Quando ero bambina, giocavo con una pallina di gomma, di quelle che rimbalzano in punti diversi della parete. Era un giocattolo da pochi soldi, aveva colori acidi, era viscida al tatto e imprevedibile nella traiettoria. Il divertimento stava proprio nella rottura della prevedibilità: non più palla pallina-la notte si avvicina (variante di stella stellina, adattata per l’occasione), e poi fai la riverenza, batti le mani, guarda in alto, fai un salto, e tutte le acrobazie minime di chi tira la palla in un punto del muro e cerca di complicarsi la vita prima di riprenderla conoscendo già il modo in cui la palla tornerà indietro. La pallina pazza (mi pare si chiamasse così) non tornava mai indietro come ti saresti aspettata. Non eri tu a giocare con lei: era lei che giocava al proprio gioco.

Questo è The Dome.

O meglio, questa è la sensazione che ho avuto leggendo The Dome.

Non esiste un centro, a differenza di tutti i romanzi di Stephen King che ho letto (e sono quasi tutti, direi). A differenza, anche, de L’ombra dello Scorpione: perché in quel caso il centro c’era. Il centro cambiava a seconda della via d’accesso che si sceglieva: la storia d’amore fra Stuart Redman e Francine Goldsmith (che personalmente detestavo). Oppure il piccolo romanzo di formazione del musicista Larry Underwood e quello, speculare e disperato, di Harold. O ancora il terribile destino, ancora una volta a specchio, della giovane Nadine e della vecchia Abigail, entrambe votate ad un Fato indifferente alle loro vite.

In The Dome, il centro non c’è. Nessuno dei personaggi della storia è una via di accesso. Non Dale Barbara, ex militare, ex cuoco e suo malgrado cavaliere del bene. Non Julia, la direttrice del giornale cittadino. Non il trio di preadolescenti in skate. Tutto è circolare, e la pallina rimbalza contro le pareti della cupola invisibile senza indicare una traiettoria precisa.
Una prospettiva, a dire il vero, ci sarebbe: ed è quella del Male. Quella, ovvero, del villain della storia, Big Jim Rennie, venditore di automobili usate, secondo consigliere della città e quindi suo despota impazzito.
Ma non sono sicura neanche di questo. E’ un Male così piccolo, quello scelto da King, un Male domestico. Un male, direbbe Hannah Arendt, banale, perché talmente radicato in ognuno di noi che si rivela come è davvero: privo di grandezza, ordinario, spietato in quanto possibile. Dimenticate Randall Flagg: non c’è fascino nell’orrore che si dipana sotto la Cupola.

Né, secondo me, c’è redenzione: c’è la possibilità di guardare dentro le proprie piccolissime esistenze e di sapere quanto, di quella terribile banalità, siamo partecipi. L’umanità è malata, dice King: neanche l’intervento di un gruppo di  dei bambini serve a invertire la rotta come avveniva in It, ma solo ad andare avanti, almeno per un po’.

The Dome non è un horror. Non nel senso canonico, almeno.
The Dome è il romanzo più terribile che Stephen King abbia scritto. Il più desolato, il più disperato. Il più vero, forse.

Comprendo la perplessità di molti kinghiani. Comprendo quelle di Stefano Romagna e di Gl D’Andrea, che ne hanno scritto in questi giorni. Eppure, penso che sia uno dei romanzi più importanti che sotto “la metafora di King”, sia stato scritto negli ultimi anni.

What does justice sound like? Words that ring like the fall of the judge’s gavel? If you ask me, they are the words of Hannah Arendt in her imagined death sentence of Adolf Eichmann.

Reading it sends shivers of awe down my spine- awe of what, exactly, I am not sure. The thought of the entire human race casting the same disapproving gaze, maybe: the epic scale of the walls that close in on Eichmann at that very moment, the force of the conviction behind the decision that this man’s life must end.

“For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same. And just as you supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the earth with the Jewish people and the people of a number of other nations- as though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit the world- we find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you. This is the reason, and the only reason, you must hang.”

Hannah Arendt

[W]hen we talk about lying, and especially about lying among acting men, let us remember that the lie did not creep into politics by some accident of human sinfulness. Moral outrage, for this reason alone, is not likely to make it disappear. The deliberate falsehood deals with contingent facts; that is, with matters that carry no inherent truth within themselves, no necessity to be as they are. Factual truths are never compellingly true. The historian knows how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes, or denied and distorted, often carefully covered up by reams of falsehoods or simply allowed to fall into oblivion. Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs. From this, it follows that no factual statement can ever be beyond doubt—as secure and shielded against attack as, for instance, the statement that two and two make four.

