothy: i totally agree, certain things are social goods and as people with political needs and taxpayers we should protect them from the market

Jimothy: because the market doesn't give a fuck about what you want

Scuba: exactly

Jimothy: all these banks are refusing to process donations to assange

Jimothy: but bc of all the media

Jimothy: he got tons of high rollers to donat ei think

Scuba: the market can totally survive with out trying to make a buck on everything

Scuba: its epic

Scuba: it truly is.

Jimothy: i think he must have known

Jimothy: that he was going to secure massive funding

Jimothy: in order to make such a suicidal statmeent

Scuba: hopefully this is the catalyst the people will need

Jimothy: or maybe its like a "if they say i killed myself tomorow, its because i'm about to take down a bank"

Scuba: well its not like he is the sole owner of this information.

Jimothy: well he hasn't relaese it yet

Jimothy: i mean u got any idea how many spies and keyloggers that guys got?

Jimothy: they prolly know weveryone who has it or the servers that its on

Scuba: yeah but he and his droogies have it and could release it

Jimothy: that was one of anon's missions was to mirror all the info so that it was literally impossible for the government to censor it

Scuba: its the internet you cant keep shit off it

Jimothy: i can't vbelieve time didn't make him man of the year

Jimothy: the online poll was ridiculous

Jimothy: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2028734_2029036_2029037,00.html

Jimothy: zuckerbergis number 10

Jimothy: ffs

Scuba: he will get it next year when this controversy dies

Jimothy: so ridiuclous

Jimothy: not him but him being the face whatever hes an arrogant prick apparently

Jimothy: but wikileaks is so fuckign important

Jimothy: its like the internet culture of open source and opposing censorship flowered and is acting on the real world

Scuba: important people tend to be pricks imo

Scuba: doesnt mean their causes arent worth while

Jimothy: oh listen to what i got my sis and bro for xmas

Jimothy: i got them both the first manga of death note first of all

Jimothy: then my bro got 2 tpbs of the boys

Jimothy: andy my sis 3 tpbs of irredeemable

Scuba: i just saw that there are five volumes of irredeemable.

Scuba: wtf!

Scuba: my brother in law loved the boys

Jimothy: that means a new one we haven't read?

Scuba: so many. there is also two volumes of incorruptable.

Jimothy: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2039711,00.html

Jimothy: the people who the tea party elects are fascists

Scuba: dude. im starting to like scott brown

Jimothy: whats he been doin?

Scuba: pissing off the teaparty

Jimothy: lol

Jimothy: lololol;

Jimothy: they organized that thing fo rhim in boston

Jimothy: and he didn't show up

Jimothy: he didn't wanan be associated with them

Jimothy: i give him props for htat

Scuba: i know. cause mass doesnt want a teaparty

Scuba: we had ours

Jimothy: lol

Scuba: it sure was weird how much got done in the lame duck.

Jimothy: because democrats are afraid of next term

Scuba: but know what i find really interesting.

Jimothy: wut

Jimothy: wiki sez he was one of five republicans who tried to get the jobs bill passed immediately

Jimothy: actually i don't know

Scuba: the republicans with a minority were able to strongarm everyone. so when the tables are reversed next session. everyone already assumes that the dems will roll over. even the dems seem to feel that way.

Jimothy: it sez cloture

Jimothy: i think thats the media

Jimothy: creating a narrative

Scuba: but no one is trying to refute it.

Jimothy: i think it was an effort at bipartisanship

Jimothy: i mean it was a compromise

Jimothy: a millionaire tax cut sucks ass

Jimothy: but a bunch of shit got done

Jimothy: i guess thats what obama said he'd do in the campain is aim for bi part

Jimothy: obama was hoping this would be cast as a win for him

Scuba: which people are saying it is

Jimothy: but then whats next

Jimothy: he should get some of the other shit he said he'd pass

Jimothy: he said he'd get the senate to ratify ctbt

Scuba: whats ctbt

Jimothy: comprehensive test ban treaty

Jimothy: clinton signed it awhile ago

Jimothy: but it just gets tabbled in the senate

Scuba: there should be a limit on tableing

Jimothy: he said in the campaignhe'd passit

Jimothy: well its better this way for this policy

Jimothy: because the military has acted as if the senate were about to ratify it fo ryears

Jimothy: that document from the army i linked to you

Jimothy: said that they stopped testing in 96

Jimothy: and i was like wtf, ctbt never was ratified

Jimothy: that was like jessie helms capstone

Jimothy: just an old white supremacist conservative

Jimothy: any policy that restrained the military was bad

Jimothy: he'd be okay with the military being police

Jimothy: how about a little work on gitmo

Jimothy: whatever

Jimothy: but the state of the union is in jan

Scuba: gitmo is never going away dude

Jimothy: next month we'll hear the state of the union

Jimothy: we'll see if he can carry the bipart over

Scuba: nope.

Scuba: he wont.

Jimothy: so people ar ejust going to be in this state of exception until they die at gitmo

Jimothy: its so fucked up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scuba: i know

Jimothy: at least he gave like half of 'em trials

Jimothy: anybody tlakin shit about eric holder

Jimothy: he may be a douchebag

Jimothy: but him and obama are not bringing the federal marshalls down on states with open pot laws

Jimothy: and he managed to get a few trials

Jimothy: better than nothing

Jimothy: scott brown voted for the repeal?

Jimothy: baller

Scuba: hell yeah he did. he is from mass

Jimothy: jobs bill and start

Jimothy: not bad

Jimothy: the eloguence

Jimothy: lol

Scuba: i just wonder how long he will be able to keep this up

Jimothy: perfect i'm not even gonna fix that spelling

Jimothy: "There’s enough of an underground movement in the Tea Party movement as seeing him as not being conservative enough.

Jimothy: presidnet of the greater boston tea party

Jimothy: shes obviously stupid

Jimothy: why couldn't she just be like "there are a growing number of people in the tea party movement that believe he is not conservative enough"

Jimothy: or like

Jimothy: lots of people don't think hes conservative enough

Scuba: in my opinion. there is voting witht he party no matter what. then there is doing what you think is best for your state and country.

Jimothy: underground movmeent in the movement which see things

Jimothy: he represents massachusetts

Scuba: underground movement adds a layer of intrigue

Jimothy: if he keeps voting for easy bills and not being extremist douchebag he'll get re-elected

Jimothy: i mean wtf start?

Jimothy: why would you oppose it?

Scuba: i know

Jimothy: its a simple check on accidental launch and proliferation

Jimothy: the repeal of dadt?

Jimothy: wtf

Jimothy: its not like NOW there are gays in the military

Jimothy: its like we just got rid of this antiquated thing

Scuba: but dadt is going to be tricky though.

Jimothy: yes this is what i have heard

Scuba: with all the fine details.

Jimothy: it might be used to discriminate

Scuba: it will work. its just going to end up setting an example for the rest of the countries policy

Scuba: obvioulsy it will.

Scuba: people are still discriminated becasue they are colored.

Jimothy: which is good

Scuba: but no as much anymore

Jimothy: i mean the firs thting u said

Scuba: yeah.

Scuba: it will be. but it will take a while and not fun

Scuba: not be fun

Jimothy: modeling is important as well

Jimothy: maybe asking is important

Jimothy: maybe its really really bad

Jimothy: because if they ask

Jimothy: they can figure out if there is discrimination

Scuba: but they dont have to tell

Scuba: why should they have to

Scuba: if they dont want to bring their sexuality into their job they shouldnt have to.

Scuba: but. what do you do about dependents for teh gheys

Scuba: do they get the same rights as the non gheys?

