[MD] blackwater

[Woods Woods]

"It says that what is meant by "human rights" is usually the moral code of intellect-vs. -society, the moral right of intellect to be free of social control. Freedom of speech; freedom of assembly, of travel; trial by jury; habeas corpus; government by consent-these "human rights" are all intellect-vs.-society issues. According to the Metaphysics of Quality these "human rights" have not just a sentimental basis, but a rational, metaphysical basis. They are essential to the evolution of a higher level of life from a lower level of life. They are for real." (Lila, 24)


dmb:
The other day, when I asked woods to watch Naomi Wolf's lecture at the University of Washington and then tell me whether or not she was making a case for the intellectual control of society, this is what I had in mind. If you watch it, dear MOQer, I think you'll see that the current administration has been violating these principles in various ways. There is another Naomi that makes a similar case, one that is more specifically about economics and the so-called free-market ideology. Noami KLEIN's book links the Chicago School with U.S. economic policies and a whole range of "third world" dictators like Pinochet. It's called "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism". You can easily find her on Youtube as well. Despite what many conservatives take to be the essence of freedom, the so-called free market doesn't necessarily have anything to do with democracy or human rights. Just ask the 3,000 murdered victims of Pinochet or the tens of thousands
 he jailed for their d
issent. Ironically, he did these things in the name of freedom. But you are way too smart to be fooled by that sort of talk, right? Right? (Sound FX: crickets chirping) RIGHT?! (Sound FX: wind howling) Hello? Anybody home?



woods:
I went out, came home, and I'm just about to watch Naomi Wolf's lecture, but I thought I'd check the email first.  
Yeah, I've checked up on this other Naomi and posted some of her links here, maybe last week.  A 
patterns emerging.


dmb:
If you're waiting for grainy black and white pictures of goose-stepping soldiers in the streets or to see smoke billowing from gas chambers, then you'll never see what fascism looks like these days. But still, it's pretty damn obvious when either Noami lays out her case. And I think all this fits perfectly with Pirsig's explanations, which is to say we're watching the assertion of social level values at the expense of intellectual values. Mostly because of fear, we're quickly slipping backwards. You might want to grab a flashlight too because that shining city on the hill is about to go dark.

woods:
We are indeed in troubling times.  One more big crisis, and we might start seein' 
this ship buckle in few places and it will be even more obvious and not pretty.  We 
are tettering very delicately at the moment.  Rights left and right are being 
numbingly discarded.  Fear and intimidation.  I keep thinking about 
what mel said this week.  We are being deliberately overloaded and 
it's numbing so many people.  I just heard somebody on CNBC, the business 
news channel (Kramer), say yesterday, luckily the DOW only dropped about 
300 and somthin' points.  That's a big drop, but it happens so daily now, up, down, 
in such big chunks it's become normal for people.  Their numbing up.  Just 
like this Blackwater, Federal Reserve, the way Congress acts, I mean 
all the countries in the world came to meet Bush and they want to meet 
with him again as if he's critical.  The guy's got a 20% approval rating.  

dmb:
I'd also add that this slippage will only worsen all the things Gav has been complaining about. I mean, the so-called free market doctrine is pretty much just a license to continue raping the planet. It's not just a co-incidence that they were chanting "drill baby drill" at the Republican convention. How Freudian is that?


woods:
I'd argue the free market is just a slogan now to continue raping the planet.  There's no free 
market.  It's plain-old corruption that's tearing this place apart.  The decadence (such a good 
word, with art being the opposite of decadence, says a lot about what art does in this world).  
Free market, and much else are just being toted around to get somebody elected, but most 
politicians just say stuff that sounds good.  People like hearing it, but no politician that gets 
into the Oval Office actually has followed much of what the free market is or the Constitution 
for that matter, for some time.  I heard JFK tried to enact good honest change, but he met a 
lot of enemies that didn't like how he was actually trying to be intellectually moral.  Many 
interest groups, including the military industrial complex and the Federal Reserve didn't like 
the guy from what I understand.  I'm not trying to pull out the whole who assassinated JFK, but 
apparently he made a ton of enemies.


woods