Building A New Kind Of Infoshop
by Peter P.
Crimethinc
On Saturday, November 13, a new and experimental infoshop in Winona, MN, opened it’s doors to the public. The Burrow is one of the first new infoshops to open since the controversial essay “5 Steps to Reviving Your Failing Anarchist Bookstore“, and at a time when long-standing infoshops are throwing in their towels, this account offers insight into the new models still unseen.
This story begins where our coverage of small-town organizing left off in Rolling Thunder #7. What follows is not only an account and recipe for a new type of space, but a possible intermediate step in anarchist organizing in long-term communities.
If You Build It . . .
Early on, the plan was to put a space in our home. Our friends and colleagues have known about our wild dreams for the last two years — that we’d be able to have a social space independent from the rest of our house. Now that we’ve finished most of the work, a community is waiting for us.
We knew from the start that making good on our promise would mean a lot of work and time. It would mean learning how to do things we’d never done before. Perhaps most importantly, it would mean we would have to care enough about the outcome to do things well.
The process was long, though. Visitors passed through to see the space in wholly different stages and shades. Before any work was done the wallpaper was sagging, the plaster dripping, like some paper street soap company.
The walls were first to go. We had to tear down the old walls, swinging hammers and crowbars. Carpenters call this doing “demo” and it is similar, in many ways, to the anarchist sense of the word. Of course, it wasn’t all smash. We shoveled plaster and lath. We scooped armloads of asbestos vermiculite. It was dusty, disgusting, probably deadly, and it had to be done.
To Read the Rest of the Essay and to See Pictures of the Journey/Process
Friday, December 03, 2010
Rock"n"Roll Suicide #78: Strange Attractor; The Barreracudas; The Horribly Wrong; Tokyo Election; The Kill Spectors; The Impediments; Sex Beet; et al
Rock"n"Roll Suicide #78
The Garage Punk Hideout
Tokyo Electron
This is what I did on my winter vacation! R. Fink returns and hits like an atomic bomb on this edition of Rock'n'Roll Suicide. New waxings by the likes of Strange Attractor, the Barreracudas, the Horribly Wrong, Tokyo Electron, the Kill Spectors, the Impediments, Sex Beet, Home Blitz and more. It's rock and roll motherfucker yeah yeah yeah.
The Impediments
To Listen to the Episode
Bucky Buckaw's Backyard Chicken Podcast: Small Flock Chickeners from Little Compton, Rhode Island
(Great episode profiling two girls who raise their own chickens)
Bucky Buckaw's Backyard Chicken Broadcast
Bucky Buckaw has an agenda to replace factory farming with backyard agriculture - one coop at a time. On this episode Bucky profiles two young flock small flock chickeners from Little Compton, Rhode Island.
To Listen to the Podcast
Bucky Buckaw's Backyard Chicken Broadcast
Bucky Buckaw has an agenda to replace factory farming with backyard agriculture - one coop at a time. On this episode Bucky profiles two young flock small flock chickeners from Little Compton, Rhode Island.
To Listen to the Podcast
Andy Kroll: The New American Oligarchy
The New American Oligarchy: Creating a Country of the Rich, by the Rich, and for the Rich
By Andy Kroll
TomDisaptch
There is a war underway. I'm not talking about Washington’s bloody misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, but a war within our own borders. It’s a war fought on the airwaves, on television and radio and over the Internet, a war of words and images, of half-truth, innuendo, and raging lies. I'm talking about a political war, pitting liberals against conservatives, Democrats against Republicans. I'm talking about a spending war, fueled by stealthy front groups and deep-pocketed anonymous donors. It’s a war that's poised to topple what's left of American democracy.
The right wing won the opening battle. In the 2010 midterm elections, shadowy outside organizations (who didn’t have to disclose their donors until well after Election Day, if at all) backing Republican candidates doled out $190 million, outspending their adversaries by a more than two-to-one margin, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. American Action Network, operated by Republican consultant Fred Malek and former Republican Senator Norm Coleman, spent $26 million; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plunked down $33 million; and Karl Rove's American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS shelled out a combined $38.6 million. Their investments in conservative candidates across the country paid off: the 62 House seats and six Senate seats claimed by Republicans were the most in the postwar era -- literally, a historic victory.
Knocked out of their complacency, no longer basking in the glow of Barack Obama's 2008 victory, wealthy Democrats are now plotting their response. Left-wing media mogul David Brock plans to create an outside group dubbed American Bridge in response to Rove's Crossroads outfits that will fight in the trenches of 2012 campaign spending. Many more outfits like Brock's will surely follow, as liberal and centrist Democrats brace for a promised $500 million onslaught by the Chamber of Commerce and others of its ilk.
Even the Obama administration, which shunned outside groups in 2008, has opened the door to a covert spending war. The Democrats will now fight fire with fire. "Is small money better? You bet. But we're in a fucking fight," Democratic strategist and fundraiser Harold Ickes told me recently. "And if you're in a fistfight, then you're in a fistfight, and you use all legal means available."
The endgame here, of course, is non-stop war. No longer will outside groups come and go every two years. Now, such groups will be running attack ads, sending out mailers, and deploying robo-calls year-round in what is going to become a perpetual campaign to sway voters and elect friendly lawmakers. "We're definitely building a foundation," was how American Crossroads president Steven Law put it.
This is what nowadays passes for the heart and soul of American democracy. It used to be that citizens in large numbers, mobilized by labor unions or political parties or a single uniting cause, determined the course of American politics. After World War II, a swelling middle class was the most powerful voting bloc, while, in those same decades, the working and middle classes enjoyed comparatively greater economic prosperity than their wealthy counterparts. Kiss all that goodbye. We're now a country run by rich people.
Not surprisingly, political power has a way of following wealth. What that means is: you can't understand how the rich seized control of American politics, and arguably American society, without understanding how a small group of Americans got so much money in the first place.
That story begins in the late 1970s and continues through the Obama years, a period in which American policy has been so skewed toward the rich that we're now living through the worst period of income inequality in modern history. Consider the statistics: 50 years ago, the wealthiest 1% of Americans accounted for one of every 10 dollars of the nation's income; today, it's nearly one in every four. Between 1979 and 2006, the average post-tax household income (including benefits) of the wealthiest 1% increased by 256%; the poorest households saw an increase of 11%; middle class homes, 21%, much of which was due to the arrival of two-job families.
Tax guru David Cay Johnston recently crunched new Social Security Administration data and discovered an even starker divide. On the one hand, the number of Americans earning a steady income declined by 4.5 million between 2008 and 2009, and the average wage in the U.S. dipped by 1.2%, to $39,055. On the other hand, the average wage among Americans earning more than $50 million per year was $91 million in 2008 and $84 million in 2009.
Harvard University economist Lawrence Katz put the situation Americans now find themselves in this way:
"Think of the American economy as a large apartment block. A century ago -- even 30 years ago -- it was the object of envy. But in the last generation its character has changed. The penthouses at the top keep getting larger and larger. The apartments in the middle are feeling more and more squeezed and the basement has flooded. To round it off, the elevator is no longer working. That broken elevator is what gets people down the most."
Let's call those select few in the penthouse the New Oligarchy, an awesomely rich sliver of Americans raking in an outsized share of the nation's wealth. They're oil magnates and media tycoons, corporate executives and hedge-fund traders, philanthropists and entertainers. Depending on where you want to draw the line, they're the top 1%, or the top 0.1%, or even the top 0.01% of the population. And when the Supreme Court handed down its controversial Citizens United decision in January, it broke the floodgates so that a torrent of anonymous donations from this oligarchic class could flood back down from the heights and inundate the political lands below.
To Read the Rest of the Essay and Access Hyerplinked Resources
By Andy Kroll
TomDisaptch
There is a war underway. I'm not talking about Washington’s bloody misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, but a war within our own borders. It’s a war fought on the airwaves, on television and radio and over the Internet, a war of words and images, of half-truth, innuendo, and raging lies. I'm talking about a political war, pitting liberals against conservatives, Democrats against Republicans. I'm talking about a spending war, fueled by stealthy front groups and deep-pocketed anonymous donors. It’s a war that's poised to topple what's left of American democracy.
The right wing won the opening battle. In the 2010 midterm elections, shadowy outside organizations (who didn’t have to disclose their donors until well after Election Day, if at all) backing Republican candidates doled out $190 million, outspending their adversaries by a more than two-to-one margin, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. American Action Network, operated by Republican consultant Fred Malek and former Republican Senator Norm Coleman, spent $26 million; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plunked down $33 million; and Karl Rove's American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS shelled out a combined $38.6 million. Their investments in conservative candidates across the country paid off: the 62 House seats and six Senate seats claimed by Republicans were the most in the postwar era -- literally, a historic victory.
