Year of Record Profits Continue for Economic Elites

North American media continues to report the wholesale plunder of American society by powerful corporate elites. With little in the way of public systems to stop them do we expect anything else?

I know how to help: we should give more tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy, cut funding to education and eliminate working class negotiating rights. I bet that will help bridge the gap in power and influence between the hyper-rich and the rest of us.

From Slate.com:

On Friday the federal government released the latest chapter of a year-old economic mystery: If you're a corporation, the economy is great. If you're a worker, the economy is still pretty horrible. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real corporate profits neared an all-time high in the last three months of 2010, with companies raking in an annualized $1.68 trillion in pre-tax operating profits. (After tax, that comes to $1.25 trillion, about equal to the GDP of India.) The Federal Reserve estimates that companies are sitting on about $1.9 trillion. At the same time, unemployment remains at 8.9 percent, and job growth is still anemic.

Read More Here   [ h/t Jodi Dean ]

Quentin Meillassoux on Contingency and the Absolute

The following is a translated talk delivered by Quentin Meillassoux at the Sorbonne. The talk was translated by Benjamin Lozano and brought to my attention by the folks at Speculative Heresy.

Contingency & the Absolutization of the One
By Quentin Meillassoux

The theme of my talk concerns the question of a possible reactivation of the concept of the absolute. The version of the absolute that I wish to develop here is theoretical and speculative, yet distinct from the way in which it‟s traditionally understood. And the need for such an undertaking is motivated less by general concerns over the value of the speculative approach than by a more precise problem, the framing of which is not often thought of as particularly problematic, but whose importance today seems to me to have been rather underestimated. This problem constitutes what we might call a paradox. I call it (for reasons that I will explain in a minute) the paradox of ancestrality.

So the objectives of my discussion are twofold: First, I want to provide an account of this paradox; secondly, I‟m going to outline a potential response to it therein. And as we‟ll see, this response requires that we first pass through our contemporary thinking on the absolute, followed by an examination of the concept of unity –which I understand not as the unity of the thing, but as the unity of the sign. All of these points will become clear throughout the course of the exposition.

Read the Entire Talk @ Speculative Heresy

And here is a morsel from page 13 - which, upon chewing, makes me desire the sanctuary of empirical science:

Hyperchaos simply denotes that everything either could or could not change without reason; it could remain in perpetual flux or could remain in the same state for an indefinite duration (as it appears to be the case, for instance, with the “universal” laws of physics). In fact, it‟s entirely conceivable that hyperchaos might just as well result in a world wholly comprised of fixed objects, without any becoming whatsoever. Hyperchaos denotes a Time whereby everything could be abolished just as readily as everything could persist in an eternal becoming. From the vantage of hyperchaos, everything is contingent –even disorder and becoming themselves.

I have a very difficult time following Meillassoux's discourse. I think he has a lot of innovative things to say, but these tend to get lost, for me, in his more obtuse theoretic reasonings.

12-year-old Child Prodigy Taking On Toughest Problems in Physics

I'm always fascinated by child geniuses. These kids have such a different way of being in the world than the rest of us. Lets hope this kid has good parents who don't come to expect too much, and who make sure he has an opportunity to be a kid.

From The Daily Mail:

A 12-year-old child prodigy has astounded university professors after grappling with some of the most advanced concepts in mathematics. Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170 - higher than Albert Einstein - and is now so far advanced in his Indiana university studies that professors are lining him up for a PhD research role.

The boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and trigonometry in a week, is now tutoring fellow college classmates after hours. And now Jake has embarked on his most ambitious project yet - his own 'expanded version of Einstein's theory of relativity'.

His mother, not sure if her child was talking nonsense or genius, sent a video of his theory to the renowned Institute for Advanced Study near Princeton University.

According to the Indiana Star, Institute astrophysics professor Scott Tremaine -himself a world renowned expert - confirmed the authenticity of Jake's theory. In an email to the family, Tremaine wrote: “I'm impressed by his interest in physics and the amount that he has learned so far. The theory that he's working on involves several of the toughest problems in astrophysics and theoretical physics. Anyone who solves these will be in line for a Nobel Prize.”

Read More: Here

Veena Malik Defends Against Muslim Cleric

Veena Malik is a Pakistani actress who recently appeared on the popular Indian TV show Bigg Boss (the Indian version of Big Brother). In the clip below, a prominent mullah tells Malik that she “has brought shame on Pakistan” with her behavior on the show, and that 100% of Pakistanis agree with his judgment. Besides his ignorance and primitive view of women, the mullah also has the nerve to admit he hasn’t even seen the T.V show himself.

Watch as Malik defends herself and argues for a less insane interpretation of Islam. What is truly amazing is that, in Pakistan, Malik is probably risking her life not only speaking to a mullah this way, but completely ripping through his illogical rants with undeniable passion and intelligence. What a courageous person:

Notice how Malik points out how the mullah is in violation of the same rules he’s supposedly taking her to task for. My favorite part of the exchange is where she argues that, if the mullah wishes to truly defend Islam, there are countless targets more deserving of close inspection, as opposed to wasting his time complaining about an actress.

Alain de Botton - On Pessimism

From The School of Life:



In the constant search for happiness, philosopher Alain de Botton believes that we should all learn to be a bit more pessimistic.

