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1141 [lbo-talk] climate change denial -- rank: 1000

On the side of justice: "Al Gore" "Sen. Barbara Boxer" "Arnold Schwarzenegger" "titans of corporate America" "nine leading corporations-including Alcoa, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, Du Pont and General Electric" "mainstream scientists" "NASA" "Newsweek" "Hollywood, Manhattan " "the chattering classes" On the side of evil: "ExxonMobil" "contrarian scientists" "free-market thin ...

Document Size:	5129
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Aug 9 22:23:59 PDT 2007

1142 [lbo-talk] Lenin on FRD Drive (Was Cross in memory of Stalin repression victims placed in Moscow) -- rank: 1000

Lenin on FDR Drive: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69514110@N00/1047789265/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/69514110@N00/1047789117/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/69514110@N00/1047789241/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/69514110@N00/1047789129/ My guide was the inestimable Alex Gourevitch

Document Size:	5618
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 8 01:04:45 PDT 2007

1143 [lbo-talk] Cross in memory of Stalin repression victims placed in Moscow -- rank: 1000

"Speaking of Stalin, we finally got to see the Lenin Statue in Seattle." I've seen the statue in Manhattan, and the blue plaque on his digs in London

Document Size:	5014
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Aug 7 12:58:46 PDT 2007

1144 [lbo-talk] Anarchism, was Cuba -- rank: 1000

"Is it correct by the way that Blake's Jerusalem was sung by English workers?" Yes, more's the pity. Blake's Jerusalem is a great work, like much of his stuff, but you have to hear the cadences of maudlin reformist nationalism in the hymn's adoption by the British labour movement. It is also sung at the last night of the proms and at the Oval cricket ground. I can remember being in trafalgar Square around 1990 at a 'defend the national health service' demonstration and the crowd (which ...

Document Size:	5579
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 1 02:43:33 PDT 2007

1145 [lbo-talk] Anarchism, was Cuba -- rank: 1000

Chuck: "Anarchism is also a tool-kit, which we use to dissect, analyze, mock, pull aprt, construct, praise, scorn and much more." My problem with this would be what Engels called 'political indifferentism', or Hegel, 'the beautiful soul'. Anarchists in my experience are too quick to absent themselves from the political struggle that is before them, because it does not conform to an abstract ideal of the just. Cuba would be a case in point. Here is a conflict between the US and Cuban go ...

Document Size:	5374
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 1 02:26:40 PDT 2007

1146 [lbo-talk] Bonobo you don't -- rank: 1000

Jerry Monaco: 'Yes there is no clear divide between homo sapiens sapiens and our ancestor species. Development of culture and civilization was a gradual process. There was an explosion somewhere around the time of the agricultural revolution. And yet for most of the history of homo sapiens we did not develop what you call civilization until very recently. ' Yes, and that is the beginning of human history proper. We might have been the same species biologically, but we are as different as chalk ...

Document Size:	10237
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Apr 30 16:33:22 PDT 2007

1147 [lbo-talk] Bonobo you don't -- rank: 1000

Jerry Monaco's reductio ad absurdem: 'more importantly there is no clear divide between modern homo sapiens and our ancestor species'. Really? No clear divide? The divide that is obvious to everyone is the very thing that - as a matter of principle - you refuse to recognise: human civilisation. (What you mean is there is no clear biological or genetic divide, which is of course true, we are the same biological species.) Just imagine how intolerable it would be to an historian to read the late an ...

Document Size:	6670
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Apr 30 09:26:04 PDT 2007

1148 [lbo-talk] Bonobo you don't -- rank: 1000

Miles throws a big hissy fit about a phrase 'survival of the fittest' to avoid the central point. If there is no natural selection taking place then there can be no natural evolution. Socialised human beings do not choose their mates according to ruddy good health, but acording to social class, dress sense etc. nor are they directly exposed to natural pressures on population, but protect themselves through human industry. From here on in the only evolution taking place among humans will be evolu ...

Document Size:	6674
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Apr 29 23:54:35 PDT 2007

1149 [lbo-talk] Bonobo you don't (was was Weath Distribution and hot air something) -- rank: 1000

Jerry writes "Obviously it is because of some kind of idea that you have that humans are "essentially" different from the species we are related to and also the species from which our species emerged. This is a pre-Darwinian assumption and either you think that evolution is correct or you take your position." Essentially, yes, but that essence is not a biological essence. The human essence is what you call 'institutions', just like Hegel said. Biologically, humans are only r ...

Document Size:	10858
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Apr 29 14:40:32 PDT 2007

1150 [lbo-talk] was Weath Distribution and hot air something -- rank: 1000

Miles "How can this be? If evolution "ceases" when a species shapes its environment, then evolution has stopped for beavers, birds, wild cats, spiders, ants, etc." No, they don't shape their environment, because they don't create a mental picture of how they want to change it before they do. Once people introduced reason into their relationship with nature, they introduced a principle of change that was much more rapid than the leisurely pace of natural selection. So, for ex ...

Document Size:	7156
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Apr 29 01:10:18 PDT 2007

1151 [lbo-talk] children losing sleep over cliamte change -- rank: 1000

I have always thought that Alexander Cockburn was very smart, and nothing would make me happier to be in the same club as such an idiot. Related to Claud Cockburn, I wonder? Or Cynthia? The Story of the WEEK by Patricia Cockburn is quite fantastic.

Document Size:	4936
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Apr 28 15:39:03 PDT 2007

1152 [lbo-talk] was Weath Distribution and hot air something -- rank: 1000

Jerry Monaco: "Arguably most of our mental structures evolved before modern humans even existed." If you mean instincts, then yes, but if you mean concepts and reason, then no. And after all, who gives a monkey's toss about instincts. The mental structures worth thinking about were created in reaction to human conditions, not evolutionary ones. "I used to use these Marx-mots and dialectical cliches as a rule of thumb all the time.But I think that in the "human-centrism" ...

Document Size:	5778
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Apr 28 15:36:02 PDT 2007

1153 [lbo-talk] Children losing sleep over global warming -- rank: 1000

Jenny Brown asks: "Isn't the question of whether climate chaos is happening separate from the question of whether it's human-caused? Are you maintaining that it's not human caused AND it's not happening?" Climate is chaos, there is not much point losing sleep over it. Without industry and agriculture we would indeed be at the mercy of the elements. >From the IPCC I see that since 1900 the average recorded surface temperature has increased by about one degree celsius. http://www.ipc ...

Document Size:	5661
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Apr 28 03:11:38 PDT 2007

1154 [lbo-talk] Children losing sleep over global warming -- rank: 1000

Well, you heartless f*ckers, Shane and Chuck. But I don't believe any useful cause can be advanced by scaring little kiddiwinks. Let's face it, more Americans were scared into voting for Nixon by the wholly fantastic notion that the Soviets were about to wage thermonuclear war than ever drew Chuck's conclusion. As for you, Doug, little Ivan is too young for the night terrors yet, for which you should count yourself lucky.

Document Size:	5178
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Apr 27 15:13:10 PDT 2007

1155 [lbo-talk] Children losing sleep over global warming -- rank: 1000

Children losing sleep over global warming ALAN JONES HALF of children between the ages of seven and 11 are anxious about the effects of global warming and often lose sleep over it, according to a new report. http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=289422007

Document Size:	4941
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Apr 27 12:45:38 PDT 2007