onsdag den 23. juli 2008
Democracy and deferrence
Mark Slouka har bedrevet en meget interessant, vellykket og forfriskende anti-autoritær op-ed for Harper's om hvorledes den amerikanske samfundsform, har forvandlet sig fra selvstændighed til tyranni.
Uddrag:
"The real problem we face is not the Bush Administration’s imperial pretensions, its quasi-cultish stress on loyalty, or its instinctive suspicion of debate and dissent but the extent to which the administration’s modus operandi is representative of a society increasingly conversant with the protocols of subservience. In the long term, it is this tilt toward deference, this willingness to hold our tongues and sit on our principles, that truly threatens us, even more than the manifold abuses of this administration, because it makes them possible.
[...]
Tyranny isn’t something up ahead; it’s right here. It’s in the soil, in the very air we breathe. It’s the other climate change, and no less real. The old tyranny, from which we emerged as a nation, has been transformed by the wonder-working ways of time and advertising into a powdered wig, a tricorn hat, and the God-given freedom to burn hot dogs; the new tyranny, meanwhile—infinitely more dangerous, Made in America—looms just ahead, so large as to be very nearly invisible.
[...]
Lincoln had it right: “If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” We’re off to a fine start."
Resten kan læses her: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/06/0082039
Uddrag:
"The real problem we face is not the Bush Administration’s imperial pretensions, its quasi-cultish stress on loyalty, or its instinctive suspicion of debate and dissent but the extent to which the administration’s modus operandi is representative of a society increasingly conversant with the protocols of subservience. In the long term, it is this tilt toward deference, this willingness to hold our tongues and sit on our principles, that truly threatens us, even more than the manifold abuses of this administration, because it makes them possible.
[...]
Tyranny isn’t something up ahead; it’s right here. It’s in the soil, in the very air we breathe. It’s the other climate change, and no less real. The old tyranny, from which we emerged as a nation, has been transformed by the wonder-working ways of time and advertising into a powdered wig, a tricorn hat, and the God-given freedom to burn hot dogs; the new tyranny, meanwhile—infinitely more dangerous, Made in America—looms just ahead, so large as to be very nearly invisible.
[...]
Lincoln had it right: “If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” We’re off to a fine start."
Resten kan læses her: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/06/0082039
tirsdag den 22. juli 2008
mandag den 21. juli 2008
fredag den 18. juli 2008
Garbage Warrior i Independent
Interview med Michael Reynolds (Garbage Warrior) om Earthship Biotecture.
“Imagine a home that heats itself, that provides its own water, and grows its own food,” says Reynolds. “Imagine that it needs no expensive technology, it recycles its own waste, and it has its own power source. And now imagine that it can be built anywhere, by anyone, out of the things that society throws away.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/earthship-enterprise-the-ultimate-ecohouse-869591.html
“Imagine a home that heats itself, that provides its own water, and grows its own food,” says Reynolds. “Imagine that it needs no expensive technology, it recycles its own waste, and it has its own power source. And now imagine that it can be built anywhere, by anyone, out of the things that society throws away.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/earthship-enterprise-the-ultimate-ecohouse-869591.html
torsdag den 17. juli 2008
Britterne på kanten af en altomfattende politistat.
Det britiske indenrigsministerie har iflg. Daily Mail forleden fremsat forslag om, at det i fremtiden bør være muligt for staten at overvåge alle telefonopkald, mails, sms'er, internetsøgninger og online køb.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1035361/Big-Brother-database-recording-calls-texts-e-mails-ruin-British-way-life.html
"It is thought the scheme would allow the police or MI5 to access the exact time when a phone call was made, the number dialled, the length of the call and, in the case of mobile phones, the location of the handset to within an accuracy of a few hundred yards.
Similarly for e-mails, it would provide details of when they were sent and who the recipients were. Police recovering a suspect’s computer would then be able to trawl through hard-drive records and recover particular messages. The content of telephone calls could not be recovered unless they were being intercepted at the time."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1035361/Big-Brother-database-recording-calls-texts-e-mails-ruin-British-way-life.html
tirsdag den 15. juli 2008
Orwell Rolls in His Grave
Hvis man ønsker at forstå den amerikanske politiske sfære, bliver man nødt til at forstå den amerikanske medievirkelighed indgående, i denne henseende er denne dokumentar et absolut must. Den bedste jeg hidtil har set.
Download den fra et torrentsite istedet for at se den online. Syncen er dårlig på video.google.com
Olie-undertrykkelse i Nigeria
Den som regel læseværdige og ligeledes som regel retfærdigt indignerede Johann Hari fra The Independent, havde i går en kommentar i avisen der belyser omkostninger blandt Nigerias fattige befolkning, for at StorBrittanien kan få olie til deres indenrigs forbrug. Udpumpningen af olie under befolkningens jorder sker uden nogen som helst kompensation til disse mennesker, selvom olieudslip har ødelagt det fiskeri de tidligere levede af, og selvom forurening har kostet dem dyrt.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-our-cry-for-cheap-oil-is-crude-and-deadly-866899.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-our-cry-for-cheap-oil-is-crude-and-deadly-866899.html
Bill Moyers om den amerikanske medievirkelighed
Den legendariske mediepersonlighed og journalist Bill Moyers, der blandt andet har vundet over tredive Emmy Awards, har i denne udgave af In These Times artikelen "Is the Fourth Estate a Fifth Column?" hvori han forholder sig særdeles pessimistisk til den amerikanske medievirkelighed, og ultimativt ledes til at konkludere, at de amerikanske medier er gået fra at være den fjerde statsmagt til at være femte kolonne virksomhed.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3790/is_the_fourth_estate_a_fifth_column/
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3790/is_the_fourth_estate_a_fifth_column/
mandag den 14. juli 2008
Frihedsfjendtlighed i EU og USA.
Udhuling af den amerikanske forfatningen.
The 4th amendment i den amerikanske forfatning sikrer - eller rettere, var ment til at sikre - borgerne mod indgreb fra administrative organer i deres personlige frihed, da ransagninger ikke kan foretages uden forudgående udstedelse af en kendelse.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
For tre år siden kom det som bekendt frem at Bush-administrationen havde afflyttet titusinder af amerikanere i al hemmelighed med hjælp fra de store teleselskaber. Dette kunne man forvente ville skabe en del furore samt give oppositionen brændsel, men guess what, igår underskrev kongressen en lov som udover fuldstændig at udhule the 4th amendment, også giver de teleselskaber som var med på en lytter, retroaktiv immunitet, hvilket vil sig at de ikke kan retsforfølges. Både Barack Obama og John McCain er underskrivere af den nye lovgivning.
Det udtrykte en professor i forfatningsret fortvivlelse over for et par dage siden på MSNBC:
Den tidligere højtstående embedsmand under Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts, udtrykker rammende tingenes tilstand i "verdens største demokrati": "Retroactive laws are unconstitutional. But, alas, the US Constitution does not make campaign contributions, and telecommunication companies do." i en anbefalelsesværdig artikel Information ClearingHouse artikel som kan læses her:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20276.htm
EU og USA vil samarbejde om at overvåge borgerne.
EU og USA er tilsyneladende i gang med at samarbejde om at overvåge indbyggerne i EU.
"An internal report leaked to The New York Times yesterday said the EU was on the verge of agreeing to give US law enforcement and security agencies information about all EU citizens."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4232264.ece
Over en million amerikanere på terror watchlists.
Den amerikanske borgerrettighedsorganisation ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) skriver på deres website, at der nu er mere end 1 million amerikanere på de såkaldte watch-lists over folk som menes at udgøre en terrortrussel i en eller anden grad. læs mere om dette:
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/35968prs20080714.html
The 4th amendment i den amerikanske forfatning sikrer - eller rettere, var ment til at sikre - borgerne mod indgreb fra administrative organer i deres personlige frihed, da ransagninger ikke kan foretages uden forudgående udstedelse af en kendelse.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
For tre år siden kom det som bekendt frem at Bush-administrationen havde afflyttet titusinder af amerikanere i al hemmelighed med hjælp fra de store teleselskaber. Dette kunne man forvente ville skabe en del furore samt give oppositionen brændsel, men guess what, igår underskrev kongressen en lov som udover fuldstændig at udhule the 4th amendment, også giver de teleselskaber som var med på en lytter, retroaktiv immunitet, hvilket vil sig at de ikke kan retsforfølges. Både Barack Obama og John McCain er underskrivere af den nye lovgivning.