Knocked out of their complacency, no longer basking in the glow of Barack Obama's 2008 victory, wealthy Democrats are now plotting their response. Left-wing media mogul David Brock plans to create an outside group dubbed American Bridge in response to Rove's Crossroads outfits that will fight in the trenches of 2012 campaign spending. Many more outfits like Brock's will surely follow, as liberal and centrist Democrats brace for a promised $500 million onslaught by the Chamber of Commerce and others of its ilk.
Even the Obama administration, which shunned outside groups in 2008, has opened the door to a covert spending war. The Democrats will now fight fire with fire. "Is small money better? You bet. But we're in a fucking fight," Democratic strategist and fundraiser Harold Ickes told me recently. "And if you're in a fistfight, then you're in a fistfight, and you use all legal means available."
The endgame here, of course, is non-stop war. No longer will outside groups come and go every two years. Now, such groups will be running attack ads, sending out mailers, and deploying robo-calls year-round in what is going to become a perpetual campaign to sway voters and elect friendly lawmakers. "We're definitely building a foundation," was how American Crossroads president Steven Law put it.
This is what nowadays passes for the heart and soul of American democracy. It used to be that citizens in large numbers, mobilized by labor unions or political parties or a single uniting cause, determined the course of American politics. After World War II, a swelling middle class was the most powerful voting bloc, while, in those same decades, the working and middle classes enjoyed comparatively greater economic prosperity than their wealthy counterparts. Kiss all that goodbye. We're now a country run by rich people.
Not surprisingly, political power has a way of following wealth. What that means is: you can't understand how the rich seized control of American politics, and arguably American society, without understanding how a small group of Americans got so much money in the first place.
That story begins in the late 1970s and continues through the Obama years, a period in which American policy has been so skewed toward the rich that we're now living through the worst period of income inequality in modern history. Consider the statistics: 50 years ago, the wealthiest 1% of Americans accounted for one of every 10 dollars of the nation's income; today, it's nearly one in every four. Between 1979 and 2006, the average post-tax household income (including benefits) of the wealthiest 1% increased by 256%; the poorest households saw an increase of 11%; middle class homes, 21%, much of which was due to the arrival of two-job families.
Tax guru David Cay Johnston recently crunched new Social Security Administration data and discovered an even starker divide. On the one hand, the number of Americans earning a steady income declined by 4.5 million between 2008 and 2009, and the average wage in the U.S. dipped by 1.2%, to $39,055. On the other hand, the average wage among Americans earning more than $50 million per year was $91 million in 2008 and $84 million in 2009.
Harvard University economist Lawrence Katz put the situation Americans now find themselves in this way:
"Think of the American economy as a large apartment block. A century ago -- even 30 years ago -- it was the object of envy. But in the last generation its character has changed. The penthouses at the top keep getting larger and larger. The apartments in the middle are feeling more and more squeezed and the basement has flooded. To round it off, the elevator is no longer working. That broken elevator is what gets people down the most."
Let's call those select few in the penthouse the New Oligarchy, an awesomely rich sliver of Americans raking in an outsized share of the nation's wealth. They're oil magnates and media tycoons, corporate executives and hedge-fund traders, philanthropists and entertainers. Depending on where you want to draw the line, they're the top 1%, or the top 0.1%, or even the top 0.01% of the population. And when the Supreme Court handed down its controversial Citizens United decision in January, it broke the floodgates so that a torrent of anonymous donations from this oligarchic class could flood back down from the heights and inundate the political lands below.
To Read the Rest of the Essay and Access Hyerplinked Resources
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Julianne Hing: Janet Napolitano -- DREAM Act’s Good for National Security
Napolitano: DREAM Act’s Good for National Security
by Julianne Hing
Colorlines
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano today became the latest member in President Obama’s cabinet to urge Congress to pass the DREAM Act when it comes up for a vote. A version of the DREAM Act could come up for a vote in the House as early as Friday, according to immigration advocacy groups.
“I know that Congress is going to be considering the DREAM Act soon and I wanted to reemphasize my support for it,” Sec. Napolitano said on a press call today, adding that even though the DREAM Act directly benefits many of the nation’s economic, education, and national defense priorities, it is important for her agency’s immigration enforcement work as well.
“From where I sit I think it’s important to point out that it fits into a larger strategy of immigration enforcement and complements the Department of Homeland Security plan to prioritize enforcement resources to remove dangerous criminal aliens from the country,” the Secretary said, omitting the fact that under her watch the U.S. has actually deported plenty of people with no prior criminal convictions, including DREAM Act-eligible youth.
The DREAM Act would grant undocumented youth with clean criminal records who came to the country as kids and who commit two years to the military or higher education a pathway to citizenship. Democrats are working a last-minute push to pass the bill in the lame-duck session before the Republicans take over the House and gain new seats in the Senate next year.
“The DREAM Act is one thing that Congress can do right now to help the Department of Homeland Security do its job of enforcing immigration laws in the way that makes the most sense for public safety for our national security,” Napolitano said.
Might the Department of Homeland Security consider putting a moratorium on deportations of DREAM Act-eligible youth while the bill is under consideration? Sec. Napolitano didn’t hesitate in her answer: “No.”
“Our job is to enforce the law and we’re going to continue to do that,” Napolitano said. “We do not have the option under the law to simply say we will not enforce it while Congress considers [the DREAM Act].”
Napolitano then repeated what has become a familiar boast from the Obama administration: “We have in the last two years led a historic move to remove a record number of illegal aliens of criminal offenses,” Napolitano proudly said. “195,000 just in fiscal year 2010, a 70 percent increase over the last year of the previous administration in fiscal year 2008.” In fact, the total number of those deported was 392,000—the rest had never been convicted of anything before the country forced them out.
To Read the Rest of the Report
by Julianne Hing
Colorlines
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano today became the latest member in President Obama’s cabinet to urge Congress to pass the DREAM Act when it comes up for a vote. A version of the DREAM Act could come up for a vote in the House as early as Friday, according to immigration advocacy groups.
“I know that Congress is going to be considering the DREAM Act soon and I wanted to reemphasize my support for it,” Sec. Napolitano said on a press call today, adding that even though the DREAM Act directly benefits many of the nation’s economic, education, and national defense priorities, it is important for her agency’s immigration enforcement work as well.
“From where I sit I think it’s important to point out that it fits into a larger strategy of immigration enforcement and complements the Department of Homeland Security plan to prioritize enforcement resources to remove dangerous criminal aliens from the country,” the Secretary said, omitting the fact that under her watch the U.S. has actually deported plenty of people with no prior criminal convictions, including DREAM Act-eligible youth.
The DREAM Act would grant undocumented youth with clean criminal records who came to the country as kids and who commit two years to the military or higher education a pathway to citizenship. Democrats are working a last-minute push to pass the bill in the lame-duck session before the Republicans take over the House and gain new seats in the Senate next year.
“The DREAM Act is one thing that Congress can do right now to help the Department of Homeland Security do its job of enforcing immigration laws in the way that makes the most sense for public safety for our national security,” Napolitano said.
Might the Department of Homeland Security consider putting a moratorium on deportations of DREAM Act-eligible youth while the bill is under consideration? Sec. Napolitano didn’t hesitate in her answer: “No.”
“Our job is to enforce the law and we’re going to continue to do that,” Napolitano said. “We do not have the option under the law to simply say we will not enforce it while Congress considers [the DREAM Act].”
Napolitano then repeated what has become a familiar boast from the Obama administration: “We have in the last two years led a historic move to remove a record number of illegal aliens of criminal offenses,” Napolitano proudly said. “195,000 just in fiscal year 2010, a 70 percent increase over the last year of the previous administration in fiscal year 2008.” In fact, the total number of those deported was 392,000—the rest had never been convicted of anything before the country forced them out.
To Read the Rest of the Report
Rachel Slajda: After Getting Amazon To Boot Wikileaks, Lieberman Eyes Other Firms
After Getting Amazon To Boot Wikileaks, Lieberman Eyes Other Firms (VIDEO)
by Rachel Slajda
Talking Points Memo
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, yesterday succeeded in getting Amazon.com to boot Wikileaks off its servers.
Now, Lieberman says he's widening his scope.
"We've gotta put pressure on any companies -- like Amazon, [which] just cut Wikileaks off from its servers to distribute -- there's a company now in Sweden, I think it's called Bahnhof, which is providing that kind of access to the Internet to Wikileaks," he said on MSNBC this afternoon. "We've got to stop them from doing that."
As TPM reported yesterday, Lieberman's committee staff called Amazon and asked, "Are there plans to take the site down?"
Amazon responded by removing the site, telling the committee it violated unspecified terms of use.
TPM yesterday asked a committee spokeswoman, Leslie Phillips, whether Lieberman was planning to reach out to other companies.
"The committee is not reaching out to other companies," she said. "Senator Lieberman hopes that the Amazon case will send the message to other companies that might host Wikileaks that it would be irresponsible to host the site."