Scuba: if so where does that apply? only foriegn bases, only certain states?

Jimothy: does anythign need to be changed?

Jimothy: i don't think so

Scuba: so they can serve but they cant get married?

Jimothy: well

Jimothy: lets get that taken car eof

Scuba: cant bring their loved ones overseas? share the same insurance and back accounts?

Jimothy: if gays wanna make themselves misreable with marraige and die for vague ideas of nationalism then shit we oughtta let 'em

Jimothy: well lets get that taken care of!

Scuba: i know right

Scuba: im just saying that dadt is going to have to answer these questions

Jimothy: elaine donnely's think tank si called the center for military readiness

Scuba: and those answers will have to carry over to the states the personel live in

Jimothy: the acronym CMR, can also stand for civil-military relations

Jimothy: I hope they are answered correctly

Scuba: me too

Jimothy: and i'm glad the military supported this

Scuba: me too.

Jimothy: it shows a very politically conscious military

Jimothy: even though they're getting shit on by politics left and right

Scuba: my friend whos in the army brought up some interesting questions.

Jimothy: maybe thats why i guess

Scuba: lets say there are two people in a unit. ones gay the other has a problem with it.

Jimothy: then he can suck it up and follow orders lol

Jimothy: i mean fuck

Scuba: can the commander request transfers on this bases with out violating anyones rights?

Jimothy: or he gets booted jsut like a white supremacist serviceman beating a jewish or black serviceman

Scuba: they only got booted cause they beat the guy.

Jimothy: the commander can request transfers and he'll choose whichever he thinks is best

Jimothy: exactly

Jimothy: at the point its reaching violence its fucking with discipline

Jimothy: up until then who cares

Jimothy: you may ahte someone u still gotta follow orders

Scuba: but verbal and emotional abuse happen with much more frequency and goes unpunished.

Jimothy: and u might as well be nice bc you neve rknow if he'll be ur supreior officer down the road

Jimothy: thats true, but I don't think this policy was restraining such instances

Scuba: not everyone thinks that way

Jimothy: i think there were still many instances before this policy, and most people were aware if people in their unit were gay

Scuba: oh yeah it was well known.

Jimothy: means that others will have to get used to the idea of being exposed to people who may be sexually attracted to them

Jimothy: lol

Scuba: we have had queermos in the service for as long as weve had queermos

Jimothy: thats what donnely sez

Jimothy: its like do these peple not udnerstand that gays wer ein the military before dadt was repealed?

Jimothy: i norite

Scuba: why do people think that every gay person they meet is going to hit on them or rape them?

Scuba: just now the military has to recognize that fact

Jimothy: thats the other thing people conflat homosexuality with sexual violence and pedophila

Scuba: which will be sweet, in the end

Scuba: proabably be pretty bitter before then

Jimothy: there is possbility for backfire, but we might see a good result in terms of long term acceptance of homosexuality as a social inevitability

Scuba: when those instances are usually done by the straights

Jimothy: ok i should hav eleft for work like 5 min ago, i'm supposed to get in to logan at 11pm, and my bro flew today and said that the airports are complete clusterfuck terrible so we'll see

Jimothy: i'll talk to you before my flight though peace

Scuba: later

Counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency are the same thing

 This blog made me angry, this is my way too long comment, I hate "experts" They haven't read anything you can't read.


Number one: There is no difference between counter-insurgency and counter-terror. WTF, I feel like i'm taking crazy pills! Lets take out the counter and we end up with insurgency and terror(short for terrorism). 
WHat is the difference between insurgency and terrorism? The definitions of both are exactly the same they just use different words. A terrorist IS an insurgent it just depends on HOW YOU WANT TO LABEL THE ONGOING CONFLICT: a civil war or a few fringe violent radicals who want regime change. An insurgency is just a larger pattern of terrorism. WTF!? is nobody else seeing this? Is it really that hard? How would "insurgency" manifest itself? violent actions against civilians or government? in order to destabilize a regime? OH SHIT! well how would "terrorism" manifest itself? VIOLENT ACTIONS AGAINST CIVILIANS OR GOVERNMENT IN ORDER TO DESTABILIZE A REGIME!

How can you say, end A, but begin A(with a different label). How can you be so naive as to think the two are different and how can you be so naive as to not realize that we are in Afghanistan until we fall, just like Korea, Germany, Japan, Gitmo, Iraq, etc., etc.  YOU ARE ONLY HELPING THE REGIME RE-LABEL AN UNSUSTAINABLE WAR!

Now I would like to address this next point You said: "The U.S. could "win" in Afghanistan where victory is defined as a stable, legitimate central government that can project power within its own borders."

There has NEVER been a central government that can project power to all of Afghanistan. As you claim to have some knowledge of geopolitics you should really really know this. Pakistan through the Taliban could never do it, Russia could never do it, and we will not be able to do it. You should also be aware that when you use neutral words like "project power" what you really mean is that the central government has the ability to regularly enact violence in all geographical areas within those borders. We don't need your pedantic euphemisms to efface the utopian violence you are advocating Mr. COIN expert.
Regaining hard power he says. All you "experts" on hegemony have not historicized your discourse. Let me give you a quick history lesson: Its world war I!!!!! omg a multipolar hegemonic system! Many different "poles" or world powers duking it out over vague concepts of ethnicity and economic bitterness. OMG its world war 2!!!! The vague concepts of ethnicity have become completely entrenched in nationhood and are now conflated with "race" in what will be the final act of a multipolar hegemonic system two winners will emerge. CCCP and USA. Now look! A bi-polar hegemonic system! The concept of race's imbrication with nation has been effaced by the feigned revulsion of the holocaust's eradication of the other(even though the need to fill the psychic ontology of the self through destruction of the other is still part and parcel of modernism), now we are on to ideology! Two different poles of thought police: USSR and United States, labeling their justifications for violence "Communism" and "democracy" respectively. who will win!?!?

There are a lot of ideas about the transition from bipolar to unipolar out there. The only one that matters is the narrative of energy. Without energy the lights go out no more typey typey on computer, no more lithium from bolivia for ipods, no more IPODS!!!!! No more food, no more movement, no more credit, etc. Our current historical trajectory requires immense amounts of energy or else everything crashes. In order to become the unipolar world power the USSR and USA engaged in ideological battles, proxy warfare (for ideology, energy, drugs etc.) but in the end the country that controls energy will be the unipolar hegemon. The USSR suffered internal collapse before any ultimate confrontation could take place: rumors of a travel visa causing the berlin wall to fall. THen glasnost and perestroika causing the fissures of an already troubled society to become apparent. Without the competition from the USSR it was now the USA's turn to dictate the terms of global organization. Actions like Kosovo, the first gulf war(being the iran-iraq war[which was a policy actively supported by washington's agenda:making iran and iraq batter eachother in order to make sure a regional hegemon never appeared]), the other two gulf wars, special forces deployment in Iran, destabilization campaigns in Iran. Were the efforts of the US intelligence community in destabilizing Iran insurgency or terrorism? Do you understand yet?

A stable democracy in afghanistan, point out a stable democracy in this world. Were you paying attention to the midterm elections? we are a divided country. There is no such thing as some utopian stable democracy, everybody has problems, internal contradictions, and unsustainable institutions.

