Saturday, October 11, 2003

Washington Post editorial on assessing Iraq. Posted here Saturday, October 11, 2003 at 10:11:34 PM     Editorial in Sunday's Washington post, long and tantalizing but ultimately frustrating. No matter how one answers that question, the critical judgments now involve future policy. It is essential that the United States do as much as possible to stabilize Iraq under a peaceable, representative government. It seems to us that opponents of the war ought to recognize, as some have, that this mission could be critical to the fight against terrorism and to the future of the Middle East. But insisting on doing the right thing now does not excuse supporters of the war from reexamining the judgments that led to this point. The key issues: the tone, the admin making the whole country into a one issue republic, the move towards unilateralism - the Post does not deal with these issues, nor with the larger strategic scene. Like so much of the intervention into Iraq and its rhetoric, it seems to mystify and hold back and contrive much more than it does to face issues squarely. ********

Background: the body and the corporation Posted here Saturday, October 11, 2003 at 4:23:21 PM     from The Body and Society, Bryan Turner The idea of legal persons as legal unities, which were constituted as separate persons, was developed in the fourteenth century when Italian legal theorists were forced to deal with the emergence of corporations (Canning, 1980). While the law could conceive of human persons with rights and obligations, the law had not been fully developed to cope with collective entities like cities or trading corporations. To embrace such entities, the legal theorists developed the notion of persona ficta which was eventually developed into persona universalis - one person composed of many. In part, the theory of the corporation was seen to be analogous to the theory of the universal church. The real church was simply an embodiment of the universal church which in turn was simply the mystical body of Christ and as such as continual and indestructible. While individual members of the physical church on earth were constantly replaced, the universal church had a continuity and existence independent of its actual adherents. The corporation was thus seen in a similar light; changes in individual membership did not influence the legal continuity of the whole. Hence, legal theorists conceived of the corporation as persona perpetua, such that membership of it changed the isolated nature of individual members (homo separatus) into corporate persons. In socio-historical terms, 'the body' is not necessarily the individual animate organism, because what will count as a body is an effect of social interpretation.  page 56 ********

Stephenson's new novel... Posted here Saturday, October 11, 2003 at 2:24:50 PM     From Stephenson's new Quicksilver- BOOK ONE 'Should I study mathematics? Euclidean or Cartesian? Newtonian or Leibnizian calculus? Or should I go the empirical route? Will it be dissecting animals then, or classifying weeds, or making strange matters in crucibles? Rolling balls down inclined planes? Sporting with electricity and magnets?' Against that, what's in my shack here to interest them?"  - p 38 This was the range available in 1713. The human, the social, the poetic, moved to the background.   In the interstices created by the European wars among Catholics and Protestants, free cities and relatively free men were able to move about. In the flow the opportunity was to use mechanical knowledge to gain prestige and income. So the knowledge that was valued was that kind. So we get a line like .. "Wilkins let slip that, if it was an actual called Greshamn's College where he and a few of his old Oxford  cronies were teaching Natural Philosophy directly, without years and years of tedious Classical nincompoopery as prerequisite."  Understanding the society, such as could be learned by reading the classics, like Caesar's Gallic Wars, was not "useful". The new knowledge was experienced as in the realm of freedom, whereas in truth it was a freedom created by the unusual social circumstances of free capital and career. The social conditioning of opportunity was not seen, just as my father thought that paying taxes was robbery and he did not see that it was the society and its infrastructure that let him earn his income. ********

Chinese for "information" Posted here Saturday, October 11, 2003 at 10:11:37 AM     In chinese, the word for news and "information" is xun, "words flying rapidly". ********