It is this fragility that makes deception so very easy up to a point, and so tempting. It never comes into a conflict with reason, because things could indeed have been as the liar maintains they were. Lies are often much more plausible, more appealing to reason, than reality, since the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear. He has prepared his story for public consumption with a careful eye to making it credible, whereas reality has the disconcerting habit of confronting us with the unexpected, for which we were not prepared.

- Hannah Arendt, “Lying in Politics” in Crises of the Republic (1972)

Politics:

Bob Herbert with the sad story of Detroit

Not sure where Ray D. Madoff is coming from, but farmers do NOT need protection from estate taxes (that’s a lie, a Republican lie — it’s never been true and never will be true no matter how many times they lie about it)

Tripp Palin’s paternal grandmother gets three years for dealing OxyContin

Kathleen Parker on Sarah Palin

Mary Matalin on Palin

Matt Taibbi on Palin

David Corn on Palin

DougJ on standing in line to get a wristband so you can stand in line to get an autograph with no guarantees

Global warming denialists shift into kleptodrive in their frantic efforts to impede rational steps to limit the global pain and suffering they’ve condemned all of us to

John Ashcroft: still a pantswetting coward at heart

Tim Ruttan on Joe Lieberman’s inherent assholishness

John Cole on the art of making this nation ungovernable (why do Republicans hate America? And why aren’t there more former Republicans pointing this out like Cole does?)

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An awesome caricature of Katherine Kersten over at David Brauer’s blog.

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People who buy this garbage have not read the entire Psalm, or the one that precedes it. If they have and they still support this movement, they sound more like Satan worshippers than Christians.

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From the comments, one of Peter Galbraith’s colleagues makes the case for his actions regarding the Kurdish deal with a Norwegian oil company.

Galbraith is a remarkable guy, much like his father, and I don’t have much use for those who are jumping on this deal as something bad.

No, deals involving Dick Cheney’s friends are bad. The oil is going to be sold no matter what, and I’m pretty comfortable with it being to friends of Peter Galbraith.

More from the rest of the world:

Confusing story from Peru about gangs melting down victims for fat to sell to cosmetic companies

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Etc:

eBay pulled it, but someone’s trying to sell Mussolini’s brain and blood

DM Register blogger rips Chuck Grassley over marijuana

Fearmongers of the ’30s

Another texecution because if you’re a criminal, you’re responsible for everything your accomplices do [contrast and compare with how corporate executives are not responsible for anything, including their own deeds]

Yes, it’s jackpot justice, but if ‘pugs had their way there’d be no justice at all (and isn’t jackpot justice a good description of how working Americans get compensated?)

Rachael Ray, still fronting for terroramuses

Terroramuses (yes, this is a real video)

Hannah Arendt on lying

Closing the barn door doesn’t slow down the bottomfeeders

Ich erlaube mir hier – die sog. Sloterdijk-Debatte im Hinterkopf, die in den Medien ohne Peter Sloterdijk auszukommen scheint – den Hinweis auf das Interview mit Peter Sloterdijk in “vis-à-vis” im Schweizerischen Fernsehen, moderiert von Frank A. Meyer. Erschienen Oktober 2008.

http://videoportal.sf.tv/video?id=b81d681a-b602-4c63-a1de-19b67f64d545

Kurze Inhalts-Spots:

Der Staat ist im Charakter eigentlich sozialistisch (Sozialstaat).

Nicht die Gier, sondern der Traum vom leistungsunabhängigen Einkommen als Motor hat die Krise verursacht.

Die Welt als Zentralintelligenz: der Mensch kann nicht aushalten, daß so etwas gar nicht existiert. Vorstellung heute von autodidaktischen Energien (früher: Instanzglaube bis Hegels Weltgeist), was „immer lernen“ bedeutet.

Die Regeln für die Existenz sind weniger eine Herausforderung an die Intelligenz, sondern moralische Anstrengungen.

Während Faschismus und Sozialismus noch als unmoralisch erkennbar waren, wird das System des zügellosen Kapitalismus – „neofatalistische Religion“ – nur amoralisch erklärbar, mit der Lüge.

