This is my annual camping trip to the Adirondacks High Peaks. Heated hut. Though there's a chance a couple guys will be in a leanto this year. My group came out of print media many years ago, but has broadened somewhat. The mountains contain the great spirits, per Bark-eater lore (the Adirondack Indians), and every year I go with the hope that they, and my friends, will answer some of my questions. This year's questions:
--Is the collapse of the print media recession-related, or is its contraction going to be permanent and transformative?
--When will the internet be monetized? (In midlife, this neurotically-endless question has replaced the endless question of my youth, when will I have a menage a trois?)
--The 6000-word magazine piece, do people still read it? Where and when?
--Do I have mild Asperger's? My wife made this diagnosis a couple years ago, and it was campfire fodder for a while. ("No your game is different from that," one friend muttered...) The latest evidence in the affirmative is that I don't get some of the Super Bowl ads and have to have them explained to me, which I was able to do at my Super Bowl party this year and not at home, because my wife long ago issued a policy about television-watching: I will not explain commercials to you.
--How does this Super Bowl rank among great football games?
--How do my more successful/m-o-r friends feel about Gaza?
--Marriage. Discuss.
--Does the New York Times's tailspin reflect its tragic error on Iraq and its refusal to apologize for this failure of intellectual leadership (C.f. Ken Pollack, Bill Kristol, Bill Keller, Judith Miller, and on and on)? What if it were to apologize now? Would that quench the holy burning trench between print and blogosphere?
--The big enchilada: Did the historic emergence into national political life in 1858-1859 of an oddball intellectual (whom ordinary times would have consigned to a successful legal practice in a provincial capital) over a burning moral question that was all Americans really wanted to talk about (Lincoln/slavery) anticipate Obama and the Israeli occupation-apartheid, in which all Americans are also implicated?
I feel I might keep the last question to myself, till I get a little air and can consult with the great spirits.
(Phil Weiss)
Since my "formalization of Judonia" motion was shelved after a raucous debate between me, myself and several alters representing both of us, I would like to impress the notion that time is running out for a peaceful transition when the time of unchalenged judaic colonization of America and Palestine is over. Though I understand most of you still subscribe to the mondoweissian principle of "no fireworks," the sad truth is that you are not that different from other peoples before you who suffered the joys and misfortunes of having a significant concentration of jews in their midst, therefore you better think about the shootings even while you're still hoping shoutings will suffice. In that spirit of let's make things clear I offer these two recent writtings of the excellent Kevin MacDonald:
The Church and anti-Semitism – "Recently there has been a media uproar about the reinstatement of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), a traditionalist Catholic group, that broke off from the Church after the reforms of Vatican II. Jewish groups are furious that there would be any attempt to reconcile these traditionalists to the Church. This is not surprising since the issue that led to the schism was the reform of the Church initiated by the Second Vatican Council and its declaration on Judaism, anti-Semitism, and non-Christian religions…"
The Global Anti-Semitism Report: The organized Jewish community opposes free speech – "It is something of an axiom of Jewish life that “Is it good for the Jews?” remains the litmus test of Jewish communal activity — in other words, interest over principles. A good example is free speech. There can be little doubt that the organized Jewish community sees free speech as a problem because it may be used to criticize the behavior of Jewish organizations and especially Israel…"
–Does the New York Times's tailspin reflect its tragic error on Iraq and its refusal to apologize for this failure of intellectual leadership (C.f. Ken Pollack, Bill Kristol, Bill Keller, Judith Miller, and on and on)? What if it were to apologize now? Would that quench the holy burning trench between print and blogosphere?
Phil, newspapers nowadays do what their proprietors tell them to do, just like in the nineteenth century.
Web publishing has the same dynamics as print media when there were 20 published newspapers in New York.
The same sources of revenue and the same appeals to slivers of audience.
There are more demands for data, and it is OBVIOUS that efficiencies in data communication are possible over the web that were tedious with print media.
What is STILL relevant is deriving meaning from the data.
