quantum mechanics and Democritus.

a couple of weeks ago I made a sweeping statement that there has been little of value added to ‘western’ philosophy since plato apart from quantum mechanics.

I 'm not backing off from the statement. there have been developments in classical philosophy, but little: newton and Descartes notwithstanding.

but quantum mechanics is a radical new departure----the science of ‘physics’ is now categorised between quantum and everything else. (everything else being classical which in terms of physics as we understand it kinda begins with democritus and the atomists.)

Newtonian mechanics (F=ma), classical electrodynamics (Maxwell’s equation) and even einstein’s relativity is classical physics. research in classical physics is alive and well though the integration of it with quantum mechanics is producing whole new fields such as field theory and quantum electrodynamics..

so...what makes q.m. so different? and what is it?

there is no disagreement about the mathematics of q.m. as a theory for predicting the behaviour of particles.. there is however controversy about what kind of a world it describes. ie.. how it effects the world that is described in terms of classical mechanics.

many phenomenons cannot be explained in terms of classical theory which loses the plot when dealing with matter on subatomic levels. it is like a system that has broken down and needs a new framework altogether. a new foundation.

the heart and soul of q.m. is contained in the Hilbert spaces that represent the state-space of quantum mechanical systems. (state-space of a system is the space formed by the set of its possible states.. ie the physically possible ways of combining the values of quantities that characterize it internally.)

its most dramatic defining feature is probabilistic theory. (possibilities)

q.m. has 4 basic principles.

1. physical states.. every system is associated with a Hilbert space.

2. physical quantities. .. hermitian operators in a Hilbert space associated with any system represent physical quantities…

3. composition.. the Hilbert space associated with a complex system is the tensor product of those associated with the simple systems. (individual particles) of which it is composed.

4. dynamics.. Schrodingers equation that gives the state of a system at any time when the state and the forces upon it are known… at point ‘t’ . the progression to another state is a matter of probability given by Born’s rule..

it is not about forces and masses and acceleration as understood in ‘normal’ language. it is on another level with its own terminology. physics has changed gears. mathematically it has a richer structure of relations in its vectors and the operators that represent them. its fundamental postulates are different as the fundamental postulates of classical theory break down.. the theory of the atom as a unit of fundamental unresolvable matter has broken down..we gotta shift on and grasp the shift or sink with the classical model.…. democritus R.I.P.

..

water and the usual fools.

water.

headline after headline about financial crisis.. but the usual fools are missing the point. 'normal' in international finances is part of the problem.

not far from where I am staying is a largish inner-city park. part of the land has recently been fenced off and heavy construction is going on 24/7. they are installing a substation for a water desalination plant as I understand. (still one never knows what to believe.)

a couple of years ago Sydney’s water infrastructure was under stress. there was 20% or something left in the reservoirs and the sky was looking cloudless. mmm. its the kind of thing that happens here. people began to change the way they used water.. the lawns died off. even native plants were looking stressed.

but Sydney is a lucky place. it rained and the reservoirs are much healthier now. still the plans for a desalination plant that were put in place at some expense are still going ahead..

i am not sure what the cost of desalinated sea would cost at the house meter per litre but I doubt that it would be affordable. if the rain stops falling its basically time to go some place else. water desalination plants are a political scam I’d say. .. its probably more about the (hysterical) illusion of property prices.. hehehe.

while the story here is at least on the surface a lucky one, the same can’t be said for much of the rest of the world.

figures tell a partial story.. but one in five persons is said to not have access to clean drinking water. (my guess is that it is more than that. two in five have inadequate access.(more i reckon). millions of farmers have inadequate water. there are reports on the radio of glaciers in Tibet melting at such a rate that China, India and other countries there about will face huge changes in water availability in the next decade or two.. that is one place only.

the consumer lifestyle and population explosion of the past 100 years have so depleted major sources of water through overuse and pollution.

bad management and wastage is the main problem. (wrong {changeable} thinking)

in addition, global warming is expected to add another factor that will alter the patterns and expectations of most people.

the fact is that humanity has to begin to view water use differently. the way we view it needs to be transformed. the point is that we need to transform the way we think on this most fundamental level .. the stuff of life..H2o (can i say it again?)

water needs to be harvested, recycled and conserved. this is an obvious starting point. .. human intellect has to be applied to the problem on a fundamental level. we need a revolutionary change in thought as part of our relationship to the earth. ...application... this is what the headlines should be about. this is what should be in the textbooks of schoolchildren.

