On a Weekend
I was intrigued by a snippet in the National Journal which referred to Joseph Stalin's plans for a final Terror.
Stalin was planning his own version of the Holocaust to rid the U.S.S.R. of its Jewish citizens. ... Newly discovered documents show that in February 1953, Stalin authorised the construction of four large prison camps in Kazakhstan, Siberia and the Arctic north. Officially they were for all classes of dangerous criminals, but it is far more likely that Stalin was preparing for a second Great Terror - aimed at the millions of Soviet citizens of Jewish descent. ...
A search led to a book review of Brent and Naumov's Stalin's Last Crime, largely about Uncle Joe's abortive project to launch a new wave of repression so huge it would put his efforts of the 1930s into the shade.
Though the Great Terror of the late 1930s is widely viewed as the height of Stalin's purges, the number of arrests actually peaked in the early 1950s, and Stalin was planning hundreds of thousands more on the eve of his death in 1953. These arrests were spurred by the "doctors' plot," a supposed conspiracy among Jewish doctors to kill members of the government and destroy the U.S.S.R. at the behest of the Americans. Brent, the editorial director of Yale University Press, and Naumov, executive secretary of Russia's Presidential Commission for the Rehabilitation of Repressed Persons, trace how Stalin himself put together ... (a plan) ... to accomplish several goals: to purge his Ministry of Security and upper ranks of government; to defuse the potential threat posed by Soviet Jews, many of whom had ties to the U.S. and the new state of Israel; and to provide fuel for an armed conflict with the U.S.
This was pretty heavy stuff, but then Stalin had the dubious distinction of killing many more people than Adolph Hitler, so anything was possible. As I didn't have the book, I scoured its book reviews until I found the location of the four giant planned death-camps where Stalin intended to succeed where Hitler had failed -- Kazakhstan, Komi, and Irkutsk. The final Final Solution. The attraction of exploring Communist archaeology is based in part on the fascination for the grotesque. It is what morbid minds study in the absence of real alien monster artifacts. It is a tableau of the inconceivable, made all the more startling because it was real. Stalin even attempted to master time by mandating a five-day week (after he had tried a six-day week) reasoning there was no earthly reason why it should run to seven. The Economist explains Stalin's point of view.
Most people greet the weekend with gratitude. But some economists view it with puzzlement. Why, they wonder, does the bulk of the population rest on the same two days each week? Why does everyone's week end at “the” weekend? From an economic point of view, it would surely be more efficient to stagger days of rest throughout the week. That way, expensive pieces of equipment would not lie idle for two days in seven, and infrastructure would be less congested the other five.
One person impressed by this logic was Josef Stalin, who rationalised the Soviet calendar in 1929. Workers were given every fifth day off, but their shifts were staggered, so that factories could run without interruption. The staggered week appealed rather less to the people who worked it, however. According to Witold Rybcynski's 1991 book about leisure, “Waiting for the Weekend”, Stalin's four days on, one day off, was unpopular, even though it was less onerous than the six-day week that preceded it. Families and friends rarely had the same day off; administrative staff rarely worked at the same time. After less than three years, the staggered working week was abandoned.
There's a boutique tourist market for traveling the "Road of Bones" -- a road to a mooted gold mine ordered by Stalin which conveniently killed those who built it from starvation. (An enterprising fellow called Milford posted photos he took on motorcycle journey along the route, where it is said, building each meter cost one prisoner's life. ) Here was a place, as the Telegraph puts it, where:
Armed only with pickaxes and wheelbarrows, prisoners, among them the founder of the Soviet space programme, generals and intellectuals side by side with common criminals, hacked and hewed at permafrost in the hunt for gold.
The landscape of Communism from East Germany to Cambodia, from North Korea to Cuba deserves to preserved as a monument to the greatest act of hypnotism in history. Piers Brendon, writing in the Dark Valley, described the pilgrimage of Western intellectuals to this palace of horrors, intent upon discovering paradise. And discover it they did.
Before setting off for Moscow in 1932 to experience "the veritable future of mankind", Malcolm Muggeridge made a bonfire of bourgeois trappings, including his dinner jacket. Arthur Koestler endorsed the slogan at the frontier -- "Change trains for the twenty first century". ... Muggeridge ... soon perceived the truth and mocked the gullibility of other visitors. Lord Marley denied that official lies could have been told about the Five Year Plan -- "Think how ashamed the Soviet Government would be if it were discovered that their statistics had been falsified" -- and believed that the authorities permitted food queues in Moscow because they "provided a means for inducing the workers to take a rest". Edouard Herriot was convinced that the milk shortage was due to the large amount allocated to nursing mothers. George Bernard Shaw expressed his confidence that the Soviet Union was free from hunger by declaring that he had thrown his supplies of Western tinned food out of the train window ..." (from the chapter Stalin's Revolution)
But the El Dorado wasn't there; and the really big historical question is why it took the best minds of the West more than 50 years and countless lives to discover that elementary fact. This monumental self-hypnosis calls into question our collective ability to know; and when politicians and media talking heads speak with perfect assurance about "religions of peace" or alternatively, about a "death cult" with bloody borders, how certain are we that our epistemology is any better than that of the 20th century intellectuals?
112 Comments:
Lessons still to be learned:
.Why Russia has to turn left towards it’s communist past to avoid an authoritarian future.
Nevertheless, competent public opinion polls (including recent Levada Centre polls) leave no room for the imagination: the people support the communists. 97 percent of Russians want free education, 93 percent say that pensions should not be lower than the living wage, 98 percent say people’s pre-reform savings must be returned to them. Also, 81 percent want a return to the direct election of governors, 59 percent back the institution of single constituency deputies. This is actually the program of Russia’s next authorities — state paternalism and democracy, freedom and justice together, on the same side of the fence.
So in spite of all the tricks, the communists will win anyway. And their victory will be democratic, corresponding completely to the electorate’s will, one way or another, at the elections or without (after) them. The ’left turn’ — a turn towards communism — will happen. And the army of the current authorities’ successors will no longer be legitimate.
Well Wretchard it is worth noting that one side during the run up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union had it far more right than wrong. That was the side that simply looked at the evidence of the Soviets and called it like it was. It is also worth noting that the same sort of people who saw through the Soviets people like Winston Churchill, are seeing though the veils of Political Correctness and wishful thinking and realizing that Winston's quote was accurate: The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
Lesson: Don't trust the MSN.
One thing Joe Stalin had going for him was the help of the NY Times to deflect his murders (and his ability to kill approximately half of his top military commanders who disagreed with his politics).
In a WSJ discussion of the Beatles' Paul McCartney rock concert (where McCartney played "Back in the USSR" which is actually a rhetorical slap to the USSR) role of the KGB's head of operations Felix Dzerzhinsky (Iron Felix) is recapped with the atrocities of Stalin's men [1]. A commentator further elaborated on the KGB:
Ron N. - San Francisco
I find it so strange to read that Mr. Putin, a general in the KGB, is hosting a music festa in St. Petersburg, formally Leningrad, where it was reported a few months ago that a KGB graveyard 40 miles from the city had just been found with over 60,000 bodies; all had the signature of the KGB in the back of the head, the single bullet hole.
Flex Dzerzhinsky's statue going back up in Red Square? This is like a statue of Himmler being erected in the Tiergarten in Berlin. Although "Iron Felix" sent to their deaths more people than Himmler, for some reason Dzerzhinsky's name isn't known as well. But the KGB had a department known as Department 6, the Disinformation Branch, which did a tremendous job of coverup. Even the New York Times fell for it when Walter Duranty, the Times bureau chief in Moscow, said that 10 million didn't die under Stalin's first five-year plan; Duranty even got a Pulitzer for writing the coverup [2]...
[1] See: A City on the Edge
[2] See: Free Association
I had a European tell me a few days ago that the dictatorship of North Korea was the will of the people, because its security apparatus and military were staffed by so many apparently willful citizens. I asked her if the 20% East Germany membership in the Stasi meant it to was popularly based.
The ignorance is still with us.
Today we have the internet, blogs, cellphones, instant messaging, satellite communication, . . . .
There is no excuse for people not to know what is going on, virtually anywhere in the world. Only a total moron depends exclusively on the mainstream media for his information.
Journalism school graduates were never known for their brilliance, for good reason. Not before graduating, and certainly not afterward.
People will believe things they hear or read over things they see. Its a human flaw - a trap.
red river:
"People will believe things they hear or read over things they see."
More importantly, people will see things that fit what they want to believe much more readily than they will see or hear things that conflict with the reality they wish existed.
The New York Times wanted to believe the Soviet Communists were creating a new model, a Utopian society where everyone was equal and men lived in peace and harmony. They were so willing to believe it that they didn't allow themselves to see anything that was at odds with the rosy picture they drew.
Today, many want to (need to) believe Islam is the RoP and will find evidence everywhere to support the idea (and will discount or minimize countervailing views).
One very significant difference today is the existence of alternative avenues of information. No longer are the New York Times and other MSM players the gatekeepers of information.
