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Bill Spornitz <spornitz@mts.net> How to Vote in US; please circulate andy@remotelinux.com Re: <nettime> The Ministry of Disinformation "dr.woooo" <dr.woooo@nomasters.org> Fwd: Resisting the 'Clash of civilisations' tour "Sascha D. Freudenheim" <sascha@sascha.com> George W. Bush Proves There Is A God After All Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com> Notes on the election - "Dan S. Wang" <danwang@mindspring.com> So the Dems lose...again ben moretti <benmoretti@yahoo.com.au> Bush's successor? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: Bill Spornitz <spornitz@mts.net> Subject: How to Vote in US; please circulate Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 7:52:22 -0600 Reprinted without permission. -b What to Do on Election Day Civics books make voting look like a breeze, but it can be hard work. Voter rolls are inaccurate, ID requirements vary and are erratically enforced, partisans try to disqualify likely supporters of their opponents, and lines at the polls can be excruciatingly long. In 2000, as many as six million presidential votes were lost for technical reasons, and this year the number could be even larger. Voters, particularly in battleground states, should head to the voting booth prepared to fight for their vote to be counted: 1. Know where to go. In many states, you will not be allowed to vote if you show up at the wrong polling place. Worse still, you may be given a provisional ballot to vote on that will later be thrown out. Your board of elections can tell you where to vote. If you can't reach the board, a nonpartisan hotline, 1-866-OURVOTE, has a polling place locator. So does the Web site www.mypollingplace.com. 2. Bring proper ID. The rules vary by state. If you have a photo ID, it's wise to bring it, just in case. Too often, poll workers demand ID when it is not required, or demand the wrong ID. If you do not know the law in your jurisdiction, you should check your local board of elections Web site. 3. Review the sample ballot before voting. Ballots are often confusing, and their designs can change considerably from election to election. And as the infamous "butterfly ballot" showed in 2000, a poorly designed ballot can trick voters into choosing a candidate they did not intend. If you have questions about how to vote on your ballot, ask a poll worker or poll monitor for help. 4. Check your ballot before finalizing your vote. As we saw in 2000, if punch card chads are not punched out precisely, votes may not be counted. On electronic machines, a brush of the hand can erase or change a vote. On paper ballots, stray or incomplete marks can disqualify a vote. 5. Know your rights concerning provisional ballots. No voter can be turned away in any state this year without being allowed to vote. If there is a question about your eligibility, you must be allowed to vote on a provisional ballot, the validity of which will be determined later. But if you are entitled to vote on a regular ballot, you should insist on doing so, since a provisional ballot may be disqualified later on a technicality. 6. Know where to turn for help. If you experience problems voting, or if you see anything improper at the polls, you may want to get help. There will be nonpartisan poll monitors at many polling places. (There may also be partisan poll watchers, and it's possible one of them may be the person objecting to your voting.) It is a good idea to bring a cellphone, and phone numbers of nonpartisan hotlines like the Election Protection program's 1-866-OURVOTE and Common Cause's 1-866-MYVOTE1. 7. Be prepared for long lines. In some precincts, the wait may stretch into hours. Try to get to your polling place very early in the morning, or between the before-work and after-work rushes. As long as you are in line before the polls close, you are legally entitled to vote. Do not let poll workers close the polls until you have voted. Making Votes Count: Editorials in this series remain online at nytimes.com/makingvotescount. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:55:26 -0500 (EST) From: andy@remotelinux.com Subject: Re: <nettime> The Ministry of Disinformation the americans of america that i know is characterized by my membership in this species. you must remember that americans think it is more important to support the troops rather then why the troops are being deployed. americans are more excited about seeing their television rather then their reality as it is portrayed on this television. across the board, americans define pragmatism and rational as accepting the lesser of two evils in elections. americans understand that cooperating with the authorities is easier then disobeying. americans also understand that when their coworkers at work get fired they earn the benefits of seniority. in america forgetting the results of a train wreck are easier to forget then baseball games. and if not train wrecks the outcome of previous military conflicts. but americans know they have their priorities right. americans know they dont wont to pay for some slobs health care. americans know they dont want to pay for welfare babies. americans know they dont wont to pay for social security. americans know they dont want more taxes. americans know they have lives to get along with. americans know that blacks are dangerous. americans understand that there is very little they can do about the world. americans understand that they can make a better living for themselves. americans know that everybody has problems. it is not up for an individual american to do anything about it. americans put their faith in the government they know is corrupt to make things better. americans know that osama