Creating Immunity for Domestic Spying

I know that if I email one of you back in the US that my email will be intercepted and read by the U.S. government. Why? Because of what's called the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). Anytime someone from overseas communicates with someone in the U.S. the Fed has a program for intercepting and reading said communications.

Now the Attorney General, Mukasey, has announced that the telecommunications companies (AT&T, Comcast, and so on) will be immune from prosecution for this secret spying. Senator Obama, that change you obey (I mean, believe in), and the rest of our terrible Congress, voted for passage this July of the new bill that makes this domestic spying program totally legal. Read more here.

I wanted to make more substantial some of what I said in my last post about how failed America has become. I know, each generation says their government fails them, but, seriously, our government is torturing innocent people (sometimes even children from Canada), because our government has been on this deregulation kick we are entering world wide economic meltdown (not my words, but the words of our government), because of our precedent for "Pre-emptive Strikes" the world order is even more fragile than it was 50 years ago (this is from a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General who resigned to expose the genocidal policies in Iraq).

What are you going to do to make this world better?

McCain Will Destroy America

If you think John McCain is someone that should be trusted with making decisions on your behalf or in your best interest, beyond - maybe - whether to order that sandwich or that soup and salad set, please read the following:

(I got this from Paul Krugman's blog)

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation." (emphasis added by me)

Do note that it is exactly this deregulation of the banking industry that has put us, as Henry Paulson (the guy running the Federal Reserve) warned Congress today, within days of complete economic meltdown. The meltdown caused by the "innovative products" that McCain refers to are more commonly understood as subprime loans.

He cannot campaign saying he will be the scourge of Wall Street and then praise Wall Street for doing the very thing that has placed the world economy on the brink of collapse. He's a liar, and you are killing your country and your future if you support John McCain's presidency.

I can't believe that Americans believe that there is any merit to the McCain campaign's assertion that what seperates him from Obama is experience, this absurd comment that Obama is too inexperienced. Here are some other "inexperienced" president's that we've been served by:

John Adams, who had no "executive" experience
Abraham Lincoln, Congressman for one term
Harry Truman, who was a Senator for two terms

And that was just off the top of my head.

John McCain is lying everyday, and he will ruin our country. How? By continuing to put his head in the sand and trust the same pack of wolves that have eroded our rights to lawful search and seizure, who have decided that America is a country that willfully and unashamedly tortures the innocent, that have bankrupted our economy by protecting their primary donors, and who have created the foreign policy that has lead our allies to not-so-quietly discuss how to move into the next century without us.

This has been the Party that destroyed America.

Why Wall Street Is Melting Down

Lots of posts today, lots on my mind...
This is a truly historic moment in the history of the United States, we usually think "business will go on as usual" but that clearly can't be the case anymore.

The argument from the American Conservative Reich (and I include Clinton in this since he was, "more Reagan than Reagan," to quote Matt Benard) has been to get smaller government and by that they meant less social services and less regulation in the economy. The swindle has been sold along these lines, "the gubment should git out of providing these services, American people know what they want, not the gubmint. If we git the gubmint outta these services then honest 'Mericans will start their own service providing cumpnies."

Well, today we see what I've always said: that those small-government/libertarian/neocons (McCain-Palin are just, simply, lying, to you all) have never had the sac big enough to back up that talk. We're nationalizing Wall Street, folks. Why? Because we ought to. That same ought that conservatives are so resistant to (remember that D Magazine article I shared yesterday?), has won the day. Let's face it, the conservative worldview that we've been force fed and withered under for nearly 30 years now has been one of deep distrust (this is from the Secretary of Labor) and ugly, naked greed. And now that the whole thing's spinning outta control, those that are supposed to be public servants are reaching down deep, like the Grinch in the cartoon, and trying to find a way to minimize the bloodbath.

Slavoj Zizek said in an interview last month that Communism was going to win. Fess-up, comrades.

Ugly Things Happening to Ugly People

Or, Instant Karma's Gonna Getcha...
from the always helpful ARTNEWSlistserv I'm going to simply share the whole story from Twincities.com

My favorite bit has to be this:

"Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources.
"We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money," he said. "We deserve reimbursement." A few hours after the interview, an unknown woman helped herself to Schwartz's resources."

GOP delegate's hotel tryst goes bad when he wakes up with $120,000 missing

By David Hanners

.. -->date-->

Article Last Updated: 09/17/2008 08:32:27 AM CDT

He met her in the bar of the swank hotel and invited her to his room. Once there, the woman fixed the drinks and told him to get undressed.

And that, the delegate to the Republican National Convention told police, was the last thing he remembered.

When he awoke, the woman was gone, as was more than $120,000 in money, jewelry and other belongings.

The thief's take stunned cops.

"It's very, very, very rare," Minneapolis Police Sgt. William Palmer said. "I can think of a couple of burglaries where we had that much stolen, but it's the first time I've heard of this kind of deal."

In a statement released today, Gabriel Nathan Schwartz, 29, of Denver, put the figure at much less.

"It's embarrassing to admit that I was a target of a crime. I was drugged and had about $50,000 of personal items stolen, not the inflated number that the media is reporting from an inaccurate police report," he said.

"As a single man, I was flattered by the attention of a beautiful woman who introduced herself to me. I used poor judgment."

Contacted by the Denver Post Monday, Schwartz declined to speak on the record. In the statement released today, Schwartz said he would decline further interview requests.

The haul included a $30,000 watch, a $20,000 ring, a necklace valued at $5,000, earrings priced at $4,000 and a Prada belt valued at $1,000, police said.

Schwartz is a single attorney and a fixture in Colorado Republican politics. He was one of the state's delegates to the convention this month in St. Paul.

