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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| David wrote: | | I remain of the opinion that this notion of the constraints of change is an entirely self-fulfilling prophecy. |
'Entirely' is a very strong word. I've long granted that we need delusional notions of self-efficacy to get by in life, but like all 'necessary delusions' there are healthy limits.
What I'm saying is actually just commonsense, proven time and time again every single day you act within the constraints of the received culture, as most sane people do. The view that one can stand outside looking in is 'entirely' narcissistic.
Note, I left the ability for change intact because it's factual; things do change. It's the mechanism I'm questioning and the delusional superhero talk I'm rejecting. None of us are that special; we can't know complex things we haven't experienced (meeting payroll, running for public office, living in Tajikstan, living with a terminal illness, being sexually abused, and far more mundane things besides), no matter how dissociatively we insist otherwise. I can't see how you can seriously claim the contrary; you've been a child and know you most certainly do not hold the same things to be true about the world. You've been in religion. You've learned new things. You've been new places. You've met wildly divergent people.
Contrary to your repeated implicature, I'm not enamoured with the received culture at all. I just think we're embedded in it, and that's the honest and mature place to start. Biden and Albanese's policies are not my policies; they are, however, better than the policies of the deranged. For someone who fears granting too much authority to any one person, you seem willing to grant a heck of a lot of authority to divergent thought. That's fine, but there's no compelling reason for that to be so except that you identify with it, which brings us back to the embodied, embedded self and its limitations.
We can know some simple things by analogy and all-things-being-equal logic, but you can't know complex things by analogy, and all things are rarely equal. Moreover, we're adaptive, meaning when you place us in different circumstances our entire thought system adjusts, so we can't even predict what that might look like and how we might think until we experience it. Part of learning is testing yourself in those circumstances. Part of wisdom is holding your tongue until you do knowing that gap exists. Consider the compound adjectives 'psycho-social' and 'socioeconomic'; they're a small nod to 'reality'.
Again, one can't know what one doesn't know. Ironically, one of your strengths is holding judgement and allowing for extreme difference, which tells me you do indeed get this at some level.
This is all of course why I keep dragging M2M back to poststructuralism. Because that's where we're stuck, even if we don't like it. I have some ideas on trying to move beyond it, but they need a heck of a lot more work. Certainly, clinging to old delusions, including the miraculous coincidence that the answer to life's puzzles lies within oneself, has lost its lustre. No doubt hence my impatience with the same old talk. I guess one good thing about the internet is this: you can see the old nonsense being repeated in black and white, topic after topic, year after year, time and again, as if on reflex, and grow bilious at the sight of it accordingly.
Israel's over-kill and the inability to protect vulnerable people make me literally ill, but the time to implement safeguards in advance of something as predictable as this has long come and gone, though certainly not through any fault of you and I, given we've seen this coming forever and opposed its progression the whole way. We said the same about Iraq. The same about the GFC. The same about basic risk management such as defending against global warning and global pandemics. The same about Brexit. The same about Trump. None of this is ever hard to see; being able to intervene in any meaningful way is always the problem. Focusing on nullifying the obviously deranged and negligent is at least a tangible place to start, in contrast to focusing on transforming the entirety of known reality from imagination to utopia, which is a far more hopeless and dispiriting enterprise, contrary your contention quoted above.
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Magpietothemax 
magpietothemax
Joined: 28 Apr 2013
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| stui magpie wrote: | | Bullshit. It's a brief. The only thing it proves is that they wrote and submitted a brief. It's a legally watertight case for exactly 9/10th of fvck all unless it is accepted as actionable. Until then, it has no more standing than a petition to stop dogs shitting on my naturestrip. |
Clearly, as displayed by the crudity of your language, you have no idea. Your only aim it seems right now is to try to refute anything i say, but unable to do so, you simply resort to hysterical swearing.
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Magpietothemax
magpietothemax
Joined: 28 Apr 2013
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| pietillidie wrote: | [
This is all of course why I keep dragging M2M back to poststructuralism. Because that's where we're stuck, even if we don't like it. |
You can try to drag me into the morass of confusion and demoralisation represented by post-structuralism as much as you like, but it is where you are stuck, not me.
| pietillidie wrote: | [
Israel's over-kill and the inability to protect vulnerable people make me literally ill, |
Again, another total lack of understanding of reality. Israel never had any intention to “protect vulnerable people”.
The Israeli government has made clear that its aim is genocide. Several members of the Israeli government have referred to the Palestinians as “human animals” .
By the way, do you think Israel is committing genocide? You have never made your position clear on this.
Not expecting an answer, just like I didn’t receive one on whether you think Starmer represents a better alternative for the British people than Sunak.