To Read the Rest of the Report, Access hyperlinked resources, and watch a video
by Rachel Slajda
Talking Points Memo
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, yesterday succeeded in getting Amazon.com to boot Wikileaks off its servers.
Now, Lieberman says he's widening his scope.
"We've gotta put pressure on any companies -- like Amazon, [which] just cut Wikileaks off from its servers to distribute -- there's a company now in Sweden, I think it's called Bahnhof, which is providing that kind of access to the Internet to Wikileaks," he said on MSNBC this afternoon. "We've got to stop them from doing that."
As TPM reported yesterday, Lieberman's committee staff called Amazon and asked, "Are there plans to take the site down?"
Amazon responded by removing the site, telling the committee it violated unspecified terms of use.
TPM yesterday asked a committee spokeswoman, Leslie Phillips, whether Lieberman was planning to reach out to other companies.
"The committee is not reaching out to other companies," she said. "Senator Lieberman hopes that the Amazon case will send the message to other companies that might host Wikileaks that it would be irresponsible to host the site."
To Read the Rest of the Report, Access hyperlinked resources, and watch a video
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Gabrielle Murray: Images of Torture, Images of Terror: Post 9/11 and the Escalation of Screen Violence
Images of Torture, Images of Terror: Post 9/11 and the Escalation of Screen Violence
by Gabrielle Murray (La Trobe)
Monash University Film & Television Studies
David Edelstein, the New York Magazine film critic, commenting on the surge in extreme, prolonged graphic torture, abduction, rape and dismemberment in films such as The Devil’s Rejects, Saw, Wolf Creek and Hostel, dubbed the phenomenon “torture porn” (2006). The current box-office success of films like the Saw and Hostel series stunned many critics; most seemed bewildered by young audiences’ thirst for such graphic fare. Edelstein’s uneasy review suggests that the media release of documentary images of US and UK military personal torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib helped feed the escalation of uninhibited images of torture, degradation and mutilation in fiction film. This claim is echoed in most reviews and commentaries on the phenomenon (Barber 2007; Douthat 2006; Rimanelli and Liden 2006; Newman 2006). Furthermore, the critical literature argues increasingly graphic scenes are appearing in a broader range of mainstream and art-house releases.
However, while much of the critical literature agrees that public attitudes toward violent imagery are generally historically determined, most discussion of the nature of the linkages between social and cinematic violence remain circumstantial and speculative (Slocum 2004). This paper poses questions regarding the public and critical perception post 9/11 that there is a direct link between increased visual knowledge of violence and torture in the “real” world acquired from images on television and the internet, with an escalation of representations of explicit violence in the commercial and cultural medium of popular western cinema.
To Listen to the Lecture
by Gabrielle Murray (La Trobe)
Monash University Film & Television Studies
David Edelstein, the New York Magazine film critic, commenting on the surge in extreme, prolonged graphic torture, abduction, rape and dismemberment in films such as The Devil’s Rejects, Saw, Wolf Creek and Hostel, dubbed the phenomenon “torture porn” (2006). The current box-office success of films like the Saw and Hostel series stunned many critics; most seemed bewildered by young audiences’ thirst for such graphic fare. Edelstein’s uneasy review suggests that the media release of documentary images of US and UK military personal torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib helped feed the escalation of uninhibited images of torture, degradation and mutilation in fiction film. This claim is echoed in most reviews and commentaries on the phenomenon (Barber 2007; Douthat 2006; Rimanelli and Liden 2006; Newman 2006). Furthermore, the critical literature argues increasingly graphic scenes are appearing in a broader range of mainstream and art-house releases.
However, while much of the critical literature agrees that public attitudes toward violent imagery are generally historically determined, most discussion of the nature of the linkages between social and cinematic violence remain circumstantial and speculative (Slocum 2004). This paper poses questions regarding the public and critical perception post 9/11 that there is a direct link between increased visual knowledge of violence and torture in the “real” world acquired from images on television and the internet, with an escalation of representations of explicit violence in the commercial and cultural medium of popular western cinema.
To Listen to the Lecture
Michael Azar: The stranger, the mother and the Algerian revolution -- A postcolonial reading of Albert Camus
The stranger, the mother and the Algerian revolution: A postcolonial reading of Albert Camus
by Michael Azar
Eurozine
The purely existential themes of The Stranger hide Camus' critique of the discriminatory nature of French rule in Algeria. Yet Camus never entirely renounced the civilizing premise of colonialism. The reason lies in his relation to his mother, writes Michael Azar on the fiftieth anniversary of Camus' death.
In The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus seeks his own answer to the question that Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche have bequeathed to us: is it possible to live without God, without any hope of salvation as death looms? At first sight the outlook is bleak: we are, says Camus, thrust into existence as into an exile with no return. From the viewpoint of eternity, we are passions that can never be satisfied, cries that go unheard. Human beings and the world do not mix. He sums up man's tragic existence in one word: the absurd. It emerges from the fracture between the soul's desperate desire for clarity and the incomprehensibility of reality, the gap between our craving for meaning and the cold grave that awaits us. Camus understood early on that reason – the traditional weapon of philosophy – would always be powerless to address the futile, ill-fated game of existence.
Even so, the work essentially represents a manifesto for revolt and the ecstasy of life. It is a passionate revolt that answers the question of the meaning of life: if there is any raison d'être worthy of the name, it is born of a piece of trembling flesh. Desire, affection and generosity: these are the bread and wine of the mortal human being. Anyone who does not live to serve an immortal Creator must become a creator himself. The absurd man, as Camus calls his hero, transforms his days into a work of art, a defiant celebration of the battle which, as he knows from the outset, must eventually end in his death. Camus quotes Nietzsche: "It is not a question of eternal life but of being eternally alive."[1] It is the destiny of the absurd man to try to make something out of the nothingness, to grasp his life from death itself. Sisyphus shows us the way: happiness is the leap we make both with and in spite of our burden.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
by Michael Azar
Eurozine
The purely existential themes of The Stranger hide Camus' critique of the discriminatory nature of French rule in Algeria. Yet Camus never entirely renounced the civilizing premise of colonialism. The reason lies in his relation to his mother, writes Michael Azar on the fiftieth anniversary of Camus' death.
In The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus seeks his own answer to the question that Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche have bequeathed to us: is it possible to live without God, without any hope of salvation as death looms? At first sight the outlook is bleak: we are, says Camus, thrust into existence as into an exile with no return. From the viewpoint of eternity, we are passions that can never be satisfied, cries that go unheard. Human beings and the world do not mix. He sums up man's tragic existence in one word: the absurd. It emerges from the fracture between the soul's desperate desire for clarity and the incomprehensibility of reality, the gap between our craving for meaning and the cold grave that awaits us. Camus understood early on that reason – the traditional weapon of philosophy – would always be powerless to address the futile, ill-fated game of existence.
Even so, the work essentially represents a manifesto for revolt and the ecstasy of life. It is a passionate revolt that answers the question of the meaning of life: if there is any raison d'être worthy of the name, it is born of a piece of trembling flesh. Desire, affection and generosity: these are the bread and wine of the mortal human being. Anyone who does not live to serve an immortal Creator must become a creator himself. The absurd man, as Camus calls his hero, transforms his days into a work of art, a defiant celebration of the battle which, as he knows from the outset, must eventually end in his death. Camus quotes Nietzsche: "It is not a question of eternal life but of being eternally alive."[1] It is the destiny of the absurd man to try to make something out of the nothingness, to grasp his life from death itself. Sisyphus shows us the way: happiness is the leap we make both with and in spite of our burden.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
Roman Frydman and Michael D. Goldberg: Market Mysticism
Market mysticism
Roman Frydman and Michael D. Goldberg
Eurozine
Faith in the "efficient markets hypothesis" is largely to blame for the massive deregulation of the late 1990s and early 2000s that made the crisis more likely, if not inevitable. Two economists excoriate the ideology of self-regulating markets and its pseudo-scientific foundations.
...
What is worse, the false concept of rationality on which mainstream economic theory is based, also underpins mistaken conclusions about the proper extent of market regulation. As a result, contemporary economic models produce two extreme positions: exclusion of any active role for the state or radical state interventionism.
As Michel Foucault convincingly showed, language is power. Aware of this, the neo-classical economists carried out a real coup d'état. They created a para-scientific jargon that helped them to direct social choices in a very dangerous and unproductive direction. The premises that form the basis of their models became in great part inscrutable to anyone lacking a PhD in economics, and debate was infused with terms that mean one thing to the uninitiated and quite another to economists.
The concept of rationality forms the foundation of this discourse. In everyday language, rationality means common sense or reasonableness. By contrast, for economists, a "rational individual" is not merely reasonable; he or she is someone who behaves in accord with a mathematical model of individual decision-making that economists have agreed to call "rational". The centrepiece of this standard of rationality, the so-called "Rational Expectations Hypothesis" (REH), presumes that economists can exactly model how rational individuals comprehend the future. The unreasonableness of this standard helps explain why macroeconomists and finance theorists find it so hard to account for large swings in market outcomes.