Now here is where your argument goes completely off the wall: you claim war fatigue is the undergirding support for your argument!!!! WAR FATIGUE!! in this day and age? Iran and Iraq aren't even on the fucking list of issues this election, nobody gives a shit, war has become entertainment! We eradicate the other through our remote control bombers(which by the way Iran has started building [I hope you're the first one to get hit by one, for advocating terrorism through remote control aircraft in the first place you ignorant americunt]) to create a "stable"(like you say) ontology of self. There are no stable ontologies of self and no stable democracies, in fact nothing in this world is stable we re-create THE ENTIRE FUCKING THING EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY! Why should we be killing people for your utopian dream! because you re-label the violence?

How will "overextension" manifest itself n00b? lol can't we just....RECRUIT MORE! lol, elect more republicans to cut social spending send more to the military? Well we've BEEN DOING THAT FOR A LONG LONG TIME! Why does this war which is the longest in US history and STILL HAS NOT CAUSED WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT happen all of a sudden now?

China "free riding" lol what is this mancur olson? Are you aware of the joint military drills China and Russia regularly engage in? are you aware of SEATO and various other asian military, economic, and political treaties? Why would the chinese collapse the dollar? It would destroy their growth and the rest of the world's economies. There is no danger of China calling in debts it knows it can't be paid, in the same way there is no danger from a state launched nuclear missile because of mutually assured destruction. Now comes the real reason you want to get out of Afghanistan: TO REDEPLOY ELSESHWERE! To be ready for various other paranoid "red dawn" fantasies.

OH no theres more! we will use the money to PAY INTEREST ON THE DEBTS THAT WILL NEVER BE CALLED IN! rofl, this is so epically absurd.

"Only the B-52 Effect will prevent a resumption of frank civil war along ethnic lines,"

The B-52 effect is terror of what we can drop on them from above right? some kind of....terrorism? right?

"To paraphrase the line from Kaplan's Warrior Politics that changed my mind: At the end of the day, America's power to do good is strongest when American hard power is both abundant and largely held in reserve."

The quote that changed your mind is Kaplan's rehashing of the white man's burden?!!?!? When has the US ever done "Good"? When it happened was it not just serendipity that caused it while the US was pursuing its reified agenda?

We're in afghanistan to stay, if you're gonna advocate the opposite, at least strap on a nutsack and say it like you mean it none of this re-labeling equivocation bullshit.

"32" of Liquid Crystal anodyne" By The Owl

Got a contribution from a friend of mine The Owl, this is what he writes: 

Empty is modern life.  Void of a purpose, we live in physical comfort and security but writhe in mental anguish at the dismal aspect of meaningless existence.  How the fuck, then, do we get by?

Reading Kaczynski's Manifesto, among what amounts to paranoid venom against an innately evil, yet strangely ambiguous, "technology", something of a truth appears.  Modern man, supplied with all the necessities of survival, obtainable with a minimum of effort, must supplement his psyche with "surrogate activities."  These activities are our jobs, aspirations, hobbies and passions.  They are, in the accepted morality of today, all of what constitutes a healthy and useful life.

It is unfortunate, however, that they are all bull shit.  At the root, each an every pursuit not focused on the basic survival or gratification of the basic senses is a pathetic attempt at fulfilling that empty hollow hole we all feel deep inside.

Whether Kaczynski is right to blame technology for these woes is a mute point, since it is obvious that technology and humanity walk hand in hand.  Thus, to denigrate technology is to denigrate homo sapien as well, which, all of us being human --or am I writing for future A?I-- is pointless.

Taking technology, and all its circumstances, as a priori, we see that this vapid, wasteland of purpose is unavoidable and must be dealt with as a force outside our control.

How to deal?  Suicide?  Hedonism?  Some form of blinder that allows us, in the words of Peter Gibbons, to "just come home and think I've been fishing all day or something?"  Or is the ability to deal simply, turn a bilnd eye to what's apparent and plow on ahead, what most of us term "growing up"?

Last weekend, these existential woes had me deep in a shadowy valley.  A highly anticipated day off from work, without school or any other obligation, should have been blessed, but instead I awoke with a terrible feeling of anguish.  I could think of nothing to do, or more to the point, nothing that I wanted to do.

So, at her suggestion, Ellen and I wandered down to the Charles river to watch the regatta.  (By the bye, did you not know that I now live with my girlfirend, ******?)

It was boring.  The boats moved endlessly down the river and it was impossible to know what you were watching.  Who was winning?  Who was racing?  The fluid strokes of the rowers and the boats cutting through the water were aesthetically pleasing, but so were the clouds in the sky and I could have watched them just as easily (which I did).

The most notable aspect was the veritable fair the grew up along the river banks, having nothing to do with skulling or Vespolis and everything to do with Consumption.  Apparently, the Head of the Charles is a great place to stock up on free samples of junk food, shop for overpriced clothing and be more or less cerebrially inundated with commercial ectoplasm.  I had no wish to push through a crowd like an infant pig to the fat teats of the Dunkin Donuts truck handing out free shot glass sized Pumpkin Spice Lattes, so I applied myself to naviating safely through the masses and not sobbing out of pity for the all those present.

This has nothing to do with my overall argument other than to set the scene for my emotional state of mind.  Any other day, any other time, the setting and circumstances are different, but the basic story is the same.  Without a surrogate activity, I am depressed, lost, confused, antisocial and altogether, so pathetically, sane.

Now, the day continued in this blase manner, growing ever more tedious and unendurable.  Naturally, my ill feeling permeated the air around me and infected my significant other (who doesn't share my former sentiments, or at least refuses to acknowledge them) until we were both exhausted with the effort of living effortlessly.

Towards evening, Ellen brought up the current Best Buy sale.  Our apartment was without a television, one white wall in our living space glaringly vacant, the whole room some how incomplete.  We were living in American sin.  She suggested we atone for this sin by buying a TV, and in the process, though this was not stated, only implied, supply ourselves with a purpose.

Consuming - not the food we need, nor the sights, sounds, smells and touches of an active life- but commercial goods, is an extremely effective surrogate activity.  From the moment I agreed to the plan, I felt immensely better.  We looked up bus schedules, purposefully gathered the necessary cards, bags and clothing for the trip, all the while feeling more and more sure of our own agency.  Throughout all of this, I was aware of the fiction, and yet it still affected me positively.  I knew how pathetic, how false and, may I use the word, EVIL this turn of events was, but like scratching your ass in public, once you give in to the craving, even the disapproving glare of a beautiful girl cannot stop you from sphincter spelunking.

We took the trip, the deal went down.  All the way home we guarded our precious new purchase like it was the physical manifestation of that happy feeling.  It really (and this is totally without sarcasm) was a wonderful night.  All because we were able to fill that drafty void of existence with this greedy, self-centered activity.

You could argue that there are many other surrogate activities that are not so base.  But with each example, e.g. jogging, reading philosophy on the internet, volunteering at a hospital, smoking phat-ass blunts etc. you must acknowledge that at the root, these are all desperate attempts to paper over a structural fracture at the cornerstone of our being.

There is no conclusion here, only complaint.  Please respond.

Please do not vote for Mark Kirk tomorrow

For those of you who have not read this blog(thats everyone but me), I have been paying close attention to Mark Kirk since he first became a congressman. I would just like to write down the reasons why I would vote against him even if he was running against Satan.


1. Mark Kirk claimed that he had special classified intelligence that confirmed the fact that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq we just had to trust him(I cannot find this cite online [the Giannoulias website sez its chicago daily herald, 10/27/02; Chicago Daily Herald, 10/8/04] I have not managed to confirm that).
Now kirk claims that Bush lied to him! http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/gop-senate-hopeful-bush-official-lied-iraq/

but please take 10 seconds out of your day and watch this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gupBSG09YpY

I might be crazy here, but I think he got Bush and Saddam mixed up.