Die Lüge im Wort „Zertifikat“ („ich bin ein Sicherheitsversprechen“)

Der Mensch auch als Gebender ist unzureichend anerkannt.

Steuern in Deutschland (im Unterschied zur Schweiz) sind Pflichtabgaben des einzelnen, ohne daß er Dank dafür erhält; der Säumige wird sogar kriminalisiert.

Individualismus (Asozialismus). Entstehung einer neuen Feudalklasse (vgl. „Access“, Rifkin)

Der Gegner dieser Neoliberalen ist der bürgerliche Rechtsstaat, die Zivilgesellschaft (Thatcherismus).

Egoismus vs. Altruismus: letzterer ist evolutionär vererbt. Die „Selbstverbesserung“ muß gegen die vor 300 Jahren begonnene „Weltverbesserung“ wieder ins Gleichgewicht gesetzt werden (Buch „Du mußt dein Leben ändern“).

“Die sicherste Methode, die Zukunft zu erkennen, besteht darin, ein Versprechen zu geben und selber dafür zu sorgen, daß es gehalten wird. ” (Hannah Arendt)
Im Video ab 36. Minute.

Richard Rorty

(source)

Richard Rorty has an interesting take on human rights. If we want universal acceptance of and respect for human rights, we shouldn’t try to argue about it. We shouldn’t attempt to work out rational justifications of human rights, or arguments that will convince people that human rights are a good thing. Instead, according to Rorty, we would achieve better results if we try to influence people’s feelings instead of their minds. And the best way to do that is by telling sentimental stories like “Uncle Tom’s cabin” or “Roots” etc., or by making political art. Such stories and art make the reader sympathize with persons whose rights are violated because they invite the audience or the reader to imagine what it is like to be in the victim’s position. The victim, who may be of another class, race or nationality and who seems so very different that he or she initially isn’t even considered to be of the same species and therefore cannot possibly claim to enjoy the same rights, is transformed by the story into a living human being. The sympathy engendered by the story gives the victim a human face. This person also grieves for the loss of children, also has an opinion and a moral sense. He’s or she not a barbarian. As a consequence, the victim can be given human rights.

This approach to human rights doesn’t justifying human rights in an abstract and philosophical way – something which according to Rorty isn’t possible anyway (Rorty’s a post-modern anti-foundationalist highly sceptical of the power of reason or rationality). Instead it motivates specific individuals to respect the rights of other specific individuals. So motivation instead of justification. And the focus isn’t so much on human rights themselves, but on humanity. When human rights are violated, it’s often not because people object to human rights, but because they consider the targets of rights violations as somehow outside the realm of humanity. Thomas Jefferson, for example, was very eloquent about human rights, but was a slave holder at the same time. Undoubtedly because he had convinced himself that negroes were more akin to animals than humans.

The big advantage of the sentimental approach is that is can convince people to accept others into the realm of humanity. Sympathy means after all the recognition that someone else’s suffering is akin to your own. Rorty harked back to David Hume for this insight:

Hume held that corrected (sometimes rule-corrected) sympathy, not law-discerning reason, is the fundamental moral capacity. Richard Rorty (source)

David Hume

Hence the importance of a “right to belong to humanity” in the words of Hannah Arendt (see here and here) and of the equal rights provision in the system of human rights.

This approach, or “sentimental education” as Rorty called it, can indeed be very useful, and I regularly use it on this blog (for example, there’s a blog series called “human rights stories“, and there’s also a lot of imagery used here). However, I think we should and can use both strategies, the emotional and the rational one. (I outlined the latter one here. In the field of morality, Immanuel Kant is of course the main exponent of the rational approach).

Thomas Pogge

The emotional approach isn’t without a downside. Human rights violations do not always occur because of a lack of sympathy or because of dehumanization. They are often the result of power structures, cultural practices, legal rules, institutions, international relations etc. Just engendering sympathy won’t do much good there. (Thomas Pogge is known for his work in this field). Moreover, sentimental education implies a willingness to listen – not a notable characteristic of many of the worst human rights violators, i.e. Taliban c.s. – and a certain standard of living that allows people to relax long enough to be able to listen. These are problems which Rorty recognized (source) and which indicate that his approach cannot be exclusive.

