Saturday, November 29, 2003

The Chant Not Heard - Friedman in the Times Posted here Saturday, November 29, 2003 at 8:30:52 PM     This column is madening, the logic a mixture of powerfulness and provocation. He sees the war as the best thing we have done, just that it is done badly. The way into the war hardly sems to make it something that had a chance, the means being so corrupt. He nevere sees that what he most fears - fundamnetalist terrorism, is provocked by the war, just as he doesn't see how ugly hs own column is. The first effort must be to understand others, and talk with them. If he doesn't understand, or have a feeling for, where he is off here, he mimicks the Bush administration.  The basic idea, that this kind of war can lead to a better middle east, is so misguided. The further devastation of the Iraqui economy, the security of its people, is not a path to building. Sorry, but there is something morally obtuse about holding an antiwar rally on a day when your own people have been murdered — and not even mentioning it or those who perpetrated it. Watching this scene, I couldn't help but wonder whether George Bush had made the liberal left crazy. It can't see anything else in the world today, other than the Bush-Blair original sin of launching the Iraq war, without U.N. approval or proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. ********

The Bible as a source of political power. Posted here Saturday, November 29, 2003 at 3:55:55 PM     Thought   A recent conversation about sexual repression in 20th century China led me to rethink the impact of the Garden of Eden story and came to the realization that eating of the tree of knowledge but not of the tree of life is a move to enhance control by political authority. Vitality is denied to humans but they are allowed to have knowledge and guilt. The authority system needs people to be knowledgeable but vitality has a life of its own. Recall that the old testament says   22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: 23 Therefore the LORD God Sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way; to keep the way of the tree of life. GENESIS 3. King James   Seems to me to be a pure story about power and the denial to humans of their own vitality lest they think they also have authority. ********

Blake on nature and the human. Posted here Saturday, November 29, 2003 at 12:14:45 PM     Spreading out a little... this is challenging.. From Michael Ferber's The Social Vision of William Blake.   (blake) Would have seemed a succinct formulation of a basic error: "Love of Nature Leading to Love of Mankind." Love of nature can lead to nothing of the sort. However unfairly, Blake would have found damning Wordsworth's admission that it was his appreciation of solitary shepherds, who seemed so like nature herself, and of other men "purified, / Remov'd, and at a distance that was fit" (11.439-40), that led him to brotherly feelings. "I see in Wordsworth," Blake wrote, using terms drawn from the Corinthians verses quoted earlier, "the Natural Man rising up against the Spiritual Man Continually. Imagination is the Divine Vision not of The World nor of Man as. He is a Natural Man but only as he is a Spiritual Man" (E 666). ********

Bush In Baghdad Reconsidered Posted here Saturday, November 29, 2003 at 11:32:03 AM     This is a new light.. It also seems that the President might have done what he did for fear of being overshadowed by Hillary. The planning for his trip started well after Hillary's office notified the White House of her intention to spend Thanksgiving with the troops. Pathetic I tell you. Pathetic and disappointing. ********

Blair on middle class in the Guardian Posted here Saturday, November 29, 2003 at 10:23:38 AM     In this Blair hints at the pressures on the middle class to divide into  an upper slice that can afford the future and a lower slice, much larger, that cannot. Blair's saying the future belongs to meeting the remaining middle class and letting go of those -increasingly more - below the line. This seems to me an ultimately losing approach, in terms of civil society. Tony Blair yesterday set the tone for his "big conversation" about Labour's third term with a neo-puritan appeal to voters to face up to the social irresponsibility which underpins poor parenting, unhealthy diet and anti-social behaviour towards neighbours. Mr Blair cited social ills from drunkenness in city centres to smoking in public places, poor diet and alcoholism as generating huge costs to the NHS and police as well as to society at large. Such problems must be addressed, he suggested. To rub home the need for urgent and sometimes unpopular decisions, Mr Blair also used a Guardian-sponsored debate to warn that the middle classes will abandon key public services - threatening to drive down standards in schools and hospitals - unless Labour persists with radical reforms of the way they function.     ********

U.S. Military Plans More Mobile Force to Fight Insurgents in Iraq Posted here Saturday, November 29, 2003 at 8:33:09 AM     Part of the worry as the US decides to hold on while the demand is for faster elections,which would guarantee majority dominance. U.S. military officials are concerned that some attacks on Americans have been coordinated by a few of the numerous Iraqi civilians hired by the U.S. military, who may glean intelligence on troop movements and travels of high-ranking officers, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told reporters at the Baghdad Convention Center. BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - There is no evidence that al-Qaida terrorists have taken part in the long string of attacks on U.S. or Iraqi targets, but some U.S.-trained Iraqi police appear to have coordinated some of those assaults, the top U.S. military official in Iraq said Saturday. U.S. military officials are concerned that some attacks on Americans have been coordinated by a few of the numerous Iraqi civilians hired by the U.S. military, who may glean intelligence on troop movements and travels of high-ranking officers, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told reporters at the Baghdad Convention Center. ********

Significance of rents Posted here Saturday, November 29, 2003 at 6:58:08 AM     The are the places that vote for Bush, and that are left behind. Part of the polarization. Or is the ocean that attractive? While rents have continued to rise in many big cities on the coasts, including New York and Los Angeles, they are falling in more than 80 percent of metropolitan areas across the country. Low interest rates in recent years have persuaded many families to move out of rented apartments and buy their first homes at the same time that developers have been putting up thousands of new rental buildings, leaving many landlords desperate to fill apartments.   ********