Tuesday, November 05, 2013

Hygiecracy

English: Photos from October 6, Day 21 of Occu...English: Photos from October 6, Day 21 of Occupy Wall Street. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security continues to keep Wall Street barricaded to the public. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Photos from October 6, Day 21 of Occu...English: Photos from October 6, Day 21 of Occupy Wall Street. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security continues to keep Wall Street barricaded to the public. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Photos of Occupy Wall Street on Day 2...English: Photos of Occupy Wall Street on Day 20, October 5, the day of the big march with unions in solidarity with OWS. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
CounterPunchCounterPunch (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
c Columbus Cruise shipc Columbus Cruise ship (Photo credit: z_fishies)
English: Roger A. Pielke with permission from ...English: Roger A. Pielke with permission from the subject (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Denis Rancourt, Professor of Physics,...English: Denis Rancourt, Professor of Physics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  A reminder that opinions expressed are not mine - and may in fact be diametrically opposed.

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The Surprise Party

published originally on CounterPunch
opit said...
Wonderful clarity of perception. One quibble : global warming is a scare in that it is not yet possible to perceive the future with clarity - not even when it is shouted from the rooftops that "The Sky is Burning and We Are Going to Fry" ( minor paraphrase of Chicken Little there )
You should enjoy both Roger Pielke Jr.'s notes on the Honest Broker and Denis Rancourt's on Lies of Science ; which are both about 'scientism' or 'post normal science' i.e. ; b.s. as 'consensus.' Roger Pielke Sr. is btw a 'climate scientist' and well aware of the limitations of his craft - something lost in the ballyhoo. Roger Jr. has several videos on YouTube and a weblog. Denis has as well ( I believe he links to an RT interview ) ; a blog post serves to outline his thoughts http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2010/06/some-big-lies-of-science.html

On the Concept of the Crisis

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 2 weeks ago
published on CounterPunch Whether it's the most recent financial scandal, political calamity, or environmental catastrophe, social life these days is presented - if not experienced - as a succession of crises. Indeed, the ongoing economic crisis alone has generated its own considerable brood of sub-crises: the foreclosure crisis, the jobs crisis (aka the unemployment/poverty crisis), not to mention the health care crisis, and the perennial, ideologically distorted, debt crisis are accompanied by still others. And with the government shutdown here in the US, and the related debt ce... more »

Order and Conquest - The Spirit of Columbus

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 3 weeks ago
published originally on CounterPunch Officially celebrated in the US on the second Monday of October, Columbus first made landfall in the Americas, in what is now the Bahamas, on October 12, 1492. And though, in his eyes, he did stumble onto the shores of a new world, what is more important for the present inquiry is the fact that Columbus immediately imposed the Order of the old world upon the one he invaded. The law of force (articulated in the European legal tradition's Doctrine of Conquest, which grants invaders legal title to the lands they conquer) was subsequently imposed t... more »

The Surprise Party

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 4 weeks ago
published originally on CounterPunch The federal government has been shut down, and the Tea Party crowd (who make no bones about wanting to both shrink the fed until it's small enough to fit in a bathtub - to paraphrase Grover Norquist - and to drown it in there as well) is thoroughly enjoying the situation. Indeed, for Tea Partiers, among the many other minions of the business class, it's a veritable dream come true. All those regulatory agencies that interfere with business (yet, in quasi-dialectical fashion, preserve them all the same) are now out of the way. With the EPA and O... more »

Fukushima Economics - on the distributions of the possible

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 4 weeks ago
published originally on CounterPunch A well-known, liberal economist was discussing the increasing polarization of wealth in the US, the second anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, and the minimum wage, among other issues, the other day on a relatively popular radio program. In addition to his other remarks, the economist (who once served as Labor Secretary) noted that when it is adjusted for inflation the minimum wage is today lower than ever. He also added that if the minimum wage were adjusted for productivity levels, it would amount to something like $15 an hour in today's dolla... more »

On Syria, Serbia, and Kaiser Obama

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 month ago
published originally on CounterPunch When Barack Obama was an inexperienced presidential candidate back in 2008, one question that was repeatedly raised was whether he was qualified to competently carry out the duties required of the executive. Upon announcing that - contrary to Bush's belligerent approach - he favored negotiating with foreign leaders, Obama invoked John F. Kennedy’s failed attempt to negotiate with then Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev in Vienna in 1961. Confirming the suspicions of many, Obama's example betrayed a profound lack of knowledge of US history. For, amo... more »