Despite the fact that the literature on strategic planning has diminished considerably in the last fifteen years or so, still most organisations do it. So argues a recent article in the Journal of Management Studies by Jarzabkowski and Balogun. It has become what GH Mead would term a social object, and in terms of the social game of organisational practice lots of people do it because lots of people do it. Strategic planning still has its academic adherents, but probably the scholar who has done most to drive a stake through its heart is the Canadian academic Henry Mintzberg. With his two books The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning and  Strategy Safari the second written with two colleagues, he has done more than most to call the practice into question.

Equally Ralph Stacey, from a complexity perspective, has argued that strategic planning must serve some other purpose than being a means of predicting and controlling since they so signally fail to do so in an unpredictable world.  Most organisations seem to get by despite their strategic plans rather than because of them. At his most laconic Stacey has considered strategic plans to be like an organisational rain dance.

So what is going on in organisations when people are trying to plan strategically and what kind of thinking do they get caught up in?

Firstly, and perhaps most notably post economic crisis, it seems to have caught on that the future is unpredictable. So managers in an organisation that I was working with recently realised that to attempt a ten year plan as they had done, meant that they could only indulge in the most general of intentions and predictions. Intentionality is important if staff are to feel that together they can act in the world and not just be acted upon. As Hannah Arendt has noted, to dispose of the future as though it were the present does bring an enlarged sense of purpose. But to be too precise about these predictions and intentions is to tempt fate, or to appear overbearing, particularly if those intentions involve the well-being of other people. So the document itself  was described as a kind of organisational lodestone, or North star. It had to be convincing enough, but not prescriptive. So strategic planning is partly about the group’s ‘we’ identity and people’s sense of their collective ability to act with purpose.

Secondly there is a tension around clarity versus complexity, which is often expressed in visual or spatial metaphors. On the one hand staff will need to feel that they ‘know where the organisation is going’ can see ‘the big picture’, or ‘how the organisations is positioned”. Clarity will often involve leaving out a lot of the detail, abstracting and generalising, which can only be done drawing on a rich and complex hinterland. On the other hand, once staff read the document they will want to recognise themselves in it. This will often evoke the kinds of strong feelings around identity and values that the practice of leadership also provokes. So some staff will sometimes argue for putting some of the complexity back in – where am I and my department in this? Many strategy documents get caught up in these contradictory processes: there will be clear simplifications which once achieved will then call out strong calls for recomplexification. So strategic planning is partly about knowing how, or even if you belong, about recognition and mutual recognition. Who gets included and excluded from this document, and on what basis?

If staff in an organisation have intentions to bring about change for the good, yet have to express these intentions very broadly for reasons that they have framed them over a ten year period, then how will they know that they have made the changes they aspire to? There is a temptation here to get drawn into talking about outcomes, even ‘measuring outcomes’. But how would you then measure an outcome, which implies precision, if your intentions are rather general? Again, managers can get caught up in what feel like contradictory pressures to measure general intentions specifically. There is a temptation to borrow from scientific vocabulary to shore up the concept and to talk of baselines, indicators, qualitative and quantitative data. Stakeholders would need to be convinced that the organisation meant what it said. Strategic planning, then is partly about credibility and about being able to demonstrate seriousness of purpose.

As an experiment we tried to abandon the spatial and visual metaphors and tried out the idea of thinking of the strategy as a narrative. A good narrative is one which is convincing, pleasing, interesting and you can broadly anticipate what will happen next. You can recognise it as a good narrative. At the same time as wanting to predict what will happen, we may also want to be surprised, so there is room for novelty and innovation. A narrative can be a moral tale, tailored to specific audiences and improved with the telling.

Perhaps that one of the reasons that organisations continue to undertake strategic planning is as a form of organisational narrative. It is a social and collective practice which provides a means of describing intention and articulating identity. Staff have the opportunity to recognise themselves as actors in the story, which they will have contributed to, and which is often one of high moral purpose and heroic ambition.

At the same time, the narrative is likely to evoke strong feelings in both the narrators and the listeners who will try to influence each other in the creation of the story and how it is to be played out. Rivalries and conflicts will arise as people struggle to co-operate. There is a lot at stake in this bid to dispose of the future as though it were the present in a narrative that we continue to co-create.

“O problema de mentir é que isso vai depender de o mentiroso ter uma clara noção da verdade a ser escondida. Nesse sentido, a verdade, mesmo aquela que não aparece em público, tem uma primazia sobre toda falsidade.”