Det udtrykte en professor i forfatningsret fortvivlelse over for et par dage siden på MSNBC:
Den tidligere højtstående embedsmand under Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts, udtrykker rammende tingenes tilstand i "verdens største demokrati": "Retroactive laws are unconstitutional. But, alas, the US Constitution does not make campaign contributions, and telecommunication companies do." i en anbefalelsesværdig artikel Information ClearingHouse artikel som kan læses her:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20276.htm
EU og USA vil samarbejde om at overvåge borgerne.
EU og USA er tilsyneladende i gang med at samarbejde om at overvåge indbyggerne i EU.
"An internal report leaked to The New York Times yesterday said the EU was on the verge of agreeing to give US law enforcement and security agencies information about all EU citizens."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4232264.ece
Over en million amerikanere på terror watchlists.
Den amerikanske borgerrettighedsorganisation ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) skriver på deres website, at der nu er mere end 1 million amerikanere på de såkaldte watch-lists over folk som menes at udgøre en terrortrussel i en eller anden grad. læs mere om dette:
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/35968prs20080714.html
torsdag den 10. juli 2008
Historieforfalskning om islamisk aggressivitet
af Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff
Kulturhistorisk dannelse er nok ikke det, man har mest af hertillands, og det står naturligvis også enhver frit for at beslutte, at man ikke interesserer sig for den slags. Derimod er det et klart problem, at man ikke har noget at stå imod med, når politiske grupperinger vil begrunde deres dagsorden i forskellige former for historieforfalskning - et nærliggende eksempel er nynazisternes fornægtelse af Holocaust, som dog næppe ret mange tager alvorligt.
Desværre kan man ikke sige det samme om det moderne korstog for at fremstille islam som en fundamentalt aggressiv, ja sågar barbarisk religion, der umuliggør sameksistens. Det nytter så som regel ikke så meget, at muslimer fremdrager koranvers, der advokerer religiøs tolerance, og det kan der være en vis fornuft i, eftersom det vil være lige så let at finde citater, der maner til hellig krig.
Koranen blev trods alt til på et tidspunkt, hvor islam kæmpede for sit liv - det skorter heller ikke i Bibelen på opfordringer til at slagte nabofolk - og skønt ingen rettroende muslim naturligvis vil gå med til, at nogen del af hans hellige skrift er forældet, vil der dog ligesom i andre lovsamlinger være forskrifter til forskellige lejligheder og tider. Alt har sin stund og hver en ting under himmelen sin tid, for at citere vores egen udgave - og her trænger to historiske kendsgerninger sig på - for den, der nu interesserer sig for den slags.
Den første er en tendens hos senere (islamiske) kommentatorer til at fortolke profetens ord som et fredsbudskab og dermed en opfordring til at holde fred med deres anderledes troende og tænkende naboer - vel at mærke så længe disse viste tilhængere af islam den samme tolerance (noget andet er så, at man anså dem for at være fordømte til helvedes ild). Den anden er, at islam stort set har efterlevet dette princip.
Hermed naturligvis ikke være sagt, at islam ikke har sin del af bigotteri og fanatisme.
Derimod er det ren propaganda - og, må man tro, mod bedre vidende - når man antyder, at en sammenligning med kristendommens generalieblad falder ud til sidstnævntes fordel. Hvor de kristne i vid udstrækning havde mulighed for at dyrke deres religion i områder, der var under islamisk herredømme, kunne den tilsvarende kristne næstekærlighed ligge på et meget lille sted.
Man behøver blot at tænke på tvangskristningen af jøderne opfulgt af tortur og død ved mistanke om tilbagefald - den lige linje til nazismen burde give enhver kristen en dårlig smag i munden. Ofte beskyttede man ligefrem kristne sekter mod moderkirkens forfølgelse - her kunne en Luther altså have fået asyl.
Hertil kom, at islam ikke på samme måde som kristendommen har fundet noget suspekt i verdslig viden, hvorfor mange moderne videnskaber som astronomi og kemi har deres rod i den arabiske verden, der ligeledes i perioder har fungeret som verdens bibliotek. Det er da også tydeligt, at man kun ønsker at oppiske en stemning på måder, der i deres smagløshed ligeledes henleder tanken på tredivernes Tyskland.
Jyllands-Postens tegninger af profeten handler således ikke om ytringsfrihed, så lidt som man kunne påberåbe sig en sådan, hvis man i et stort dagblad bragte morsomme tegninger af ofrene for 11. september. Naturligvis kan man altid bruge eventuelle protester fra troende muslimer til at bevise deres religiøse vanvid.
På et punkt må jeg dog give neonationalisterne ret: I et multietnisk samfund må vi garanteres tolerance af vores egenart. Men som i alle sådanne tilfælde, hvor vi forlanger en bestemt opførsel af vores næste, må vi selv levere den først.
Kulturhistorisk dannelse er nok ikke det, man har mest af hertillands, og det står naturligvis også enhver frit for at beslutte, at man ikke interesserer sig for den slags. Derimod er det et klart problem, at man ikke har noget at stå imod med, når politiske grupperinger vil begrunde deres dagsorden i forskellige former for historieforfalskning - et nærliggende eksempel er nynazisternes fornægtelse af Holocaust, som dog næppe ret mange tager alvorligt.
Desværre kan man ikke sige det samme om det moderne korstog for at fremstille islam som en fundamentalt aggressiv, ja sågar barbarisk religion, der umuliggør sameksistens. Det nytter så som regel ikke så meget, at muslimer fremdrager koranvers, der advokerer religiøs tolerance, og det kan der være en vis fornuft i, eftersom det vil være lige så let at finde citater, der maner til hellig krig.
Koranen blev trods alt til på et tidspunkt, hvor islam kæmpede for sit liv - det skorter heller ikke i Bibelen på opfordringer til at slagte nabofolk - og skønt ingen rettroende muslim naturligvis vil gå med til, at nogen del af hans hellige skrift er forældet, vil der dog ligesom i andre lovsamlinger være forskrifter til forskellige lejligheder og tider. Alt har sin stund og hver en ting under himmelen sin tid, for at citere vores egen udgave - og her trænger to historiske kendsgerninger sig på - for den, der nu interesserer sig for den slags.
Den første er en tendens hos senere (islamiske) kommentatorer til at fortolke profetens ord som et fredsbudskab og dermed en opfordring til at holde fred med deres anderledes troende og tænkende naboer - vel at mærke så længe disse viste tilhængere af islam den samme tolerance (noget andet er så, at man anså dem for at være fordømte til helvedes ild). Den anden er, at islam stort set har efterlevet dette princip.
Hermed naturligvis ikke være sagt, at islam ikke har sin del af bigotteri og fanatisme.
Derimod er det ren propaganda - og, må man tro, mod bedre vidende - når man antyder, at en sammenligning med kristendommens generalieblad falder ud til sidstnævntes fordel. Hvor de kristne i vid udstrækning havde mulighed for at dyrke deres religion i områder, der var under islamisk herredømme, kunne den tilsvarende kristne næstekærlighed ligge på et meget lille sted.
Man behøver blot at tænke på tvangskristningen af jøderne opfulgt af tortur og død ved mistanke om tilbagefald - den lige linje til nazismen burde give enhver kristen en dårlig smag i munden. Ofte beskyttede man ligefrem kristne sekter mod moderkirkens forfølgelse - her kunne en Luther altså have fået asyl.
Hertil kom, at islam ikke på samme måde som kristendommen har fundet noget suspekt i verdslig viden, hvorfor mange moderne videnskaber som astronomi og kemi har deres rod i den arabiske verden, der ligeledes i perioder har fungeret som verdens bibliotek. Det er da også tydeligt, at man kun ønsker at oppiske en stemning på måder, der i deres smagløshed ligeledes henleder tanken på tredivernes Tyskland.
Jyllands-Postens tegninger af profeten handler således ikke om ytringsfrihed, så lidt som man kunne påberåbe sig en sådan, hvis man i et stort dagblad bragte morsomme tegninger af ofrene for 11. september. Naturligvis kan man altid bruge eventuelle protester fra troende muslimer til at bevise deres religiøse vanvid.
På et punkt må jeg dog give neonationalisterne ret: I et multietnisk samfund må vi garanteres tolerance af vores egenart. Men som i alle sådanne tilfælde, hvor vi forlanger en bestemt opførsel af vores næste, må vi selv levere den først.
mandag den 7. juli 2008
torsdag den 3. juli 2008
Robert Fisk forelæsning på M.I.T.