Freedom from Jobs

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 2 months ago
published on CounterPunch As the 50th anniversary of the 1963 march on Washington DC - the March for Jobs and Freedom immortalized by Martin Luther King's iconic I Have a Dream speech - is celebrated and discussed around the country, it is important to note that though some gains have certainly been made over the past half-century toward a more inclusive, egalitarian society, in many respects - particularly in economic matters - there has been little or no progress whatsoever. Indeed, by certain measures equality has diminished considerably. Accompanying a minimum wage that, when a... more »

Freedom from Jobs

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 2 months ago
published on CounterPunch As the 50th anniversary of the 1963 march on Washington DC - the March for Jobs and Freedom immortalized by Martin Luther King's iconic I Have a Dream speech - is celebrated and discussed around the country, it is important to note that though some gains have certainly been made over the past half-century toward a more inclusive, egalitarian society, in many respects - particularly in economic matters - there has been little or no progress whatsoever. Indeed, by certain measures equality has diminished considerably. Accompanying a minimum wage that, when a... more »

Extreme Times, Extreme Demands - The Health of the People Should Be the Supreme Law

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 2 months ago
posted originally on AlterNet Among the crucial issues raised by the prosecution of Bradley Manning and the persecution of Edward Snowden is the question concerning what law should serve. Is law's basic purpose order or justice - the maintenance of the way things are, or the instantiation of what ought to be? What is primary, the letter or the spirit of the law? Over the course of history, the spirit of the law has generally been regarded as law's more important dimension. Indeed, without serving a higher spirit or ideal - such as justice, fairness, or the common good - the mere... more »

Bozos Like Bezos and the Crooked Cory Booker, or The Californian Ideology Becomes Hegemonic

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 2 months ago
originally published on CounterPunch Along with a considerable deal of surprise, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' sudden 250 million dollar purchase of the Washington Post (a trifle for him at 1% of his estimated fortune of 25 billion) has elicited no small share of conjecture as well. A libertarian who has funded legislation opposing taxation in Washington state, as well as the legalization of same-sex marriage, Bezos' economic conservatism, social liberalism, and demonstrated interest in political issues will very likely influence how he runs the Post. Whether Bezos' motives for acquiring... more »

The Private, the Public, and the (Re)Public

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 2 months ago
Published originally, in a slightly different form, on AlterNet A considerable degree of historical irony inheres in the fact that though the term 'republican' derives from the Latin *res publica *- which means the public thing - Republicans (though not only Republicans) are everywhere these days privatizing, and thereby eliminating, every public thing they can get their hands on. From the privatization of public utilities, and public broadcasting (recall Mitt Romney's campaign promise to cut funding for PBS in spite of his "love" for Big Bird?), to the charter school movement whic... more »

Idiocy and Utopia

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 3 months ago
published on AlterNet The ancient Athenians had a name for people who were unable to participate in and determine the course of public life: idiote. It is from this that our word idiot derives. And though we live in so-called democracies, these days very few of us are not idiots in this powerless respect. To be sure, though he doesn't phrase it in such a manner, in his Theses on Feuerbach Karl Marx draws attention to just this intersection of these two meanings of idiot (fool and dominated subject). The point of philosophy, he states, is to change the world. But the world cannot ... more »

The Health of the People Should Be the Supreme Law

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 3 months ago
posted originally on AlterNet Among the crucial issues raised by the prosecution of Bradley Manning and the persecution of Edward Snowden is the question concerning what law should serve. Is law's basic purpose order or justice - the maintenance of the way things are, or the instantiation of what ought to be? What is primary, the letter or the spirit of the law? Over the course of history, the spirit of the law has generally been regarded as law's more important dimension. Indeed, without serving a higher spirit or ideal - such as justice, fairness, or the common good - the mere... more »

The Sublation of Distributive and Restorative Justice

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 3 months ago
published on state of nature While political and social theorists largely agree that a given society’s legitimacy and worth can be measured by the degree to which justice is achieved, few agree on what justice actually means. Indeed, it is an understatement to remark that efforts at articulating a lucid conception of justice have resulted in many overlapping, and at times conflicting, notions. These range from little more than justifications for revenge – referred to as retributive justice – to theories of justice that concentrate on preventing injustices from arising in the first... more »