Hannah Arendt

Something interesting I read today, in “Between Past and Future” by Hannah Arendt:

“The testament, telling the heir what will rightfully be his, wills past possessions for a future.  Without testament or, to resolve the metaphor, without tradition…there seems to be no willed continuity in time and hence, humanly speaking, neither past nor future, only sempiternal change of the world and the biological cycle of living creatures in it.  …[R]emembrance, which is only one though one of the most important, modes of thought, is helpless outside a pre-established framework of reference, and the human mind is only on the rarest occasions capable of retaining something which is altogether unconnected.”

Oddly enough, I had just read this article on the education theories of E.D. Hirsch at the University of Virginia.  Together, Arendt’s contention and the article provide provocative material for the education reform debate.

Sergio Romano, uno dei tanti cattivi maestri della Repubblica

Le dichiarazioni del sottosegretario Giovanardi sulla vicenda di Stefano Cucchi – vicenda inquietante ma assai piu’ “normale” di quanto si pensi nel panorama della giustizia e delle carceri in Italia – sono state additate come il segno piu’ recente e vistoso dell’incivilta’, dell’ignoranza e della disumanita’ della classe dirigente del paese. Difficile immaginare parole piu’ insultanti per chi le pensa e le pronuncia, difficile immaginare che quelle parole possano essere superate sulla strada dell’indecenza, anche considerando i dettagli agghiaccianti che stanno emergendo.

Ma in Italia niente e’ impossibile e la realta’ e’ sempre piu’ prolifica della fantasia e dell’immaginazione. Sergio Romano, ex ambasciatore, editorialista del Corriere della Sera, opinionista, scrittore, pensatore che passa tra i piu’ raffinati e colti, ci ha offerto sabato scorso, dalle colonne del principale quotidiano italiano, l’esempio piu’ rappresentativo di quella realta’ che supera la fantasia. Sul caso Cucchi, Romano scrive:

Il caso del giovane Cucchi ha suscitato gravi sospetti sul comportamento delle forze di polizia e dei medici. È giusto che l’opinione pubblica ne sia preoccupata e che la ma­gistratura indaghi. Ed è giusto che i giornali abbiano dato spazio alle voci di quanti sono indignati dalla possibilità di atteggiamenti repressivi o ne­gligenti. Ma questo coro di proteste e accuse ha avuto l’ef­fetto di oscurare un aspetto della vicenda non meno im­portante. Commossi dalla morte di Stefano Cucchi, ab­biamo dimenticato che ogni persona è responsabile della propria vita ed è inevitabil­mente destinata a raccogliere i frutti delle proprie scelte. Non ne sono sorpreso. La rea­zione al caso Cucchi è quella che si è progressivamente dif­fusa ormai da parecchi anni si­no a diventare, col passare del tempo, «corretta». La morte della vittima ne cancella le re­sponsabilità; e tanto meglio se la colpa può essere imputa­ta allo Stato e alle sue istituzio­ni. Il caso del ragazzo Giuliani ucciso a Genova durante la manifestazione del G8 nel­­l’estate del 2001 è probabil­mente l’esempio più clamoro­so di questa nuova regola so­ciale.
A me sembra che tale rego­la — la vittima è sempre inno­cente — renda un pessimo ser­vizio ai nostri figli e nipoti. Se continueremo su questa stra­da li convinceremo che non sono responsabili di se stessi, che non hanno il dovere mora­le di pesare attentamente le lo­ro azioni. Educheremo genera­zioni di ragazzi che oscillano fra l’autocompatimento e la frustrazione. Non avrei usato le parole di Carlo Giovanardi, ma credo che il suo intervento «scorretto» abbia avuto il me­rito di ricordare ciò che troppi hanno dimenticato.

Parole indegne quelle di Romano, ingiustificabili, che cozzano contro i principi fondamentali, le basi stesse della civilta’ umana, costruiti quei principi e quelle basi con il sacrificio, la sofferenza, il sangue, la vita di miliardi di esseri umani nel corso dei millenni. Non ci sono davvero parole che possano esprimere tutto il raccapriccio e lo sdegno civile per questa lezione d’incivilta’ e di morte offerta da Sergio Romano come risposta ai lettori del Corriere. Quanta tristezza ambasciatore Romano! Quanta tristezza nella mente raffinata, erudita, che dimentica la ragione stessa del vivere insieme, le fondamenta della Repubblica, le sue pietre piu’ importanti, che sostengono tutto l’edificio, la Vita, la Liberta’ e il perseguimento della Felicità. Quanta tristezza per questa povera patria, la barbarie viene addirittura stampata sulle colonne del principale quotidiano del paese, nel tentativo di legittimarla, razionalizzarla. L’ambasciatore Romano normalizza l’impensabile, come se Hannah Arendt non ci avesse mai detto nulla sulla banalita’ del male. Povera patria, ridotta dai cattivi maestri non al sonno ma al coma profondo della ragione.