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Last edited by Magpietothemax on Thu Mar 07, 2024 10:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| pietillidie wrote: | | Focusing on nullifying the obviously deranged and negligent is at least a tangible place to start, in contrast to focusing on transforming the entirety of known reality from imagination to utopia, which is a far more hopeless and dispiriting enterprise, contrary your contention quoted above. |
There is a third way between cautious incrementalism and self-defeating utopianism, and that's bold reformism. We know of course that this happens from time to time in various countries and in various contexts, though not nearly as often as it should in my view.
This is more or less my orientation: I'm not a prison abolitionist, because I feel prisons as they currently are are such wretched places that it's far more realistic (and suitably ambitious) to campaign for a Norwegian-style prison system than to imagine a world in which we no longer need them at all. But on the other hand, I don't place much faith in slowly tinkering around the edges and being satisfied with a 5% improvement every decade – I want to see a broom swept through the entire structure of the system through expert consultation and policy implementation. That's just an example, but hopefully an illustrative one.
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Here are some long rambling notes for you. I'm exhausted and don't really have it in me to write more or to pursue it more carefully, but the exercise can't hurt and the topic is obviously crucial given what's happening.
| Magpietothemax wrote: | | You can try to drag me into the morass of confusion and demoralisation represented by post-structuralism as much as you like, but it is where you are stuck, not me. |
When Stui talks about management and organisations, I listen. When David talks about film and the arts, I listen. When Skids talks about the mining industry and the latest odds, I listen. When Culprit talks about the military and dogs, I listen. When TP talks about the rental market, animal welfare, photography, I listen. When they all talk about raising families, I listen.
But do you honestly think people are like, "let's ask M2M about poststructuralism; he seems up with the latest on philosophy, social theory and the post-poststructuralist question"? You might know more than I am aware, but it's not obvious.
| Magpietothemax wrote: | The Israeli government has made clear that its aim is genocide. Several members of the Israeli government have referred to the Palestinians as “human animals”.
.By the way, do you think Israel is committing genocide? You have never made your position clear on this. |
For a start, I'm guessing most people with a solid knowledge of the subject would avoid the term 'genocide', whatever the most vulgar creeps in the Israeli government have said. If you pressed me on an official, politically correct statement, I would probably describe it as 'tempting ethnic cleansing'. It could easily become such and is already horrifying whatever one calls it, so it not only needs to be stopped post haste but war crimes investigations should follow.
But there's certainly no need to get entangled such that you need Levantines committing suicide to realise genocide because you somehow get off on using the term for a region with a complex inerrelated history. Can you not identify a rabbit warren when you see one, or are you trying to pull people into one?
We all do that when the mood strikes, but this is not a topic to be sloppy with terminology yet strong on declarations.
I'm happy to call the desire of some Israeli fanatics a dangerous desire for ethnic cleansing, because it seems to fit some of the signals. I'm not happy to think that the majority of Israelis want that or understand the problem such that they think that's happening. More likely a large part of the bellicosity you hear is people lashing out in exhaustion, fear and anger, while the media is geared to make the extremes much of what we hear.
Calling people in that state 'genocidal', when they are steps removed from a frontline they're watching on telly and just pissed off and scared in their basements, doesn't cut it for me. But sure, there will be a minor percentage of scumbags up with ethnic cleansing.
At the same time, I'm not even sure the average Joe Israeli has much of a handle on reining in the bat-eared segment of the country including Netanyahu and cronies. The government itself is no doubt divided underneath whatever front we see, while that creep Nutteryahoo has found ways to manipulate the nation such that they can't even get rid of the bastard.
And don't forget, we live in a world now where people say very strong things because they think they might influence policy somewhat. That might be what you're doing with the term genocide; i.e., if it's horrifying enough we might just coax the US into leaning on them. Words and views are very malleable like that, and should not be read over-literally: "he thinks she thinks I think that you think....", and before you know it no one is really saying what they mean, but rather trying to coax some modest outcome.
Of course, the mistake is letting someone as psychiatrically dangerous as Nutteryahoo near power, and not protecting against an extreme lurch like this to begin with, which was always on the cards. It's like electing Trump and then wondering why he couldn't manage something complex like a pandemic: elect a baboon, get baboon attacks and baboon poop smeared across the country.
| Quote: | | Not expecting an answer, just like I didn’t receive one on whether you think Starmer represents a better alternative for the British people than Sunak. |
Are you asking that out of curiosity or as someone well-versed on the subject? I happen to research UK policy heavily, but I just can't be bothered talking about it. I'll likely have the energy to say more as the election nears.
| pietillidie wrote: | | [Israel's over-kill and the inability to protect vulnerable people make me literally ill, |
| Quote: | | Again, another total lack of understanding of reality. Israel never had any intention to “protect vulnerable people”. |
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the scheme of things you don't know Israel from Job, do you? You know third-hand things about Israel from 20,000 feet on the other side of the world, from which you draw definitive conclusions. We're clutching at bits and pieces of information that are vague enough for any motivated person to put things together in almost any way they like.
