VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1234[5]678910 ]


[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 10:04:43 11/14/07 Wed
Author: part 2
Subject: Re: November 14, 2007
In reply to: part 1 's message, "November 14, 2007" on 10:03:09 11/14/07 Wed

UNITED STATES

Steny Hoyer is Done with Pooping for the Year!

Nov. 13, (LPAC)--According to the Congressional newspaper, The
Hill, Nancy Pelosi's second-in-command, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD),
has decided that, in his words, "There would be no initiated
legislation out of the House after [Friday] the 16th of
November." His announcement amounts to shutting down the 110th
Congress for the rest of the year. "What I've told the committee
chairmen," Hoyer said, "is that the only business that I will
schedule time for, will be the finishing of business that we've
already initiated, and that we are getting back from the Senate,
whether it's appropriations bills or other conference reports on
authorization bills, energy being one."
Steny Hoyer is done pooping for the year, and he's closing
the outhouse. Don't be surprised if he seems to be gaining
weight! [mpb]

London-Wall Street Axis Pushes Bloomberg as Savior in Economic
Catastrophe

Nov. 13 (LPAC)--The "economy is sinking ... a pandemic of house
foreclosures is sweeping our nation ... and the [announced
candidates] who want to be president have precious little to say
about any of these issues. Enter Mike Bloomberg," wrote
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, who has long been
promoting a Presidential race for the New York Mayor.
Following Newsweek's Bloomberg puff piece last week, today's
Post column stresses the enormity of the economic crisis: "what
animates ... the hope of a Bloomberg candidacy is the utter
failure of the current political establishment to deal with ...
the immense problems facing us.... [The] crisis on Wall Street
... cannot even be gauged. Just who will be stuck owning
worthless paper based on worthless mortgages secured by nearly
worthless houses is still unknown. Not even the financial
institutions ... knew what was happening or know ... what is now
happening. Bad times -- probably very bad times -- are coming."
Cohen says Bloomberg's chance to win rests largely on his
personal fortune, around $13 billion, allowing him to spend a
billion without blinking.
Ordinary stinking Republican or Democratic candidates may
bow down to the London-Wall Street axis, but that axis runs right
through Michael Bloomberg's alimentary canal.
After partnership in Salomon Brothers, he got a fortune in
the go-go 1980s with his own firm channeling information to bond
traders, then built up a financial-media operation. Bloomberg LLP
has a large London office, so he has a $10 million home in
London, and a $10 million mansion in the British territory of
Bermuda.
The public promotion of Bloomberg as a 2008 Presidential
project apparently began in July 2006, when Michael Steinhardt,
financier lord of the rightist Democratic Leadership Council
(DLC), convened a meeting in his home for Bloomberg and
Bloomberg's staff. At this session, DLC chief Al From outlined
for Bloomberg the strategy for a potential Presidential race,
including all the tactical consideratons in case it were a third
party race.
Following the meeting, Steinhardt ardently promoted the
Bloomberg candidacy in the political and financial precincts
Steinhardt inhabits along with DLC sponsor Felix Rohatyn and
their ally George Shultz. Bloomberg emerged as a variant on the
"Bull Moose" enterprise that Steinhardt originally proposed for
spoiling the Democrats' chances, an independent ticket of Sen.
John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I, Conn.).
The next month, August 2006, as Steinhardt's Bloomberg
crusade took off, Lieberman lost the Connecticut Democratic
senatorial primary to Ned Lamont. Michael Bloomberg rushed to
Lieberman's aid, sending a squad of political operatives to shore
up Lieberman's campaign - now as an "independent" running on a
pro-Dick Cheney platform. Lieberman later said, "No one in public
life has done more for me in this campaign [i.e., to save
Lieberman's career] than Mike."
Bloomberg also backed California Republican Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger, helping the Rohatyn-Shultz forces and the Kennedy
family strangle the Democratic Party in Schwarzenegger's embrace.
[ahc]

With Oil Prices Doubled, Bush Vetoes Winter Home Heating
Assistance as `Pork'