2. Mark Kirk claimed to have been in Operation Iraqi Freedom, which is to say he claimed to have killed hajis in the Iraq war in order to make us safe. This article explains how he equivocated out of it, but any intelligent person wouldn't buy his bullshit http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/06/kirk_campaign_mum_on_another_a.html 
This is part of a larger pattern of packing bullshit behind claims of military service: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeFf4JNx3tc

3.Mark Kirk claimed to have been the Navy's "Intelligence officer of the year" a claim which gets broken down by research at this blog: http://ellenofthetenth.blogspot.com/2010/05/details-on-kirks-award-show-kirks.html  Long story short he claimed the navy gave him an award the navy doesn't give. Claimed it was a prestigious award with a similar name even though it wasn't. Claimed that he was intelligence "officer" when in fact it was given to an entire "combat wing". Kirk's role within that combat wing is marginal at best.

4. Now I want to dwell on what we haven't been addressing directly: MARK KIRK IS A SPOOK! Kirk is a spy! He works for the ONI(Office of Naval Intelligence). The intelligence community works to achieve the agenda of wall street, the 1% of the 1%. A spy will never represent what is best for you, a Spy will do whatever it takes to barely stay in office in order to push money to his real constituency. But you may just say: "ONI is the oldest intelligence agency and its within a branch of the armed forces, whats so bad about that?". So I ask you to read this quote: http://cryptome.org/kirk-cia.htm
"To my knowledge, there are only three current Members of Congress who work with the CIA: our chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), the author of this amendment; the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons);and me, who is detailed to the CIA from navy intelligence." So as of 2005 Kirk was "detailed to the CIA". Now is it a little more apparent? Intelligence is an area of the executive in which a shadow government can be created because THERE IS LITTLE OR NO OVERSIGHT. During wartime (not our bullshit wars of choice, but wars like world war II) it may be justifiable to have a robust intelligence community with some independence. But when there is not an existential threat we do not need the lesser evil of a shadow government within the executive to check the greater evil of a total collapse in government. The more we let the foot soldiers of wall street infiltrate the legitimate political apparatuses of the United States the more we will see more militarization in our policy: Imperialism abroad(kirk's efforts to lie in order to get a war with Iraq, then say anything to make people forget/forgive for the lie), repression at home through the expansion of the drug war/prison industrial complex(The only bill Kirk has authored in recent history is a bill to make incarceration/penalties harsher for more potent marijuana[thats right if you have bad marijuana its a lesser sentence than if you have high grade marijuana{this is such a perfect example of a wall street policy}]), and anti-progressive fiscal policies(tax cuts for the rich[because rich people have to eat too!]). Those are the three themes you will find in wall street's agenda. Now I'm going to move to the borders here.

5. Another thing that wall street loves is money laundering. There is a good deal of evidence that vast amounts of money are laundered through US banks, stock markets, and corporations the most famous of which being: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/imf-loans-to-russia-sold-on-sly-alleges-skuratov-1119438.html The massive IMF loan to Russia to stabilize the rouble before the turn of the millennium saw a large portion of its money rerouted through US banks most notably the Bank of New York. As you can imagine this influx of liquid can have very positive effects for an economy, and thusly it is in the interest of wall street to make sure that the United States stays a haven for money laundering. In order to achieve this agenda the banks most be quite independent, there must be very little corporate financial oversight, and there has to be massive amounts of illicit money sloshing around in the economy. This is one reason why the CIA who was providing the Hmong militias in the plain of jars with funding and logistics necessary to keep the barracks open(as a tripwire to communist chinese land invasion of southeast asia) and the poppy fields plowed (exports of opium) ensured that some of it make it to the United States. I'm not going to go to in to the specifics here if you are not familiar with this then check out (professor at University of Wisconsin) Doctor Alfred McCoy's book "politics of Heroin". The reason I bring this up is because a non-fiction book "shadowplay" by Tim Marshall (not to be confused with the novel of the same name)

"He quotes one source, quoting Mark Kirk a US intelligence officer saying that: 'Eventually we opened up a huge operation against Milosevic, both secret and open. We gave KLA both military, technical, officers as directors, logistical support, we smuggled drugs, ran prostitution rackets and murdered civilians, and blamed all this on the Serbs and Milosevic.'"

I had to give you the background because some people would ask: "why would an intelligence officer slang drugs and pimp hoo'ers?": Its the economy stupid. Specifically the most important part of the economy the cash economy. Because if you have cash, you can borrow more!  Credit can't get you more credit, but cash? cash gets you more credit.


6. This one is rumor, but I have to at least mention it after Kirk voted against the DADT repeal. Certain males have claimed to have had relationships with Kirk in the past and recently.

Thats right folks Mark Kirk is a spy, a pimp, a drug dealer, a liar, an anti-gay closeted homosexual, murderer,  and the only legislation hes written is to make pot more illegal. 

Mark Kirk's career may be in intelligence but attempting to brand Bush a liar as the sole source of WMD info when this youtube video is one click away, shows what he thinks of your intelligence. United Statesians may have a short memory, but it cannot possibly be this short! Please do not vote for this man tomorrow.



MARK KIRK IS NOT A MODERATE: "I will lead the effort to repeal" and "we're well on our way to making this guy a one termer"

halloween

I've thought about this before and it is probably well known, but it is interesting to note. Writing off the top of my head so no real research I suppose, but it is popular knowledge that Halloween stems from a holiday known as "all hallows eve" or something along those lines. I don't intend to claim this is universal, but just in my certain(anglo) historical trajectory this is where Halloween is situated historically.
All hallows eve was the point in time in which the border between the world of the dead and the world of the living became most porous and started to strengthen itself again. This is much like other pagan(for lack of a better metonym) rituals in which the waxing and waning of natural phenomena were encoded(pine trees at the winter equinox, fertility symbols at the rebirth of spring). But instead of something that we have encoded in to scientific discourse(like the cycle of seasons because rotation around the sun and pine trees not losing needles in winter because of their evolution) this border between the world of the living has been effaced with Halloween. Not to make it seem like this was the agenda of someone, this was just a result of one more successive layer of dialectic atop an ever more specific historical trajectory. The culmination of structures of micro-power or the "mutual, indefinite blackmail" of power relations reifying yet one more concept by shuffling it through the zone of exception.

Halloween originally meant that one had to disguise oneself from shades and creatures who might happen to cross the border between the world of the dead and the world of the living. Old religions along my historical trajectory mostly did not have a heaven, simply a world of the dead and a world of the living. Greek religious structures, Roman, Assyrian, and Old Testament all have/had a world of the living and a world of the dead. The idea that there is third world in play is a relatively new innovation. This need to be disguised from the ghouls and lost souls meant a subversion of the general social order. Much like episodes in the winter equinox(x-mas) throughout history: spontaneous ceasefires, the replacement of the king by a town drunk or possibly insane person and killing the unstable individual at the end of the day to symbolize the death and rebirth of the kingdom itself(Sacea). These older rituals that have become encoded in to our culture represent points in time where subversion of the general norms WAS the norm.

So now most people regard Halloween as a day in which dwelling dwellers buy candy and give it to people who come to their door. These people are children dressed in costumes and their guardians. But there is also another halloween in which the older nature of Halloween is made apparent: gender roles, specifically the female role of "slut". I don't mean to slap you in the face with the word, but this is the best description I can come up with. There is a role out there for females to play: "slut", but this role is considered not what "good" females do. For the most part the role that we have created for female demands that they not derive pleasure from sex and not desire sex. Most importantly though: that they never notice the power that comes with sex and exploit it. Such male paranoia about such obvious things has bled in to modern ideas of femaleness. Lets be honest here we all derive pleasure from sex(assuming its not terrible sex), we all desire sex (not all the time but often), and we all seek our own agenda using most of the tools available to us whether it be sex or not. But even though logic cuts through these roles quickly and easily we are still shackled by these roles (male and female alike). We are all stuck policing each other in to these roles.

