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Author Topic: Really, What The Fuck Happened? (The Death of Logic)
Flowers By Irene
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posted 16 February 2003 06:39 AM      Profile for Flowers By Irene     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I thought every effort was being made, since the afternoon (Eastern Time) of September 11 2001, to convince me to fear that Osama(Usama) Bin Laden and his Al Qaida(Queda) Terrorist Oraganization(TM) were determined, at any and all costs, including the loss of their own lives, to make My Life(TM) miserable in any number of Massively Destructive ways.

Lately, there has been an attempt to force-feed me, and I am sure others, the line that Saddam Hussein in Iraq is as equally dangerous - a danger to the U$A and the world in general so great that a war, along with however-many-civilians-get-in-the-way is Necessary(TM).

Um, I know how to read, I know how to use a search engine, I have a library card, and some $$ I can spend on books occasionally. I know what (U)Osama says about Saddam. I know what (U)Osama says about America. I know what America says about both, and I know what Saddam says about both. And I also am aware of the "enemy of my enemy" theory; if you invoke this to link (O)Usama and Saddam, You must also be logically willing to potentially link (U)Osama and Bush against Saddam.

But it gets worse. America is now threatening to use the same class of weapons (in violation of an International Treaty) against Iraq that the Americans accuse Saddam of having/hiding in violation of an International Treaty.

Oh, and what's that? The UN will lose it's credibility as a multilateral institution if it fails to aid America in advancing America's unilateral goals?

But what is most astounding is that the United States, the most powerful, absolutely - and most likely relatively, Imperial force ever can feel threatened enough by a Ninth-rate power that would be lucky to hit Basra from Baghdad to even consider the idea of "pre-emptive attack" as an argument in support of itself.


From: "To ignore the facts, does not change the facts." -- Andy Rooney | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
paxamillion
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posted 16 February 2003 07:57 AM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm not sure if this is the death of logic or the death of ethics.
From: the process of recovery | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 16 February 2003 08:01 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It's not the death of either; just because Bush couldn't find his way out of a paper bag does not mean that the rest of the world is without the capacity to think philosophically.

I mean, Bush is the one who claims his favorite political philosopher is Jesus. Yeah right. Show me where Jesus thought pre-emptive strikes and unrestrained free market capitalism were good things. If I were religious I'd consider Bush a blasphemer.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Tommy_Paine
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posted 16 February 2003 08:09 AM      Profile for Tommy_Paine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It's astonishing, isn't it? The violations of rational thought coming out of people like Colin Powel and Rumsfeld.

In my absence from activism (it's pretty hard to be politically active when you have a day (or night) job, and three kids) I stumbled upon scepticism as a method for training my mind to know the difference from what's reasonable and what is bullshit, imprefect as I am at it.

The current policies coming out of Washington flamboyantly violate acceptable, reasoned thinking.


But, it's not like the left is wholly immune from such faults either. I see, from time to time, the left use fallacious arguments-- particularly the one of the false dichotomy.

I think it points to a weakness in our education system. Kids should be drilled on the basic fallacious arguments. If they were, even left wing or right wing in outlook, the current insanities would find less fertile ground.

As it stands, the Bush administration has yet to adhere to the very first rule of reasoned thinking:

The onus of proof lies with the person making the claim. Powel and company have not supplied proof that Iraq is an imminent danger to world peace that cannot be neutralized through containment. And, there has not been any evidence to suggest that Iraq was in any way connected to the attacks of Sept. 11th 01, which is what this supposed to be all about.

There is evidence to suggest that we are in greater danger from a fundamentalist coup taking control in Pakistan and thereby getting their hands on a Nuke or Nukes.

And, what of North Korea?

-----

My youngest asked yesterday if the protest we were at was going to change George Bush's mind. I told her that the protest wasn't about changing his mind. It was about people getting together so they knew, in a physical sense, that they were not alone in thier living rooms noticing the emporer was naked.