Nov. 13 (LPAC)--This morning President Bush vetoed a $150 billion
appropriations bill to fund the Departments of Labor, Health and
Human Services, and Education, complaining that the bill
contained too much "pork." Included in that "pork," is $2.4
billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
(LIHEAP), which provides grants to low-income households to help
pay winter energy bills. Testimony delivered to the House
Education and Labor Committee, this afternoon, made clear that
the $2.4 billion in the bill for LIHEAP--although more than $600
million above President Bush's Scrooge-like request--is nowhere
near enough to provide the expected needs for this coming winter.
Guy Caruso, the director of the Energy Information
Administration, testifed that households heating with oil can
expect to pay, on average, 26% more for heat this winter than
last; household using propane, 20% more; and households heating
with natural, gas 11% more.
The skyrocketing prices mean that the average LIHEAP grant
buys less than it did. Mark Wolfe, the executive director of the
National Energy Assistance Directors Association, told the
committee in 2003, the average LIHEAP grant was able to pay 36.7%
of the heating costs of a household heating with oil, but that
has now declined to 20.8%. For natural gas that percentage has
declined from 58.2% fo 37.6% and similarly for propane and
electricity. Over the same period, the number of households
receiving assistance has grown from 4.6 million to 5.8 million,
and the average grant has actually declined from $349 to $305.
Yet Bush, with his veto, wanted only $1.8 billion for LIHEAP this
Winter, compared to $3.1 billion last year.
Wolfe also reported that most states expect a further
increase in requests for assistance this Winter, including from
people who've never asked for help before, but the states do not
have the money to meet this need. The result in human terms, as
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D- N.Y.), the chairman of the Healthy
Families and Communities subcommittee pointed out, is that some
families with children may have to choose between heat and
putting food on the table; some elderly may choose between heat
and buying prescription drugs that they need, or may set the heat
at a dangerously low temperature, and so on, with the consequent
effects on public health. Agencies that administer the program
have more difficulties because of the lack of resources to hire
and adequately compensate staff who are needed to serve
households requesting assistance. [cjo]

Indoctrinating Americans in a Roman Imperial Policy for the U.S.

Nov. 13, 2007 (LPAC)--The Army counterinsurgency manual, written
under the direction of Gen. David Petraeus, has now been
published as a mass circulation paperback by the University of
Chicago Press. It is available for $15 from your local Borders,
or other, bookstore.
As was made clear at an event on the manual, sponsored by
the Center for a New American Security in Washington this
morning, the intention behind the mass publication of the manual
goes beyond the reshaping of the Army, which is already
happening. It is to reshape the strategic outlook of the nation
as a whole. The object of the counterinsurgency campaign is no
longer just the subject population, such as the population of
Iraq, but now, it is also the American population, as well.
Sarah Sewall, the director of the Carr Center for Human
Rights Policy at Harvard University and a participant in the
process that produced the manual, writes in the introduction that
"Iraq has bred a familiar cynicism that risks disengaging
Americans from their government and from the rest of the world.
This field manual directly addresses this phenomenon."
The object is an imperial policy modelled on the Roman
Empire, which is a complete break with the US Constitution and
history. "This is what the Nazis would have done if they had not
been defeated," says Lyndon LaRouche. [cjo]

Will George Soros Follow Jack Abramoff to Prison?