This other Halloween still celebrates the old pagan rituals' theme of subversion of the existing order and it is adult Halloween. The double standard of "pimp vs. ho" in which men are celebrated and respected for being sexually involved with multiple partners. In colloquialisms these are referred to as "conquests" and other loaded words that betray this double standard. Women on the other hand are ostracized and placed in counter-factual roles if they are perceived to be sexually involved with multiple partners. During Halloween there is a subversion of the existing order in that as we are policing each other in to these reified roles, we no longer can place women in the "slut" role as a result of their knowledge of their own sexuality. On Halloween women having knowledge of their sexuality is normal, so have fun. But keep in mind the reason I am bringing this up, is because it is so apparent when it is not Halloween. Without a subversion of the existing order we may have never known that this double standard is not a universal truth.

Muslim Paranoia (THE mosque at [emotional heuristic here])

I will not say the same shit. I will not say: "In this country we have freedom of religion!". We do not have freedom of religion we have an old document that says we do, many in the USA do not have freedom of religion. It is also too simplistic for the people who don't have a reason for their objections to a mosque somewhat spatially near the wound in Manhattan. I will not say: "Islam is different than other religions, it is significantly more dangerous!". Islam is whatever Muslims (and non-Muslims) make of it. It is an idea, if that idea is used to kill people than is it any different from our ideas of law and war? Do we not justify our own killing? Every breath we take is a breath stolen from someone else, freedom=inequality.

I would like to side-step to explain the phrase" "immutable ontology". First the word immutable means to never change...EVER. The second word traditionally in philosophy means the study of the body or bodies. Recently in philosophy it has become the response to the question: "What Am I?", "What is Human?", or "What is Being? or to be?". The way I like to use ontology in this phrase is to imply a bordered area or metonym (when used in this fashion a metonym is the area which a word represents[if you and a friend both picture a chair in your mind's eye, you will never picture the exact same thing, but you will both agree that each other's picture was a chair]). These definitions of ontology and metonym are not in most dictionaries, so please don't think that this is something I didn't look up. These words attain different meaning depending on what stimuli you expose yourself to. In my research ontology and metonym are great functional words for communicating ideas.

So you have probably figured out what I'm getting at by "immutable ontology" by now. The idea that something has the potential to not change: whether it be ideas, non-living or living things. The modern world pits humans against impermanence, locking them in a losing battle to attain security through immutable ontologies. These privileged identities of security are illusory. Reality is random and nothing will ever change that. Existentialism teaches us to adopt a lifestyle based on the assumption that you could die tomorrow. This kind of idea is one of acceptance of death, and therefore to live your own life better. This seems to be a better response to paranoia.

Instead responses to paranoia usually take different directions, but are easily mapped. Both groups create an immutable ontology concerning Islam. The reasoning for this creation is because of a media blitz after 9/11 that blamed Muslims to the extent that the USA went to war with a country completely unrelated to the attacks(as of the time of this writing the US is still engaged in the occupation of Iraq, and with that massive military base it'll be a wonder if they're not there for good). But lets just ignore the flawed reasoning that led to United Statesians associating Islam with terrorism to the point of crippling paranoia, when terrorism has a slight fraction of the body count the United States military actions have racked up. If it is more likely the United States will murder than a Muslim will murder in the name of Islam, than at what point does the racism become some Freudian protection of the ideal self image.

So both groups construct an immutable ontology of Islam as uniquely violent and uniquely worse than other world religions.
Group number one's immutable aspect of Islam is that: "Islam did 9/11". Therefore group number one thinks that a mosque being built near the world trade center site would mean that Islam not only did 9/11, they won the war! Pretty soon it'll be like red dawn, only this time it'll be like green dawn or Quran dawn. We'll have to take to the hills and use Cuban revolution tactics to destabilize their regime! Wolverines!

Group number two's immutable aspect of Islam is that: "Islam is uniquely violent over all other religions". In this respect the mosque represents an action of bad taste, that should be deferred for later. For example: making a joke at the expense of a recently deceased celebrity, and then asking 'too soon?'

My personal opinion is that Mosques are not a fucking issue. This is exactly like gay marriage: another non-issue (wedge issue) brought up for no apparent reason and the agenda setting corporate media shoves it down our throats for fucking months before an election. If people wanna build a center of worship to zuul at ground zero more power to 'em if they can afford to put it up, who gives a shit? At a very basic fundamental level you personally: how often are you personally going to walk by that site? New Yorkers like to think they're the big apple, but they ain't that big United Statesians are spread pretty wide and NYC is just another city. If you don't spend time in NYC: SHUT THE FUCK UP! It has no affect on you whatsoever!? Why do you want to play the role of policing Muslims? Just because you can get away with it? Just because thats the role TeeVee told you to play? Is this Zimbardo's prison study? Ok, not you you, but the individual people, wtf can they think their interest is in this issue that they can tell people what they can and can't build? The last thing that bothers me about this issue is that these people telling people what they can and cannot build are the same fuckers who thought Iraq was responsible for 9/11. I still can't stress it enough ladies and gentleman: read about 9/11. Read the crazies and read the whitewashes, but to be honest with you the in-between is just a bunch or bullshit, its actually more like a bullshit sandwich though where the normality such sources convey is the bread, lulling you in to a false sense of security before the taste of bullshit fills your mouth and nostrils.

In my opinion they should build whatever they can fucking build on, near, and around ground zero. Not that I think the immutable ontology of capitalism (infinite growth) is real, but because when you live in a city sometimes you can sense its soul. To have such a wound on the city, cannot be good for its soul. I would like to see a museum that would quickly be filled with bullshit regarding 9/11, but it would provide a geographical space in which to struggle for the visibility of certain subordinated truths from that day.

I wanted to talk about one last thing which I will label "Apocrypha": The World Trade Center worship/spiritual center. The world trade center had at least one non-denominational center of worship. So I would like to point out that Islam already was practiced at the WTC. People have opposition to this mosque, because they believe that it represents a change from the status quo, but hopefully this can help them realize that there has been no change if we continue to allow worship of any deity on or near the world trade center.

The Political philosophy of Jeet Kune Do

In early history sovereigns were conquerors and it was well known. The violence was apparent and easy to identify.

Now sovereigns are law givers who ask you to die for the country/race.

To paint a romantic picture of the age of conquer as better than the effaced violence in our age of laws is too fall in to the same utopian trap. It is also worth pointing out that attempts to create romanticized golden ages usually result in overt totalitarianism. We should be looking to the future, where technics/biopower/disciplinary power will usurp the life-taking power found in the conqueror and the eloquent justifications of violence found in the law. These new sovereignties will amplify old powers of sovereignty by locking them in to pre-established patterns that are insulated further and further from human action. Slowly ceding control over humans' social world to machinery and science in the from of economics. The path we are on leads to an omnipresent panopticon.

We need to find some kind of sovereignty outside of these 5 metonyms, or at least excise the portions that are just baggage.

One possible way to accomplish this may be to resort to Jeet Kune Do. This is a martial arts methodology developed by Bruce Lee, the full name is Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do (Jun Fan being Bruce Lee's chinese government name), or: Bruce Lee's Way of the Intercepting Fist.