Edward Snowden/Knowledge (of Metadata) Is Power

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 4 months ago
posted originally on Alternet If the expression *knowledge is power* - attributed to the English Renaissance philosopher Francis Bacon - is true, then it implies, among other things, that its opposite is also true. That is, if knowledge is power, then the lack of knowledge, or ignorance, amounts to a lack of, or exclusion from, power. As such, removing, obscuring, or hiding knowledge - in a word, secrecy - not only creates power, it produces powerlessness, weakness, and vulnerability as well. Indeed, as Elias Canetti phrased it in his *Crowds and Power*: "Secrecy lies at the very c... more »

New York City Summer Swimming

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 4 months ago
On Thursday, June 27th, New York City's municipal swimming pools will open their gates and welcome thousands of overheated bodies into their blue, heavily chlorinated maws. And while sundry papers will no doubt report the advent of the season, the conduct of the crowds, the instances of (overwhelmingly) petty crimes that invariably arise when so many people are concentrated into limited spaces, and the austerity-style budget cuts that are limiting these spaces even further, the real story, as so often happens is the one that is hardly discussed, not to mention rarely reported: why ... more »

Bradley Manning - the Anti-Eichmann

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 4 months ago
posted originally on CounterPunch The year 2013 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Hannah Arendt's controversial critique of the trial of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, and her work remains unambiguously pertinent. Indeed, not only do the ghosts of the past continue to haunt Eichmann in Jerusalem; another ghost - a ghost from the future - is also detectable among her words. As one reads her text, Eichmann's polar opposite, Bradley Manning, arises from Arendt's pages like a photographic negative. Presently on trial for charges that include "communicating nati... more »

Restorative and Distributive Justice

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 4 months ago
While political and social theorists largely agree that a given society's worth can be measured by the degree to which justice is achieved, few agree on what justice actually means. Efforts at articulating a lucid conception of justice have resulted in many overlapping, and at times conflicting, notions of justice. These range from little more than justifications for revenge - referred to as retributive justice - to theories of justice that concentrate on preventing injustices from arising in the first place - creating the conditions which justice requires in order to be realized.... more »

Idiots and Education

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 6 months ago
The ancient Athenians had a name for people unable to participate in and determine the course of public life: idiote - from which our word idiot is derived. And though we live in so-called democracies, these days very few of us are not idiots in this classical respect. It is this intersection of these two meanings of idiot (fool and heteronomous subject) that Marx drew attention to in his Theses on Feuerbach - in which Marx critiques the insufficiently critical, materialistic thought of Ludwig Feuerbach. Yes, the point is to change the world. But the world cannot be meaningfully ch... more »

Working definition of hygiecracy

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 6 months ago
Hygiecracy is a political philosophy. Specifically, it is a critique of democracy that posits that conditions of actual justice are indistinct from conditions of actual health - actual health is a critical notion of health involving analyses of history, society, and economics, among other things. Because political legitimacy requires that democracy be constrained by justice (otherwise democracy is simply majority rule, might makes right, or the rule of force), the theory holds that democracies must create the objective conditions of health or forfeit their legitimacy. Among other t... more »

Working definition of hygiecracy

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 6 months ago
Hygiecracy is a political philosophy. Specifically, it is a critique of democracy that posits that conditions of actual justice are indistinct from conditions of actual health - actual health is a critical notion of health involving analyses of history, society, and economics, among other things. Because political legitimacy requires that democracy be constrained by justice (otherwise democracy is simply majority rule, might makes right, or the rule of force), the theory holds that democracies must create the objective conditions of health or forfeit their legitimacy. Among other t... more »

Idiocy's Interruption

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 6 months ago
One of the most obvious things that comes to mind when considering how to interfere with the political idiocy produced and reproduced by this society is education. Of course, these days education is just as involved in creating the conditions for this idiocy, and its attendant ideologies, in the first place - what Althusser referred to as the Ideological State Apparatus. In spite of this, however, implicit in the concept of education lies a radically emancipatory notion. For what is the point of education? It is not simply instrumental. Rather, it ought to question the purposes to ... more »

