World Politics

[RetroActive]

I don't subscribe to a belief that all is b.s.In fact it takes discernment to see through all the b.s. and the principles this presupposes. What I'd say is missing is objectivity. What this world in fact needs is less people "trying to be good" and more people "trying to be objective," considering that if there is any good to be found, then without objectivity it surely won't be had.

Ok, Ok.

True objectivity is missing, as science has proven. What we're left with is something far more subjective thus the fiction. Different topic though.

 

[frenchfry]

Oh but know we have the one thought viewpoint, which gets passed off as less ideological, but is in fact establishing new and more insidious forms of conformism and intolerance.

Nobody bemoans the old ideologies, but when we see what has taken place since 89 under the aegis of the one thought view, to which the problems Europe faces are not estranged, including the recrudescence of terrorism, then the line of so-called neutrality is hardly adequate.

Translation...?

 

[RetroActive]

Translation...?

If I understand him correctly he's basically saying that since the fall of the Soviet Union and the attempt by the USA (west) to form a monopolar world, neo-liberal economics, wars in the ME and the inevitable reactionary blowback (terrorism) that you (and everyone else) has the responsibility to try to understand what's happening and engage.

Simplicity isn't simple (or easy) and what does good mean?

 

[Christian]

Sorry if re-post

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: How to Answer the Paris Terror Attack

If there is a lesson to be drawn from such a grisly episode, it is that what we believe about Islam truly doesn’t matter. This type of violence, jihad, is what they, the Islamists, believe.

(...)

In Islam, it is a grave sin to visually depict or in any way slander the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims are free to believe this, but why should such a prohibition be forced on nonbelievers? In the U.S., Mormons didn’t seek to impose the death penalty on those who wrote and produced “The Book of Mormon,” a satirical Broadway sendup of their faith. Islam, with 1,400 years of history and some 1.6 billion adherents, should be able to withstand a few cartoons by a French satirical magazine. But of course deadly responses to cartoons depicting Muhammad are nothing new in the age of jihad.

Moreover, despite what the Quran may teach, not all sins can be considered equal. The West must insist that Muslims, particularly members of the Muslim diaspora, answer this question: What is more offensive to a believer — the murder, torture, enslavement and acts of war and terrorism being committed today in the name of Muhammad, or the production of drawings and films and books designed to mock the extremists and their vision of what Muhammad represents?

 

[Amsterhammer]

They only printed 3m copies.

 

[Christian]

They only printed 3m copies.

... and I have a feeling it's not going to be enough. Usual run: 60.000

 

[thirteen]

They only printed 3m copies.

... and I have a feeling it's not going to be enough. Usual run: 60.000

+1

i'm hoping they'll still have a copy by the time i get round to the newsstand… but i doubt it… 3m is nothing!

 

[fatandfast]

They only printed 3m copies.

Maybe Larry Flynt can get this circulated in the US and go on a press junket starting with Good Morning America and The 700 Club.
Now that the US is all behind free speech maybe Sine' can get his job back.

The only thing dumber than Americans holding up pens with teary eyes is them not knowing that this mag couldn't get sold in 98% of the US. France has the mag and you can't pray to Mecca on the sidewalk we don't have it and my cab driver prays in front of the Ace Hotel.huh??
Viva Charlie!
Maybe the all liberal American gov can start with letting us have French TV commercials just to show our shared values. We can export USA Today and $1.49 20oz cups of coffee from 7-11 as cultural exchange.

we should all be against murder, that we can all agree on, freedom of speech we better leave alone before this gets messy.

What happened in Australia, Canada and France is wrong lets stop that.
Can't wait until somebody in the US has the huevos to pull out old copies of Chuckie Abdoo and show the all knowing American public what they are defending.

 

[RetroActive]

Oh but know we have the one thought viewpoint, which gets passed off as less ideological, but is in fact establishing new and more insidious forms of conformism and intolerance.

Nobody bemoans the old ideologies, but when we see what has taken place since 89 under the aegis of the one thought view, to which the problems Europe faces are not estranged, including the recrudescence of terrorism, then the line of so-called neutrality is hardly adequate.

Flanders-West-Hedges-Wolff-Left Forum 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGTjbJiCi4I

 

[rhubroma]

Maybe Larry Flynt can get this circulated in the US and go on a press junket starting with Good Morning America and The 700 Club.
Now that the US is all behind free speech maybe Sine' can get his job back.