Reached by phone at his law office Monday, Schwartz said that because the case still was under investigation, "I think at this point, I don't want to make a comment on it."

During the convention, Schwarz wasn't shy about talking to the media. In an Associated Press article about Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech, Schwartz was quoted as saying that as far as oratorical skills go, McCain "has more experience in his little pinkie" than Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

In an interview filmed the afternoon of Sept. 3 and posted on the Web site LinkTV.org, Schwartz was candid about how he envisioned change under a McCain presidency.

"Less taxes and more war," he said, smiling. He said the U.S. should "bomb the hell" out of Iran because the country threatens Israel.

Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources.

"We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money," he said. "We deserve reimbursement."

A few hours after the interview, an unknown woman helped herself to Schwartz's resources.

The theft happened at the Hotel Ivy, a luxury hotel in downtown Minneapolis. (The Colorado delegation was housed at the Four Points Sheraton, several miles away on Industrial Boulevard Northeast.)

The theft occurred early on Sept. 4, hours after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave her speech accepting her party's vice presidential nomination. A police report said Schwartz told officers he met a woman at the bar and took her to his $319-a-night room.

"Victim reported suspect made victim drinks, told him to get undressed, which is the last thing he remembers," a police narrative said. "Upon waking, victim discovered money, jewelry gone; total loss over $120K."

A police report notes the crime occurred between 4:22 and 5:46 a.m., and Palmer said investigators believe Schwartz was drugged, although he declined to discuss details.

Aside from the watch, ring, necklace, earrings and belt, Schwartz also reported a $1,000 purse or wallet, a $1,500 cell phone, $500 in cash and a couple of rings worth $50 had been taken.

Alister Glen, general manager of the Hotel Ivy, called the theft an isolated incident and said no hotel personnel were involved.

"I don't know if I'm at liberty to discuss it," he said. "It's still under police investigation."

Schwartz was a supporter of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, donating $2,300 — the maximum individual donation allowed by law — to his presidential campaign last year, according to records from the Federal Election Commission.

After Giuliani dropped out, Schwartz switched his allegiance to McCain, and records show he donated $2,300 to the Arizona senator's campaign in April.

In biographical sketches of Colorado's delegates published in the Rocky Mountain News, Schwartz said he was single, didn't have any pets and most admired Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman, "as he has served our party for many years and has served in the military."

He said his idea of a "dream ticket" was McCain and Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.

On the Web site for his Denver law practice, Sandomire & Schwartz, the lawyer describes his experience as a civil and criminal lawyer and points out he is a regular guest on "Colorado State of Mind," a public affairs program produced by Rocky Mountain PBS. The show, according to its Web site, says it gathers "opinionated and passionate people from across the state" to discuss a wide range of issues.

In his interview on LinkTV, Schwartz seemed opinionated and passionate.

He said an attack on Iran was needed to protect Israel, and he offered how it could be accomplished through "strategical airstrikes."

"Hopefully, just bomb the hell out of them from the sky. No troops," he said.

Schwartz was asked if he had a message to the protesters who filled the streets of downtown St. Paul.

"Get a job," he replied.

David Hanners can be reached at 612-338-6516

Conservatives for Obama?

I got the heads-up from an econ blog I like to scan, Angry Bear.

The author of the following is now the publisher of The National Review (long-time champion of the conservative movement) and the whole thing is available at D Magazine

THE MORE I LISTEN TO AND READ ABOUT "the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate," the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why I am a conservative and what it means to me.
....I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don't matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama's books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.

I'm glad to read this because it confirms what I'd been saying all along: Obama's not even liberal. Beyond even the semantic argument that will come up about Neocons and Neoliberal politics, I'm saying this: America's fallen asleep, it's hand in the bag of Doritos, cigarette still smoldering, "5 minute Abs" DVD playing on the TV... Those in a position to do so have nationalized AIG and are using taxpayer dollars to bail out the scoundrels that have brought down the American economy over the past 20 years - meanwhile teachers are having to pay for their own school supplies (Roper and my sister included).

I was reading today that the American economy is going to need 1 to 2 trillion dollars to get out of the muck it's in now. That's almost as much as the deficit Dubya put us into when he cut taxes and began this unwinable war.

Why Isn’t Someone in This Election Yelling?

Seriously: the election strategy of McCain-Palin has been one out-right lie on top of another in a b.s.-Dagwood-sandwich.

Why isn't this being pointed out?

It has, seriously, become a situation where if a commenter in the media points-out the facts, that commenter has a partisan (read: Liberal) bias. Look at how Paul Krugman got shrugged-off on Larry King the other night:

"KING: Paul Krugman, do you agree with Andy Serwer that neither one of these candidates are hitting the mark?

KRUGMAN: You know, there's a little -- that's a little bit of false symmetry there. I mean, Obama has been calling for increased financial regulation. He has some pretty decent-sounding proposals there. I have no idea what McCain's talking about. He's saying we're going to stop the executives from getting outsized bonuses. How are we going to do that?

SERWER: It sounds kind of partisan frankly, I mean right?"

Nothing partisan about what he said, it just so happens that McCain's economic adviser, Phil Gramm, is one of the primary midwives of this economic meltdown.

But here's more for you to chew on when thinking of McCain's trail of tears and lies:

Am I a Futurist?

The University of Hawai'i offers an MA in Future Studies and I found that out through synchronicity (our vacation to the US seems to have been one big synchronicity).