In this secular sermon, Alain challenges the great bourgeois promise that everyone can find happiness in love and work and suggests that we take on the joys of pessimism instead. He argues that the chances of anyone succeeding in both areas (let alone in one) are extremely remote - and that it is therefore peculiar, and deeply cruel, to base our societies around these values. Indeed, in denying a place for misery and despair, the modern world denies us the possibility of collective consolation, condemning us instead to solitary feelings of shame and persecution.

Alain de Botton is the author of numerous essayistic books that have been described as a 'philosophy of everyday life.' For more information, visit his website at: alaindebotton.com

This secular sermon took place at Conway Hall, London on 22 March 2009

Ivakhiv on Artmonks and Deliberate Creativity

Adrian Ivakhiv has a interesting post up discussing the relationship between a deliberate, monastic way of life and the inherent creativity of artistic modes of being. As someone who has been seeking to move more and more towards living “off the grid’ in recent years, the modes of life and worldly-perception Adrian describes is deeply appealing.

Below is an excerpt, but do read the entire post (here):

If Thoreau’s quest to “live deliberately [...] and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” were cross-bred with A. N. Whitehead’s insight that creativity is the driving core of all things in the universe, the “universal of universals,” then today’s “artmonks” are children not of Marx and Coca-Cola (as Godard once labeled the activists of the 1960s and Xiaoping Lin more recently called the Chinese artistic avant-garde), but children of Thoreau and Whitehead.

The monastic ideal has always been about living deliberately. And in a world that is rapidly outgrowing the secular-religious divide — becoming simultaneously post-secular, for those outgrowing the constraints of secularism, and post-religious, or at least post-traditional, for those no longer in obeisance to inherited religion — monasticism today is reinventing itself in interesting and creative ways. “Artmonks” are those who bring a mindful deliberation and dedication to the creative process, following it wherever it leads them. They are the monks of immanence, post-traditional devotees synthesizing the vita contemplativa with the vita activa in an age of Burning Man and the internet.

Adrian goes on to provide a list of people who seem to work from this context, and then briefly discusses C.S Peirce’s later thoughts about a sequence of emergence in aesthetic, ethical and logical experiences. Go check it out here

UPDATE: the following exchange took place in the comments on Adrian’s post:

MICHAEL: Beauty (aesthetics), Goodness (ethics) and Truth (eco-logics), by any other name… Although, what justification does Pierce give for positing a hierarchical order to these? I think these forces co-arise together in a world where the embodied mental, material (in an all inclusive sense), and the social co-occur simultaneously. An inventory of what is available within hominid experience suggests the ever-presence of all three.

ADRIAN: You’re probably right. I’m just trying to work through Peirce’s notion (which he only came to hold in his later years, it seems) that there is an order or sequence in their emergence. It’s not a hierarchy, but rather a priority and dependency, and it follows from the fact that meaning (thirdness) arises out of the mediation of relations (secondness, actuality), and that before there are relations between any two things, there are those two things prior to their being related or even actualized (firstness, virtuality). The aesthetic moment, at least in this reading of Peirce, comes at our encountering the thing in its firstness (or as close as we can get to that, since once we’ve encountered it, it’s already a second). That thing, of course, can already be its own second- and/or thirdness: e.g., if it’s another entity (human or otherwise), then it is already it’s own sign (3dness) and already related to and dependent on others (2dness). But in the relationship between me and it, my ability to make sense of it (logos, truth) is dependent on my encounter with and response to it (ethos, conduct) which is in turn dependent on the form it takes independent of me (aesthetikos, beauty).

So this is a kind of slice into the 1st-2nd-3rd sequence of emergence. But you are right that all three are always interacting in the holistic/composite flow of experience.

MICHAEL: I like the notion of emergent worlds/perspectives and the understanding of extended levels of activity taking on new relationships. ‘Firstness’, perhaps, being the primordial suchness from which all reality flows; ‘secondness’ being the differentiation (actualization) and emergence of coalescent assemblages; and ‘thirdness’ as recursive systems and ‘signification’ (all the way up to the symbolic). There are many ways to imagine the unfolding of cosmic contingency and Peirce’s seems as though it has its merits.

John Sallis on Withdrawal?

JOHN SALLIS talking about the difference between Vorhandenheit (present-to-hand) and Zuhandenheit (readiness-to-hand) in Heidegger’s Being and Time circa 1984:

“What does, however, need to be stressed is the rigorous order that the phenomenological analyses of Being and Time (I ,3) establishes with respect to these two modes: Presence-at-hand is founded on readiness-to-hand, and things come to show themselves as present-at-hand only when certain structures of readiness-to-hand get covered over or repressed. One could say, then, that in the strict sense everything is ready-to-hand; or, alternatively, that there is nothing purely present-at-hand. In what one might take as present-at-hand. eg., the hammer merely stared at-there is always something else operative yet repressed, a concealed operation of readiness-to-hand, a disregarded instrumentality. What is decisive is the displacement of presence that this analysis produces. There are no simply, sheerly present things; for everything is openly or concealedly ready-to- hand, and what is ready-to-hand-the hammer when one takes hold of it and uses it-is not sheerly present as a self-contained positivity. Rather, it is extended beyond itself into the referential totality by which it is determined, its presence limited and yet rendered possible by its insertion in that totality. But the totality is one of signifying references; it is Bedeutsamkeit, the operation of signification.' There is no pure presence; for in whatever presents itself there is already in play the operation of signification. Presence is delimited-limited and yet rendered possible-by the operation of signification.” (p.597-598)

Read More @ Ereignis

What Teachers Make

Levi Bryant posted this and it was just too good not to share:

I adore slam poetry! And Taylor Mali is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement, and one of the few hominids in the world to have no occupation other than that of poet.