The only thing dumber than Americans holding up pens with teary eyes is them not knowing that this mag couldn't get sold in 98% of the US. France has the mag and you can't pray to Mecca on the sidewalk we don't have it and my cab driver prays in front of the Ace Hotel.huh??
Viva Charlie!
Maybe the all liberal American gov can start with letting us have French TV commercials just to show our shared values. We can export USA Today and $1.49 20oz cups of coffee from 7-11 as cultural exchange.

we should all be against murder, that we can all agree on, freedom of speech we better leave alone before this gets messy.

What happened in Australia, Canada and France is wrong lets stop that.
Can't wait until somebody in the US has the huevos to pull out old copies of Chuckie Abdoo and show the all knowing American public what they are defending.

Too much PC and folks with ideas about "decency" getting offended. The fact is that many Americans take far too seriously their own religion, to be able to handle the French satire. In fact, how often have we heard "but...what did they expect with images of the Prophet like that?"

Satire has always been a language of the minority, for a restricted public, rather radical and rather cultured. Comedy is popular. Satire is decidedly unpopular. Comedy is universal because it unifies. Satire can't be, because it divides. I'm not talking about quality, of course - there are great comedians and terrible satirists - however, any child can laugh at Laurel and Hardy, but it requires a different formation, critical spirit and, yes, level of tolerance, to enjoy a Doonesbury comic strip.

Of all the disproportioned things that have taken place recently (first and foremost, the monstrous disproportion in execution as outcome of opinion), is how disproportioned things are within our own Western civilization, among the minority who truly stand for the formation, critical spirit and level of tolerance that the satire of Charlie Hebdo also represented, however unsettling to the well-to-do, or intolerably blasphemous, and the majority that pretends they live in a society with a fundamental commitment to freedom of expression and democracy. In this sense, Je suis Charlie is an affectionate, gentle lie that half the world felt the need to package as a sign of solidarity.

If, then, in the US they won't even publish Charlie Hebdo, perhaps there actually exists a sense of shame.

 

[rhubroma]

Translation...?

Come on frenchfry, the post-ideological era has given way to the free reign of a hegemonic economic liberalism, which has reduced everything to economic variables and consumption rates, eliminating other parameters such as solidarity, community and a principle of social justice. In the process we have lost our soul (or sold it to the Devil, in a manner of speaking), for which the marginalized and those without futures (which the current social and economic praxis generates in growing quantifies) has created a vacuum, which in a certain community (also among us) has been filled with religious fanaticism. This, to say nothing of the decades long Israeli-Arab travesty and a Mideast foreign policy, guided by economic liberalism, that has only added fuel to the fire.

Secondly, the same one thought viewpoint had encouraged the arrogant neocons under Bush into their quixotic campaign in the Middle East which thus only succeeded in creating another vacuum that the so called Caliphate has filled in Iraq and Syria. The failed so called Arab springtime is its corollary (when, in 1997, the democratic and lay minded Algerians attempted to stand firm against the religious fundamentalists and were slaughtered, what did the West do to help them? Absolutely nothing). The recrudescence of terrorism in Europe flows out of this.

The problem now, of course, is that there is no possibility of non-violent modes of conflict resolution with psychopaths that indoctrinate and brainwash 10 year-olds to become cold and content assassins.

Being neutural, therefore, is no longer a luxury.

 

[frenchfry]

If I understand him correctly he's basically saying that since the fall of the Soviet Union and the attempt by the USA (west) to form a monopolar world, neo-liberal economics, wars in the ME and the inevitable reactionary blowback (terrorism) that you (and everyone else) has the responsibility to try to understand what's happening and engage.

Simplicity isn't simple (or easy) and what does good mean?

Thanks, when I re-read rhubroma's post it appears you have done an excellent job of extracting its meaning.

Indeed, sometimes simplicity is harder to achieve than complexity in the modern world. As rhubroma points out, we are subjected to many influences that are difficult to overcome without removing oneself from society - even more difficult when we have children.

The search for simplicity doesn't keep me from attempting to understand. I do have difficulty though with all the dogmatic points of view as I feel they interfere with tolerence. Some might say I am dogmatic about promoting cycling, but that is another issue.

What does good mean? I am still experimenting so I will let you know when I have the definitive answer.

 

[rhubroma]

If I understand him correctly he's basically saying that since the fall of the Soviet Union and the attempt by the USA (west) to form a monopolar world, neo-liberal economics, wars in the ME and the inevitable reactionary blowback (terrorism) that you (and everyone else) has the responsibility to try to understand what's happening and engage.

Simplicity isn't simple (or easy) and what does good mean?

Bingo! Thanks.