“Quem habita este planeta não é o Homem, mas os homens. A pluralidade é a lei da Terra”.

- Nicht der Mensch bewohnt diesen Planeten, sondern Menschen. Die Vielzahl ist das Gesetz der Erde.

Vom Leben des Geistes‎. Das Denken, das Wollen. – página 29, de Hannah Arendt – 1998

I know this is completely off-topic, but I want to bring this to people’s attention.  I doubt very seriously the U.S. media will cover this story much (though I found out about this through Rachel Maddow, I don’t expect the story to get wide circulation on the teevee) but word needs to get out about this…

The U.S. Congress continually blocked any child labour bills and the U.S. never even adopted any kind of federal child labour laws until 1938 under FDR.  Of course, that hasn’t stopped large corporations from building sweatshops overseas, bypassing any labour laws, and making a bigger profit in the end.

So along comes a proposed bill in Congress that would involve the banning of all imported goods produced through indentured child labour and other forms of forced labour.  Guess who is opposed to such a thing?

The way to stop this is for the world’s largest economies to establish basic rules which everyone else will inevitably follow as a price of admission to those economies’ markets. If the United States says companies cannot sell products in our market made with child slave labor, most companies will cease making products with child slave labor fearing the loss of access to our market which would destroy their business.

Of course, that’s why business has opposed every effort to put basic labor, environmental and human rights standards into our international trade agreements – and why business groups are now preparing to try to weaken the laws barring products made with child slave labor. They know that the less rules that exist in the American market, the more cost-cutting exploitation they can engage in.

That corporations’ advocacy for deregulation has now become so brazen that they are effectively pushing the U.S. government to endorse child slave labor is predictable. This is what their globalization agenda has always been all about. The only thing surprising about it is that in a Washington so overtly dominated by Big Money, it has taken them this long to be this blatant about their objectives.

Foreign countries who have also attracted such sweatshops are also opposed to it, unsurprisingly.  The bill is sponsored by Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA).

Also, read THIS.

“The Third World is not a reality but an ideology.”

~ Hannah Arendt

PakAlert

When waging war “by way of deception,” the motto of the Israeli Mossad, well-timed crises play a critical agenda-setting role by displacing facts with what a target population can be deceived to believe. Thus the force-multiplier effect when staged crises are reinforced with pre-staged intelligence. In combination, the two often prove persuasive.

That duplicity was on display when U.S. lawmakers were induced to invade Iraq in response to the mass murder of 9-11. That crisis alone, however, was insufficient. Military mobilization required a “consensus” belief in Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons, Iraqi meetings in Prague, and so forth. Though all were false, those “facts” proved sufficient to induce an invasion of Iraq.

Such agent provocateur operations typically include collateral incidents as pre-staging for the intended main event. Ongoing incidents suggest a follow-on operation is underway. Recent history suggests we’ll see an orgy of evidence that plausibly indicts a pre-staged Evil Doer. Though Iran is an obvious candidate, Pakistan is also a possibility where outside forces have been destabilizing this nuclear Islamic nation with a series of violent incidents.

The Indo-Israel Alliance

December 2007 saw the murder of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mark Siegel, her Ashkenazim biographer and lobbyist, assured U.S. diplomats that her return was “the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact.”

President Pervez Musharraf had announced that resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict was essential to the resolution of conflicts in Iraq and neighboring Afghanistan. That comment made him a target for Tel Aviv.

During Bhutto’s two terms as prime minister, Pakistani support for the Taliban—then celebrated as the freedom-fighting Mujahadin—enabled her to wield influence in Afghanistan while also catalyzing conflicts in Kashmir. By fueling tension with India, she also fueled an Indo-Israel alliance as Tel Aviv provided New Delhi an emergency shipment of artillery shells during a conflict over the Kirpal region of Kashmir.