For those who are still able to keep an open mind, left or right, more and more information is available from which to derive a world view that correponds more closely to reality.
Solzhenitsyn wrote a interesting chaper of Stalin locked up in his secure Kremlin room, paranoid and plotting his next purge. I believe the chapter is in Cancer Ward.
Now comes Harvard educated Noel Ignatiev, an academic at Harvard’s W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African-American Research. Dr. Ignatiev is the founder of a journal, Race Traitor, which has as its motto, "treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity."
The journal’s purpose is "to abolish the white race."
A statement by the editors on the web site says that the new abolitionists "do not limit themselves to socially acceptable means of protest, but reject in advance no means of attaining their goal."
Dr. Ignatiev does not believe his agenda is controversial. He writes:
"The goal of abolishing the white race is on its face so desirable that some may find it hard to believe that it could incur any opposition other than from committed white supremacists." Thus does he put whites on notice. If they oppose their abolition, they are "white supremacists."
According to Dr. Ignatiev, "The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race."
"Make no mistake about it," he says, "we intend to keep bashing the dead white males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social construct known as ‘the white race’ is destroyed--not ‘deconstructed’ but destroyed."
Yet, Dr. Ignatiev believes that it is self-evident that whites in their homelands should be abolished.
Where did he get this view? His only education was at Harvard where he received two graduate degrees.
Is Harvard embarrassed? No. Dr. Ignatiev [ignatiev@fas.harvard.edu] is showcased in the current issue of Harvard Magazine.
Getting rid of whiteness is not controversial at Harvard, because it is the business of American universities.
University Genocide
The opposite side of the coin:
Mark Helprin's Jeffersonian Retreat
Helprin piece reminded me of these don't miss photos from Ellis Island.
Ellis Island Photos
I think it's the 'conceit of modernity' that communism and other alternatives to capitalism appealed to. Perhaps in the past it was religious fanatics. But this 'utopian modernity' has definitely darkened the world for a good century, IMHO.
That is why people will always be shocked when someone like Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan comes along, throwing all those static beliefs into an uproar and undermine the statist urge to manage and control. Or even with corruption and monopolization, a small company can adress an unmet need, like talk radio in the U.S. It's only half of the marketplace, you know. And this is becoming fast applied to other elements of the world too as a general challenge to the 'status quo'.
It seems a psychological safety valve for those who are averse to competition and it's unmerciful shifts. Which is why so many still want to find solace in these discredited institutions, and are willing to accept these awful 'aberrations' for their safety.
http://pmclassic.blogspot.com/2005/08/conceit-of-modernity.html
It seems a psychological safety valve for those who are averse to competition and it's unmerciful shifts. "
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Very well put!
And not just psychological:
The Academics, Journos, and etc get to live their lives of luxury in their little Kremlins despite their (sub) mediocrity.
(Walter Williams is so fond of reminding us that the NEA's ranks come from the bottom of the educational barrel.)
Sometimes we can never be sure. The world is a big place, and even the smallest village in the remotest deserts of Arabia has currents and tides too complex and too numerous to reduce to an article, or an essay, or even a large tome. The dangers of miscategorization and misinterpretation rise as our attention and our patience fall, until we find ourselves battling for one soundbite over another when both may be dangerously wrong, or, more often, both inadequately right.
September 11, if it did anything, broadened our attentions and enlargened our world. We had fooled ourselves into nonchalance, willingly hypnotized by the coziness of a predictability that wasn't, but our circumscribed lives never really existed, not in the way we thought. There was a blackness in the wilderness that we had chosen to ignore, until one fateful day it stepped into the light to spark a fire of its own. By this terrible new flame we saw that the danger, through our inattentiveness, had grown and multiplied. Darkness was everywhere, yet we knew what we had to do.
The enemy cannot be defined by what he is, for his mutations and permutations are many; instead, it is much easier to understand what he is not. I look around at the decency of our lives and the economy of our people; I gaze in awe at the prosperity and happiness that liberty and hope afford, and the enemy becomes very clear. We are in a fight with darkness itself, and darkness can only be known by its relationship to the light.
As George Orwell once said, "Some things are so stupid, you have to be an intellectual to believe them."
I somethimes think that Western civilization has two modes, one when it is at least half-seriously under attack, and another when it is not. It can be a lot more attractive in the former mode than in the latter, as unprecedented levels of affluence and security give people the freedom to lead staggeringly silly fantasy lives.
The Romans oscillated in exactly this way for hundreds of years, until one last time when they didn't get their act together quick enough, and Rome was occupied and sacked in just a few months. Apparently the invaders had been primarily looking for yet another payoff, and were as surprised as anyone and not entirely pleased when resistance collapsed and they found themselves in charge.
Most people believe that everyone else is fundamentally like them. Differences are seen as small differences of approach or differences of opportunity or signs of mental illness. In fact there are fundamental and irreconcilable differences among people and among societies.
This is part of the problem with multi-culturalism, which assumes a certain similarity among people from different cultures that really isn't there.
The long time taken to see Stalin for what he was is in large part because westerners couldn't believe what he was.
I suspect that the only way for westerners to change their opinions of other cultures is based on wedge issues. 9/11 should be a good one regarding our view of the Muslim world.
The belief that others are like you afflicts non-westerners as much as westerners, perhaps more. They think we're like them and we think they're like us, and we're both wrong.
Although it is mostly a survey of people from the last two hundred fifty years, I strongly recommend Paul Johnson's book "Intellectuals". He covers a few twentieth century intelletuals who were rabid apologists for Stalin. It seemed they each had some psychological pathologies in common, as well as sociopathic tendencies.
When the discussion turns to how so many bright people could delude themselves about Soviet Russia so overwhelmingly during the 1930s, I can't help but recall what the novelist Ayn Rand was up against. Sure one can argue that her novels weren't of the highest sophistication, or that she even had a few unresolved social pathologies, but what she produced and championed was quite courageous.
It's quite easy to point out other contemporaries of hers who were more articulate for the cause of freedom and capitalism, but she produced something by which the masses could more easily access these ideas. Bearing in mind the anti-intellectual impulse among most in American society, "The Fountainhead" is probably one of the few doses of any kind deep philosophical probing many readers will have ever gotten in their lives.
I'm no objectivist, and don't regard Rand's philosophy per se as original or coherent, but Rand's novels did a great service in partly stemming the tide of socialist and nihilistic thinking in the U.S. My French father credits the availability of books like hers to the distinctive American intellectual landscape his homeland would never profit from.
how certain are we that our epistemology is any better than that of the 20th century intellectuals?
-Wretchard, don't be certain and you will ok. The great mistake of many intellectuals is that they seek some sort of epistemological guarantee and this is often an idea like this: "if I deny my own self interest, my own privileged class and education, and seek to help the underprivileged, like a good celibate priest, then I must be in the right."
But, as it turns out, self-denial is not the road to truth; someone who knows some truth may choose a form of self-denial as a way of realizing a greater self through exchange with others (finding oneself in others), but you don't find truth by denying or ignoring what motivates you, as an intellectual, in the desire to be right. Only a learned humility in face of uncertainty about your own desires and virtues and in recognition of the worldly evil in which you share, is an epistemological guarantee precisely because it isn't a guarantee.
Yesterday I spoke of "death cults at home and abroad". I have no doubt that some such exist, because I have known self-destructive feelings myself and have come to study them and see why they are a widespread problem; and because the world is full of information and discussion on such questions. The area for doubt is in determining how widespread or intense these "cults" are and whether or not I still share something of the self-denying psychology in my desire to speak to a common good.
The Romans oscillated in exactly this way for hundreds of years, until one last time when they didn't get their act together quick enough, and Rome was occupied and sacked in just a few months. Apparently the invaders had been primarily looking for yet another payoff, and were as surprised as anyone and not entirely pleased when resistance collapsed and they found themselves in charge.
meme, this reminds me of the rumour about George Bush, that he didn't expect to defeat Al Gore, but he ran in order to raise his profile because he really wanted to become Commissioner of baseball.
This monumental self-hypnosis calls into question our collective ability to know; and when politicians and media talking heads speak with perfect assurance about "religions of peace" or alternatively, about a "death cult" with bloody borders, how certain are we that our epistemology is any better than that of the 20th century intellectuals?
Well, Wretchard, considering the sources of information you mention -- the politicians and the media -- I don't think our epistemology has to be in question if it doesn't jibe with those two. And don't forget the mandarins in academia, another source of pseudo-knowledge.
What we know is always open to revision based on experience. The epistemology of the groups you mention is definitely not "open" to anything. Not even with a generation of evidence to show them the consequences of mistaken premises...
There are lots of ways to manage the truth. For example, Hams is holidng a poster competition, the point of which is to offer a prize to the best portrayal of Israel's unilateral and voluntary retreat from the Gaza strip as a reaction of desperation because of the might of Hamas...what a crock.
Hamas Is Having A Poster Contest
The facile thinkers who made a relgion of the relativity of knowledge are the ones least likely to be capable of truly knowing anything in depth.
