Disutopia and Utopia

Disutopia is the most significant project of our time. It is not the temporary absence of Utopia but the celebration of the end of social dreams. Social dreams have become a nightmare in which it is impossible to materialise our desires into a collective thought. Disutopia should not be confused with the form in which it appears: indifference. Disutopia entails an active process involving simultaneously the struggle to control diversity and the acclamation of diversity; the repression of the struggles against Disutopia and celebration of individual self-determination. The result of this is social schizophrenia. In so far as diversity, struggle and contradiction cannot be eliminated by political or philosophical voluntarism, Disutopia has to be imposed. The advocates of Disutopia spend a huge amount of time in de-construction, repentance, denial, forgetfulness, anti-critique, coupled with academic justifications and the scientific classification of the horrors of our time. Whilst the reality of capitalism is destroying planet earth, Disutopia pictures Utopia as a romantic, naïve and old-fashioned imaginary that is accused of not dealing with the real world. However, our point is that Disutopia can only be sustained by denying the real content of life, i.e. the foundations of the real world. The result of all this together is mediocrity.

Dinerstein and Neary “Class struggle and the Communist Manifesto” (2001, p. 4).

 

A Ridge Called Vimy: Manufactured Amnesia

By Goodwin Ginger

There is nothing necessarily wrong with being sentimental when reporting on a foundational national myth: Vimy Ridge is where the First World War turned in favour of the Allies, and where an independent Canadian identity was forged. National Myths are useful insofar as they serve to give us a sense of a national and collective identity. Moreover, they serve to recall the great sacrifices and horrors that were endured to create that identity.

Yet to hear some tell the story of Vimy Ridge, you would think World War One was staged just so Canada could forge an independent identity. Indeed, if we are to go by the CBC’s coverage of Vimy, all we would know is that a lot of Canadians died taking a strategically important hill in a War that had apparently no causes or consequences. We would not know that besides the 3,500 hundred Canadians that died taking that god forsaken hill, that untold millions of others died in the Great War. Nor would we know why and what those Canadians, and untold other millions, were fighting and dying for. The platitudes coming from the national broadcaster and right wing commentators would have us believe that it was a fight about freedom. Oh really? Freedom from, and freedom to what?

True for some elites it was a war about freedom to get into and extend their colonial empires and imperial trading blocks. For other elites like the British and the Ottoman’s it was about preserving their decaying empires. It was a product of an interstate system in which national elites created insecurity in other nations by engaging unrestrained arms procurment and development along side gross militarism instead of diplomacy.

But for workers and farmers, those it must be said who did 95% of the fighting and dying, it was at best about the siren call of nationalism, duty, and loyalty. These are all virtues in most conditions, but when cynically manipulated by elites almost always deadly vices. Indeed, is that not how our good neighbours to the south got sucked into Iraq?

To recognize the utter senselessness of the First World War, its horrendous waste of human life and sick manipulation of farmers’ and workers’ loyalty and sense of duty, in no way undermines their valour. But if Vimy, and the slaughter of Canadians, is to have any meaning, beyond serving as a mere stage for a Canadian national identity play, the national broadcaster and the Canadian media owe Canadians a larger context through which to understand how it was that so many young Canadian farmers and workers came to loose their lives in Europe; and how it was that a European war managed to suck broad swaths of the entire world into its bloody and sadistic vortex.

If Vimy is only remembered as the stage upon which a Canadian identity was forged we will have utterly dishonoured the memory of how it was our valiant soldiers came to fall at a little known ridge called Vimy.

 

Kinsella what a Martyr

Happy Easter Gentiles,
Would someone please crucify Kinsella already so we can finally get him off the cross.

 

Haha We Broke the Story Before the FT!

Wolfowitz partner’s pay rise sparks protest

By Krishna Guha in Washington

Published: April 5 2007 02:38 | Last updated: April 5 2007 02:38

World Bank staff are protesting over reports that Paul Wolfowitz’s partner, Shaha Riza, a bank official, was given a promotion and pay increase to $193,000 when she was seconded to the US State Department.

In an e-mail circulated to all bank employees, the staff association on April 3 called on its management and board to explain “what appear to be violations of staff rules in favour of a staff member closely associated with the president”.

 

Paul Wolfy’s girlfriend beats inflation and then some

Staff Association Update
April 3, 2007
Dear Colleagues,

.
Since publication of the March 28, 2007 “In the Loop” column in the
Washington Post, the Staff Association has been inundated with
messages from staff expressing concern, dismay and outrage. The Staff
Association has looked into the concerns and would like to inform
staff of what we have found. At the same time, we call on Senior
Management and the Board to clarify what appear to be violations of
Staff Rules in favor of a staff member closely associated with the
President.

Bending the Staff Rules

At issue are the terms of external assignment for Ms. Shaha Ali Riza,
formerly a Senior Communications Officer in the Middle East and North
Africa Region (MNA). According to the Postand a subsequent New
Yorkerarticle, the Board’s Ethics Committee determined that Ms. Riza,
who was linked romantically with Mr. Wolfowitz, should be placed on
external assignment so as to avoid what Staff Rules define as a de
factoconflict of interest, when one partner supervises another.
Accordingly, Ms. Riza went on external assignment, with pay, on
September 19, 2005. The Staff Association has not been able to
determine who drew up and approved the terms of the external
assignment. However, we have been able to verify that they are
grossly out of line with the Staff Rules.