Do you not grasp how tenuous our knowledge of these things is? It's very normal for people to talk about stuff, backtrack, waver, wonder, have an outburst, contradict themselves, etc., because they're not seriously advocating responsible, informed, carefully considered, legal and accountable policy. Don't confuse your thoughts with what the latter look like, and what the circumstances of the latter require.
We all shoot the breeze and talk nonsense, but we don't all literally in the light of day think we have enough information make the proclamations you keep making. Have some caution, for goodness' sake, or say "Fred Smith thinks x and Mary James think y, but I'm not really sure I have the full picture or a realistic sense of what's happening yet".
For me, as with Afghanistan, Iraq, global warming, Brexit and on, when I'm not a specialist I take a risk management view, which includes scrutinising the quality, history and knowledge of those involved, and knowing people lose their minds and revert to their ugliest selves under duress, and grifters take up any intransparent opportunity. That's often enough without doing the full research project, because the quality of insight, quality of people and veracity of information are fundamental to everything, and enable accountability.
So, to me, the psychiatry of the likes of Nutteryahoo and the settler cult means they are unfit to be even close to the levers of power. I wish the US and UK for that matter would insist on sensible, responsible risk management, which means not letting fruitcakes and cowboys loose with abandon. It might have meant something like (i don't know exactly - I'm not a military or international law expert) putting neutral troops on the borders so Israel couldn't go it alone should things turn ugly like this, and it certainly meant working far harder on a peace process to this point.
So, those are the kinds of heuristics I use outside my strong suits because I think they're trackable somewhat from afar.
But also bear in mind that just because you can see Israel and its nutters in this and can't see Iran, Russia and its proxies, doesn't mean you're justified fixating on only part of the problem, which itself is potentially ethnocentric. This is not just about Israel, as the history has always been clear, as is the fact that existentially, Israelis and Jews are still at high risk. And until you're in that position, as said yesterday, you can't be sure how you might react.
Quite likely, we could all find ourselves with the view of most of the parties concerned depending on where we were born and find ourselves in life. As I often iterate, the most important insight from the piles and piles of writing on WW2 is this: that could be us, on either side, which again is why I focus most on the dangerous extremes.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Magpietothemax
magpietothemax
Joined: 28 Apr 2013
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^ It is important to clarify that I have never in any post referred to the people of Israel as genocidal. I have been very clear in pointing out from the start that it is the government of Israel that is carrying out genocide.
Israel is an extremely divided society, riven by enormous class differences, and there are many in Israel who utterly oppose the genocidal actions of the Netanhayu government.
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| Magpietothemax wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | Bullshit. It's a brief. The only thing it proves is that they wrote and submitted a brief. It's a legally watertight case for exactly 9/10th of fvck all unless it is accepted as actionable. Until then, it has no more standing than a petition to stop dogs shitting on my naturestrip. |
Clearly, as displayed by the crudity of your language, you have no idea. Your only aim it seems right now is to try to refute anything i say, but unable to do so, you simply resort to hysterical swearing. |
Oh Please 
They submitted a communications brief to the ICC. Congratulations, lets do a lap of honour. If, after the OTP assesses it, they decide to commence an investigation maybe then pat themselves on the back because at least they got to first base. Until then it's like congratulating yourself for sending a letter to the editor without knowing if it's going to be published.
Simply writing and submitting a communication is proof of nothing.
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LaurieHolden 
Floreat Gymnorhina tyrannica
Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Location: Victoria Park
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Pressure on Israel to establish more broadly accessible sea route / port to Gaza for aid let alone basic goods has been ongoing for decades.
US President Joe Biden will announce a plan for the US military to help establish a temporary port on the Gaza coast to increase the flow of aid into the territory during the Israel-Hamas war, according to senior administration officials.
The port will allow shipments to flow into Gaza via Cyprus from the US military and allies, the administration officials said.
The move provides one more layer to the extraordinary dynamic that has emerged as the United States has had to go around Israel, its main Mideast ally, and find ways to get aid into Gaza, including through airdrops that started last week.
I continue to watch and learn as this game of chess playing out before our eyes. How temporary is a port exactly?...
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Magpietothemax
magpietothemax
Joined: 28 Apr 2013
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| LaurieHolden wrote: | Pressure on Israel to establish more broadly accessible sea route / port to Gaza for aid let alone basic goods has been ongoing for decades.