~D
Re: David Bennett calling nonsense
Of course it wasn't the 'best minds', that is something of a strawman, intended or not. Actually, Stalin and the Comintern had a sophisticated plan aimed at the influential, rather than the 'best'. These included many famous journalists, screenwriters etc- just read any selection from 'Red Star Over Hollywood' to get a glimpse of how the Communist Party strove to increase their influence, and how we're dealing with it still to this day.
The fact of the matter is they were able to exploit this 'weakness' of our democratic society to influence our strategic decisionmaking process. This is why the actions of VVAW and Kerry's leadership were so divisive- again, intended or not they were speaking directly from the platform our enemies. Kind of hard to reconcile.
From the late 1800's people have been looking for something to 'save them' from the evils of competition and chaos of competition. Marx and his followers were able to satisfy this perceived spiritual gap for many. I don't think that's so hard to accept.
But now that the historical record is out, we can say yes, Ayn Rand was courageous for standing up to it in her own way, and we also see how amazing it was, in the context of their times, for the aforementioned Maggie Thatcher and RR to kick the sclerotic legs out from under the Evil Empire.
I agree with truepeers comment on maintaining a certain level of skepticism regarding the epistemology of today. Yet we can still look to the past to see how others suffered or excelled in great times of change such as now, impressed with how similar it is rather than the differences of scale or sophistication. But in the meantime, Don Sensing is definitely a good place to start as well.
I was so impressed at the time that I lifted the following from the July 2002 Imprimis, published by Hillsdale College. It was taken from a speech by Mark Helprin. It was only a side remark, but he absolutely nails multi-culti non-judgmentalism:
"Several years ago, I was speaking in a university town in Massachusetts. By some quirk which I hope never to see reproduced, and before I knew what was happening, I found myself debating my entire audience on the subjects of human sacrifice and cannibalism. These well-educated and polite people -- only a few of whom would actually have murdered or eaten one another -- who had sons and daughters, Ph.D.s, and BMWs, were defending the Mayan and Aztec practice of human sacrifice -- that is, in the main, of children -- and the South Sea custom of cannibalism. It wasn't that they were for such things: they weren't. It wasn't that they were not against them: they were. It was that to take the position that human sacrifice and cannibalism are wrong is not only to reject relativism but to place oneself decisively in the ranks of Western Civilization, such a position being one of its characteristic distinctions, and this they would not do. They were ashamed to do so, and they were afraid to do so."
Sorry, Vietnam Veterans against the War (VVAW) doesn't seem so clear in this font.
So David Bennett, you or those for whom you speak were never so dumb as to believe in the USSR, OR "the Americans". So what's the belief, exactly? what's the post-communist, post-capitalist pie in the sky? Seriously, I would really like to know what "the best minds" of the left believe. For the life of me, I don't see anything but resentment against the world that is, and some mystical belief in what ought to be. Nor, on the part of those who grandstand intellectually, do I see much support for the many humble little projects into the problems of reality that are out there. "The best minds" believe in magic, I'm starting to think. And if you tell me they were quick to reject the magic of the USSR, I only tend to believe it all the more. At least the USSR existed.
Wretchard, it all depends on who "our" is.
After repeated and embarassing failure I abandoned my "big ideas" and adopted as exactly as I could that precious paradime of the Bible. Then, lo and behold my "intellect" improved enough for me to be allowed into civilized company.
It looks like the Bible just happens to be the truth about man's creation and decent and salvation. It is wise to the ways of all men including Stalin and his sick kind.
There is nothing new under the sun. Cain was a murderer early on.
What do you have that you did not receive?
God's creation was all good to start with and Adam was probably better than any ten men alive today. It has been downhill from there. By comparrison we are twisted mutants holding on to civility by our fingernails.
But we have the word which foretold all this. Abandon your own mind and adopt the mind of Jesus Christ and have confidence we know up from down by the Spirit and not by instinct like an animal.Renew your mind with the word. Rejoice always in HIS sure truth and be free indeed.
Thank you for providing me with this opportunity to expound.
God bless one and all.
Common Cents,
You are right that we will never be able to lose the idea of God. If one unlikely day we are all atheists, the idea of God will still be meaningful to us and we will still have to deny our belief in it.
I don't think that this is because belief in God is "hard-wired". None of our ape cousins demonstrate any such belief. Rather, it is because the idea of God inhers in the origin of language or symbolic consciousness, in the kind of language that only humans have. In other words, the name of God was the first word.
On the other hand, since our brains have evolved for the last two or three million years in tandem with language, the question of whether we are talking about hard or software cannot be entirely solved. But do human children raised by wolves believe in God? probably not
My cat thinks I'm god except for all the times she doesn't.
...I'm one of them easily deluded types Mr. Bennet writes about.
utopia parkway writes The belief that others are like you afflicts non-westerners as much as westerners, perhaps more. They think we're like them and we think they're like us, and we're both wrong. And posits that Them and Us will never be able to co-exist because we are basically different.
Upon reflection, I think I must disagree with this. We are told there is a "hierarchy of needs" that is common to the human animal. Everyone -- Them and Us both -- needs shelter, water, food, sleep. The Basics. I'm guess that Muslims and Arabs also need to drink the same amount of water, eat the same number of calories, and sleep 8 hours a day to be healthy.
The hierarchy then goes to Safety Needs, Love Needs, Esteem Needs and Self-Actualization. Again, my guess is that Arabs and Muslims have the same desire to safety and love -- see their off-professed desire for "peace and stability" being more important than anything else.
Where we start to diverge, Them and Us -- is in the Esteem Needs and the Self-Actualization. As has been noticed Islam and the Middle East is an honor-based system, while the West values the individual more than the group.
Islam has a very weird idea of Self-Actualization so that every aspect of the current human life is aimed at the afterlife, and there is *no* self-actualization in this life. Deciding to become a suicide bomber is one way of standing up and saying, "Yo! this is me, and here I am," so that we can see the need to imprint "I was here" upon the world is decidedly present in jihadists, too.
The point I'm trying to make is that I do not think that Them and Us are different, not the basic animal. The cultures are different, certainly, and I'm not at all sure they can mutually co-exist. But it seems to me that your red person, your yellow person, your brown person, and your pasty pink white person all basically want the same thing. And that is a chicken in the pot, a car in the garage, and enough extra left-over for a few beers and some fun every few days. If we could guarantee the Muslims those basics, I wonder if the Esteem and Self-Actualization might not follow in a more satisfactory fashion.
The difference between "us" and "them" is that we have a greater understanding of what is possible.
It's a mental thing. We have left the cave.
"Today genocide has a home in the educational system"
I'm a little disappointed in that I expected C4 to catch my editing job on my post before. This is what I left out:
"The Washington Times reports that Dr. Ignatiev is himself Jewish. If Jewish intellectuals and Israeli political leaders can be believed, Jews have a cultural and racial consciousness. Israel is the Jewish homeland, and Israelis seem determined to keep it that way. Can anyone imagine a gentile at an Israeli university founding a magazine devoted to abolishing the Jewish race?
Yet, Dr. Ignatiev believes that it is self-evident that whites in their homelands should be abolished.
Where did he get this view? His only education was at Harvard where he received two graduate degrees."
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As of ten years ago, or so, Dave Horowitz could only express his puzzelment at why a disproportionate number of Jews fell for Communism in this country, and since then leftism often including the Blame America First types.
A reflection of the Russian heritage of many?
(figured the forum is staying way too mellow today)
The capacity to believe in God is hardwired. The belief, as a particular idea, is not. A large distinction.
The only hardwired thoughts we have are the emotions, which are chemical states. The rest come from experience.
Experience supplies impression, ideas come later.
Race Traitor.org .
. Harvard Magazine - Abolish the White Race
truepeers: "If one unlikely day we are all atheists, the idea of God will still be meaningful to us and we will still have to deny our belief in it."
But only as an historical reference. I'm not advocating atheism, but I don't understand the import of the statement.
One member of a set of opposites always implies the other, right? The existence of an idea tells us nothing about it. Humans excel at extrapolation and transposition.
Aristedes,
Instincts are more than chemical states, right?
truepeers,
But you are surely right about a human raised by wolves.
One of the most durable parables is that of the evil spirit which turns on its conjurer. Marxism was regarded, in its day, as the highest product the Western intellect. One of Franklin Roosevelt's advisers likened it to 'the moral top of the world on which the sun always shines'. The remark reminded me, somehow, of the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark: the caressing spirits of death. The belief that "spirits" can take on a material existence in this world has gone out of fashion, but if you substitute the word "meme" in its place, the idea is not so far-fetched. What materialized over New York on September 11 except a meme of concentrated hate? What drives a suicide bomber except a different kind of possession?
Yet we who are so careful of needles and sharps; who lock up our guns and keep medicine out of the reach of children are careless of our memes. They can't hurt us, can they?
Instincts are not thoughts, they are reactions. Mindless reactions. I was speaking of thoughts, like hunger or fear.
Aristedes,
I understand, but the question remains as to your explanation of them.
(If you would.)
Many instincts don't have to have something to react TO.
It astounds me that people living in New York City can seemingly so effectively act as though we still live in a Pre 9-11 world.