Hey Idiots

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 6 months ago
posted originally on CounterPunch It is interesting to observe that the word idiot derives from the Greek idiotes, which refers to a "private person" - as distinct from a public person, or one who is involved in determining public life. That is, an idiot follows the rules and laws that others draft and sign - irrespective of whether or not it is in the idiot's interest. Some people in society determine how society will be organized - how its economic surpluses are distributed, how its resources are employed, how its energies are directed, how its cities are designed, its transport... more »

Marx's 11th Thesis on Feuerbach

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 7 months ago
When Marx wrote - in his 11th Thesis on Feuerbach - that the point is not to interpret, but to change the world, he may not have been explicit enough - for it is the understanding of the world that leads (dialectically) to the recognition that it ought to be changed (and, in sublating - that is, both dissolving and preserving - this, 'understanding' is constitutively bound with 'changing'). For instance, when one comes to understand that one is behaving in a manner that is destroying one's teeth, it will take more effort to continue that form of behavior than to stop it. Likewise, w... more »

the beatles

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 8 months ago
they say that love is all you need it's true - as everything else is extant in the world - water, housing, food abounds - though it's all tightly held in a small group of hands - but love would disperse these all - it's true - love, indeed is all you need

Drive, Baby, Drive! - Pearl Harbor, Global Warming, and the Apocalypse

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 10 months ago
On the anniversary of the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, with typhoon Bopha having just spread vast carnage throughout the South China Sea, it is interesting to consider the parallels that exist between the Japanese attack and such global warming-caused weather events. Among their other similarities, both the attack on Pearl Harbor and global warming-caused disasters result from the industrial, imperialistic scramble for, and exploitation of natural resources. And though the Japanese bombardment surprised many, but was not unanticipated, likewise the typhoon... more »

Turkeys, Twinkies, and Toxins

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 11 months ago
published originally on counterpunch Because the history of the United States is comprised of contradictions (for example, while its political institutions are rooted in the notion of freedom, its economic institutions arise from a foundation of slavery) it should come as little surprise to find that the holiday of Thanksgiving - so intertwined these days with hyper-consumerism - itself grew out of the rejection of a compelled commercialism. Prior to the Reformation in England, the Church maintained dozens of various holidays and feast days throughout the year. And not only were... more »

On Critical Days

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 11 months ago
originally published on counterpunch Whether it's the most recent extreme weather disaster, environmental calamity, financial scandal, debacle, super-crime, or otherwise, political and social life these days is presented - if not experienced - as a succession of crises. Indeed, the economic crisis alone has generated its own not inconsiderable brood of sub-crises: the foreclosure crisis, the jobs crisis (aka the unemployment crisis), not to mention the health care crisis, and the perennial, ideologically distorted, debt crisis are accompanied by still others. And with the so-called... more »

The Zombie Vampire Industrial Complex

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 11 months ago
published originally on counterpunch As Obama celebrates his reelection, and his supporters find themselves in the odd position of planning how to fight the man they helped reelect in the first place, it is worth reflecting on the fact that Obama was able to prevail in the presidential election by receiving a preponderant number of ballots - and that these ballots (a term derived from the word 'balls') in many respects represents the surrender of his supporters' symbolic balls - not only their symbolic heads, and minds, but also their actual autonomy to the ruler whose power they s... more »

Superstorm Sandy's Submerged Social Antagonisms

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
In spite of Barack Obama's prognostication that future generations would look back at his 2008 nomination as the very point in history at which the (industrially-induced) rising levels of the oceans began to slow, as the 2012 presidential election draws near it is difficult to miss the fact that the opposite is happening. Indeed, as economic activity continues to heat the planet, and as polar ice and glaciers continue to melt, the oceans are not only not slowing their rise - as witnessed most dramatically over the past week, they are rising ever higher, swallowing significant porti... more »

The Underside of Energy Independence

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
originally published on counterpunch Among the social, political, and economic issues that Obama and Romney seem to have no difficulty agreeing upon is the notion that the United States needs to achieve "energy independence." Arguing that its reliance on the importation of sources of fuel puts the US in a vulnerable geo-strategic position, advocates of energy independence not only maintain that the US must pursue an energy policy involving the extraction of oil from such ecologically sensitive domestic areas as the California coast, and the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ... more »

Ballots, Bullets, Balls, and Brains

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
published originally on CounterPunch As the presidential election approaches, and many are already casting their votes, a consideration of the multiple meanings of the concept of the ballot may offer some measure of insight into the current political, ideological, and historical situation. Currently constructed out of paper and - as electronic voting becomes more and more widespread - from digital signals, it is noteworthy that the term ballot derives from the word for ball, and the historical practice of casting variously colored balls into a box in order to determine the victor ... more »