I am not at teacher, but I do know that i would rather live in a world where teachers earn millions and finance managers do not. Those who fail to recognize how important teachers are to our children are not only ignorant but also uninterested in the future of our species.

Updates on the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

UPDATE: March 19, 2011: This post is now closed.

Updates on the situation at the Fukushima nuclear complex from March 17 -18, 2011. Most of the information is taken from the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) website and Al Jazzera news.

1238: Power has now been restored to some parts of the Fukushima plant, reports the BBC's Chris Hogg - though reports suggest the power lines to the cooling systems will only now be switched on on Sunday, after system tests.

1200: Power lines have been connected to the Fukushima nuclear plant's reactor 2 but electricity has not been restored yet, a spokesman for Japan's nuclear safety agency has said according to AFP. "If the power is turned on without checks it may malfunction. They are checking the facility now. If no problem is found at the facility today, the power will resume as early as tomorrow [Sunday]."

0512: Engineers are expected to connect a new power line to four quake-damaged reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant by the end of the day. Firefighters have continued to spray water in a desperate attempt to avert a meltdown.

0403: Tepco says temperatures have fallen in the spent nuclear fuel pool at reactor 5, reports Kyodo.

0349: The operator of the Fukushima power plant says engineers have bored holes in the roofs of the buildings housing reactors 5 and 6 to avoid a potential gas explosion, reports AFP.

0227: Japan has started using a cooling pump at the Fukushima plant's stricken reactor 5, according to several reports quoting the Japanese government. It is thought to be a diesel-powered pump, rather than a device powered by the still-to-be-reconnected electricity supply.

1950: Statement from the Fukushima station operator (Tepco): "Tepco has connected the external transmission line with the receiving point of the plant and confirmed that electricity can be supplied."

1927: Much has been made of the power cables being laid to restart water pumps that cool the reactors but a worrying report in the LA Times notes that some engineers believe the cooling pumps were irretrievably damaged by the initial hydrogen explosions.

1851: The power company, Tepco, has issued a statement today containing the following: "We would like to make our deep apologies for concern and nuisance about the incident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and the leakage of radioactive substances to the people living in the surrounding area of the power station".

1848: Tokyo Electric Power Co, which operates Fukushima Daiichi, says it has now connected an external power line to its stricken plant and would first supply reactor 2 because it is less damaged, Reuters reports. The power is needed to operate the plant's badly-needed cooling systems, which were damaged last Friday.

1735: The operation to douse the overheating fuel rods at Fukushima resumed early on Saturday, AFP says, quoting a Tokyo Fire Department official. Five specially-equipped engines from the department poured seawater for 20 minutes. It's not clear what reactors were involved.

1630: Chile and the US have signed a nuclear energy agreement despite the ongoing situation at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant. Chile is also on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has its share of powerful earthquakes.

1609: Japan's nuclear agency says it expects that work to install power cables to Number 1 and 2 reactors at Fukushima should be finished on Saturday, NHK news agency reports. Power cables to reactors 3 and 4 should be installed by Sunday. The electricity is urgently needed to run water pumps to cool the overheated reactors.

Get More Info: Here

Reid Kane on Rigor and the Intellectual Pursuit

Reid Kane has a refreshingly honest post (here) that speaks to an authentic dedication to understanding at the very core of his intellectual and existential pursuits. Here is an excerpt:

"I began to understand that while ‘truth’ can sometimes be a mere ideological prop, and discourse explicitly concerned with truth can be somewhat or even predominately power-laden, these phenomena deserve to be understood as distortions that betray the ideal to which they pretend, and that the solution is not to abandon the ideal and adopt a different approach altogether (one whose ideal is musicality rather than truth, for example), but to counter the pretenders with the genuine article."

I am glad Reid is blogging again and look forward to reading how his new interests develop.

Status of the Nuclear Reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant

Although reports are coming in that power may very soon be restored to the cooling systems at the plant, thereby averting total meltdown, the situation is still precarious. Below is the most up to date information on the status of the reactors:

Reactor 1 - Current Status:

The outer building is damaged and it is presumed that there was a partial meltdown; fuel rods reportedly 70% damaged. Small amounts of radioactivity have been vented. On March 12, 3:36 PM an explosion blows the roof and top walls off the reactor building. The reactor containment vessel is not significantly damaged.

Reactor 2 - Current Status:

A partial meltdown is presumed to have occurred; fuel rods reportedly 33% damaged. The containment vessel has been breached and some radioactivity has vented. On March 15, 6:14 AM an explosion near the pressure suppression pool damages the containment vessel around the reactor.

Reactor 3 - Current Status:

The reactor building has been damaged, the containment vessel may have ruptured and radioactive steam may be being released. On March 17, 11:00 AM helicopters began dumping water on the building in an effort to cover the spent fuel, which may have been exposed to the air. On March 14, 11:01 AM an explosion damaged the reactor building and the primary containment vessel. Eleven workers were injured.