Efter en længere indledning af Noam Chomsky, leverer den legendariske engelske journalist Robert Fisk en passioneret forelæsning ved Massachusetts Institute of Technology. En klar anbefaling herfra!
onsdag den 2. juli 2008
John Pilger - Truth Game
John Pilger looks at world-wide propaganda surrounding the nuclear arms race. John Pilger's penetrating documentary which looks at world-wide propaganda surrounding the nuclear arms race. When the two American atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, they were code-named 'Fat Man' and 'Little Boy', and President Truman announced after the event: "The experiment has been an overwhelming success." "These", says Pilger, "were words used to describe the awful and horrific carnage of nuclear war. By using reassuring, even soothing language, this new kind of propaganda created acceptable images of war and the illusion that we could live securely with nuclear weapons". Official 'truths' are examined in connection with the bombing of Hiroshima, the build up of arms by Russia and America, the siting of nuclear bases by the US in Britain and Europe, Ministry of Defence statements about the Cruise missile base at Greenham Common, and other US bases, the amount of government money spent on weapons, 'Civil defence' arrangements and a NATO 'limited' nuclear and chemical war exercise in West Germany, which Pilger describes as 'a dry run for the unthinkable'. Many experts give their views, including Paul Warnke who thinks arms reduction is feasible -- 'All we need is the political will to go ahead with it'
tirsdag den 24. juni 2008
mandag den 23. juni 2008
R.I.P George Carlin
George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian
The New York Times, June 24, 2008
By MEL WATKINS
George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.
The cause of death was heart failure. Mr. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, went into the hospital on Sunday afternoon after complaining of heart trouble. The comedian had worked last weekend at The Orleans in Las Vegas.
Recently, Mr. Carlin was named the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He was to receive the award at the Kennedy Center in November. “In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer, and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Kennedy Center chairman. “His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching.”
Mr. Carlin began his standup comedy act in the late 1950s and made his first television solo guest appearance on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1965. At that time, he was primarily known for his clever wordplay and reminiscences of his Irish working-class upbringing in New York.
But from the outset there were indications of an anti-establishment edge to his comedy. Initially, it surfaced in the witty patter of a host of offbeat characters like the wacky sportscaster Biff Barf and the hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. “The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight’s forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”
Mr. Carlin released his first comedy album, “Take-Offs and Put-Ons,” to rave reviews in 1967. He also dabbled in acting, winning a recurring part as Marlo Thomas’ theatrical agent in the sitcom “That Girl” (1966-67) and a supporting role in the movie “With Six You Get Egg-Roll,” released in 1968.
By the end of the decade, he was one of America’s best known comedians. He made more than 80 major television appearances during that time, including the Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show; he was also regularly featured at major nightclubs in New York and Las Vegas.
That early success and celebrity, however, was as dinky and hollow as a gratuitous pratfall to Mr. Carlin. “I was entertaining the fathers and the mothers of the people I sympathized with, and in some cases associated with, and whose point of view I shared,” he recalled later, as quoted in the book “Going Too Far” by Tony Hendra, which was published in 1987. “I was a traitor, in so many words. I was living a lie.”
In 1970, Mr. Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Mr. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material.
By 1972, when he released his second album, “FM & AM,” his star was again on the rise. The album, which won a Grammy Award as best comedy recording, combined older material on the “AM” side with bolder, more acerbic routines on the “FM” side. Among the more controversial cuts was a routine euphemistically entitled “Shoot,” in which Mr. Carlin explored the etymology and common usage of the popular idiom for excrement. The bit was part of the comic’s longer routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” which appeared on his third album “Class Clown,” also released in 1972.
“There are some words you can say part of the time. Most of the time ‘ass’ is all right on television,” Mr. Carlin noted in his introduction to the then controversial monologue. “You can say, well, ‘You’ve made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.’ You can use ass in a religious sense, if you happen to be the redeemer riding into town on one — perfectly all right.”
The material seems innocuous by today’s standards, but it caused an uproar when broadcast on the New York radio station WBAI in the early ’70s. The station was censured and fined by the FCC. And in 1978, their ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which Time magazine reported, “upheld an FCC ban on ‘offensive material’ during hours when children are in the audience.” Mr. Carlin refused to drop the bit and was arrested several times after reciting it on stage.
By the mid-’70s, like his comic predecessor Lenny Bruce and the fast-rising Richard Pryor, Mr. Carlin had emerged as a cultural renegade. In addition to his irreverent jests about religion and politics, he openly talked about the use of drugs, including acid and peyote, and said that he kicked cocaine not for moral or legal reasons but after he found “far more pain in the deal than pleasure.” But the edgier, more biting comedy he developed during this period, along with his candid admission of drug use, cemented his reputation as the “comic voice of the counterculture.”
Mr. Carlin released a half dozen comedy albums during the ’70s, including the million-record sellers “Class Clown,” “Occupation: Foole” (1973) and “An Evening With Wally Lando” (1975). He was chosen to host the first episode of the late-night comedy show “Saturday Night Live” in 1975. And two years later, he found the perfect platform for his brand of acerbic, cerebral, sometimes off-color standup humor in the fledgling, less restricted world of cable television. By 1977, when his first HBO comedy special, “George Carlin at USC” was aired, he was recognized as one of the era’s most influential comedians. He also become a best-selling author of books that expanded on his comedy routines, including “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,” which was published by Hyperion in 2004.
Pursuing a Dream
Mr. Carlin was born in New York City in 1937. “I grew up in New York wanting to be like those funny men in the movies and on the radio,” he said. “My grandfather, mother and father were gifted verbally, and my mother passed that along to me. She always made sure I was conscious of language and words.”
He quit high school to join the Air Force in the mid-’50s and, while stationed in Shreveport, La., worked as a radio disc jockey. Discharged in 1957, he set out to pursue his boyhood dream of becoming an actor and comic. He moved to Boston where he met and teamed up with Jack Burns, a newscaster and comedian. The team worked on radio stations in Boston, Fort Worth, and Los Angeles, and performed in clubs throughout the country during the late ’50s.
After attracting the attention of the comedian Mort Sahl, who dubbed them “a duo of hip wits,” they appeared as guests on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar. Still, the Carlin-Burns team was only moderately successful, and, in 1960, Mr. Carlin struck out on his own.
During a career that spanned five decades, he emerged as one of the most durable, productive and versatile comedians of his era. He evolved from Jerry Seinfeld-like whimsy and a buttoned-down decorum in the ’60s to counterculture icon in the ’70s. By the ’80s, he was known as a scathing social critic who could artfully wring laughs from a list of oxymorons that ranged from “jumbo shrimp” to “military intelligence.” And in the 1990s and into the 21st century the balding but still pony-tailed comic prowled the stage — eyes ablaze and bristling with intensity — as the circuit’s most splenetic curmudgeon.
During his live 1996 HBO special, “Back in Town,” he raged over the shallowness of the ’90s “me first” culture — mocking the infatuation with camcorders, hyphenated names, sneakers with lights on them, and lambasting white guys over 10 years old who wear their baseball hats backwards. Baby boomers, “who went from ‘do your thing’ to ‘just say no’ ...from cocaine to Rogaine,” and pro life advocates (“How come when it’s us it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken it’s an omelet?”), were some of his prime targets. In the years following his 1977 cable debut, Mr. Carlin was nominated for a half dozen Grammy awards and received CableAces awards for best stand-up comedy special for “George Carlin: Doin’ It Again (1990) and “George Carlin: Jammin’ ” (1992). He also won his second Grammy for the album “Jammin” in 1994.
Personal Struggles
During the course of his career, Mr. Carlin overcame numerous personal trials. His early arrests for obscenity (all of which were dismissed) and struggle to overcome his self-described “heavy drug use” were the most publicized. But in the ’80s he also weathered serious tax problems, a heart attack and two open heart surgeries.
In December 2004 he entered a rehabilitation center to address his addictions to Vicodin and red wine. Mr. Carlin had a well-chronicled cocaine problem in his 30s, and though he was able to taper his cocaine use on his own, he said, he continued to abuse alcohol and also became addicted to Vicodin. He entered rehab at the end of that year, then took two months off before continuing his comedy tours.
“Standup is the centerpiece of my life, my business, my art, my survival and my way of being,” Mr. Carlin once told an interviewer. “This is my art, to interpret the world.” But, while it always took center stage in his career, Mr. Carlin did not restrict himself to the comedy stage. He frequently indulged his childhood fantasy of becoming a movie star. Among his later credits were supporting parts in “Car Wash” (1976), “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989), “The Prince of Tides” (1991), and “Dogma” (1999).