In martial arts one is expected to choose a style or a few style and master them. Bruce Lee decided instead to create a methodology: the way of the intercepting fist. This method was to take what was most valuable from all the styles he knew and discard those elements of the styles which were non-competitive in comparison. In this fashion a specific type of "way of the intercepting fist" arose: bruce lee's way of the intercepting fist. Bruce was very explicit concerning the fact he was not creating another style, but a methodology to create one's own style.

The philosophy of Jeet Kune Do much like the name implies is a counter-offensive method. Meaning that Jeet Kune Do does not involve naked aggression, but counter-attacks. In Jeet Kune Do one does not attack until attacked. Once attacked, the fist is intercepted, and a counter-attack is used.

I think that Jeet Kune Do may present a space in which to construct new ideas of sovereignty from the discarded husks of previous epistemes. To create a democracy that will not allow sovereign emergency powers under any circumstances we will need to utilize the whole human knowledge both at present and throughout history. To create a sovereignty that includes easily available participation in politics, some sort of permutation of direct democracy and micro-computing we have to be prepared to discard antiquated theories. Such as: democratic peace theory, libertarian corporate de facto ownership of the world, communist government de facto ownership of the world, or realism's inability to recognize why people care about friends and family (because you should be at war with them).


At the same time we are enacting an idea that has not been thought of yet, we will also have to be escaping the traps: Hobbes's trap: in order to overcome a great sovereign power, one must always resort to the use of an even greater sovereign power. How can one practically overcome this? Schmitt's trap: politics is marked by defining friends, and enemies. One cannot have politics without enemies.


"I have not invented a "new style,"...On the contrary, I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds... My movements are simple, direct and non-classical. The extraordinary part of it lies in its simplicity. Every movement in Jeet Kune-Do is being so of itself. There is nothing artificial about it. I always believe that the easy way is the right way. Jeet Kune-Do is simply the direct expression of one's feelings with the minimum of movements and energy...Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back."
-Bruce Lee

the revolution

Many individuals seem to believe that the current systems of control are oppressive.

Most of these same individuals believe that if they were the sovereign that things would be better. That under their control the world would know true justice.
Others argue that if they had their way the current system of sovereign control would be eliminated. Not under their control, but under their guidance the world would know true justice.

What I mean to say is: OK, revolution whatever, now what?

It seems centralization of power or control over massive amounts of people leads to tyranny. But complete decentralization is not possible, theoretically anarchists cannot paint a picture of a post-sovereign world. Communists would abolish private property. This is a basic practical fact of how to achieve "communism". Anarchists would abolish sovereignty. Both these actions seem simple, but we cannot truly define private property or sovereignty. We cannot make concrete linkages between these metonyms and their physical representations in physical de facto reality. Even if such linkages were established they would be inter-subjective in nature and subject to drastic changes over time. Not simply because of the evolution of language. This would be a result of the constantly detourning meanings of powerful words. Every individual in this world occupies a tactical position, every meal you eat is a meal another person cannot eat. Rewarding yourself with altruistic chemical rushes if you pull the convulsing fly from the web out of pity only means you have effaced the spider's suffering from starvation. Think about the debate over our current inter-subjective construction of "terrorism". Every different political agenda has a different definition for this word "terrorism", even every agency in the US federal government has disparate definitions. To create a world free of private property or state sovereignty would only mean to create a world in which the meaning of these words has been effaced. The definition of these phrases can be stretched so far as to make it impossible to ever accomplish the tasks of Communism and Anarchism.

CommunisM:
Private property can be construed to mean anything under the immediate dominion of a living human body. To wear clothes is to possess them, if only for a short time. So in application: the abolition of private property would mean a huge increase in state power. Essentially there are two tactical positions: the state and the individual. There may be intermediate entities, but for the most part they will fall on one side or another of the border. Organizations with any type of fiat or veto power over individual's lives and/or actions can be grouped with the state. Any organization that does not control human action through implicit or explicit force would fall on the side of the individual.

At the point where the individual does not possess private property, the other tactical positions outside of the ontology of "individual" will receive the private property. We cannot define pieces of reality out of existence with wordplay. At the point an entity controls whether or not you are clothed or housed they are controlling an overt amount of veto and/or fiat power over your actions: they are grouped with the state. The abolition of individual private property can be phrased in a different way: The complete ownership of all non-human matter by the state. When phrased in this way the teleological aspirations of Communism seem more like totalitarianism, than democracy.

Sovereignty:

And now I must backtrack. First of all my grouping of entities with the state relies on my own definition of sovereignty which is the exercise of veto or fiat power over individuals. If you pull a gun on someone and steal their shoes you had sovereignty over that individual. And you will say: thats not a state, its not recognized by the UN or some shit. Bullshit. Sovereignty resides in individual actions their perception of truth and responsibility. Just because your robbery can be prosecuted does not mean that the entity prosecuting you is not a fucking criminal!

State Sovereignty:

States are just criminals that got so big they couldn't prosecute each other for criminal action, this does not change the basic fact of sovereignty: it resides in the individual. Sovereignty is (re)produced every single second of every day in the words, thoughts, and actions of individuals. If we all decided that the situation in the city where the police have the guns and we are unarmed should be reversed, it would be. If one by one Nazis refused to pour the Zyklon B, there would have been no holocaust. Soldiers that decide to put down their weapons and even interact with eachother because they have holidays derived from the same proto-holidays: Sacea, Winter Solstice, Christmas, etc. have denied the preceding day's truth of sovereignty. But much like Sacea the spell of absurdity/revelry fades as every other individual who refused to go along with the new tactical position of the revelers assimilated them back in to the old paradigm. This definition relies a great deal on Foucault's definition of power as "mutual, indefinite blackmail" (in Power/Knowledge). The popular definition of a state or sovereign state is one that is recognized as a sovereign state by other sovereign state. How tautological a definition in the first place? It sounds like a rule the winners invented to make sure nobody steals the legitimacy that arrives with the title "state".

Operational definition:

The reason I point out and defend this definition is because I essentially pushed on the definition of words to make sure this argument went through. Without seeing the reasoning behind the "mutual, indefinite blackmail" it is sleight of hand to use my operational definition of sovereignty in order to deconstruct two emancipatory goals.

If I didn't provide valid reasoning for sovereignty as the exercise of veto and/or fiat power over other individuals, then I would be succumbing to the same trap that attempts to put in to praxis these emancipatory ideals fall into. I do not wish to complicate further the pallimpsest of inter-subjective definitions, I want to simplify. Our non-material world is already too complex. I believe that this complexity leads to what social psychology calls paralysis of choice. The idea is that if there are 20 different cereals to choose from it would take forever to choose without some heuristic: brand name or maybe price. Cereal is a terrible metaphor for every choice a human makes. When a human makes a decision they do not write it down and weigh it down, they do not have a long time to figure out the pros and cons. Most of the time a human accesses what they know quickly and using the mental heuristics they have established to come to a decision.