Reactor 4 - Current Status:

Spent fuel rods in a water pool may have become exposed to air, emitting radioactive gases. An explosion and fire have damaged the building. On March 17, 5:00 AM the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the water covering the spent fuel rods may have boiled off. Japanese authorities have denied this. March 15, 6:00 AM a hydrogen-gas explosion created by chemical reactions with the spent fuel rods damages the building. A fire also breaks out.

Reactor 5 - Current Status:

The reactor is shut down and the building is not damaged. But there is concern that spent fuel in the building may become exposed to air.

Reactor 6 - Current Status:

The reactor is shut down and the building is not damaged. But there is concern that spent fuel in the building may become exposed to air.

[ h/t New York Times and all the great reporting on Twitter, the BBC and Al Jazeera ]

LIVE UPDATES:

• CBC | Live Blog of Disaster in Japan
• BBC | Japan Disaster Live Coverage
• Al Jazeera | Japan's Nuclear Emergency Live Blog

Japan Nuclear Emergency Live Updates:

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CBC | Live Blog of Disaster in Japan

BBC | Japan Disaster Live Coverage

Al Jazeera | Japan's Emergency Live Blog

Reuters | Japan Disaster Live Updates



no maps for these territories

“The world is increasingly unthinkable – a world of planetary disasters, emerging pandemics, tectonic shifts, strange weather, oil-drenched seascapes, and the furtive, always-looming threat of extinction. In spite of our daily concerns, wants, and desires, it is increasingly difficult to comprehend the world in which we live and of which we are a part. To confront this idea is to confront an absolute limit to our ability to adequately understand the world at all – an idea that has been a central motif of the horror genre for some time.” ~ Eugene Thacker, In The Dust Of This Planet

While I sit here watching and reading live feeds and reports on the escalating nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in Japan I have to constantly brace myself to stop from crying. And the only thoughts I can generate are not at all helpful or hopeful.

We have all but ruined this planet. We have so thoroughly abused, polluted and desiccated it that it is fast becoming uninhabitable for many species, especially humans. A tipping point has been reached and there is no turning back. What kind of creatures do we think we are? How fucking arrogant and stupid we have become. The notion of 'hubris' is not even applicable at this scale.

 From where I view things the future, our collective future, is now opening unto the darkest horizon we ever dared to imagine. We have no maps for these territories.  

There is nothing in me that wants to do anything other than simply be as close to my family as possible. All pontifications are superfluous to the existential imperatives of love and intimacy. Our world, our loved ones are calling for us to feel deeper and act better than we ever have before. And at this point I got nothing else to give.

Anonymous Exposing Bank of America

At 12am EST this morning members of hacktivist group Anonymous released what they say is a cache of internal emails from a Bank of America-owned insurance company, which prove the "too-big-to-fail" financial institution engaged in mortgage-related fraud.

The emails are being referred to as “part 1″, and were originally released on the website BankofAmericasuck.com. That site has been consistently overloaded, and thus unavailable, for much of the morning. The documents have also been made available for download on a number of mirror locations, as well as in the form of a Google document.

The information was leaked by an Anonymous member who goes by the name OperationLeakS on Twitter. He is claiming to  have information from a former employee of Balboa Insurance, a firm once owned by Bank of America, which the source says keeps track of loans for lenders. To prove the authenticity of the source, OperationLeakS has posted a paystub, an unemployment form, a dismissal letter from Balboa and an ID badge to BankofAmericasuck.com.

An "anonymous insider” from the Bank of America has confirmed with the gossip website Gawker that these leaks are “legit,” and we should expect the release of some more sensitive files, as well as additional emails.

I hope there is much more leaked Bank-related information to follow. These criminals need to be exposed and dealt with. [see Krugman's latest here for more details] It is a sad note for democracy that a group of loosely assembled hackers are the only people capable of trying to keep private interests from ruining our social infrastructures. It is quite obvious to anyone tracking the decision-making and flow of money that Western government systems are no longer legitimate. Act accordingly.

This Is Your Brain On Media

click to enlarge

[ h/t k21 ]

:papercutz - Lylac (Helios Remix)

This is the advance single of :pa­per­cutz's new remix album "Do Outro Lado Do Es­pelho (Lylac Am­bient Reworks)". The track is "Lylac (He­lios remix)":

Original lyrics:

Image by Bette Burgoyne

"We're lost on an artificial light;
a white that blinds our human forms.
Take me away, from this moment on we'll be as one.

But wait, I seem to recognize you.
Your face reminds me of youth.
Lifetime of changes taking place... taking place.

We're all spinning round,
letting it all go now, has never been easier.