i know a ph.d student who studies the question of water and demographics.. his opinion is that there is enough water .. but most of it is used inefficiently. mostly in agriculture.

he will be right. in time it is the experts to whom the politicians will pay attention .. not the opinion polls. thirst will see to it. probably long after the ones we have are gone (hellbound) along with the opportunities and money they have squandered.

tejas fu

red to (eco-friendly) green in the prc.

red to green ..

statistics are often best added as a footnote in an essay, but certain figures cannot be ignored.

china faces catastrophic ecological problems. pollution in major chinese cities brings into serious question not just the industrialist model of economic-growth-at-any-cost but the whole future of china.

the major problem is said to be continued reliance on coal-fired electricity generation (75% of supply). increasing use of motor vehicles is a factor…. smoke-stack industry… humans cant breathe smog and live long. 2006 it became the largest greenhouse gas emitter.* .. following conventional paths to development will destroy china.

it cannot go on …

for china to develop, it has to transform. the transformation will have to be green. there is no other way. it can be green and red.. like a ba gua… hehehe

it means a green revolution that redefines the path of development.

the most fortunate aspects are that a) the central government has the power to do it, b) its not the first time, and c) it is still possible.

just recall the change in policy of deng xio ping who said it doesn’t matter what color a cat is.. so long as it catches mice…. ??? it was a great and necessary decision… at the time.....

well.. the time is come to ask if the leadership will recognise the need for a new heading or will it ---like general motors ---stubbornly refuse to see the writing on the wall… till it goes down the tube???

it has no choice.

radical green central planning has to be correct and implemented.. there is no doubt.

more good news is that energy-efficient and radically green industries will come to dominate the global market. and the race is on.

they say its started in places like huang bai yu. tang ye. ( i dont know if it is serious or not.)

neither in real communist ideology nor in the traditional chinese value system does consumer economics rank higher than learning or relationships or even skill at martial arts.. the experiment with industrialization has paid many benefits but pursuing it will lead to self destruction and could take the planet down as well..

If you wanna try and tell me i am exaggerating, go have a look at the statistics.

there may have been a time when political power came out of the barrel of a gun, but now it is coming out of a smokestack. its poisonous. face it..

* http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/business/worldbusiness/

20iht-emit.1.6227564.html

tejas fu.

niche for nietzche and other twits

god is dead .. and noone cares.. n.i.n.

it is kinda difficult to know what nietzche actually said, but that isn’t what is so important. it is who people thought he was and what he said that is important and had and has still impact. it was the dramatis personae not the thinking. he was a twit in a world of twits.

Friedrich Nietzche born 1844 near Leipzig in a Prussian village to Lutheran parents. was good at classics and became appointed as a Basel university philology professor (at the age of 24 which is really wierd.) he retired in 1879 from professorship on health grounds and spent the next 10 years writing in Switzerland , france and italy. he is said to have really flipped out in 1889 and at 45 went into the care of his sister and mother till he departed this world in 1900.

his most influtential works are thus spake zarathusra 1883-85, beyond good and evil 1886, and the will to power .. a collection of thoughts published variously by his sister, 1901. the will to power became a cult doctrine in an unprepared world .

his writings evidence what they call nihilism--(belief in nothing.) and go something like this..

western culture has based its values on an inferior morality of (neo-plationic) Christianity that has been discredited. god is dead. as a substitute there is need to rethink the nature of appearance and reality. one could avoid the world of illusion (appearance) with a hidden world but there is really no such thing ( nihilism),.. there is however creative transformation (will to power) which requires destruction of preconceptions of the world (weak morality).. all desires are basically a will to power though weak morality pretends otherwise..……

its not just a popularization of Kantianism (I think it is accurate to say) cast in an aphoristic ‘lyrical’ style. there is way more to it. he actually had some very profound ideas (maybe a partial view of some great truth of philosophy.. in fact i heard something similar in some non-vedic hindu philosophy.)… but that is not really the point.. it was the presentation/image that made the eclat.

he was closely involved in the wagner-schopenhauer cult from an early age and though he strongly opposed fascist elitism and nationalism he became closely associated with the nazi movement that struck such a deep chord at the time.. in that particular locale…. as it has/does elsewhere…

his popularity/influence grew with the mystery of his madness. in the popular imagination he was seen as the sage Zarathustra himself.. abandoning the fetters of morality to become an Übermench in a new world order.. add a few features (hitler, Versailles1919, industrialization, rabid nationalism etc ) and it is really like a terrible series of coincidences coming together where he played a role in providing a (pseudo-)intellectual frame of reference for the monsterous march to power of european fascism but 100 years ago. (it is not so long when you think about it.)