Promotion: Despite the “complement control” that limits the number of
staff at grades GH and GI, Ms. Riza was given a non-competitive
promotion to level GH on the day that she left on external
assignment. Promotion from GG to GH is supposed to be competitive,
vetted and approved by the relevant sector board and is supposed to
be against a specific position (Staff Rule 5.05). This promotion
clearly does not conform to the procedures.

Promotion Increase: Staff Rule 6.03 stipulates that salary increases
upon promotion should be the greater of (a) 3-12% of the Market
Reference Point (MRP) of the new grade, or (b) the amount necessary
to bring the salary to the minimum of the new grade. Ms. Riza’s
promotion increase should have been determined by the former
calculation. However, she was given a promotion increase of 28% of
the MRP – more than double the amount allowed by the Staff Rules.

Annual Increase: Since the performance of staff members on external
assignment cannot be assessed and compared to that of their
colleagues, Staff Rule 6.05 directs that their annual salary
increases be set at the average percentage applied to adjust the MRPs
for grades GA – GI. For FY07, the average percentage was 3.7%; Ms.
Riza’s annual increase this FY amounted to 7.5%.

 

Someone has to say it: Canadian Forces do not defend our Freedom

The Canadian military is a volunteer service. When they go abroad they may be engaged for good or evil but they do so at the behest of the government of the day. Unless they are engaged in directly defending Canadian soil they are not acting as a defence force, rather they are an extension of Canadian foreign policy.

We have no truck with governments or soldiers that rap themselves in the flag in an attempt to elevate soldiers and their activities as somehow anywhere and everywhere the “Defenders of Canadian Freedom.”

Soldiers signed up to go on foreign adventures at the behest of their employer. There is nothing sacred or sacrosanct about them or their activities.

Should it actually come down to defending Canada from direct external attack we are sure the majority of Canadians would head to the front lines in which case the Canadian military would be transformed into a citizens defence force and that would be something sacred and sacrosanct.

 

Why Harper Gets a Majority and Dion Gets the Boot

First off, the progressive vote is now split between four parties in Canada: the Liberals, the NDP, the BLOC, and the Greens. The liberals have no hope of poaching votes from any of the decided voters in the other three progressive parties. This means the liberals will have to concentrate on getting out their own vote and on targeting the swing voter. And here is the rub: there simply is not enough ideological difference between the liberals and the conservatives these days to make a real play for the swing voter. In the concrete the conservatives appear less extreme than they would like to be and in the concrete the liberals were more to the right than their self-image would like to admit.

The liberals cannot credibly hold themselves up as the protectors of the universal welfare state. Indeed it was they not the Conservatives that spent the better part of the decade waging an ideological and material attack on the welfare state. The liberals solved the federal deficit by forcing provinces to restructure their welfare programs and choke funding to higher education and health care. As such, when it comes to economic policy there is hardly a ray of light that separates the Conservatives and the Liberals: they are both neoliberals when it comes to the economy.

The liberals cannot credibly hold themselves up as the protectors of the environment. The Conservatives are right on this one. The liberals had the better part of decade to do something on the environment and they did next to nothing. Oh sure they talked a good game but they did worse than nothing. Anyone who is even faintly familiar of what went down in the federal Ministry of the Environment knows what schizophrenic organization it became under the liberals. Add to that the culling of inspectors and the lax enforcement of existing environmental protection and you get the impression that the Ministry of the Environment under the liberals was little more than an appendage of industry: kind of like Transport Canada which has always been an appendage of industry.

The liberals cannot credibly run as an anti-war anti-fear party. They drafted the draconian anti-terrorism legislation and they sent Canada into Afghanistan and determined the structure of that mission.

The liberals cannot credibly run as paragons of virtue determined to stamp out patronage. Indeed the liberals were a patronage machine and when patronage was not enough they shifted to envelopes stuffed with cash.

In short, Dion cannot credibly run the liberals as honest brokers. Given their previous record as the governing party they can neither poach votes form the left or the right because they have zero credibility on either side of that divide. Hence, it is going to be a popularity contest determined by Charisma, which is the one thing Dion totally lacks.

Get ready the Harper majority is coming.

 

CON Aesthetic in Bad Taste

Does anyone else out there notice the CON’s embrace of a certain aesthetic that abruptly went out of fashion in the mid 1940s? Note to Harper: Tone it down until you have control of the Reichstag.

 

 

CON Goons Stifle Democracy

Apparently they employ apartheid era goons to police their public meetings. The shiver that went down our collective spine when we heard the accent of that Tory goon. Wow takes us back to 1987. Here is a tip for the Tory Rooinek in the video. Physical attacks are considered assault; you are lucky Mr. Ross did not press charges.  You are not in South Africa anyomore, learn some manners.  We always suspected that Canada was getting the more regressive elements of the “white” South African community.

 

On the Mind of God: The dumbest blog debate yet

That fact is that any certain claim by man (sic) to know the mind of god is not only blasphemous but also futile.  By definition god is a bit of mystery beyond the bounds of human knowledge; indeed this is what is meant by man is fallible.  Man is fallible not simply because he is a sinner but more importantly because there are inherent limitations to mans knowledge. Man will even sin when it is not his intention to do so. It follows from this that we have no possible way to know which way god would vote.   So the point is that any question of which way Jesus would vote is a dumb question.  Obviously the right, centre and left can find textual evidence in the bible supporting their respective projects but this is an entirely different proposition than stating what the mind of god is.  Politics is the providence of man; judgement is the providence of god and we should think the political party affiliations of Jesus unknowable.