bin laden is an evil bastard that needs to be killed. americans will envy by the millions the lives of televised mafia shows. americans dont know that they have played to osama bin ladens benefit for over twenty years. americans know that their society is founded on the concepts of truth, justice, and rule of law. americans dont know that death in battle is the greatest possible outcome for a mujahideen. americans dont know what a mujahideen is. americans dont know what terrorism is. terrorism is an act of violence against innocent people to advance a cause. without any difficulty, osama bin laden has exposed the united states as the largest perpetrator of violence against innocent people in the world. in the birthplace of islam. osama bin laden the other day stated it will not be up to political personalities to change this outcome. it will not be up to john kerry. it will not be al-Qaida. and it will not be osama bin laden. americans dont know this. americans did not hear about this themselves. they heard about it from television. from the newspaper. from a third party that could mediate his words. false consciousness is the disingenuous way of the marxo left to dismiss these people. all that is left is to dismiss the marxo left. the only people that have not accepted the course american society is headed to are the american people. americans you will remember do not decide what their elected officials do. americans do not question the pixels or decibels of media. the mass of americans live their lives in fear of the Different. americans lack imagination when they dont know they have imagination. americans have no say in the outcome of military engagements. americans do not know how to challenge the platform of a united america without subverting america. americans do not know how to change the definition of what it means to be american. americans allow other people to decide their identity for them, with some brief historical exceptions. and what culture is different? it is a given in america that success and good luck is a blessing from god or good honest work. in Islam this is a direct blessing from allah. muslims are the first to notice the many successes of the mujahideen. on the world stage the only praise that is lacking is from the mujahideen, republicans, democrats, and U.S. soldiers is for peacemakers. the peacemakers are those who were against this business from the beginning. they are also those who are against it now. the peacemakers are very numerous and very few. americans have faith in the outcome of the election to realize their dreams or their fears. i have no faith in the election. pray that im wrong. the establishment will make sure we follow the way of the establishment, for better or worse. if americans dont make a change to the establishment of course. the american memory is generational. the children of the sixties are now in the positions of society as guardians of american culture which comes down to conserving the ideas and models of their upbringing, as is human nature, and the same everywhere. as a young american i hope to never sell out. i have not seen the ingenuity in the white hairs course of action, selling out the interests of the next generation of americans just as they sold out the interests of their own... the younger generation could accomplish what amounts to throwing some furniture around, like the flower children, and gen x-ers after them and before me, but that would only amount to throwing around some furniture, instead of the house in which it sits. is that too radical? is that too violent? or is their a greater violence we have yet to fear? a violence that is promised by al-Qaida george bush and john kerry. thats what scares me more. as for what terrifies americans? the fate of a people rests on its individuals, so i dont know what more can be said. im scared as fuck. On Thu, 28 Oct 2004, Bill Spornitz wrote: > Randall said: > > The frightening thing about all this, is the gullibility of the > American people. They buy it. They believe him. They are going to vote > for him and he may very well win this election and we are going to > have four more years of a plot that seems to know no end to its > thickening. > > I think to myself: <...> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 20:48:23 +1100 From: "dr.woooo" <dr.woooo@nomasters.org> Subject: Fwd: Resisting the 'Clash of civilisations' tour fwd: Resisting the Clash - Marhaba Europe Editorial (essential reading!) The below frames the thinking and intention behind the Marhaba Europe tour which sees the two groups of Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese and Interntional activists journey and talk through Ireland and Sweden respectively... Editorial: Resisting the Clash Fear is quickly becoming again the main foundation for power in the post-sept 11 world. For a long time, thanks to the living memory of colonialism and World War II, those in power had to pay lip service to the values that stood at the core of liberation struggles in all continents, such as equality, freedom, justice, anti-racism, a fair distribution of wealth, democracy of some form or another, etc. But people are now bombarded all over the world on a daily basis with messages designed to provoke a shift in their priorities. Human rights and emancipatory social values, which for 50 years were held as the goal by most of the world's population, are losing ground at increasing speed as mainstream media and so-called 'experts' and 'academics' continue promoting the security paranoia, the idea that we need a strong state that is able to keep suspicious strangers under control, and the racist notion that we are at the beginning of a long-lasting conflict between 'cultures' or 