of course in the last decades of the 19^th century there was yet to be such a development. but it seems that he let a genie out of a certain bottle.. it sent him insane but that was only the beginning of the havok it wreaked.

my feeling is that he was victim of his time way out of his depth and not totally to blame.. he deserves pity more than anything.. why I choose to focus on him is that we are in a period when the ideas of such a twit could easily gain currency. so far as I know that particular genie hasn’t been put back.

tejas fu

sailors, the church of economics and dead dog.

sailors, the church of economics and dead dog.

uninevitable inevitability.

i was going to write about Nietzsche today but I wanted more time to think about some of his comments. he is the guy who said ‘god is dead’.. ie. that religion has outlived its shelf-life. what ended up replacing it was the religion of commerce. the virtue of free trade. now the market is dead. or at least looking very seedy. god, meanwhile is argued by others to be in rude health.

no one can doubt that we have entered into a period of interregnum.

none of my friends know what economists think but, everyone else at least has realized that the economic model of the Chicago and other globalist schools was a conjob. only complete fools believe that there will be a return to ‘normal’. most people cannot be fooled all the time and realize that the kind of life they led in the church of economics impoverished them be they in the league with the mac mansion or not.

so.. as discussed in earlier logs, the new period has yet to begin. we are now in a period of interregnum. mmm that’s interesting. that time before we commit to a new conviction…

let me embolden the thought....the idea of an economic model of global free markets and democracy inevitably liberating the planet and leading it to prosperity for all,,,,,, is defunct.

we are still entering the vacuum but even the most moronic economist should soon be forced to admit the need for a new model if she hasn’t already privately at least. … that what she calls ‘security’ is actually insecurity, ‘lifestyle’ a compliance to narrow-minded tyranny of the hyper-respectable managers of a discredited dogma. no one wants a dead dogma even those in the church of global markets... hehhe face it..it stinks.. its over..

one theory says that all the hype about globalization was total crap and was just about cheap labour in 3^rd world countries underwritten by cheap transport and cheap communication .. that is over. oil aint gonna be cheap nor is chinese labour very soon I’d guess.

so

a sailor knows when there has been a change in the wind. she must seize the opportunity to adjust the sails to keep a heading or even just survive a storm. you get an indication of how fast you have to move by the real indicators.

aboard, the barometer is a real indicator.. the economic equivalent of it (gdp or v I’d reckon…not sure.. there are different ways to express it) has dropped… a lot. almost definitely will drop further. wait a short while we will find out. the second wave of bankruptcies and defaults hasn’t hit yet.. in the usa… property still has a long way to fall. it hasn’t even really started falling in some outposts of white-fella economic theory. (Sydney ahem). but it is set up to do so.. in a big way.. you can only fool creditors and cook the books for so long…everyone knows that statistics are crap anyway.. a bubble that big is gonna take a while to actually fully deflate. but if you ask me.. .. (and this is the point....)

as it does, we are in a short period of opportunity to dress appropriately to be ready for the change on a personal and a societal level.

the opportunities will emerge. as in the past... (Versailles in 1919 and bretton woods, yalta 1945 etc.)

use of the interregnum to establish the character of a new regime is a sober opportunity but not without hope. I believe we should start soberly thinking about it now. to carefully choose what kind of a world we want our progeny to live in.

the world does not turn on commerce. the marketplace doesn’t determine the state. the public good is not subsidiary to economic development of the elite or any group. it is an error to think so. john ralston saul points out that it is free men who create free markets.. not the other way around.*

so what has been the value in the latest period of open market expansion? (coz it is certainly not the first. the first global free trade period led to the war 1914-1945.) that we can learn from in our sober assessment.???

the most obvious is the rebalancing of the world economy… the explosion in trade was fuelled by a consumer credit bubble in the usa (that has now started to pop.) huge expansion in technology (particularly communications).. huge production overcapacity (particularly china).. the depletion of the planet’s resources and general public wealth.. global warming accelerated to nightmare levels.. many failed states.. (perhaps 40% of the members of the u.n.) genocides, (congo etc) nuclear proliferation, population explosion… .. mmmm.. mostly negatives actually. we are gonna have to come back to this..

its obviously gonna take a while for this to work itself out. best get an early start on getting a handle on it.

oh .. as for oil no longer being cheap… sane (jim rogers and others) people are predicting serious supply shortages happening at a pump near you.. soon. leave the insane nietzche till another day.