Indeed, economists' incoherent premises have led them to embrace absurd conclusions – for example, that unfettered financial markets set asset prices nearly perfectly at their "true" fundamental value. If so, the state should drastically curtail its supervision of the financial system. Unfortunately, many officials worldwide came to believe this claim, known as the "efficient markets hypothesis," resulting in the massive deregulation of the late 1990s and early 2000s that made the crisis more likely, if not inevitable.
In recent years, another school of thought, behavioural economics, has uncovered mountains of evidence that market participants do not act as conventional economists would predict "rational individuals" to behave. But, instead of jettisoning the bogus standard of rationality underlying those predictions, they interpret their empirical findings to mean that many market participants are irrational, prone to emotion, or ignore economic fundamentals for other reasons.
The behavioural view suggests that large swings in asset prices serve no useful social function. If the state could somehow eliminate them through massive intervention, or ban irrational players by imposing strict regulatory measures, the "rational" players could reassert their control and markets would return to their normal state of setting prices at their "true" values.
This is implausible, because an exact model of rational decision-making is beyond the capacity of economists – or anyone else – to formulate. Once economists recognize that they cannot explain exactly how reasonable individuals make decisions and how market outcomes unfold over time, we will no longer be stuck with two polar extremes concerning the relative roles of the market and the state.
An alternative theory of markets is needed, and its basis should be the fact that participants must cope with ever-imperfect knowledge about the fundamentals of economic change. This obvious feature of capitalism is completely ignored by the dominant market models, though it is the main explanation for asset-price fluctuations in market-based economies.
Such an alternative approach also leads to a new way of thinking about the respective roles of the state and financial markets. So long as price fluctuations remain within reasonable bounds, the state should limit its involvement to ensuring transparency, curbing monopolistic behaviour, and eliminating market failures. But when price fluctuations become excessive, as they did in the run-up to the recent crisis, the state can implement measures to limit their amplitude (though it always has a greater problem coping with imperfect knowledge than the market does).
A combination of passive and active roles for the state along these lines would leave markets to allocate capital while holding out the possibility of reducing the social costs that arise when asset-price swings continue for too long and then end, as they inevitably do, in sharp reversals.
To Read the Entire Essay
Roman Frydman and Michael D. Goldberg
Eurozine
Faith in the "efficient markets hypothesis" is largely to blame for the massive deregulation of the late 1990s and early 2000s that made the crisis more likely, if not inevitable. Two economists excoriate the ideology of self-regulating markets and its pseudo-scientific foundations.
...
What is worse, the false concept of rationality on which mainstream economic theory is based, also underpins mistaken conclusions about the proper extent of market regulation. As a result, contemporary economic models produce two extreme positions: exclusion of any active role for the state or radical state interventionism.
As Michel Foucault convincingly showed, language is power. Aware of this, the neo-classical economists carried out a real coup d'état. They created a para-scientific jargon that helped them to direct social choices in a very dangerous and unproductive direction. The premises that form the basis of their models became in great part inscrutable to anyone lacking a PhD in economics, and debate was infused with terms that mean one thing to the uninitiated and quite another to economists.
The concept of rationality forms the foundation of this discourse. In everyday language, rationality means common sense or reasonableness. By contrast, for economists, a "rational individual" is not merely reasonable; he or she is someone who behaves in accord with a mathematical model of individual decision-making that economists have agreed to call "rational". The centrepiece of this standard of rationality, the so-called "Rational Expectations Hypothesis" (REH), presumes that economists can exactly model how rational individuals comprehend the future. The unreasonableness of this standard helps explain why macroeconomists and finance theorists find it so hard to account for large swings in market outcomes.
Indeed, economists' incoherent premises have led them to embrace absurd conclusions – for example, that unfettered financial markets set asset prices nearly perfectly at their "true" fundamental value. If so, the state should drastically curtail its supervision of the financial system. Unfortunately, many officials worldwide came to believe this claim, known as the "efficient markets hypothesis," resulting in the massive deregulation of the late 1990s and early 2000s that made the crisis more likely, if not inevitable.
In recent years, another school of thought, behavioural economics, has uncovered mountains of evidence that market participants do not act as conventional economists would predict "rational individuals" to behave. But, instead of jettisoning the bogus standard of rationality underlying those predictions, they interpret their empirical findings to mean that many market participants are irrational, prone to emotion, or ignore economic fundamentals for other reasons.
The behavioural view suggests that large swings in asset prices serve no useful social function. If the state could somehow eliminate them through massive intervention, or ban irrational players by imposing strict regulatory measures, the "rational" players could reassert their control and markets would return to their normal state of setting prices at their "true" values.
This is implausible, because an exact model of rational decision-making is beyond the capacity of economists – or anyone else – to formulate. Once economists recognize that they cannot explain exactly how reasonable individuals make decisions and how market outcomes unfold over time, we will no longer be stuck with two polar extremes concerning the relative roles of the market and the state.
An alternative theory of markets is needed, and its basis should be the fact that participants must cope with ever-imperfect knowledge about the fundamentals of economic change. This obvious feature of capitalism is completely ignored by the dominant market models, though it is the main explanation for asset-price fluctuations in market-based economies.
Such an alternative approach also leads to a new way of thinking about the respective roles of the state and financial markets. So long as price fluctuations remain within reasonable bounds, the state should limit its involvement to ensuring transparency, curbing monopolistic behaviour, and eliminating market failures. But when price fluctuations become excessive, as they did in the run-up to the recent crisis, the state can implement measures to limit their amplitude (though it always has a greater problem coping with imperfect knowledge than the market does).
A combination of passive and active roles for the state along these lines would leave markets to allocate capital while holding out the possibility of reducing the social costs that arise when asset-price swings continue for too long and then end, as they inevitably do, in sharp reversals.
To Read the Entire Essay
RadiOblivion #32: Billy Childish & Dan Melchior; Flat Duo Jets; The Dirty Wurds; Don Juan y Los Blancos; Howlin Wolf, Guitar Wolf; The Delmonas; et al
RadiOblivion No.32
... 59 minutes of prime POUNDERS. A guaranteed sonic action blast! One can make a BOLD statement such as that when the show includes tracks by Billy Childish & Dan Melchior, Flat Duo Jets, The Dirty Wurds, Don Juan y Los Blancos, Howlin’ Wolf, Guitar Wolf, The Delmonas, Zipps, The Grave Diggers, Blind Boy Fuller, and loads more blastables.
To Listen to the Show
Howlin Wolf
RadioActive: Julie Carrion, director of catering and education, discusses The Kitchen at Billings Forge in Hartford, CT
RadioActive (Hartford, CT: IMC)
Julie Carrion, director of catering and education, discusses The Kitchen at Billings Forge in Hartford. Topics include the farm to table movement, food policy, and community development through job training.
To Listen to the Podcast
Julie Carrion, director of catering and education, discusses The Kitchen at Billings Forge in Hartford. Topics include the farm to table movement, food policy, and community development through job training.
To Listen to the Podcast
Tom Engelhardt: The United States of Fear
The United States of Fear
by Tom Engelhardt
Tom Dispatch
...
You Wanna Be Safer? Really?
You must have a friend who’s extremely critical of everyone else but utterly opaque when it comes to himself. Well, that’s this country, too.
Here’s a singular fact to absorb: we now know that a bunch of Yemeni al-Qaeda adherents have a far better hit on just who we are, psychologically speaking, and what makes us tick than we do. Imagine that. They have a more accurate profile of us than our leading intelligence profilers undoubtedly do of them.
Recently, they released an online magazine laying out just how much the two U.S.-bound cargo-bay bombs that caused panic cost them: a mere $4,200 and the efforts of “less than six brothers” over three months. They even gave their plot a name, Operation Hemorrhage (and what they imagined hemorrhaging, it seems, was not American blood, but treasure).
Now, they're laughing at us for claiming the operation failed because -- thanks reportedly to a tip from Saudi intelligence -- those bombs didn’t go off. “This supposedly ‘foiled plot,’” they wrote, “will without a doubt cost America and other Western countries billions of dollars in new security measures. That is what we call leverage.”
They are, they claim, planning to use the "security phobia that is sweeping America” not to cause major casualties, but to blow a hole in the U.S. economy. "We knew that cargo planes are staffed by only a pilot and a co-pilot, so our objective was not to cause maximum casualties but to cause maximum losses to the American economy" via the multi-billion-dollar U.S. freight industry.
This is a new definition of asymmetrical warfare. The terrorists never have to strike an actual target. It’s not even incumbent upon them to build a bomb that works. Just about anything will do. To be successful, they just have to repeatedly send things in our direction, inciting the expectable Pavlovian reaction from the U.S. national security state, causing it to further tighten its grip (grope?) at yet greater taxpayer expense.