Anywho, I've been catching up on the whole Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merril Lynch thing and one of the articles I got was through the artnews listserv. So far the article is interesting but then I was struck by this:

"Back on December 21, 2007, I interviewed Gerald Celente, Editor and Publisher of The Trends Journal based in Rhinebeck, New York. Mr. Celente has been interviewed by network newscasters for years and his trend predictions are generally correct....Are we facing depression greater than the "Great Depression of 1929?" I took that question to Gerald Celente and began by asking him how he was so accurate back in December 2007?"

Now, of course, Mr. Celente is much better at doing this kind of predictive work and I would continue to look to him and his organization for trend forecasting. But I do want to set the record straight about who else saw this economic 9/11 coming: yours truly:

"I'd also like to just say that the U.S. economy is heading into a recession and the real estate market has only just begun to experience the first of several waves of "adjustments" as they called the dotcom bubble bursting.

Expect that the price of a home will decline for the next 5 to 7 years and in about 10 years the next housing boom will start again..."[sic]

That was from my blog posted on November 7, 2007. I also wrote a subprime reader for ACCION USA during that fall, but I can't seem to find a post of it.

Anyways, Celente actually knows how to do this trend forecasting stuff, not me and I simply went reading the economics blogs that made the most compelling arguments with the best data available.

We told you so.

Me in the Japan Times

I didn't realize that the Japan Times already published my letter to the editor last week.

For those of you interested, it can be found at this link or below:

Strength in cultural differences

By PAUL BOSHEARS

Okinawa

Debito Arudou's assertion in his Sept. 2 article, "The 'gaijin' debate: Arudou responds," that there is any sort of comparison between the words "n--ger" and "gaijin" are strained, pathetic, and causes more harm than good because, at the root, his argument is tawdry and facile.

Arudou's stated desired outcome is to have his Japanese status acknowledged. What would that look like? At a social event, would a recent acquaintance mistakenly call him "Taro" instead of "Debito"? He has been issued a passport and a health-care card, and is entitled to all the benefits the nation offers. The state has given him what he wants. What does Arudou want from me and the readers of this newspaper?

I appreciate that he plays at fighting the good fight, but in this instance he has seriously offended me. Because, let's face it, Arudou doesn't speak for the "n--gers" living in Japan. He is not a champion of the rights of Filipina sex workers who are brutalized here in Okinawa. He is not the defender of Chinese students or third-generation Koreans who still aren't "Japanese."

He wants to champion the cause of newcomers to Japan. But instead of ham-fisted and ugly similes, we need words that can nourish the imagination of the reader -- words that speak to every human being's basic need to be a part of a community predicated on mutual benefit.

In the American tradition, we can look to the poet Robert Frost for these kinds of words. In "The Mending Wall," we read that good fences make good neighbors. It is in our supposed boundaries -- our cultural differences -- that we find the very source of our mutual strength. That we are the inheritors of rich cultural traditions means that we are better able to meet the needs of our communities.

A Fascinating Article About Racist Rhetoric

So MLK gave his famous speech just over 45 years ago, so that his homophobic family could then sell it to cell phone companies; I am reminded of the "I Have a Dream Speech" because Obama accepted the Democratic Presidential Nomination. I read the speech, it was alright.

I hope that he's the next President (because the only other person that could be is McCain and that spells disaster). By the way, I think that the next "racial issue" will be that group that we call Hispanic or Latino. I think it's going to come in the form of further Immigration Control, which is absurd but happening.

Today I read a fascinating article about the history of American White Supremacist Rhetoric that is currently being used as the legal defense strategy of these black drug lords in Baltimore and I am sharing it with you all because it's amazing. I think that it's a fascinating article because it describes a really prominent feature of our historical moment: the dissolution of the nation-state through the rise of the interest group.

Nation-States are really monolithic, right? They're huge, they don't move around because they are geographically-rooted, when they move it is always in one of two directions: retreat or advance/colonize. Now we have Multinational Corporations, entities that are quite large in a number of measures (Wal-Mart is one of the largest economies in the world), and what we call globalization (itself simply the footprint of the Sasquatch that is sometimes called The System); and we also have organizations like Al-Qaida (unless you're John McCain and insist that it's only related to Muslims, by ignoring all those crazy Christian and Jewish, and any other violent extremist group out there). These groups are like nomads, and here I'm thinking of Deleuze & Guattari's sense of nomads...

Anyways, I'm tiring you out from reading the real meat and potatoes here. The article is a little long, but it's really well-written and a fascinating stage on which to present some complex ideas (although the journalist never even touches on where I'd like to go from here).

Please Read This and Respond: here(or in Japanese, ココ)

New PSA Site

So, here's a place that I hope will act as a great tool for those of you that have been a part of the PSA so far (and for those to come).

It's an archive to show the unintiated what the PSA is all about:
http://sites.google.com/site/philosophystudentassociation/Home

It's in need of more information because I have only, what, three flyers out of the 90 that we made... I've only got, like, two of the PSA stickers posted. We did lots of cool stuff and the world needs to have rapid access to that when they meet us - they need to know with whom they are dealing.

I'd like to also post the CVs of alumni (for future job hunts, newspapers looking for background on "the early genius of ________" so I need you, mis cumpaneros, to give me your photos. If you have hardcopies of any of the Sophias or stickers, whathaveyou, take a digital picture of it (a nicely lit, big one) and email it to me. If you have digital copies of any of it, please email it to me.

http://sites.google.com/site/philosophystudentassociation/Home

And tell me what I got wrong on there and what you'd like to see on there.

Rots of rove

What Is Lost in Translation?

So, as you may be aware, Japanese society is perhaps the most polite society on the planet. There are several degrees of politeness that must be employed to do the simplest things, even when buying groceries.