Never Forget has been forgotten for many.
Doug, re Horowitz and Ignatiev, the problem for the Jew thinking of leaving the ghetto over the last few hundred years, has been that modern secular society is not all the Enlightenment say it is: free of religion, or even fundamentally different from religion. In fact, modern secular society is an outgrowth of Christianity and, in fact, the desires of modern secular people have exactly the same anthropological structure as the desires of people in the old world ruled by ritual. An advertisement for an SUV appeals to the sacred source of shared human significance in just the same way as a ritual appeals to the sacred thing, place, and sign that it remembers.
I'm not saying the modern secular world is equivalent to Christianity or Christendom, just that that's where it came from and so it is marked in various ways by its origins.
So, what's the already monotheistic Jew to do in finding his way into this vaguely Christian new world order, given that there is a lot of prejudice against him for being a Jew? While he may be too proud, or too sure of the truth of his own religion to become a Christian, he will likely find very attractive a range of organizations and ideas that give him a foot into this "Christian" world without him needing to become an explicit Christian.
Hence, for example, the popularity of Freemasonry among Jews in western Europe and the US. Hence also, the popularity of Communism among a later generation. That any self-respecting Jew would follow Marx, given that Marx was a horrific antisemite, is something of a mystery. But then Marx, as an ethnically Jewish son of a recent convert, was trying to find just such a role by which a Jew, without identifying as Jew or Christian, could play his part in the political order of a modern world made by Christians even to the extent that this world is antagonistic to traditional Christianity.
Do not blame politically crazy Jews on Judaism; the blame, not that I think there is any reason for finger pointing, is on the modern world, a world made, incidentally, by Christians. And I love them for it.
Gotta admire Horowitz for choosing truth over the easy path.
...but then the path became far from easy when we were surrounded by those that decided to take there hateful rhetoric more seriously.
Finally hard truth becomes blessed relief.
their
Gentlemen and Ladies; there is no evidence for evolution. There is no evidence of a dog evolving into a rangadang or anything else. Everything reproduces after its kind as it has done since the beginning. There is no new genetic information just the destruction of the old. The "scientists" the "knowers" shop their rocks. They send them to many different "labs" till they get the date they want. There are over three hundred different dating methods out there. You can get any number you want. There is no barcode on a rock telling you how old it is.
The religion of Evolution is not new. Evolution is a subcategory of pantheism. Pantheism is the worship of the dirt. Everything is god. Evolution is the religion of Star Trek and the Devil. Every flying saucer encounter spews pantheism. Evolution is the end of morality and the mind and the work of the enemy.
I don't worship the dirt. I worship the God who took the dirt and formed Adam and breathed into him eternal spiritual existence; and Adam birthed me.
Real science supports creation.
Talk about ongoing delusions!
Later.
Sparks,
Many good evolutionary thinkers are not atheists.
"God bless one and all. "
truepeers:
"If one unlikely day we are all atheists, the idea of God will still be meaningful to us and we will still have to deny our belief in it."
"that modern secular society is not all the Enlightenment say it is: free of religion, or even fundamentally different from religion."
There's a connection there, right?
Anybody know how wretch became adblog flypaper about 3 weeks ago?
Today, on Aug 6, a certain anniversary of some note, I tend to think of another aspect of Western Intellectual Delusions.
Not only did numerous Western intellectuals serve as apologists and cover-up artists for Stalin, they also are responsible for some truly awesome Opportunity Lost costs.
Imagine, if the self-annointed elites had been pointing to Hiroshima and saying "Take heed tyrants! We will always beat you! We will strip away the very boundaries of the universe to find ways to obliterate our enemies. We will always win! Remember that. So don't even think of trying something!"
What might that have yielded?
Instead we had Hiroshima described as a crime and "anti-trumphilism" conferences in NY City (Source: the book "In Denial")the year AFTER the USSR crumbled, designed to warn against crowing about - or even admitting that we won the Cold War.
What might have been.... If the elites had been as courageous enough to call those who defend incredibly competant heroes - instead of baby-killers.
P.S. I note that the book Stalins Last Crime is available for as little as 75 cents from certain internet sources. It is now on my "to read" list. Thanks Wretchard!
The Myth of Men on the Moon meets Buzz Aldrin.
"Imagine, however, how it would feel to know that if your engine stopped and you couldn't start it again you would certainly die, even though millions of people knew exactly where you were, you were in constant radio contact with friends, and there was no immediate threat to your life. The only resources to sustain your life were what you were carrying yourself, there was no possibility of getting any more food or water, nobody could get to you to help, and all this was happening on television. This was the situation facing the men who walked on the moon, and the bravery of these men is almost beyond the imagination of the rest of us, particularly the courage of the first, who could look to no precedent of anyone having done it and survived.
Contrasted to these heroes is a group of idiots who claim that nobody has ever gone to the moon. On September 9, 2002, one of these clowns, Bart Sibrel, accosted Buzz Aldrin and demanded that Aldrin swear on a Bible that he had really been to the moon. Buzz decided that an appropriate response to some lunatic coming up to him in the street and calling him a liar was to settle things quickly because there was nothing to discuss, so he punched Sibrel's lights out and then went on his way. Sibrel (who is 37) is now whining to anyone who might care that a 72 year old man beat him up. Fortunately, nobody is caring. I usually don't condone violence as a means of settling arguments, but in this case I will make an exception. I didn't think I could have a higher opinion of Buzz Aldrin but now I have. He should be congratulated."
Aristedes: "But only as an historical reference. I'm not advocating atheism, but I don't understand the import of the statement.
One member of a set of opposites always implies the other, right?
Not only as some academic historical reference. I think that even if humanity were to go through several generations in which everyone was an atheist, there would remain an emotionally meaningful and ever present need for people to deny belief in God, and there would remain the likelihood that belief in God would be reborn.
Belief, or not, is not merely a logical opposition. Belief and logic are dependent on the fundamental mystery by which language first emerged. The belief in God is related to the fact that once there is language in the world, there is something that transcends the worldly world of things. (where is it that you think these signs we are using and sharing reside? They are surely not imprinted on our neurons. We associate sounds and letters to invoke them, according to established conventions, but that doesn't explain where they reside. They only exist among us, above us? where?)
Even if you kill and devour the sacred cow, you do not lose the memory of the sacred being that was once formerly incarnated in the cow (or so it seemed). Similarly, even if you kill your belief in God, you do not lose the anthropological fact that you continue to remember, or have a sense of, some sacred being: the eternal source or guarantee of a shared human significance on which our use of language depends and to which it appeals. And since you don't lose it, you have to explain it, if only in human, anthropological, terms. And so you will remain in need of denying that sacred being has anything to do with a God beyond the human world. But you'll never be able to prove it. That's kind of hte connection Doug.
Trangbang,
We mustn't forget that Love Bug Commie Angela Davis is still in the employee of U.C.
. RISE OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY .
Soon, however, even that conviction was set aside and a new trial was ordered. In July of 1970, then, Huey was indeed set free from jail. Thousands greeted him.
The celebrations seemed meaningless in light of the July 7, 1970 murder of 17 year old Jonathan Jackson (George Jacksons brother) in the incident that gave rise to the famous arrest and trial of Angela Davis. The question of Huey's freedom was nearly forgotten when well known Party leader Eldridge Cleaver, living in exile in Algeria, challenged the Party's agenda of social programs and proposed a terrorist one. By the end of 1970, Cleaver was expelled from the Party in a nasty riff that culminated in the murder of Party loyalist Sam Napier in New York. Still, the Party continued to build its programs and move its agenda, as it began to consolidate its efforts in its home base of Oakland, California.
Over the next few years, until 1973, the Party maintained and built its agenda, despite the brutal assassination at San Quentin prison in August of 1971 of Party field marshal and author George Jackson. Nevertheless, in 19723, the Party entered into electoral politics in Oakland by running Bobby Seale and Elaine Brown for public office...
Truepeers,
I like it!
(more than most 'cause I understood the whole thing!)
Trangbang,
Missed the tumor brain rhetoric.
Angela looked pretty nice in her ever so chic Afro also.
Too bad inside it was ugly.
---
I was right in the neighborhood when the Jackson Bro shot up the Courtroom and murdered the judge, however.
Heavy days and nights
Meanwhile, right up the road, Jim Jones was preparing his Clan for the big trip South, his evil deeds covered up nicely by the SF Democrat Politicians and local media.
Bath house HIV facts were also covered up nicely by the same perps.
Dave Horowitz wrote about it in California Magazine at the time, but that was about as far out as it got, along with Randy Shiltz, who was dying of AIDS.
California Magazine also did an article on Jim Jones to no avail.
"EST" was big too! Werhner somebody, right?
...and Johnny Taliban was but a glimmer in his avant-garde parents imaginations.
Bay Area Water Maybe?
"Victims of McCarthyism" schtick..
Dave Horowitz' father refused to go along with the Party that was claiming he was being persecuted for being a Jew, rather that for being a Commie.