His 1997 book, “Brain Droppings,” became an instant best seller. And among several continuing TV roles, he starred in the Fox sitcom “The George Carlin Show,” which aired for one season. “That was an experiment on my part to see if there might be a way I could fit into the corporate entertainment structure,” he said after the show was canceled in 1994. “And I don’t,” he added.
Despite the longevity of his career and his problematic personal life, Mr. Carlin remained one of the most original and productive comedians in show business. “It’s his lifelong affection for language and passion for truth that continue to fuel his performances,” a critic observed of the comedian when he was in his mid-60s. And Chris Albrecht, an HBO executive, said, “He is as prolific a comedian as I have witnessed.”
Mr. Carlin is survived by his wife, Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law, Bob McCall, brother, Patrick Carlin and sister-in-law, Marlene Carlin. His first wife, Brenda Hosbrook, died in 1997.
Although some criticized parts of his later work as too contentious, Mr. Carlin defended the material, insisting that his comedy had always been driven by an intolerance for the shortcomings of humanity and society. “Scratch any cynic,” he said, “and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”
Still, when pushed to explain the pessimism and overt spleen that had crept into his act, he quickly reaffirmed the zeal that inspired his lists of complaints and grievances. “I don’t have pet peeves,” he said, correcting the interviewer. And with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he added, “I have major, psychotic hatreds.”
The New York Times, June 24, 2008
By MEL WATKINS
George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.
The cause of death was heart failure. Mr. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, went into the hospital on Sunday afternoon after complaining of heart trouble. The comedian had worked last weekend at The Orleans in Las Vegas.
Recently, Mr. Carlin was named the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He was to receive the award at the Kennedy Center in November. “In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer, and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Kennedy Center chairman. “His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching.”
Mr. Carlin began his standup comedy act in the late 1950s and made his first television solo guest appearance on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1965. At that time, he was primarily known for his clever wordplay and reminiscences of his Irish working-class upbringing in New York.
But from the outset there were indications of an anti-establishment edge to his comedy. Initially, it surfaced in the witty patter of a host of offbeat characters like the wacky sportscaster Biff Barf and the hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. “The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight’s forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”
Mr. Carlin released his first comedy album, “Take-Offs and Put-Ons,” to rave reviews in 1967. He also dabbled in acting, winning a recurring part as Marlo Thomas’ theatrical agent in the sitcom “That Girl” (1966-67) and a supporting role in the movie “With Six You Get Egg-Roll,” released in 1968.
By the end of the decade, he was one of America’s best known comedians. He made more than 80 major television appearances during that time, including the Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show; he was also regularly featured at major nightclubs in New York and Las Vegas.
That early success and celebrity, however, was as dinky and hollow as a gratuitous pratfall to Mr. Carlin. “I was entertaining the fathers and the mothers of the people I sympathized with, and in some cases associated with, and whose point of view I shared,” he recalled later, as quoted in the book “Going Too Far” by Tony Hendra, which was published in 1987. “I was a traitor, in so many words. I was living a lie.”
In 1970, Mr. Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Mr. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material.
By 1972, when he released his second album, “FM & AM,” his star was again on the rise. The album, which won a Grammy Award as best comedy recording, combined older material on the “AM” side with bolder, more acerbic routines on the “FM” side. Among the more controversial cuts was a routine euphemistically entitled “Shoot,” in which Mr. Carlin explored the etymology and common usage of the popular idiom for excrement. The bit was part of the comic’s longer routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” which appeared on his third album “Class Clown,” also released in 1972.
“There are some words you can say part of the time. Most of the time ‘ass’ is all right on television,” Mr. Carlin noted in his introduction to the then controversial monologue. “You can say, well, ‘You’ve made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.’ You can use ass in a religious sense, if you happen to be the redeemer riding into town on one — perfectly all right.”
The material seems innocuous by today’s standards, but it caused an uproar when broadcast on the New York radio station WBAI in the early ’70s. The station was censured and fined by the FCC. And in 1978, their ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which Time magazine reported, “upheld an FCC ban on ‘offensive material’ during hours when children are in the audience.” Mr. Carlin refused to drop the bit and was arrested several times after reciting it on stage.
By the mid-’70s, like his comic predecessor Lenny Bruce and the fast-rising Richard Pryor, Mr. Carlin had emerged as a cultural renegade. In addition to his irreverent jests about religion and politics, he openly talked about the use of drugs, including acid and peyote, and said that he kicked cocaine not for moral or legal reasons but after he found “far more pain in the deal than pleasure.” But the edgier, more biting comedy he developed during this period, along with his candid admission of drug use, cemented his reputation as the “comic voice of the counterculture.”
Mr. Carlin released a half dozen comedy albums during the ’70s, including the million-record sellers “Class Clown,” “Occupation: Foole” (1973) and “An Evening With Wally Lando” (1975). He was chosen to host the first episode of the late-night comedy show “Saturday Night Live” in 1975. And two years later, he found the perfect platform for his brand of acerbic, cerebral, sometimes off-color standup humor in the fledgling, less restricted world of cable television. By 1977, when his first HBO comedy special, “George Carlin at USC” was aired, he was recognized as one of the era’s most influential comedians. He also become a best-selling author of books that expanded on his comedy routines, including “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,” which was published by Hyperion in 2004.
Pursuing a Dream
Mr. Carlin was born in New York City in 1937. “I grew up in New York wanting to be like those funny men in the movies and on the radio,” he said. “My grandfather, mother and father were gifted verbally, and my mother passed that along to me. She always made sure I was conscious of language and words.”
He quit high school to join the Air Force in the mid-’50s and, while stationed in Shreveport, La., worked as a radio disc jockey. Discharged in 1957, he set out to pursue his boyhood dream of becoming an actor and comic. He moved to Boston where he met and teamed up with Jack Burns, a newscaster and comedian. The team worked on radio stations in Boston, Fort Worth, and Los Angeles, and performed in clubs throughout the country during the late ’50s.
After attracting the attention of the comedian Mort Sahl, who dubbed them “a duo of hip wits,” they appeared as guests on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar. Still, the Carlin-Burns team was only moderately successful, and, in 1960, Mr. Carlin struck out on his own.
During a career that spanned five decades, he emerged as one of the most durable, productive and versatile comedians of his era. He evolved from Jerry Seinfeld-like whimsy and a buttoned-down decorum in the ’60s to counterculture icon in the ’70s. By the ’80s, he was known as a scathing social critic who could artfully wring laughs from a list of oxymorons that ranged from “jumbo shrimp” to “military intelligence.” And in the 1990s and into the 21st century the balding but still pony-tailed comic prowled the stage — eyes ablaze and bristling with intensity — as the circuit’s most splenetic curmudgeon.
During his live 1996 HBO special, “Back in Town,” he raged over the shallowness of the ’90s “me first” culture — mocking the infatuation with camcorders, hyphenated names, sneakers with lights on them, and lambasting white guys over 10 years old who wear their baseball hats backwards. Baby boomers, “who went from ‘do your thing’ to ‘just say no’ ...from cocaine to Rogaine,” and pro life advocates (“How come when it’s us it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken it’s an omelet?”), were some of his prime targets. In the years following his 1977 cable debut, Mr. Carlin was nominated for a half dozen Grammy awards and received CableAces awards for best stand-up comedy special for “George Carlin: Doin’ It Again (1990) and “George Carlin: Jammin’ ” (1992). He also won his second Grammy for the album “Jammin” in 1994.
Personal Struggles
During the course of his career, Mr. Carlin overcame numerous personal trials. His early arrests for obscenity (all of which were dismissed) and struggle to overcome his self-described “heavy drug use” were the most publicized. But in the ’80s he also weathered serious tax problems, a heart attack and two open heart surgeries.
In December 2004 he entered a rehabilitation center to address his addictions to Vicodin and red wine. Mr. Carlin had a well-chronicled cocaine problem in his 30s, and though he was able to taper his cocaine use on his own, he said, he continued to abuse alcohol and also became addicted to Vicodin. He entered rehab at the end of that year, then took two months off before continuing his comedy tours.
“Standup is the centerpiece of my life, my business, my art, my survival and my way of being,” Mr. Carlin once told an interviewer. “This is my art, to interpret the world.” But, while it always took center stage in his career, Mr. Carlin did not restrict himself to the comedy stage. He frequently indulged his childhood fantasy of becoming a movie star. Among his later credits were supporting parts in “Car Wash” (1976), “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989), “The Prince of Tides” (1991), and “Dogma” (1999).