In a sense, both the American national security state and al-Qaeda are building their strength and prestige as our lives grow more constrained and our treasure vanishes.
So you wanna be safer? I mean, actually safer? Here’s a simple formula for beginning to improve American safety and security at every level. End our trillion dollar wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; set our military to defending our own borders (and no, projecting power abroad does not normally qualify as a defense of the United States); begin to shut down our global empire of bases; stop building grotesque embassy-citadels abroad (one even has a decorative moat, for god’s sake!); end our overseas war stimulus packages and bring some of that money home. In short, stop going out of our way to tick off foreigners and then pouring our treasure into an American war machine intent on pursuing a generational global war against them.
Of course, the U.S. national security state has quite a different formula for engendering safety in America: fight the Afghan War until hell freezes over; keep the odd base or two in Iraq; dig into the Persian Gulf region; send U.S. Special Operations troops into any country where a terrorist might possibly lurk; and make sure the drones aren’t far behind. In other words, reinforce our war state by ensuring that we’re eternally in a state of war, and then scare the hell out of Americans by repeatedly insisting that we’re in imminent danger, that shoe, underwear, and someday butt bombers will destroy our country, our lives, and our civilization. Insist that a single percent of risk is 1% too much when it comes to terror and American lives, and then demand that those who feel otherwise be dealt with punitively, if they won’t shut up.
It’s a formula for leaving you naked in airports, while increasing the oppressive power of the state. And here’s the dirty, little, distinctly Orwellian secret: the national security state can’t do without those Yemeni terrorists (and vice versa), as well as our homegrown variety. All of them profit from a world of war. You don’t -- and on that score, what happens in an airport line should be the least of your worries.
The national security state is eager to cop a feel. As long as Americans don’t grasp the connections between our war state and our “safety,” things will only get worse and, in the end, our world will genuinely be in danger.
To Read the Entire Essay and Access Hyperlinked Sources
by Tom Engelhardt
Tom Dispatch
...
You Wanna Be Safer? Really?
You must have a friend who’s extremely critical of everyone else but utterly opaque when it comes to himself. Well, that’s this country, too.
Here’s a singular fact to absorb: we now know that a bunch of Yemeni al-Qaeda adherents have a far better hit on just who we are, psychologically speaking, and what makes us tick than we do. Imagine that. They have a more accurate profile of us than our leading intelligence profilers undoubtedly do of them.
Recently, they released an online magazine laying out just how much the two U.S.-bound cargo-bay bombs that caused panic cost them: a mere $4,200 and the efforts of “less than six brothers” over three months. They even gave their plot a name, Operation Hemorrhage (and what they imagined hemorrhaging, it seems, was not American blood, but treasure).
Now, they're laughing at us for claiming the operation failed because -- thanks reportedly to a tip from Saudi intelligence -- those bombs didn’t go off. “This supposedly ‘foiled plot,’” they wrote, “will without a doubt cost America and other Western countries billions of dollars in new security measures. That is what we call leverage.”
They are, they claim, planning to use the "security phobia that is sweeping America” not to cause major casualties, but to blow a hole in the U.S. economy. "We knew that cargo planes are staffed by only a pilot and a co-pilot, so our objective was not to cause maximum casualties but to cause maximum losses to the American economy" via the multi-billion-dollar U.S. freight industry.
This is a new definition of asymmetrical warfare. The terrorists never have to strike an actual target. It’s not even incumbent upon them to build a bomb that works. Just about anything will do. To be successful, they just have to repeatedly send things in our direction, inciting the expectable Pavlovian reaction from the U.S. national security state, causing it to further tighten its grip (grope?) at yet greater taxpayer expense.
In a sense, both the American national security state and al-Qaeda are building their strength and prestige as our lives grow more constrained and our treasure vanishes.
So you wanna be safer? I mean, actually safer? Here’s a simple formula for beginning to improve American safety and security at every level. End our trillion dollar wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; set our military to defending our own borders (and no, projecting power abroad does not normally qualify as a defense of the United States); begin to shut down our global empire of bases; stop building grotesque embassy-citadels abroad (one even has a decorative moat, for god’s sake!); end our overseas war stimulus packages and bring some of that money home. In short, stop going out of our way to tick off foreigners and then pouring our treasure into an American war machine intent on pursuing a generational global war against them.
Of course, the U.S. national security state has quite a different formula for engendering safety in America: fight the Afghan War until hell freezes over; keep the odd base or two in Iraq; dig into the Persian Gulf region; send U.S. Special Operations troops into any country where a terrorist might possibly lurk; and make sure the drones aren’t far behind. In other words, reinforce our war state by ensuring that we’re eternally in a state of war, and then scare the hell out of Americans by repeatedly insisting that we’re in imminent danger, that shoe, underwear, and someday butt bombers will destroy our country, our lives, and our civilization. Insist that a single percent of risk is 1% too much when it comes to terror and American lives, and then demand that those who feel otherwise be dealt with punitively, if they won’t shut up.
It’s a formula for leaving you naked in airports, while increasing the oppressive power of the state. And here’s the dirty, little, distinctly Orwellian secret: the national security state can’t do without those Yemeni terrorists (and vice versa), as well as our homegrown variety. All of them profit from a world of war. You don’t -- and on that score, what happens in an airport line should be the least of your worries.
The national security state is eager to cop a feel. As long as Americans don’t grasp the connections between our war state and our “safety,” things will only get worse and, in the end, our world will genuinely be in danger.
To Read the Entire Essay and Access Hyperlinked Sources
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
HUM 221 Archive
Introduction
Conversations with History: Noam Chomsky (2002)
Bill Moyer's Crisis in Capitalism; Ben Barber asks "Global Consumer or Global Citizen?"; Naomi Klein's Brilliant History The Shock Doctrine
The Freedom Riders -- New Documentary Recounts Historic 1961 Effort to Challenge Segregated Bus System in the Deep South
You Never Knowism
Conversations with History: Noam Chomsky (2002)
Bill Moyer's Crisis in Capitalism; Ben Barber asks "Global Consumer or Global Citizen?"; Naomi Klein's Brilliant History The Shock Doctrine
The Freedom Riders -- New Documentary Recounts Historic 1961 Effort to Challenge Segregated Bus System in the Deep South
You Never Knowism
Shane Locker: Captive Exotics
Captive Exotics: What’s Right and Wrong?
by Shane Locker
ENG 102
When thinking of a household pet what often comes to mind? Perhaps a dog, cat, or even a hamster. These animals are the most common, but what if I told you it was possible to keep something like say a chimpanzee or an African lion? Would you be completely ecstatic or find it hard to believe? Well, for those of you who may possibly find it hard to believe well, start believing! In certain states and other countries it is quite possible to acquire these wild animals as pets, in fact in some cases they are so easy to obtain all it takes is a quick internet search and a few clicks! But the real question is, is it right to be able to own these creatures? Breed them? Yes in certain circumstances, and no in others. It is all dependent upon the reason behind what possessed the individual to have such potentially dangerous animals. There are those who will own these animals for reasons of education and conservation and there are those who will purchase them for an ego boost. Over the years there have been numerous situations where people have been injured and even killed by exotic animals that were kept as pets. From primates to large predatory cats, is it ok or ethical to keep these animals as pets?
So, let’s talk a little bit about ego. During this day and age there are many things someone can purchase to give a potential ego boost: Fancy cars, Vegas vacations, whatever tickles your fancy that states to the general public “I’m better than you!” However, there are those who always want more, sometimes the fancy cars just are not enough. A great example would be a Cincinnati Bengal’s football player Chad Johnson. Chad Johnson is the owner of a large adult male Bengal tiger, his reasoning of purchasing a tiger are completely un-ethical for a couple of reasons. He purchased the tiger because he can afford the hefty price tag on one of these animals and he plays for a team that’s mascot just so happens to be a Bengal tiger. He bought this animal with no intentions of educational use or research, (if you have ever listened to an interview with the guy clearly he is not a biologist.) he purchased the tiger just like someone would go out and buy a poodle! This type of ownership is wrong because no matter how rich Mr. Johnson or anyone else who is financially able to drop fifteen to twenty grand on one of these beautiful animals, they cannot provide adequate space or enrichment for an adult male tiger, most zoos do not even provide adequate space for their tigers. The states that allow ownership of exotic cats require a USDA license and the USDA minimum space requirement for all exotic cats is enough space for the cat to simply turn around, this minimum is considered acceptable and many private owners utilize this. Keeping a tiger in such a small space can cause abnormal behavior within the cats such as pacing and swaying. (Nihus, Tilson 207-208) On average and adult male Bengal tigers territorial range is between 2 and 60 miles, (Nihus, Tilson 23) so technically speaking if following the minimum natural range for a male Bengal tiger then the minimum enclosure requirement should be about two square miles.
