Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Posted here Wednesday, April 14, 2004 at 3:55:54 PM       Additions in red for changes since last posting  april 1(check archive calendar upper right)   The way the world looks this week. April 15 2004   The US and Iraq, given that the danger for the US perspective is that Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are too liable to become fundamentalists states, with a nuclear capacity. It no longer matters how we got into Iraq, the situation is deeply out of control. Note that with travel problems into Iraq, we are getting very little reporting.   And where totalitarian ME countries want an alliance with the US to keep their own people controlled, creating a very bad set of choices for the US between old style national elites or a kind of chaos that looks like it would go fundamentalist. The US supports old style nations, including Israel, or lets the situation go into very stressful conflict, of which the breakup of the old Yugoslavia is just a hint.   The US political situation. Where Iraq *does* matter, and the whole style of the admin, for its ideological approach, contrary to election rhetoric, was set in advance, on the economy and foreign affairs, to go rigid and concerned to bring America back to a rural past. The contest between Bush and Kerry, or even including Nader, may not be large enough to give any real options on the bigger questions, reducing the election to a blip on the forces unleased by WW2 US prosperity and its decline in the face of knowledge's capacity to spread world wide.   In a context where apology for wrong is probably needed - from the Indigenous Americas, Latin American interference, the penetration of Asia in Japan with Admiral Perry, and China with the opium wars (few I the US know what that name really means), and more recently for creating the ME boundaries, the reliance on oil, and the creation of the Taliban, and its blowback into the increased capacity for violence in the region.   The 9/11 hearings and the president's press conference set a style of no deep apaologies.   The economy, where long term balancing of the US wealth in relation to the rest of the world requires a declining dollar, and declining wages, and where elites will try to milk the situation to preserve wealth at the cost of everyone else, and have been very successful at doing this. The jobs report of an increase in 300,000 looks bogus. Pressures in the labor ndepartment, federal hiring of 150,000, and 80% as part time jobs suggest that Bush is wrong.   Technology, where the alignment of tech with money making is a major part of the concentration of economic wealth paradigm, with less and less profit in a monopoly rewarded economics of all against all. Moreover tech tends to imply a world view that wants to call itself secular, but it really is a religion in disguise, and this is a deep issue hardly conscious. The result has been that tech is not used for human betterment except in so far as the market can make choices - the SUV and technologies of control and surveillance. We need a new vision of a humane technics.   The rise of the mercenary "contract security" and others, a very large number in Iraq, point to a market governed mentality.   And the tech and economy dovetail back onto politics, aligning them together. Fascism is the increasingly polite word to describe this.   China along with Taiwan and Korea, with Cheney's visit.   And long term   Population, not just the total, but the makeup of the total, in age, and culture. It is not easy for anyone to call this a kind of warfare, but it is.   Environment, with degradations affecting much of the planet, making daily life harder for most people, and miserable for way too many, and with the possibilities of major collapse, in fish, water and plague.   Culture is increasingly trivialized towards market segments rather than humane values. The total market, product, life style images, the spirit of advertising and the image of life implied by the whole need to be compared, first to the past, and for example, that side of the catholic church that built cathedrals, talked about life, death marriage, childhood and motherhood (yes, I know the problems, I am talking about the positive cultural imagine), and embedded it in music, art, and meditation, colorful ceremonies in beautifully architected spaces. Then to compare the market world with what could be, taking things like the medieval church, the Japanese landscape, and community coherence seriously, in searching for a better future than our current options seem to allow for.   Knowing that in the past quality went with aristocracy (village cultures however were vital), and the modern goes with a tendency towards democratic individualism. A vital individualism with community aesthetic has to be the goal, for artists firstly, philosophers and educators second, and those involved with governance of course. The alternative is a drug based techno fascism that is not even attractive.   The repositioning of business and technology, now self serving sub maximizing activities, into a more humane vision of a sustainable and worthwhile humanity. ********

