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1651 Realism -- rank: 1000

In message <5.0.0.25.2.20010929114255.042c8b70 at mail.gte.net>, kelley <kwalker2 at gte.net> writes >Objectivists: > >Ontology: "naive" realism > >--empirical facts exist independently of our consciousness of them >--scientific concepts are said to be capable of copying or corresponding to >those factual realities. > >Naive realism provides a basis for a theory of scientific representation >and is often associated with British Empiricism. 'Nai ...

Document Size:	6111
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Sep 29 10:43:04 PDT 2001

1652 'WESTERN CIVILISATION' WILL NOT DEFEND ITSELF -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 30 September 2001 'WESTERN CIVILISATION' WILL NOT DEFEND ITSELF The declared War on Terrorism is turning out to be a phoney war. This will be no consolation to the scores of muslims detained throughout Europe, or to the Afghans who still face military intervention. But for the most part the War on Terrorism is a confidence-building campaign aimed at the folks back home. Anyone who thought that the reaction to the World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks could bring out the best in Ame ...

Document Size:	10878
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Sep 29 06:00:59 PDT 2001

1653 Thinking like Nathan -- rank: 1000

In message <02d401c14740$460caf40$4d1f0f41 at home.com.excite.home.com>, Nathan Newman <nathan at newman.org> writes >But the whole debate has clarified for me why certain left folks feel >comfortable making these causal statements in regard to 9-11, while being >blind to why they horrify and outrage most other folks. Since they see such >a disconnect between US policy and the American public, they see no tension >between denouncing US policy and sympathy for the popu ...

Document Size:	6431
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Sep 27 08:59:03 PDT 2001

1654 "Cause" vs. "Justified" (was: Re: Hitchens responds to critics) -- rank: 1000

In message <033501c1468b$33953720$4d1f0f41 at home.com.excite.home.com>, Nathan Newman <nathan at newman.org> writes >On the purely political level, you may think it is a good idea for the left >to say to the families of the dead that, yes, bin Laden is an evil guy, but >heck, we knew that, so really we caused this result since the results of our >actions were foreseeable, so you killed your dead loved ones by voting in >this government. People are not fools. If you ...

Document Size:	9870
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Sep 26 07:45:05 PDT 2001

1655 Sociology and Explanations (Re: Hitchens responds to critics -- rank: 1000

I don't really understand this point, though it seems familiar to me (as in the inexplicability of the holocaust). I can sympathise with the conventional (right wing, even) argument that it is wrong to try and explain away people's actions on sociological grounds. What individuals do, they are responsible for. I hold that to be true as much for the perpetrators of the WTC bombing as for junkies who kill people holding up shops. It isn't anybody else doing it, its you. Personal responsibility doe ...

Document Size:	9421
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Sep 25 13:19:57 PDT 2001

1656 Hitchens responds to critics -- rank: 1000

Martin Heidegger thought that the true test of a great mind was to hold one single thought in mind, for a whole day. But then he was weird. In message <87ite75bew.fsf at lackawana.kippona.com>, news at kippona.com writes >Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> writes: > >> Steve Perry wrote: >> >> >the fitz observation you cite is, appropriately enough, from 'the crack-up.' >> >> Anyone have the exact wording? >> >> Doug > >" ...

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Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Sep 25 12:53:45 PDT 2001

1657 Infinite Justice -- rank: 1000

This is my weekly round-up. Spinoza means that what is determinate has limits. The Bush attack on NGOs was reported in the UK Guardian around five days ago, <www.guardian.co.uk> and look for 'Search' on a pull-down menu, top left. In message <000d01c144a8$c0d58de0$0201a8c0 at mindsping.com>, pms <laflame at mindspring.com> writes >Please James, is this your interesting summary of events, or is this an >article, and if so, from where? Also, what does that Spinoza thing me ...

Document Size:	5566
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Sep 24 09:53:53 PDT 2001

1658 'Infinite Justice' -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 23 September 2001 INDETERMINATE JUSTICE 'omnis determinatio est negatio' Spinoza George W Bush's campaign against international terrorism, now named 'Infinite Justice', looks like his father's New World Order, but actually it is very different. The chief architects of George Bush Snr's 'New World Order' coalition against Iraq, Colin Powell and Dick Chaney, are at the head of Infinite Justice. Drawing on that experience, George W.'s team have launched into shuttle diplomacy to bui ...