*Ralston saul, john,, the collapse of globalism penguin 2007 p.30

tejas fu..

machiavelli and spineless cynicism

spineless cynicism and Machiavelli.

a couple of weeks ago I mentioned Machiavelli in terms of ‘realist’ politics. the term ‘machiavellian’ is often used in the sense of ruthless/treacherous. twofaced.. but if you really check out what Machiavelli said, it is much more than that.

he is the author of two influential works.. the prince (1513)an essay on how the prince is to control human nature to his own advantage, and the discourses (1516) on how to control these forces to secure public harmony and security.

unlike the conservative politics of plato or even the dogmatic/reactionary ideology of Augustine of hippo, niccolo Machiavellis thought is underwritten by certain (extremely negative) assumptions about human nature. the political dimension is just an application or consequence of his view of human nature.

politics is for him all about getting and keeping power.

it goes like this….

we live in an unpredictable and incoherent world… of outrageous fortune. there is no connection between desert and reward. this is particularly evident in a political forum which is unpredictable and merciless…

this contrasts with the rigid fixed human temperament of self interest. virtue therefore consists in being able to maintain power in the face of uncaring fortune. one does this with force ---more or less violent as the case may require. (the prince should) let morality be no impediment.

according to him, human nature is fundamentally and unchangingly selfish and immoral. people are individualistic, competitive , ruthless and unscrupulous. it is the role of the prince, being totally no exception to this, to be able to manipulate the people in such a way as to maintain power. this is done primarily through force/fear.

people are totally dominated by fear, love, hatred, and contempt … or some combination of two. the kind of rational cooperation assumed by plato and aristotle to enable functionality is replaced by the assumption that humans are unable to cooperate freely and so must be forced to do so.

it is the prince who must act according to circumstances.

some commentators justify his view on the grounds that he is not advocating wickedness per se, though he would definitely justify it if the circumstances required, (he would almost certainly concede it to be regrettable.) its so reminiscent of glib neo-conservatism.

a coherent, opportunist ideology for the bastards by the bastards.

his dirty little ideas cheapen and debase humankind. there were spineless cynics before machiavelli yet he established this ideology in politics as respectable and it has since gained even wider currency.

human nature is essentially good and man is a microcosm of the (glorious) solar logos. justice and the law of karma is reality.. anything like Machiavelli should be firmly (yet briefly) discredited when encountered. quantum mechanics has us understand how convictions can turn men into beasts better than at any time in the past.

(I feel better having said that. eheheh)

in my opinion it was the torture that he suffered while in prison that distorted his mind causing him to lose faith in humanity. have you ever met a torture victim?

kanban, ptolomy and the goose that laid the golden eggs.

cleopatra fascinates me . cleopatra lagides the 7^th actually.. who ran off with mark Anthony. I gotta find out about her.. but

ive been ill with some flu or another the past few days .

listening to a radio broadcast there was a professor explaining a new concept in education. he characterised it as ‘just in time learning’ after the Japanese kanban management concept.. it is a simple but effective shift in philosophy of education and worth noting...

first you find out what it is that interests a potential student (the direction the professor was arguing was towards ‘hard science’ (math, physics, chem..) that are often viewed as unattractive.) so …say for example ..you ask a kid ‘ how does a space shuttle work?’ then having been hooked, the need for an understanding of periodic tables and differential equations is introduced as necessary tools (which they of course are) for the comprehension of the attractive subject of application. in this way the obstacle of learning boring and seemingly irrelevant material is dumped. its so obviously a winner I’m adopting it. immediately..

right.

so when I go to learn about Cleopatra I need to know what Egypt was like when she came onto the scene. it’s a huge question as it involves the end the ancient/classical world.. and the leap to power of rome.

who was she? what language did she speak? what was the set-up in Egypt? was it just politics or did she really go for mark-anthony? why?

the capital of Egypt at the end of the first century bc was Alexandria. the official language of the ruling class (but not the people) was post-classical greek. the actual stratum of the language is called patristic or koine, Alexandrian, common. new-testament etc. it came about as a common language used by alexander’s soldiers who spoke different dialects at home, not at work. this type of greek lasted up until the middle ages began with the establishment of Constantinople (330ad) as the major city of the Hellenic world (or what it was becoming at least.). it is the main ancestor of modern spoken greek standing between it and the ancient language.

so.. Alexandria and its most famous Cleopatra were a kind of bench mark in the development of civilization. I reckon she would have spoken latin with mark Anthony and I bet she was pretty good at it as well.

the greeks came to be in Egypt through the exploits of alexander the greek (the current Macedonians are a tribe that migrated to the region in the mid first millennium c.e. ) . after alexanders death 330bc, ptolomy, one of his generals and companions, claimed the province of Egypt which his family held from 330 up till Cleopatra 7. passed away in 30 bc..

