China's gone capitalist! Shit!
Why this isn't front page news worldwide I don't know.
The creation of private property ownership laws is, as I see it, the last step away from a centralized, "egalitarian" communist society towards a fully competitive, market-driven economy.
So what this really means is that, rather than being Capitalist, Socialist or Communist, China will become a market-based oligarchy. Arguably, every country in the modern world falls into this category.
The BBC News quotes the proposed legislation as saying:
"The property of the state, the collective, the individual and other obligees is protected by law, and no units or individuals may infringe upon it."
But it adds that: "The nation is in the first stage of socialism and should stick to the basic economic system in which public ownership predominates, co-existing with other kinds of ownership.""
If you look at the structure of any nation-state, there is some balance between the ownership of the government and private ownership. The government has the prerogative to override private ownership rights if they compensate the owner (fairness in this regard is in the eye of the property-holder).
It's interesting that the farmers are the ones driving this particular legislation, because you see similar dynamics in other Socialist countries - namely, France, Peru - that often undermine overall economic growth to maintain a traditional, slow-moving, and often stubbornly archaic system of production.
That being said, the production of food is obviously the most important human function, and if farmers wish to have things a certain way, well I'd vote to let them have it.
However, especially with regards to food production and distribution, access is key. Not only do farmers need access to adequate land to produce adequate crops, but the consuming population needs access (affordable access) to their produce.
There's an interesting factoid in my favorite food-related documentary, The Future of Food, about the unfortunate dynamics of the food economy. What they say is that there is more than enough food produced to feed everyone on the planet quite well. The problem, they claim, is not quantity, but access.
The Chinese have the opportunity to develop an economic model here that is immensely compelling. With their collective, centralized ideology they may be motivated to develop a system of production, distribution and compensation that creates a balance for all involved - a system for regulating production so that an adequate amount of each type of produce (grain, meat, etc.) is grown to feed everyone in the accessible region, at an affordable (perhaps even income-graded) price, and at a minimal supply level so that the farmers who have invested in the production are not overwhelmed by competition.
With a creative and dynamic system in place, the Chinese could, theoretically, feed everyone in China and create a worldwide model of production and distribution that, if adopted by the rest of the organized countries, could expand to include the overwhelming majority of humans.
If we all believed that feeding people was more important than making profits, we could feed the world. An interesting challenge.
Talk about a moral question.
3.08.2007
3.07.2007
This Is TOO Obvious!
Do you expect me to believe that the aide knows more than the boss?
How much bullshit can you heap on us before we do something about it?
That's clearly the question that the Bush Administration's strategists are toying with.
I don't know about you, but I think Cheney is guilty as sin. And it really doesn't matter whether he is or not, I'm just getting really tired of being treated like I'm not paying any attention, I can't put two logical statements together, and I'm prepared to believe anything They tell me in the news.
How much bullshit can you heap on us before we do something about it?
That's clearly the question that the Bush Administration's strategists are toying with.
I don't know about you, but I think Cheney is guilty as sin. And it really doesn't matter whether he is or not, I'm just getting really tired of being treated like I'm not paying any attention, I can't put two logical statements together, and I'm prepared to believe anything They tell me in the news.
Fucking Family!
Civil rights are an interesting topic, because depending on the time, place and cultural perspective, individual and collective civil rights are a completely different animal.
Take, for example, free speech (good old Amendment I). This is a concept born in England and sanctified in the US Bill of Rights as one of the founding principles of this country. But I dare you to look around for examples of censorship - both voluntary and legal - before you believe 100% in the morality of this particular "right".
When you look at the way the world works, a concept like free speech is just that - a concept. In practice, very few people take the opportunity to say (or, in its most liberal interpretations, paint, film, sing, rap, sculpt, photograph, act out...) anything that comes to mind. We have social barriers in place.
How many times did your parent or other authority figure tell you "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all"? Or maybe, when you were a kid and prone to lapses in social acceptability, you told the kid that smelled like they peed their pants that they stank like pee, and then you were punished for saying something so mean.