This politeness-thing is difficult for Westerners to understand and it's really difficult to live here comfortably because we are constantly having to do our best to demonstrate the proper level of politeness (like, "is it okay, when taking off my shoes to enter a building, to turn completely around - and so show my butt to the host? Answer: yes it is).

But there is a reciprocated problem: the Japanese have no swear words. The worst thing you can say is that you will kill someone. Yeah, now think about the massacres that you've committed when you're late to work or someone is too slow to make your Willy's super veggie burrito (mmm, I'd kill someone for a Willy's Superveggie burrito - I'd kill they mama).

So I spend a certain amount of time, every day, trying to educate my (totally fluent) Japanese colleagues. Here is today's lesson, it's about using slang as adjectives:




UPDATE:
According to my coworker the title of "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" in Japanese is:
ジェイ & サイレント ボブ 帝国への逆襲
which translates to "Jay and Silent Bob counterattack empire"

The History of the PSA and Getting into the EGS

Many thanks to all y'all that have sent me congratulatory statements upon being admitted to the European Graduate School, I hope I do ya proud.

No seriously, I do.

Kristy asked how I got into the EGS and I thought I'd share.

I wrote about working with my friends in the Philosophy Student Association (PSA). Actually, the last three positions I've taken I have discussed at length my work with the PSA because it has been great work so far (because I believe that we will continue to do awesome shit).

Here's what I wrote, actually:

My work with the Philosophy Student Association (PSA), I think best exemplifies my fierce independence of thought and need for creativity in my scholastic endeavors. I come from a small state university on the outskirts Atlanta, Georgia (USA), a city Rem Koolhaas described as the Postmodern city – a city without a center. Kennesaw State University, during the eight years I attended, went from a junior college to the third largest university in the state and with that growth came tremendous resources with few students taking advantage of this opportunity. In step a small group of intellectually gifted and exceptionally-motivated undergraduates that would thirst for something beyond receiving a degree that emphasized only skills training. We met in an Asian Philosophies class.

Kennesaw during this time saw the median age of its student body go from 35 to 23 which meant that the PSA largely consisted of students between 21 and 25, the university describes that demographic as "nontraditional." Among the membership were several artists (two of whom were working as tattoo artists in the metro area), a full-time high school teacher, a full-time elementary school teacher, and several students such as myself that were supporting ourselves and paying our own way through our undergraduate years. We all shared a certain degree of irreverence and a desire to overcome the general malaise, the overall suburban Americanism, that Kennesaw had been steeping in for the previous decade. The Philosophy Student Association began with a sketch that one of the members had created during a lecture on the Buddhist rejection of Hinduism. I recognized that brand identity was the crucial step needed in order to begin our work and so this sketch became a limited run of stickers which we could use to cover over the Coca-Cola and Home Depot (both based in Atlanta) logos that had become ubiquitous on our campus. This logo, "Sophia," would be placed on all works we produced as a collective. So far, five of our original members have had this logo tattooed onto our bodies, we joke that we are a "blood in, blood out" community.

As the Philosophy Student Association we created the annual North Georgia Student Philosophy Conference (NGSPC), an international conference held over two days in the spring. The NGSPC publishes an annual journal, selected proceedings which feature original works by scholars such as David Farrell Krell and Henry Rosemont, Jr, and Walter Brogan. I served for five years as head of the selection committee for the conference as well as the selected proceedings. We, the students, found the funding, we coordinated all the logistics for hosting the conferences, and we were entirely responsible for the layout and design of each journal. The PSA was responsible for what has been described by professors at other universities in the southeast as, "the best philosophy lecture series in the region," the Mike Ryan Lecture Series. This lecture series, named after a member that tragically died at the PSA's inception, brought world-renowned scholars and artists such as Graham Parkes, Saul Williams, David Wood, P.J. Ivanhoe, and Robert Bernusconi. Again, we, the students, found all the funding and coordinated all the logistics for each of these events, including setting up and breaking down the tables and chairs. The Philosophy Student Association generated a monthly newsletter, "Sophia," in which we published student précis (again all design and logistics were directed and executed by us). We created an online journal, OtherWise, which seeks to foster and encourage undergraduates to engage comparative and continental philosophies. The PSA was awarded "Best Student Organization of the Year" for five years in a row for our exceptional dedication to improving the quality of discourse in our community. My friends and I accomplished all of this without a Philosophy major, there was no structural support from the faculty of the Philosophy faculty with the noted exception of David Jones (or advisor) and Tom Pynn.

So, I really want to thank all of my friends that contributed to that work and I encourage you to continue to think about the great work you've done so far and use these experiences garnered to date to really break-out from the tediocrity that surrounds us.

Nationalized Healthcare in Japan

Karen and I just watched Michael Moore's SicKO last night and I feel compelled to share a little something.

We live in a country that has universal healthcare and we've used the healthcare several times already.

When I lived in the U.S. I was working as a waiter and going to school and I broke my elbow while riding my bicycle. I did not have health insurance and so filed for indigency (like a homeless person) and got half the costs removed. The other several thousands of dollars I simply told them I would not be able to pay, which is still true.

I had maybe three hundred dollars saved. I spent half on my first visit with the orthopaedist. I spent the rest buying my prescribed medicine. But I ended up selling my prescribed pain killers to my boss at the restaurant so that I could buy groceries that month.

I'll grant you that dental care here is nothing like what is available in the U.S. but that really doesn't matter since I haven't been able to afford to see a dentist in the U.S. my entire adult life. Here it's a negligible cost.

I work with folks from Europe and I get really pissed off at them because they talk about how absurd it is to work when you're ill... I get pissed because I feel so used and I feel like it's wrong, WRONG, that they can go to a doctor whenever they feel like it and I've spent my entire adult life afraid of getting sick.