---
At least some of the Commies then had more character than "moderate" Democrat Pols of today.
Jesus Christ is the WORD.
He is the Word of God. Heaven and earth shall pass away but My Word (Jesus) shall not pass away.
In the beginning was the Word and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This is from the Gospel of John.
God spoke the world into existence.
The Bible is good reading. Reading WORDS.
Regards.
"A movement not PR'd by smooth, savvy media disinformation experts that the Soviets had in oversupply."
---
Not that CAIR isn't doing it's utmost, with all kinds of help from the ACLU.
...and lack of Armies of Disinformation is made up for by Saudi Dollars to DC, and to the media.
"The celebrations seemed meaningless in light of the July 7, 1970 murder of 17 year old Jonathan Jackson (George Jacksons brother) in the incident that gave rise to the famous arrest and trial of Angela Davis. "
---
I guess he got "murdered" after he carried out his Capital Punishment sentencing of the Judge!
wretchard said...
One of the most durable parables is that of the evil spirit which turns on its conjurer. Marxism was regarded, in its day, as the highest product the Western intellect. One of Franklin Roosevelt's advisers likened it to 'the moral top of the world on which the sun always shines'. The remark reminded me, somehow, of the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark: the caressing spirits of death
///////////////////////
Interestingly, Battlestar Galactica on Friday nights works on just this theme. (In the far far future) the human race has created a group called the Cylons who have evolved and become superior to humans. The entire human race is destroyed but for something less than 50,000 people. And they are constantly hunted. Curiously the humans speak in terms of gods and goddess while the Cylons speak in terms of God. And the Cylon theology is pretty good. The friday night science fiction serial looks almost as if it was a retelling of the exodus story only instead of the hebrews escaping the egyptians into the desert with the promised land beyond--its the egyptians escaping the hebrews into the desert where the promised land beckons.
A helpful story to understanding communism is the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. His brothers sold him into exile. Because of his excellent character and his gift for dream interpretation he suceeds in the house of pharoah. He interprets the
dream of the pharoah to mean that there will be seven years of feast followed by seven years of famine. So the the pharoah puts him charge of his house. Joseph prepares well for the seven year famine during the seven years of feast. The pharoahs graineries are full. When the famine begins however, the people are unprepared. Soon they are buying from the pharoah's warehouse. When the money runs out they sell their animals, then their lands and finally themselves. They become slaves to the pharoah. Joseph is the chief administrator, the second in command of all Egypt. It is good to be chief administrator in a land of slaves. Joseph brings his family from Israel because they too are starving. They are treated well.
So ends Genesis.
In the 1930's communism among NYC's jewish community -- was considered to be not just a kind of secular judaism somewhere to the left of liberal judaism--but also a way to get ahead. Perhaps Joseph was the model. Why? Because under communism the people are slaves to the state. No one owns property. The state owns everything. Theologically, if there is no God--as is the case for communism, then man is the highest power on earth. And at the top of the pecking order-- the God Kings of Egypt would have wept with envy for the sort of power that stalin wielded. Lenin was embalmed by much more up to date methods than the embalmers of old Egypt but they showed a similiar concern for the leaders who were once 'the moral top of the world on which the sun always shines'.
Therefor, for jews in the soviet union a good position to hold in a communist/pharonic system is that of administrator--just like Joseph.
Hitler killed 6 million jews in the late 30's-40's.
A helpful way to understand the McCarthy era in the USA is to understand that it occured less than a decade after WWII and at the same time as the period of the Doctor's plot in the soviet union.
knowledgeable communists in the USA would have known about the build up toward stalin's pogrom. the trial of the rosenbergs would have looked to them like a show trial that stalin put on before he did his purges.
so its quite understandable the fear that gripped the new york jewish community during the rosenburg trials. what if? there are a zillion novels set in the 1950's which chronicle the terrible anxiety that would grip one new york jewish character after another. what if there are Nazis in New Jersey? how about goebbels under the brooklyn bridge. nobody but nobody mentions stalin. all the writers were liberal.
The way the McCarthy period was understood for decades afterwards by the new york/LA jewish community was different from that of the rest of the country. The rest of the country was given the picture by the liberal media of a mccarthy who cast unreasoned and unreasonable suspicions on the innocent. new york/LA jewish community was given to understand by liberal leftists and communists that the left had protected them from an American pogrom. (And therefor american jews owed the left their allegiance.)
It was an amazing piece of Jiu-Jitsu because what the Jewish left did was impute on the American right what they knew to be case of the stalinists.
Needless to say, a pogrom was never in the cards.
Reagan was a teflon president because he understood the Jiu-Jitsu. He worked in hollywood for years and suffered from Hollywood's black listing because of his anti communism.
20 years after his days at HUAC nixon had more visceral enemies than did kerry with the swift boat veterans 30 years after his time in nam.
The fall of the berlin wall ended the glory days of atheism.
American jewish leftists began to lose their mantle of "protector of the jews" in the mid 90's.
After 1995, with the NSA's declassification of the venona cables and russians opening up nkvd/gru/kgb files from the 1940's & 50's it became clear that mccarthy was right.
These days when I hear someone accusing someone else of McCarthyism--what I see is the accuser trying to hide fire with smoke. Especially when we're talking about moslems.
The last time I did a round trip air fare was two weeks ago on vacation to yellowstone. I made a mistake and wore a shirt with a metal button. I'm a swm. They did the usual metal detector test. On the flight back I was pulled out of the line because the computer flagged that I had been double checked on the way out.
I got through but I was inconvenienced and a little embarrassed.
Homeland security is an inconvenience and embarrassement for air travelors and illegal aliens alike.
Doug,
Perhaps Mr. Ignatiev has been reading too much of Edward Said?
Jews, Arabs, Turks, Kurds, Persians, Europeans, Slavs, are all Caucasians. We all belong to the white race.
C4: writes (2)The media did a masterful job. From 1917 to when America and the Soviets squared off in 1946, very few negative stories and cinema depictions of the Communists ran in the West, excepting of course the fascist countries, Catholic media organs, and non-Jewish owned independent newspapers. The sad truth was Jews were Communism's biggest booster and ensured papers they owned like the
i found lot's of back up for his position at the http://www.stormfront.org website... nothing like a white supremists's website about the "jews" to lend crediblity..
at this point, every time that C4 states "the jews" is now suspect for bias...
NOTHING he says about the JEWS should be taken at face value, and when possible, looked up to be dispproved..
BTW,
The Russian sub was raised successfully with all seven sailors alive.
Perversely, Stalin and Hitler both advanced the cause of red fascism by their very awfulness. Today's commies and fascists have the two great--and a half dozen lesser--monsters to point to, whenever their "system" is criticized. "Look," they say, "...we survived these psychopaths who happened to've taken over The Movement on the strength of personality...these tyrants that would've killed The Movement if The Movement didn't have intellectual truth going for it!" And there ya go--another inarguable Big Lie. Try to tell them that their system guarantees these cultic figures will rise to leadership, and you get the "prove it" rejoinder. History always promises them something new just around the corner.
Relax Porky. Cedarfart is one of us. You do realize he's a Mossad agent?
Seven sailors feeling reborn. Three cheers for a display of pure technical ability that just can't be put into words. Not by me, anyhoo. The very idea, flying in tools and techs from the other side of the planet, to cut the sub free in 1000' water and get the guys to the surface during their last hours of oxygen...ahh, great, fellas--just plain great!
PC^KILLA said...
"Doug,
Perhaps Mr. Ignatiev has been reading too much of Edward Said?"
No doubt an admirer, but moronic academic sellout pretty well covers him I think.
---
Poor Larry Summers:
Doomed from the start, not even a liberal ex Clintonite deserves his fate, esp one that arrived with some standards intact.
Then came the idiot Black Rapper, revered by the intelligentsia.
The nerve of Larry asking him to actually DO something academic!
Off to Princeton having brought the wrath of Harvard Faculty down on Larry's head.
Lately Larry proving his evil credentials by being so evil that he gave a strong, professional lifetime "scientist"/feminist MIT professor a case of the vapors.
Didn't know he had to read the likes of Ignatiev until seeing so on W's link.
Quite a site, that!
So now Larry's given the fems 50 million to make things that much worse!
Buddy,
Cynical talk Radio:
The Russians go to China to play war games, and to the west to get rescued!
"Over the next few years, until 1973, the Party maintained and built its agenda, despite the brutal assassination at San Quentin prison in August of 1971 of Party field marshal and author George Jackson."
---
I think he was assassinated trying to escape(!), but cannot swear by it.
Nahncee 3:23 PM,
You said that I said that: Them and Us will never be able to co-exist because we are basically different.
What I said was: there are fundamental and irreconcilable differences among people and among societies
I didn't mean that we couldn't co-exist. We co-existed with the Soviets for many decades. We had a truce with them. The option of open warfare with them, although advocated by some after WWII, was so unpleasant that we co-existed for a long time.