His 1997 book, “Brain Droppings,” became an instant best seller. And among several continuing TV roles, he starred in the Fox sitcom “The George Carlin Show,” which aired for one season. “That was an experiment on my part to see if there might be a way I could fit into the corporate entertainment structure,” he said after the show was canceled in 1994. “And I don’t,” he added.
Despite the longevity of his career and his problematic personal life, Mr. Carlin remained one of the most original and productive comedians in show business. “It’s his lifelong affection for language and passion for truth that continue to fuel his performances,” a critic observed of the comedian when he was in his mid-60s. And Chris Albrecht, an HBO executive, said, “He is as prolific a comedian as I have witnessed.”
Mr. Carlin is survived by his wife, Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law, Bob McCall, brother, Patrick Carlin and sister-in-law, Marlene Carlin. His first wife, Brenda Hosbrook, died in 1997.
Although some criticized parts of his later work as too contentious, Mr. Carlin defended the material, insisting that his comedy had always been driven by an intolerance for the shortcomings of humanity and society. “Scratch any cynic,” he said, “and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”
Still, when pushed to explain the pessimism and overt spleen that had crept into his act, he quickly reaffirmed the zeal that inspired his lists of complaints and grievances. “I don’t have pet peeves,” he said, correcting the interviewer. And with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he added, “I have major, psychotic hatreds.”
søndag den 22. juni 2008
Dengang kultur var modkultur.
Poul Henningsen "Man binder os på mund og hånd" 1940 (uddrag)
3
Sel' når skib på skib går ned
og land på land bliver slettet ud
handler man af ærlighed
og ber til hver sin gud.
Fredstraktat og venskabspagt
det er papir, der koster blod.
Svaghed væbner sig mod magt
i angstens desperate mod.
Det gælder kærlighed og krig
at alle løfter kun er svig,
og ingen kan stole på menn'skenes ord.
Hva' hjalp de håndslag som I gav
den der står ved mandens grav?
Et menn'ske er nul mod den hellige jord.
Angst for vore fjender? Ja, men mere angst for den
stormagt som vil hjælpe os og kalder sig vor ven.
Det gælder alle tiders krig,
at alle løfter kun er svig
og ingen kan stole på staternes ord.
4
Møde hvad der venter os
og ingen ve' hvordan det går
Bære skæbnen uden trods
hvad der så forestår
Glad ved hver en venlighed
men uden tro, at det bli'r ved
Søge fred, idet vi ved,
at vi har ingen krav på fred
Man binder os på mund og hånd
Men man ka' ikke binde ånd
og ingen er fangne, når tanken er fri
Vi har en indre fæstning her
som styrkes i sit eget værd
når bare vi kæmper for det, vi ka' li'
Den som holder sjælen rank, kan aldrig blive træl
Ingen kan regere det, som vi bestemmer sel'
Det lover vi med hånd og mund
i mørket før en morgenstund
at drømmen om frihed bli'r aldrig forbi.
3
Sel' når skib på skib går ned
og land på land bliver slettet ud
handler man af ærlighed
og ber til hver sin gud.
Fredstraktat og venskabspagt
det er papir, der koster blod.
Svaghed væbner sig mod magt
i angstens desperate mod.
Det gælder kærlighed og krig
at alle løfter kun er svig,
og ingen kan stole på menn'skenes ord.
Hva' hjalp de håndslag som I gav
den der står ved mandens grav?
Et menn'ske er nul mod den hellige jord.
Angst for vore fjender? Ja, men mere angst for den
stormagt som vil hjælpe os og kalder sig vor ven.
Det gælder alle tiders krig,
at alle løfter kun er svig
og ingen kan stole på staternes ord.
4
Møde hvad der venter os
og ingen ve' hvordan det går
Bære skæbnen uden trods
hvad der så forestår
Glad ved hver en venlighed
men uden tro, at det bli'r ved
Søge fred, idet vi ved,
at vi har ingen krav på fred
Man binder os på mund og hånd
Men man ka' ikke binde ånd
og ingen er fangne, når tanken er fri
Vi har en indre fæstning her
som styrkes i sit eget værd
når bare vi kæmper for det, vi ka' li'
Den som holder sjælen rank, kan aldrig blive træl
Ingen kan regere det, som vi bestemmer sel'
Det lover vi med hånd og mund
i mørket før en morgenstund
at drømmen om frihed bli'r aldrig forbi.
Politisk Retorik i det 20. århundrede.
Churchill: Jerntæppe-talen
FDR: Inaugural Address part 1.
FDR: Inaugural address part 2.
Martin Luther King: I have a dream.
Ronald Reagan: The Evil Empire
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Ich Bin ein Berliner
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Cuban Missile Crisis Speech
Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet pt. 1.
Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet pt. 2.
Hitler: Tale til Tysklands Ungdom.
George Bush Senior: Iraq War Address 1991
FDR: Inaugural Address part 1.
FDR: Inaugural address part 2.
Martin Luther King: I have a dream.
Ronald Reagan: The Evil Empire
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Ich Bin ein Berliner
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Cuban Missile Crisis Speech
Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet pt. 1.
Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet pt. 2.
Hitler: Tale til Tysklands Ungdom.
George Bush Senior: Iraq War Address 1991
lørdag den 21. juni 2008
Habermas Hyldest til Irerne
"Borgerne aner, at der er formynderi på færde. De bliver igen bedt om at sige god for noget, som de ikke har været deltagere i. Ganske vist har regeringerne stillet i udsigt, at man ikke denne gang vil ty til at holde stadig nye folkeafstemninger, indtil folket omsider makker ret. Og er irerne, dette lille folk af frihedskæmpere, ikke det eneste i hele Europa, som overhovedet har stillet spørgsmålstegn ved traktatens betydning?
De nægtede at lade sig behandle som stemmekvæg, der skal trækkes til urnerne. Med undtagelse af tre parlamentsmedlemmer, der sagde nej, stod irerne over for hele den kompakte politiske klasse. I den forstand var det hele politikken som sådan, der var på valg. Desto større blev derfor også fristelsen til at tildele politikerne en huskekage. I dag er denne fristelse blevet for stor alle vegne."
http://www.information.dk/161126
Den originale tyske artikel. http://www.sueddeutsche.de/ausland/artikel/310/180753/
De nægtede at lade sig behandle som stemmekvæg, der skal trækkes til urnerne. Med undtagelse af tre parlamentsmedlemmer, der sagde nej, stod irerne over for hele den kompakte politiske klasse. I den forstand var det hele politikken som sådan, der var på valg. Desto større blev derfor også fristelsen til at tildele politikerne en huskekage. I dag er denne fristelse blevet for stor alle vegne."
http://www.information.dk/161126
Den originale tyske artikel. http://www.sueddeutsche.de/ausland/artikel/310/180753/
fredag den 20. juni 2008
torsdag den 19. juni 2008
US militær manual lækket for nylig
Leaked U.S. Military Manual
"How to covertly train paramilitaries, censor the press, ban unions, employ terrorists, conduct warrantless searches, suspend habeas corpus, conceal breaches of the Geneva Convention and make the population love it."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20125.htm
Direkte link til selve manualen.
http://file.sunshinepress.org:54445/us-fm-31-20-3.pdf
"How to covertly train paramilitaries, censor the press, ban unions, employ terrorists, conduct warrantless searches, suspend habeas corpus, conceal breaches of the Geneva Convention and make the population love it."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20125.htm
Direkte link til selve manualen.
http://file.sunshinepress.org:54445/us-fm-31-20-3.pdf
torsdag den 12. juni 2008
Dagens Citat: Søren Kierkegaard
"Af alle tyrannier er en folkeregering den kvalfuldeste, den åndløseste, ubetinget alt storts og ophøjets undergang. En tyran er dog menneske eller et enkelt menneske. Han har dog ordentligvis én tanke selvom det er den urimeligste. Man kan nu overveje med sig selv om det er umagen værd for den tanke at lade sig slå ihjel, om det således kolliderer med ens egne tanker, eller om det ikke er umagen værd. Og så indretter man sig og lever.
Men i en folkeregering: hvem er herskeren? Et X eller det evindelige pjat: hvad der i ethvert øjeblik er eller har majoriteten - den afsindigste af alle bestemmelser. Når man ved, hvorledes det går til med at få majoritet og hvorledes den kan fluktuere, at så dette nonsens er det regerende!
