In You More Than Yourself

This article is a good first step in outlining the social/philosophical parameters around internetworked discourse.  What is missing is an analysis of how folks actually use the medium.  The article makes presumptions about “the typical Web surfer” based on popular impressions, supposed fads, and “cyberspace gaming.” I suspect that “sitting alone in front of a PC screen . . . with no direct window onto reality, encountering only virtual simulacra” is not an accurate description of the average contemporary netizen, who clearly must interact with the “real world” in order to generate the not-insignificant economic resources required to participate in the web community.  What this means is that the web, for an individual, is just one sphere for social discourse, and that the other spheres (family, work, school, church, etc) necessarily intersect and interact with it, providing a check on some of the excesses the author describes and allowing us to make assumptions about our conversation partners that probably contain at least some degree of accuracy.

Decaffeinated coffee is real coffee.

I have a mixed reaction to this article.  On the one hand, I definitely believe that the Internet relationship is one more step Americans are taking in distancing ourselves from everyone, with the possible exception of the One True Life-Partner whom we are encouraged to invest our entire emotional selves into.  Did you know that the *dictionary definition* of friendship in 1755 was “the highest form of intimacy”?  Or that today’s American Heritage Dictionary, in its word history for the word friend, says “a friend is a lover, literally” because it was derived from a form of an Old English verb for “to love”?  (Which doesn’t mean they had sex, and also doesn’t conclusively prove they DIDN’T, for those who just HAVE to ask.) Compare that with the, say, 1980’s or 1990’s American version of friendship where spending too much time together, especially after marriage, or being affectionate or emotional is a sign of either an affair or homosexuality, depending on your gender.  And the Internet just takes that one step further, your “friends” are whoever happens to sign up on your MySpace page, even if you’ve never met, and quantity of “friends” has finally won out over devotion to friends as the mark of character. 

I’m already being pointed to MySpace pages by real-life friends who no longer have “time” for even a lunch every 3 months or something, rather than them either finding the time or finding the honesty to say they don’t like me any more.  At some point, I suppose, wanting to have actual lunch in person will be considered “needy,” just like wanting to be affectionate or emotional in a friendship was considered normal in 1755 but “clingy” today.

On the flipside, I think the article is too glib about blaming technology for the ways we distance ourselves from each other.  As the history of friendship shows, we were quite capable of finding ways to push each other away using “false faces” before the Internet.  (To avoid people thinking I worship the Good Old Days: While same-sex friendship among straights was probably more open-hearted in the past, opposite-sex friendship was practically forbidden and marriage was chilly due to the rampant sexism.  So each era has its curse, I guess.) Can people pretend to be someone they’re not on the Internet?  Sure, but if you think they can’t do the same thing in real life, you haven’t been out much lately.  Hell, if, by some divine intervention, people moved from being open about their real selves under anonymous handles online to being that way in real life, and accepting that none of us are as “normal” as we claim to be, I’d have to say that would be one point for the Internet. 

DW

Beyond Marxism

Marxists and other critically disposed thinkers like to point out that the supposed �equality� in cyberspace is deceiving. It ignores all the complex material dispositions (my wealth, my social position, my power or its lack, etc.). 

As Zizek (and other critically disposed thinkers) are wont to do, they cast everything in the Internet in terms of class conflict (wealth, social position, power/lack thereof), and find the Internet wanting. Boo hoo hoo. So sad.  (Sniff.) Maybe we ought to start a revolution or something. 

Marxism is a dead philosophy walking, done in by its faulty precepts, inefficiency, and corruption, a corruption inherent in the new classes created by socialism, the nomenclatura of the Soviets, and the elite liberals of the West, who are neither elite nor liberal, except as legends in their own minds.  Not to mention the killing and exile of everyone who excelled in the Marxist dictatorships, except for the nomenclatura, of course.

Consider the sub-title of this article:

The revolutionary potential of the Internet is far from self-evident

Well, yes, for Marxists, that is undoubtedly true, because the true believer Marxists can�t figure out how to force the reality of the Internet into their faulty class precepts. 

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Internet Revolution is going full blast, creating major wealth-enhancing breakthroughs in science, production, productivity, logistics, medicine, communications, and other areas.  Instead of class conflict, the central dynamic of free market democracy is entrepreneurial competition.  Bill Gates was not a member of the landed gentry before he became the world�s richest man and began giving his assets away.

The capitalist problem of distributing created wealth is a far different and easier than the socialist problem of wealth destruction.  Yet Zizek continues to dither with an irrelevant problem with no answer.  Boo hoo hoo. So sad.  (Sniff.)

Is this guy serious?  “The solipsism of their own stupid enjoyment.”??? A frog clutching a beer bottle? Come on. 
Anyway, Capitalists still have to learn from Marxists and see their own problems instead of declaring complete victory and granting holy status to their own imperfect economic system.

Scorpy,

You really are a frog embracing a bottle of beer.  A one person masturbate-a-thon.

“The capitalist problem of distributing created wealth is a far different and easier...”

Yeah, it is so much easier to say ‘fuck the poor’ and pretend they just don’t exist.  Of course Bill Gates has earned every cent he’s accumulated for writing a few of lines of code, while an agriculture worker who has a broken body after forty years of back-breaking labor at minimum wage is deserving of nothing and should just shuffle off to die.

No problem with that, is there Scorpy?

Slavoj Z<caron>iz<caron>ek, a philosopher and psychoanalyst,

OK, analyze this…

From his text:

�...my partners who I communicate with in cyberspace: I can never be sure who they are.�

�...cyberspace�s direct democracy...�

Not knowing who they are, you are willing to claim them as partners. Hmmmm?

Direct democracy? We could take a vote and eliminate � crime.  Right?

Also poverty � just vote to divide everything into equal shares. 

Pass an international rule that everyone MUST be nice.

That should be interesting. Efficient, I must admit, but how enforced? By whom?

Yeah, I realize this is an extreme and unfair interpretation of Z<caron>iz<caron>ek�s theme, but remember �(He)can never be sure who they (his partners) are.�

He is expressing the kind of naive faith in new tech so widely accepted.
So many people seem to be in a mutual �now-I-KNOW-a-thon� due to the ease of �communicating� with anonymous audiences and receiving their �truth� from equally anonymous sources.

Thomas Friedman mirrors this thinking in his latest book, �The World is Flat.�
His opinion of about the Wikipedia benefits �

A. �...every single person free access to the sum of all human knowledge.�

B. �A collaborative encyclopedia sounds like a crazy idea, but it naturally controls itself.�

Perhaps the real first tech bubble to pop was the idea that Y2K was to be a global Armageddon. Or have our democratic collective minds already forgotten?

Could we be getting a replay with global warming? Ethanol? Globalization? Terrorism?

Zižek

The HTML code is:

& # 3 8 2 ;

alltogether,

partner.

Loony Booty -“

Why, I declare!  I do think you are a “critically disposed thinker”!  Meaning you can’t think worth shit.

... agriculture worker who has a broken body after forty years of back-breaking labor at minimum wage is deserving of nothing and should just shuffle off to die. 

We are all going to shuffle off to die, if you have not yet noticed. 

You have bought into selected parts of the Marxist “class conflict (wealth, social position, power/lack thereof)” philosophy, while ignoring the wealth and social benefits created by democratic, rule-of-law, free-market capitalism.  Agricultural work has always been hard, and usually doesn’t pay well.  Only industrialized agriculture sometimes has a decent rate of return, and that is subject to the markets. 

Virtually the only agricultural workers that fit your “back-breaking labor at minimum wage” profile are illegal immigrants, and even that description reeks of socialist ideology rather than actual fact.  So, why does one-tenth of the population of Mexico come illegally to the USA to engage in “back-breaking” labor?  Because the USA is where the wealth is, and the illegals can get a piece of the action by breaking the law.  A significant part of the wealth theses illegals seek is created by Bill Gates and other American entrepreneurs.  There is a superior wealth producing culture at work in the USA, more so in Red States than in Blue States, and people who earn their money, including farm laborers, definitely do not want you fucking with a good thing.  Otherwise they would be out starting a revolution, or something, instead of being hard at work. 

Why don’t Mexico and Guatemala and Cuba and Venezuela produce wealth for their people to enjoy?  Why are there no Mexican and Guatemalan and Cuban and Venezuelan entrepreneurs creating wealth?  Actually there are, but most of them are in Miami and Houston and Los Angeles. 

To the degree these countries follow socialist policies, they destroy wealth and creativity, for no other reason that I can see except that they have been led by real “one person masturbate-a-thon” socialist dictatorships, particularly Cuba and Venezuela.  Mexico is working its way out of oligarchic incompetency, but Cuba is the most impoverished nation in Latin America, and it will soon be joined by Venezuela at the bottom of the pile.  We have previously discussed the strong beneficial results of free-market democracy in Chile, the strongest, most free nation in Latin America.  Before Allende, Chile was rated as the least free nation in the world, and Allende made Chile much worse by an order of magnitude.  So Chile has come a long way in the last thirty years or so.  So, for that matter, has China, since it started limited free-market reforms.