'civilisations'. This change in priorities happens at a time when, despite all attempts at beautification, global capitalism can no longer hide its outrageously violent, destructive and divisive character, and now that its effects are also starting to be felt by the white middle class of Europe and North America (who were previously protected against it by the welfare state, the remains of the New Deal, etc). History has shown that oppressive systems can be strong and stable if a large share of the population supports them, but if they lose their legitimacy, the same systems become volatile, expensive to maintain and vulnerable. However, history has also often proven that in the absence of legitimacy, the status quo can nonetheless still be preserved by fostering fear, and that there is nothing better to distract attention from injustice than using all means available to focus this fear (and the corresponding hatred) on an external (or internal) "collective enemy". This is the beginning of quasi-fascism, and it is what we are witnessing today, as mutual hatred between different cultural, religious, national or 'ethnic' identities is encouraged all over the world. [FOOTNOTE: It should be noted that this is not a symmetrical situation, since people from the South have been exploited, oppressed and exterminated by people from Northern countries in ways that have never been experienced in the opposite direction. But while this is an important fact to bear in mind and it is vital to reverse this vast historical injustice, it does not justify any form of collective hatred based on nationality, skin colour or cultural affiliation.] On a much more positive note, this is also a historical opportunity to strengthen alliances of resistance all over the world. We are living through times of rapid change, and the direction which these changes take depends primarily on the response of our societies to them. One of the few good things about the 'divide and rule' strategies is that they can only work if the people who are being pitted against each other don't know much about each other and hardly have any contact or cooperation. This kind of isolation, which enabled the cold war to last so long, is something that we can successfully fight against. Grassroots groups cannot compete in militaristic terms with the established powers, but we can dismantle the mental framework on which their authority is based. The speakers tour "Marhaba Europe!" is precisely a rallying call against the racism and violence fostered by the 'clash of civilisations' agenda, a cry to increase the contact and cooperation across the Mediterranean through a better mutual knowledge between people and grassroots groups in Europe and the Middle East. We are focusing on this part of the world for obvious reasons (such as the brutal violence inflicted by ruthless colonial regimes in Palestine and Iraq and by corrupt neo-colonial regimes in many other countries, the demonisation of people of different religions, nationalities or cultures among increasing sectors of the population of the Israeli, European and Arab states, the almost generalised growth of the extreme right that this provokes, the increasingly inhuman and disturbing nature of responses to oppression across the region, etc) We would like to contact people interested in working on these lines anywhere in the world. We are already in contact with people who are planning a similar initiative in North America, and would love to get in touch with people wanting to work in a similar direction elsewhere. The main objective of this project is to contribute to undermining the imposition of the "clash of civilisations" agenda by promoting more contact and solidarity between grassroots struggles across the region, all over the world. The incredibly rich forms of grassroots resistance and creativity that we want to help connect include anti- colonial struggles, emancipatory struggles of women, queers and minorities, the rejection of racism and xenophobia in all its forms, and the efforts to overthrow authoritarian or oppressive regimes and social practices everywhere. Although Palestine and Iraq are (again for obvious reasons) in the focus of attention, we hope to motivate groups all over Europe to collectively shape international cooperation projects together with diverse organisations in the Middle East and the North of Africa. With these tours we would also like to foster connections with lots of untapped cooperation potential. For example, most groups working in Europe against the corporations and governments that determine our energy policy focus on environmental questions (climate chaos, oil spills, transportation policy, etc). These same corporations and governments are behind the neo-colonial regimes of the Middle East, which provoke widespread resentment and frustration among their populations. Although this is a well-known fact, often denounced by the environmental groups in Europe as part of their texts and protests, most of them do not have any direct contact with grassroots organisations in Arab countries. Connecting the different forms of resistance against those governments and companies would certainly be one of the best ways to challenge the oil economy. We are totally aware that making these connections is easier said than done (particularly to groups with less access to resources and technology), and that maintaining balanced relationships across continents is probably even more difficult. But we also believe that it is totally possible if it is given enough priority. This project aims at inspiring all kinds of grassroots groups in Europe to give priority to this kind of connections, and to strengthen those already existing and the