En tyran er dog kun én; man kan altså, hvis det så synes én, indrette sig på at undgå ham, leve fjernt fra ham o.s.v. Men hvor skal jeg i en folkeregering undfly tyrannen? Ethvert menneske er jo, i en vis forstand, tyrannen; det er blot han skaffer et opløb: en majoritet.
En tyran som enkelt menneske er da så ophøjet, én så fjern at man for ham kan få lov til at leve privat som man vil. Det kan i al evighed ikke falde en kejser ind at bryde sig om mig, hvordan jeg lever, hvad tid jeg står op, hvad jeg læser o.s.v. - ordentligvis ved han slet ikke af, at jeg er til. Men i en folkeregering er jo »ligemanden« det herskende. Ham beskæftiger sligt, om mit skæg er som hans, om jeg tager i Dyrehaven på samme tider som han, om jeg er ganske som ham og de andre. Og hvis ikke, ja da er det en forbrydelse - en politisk forbrydelse, en statsforbrydelse!
En folkeregering ville i maksimum skaffe nogle martyrer, af hvilke den har fortjeneste som Josephs brødre af Joseph.
At leve under en sådan regering er det mest dannende for evigheden, men den største kval så længe det står på. Kun én længsel kan man have, hin sokratiske: at dø og at være død. Thi Sokrates, han har døjet i denne åndløshed, at numerus er regeringen, at vi ikke alle er lige for Gud (thi hvad bryder man sig om Gud i en folkeregering!) men alle lige for tallet! Og tallet er just det onde, som det også i Åbenbaringens Bog bruges således prægnant. En folkeregering er det sande billede på helvede. Thi selvom man skulle holde dens kval ud, det var dog en lise, hvis man fik lov til at være ene, men det kvalfulde er netop, at »de andre« tyranniserer én."
Dagbogsoptegnelse fra 1848, her efter A. Egelund Møller: Søren Kierkegaard om politik, Kbh. 1975 s.139f.
Men i en folkeregering: hvem er herskeren? Et X eller det evindelige pjat: hvad der i ethvert øjeblik er eller har majoriteten - den afsindigste af alle bestemmelser. Når man ved, hvorledes det går til med at få majoritet og hvorledes den kan fluktuere, at så dette nonsens er det regerende!
En tyran er dog kun én; man kan altså, hvis det så synes én, indrette sig på at undgå ham, leve fjernt fra ham o.s.v. Men hvor skal jeg i en folkeregering undfly tyrannen? Ethvert menneske er jo, i en vis forstand, tyrannen; det er blot han skaffer et opløb: en majoritet.
En tyran som enkelt menneske er da så ophøjet, én så fjern at man for ham kan få lov til at leve privat som man vil. Det kan i al evighed ikke falde en kejser ind at bryde sig om mig, hvordan jeg lever, hvad tid jeg står op, hvad jeg læser o.s.v. - ordentligvis ved han slet ikke af, at jeg er til. Men i en folkeregering er jo »ligemanden« det herskende. Ham beskæftiger sligt, om mit skæg er som hans, om jeg tager i Dyrehaven på samme tider som han, om jeg er ganske som ham og de andre. Og hvis ikke, ja da er det en forbrydelse - en politisk forbrydelse, en statsforbrydelse!
En folkeregering ville i maksimum skaffe nogle martyrer, af hvilke den har fortjeneste som Josephs brødre af Joseph.
At leve under en sådan regering er det mest dannende for evigheden, men den største kval så længe det står på. Kun én længsel kan man have, hin sokratiske: at dø og at være død. Thi Sokrates, han har døjet i denne åndløshed, at numerus er regeringen, at vi ikke alle er lige for Gud (thi hvad bryder man sig om Gud i en folkeregering!) men alle lige for tallet! Og tallet er just det onde, som det også i Åbenbaringens Bog bruges således prægnant. En folkeregering er det sande billede på helvede. Thi selvom man skulle holde dens kval ud, det var dog en lise, hvis man fik lov til at være ene, men det kvalfulde er netop, at »de andre« tyranniserer én."
Dagbogsoptegnelse fra 1848, her efter A. Egelund Møller: Søren Kierkegaard om politik, Kbh. 1975 s.139f.
tirsdag den 20. maj 2008
Outsourcing Intelligence in Iraq.
Link til Pdf-filudgaven af Corpwatch's rapport om ousourcing af efterretningsvirksomhed i Irak.
http://www.corpwatch.org/downloads/L-3TITANreport.pdf
http://www.corpwatch.org/downloads/L-3TITANreport.pdf
For Profit
By Malcolm Martin
19/05/08 "ICH" -- - Our children are taught that the United States of America is a democracy. As the tale is told, at the founding of the nation, a government “of, by, and for the people” was established. Four score and seven years later, a President Abraham Lincoln called the nation’s people to join and die in a great civil war that such a form of government might not perish from the earth and their eventual victory preserved American democracy into the future.
Those children can someday refer to the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for the full story. But aside from how closely this lesson is in accord with the historic truth, the idea has today become an outright lie and an utter absurdity. The United States of America is now better described as a corporatocracy. The government is owned and the people are dictated to by these capitalist creations whose God is Mammon. Ironically as Lincoln spoke his immortal words at Gettysburg, the Industrial Revolution had begun to generate these entities that would have completely removed any vestige of American democracy seven score and five years later.
Corporations are, of course, different from people. They are devoid of human emotion. They are constitutionally unable to generate empathy. They feel nothing if people suffer exploitation, if people live in misery, or if people die horribly. Union Carbide was unaffected by the thousands dead and dying in Bhopal. It registered only on a balance sheet as a $470-million loss taken for the sake of future corporate viability under a new name, Dow Chemical. The corporation cannot be reasoned with, pleaded with, or shamed into changing course even in times like these, when life on the planet hangs in the balance. McDonald’s is in the process of teaching Starbucks that even the pretense of a social conscience is too expensive a marketing ploy.
The corporation recognizes and reacts only to threats to its air supply—profits. So figuratively speaking; corporations do share something with human beings. They have an instinct for self-preservation and if they are deprived of a life giving element they die. While human beings must have oxygen and water, the corporation’s lifeblood is those quarterly profits. The corporation must make a profit and then continue making ever greater profit. Corporate profits must grow, forever! Irrational, impossible, unsustainable but that is in the nature of the beast—much as lemmings are pushed into the sea.
The largest US oil corporations ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron have registered world record profits for the last several years. But Big Oil cannot afford to rest! Beating those records is now a fight for survival into the future. The price of gas, nearing $4.00 per gallon, must continue upwards. The government regulatory agencies must continue to “accidentally” give up oil royalties revenue, the President must continue pushing for exploration in the Alaskan wilderness and off the Gulf Coast, the Congress must continue making theatrical calls for price-gouging investigations and stay away from actual windfall profits tax legislation. Damn public opinion, the US military must remain in Iraq and must soon assault Iran to secure the Middle East’s vast oil reserves.
The parameters are the same in every corner of the global economy. The maximum profit is a product of the greatest possible productivity and the lowest possible wage. US corporations have moved everything that isn't nailed down to lower wage countries. Nothing is made in today’s de-industrialized United States. American consumer's service calls are answered in Ireland and India. Major League baseballs are made in Haiti. AirJordan’s come out of Nike's sweatshops in Indonesia. Microsoft conducts 85% of its research in the US so Bill Gates wants to lift H-1B visa restrictions to bring the low wage workers here. Halliburton is now headquartered in Dubai and preparing to receive its old boss, Dick Cheney, in his retirement years.
To survive under their profit imperative, corporations must undertake a never ending process of consolidation. There is consolidation by horizontal integration. For instance, numerous US corporations once dotted the auto making landscape. In the recent past it was down to the Big Three. Today Chrysler is doomed, Ford is on life support, and General Motors is on its knees. In the corporate world of the near future cars will be made in Japan, or China, or India. Ultimately, the industry will settle in one corporate entity.
Then there is consolidation by vertical integration and its heavyweight champion is Wal-Mart, the world’s largest corporation. Wal-Mart has made a partner of the Chinese government. Working together, the partners have turned China into a vast subsistence-wage labor camp. China supplies Wal-Mart so it has no need of domestic vendors like the now destroyed Rubbermaid. Armed with the lowest production costs, Wal-Mart’s rise up on every other street corner selling every commodity imaginable and every service the corporation can get its hooks into. Wal-Mart lays waste to local economies and then picks up the pieces to become the only butcher, baker and candlestick maker in town. The corporation recently moved to provide banking services in its stores.