	Thursday, April 01, 2004

Posted here Thursday, April 01, 2004 at 2:59:49 PM     April 2, 2004   The way the world looks this week.   The US and Iraq, given that the danger for the US perspective is that Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are too liable to become fundamentalists states, with a nuclear capacity. It no longer matters how we got into Iraq, the situation is deeply out of control. Reminds me of the time I absentmindedly hit a decaying wooden stump with a tennis racquet and the wasps….   And where totalitarian ME countries want an alliance with the US to keep their own people controlled, creating a very bad set of choices for the US between old style national elites or a kind of chaos that looks like it would go fundamentalist. The US supports old style nations, including Israel, or lets the situation go into very stressful conflict, of which the breakup of the old Yugoslavia is just a hint.   The US political situation. Where Iraq *does* matter, and the whole style of the admin, for its ideological approach, contrary to election rhetoric, was set in advance, on the economy and foreign affairs, to go rigid and concerned to bring America back to a rural past. The contest between Bush and Kerry, or even including Nader, may not be large enough to give any real options on the bigger questions, reducing the election to a blip on the forces unleased by WW2 US prosperity and its decline in the face of knowledge's capacity to spread world wide.   In a context where apology for wrong is probably needed - from the Indigenous Americas, Latin American interference, the penetration of Asia in Japan with Admiral Perry, and China with the opium wars (few I the US know what that name really means), and more recently for creating the ME boundaries, the reliance on oil, and the creation of the Taliban, and its blowback into the increased capacity for violence in the region.   The economy, where long term balancing of the US wealth in relation to the rest of the world requires a declining dollar, and declining wages, and where elites will try to milk the situation to preserve wealth at the cost of everyone else, and have been very successful at doing this.   Technology, where the alignment of tech with money making is a major part of the concentration of economic wealth paradigm, with less and less profit in a monopoly rewarded economics of all against all. Moreover tech tends to imply a world view that wants to call itself secular, but it really is a religion in disguise, and this is a deep issue hardly conscious. The result has been that tech does not work for human betterment except inso far as the market can make choices - the SUV and technologies of control and surveillance. We need a new vision of a humane technics.   And the tech and economy dovetail back onto politics, aligning them together. Fascism is the increasingly polite word to describe this.   And long term   Population, not just the total, but the makeup of the total, in age, and culture. It is not easy for anyone to call this a kind of warfare, but it is.   Environment, with degradations affecting much of the planet, making daily life harder for most people, and miserable for way too many, and with the possibilities of major collapse, in fish, water and plague.   Culture is increasingly trivialized towards market segments rather than humane values. The total market, product, life style images, the spirit of advertising and the image of life implied by the whole need to be compared, first to the past, and for example, that side of the catholic church that built cathedrals, talked about life, death marriage, childhood and motherhood (yes, I know the problems, I am talking about the positive cultural imagine), and embedded it in music, art, and meditation, colorful ceremonies in beautifully architected spaces. Then to compare the market world with what could be, taking things like the medieval church, the Japanese landscape, and community coherence seriously, in searching for a better future than our current options seem to allow for.   Knowing that  in the past quality went with aristocracy (village cultures however were vital), and the modern goes with a tendency towards democratic individualism. A vital individualism with community aesthetic has to be the goal, for artists firstly, philosophers and educators second, and those involved with governance of course. The alternative is a drug based techno fascism that is not even attractive.   The repositioning of business and technology, now self serving sub maximizing activities, into a more humane vision of a sustainable and worthwhile humanity. ********

	Saturday, February 28, 2004

Tasks Posted here Saturday, February 28, 2004 at 10:11:36 AM     We need 1. A history of the US that shows why it is an interesting experiment, even crucial, and why its history is to terrible in violence. Hint: the first that came were religious fundamentalists avoiding the enlightenment, and the second wave were the enlightenment types, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, Washington, who carried enlightenment values. the conflict has never been resolved. 2. A view of how economic activity and political activity become enmeshed rather than as checks and balances. Democracies without restraint become tyrannies, markets without restraints become monopolies, and the two share goals. The result is fascism. 3. A view of human nature in relation to technology, with regard for how tech is itself an outgrowth of religious goals, and how mathematics reduces the spirit  of all living things to digitalized approximations that are false at the core. 4. A review of what we know, from the most physical of facts about humans, such as demographics, to the organizing around food systems, to the organizing around myths of death and resurrection, to the vie of humanity through its arts, and integrated with primate studies and anthropology and early hominid evolution.   ********

	Thursday, December 04, 2003

Washington Post of Taiwan - China Posted here Thursday, December 04, 2003 at 11:25:36 AM     On China and Taiwan, a major one to watch. It is dangerous, and it will reveal some of the hidden structures of alliances. My own view is that if taiwan waits, decentralization in China is a real possibility, in which case taiwan would look far less threatening. In the meanwhile we can expect a complex game of chess, but sometimes tides swamp the sandcastles. BEIJING, Dec. 3 -- China's military warned Taiwan that any decision to attack the island of 23 million would not be affected by concerns about China's economic development or that it might prompt a boycott of the 2008 Olympics A leading Chinese military strategist, writing in an influential magazine distributed here Wednesday, said also that China was not concerned that foreign investment might drop or that its development would be set back several years, its soldiers might die, its relations with third countries be affected or that people and property in the Asia-Pacific region would be damaged by a war. The Taiwan authorities say that because of the Olympics, we won't make a move," Maj. Gen. Peng Guangqian wrote in Outlook Weekly, published by the official New China News Agency. "But if you compare the Olympics and the sovereignty of our country's territory, sovereign territory will always take precedence. . . . The price for reunification will be paid if necessary. We're prepared, and we can pay it." ********

	Thursday, July 17, 2003

Perspective Posted here Thursday, July 17, 2003 at 9:16:44 PM     Digesting the Iraq incursion, the context of 911, the genral Eurasian scene, the nature of politics and economies, status and power, has been, shall we say, awkward. It raises all the questions. Getting organized and effective about it has not been easy. Getting back to the online posting of roughcut is now going to be hard because of the loss of momentum and continuity. But here goes. ********

	Saturday, June 21, 2003

Overview as of July 18, 2003 Starting new Posted here Saturday, June 21, 2003 at 4:06:35 PM     Old roughcut is at http://dougcarmichael.com/roughtcut.html There is a  gap between about May 1 and July 18, 2003. The reason: the complexity of events. i needed time to think. The purpose: to make available, and seek coment on, work in progress, aptly named, Rougcut is what it is: those pieces that can be integtated into the main work. The results are available in the Year 2003 newsletter and these go out by email on a faily regular basis. They are also posted in the Year 2003 category in the left hand navigation.. Progress can also be discerned by looking the categories posted in the navigation. ********