I have a sense of perspective: the number one killer in the world is lack of drinking water and American toilets are full of teh cleanest water in the world.

But still, it's just wrong the way healthcare is set up in the U.S. and it's the reason why immigration is even an issue in the U.S. Immigration is used as a mask for our lack of universal healthcare. The whole "I'm a Libertarian Patriot, Don't Tax Me" b.s. is also a direct response to this lack of healthcare for all: the number one reason for people over the age of forty filing bankruptcy is for overwhelming healthcare costs. So sure, you look outside your mcmansion and you realize that you can't afford to pay for the surgery or treatment that would keep your wife or child or yourself alive and you might be inclined to start listening to Neal Boortz like he knows something - any fairy tale that will allow you to feel like someone, anyone agrees with you that this is a sin, this lack of healthcare.

Graham Parkes as Social Philosopher (Working Paper)

This paper was presented during the Comparative Continental Philosophy Circle at the University of Hawai'i on April 12, 2008.

“What, if anything does Graham Parkes have to say about sociality?”

An immediate answer comes in understanding the word itself: according to OED, sociality first entered the English language in 1649, “Socialitie becometh the person of the gravest man, soe as he neglect not the due consideration of time, place, and persons.” We certainly see this to be the case with Parkes as he may be best known for his eloquent (maybe even intimidating) explications of the works of Nietzsche. Or perhaps his ground-breaking work in introducing what the East has been (and could be) saying about the West by discussing at length the Kyoto School, also the harmonies between Classical Chinese philosophies and Heidegger or Nietzsche. His most recent works have held at its heart the implications of place, with his discussions of rocks and crumbling nineteenth century Parisian arcades. To understand Parkes’ oeuvre, then, is to understand a hyperbolic sociality, freed from anthropocentric primacy. So we can see this movement: from specifically one person, Nietzsche, wherein Parkes’ grasp of the power of language (it’s proximity) leaves the reader believing that Nietzsche himself has just sung; to then comparisons between one person and an entire philosophical history (as in his works Nietzsche and Asian Thought and Heidegger and Asian Thought); and then his films recreating wandering Benjamin’s arcades, or conveying the health benefits of living with rocks. In order to address this I would like to do something interesting, to borrow a key concept in Parkes’ work – I’d like to talk about music. I’d like ask if the album Night Ripper by the musician Greg Gillis, better known as Girl Talk, can in any way help us understand better some arguments presented to Parkes by Stella Sandford and Robert Morrison. This discussion seeks to share in the spirit of Parkes’ statement that, “comparative philosophy [is] generally more enlightening between unconnected philosophies.”[1]

It’s difficult to understand how important Night Ripper may be until reading the minutes from the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Representative Doyle of Pennsylvania provides a succinct introduction to Girl Talk:

Mr. Chairman, I want to tell you a story of a local guy done good. His

name is Greg Gillis and by day he is a biomedical engineer in Pittsburgh.

At night, he DJs under the name Girl Talk. His latest mash-up record

made the top 2006 albums list from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and Spin

Magazine amongst others. His shtick as the Chicago Tribune wrote about

him is "based on the notion that some sampling of copyrighted material, especially when manipulated and recontextualized into a new art form is

legit and deserves to be heard." In one example, Mr. Chairman, he blended

Elton John, Notorious B-I-G, and Destiny's Child all in the span of 30 seconds. And, while the legal indie-music download site eMusic.com took

his stuff down due to possible copyright violation, he's now flying all over

the world to open concerts and remix for artists like Beck.[2]

Please keep in mind that this album was released less than six months before Congress had to then discuss the implications of said album. In the ongoing war between the entertainment industry and their consumers, Girl Talk has become a cause celebre, leading Lawrence Lessig to announce, “Girl Talk is not a crime!” At the heart of these Congressional talks is a fascinating debate: what is the nature of culture, can it be controlled; if so, by whom? If ever there were a topic for so-called Comparative Philosophers, here it is. In order to better recognize the philosophies present in Girl Talk’s album some framing will need to occur, as intelligent as Greg Gillis (Mr. Girl Talk) may be, his interviews have yet to provide as coherent a grounding as his colleague, Paul D. Miller, more popularly known as DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid, and occasional Baudrillard associate.

Paul Miller is a rare sort, trained in French Literature, he pursues a career as an avant-garde musician, when not teaching at the European Graduate School, he tours the United States, recently with a video remix of the epic racist film Birth of a Nation, of course titled Rebirth of a Nation.[3] In his book Rhythm Science, Miller provocatively absorbs much of the language of contemporary continental theory and applies it to hip hop, DJ culture, and coins the titular phrase stating, “Rhythm Science uses an endless recontextualizing as a core compositional strategy….”[4] In this absorbing and re-encoding of what is in the world we are presented with a sense of self very similar to that discussed by Parkes. One of the immediate points of contact in the comparison between Miller and Parkes is their willingness to explore new mediums for expressing their ideas. Both have been academics, musicians, and film makers and in so doing both have played the role, implicitly or explicitly, as critics, but their position as critics is also remarkably similar, “By DJing, making art, and writing simultaneously, I tried to bypass the notion of ‘critic’ as an ‘authority’ who controls narrative, and to create a new role that’s resonant….”[5] Miller here is making a fine distinction very much central to understanding Parkes’ work, between being an authority and being authoritative.

Miller’s is a call for a re-sounding (in the nautical sense, plumbing the depths) of the individual-as-performer, very much a Deleuzean rhizomatic self, where the constant unraveling of the layers of who we think we are reveals no core self, only a constellation of relations. If this attempt at bypassing control (or creation) of the narrative others experience is to work Miller’s rhythm science requires the understanding that, “Music like hip-hop and electronica is theatre – it’s about how people live the sounds they hear.”[6] The theatre in which people live these sounds is, of course, this world.