From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 16 February 2003 08:14 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Exactly, Tommy. It's about not going quietly into the night. It's about not letting Bush and the assholes who work for him think that they have legitimacy.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Rebecca West
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posted 16 February 2003 09:06 AM      Profile for Rebecca West     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The sound of protest is getting louder all over the world, and while I'm pretty sure that the Bush Admin. has its fingers in its ears, going "lalalalala I can't hear you", it's heartening to know that the world community won't be nearly as complacent about this invasion of Iraq as they were about the first. That's probably due in part to the various post-mortem's that showed the Gulf War for what it was and highlighted the human toll during and after the bombing (250,000 children under the age of 4 dead according to UN reports). It doesn't hurt that the Pope is pressing for a peaceful solution (alot of Catholic Americans), and that the US and the UK are increasingly alone in their bellicosity.

A small small part of me hopes that the groundswell of anti-war protest will ultimately influence the foreign policy decisions of the Bush Administration, but even if it doesn't (and it probably won't), their actions will not have occurred without heavy opposition all over the world.


From: London , Ontario - homogeneous maximus | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
Zatamon
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posted 16 February 2003 11:00 AM      Profile for Zatamon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Who knows? The magnitude and global nature of the protests took me completely by surprise. If only this could be sustained and amplified. I will be holding my breath for a while -- maybe there is a glimmer of hope.
From: where hope for 'hope' is contemplated | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Sisyphus
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posted 16 February 2003 12:07 PM      Profile for Sisyphus     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Y'know, my mate and I have a technique we use on the primates sometimes, since they have started fighting all the time. Disregarding issues of who did what or who started it, we both get our really angry faces on and sentence them both to an outrageously long time-out in a mostly barren room. They're so shocked that they end up forming an alliance with each other, shouting "Not fair!" through the door.

I think the silver lining Emperor Bush has, is precisely this. Aided by the development of the Internet, a global action of the kind we saw yesterday is unprecedented. The size is not relevant yet, IMHO. The possibilities are quite staggering. Global sit-down strikes, work stoppages, boycotts? The possibilitites are exciting and good ol' Dubya was the catalyst. In another thread, I argued that it is impossible to predict the direction in which the world may be heading from an inventory of our present situation. Bush, while a clear liability in our current balance sheet may turn out to have been the lynchpin for a new era in international co-operation. Perhaps guarded optimism is in order?


From: Never Never Land | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 16 February 2003 12:26 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 

From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 16 February 2003 01:32 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Wars do have one ironic result: They unify people who would otherwise have been splitting hairs over minor doctrinal differences.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
clersal
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posted 16 February 2003 01:41 PM      Profile for clersal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
'Hawks cowed by peace protests'.
Nicest thing I have read in a long time.
Montréal Gazette on the first page. Not a headline but....

From: Canton Marchand, Québec | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
mandrake
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posted 16 February 2003 02:52 PM      Profile for mandrake     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Moooo...

[ 16 February 2003: Message edited by: mandrake ]


From: erehwon | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 16 February 2003 03:12 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Finally, something intelligent.
From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 16 February 2003 07:56 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I want Fat Bastard back. He spiced the place up. How ever crude.
From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
Tommy_Paine
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posted 16 February 2003 08:06 PM      Profile for Tommy_Paine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Wars do have one ironic result: They unify people who would otherwise have been splitting hairs over minor doctrinal differences.

Oh, I'm sure that's a temporary respite only, Doc.


From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Zatamon
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posted 16 February 2003 09:01 PM      Profile for Zatamon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That's what my hope on 'hope' hinges on. Are we mad enough to have momentum, or is it back to apathy and acceptance?
From: where hope for 'hope' is contemplated | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
verbatim
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posted 16 February 2003 09:52 PM      Profile for verbatim   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The problem I see here is that, in order to continue to use the strategies of the past, the Bush government will have to ignore the popular protest movement. I don't see them backing down at all. If they do, they set a precedent that will essentially make it impossible for them to act freely to pursue their own agenda. Since the Bush government is a Command and Control government, this is anthema to them.