(It's the change of seasons...the tree of life)"

[ h/t Xenophrenia ]

Toxic Alberta: Government Delaying Action on Oilsands Contamination

"Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught, will we realize that we can't eat money."  - Cree proverb

It is official: an independent expert scientific panel has backed research that indicates Alberta oilsands development is releasing dangerous toxic contaminants into northern Alberta watersheds. The panel concluded that industrial extraction of oil from bitumen soaked tar sands in Northern Alberta is irreversibly polluting the Athabasca River. [source]

The panel also suggested that current government monitoring programs weren’t even trying to determine if the actual extent and nature of related pollution. David Schindler of the University of Alberta - whose work led to the formation of the panel - said it’s probably already too late to get a true picture of how energy development has affected the area. [source]

The six-member, government-appointed scientific panel’s task was to try to explain why official government accounts of pollution in the area clashed so sharply with those of independent scientific studies of Schindler and his co-authors. Alberta politicians have long argued that contamination in the Athabasca River is “stable”, at low levels, and “comes from eroding oilsands deposits along the riverbank”. But independent researchers, in papers published last year in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, traced hydrocarbons and heavy metals found in the land and water directly to industrial smokestack emissions and found levels toxic to fish. This new panel has now confirmed these independent results. [source]



The panel's report released Wednesday agreed with the findings from Schindler that oilsands operations are definately contaminating the environment. "Taking into consideration all data and critiques, we generally agree with the conclusion of (the independent scientists) that (chemicals) and trace metals are being introduced into the environment by oilsands operations," says the new report. [source]

With the government long claiming the contamination in the river is from natural resources, the Ministry of Environment quickly changed its tune Wednesday when environment minister Rob Renner told the press the government's position was never that there wasn't any impact, but that contamination in the river was negligible. "There is a certain degree of impact from industrial development from any area," Renner said. "I don't think anyone has ever suggested there is no impact." [source] 

Several studies over the last few years have raised concerns about contamination in the oilsands region. Collected information relative to water-quality standards indicates contamination in the Athabasca watershed is well under human health guidelines. An Environment Canada study found levels of toxic mercury in the eggs of water birds downstream from the oilsands seem to have grown by nearly 50 per cent over the last three decades. And Schindler has published another paper showing pollution is nearly five times greater and twice as widespread as industry figures say. [source]

The immediate response from provincial Government officials this week has been to say that any impact from the oil sands warrants further study but that NO ACTIONS are required at this time. Instead Environment Minister Rob Renner publically called for yet another review of data and the panel’s conclusions. [source]



The Suncor oilsands mine near Fort McMurray, Alberta.

By stalling and delaying intervention (or even regulation) into oilsands development Albertans and their governments continue to make it quite clear that urban economic interests trump the stability of the region's ecological systems, and far outweigh the documented adverse effects of contamination on the aboriginal inhabitants of the area. At least that much is clear. It is alway a good thing to know who your enemies are. Now it's time to get to work.

Read Other Oilsands Related Posts:

• From Tar Sands to Tankers
• Tumorous Fish Downstream from Alberta Oil Sands
• Oil Sands Toxins Rapidly Increasing
• Indigenous Groups Lead Struggle Against Tar Sands
• Petro Politics and Tar Sands Impact
• Most Destructive Project on Earth
• Shell Breaks Environmental Agreements for Oil Sands Projects

GasLand Trailer

This is a must see film if you want to know more about what corporations are doing to YOUR water. I dare you to watch this clip:

GASLAND - (2010) Directed by Josh Fox. Winner of Special Jury Prize - Best US Documentary Feature - Sundance 2010. Screening at Cannes 2010.

It is happening all across America and now in Europe and Africa as well - rural landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative offer from a multinational energy conglomerate wanting to lease their property. The Reason? In America, the company hopes to tap into a huge natural gas reservoir dubbed the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. Halliburton developed a way to get the gas out of the ground—a hydraulic drilling process called fracking—and suddenly America finds itself on the precipice of becoming an energy superpower.

But what comes out of the ground with that natural gas? How does it affect our air and drinking water? GASLAND is a powerful personal documentary that confronts these questions with spirit, strength, and a sense of humor. When filmmaker Josh Fox receives his cash offer in the mail, he travels across 32 states to meet other rural residents on the front lines of fracking. He discovers toxic streams, ruined aquifers, dying livestock, brutal illnesses, and kitchen sinks that burst into flame. He learns that all water is connected and perhaps some things are more valuable than money.

This is what lack of regulation looks like. Not in my county. Never.

The Plundering Continues Unchecked

click to enlarge

Here is Columbia University Professor Robert Lieberman commenting in the highly regarded journal Foreign Affairs on the politico-economic war being waged by wealthy elites:

The U.S. economy appears to be coming apart at the seams. Unemployment remains at nearly ten percent, the highest level in almost 30 years; foreclosures have forced millions of Americans out of their homes; and real incomes have fallen faster and further than at any time since the Great Depression. Many of those laid off fear that the jobs they have lost -- the secure, often unionized, industrial jobs that provided wealth, security, and opportunity -- will never return. They are probably right.

And yet a curious thing has happened in the midst of all this misery. The wealthiest Americans, among them presumably the very titans of global finance whose misadventures brought about the financial meltdown, got richer. And not just a little bit richer; a lot richer. In 2009, the average income of the top five percent of earners went up, while on average everyone else's income went down. This was not an anomaly but rather a continuation of a 40-year trend of ballooning incomes at the very top and stagnant incomes in the middle and at the bottom. The share of total income going to the top one percent has increased from roughly eight percent in the 1960s to more than 20 percent today.