obvious first step is to get to know a small sample of the wealth of emancipatory struggles in the Middle East. [FOOTNOTE: In August 2003, grassroots social movements from all over the Mediterranean area and other parts of the world met in Barcelona for a gathering at which this project was conceived. Many movements that attended this gathering didn't have previous contact with other movements in the region. For most grassroots organisations from Arab states, international networking is difficult due to mobility restrictions and economic disparities. Most European grassroots groups were already internationally connected, but their contacts in Arab countries and Israel are extremely limited (except in Palestine), and their knowledge about social dynamics in these countries is often influenced by mainstream stereotypes. Anti-Zionist grassroots movements in Israel hardly have any contact with grassroots organisations in Arab states, other than in Palestine. This was one of the main reasons for us to facilitate this project.] We are aware that many important struggles and issues related to the Middle East and the North of Africa have been left out of the speakers' tours and this magazine due to lack of capacity. Among them are the Almazigh (aka Bereber), Kurdish and Saharahoui struggles, the resistance against ruthless regimes in countries like Algeria, Saudi Arabia, etc. The ones that are included (Palestine & Iraq, feminist and queer struggles, independent media, etc) will be treated superficially. Furthermore, this magazine uses concepts that we reject, since it would become extremely obscure and difficult to read if we didn't use words such as, for instance, 'civilisation' (an extremely dubious and ideologised way to classify people in abstract categories that are useful to the 'divide and rule' game). We do not see any of this as a problem, since we do not claim (nor desire) to have an all-encompassing analysis or ideology. We rather want to foster a process of increased cooperation and exchange in a framework that has room for diversity, while being based on a number of clear principles, which will develop over time. Among these principles, one that we consider particularly important is to promote the self-critical analysis of our societies and struggles. Boxes 1 to 3 provide brief examples for this kind of analysis from Palestine, Israel and Europe. These excerpts relate the domestic growth of racism, the extreme right and neo-colonial policies to the development of global capitalism. The speakers tours "Marhaba Europe!" will finish with an international networking meeting to plan future projects and actions, and find ways to make this process of resistance against the "clash of civilisations" agenda more broad-based, inclusive and effective. It will take place in Easter 2005 and you are all invited. **************************** Box 1: Excerpts from "Flirtations with Fascism", by Asma Agbarieh* The Arab leaders, and above all Yasser Arafat, promised their peoples economic prosperity, provided they submit to American domination and the capitalist ideology. Today they find themselves at a dead end... In the absence of progressive socialist support, Arab nationalism is in danger of falling into the waiting arms of fascism. The Arab world is not ready to confront the US and capitalism, because until now no true opposition-movement has arisen from within it. Given the vacuum, nothing is easier than to blame everything on the Jews while supporting fascist forces in the US and in Europe, looking to the latter to "purify" the Arab world of the Jewish "parasite". For the Arab regimes, anti-Semitism is preferable to a confrontation with the real enemy: American capitalism and its agent, Israel. As long as the latter are strong, after all, they guarantee the survival of the dictators. These prefer to see the people going after Jews rather than attacking their own corrupt regimes. When Holocaust deniers convene in Arab capitals, they are not adopting the Palestinian cause for its own sake, but rather exploiting it as fertile ground for their ideas. In this way they degrade the struggle - originally political, ideological, and conscious - to a more nefarious level. When Arab leaders join hands with them - as did the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who sought support from Hitler - they betray their cause. Fascism is not just the enemy of the Jews, but of all humanity... Our enemy is not an ethnic or religious group. It is the combined forces of American capitalism, Zionism and the reactionary Arab regimes. * Director of the monthly Palestinian magazine Al Sabar and coordinator of the legal office of Workers Advice Centre in East Jerusalem and Nazareth. The complete English version of this article was published in Al Sabar's sister publication Challenge, and can be found at http://www.hanitzotz.com/challenge/67/asma.html) ***************************** Box 2: Excerpts from "Zionism and Colonialism", by Gershon Shafir* The 1967 war opened the door to the radicalisation of Zionist colonisation (...) In independent Israel, after 1948, the Histadrut [1] did away with the threat of Palestinian Arab competition in the labour market and brought about the gradual substitution of the exclusionary strategy of "Hebrew labour" with a scheme, that for all practical purposes, amounted to a caste system. After 1967, this caste system was dramatically expanded [2]. (...) The post-1967 era in Israel was one of cultural transformation, of a far-reaching, though ultimately inconclusive, legitimational shift. This shift resulted from the efforts of the supporters of territorial expansion to find a popularly acceptable replacement for the demographic calculus that was