Nov. 13, (LPAC)-- George Soros and (LA filmmaker) Rob Reiner are
involved in a new "nonprofit" group called Democracy Alliance.
According to coverage in today's Los Angeles Times, this group of
"investors," which includes Taco Bell heir Rob McKay, were in
Washington, DC, for a strategy session sometime in the last
weeks. The Democracy Alliance is out to fund a host of additional
nonprofits, through which (presumably Democratic) campaign money
can be channelled, but not traced. There are no limits on
contributions from "charities," and they don't have to list their
donors with the FEC. The law allows nonprofits to be "very
aggressive politically, while shielding donors from disclosure,"
notes former Federal Elections Commission chairman Michael E.
Toner. "That is a very attractive combination."
The Democracy Alliance was started in August 2005, where "at
least" 80 millionaires pledged $1 million apiece, according to
the Washington Post. A more recent article in Salon reveals that
addditional members include Soros's son Jonathan, "former
Rockefeller Family Fund president Anne Bartley, San Francisco Bay
Area donors Susie Tompkins Buell and Mark Buell... as well as New
York financiers like Steven Gluckstern." The office of the DA is
in the building of the Tides Foundation in San Francisco. A look
into the networked charities connected with the Alliance reveals
that this is the "civil activist" wing of the Democratic Party,
the generational heirs of the '68-er Students for a Democratic
Society.
Although the article makes no mention of it, this is the
exact formula pioneered by (now imprisoned) Republican "lobbyist"
Jack Abramoff. [mpb]

IBERO AMERICA

Argentine Industrialists Call for National Development Bank

Nov. 13, 2007 (LPAC)--Leaders of the Argentine Industrial Union
(UIA) have issued a call for the creation of a National
Development Bank, "to have a financial instrument for productive
investment." The model, even if they don't mention it, is the
First and Second Banks of the United States, based on Alexander
Hamilton's plans, and the issuance of industrial and agricultural
credit by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
At various points in its past history, particularly during
the latter part of the 19th Century, the UIA has embraced the
protectionist policies associated with the American System of
Political Economy, to promote industrial development. While the
UIA hasn't maintained this outlook consistently, now under the
pro-industry model adopted by President Nestor Kirchner over the
past five years, today's UIA states emphatically that "we are
betting on an industrialist model" and demanding the means to
finance it.
The UIA's Vice President, Osvaldo Rial, points to Brazil's
giant National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) as a
model for the kind of entity Argentina needs, but on a smaller
scale. BNDES was founded during the second Presidency of
nationalist President Getulio Vargas in the early 1950s, for the
explicit purpose of financing Brazil's industrialization. Its
Vice President, Armando Mariante, will be one of the speakers at
the UIA's annual conference Nov. 15-16, whose title is "From
Industrial Recovery to a Development Project."
Argentina's President-elect, Sen. Cristina Fernandez de
Kirchner, has been invited to address the closing session of the
UIA's conference, where she is expected to outline her plans for
expanding the industrialization process begun by her husband, and
to provide details on her proposed "social pact" among labor,
business and government. UIA President Carlos Lascurain has
rejected the idea that a social pact would simply be "an
agreement among corporations dealing only with prices and wages,"
stressing that it must rather address a range of issues that are
in "the interests of all the parties." [crr]

EUROPE

Major Copenhagen Daily Publishes Interview with Tom Gillesberg
About the World Financial Collapse in Their Election Day Print
Edition

COPENHAGEN, Nov. 13 -- Today, Election Day in Denmark,
{Berlingske Tidende} published in their election coverage on page
7 in their print edition, the same interview they had previously
only had in their Internet edition. (The translation was
published in the briefing for Nov. 8.) This is the most in-depth
interview about the financial crisis during the entire election
campaign for any of our candidates.
This is the same newspaper which has previously run articles
reported by their Brussels correspondent calling for a new
Bretton Woods agreement, and the interview with the CEO of the
largest Danish bank, The Danish Bank, characterizing the
international financial system as having had a stroke.
Also in Berlingske Tidende's Election Day issue, there is a
page about "really special election planks," with various titles
for about 15 candidates who stand out from the rest. Tom
Gillesberg, independent candidate, is placed under the title
"Visionary" for his slogan, "After the Financial Crash: Maglev
Across the Kattegat."
Additional election coverage in the last few days for the
independent candidacies of Schiller Institute activists:
* A very good interview on TV2 in East Jutland with Janus
Kramer Moeller, including statements that if there were no
intervention to deal with the international financial collapse,
we face a financial Armageddon, and a tour to a bridge above
railway tracks, where Janus explained how maglev technology
works; and about his character, saying he is not afraid to ask
questions.
* An article in the second major Aarhus newspaper's Internet
edition about Janus as the only independent candidate in Aarhus.
We will be following the election results tonight and will
send a report when the general results, and our vote totals, are
known. [mr_]

SOUTHWEST ASIA

Israeli Army Wants Peace Talks with Syria; LaRouche Says: Don't
Let This Opportunity Pass!