Press stake out different characteristics to their reporting, journalizing.
The most prestigious press seek to provide relevant information to decision-makers (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal). There audience will require informative but NOT radical opinion or selection of data.
The web is physically harder to read than paper, and people psychologically and physically cannot look at a bright screen in the same time frame as to read a book.
If the new faux paper electronic readers got MUCH LESS expensive, they might enhance the ability to download the electronic equivalent of magazine and newspaper spreads. (Well laid out graphics, high quality print)
I expect that at some point soon, one of those readers might accompany a New Yorker subscription for example.
The other prospective economic driver of publications can be libraries, if they are suitably supported, which they aren't currently.
The economy is finally feeling the effect of the web. Music sales are dying. And, few are playing music even for fun. Anything that was economic prior that can now be transferred as a file is stressed.
You tube is great, except.
I still consider the book "The End of Work" by Jeremy Rifkin to be one of the most insightful books published in the last 100 years.
It states that less work is needed in our society, that full employment ONLY can happen during bubbles, that the norm is high unemployment, and growing moreso.
And that that is not all that different from the prior, in which people really did have a great amount of leisure, widely, and used it for good and bad purposes.
It implies that a rigid private income based society, will serve less and less. With high unemployment wages will decline, illustrating a split that we are already seeing, with only an aristocratic few doing well.
It implies that a relatively larger socialist perspective is relevant, AT LEAST more progressive taxation funding more public goods.
I still consider the book "The End of Work" by Jeremy Rifkin to be one of the most insightful books published in the last 100 years.
Richard, why so modest? say "200 years", or even "300 years." Think big.
Phil Weiss wrote:
"How do my more successful/m-o-r friends feel about Gaza?"
From what can be gathered here Phil you seem to have your health (enough at least to go jogging up those little hills you call mountains out East), you've got a wonderful wife who seems to have her heath too, you've got family that love you, a comfortable home, friends, the intellect and resources to appreciate the beauties of both the natural world and the human, and lots of people who regard you as a very brave, thoughtful guy.
You sure you've given enough thought to the concept of "success"?
Don't worry about Asperger's, especially if you only think you have a mild case. I'm firmly convinced that the psychiatric profession will go on inventing new "syndromes" until everyone in the world (except the psychiatrists themselves, possibly) can be "diagnosed" with some syndrome or other. There are people with serious psychological or neurological problems, of course, but there's nothing wrong with most of us; we just deviate in some minor ways from an idealized state of "mental health" that was made up out of nothing by psychiatrists and probably has never existed anywhere in the world at any time.
A menage a trois is much easier to pull off than monetizing the internet.
"End of work" – tell that to all the parents out there. End of *paid* work maybe. If you have children, own a home and car, then the work is endless. There's the work of feeding, grooming and socializing the children. Educating them takes lots of work, even if you're sending them to a school; if things get really hairy the schools will be shuttered or too awful to contemplate, and private school tuition out of reach for people with no paid work. So we'll be working unpaid to teach our kids something or another. Etc.
And somehow folks have to eat. With the end of cheap oil (may be farther off than Peak Oilers expect) cheap food will end; then we'll all be working harder to meet our basic calorie requirements.
I don't foresee the end of work. I foresee the world musing on how do you monetize work?
Barter. Many of us will be getting by on barter of services as well as goods. I'm not good for much work anymore, as a metastatic cancer patient, but I can sew and bake… plus tutor reading, writing and math up through tenth grade. With effort I could tutor calculus…
Phil
Does the New York Times's tailspin reflect its tragic error on Iraq …. Would that quench the holy burning trench between print and blogosphere?
Bigger than that: it is its tragic error on neocons and Jewish influence and Israel's right-wing policies and their obvious direct influence in American politics often to our detriment.
All of us can access HaAretz. It's a great paper with robust discussions. It's waaay bolder than the NYT. Ditto YnetNews and Arutz Sheva…and even JPost sometimes.