 

[Echoes]

54 Islamophobic acts in France for 4 days between last Thursday and Sunday (compared to 110 for the whole 2014 year and 138 for the whole 2013 year).

21 were actions (gunshots, bomb explosion - the one in Villefranche I already mentioned -, ...) and 33 were threats (including insults).

The count does not even include Paris, nor the fire that broke out on Sunday night at the mosque of Poitiers.

5,000 cops and 10,000 soldiers are to protect Jewish schools and synagogues and Muslim cult places.

Last case, an act of vandalism in a mosque in the Moselle.

http://www.ledevoir.com/internation...s-en-france-depuis-l-attentat-a-charlie-hebdo

Also discovered an interview of Siné (2009), the former CH cartoonist who had been sacked by their former editor in chief, for a supposedly anti-Semitic drawing. He said that they ALL befriended with the authorities. Woltinski befriended with Chirac, Cabu with the former Mayor of Paris. Charb said "I'm thinking of my future", etc etc. And you'd tell me that these guys were just apolitical subversive anarchists, lol.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb6hk0_interview-sine-charb-cabu-et-wolins_news#from=embediframe

 

[frenchfry]

54 Islamophobic acts in France for 4 days between last Thursday and Sunday (compared to 110 for the whole 2014 year and 138 for the whole 2013 year).

21 were actions (gunshots, bomb explosion - the one in Villefranche I already mentioned -, ...) and 33 were threats (including insults).

The count does not even include Paris, nor the fire that broke out on Sunday night at the mosque of Poitiers.

5,000 cops and 10,000 soldiers are to protect Jewish schools and synagogues and Muslim cult places.

Last case, an act of vandalism in a mosque in the Moselle.

http://www.ledevoir.com/internation...s-en-france-depuis-l-attentat-a-charlie-hebdo

The one and only comment following the Le Devoir article, making the difference between "islamophobie" and defending democracy from Islam as a political ideology. Seems legitimate to me.

"Clarifions les termes
Les attaques contre les mosquées sont tout à fait abjectes.

Par contre, si on définit l'islamisme comme étant une idéologie à visée politique visant à supplanter les règles de la démocratie, il est tout à fait justifié de s'y opposer. Ce n'est pas de l'islamophobie, une phobie étant une peur irrationnelle, ce qui n'est pas le cas ici. C'est de l'anti-islamisme auquel j'adhère.

Ceci étant dit, la vaste majorité des musulmans n'ont aucune visée politique en ce qui concerne la pratique de leur religion. On n'a qu'à se souvenir des manifestations massives lors du printemps arabe et de lalutte du peuple algérien contre la tentative des terroristes islamistes pour prendre le pouvoir. Il est donc tout à fait odieux de faire l'amalgame entre les musulmans et les islamistes tels que définis plus haut.

Toutefois les musulmans devraient cesser de parler d'islamophobie et plutôt utiliser le terme anti-islamisme, ce qui est plus approprié, et s'associer ouvertement à cette forme d'anti-islamisme comme ils l'ont fait lors du printemps arabe."

Also discovered an interview of Siné (2009), the former CH cartoonist who had been sacked by their former editor in chief, for a supposedly anti-Semitic drawing. He said that they ALL befriended with the authorities. Woltinski befriended with Chirac, Cabu with the former Mayor of Paris. Charb said "I'm thinking of my future", etc etc. And you'd tell me that these guys were just apolitical subversive anarchists, lol.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb6hk0_interview-sine-charb-cabu-et-wolins_news#from=embediframe

The political/media/industrial circle in France is totally incestuous, politicians all sleep with journalists and they all party with the industrial "elite" who most often started in the political cabinets. Charb's girlfriend was an ex Secretary of State in Sarko's government (although his family is attempting to deny this), Hollande's ex-girlfriend Trierweiler works for Paris Match. Montbourg's ex presented the news for France 3, Kouchner's wife is a journalist, DSK's ex was a well know journalist for TF1 and is now editor for the Huffington Post etc. etc. etc.

 

[frenchfry]

Come on frenchfry, the post-ideological era has given way to the free reign of a hegemonic economic liberalism, which has reduced everything to economic variables and consumption rates, eliminating other parameters such as solidarity, community and a principle of social justice. In the process we have lost our soul (or sold it to the Devil, in a manner of speaking), for which the marginalized and those without futures (which the current social and economic praxis generates in growing quantifies) has created a vacuum, which in a certain community (also among us) has been filled with religious fanaticism. This, to say nothing of the decades long Israeli-Arab travesty and a Mideast foreign policy, guided by economic liberalism, that has only added fuel to the fire.