Nov. 13, 2007 (EIRNS)--The Israel Defense Forces General Staff
are pushing hard for Israel to open peace talks with Syria as
soon as possible, writes Ron Ben Yishai, senior commentator for
the mass-circulation daily Yediot Ahronot. In fact, recent
tensions between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister
Ehud Barak, are the result of the former refusing to follow the
Syrian track, while the latter, who as Defense Minister is
representing the view of the military, wants action on it.
While the Mossad, under the leadership of hardliner Mier
Dagan, is against opening the Syrian track, the Shin Bet internal
security service and military intelligence support an opening.
The latter's assessment is that while Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas would not be able to implement an agreement, Syrian
President Bashar Assad is eager for negotiations and is able to
implement an agreement.
"In the 60th year of its existence, the State of Israel
finally has to produce permanent borders that come with a clear
return address, that we can reach understandings with and
finalize binding agreements with," Ben Yishai quotes one very
senior security official. "We can reach this state of affairs
with Syria at this time; with the Palestinians, not yet." Such
an agreement would positively effect the Israeli-Palestinian
standoff. "If we don't at least try to reach an agreement with
Syria, we'll be doing ourselves a disservice." In a reference to
returning the Golan Heights in return for peace, the source said,
"All of us know what Syria wants, and what previous Israeli
governments agreed to give it. It's clear to me that if we have
another war today, we'll win. But this war will cause terrible
destruction and victims on both sides, and when it's over, we'll
sit down at the negotiation table with the Syrians and reach an
agreement. So why should we join this march of folly? Why don't
we try to enter negotiations at this point already, in order to
reach the same result we would be achieving after the war? In my
estimate, today Syria is ready for such talks."
Ben Yishai writes that this position contradicts that of
Olmert and the Mossad, but Military Intelligence points to the
fact that Syria has grown uneasy with its alliance with Iran, and
President Bashir Assad wants to see continued economic
development in his country, which constitutes the main motive for
the popular support for his regime as against the Islamist
radicals. For this Assad needs European and American investments.
Barak and the defense establishment think Israel cannot
afford to stay away from the Annapolis conference. "Israel must
embark on negotiations with the Syrians. Initially, this should
be done surreptitiously, through mediators, and later openly."
These sources say this should start after Annapolis, through
opening a secret backchannel, perhaps through Turkey, which could
lead to a special international summit. The article points out
that there have been media reports that contacts are already
underway, in preparation for convening such conference in Moscow.
But Olmert and the Bush Administration oppose such a move.
Lyndon LaRouche responded: "That is it! Don't let this
opportunity pass!"
He continued, "Israelis are not entirely crazy, and not all
crazy. They see the losses they incurred in the last war in
Lebanon. They know that Israel is no longer of interest to
Washington or London, except as a tool. They must make a deal
now!"
"All the pieces are coming together," LaRouche concluded.
[dea]

Barak Wants Israel to Launch Its Own Peace Initiative

Nov.13 (EIRNS--Defense Minister Ehud Barak reportedly wants
Israel to launch its own comprehensive peace initiative that
would include a peace agreement with Syria, according to a report
in today's Ynet. Such an initiative should be launched after the
U.S. sponsored peace summit, and would clearly state what
Israel's positions are in terms of coming to a peace agreement
with the Palestinians, Syria and other Arab countries, because
such an initiative could stop other peace plans, like the Arab
peace initiative, from being forced on Israel.
Ynet reports that Barak recently told his associates in a
closed forum that Israel should reopen talks with Syria. "Such a
change may lead to good and unexpected results for Israel," Barak
said. "We must conduct extensive work which would determine all
of Israel's crucial interests in the region. We must examine
this as against Syria, as against the Palestinians, as against
the Jordanians and as against any other Arab country. Israel must
push for its own initiative and not be dragged by initiatives
from the other side." He stressed that with Syria, "the price is
known and the outcome important."
"Why not have an Israeli initiative?" Barak asked. "Why
shouldn't we stipulate out interests, what we want, what we are
willing to give, and then launch our own peace plan as a starting
point for negotiations?" he added.
Pushing for an invitation to Syria to the Bush
Administration peace summit, during a meeting a week ago at the
Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Barak said that
"there is room for Syria to take part in the Annapolis
conference. We can find a formula which will lead to Syria's
participation in this conference." Barak said that Syria would
participate under certain conditions that would lead to the
resumption of the negotiations with Israel.
"That's the only way to save the Annapolis conference," said
Lyndon LaRouche. [dea]