What does it mean to be a DJ, what does comparative philosophy have in common with DJ culture? Firstly, that comparative philosophy has this prefix, if closely scrutinized, is problematic; it invites a negative identification with the suffix. If it is philosophy, call it such. Otherwise the prefix provides just enough ground for, surely, such smart folks as Stella Sandford (of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy and Middlesex University) to take unfortunate readings. But the same applies in the DJ world right now as Greg Gillis (Girl Talk) seeks to be understood not as simply someone who plays other people’s music (like at a prom, or on a Clear Channel radio station), but as someone creating music from an inheritance of music and as someone who is performing. Form matters, as Parkes has written, “in philosophy, the form of what is presented constitutes the content.”[7]

Is it naïve to discuss Nietzsche and hip hop culture?

What does it mean when Miller states, “Sampling, DJ culture, and the hip-hop zone are founded on ancestor worship, and the best rhythm scientists are constantly expanding the pantheon. The music itself is far more dynamic than many of the people who make it.” And then he has the temerity to go on with the following, “This statement is not contradictory: DJ-ing is writing, writing is DJ-ing. Writing is music, I cannot explain it any other way.”[8] Miller says this unself-consciously because it has been said before, by Nietzsche in his preface to The Birth of Tragedy, “This book should have sung.” But this is what a good DJ is about – reading the crowd for the right tune to play next, the right context in which to insert another influence, and this is what a good philosopher does. And, of course, this kind of responsiveness is not possible without an extreme degree of consideration of who we are, fundamentally; quoting DJ Spooky, “By creating an analogical structure of sounds based on collage, with myself as the only common denominator, the sounds comes to represent me.” Without the help of Graham Parkes, this becomes irreconcilably opaque; fortunately, for this paper, we have the following from Parkes:

“When the lyrist says (or sings) ‘I,’ the word actually issues from a deeper source…” he says, quoting Nietzsche, ‘The I of the lyrist resounds out of the abyss of Being,’” and in a footnote stresses the transpersonal origin of this “I.” The self of the lyrist is then an artistic composition of images projected from a deeper self….[The] personal nature of the lyrist is, as it were, a mask of a deeper personality, something that both conceals and reveals the real ‘I’ behind or beneath it.”[9]

Is it not appropriate to think of the DJ, musician, whathaveyou, as this very same masked self? The entire thrust of Parkes’ ethics, be it for human beings, trees, or rocks, depends upon the affirmation of this hyperbolic sense of responsibility. Indeed, this affirmation will be held as sacred primarily as a recipe for overcoming nihilism; it’s remedy seen in the creative response – from Paul Miller, “Creativity rests, for the most part, in how you recontextualize the previous expression of others…” By extension this becomes the entire thrust of philosophy at large; it is the ultimate response to nihilism after the death of God.

The self-overcoming of nihilism may make the most sense in DJ culture, because a good DJ understands that playing the same track over (and over) or simply going through what has been deemed au courant and again is just as crushing to the party as Parkes has pointed out in Nishitani’s work:

It is because things do not pass, but rather persist or recur, that nihilism

was not merely a transient phase in the milieu of post-war Japan….one

comes to appreciate more and more the point of translating [Nishitani’s]

discourses on nihilism....[the] point is the same as the one to be made by

each individual self on its own – itself something attained only through

the persistent practice of letting nihilism overcome itself

To write about Parkes’ work necessarily entails having a significant amount of fear ribboned into each paragraph, not only because he is a consummate reader, but by extension he is a consummate wordsmith; so there is a great degree of trepidation, for fear of taking out of context and without due concern for the gestures of the original authors.

Where Girl Talk’s album is successful is in taking this lesson to heart, and running with it: thirty years of pop music is presented in less than an hour in a manner that can only be understood as delirious, but in a manner Parkes has addressed in his video, Flânerie.

Here is “discussed” the “colpartage phenomenon of space,” the fundamental experience of the flâneur. Parkes uses Baudelaire to describe the perfect flâneur, “[who] is like a mirror as vast as the crowd itself, or a kaleidoscope endowed with consciousness, which with each one of its movements represents the multiplicity of life and the dynamic grace of all life’s elements.”[10] As such, we experience through his film overlap and superimposition of all that has happened in this place, all at once. The effect is a delirium of being human as humanity. Flavoring Parkes exploration of the flâneur most certainly is a call-and-responce (to use a Jazz term) with Japanese Buddhist philosopher Kukai, particularly the latter’s understanding of Dainichi, the Cosmic Buddha:

Dainichi is, for Kukai, an “emanation throughout creation”; but his

non-identity with, or difference from, sentient beings would not

consist in his ‘remaining in himself.’ To the extent that he is the

dharmakaya, which is the ‘beginningless and endless,’ he would

transcend the totality of all things that are currently present – but he

would not transcend the totality of all things that have been, will be,

and could be. [11]

Benjamin’s arcades become sentient in Parkes’ film because he can understand how to listen to the stones and the iron used to build them. If the world is seen as a vast web of energies, as Classical Daoist thought has it, then the phenomena of the world can also be understood as lying on a spectrum of condensation: breath on one end and rocks as a much more condensed version of that same energy. In this phenomenology rocks, then, are simply slower unfoldings of time.[12] Throughout the works of Graham Parkes is the notion that all “things” bear witness to the passing of events, and all are willing to corroborate the story if only we would pay attention.[13]

Things seem to be getting out of control here; a quote collage (no matter how interesting it may seem to the author) is no substitute for good reading.