deeply ingrained in most Israelis. The rise of the Likud - National Religious party coalition, and the retreat from democratic values and in certain areas from modernity itself, were part of these "cultural revolutions". The latter oscillated between the fully exclusivist homogeneous settlement colony perspective of the various advocates of "transfer" [3], and the more powerful wing of the Likud that adopted a supremacist approach, typical of its hierarchical structure and its attendant rigid primordial (and in many cases racial) justification. (...) It is still in this respect, and in these terms, that the future of Israeli society is likely to be determined. * Gershon Sharif used to teach at the Tel Aviv University and is now at the University of California at San Diego. The essay "Zionism and Colonialism" is part of Ilan Pappe's compilation "The Israel/Palestine Question", published by Routledge in 1999. 1 Editor's footnote: The Histadrut was the organisational and economic umbrella of the Jewish Labour Movement. In 1920 it centralised a vertically and horizontally integrated network of Jewish enterprises and institutions, creating a homogeneous Jewish economy with the aim of excluding Palestinian Arabs and removing them from the labour market under the slogan "Hebrew labour". 2 Editor's footnote: after the displacement of most of the Palestinian Arab population from 1948-Israel, the economic advantages of exploiting the remaining Palestinians were more important than the demograpic disadvantages of their presence. They became the bottom of a stratified system where Jews of European and North-American origin stood at the top, followed by "second-class Jews" from Arab countries, Ethiopia, etc. Since then, the demographic supremacy of the Jews has been the main concern of the Israeli right. 3 Editor's footnote: A small but vocal part of Israeli society favours the forced removal of Palestinians out of the Occupied Territories (hypocritically calling such a fascist measure " transfer"), while others in the Israeli right are keen to use Palestinians as a source of cheap labour. ****************************** Box 3: Excerpts from "State of Terror", by Raif Smythe* In little over a year Britain has been turned into a 'police state on paper' with scarcely a murmur of dissent from the public. Far from the huge outcry in 1974 when the original 'temporary' anti-terrorism laws were introduced, the public has believed (inasmuch as it cared) New Labour's claim that the terrorism laws were merely being modernised. (...) It was only with the publication of the list of banned organizations in February 2001 that ethnic minority and refugee groups woke up to the threat and were drawn in. In particular, Kurds and Tamils in London, Sikhs in Birmingham and Muslims in both cities became involved as groups in or connected to their communities were the most banned. (...) While a tentative proposal to introduce compulsory ID cards for everyone produced immediate and incensed opposition and was quickly withdrawn, measures to deny the fundamental rights of suspected terrorists won widespread support. The message was clear: the public was concerned about 'their'rights but not those of migrants. (...) The rest of the population was instilled with a general fear it was under surveillance or being "grassed up;" a similar form of social control was used in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, and is far more effective than the usual deterrence of prison. It is already well known that social authoritarianism, in particular the identification and managing of the unproductive and surplus elements in capitalist societies, is as essential, indeed just as much a part of neo-liberalism, as is economic liberalisation. The proposed computer system being developed for the UK to determine sentencing of criminals by providing a risk assessment based on factors such as previous offences, age and postcode could not be a better example. This marks a fundamental shift from imprisoning people for what they have done, towards imprisoning people for what they might do in the future. Instead of being people they are simply figures in an actuarial calculation of risk, fodder for the prison- industrial complex to grow fat on. Now, however, it is becoming clear that something more than mere physical exclusion is needed for those who actively question and oppose the neo-liberal vision of progress and contradict the politicians' line that economic globalisation is the only possible future. For this "progress" to continue, those elements need to be excluded politically and ultimately socially. By deciding that somebody is not just a suspected criminal but a suspected terrorist, the odds are stacked against them from the start. Magistrates will be unlikely to refuse requests for continued detention, judges will be more likely to grant requests to withhold sensitive evidence from the defence. (...) Anyone to whom the label "terrorist" sticks will suffer what is known as stigmatic harm and will find themselves increasingly sidelined in society, as others will not want to be tarred with the same brush. Just as was the case with women, people of colour and non-heterosexuals being unable to join in public debate because they were seen as irrational, inhuman or an object of hate, so it will be with the new terrorists. Of course most people rely on information from media rather than everyday life in this area. "The power to name, label and define terrorism is especially relevant...since terrorism is so distant and beyond the average person's experience. It is a case...where the media wield exceptional power over popular conceptions of reality." With a mass media of entertainers willing to sensationalise to increase profits, this is obviously a problem. * Coalitional Against the Terrorism Acts, UK. Complete article available at http://squat.net/cia/gp/hom3c.php? artid=44&back=/cia/gp/hom.php ****************************** Table of contents of the magazine "Marhaba Europe!" 