Document Size:	11047
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Sep 23 01:10:00 PDT 2001

1659 Marx and morals, (was More Somalia) -- rank: 1000

For Marxism, there are not morals in the sense of fixed values, relevant for all conditions and times. Any such would necessarily be alienated forms of life that detaching themselves from the people for whom they are meant, bear down upon them as external coercive powers. Such of course is the moralism generated by a society in which the 'laws of the market' are an alienated form of human existence that acts as a coercion upon the very people that bring it into being. (Indeed though Christianity ...

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Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Sep 19 01:44:12 PDT 2001

1660 diversity -- rank: 1000

In message <p05100304b7cd0a2c85fc@[192.168.1.100]>, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> writes >Jacob Segal wrote: > >>Easy. If Leo goes, there goes the entire right-wing of the LBO. I >>personally appreciate the "diversity." > >I appreciate "diversity" too - I don't want a forum where we all >agree with each other. But Leo's style, always a bit annoying, was >getting monstrously pompous, devious, and insulting. I didn't boot >hi ...

Document Size:	5152
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Sep 18 13:05:43 PDT 2001

1661 Another Voice of the Reactionary Right Heard From -- rank: 1000

In message <Pine.SOL.4.33.0109172032001.13724-100000 at gorf.gpcc.itd.umich .edu>, Luke Benjamin Weiger <lweiger at umich.edu> writes >With the ... > anticipated exit of Leo Casey No, surely not. He enjoys himself too much here. -- James Heartfield

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Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Sep 18 01:23:59 PDT 2001

1662 Another Voice of the Reactionary Right Heard From -- rank: 1000

And this is called 'Dissent' because...? In message <018b01c13fff$6f5f2000$c801aace at oemcomputer>, Michael Pugliese <debsian at pacbell.net> writes >Terror >http://dissentmagazine.org/ >This is a time to speak quietly and act carefully...firmly, inventively, >boldly, but above all carefully. With all Americans, with decent people the >world over, we mourn the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks on >New York and Washington. By the time you read these word ...

Document Size:	15677
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Sep 18 01:11:56 PDT 2001

1663 More Somalia -- rank: 1000

I've some sympathy with what Max is saying. I don't doubt that children did fight against the US and UN troops in Somalia. And if I'd got to the position that it was me or Joel Osment, Osment dies. But it is best not to get to that position in the first place. What I thought was telling about Stockman's 'women and children' quote is that the Commander of the US forces had moved so decisively from being the front man for a mission called 'Restore Hope', to being at war with man, woman and child i ...

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Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Sep 18 00:33:12 PDT 2001

1664 Israel question -- rank: 1000

See Ze'ev Herzog, Deconstructing the Walls of Jericho: Biblical Myth and Archaeological Reality, Prometheus 4. www.prometheus.demon.co.uk In message <B29E2061DFF93D438FF451CC911E8FFD2D8E7F at KC- MAIL1.kc.umkc.edu>, Forstater, Mathew <ForstaterM at umkc.edu> writes >Haven't read all the replies top this yet, so I apologize if I am >repeating anything already said. There is a very good piece by G. W. >Bowersock, 1984, Journal of Palestine Studies, "Palestine: Ancient &g ...

Document Size:	8788
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Sep 17 15:06:22 PDT 2001

1665 yet more Somalia -- rank: 1000

Jerusalem Post Tuesday, December 12 2000 14:39 15 Kislev 5761 Excessive force and hypocrisy By Alex Safian (December 12) - Soldiers manning a combat bulldozer are suddenly attacked by armed militiamen; a civilian mob joins the attack, providing cover for the gunmen. The soldiers call for help and soon Cobra helicopters are firing volleys of anti-tank missiles and 20-mm cannon on the crowd below. Within minutes almost 100 of the attackers, mostly civilians, are dead. A military spokesman justifie ...

Document Size:	7666
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Sep 17 12:48:12 PDT 2001