Islamic ministers ask for US withdrawl.. Posted here Saturday, October 11, 2003 at 10:09:07 AM     meeting of the Islamic ministers in Malaysia.. The group was split until recently over whether the Iraqi Governing Council should assume the seat held by Saddam Hussein's ousted government. But delegates said Saturday a resolution would be adopted welcoming the council. Musa Braiza, head of the Jordanian delegation, said the resolution would acknowledge that positive change was underway in Iraq but would emphasize the full restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. Abdelouahed Belkaziz, the OIC's secretary general, said Islamic nations "are still under the strain of extremely difficult challenges and unprecedented threats to our countries' independence, sovereignty, security and courses." Top priority should go to "the eviction of foreign forces from Iraq, allowing the United Nations to administer Iraqi affairs (as a) prelude to restoration of Iraq's independence, and to the rebuilding of what has been destroyed over the past 20 years, all in accordance with a clear and short timetable," he said.   ********

Joshua Marshall on the great pushback Posted here Saturday, October 11, 2003 at 9:09:50 AM     From Talking Points memo The administration's great vulnerability now is its credibility -- whether it knows what it's doing or tells the truth about what it's doing. And on that count this new bundle of speeches offers a very target rich environment. -- Josh Marshall Comment: the tendency of reaction is to narrow the issues. Another way to look at it is, in what way is the Bush admin adapted to the real conditions of the world, the economy, political power, the media? If the economy was going to turn down in 2000 anyway, which I think is obvious, then those who became rich in the 80-1999 would shift towards protecting and harvesting wealth. If US policy from Vietnam on was just a form of late colonialism, then the increasing shift towards the military, including under Clinton, is just in the flow.   The right and left are both critical of "progress" and yet tied to it. The result is, "progress", which now means the extension of the market and managed democracy solution will prevail.   To "cure" the current situation requires a certain medical detachment: first, do no harm, second, take a systems view. But appreciate all the players for their courage and contribution to the unfolding drama. Then act. ********

From Anne Bronte's The Tenat of Wildlife Hall 1848 Posted here Saturday, October 11, 2003 at 8:35:32 AM     It is good to try to reach the conservative mentality. Quoting ....but my father, who thought ambition was the surest road to ruin, and change but another word for destruction, would listen to no scheme for bettering either my own condition, or that of my fellow mortals. He assured me it was all rubbish, and exhorted me, with his dying breath, to continue in the good old way, to follow his steps, and those of his father before him, and let my highest ambition be to walk honestly through the world, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, and to transmit the paternal acres to my children in, at least, as flourishing a condition as he left them to me. ********

Cheney Lashes Out at Critics of Policy on Iraq NYT Posted here Saturday, October 11, 2003 at 8:24:46 AM     By ERIC SCHMITT Published: October 11, 2003 ASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — Vice President Dick Cheney lashed out on Friday at critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, ridiculing their arguments against the war as naïve and dangerous in a speech that was a culmination of a campaign by the White House to regain support for the postwar effort. Comment: as things get tense, the administration will get more tense. The problem created by the administration is to have defined the war against terror as the defining aspect of the regime, with the exception of tax shifts in favor of the rich, which may be the main agenda. The problem this leaves for the rest of us is, should the US withdraw from Iraq? If not, what? I think the turn to the UN with massive US support for a policy the UN/NATO control, is the best, providing it would be combined with an approach towards fairness in agriculture and other trade issues, and shift American rhetoric towards international cooperation and social welfare beyond trickle down economics. The progressive side in the US is weakened by being divided between corporate tech economic market desires and fairness and pace desires. Lots to sort out. If the really good alternative is not achievable, then we have to face the fact that the us really faces the choice between pulling back, letting Iraq become an Islamic republic, and realizing that this weakness will lead to increasing anti-US sentiment and hard edged Islamic revival. As Spengler and others have pointed out, a late empire acting weak attracts responses from within and without, and the natural course is to move towards a Caesar who imposes peace inside and out, at very high cost. American Innocence is lost. What now? Being anti Bush is not enough to come to a coherent posture towrds the world, our own economy, and civil rights and responsibilities. the right as created a weak but workable alliance between corporatism and small town america. the progressive side ixxes the urban market culture and a desire for peace and civil liberties in a weaker combination. One can expect that the rural/corporate axis to hold, though I think tis trend hurts the economy deeply, and creates too much violene and resentment to work. All theplayers can be expected to fudge the issues. ********