SOUTH AND EAST ASIA

Islamabad Is Afraid Neo-cons Will Try to Seize Pakistan's Nuclear
Weapons Control

Nov.13 LPAC--The recent rise in cacophony in Washington among the
extreme Islam-haters, centers around Islamabad's "inadequate
control" over its nuclear weapons. The fear of the neo-cons is
that these nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of al-Qaeda
militants as Pakistan's internal situation worsenes. Some in the
Pakistani military believe Washington to be in the process of
creating an environment to seize Pakistan's nuclear control.
As the cacophony got louder, Gen. President Pervez Musharraf
told Fox News on Nov. 13 that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are
under total custodial controls. "We created a strategic planning
division, and we have a national command authority which is the
overall organization institution into development and employment
of strategic assets," he said.
Pakistan's Foreign Office (FO) issued a statement that said
that it had sufficient retaliatory capacity to defend its nuclear
assets. FO spokesman Muhammad Sadiq said Pakistan was capable of
defending its atomic weapons and there was no risk of them
falling into the hands of terrorists and extremists. Earlier, a
Washington Post report stated that the US had made contingency
plans to secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons if the armed forces
faced the possibility of losing control of them due to political
instability and uncertainty.
According to Indian intelligence contacts, Islamabad has
worried since 9/11 about the neo-cons who would force the Bush
administration to make a grab for Pakistan's nuclear weapons
capabilities. Pakistani army officers believe that as long
Musharraf could keep the American hands off the nuclear weapons
control systems, Pakistan is safe from getting run over. [RMA]

Musharraf Sends Regular Army to the Swat Valley

Nov.13 LPAC--After a large-scale surrender of most of the
Pakistani paramilitary forces to the militants in the Swat
valley, located at north of Pakistan's tribal areas and bordering
northeast Afghanistan, President Musharraf has ordered the
Pakistani army to be deployed in the area. The objective of the
Pakistani army at this point in time is to contain the militants
in the area and prevent them from moving out to seize control of
entire NorthWest Frontier Province (NWFP). Reports of initial
encounters between the army and the militants indicate that the
troops and law-enforcement personnel had not made ground advance
on areas held by militants. Three helicopters carried out intense
shelling of suspected militants' positions in Pir Kali, Sambet
Chowk and Sairi.
President Musharraf and the Pakistani army generals have
come to the conclusion that if the regular army is not deployed
in the tribal areas and in the Swat valley, Washington and London
will use that as a firm excuse to move its troops into the area.
Washington and London would do that to ensure that "militancy
does not spread further east inside Pakistan." Islamabad is
resisting any full-fledged foreign troop invasion in the
Pakistani territories. [RMA]

FDR Biography a "Hot Item" in China, Scholar Says

November 13, 2007 (LPAC)--The Roosevelt issue has become a big
item for the Chinese leadership. This was just confirmed by
Cheng Li, a noted U.S. China scholar, whose work largely consists
in examining the faction fights among what he characterizes as
the "princelings" in the Chinese Politburo.
"They clearly have taken their inspiration from FDR," Cheng
said, referring to the latest 17th Communist Party Congress. He
also reported that the recent book by Jean Edward Smith on
Roosevelt has become a "hot item" among mainland scholars. [WCJ]