But you are bogged down in your silly little socialist wet dreams, and you understand none of this.  What do you want me to do about it?

It sure is convenient that you can point out Cuba as an example of socialism not working since Cuba is embargoed by the dominant trade hegemon of the Western hemisphere, not to mention the rest of the world.  And yet Cuba still has better health care then the United States.  The “superior wealth building culture” that you are talking about is a pathetic lie to cover up the real reasons why some people in the United States are so rich while others raise their children on minimum wage with no benefits.  You sound like random Fox News soundbites.

Scorpy,

I’ve worked in the ag sector in this country all my life.  You don’t know what your talking about.

Venezuela is a dictatorship only in your fevered and fetid imagination. There are entrpreneurs in Venezuela.  Venezuela has the largest private sector economic growth in the hermisphere for the last three years.  Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Americas and it is not the result of socialism.  Followed by Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, all due to the tender mercies of US intervention and also without the burden of socialist government.  Haiti was at one time the richest island in the Carribean, but it was stolen and destroyed by capitalist and imperialist depredations.  Chile had 150 years of democratic rule until Pinochet.  Mexico is working it’s way out of oligarchic incompetency?  I’m surprized by that statement.  Are you a closet supporter of Obrador?

If there is such a superior wealth producing culture in the ‘red’ states, why are the weathiest states Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusets, Maryland and New York?  These are the top 10 states by median personal income:

# Connecticut – $43,173
# New Jersey – $40,427
# Massachusetts – $39,815
# Maryland – $37,331
# New York – $36,574
# New Hampshire – $34,702
# Minnesota – $34,443
# Colorado – $34,283
# California – $33,749
# Illinois—&33;,690

Your definition of freedom seems to be the freedom of a small percentage of the population to own the vast majority of capital property.

“ The United States has one of the widest rich-poor gap of any high-income nation today, and that gap continues to grow. In recent times, some prominent economists including Alan Greenspan have warned that the widening rich-poor gap in the U.S. population is a problem that could undermine and destabilize the country’s economy and standard of living.”

The U.S. ranks 16th out of the 18 highest developed nations in reducing poverty.  In fact, the US is going in the opposite direction.  Poverty is increasing.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

I don’t expect you to do anything but continue to jack-off to your fantasy of your own superiority.  You have proven yourself to be morally stunted and intellectually dishonest.  Add to that your boundless solipsistic narcissism and I don’t see there is much else that you can do.

BROOKLYN �

You are as gullible as a goose. 

Anyone who would accept Cuban socialist propaganda at face value, on medical care or any other subject, is a fool. 

When you Google �Cuba medical care�, over half of the first fifty entries contain detailed, and often graphic, criticisms of Cuban medical services.  Specific complaints include:

> There is a two-tiered medical system, a good one for communist party officials and �rich� foreigners, and a much poorer sytem for the Cuban people.

> The highly-touted low infant mortality rate in Cuba is the direct product of the government policy of aborting high risk and suspect pregnancies.  The Cuban abortion rate is one of the highest in the world, and the cohort of young Cubans is one of the lowest in the world, meaning that the Cuban population will fall precipitously in the coming years. 

> Cuba says that it has a very low rate of HIV, but the actual numbers are a state secret.

> Doctors are so poorly paid and medical service is so bad that there is an active black market in medical care and medical supplies and equipment. 

> Hospitals and clinics available to the Cuban people are often in abysmal state, lacking modern equipment, and suffering from filthy conditions.  The blood-soaked mattresses, dead cockroaches, and piled up filth shown in some of the photos are enough to gag a maggot. 

http://therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

I defy you to name a country besides the USA that embargoes trade with Cuba.  There is virtually nothing in the world that is not available to Cuba, but everyone demands cash because the Cuban socialist economy is so poorly managed.  Blaming the USA is an excuse for socialist failures.

Think for yourself and stop quoting propaganda websites.

Scorpy,

Anyone who believes any propaganda from the Miami Mafia is the biggest fool, evah.  Cuba has not garnered its world wide medical reputation on the basis of propaganda, but by its real accomplishments. 

Cuba can send over 28,000 health professionals to volunteer in developing countries yet still maintain the highest ratio of doctors per capita in the world. 

The fastest growing and largest grossing export in the Cuban economy is medical products and pharmaceuticals in spite of the US embargo and Torricelli Bill trade punishments on countries that provide Cuba with precursor chemicals.  To blame Cuba for the consequences of the embargo is tantamount to the bully who grabs the arm of his victim and while slapping him in the face with his own hand asks, “Why do you keep hitting yourself?”

You are so wrong you’re not even on the page.  You are an outlier anomaly of right-wing wrongness that reinforces itself against its ongoing objective self-annihilation and diminishment by engaging in a circle jerk of narcissistic self-congratulatory mutual masturbation. The fact that you and your ilk have risen to an inconsequential momentary instance of world domination by murder, theft and intimidation does nothing to diminish the poverty of your spirit.

Anyone with an interest in Cuba’s medical system would be well served by studying this RESOURCE.

MEDICC is a medical publication by US medical professionals working in Cuba and with Cuban medical missions around the world.  It is full of useful and informative content free of the norm of political propaganda with which we as US citizens are constantly inundated by the corporate press.

LB, thanks for refuting Scorp’s venomous lies. If bullshit were music, Scorpy Doobie would be the entire Berlin Philharmonic.  Scorp however is a robot programmed by Republican Lie Central.  Cuba has the best educational system and the highest literacy rate in Latin America. Cuba has a better medical system than here and lower infant mortality, Cuba does not have beggars en masse on the street, unlike the USA. The US embargo had taken a devastating toll when Cuba has to go to Japan to buy buses instead of the much closer US. What a peabrain like Scorpy Doobie overlooks that Cuba has to go thousands of miles away to Europe and Japan to get products they should be to get at a much lower cost here. “The RealCuba” is a lying Far Right propaganda lie factory run by the fascist gusanos in Miami. BTW, Scorpy Doobie, you’re home state of Ohio is now a BLUE state. Did you bother to look at the 11/06 election results ? Scorpy Doobie, you are full of more shit than the Christmas Goose. Even you’re fellow rightists like WTH have had it with you. Only “Wolf” defends you, pathetic.  Go, Red Guards !

Scorp,

For some reason I cannot enter the discussion at “lethal” anymore, so here is my reply to your last.
------------------------------

Scorp,

Don�t know Krugman�s view. Maybe I should check it out.

Following the consensus can only lead to mediocrity. Analysts are more concerned with not being wrong than with being right, about being a part of the herd. That way if there is a catastrophe they can say, �Who could have known?�

The way to make money is to avoid consensus, sometimes, even do the exact opposite.
------------------

�You did not whine when over 90% of the farming jobs left, so why are you whining now?� All those farming jobs went to better paying, more productive manufacturing jobs.�

I ‘m old, but not THAT old.

I guess you choose to ignore the time frame for each and the lower quality of most jobs now.

�Now the manufacturing jobs are going to better paying, more productive technical, medical, and financial jobs.�

Machinists used to earn $40/hour � not many new ones come close for blue collar people. As indicated…

Can you picture 50 year-old former lathe operators in technical, medical, and financial jobs? It just doesn�t happen.

�Ships, trains, and trucks come to America full and go back mostly empty.� Cargo flights go full from America, and come back mostly empty.�

�The value of what we are manufacturing now is greater than ever before, with fewer people.�

The only accurate part is more production with �fewer people� working.
The empty containers are being made into houses in California. On the east coast they are becoming a storage issue. What goes out by air? Software. What comes in by ship? Cars, furniture, appliances, clothes � cheaper?

Yes.

OK, it takes fewer Americans to produce software and many more people to make the imported goods. What are we going to do with all our extra people � send them to China and India?
----------------------------

�The USA goes to some effort to produce the most accurate, most descriptive numbers that can be produced that give a complete picture of our demographic, census, and economic status.�

Oh, boy!  I�ll give you this much � you do have faith!

My oldest son has a degree in statistics. For many years he worked for a consumer research company. His job was to improve data quality.  When you are selling a service you give the customer the best or he will go somewhere else.

As for government numbers…

� All politicians have a stake in looking good, the agency�s primary goal is to do just that.

� When you are at the top of the agency you provide what the government wants.

� When you work in a bureaucracy you first goal is to protect your job. To do that you make your boss look good and/or just give him what he wants.

Alan Greenspan is a great example of a master bureaucrat. (Read �Maestro� by Bob Woodward) When Alan was disturbed by a low productivity number he didn’t say to his assistants, �Find out why this is so. Didn�t say find out the truth. He said, �This can�t be. Go back and see what you can find.� Guess what he found? Was Alan happy? You betcha!