Alexandria was really the only greek city built there. basically cut off from egypt egypt..

egyptians had their own developed civilization since before teutonic tribes moved into what is now the greek homeland. the greeks had been students of Egyptian science/philosophy (particularly math it seems) already for hundreds of years as the culture of the various dynasties filtered through to the surrounding lands, in large part stimulating the genius of Hellenic culture.

Egypt had become a Persian satrap in 525 bc. but by 332 the egyptians welcomed alexander as a liberator and subsequently accepted the ptolomies as regents.

in return the ptolomies adopted egyptian ways, oversaw a stable dynasty and introduced currency/banking and a waterwheel .. a mercantile ethic and some engineering. their most important contribution was the democratization of writing/ literacy/education... it kinda makes sense coz the most remarkable thing about the hellenes is their love of democracy as their key to freedom. such has been my experience at least. (the genius of egypt is quite different.)

the longevity of the ptolomaic dynasty seems testimony to its acceptance by the egyptians. and while it was well in decline by cleopatra's time, trouble really only set in in roman/christian times --- (libraries burnt, temples desecrated, philosophers murdered..). the romans' interest in Egypt extended to the grain (they needed for the bread and circuses) which egypt produced abundantly: it really came up with the golden eggs.... though the ptolomies had certainly declined in their integrity by the time of cleopatra 7th .. squeezing the country with the economic system they developed .

it’s the powershift from Alexandria to rome that’s interesting. Cleopatra would appear to have been the Egyptian queen in that particular game, but was actually (the inheritor of the mantle of) the king (alexandros o megas). Anthony an obvious knight of rome. it’s a big story.. no wonder shakespere liked it…im gonna have to come back to this one.. with some more kanban. I’ve still got the flu and I haven’t even started on Cleopatra.

...

afghanistan and exceptionalism.

❊يا ايها الذين امنواادلكم علىتجرة تنجيكم من عذاب اليم❊

o ye who believe... let me show you a bargain that will save you from a huge loss.

quran 61 (saff)10

Afghanistan.

one talking head says Afghanistan is vital to the national security of America the other says its irrelevant to u.s. security… so. the question is.. what should the u.s. do about Afghanistan?

the aim of the presence in Afghanistan is said to be to deny a safe haven to al-qaida or violent radical islam.

Andrew bacevich for example argues that America should be concerned with mexico not Afghanistan..which is basically irrelevant to the usa. .... that the dynamics of consumerism and individual selfishness will conquer Islamic radicalism just as it did Christianity.

he believes that the 9/11 attack was a failure of civil aviation authorities to act, not a result of terror organizations in Afghanistan whose country should be the subject of a multi billion dollar military action. ( he also criticised the iraq war as it had no w.m.d.s or links to al-qaida which he believes were the reasons for it.)

his criticism is that America claims a 'providential mission' and 'exceptionalism' which is good neither for the world nor America. that much I would tend to agree with. considering the congo for example, America’s beacon has been long decommissioned.

others of course say the u.s.a. is still just baying for blood after 9/11

to me the question is.. does osama and co. represent a threat to the usa? and if so what threat?.. and what should the usa do?

so..... what is al-qaidah?

the word means like base or bastion.. it was the name of the headquarters of the afghan resistance to the soviet occupation of their country in the 1980s. which, due to the courage of its people and some technological assistance from the usa (stingers) was a success (if that is the correct term).

what al-qaida wants exactly is not clear in detail. . there has been no discussion about its real objectives.. not a word that i have noticed... no debate. bin laden has simply been demonised like some villain from a cheap comic. why do the americans (and allies) so assiduously avoid a frank open debate taking bin laden seriously? with sane analysis of bin laden’s argument? one can but speculate.

without doubt, radical islam has grievances against the usa. the list is a bit long to go into here but the levant really stands out. places like Beirut and ghazza.

probably fair enough to say that the time for a peaceful solution has way passed.

so what should the usa do?

well, if anyone wants my advice, then I can be contacted during business hours. what i have to say is actually worth a great deal more than what I would charge. I certainly have no inclination to give it away.

osama and co. taught the ussr a needed lesson . perhaps the lesson for the usa will be over when the usa finally leaves Afghanistan (like Somalia and iraq) then again...perhaps not. either way, I doubt it will be long before they do.