Or, in the adult world, we have the classically misinterpreted "fire in a crowded theater" US Supreme Court opinion. And slander and libel laws, which, as long as you're not a celebrity, you're likely to win.
But we laud free speech as being the needle on our nation's moral barometer, even though we have very little evidence to show that we actually believe in it and apply it. So, this most fundamental and sacred civil right is not exactly what we might like to think it is.
Which brings me to my point: if you want to fuck your brother or sister, should the law allow you to do so? Should the law allow you to have children together? Get married?
This German couple, who also happen to be brother and sister (and I'm not talking some complicated adoption thing where there's no shared blood - they are brother and sister), are working to get the law against incest reversed.
Take a second to think about this before you decide whether this is "right" or "wrong".
Honestly, I don't know where I stand on this issue. There are good arguments on both sides.
Pro: they love each other.
Con: they're brother and sister.
Pro: they (would) have a stable family (if the German government would give their kids back).
Con: they're brother and sister.
Pro: they should be free to have any relationship that they choose - it's their individual right.
Con: since the dawn of Western cultural memory, it's been taboo to fuck your siblings.
Pro: the law should not dictate behaviors based on morality.
Con: the law has always attempted to guide society into right actions.
Pro: the law was written in 1871 and is now outdated.
Con: they're brother and sister!
See what I mean? There's an essential, embedded social taboo mechanism at work here. That doesn't make it right or wrong to feel that way, it's just been that way for so long that no one can imagine doing it another way.
But let's compare this to other socially regulated beliefs:
What about the ownership and enslavement of humans?
What about the social and economic domination of one gender/race/class over another?
What about the oppression of religious practices of all kinds?
What about the extermination of humans based on tribe/religion/race/political affiliation?
What about the use of force to influence the actions of individuals, groups and nation-states?
What about the denial of social and political access based on age/gender/race/economic status?
What about the regulation of sex, marriage and childbearing based on gender/class/biological commonality?
When you put incest up next to these commonly accepted social behaviors, you have to question the morality and "right"-ness of these practices. There is a time and place for everything, but we have an opportunity to give more human beings what they need and want by making less rules about what they can and can not have.
And just one more straw that I feel is relevant: the entire planet is populated by people that can trace their ancestry back to five individuals. Go even farther back than that, and you narrow it down to a single African tribe that shares the DNA structure of every human on the planet, with, of course, some minor modifications. Interestingly enough, those genetic modifications are primarily based on adaptive necessity - as in, colder temperatures, more direct sunlight, larger game, dense flora - NOT on determinations of superiority or inferiority. And definitely not determinations of "right" and "wrong".
Take, for example, free speech (good old Amendment I). This is a concept born in England and sanctified in the US Bill of Rights as one of the founding principles of this country. But I dare you to look around for examples of censorship - both voluntary and legal - before you believe 100% in the morality of this particular "right".
When you look at the way the world works, a concept like free speech is just that - a concept. In practice, very few people take the opportunity to say (or, in its most liberal interpretations, paint, film, sing, rap, sculpt, photograph, act out...) anything that comes to mind. We have social barriers in place.
How many times did your parent or other authority figure tell you "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all"? Or maybe, when you were a kid and prone to lapses in social acceptability, you told the kid that smelled like they peed their pants that they stank like pee, and then you were punished for saying something so mean.
Or, in the adult world, we have the classically misinterpreted "fire in a crowded theater" US Supreme Court opinion. And slander and libel laws, which, as long as you're not a celebrity, you're likely to win.
But we laud free speech as being the needle on our nation's moral barometer, even though we have very little evidence to show that we actually believe in it and apply it. So, this most fundamental and sacred civil right is not exactly what we might like to think it is.
Which brings me to my point: if you want to fuck your brother or sister, should the law allow you to do so? Should the law allow you to have children together? Get married?
This German couple, who also happen to be brother and sister (and I'm not talking some complicated adoption thing where there's no shared blood - they are brother and sister), are working to get the law against incest reversed.