Ever been in the military? The right way, the wrong way and the Army way. Our stats are concocted the �government way.� �Yes, Sir. No excuse, Sir.�

�One of my current favorite interpreters is Steve Conover at optimist123.com.�

You must love Larry Kudlow.
---------------

I�ve read a lot of Milton Friedman�s economic philosophy and am in general agreement with most of it. His theories are sensible. The problem is today, all too often his major criteria are absent from the equation.

Free trade � good idea. But what we currently have is comparable to freedom of behavior versus license.

We are not been competing on a level playing field � we have restrictions, others do not.

The playing field is being leveled � at the expense of western jobs, and our lifestyle will drop as the Asians rise. Some things ARE zero sum.

Not whining, just warning.

Loony Booty

Venezuela has the largest private sector economic growth in the hermisphere for the last three years.

Umm, what private sector would that be?  Chavez has already announced plans to nationalize the oil, electrical power, and telecommunications industries.  Maybe Chavez wants to do better than Allende, who nationalized the Chilean copper industry, and who achieved 120% inflation during the month of August 1972.  So, when the Venezuelan economy collapses, whom will you blame?  Nixon, again?

Private sector or public sector, you surely know that the oil strikes in 2002/2003 hit the Venezuelan economy hard, -9% in 2002 and another -8% in 2003.  So, the growth for the last three years has been driven by recovery from the strikes and the near record oil prices.  But wait!  The price of oil has dropped by one-third since last August.  According to the current World Fact Book, Venezuelan oil revenues account for roughly 90% of export earnings, more than 50% of the federal budget revenues, and around 30% of GDP.  Nationalization will lower productivity.  You can bet your ass the Venezuelan GDP will take a 10-15% hit this year, and more next year.  Damn shame Chavez spent $3 billion of the peoples’ money on Russian weapons he will never have opportunity to use.  Better he should have spent the money on his decrepit oil infrastructure. 

Thank you ever so much for the information on “the top 10 states by median personal income”.  Umm, does this have any relationship with anything we are discussing? 

You have an inordinate faith in the good intentions codified in the Marxist catechism, in spite of universal failure of Marxism in practice.  At the same time, you are opposed to democracy, the rule of law, and free-market capitalism, which has produced the greatest prosperity ever.  You quibble about the disparity in incomes in our country, while ignoring the mass murder and repression that has characterized socialist states. 

So, what are your real priorities?  Failure?  Futility, like your increasing use of personal attacks?  Don’t be such a Densan.

Scorpy Doobie, YOU brought up how much better off people were in the red states, LB rebutted you and of course you can’t remember why she did. The USA was never a democracy, Scorpy Doobie, read The Federalist Papers, the Founders HATED democracy. We do not have anything approaching “free market capitalism” Scorpy Doobie, go to the lewrockwell.com website on this and Bush has eviscerated the rule of law with the patriot act, the military commissions act, etc., Scorpy Doobie. GDP has been going UP in Venezuela, Scorpy Doobie and for the FIRST time they have a government that benefits MOST of the people, Scorpy Doobie. 90% of Venezuela is in the private sector, Scorpy Doobie.

Scorpy,

Unless oil prices fall in the toilet for a long time, Venezuela is sitting pretty strong with $50B in cash reserves.

You know and I know that the need for capital markets to grow will continue for the fore-seeable future to put upward pressure on the cost of petroleum given that the rate relative to the increase of proven reserves has been for several years steadily falling against increasing demand.  As has been expected by anyone is willing to look unflinchingly at the facts of the matter.  Seasonal price volatility aside. 

As I understand it, Venezuela’s finance ministry has calculated the sustainability of the various missiones and other public spending at a floor of about $50/bbl.  Given the kinds of corrections in the market springing up over the last several days, that might not be an unreasonable conjecture.

You’re supposition of Venezuela’s decrepit oil infra-structure is just that.  That was what the coup leaders believed would happen when they shut down and physically sabotaged the oil industry during their disastrously failed work stoppage.  It didn’t happen.  By the end of ‘03 production was back to its former levels.  Without the help of American technical assistance.  The PVDSA continues to invest in maintenence, infrastructure, technology and market expansion as any other responsible corporation.  Shame on them.

In spite of your frightened presumptions about nationalization, the Venezuelan government has shown no reluctance to enter into partnership with the international oil corporations. None of whom have seen their own profitability threatened sufficiently for them to not re-negotiate their contractual relations with the government.  The strategic industries that Chavez wants to re-nationalize are industries that were privatized in ‘91.  Chavez is actually keeping his electoral promise to reverse the excesses of neo-liberal policies that brought him into prominence.  Shame on him.

It is hopeful that they will be re-organized on co-operative/state partnership lines with real worker and consumer inputs.  Exactly what will result remains to be seen, but it won’t very likely be your daddy’s marxist/leninist central planning bullshit. 

The slogan you need to try on, scorpy, is ‘21st century socialism is capitalism with a human face’.

Scorpy,

My characterizations of your person are based on the implications of your arguments. This is the obverse of dismissing your arguments by debasing your character.

Scorpy Doobie has no character to debase. Many people on this board have taken the time to rebut him at length, it makes no difference because Scorpy Doobie is a total Bushite Shithead. Scorpy Doobie’s home state of Ohio has now turned a deep Blue. C’mon, Scorpy Doobie, tell us some Red Guard stories.......................................................We all need a good laugh, Scorpy Doobie.

“The very fact that I perceive my virtual self-image as mere play thus allows me to suspend the usual hindrances that prevent me from realizing my dark half in real life in cyberspace, my ‘id’ is given wing.

And the same goes for my partners who I communicate with in cyberspace: I can never be sure who they are. Are they “really” the way they describe themselves? Is there a “real” person at all behind a screen-persona or is the screen-persona a mask for several different people? Does the same “real” person possess and manipulate more screen-personas? Or perhaps I am simply dealing with a digitalized entity that does not stand for any “real” person?”

I wonder if the author was cognizant while writing this that an ongoing drama such as he describes would be played out around his description of it? Read a rumor on another thread that BM works for a psychiatric clinic reducing stress by acting out a role online that allows users to vent their vile. So maybe he is also Scorp and covers both political extremes? And LB is actually a coyote who smuggles in Ag workers to be exploited so he feels guilty? WTH is a Jesuit Priest in El Salvador laughing at all of us. And Natalie is NOT a shill, but impersonating one to perfection as part of her doctorate thesis in the Cyber-Cultural Anthropology Dept. at M.I.T. Me? I’m a sucker for articulate histrionics

Loony Booty -

If you want to talk intelligently about Venezuela oil, or oil in general, read up in Rigzone.  It will save you a lot of self-embarassment.

Since oil profits represent 30% of Venezuelan GDP, and the price of oil is down over 30% in the last few months, that necessarily means that Venezuelan GDP has already taken a sharp hit.  We have already had the conversation about Venezuela’s reserves and liabilities.  At any rate, Venezuela’s most valuable asset is trust, and Chavez pissed that away when he started stealing other peoples’ property.  If you keep misrepresenting Venezuela’s position, you will never understand what is about to hit poor old Chavez.  The same thing that hit poor old Allende, of course, and you didn’t understand that either. 

As I understand it, Venezuela’s finance ministry has calculated the sustainability of the various missiones and other public spending at a floor of about $50/bbl.

So, Saudi Arabia is saying that $42/bbl would be nice.  That is in keeping with the Sa’udis’ plan to damage the Mullahs’ economy.  It is also well within the Sa’udis’ capability. 

You will find that the prices of commodities go up and down, up and down, and oil is up for the last few days because of record cold on the East Coast.  Something to do with global warming, the Dimocrats say.

Historically, when the price of oil goes up/down, it goes up/down excessively, accompanied by geopolitical gyrations.  I very much doubt that the Sa’udis can stop the plunge at $42/bbl this time.  In fact, there is a very big geopolitical gyration developing. 

Did you follow the conversation with Hardesty about the Bubba Bubble?  Historically, when markets get way overheated, like the dot.com Bubba Bubble did in the late 1990s, the overheated markets come crashing back to earth.  This is an historical certainty.  Hardesty is so stupid that he thinks that the markets went up because of Clinton and went down because of Bush, when actually the financial and moral excesses of the Clinton years guaranteed that there would be a correction.  The only good thing about the situation was that Bush applied the proper corrective action, the effects of the recession were minimized, and the recovery has been complete, with employment, productivity, markets, and tax receipts at record levels.

Understanding this, watch what is happening in China.  China has made tremendous economic strides since it junked its silly-ass socialist economic system, but not everything is well in China.  China still has a repressive political system, corruption is endemic (typical of socialist systems), and the banking system is in tatters.  Now we have a very large and unstable Beijing Bubble developing.  The Chinese stock markets are up 120% this last year and real estate is sky high and overbuilt.  The system is going to crash.