The US government has been hollowed out during the rise to absolute power of the corporations. Elections have become an elaborate “reality show” that plays out on corporate television for viewers entertainment. If you watch FOX, the reality is filtered through Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, NBC is General Electric news, CNN is Time/Warner news, ABC brings you into Disney’s world, and Viacom regularly checks the iconic CBS news department to make sure Edward R. Murrow is still dead and buried under a mountain of infotainment. That is when Viacom is not preparing America’s youth for slavery and death through MTV and B.E.T.
The actual counting of the American people’s votes is done by the corporations—giant defense contractor United Technologies recently moved to take the job off Diebold’s hands. Corporate sentinels, the lobbyists, roam the halls of government enforcing discipline among the hired hands, allowing the most servile to feed longest at the public trough. So the Congress has not passed legislation and the Supreme Court has not decided a case, in which significant wealth was involved, in favor of the people in thirty years. Each and every decision of all three branches of the US government now transfers wealth from the people to their corporate masters.
The corporations now have in their sights the last remaining institutional pillars of American democracy. The Business Roundtable, the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation are working mightily to smash the public schools. Wall Street is funding the effort to gain control of the Social Security trust fund for its investment bankers. And the whole corporate gang is intent on “starving the beast” or killing state and local governments. Their success in this effort is probably best expressed in California’s $17.4 billion budget deficit and Florida’s crushing $5 billion revenue shortfall this fiscal year.
Then finally, there is the most ominous development of all. The corporations have begun forming their own Praetorian Guard. The massacre of Iraqi civilians and the patrolling of the hurricane ravaged streets of New Orleans have made Blackwater Worldwide, formerly Blackwater USA, the most famous of the rising corporate armies. Contrary to any notion of cost effectiveness, Blackwater mercenaries protect US State Department personnel in Iraq instead of the regular military. It seems not to make sense, unless the corporatocracy is looking ahead to a day when they can no longer trust the US military to carry out attacks on an American people’s democratic resistance striking at their profits—their air supply.
19/05/08 "ICH" -- - Our children are taught that the United States of America is a democracy. As the tale is told, at the founding of the nation, a government “of, by, and for the people” was established. Four score and seven years later, a President Abraham Lincoln called the nation’s people to join and die in a great civil war that such a form of government might not perish from the earth and their eventual victory preserved American democracy into the future.
Those children can someday refer to the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for the full story. But aside from how closely this lesson is in accord with the historic truth, the idea has today become an outright lie and an utter absurdity. The United States of America is now better described as a corporatocracy. The government is owned and the people are dictated to by these capitalist creations whose God is Mammon. Ironically as Lincoln spoke his immortal words at Gettysburg, the Industrial Revolution had begun to generate these entities that would have completely removed any vestige of American democracy seven score and five years later.
Corporations are, of course, different from people. They are devoid of human emotion. They are constitutionally unable to generate empathy. They feel nothing if people suffer exploitation, if people live in misery, or if people die horribly. Union Carbide was unaffected by the thousands dead and dying in Bhopal. It registered only on a balance sheet as a $470-million loss taken for the sake of future corporate viability under a new name, Dow Chemical. The corporation cannot be reasoned with, pleaded with, or shamed into changing course even in times like these, when life on the planet hangs in the balance. McDonald’s is in the process of teaching Starbucks that even the pretense of a social conscience is too expensive a marketing ploy.
The corporation recognizes and reacts only to threats to its air supply—profits. So figuratively speaking; corporations do share something with human beings. They have an instinct for self-preservation and if they are deprived of a life giving element they die. While human beings must have oxygen and water, the corporation’s lifeblood is those quarterly profits. The corporation must make a profit and then continue making ever greater profit. Corporate profits must grow, forever! Irrational, impossible, unsustainable but that is in the nature of the beast—much as lemmings are pushed into the sea.
The largest US oil corporations ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron have registered world record profits for the last several years. But Big Oil cannot afford to rest! Beating those records is now a fight for survival into the future. The price of gas, nearing $4.00 per gallon, must continue upwards. The government regulatory agencies must continue to “accidentally” give up oil royalties revenue, the President must continue pushing for exploration in the Alaskan wilderness and off the Gulf Coast, the Congress must continue making theatrical calls for price-gouging investigations and stay away from actual windfall profits tax legislation. Damn public opinion, the US military must remain in Iraq and must soon assault Iran to secure the Middle East’s vast oil reserves.
The parameters are the same in every corner of the global economy. The maximum profit is a product of the greatest possible productivity and the lowest possible wage. US corporations have moved everything that isn't nailed down to lower wage countries. Nothing is made in today’s de-industrialized United States. American consumer's service calls are answered in Ireland and India. Major League baseballs are made in Haiti. AirJordan’s come out of Nike's sweatshops in Indonesia. Microsoft conducts 85% of its research in the US so Bill Gates wants to lift H-1B visa restrictions to bring the low wage workers here. Halliburton is now headquartered in Dubai and preparing to receive its old boss, Dick Cheney, in his retirement years.
To survive under their profit imperative, corporations must undertake a never ending process of consolidation. There is consolidation by horizontal integration. For instance, numerous US corporations once dotted the auto making landscape. In the recent past it was down to the Big Three. Today Chrysler is doomed, Ford is on life support, and General Motors is on its knees. In the corporate world of the near future cars will be made in Japan, or China, or India. Ultimately, the industry will settle in one corporate entity.
Then there is consolidation by vertical integration and its heavyweight champion is Wal-Mart, the world’s largest corporation. Wal-Mart has made a partner of the Chinese government. Working together, the partners have turned China into a vast subsistence-wage labor camp. China supplies Wal-Mart so it has no need of domestic vendors like the now destroyed Rubbermaid. Armed with the lowest production costs, Wal-Mart’s rise up on every other street corner selling every commodity imaginable and every service the corporation can get its hooks into. Wal-Mart lays waste to local economies and then picks up the pieces to become the only butcher, baker and candlestick maker in town. The corporation recently moved to provide banking services in its stores.
The US government has been hollowed out during the rise to absolute power of the corporations. Elections have become an elaborate “reality show” that plays out on corporate television for viewers entertainment. If you watch FOX, the reality is filtered through Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, NBC is General Electric news, CNN is Time/Warner news, ABC brings you into Disney’s world, and Viacom regularly checks the iconic CBS news department to make sure Edward R. Murrow is still dead and buried under a mountain of infotainment. That is when Viacom is not preparing America’s youth for slavery and death through MTV and B.E.T.
The actual counting of the American people’s votes is done by the corporations—giant defense contractor United Technologies recently moved to take the job off Diebold’s hands. Corporate sentinels, the lobbyists, roam the halls of government enforcing discipline among the hired hands, allowing the most servile to feed longest at the public trough. So the Congress has not passed legislation and the Supreme Court has not decided a case, in which significant wealth was involved, in favor of the people in thirty years. Each and every decision of all three branches of the US government now transfers wealth from the people to their corporate masters.
The corporations now have in their sights the last remaining institutional pillars of American democracy. The Business Roundtable, the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation are working mightily to smash the public schools. Wall Street is funding the effort to gain control of the Social Security trust fund for its investment bankers. And the whole corporate gang is intent on “starving the beast” or killing state and local governments. Their success in this effort is probably best expressed in California’s $17.4 billion budget deficit and Florida’s crushing $5 billion revenue shortfall this fiscal year.
Then finally, there is the most ominous development of all. The corporations have begun forming their own Praetorian Guard. The massacre of Iraqi civilians and the patrolling of the hurricane ravaged streets of New Orleans have made Blackwater Worldwide, formerly Blackwater USA, the most famous of the rising corporate armies. Contrary to any notion of cost effectiveness, Blackwater mercenaries protect US State Department personnel in Iraq instead of the regular military. It seems not to make sense, unless the corporatocracy is looking ahead to a day when they can no longer trust the US military to carry out attacks on an American people’s democratic resistance striking at their profits—their air supply.
mandag den 19. maj 2008
Dagens Citat: Cristopher Lasch
"The best defences against the terrors of existence are the homely comforts of love, work and family life, which connect us to a world that is independent of our wishes yet responsive to our needs. It is through love and work, as Freud noted ... that we exchange crippling emotional conflict for ordinary unhappiness. Love and work enable us to explore a small corner of the world and come to accept it on its own terms. But our society tends either to devalue small comforts or to expect too much of them. Our standards of "creative, meaningful work" are too exalted to survive disappointment. Our ideal of "true romance" puts an impossible burden on personal relationships. We demand too much of life, too little of ourselves.... We find it more and more difficult to a achieve a sense of continuity, permanence or connection with the world around us. Relationships with others are notably fragile; goods are made to be used up and discarded; reality is experienced as an unstable environment of flickering images. Everything conspires to encourage escapist solutions to the psychological problems of dependence, separation and individuation, and to discourage the moral realism that makes it possible for human beings to come to terms with existential constraints on their power and freedom."