The American Johnson

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
published originally on State of Nature Many are no doubt familiar with the fact that the Phallus is symbolic of, and is associated with, fertility and generative power. However, that the Greek word for phallus is related to the Greek word for whale – phalle – is not as well known. This should not come as much of a surprise, though, when one considers the fact that the phalle, or whale, is but another designation for the biblical Leviathan. And the leviathan, beyond its association with the satanic, is also the term that the great defender of political absolut... more »

The American Johnson

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
The American Johnson

Christopher Columbus and the US Constitution

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
published originally on counterpunch While it is officially celebrated in the US on the second Monday of October, Columbus first made landfall in the Americas, in what is now the Bahamas, on October 12, 1492. And though he did in some respects stumble upon a new world, what is more important for the present inquiry is the fact that Columbus immediately imposed the order of the old world upon the one he found. The law of force, articulated most clearly in the doctrine of conquest, which legally sanctions what justice should condemn, was subsequently imposed throughout the Americas a... more »

Reimagining Austerity

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
originally published on counterpunch Though their conclusions are specious, the proponents of economic austerity programs are in one crucial respect entirely correct: the present economic system is pathologically dysfunctional and, as such, requires a radical transfiguration. Indeed, along with the growing dead zones of the oceans, and the spreading war zones accompanying the resource depletion intrinsic to our political-economy, we are also daily savaged by the far more mundane, though just as endemic, pathologies of cancer and obesity epidemics, widespread malnutrition, and count... more »

On the Villainization of Teachers and Muslims

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
originally published on counterpunch Among the issues raised by the Chicago teachers' strike is the one involving the villainization of labor. Yet, while teachers have been shamelessly conflated in the corporate media with the very gluttons who are in fact fleecing the teachers of their pensions and other benefits, it is important to bear in mind that teachers, and labor in general, are far from the only ones being villainized in the ongoing efforts to privatize what were until relatively recently socially - rather than privately - controlled resources. Indeed, a far broader, and ... more »

Rahm Machiavelli and the Chicago Teachers' Strike

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
*originally published on counterpunch* A considerable degree of confusion appears to be attending the ostensible conclusion to the Chicago Teachers' strike. Indeed, with various interests proclaiming victory, it is difficult to arrive at a clear understanding of just what the outcome portends. Before addressing the facts, however - which are indispensable in any effort to evaluate a situation - a word ought to be given to the context in which the strike unfolded. Among other things, it is important to note that, beyond the talking points regarding school choice, accountability, and... more »

Wherefore Art Thou Occupy?

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
Originally published on Counterpunch As its anniversary is celebrated we will no doubt be reminded that no matter what else it achieved, or failed to, Occupy Wall Street managed to introduce - if not a new sensitivity to inequality into the world - at least a new phrase into popular political parlance. Indeed, the slogan ‘We Are the 99%’ concisely articulates the fact that a deep, structural conflict exists between the so-called 1%, who own virtually the entire planet, and the 99%, who spend their lives in the service of that 1%. And though in actuality power is distributed in more... more »

From Moses' Parkways to Olmsted's Parks

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
As the city of San Francisco rose in prominence and grandeur in the 1860s, its political leaders commissioned Frederick Law Olmsted to design a central, municipal park. While Olmsted's plan was rejected for, among other things, being too disruptive to business, it is nevertheless - and perhaps even because of this - still a thought-provoking plan for an urban park. Those familiar with the layout of the city of San Francisco may enjoy imagining just how nice it would be if Olmsted's plan had been realized. Beginning at the bay, between Fort Mason and Fisherman's Wharf, the park wo... more »

The Historicity of Disease

hygiecrat at hygiecracy - 1 year ago
Disease is not simply a natural occurrence so much as an historical and cultural phenomena. That is, disease is not entirely natural - however ambiguous such a statement may be. Indeed, this nexus of historical, cultural and physiological forces manifests in culturally specific diseases. Cancer, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes - relatively rare before the industrial revolution - are a few of the most common diseases in the U.S. today. Among the harms that contribute directly to these pathologies - e.g. a largely sedentary lifestyle, regular and consistent exposure to signifi... more »
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