The system is going to crash just when everyone has brought new oil production on line.  All those people who invested in new production (Russia, not Venezuela.  Venezuela invested in Russian MiGs, which will have an even worse return than oil.) are desperate for income to pay off their debts.  China’s economic growth has created record demands for energy, and that demand is going to drop sharply when the Beijing Bubble crashes.  If supply is high and demand falls way off, what happens next?  I think Chavez and Putin and the Mullahs will be lucky if the price of oil holds at $20/bbl, which is just about exactly what it was in the 1950s and in the early 1980s, adjusted for inflation.

I have seen the face of socialism at Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek.  Cheoung Ek has a glass tower perhaps thirty feet tall containing 8000 human skulls.  You are cool with Allende and Chavez stealing other peoples’ property, so why scruple at a few convenient deaths?  Your friend Hardesty has already told me I need to have my head cut off.  Hardesty talks big for a basic little dumbshit who has given out his name and address and phone number on the Internet.

Eric,

�WTH is a Jesuit Priest in El Salvador laughing at all of us.�
Well, you got me laughing with that one. When I was in the army a buddy used to say, �You�d make a good Marine.� just because I spit shined my shoes.

As we got to know each other better I�m sure he realized I�m not one for blindly following orders � military or holy orders.

Your point IS well taken � we don�t �know� those �partners� we correspond with here. Every so often someone accuses one of duplicate entry code names, but generally I have found a consistency in methodology and can see no real value in entering a second same opinion. (Not so with the one-off net news items.)

Since I don�t plan to bet the farm or change my lifestyle due to internet input there�s little to fear.

--------------
Just a curiosity �
Does anyone else wonder how the ITT people earn a living? I only know one person who has ever bought a magazine. Why buy a cow when milk is so cheap? (free)

As long as we�re being suspicious, could this simply be funded by a sugar daddy who likes to stir up anti-American feelings?

Scorp,

�Hardesty is so stupid that he thinks that the markets went up because of Clinton and went down because of Bush...�

Easy enough to check � the markets started collapsing late spring 2000.  They went down because the hype ran out before the earnings went up.

They came back up when the bell was rung (on Wall St.) saying a bottom had been reached. (without even a ten percent correction)

�...Bush applied the proper corrective action, the effects of the recession were minimized, and the recovery has been complete, with employment, productivity, markets, and tax receipts at record levels.�

To borrow from the Great Communicator, �There you go again.�

Reality check�

� Gov. employment numbers are fudged (As a conservative you should know the lack of competition breeds poor results � the economists get their numbers from only source � the government.)

� Productivity � have you ever tried to measure productivity of a computer versus old tech? Mine went down 27.3 percent comparing two ten year periods.  Are you aware that auto subassemblies time brought in from foreign ops is not counted? What is your source? Government?

� DOW needs to be adjusted to over 13,000 to get even with pre-2000 high.

� Tax receipts at record levels � (inflation adjusted?) and will continue to climb for us all as more oil is denominated in alternative currencies.

The dollar will continue to fall � watch out.

Scorpy,

“Venezuela’s most valuable asset is trust, and Chavez pissed that away when he started stealing other peoples’ property. ”

You are the one misstating Venezuela’s position.  Chavez is not stealing anything.  You should get your facts from somewhere besides the Wall Street Journal editorial page.  The panicky reaction of brain-dead market cowboys like yourself promises to play into Chavez’s hands, though.  When the time comes for Venezuela to buy back the majority interest in CANTV and the privatized energy sector, they will be at bargain prices.

I agree the US would like to do to Chavez what they did to Allende, but the wheels of US hegemony are falling off these days due to the mess in Iraq.  Saudi Arabia would like to drive down prices to hurt Iran, but they can’t.  The Saudis are among the first OPEC producers to bow to downward prices and reduce production.  They’ve basically been over producing since the invasion of Iraq, trying to help their Bush buddies stabilize prices.  You know something about the oil industry.  You must have an inkling what happens to an oil field when it is over pumped and when secondary and tertiary extraction methods are used prematurely.

If you want to read something about Venezuela’s oil industry that is not filled with speculation and bias, I would suggest PVDSA’s publicly filed independently audited SEC reports.

Scorpy Doobie, got some more phony atrocity stories to tell us ? If I gave my personal info, then why haven’t you contacted me, Scorpy Doobie ? Scorpy Doobie, did you know it was THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNISTS WHO OVERTHREW POL POT AND LIBERATED CAMBODIA ? Did you
know that Carter, Reagan and Bush 1 SIDED WITH POL POT IN HIS BATTLE WITH THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNISTS ? DID YOU KNOW THAT CARTER, REAGAN AND BUSH 1 INSISTED ON RECOGNIZING POL POT’S DELEGATION AT THE UN AS THE LEGITIMATE CAMBODIAN DELEGATION ?  Scorpy Doobie, did you know that Nixon and Kissinger killed as many Cambodians as Pol Pot ? About a million in each case, Scorpy Doobie.  Scorpy Doobie, Chavez didn’t “steal” anything, that oil and those profits belonged to the people of Venezuela, Scorpy Doobie.  Scorpy Doobie, the MARKETS DID NOT CRASH IN THE 1990S, THE OVERHEATED NASDAQ MARKET, HEAVILY DOTCOM INFLUENCED TOOK A BIG DIVE IN MARCH, 2000. Later when Bush 2 STOLE THE ELECTION DUE TO HIS RIGHTWING BUTTBUDDIES ON THE SUPREME COURT, THE WHOLE ECONOMY COLLAPSED. Scorpy Doobie, are you aware of the FACT THAT BUSH 2 WAS THE FIRST US PRESIDENT SINCE HERBERT HOOVER TO PRESIDE OVER NO NET JOB GAINS IN THE FIRST TERM OF HIS PRESIDENCY ? How come you never mention that FACT, Scorpy Doobie ?  BTW, WTH, having an opposing viewpoint to the thumbsucker rightwing one is NOT “anti-American.” You are starting to sound like Scorpy Doobie.
At Scorpy Doobie’s Reform School the headmaster referred to Scorpy Doobie as “Master Bates.” Bates was the surname of one of Scorpy Doobie’s suspected daddies. Scorpy Doobie prefers to be addressed as Master Bates. Please follow his wishes. Scorpy Doobie, we have pinpointed you’re location in the now BLUE state of Ohio. Sleep tight, Scorpy Doobie or should I say, Master Bates.

BM,

�BTW, WTH, having an opposing viewpoint to the thumbsucker rightwing one is NOT �anti-American.� You are starting to sound like Scorpy Doobie.�

Huh? What are you going on about? (A little spacing between rants please.) You�re train of thought is hard to follow.

Posted by Eric Blair on Jan 31, 2007 at 12:20 AM

Great post, Eric. I laughed too. But what about me? Who am I?
Probably just another sucker for articulate histrionics as well as the inarticulate.
Thanks for lightening the mood.

WTH,

You are somewhat correct in saying that government statistics are subject to manipulation.  But is not necessarily so.  Before 1980 the SAUS was the standard of the world for cross-referenced and empirically validated statistics.  The Reagan administration tried to squash it.  When they couldn’t do that they began fudging everything in sight from weather reporting to unemployment figures.  One onerous example is Greenspan’s introduction of price substitution to minimize the impact of inflation. 

The statistics wars, as they are called, continue to this day.  Due in the main to right wing think tanks like AEI and the Cato Institute, and publications like TNR, American Spectator, the WSJ editorial page and TWS, echoed by loud-mouthed mass media propagandists like Limbaugh, Malkin, Coulter, etc. and, of course, Faux News.  Lying every time they open their mouths.  It’s a matter of introducing confusion into the discussion to muddy the waters.  This leaves moderate minded folks like you throwing up their hands and crying ‘a pox on both sides’.  Thus the relatively honest brokers are muddied just as thoroughly or worse than the liars.  Casey, Atwater, Rove, et al. have perfected this same tactic in politics to unbelievable success.  The corporate news media eat up these ‘controversies’ like candy.  One might think the US population is dreadfully under-informed.

The Republican elite lies about their opposition, WMD’s, Iraq and Al Queda, Iran’s nuclear capacities, Venezuela, Global Warming, Valerie Plame, etc., etc, ad infinitum and you buy at least some part of it.  How come?

WTH, try rereading you’re posting that I was referring to. It was the last part of the one posted at 8:45am central time.
LB, WTH buys a lot of rightist BS. He’s an old Cold War Lib who regularly whacks off to a portrait of Harry Shitface Truman.
Warning: has anyone gotten a whiff of Scorpy Doobie’s butt today ? The Ohio folks tell me it would gag a maggot....................................