Another reason ego driven ownership is wrong is the danger. Exotic felines are extremely unpredictable in a captive environment, since 1990 there have been 20 fatal attacks related to captive exotic cats. Fourteen of the attacks involved tigers. (Responsible Exotic Animal Ownership) Each attack being unique; only a couple of the attacks occurred during a scheduled feeding time. Other attacks took place during general interaction between owner and animal with no apparent motivation behind the attack, and there are also two attacks involving incidents with zoological facilities i.e. the Christmas day incident in San Diego in 2007 when a female Sumatran tiger escaped her enclosure killing one person and injuring another. The majority of people who actually decide to go out and purchase a tiger or any other inherently dangerous animal for a private collection do not know what they are truly getting themselves into, the statistics for fatalities may not be very high but there is always that possibility an attack may occur because these animals have not evolved to be reared in a captive setting. Most people who own these animals just want to be able to have the gratification of saying “I own a tiger” or “I own an elephant” and sadly anyone can go out and buy one because of the multiple irresponsible breeders out there, but more on that later.
There are many sanctuaries throughout the world that keep wild animals for reasons of educating conservation, rehabilitation, and research of individual species. Now, the question is what makes these organizations so different from private owners? And why is this type of ownership acceptable? The majority of sanctuaries are started by individuals who happen to acquire some sort of wild animal that they have rescued from horrible captive conditions and build from there, usually with the help of local or state government. The difference is that these individuals who start these sanctuaries are not looking for so much an ego boost but they are concerned for the wild animals and are trying to help them by offering sanctuary for those who are neglected or not given the proper care. This sort of ownership is completely acceptable, the motivation and goals of these organizations are completely different from that of someone with a high ego; wildlife sanctuaries teach conservation and offer hands on experiences within a controlled setting.
Hands on experience with wild animals has been proven to further incline people to more actively pursue efforts in conservation. (Manfredo 61-62) These facilities also offer rehabilitation services for injured and abandoned wildlife. For the injured wildlife they give them a second opportunity at life and in most cases the animals that are rehabilitated are conditioned for re-release back into their natural habitat. Abandoned specimens are usually kept on site in specially designed enclosures meeting USDA or AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) standards in the United States. Often times animals that are deemed unfit for release back into their natural environment can become subject of study for biologists, conservationists, and students. Thus, giving a better understanding of individual species overall, from behavior to feeding and husbandry requirements. These sanctuaries are built from the heart; an effort to help the creatures who have no control over the world, and giving back to the wild.
Breeding captive wildlife is a very controversial issue believed by many to be completely wrong no matter what the circumstance. There are two different types of breeding, those who breed animals in a sales setting which would include those who breed different species in an “assembly line” type environment to breed as many animals as they can and make a profit off of the sale with usually no regard for proper care etiquette. This type of breeding is completely unethical and wrong, and in some cases some of the breeding programs are illegal and fueled by the animal trade that goes on within the depths of the black market. Illegal breeding programs may include endangered or evasive species (Laufer 208-210). Assembly line breeding is extremely stressful on the animals that are being bred, and the conditions are usually close quarters where the animals are basically shoulder to shoulder being forced to walk around in their own feces. To summarize assembly line style breeding, it is a type of breeding that is fueled by capitalism with no regard for the animals’ health. The second type of breeding is breeding aimed toward reintroduction of a species to its natural environment. This type of breeding is completely acceptable because in most cases these breeding programs are aimed specifically toward the re-establishment of a new population of an endangered species. These breeding programs are usually only proctored by zoos or sanctuaries in an effort to save a species that is in rapid decline due to human invasion and destruction of natural habitat. The reason zoos and sanctuaries are the only facilities that do this style of breeding is because of the high cost to insure the programs are successful, and the programs are very popular with the general public. Finally these facilities are prepared to follow the specifications for proper release of an animal back into its natural environment, i.e. Whether the release occurs within the species’ original geographic range, whether there is a preexisting free-ranging population at the release site (Kleiman, Allen, Thompson, and Lumpkin 297).
From egotistical owners and assembly line breeders the keeping of exotic animals has been practiced for thousands of years, and will remain in practice for the ages to come. The important thing is remembering what is considered ethical, reflecting on the paragraphs above and cognitively analyzing the facts. You do not have to agree with me on everything necessarily just absorb the information with an open mind. When analyzing ego driven exotic animal ownership have sympathy for the animal that is being held, remember in most cases the owner doesn’t even know the basics of proper captive care for whatever exotic they may be receiving. Understand the difference in ego driven ownership and sanctuary ownership, and understand why they are different and one is more plausibly acceptable than the other, as well as understanding assembly line style breeding programs that are driven by capitalism and captive breeding programs designed for reintroduction of species to a particular geographic range or security of endangered species. Which one is more ethical? That is for you to decide, wise and unwise choices will continue to take place throughout the years in the industry of keeping exotic animals some mistakes will prove to be lethal but it should be known that the resources are available to prevent these potentially lethal mistakes.
In closing, it is important to note that this was written not only to inform and argue different aspects of keeping exotic animals but to help you the reader gain a better understanding of the necessity of conservation and the ethical practices in keeping exotic wildlife in general, whether it a large constrictor snake or a Bengal tiger. It is important that exotic animals are kept the proper way to insure the teachings about these amazing animals are passed on to the generations to come, extinction is forever. Extinction is the thing that we should ultimately strive to prevent due to its devastating effects in the worlds ecological system; the demise of one animal can cause the disruption within any biome because each population exists to play a vital role within the circle of life and death.
Kleiman, Devra, Mary Allen, Katerina Thompson, and Susan Lumpkin. Wild Mammals in Captivity: Principles and Techniques. Chicago,IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 297. Print.
Laufer, Peter. Forbidden Creatures: Inside the World of Animal Smuggling and Exotic Pets. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2010. 208-210. Print.
Manfredo, Michael. Who Cares About Wildlife?: Social Science Concepts for Exploring Human Wildlife Relationships and Conservation Issues. New York, NY: Springer Science and Business Media, LLC, 2008. 61-62. Print.
"REXANO USA: Captive Big Cat Statistics-Human Fatalities." Responsible Exotic Animal Ownership. REXANO, Dec 2009. Web. 9 Nov 2010..
Tilson, Ronald, and Philip Nyhus. Tigers of the World:The Science, Politics, and Conservation of Panthera tigris. 2nd ed. San Diego,CA: Academic Press, 2010. 207-208,23. Print.
by Shane Locker
ENG 102
When thinking of a household pet what often comes to mind? Perhaps a dog, cat, or even a hamster. These animals are the most common, but what if I told you it was possible to keep something like say a chimpanzee or an African lion? Would you be completely ecstatic or find it hard to believe? Well, for those of you who may possibly find it hard to believe well, start believing! In certain states and other countries it is quite possible to acquire these wild animals as pets, in fact in some cases they are so easy to obtain all it takes is a quick internet search and a few clicks! But the real question is, is it right to be able to own these creatures? Breed them? Yes in certain circumstances, and no in others. It is all dependent upon the reason behind what possessed the individual to have such potentially dangerous animals. There are those who will own these animals for reasons of education and conservation and there are those who will purchase them for an ego boost. Over the years there have been numerous situations where people have been injured and even killed by exotic animals that were kept as pets. From primates to large predatory cats, is it ok or ethical to keep these animals as pets?
So, let’s talk a little bit about ego. During this day and age there are many things someone can purchase to give a potential ego boost: Fancy cars, Vegas vacations, whatever tickles your fancy that states to the general public “I’m better than you!” However, there are those who always want more, sometimes the fancy cars just are not enough. A great example would be a Cincinnati Bengal’s football player Chad Johnson. Chad Johnson is the owner of a large adult male Bengal tiger, his reasoning of purchasing a tiger are completely un-ethical for a couple of reasons. He purchased the tiger because he can afford the hefty price tag on one of these animals and he plays for a team that’s mascot just so happens to be a Bengal tiger. He bought this animal with no intentions of educational use or research, (if you have ever listened to an interview with the guy clearly he is not a biologist.) he purchased the tiger just like someone would go out and buy a poodle! This type of ownership is wrong because no matter how rich Mr. Johnson or anyone else who is financially able to drop fifteen to twenty grand on one of these beautiful animals, they cannot provide adequate space or enrichment for an adult male tiger, most zoos do not even provide adequate space for their tigers. The states that allow ownership of exotic cats require a USDA license and the USDA minimum space requirement for all exotic cats is enough space for the cat to simply turn around, this minimum is considered acceptable and many private owners utilize this. Keeping a tiger in such a small space can cause abnormal behavior within the cats such as pacing and swaying. (Nihus, Tilson 207-208) On average and adult male Bengal tigers territorial range is between 2 and 60 miles, (Nihus, Tilson 23) so technically speaking if following the minimum natural range for a male Bengal tiger then the minimum enclosure requirement should be about two square miles.