Read the entire article @ Foreign Affairs

[ h/t BLCKDGRD ]

Check Out Related Crazy-Making Stories:

• Big Business Getting Richer
• The Story of Citizens United v. FEC
• Class Wars Rage On
• Goldman Sachs Earns 250m as Punishment for Fraud
• Capitalism: A Denial Story
• Wall Street's Top 10 Lies of 2010
• Shock, Awe and the Psychology of Economic Warfare
• Harvey on the Crisis of Capitalism
• The Money Masters

Think Like A Fist

A federal jury in Salt Lake City has convicted environmental activist Tim DeChristopher of two felony counts for disrupting the auction of over 100,000 acres of federal land for oil and gas drilling. DeChristopher was charged in December 2008 with infiltrating a public auction and disrupting the Bush administration’s last-minute move to auction off oil and gas exploration rights on vast swaths of federal land.

A student at the time, DeChristopher posed as a bidder and out bid energy company reps for 22,000 acres of land with no intention to pay in an attempt to save the property from drilling. The jury deliberated for nearly five hours on March 3, 2011 before reaching its decision. He now faces up to ten years in prison. After the verdict, DeChristopher emerged from the courthouse and addressed his supporters:

They tried to convince me that I was like a little finger out there on my own that can easily be broken. And all of you out here were the reminder for all of us that I wasn’t just a finger all alone in there, but that I was connected to a hand with many fingers that could unite as one fist and that that fist could not be broken by the power that they have in there.

That fist is not a symbol of violence. That fist is a symbol that we will not be misled into thinking we are alone. We will not be lied to and told we are weak. We will not be divided, and we will not back down. That fist is a symbol that we are connected and that we are powerful. It’s a symbol that we hold true to our vision of a healthy and just world, and we are building the self-empowering movement to make it happen. All those authorities in there wanted me to think like a finger. But our children are calling to us to think like a fist.

Consider that this passionate young man may serve 10 years in prison for "disruption" of an auction while the wealthy financial managers who undermined and ravaged the world economy and put millions of people out of work are allowed to continue earning million dollar salaries without even so much as being reprimanded. Just think about the kind of world we have to live in for this to be allowed to happen.

Watch news coverage of the ruling @ Democracy Now

Bill McKibben weighs in here: Taking a Leap and Pointing the Way

What We Still Don't Know

What We Still Don't Know (2004) is a 3 part series exploring the Big Questions of life and human existence in a vast and strange cosmos. The film was developed and narrated by Sir Martian Rees and directed by Srik Narayanan. I can't endorse all or even most of the positions entertained in this series, but the videos do provoke speculation and there's nothing wrong with that. Enjoy:

Are We Real? [48 mins]

There is a fundamental chasm in our understanding of ourselves, the universe, and everything. To solve this, Sir Martin takes us on a mind-boggling journey through multiple universes to post-biological life. On the way we learn of the disturbing possibility that we could be the product of someone else’s experiment.



Why Are We Here? [48 mins]

Everything you thought you knew about the universe is wrong. It’s made of atoms, right? Wrong. Atoms only account for a measly 15% of everything that exists. The mass of the universe consists of something so mysterious and elusive that it has been dubbed ‘dark matter’. Martin Rees explores:



Are We Alone? [48 mins]

In this episode Sir Martin Rees investigates the possibility that life exists on planets beyond our own. He unveils an unsettling scientific debate that has startling consequences for us Earthlings. Do you believe in aliens?

Actualism and Derivitive Metaphysics

"As for me, I’m a good old “actualist.” For me, all that exist are specific entities of a determinate nature..." - Graham Harman

Hey, at least I agree with Graham Harman on something! All assemblages or objects are specific entities of a determinate nature - exactly. And this is precisely what I call onto-specificity.

Like Graham I also think topology is "derivitive". Which is why deriving a virtual substantiality from actual material-energetic assemblages seems to me to be a reification or hypostatisation of certain aspects or general patterns expressed by fully present sets of properties.

Capacities and powers are only generated by particular entities with specific properties in relation (in specific environments), and are not, I argue, a "potentiality" that objects withhold. The co-local manifestation of certain complex situations, networks or arrangements are catalytic events generated by the direct but partial mingling of assembled properties. Through such events, alliances or encounters each entity (or actant  as Bruno Latour calls them) contributes their onto-specific potencies (extensive and intensive properties), which are then expressed and augmented, or diminished or enhanced, affecting emergence, maintenance, perpetuation or degeneration.

Those are the broad features of what is and what can be as I understand them. Now if I can just get Harman to commit to direct-but-partial causation, all will be right with the world... ;-)

UPDATE: Graham Harman responds to this post here: "direct but partial contact"

The Story of Citizens United v. FEC

Below is the most recent video from the people who brought you The Story of Stuff series. This installment deals with the disastrous Citizens United ruling by the U.S supreme court. If you don't know what happened with that then watch and be amazed:

Bottom line: corporations can now legally spend unlimited amounts of money in order to influence USA elections. Sounds like a good idea huh... not so much. The Corporatocracy is now stronger than ever."We the people" is no longer.

Foucault on Structure, Event and Power

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From Foucault, Power/Knowledge (1980:114):

[ h/t/ Fabio at Hypertilling ]

From The History of Sexuality (1976:92):

"Power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization: as the process which, through ceaseless struggle and confrontations, transforms, strengthens, or even reverses them; as the support which these force relations find in one another, thus forming a chain or a system, or on the contrary, the disjunctions and contradictions which isolate them from one another; and lastly, as the strategies in which they take effect, whose general design or institutional crystallization is embodied in the state apparatus, in the formulation of the law, in the various social hegemonies.”