Secondly, the same one thought viewpoint had encouraged the arrogant neocons under Bush into their quixotic campaign in the Middle East which thus only succeeded in creating another vacuum that the so called Caliphate has filled in Iraq and Syria. The failed so called Arab springtime is its corollary (when, in 1997, the democratic and lay minded Algerians attempted to stand firm against the religious fundamentalists and were slaughtered, what did the West do to help them? Absolutely nothing). The recrudescence of terrorism in Europe flows out of this.

The problem now, of course, is that there is no possibility of non-violent modes of conflict resolution with psychopaths that indoctrinate and brainwash 10 year-olds to become cold and content assassins.

Being neutural, therefore, is no longer a luxury.

It might help simpletons like me if you explain things in terms that are understandable by someone that hasn't done 20 years of studies in historical ideologies.

The last line I do understand, I don't consider myself "neutral" but I honestly don't see what the solution is.

 

[rhubroma]

It might help simpletons like me if you explain things in terms that are understandable by someone that hasn't done 20 years of studies in historical ideologies.

The last line I do understand, I don't consider myself "neutral" but I honestly don't see what the solution is.

No need to take things personally, frenchfry. I was being ironic. Mine was just a friendly nudge and, in any case, Retro summed it up better than I.

Yea, the not seeing a solution is highly problematical. Rationally one would think that reaffirming the civil principles and a fortuitous change in policy would resolve most, if not all, of the depressing situation. On the other hand when: Those that can make you believe in absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. (Voltaire) Where does that leave us?

 

[RetroActive]

Thanks, when I re-read rhubroma's post it appears you have done an excellent job of extracting its meaning.

Indeed, sometimes simplicity is harder to achieve than complexity in the modern world. As rhubroma points out, we are subjected to many influences that are difficult to overcome without removing oneself from society - even more difficult when we have children.

The search for simplicity doesn't keep me from attempting to understand. I do have difficulty though with all the dogmatic points of view as I feel they interfere with tolerence. Some might say I am dogmatic about promoting cycling, but that is another issue.

What does good mean? I am still experimenting so I will let you know when I have the definitive answer.

I'm with you about dogmatism, there's freedom in realizing that it is b.s., fiction, that can be changed. Overall it's a pretty overwhelming scenario for anyone to understand, impossible in fact. Everything is coming to a head and the clock is ticking, humans have never been in this situation before and we're not really wired for it (which is what got us here). haha

What's good for you and your community may not be the same good as mine. I think that's more or less the direction we're heading out of necessity. The only thing we can do is try and experiment, nothing new actually, we just have to remember how.

 

[Echoes]

"Defending democracy against Islam as a political ideology" is pure Islamophobic nonsensical phantasm.

First France is not close to becoming an Islamic republic any time soon. Second, I don't see too many problems with Islam as a political ideology. I'd even say that the ideology I believe in is closer to it than your secular republic, governed by un-elected EU commissar, head over heels in debt and where peole can be put in jail for opinion crimes (like Dieudonné today, lol in the name of freedom of speech, of course. ).

"Islamism" is not a bad word. It means "a specialist of Islam", period. As Kemi Seba put it. Terrorists who kill in the name of religion are not Muslim, they might be wahhabits or be referred to as Takfirist. Whatever, they ought never to be referred to as Islamist or Jihadist (which is not a negative word either).

The French should realise that they cannot wage war on every Arabo-Muslim countries they want (Lybia, Mali, Central African Republic, Syria, etc.) without getting blows themselves. You've never had a single terrorist attack from Takfirists between 1995 and 2012 if I'm not mistaken. Now that you have resume your aggressive foreign policy in the Middle-East and Northern Africa, you have had 2 terrorist attacks in 3 years. Why crying?

 

[frenchfry]

No need to take things personally, frenchfry. I was being ironic. Mine was just a friendly nudge and, in any case, Retro summed it up better than I.

Yea, the not seeing a solution is highly problematical. Rationally one would think that reaffirming the civil principles and a fortuitous change in policy would resolve most, if not all, of the depressing situation. On the other hand when: Those that can make you believe in absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. (Voltaire) Where does that leave us?

Nothing personal taken. I spend an inordinate amount of time considering the problems we are confronted with, but am usually at a total loss when it comes to proposing a solution.

The creation of a welfare state is not the answer. Those who enter the welfare cycle and the victimisation that it nurtures are destined to never leave it. The paradox is that it is proclaimed that we require endless economic growth and wealth creation in order to provide the employment necessary for the immigrant children to integrate, yet the very same economic fertility is only possible with economic liberalism. I get the impression we want our cake and eat it too. We need the wealth to finance a welfare state, but the only way to have the wealth is to give in to neo-liberal economics (your term, not mine).