3-6 Editorial: Resisting the Clash 7 No, Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism, by Brian Klug 8-10 The Clash Of Ignorance, by Edward W. Said 10-11 Old Hates Fuelled by Fear, by Naomi Klein 12-22 Anti-Muslim Racism and the European Security State, by Liz Fekete, Institute of Race Relations 23-25 The Boy who Kissed a Soldier, by Starhawk 26-27 Flirting with Anti-Semitism, by Asma Agbarieh 28-29Globalization and the Rise of the Radical Right, by Yacov Ben Efrat 30 Is The Islamic Hijab a Women's Right? by Nadia Mahmood, OWFI 31 Untold Stories of the Occupation of Iraq, by Houzan Mahmoud, Nadia Mahmood and Lydia Ratna, OWFI 32-33 How to Strengthen the Palestine Solidarity Movement by Making Friends with Jews , by Guy Izhak Austrian and Ella Goldman 34-35 Arab Nationalism, American Imperialism and my Boyfriend, by Imad Mortada 36 Laila Was Eaten by the Wolf, by Sara Abou Ghazal 37-39 Resources and Links ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/xYTolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> This e-mail was brought to you through the LegacyofColonialism Forum e-mail list. (Web Ref. www.LegacyofColonialism.org ). For a description of the main aims and remit for this list, see below.The LegacyofColonialism Forum e-mail list is for activists, NGOs, social-justice/reparation/drop-the-debt campaigners, members of land-rights movements, researchers and grassroot development workers all over the world, to assist the formation of an international network to share information regarding how the North's capitalist domination (led by the USA) is sustained by the imperialism and economic fraud of global institutions (eg. the WTO, IMF & World Bank) and the debt-based money system. The co-ordinators of this list - The Land is Ours (UK), Peace & Human Rights Trust (UK) & the IMF/WB Wanted for Fraud Campaign (based primarily in the UK) - assert within this analysis that debt cancellation is the neccessary first-step before attempting to undo the in-built corruption at-the-heart of the world economic system which is fraudulent money creation by privatised banks. The Land is Ours also suggest that debt-cancellation could be married to the moral imperative of reparation for the crimes of slavery & colonialism, providing compensation for self-determination on the widest possible scale. very & colonialism, providing compensation for self-determination on the widest possible scale. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LegacyofColonialism/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: LegacyofColonialism-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- sig/ * - / \ | ^ ^^^^ http://www.weareeverywhere.org http://www.uhc-collective.org.uk/toolbox.htm http://www.eco-action.org/dod http://www.noborder.org http://www.makeworlds.org http://www.ainfos.ca http://slash.autonomedia.org http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3909/index/links.html http://www.reclaimthestreets.net - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 06:58:20 -0500 From: "Sascha D. Freudenheim" <sascha@sascha.com> Subject: George W. Bush Proves There Is A God After All I think it had to be said. So I said it! Sascha Posted with permission of the author. Original article online at: http://www.thetruthasiseeit.com/Archive/2004/2004_11_03.html George W. Bush Proves There Is A God After All A.D. Freudenheim - 3 November 2004 According to this morning's news, President George W. Bush has won the popular vote in yesterday's U.S. national election against Senator John Kerry, with 51.1% of the votes counted. In achieving this victory -- which does not yet assure him re-election, though that outcome does also seem likely -- Bush has surely proved the existence of the god in whom he professes to believe so deeply. Why else would Americans re-elect Bush, given the state of the economy, the disastrous war in Iraq, the horrendous tax cuts, the erosion of our civil liberties, and above all, Bush's absolute inability to take responsibility for any bad decisions? Surely there *must* have been divine intervention on Mr. Bush's side. However, if a Bush victory in this election proves that the President's god is real, then it also surely proves that this god is capricious, whimsical, cruel, and largely unconcerned with the fate of humankind. Only a god who believes in increasing the wealth of the wealthy would support George Bush. Only a god who enjoys greater destruction of human life and civilization -- and the mindless slaughter of innocent people around the world -- would aid Bush. Only a god who cherishes the destruction of the very planet we inhabit would think Bush is worthy of re-election. Bush's god is certainly not a New Testament god, a god with lineage traceable to Jesus of Nazareth. After all, Jesus preached peace, humility, the value of human life, and aid to the poor -- all concepts and actions we have not seen from Bush during his first term in office. Nor is this an Old Testament god, the one often depicted as loving of his flock but capable of great cruelty, such as flooding the world or drowning the Egyptians in the Red Sea. How do we know? Because despite such acts of cruelty, the Old Testament god made clear that these were decisions made with great remorse and sadness -- and that they were exclusively god's decisions to make, not humanity's. When it comes right down to it, in fact, the works of Bush's god look more like those of a hard-at-work Satan. Death, destruction, taunting humanity to go to war against itself, with little care for the outcome of such fights, and instead taking great, Rumsfeldian joy in the battles and the chaos that ensues. Correction: President Bush has proved the existence of Satan, the Price of Darkness. Now that makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:41:21 -0500 (EST) From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com> Subject: Notes on the election - Notes on the election - 0. The Republican win was predicted and predictable. Now the infinity of analysis begins, an infinity that has already missed the point. 