Because I am lazy I didn’t feel like typing it all in, so here it is in all it’s quasi-original glory instead, with my address covered up to protect what shreds of privacy I may still have.
October 29, 2008 archive
Oct 29 2008
Critical theory as a discipline for the 21st century
In the hectic run-up to an important election, we need to keep minds focused on the larger picture, and on the potential for epochal change in light of environmental and economic crises.
Critical theory was begun in the 20th century as an alternative to capitalist “social science” and also as an alternative to Leninist forms of “dialectical materialism.” It sought to look at the world in terms of history, philosophy, and science, criticizing “mainstream” social science as infected by ideological attitudes while recognizing the persistent longevity of the capitalist system and wondering what to do about its injustices.
This diary will explore the possibility of critical theory, a 20th century “bigger picture” way of thinking about the world, as an intellectual and social discipline for the mind and for understanding the 21st century world.
(Crossposted at Big Orange)
Oct 29 2008
Fractal Geometry, Mayan Baktans and Repeating History
December 21st 2012, the end of this Mayan Cycle, which is prophesied as the end of times… could it be a Palin election, global warming floods or just World revolt against the poverty into which we have been stricken?
Trying to define our fractal existence into Euclidian Geometry, our brains seek to make this:
into this:
No matter how many times we repeat the form, it never makes sense.
Oct 29 2008
Pony Party/Open Thread: Halloween Music Videos!
This is an open thread. Chat away. Please do not rec the open thread.
Oct 29 2008
Capitalism is bankrupt
Original article, subtitled Their system creates recession, hunger and climate chaos, but they want you to pay, via Socialist Worker (UK):
Until A few weeks ago, supporters of free market capitalism were confident enough to proclaim that their system was the only way that the world could be organised. Now their certainties have vanished.
Oct 29 2008
Race To Watch: Peter Goldmark for WA Public Lands Commissioner
A whole bunch of vital races tend to get lost amidst big media’s obsession with the minutiae of the ‘big’ races, especially in presidential years. One of those races is mentioned this morning in the Seattle P-I –
The campaign to be the state’s next commissioner of public lands is one of the tightest and most polarized political races this year.
It is also the least understood, though the office determines the management of 5.6 million acres of state timber and aquatic lands, shorelines and agricultural fields for a trust that funds public schools and universities throughout Washington.
Crossposted from La Vida Locavore, more below the fold…
Oct 29 2008
Move On Over, Or We’re Going To Move Over You
I turned thirty-two years old today. And one week from today, I will do something I have never done before: cast my vote for the winning candidate for President of the United States, Senator Barack Obama. It will be an interesting change to have a President who has my actual endorsement.
It has been an interesting political season, as well. The prospective election of a multi-racial man to the Presidency has brought out much of the worst of Americans. All of us are familiar with the reprehensible public statements, the shouted epithets at crowds and rallies, the slanderous emails which many of us have received. A loud, angry minority perceives that they have lost their grip on the country, and fear what it means for the “Real America”, which they define as excluding me, you and pretty much everyone we know.
All of this has offended many of you; it has offended me as well. It offends me to hear believers in other political principles than I describe where my friend Summer and her husband and daughter as not being the “real Virginia”, although I imagine that Summer herself was fairly enthusiastic to hear it. It offends me to hear that my friends and I in New York City are not among the “best of America” because we don’t live in small towns in Republican states. I may have spent the bulk of my life on the East Coast of the US, but that has not diminished my appreciation for Texas, where my aunt lives, or Louisiana, where my father is from. Indeed, my political representatives have shared that view as well. There was no diminished distress when Louisiana, among the “reddest” of states, was drowning from government apathy while the President took time out to celebrate John McCain’s birthday.
Many notable voices have deplored these offensive and divisive remarks. But I am glad for them, both because sunlight truly is the best disinfectant and because that these voices are so willing to speak openly is proof that they know they are losing, and are desperate because of it.
And in this moment, I want to take a minute to thank all of you.
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