EB,

I appreciate you trying to steer the conversation back on subject.

Right on and I thank myself too.

David,

You are obviously the madam of an S&M;brothel in Tijuana.  The one I go to after dumping my customers out in the desert. 

I wish I could create believable personae.  I’d be earning my living writing fiction. 

(who’s gonna be the first to jump on that opening?)

LB, but you’re a great fiction writer.........ok, cheap shot.

Thanks Luminous Beauty. I am living the dream. Remind me ... are you a spanker or spankee?

Hey, David, Speaker Pro Tem of the California Assembly, Sally Lieber, has a bill to outlaw the spanking of children under three, which I totally support and countries from Germany to Israel have outlawed child spanking entirely. I have nothing against adults doing it voluntarily.

Dave,

Depends on my mood, I guess.  We coyotes are moody hombres, ‘cause a all that Catholic guilt.

Looks like I was wrong about LB. Found her on Myspace today. You can see an interesting pic of our Luminous Beauty there, and based on reading her blogs I now see my speculation that ‘he’ was an Ag contractor was way off. Of course she said something to that effect in another thread, but I’ve learned that the closest she ever came to working in agriculture, making her living from the Earth’s soil, was as a mud wrestler in TJ. Which brings us to David.

Clearly David and LB are working together, and her description of him was in fact a mirror image. Canuckistan? I mean, isn’t it obvious? Remember the subject of this thread! We are dealing with mirror realities. David, a Muslim in Canada up against the western Goliath? Did he visit his favorite dominatrix in TJ just to launder more Rials into British Pounds? LB? Or, did they also hatch a diabolical plan to appear peace loving on countless websites, under various names, all the while gathering info on how we think for the pacification program after the Islamic conquest? Have they been grooming BM to serve as the future Ambassador to Israel? Will their vengeance know any bounds here? Scorp as the new Fed Chairman? Tex a poster boy for the American view of Arabs, his picture in every Masque? All this didn’t come into focus till I saw LB’s picture after entering her name on Yahoo. An Arabian Mata Hari?

Eric, your BEST POST EVER !!!

Luminous Beauty, catholic guilt , one of your best posts too!
(the irony was so gentle I thought an angel was tapping me on the shoulder)

Mike, the last time I was spanked it was voluntary too.

This Just IN-----testing the link I posted outing LB, I saw somehow the wrong link was posted-another thread I was following here. I fixed it and read some more of her profile. I realized that is probably a picture of David on the right if you scroll down just a bit. Apparently his real name is Hannibal. All you have to do is read the “blurbs about me” section and see if you don’t think its our LB. Bet Scorp will be nicer to her.

I wish I could create believable personae.  I’d be earning my living writing fiction.

... and it gets better.
Surreal and phantasmagorical even.
Well done, Eric! You live up to your namesake.

LB,

�You are somewhat correct in saying that government statistics are subject to manipulation.� But is not necessarily so.�

Well, it�s not that they are lying exactly � a person can find the true story if he is persistent. The problem is that the media is:
A. Not persistent in searching for the truth
B. They love sound bites.
C. Information handed to them is easier and more profitable than digging for it.
Therefore a desired picture is easy to portray.

� The simplest distortion is short term comparison.

from U.S. Census Bureau Report � Changes to Median Household Income 1969-1996 (In 1969 dollars)

Median Household 1969 $33,072 Median Household 1996 $35,172 = +6.3%

Average Household 1969 $37,993 Average Household 1996 $47,101 = +24.0%

Which do you think will be on the news? Will they use 1969 dollars only? Do we ever know?

� What is left out is as important as what is put in.

� Official data skewed measuring stick �

This is the actual calculation of the CPI by the Bureau of Labor Statistics

� At 42+%, housing is THE single largest component in the reported CPI calculation.

� The single largest component input in the CPI is Owners Equivalent Rent (OER) at 23.4% of the total reported headline CPI.

� Polls of 50,000 landlords and tenants tell the OER number

� In 2004, 69 percent of the U.S. owned homes (well, the banks owned most) and 31 percent rented and the increases in rent are used to calculate the inflation of housing
� 23.4% of the entire CPI number is picking up the “housing cost inflation” experience of only 31% of the total US population.

The housing cost inflation experience of the other 69% is largely being ignored.

� The most insidious is deliberate distortion by changing the measure through hedonics.

from the Wall Street Journal, 5-10-05, pg1.� “An Inflation Debate Brews Over Intangibles at the Mall.”

“To most people, when the price of a 27-inch television set remains $329.99 from one month to the next, the price hasn’t changed. But not to Tim LaFleur. He’s a commodity specialist for televisions at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the government agency that assembles the Consumer Price Index. In this case, which landed on his desk last December, he decided the newer set had important improvements, including a better screen. After running the changes through a complex government computer model, he determined that the improvement in the screen was valued at more than $135. Factoring that in, he concluded the price of the TV had actually fallen 29%.”

Also…
� If the price of steak is too high, a shopper will be likely to buy a cheaper cut � so the price of sirloin is switched to the price of hamburger.

� If you paid $1,000 for a computer with 4MB in 1990 and $1,000 in 2006 for one with 4,000MB they say it only �really cost� you $1. Sure helps the inflation look good.
----------------------------

Reality only matters to ordinary people � �looking good� is more important to politicians, bureaucrats, and CEOs � the media just go along blindly.

WTH,

It seems we are in basic agreement.

I’d like you to explain the cost of housing in a bit clearer manner, though.

I think you meant 1996 dollars in your statement about income levels. 

I know it is easy to bash bureaucrats, but civil servants mostly only do what the law requires.  Politicians theoretically decide what the law is, but given that they are mostly dependent on corporate sponsorship for electoral financing and being treated in the corporate media as legitimate contenders, who do you think is most responsible for this skewing of facts?

Who among our elected officials do you think are least dependent on corporate sponsorship?  Could it be the Progressive Caucus?

EB,

God, I’m hot!  Forget writing fiction, I’m gonna be a porn star.

“We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell… We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, ‘Stop it, now!’”

-- Molly Ivins, she died last night in Austin, Texas. She was 62 years old.

Listen/Read/Watch this insightful interview with one of America’s finest, funniest and smartest political commentators, ever.

Great post LB..a porn star who can write her own scripts...and your boyfriend is such a hunk--Allah get on the prayer mat with him any time. Does this thread have a topic? Or has the Red Queen lost her head?

Ye of the vanishing smile,

Remember what the dormouse said.

Loony Booty -

I know it is easy to bash bureaucrats, but civil servants mostly only do what the law requires.  Politicians theoretically decide what the law is, but given that they are mostly dependent on corporate sponsorship for electoral financing and being treated in the corporate media as legitimate contenders, who do you think is most responsible for this skewing of facts?

Who among our elected officials do you think are least dependent on corporate sponsorship?  Could it be the Progressive Caucus? 

�(S)kewing of facts� is progressive nonsense, exhibiting much more paraoia than accuracy.  Isn�t it strange how the voting machine problem went away when the leftists won in 2006?  At least two of the Senate races were decided by less than 10,000 votes, a perfect set-up for fraud if there was any fraud to be found.  But I defy you to show me a single example of voter fraud or manipulation by Republicans since the issue became so prominent in 2000.  I will be glad to show you a number of court convictions of Dimocrats for voter fraud and manipulation, particularly in the 2004 election, if you would like to see them. 

The last time I checked, the Republican fund raising was more dependent on small donors and the Dimocrats were recipients of multi-million dollar donations from George Soros and his fellow-travelling progressive ilk.  The Progressive Caucus definitely has an agenda, and it is not healthy for democrats and free men everywhere.

A recent article by Chantrill discusses the book Market Education: The Unknown History by Andrew Coulson.  The article describes progressive education, where all children are subject to the same curricula, conditions, and quality, sort of like when the communists were creating the New Soviet Man.  Meanwhile, quality education, or at least quality education results, is more likely to be found in the diversity of private and parochial schools.

Chantrill�s delineation of the contrast between progressive education and the educational freedom which has marked most of our history is instructive.  Care to comment?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/02/public_education_and_the_liber.html

LB, (Scorp pls check this out)

�I think you meant 1996 dollars in your statement about income levels.�
Let�s see, the nine�s tail curls to the left...Yes, you�re right. Sorry about that.
--------------
�
�I�d like you to explain the cost of housing in a bit clearer manner, though.�
Part of what I previously wrote came from Bill Fleckenstein�s newsletter and I no longer subscribe.