I don't see this as an issue of logic. Logic is irrelevant here. It's simply about providing justifications for doing what you've already decided to do.


From: The People's Republic of Cook Street | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
clersal
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posted 16 February 2003 10:52 PM      Profile for clersal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
That's what my hope on 'hope' hinges on. Are we mad enough to have momentum, or is it back to apathy and acceptance?

I don't know whether we really were apathetic. Just waiting for the right event to move.
I was very happy to see the amount of people that turned out for the protests.
I think and hope too that people see the common sense sides of things.

From: Canton Marchand, Québec | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Zatamon
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posted 17 February 2003 12:21 AM      Profile for Zatamon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Clersal, I am not sure about common sense and what role (if any) it plays in people’s political stands. What has made me so depressed and hopeless over the last year is people’s refusal to act in a common sense way (by refusing to support their exploiters). On the other hand, I was totally taken by surprise by the magnitude and spontaneity of this weekend’s demonstrations.

Having thought about it, I realize now that there are individual/psychological motivations as well as social/cultural ones. I have given up on the individual/common sense forces, but the social/cultural ones seem to be quite a powerful force – something I had not taken into consideration before.

Many of the demonstrators I talked to gave me social/cultural/emotional reasons to explain their actions. There seems to be some common and shared anger and indignation in the air that motivate people to take a stand. The resentment and disgust with our rulers seems to have reached a point in people’s minds when they feel they have had enough. They want to do something about it.

That is why there are so many people marching now who have never demonstrated before, have not been politically active and now they start going on marches, writing letters, organizing protests. I believe it has been building for a long time.

Our political and business leaders whom we despise for their greed and corruption and hypocrisy, the steady erosion of human decency we have been witnessing around us for three decades now, the broken promises and transparent lies, and now a serious threat to world peace and our very survival all contribute. I am not surprised people have had enough and want a real change for the better.

On top of all this, we start seeing a split in the (until recently united) western alliance, with Europe standing up to the US in a serious way, first time since WW2. Sisyphus may be right in that Bush “may turn out to have been the lynchpin for a new era in international co-operation”.

If it gains momentum and people get caught up in the spirit of “lets build a new world” and “I have had it with the crooks” and “we are the people”, then great changes may be ahead.

On the other hand, it may turn out to be a momentary (historically speaking) enthusiasm and people get tired and bored with the exercise. This depends on Mr. Bush and cohorts -- if they push as hard and stupidly as they have been, people will push back harder and smarter.

And, of course there is the real danger of things getting out of control and the status quo breaking up into hostile and intransigent blocks of nations that paint themselves into their respective corners and can not back down from the stands they have taken – in which case we may be heading toward WW3. As Sisyphus said: it is impossible to tell.

[ 17 February 2003: Message edited by: Zatamon ]


From: where hope for 'hope' is contemplated | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Jacob Two-Two
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posted 17 February 2003 05:30 AM      Profile for Jacob Two-Two     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I, for one, think that we are living in extraordinary times. The fight for the global community and what form it will take, the fight for the very survival of democracy, is happening right now! This was made plain to me yesterday.

The big difference here is the internet. People are social animals by nature and their better instincts have been submerged mostly by the old "divide and conquer" strategy. Capitalism slowly dstroyed the community so that all that was left was the family and the state. Our feelings of belonging came from our family (not extended), a few close friends, and the news and media that characterised our nation. We have long been told what to think on a national level, and in the absence of sizable but accessible "tribes" to give us a view of reality, we have had to accept it.

But no more. A person with nonconformist opinions doesn't have to change or be an outcast. They can reach beyond the geographical limitations of their nation or neighbourhood and form virtual communities of like-minded people, just as we are doing here. And we can also access all other virtual communities, whether we want to join them or not. The global community has arrived and now begins the struggle to see what culture it will take.