HaAretz makes the NYT look like a local rag pandering to the Grand Concourse bubbes. Here is an example: "White Man's Burden" by Ari Shavit: link to haaretz.com
I can tell you as someone who no longer lives in Manhattan that the drop-off in NYT readership at the local Starbucks on Sunday AM (a ritual) is a direct result of this: The Times is considered to have lost its balls and objectivity. It's considered a 'cover-up' paper. I'm not making this up. I've heard it from ex-New York Jews here who complain about it, as in 'What the hell happened to the Times? Is it because that South African guy [Gen. Ed. Keller] took the wrong sensitivity course?'
The organized Jewish community can oppose free speech all its wants, but its going to lose money, and the more it bitches on the web or seeks to control its message to the exclusion of others, the more it loses ground. No one has to drink that anachronistic kool-aid.
Mr W, take my word for it, you can always eliminate everything from "&contrass" on, leaving the full item number.
Leila,
I agree with you that many things are likely to cost more for various reasons. Peak oil impacts are still incremental, still marketized. The costs of transportation are still relatively minor in the cost of products, even food. There is already mass produced organic agriculture, as odd as that sounds.
If there is less work offered in the society, but still requirements to come up with dollars (rents, mortgages, health insurance – now mandatory in my Massachusetts, off season food, heating fuels), there will be more suffering experienced, without some significant social change.
One HORRIBLE outcome of the web, is that people are far from each other. There is much much less organizing occurring (for all the web-hype about new political organizing, its true and not true.) We are more isolated than in the past.
Some places are exceptions. Perhaps the Bay Area is one.
Weiss, you're in a dream world. Other then dealings with holocaust denial, what Jewish groups are demanding an end to free speech?
The phrase "holocaust denial" is theological, and deliberately so; it is modelled on the sin of denial as understood in the medieval christian period, when unfortunate Jews were asked, often on pain of death, "do you deny christ your saviour?"
So, creating this global secular thought-crime of "holocaust denial" is a form of Jewish tit-for-tat revenge for that.
But anyway, chris, as usual, you are talking nonsense. The Jewish definition of "hate speech" is expansive enough already, and rapidly assuming stalinist dimensions. As doubtless the Protocols you so love to mention, foretold.
Seems by failing to answer the question, you've proved Weiss to be full of it.
Thanks.
"Weiss, you're in a dream world. Other then dealings with holocaust denial, what Jewish groups are demanding an end to free speech?"
Chris, you are responding to a user comment that links to articles by Kevin MacDonald, whom I think should be rather difficult to confuse with Philip Weiss.
If you are interested in the topic, though, MacDonald is probably the most uncompromising critic of organized Jewish movements in the 20th century.
MacDonald is a discredited antisemite.
Regardless, I commented on Weiss' statement:
The organized Jewish community can oppose free speech all its wants…
Posted by: MRW | February 04, 2009 at 02:21 PM
MacDonald is interesting to read. He's not so much a "critic" of organized Jewish movements in the 20th century as you state, but an analyst of Jewish group survival strategy. Sometimes you get the sense that he admires aspects of this strategy and that he wishes it could be replicated for his own tribe, non-Jewish whites. He's difficult to put in a box; I don't think you can really call him an anti-semite unless your definition is anyone who might have something to say that might be misconstrued as being somewhat negative toward the Jews.
Promoting Hate
California Professor is Font of Anti-Semitism
By Heidi Beirich
link to splcenter.org
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Kevin MacDonald was honored in 2004 for his work on the Jews by The Occidental Quarterly, a white supremacist publication. He was accompanied by Virginia Abernethy.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), is a multicultural wonderland, with classrooms filled by Golden Staters whose ancestors came to this lively, diverse beach community from every corner of the world. Double-stocked with both an Office of Equity and Diversity and a Multicultural Center, CSULB openly proclaims its commitment to educating all of California’s students, regardless of income, race, creed or national origin.