Take a second to think about this before you decide whether this is "right" or "wrong".
Honestly, I don't know where I stand on this issue. There are good arguments on both sides.
Pro: they love each other.
Con: they're brother and sister.
Pro: they (would) have a stable family (if the German government would give their kids back).
Con: they're brother and sister.
Pro: they should be free to have any relationship that they choose - it's their individual right.
Con: since the dawn of Western cultural memory, it's been taboo to fuck your siblings.
Pro: the law should not dictate behaviors based on morality.
Con: the law has always attempted to guide society into right actions.
Pro: the law was written in 1871 and is now outdated.
Con: they're brother and sister!
See what I mean? There's an essential, embedded social taboo mechanism at work here. That doesn't make it right or wrong to feel that way, it's just been that way for so long that no one can imagine doing it another way.
But let's compare this to other socially regulated beliefs:
What about the ownership and enslavement of humans?
What about the social and economic domination of one gender/race/class over another?
What about the oppression of religious practices of all kinds?
What about the extermination of humans based on tribe/religion/race/political affiliation?
What about the use of force to influence the actions of individuals, groups and nation-states?
What about the denial of social and political access based on age/gender/race/economic status?
What about the regulation of sex, marriage and childbearing based on gender/class/biological commonality?
When you put incest up next to these commonly accepted social behaviors, you have to question the morality and "right"-ness of these practices. There is a time and place for everything, but we have an opportunity to give more human beings what they need and want by making less rules about what they can and can not have.
And just one more straw that I feel is relevant: the entire planet is populated by people that can trace their ancestry back to five individuals. Go even farther back than that, and you narrow it down to a single African tribe that shares the DNA structure of every human on the planet, with, of course, some minor modifications. Interestingly enough, those genetic modifications are primarily based on adaptive necessity - as in, colder temperatures, more direct sunlight, larger game, dense flora - NOT on determinations of superiority or inferiority. And definitely not determinations of "right" and "wrong".
3.05.2007
What's News? 3/5/7
I have one reader! Thank you, Schnookums!
So, in honor of this amazingly flattering event, I'd like to instigate what those in the internest call a "feature". But I'm going to call it "What's News?" and it's actually more like a half-assed anecdote.
And, since I know someone is actually likely to read these missives, I'll give you a quick summary of the goal of this half-assed anecdote.
What's News? is my half-assed attempt to survey globally-relevant news topics from a number of sources (the BBC will be heavily represented, as always) and give a one- or two-line reason why I think this is...well, whatever I think this is. Since my usual commentary focuses on 1) hypocrisy in action, 2) media manipulation, or 3) self-selected blindness in all forms, my guess is that these anecdotes will likely revolve around the same vectors of analysis.
So, on to today's What's News?
1. The US is still bombing in Afghanistan, and this time, they're actually killing people. [BBC News]
2. The US is still being bombed in Baghdad, and they're still killing people. Nice photo...almost makes it look like the set of a Tom Hanks/Clint Eastwood collaboration. [New York Times]
So, in honor of this amazingly flattering event, I'd like to instigate what those in the internest call a "feature". But I'm going to call it "What's News?" and it's actually more like a half-assed anecdote.
And, since I know someone is actually likely to read these missives, I'll give you a quick summary of the goal of this half-assed anecdote.
What's News? is my half-assed attempt to survey globally-relevant news topics from a number of sources (the BBC will be heavily represented, as always) and give a one- or two-line reason why I think this is...well, whatever I think this is. Since my usual commentary focuses on 1) hypocrisy in action, 2) media manipulation, or 3) self-selected blindness in all forms, my guess is that these anecdotes will likely revolve around the same vectors of analysis.
So, on to today's What's News?