The irreconcilable differences have to do with the primacy of individual rights and the rule of law, as Wretchard stated in a recent post. It is those societies, cultures, religions and countries that subjugate individual rights and impose tyrannies on their people that we have irreconcilable differences with. We have co-existed with them in the past and will again. They recognize that our mere existence is a danger to them and many work to weaken and destroy us. The Soviets were going to "bury us" and said that we'd "sell them the rope with which they'd hang us." Eventually their society came apart at the seams.
WMDs, of course, affect our ability to co-exist with such societies, at least long term. We've come to realize that the tyrannies are the source of terrorism, both intentionally and inadvertently.
I think that he basis of the various tyrannies is different. The Soviets, China, the Islamofascists, NKorea and the rest came to their tyrannical rule in different fashions and I think that some are more deep seated than others, which returns your hierarchy of needs. I think it may be more deep seated in Islamic society than it was in Soviet society.
BTW, does the suicide bomber agree with the hierarchy of needs? Does the man who says "give me liberty or give me death?" "Live free or die?"
"Meanwhile, the US in shrinking its submarine and carrier fleets, and attempting to demilitarize the Mid-West and Northeast"
---
But we're sprinkling Predator Drone Squadrons around like little Pork Kibbles for those all important Borders between No. and So. Dakota, Kansas and Missourri, etc., so what's to worry?
They'll be FORCE MULTIPLIERS if the Kansans take on their Missourri cousins.
64% of Russians Blame UK Authorities for London Blasts.
FSB recommends end to civil liberties in UK.
Excuse for the following post:
"The attraction of exploring Communist archaeology is based in part on the fascination for the grotesque. It is what morbid minds study in the absence of real alien monster artifacts."
---
Any excuse is better than no excuse at all, right?
---
. Man dies after sex with horse .
...no law violated, just the horse.
Female caller from Washinton to Limbaugh said the law is that it's not illegal unless it can be proved that the animal did not enjoy it.
Rush mused about how that could be proved, and decided it could not be if the animal has a cigarette afterwards.
"Unfortunately, these people were very diligent in filming their activities," Sortland said of a viewing task detectives have found unpleasant.
Police were still reviewing the recordings to determine the range of activities, according to the commander.
Statistics would point to the man being a Democrat .
Seattle Identified As No. 3 Election Fraud 'Hot Spot' In America, Says Legislative Fund
Adults Now in Charge .
Hill said the talks stalled after North Korea insisted on receiving a light-water nuclear reactor, part of a U.S. aid package offered in 1994.
Providing such a reactor "is simply not on the table," Hill said. But "perhaps people back in Pyongyang need to hear it directly," he added.
"They began to insist on a light-water reactor and wanted it included in the common document," Hill said. "This parted company with the rest of the delegations."
Hill on Friday challenged the North's insistence on retaining a peaceful nuclear program, pointing to its record of converting a research reactor for weapons use.
Pyongyang says it will not give up such weapons until Washington discards its "hostile policies" toward the North, removes any nuclear threat from the Korean peninsula and normalizes relations with the country's Stalinist government.
Charles!
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123121935674
.
.
Solar project could advance 'green' fuel
The production of nonpolluting hydrogen fuel could be facilitated by innovative solar technology successfully tested on a large scale at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. Scientists say it also promises to expedite the storage and transportation of hydrogen.
The chemical process behind the technology was originally developed at Weizmann on a scale of several kilowatts. It was then scaled up to 300 kilowatts in collaboration with scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, Institut de Science et de Genie des Materiaux et Procedes – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France, and the ScanArc Plasma Technologies AB in Sweden. The project is supported by the European Union's FP5 program.
Hydrogen, the most plentiful element in the universe, is an attractive candidate for becoming a pollution-free fuel of the future. But nearly all hydrogen used today is produced by expensive processes that require combustion of polluting fossil fuels. In addition, it is very difficult and expensive to store and transport the gas. The new solar technology tackles these problems by creating an easily storable intermediate energy source form from metal ore, such as zinc oxide.
With the help of concentrated sunlight, the ore is heated in a solar reactor to about 1,200 C in the presence of wood charcoal. The process splits the ore, releasing oxygen and creating gaseous zinc, which is then condensed to a powder. Zinc powder can later be mixed with water to produce hydrogen for fuel, and zinc oxide, which is recycled back to zinc in the solar plant. In recent experiments, the 300-kilowatt installation produced 45 kilograms of zinc powder from zinc oxide in one hour, exceeding projected goals.
The process generates no pollution, and the resultant zinc can be easily stored and transported and converted to hydrogen on demand. The zinc can also be used directly, for example, in zinc-air batteries, which serve as efficient converters of chemical to electrical energy. Thus, the method offers a way of storing solar energy in chemical form and releasing it as needed.
"After many years of basic research, we are pleased to see the scientific principles developed at the institute validated by technological development," said Prof. Jacob Karni, head of Weizmann's Center for Energy Research.
"The success of our recent experiments brings the approach closer to industrial use," added engineer and project leader Michael Epstein.
The concept of splitting metal ores with the help of sunlight has been under development over the course of several years at the Rehovot institute's Canadian Institute for the Energies and Applied Research, one of the most sophisticated solar research facilities in the world, which has a solar tower, a field of 64 mirrors and unique beam-down optics. Weizmann scientists are currently studying metal ores other than zinc oxide, as well as additional materials that may be used for efficient conversion of sunlight into storable energy.
Chutzpah Defined: I have rights!
Explaining to Italian authorities that he "preferred" not to be extradited to Britain — isn't that special? —
Osman insisted that he was no "terrorist." After all, "We didn't want to kill, just sow terror."
...But idiots are often very useful in illustrating the appeal of fascistic cults.
Intellectuals are too good at covering their real psychological motivations with verbiage.
It turns out that the famously "homegrown" terrorists of the London bombings were much more like John Walker Lindh or even the Patty Hearst types of the 1960s and '70s.
Radical chic may be as a big a part of the story as radical Islam.
We've always understood this was the case to a certain extent. Osama bin Laden's prattling about the Crusades, for instance, merely shows how poisoned Islamism is by Western Marxism and anti-imperialism. Muslims used to brag about winning the Crusades.
.It was only after the West started exporting victimology that Islamic and Arab intellectuals started to whine about how poorly they'd been treated.
To a certain extent, radical Islam in Europe has taken the place of third-world Marxism — hardly a big leap when you think about how many Vietnamese "revolutionaries" were trained in Parisian salons.
It's all about fighting capitalism, American "imperialism," modernism, etc.
Marxism no longer provides a workable model, but the Islamists think sharia might.
At the same time, like fascism and Communism before it, radical Islam provides a sense of purpose and meaning for losers and misfits who blame their misfortunes on "the system" (variously defined as the ruling class, the Jews, the capitalists, Col. Sanders, etc.).
In this sense, Islamism is less about religion than ideology, and less about ideology than it is about alienation and low self-esteem.
This is just one reason why poverty is such a silly explanation for terrorism. Most of the 9/11 attackers, like the London bombers, were squarely middle class, and the leadership of al Qaeda is downright wealthy.
My guess is that most of these losers would be miserable living in the utopia they're fighting for.
And should it ever arrive, they shouldn't bother replying to the knock on their door by yelling, "I have rights!" Their kind of people don't bother knocking.
Jonah Goldberg
Common Cents,
There have been many conceptualizations of god(s) historically among all the different tribes and nations, and for every one there has surely been a non believer. The reason I think atheism can never eliminate a meaningful idea of god is that I believe the idea emerged at the origin of human language and if this is correct, the understanding of language (and I assume all human languages share in a common origin) or human consciousness will always depend on it. We understand all institutions this way (and language is our first institution). For example, as long as there is a USA, people will have to understand their nation and themselves by re-learning the stories of the nation’s founding, or accept being confused. Similarly, as long as there is language, people will have to understand themselves by asking how it came into being. That is what religion has, traditionally, provided for.
As for children raised by wolves. I would not say they can have symbolic language, or theological thoughts, or any notion of existence. These are things we can only learn by being part of the human community and could never learn if our socialization were solely by wolves. Biologically we have the brains for language, but we still need the cultural infrastructure to make it work.
Anybuddee,
you are right that my arguments have an agnostic flavor. That’s what I am. But I don’t think that my uncertainty on the ultimate questions makes me less capable of putting faith in what we’re doing in this world, perhaps quite the opposite. (When you ask “so what”, this is the answer: my faith has been strengthened by these ideas, which need not impress you, as long as they can serve as an improvement for some of those who have suffered faithlessness.) Furthermore, to the extent I pray and have some conception of the divine it is probably more in line with Jewish thinking about waiting for the unfigurable Messiah than the Christian, not that I am entirely pure bred in this respect, for better and worse.
Charles!
Did you follow the action in the Zinc futures? :P
epistemology...
interesting point...
you 1st show us uncle joe's final final solution, based on hitler's final solution
then you show us stalin's 5 day work week idea..
(then the story of the fool's gold)
then the idea of current death cults...
again, i am prejudiced.
As I see it....
Kill the jews by hitler
Kill the jews by stalin
Kill the Jewish idea of shabbat...
new issue, kill the jew by islam...