Another reason ego driven ownership is wrong is the danger. Exotic felines are extremely unpredictable in a captive environment, since 1990 there have been 20 fatal attacks related to captive exotic cats. Fourteen of the attacks involved tigers. (Responsible Exotic Animal Ownership) Each attack being unique; only a couple of the attacks occurred during a scheduled feeding time. Other attacks took place during general interaction between owner and animal with no apparent motivation behind the attack, and there are also two attacks involving incidents with zoological facilities i.e. the Christmas day incident in San Diego in 2007 when a female Sumatran tiger escaped her enclosure killing one person and injuring another. The majority of people who actually decide to go out and purchase a tiger or any other inherently dangerous animal for a private collection do not know what they are truly getting themselves into, the statistics for fatalities may not be very high but there is always that possibility an attack may occur because these animals have not evolved to be reared in a captive setting. Most people who own these animals just want to be able to have the gratification of saying “I own a tiger” or “I own an elephant” and sadly anyone can go out and buy one because of the multiple irresponsible breeders out there, but more on that later.
There are many sanctuaries throughout the world that keep wild animals for reasons of educating conservation, rehabilitation, and research of individual species. Now, the question is what makes these organizations so different from private owners? And why is this type of ownership acceptable? The majority of sanctuaries are started by individuals who happen to acquire some sort of wild animal that they have rescued from horrible captive conditions and build from there, usually with the help of local or state government. The difference is that these individuals who start these sanctuaries are not looking for so much an ego boost but they are concerned for the wild animals and are trying to help them by offering sanctuary for those who are neglected or not given the proper care. This sort of ownership is completely acceptable, the motivation and goals of these organizations are completely different from that of someone with a high ego; wildlife sanctuaries teach conservation and offer hands on experiences within a controlled setting.
Hands on experience with wild animals has been proven to further incline people to more actively pursue efforts in conservation. (Manfredo 61-62) These facilities also offer rehabilitation services for injured and abandoned wildlife. For the injured wildlife they give them a second opportunity at life and in most cases the animals that are rehabilitated are conditioned for re-release back into their natural habitat. Abandoned specimens are usually kept on site in specially designed enclosures meeting USDA or AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) standards in the United States. Often times animals that are deemed unfit for release back into their natural environment can become subject of study for biologists, conservationists, and students. Thus, giving a better understanding of individual species overall, from behavior to feeding and husbandry requirements. These sanctuaries are built from the heart; an effort to help the creatures who have no control over the world, and giving back to the wild.
Breeding captive wildlife is a very controversial issue believed by many to be completely wrong no matter what the circumstance. There are two different types of breeding, those who breed animals in a sales setting which would include those who breed different species in an “assembly line” type environment to breed as many animals as they can and make a profit off of the sale with usually no regard for proper care etiquette. This type of breeding is completely unethical and wrong, and in some cases some of the breeding programs are illegal and fueled by the animal trade that goes on within the depths of the black market. Illegal breeding programs may include endangered or evasive species (Laufer 208-210). Assembly line breeding is extremely stressful on the animals that are being bred, and the conditions are usually close quarters where the animals are basically shoulder to shoulder being forced to walk around in their own feces. To summarize assembly line style breeding, it is a type of breeding that is fueled by capitalism with no regard for the animals’ health. The second type of breeding is breeding aimed toward reintroduction of a species to its natural environment. This type of breeding is completely acceptable because in most cases these breeding programs are aimed specifically toward the re-establishment of a new population of an endangered species. These breeding programs are usually only proctored by zoos or sanctuaries in an effort to save a species that is in rapid decline due to human invasion and destruction of natural habitat. The reason zoos and sanctuaries are the only facilities that do this style of breeding is because of the high cost to insure the programs are successful, and the programs are very popular with the general public. Finally these facilities are prepared to follow the specifications for proper release of an animal back into its natural environment, i.e. Whether the release occurs within the species’ original geographic range, whether there is a preexisting free-ranging population at the release site (Kleiman, Allen, Thompson, and Lumpkin 297).
From egotistical owners and assembly line breeders the keeping of exotic animals has been practiced for thousands of years, and will remain in practice for the ages to come. The important thing is remembering what is considered ethical, reflecting on the paragraphs above and cognitively analyzing the facts. You do not have to agree with me on everything necessarily just absorb the information with an open mind. When analyzing ego driven exotic animal ownership have sympathy for the animal that is being held, remember in most cases the owner doesn’t even know the basics of proper captive care for whatever exotic they may be receiving. Understand the difference in ego driven ownership and sanctuary ownership, and understand why they are different and one is more plausibly acceptable than the other, as well as understanding assembly line style breeding programs that are driven by capitalism and captive breeding programs designed for reintroduction of species to a particular geographic range or security of endangered species. Which one is more ethical? That is for you to decide, wise and unwise choices will continue to take place throughout the years in the industry of keeping exotic animals some mistakes will prove to be lethal but it should be known that the resources are available to prevent these potentially lethal mistakes.
In closing, it is important to note that this was written not only to inform and argue different aspects of keeping exotic animals but to help you the reader gain a better understanding of the necessity of conservation and the ethical practices in keeping exotic wildlife in general, whether it a large constrictor snake or a Bengal tiger. It is important that exotic animals are kept the proper way to insure the teachings about these amazing animals are passed on to the generations to come, extinction is forever. Extinction is the thing that we should ultimately strive to prevent due to its devastating effects in the worlds ecological system; the demise of one animal can cause the disruption within any biome because each population exists to play a vital role within the circle of life and death.
Kleiman, Devra, Mary Allen, Katerina Thompson, and Susan Lumpkin. Wild Mammals in Captivity: Principles and Techniques. Chicago,IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 297. Print.
Laufer, Peter. Forbidden Creatures: Inside the World of Animal Smuggling and Exotic Pets. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2010. 208-210. Print.
Manfredo, Michael. Who Cares About Wildlife?: Social Science Concepts for Exploring Human Wildlife Relationships and Conservation Issues. New York, NY: Springer Science and Business Media, LLC, 2008. 61-62. Print.
"REXANO USA: Captive Big Cat Statistics-Human Fatalities." Responsible Exotic Animal Ownership. REXANO, Dec 2009. Web. 9 Nov 2010.
Tilson, Ronald, and Philip Nyhus. Tigers of the World:The Science, Politics, and Conservation of Panthera tigris. 2nd ed. San Diego,CA: Academic Press, 2010. 207-208,23. Print.
Michel Foucault: The Minimalist Self, The Use of Pleasure, and, Intellectuals and Power; Ivan Illich: Deschooling Society; B.F. Skinner: Walden Two
From "The Minimalist Self":
"For me intellectual work is related to what you would call aestheticism, meaning transforming yourself. I believe my problem is the strange relationship between knowledge, scholarship, theory and real history. I know very well, and I think I knew it from the moment when I was a child, that knowledge can do nothing for transforming the world. Maybe I am wrong. And I am sure I am wrong from a theoretical point of view for I know very well that knowledge has transformed the world. ... I am not interested in the academic status of what I am doing because my problem is my own transformation. That's the reason also why, when people say, 'Well, you thought this a few years ago and now you say something else,' my answer is [laughter] 'Well, do you think I have worked like that all those years to say the same thing and not to be changed?' This transformation of one's self by one's own knowledge is, I think, something rather close to the aesthetic experience. Why should a painter work if he is not transformed by his own painting?"
From Foucault, The Use of Pleasure—v. 2 History of Sexuality, pp 8-9:
As for what motivated me, it is quite simple: I would hope that in the eyes of some people it might be sufficient in itself. It was curiosity—the only kind of curiosity, in any case, that is worth acting upon with a degree of obstinacy: not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what it is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. After all, what would be the value of the passion for knowledge if it resulted only in a certain amount of knowledgeableness and not, in one way or another and to the extent possible, in the knower’s straying afield of himself? There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently than one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting at all. People will say, perhaps, that these games with oneself would be better left backstage; or, at best, that they might properly form part of those preliminary exercises that are forgotten once they have served their purpose. But, then, what is philosophy today—philosophical activity, I mean—if it is not the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself? In what does it consist, if not in the endeavor to know how and to what extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of legitimating what is already known? There is always something ludicrous in philosophical discourse when it tries, from the outside, to dictate to others, to tell them where their truth is and how to find it, or when it works up a case against them in the language of naive positivity. But it is entitled to explore what might be changed, in its own thought, through the practice of a knowledge that is foreign to it. The “essay”—which should be understood as the assay or test by which, in the game of truth, one undergoes changes, and not as the simplistic appropriation of others for the purpose of communication—is the living substance of philosophy, at least if we assume that philosophy is what it was in times past, i.e., an “ascesis,” askesis, an exercise of oneself in the activity of thought.
From Foucault, “Intellectuals and Power: A Conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze,” in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, 1977, pp. 207-208.