1. The US is still bombing in Afghanistan, and this time, they're actually killing people. [BBC News]
2. The US is still being bombed in Baghdad, and they're still killing people. Nice photo...almost makes it look like the set of a Tom Hanks/Clint Eastwood collaboration. [New York Times]
3. The sky is falling! The sky is falling! No, it's just the overdue corrections of bloated international money markets scaring the pants off the people who only make money from the little crumbs that fall off those big cakes of gold, you know, that people actually earn by, you know, making stuff. (You're a true poet, Tom Wolfe.) [The Economist]
4. The Israelis come up with yet another way to marginalize the Palestinians, while the Palestinians get a head start figuring out when and how they're going to bomb those fuckers. [Le Monde Diplomatique]
5. We send them off to war, but we don't plan for them to come home. Ah, the burdens of modern medicine. [Washington Post]
3.02.2007
Water World
The Dutch kick ass!
They're already developing, and implementing practical solutions to humankind's struggle with the environment. Two different architectural/engineering projects are underway to build housing that accommodates the inevitable rise of overall water levels, and especially the frequency of floods.
And, of course, they look cool, too.
They're already developing, and implementing practical solutions to humankind's struggle with the environment. Two different architectural/engineering projects are underway to build housing that accommodates the inevitable rise of overall water levels, and especially the frequency of floods.
And, of course, they look cool, too.
3.01.2007
A Nigger By Any Other Name
There are two major issues that I feel compelled to address here:
1. The "banning" of words that are no longer culturally acceptable.
2. The use of laws and regulations to attempt to enforce behavioral patterns and morality.
The above-referenced article appeared in the BBC News today, as a result of the New York City Council passing a ban on the use of the word "nigger".
I am not a supporter of using this word, because I don't believe in its meaning. I also do not use the words "kike", "spic", "gook", "wop", "cracker", etc. I choose not to use these words because they don't accurately represent my meaning when I refer to specific racial, cultural or religious groups, my perspective on human value, or my way of interacting with other human beings.
But these words do have meanings, and there were (are) times when they appl(y)ied. Imagine a movie about slavery where the slave master was screaming at all his lazy "African-American" slaves. It just doesn't work. And it doesn't matter that this kind of treatment, this kind of behavior isn't "right", because it's true - it really happened that way.
The historical context is important. The accurate portrayal of our collective failure to recognize the equality of human beings is an important thing to retain in our cultural memory, because it's important that we never go back there. Or, that we at least continue to move away from it, since we haven't really gone that far, anyway.
(If I could dig up all the articles I've seen about racial profiling in all contexts - retail sales, police brutality, TSA searches, etc. - this would be the place to reference them. But you already know what I'm talking about, and you've surely had experiences with this yourself. Even if you're a white male, the current dominator of cultural hierarchy - stop feeling so sorry for yourselves, by the way - you go into the wrong neighborhood and you'll know what it's like to be universally shat on.)
The attempt by the New York City Council to whitewash (pun intended) our linguistic history by outlawing the use of a word in a new interpretation, with its own implied meaning, its own life, is an utter failure to understand both the purpose of government, and the purpose of language.
Language, whether we like it or not, reflects an amalgamation of perspective and the desire to communicate thoughts and feelings. I am totally confident that black slave owning whites thought they were truly superior, that these human beings who they enslaved physically - and then moved into enslaving mentally and culturally through disadvantage in education and economy - were, in their minds, a lower life form. They were wrong, but part of why we know that now is because we learned to believe something different, or to preach something different, at least. And the word they used at the time (and in most modern usage) was intended to carry all that meaning. It was a word that served their purpose.
For those that use it today, it carries this and other meanings that we who choose not to use it, do not understand. But that does not give us the right to prevent others from doing so.
Based on what I've seen of modern education, especially urban public schools (which I attended, thank you very much), we are still existing in a plantation mentality, even though the system of enslavement has changed (but that's another topic).
No matter what, government has no business deciding what is morally acceptable for individual behavior. They have no right, but they have taken the leeway given and created a prerogative to tell The People what we should and should not do, should and should not believe.
It is one thing to make laws and pass legislation that provides a structure for society to interact, a set of basic rules that provide guidance to an ever-expanding populace so that we can all live together. But it is quite another to attempt to dictate how we live with one another.
