Search LBO-Talk Archives

1621 why the US won't do this -- rank: 1000

Peter K. <peterk at enteract.com> Objects to my proposition that the US >>establishment itself would no more see Israel defeated than >>they would see New York defeated. It is morally an extension of the >>US. The US elite could never bend to it, >>without harming themselves. Peter writes: "Try as I might, I really can't follow this line of argument. It's as if some cognitive dissonance - not on my part I hope - is in effect." Well, without wishing to be ...

Document Size:	8078
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Apr 9 11:53:56 PDT 2002

1622 Tom the exterminator -- rank: 1000

Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> [questioning whether it is right to say that America was defeated in Korea and Vietnam.] "So in both cases, the "victors" were rendered poor & isolated for decades, and the loser went on to run the world. I'm going to have to rethink the definitions of these words now." North Korea isolated itself, making enemies even of its own sponsors in the USSR and China, and impoverished itself through some destructive policies. It was neve ...

Document Size:	5491
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Apr 9 08:22:03 PDT 2002

1623 adorno etc -- rank: 1000

"I know nothing about Adorno personally." He freaked out when his activist students occupied the college calling them 'fascists' but later took it back, and said they were ok (that's from memory). Istvan Meszaros characterises the Frankfurt School as a vehicle for American imperialism in Germany (in the Power of Ideology), and has lots scathing to say about Adorno. Arendt says Adorno suppressed Benjamin's books, hiding the manuscripts, but I think she was being a drama queen. Peter Mar ...

Document Size:	6217
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Apr 8 12:49:13 PDT 2002

1624 Tom the exterminator -- rank: 1000

joanna bujes <joanna.bujes at ebay.sun.com> writes: "Oh boy, did it ever lose Vietnam. Not only that, it also lost Korea: when you're that powerful, a draw is a loss." I was thinking about this the other day: where were the substantial defeats of US hegemony in the 20C. The answer is that they were all delivered by Asians: Pearl Harbour, Korea, Vietnam.. I suppose there's Cuba, but the US military were not fighting directly. -- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explaine ...

Document Size:	5101
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Apr 8 12:56:11 PDT 2002

1625 Heidegger's gas chambers -- rank: 1000

Chris Doss (re. Heidegger's comparison of agriculture and gas chambers): "Blech. People make way too much out of this damn quote. Heidegger was trying (in usual sensationalistic style) point out the what he viewed as the inhuman nature of mechanized agriculture, not apologize for the death camps. And to assert that the essence behind each -- that is, mechanization in general -- is the same." Blech and double blech to you. Heidegger knew what he was saying, and was canny enough to have ...

Document Size:	5849
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Apr 8 09:41:21 PDT 2002

1626 WRP -- rank: 1000

Thomas Seay: 'The image that comes to mind whenever I read about the trotskyist movement is that of a dysfunctional family. Of course, Healy, the big daddy who was bonking his various "children" (how else could someone as butt ugly as Healy ever get laid), is the epitome of that.' However depraved (or not - I wasn't there so I don't know) the internal relations of the WRP, and however dogmatic its politics, it did produce a number of noteworthy theoreticians: Tom Kemp and Geoff Pilling ...

Document Size:	5070
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Apr 8 06:27:02 PDT 2002

1627 Heidegger/Russell -- rank: 1000

"Poor woman. What a sucker. He was wretch. So was Russell, btw, but far more charming and entertaining. Quine was also a jerk, a real hollow man, ever try to read his autobiography? A real behaviorist nightmare. I went there and I wrote this. No inner life at all. Skinner's autobiography, by contrast, is fascinating, there was in interesting guy, rather odd, tried to raise his daughter in a Skinner box. James and Dewey were wonderful people, by contrast, and by all accounts so is John Rawls ...