I think the best reference (better with his graphs) for the CPI is at…
http://www.contraryinvestor.com/2005archives/momar05.htm
You should be able to access it free � if not I can paste in the main part later.
------------------------

Another good one is by a guy who has been following this idea for years…
http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs?
---------------

Bill Gross, the bond guru, had an article, but I can no longer access the archive there and didn�t save the URL.  Here is a small part of it..
.
http://www.allianzinvestors.com/commentary/mgr_billGross02012007.jsp

Bill Gross | October 2004 Haute Con Job

Peter Bernstein in a recent Economics and Portfolio Strategy piece makes the hedonic point, as have Jim Grant, Stephen Roach, Marshall Auerback, Caroline Baum, and a host of other voices in the inflationary wilderness. Bernstein points out that since 1990, total CPI inflation was 2.7% a year, yet hedonically adjusted durable goods suspiciously managed to increase by only .1% annually. Over the past 12 months the BLS reports that non-durable were up at a 4.61% rate while those quality adjusted computers, cars, and refrigerators by golly managed to actually go down by 1.25%. �Holy Greenspan, Batman!� If we just could focus on those durable goods we could lower interest rates to 0% like the Japanese and drive up the markets one more time!
�
In addition, when �substitution bias� (a BLS maneuver that follows your preference for Chicken McNuggets vs. a Quarter Pounder) is eliminated, the gap gets even worse. For those of you sophisticated economists who feel the substitution bias is more than justified, chew on this for a second. If you substitute a pound of chicken for a pound of beef because it�s cheaper, then switch back to beef later on because it came back down in price, the overall round trip which resulted in no ultimate substitution and no relative price change winds up reducing the stated PCE. Oh man, what a con.
-----------------

When I think of bureaucrats I�m thinking career type who will do what is expected rather than take a chance on losing their pensions. They don�t set policy, but they can �get the boss what he wants.� (and pass over what he doesn�t)

Politicians and corporate management have been working in tandem for decades. In the 1960s when working at a major aviation supplier whenever either a military customer or congressman visited it was like the �second coming of Christ.�

That was back when PACs (political action committees) were just getting started � the company assigned one of their top engineers to Washington � he stayed there until he retired. Now we have 36,000 professional lobbyists who are the lifeline between the professional public servants and the elite of the business world.

�...who do you think is most responsible for this skewing of facts?�
I see it as a natural development when power is concentrated. With the exception of a few strong-minded, ethical individuals (like Senators Dorgan and now James Webb in government and Warren Buffett in business) they are soon corrupted.

When misbehavior is treated as the norm it�s easy to think you are doing no wrong.

I�ve seen people at the top in a company believing they �deserve� what is if not illegal at least, immoral and it�s not easy to say, �no� to someone who is contributing to your livelihood.

I only did it once to a client (executive VP.) who was adding personal expenses to the company. I don�t know if I could have done it if I were totally dependent on him for my income. (It was about 50% .)

Who is in the Progressive Caucus?

Scorp,

�Isn�t it strange how the voting machine problem went away when the leftists won in 2006?� At least two of the Senate races were decided by less than 10,000 votes, a perfect set-up for fraud if there was any fraud to be found.�

Who looked?

What makes you think any party is worth a damn? Is this like your Red State/Blue State theory? Pure tribal thinking. The only thing worse than getting screwed by your own elected officials is not noticing. The chiefs are looking out for each other and to hell with the rest of us.

Education equality is nearly here… Hardly any kids are learning now.

At my 50th high school reunion we noted the changes which have taken place. A plurality of classmates went on to more education, there were student �monitors� in the halls, the most violent it ever got was and occasional fist fight at a bll game. 

Now all outer doors are locked during classes, police guard the halls, gangs are a problem, many extra curricular accivities have been dropped along with college-level “honors classes.”

No wonder were going down the tube � Red & Blue � left, right, left right, marching off together.

Scorp,

�Isn�t it strange how the voting machine problem went away when the leftists won in 2006?� At least two of the Senate races were decided by less than 10,000 votes, a perfect set-up for fraud if there was any fraud to be found.�

Who looked?

What makes you think any party is worth a damn? Is this like your Red State/Blue State theory? Pure tribal thinking. The only thing worse than getting screwed by your own elected officials is not noticing. The chiefs are looking out for each other and to hell with the rest of us.

Education equality is nearly here… Hardly any kids are learning now. 
At my 50th high school reunion we of course noted the changes which have taken place. A plurality of my classmates went on to more education, there were student �monitors� in the halls, the most violent it ever got was an occasional fist fight at a game.

Now all outer doors are locked during classes, police guard the halls, gangs are a problem, those not graduating far out weigh those going to college.  No wonder were going down the tube � Left, right, left right, Red & Blue marching along together.

WTH, Bernie Sanders is in the Progressive Caucus among 60 or 70 others. Scorpy Doobie AKA Master Bates, the GOP stole the 2004 election in Ohio as RFK, Jr. demonstrated at length in a long essay for Rollingstone last spring. Scorpy Doobie, GOP Bob Taft was censured for corruption in Ohio and Roy Blackwell lost big time because he is a crooked GOP black hack. Rep. Bob Ney, REPUBLICAN of OHIO, just went to FEDERAL PRISON, Scorpy Doobie. For every Dem we can get you five Repugnants who are crooked. Your party got wiped in the election, Scorpy Doobie AKA Master Bates. Scorpy Doobie, we never had “educational freedom” in the USA. WE HAVE HAD COMPULSORY EDUCATION SINCE THE CIVIL WAR.  I happen to share your opposition to progressive education, Scorpy Doobie. But we had no freedom before progressive education, Scorpy Doobie. Cheshire Cat (aka Mike O’Leary) how you hanging ? Find another gym to join ?
Everyone on the board, please refer to “Scorp” by his full name, Scorpy Doobie AKA Master Bates. Mike O. your Mayor in Berkeley is also known as Master Bates.  Love Chavez’s remarks that Bush and Negroponte should go to prison for life as war criminals. So true ! Even Scorpy Doobie AKA Master Bates agrees. WTH, Brown v. Board was the final nail in the government school system. Or state brainwash system. LB, you told me you were a man, I had always thought you as a feemale.

Scorpy,

Time you checked again into party campaign contributions.  The Repuglicans have always had the bigger end of the stick when it comes to corporate and wealthy donors.  One George Soros doesn’t make a dent.  Most big moneybags hedge their bets, naturally.  They have historically been on the average more generous to the Repugs.  Next come the Country Club Repugs who hold the keys in the alliance between the oligarchs and the Raygun Revolution populist horde of religious reactionaries and born again ‘free market’ true believers.  It’s the natural way of things Repuglican.

These Internets tube thingies have given the Dimocrats an edge in the small donation market and a great horizontal organizing tool for educated middle income workers who are more and more awakening to the fact that they’ve been had by the corporate led march toward privatization, de-regulation, globalization and endless war. 

I haven’t tried to research it, but I’ll wager the networks of mailing lists that the Repugs have relied on for the last couple of decades in their astroturf populist campaign are very likely beginning to shrink and fray.  In fact, the Repugs are seeing the wheels falling off.

Concerning election fraud, it may be that it is much harder to commit wholesale fraud when a sufficient mass of well informed people are watching for it.

Notice the qualifier, wholesale.  If you want to stack up retail local election violations, believe me, I can go toe to toe.  Then we can start with Republican campaigners who’ve gotten in trouble for their deviant sexual proclivities.  Do you really want to go there?

Then again, if the Repugs were able to fix paperless cyber-voting to any extent like they did in Ohio and elsewhere in ‘04, then that just makes one wonder how badly they would have lost last Nov. if every thing had been on the up and up.

One thing I notice about the ITT posters’ exchanges is they tend to veer off topic and regularly, and often it’s about people’s personal ideologies.  No offence intended to anyone here.  It does, however, seem to be the case.

And I know this because I lurk here time and again.

One or two posters jumped on Slavoj for saying, “I can never be sure who they [his cyberspace communicants] are.”

Although we can get a kick out of thinking that Z’s point is that everybody online is a phoney, the point he’s making is an old one in cyber-theory and cyber culture.  The idea of digital simulacra goes way back (think of Neo’s secret stash box, a hollowed copy of Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulations, or Stephenson’s concept of avatars). 

Digital identity politics shouldn’t be pooh-poohed because the fact is people’s online political bluster almost always exceeds their real-world behaviour.  When do we see people behaving in the real world as many do on message boards?  Not often.  Their shit-talk would overwhelm and offend their company in a bar or at a barbecue.  But here in cyberland it’s all good.  One can say what one wishes and come across as witty as one likes in a “debate” simply because you have had time to formulate your responses, search for references, supporting facts, et cetera.

Chances are that in real life most of these people stammer, punctuate their talk with “umms” and “errs” and simply aren’t the scintillating conversationalists they go out of their way to portray themselves as online. 

Is this “person” represented by their text truly indicative of the living human being at the keyboard?

Perhaps, but perhaps not seems the more likely speculative answer.

When we get online we become cyborgs of sorts, technologically augmented organisms.  We are no longer just us, but us in cyberspace.