Complexity of knowledge => Paralysis of choice => stupidity

I believe that the paralysis of choice has led to a plague of stupidity in humanity. This pestilence is not tamped down, but exacerbated for profit. Use of cheap psychological tricks in marketing (and everything is marketed today) amounts to mind control as it seeks to usurp veto and/or fiat power from your own mind. Such marketing may be sub-narrative, this is not pseudo-science subliminal messaging. These are the reproductions of the dominant episteme through what is not said. One cannot help but read between the lines. These sub-narratives condition individuals to never think of certain questions. To question the wisdom of a presidential administration's justifications for a two front illegal war located in two countries that were not primarily responsible for 9/11 is never even thought of.
It is not that the question is taboo, but that the question just never forms in an individual's mind who has immersed themselves so fully in the dominant paradigm. As the complexity becomes more paralyzing the adaptive youth become less susceptible and the envelope gets pushed. This is the status quo. This scourge spreads as marketing gives us false heuristics and normalized sub-narratives. Marketing is imperialism of the brain. Not simply metaphorical like Kalle Lasn talks about, it is real. Your thoughts are real, not only are these thoughts physical chemicals being tossed around your skull, but they create the conditions for physical reality. One cannot write a word until one thinks of it, one cannot build an object without a plan in mind, the only thing that grants continuity to our perception of this reality is knowledge/memory. As technology allows for proliferation of the nodes of knowledge normalization, the further immersion of individuals in to the current paradigm is a foregone conclusion. As Hegel said:

"What is 'familiarly known' is not properly known, just for the reason that it is 'familiar'. When engaged in the process of knowing, it is the commonest form of self-deception, and a deception of other people as well, to assume something to be familiar, and give assent to it on that very account"

As technology changes our physical reality by making stimulus that comes from entities rather than individuals the norm it is easier to make these agendas in to "truth". Like Goebbels says:

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”.

Bounding the thoughts of your own mind, limiting what you see, the words you use, and the questions you ask. This is the the imperialism of the brain that is everywhere you look and listen. I do not know how to fight the modern contagion of stupidity, but its existence seems obvious at this point. People just gotta level up.



Back to Anarchism:

Although Anarchism has a valid aspiration and seemingly better thought behind it than other domination ideals. Liberalism/democratic peace theory is an ideal in which the world is conquered by liberal democracy. Libertarian theory is an ideal which would create a world in which all non-human matter will be owned by corporations. These involved domination.Communism required abolition of private property, which meant ceding of property to some non-individual entity. This would mean domination by a state or corporate entity. Anarchism seeks to overcome all these ideas by destruction of the state, to remove the tool of domination is to prevent domination.

Anarchism suffers from the same fault of all teleological ideals: Ends just provide a justification for immoral means.

Anarchism suffers from the same outcome of libertarian ideology and communism: where is the power displaced to? We see the power of private property displaced from individuals to entities in communism and libertarian ideology. Where is the power of sovereignty (de facto) and law (de jure) displaced to in anarchism? The power is displaced to individuals, in this fashion war is made a relic. But in our effort to erase war, we focused too much on the definition of war as a contest between state entities, by eliminating state entities we eliminate war. The praxis of such an ideal would mean that war between individuals would take the place of state war. We moved the borderlines of definitions in our heads, but there is still murder and injustice. The potential to kill another individual at will shall always reside within the human, nothing can remove this potential.

Any ideal to emancipate individuals from the tyranny of an oppressive power, has to become a more oppressive power in order to subordinate the original oppressive power. This is Hobbes' trap.

The most damaging turn to anarchist ideals in practice comes with the aftermath. In a world without state sovereignty nothing prevents tribes/nations from forming and engaging in war. So as soon as a revolution to destroy the apparatus of government has succeeded, 10 other governments will form in its place.

This is why I brought up my original question: ok, revolution whatever, now what?


We have not found a way out of Hobbes trap. Schmitt further entrenched us.

How do we overcome a great power without resorting to the use of a greater power? If there is no way to do so then sovereignty is inherently totalitarian and democracy is nothing but a dream for the future. As long as a head of state can proclaim their state of emergency which justifies their torture or disobedience of the Geneva conventions law on POWs; as long as the sovereign can proclaim themselves outside the law through this emergency, then law created by the people is an illusion.

The law of the people/representation/suffrage is a privilege that will only remain as long as the sovereign's whim allows it. Don't tell me that this is the fluke. There is no such thing as democracy in practice thus far. Until the exception/emergency/new norm falls outside the sovereign's power there will never be democracy.

Then the question is: where is the exception/emergency/new norm displaced to?

nada

So why am I writing this. I had thoughts in my head, but writing them down doesn't...it seems...no it is self-indulgent. I like reading things that I have written before. I hope that a few people have read a bit and gotten something from it. That is at the back of my head, but to make it my focus would be to think that I have something to say that is more important. The aporia of life, the fact of existence being a denial of some other existence. If you save the fly, you starve the spider. We are all in a constant process of deferral of our moral responsibilities. Myself most certainly included, I bear personal responsibility for the choices I make. Nobody can deny free will or the sovereignty of the self. There is no escaping this fact. Every living thing has a tactical position that they defend and push. If this was not true, these living things would have chosen to stop living. Anyone who can read this, any living thing has a reason for existence that keeps them going, a tactical position that must be secured against the randomness of suffering, and an agenda in order to further secure such illusory safety. Again, identification of all security narratives as false hope does not mean that I have found the true hope. This does not mean that I can see the truth, but only that it seems apparent from the de facto state of reality that the future can never be predicted. Not simply the social activities of complicated life forms, but the entire fabric of reality. The amount humans do not know is staggering, we know god damn nothing about death. We do not comprehend insanity, is it simply socially constructed abnormality? completely biological? completely psychosomatic? permutations of these? Death, sickness, insanity, etc. can happen to any individual at any time. No matter how effective we become at tilting the probabilities in our favor. God does play dice with the fate of the world, every fraction of a second of every blink of an eye trillions of dice are rolled where the stakes are human lives and suffering. Empirically proven systematic ways to shift probabilities lead to the fantasies of immortality and invulnerability for the wealthy ubermensch. The finish line, the winners circle: celebrity. It is not a profession to be on television it is some sort of pseudo-religious ritual. One does not want money anymore, only to have their image reproduced and beamed to the far corners of the world. The reward is their clones spread out, repeating the thoughts and words: making them significant. The american dream is ....cliched. But this is another word for normal.

Vocations are a joke in this dream. Vast swaths of individuals sitting at desks pretending to do work. Their high credit limit gives them the fleeting feeling of celebrity. The feeling flees, because it is being chased with such bloodlust. The ignorance as to the cost: the slavery. The husb/ife the slow (re)production of magistrates, professionals, and land owners. The drugs. Be honest: The drugs. Something to dull the noise that crescendos as years pass. The stress, the isolation, the long hours, the money troubles...the divorce.