US President Joe Biden will announce a plan for the US military to help establish a temporary port on the Gaza coast to increase the flow of aid into the territory during the Israel-Hamas war, according to senior administration officials.
The port will allow shipments to flow into Gaza via Cyprus from the US military and allies, the administration officials said.
The move provides one more layer to the extraordinary dynamic that has emerged as the United States has had to go around Israel, its main Mideast ally, and find ways to get aid into Gaza, including through airdrops that started last week.
I continue to watch and learn as this game of chess playing out before our eyes. How temporary is a port exactly?... |
Really??? The US finances and arms Israel. It is arming and financing Israel as we speak, while it is perpetrating genocide in Gaza.
Scores of Palestinian people in Gaza, mostly children, are dying from starvation as I write.
The US has raised no objection to Israel's continued obstruction of aid trucks entering Gaza.
The Biden administration has not said a word to condemn the flour massacre, in which Israeli soldiers opened fire and shot to kill starving Palestinians lining up for aid.
The US has defunded the major UN agency supplying humanitarian assitance to Gaza.
There is no "extraordinary dynamic" of the US "going around Israel to get aid in Gaza". The US is the main facilitator of the Israeli government in its genocide against the people of Gaza.
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Magpietothemax
magpietothemax
Joined: 28 Apr 2013
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| stui magpie wrote: | | Magpietothemax wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | Bullshit. It's a brief. The only thing it proves is that they wrote and submitted a brief. It's a legally watertight case for exactly 9/10th of fvck all unless it is accepted as actionable. Until then, it has no more standing than a petition to stop dogs shitting on my naturestrip. |
Clearly, as displayed by the crudity of your language, you have no idea. Your only aim it seems right now is to try to refute anything i say, but unable to do so, you simply resort to hysterical swearing. |
Oh Please
They submitted a communications brief to the ICC. Congratulations, lets do a lap of honour. If, after the OTP assesses it, they decide to commence an investigation maybe then pat themselves on the back because at least they got to first base. Until then it's like congratulating yourself for sending a letter to the editor without knowing if it's going to be published.
Simply writing and submitting a communication is proof of nothing. |
You still don't get it.
What matters is not what the pro-imperialist stooges in the ICC make of the brief.
What matters is that the brief is online and the population of the entire world can access it and judge for themselves the validity of their argumentation.
Albanese's government will be on trial before the entire world for its crimina endorsement of genocide in Gaza. One day in the future, international judicial institutions may no longer be simple rubber stamps for the imperialist powers (US, NATO governments, and Australia), but instead might judge court cases on the basis of what is true.
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
And exactly where, other than the website of a boutique law firm that nobody knows, is this document online?
It's not on the ICC website.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Magpietothemax
magpietothemax
Joined: 28 Apr 2013
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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And how is the population of the entire world going to suddenly know about it's presence there?
The entire world has access to this thread as well, do you expect them to read your post and be compelled to click on the link?
They've submitted a paper that, apart from a clerk in the OTP almost no one is ever going to read. Even if the OTP was to consider it worthy of investigating, it's hard ties to the Sth African Genocide case against Israel. If Israel aren't found guilty then Albo can't be complicit in something that didn't happen.
If you truly believe that this submission will have any impact on anything other than a warm feeling for the handful of true believers, I think you're being incredibly naïve.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Magpietothemax
magpietothemax
Joined: 28 Apr 2013
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At the Zimmerwald Conference in 1915, there were 8 sociallist internationalists in the world that supported Lenin. Lenin's perrspective of turning the world war into a socialist revolution had 8 adherents on the planet at that time.The minutes of the Zimmerwald Conference were certainly not available online!
And yet, 2 year later, the Russian Revolution shook the political foundations of the entire world. It took 2 years only for the perspective of Lenin to become that of a mass movement in Russia which overthrew the capitalist state.
Given the heightened development of communications and the interconnectedness of the world today, it is safe to assume that profound transformations in mass consciousness will now take far less than 2 years.
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Oh Dear. You really do believe that, don't you.
Sorry to burst your bubble, it ain't going to happen. Not in 2 years, not in 10 and not in 20. The world is a very different place now than it was in 2015, the aspirations of the "working class" are very different and the conditions necessary to get the kind of world wide revolution you want just don't exist.
The possible closest correlation to the kind of mass delusion you're referring to is how Trump has managed to convince 35-40% of the US population that he is the outsider fighting for the working class and "sticking it to the Man" despite being a Billionaire who exploits the workers and has the morals of a sewer rat. But his popularity isn't continually rising, it's in constant decline (just not fast enough) as more and more people wake up to him.
So, no matter how much you want to believe it, it ain't gonna happen and the sooner you realise that, the better for you.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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