--------------

"What Is At Stake With Virtual Communities And Video Games: A
Mental Concentration Camp without Tears"

By Jacques Cheminade, November 10, 2007

PART II

- "Social Networking" -

What happens on these community platforms controlled in such
a fashion? One connects to "friends." Friends, friends, friends,
and here stands the anxious quest to find the right community of
friends to belong to. First you give your name, then your address
and your picture (eventually electronically improved to make you
look nicer), your date of birth and then your political
convictions, your religious beliefs, your academic titles
(Facebook fronts to be "higher-up"), your "jobs" and also your
relationship status: "single?" "engaged?" "in a relationship?"
"wedded?" or "it's more complicated?" Here, you be classified,
with a label, and you're going to make friends who are waiting
everywhere for you and who want to do you some good. If you want
to go more profoundly into virtuality, you can create an avatar
identity in Second Life and operate in a parallel universe, with
parallel money --the linden--and have real fake avatar friends.
The first aim is to classify--including your sexual
preferences--to become the hunted game of the publicity industry.
This way one can obtain the finest selection of targets, whose
perfection derives from the targets themselves. Ri-Pierce Grove,
an analyst of Datamonitor, explains why the giants of the web are
so heavily interested in these "virtual communities": "With the
sponsored links of Google (key-words sold to clients whose
products are promoted when an ordinary person types one of these
keywords in the search engine), the publicity that they get
exposed is based on what they believe. With social networking,
they will be exposed to publicity based on what they are."
Social networking is a great zoo for the publicity business.
But there is worse. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook,
has, according to Amaury du Duchet of the consulting firm Faber
Novel, "an obsession to translate the network of each individual
into a social graph, some kind of material representation,
computerization of all the social links, of all the connexions
with other individuals." Some kind of super Big Brother, based on
voluntary servitude! Your little narcissist me, reduced to the
solitude of a service society lacking any collective horizon, is
controlled by the lower side, while all the information available
on your private life is collected by the "network." You have
destroyed yourself as a human being, you have thrown yourself for
public consumption and you have become the cannon fodder of the
system with the illusion that you have done so in total freedom.
You have become an outer-directed pawn among a crowd of virtual
solitaries, the "small world" far more dangerous than the one
against which the American sociologist David Riesman warned of in
the middle of the 20th century.
What is at stake here is not new. The attempt to exert
control over human beings, by reducing them to their elementary
emotions and connections, is as old as the German poet Friedrich
Schiller describes the matter in his {Ghost Seer} or Cervantes in
his {Pageant of Marvels}. However, what makes things far more
threatening today is on the one side globalization and current
highly powerful IT technologies occupying the screens on the
other. The breakdown of attention span, of the ability of the
mind to concentrate and the elimination of a necessary time for
introspection is being undertaken on a mass level with
psycho-technologies as denounced by Bernard Stiegler. Very soon
the cell phones will, together with the iPods, become your
inseparable companion to which new generations have progressively
adapted. Already the British {Guardian} of November 5 reported
that the Mori Institute in Great Britain has calculated that 65%
of the young Britons between 16 and 18 are "addicted" to virtual
communities and 90% to cell phones. Put these two together and
you have a mental concentration camp without tears.
I hear you saying once more: "You are going too far!"
Freedom does exist after all. We are in a democracy." It is in
the face of that argument that we have to go even deeper and
examine the very nature of cyberspace. In that space, there is no
place for real creation, for the discovery of new physical
principles or the formulation of hypothesis. In effect, you are
"classified" in a fixed system, with a set of fixed axioms, and
all your undertakings take place inside a logical deductive
system which is mechanistic or static.
Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, projected the
creation of "intelligent machines" while von Neumann worked on
"artificial intelligence." But these machines or intelligence can
never overcome their incapacity to escape the boundaries in which
they have been conceived.
Human beings who think from the standpoint inherent of that
system have not the slightest idea how to evolve to a different
level of ordering of the universe, to another physical universe.
That's where the problem of universities and current economies