I'd say I see the truth clearly, as one on the pointy side of the epistemology/kant/rambam pov..
the knowledge of death camps attempted to be used and used... is a whole lot realer than the "beliefs" of the murderers..
What is it about worldliness, sloth, aggression, repression, ignorance, amnesia, etc, that's wrong?
Who are we to judge?
When man began to consider the larger world, pareodotalism forced him to make patterns of the apparent chaos, and he projected from his own experience. Thus superstition and religion arose; this explains why most early deities were little more than an extrapolation of a tribal patriarch.
-this explaination has the appeal of reference to some empirical observations about how the mind works, but with respect, it doesn't explain much.
What does it mean "to consider the larger world"? None of our ape cousins show any more than an inkling of anything like religion or superstition and yet they survive perfectly well in this world as long as we do not destroy their habitat. They are obviously able to see patterns in the world conducive to their survival. But this survival need not entail their use of religion or symbolic consciousness. Why?
I would suggest to your friend that he will create the great AI machine when he can make the machine fearful of its own mortality at the hands of its fellow intelligent beings. In other words, I think religion emerged as a survival tool that served the internal needs of a community in conflict, a protohuman community that could no longer be organized by an animal pecking order. To solve some crisis, they created for the first time a sacred center around which they now worshipped (instead of relating one-on-one, semi-privately, in pecking order style) as a means of deferring or regulating their collective violence. This sacred center where they placed both an untouchable (at least for a time) appetitive object, and performed the sign that gave meaning to this object as sacred, or untouchable, i.e. beyond their worldly conflict, created a paradoxical difference between their perception of things and the signs with which they now represented things. Their minds became occupied with this difference as attention oscillated between symbol and thing. This was the basis of our esthetic consciousness and powers as our minds now began to evolve with selection for linguistic competence.
I'm not sure what you mean by early deities, but the most primitive peoples seem to worship supernatural forces that they model on natural forces or animals (e.g. there are relatively few human figures in the cave paintings that are our earliest evidence of art/religion). They so figure supernatural forces because they don't have any inkling of how the supernatural emerges from their humanity, if indeed it did in the first instance. And when they do begin to have Gods with what become known as "human" traits, it is the humans who model themselves on their idea of the Gods, rather than vice versa.
This is a very counterintuitive point that is difficult to grasp. But the profane world is an erosion or forgetting of the sacred that is primary in human history and consciousness. In other words, what is now human was first imagined as divine, a divinity that language presupposes but cannot locate. When the first sacred sign emerged, it could not have been a representation of a pre-existing identity or consciousness, because the latter is only possible once the sign has emerged. This is why social contract theories of human origins don't work: they depend on ascribing human reason to those who make the contract to become human. But with what human reason could the not-yet-humans have contracted to become human?
Humanity either creates itself, or it is created, out of a divinity that is first posited without reference to the protohuman grouping that will model itself on this creation. The first sign represents the sacred center, not the desiring, human, periphery.
Update on incomplete Darwin Award Questionnaire:
Question:
"What was he thinking?"
Disposition:
Can't Ask, Can't Tell.
Trangbang:
Two Birds, etc:
Could save the dough on that hollowpoint and finish filling out that questionnaire:
Just be sure not to wait too long to ask the question.
Jesus claims to be God. John, Paul and the author of Hebrews ascribe to Him the work of creation. He says it's possible to know Him and that this is the essence of eternal life. But it starts with a choice of faith that accepts what He says about Himself (however fantastic) is true. Then He responds to that faith with assurance. Personal proofs.
It was my understanding, never exactly claimed that
but anybudee
arn't we all god's son? or daughter
All the New Testament was written second hand, and heavily edited and translated.
It is not autobiographical, the Koran is.
Anybudee said...
Pork, You're kidding right. You're doing the "if you can't bedazzle 'em... baffle 'em.." right?
no...
John 10:36 - "Why do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son?' "
we are all g-d's kids, that aint the same as saying I AM GOD
.....John 8:58 - "I tell you the truth," Jesus said, "before Abraham was born, I AM" (and yes, He used the tetragrammaton. Only one of several times)
are we not all with g-d before we are born?
..John 1:3 - Through Him, all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.
dont understand that one..
Colossians 1:16 (Paul)- For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth. (The whole passage, v.13 thru 20 is about Jesus)
this is Paul speaking, but not jesus...?
Hebrews 1:2 - but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe.
again, I am just as much g-d's son as jesus... dont mean i am g-d
Sorry, i am not convinced that "jesus" said I am G-d
If he did, well, let's say i'd say, hey cousin, get a grip... Yeah your a Jew, and Your mother thinks your perfect, but I'm your cousin, and trust me, you aint g-d or perfect....
d.h.
I wouldn't disagree with that assessment. I do not think allah dictated the book to Mohammed, as is the claim. The 'unedited' word of allah so to speak. Many people, about a billion I'm told, do believe that the Koran is the literal 'word of allah.
I think it is the word of Mohammed, by Mohammed and for Mohammed.
By the same token I've never believed that Joseph Smith 'wrote' the Book of Mormon.
Pork I don't get you. What in the world were you taught?
dallas & ohio
...I'm a midwesterner, my exposture to Jews was limited to the clothier who my dad played golf with and my get-high buddy from college (his dad was a biochem prof) {not mine tho, he'd a flunked me, 'cause I turned his kid on}
sorry...
...T don't know what you were taught. But your lack of knowledge about orthodox christianity baffles me, in that serious christians are about the best friends Jews and Israel have in this world. Serious followers of Jesus love Jews even though Jews appear to hate them. Not logical is it. Smells like Him tho, doesn't it?
I dont hate people who have different belief, i like all ethcial people inspite of the childish beliefs, including my own...
Your points: He received worship. He forgave sins. He healed. He gave out eternal salvation.
3 out of 4 aint bad... many receive worship, many forgive, and even more heal, as for eternal savation, you already had it with the noahite 7...
...This guy either is God, or He's a liar or He's nuts. (unless you know of some other option)
well to proclaim that the "g-d" of the Israel can be a man is pagan and not monothiesm, nor is it in line with historic Jewish teaching at that time, to confusion with orthodox christianity it wants jesus to be BOTH the promised jewish messiah and G-d almightly... from the original POV that is not possible.
.....are we all with God...
I don't know.
all humans contain a spark of holiness...
don't get that one...
the context is John talking about Jesus
ok, again, it aint jesus speaking, it's john
Is this Paul speaking...
yes, letter of Paul to the Colossians
again, not jesus speaking...
I am just as much God's son as Jesus...
If you truly understood what you just said, we wouldn't be disagreeing. That's the WHOLE point of Jesus. Adam was the original son of God. Family.
I agree, all people are g-d's kids, not just Jesus and noone is better in the eyes of g-d, not even jesus
last points-
refer to above Jesus certainly spoke, taught and acted like God. Whether He was or not, He leaves to you personally.
no to me he spoke and acted like a jew from 2000 yrs ago pissed off at the romans and the temple cult..
sorry, what christians want to believe is not necessarily what jesus himself taught or spoke, that is why many modern christians are having problems with the messiah/god thing...
which is it?
cause he couldn't be both and according to the rules of the monothiesm...
man is man..
but from a jewish POV, again, if your "beliefs" make you a good person, then we can be happy..
ethical actions over faith....
Anybudee said...Nooooooo,
You're missing THE point. This is not a debate. There are no judges. There will be no badges. This is real life.
Yep, real life...
Anybudee said... Jesus claims to be the Jewish Messiah. YOUR Messiah.
Many "claimed" to be the promised jewish messiah, however none have been it..
if so, the lion wuold have laid with the lamb, the sword would have turned into plowshares...
it really is for the jewish people (all) to decide, not the gentile who is our messiah...
Anybudee said...He claims to be God - the Jehovah of the Torah. He said in John 8:24 "If you do not believe that I am He, (at this point, He was wrangling with the Pharisees about whether He was the Messiah) you will die in your sins."
For man to be g-d is a sin.. (sin to use your words)
Anybudee said...I didn't make this stuff up. I COULDN'T make this stuff up. But He said it. It either is true or it's not. And you either accept it or reject it.
I'll reject that my cousin is the G-d of israel, i can understand people's confusion after all he was jewish... but sorry, for man to claim he was/is the g-d of israel smacks of paganism
if you want to know WHY he aint at the MINIMUM the Jewish messiah let me know... it's easy
Anybudee said...
It is necessary to preach the gospel to the Jews first, because as the Dear knows, He put your ancestors thru hell getting His salvation into the Earth. That's one reason why followers of Jesus love Jews, even tho the Jews hate them. Paul speaks of this in the book of Acts.
How many times and for how many years must we be preached to?
Please dont tell me who I hate cause paul tells you so, paul was a schmuck. my motto..
I respect all ethical people inspite of the stupid, childish beliefs, including my own.
Anybudee said.. I have tried to present the gospel of Jesus Christ as plainly and succinctly as I could. I hope I have not misrepesented Jesus' message to you. If you have any friends who are evangelicals, you could get a second opinion on any point I have made. I sincerely just want to see you There.