tejasfu@gmail.com

ignoring hell in zaire

what actually happened in Rwanda/congo?

words can reflect or conceal realities.

there were two wars.. the first 1996-97 saw few pitched battles and an unknown number of hutu regugees were slaughtered.

the second war 1998—2004 .. there are estimated to be some several million casualties.

the congo wars are distinct though related to the Rwandan genocide of 1994. that was one event that showed the real nature of the u.n. the congo is another.

the ‘newsreports’ at the time were at times graphic but basically shallow. and obviously never went near getting to the causes of the conflict.. just machete wielding maniacs slaughtering hutu women. it was portrayed as a civil war . it reminded me of the reports of the united nations monitoring the genocide in bihatch and other places in yougoslavia.

so what was the war in congo about?

there are whispers about very dirty wars in the congo from many years ago. there were certainly machete wielding maniacs but there was more to it than that. much.

congo.. formerly Zaire (formerly Belgian congo) is rich in mineral and other resources (diamonds). had been under the heel of mobutu a dictator who followed the typical pattern of head of state in a one party post colonial regime. despite association with the usa, mobutu’s legitimacy had become severely eroded. so that by 1996 a group calling itself the afdl began military action. it was later admitted by Rwanda that the rwandans had instigated it. it was not just a civil war. it is way more complex.

the first congo war ended with the overthrow of mobutu . it began with the influx of 2 million hutu refugees from Rwanda fearing genocide after tutsis ( a rival group) took over the state. these hutus had participated in the genocide against the tutsis earlier that year in Rwanda and continued their atrocities from camps in eastern Zaire.. mobutu supported the hutu extremists. anti-mobutu forces, many of them tutsis , united wth Laurent kabila a self proclaimed Marxist/maoist, as front man for the afdl.. (alliance of democratic forces for the liberation of Zaire.). Rwanda and uganda gave active support. kabila took Kinshasa from mobutu who fled to morroco.. kabila began trying to reorder the country. kabila wanted to distance himself from being perceived as a puppet of the rwandans so then instructed the tutsis who had fought with him to go back to Rwanda and Uganda.. they then tried to kill kabila. and the second congo war happened.

the second congo war began in august 98 and went officially till july 2003 but has not been resolved. by 2008 it had killed 5.4 million (wiki) mostly starvation/disease. millions more became refugees in neighboring countries.

rebel forces in congo were quick to destabilize the new state which was saved by the support of several neighboring African states. Rwanda Uganda and Burundi sponsored armed groups that took control of resource-rich eastern provinces.

president kabila (apparently changing sides) sought support from the hutus to counter the tutsi’s and Rwandan regional aspirations. rebel groups were making gains by 98 and Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola supported the kabila government. chad libya and sudan joined later. a multisided war began. many of the participating countries cannot support large forces/confrontations so the battles were guerrilla/ militia style and irregular. civilian casualties and undisciplined troops.

after nelson Mandela entered the argument there was a cease-fire among some of the rebel groups. non-African states were very reluctant to become involved.

in jan.2001 kabila was assassinated. his son joseph replaced him.

in april 2001 a u.n. panel accused Uganda rwnda and Zimbabwe of exploiting congo resources.. (diamonds, gold etc.) (its kinda beyond cynical)

joseph seems to have been able to bring a measure of security to the country. a peace accord was signed with rwanda in 2002 and its soldiers withdrew.

reluctance of rebel groups to cede power continued to destabilize but elections were held in 2006.. the fragility of the state is underlined with human rights abuses and violence (rape, murder and cannibalism). uncontrolled militias chaos. people, mostly children are dying as we write. the most monstrous part of it is the inaction of the united nations.

it is like hell came to earth. but was hushed up in the hope noone would notice.

congo itself is a framework of error. and a symbol of the white and other man’s dirty secret of exploitation of Africa. it reflects the shortcomings of the international system from prince Leopold of Belgium to us sponsored mobutu to the hard-line ineffectualism of the u.n. today. it is where international catastrophes have concentrated. the world has ignored it with failure to act in the Rwandan genocide and failure to act in the collapse of congo…… the un is supposed to represent the world’s values. u.n irrelevance in the face of massive human rights abuse. they should be tried for criminal negligence. the usa opposed intervention and refused to recognise genocide and invasion citing strategic irrelevance . france supported the hutus!!!! there was the backdrop of conflict between Clinton and Boutros ghali. its totally sick.

a litany of non-decision and non-intervention. someone permitted this to happen. . allowing them to go free is in itself an outrage.

glib self-satisfied punks.. let your self-loathing be complete.

