@sandmonkey on intergenerational support for protest

Here is the Egyptian blogger/tweeter @sandmonkey, tweeting about the relationship between parents and their activist children.

this story more than anything highlights the generational rift in egyptian society over the #Jan25 revolution. 
It also is a prime example of how people could live in the same house & have totally different backgrounds. Sumthin all JAN25's can relate 2
This revolution not only facilitated the peaceful transition of power from government to people, but from our parents generation to ours.
This transition is based on both guilt & regret, because they never did anything similar & they allowed the mafia regime to continue.
And it was a Mafia Regime. It was always better to be with the Don than against the Don, for those against him were crushed or killed.
So, they allowed the thugs to rule, allowed corruption to spread, & learned to adapt to the system, cause that's all they had.
And not only did they enable the regime, they tried to stop us from doing anything to stop, believing that it can't be stopped.
And we defied them, despite the threats & the yelling & the guilt trips & emotional blackmail, & we proved them wrong. #jan25
This naturally came as a shock to them, cause they never thought it could be possible. They truly believed they were protecting us. 
So now they feel sad & guilty, cause their lives were wasted accepting evil & they even tried to stop us from eradicating it. #jan25
So, our parents are now divided into 3 types: 1) The "we don't know what's going on, so we will depend on u to inform us" type #jan25
2) The "I will suddenly be proud & brag of ur revolutionary nature to all my friends, coz I need to jump on the bandwagon now" #jan25
3) The Angry " y'all dunno what u r talkin about, u r destroying this country, democracy will never work, human rights meen" type. 

You can imagine that, can't you, in the UK or anywhere else once protests finally get somewhere? [he's also getting an encouraging about of backchat from young egyptian activists, saying their parents were with them all along [NadaPrudence @Sandmonkey my mom was there with me from day 1 ! she's my tear gas buddy !!]

[insert boilerplate rant, viz: if only we had a medium where I could forward this without copy-pasting a dozen segments into an email. *sigh*]

Nahost Kundgebung in Berlin, heute 1500

Nochmal ein Aufruf zur Demonstrationen, die nicht gut verbreitet wurde:


Bitte weiter leiten! Für Freitag 15.00 Uhr Brandenburger Tor
____________________________________________________________

Internationaler Solidaritätstag
mit den kämpfenden Völkern des Nahen Ostens und Nordafrikas!

Spätestens seitdem in Tunesien der korrupte Präsident Ben Ali aus
dem Amt gejagt wurde, hat sich in der arabischen Welt der Funke des
Aufruhrs in Windeseile verbreitet. Die Verzweiflung über Armut und
Perspektivlosigkeit, über Willkür und Folter hat die Menschen auf
die Straße getrieben.

In Ägypten hat der Aufstand alle Schichten der Gesellschaft erfasst.
Millionen von Menschen in allen Landesteilen, Arbeiter, Bauern und
Intellektuelle, Frauen und Männer, Alte und Junge, Muslime,
Christen und Säkulare haben sich auf den Straßen und Plätzen
vereint.

Jemen, Bahrain, Algerien, Jordanien, Irak und nun Libyen sind die
Länder, wo die Völker sich gegen die sie Unterdrückenden auflehnen
und die Tyrannei abwerfen. Die Diktatoren wollen Zeit gewinnen, um
die herrschenden Strukturen zu erhalten. Doch die neue Bewegung ist
nicht aufzuhalten. Die Völker brauchen unsere Solidarität und
Ermutigung.

Zur Stärkung der Kraft der betroffenen Völker findet
am Freitag, dem 25. Februar 2011 ab 15.00 Uhr
am Brandenburger Tor (Pariser Platz) eine Mahnwache statt.

Sie dient der Vernetzung und dem solidarischen Miteinander mit den
Bürgern aus dem Nahen Osten und Nordafrikanischen Raum in unserer
Stadt.

V.i.S.d.P. Deutscher Friedensrat e.V. (mailto:saefkow-berlin@t-online.de)

Al-Jazeera

Nir Rosen on Al Jazeera:

In Egypt, when established opposition parties and Muslim Brothers went to Umar Suleiman to cut a deal, Jazeera played a key role in scuttling this betrayal of the revolution by going back to the demonstrators and airing their demans and challenging the opposition leaders. Jazeera asked people what they wanted if Mubarak left, if they wanted Suleiman, etc and it pressured political leaders who were more inclined to compromise with the regime. Jazeera forced them to hear what the street was saying and prevented them from compromising.

In Libya, as in Egypt, Jazeera has been naming names and shaping public opinion, challenging people. People who come on Jazeera are calling on people by name, Libyan guests are naming senior government people and military people, like regional commanders, asking why aren’t they moving in to Tripoli. Its not necessarily Jazeera naming these officials, but it gives others the chance and then it interviews Libyan officials to ask them what they think

List of Libya/Arab solidarity demos

On Facebook, we've been compiling a list of demonstrations in support of the protests in the Arab world. This is the same information, for those without facebook

Please go to the list on facebook if possible -- the version here will go out-of-date quickly.