Hatred is a natural human emotion. It grows out of fear, just like almost everything else ("Place an X on the line between Fear and Love...") that destroys us. Should we make it illegal to hate other people? Oh, wait...we did!
This is out of control.
If the government were providing the kinds of services that people require to be integrated into the system, have their views and perspectives represented and appreciated, and provide an outlet for the multitude of undiscovered and undeveloped talent that exists in everyone, maybe we could spend less time banning words because no one would feel the need to discriminate - on the basis of something so utterly meaningless and arbitrary as race, anyway.
Here's hoping that the New York City Council spends its time on more productive matters.
1. The "banning" of words that are no longer culturally acceptable.
2. The use of laws and regulations to attempt to enforce behavioral patterns and morality.
The above-referenced article appeared in the BBC News today, as a result of the New York City Council passing a ban on the use of the word "nigger".
I am not a supporter of using this word, because I don't believe in its meaning. I also do not use the words "kike", "spic", "gook", "wop", "cracker", etc. I choose not to use these words because they don't accurately represent my meaning when I refer to specific racial, cultural or religious groups, my perspective on human value, or my way of interacting with other human beings.
But these words do have meanings, and there were (are) times when they appl(y)ied. Imagine a movie about slavery where the slave master was screaming at all his lazy "African-American" slaves. It just doesn't work. And it doesn't matter that this kind of treatment, this kind of behavior isn't "right", because it's true - it really happened that way.
The historical context is important. The accurate portrayal of our collective failure to recognize the equality of human beings is an important thing to retain in our cultural memory, because it's important that we never go back there. Or, that we at least continue to move away from it, since we haven't really gone that far, anyway.
(If I could dig up all the articles I've seen about racial profiling in all contexts - retail sales, police brutality, TSA searches, etc. - this would be the place to reference them. But you already know what I'm talking about, and you've surely had experiences with this yourself. Even if you're a white male, the current dominator of cultural hierarchy - stop feeling so sorry for yourselves, by the way - you go into the wrong neighborhood and you'll know what it's like to be universally shat on.)
The attempt by the New York City Council to whitewash (pun intended) our linguistic history by outlawing the use of a word in a new interpretation, with its own implied meaning, its own life, is an utter failure to understand both the purpose of government, and the purpose of language.
Language, whether we like it or not, reflects an amalgamation of perspective and the desire to communicate thoughts and feelings. I am totally confident that black slave owning whites thought they were truly superior, that these human beings who they enslaved physically - and then moved into enslaving mentally and culturally through disadvantage in education and economy - were, in their minds, a lower life form. They were wrong, but part of why we know that now is because we learned to believe something different, or to preach something different, at least. And the word they used at the time (and in most modern usage) was intended to carry all that meaning. It was a word that served their purpose.
For those that use it today, it carries this and other meanings that we who choose not to use it, do not understand. But that does not give us the right to prevent others from doing so.
Based on what I've seen of modern education, especially urban public schools (which I attended, thank you very much), we are still existing in a plantation mentality, even though the system of enslavement has changed (but that's another topic).
No matter what, government has no business deciding what is morally acceptable for individual behavior. They have no right, but they have taken the leeway given and created a prerogative to tell The People what we should and should not do, should and should not believe.
It is one thing to make laws and pass legislation that provides a structure for society to interact, a set of basic rules that provide guidance to an ever-expanding populace so that we can all live together. But it is quite another to attempt to dictate how we live with one another.
Hatred is a natural human emotion. It grows out of fear, just like almost everything else ("Place an X on the line between Fear and Love...") that destroys us. Should we make it illegal to hate other people? Oh, wait...we did!
This is out of control.
If the government were providing the kinds of services that people require to be integrated into the system, have their views and perspectives represented and appreciated, and provide an outlet for the multitude of undiscovered and undeveloped talent that exists in everyone, maybe we could spend less time banning words because no one would feel the need to discriminate - on the basis of something so utterly meaningless and arbitrary as race, anyway.
Here's hoping that the New York City Council spends its time on more productive matters.
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