1. There is nothing the Democrats might have done 'better.' The country voted its conscience. 2. Its conscience is founded on a morality-based worldview, which is rural in origin, and relatively rigid. 3. 9/ll played a critical role, not only in revealing the extreme vulnerability of the country, but also in the production of an Islamic- fundamentalist alterity that could not be dismissed. 4. With the religious right, fundamental ontology replaces the episteme. 5. Bush appeared, alive and life-like at the World Trade Center ruins almost immediately after, conjoining his image with the intensity of destruction. 6. The left continuously focused on the negative aspects of the Republican party, over-determining, at least in print, the violence of a world-view at odds with the rest of the planet. 7. Absolute morality is not concerned whatsoever with opinion. 8. The right has been organizing, in the US, for at least a century and a half; this election and the last have been in preparation for decades. 9. In the 60s, which for many of us appears to be a history of the left, the right quietly embraced both technology and structural compromises that increased and solidified its power base, in rural and impoverished areas of the country. 10. A fundamental flaw is the assumption that so-called minority votes are liberal and leftist; in fact, the opposite is increasingly the case. 11. The 'American dream' is both part of class distinctions, and a force in their elimination. Don't underrate its influence; no matter how hard we try, there is no revolutionary class, but only power, desire, economic status, and diffused and focused oppression. 12. Corporate America is far more diverse and problematic than the left assumes; it also presents a very real world of almost infinite choice and identifications. Its collusions and corruptions are our collusions and corruptions, and have absolutely nothing to do with God and God's State. 13. Cultural capital in the US is far more important than economic capital, and its boundaries cut across the latter in terms of class. We are all white trash and we are all intellectuals and theorists. 14. Far too many judgments are made 'for' rural and so-called back- water areas, which are almost never heard themselves. The information discourse networks and religious institutions of the majority of American voters are concretely effaced by abstraction. The water of baptism is not H2O. 15. Morality and fear are interwoven; it is the abject stereotyped image of gays fucking that appears to corrode the 'clean and pure' body politic. Your marriage wrecks my marriage. It is a failure of the left not to deal with this; dismissing the violent imaginary out of hand ensures its force within the political arena. 16. In conservative America, the negation of negation is not dialectical, but also a return to a rapturous positivity. 17. If one's religion insists that abortion, for example, is murder, then any means, including murder as literal self-preservation, may be used in return as a defensive and pre-emptive action. It is not ever a question of one side listening to another; it is a question of war to an infinite degree. 18. The church in rural and disenfranchised America is a communal and cohesive force, one of the few institutions capable of lived-community and defense against the rest of the world. But more than this, the church is also the locus for community activity and identity. To dismiss it, even in its intolerant and sometimes evangelical varieties, is to miss the point of its existence. For the individual, the church is salvation, explaining and preserving morality, even forgiving and abetting the temptations of sin. 19. The church overdetermines the rest of the world; rural and other- wise isolated communities have a surprisingly low degree of information flux. The church provides stability in a late-late-capitalist world of postmodernity, where selves, ideologies, and languages are contested. Within testament and testimony, there is no contestation; the church, in other words, 'puts a hedge around the Torah' (Pirke Avot). 20. In my opinion, the image of Kerry hunting (and killing) was not only hypocritical and distasteful, but also a premature sign of defeat. However, this had no affect on the election per se, which was already determined, way back in the late 60s and early 70s, when Billy Graham created the first automated post-office in the US - a religious embrace of technology that forecast the future of the country. Perhaps the left 'created' - i.e. the hacking manifesto - but the religious right utilized, entrenched, constructed a primary embrace of individual and instrumental reason that guaranteed the supple application of power when and where needed. The only real question here is why it took so long. 21. The left has been hampered by split ideologies and critique; the right, which permits no critique, has worked constantly with umbrella ideologies. 22. What has been exposed and contested in the US is often business as usual in the rest of the world. We are witnessing a movement from republic to empire, from the primacy of voting, to the primacy of dominant interests. 