arises in its ways of non thinking: the most "intelligent" and
the best "trained" which have responded to what is required to
get academic degrees and diplomas, are capable, at best, to
manage a finite world, or worse, destroy it with financial
manipulations or hyper-speculative schemes constructed with
algorithms. Not only are they depleting its resources but they
are denying the existence of production itself through the
spectrum of internet.
We're nearing economies without production, the famous
"company without a factory" which Serge Tchuruk dreamed of, with
service economies in the United States and Europe occupying 80%
of the workforce and where production is outsourced to
cheap-labor countries, whose workforce is not trained to
discovering ideas but merely able to replicate tasks accomplished
elsewhere before.
It is here that the media of the screen meets social
engineering, that of mass manipulations such as those conceived
by a Kurt Lewin, the protector and professor of George Shultz who
came out of the classes of Milton Friedman in Chicago. Therefore,
Shultz --the man who pulled together the Bush Administration (the
famous "Vulcans") and financed the toppling of Salvador Allende
in Chile in 1973 and organized the election of Schwarzenegger in
California--happens to be directly implicated in these computer,
media and finance "creative technologies." Here is the center of
the new fascism, founded on the destruction, deliberate and
organized, of human creativity. De-politicized and de-socialized
individuals are led to a world without future, as the sheep of
Panurge in Rabelais.
The great pseudo-scientific statements on the "end of
history" derive from this fashion to downgrade man since history
is quite differently the successive discoveries of principles in
science, art and politics which cannot happen in a virtualized
and de-socialized world. To state it more brutally one could say
that we're facing a process of mass masturbation, in which
solitary vice becomes socially suicidal.
"Fascism" here means the mental and police state control of
a universe incapable of reproducing itself in which the capacity
to act socially is nearly entirely destroyed. The first step
towards that abyss is the reproduction of personal smallness, the
ego-marketing: one can admire on Facebook the faces of Paris
Mayor Bertrand Delanoë or François Bayrou, Miss Anne Hidalgo,
former green candidate Dominique Voynet and even French Education
Minister Valerie Pécresse staring at you. On the lower floor, the
golden descendants of the great families Sellière, Bouygues,
Fillon, Panafieu and Bolloré proudly wave their pictures of hot
evenings and more or less unclothed holidays. "We have nice
lives, nice clothes, nice feasts, nice faces, so we show them,
since it's wonderful to look at them" says Florence,
23-years-old. For them, it is intellectual suicide inside of a
cultivated body, devoid of ideas.
Still another step: comic strips, mangas and science-fiction
play a fundamental role in the process of making reality unreal
and the promotion of a world dominated by the "will to win" and
the law of the strongest. Predator, Robocop, Metroïd and
Terminator take the lead, in a dark future that becomes
acceptable by derision.
What can oppose this universe? That is the real question. To
denounce the social control and even limiting it is insufficient.
Of course, one could request that the Norwegian law or the Quebec
law be applied everywhere, since it outlaws marketing to minors
with publicity. Of course, the access to violent video games
should be restrained--or even better--forbidden. Today, if
decided, filters can be installed to do so. The question however
remains political. The sense of history has been stolen from the
youth and it has to be returned to them by having them relive the
great discoveries in which a change of system is embedded. We
have to offer them the certainty that human intervention can
change things for the better and then, the better will bring them
to renounce by themselves the pathologies of the worst.
Which ideas are necessary to make it possible for our
country to have a future? How can we share them? To recreate
them, and to share them, are one and the same thing, and that is
precisely what our youth movement has undertaken. Our websites
aim at smashing this cage, using that very media to nourish an
international dialogue on how to proceed to fight injustice, to
overcome as a thinking person "one's little world."
Hence, real human happiness is to discover universal
principles, to share them, and to organize all society to foster
them. That is where real political leadership lies, a leadership
that inscribes ideals into reality against the destructive prison
of the virtual, against the sick habit of a quest for sensations
without meaning and therefore destructive for the other and for
oneself.

[End Part II; both parts are together in a7463jch102]

*** END OF BRIEFING ***

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

[ Contact Forum Admin ]


Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.