Given its diverse student body, it would seem that CSULB would be the last place to find a tried and true anti-Semite and white supremacist lecturing. But that is where Kevin B. MacDonald, a 63-year-old man who developed a deep-seated mistrust for Jewish activists while protesting the Vietnam War, is employed as the psychology professor for those seeking degrees in child development.
From an office inside the bunker-like, six-story Psych building, a tall, thin, bespectacled MacDonald pumps out pages and pages of material on how Jews are genetically driven to destroy Western societies. According to MacDonald, who considers himself an evolutionary psychologist, Jews, who have typically been in the minority in countries around the world, are compelled by an evolutionary strategy that makes them push for liberal policies, like immigration and diversity, with the intent of weakening the power of the majority that rules them.
Ultimately, MacDonald blames the death of millions on "the failure of Jewish assimilation into European societies" and even suggests that "parity" between Jews and gentiles could be reestablished by discriminating against Jews in college admissions and establishing taxes to reduce "the Jewish advantage" in wealth.
MacDonald’s three-volume set of books on Jews and their destructive tactics is devoured by anti-Semites the world over. Not since Hitler's Mein Kampf have anti-Semites had such a comprehensive reference guide to what's wrong with "the Jews." His work is widely advertised and touted on white supremacist websites and sold by neo-Nazi outfits like National Vanguard Books, which considers them "the most important books of the last 100 years." For years, MacDonald defended his research as apolitical and scientific, but that defense fell apart after the millennium, when MacDonald embarked on a white supremacist speaking tour. Last December, MacDonald dropped the defense altogether and declared his dislike for Jews.
"I have come to the point of seeing my subjects in a less than flattering light," the professor wrote on his kevinmacdonald.net website.
CSULB is not the first campus to employ an academic racist on its professorial staff. But what makes MacDonald's case unique is that he was able to reach the heights of his profession, securing a post on the executive council of the professional body for evolutionary psychologists, all the while producing "research" now widely viewed as anti-Semitic.
Boy, I'm really convinced now that this guy MacDonald is an anti-semite!
Why bother reading his writings myself and thinking for myself when I can just wait for Chris Berel to post someone else's analysis for me to adopt? Thanks, Chris!
Promoting Hate: California Professor is Font of Anti-Semitism. By Heidi Beirich
link to splcenter.org
yeah, well, this is exactly the sort of thing that I mean when I say that 'Chip' Berlet is a piece of ZOG thought control police shit. Morris Dees is exactly the same thing. The so-called 'Southern Poverty Law Center' doesn't give a damn about southern poverty, and never did – it is a ZOG thought police watchdog, pure and simple.
You need to fuck off out of here with your jewish nazi crap, berel.
Eva, it is obvious that critical thought is not your cup of tea.
Perhaps you should start smoking, then without any actual research, but reading papers put out by Winston-Salem, decide if smoking might cause lung cancer.
MacDonald is a discredited antisemite.
Absolutely. He distorts scholarship to fit his design. I read complaints by a historian, whose work he squeezes into his theory. He has no historical scholarship. And walks on a historically narrow historical base. (…) I wonder if the people attracted to his "vision" would feel fine under a regime to his taste. There is a direct line that connects him with the Nazi ideologues. Their cult of Darwin.
Sometimes you get the sense that he admires aspects of this strategy and that he wishes it could be replicated for his own tribe, non-Jewish whites.
You will find the same feature in Hitler. Authoritarians tend to be attracted by the possibilities to control the masses.
He's difficult to put in a box;
No he isn't. There may be a reasons to study group dynamics and strategies, but it should be done scientifically without interweaving old mythoi into something parading as science.
Berlet is a piece of ZOG thought control police shit.
Yes, there are some that hate Berlet for the wrong reason. Most I discovered are somehow attracted to partly century old authoritarian conspiracy lore. Some of the earliest ones were written by Catholic clergy. It makes sense to study history, to see what ideologies they served
And walks on a narrow historical base.
The same feeling I have about some of the ideologues here.
I didn't read the articles you read Chris, but it seems we agree 100% on this issue.
articles you read Chris
I actually meant posted.