So, someone like scorp presents himself as a right-wing element who enjoys arguing with progressives (incidentally, there are many of them out there on the more liberal political sites).  Might scorp be paid by some sleazy, well-heeled, right-wing think tank to do this sort of thing?  Kick up some dust about a topic and immediately switch any conversation into a right vs. left sort of debate with all those ready talking points at hand that bear no relevance to the issue at hand? 

I have no idea and do not really care much.  The point is that it’s difficult to tell if someone is being genuine.

The fact that most posters choose the anonymous pall of a screen name instead of letting people know who they really should hammer the point home.  There’s nothing silly about what Z is saying.  reading people engaged in the very behaviour he describes laugh it off as an implausible analysis . . .  Well that got me to crack a smile.  And if you can laugh at yourself, well, I suppose you will too.

Again, no slight intended.  And, yes, I quite liked the article.

Theo-you just made a post that was completely on topic!! Are you allowed to do that here? So off the ITT tempo to be on topic. Anyway I enjoyed your comments but recognize David’s (Hannibal) literary and ideological fingerprints all over it. And since you’ve made me feel guilty about using a anonymous screen name, ‘Hannibal,’ I’d say it was better than using phony ones and sock-puppets ranting about lauging at yourself. Well, I’ll have more to say about all this soon, but from now on will always sign off with my real name so I can’t be accused of misrepesenting my uh...true ..identity in er.. cyberspace. The very idea!!--Arpie

Theo,

It is true there is nothing silly in the point Zizek is making.  That doesn’t mean we can’t have fun with it.  That it is something of a challenge to discern the genuineness of a given party only increases the fun.

I think my Other generated alter ego would agree.

Is that Norway you’re posting from?

P.S. Scorpy is very much a one trick pony.  By his consistency one might infer that , whether paid or not, he is quite genuine.

A genuine ass.

Just imagine how much fun it might be if the increasingly complex and self-programming internet becomes effectively cognitive to the degree it begins producing artificial textual simulations and avatars on threads like this as some form of internal psychological balancing act.

The TIME thing was an absolute facade.

You?

You’re a piece of dirt, or will be one day...me too.

We’re not that shiny.

The Internet is only another way to send “ mustard gas and roses"…

thanks again Mr Vonnegut

There’s an ambient music group called Mustard Gas And Roses. This is the last paragraph of the blurb for their album “Nova Lux”:

“Just as Slaughterhouse Five laid bare a catastrophic event made deliberately obscure in the annals of world history, Nova Lux assembles the fragments of a corrupted archetypal memory into something almost tangible - the flashpoint where the collective consciousness and personal recollection collide. Slow and deliberate, spectral and brooding, it finds its purpose with those who listen intently and without distraction.”

Have we, much like Billy Pilgrim, become unstuck in the www?  Where are the Tralfamadorians?

Loony Booty �

Time you checked again into party campaign contributions.

Oh, I assure you I keep current with such matters. 

The Repuglicans have always had the bigger end of the stick when it comes to corporate and wealthy donors.

You are full of shit.  You have just encapsulated one of the absurd falsehoods that leftists repeat, like a bunch of little Goebbels wind-up dolls.

Opensecrets keeps detailed records on campaign finance matters.  Of the top twenty corporate donors in the last several years, eleven gave 90% or more of their donations to Dimocrats, and three more gave a majority of their donations to Dimocrats.  Three more corporate donors divided their donations fairly evenly between the parties.  Only three of the top twenty corporate donors gave more money to Republicans than to Dimocrats, and none of these three gave the Republicans as much as 90% of their donations.  The top twenty PACs also gave more to Dimocrats than to Republicans.

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.asp?order=A

In the 2004 election cycle, the top seven individual donors to 527 Committees ($5 million or more, led by your Mr. Soros with $23,450,000) were all part of the effort to elect flip-flop-flap John Kerry.

http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527indivs.asp?cycle=2004

Don�t bother to apologize for your gross error.  You would not be sincere any way, like last time.

LB-wait a minute-having fun with it? Does this mean you’re not really the girl in that Myspace link? Does David know? Please tell me that was the genuine you and your not just another old man sitting around this digital woodstove.

Perhaps Theo is the one being disingenuous here. Heard a rumor his real name is Maurice, and he lives in a villa on the island of Spetses in southern Greece and plays the Godgame in cyberspace. Where did you get the idea he was in Norway? He doesn’t sound cold or depressed to me, and that’s a Greek flag-no icicles.

What I loved most about the Tralfamadorians was their explanation for how humans viewed reality; speaking of which, whats up with this Google game you play with Scorp? Don’t you feel even a little guilty engaging an unarmed man in a battle of wits? If he loses any more IQ points somebody is going to have to water him once a week, but whats your excuse?

Theo-are you being genuine? Are you really Conchis? Is your text indicative of your reality, or is what we see just your avatar’s persona in the Metaverse? Exit 127.!!!!!!!-? I thought the Z-mans article was one of the better ones I’ve seen here, but it does invites parody and it would be impolite of us not to accept. And Scorp may actually have LB totally fooled. Offline hes probably an old commie and his ridiculous posts here are just his way of making conservatives look idiotic. Either that or he’s one of LB’s sock-puppets, employed as a straw man to stroke L’s ego as he soundly refutes all his arguments. And bet LB can’t make it through one page without calling him an idiot below, after saying he’s not really that dumb. With a little effort he could be a moron, right?

Theo,

I do agree with many of your comments � it is a chance for people too shy to speak out in a �real� setting and having time to collect your thoughts is helpful.

I for one seldom say anything on line anonymously that I don�t say in my weekly discussion class or any where else.  I don�t worry much about what most people think anymore.

The emotional run-ons do get tiresome, but occasionally are worth the effort of sorting out the thoughts. I can’t say any of my basic beliefs have channged, but I have gained insights into some issues and how they are perceived by others’s experiences.

My only negative from internet give and take is my concern that so many people seem to accept so much undocumented and unverifiable blog and blather if it fits their preferences. (The same could be said of TV or publications � I just see more of it here.)

I don�t recommend eschewing, �… the anonymous pall of a screen name instead of letting people know who they really (are).� Internet mischief can become a real problem even from (especially from) unknown sources.

Well ITT crew, here’s the real kicker to this story . . .

I thought my screen name here was Theo, whereas it is, in fact, TheoPapathanasis.  And, against all odds, both Theo and I share the same unimaginative password: inthesetimes (which I will immediately change).  So we have a genuine case of someone, yours truly, actually, if accidentally, passing themselves off as another person. 

I swear.

How’s that for legimitizing these Zizekian identity concerns?

Hi Arpie:  Yes, I am a 100% real human being.  Even more so when I am not signed in as somebody else.  My name is not Maurice and I do not live in Spetses.  I am usually found completely blootered in cheap Athenian drinking holes when I am not in an eerily similar condition in Santorini.  As for my original comment (or was it Theo’s?  or is that me?) . . .  well, I felt the irony was too much; couldn’t help myself.  It’s all in good fun.

Luminous Beauty:  I believe we once agreed that anarchism and left-libertarianism seemed pretty similar and that the word chrematistic was pretty cool.  I’ll add I’ve always thought you very polite, which is pretty unique these days.  I think online gentility is big plus.

WTH:  I’m pleased to hear you talk about the same sort of things both online and in the fetishized, largely illusory, shared reality we call contemporary global capitalism.  Personally, I try to avoid all these spats and flame wars because, as you say, it’s tiring sometimes and frankly, I prefer using those energies to, you know, actually write stuff (mostly short stories but every now and again I’ll forward a political opinion). 

Take care everybody.  My apologies to Maurice (or Theo, or whoever he is).

RP,

Greek flag.  D’oh!  Sorry, Theo. 

I don’t think scorpy is all that stupid.  Not for someone with only half a brain.  I don’t refute every fool thing he writes. That would be a full time job.

I’ll just note that in his list of top all time donors only four corporations in that list gave more to Dems than Reps and marginally at that.  The rest were all unions.  I didn’t realize that unions represented rich people and their corporate interests.  I want my dues back.

And simply point out that scorpy claimed: 

“In the 2004 election cycle, the top seven individual donors to 527 Committees… were all part of the effort to elect… Kerry.”

#5 is Bob Perry of Swift Boat Liars fame.  Scorpy’s little lie is in ignoring such a big liar.  Scorpy’s big lie is, as usual, cherry-picking, distortion, mis-representation and manipulation of statistics.  Something Repuglicans just can’t help doing for some reason.  I guess it’s part of being in the fantasy-based community.

#6 is Aex Spanos who gave $5M to Progress For America.

And he thinks he is deserving of an apology.

Well, I’m sorry you are an idiot, scorpy.

Concerning your Myspace question, I’ll just answer like a girl and not answer.  Just to show I’m not totally against all kinds of fantasy.