 

[frenchfry]

"Defending democracy against Islam as a political ideology" is pure Islamophobic nonsensical phantasm.

First France is not close to becoming an Islamic republic any time soon. Second, I don't see too many problems with Islam as a political ideology. I'd even say that the ideology I believe in is closer to it than your secular republic, governed by un-elected EU commissar, head over heels in debt and where peole can be put in jail for opinion crimes (like Dieudonné today, lol in the name of freedom of speech, of course. ).

"Islamism" is not a bad word. It means "a specialist of Islam", period. As Kemi Seba put it. Terrorists who kill in the name of religion are not Muslim, they might be wahhabits or be referred to as Takfirist. Whatever, they ought never to be referred to as Islamist or Jihadist (which is not a negative word either).

The French should realise that they cannot wage war on every Arabo-Muslim countries they want (Lybia, Mali, Central African Republic, Syria, etc.) without getting blows themselves. You've never had a single terrorist attack from Takfirists between 1995 and 2012 if I'm not mistaken. Now that you have resume your aggressive foreign policy in the Middle-East and Northern Africa, you have had 2 terrorist attacks in 3 years. Why crying?

I don't know where you live, but can you honestly say that there are no societal problems resulting from the influences of the muslim culture of many immigrants? This is in no way an expression of islamophobie, but to ignore there are some deep rooted problems is only to fuel the islamophobe fire.

 

[RetroActive]

A problem that perplexes me is how to scale down and actually have functioning communities. Any local, sustainable development and small industry is swamped by economies of scale. Real skills (and talents) aren't being developed and the store fronts are emptying out (particularly in smaller towns). It's obvious this can't go on indefinitely, although it has been going on for a few decades, it's getting worse.

This is in the same vein as you are talking about in terms of economies frenchfry.

 

[rhubroma]

Nothing personal taken. I spend an inordinate amount of time considering the problems we are confronted with, but am usually at a total loss when it comes to proposing a solution.

The creation of a welfare state is not the answer. Those who enter the welfare cycle and the victimisation that it nurtures are destined to never leave it. The paradox is that it is proclaimed that we require endless economic growth and wealth creation in order to provide the employment necessary for the immigrant children to integrate, yet the very same economic fertility is only possible with economic liberalism. I get the impression we want our cake and eat it too. We need the wealth to finance a welfare state, but the only way to have the wealth is to give in to neo-liberal economics (your term, not mine).

This is the economic rebus of our age. The problem is that the type of employment and wealth opportunity that historically capitalism once knew how to create, which made it vital and so attractive, has by now been replaced with derivatives, delocalization and a rising underclass, which even in the developed countries is reaching unsupportable proportions. In this sense liberalism has proven a total disaster, for which it cannot be a solution.

If society cannot live without capitalism, then it is equally true that capitalism cannot live without society (though this gets omitted in liberalism). Retro has observed this at level of local communities' depletion.

Apart from this, or rather as an inevitable consequence, the commercial cult of arms which has multiplied military force and armed every bandit and assassin on the planet, given the prevailing hostility and fanaticism, means everybody’s security is becoming increasingly threatened.

 

[RetroActive]

This is the economic rebus of our age. The problem is that the type of employment and wealth opportunity that historically capitalism once knew how to create, which made it vital and so attractive, has by now been replaced with derivatives, delocalization and a rising underclass, which even in the developed countries is reaching unsupportable proportions. In this sense liberalism has proven a total disaster, for which it cannot be a solution.

If society cannot live without capitalism, then it is equally true that capitalism cannot live without society (though this gets omitted in liberalism). Retro has observed this at level of local communities' depletion.

Apart from this, or rather as an inevitable consequence, the commercial cult of arms which has multiplied military force and armed every bandit and assassin on the planet, given the prevailing hostility and fanaticism, means everybody’s security is becoming increasingly threatened.

The day will come (in the not so distant future I suspect) when wal-mart and costco won't be able to deliver the goods, local communities are hollowed out, real skills and necessary industry are eroded or absent...that's what gives me the shudders, the absolute dependency that we've ceded to.

 

[rhubroma]

The day will come (in the not so distant future I suspect) when wal-mart and costco won't be able to deliver the goods, local communities are hollowed out, real skills and necessary industry are eroded or absent...that's what gives me the shudders, the absolute dependency that we've ceded to.

It was all in the name of creating larger markets, instead of sustainable ones.