Document Size:	6396
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Apr 8 06:14:49 PDT 2002

1628 why the US won't do this -- rank: 1000

Seth poses the question very starkly: 'It may seem far-fetched in today's atmosphere, but there's nothing unrealistic about the idea of the US calling a Rambouillet-style conference with Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians, laying out a settlement and threatening to cut off aid / impose sanctions on anyone who says no. The question is why the US won't do this.' I think that you have to take this seriously as a question, and the answer is that it will not do it because the Israel-Palestine conflic ...

Document Size:	6084
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Apr 8 06:02:01 PDT 2002

1629 Middle East envoy -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 7 April 2002 UNLIKELY SAVIOUR US Secretary of State Colin Powell's mission to the Middle East was welcomed unconditionally by the Palestinian Authority as a positive contribution to peace in the region. How short their memories are. A political soldier, Powell had served two terms in Vietnam before becoming Secretary of Defence Caspar Weinbergers' military advisor. General Norman Schwarzkopf remembers Powell as his ally in persuading the US military to reorient its post-Cold War ...

Document Size:	7730
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Apr 7 04:01:40 PDT 2002

1630 Perhaps James could make a simple statement of his intention -- rank: 1000

Greg Schofield writes: 'Perhaps James could make a simple statement of his intention and either clear the matter up or indeed start a debate if his intention was otherwise.' Whoops, Yes, ok the thread was a bit provocative ("Yes, anti-Semitic, but unintended, and harmless"). I meant that *in this case* (i.e. the Scottish Pastor's use of biblical imagery in discussing the current ME conflict) his picture was open to an interpretation that was anti-Semitic, but that it was unintentional ...

Document Size:	5468
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Apr 7 01:50:31 PST 2002

1631 Oh don't be so pedantic, Chip -- rank: 1000

I think Chip is being a bit rigid in his thinking. As a statement of fortitude in the face of prejudice it is no doubt an admirable thing to say that you challenge any and all stereo-typing wherever it raises its head, but to follow such a creed would be absurd. There are many stereo-types that are really not harmful at all. By and large it does no harm to say that left-handed people are untrustworthy, or that Scotsmen are mean, or that estate agents are vulgar, or that girls from Essex are loos ...

Document Size:	8827
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Apr 6 11:22:28 PST 2002

1632 'What's his name in the book Wittgenstein's Vienna...' -- rank: 1000

"ChrisD(RJ)" <chrisd at russiajournal.com> writes 'What's his name in the book Wittgenstein's Vienna...' Stephen Toulmin -- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'

Document Size:	4998
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Apr 6 07:41:15 PST 2002

1633 ok solve this -- rank: 1000

'dlaw' smuggles all of the relations of capitalist exchange into his 'communist' conundrum. Dollars, lending, property, rationing, the state and so on. And then he says 'solve that without reference to the law of contract'. Well, obviously I can't, which is just another way of saying that he is not describing a communist society (and let's face it, who could?). But of course it is a failure of imagination to think that all questions are subject to the law. What is role of lawyers in deciding whe ...

Document Size:	5803
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Apr 6 02:45:09 PST 2002

1634 pan arabism -- rank: 1000

Carrol: 'Iraq, Syria, etc. are _nations_.' Are they? Because the Sykes-Picot line separates off Kuwait from Iraq? 'There is no a priori reason to expect them to be unified.' I think that pan-Arab nationalism is precisely a priori to the derived forms of Iraqi and Syrian nationalism, in that Michel Afleq's Ba'athist movement was equally strong in both Syria and Iraq, and anticipated them as part of an Arab nation. It was only with the defeat of the pan-Arabist movement, like Afleq's and Nasser's ...

Document Size:	5490
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Apr 6 03:14:31 PST 2002

1635 Sartre is a footnote to Heidegger? -- rank: 1000

I remember reading an anecdote of somebody seeing a copy of Sartre's Being and Nothingness on Heidegger's desk and asking him what he thought of it. The one-word reply 'dreck' which I think means 'shit'. Though I've often wanted to quote it (against H as much as against JPS), I've never found its source again. If any of you phenomenologists out there can help me... -- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity. ...

Document Size:	5052
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Apr 6 03:05:50 PST 2002