Fra "The Culture of Narcissism".
Fra "The Culture of Narcissism".
onsdag den 14. maj 2008
tirsdag den 13. maj 2008
onsdag den 30. april 2008
mandag den 28. april 2008
lørdag den 26. april 2008
onsdag den 23. april 2008
KRIGSDEMOKRATI
Disse kujoner(!), hvis børn yderst sjældent tælles blandt de faldne for den påståede gode sag - kan gøre dette uden at blinke, da det alt sammen foregår på bekvem afstand, hvor hverken det uskyldige civile offer for præcisionsbombardamentet eller dennes pårørende, udgør nogen trussel for genvælgelsen og embedsforlængelsen. Men hvordan kan det egentlig være at det er lykkedes disse forbrydere, at undslippe den hårde konsekvens vi ellers normalt betragter som et udtryk for retfærdighedens fyldestgørelse? Er det fordi deres forbrydelser ifølge en eller anden bizar logik ikke er forbrydelser men derimod legitime handlinger? Svaret på dette spørgsmål afhænger selvfølgelig af hvem der holder mikrofonen. Hvis Nürnberg-tribunalet mod nazismens forbrydere i dag dannede grundlag for nogen nævneværdig præcedens, er magthavernes meddelagtighed i den uprovokerede angrebskrig, ikke blot en forbrydelse, men snarere at betragte “som den største internationale forbrydelse, som kun afviger fra andre krigsforbrydelser, idet den i sig, indeholder helhedens akkumulerede ondskab.” Alligevel bestrider disse personer stadigvæk de højeste embeder i det politiske system, hvilket er bemærkelsesværdigt, men langt fra underligt. Pressen har nemlig for en stor dels vedkommende (med Information som eneste nævneværdige undtagelse) haft andet at se til, såsom at sælge reklameplads i gratisaviserne, hvorfor man ikke lige har kunnet finde tiden til at agere befolkningens vagthund. Undertiden har lovprisningen af den bureaukratiske elite, endda været af et sådan omfang karakter, at specielt en af de store avisers ukritiske “journalistiske” virke, undertiden vækker minder om den nære fortids, autokratiske regimers partiaviser.
Demokrati høres ofte forsvaret med, at det er en styreform som er at foretrække frem for andre mere diktatoriske eller autokratiske styreformer, da den beherskede befolkning dels er garanteret nogle forfatningssikrede frihedsrettigheder og dels kan leve i nogenlunde tryghed for forfølgelse og undertrykkelse. Dette argument godtages generelt og møder sjældent de store indvendinger. Det interessante er imidlertid, at denne styreforms tilsyneladende sikring af frihedsrettigheder og forsikring mod forfølgelse og undertrykkelse, åbenbart ikke gælder udenfor landets grænser, for hvem vil mon driste sig til at hævde, at det generelt lovpriste repræsentative demokrati, har udvirket noget sådant for den irakiske befolkning? Det britiske meningsmålingsbureau Oxford Research Bureau opdaterede for nylig dets vurdering af dødsfald forårsaget af Irak-krigen til 1.3 millioner dræbte, men uanset om denne vurdering præcist udtrykker blot et brudstykke af “helhedens akkumulerede ondskab” eller dødstallet, som nogle hævder, er langt mindre, er der utvivlsomt tale om uhyrligheder af et rædselsvækkende omfang, hvorfor i hvert fald to spørgmål melder sig. Er repræsentativt demokrati eksporterbart med vold og tvang som midler? Og er den politiske elite der nu – efter gennem en anseelig periodes morderiske sanktioner, med hundredetusinder børneliv som omkostning - har orkestreret “den største internationale forbrydelse”, virkelig at betragte som stort bedre for irakerne, end den morderiske despot, hvis detronisering man med tiden valgte at begrunde og legitimere krigen med? Dette vil jeg lade op til læseren at vurdere.
tirsdag den 15. april 2008
fredag den 4. april 2008
Heuristik
I anledning af den nyligt lancerede demokratikanon...
Mange vil nok sige at den demokratiske styreform er god fordi den i sin natur og udviklingshistorie giver rum for indvidet til at udvikle sig i en relativ frihed indenfor lovenes grænser? Men hvis friheden til at handle er en definerende karakteristika ved en god samfundsorden, og dette er hvad der adskiller og gør en demokratisk orden bedre end en mere diktatorisk og autoritær orden, hvordan er den demokratiske orden så bedre end ingen orden, altså bedre end komplet autonomi og dermed komplet frihed til at udfolde ens livspraksis på måder som nu engang synes at passe bedst til ens perciperede natur, evner og aspirationer, fremfor en delvist påtvunget livspraksis baseret på en konsensuelt betinget styreform, som dikteres af et skiftende flertals præferencer for hvad der er god stil og etik? Eller sagt med andre ord, hvis medbestemmelse er bedre end ingen indflydelse på egen livsførsel, er komplet selvbestemmelse så ikke følgelig bedre end blot medbestemmelse, eller er der en skjult variabel som gør at medbestemmelse er at foretrække fremfor autonomi, og hvis dette er tilfældet, hvad validerer så denne skjulte variabel? Hvilket rejser et nyt spørgmål, nemlig hvorledes argumentativ validitet defineres når det kommer til samfundsdrift og styring? Hvad er, i en politisk diskussion om en given styreforms overlegenhed i forhold til andre styreformer, succeskriterierne for et arguments gangbarhed? Er det at det stiler mod retfærdighed? Og hvis dette er tilfældet hvordan defineres da retfærdighed? Kan man komme frem til en objektiv definition af hvad der er retfærdigt eller uretfærdigt eller beror retfærdighed og uretfærdighed udelukkende på subjektive værdier og/eller mavefornemmelser hos den enkelte? Hvis validiteten defineres af effektivitet, altså af i hvor høj grad argumentet for en given styreform har at gøre med denne styreforms effektivitet, hvad karakteriserer i så fald effektivitet i en samfundsmæssig kontekst? Og hvorfor er effektivitet i så fald det mest interessante parameter, og hvad karakteriserer så i modsætning hertil ineffektivitet, og dennes ufordelagtighed? Endvidere rejser effektivitetsspørgmålet et andet spørgsmål, for hvad skal denne effektivitet ses i forhold til? Hvad er det der stiles henimod, for er effektivitet ikke netop at forstå som effektivitet i forhold til opnåelsen af et givet mål? Og hvis dette er tilfældet, hvad eller hvem definerer i så fald dette mål og med hvilken ret, og udfra hvilke kriterier foregår denne definering, eller udfra hvilke kriterier vurderes det hvorledes et givent mål kan siges at være mere hensigtsmæssigt og aspirationsværdigt end andre mål? Hvis målet er velfærd, hvad er da velfærd? Er det noget objektivt definerbart eller er enhver tale om velfærd præget af ideologisk standpunkt, social status, kulturbaggrund eller andet, og kommer denne samfundsmæssige styring mod velfærd til at eksistere på bekostning af andet som kan forekomme væsentligt, såsom frihed? Er velfærd og sundhed i samfundet forbundet med en høj grad af frihed for individet til at udfolde sig, eller er dette sekundært, mens tryghed for flertallet er den primære bekymring dvs. den primære karakteristika ved velfærd? Og hvis dette er tilfældet hvad retfærdigør så trygheden for de mange på bekostning af frihed for den enkelte, eller kan de to godt eksistere side om side? Hvis målet ikke er velfærd, eller ikke kun er velfærd, men ydermere at samfundet skal være et videnssamfund, hvad karakteriserer da denne viden der ønskes fremavlet i en samfundsmæssig kontekst? Hvorfor er den værdig som aspiration og er det sikkert at denne viden skaber et bedre samfund eller er der indbygget en farlighed i denne ønskede udvikling af viden, som eksempelvis hvis store dele af befolkningen får kendskab til processerne involveret i at destruere med stor effektivitet?
Nu hvor værdikampen alligevel er på sit højeste med teseformuleringer og røde og grønne skoler kunne det være rart at få nogle seriøse svar på nogle af ovenstående spørgsmål.
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