Not to worry, I understand and totally reject and corporeal nature of the G-d of Israel as defined by gentiles. The G=d of Israel has not form or shape, nor can die, nor can split off into sons or holy ghosts...
Funny thing, again, you get your panties in a wad about messiah/g-d belief and have good ethical behavior (i hope) whereas the islamists actually do have a very pure for of monothiesm and yet they murder..
which leads me back to my other motto on life...
"dont be a schmuck"
PC^KILLA said...
yes I saw that piece on weitzman institute the other day. there's a couple different angles of attack. this is one of them. today's slashdot.org has a piece which also lists the ways scientists are attacking the problem.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/05/07/25/1848202.shtml?tid=232
I don't think zinc prices are driven by hydrogen speculation but rather like oil--zince prices are driven by rising demand and low supply.
Here's a pretty good article and graph on the subject.
http://www.playstocks.net/Jan-mmi.htm
check out this tool which measures a meme over time.
http://www.realmeme.com/Main/miner.jsp
bloomie,
Wretch had a post that kind of touched on that, or our discussion got around to something similar, but I don't recall the details right now.
Anybuddee, i read your 4:01 just before a visit with my girlfriend who had some issues to work through. I decided to follow your advice and just drop the pride and ego and put faith into action in the simple desire to interact and relate. It seems to have worked. Thanks.
Charles and Killa,
. Shortages Stifle a Boom Time for the Solar Industry
Bloomie,
Not identical, but you might be interested:
. Fair and Balanced
The interest for me is the current and ever increasing power of near instantaneous communication, allowing blogstorms such as Rathergate.
I humbly call it
"The Communal Mind."
Two points.
The most important thing we can ever learn is that we don't know. Not what we don't know, but that we don't know it. Until I know I don't know, I can't learn what I need to learn to know what i don't know.
Judas was quite sure he knew that Jesus was the Messiah. He was quite sure that he (Judas) knew the Messiah was supposed to wipe out those pesky Romans. From this came the worst act of betrayal ever.
The more certain I am, the harder it is for me to find the truth. Geologists of the 50's were sure continents didn't move. So sure, they brushed aside any evidence that they did. They were blind to the truth.
"Global warming is coming, and it will be bad", seems an article of faith to many. It may be coming, but there is no proof it will be bad. Again, the danger of certainty.
Your best help may come from your enemy, if he shows you where you are wrong.
On the subject of God:
There seems to be a place in the brain designed to create religious experiences. While a simple answer is that our brain causes all experiences, and so this "proves" gods are all in our minds, what if this spot is where we do hear God?
What if it truly is possible to hear God?
How do we know It's God we hear?
Poet,
My cat is currently madly chasing her own tail, occasionally even growling at it.
(or her tail is "telling her" to quit biting it)
Luckily, exalted entity that I am, my behavior has always been totally different.
...and I cannot tell a lie.
One of the problems with the Islamic religion is that it can easily be manipulated. Thus, any so called "cleric" can incite hate and violence. It's a circular chain of thinking which only leads to hate and despair.
It starts with kuffar (unbelievers) who are to be converted or destroyed and gets worse. Next is the use of 'taqiya' or lies to deceive the kuffar (unbelievers). Then comes the pillaging of the kuffar for economic gain. Then, the final solution - destruction of all kuffar. When that fails despair sets in. Or, as Sir Winston Churchill succinctly put it: The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world... Let's take a look at a modern example.
[Sunday Times On Line]:
...Sunday Times reporter spent two months as a recruit inside the Saviour Sect to reveal for the first time how the extremist group promotes hatred of "non-believers" and encourages its followers to commit acts of violence including suicide bombings... The reporter witnessed one of the sect's leading figures, Sheikh Omar Brooks, telling a young audience, including children, that it was the duty of Muslims to be terrorists and boasting, just days before the July 7 attacks, that he wanted to die as a suicide bomber... Last week Omar Brooks stirred controversy with televised comments, but they were carefully chosen to avoid appearing to incite violence. On Saturday, July 2 he had been more forthright...
[Terror as a common tool]
Speaking to a group of teenagers and families, he declared it was imperative for Muslims to "instill terror into the hearts of the kuffar" and added: "I am a terrorist. As a Muslim of course I am a terrorist." The 30-year-old [Sheikh Omar] said he did not want to go to Allah while sleeping in his bed "like an old woman". Instead: "I want to be blown into pieces with my hands in one place and my feet in another." {note that neither Sheikh Omar or any of his children have self-explode for Allah but, he encourages others to that act}
...[A Times] reporter became a member of the sect three weeks before the July 7 bombings. From the start he was taught that it was his duty to destroy the kuffar {the standard hate training}. Moderate Muslims who did not believe in the overthrow of the British government and its replacement by an Islamic state were held in equal disdain {note, the ease with which groups who don't follow hard-line Islamofascists are labeled enemies and must be punished}. Within days of joining, he witnessed seven Saviour Sect members beating up a member of the moderate Young Muslim Organisation in an East End street because they believed he had insulted their version of Islam {Joe Stalin would be proud}.
...After the [7/7] attacks that claimed 52 lives, another key figure, Zachariah, justified them by saying that the victims were not "innocent" people because they did not abide by strict Islamic laws {back to the old kill the kuffar line}. In the immediate aftermath [of the 7/7 attacks] the sect's leader, Omar Bakri Mohammed, said: "For the past 48 hours I'm very happy." Two weeks later he referred to the bombers as the "fantastic four".
[Taqiya or lies being used]
...In public interviews Bakri condemned the killing of all innocent civilians. Later when he addressed his own followers he explained that he had in fact been referring only to Muslims as only they were innocent: "Yes I condemn killing any innocent people, but not any kuffar." Yesterday Bakri said he had no connections to a group in east London but said that he did attend prayers and preach to up to 15 people. He denied using the words "fantastic four"
[Economic warfare]:
...They are so opposed to the British state that they see it as their duty to make no economic contribution to the nation. One member warned our undercover reporter against getting a job because it would be contributing to the kuffar (non-Muslim) system. ...Instead, the young follower, Nasser, who receives £44 job seekers' allowance a week, said it was permissible to "live off benefits", just as the prophet Mohammed had lived off the state while attacking it at the same time.... paying car insurance was seen as supporting the system. "All the (Saviour Sect) brothers drive without insurance," he said...
See: Inside the sect that loves terror
hat tip to Lfg
[Taqiya explained]
See: Taqiya [lies] explained
As can be concluded, the Muslim religion can be easily manipulated. It's a slippery slope - which is quite steep. The religion starts off with an 'Us verses Them' attitude - the kuffar must be converted or killed - and there are no "civilians" in the kuffar land - they all must die. Next, it perfectly proper to lie to the kuffar - even when your in the kuffar's country. This is total disreguard for the law.
It's also perfectly permissable to plunder the kuffar's economic system - he is the enemy you know! This part is particularly attractive to lazy shiftless people including criminals (akin to the "Money for nothing and your chicks for free" refrain).
It's OK to defraud credit card companies because they charge interest - the charging of interest if not allowed by Islamic law (just fees and maybe a cut of the profits). So a true believer should not pay his credit card.
Now, drinking of alcohol is somewhat bad - but the ingestion of the drug Khat is Good (when it is fresh Khat is 50% as potent as methamphetamine). Well it's good when you are fighting the kuffar but, some believers frowned upon drug use. Which leads to the question of who is a true "believer" and who is not.
Is it your Muslin neighbor who has an occasion drink? Is it your Muslim coworker who is "supporting the economic system of the kuffar?" Further, is it his cat - it eats meat and must be kuffar. If so should not he or the cat be killed? Is every one that is not in your 'click' kufar? Is everyone except OBL kuffar?
My point is the "Religion of Peace" can easily be twisted to justify everything from theft to mass murder. And, unfortunately, it has in many instances. But, retaliation follows. This retaliation can be quite harsh.
[British getting a stiff backbone]:
FIVE hundred radical Muslim extremists are to be deported by the [UK] government, the News of the World can reveal.
Immigration officials have already been given a list of names —compiled by MI5—and told to begin proceedings. The first could be sent back to their homeland over the next two weeks... Among the first to be deported will be a DOZEN radical clerics. But hundreds of other foreign extremists, including some Islamic bookshop owners, writers, teachers and website operators will also go... Secretary Charles Clarke will begin the process when he returns from holiday this week. He will issue deportation orders and the people will be forcibly booted out.
See: FIVE hundred radical Muslim extremists are to be deported
Thanks for another great post ledger.
That's chilling stuff George M Weinert. One wonders just how far the tentacles of Jihad have spread in American and other countries like UK and Australia. One would assume with $85 billion backing al Qaeda that many people and even web posters would be marked as targets. Remember Steven Vincent and his murder. I am surprised that CJ of LGF has not been a target - or even Wretchard.
(and, thanks Doug I try to do my part)
The simple answer is, they weren't the best minds of the West. It is very much like the constantly repeated phrase "but they meant well". No, they didn't. They meant to think well of themselves. That, they accomplished.
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