...

politics of augustine of hippo

politics of Augustine of hippo.

the term ‘city of god’ crops up now and then (even on this blog) . but it doesn’t hurt to quickly recap exactly what it means.

augustine of hippo 354-430 born at thagaste in modern Algeria (then a roman province). moved to Milan in 384 and came under the influence of Christian neo-platonism.

his work is important coz he set the agendum for about 1000 years of European politics till the enlightenment/napoleon basically … ( formation of renaissance intellectual groundwork shows in Machiavelli 16^th century following on from the likes of ibn khaldun 14^th) the well known philosopher historian. the modern state system developed from the rubble of medievalism.. and spread to other regions of the world where, prior to the modern era, they had their own simular fundamentalist approach. (Confucius, chanakya) so it s importance shouldnt need to be argued.

the city of god.. de civitate dei is not directly a work of political philosophy . augustine’s political thought is scattered throughout his entire opus which consists of many tomes. de civitate dei was written soon after the fall of the multiple towers of rome brought down by the visgoths 24 august 410..... it was an event that shocked many romans though from this distance you kinda ask why it took so long for it to happen. after the excesses of the aristocracy.. the book was a consolation to christians rocked by the visgoth’s sack.

to understand the work it is necessary to understand the fundamental doctrines involved at the time .

original sin, grace and predestination… underlie it. …. his work puts political philosophy in a whole new framework to the preceeding ideas of stoic roman imperium or the philosopher king of plato..or the moral philosophy of aristotle’s ethics that were the intellectual foundations of rome till that time.

it goes like this:

adam and eve were created with free will but chose to sin and so were damned along with their offspring.. (us).. we are all natural born sinners retaining only the freedom to choose our poison. (method of achieving damnation)

but.. because of god’s mercy he offers grace to mankind which is the chance to redeem one’s self by placing love of god before self. those predestined to benefit from the grace live in the city of god.. others live in civitas terrenna the city of earth.. (dunya)

right. damnation of the many is proof of divine justice, salvation of the elect in the city of god proof of his mercy. right.

medieval admirers of augustine equated the city of god with the roman church but his idea was of the communico sanctorum.. the saved.. elect both incarnate and departed, and angels loyal to god ..

you’re either in one or the other.

Augustine departs from the rational polis as the fundamental unit of political organization. while the temporal state is not part of the city of god but the result of sin, it acts to hold the excesses of human nature in check with the (oh so) fallible mechanism of earthly justice. the state is not a moral community as in Hellenic philosophy. coercion is justified to make heretics see the truth. its god’s will that we submit to the government as the state is part of gods plan eventhough it is the outcome of sin. the distinction between despotic and political rule is thus not important. active resistance to state authority cannot be justified ..the emperor though wicked derives his power from god.

the city of god comes to earth on judgement day .. not before.

its the coherent theory that led to the inquisition.

you might have said at the time.. 'let the dark ages begin'. as from that point the schools of philosophy disappeared from europe not to be rekindled till the enlightened fled from a similar dark age that started in the middle east.

anyone who tries to tick augustine off as obscure should have another look.

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macnamara's band and 'critical oral history'

macnamara’s band and critical oral history.

pay any price .. bear any burden.. kennedy.

robert j macnamara was the secretary of defence for kennedy and Johnson 1961-68. he was an ivy-league mba. its probably fair to say that he was principle in the policy of mutually assured destruction... .

in the case of the action of the usa in Vietnam'62 -75 , like all violence, there were only losers. 3.8 million Vietnamese were slaughtered (unknown number maimed or wounded). some 50,000 american personel perished. Vietnam suffered an horrendous event but is now slowly recovering.. people still argue that America achieved its objective in stopping the domino effect. they are becoming fewer. ...the major result is that people stopped believing in the usa.

in his 1999 book*, macnamara describes that ‘critical oral history’ is a basis to learn from the mistakes of the past. it is the intersection of 1.political science, 2. group recollections of the people in power who made the decisions and 3. the documentary evidence…... it gives more depth to understanding history from more than one perspective.. with the aim of finding a way to avoid repeating mistakes. you’d have to say that it appears at least a step in the right direction.