I think that ten years ago, these protests couldn't have happened. Our ability to reach out over the isolation of modern life, not only allowed people of a anti-war bent to band together, but it allowed us to realise that many people were taking on this attitude. An impression of size and power draws in others and snowballs into something like this. Expect more of the same. With the right issues ( and there are many injustices being perpetrated in the world that I think there would be a broad consensus against) people will sense their new capacity to act as a unit to affect change.

Borders mean nothing to most people now. If I want to buid common cause with groups in Hungary, I can do so with ease. This, in turn, is making governments more and more extraneous to our lives, as they can no longer influence the things we hear and say, and are as yet unwilling to relinquish state power to the people. They are simply falling by the wayside. This was seen starkly in the protests, which were loud in those countries which are ostensibly supporting the US. And the ones in countries whose leaders are hostile or ambivilent to military action weren't doing it in support of their leaders. They were setting the pace and expecting their leaders to follow. They were following their own agenda seperate from their representatives.

Feb 15th, 2003 goes on my calendar as an unprecedented blossoming of not just a movement of peace, but (even more importantly) of a movement of democracy. Never before in history has there been a global surge of opinion on this level. The message was clear. "We don't need you to give us solutions. We have our own policy. This is what we support and you'd better pay attention."

This kind of power is like a drug, and the global community won't be kicking the habit anytime too soon. If there is a global recession, as many have predicted, do you imagine that this time people will stay meek and trust their representatives to find a solution? Sure there were protests in the thirties, and an upswing of communist dogma, but it was never organised on this scale. It didn't have this unity. This time there would be an uprising such as the world has never dreamt of, and only those who were willing to heed the people would survive this new political terrain.

I may have rose-coloured glasses on, flushed from the success of Saturday, but I think I'm seeing something new. A new breed of citizen who refuses to take the easy answers of corrupt power-mongers. Who refuses to accept the arbitrary divisions between countries that the powerful perpetuate in their own interests. Who simply refuses to validate the authority of tyrants of all colours. The citizen of the world.


From: There is but one Gord and Moolah is his profit | Registered: Jan 2002  |  IP: Logged
Zatamon
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posted 17 February 2003 09:17 AM      Profile for Zatamon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
You are right, Jacob, your glasses are a bit rose-coloured. Nothing wrong with enthusiasm, of course, it is the best motivator around. However, a few words of caution are in order.

To base a social revolution on technology, controlled by those we want to revolt against, can be unwise. The way they co-opted the press, radio and television to serve their needs, I don’t see any reason why the Internet could not be co-opted as well. By licensing servers (and establishing licence fees so high that only the very rich could afford it), for example.

Even if Internet stays as accessible as it is now, it will be a while before a sizable portion of the citizenry has access to it and learn to use it well. To give you an example: about 50% of our barter group has computers at all, not all of them are online, and relatively few use it as an alternative media to inform themselves politically. And this is an avant-garde group in a technologically advanced country.

I am not saying Internet doesn’t help – it is an extremely powerful tool for communication and organization. But we must develop and maintain live, face-to-face contact with each other in our local communities, to build personal relationships that no electronic one can replace – or destroy (if and when they pull the plug).

[ 17 February 2003: Message edited by: Zatamon ]


From: where hope for 'hope' is contemplated | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
paxamillion
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posted 18 February 2003 12:56 PM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
If I were religious I'd consider Bush a blasphemer.

Or at least a major-league hypocrite.


From: the process of recovery | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
marcy
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posted 18 February 2003 01:12 PM      Profile for marcy   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
i agree with jacob two-two (and not just 'cause i like the books) - the 'net etc. = potentially revolutionary. well, ok, potential agents for various reforms - not the least of which is inter-global communication, debate and organizing. corporate globalization produces its antithesis: emergent and diverse anti-globalization that produces an emergent and chaotic new multi-faceted global community. bring out the the drums, whistles, face-painting, and quality green products from my lotus-land home. just leave britney at the gate.
From: vancouver | Registered: Jan 2003  |  IP: Logged

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