Theo, (soon to be someone else)

Great!

I love it!  Thanks

Now that I’m retired I obviously have too much time on my hands � especially in winter.

I mentioned my discussion group. It is at our local junior college in a program called Center for Learning in Retirement. When I first signed on I soon learned my general bias was more conservative than the other twenty or so members. (That’s where I first learned of ITT.)

After a couple of sessions I commented that I seemed to be talking more than most.  I didn’t want to monopolize, but I was apparently the only conservative and therefore the only contrary opinion.

“Oh, no,” said one sweet little old lady, “John’s conservative, but he never comes anymore. Oh, and so is Bob, but he died.”

(I later found out they had all been meeting for eight years, so everyone already knew what each thought.)

Scorp,

Do you NOT see the irony in quoting data from some other internet source to prove a point on a article about all the vagueries of internet communication?

Information is not the same as truth.

�Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? 
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?�

T.S. Eliot, �Choruses from �The Rock�.’

corpse \’korps\ n slang [ME corps, fr. MF, fr. L corpus] :  a corporate coprophiliac (commonly ascribed to Peter Watts, from his Rifters trilogy).

You nasty people need to stop persecuting the (S)corps.

I mean, it’s vicious.
You hit him with a flower.
You do it every hour.
Oh, baby, your’e so vicious.

This is truly hilarious:

I thought my screen name here was Theo, whereas it is, in fact, TheoPapathanasis.  And, against all odds, both Theo and I share the same unimaginative password: inthesetimes (which I will immediately change).  So we have a genuine case of someone, yours truly, actually, if accidentally, passing themselves off as another person.]

Is this a hoot or what? It’s Maurice Conchis, no doubt about that. The only real question left to answer is if Maurice did in fact abandon the villa at Bournai. He could easily take a helicopter to it from Santorini. He is quite wealthy. And of course Maurice is only his avatar. The Magus Avatar. His pressence in Athens is solely in the Metaverse, where he does hang out in the online bars on the outskirts of a Cyber-Potemkin Village. It’s a private Alpha Testing forum invisible to all but the chosen on Second Life. Theo/Maurice/Saxon/? has a meta-office there also, from where he runs the Godgame via a relay link out of Oxford. You can write him at MagusGodgameChosen@Yahoo.co.uk. Not that I’d recomend it. It’s on the fringes; exit 127. Did anyone catch that link and quotational binary code in RPs post? Click the first exclamation mark, which stands for 64 in Binary and 01111111 is 127. 1 on the far right is where it begins; Number one! None of you “old men huddled around this digital wood stove” waiting to die ever read Fowles? Beware the SALLE D’ATTENTE? Snow Crash by Stephenson? Jiro Protagonist? This is cyberspace, in the name of Turing! These young fellers got a game with many layers goin on here, sportsfans. And then theres Orwell to consider.

in an eerily similar condition in Santorini.  As for my original comment (or was it Theos? or is that me?) . . .  well, I felt the irony was too much; couldnt help myself.  Its all in good fun.]

From what I’ve learned, this is the case. And much of it, including perhaps what goes on all around us, is quite funny and on some levels informative. One thing that I can’t help but wonder is if the mention of Zizekian identity was some sort of clue. Ever curious about what identity ol Kurt uses here? Surely he has one to play with on occasion. And after reading what I have just written above, I’m not sure who I am anymore.

What’s mad here is that I am totally levelling with you all (not like The Law of Freedom in Platform levelling, of which I approve, but in the normal sense of just being honest).  Unwittingly, I actually did sign in as another person, someone named Maurice, who perhaps might wish to be known as an entirely different real life person, namely me, Theo from Greece. 

Trivia:  the word ‘persona’ comes from the Latin for ‘mask’.  A minor point Zizek might have considered making when writing:  ‘Our social identity, the person we assume to be in our social intercourse, is already a “mask,” as it involves the repression of our inadmissible impulses.’

The ironic double whammy in this thread is just fantastic.  Imagine discussing the peculiarities and problems of being in any way sure of another’s cyberspatial identity when you have, in fact, from the outset, accidentally misidentified yourself.  Really, it’s done my head in.

But really, no, I am an actual person and always make an effort to be myself online.  This is how I talk.  I almost never use screen names.  And yeah, I really do drink a lot now; and add anyone’s welcome to visit me here in Greece to join me and a few friends in banging our heads against the bar.

WTH:  I think it’s great that you participate in a political discussion group.  I don’t even know what conservative and liberal mean anymore.  For example, I almost always get a kick out of Paul Craig Roberts, who used to work in the Reagan administration.  He regularly refers to pro-Bush conservatives not as conservatives, but as brownshirts.  Nothing makes much sense these days.

Scorpy Doobie AKA Master Bates, LB just kicked your exposed behind again. Soros aside, there’s no way the Repugnants are the party of the little people unless by little you mean people with a smaller double digit IQs like you. Goebbels was an amateur compared to you in the lying department. So how does Rush’s butt smell this morning, Scorpy Doobie AKA Master Bates ?

TheoPapathanasis,

Perhaps the reason you don�t know what a conservative is anymore is because they are so rare. We are an endangered species � in fact I may be the last one :-)

I would agree George W Bush is NOT a conservative, but neither was his father.

As an example, as one who in the truest sense would like to conserve something, the idea that we need to lower the cost of oil here (because we use so much and are �dependent on it�) is totally wrong.

When something is expensive people will use less � lowering the price will encourage its use.

The same is true of the rush to produce more ethanol.  Subsidizing corn production as an alternative: A. Will raise the cost of animal feed, human food products utilizing corn B. Raise the cost of meat, poultry, and by shifting land use away from other agricultural products raise their costs as well.

Let�s assume for this discussion the removing Saddam was necessary �

To do so against the ten years of military planning (which called for 500,000 troops to do a full scale invasion) based on assumptions of the native population coming over to our side was as far from conservative strategy as anything I can imagine.

I have always thought the label �Liberal� was misleading. In my lifetime it has been liberals who have wanted to ban guns, force people to do the sensible things like wear a seat belt, stop smoking, and protect children against the dangers of certain toys, books, by passing laws laws limiting our liberty.

However, those calling themselves conservatives have become at least as restrictive on their favorite issues and even join on a few liberal topics.

It does get confusing.

So now I�ve got people impersonating me on ITT? I�m the REAL Theo-and the other one, Papathanasis? I did a search on that name and there�s an infamous Puppet Master that haunts many of the websites in Athens that goes by that name. He uses some software he developed to break down passwords of users, and then posts as them. Later, he will say it was a mistake, and just add his signature name to theirs and then say he had forgotten he entered his full name earlier. Diabolically clever, one must admit.

I will send a link later to the article I mention. For now, just know this. I understand he has also developed the first ever wetware virus. It takes over your OS and begins flashing subliminal messages that influence what you write. It will make reasonably intelligent, well informed people post all manner of scatological dialogue (shit talk) after staring at their screen for over ten minutes. It would sure explain a lot. So �beware the SALLE D’ATTENTE!�

So who are the Cloudmakers at your little tea party, David? Edoc Rules? Or apophenic? Connections to all this go back to a short story written in 1905 by G. K. Chesterton in which he predicted Alternate Reality Games (ARG) such as we now find all over the web. It was in a story about a Major. Hmm, Major Major? Then a 60s novel called The Magus (Magician) by John Fowles inspired metaverse surfers, along with a 90s movie similar to Magus called The Game. The incredible irony here, as Theo P. sees, is how can you even convince someone you are who you say you are, and not who another anonymous user claims you are? Maurice Conchis, the central character in The Magus was perhaps the virtural prototype for a master of the alternative reality games. So how can we even be sure it is not David writing these words, and I but one of some digital svenzallis sockpuppets? Eric Blair, who uses the actual name of that master of futuristic machevellian societies, George Orwell. But wait, it gets better. There is also a longer term user here with the nick Orwell, and the allusions to Alice and her looking glass to consider. Mirror realities are big in the ARG world, and like the images on the barber shop walls, you can fall into a tunnel of diminishing images. At the vortex of this one, my best guess would be you, Davie. You have the imagination and sense of humor for it.

My my, which Theo to believe? Are you-Theo P-the same one that wrote that blog RP hid in the url exclamation point his last post? Anyone here familiar enough with Orwells style to say if it resembles anyone here? And Theo #1 (heh) how can you prove to us youre not really also Theo Papathanasis? Who’s on first? I can guess what’s on second. I keep meaning to come here and write a serious reply to this article and many aspects of the web’s impact on our culture in general and on individuals, but lately whenever I come here I just feel the urge to cuss people out? I shall resist, and merely re-curse the prophet; damn Prophet. Merde, if youll pardon my French. Maybe the frog is behind all this? Guess I’ll just have to wait. Is this the waiting room?