May the spirits, Phil, his friends have a stimulating exchange of thoughts and ideas.
According to MacDonald:
"success of Jewish activism: ethnocentrism, intelligence and wealth, psychological intensity, and aggressiveness" all acquired via evolution to enhance the ethnic group survival".
Looking at Israel First posters on this blog, second characteristic is questionable, third is highly probable, rest fits like a glove.
LOL
I got into the habit of checking out the scholars labelled "Holocaust deniers" and "Anti-Semites".
LeaNder is the pot calling the kettle black. Look at his comments, see how he uses his blinkered eyes, pointing out the enemy is over there as he demonstrates his myopia. You know the Germans, at your feet, or your neck. You hasbara agents can count on LeaNder to be at your feet. Good luck to you.
Didn't you once write that many of your family died under the Nazis? Should we better mistrust that statement too?
Very funny citizen, really very funny.
Himmler will love your support up there on cloud 9:
Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich (Kogan), of Jewish descent, was born in Kubany, near Kiev, Ukraine, in 1893. In 1911 he joined the Jewish-founded Communist Party and became involved with the Bolsheviks (Lower East Side New York Jews). Kaganovich took an active part in the 1917 takeover of Christian Russia by Communism and rose rapidly in the Party hierarchy.
From 1925 to 1928, he was first secretary of the party organization in Ukraine and by 1930 was a full member of the Politburo.
Kaganovich was one of a small group of Stalin's top sadists pushing for very high rates of collectivization after 1929. He became Stalin's butcher of Christian Russians during the late 1920s and early 1930s when the Kremlin (jews) launched its war against the kulaks (small landowners who were Christians) and implemented a ruthless policy of land collectivization. The resulting state-organized forced famine, was a planned genocide and killed 7,000,000 Ukrainians between 1932 and 1933, and inflicted enormous suffering on the Soviet Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan.
Josef Stalin (Dzhugashvili) altered census figures to hide the millions of famine deaths when the Ukraine and northern Caucasus region had an extremely poor harvest in 1932, just as Stalin was demanding heavy requisitions of grain to sell abroad to finance his industrialization program which was on top of enforced collective farming of 1929. Stalin is conservatively estimated to have been responsible for the murder and/or starvation of 40,000,000 Russians and Ukrainians during his reign of terror, while the total deaths resulting from the de-kulaklization and famine, by way of Kaganovich, can be conservatively estimated at about 14,500,000.
On any analysis, Kaganovich, was one of the worst mass murderers in history, and little wonder that during World War II large numbers of Ukrainians greeted the Germans as liberators, with many joining the Waffen-SS to keep Communism from enslaving all of Europe. Anyone who desires can check out the role of the Jews during the red terrors. You just have to look deeper than the typical American school textbook.
If you want to read a good book regarding jews and how they relate
to non-jews in the diaspora, you should check out Alexander Solzenitzen's last book. But, if you only read English–good luck. He's such a nobody no American publisher will print the translation.
But you Americans can read up on Paris Hilton.
"May the spirits, Phil, his friends have a stimulating exchange of thoughts and ideas."
Argh! Don't encourage Phil in his avodah zarah!
Then again, I don't think simply *conversing* with strange gods is forbidden. ;)
"I got into the habit of checking out the scholars labelled "Holocaust deniers" and "Anti-Semites"."
Yes, so did I. Any time a scholar produces this kind of acrimony I immediately head to their website and start downloading.
"Hmm. What is this guy writing that these groups don't want me to read?"
Then again, I don't think simply *conversing* with strange gods is forbidden. ;)
Who knows, maybe its always the same, and the rest is politics?
You can concentrate on the differences or on the similarities. Why shouldn't e.g. a Christian be allowed to consider it the "spiritual" part of the Trinity? After all the Christians occupied all the older pagan holy spaces, built their churches there and grafted their religion onto much older seasonal sacred rhythms?
i thought I corrected this: they occupied
i thought, I corrected this: they occupied