It is hoped that what is becoming clear here is an answer (though Parkes can defend himself more than adequately) to Robert C. Morrison’s response to Parkes’ review of his book.

As the great Muslim mystic, Rumi, once wrote, in a very Nietzschean manner, “We should be thankful for our harsh teachers,” and it is hoped that Morrison has heard this by now. Those of you not familiar, Graham Parkes wrote a, perhaps astringent, review of Robert C. Morrison’s Nietzsche and Buddhism; a review that began with discussing a book of the same title and citations written nearly twenty years earlier by a philosopher that died prematurely and who was barely mentioned in Morrison’s newer book of the same name. Parkes writes:

Surely, if someone has already done the research, presented the material,

and made the arguments, you say so in your dissertation – and then take

it from there and do something new, or different, with that material. Or,

if the earlier work is unsatisfactory, you say so and explain why. What

you don’t do is just say the same things over again in your own words,

as if they hadn’t already been said – even if then go on, as Morrison

does, to develop a few ideas of your own.[14]

The review does not get prettier as it proceeds, but a pivotal question for this essay is asked by Morrison (albeit implicitly). Parkes notes the first sentence of the book begins with an error going so far as to state that it becomes, “emblematic of the work as a whole.” Morrison considers this to be a, “very odd [and] biased logic.”[15] Of course it is not so biased nor odd: Graham Parkes employees a recursive logic and an exploration of the logic of this is a stimulating and affirming experience, granted not if this were the only exchange one had with him. He does go on to point out (as Rumi would) that to read carefully and fully someone’s work is anything but disdain. What Parkes is advocating is not simply that we all cite our sources, or be sure to use spell checks, but also that we recognize that publishing a book requires a large amount of energy on the part of not only the author. Indeed, follow this recursive patterning out and we see, just as the DJ, just as the flâneur, as Kukai, as Nietzsche, as rocks, who we are is forever in active participation with much more than just an essentialist notion of the individual. There is great responsibility in being a scholar and in engaging scholarly activities (if for no other reason than someone’s got to cut down those trees that are being used to promote dreck). This sensitivity to making sure that meaningful work is being published seems at the heart of Stella Sandford’s critiuq of the comparative project.

Plainly, Parkes can defend himself, but it is worth noting at this conference, that we must be ever vigilant and clear in our communication to the academy about the function and aims of the comparative project, lest we validate the following from Sandford,:

“…in failing to address the extent to which Heidegger locates the problem and the task of philosophy, and the form of existence adequate to it, in a radically reduced German nationalist idea of Europe, the comparative literature overlooks what is actually foundational to its own project: the construction of a history of Western philosophy in a determining opposition to the East….Despite the best intentions of the comparative literature on Heidegger, it cannot avoid a paradoxical collusion with this kind of history of Western philosophy, a history which has, indeed, been the condition of possibility for the field of East-West comparative philosophy…. This is a familiar tactic in many apologetic discussions of the racist or sexist or misogynist ‘opinions’ of various philosophers….”[16]

We certainly should be concerned to make sure that the above is burned brightly into the minds of all those that would dare to attempt the philosophical project as embodied in the works of Parkes. We would, of course be more worried, except that Parkes himself wrote an essay anticipating this very topic 6 years earlier :

“The neo-Marxist revisionism that has been sweeping (at least a corner of) the field of Japanology threatens to suppress open discussion of some important ideas – and thereby risks falling, with sad irony, into a ‘fascism of the left’.” (305)

“The point is not to condone Japanese aggression during the period in question, nor to absolve the Kyoto School philosophers who supported it, but rather to emphasize the complexity of the historical and political context and the qualified nature of the philosophers’ support of their government.” (309-10)[17]

It can be, is, and should be argued to all those of Sandford’s opinion that it is exactly the sensitivity to context of the originating text in the (not only comparative) project that is the simple basis of all academic work. Perhaps, if nowhere else in the academy, this is the place of the comparative project. But it is also the very point upon which Parkes, Girl Talk and DJ Spooky all agree in considering their projects.

To Graham and all of you of the Comparative Continental Circle (and by extension, all of you here at UH-M), thank you for all these good times.

References (incomplete)

Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet The Digital Future of the United States: Part Ii– the Future of Radio Wednesday, March 7, 2007 2007.

George, Edwin. "The Man Who Loves Rock--an Interview with Graham Parkes." Cultivating the Spirit: Ed's Gardens Page (2002), http://clcpages.clcillinois.edu/home/com417/Gardenspage.htm.

Miller, Paul D. Rhythm Science. Edited by Peter Lunenfeld, Media Works Pamphlets. Cambridge Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2004.

Morrison, Robert, and Graham Parkes. "Review of Nietzsche and Early Buddhism / Response to Graham Parkes’ Review / Reply to Robert Morrison." Philosophy East & West 50, no. 2 (2000): 254-67.

Parkes, Graham. "Flânerie." TRANSIT 2, no. 1 (2006).

———, ed. Heidegger and Asian Thought. Honolulu, Hawai'i: University of Hawai'i Press, 1987.

———. "Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers: Kukai, Dogen, and a Deeper Ecology." In Buddhism and Ecology edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Williams. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997.

---

[1] Graham Parkes, ed., Heidegger and Asian Thought (Honolulu, Hawai'i: University of Hawai'i Press, 1987). 1. It is hoped that this paper also follows Parkes further mandate when engaging in these comparisons that they be done, “in a historically responsible way – in which we try to understand the nature of the problems a thinker takes over from the tradition, what he retains from the answers of his predecessors, and in what ways his responses differ from theirs.” Ibid. 2.