In January 2009, Israel delivered to India the first of three Phalcon Airborne Warning & Control Systems (AWACS) shifting the balance of conventional weapons in the region. That sale confirmed what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier announced: “Our ties with India don’t have any limitation….” That became apparent in April when Israel signed a $1.1 billion agreement to provide India an advanced tactical air defense system developed by Raytheon, a U.S. defense contractor.

In August 2008, Ashkenazim General David Kezerashvili returned to Georgia from Tel Aviv to lead an assault on separatists in South Ossetia with the support of Israeli arms and training. That crisis ignited Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Russia, key members of the Quartet (along with the EU and the UN) pledged to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

More Game Theory Warfare?

Bhutto’s murder ensured a crisis that replaced Musharaff with Asif Ali Zardari, her notoriously corrupt husband. By Washington’s alliance with Zardari, the U.S. could be portrayed as extending its corrupting influence in the region.

On August 7, 2008, the Zadari-led ruling coalition called for a no-confidence vote in Parliament against Musharraf just as he was departing for the Summer Olympics in Beijing. On August 8, heavy fighting erupted overnight in South Ossetia. As with many of the recent incidents in Pakistan, this violent event involved armed separatists.

But for pro-Israeli influence inside the U.S. government, would our State Department have installed in office the corrupt Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, leading to record-level poppy production? Is the heroin epidemic presently eroding Russian society traceable to Israel’s infamous game theory war-planners? [See “How Israel Wages Game Theory Warfare” and “Israel and 9-11” .]

In late November 2008, a terrorist attack in Mumbai, India’s financial center, renewed fears of nuclear tension between India and Pakistan. When the attackers struck a hostel managed by Chabad Lubavitch, an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect from New York, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced from Tel Aviv: “Our world is under attack.” By early December, Israeli journalists urged that we “fortify the security of Jewish institutions worldwide.”

Soon after “India’s 9-11” was found to include operatives from Pakistan’s western tribal region, Zardari announced an agreement with the Taliban to allow Sharia law to govern a swath of the North West Frontier Province where Al Qaeda members reportedly reside.

Pakistani cooperation with “Islamic extremists” created the impression of enhanced insecurity and vulnerability for the U.S. and its allies. That perceived threat was marketed by mainstream media as proof of the perils of “militant Islam.”

With the Taliban and Al Qaeda portrayed as operating freely in a nuclear-armed Islamic state, Tel Aviv gained traction for its claim that a nuclear Tehran posed an “existential threat” to the Jewish state. Meanwhile Israel’s election of an ultra-nationalist/ultra-orthodox coalition further delayed resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

More delay is destined to evoke more extremism and gain more traction for those marketing the “global war on terrorism.” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni argued after the assault in Mumbai: “Israel, India and the rest of the free world are positioned in the forefront of the battle against terrorists and extremism.”

In announcing that list, Islamabad was indicted by its exclusion even though Pakistan is dominantly Sunni and, unlike Iran’s Shi’a , abhors theocratic rule. The fact patterns suggest that Pakistan, not India, was the target of the murderous terrorism in Mumbai.

Advised by legions of Ashkenazim, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent mission to Islamabad was a diplomatic disaster. Abrasive and arrogant, America’s top diplomat reinforced Pakistani concerns that it is surrounded by hostile forces and that the nation is being set up to fail by Jewish nationalist advisers to a nation it considered an ally.

In a climate of heightened tensions, Clinton undermined U.S. interests, boosted the Israeli case for a global war on “Islamo-fascism” and lent credence to the Clash of Civilizations.

Destabilization as a Prequel to Domination

As Afghanistan and Pakistan join other nations being destabilized by outside forces, key questions must be answered:

Was India’s 9-11 a form of geopolitical misdirection meant to serve both the tactical goals of Muslim extremists and the strategic goals of Jewish nationalists? Who benefits—within Pakistan—from humiliation at the hands of India and the U.S.?

With Bhutto’s murder and Musharraf’s departure, the crisis in Mumbai drew Pakistani forces to the Indian border and away from the western tribal region. Was that the geostrategic goal of these well-timed crises? What role, if any, did Israel play?

Is delay in ending the occupation of Palestine part of an agent provocateur strategy? Was the latest assault on Gaza part of this strategy?

Each of these crises incrementally advanced the expansionist agenda of Colonial Zionists. Do these collateral incidents trace their origin to a common source? Is that source again using serial events to pre-stage a main event?