Then there is labor. Labor sells the hours of a human's life for gold... Well... you know... metaphorically; literally labor sells the hours of a human's life for fiat currency. But the deal is rigged. The contract was written by the boss's lawyer. The contract is enforced by a jurist who is the boss's BFF. But this is Upton Sinclair shit. Nowadays labor is no longer useful, it is obsolete. A sign of an older paradigm of economic growth. It is not a worthy profession, it is looked down upon. In the same way that smiles' self help gave people canon which legitimized not feeding the poor, the homeless non-people. That you and I see often when we walk in the city (that is any fucking city or town, humans without money to make rent are everywhere). This same mentality affects the working class. This condescension that "they are not doing the best they can considering their tactical positioning" that exemplifies attitudes towards the homeless is now how people look at labor. Which is silly considering the shrinking of the middle class and that the strike-slip fault lines of global laissez-faire capitalism are becoming apparent. The laborer spends a large portion of their time working, but not actually getting paid. In fact, they spend a large portion of their time working, and paying for the privilege to be able to do so. They spend their time and money procuring the correct attire for the environment. They spend the time before punching in waiting to be able to punch in not getting paid.Commuting an hour there and an hour back (if you're lucky). The commute means you pay before you even work: either exorbitant gas prices or overpriced antique public transit. But these are very simple little things. Now that the industrial economy is in its death throes (I do not say this like it is bad, I don't fucking know whats good or bad, just a subjective observation). The service industry. I want you to ask yourself how many people do you actually know and chill with that work in the service industry? If you are young or a minority my money is that the answer is a lot: Bartenders, Waiters/waitresses, cooks, cashiers, landscapers, essentially these are all things that people can easily do for themselves, but they pay a premium to others in order for them to do it for them. I mentioned earlier how the middle class is shrinking. This may seem to be unrelated, but in my opinion there will be a strong correlation. As the middle class shrinks(go into this next) they will have less disposable income. Less disposable income will lead to less consumption of service products: They will just make their own coffee, or their own drink, or mow their own lawn. If this correlation is true, than the service industry will suffer a decline leading to an extended period of high unemployment. I do not know how this will be alleviated, clearly these individuals will seek training and other jobs. But such an extended period of high unemployment, would have other repercussions on the entire economy. But most importantly would further catalyze the dissolution of the middle class. Because the people who utilize the service industry the most are the middle class. I love eating out, getting a delicious plate of food with a friend or two. But I am just passing the service industry paycheck I get to another worker and letting the bosses take a cut. If there was a database of individuals and their skills (free schools and post-crash sites starting to do this) I could just go to the cooks house and trade a service directly for a delicious plate of food. In this fashion there would be no graft given to the bosses. Most other service industry workers are the same way we perform a service others could easily do and we use our disposable income to do the same. Bartenders and waiters/waitresses are the best tippers out there. The service industry keeps itself afloat, because they are not paid a living wage. So two jobs, and your disposable income is the chance to play the role of the wealthy for a short period of time by consuming a service. To express fiat power over another human, to command and to have obeyed. A small taste of sovereignty of the other, a small taste of control, but it costs money. Ironically the people who daily (re)produce the bourgeois ideology of self-help that made homelessness a crime and labor a dirty word will be the same people slandered with it later. The edges of the service industry is where this is clearly evident, but this vicious cycle will spread until it engulfs the entire economy if the rules of our game don't change.

But why would the middle class shrink and the answer is two things, which we should be thinking of as one thing: Transportation and Energy. I even capitalized that shit. Cars. The personal automobile. An entire country constructed around the institution of the personal automobile: the highways, taxes for maintenance, subsidized steel, subisidized auto-industry. A history written by the personal automobile: The suburbs, white flight, property, status, fashion. A future of blood in the name of the personal automobile: Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia. In order to defend its tactical positioning the United States must ensure access to energy. Whoever has the energy can divvy it up for political allegiance. I'm not saying its a simple handshake thing, but Japan isn't thinking about invading the mainland for oil anymore. Its the energy stupid. And if a country spends such a vastly disproportionate amount of money on military spending like the United States does then they can afford to "control" the oil fields. As long as massive amounts of money are funneled to the military industrial complex then the oil fields can be occupied. As long as the oil fields can be occupied then the United States can maintain global pre-eminence. This is how our security is constructed. The security of our overconsumption. The bliss of never having to build a civilization that can fly. Even if such security is not an illusion, it is predicated upon the insecurity of others.

Labor is not the correct translation for how the products we consume are made. Our clothes, our shoes, our electronics, our everything. They are made by slaves. I will not say that there are certain places where children are and putting children to work is bad. The united States was putting children to work years ago, who are we to chastise when it is our own fault. We chastise, because in that way we can deny our responsibility albeit ever so slight. We know that we buy shit those slave children make, you and I know we share responsibility. But if we can do a two minutes hate every once in awhile. Kathie lee, nike, etc. Then we can ignore our complicity, we ignore the fact that it was not a few bad apples and we ignore the fact that there might be a solution. We ignore the fact it is not just children. There are more slaves today than at any other point in history. Let me give you the meta picture: There are two ways to develop an economy today. Number one is to protect your industry, because they may be new and can't compete yet on the world market. This runs the risk of making an inferior product and inferior industrial infrastructure in the long run, because of lack of competition. But in developing nations the only indigenous entity with the money/credit to build industry is the state. If a country wishes to maintain control of their own natural resources or control of their own product they have very few options. Most of the time this import substitution industrialization does end up creating products that can't compete in the world market. The other option (to develop while maintaining sovereignty) instead of industrialization is to produce a cash crop or natural resource. This can create jobs and infrastructure for an extended period of time, but there are downfalls. First of all if a country is selling off its natural resources they are being used to create a different product. The amount of money and jobs that would be created by an industry that created an end product would be substantially more, but would have the same pitfalls mentioned before. Nothing is infinite, eventually the natural resources will dwindle and what will a developing economy rely on then? Where will all the laid off workers go? These are just internal problems. The main problem with a cash crop or natural resource is that it is all you have. If you don't sell this fucking copper, your country will go bankrupt and they'll overthrow you! But there is one country that buys most of just about everything. The United States. So who do you think decides the price of copper?

*ring Ring*
United States: Hello?
Country A: Hey Sam whats up? oh boy it is your lucky day, have I got a shit ton of copper for you!
United States: O rly? You selling it for what 10 bucks a ton?
Country A: Haha! ya right, you old sly fox. Same as last year 15 a ton.
United States: ouch. See the thing is I just got off the phone with Country B and she just said that she had copper for 12 a ton.
Country A: Country b!? those assholes? You know you can't get better quality than my copper Sam.
United States: I mean that is an awful lot of mon-Click- oh one second I have another call. Hello?
Country C: Sam Listen, you drive a hard bargain but I'll do 9.
United States: One second -click- That is Country C on the other line telling me he'll sell them to me for 8 bucks a ton, if you don't make a better offer I'm hanging up...

and on and on.

Its called a race to the bottom. So what ends up happening you ask? Countries run out of resources, their currency defaults, there is a revolution, there is a slump in commodity prices and: enter the IMF. The IMF believes the only way to economic growth is through foreign direct investment (FDI). Essentially they want to make the country in to a stock and sell it on wall street. In order to do so a few conditions have to be satisfied: privatization of nationalized industry; massive loans with interest rates and payment schedules everybody knows can't be met; and the transfer of sovereignty to economist-priests. But why would they do that then? Two reasons: 1. Its the boss who signs the document, if shit goes down he'll just ship off to the caymans. 2. The only other choice is to disqualify themselves from the world economy.

One resource that does not suffer from all these predicaments is humanity. Humans are being shit out by the billion. Developing nations just as any nation have ample human resources. In the same way the proletarianization of the american immigrant took place global capitalism spreads with CIA death squads instead of pinkertons. Humans are not given a living wage, in order to survive their children must work. Everything is so fragile the second an income producer becomes sick or injured their security collapses. Why don't they quit? you ask. Why don't YOU quit? The same reason I don't quit I think: because I don't know any other way to live. This is how I've figured out how to manage so far. In same way a simple narrative of a farm family that had two sons. Meaning the farm was split in half. Maybe one of them sold his to share croppers, maybe one of them let it go to waste, maybe one of them sold it to a big landowner, maybe one of them sold it to the other to have enough land to actually farm and left for the city to seek wage work. Why did he go to the city? because that is where the narratives say is opportunity, in the same way they lied to american immigrants it was not opportunity it was fresh meat for the grinder. New humans to subordinate to some great inhuman machinery of wealth manufacture.



Last time I checked 85% of the world lived below what the United States calls the poverty line, which is somewhere around 18.5 I think.



But this is only pseudo-economics. I did not even touch upon the state of the police state. And even more topical I didn't even mention that eventually we're going to run out of oil. We need to build a civilization that can fly.