[2] Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet The Digital Future of the United States: Part Ii– the Future of Radio Wednesday, March 7, 2007 2007.

[3] An essay from Miller is available on his site: http://www.djspooky.com/articles/rebirth.html

[4] Paul D. Miller, Rhythm Science, ed. Peter Lunenfeld, Media Works Pamphlets (Cambridge Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2004). Lunenfeld’s Hypnotext is employed in this essay, available here: http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/mediawork/titles/rhythm/rhythm_webtake.html#

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Parkes, ed., Heidegger and Asian Thought. 107.

[8] Miller, Rhythm Science.

[9] Graham Parkes. “Facing the Self with Masks: Perspectives on the Personal from Nietzsche and the Japanese.” in Self and Deception, a Cross-Cultural Philosophical Enquiry. Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake, eds. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. 1996. Page 291

[10] Graham Parkes, "Flânerie," TRANSIT 2, no. 1 (2006).

[11] ———, "Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers: Kukai, Dogen, and a Deeper Ecology," in Buddhism and Ecology ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Williams (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997). 115. Even more to the point, Parkes states, “If we devote our full attention to them, streams and mountains can, simply by being themselves, teach us about the nature of existence in general.”

[12] Edwin George, "The Man Who Loves Rock--an Interview with Graham Parkes," Cultivating the Spirit: Ed's Gardens Page 2002 (2002), http://clcpages.clcillinois.edu/home/com417/Gardenspage.htm.

[13] Parkes, "Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers: Kukai, Dogen, and a Deeper Ecology." Gives us the following, “If we devote our full attention to them, streams and mountains can, simply by being themselves, teach us about the nature of existence in general.”

[14] Robert Morrison and Graham Parkes, "Review of Nietzsche and Early Buddhism / Response to Graham Parkes’ Review / Reply to Robert Morrison," Philosophy East & West 50, no. 2 (2000). 258

[15] Ibid. 273. Although to be fair, Parkes also did go on to say that publishing Morrison’s book as it was could also be seen as, “a disservice to the field of comparative philosophy,” and so Morrison’s ego may have not quite recovered from such a thumping.

[16] Stella Sandford. “Going Back, Heidegger, East Asia and ‘the West.’” Radical Philosophy 120. July/August 2003.11-22.

[17] Graham Parkes. “The Putative Fascism of the Kyoto School and the Political Correctness of the Modern Academy.” Philosophy East and West. Volume 47. Number 3. July, 1997. 305

War Is Over if You Want It

Okinawa is an occupied island. And this can be read in two ways: the U.S. controls, what seems to be, most of the island (and so there are really large bases all over the place - in fact, you can't google maps the northern part of the island); but the Japanese also occupy Okinawa. The Okinawans are a distinctly different ethnic group and the Japanese are very quick to point out they aren't "really Japanese." But that's alright, ultimately, because teh Okinawans are a peace-loving people. They erect war memorials to all sides of the WWII conflicts and make concerted efforts to discuss peace making at all public venues. In the spirit of the Okinawans I present the following:

Here's a link to what seems to be the shortest war in history (38 long minutes)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zanzibar_War

Here's a link to a story about a french nuclear physicist that staged a one man invasion of the island of Sark in Britain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sark

I just thought you'd like to know that the world is big enough for these kinds of events.

From the above, we get this interesting legal device; maybe the Uchinanchu (Okinawans) could use it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clameur_de_haro

What happened to my music posting thingy? I'm listening to "Illinois" by Sufjan Stevens and I wish that I had some new music.

News Mash-Up (How to Read the Media Primer)

So, there's a lot of "news" right now. I'm going to focus on one event (the Fed cut the interest rate) and you read the following and tell me which one do I think is drving the following "news" reports, enjoy!

Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told
Ian Traynor in Brussels
Tuesday January 22, 2008
The Guardian

The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists….

The five commanders argue that the west's values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them. The key threats are:

· Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.

· The "dark side" of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

· Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.

· The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, Nato and the EU.

A New, Global Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories

By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: January 19, 2008
New York Times

Rising prices for cooking oil are forcing residents of Asia's largest slum, in Mumbai, India, to ration every drop. Bakeries in the United States are fretting over higher shortening costs. And here in Malaysia, brand-new factories built to convert vegetable oil into diesel sit idle, their owners unable to afford the raw material.

This is the other oil shock. From India to Indiana, shortages and soaring prices for palm oil, soybean oil and many other types of vegetable oils are the latest, most striking example of a developing global problem: costly food. …

No category of food prices has risen as quickly this winter as so-called edible oils — with sometimes tragic results. When a Carrefour store in Chongqing, China, announced a limited-time cooking oil promotion in November, a stampede of would-be buyers left 3 people dead and 31 injured.

Cooking oil may seem a trifling expense in the West. But in the developing world, cooking oil is an important source of calories and represents one of the biggest cash outlays for poor families, which grow much of their own food but have to buy oil in which to cook it. …

[…]The food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, based on export prices for 60 internationally traded foodstuffs, climbed 37 percent last year. That was on top of a 14 percent increase in 2006, and the trend has accelerated this winter.

Markets in Flux After Fed Move

By VIKAS BAJAJ and KEITH BRADSHER
Published: January 22, 2008

New York Times

The Fed cut rates a week before a regularly scheduled meeting and about an hour before markets opened in New York. …

President Bush's State of the Union address is scheduled for Monday, January 28, 2008 at 9pm

Answer Key in next transmission.
Here's a hint: the food thing is not "news" people have been saying that for over a decade.

Appended at 3:22 pm
Here's a photo for all of you that think that the Fed can "do something" and the economy will just get better:

we're very confident.