The Monstrosity of Things

Over at Larval Subjects Mark Crosby commented (here) on Bryant’s version of the thesis that objects “withdraw” from their relations. I think Mark hits it squarely on the head when he writes:

"It’s not WHOLLY a function of the 'external events themselves', but neither is it WHOLLY a function of the 'internal organization of the object'. It’s a function of BOTH, and the feedback obtained only by their interaction. So, I can see no way to correctly say that they never 'touch' each other." [source]

I can think of no way that someone can adequately argue that “external events” and “internal organization” do not interact directly. I accept a formal closure based on the functional thresholding or affective governing powers of a system/object, but I would also argue that the immanent character of cosmological properties (materiality as such) affords a unified (or “flat") ontological plane of reality within which it is possible for objects to directly (but never fully) interact and affect each other.

This is what I mean when I say that there is an ontological intimacy between or among objects which makes them vulnerable to modification, mutation, destruction and hybridity. Perhaps we could call this the monstrous quality of things – the horror that not only Kurtz witnessed but from which we ourselves often recoil?

Responding to Mark's comments Levi had this to say:

I think it’s important to preserve those instances where an acting object produces it’s own events. Otherwise objects would be purely passive. In my view operations can take place within objects that are purely a product of the dynamism of the object. I think this is Kant’s singular contribution (the one that gets Deleuze all excited). In the second and third critique, Kant conceives a mode of self-production that isn’t merely an entity being activated by an external stimuli. This was the inspiration of both his moral law (divorced from all “pathological” motivation) and his aesthetic insights. The bizarre thing about a “synthetic a priori” judgment is that it is something that arises entirely from an agent yet creates something new. This, I think, is what needs to be preserved in a theory of auto/allo-poietic objects… This “a priori” creativity. [source]

And I understand Levi's point here. There is something of a 'remainder' which is specifically generated from the particularity or singularity of objects that seems to get lost in discussions that characterize causality or interaction in terms of the general temporal flux and flow of properties. The unique powers of objects must be acknowledged. I get that. Objects/assemblages have an efficacy all their own that is absolutely irreducible. I agree.

What I suggest is that this individual efficacy or affective potency is embodied in the emergent properties of objects - as expressions of an object's fully manifest composite configuration within particular space-time conditions. And this emergent substantiality of objects (its unique potency) is never completely cut off from the immanent realm of ancestral finite ("sensuous") qualities. There is an intrinsic intimacy between assembled properties (things) that affords the possibility of their interactions as well as their ubiquitous vulnerability to change. Such is the flesh and flow of the cosmos.     

UPDATE: Tim Morton agrees with me about monsters, sort of:

“We can assume that that these objects are monstrous. And when we study evolution what do we find? Monstrosity everywhere we look. What's more, these objects, consisting of other monstrous objects, can form monstrous affiliations with other monstrous objects in any which way. Everywhere you look, monsters.”

- Tim Morton

Objects, Expressions and Colocality

What I appreciate about Levi Bryant's blogging efforts is his willingness to continue clarifying his thoughts for his readers. Trust me when I say the value and generosity of that is not lost on me.

In that vein, Bryant has posted some further remarks (here) clarifying his take on the dynamics of objects. Here he is riffing on their intrinsic openness:

From afar, notes Lucretius, the sheep look as if they are not moving at all. But were we to closely approach them, we would discover that they are frolicking about, taking little nips of dewy grass and playfully dancing about with one another. And so it is, argues Lucretius, with all objects. Although the rock over there appears to sit still, it is in a constant state of motion or activity... [F]or OOO there are no final units. It’s turtles all the way down without any primordial turtles.

And Levi elaborates on the processual nature of objects as autopoietic and allopoietic systems here:

A key feature of these autopoietic and allopoietic machines is that they maintain themselves through the production of events. The time of the object is a time in which the components of that object or machine must (re)produce its components from moment to moment. It is this processuality that constitutes the substantiality of objects. It is this process through which an object (re)produces itself that is the being of an object. Far from being something that just sits there as the Greeks had it in their folk ontology, these machines are ongoing activities. If these machines are nonetheless objects, then this is because there is a unity to this process that renders them discrete entities in their own right. These processes, as it were, are the “substantial form” of the machine or object. A key point that follows from this is that objects are not identical to its parts. The parts of an object come and go, sometimes getting destroyed, at other times moving out of the object and landing elsewhere, while that substantial form, that processuality, remains. If that’s not “evental” and “processual” enough for you, I just don’t know what you’re asking for.

Fair enough. And I am inclined to agree with everything Bryant writes here. Objects, or what I prefer to call assemblages, are processual compositions with irreducible onto-specific (individual) patterns. Agreed.

Where I differ, I think (?), is where Bryant claims that the “substantiality” of an object (what I am calling here its pattern) is somehow distinct, or more than, or withdrawn from, or not identical to the actually occurring parts (properties) that are in ongoing relation to each other and the affording environment. For me, the pattern, or diagram (DeLanda) or substantiality of an object is an expression of its constituent properties (parts) as generated in relation to the context in which it exists. This is what I call colocality: all objects or assemblages are simultaneously relational (ontically open) and individuated (operationally closed). Thus, for me, substantiality is not in the object/system, but rather an emergent result of the ever-present interactions between matrices of properties in situ.