[T]here exists ... a power not only found in the manifest authority of censorship, but one that profoundly and subtly penetrates an entire social network. Intellectuals are themselves part of this system of power—the idea of their responsibility for “consciousness” and discourse forms part of the system. The intellectual’s role is no longer to place himself “somewhat ahead and to the side” in order to express the stifled truth of the collectivity; rather, it is to struggle against the forms of power that would transform him into its object and instrument in the sphere of “knowledge,” “truth,” “consciousness,” and “discourse.”
Ivan Illich from Deschooling Society, p. 58:
People who submit to the standard of others for the measure of their own personal growth soon apply the ... ruler to themselves. They no longer have to be put in their place, but put themselves into their assigned slots, squeeze themselves into the niche which they have been taught to seek, and, in the very process, put their fellows into their places, too, until everybody and everything fits.
From B. F. Skinner, Walden Two (1948 utopian novel by behaviorist psychologist):
All that happens is contained in an original plan, yet at every stage the individual seems to be making choices and determining the outcome.... Our members are practically always doing what they want to do—what they “choose” to do—but we see to it that they will want to do precisely the things which are best for themselves and the community. Their behavior is determined, yet they’re free.
"For me intellectual work is related to what you would call aestheticism, meaning transforming yourself. I believe my problem is the strange relationship between knowledge, scholarship, theory and real history. I know very well, and I think I knew it from the moment when I was a child, that knowledge can do nothing for transforming the world. Maybe I am wrong. And I am sure I am wrong from a theoretical point of view for I know very well that knowledge has transformed the world. ... I am not interested in the academic status of what I am doing because my problem is my own transformation. That's the reason also why, when people say, 'Well, you thought this a few years ago and now you say something else,' my answer is [laughter] 'Well, do you think I have worked like that all those years to say the same thing and not to be changed?' This transformation of one's self by one's own knowledge is, I think, something rather close to the aesthetic experience. Why should a painter work if he is not transformed by his own painting?"
From Foucault, The Use of Pleasure—v. 2 History of Sexuality, pp 8-9:
As for what motivated me, it is quite simple: I would hope that in the eyes of some people it might be sufficient in itself. It was curiosity—the only kind of curiosity, in any case, that is worth acting upon with a degree of obstinacy: not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what it is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. After all, what would be the value of the passion for knowledge if it resulted only in a certain amount of knowledgeableness and not, in one way or another and to the extent possible, in the knower’s straying afield of himself? There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently than one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting at all. People will say, perhaps, that these games with oneself would be better left backstage; or, at best, that they might properly form part of those preliminary exercises that are forgotten once they have served their purpose. But, then, what is philosophy today—philosophical activity, I mean—if it is not the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself? In what does it consist, if not in the endeavor to know how and to what extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of legitimating what is already known? There is always something ludicrous in philosophical discourse when it tries, from the outside, to dictate to others, to tell them where their truth is and how to find it, or when it works up a case against them in the language of naive positivity. But it is entitled to explore what might be changed, in its own thought, through the practice of a knowledge that is foreign to it. The “essay”—which should be understood as the assay or test by which, in the game of truth, one undergoes changes, and not as the simplistic appropriation of others for the purpose of communication—is the living substance of philosophy, at least if we assume that philosophy is what it was in times past, i.e., an “ascesis,” askesis, an exercise of oneself in the activity of thought.
From Foucault, “Intellectuals and Power: A Conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze,” in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, 1977, pp. 207-208.
[T]here exists ... a power not only found in the manifest authority of censorship, but one that profoundly and subtly penetrates an entire social network. Intellectuals are themselves part of this system of power—the idea of their responsibility for “consciousness” and discourse forms part of the system. The intellectual’s role is no longer to place himself “somewhat ahead and to the side” in order to express the stifled truth of the collectivity; rather, it is to struggle against the forms of power that would transform him into its object and instrument in the sphere of “knowledge,” “truth,” “consciousness,” and “discourse.”
Ivan Illich from Deschooling Society, p. 58:
People who submit to the standard of others for the measure of their own personal growth soon apply the ... ruler to themselves. They no longer have to be put in their place, but put themselves into their assigned slots, squeeze themselves into the niche which they have been taught to seek, and, in the very process, put their fellows into their places, too, until everybody and everything fits.
From B. F. Skinner, Walden Two (1948 utopian novel by behaviorist psychologist):
All that happens is contained in an original plan, yet at every stage the individual seems to be making choices and determining the outcome.... Our members are practically always doing what they want to do—what they “choose” to do—but we see to it that they will want to do precisely the things which are best for themselves and the community. Their behavior is determined, yet they’re free.
John Holloway: Crack Capitalism
Crack Capitalism (excerpt)
by John Holloway
Adbusters
We are all in a room with four walls, a floor, a ceiling and no windows or door. The room is furnished and some of us are sitting comfortably, others most definitely are not. The walls are advancing inwards gradually, sometimes slower, sometimes faster, making us all more uncomfortable, advancing all the time, threatening to crush us all to death.
There are discussions within the room, but they are mostly about how to arrange the furniture. People do not seem to see the walls advancing. From time to time there are elections about how to place the furniture. These elections are not unimportant: They make some people more comfortable, others less so; they may even affect the speed at which the walls are moving, but they do nothing to stop their relentless advance.
As the walls grow closer, people react in different ways. Some refuse absolutely to see the advance of the walls, shutting themselves tightly into a world of Disney and defending with determination the chairs they are sitting on. Some see and denounce the movement of the walls, build a party with a radical program and look forward to a day in the future when there will be no walls. Others – and I among them – run to the walls and try desperately to find cracks, or faults beneath the surface, or to create cracks by banging on the walls. This looking for and creation of cracks is a practical-theoretical activity, a throwing ourselves against the walls and also a standing back to try and see cracks or faults in the surface. The two activities are complementary: Theory makes little sense unless it is understood as part of the desperate effort to find a way out, to create cracks that defy the apparently unstoppable advance of capital, of the walls that are pushing us to our destruction.
Source Link
To Read Change the World Without Taking Power
by John Holloway
Adbusters
We are all in a room with four walls, a floor, a ceiling and no windows or door. The room is furnished and some of us are sitting comfortably, others most definitely are not. The walls are advancing inwards gradually, sometimes slower, sometimes faster, making us all more uncomfortable, advancing all the time, threatening to crush us all to death.
There are discussions within the room, but they are mostly about how to arrange the furniture. People do not seem to see the walls advancing. From time to time there are elections about how to place the furniture. These elections are not unimportant: They make some people more comfortable, others less so; they may even affect the speed at which the walls are moving, but they do nothing to stop their relentless advance.
As the walls grow closer, people react in different ways. Some refuse absolutely to see the advance of the walls, shutting themselves tightly into a world of Disney and defending with determination the chairs they are sitting on. Some see and denounce the movement of the walls, build a party with a radical program and look forward to a day in the future when there will be no walls. Others – and I among them – run to the walls and try desperately to find cracks, or faults beneath the surface, or to create cracks by banging on the walls. This looking for and creation of cracks is a practical-theoretical activity, a throwing ourselves against the walls and also a standing back to try and see cracks or faults in the surface. The two activities are complementary: Theory makes little sense unless it is understood as part of the desperate effort to find a way out, to create cracks that defy the apparently unstoppable advance of capital, of the walls that are pushing us to our destruction.
Source Link
To Read Change the World Without Taking Power
Sunday, November 28, 2010
CommonDreams: US Cables Leak Sparks Global Diplomatic Crisis; UK Guardian: Interactive Searchable by Country Database
US Cables Leak Sparks Global Diplomatic Crisis: Classified embassy dispatches reveal Saudi king pressed US for military action on Iran and Washington used diplomats to spy on UN
by David Leigh
CommonDreams
The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.
At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables - many of which are designated "secret" – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN's leadership.
These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistlebowers' website, also reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.
These include a major shift in relations between China and North Korea, Pakistan's growing instability and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.
Among scores of other disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail:
• Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme
• Alleged links between the Russian government and organised crime.
• Devastating criticism of the UK's military operations in Afghanistan.
• Claims of inappropriate behaviour by a member of the British royal family.
To Read the Rest of the Article
More Resources:
UK Guardian: Use our interactive guide to discover what has been revealed in the leak of 250,000 US diplomatic cables. Mouse over the map below to find stories and original documents by country, subject or people
by David Leigh
CommonDreams
The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.
At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables - many of which are designated "secret" – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN's leadership.
These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistlebowers' website, also reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.
These include a major shift in relations between China and North Korea, Pakistan's growing instability and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.
Among scores of other disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail:
• Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme
• Alleged links between the Russian government and organised crime.
• Devastating criticism of the UK's military operations in Afghanistan.
• Claims of inappropriate behaviour by a member of the British royal family.
To Read the Rest of the Article
More Resources:
UK Guardian: Use our interactive guide to discover what has been revealed in the leak of 250,000 US diplomatic cables. Mouse over the map below to find stories and original documents by country, subject or people
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