Re: Mind's Eye turning the world Greek

We know pretty concretely now, rigsy, that psychopaths usually have
screwed communication between parts of the brain. Everything seems
relational, but it's rare we see arguments that relate facts. I
watched Clinton last night and he was awesome. Yet how old was
Monica? Who was responsible for the control fraud deregulation of
finance (etc)?

Matt Stoller had this to say on the relations between Democrat
promises in 200 8 and reality.
#

Here's a list of some of the broken promises from 2008.

We will strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions and fight
to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

This did not happen. The labor law never passed.


We will ensure that federal employees, including public safety
officers who put their lives on the line every day, have the right to
bargain collectively, and we will fix the broken bargaining process at
the Federal Aviation Administration.


Nope.


We will fight to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so
that workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing
their livelihoods.

Nope.


We will also ensure that every American worker is able earn up to
seven paid sick days to care for themselves or an ill family member.


Nope.


To help workers share in our country's productivity, we'll expand the
Earned Income Tax Credit, and raise the minimum wage and index it to
inflation.


Didn't happen. And the minimum wage hike is actually in the 2012
platform, again.




We will encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media,
promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse
viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of
broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum.

Well, Comcast did buy NBC.


We will ensure that the foreclosure prevention program enacted by
Congress is implemented quickly and effectively so that at-risk
homeowners can get help and hopefully stay in their homes. We will
work to reform bankruptcy laws to restore balance between lender and
homeowner rights.


Larry Summers and Tim Geithner opposed cramdown, so it didn't happen.
And I think it's safe to say that foreclosure prevention was not a
priority for this administration.


We will work with Canada and Mexico to amend the North American Free
Trade Agreement so that it works better for all three North American
countries.

Nope.




We will put all non-emergency bills that Congress has passed online
for five days, to allow the American public to review and comment on
them before they are signed into law.

Nope.


We will require Cabinet officials to have periodic national online
town hall meetings to discuss issues before their agencies.


Nope.


We reject illegal wiretapping of American citizens, wherever they
live.


"Obama Fights to Retain Warrantless Wiretapping".


We reject the use of national security letters to spy on citizens who
are not suspected of a crime.
Nope.


We reject the tracking of citizens who do nothing more than protest a
misguided war.


Nope.


We reject sweeping claims of "inherent" presidential power.

Nope.


And we will ensure that law-abiding Americans of any origin, including
Arab-Americans and Muslim- Americans, do not become the scapegoats of
national security fears.

Nope.


We will respect the time-honored principle of habeas corpus, the seven
century-old right of individuals to challenge the terms of their own
detention that was recently reaffirmed by our Supreme Court.


Nope.


These aren't just broken promises, these are all broken promises that
have to do with the economic and political rights of the relatively
powerless. Privacy, union rights, debtor's rights, activist rights,
etc – they were promised tangible stuff, and didn't get it. It looks
like the Obama campaign will get a bounce from the convention, because
the convention is well-organized and a good show. Just recognize that
this show in 2008 had nothing to do with the ultimate policy that was
enacted, and it's likely that the 2012 convention will see a similar
outcome.

I paste this as someone ho thinks the GOP is lunatic - less than 5% of
scientists vote Republican. Labour in the UK is as bad as Obama-
Clinton. I think what I meant by turning Greek is the shattering of
the labour-spread of wealth compact and the debasing of non-elite
freedoms. I was never a close reader of Hegel - some awful dross on
seven as 'god's magic number' put me off. The big idea is history
teaches us something - but the question of what history is the real
problem, just as any focus on language is meaningless without
awareness of how much of it is deception and compromise. I was a
union man as an academic, but always despised the self-interested
focus.

The biggest 'unions' today are professional groups like banksters,
lawyers, doctors and accountants. An old Spanish poet and philosopher
Ortega Y Gassett once said Nazism reversed persuasion - coercion -
violence and what facilitates this is debasing points of resistance
like unions and worker solidarity. I can no more be pro old fashioned
unions (or their professional equivalents) than pro abortion, but I
can believe in proper representation of all decent rights and a
woman's choice.

Exposing workers to Chinese serf wages is not an economic answer to
anything and I suspect its based in hatred. Liberalism often seems to
pussy-footing to me (though our female cat has a habit of seizing my
hand in claws as she is smoothed to apparent ecstasy) in respect of
justice. In test-tube baby work, they may fertilise 6 eggs in vitro.
Only two can be chosen for implant (I'm not sure this is law,
resourcing or both). Ask yourself which eggs you would choose if you
knew 4 of them likely to develop painful disability? There is no
complete answer, but in practice I'm going to choose the healthier
suspects. My guess is we face something similar in labour
organisation and reward/benefits - we evade the real issues in favour
of cracker-barrel ideologies - the social theory of disability being
the example in moral choice in the in-vitro conundrum. There are hard
choices.






Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/broken-democratic-platform-promises-from-2008.html#uH786Wt1KucHtCZc.99
On 6 Sep, 14:13, rigsy03 <rigs...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> How does a Hegelian relationship between unequals figure into this?
> Dug out an interview with Elfriede Jelinek though I haven't read her
> books. <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/magazine/21QUESTIONS.html>
> Sexual and financial politics are probably related more than we
> admit.//Anyway, I really do try to keep an "open mind" (though is can
> get drafty, at times) so it was good to read you think I try for the
> happy medium. There may be too much information stored in the wrong
> compartments!
>
> On Sep 5, 12:27 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > There are many calls for a fresh start.
>
> > "Sadly, in this banana republic which employs such banana agencies as
> > the SEC to do the bidding of the banana elite that matters: not
> > democrats, not republicans, but Wall Street's banks full of money
> > (most of it from the trillions in 2008/9 taxpayer funded bailouts),
> > nothing will ever change, until the next and final crash wipes out
> > everything with it and forces the system to start afresh. Only by
> > eliminating the status quo, its insidious tentacles, and the enture
> > existing generation of corrupt, criminal, co-opted regulators, can
> > there be a chance to restore some semblance of fair and efficient
> > markets.
>
> > Until then, enjoy the farce of the broken Wall Street casino until
> > trading volumes finally hit zero. It won't be long. At that point it
> > will be too late"
>
> > This particular one is from the libertarian end (Zerohedge) - the
> > people who want capitalism back.  The 'left' tends to agree.  I tend
> > to think such 'answers' are right on the assumptions of corruption but
> > lack grasp of what being human could be about.  We have little clue
> > about such matters as how much work we need to do to sensibly maintain
> > the collective and individual freedom.  Instead, we have ideologies
> > like work ethic and entrepreneurial innovation.  In more than 2000
> > years since the Athenian Democracy we have come up with little that
> > prevents wealth buying votes and securing a place at the rarefied free
> > table for only a few.
>
> > Wittgenstein pointed out that philosophers discuss much the same old
> > rot as Plato and hence a turn to how language bewitches us is needed.
> > Actually, Plato made a similar point and Francis Bacon's Idols are a
> > classic example.  In a way were are bewitched by lies and lying makes
> > language almost impenetrable.  We are essentially animal and my own
> > guess is that we lack much understanding of this and the extended
> > phenotype.  We don't think animal hierarchies are the result of social
> > planning and I guess we don't understand much about how our own come
> > about.  Communism had a classic contradiction in centralising wealth
> > as state capitalism and its Utopian statement that the state would
> > wither away.
>
> > Rigsy talks fairly often about a happy medium and I often think of
> > this as a spreadsheet - though my background with them goes back to
> > chemistry and statistical process control rather than finance.  Most
> > of us a familiar with simple experiments like heating stuff in a test-
> > tube with a Bunsen.  In more complex processes we often want to
> > control ten variables to get the outcome we want.  Financial systems
> > that leave the one percenters with nearly all the product of effort
> > remind me of out of control experiments or production processes.  In
> > Africa, farming is often reduced to subsistence only because are
> > production that can't be hidden will be stolen.  I suspect
> > deregulation (some of which, when one thinks of red tape, must be
> > good) is just an example of a system out of control.  We have the
> > design wrong.
>
> > On 4 Sep, 13:24, rigsy03 <rigs...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > The new middle class in China is starving for luxury goods.
>
> > > On Sep 4, 2:54 am, Allan H <allanh1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Yes I agree Neil  the factory that is being run by mindful machines needs
> > > > to be paying for the 2900 workers that they displace.. We both know wealth
> > > > does not want that.
>
> > > > I can not help but think a sub economy is developing that will not be so
> > > > rediliy effected by banksters and wealth and the isolation will turn
> > > > around. to were wealth will be isolated and ignored by the masses.
> > > > Allan
>
> > > > On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 4:22 AM, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > The problem is the business as usual solutions don't and can't work.
> > > > > We hear stuff like bringing jobs back - but technology has changed so
> > > > > much that what might once ave created 3000 jobs is now a factory run
> > > > > by 100 people minding clever machines.  We have been sending over half
> > > > > our kids to university for a long time now - even China has a big
> > > > > problem with low paid white collar workers with degrees (called the
> > > > > Ant People).  The investment in education still seems sound to most,
> > > > > but it's not and is diverted from elsewhere.  The world's highest
> > > > > value company on market capitalisation makes toys.
>
> > > > > My guess is the problem starts with our attitude towards work and
> > > > > stealing other people's effort.  I believe this is as mad as, say,
> > > > > societies that slaughtered their own teenagers to satisfy fertility
> > > > > gods.  The problem is that we need guaranteed work programmes as a
> > > > > means to share created wealth and duties to each other AND some means
> > > > > through which this isn't some kind of horrible control system.  For
> > > > > every answer there are 'Gabby objections' (no doubt I can produce
> > > > > more).  About half he youth of Europe is unemployed.  There is work to
> > > > > do, but surely trying to turn everyone into a Santa's elf producing
> > > > > neater mobile toys can;t help.
>
> > > > > I'm led to believe deep confusion in our ideologies almost
> > > > > automatically produces non-answers.
>
> > > > > On 3 Sep, 20:09, Allan H <allanh1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > I have been reading this posting  oddly I am lost, I know there needs to
> > > > > be
> > > > > > a solution.. But I do not have any ideas..
> > > > > > Allan
>
> > > > > > On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 8:09 PM, Vam <atewari2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > > I sense you've thrown the Ayn Rand baby away. But there are places she
> > > > > > > discusses money and how it is an expression of value, how it represents
> > > > > > > honest work, and why it deserves to be trashed when it accrues on
> > > > > account
> > > > > > > of efforts that are corrupt or valueless.
>
> > > > > > > --
>
> > > > > > --
> > > > > >  (
> > > > > >   )
> > > > > > |_D Allan
>
> > > > > > Life is for moral, ethical and truthful living.
>
> > > > > > I am a Natural Airgunner -
>
> > > > > >  Full of Hot Air & Ready To Expel It Quickly.
>
> > > > > --
>
> > > > --
> > > >  (
> > > >   )
> > > > |_D Allan
>
> > > > Life is for moral, ethical and truthful living.
>
> > > > I am a Natural Airgunner -
>
> > > >  Full of Hot Air & Ready To Expel It Quickly.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -

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