However, regardless of what I think, you should go read Bryant’s characteristically lucid and insightful post for yourself: here.

UPDATE: S.C Hickman has an interesting post up over at Dark Chemistry responding to the post mentioned above where he delves deeper into Bryant’s ontology (here). Hickman’s posts are always well worth the read so check it out. Here is a sample:

An object maintains itself through its connection to time and irreversibility, which are built into the system not only at the structural level, but also at the level of its components and elements. Its elements are operations. Disintegration and reintegration, disordering and ordering require each other. It is this processual aspect that I think Levi is supporting of the polar effects of this systemic interplay of entropy and negentropy, disintegration and reintegration which is the self-organization of the object and its components. Time is the key to this whole process. And as Luhmann confirms systems "based on events need a more complex pattern of time". This is where I believe Levi implies his "difference that makes a difference", when Luhuman tells us that events "are happenings which make a difference between a 'before' and a 'thereafter'. They can be identified and observed, anticipated and remembered only as such a difference. Their identity is their difference".

Read More @ Dark Chemistry

The Shadow of Objects

Levi Bryant has a post up (here) responding to a commenter and referring to Hickman’s post linked below where he reiterates his views:

“The point is that the appearance or manifestation of the object has nothing to do with the existence of the object. The object’s manifestation is secondary to its substantiality as an object. It is for this reason that objects cannot be reduced to their properties or qualities as someone like Hume would like to do. Qualities are like a rind that are but expressions of an object’s substantiality.” [source]

Bryant then goes on to suggest an explanation of change based in his framework which, as far as it goes, is strait forward and logical, but which seems to grant objects a virtual substantiality beyond their actual properties. In short, I argue that Bryant elevates the 'shadow' of objects, the trace or signature of an object’s temporal actuality, to the status of essence - or what Bryant calls the “virtual proper being” of an object. But why do this?

Change can be “explained” by accepting that all objects, to varying degrees, are always already open systems. The substantiality of objects is a result of their assembled extensive properties intensively expressed in constant relation to their environment (including other objects). Thus all entities are embodied temporary beings vulnerable to modification and destruction - whether individually or in relation to their existence as part of another assemblage.

On an individual scale we can move from an object’s emanating qualities inward to its withdrawn structural properties without crossing any significant ontological divide before arriving at its organizational core.

For me, then, all entities are pulsating depth achievements (cf. Ivakhiv) with various potencies (or capacities) unleashed within the matrix of a simultaneous occurrence of composition and context. In this view nothing is “reduced” and nothing more is needed.

S.C Hickman on Variations of OOO

S.C Hickman combines a fantastic prose style with precise summaries and riffs on philosophy, theory and a few other delicacies. His short insightful posts are truly an ‘object’ to behold (pun intended). Here is an excerpt of Hickman’s latest on possible differences between Graham Harman and Levi Bryant’s versions of Object-Oriented-Ontology (OOO):

The appearance of an object either to us or another object will always be partial or perspectival, for the simple reason that it reveals itself only through its intentional properties or features and does that through a negotiation and translation that is a distortion of the real objects hidden interior life. A real object is autonomous which always-already is independent and withdrawn, not fully manifested in any relationship of any type except through the interaction in that field or volcanic core where all change manifests itself. We do not need to worry over appearances, objects can be real and independent, withdrawn and sleeping and dormant without being either invisible or transparent. Objects can exist without relations; yet, as Harman has reiterated, it is only in relation that objects perceive.

I will hold off on discussing the issues of language, metaphor, hyperbole, etc. for now, except to ask why we need so many strange obfuscations of terms that seem to distort rather than clarify. By this I am referring to Levi's use of virtual proper being and local manifestation as against Harman's real and intentional objects. I see that there is a difference in emphasis here, that VPB seems to imply a potentiality; ergo., the reason for the need in equating Levi's terms to Molner's powers and properties.

Read the entire post @ Dark Chemistry

I agree with most of what Hickman is saying here. I have argued the same: why inject a term like “virtual proper being” when the notions of capacity or powers do the same work. What ‘value is added’, as my colleagues would say, by suggesting an ontological division between an assemblage’s properties and its capacities to affect? Why posit an additional virtual aspect withdrawn from the “manifest” where objects are more real than real? An object’s powers are its properties as they are expressed in relation. And because objects are never without some relations, their efficacious substantiality is constantly becoming and being expressed. The virtual, then, is simply the trace or signature, or shadow cast by the actual embodied entity.

But let me also be quite clear: with the minor exception of Bryant's use of the notion of "virtual proper being" (and even then I can see a place for such a notion just not the place Levi argues for) I think Bryant's project is an outstanding example of laser sharp intelligence, learning and insight - and a framework I very nearly agree with in its entirety.

UPDATE: Graham Harman has responded to Hickman's observations with a clarifying post of his own about the differences between Bryant's framework and his own philosophy: here. Below is an excerpt:

Levi is more sympathetic to a notion of “the virtual” than I am. Levi’s real objects don’t have qualities, whereas mine do. Among other implications, this makes him even more sympathetic than I am to the models offered by DeLanda and Bhaskar, which I admire but of which I am also critical for placing the real action outside individual entities. That’s precisely what Levi likes about them, however.