The public has an intuitive grasp of the source of this oft-recurring behavior. An October 2003 poll of 7,500 respondents in member nations of the European Union found that Israel was considered the greatest threat to world peace.

Is terrorism limited to “Islamo-fascists”? Are mass murders also deployed—from the shadows—as a strategy of geopolitical manipulation by those who Ashkenazim philosopher Hannah Arendt described as “Jewish fascists”?

Author, educator, attorney, merchant banker and adviser to policy-makers worldwide and U.S. Veteran

Jeff was counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (1980-87) working for Democrat Russell Long, son of Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator Huey P. Long. Specialist in employee benefits law—pensions, 401(k) plans, stock options, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), et.al. Tax-qualified employee benefit plans accounted for $17 trillion in assets (April 2007) and more than half the funds in the hands of institutional investors. As of 2007, ESOPs were in place in 11,500 firms nationwide, covering 10% of the U.S. workforce and holding $800 billion in assets. Law practice w/ former Senators Russell Long, Democrat of Louisiana and Paul Laxalt, Republican of Nevada, chairman of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns.

«Comemora-se este mês o fim da Guerra Fria. É precisamente esse o ponto de partida de Tony Judt na introdução deste livro: os eventos de 1989 foram o resultado do fracasso político e humano da URSS, mas não eram inevitáveis e não devem ser deixados na gaveta da História. Como escreve o historiador – um intelectual descomprometido –, a sedução marxista sobreviveu à abertura de Gorbachev e o fim da História de Fukuyama é uma piada de mau gosto.»

ohohohohohohoho! É! Achei esse vídeo no YouTube. Trata-se de um vídeo irado dos maiiiiooooresss filósofos de toooooda a história ….

… mas bem, eles estavam pensando? filosofando? conversando? argumentando? estragando nossas vidas? Não! É o que diz o título do post mesmo! Estavam jogando futebol! KPOkasokOKoaskoaksopaks IoI

Nesta partida, a seleção da Grécia (iihaa!) disputa com o timaço aço da Alemanha. E, só para você ter uma idéia do que estou falando, dê uma olhadinha no plantel das equipes:

De um lado, representando o time grego, temos figurões do tipo de Sócrates (o da maiêutica LoL), PLatão (o bonitão :B), Aristóteles (um dos 1ºs machistas da história Oo), Arquimedes (Eurekaa!) e afins.

Doooo outro lado do campo, a Alemanha conta com craques como Kant (ughh.. “leio Kant e finjo que entendo“!. É só falar de Kant que me lembro disso..KOpkaoksoaks), Hegel, Heidegger (o da Hannah Arendt!), Nietzsche (do “Quando Nietzsche chorou” :T) e o meu queridinho Karl, o Marx ^^ S2

O jogo é apitado por Santo Agostinho e São Tomás de Aquino – HMmmm! Entendi por que Nietzsche levou cartão amarelo! Hhahahahah Ele acusou Confúcio, o árbitro, de não ter livre arbítrio. E Confúcio respondeu: “O seu nome vai para o livrinho!” KOkaoOPkoaksoa ‘-’

Os comentaristas, sobre Hegel: “Hegel afirma que o gol não valeu porque a realidade é apenas um auxiliar apriorístico da ética não naturalista.” Pff! HUihaiushauihsuia!

Er, me empolguei! Huiahsuiahsuia Quase contei toda a história! HUnf! rs

AWn, o videozinho de 3 min. é legendado. Até tem dublado no YouTube, mas esse aqui é muito mais engraçado! ASSISTA! (a g o r a !)

Cá pra nós, só faltou o Fenômeno aí para o vídeo ficar perfeito! Hihihihihihi :**

Dass die Verleihung von Preisen nicht immer Ausdruck der Hochachtung für den Preisträger zu sein braucht, sondern oft auch die Hilf- oder Sprachlosigkeit des Auslobenden unterstreicht, ist nicht weiter erwähnenswert. Was aber der arme Leo Baeck falsch gemacht hat, dass der Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland einen mit seinem Namen behängten Award DFB-Präsident Zwanziger überreicht, ist eine Frage, deren Beantwortung mir nicht so schnell gelingen wird.

Ich sag nur: Rostock gegen St. Pauli. Und ich sag nur: Deniz Nakis.

Hat Hannah Arendt in ihrem Buch Eichmann in Jerusalem den Platz Baecks auf der Liste der coolen Leute nicht schon zu genüge hinterfragt?