23. On a personal level - I have lived in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the Bushlands of Texas and Florida. What happened was no surprise. I voted early yesterday, and felt a sense of relief at the minor _punctum_ I experienced. But I had no doubt that Bush would win, that my voice was primarily personal therapeutic. Instead of despair late last night/this morning, I've felt that our work, that of an opposition, has only just begun - that it could only just begin. We have to recognize, above all, that the US has done the will of the majority; the more we overlook this, excuse this, theorize this, wonder 'what went wrong,' the more we are weakened. Perhaps this is a positive sign - in the sense that the enemy, if it is an enemy, is clear, and no longer can be dismissed as an aberration. 24. The 'cultural war' is war. 25. Terror is an instrument of war. 26. Religion sublimates terror. 27. I live, you die. Vote or die holds no truck with the faithful. 28. Language is not action. Belief is action. Belief is not language. 29. The explication of fact in Michael Moore is replaced by the internalization of sin and the body in Mel Gibson. Old Testament, New Testament. 30 What the right knows: There is always already closure. _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 15:19:28 -0600 Subject: So the Dems lose...again From: "Dan S. Wang" <danwang@mindspring.com> For those of you outside the US wondering why it is that a man such as George W. Bush could win a second term-- I would say that if Bush had not gone into Iraq, he would have won this election in an ungodly landslide. Misgivings about the war on Iraq is one of the only reasons it was even this close. The US is a fundamentally conservative country. The Democrats can only ride the anti-war tide for so long. They are a party of wars, plain and simple, and everybody including the DNC knows it. Kerry's main thing wasn't even remotely anti-war; it was "let's fight a smarter war." There is certainly something to be said for that, especially when smarter might include not initiating quagmire-ish military campaigns against innocent people. But Bush countered with the freedom card, as in, "we're for Freedom! That's what we're fighting for!" The truth of his claim rests on the fact that Americans reserve above all, the freedom to be stupid, to be irrational, to not make sense, to confuse, to do and be something that others don't like, understand, agree with, or want. To be irresponsible. It may sound stupid to anybody with ears coming from such a silver-spoon-in-his-nose fortunate son like GWBush, but the freedom card rings true in the US, and people respond almost instinctively. There is a kind of social space here in which individuals can realize themselves in ways that end up being much more extreme than in other societies. For immigrants this freedom might mean being able to own a shop, or get a degree from an excellent university; for the good ol boys it might mean traveling with a loaded gun, or owning a piece of land on which nobody will bother you. Freedom so manifested is lame, but it's American. I've even known several lefty intellectual types who came to the US expecting to hate it and then find themselves positively intrigued by the everyday tensions of the American lifestyle and charmed by the dysfunctional natives, and then, surprisingly but very in keeping with the American seduction, wondering if they too might make a home here. So the voters don't care if Bush's policies screw us all; he is the asshole-in-chief, and that, for many Americans is the basic proof that he understands freedom, because he himself is free to be a jerk. There are other reasons for the results, of course, having to do with fraud and dirty tricks, a lack of organization and rural strategy. But still, the tide is clear: the Democrats have nothing to offer. Even the crowd that had gathered in Copley Square awaiting a Kerry celebration last night seemed less than enthusiastic about standing behind their man in defeat. And who can blame them? They were just there to rub the victory in Bush's face. The question is becoming When will the tide turn back? The Democrats may have to utterly shrivel before an effective (meaning one that can actually stop wars or elect people or implement policy) opposition to the Republicans can emerge. And that means things will get worse before they get better. A start would be working on this freedom thing, somehow grabbing it back from the conservatives. For me, almost as disheartening as the Bush victory is the Nov 3 anti-war, anti-Bush protest happening here in Chicago. Again, it will be in the Federal Plaza, which is in the heart of the downtown concrete jungle. Chicago's skyline looks great from either the far north lakefront, or the far south. From the air, it always impresses. But when you are actually in it, you just want to get out, and every weekday by 5:30 pm the area around Federal Plaza is almost totally emptied of the people who have to be there for work. Demonstrations presuppose an audience; there never is one at Federal Plaza, and yet still we demonstrate there. Yoked to convention as the activists are, is it any wonder that fellow Americans do not associate our agenda with freedom? Anyways, I've got a plane to catch. Anybody have other post-mortems to offer? Dan W. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:44:15 +1100 (EST) From: ben moretti <benmoretti@yahoo.com.au> Subject: Bush's successor? So which conservative will succeed Bush for 2008? ===== ben moretti e: benmoretti@yahoo.com.au w: http://www.geocities.com/benmoretti t: +61 0438 822 196 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net