Counter-revolution to the Arab Spring

Obama is delivering a speech about the Arab Spring today and it will most likely be just as full of lies as his 2009 speech in Cairo (worth bearing in mind how when he no doubt mentions in today's speech how awesome democracy how willing to give a speech in a client dictatorship he was two years ago.)

Thus I highly recommend Joseph Massad's editorial about how the Euro-American / Saudi counter-revolution to the Arab Spring is going and what it entails. Read it here and bear in mind how little this resembles the mainstream coverage of the region.

How the US and the west is transitioning to Fascism.

William I. Robinson has written an editorial for Al Jazeera that details how the US is on the verge of fascism he is not using the term fascism lightly either. It pulls together a lot of threads explaining why things are as they currently are but one especially good point it makes is an explanation of why Obama is doing what he's doing.

Men Against Pornography

Ok, we've been here before, another article pointing out the range of deeply questionable aspects of pornography and specifically focusing on male feminist objections and reservations about the sex industry. However a couple of things that hadn't occured to me before needs highlighting:

Kimmel remains open-minded about pornography – what's needed is a much broader conversation about it, he says – but the picture he paints in Guyland is nonetheless troubling. "Pornotopia is the place where [young men] can get even," he writes, "where women get what they 'deserve' and the guys never have to be tested, or face rejection. And so the pornographic universe becomes a place of homosocial solace, a refuge from the harsh reality of a more gender equitable world than has ever existed. It's about anger at the loss of privilege – and an effort to restore men's unchallenged authority. And, it turns out, that anger is worse among younger men."

Which is, in hindsight really obvious but for some reason just hadn't clicked. Privilege is hella addictive and as women slowly gain more rights young men who exist in a culture largely shaped by total male dominance are feeling deeply short changed by the deficit between the extremely easy and privileged life society leads them to expect and the merely quite easy and privileged life they receive. They're angry and want to see those awful bitches punished.

Secondly:

The anti-sexist educator and activist Jackson Katz, author of the 2006 book The Macho Paradox, suggests the porn industry has an obvious interest in undermining intimacy between men and women – if couples were to find sexual fulfillment together, the market would plummet. And this opposition to intimacy, says Jensen, helps explain why porn has become so cruel, degrading and humiliating – why, to quote Martin Amis, it has become "a parody of love" addressing itself "to love's opposites, which are hate and death".

Which pretty mind blowing and hard to deny. Pornographers do not want their audience to be happy or content in any way or they'll stop buying. So as with all Patriarchy while women suffer most men suffer too with the exception of the tiny elite who actually benefit from the deeply unfair system we exist in.

Does this mean pornography in all cases is unacceptable? Maybe I'm not sure but as long as porn exists both in the mainstream and and unquestioned and simultaneously a "dirty" but glamorised production process that not nearly enough attention is paid to and not enough scepticism is used against it will have no hope to be anything other than a bad thing.

Then again in a world where chocolate is made from cocoa picked by child slaves and fashionable clothes are made in 3rd world sweatshops focusing on the negative aspects of one specific capitalist product is probably myopic. Pornography is a deeply unpleasant business but it is a business and not that different from many others in its' methods.

Yet more Tech-Cartel news.

Angel investors are super rich people who invest their own money in tech startups at a very early stage. This is opposed to venture capitalists who generally invest other people's money at all stages of a firm's growth. Angelgate is the allegation that these angels regularly meet to fix prices and ensure they all make as much profit as possible, that is to say they are the very definition of a trust.

This accusation has brought us the non-news that Nerds are terrible, covertly racist and greedy selfish assholes in the form of an incoherent incensed word vomit of denial from David McClure, one of those who profited from Paypal. His APS (ad hominems per second) and anger level suggest there is some truth to Michael Arrington's claims. Even if there aren't by God McClure is just awful. I thought YOSPOS was the exception, alas it seems to be the rule.

Turns out Porn is pretty bad.

Apparently using a capitalistic model to make women into a sexualised commodity has negative consequences for women and society as a whole. Of course the counterargument that comes to mind that pretty much every job out there uses people as an exploitable commodity that doesn't care about their health as long as they make money turns out to be a pretty damning indictment of modern society rather than any kind of justification. I do wonder somewhat about her dismissal of humans being able to tell fantasy from reality, its the same kind of argument used against computer games and unless I've missed roving bands of clockwork orange-esque nerds that has been shown to be false.

Oh also the article says Jenna Jameson made the porn industry work for her, that really wasn't the case.

Had a bit of a revelation

I realised (in the shower albeit with no shout of eureka) that the reason the holocaust is condemned uniquely among the vast array of western atrocities is because the holocaust is pretty much the sole incident where the abhorrence occurred without a profit motive, the final solution to the Jewish problem was an ideologically pure act.

In short it was a crime against capitalism and thus intolerable for the elite and perfectly acceptable for the general population to know about it and think it terrible. Had the victims of the holocaust merely been worked to death as slaves the condemnation would be much milder; note how little mainstream condemnation there is for major collaborators such as hugo boss, Coca Cola and IBM (without whose custom designed and directly operated Hollerith tabulators the holocaust would've been logistically impossible) because they aided evil for profit.

Questioning democracy.

A concept that was quite alien to me was introduced to me yesterday, in a thread in LF by Dead Ken (he who created the greatest of all quotes*) he brought up the fact that democracy, especially liberal democracy is the symptom of a specific type of government and is not nearly as universaliseable or as inherently desired as it is portrayed to be. This does beg the question is the kneejerk Democracy (or at least "good" democracy as defined by foreign policy requirements) = good?

I honestly don't know and it is something I will likely be devoting a fair bit of thought to from now on. Certainly while the type of democracy we currently have now is flawed and deeply problematic what to replace it with is the big question, if the governed don't have some kind of input or right of reply to their rulers then they will be exploited and used. Then again they kind of are now. Still the lack of an immediately obvious alternative to democracy wont come to mind if, like me, you haven't thought that democracy as it is now is not what you assumed it to be.

Anyway, wondering about this caused me to do some googling and I found this transcript of a public discussion between Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou about the problematic nature of democracy and the problems of its' current sacred cow status.

Edit: turns out the guy whose blog that transcript was posted on is a major fraudster and is on the run from the police in several countries. I don't think the transcript was false but given he holds some pretty hardcore libertarian views who knows? Details about his fraud and a link to a BBC current affairs program about him (that anyone can access) can be found here



*"Science is a debased form of Marxism"

Exceptionally important seed bank to be destroyed because "priceless" = "worthless" to capitalists.

A seed bank, in fact the seed bank, the world's first, on the outskirts of St Petersburg is looking set to be destroyed so some flats can be built in its' place. The concept of seedbanks is one of Russia's greatest gifts to the world but not only will the capitalist inability to perceive value in anything but the most vulgar and short terms destroy a cultural and scientific artefact but also 90% globally unique plant stock that could well be useful in feeding people as climate change renders traditional crops ungrowable.

Oh well.


thanks jonny

This article might not be satire.

Terry Savage doesn't come out of this article well, either hes a terrible terrible scumbag or he was beaten to the punch by this five year old webcomic:


Imagine the most positive thing somone could say about you was that you were five years behind webcomic humour. Just getting up in the morning would be a herculean task and I am of the opinion Mr Savage shouldn't bother.

article provided by Jonny