the first case of application of ‘critical oral history’ was regarding the October 1962 cuban missile crisis. . between 1987 and 1992 conferences were arranged between the surviving principle actors from cuba, ussr and usa. to meet and compare notes. apparently it came closer to ‘utter disaster’ than they thought. there was more fire power in cuba than the cia thought. and castro and the kremlin heads were prepared to use it. the point macnamara claims to be making is that human fallibility and nuclear weapons carries a very high risk of disaster. (um.. this guy was defence minister of the largest nuclear arsenal….)

the positive outcome of these meetings led to the idea to organise a parlay between the people involved in the Vietnam war came about and is the subject of his second book. argument without end.

the meetings between the americans led by macnamara and the vitnamese group with general vo nguyen giap took place bwtween 95 and 98 . .(one small detail.. it was over 30 years too late for parlay.)

despite an American perception of lack of candour on the part of the Vietnamese government, the meetings went ahead…

the result seems to have been less fruitful than the missile crises meetings…

it was misunderstanding and doctrinaire approach rather than the problem of human fallibility according to macnamara's analysis... from the initial Tonkin incident to the domino theory to the idea that America could win a war against the Vietnamese without genocide.

the Vietnamese bielived and believe still that the americans simply wanted to resume where the French left off.. squeezing the country for what they could. macnamara thinks it was a misunderstanding.

for the general it was a noble sacrifice .(to fight ruthless neo-colonialism in the guise of liberalism). for macnamara it was a tragedy of mistakes and missed opportunity to avoid the suffering.

certainly looks like crocodile tears…. but you cant be too certain.

oh.. btw.

seems like it maybe now when the price has to be paid and the burden borne.

*argument without end. robert macnamara. public affairs. 1999 new york

it is 10 years ago. I know... many people do not have access to it. the American war as the Vietnamese call it is a subject about the roots of commitment..

seems that he did for the usa what he did for Ford.

tejasfu

orientalism and the middle east.

orientalism and the middle east.

i gotta admit , I’m interested in the middle east.

i went there a long time ago to find out why they were all so crazy.. but came away with the discovery that I had so much baggage and so a distorted view and very much dis-spelled….. about it and about..heheh. its that kind of a place. the hardest thing to get a good look at is one’s own arrogant self.

everyone knows that the main centres in the fertile crescent were ancient before the romans had even heard of togas. but few people seem to be aware of what that might mean.

the first problem is finding a name to call it.. labelling it is difficult..

‘Islamic world’ neglects so many realitities.. the deep divisions within islam.. the large Christian presence in many countries. the very lack of islam … state of ‘israel’.

‘arab world’ cuts out iran, turkey, Pakistan Afghanistan. central asia... many other ethnic groups such as berbers.. Aramaic/Syriac speakers. and the fact that Arabism is so laid on the foundations of ancient civilizations … not forgetting the Hellenic or Greco-roman world that was the political elite throughout for the 1000 years prior to the prophet Muhammad. Arabic was only ever a vehicle of unity and transmission..

then there is ‘afro-arab states’.. but that is no better really..

‘the orient’ is way dated.

it leaves us with ‘middle-east’.. which is worse than meaningless for anyone other than europeans and americans.. as if it is some backwater that achieved relevance and could be identified in terms of the latter two.

‘middle east’ has caught on also in the middle east I guess largely by virtue of the fact that the muslims are described in the holy quran as a middle nation.. ie. between the extremes. (I forget the verse and sura..)

looks like it is here to stay for a while at least.

the labelling is the first problem but it doesn’t get any easier.

it was the late Palestinian intellectual Edouard Said whose critique of orientalism brought attention to the common western error of oversimplifying the ‘orient’. something like you might call cognitive dissonance.

he argues that western scholarship has been fundamentally politically motivated with a colonial view.. furthermore he argues that European scholarship has developed an orthodoxy.. or authoritarian approach to viewing the middle east.. he basically critiques occidental assumptions about the orient from a to z. he cannot be ignored.

it would seem that the eurocentric characterization of the middle east hasn’t changed. if you want to get a real fix on a place, you basically have to go there with an open mind. I found that to be the way to dump the comic-book nonsense I was fed about it since the cradle. true … it blew my mind.. but for anything worthwhile to be constructed, the junk has to be cleared. hehehe. nothing new. its in one of those zen stories.. you know that!

the middle-east is the most extraordinary, culturally rich and refined place I have ever been—.. it’s the house of islam. dar ul islam. (allah yuzido)

romantic madmen and orientalist lackeys can say what they like.. islam is about your attitude to the truth. either you buy it or not (read the quran before you dismiss it.)

to the good people of the middle east (christian jew and muslim) I say only salaam salaam salaam.

tejas a. fu.