MONDAY (21st)
-------------------
Boston, MA - Libya
...http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=185352221505381

London, UK - Libyan Embassy
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=195945897101494

Cairo, Egypt - Libya
http://twitter.com/#!/SultanAlQassemi/status/39429405340082177

Manchester, UK - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=131959340208250

Berlin, Germany - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=192616717425685

Paris, France - Libya
http://www.demosphere.eu/node/22927
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=190459450986797

Lyon, France - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=165054680210039

Brussels, Belgium - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=199904060020563

Tunisia
http://www.mosaiquefm.net/index/a/ActuDetail/Element/13310-Manifestation-de-soutien-au-peuple-Libyen-devant-l-ambassade.html
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=201680616509063

Sacramento, CA - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=110998615645366

Amman, Jordan - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=189905307707931

Seattle, WA - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=204806872866343

TUESDAY (22nd)
----------------------
New York, US - Bahrain
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=202224233128244

London, UK - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=195945897101494 (Libyan Embassy)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=131240333612231 (Downing Street)

Glasgow, UK - Arab Solidarity
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=135386309861565

Berlin, Germany - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=192616717425685

Bonn, Germany - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=191396744226496&index=1

Tunisia - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200387639988338

Rabat, Morocco - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=181209048588995

Montreal, Canada
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=185800944792021

Melbourne, Australia
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136206069778177

Alger, Algeria - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=203131753034942

Minneapolis, USA - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=152930121431194
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=181973065177856

Alexandria, Egypt - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=104070656339318

WEDNESDAY (23rd)
------------------------
London, UK - Libyan Embassy
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=195945897101494

Geneva - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=164994166886344

New York, USA
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=133883690011027

THURSDAY (24th)
----------------------
London, UK - Libyan Embassy
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=195945897101494

FRIDAY (25th)
----------------------
New York, US - Libya, Yemen & Bahrain
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=202227446461128

London, UK -
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=195945897101494 (at Libyan embassy)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169885193058579 (Bahrain embassy, to Libyan embassy, to Downing Street)

Nottingham, UK
4pm onwards, Old Market Square

Lake Eola, Orlando, USA
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=157201641001407

London, UK - Iran
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=165285383522107

SATURDAY (26th)
----------------------
London, UK - Iraq Reform Demo
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=192937684059227

Toronto, Canada - Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=193043330720427

London, UK - Libyan Embassy
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=195945897101494

26th March
----------
London, UK - Egypt
http://socialisimo.tumblr.com/post/3364674148/stay-4-one-day-turn-hyde-park-into-tahrir-square-for

On Going
------------
More lists of Libyan protests.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=185352221505381
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=103799509699530
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178395958872261 (embassy protests)

Manchester, UK - Libya (daily protests)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=194916707193449

Freeze Mubarak's Assets
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178077995570504

Human Rights for Libya
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=111867918891103

Bahrain Petition
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5904/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5615

Notes
--------
Please be sure to post videos of any protests you attend.

Archive
----------------------
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178220665555569
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=185352221505381
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=186889371343992
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=152559051466719
http://twitter.com/#!/Palaestina/status/38354404482482176
http://twitter.com/#!/sara055/status/38766411249614848
http://twitter.com/#!/LamiaMoussa/status/38721362717720576
http://twitter.com/#!/Sandmonkey/status/38932651502993408
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=110998615645366
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107198712691545
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187343441305362
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=193043330720427
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=155547864499863
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=195945897101494
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=154050244653491

Libyen Kundgebung

Edit Noch eine Kundgebung -- Morgen, 1530, nochmal vor der Libyschen Botschaft.

Das Folgende bekam ich heute durch einen Verteiler. Ich weiß nichts mehr darüber, aber propagiere es gerne weiter:


Freiheit für Libyen!


Als ein Teil der arabisch sprechenden Völker hier in der Bundesrepublik verfolgen wir mit großer Sorge
alles, was jetzt in unserem Bruderland Libyen geschieht sowohl auf politischer,
wirtschaftlicher, juristischer und konstitutioneller Ebene als auch auf der
Ebene der Sicherheit. Die letzten Ereignisse, soweit sie uns durch die
Nachrichtendienste und andere Medien zur Kenntnis gelangen, sind höchst
erschreckend und verachtungswürdig. Ghaddafi setzt das Militär und ausländische
Berufssoldaten gegen gewaltfreie Demonstranten ein, die sich für Gerechtigkeit, Meinungsfreiheit und
Demokratie versammeln, lässt mit scharfer Munition und von Hubschraubern
aus schießen, setzt Scharfschützen ein, die von Dächern aus auf Kopf, Brust und
Herz von Menschen zielen und sie bei einem Trauermarsch töten. Bis zum heutigen
Tage sind, jedoch unsicheren Nachrichten zufolge, seit Mittwoch, dem 16. 2.
2011, mindestens 1.500 Personen durch
Gewalt gestorben.

Im Sommer vergangenen
Jahres ließ Ghaddafi 1.500 politische Gefangene, die sich im Gefängnis Abu
Salim befanden, erschießen. Sein Sohn Saif ul Islam versuchte dann, die
Angehörigen der Getöteten durch Bestechungsgelder daran zu hindern, dass sie
sich an internationale Menschenrechtsorganisationen wendeten. Er verbot den
Familien, Trauerfeiern abzuhalten.

Ghaddafis Gewaltherrschaft, die seit über 41 Jahren besteht, und sein Terror mit
Unterstützung von weltweiten Terroristengruppen ist der Welt seit langem bekannt,
z. B. bei den Anschlägen auf Lockerbie 1988 und La Belle 1986 etc.

Libyen in ein Gefängnis zu verwandeln und den verschiedenen Sicherheitsbehörden zu erlauben, jegliche
Form der Freiheit zu unterbinden, wird dem Land sowie dem Volk ungeahnte Katastrophen bereiten.

Auch sind wir der Ansicht, dass das dauernde Ignorieren der Gesetze, die vielen Begünstigungen für die mächtigen Gefolgsleute sowie die ständige Anwendung des Ausnahmegesetzes in seinen unterschiedlichsten
Formulierungen den Menschen in Libyen ihr Recht auf Gerechtigkeit, Entwicklung
und bessere Zukunft rauben.

Wir glauben, dass mit dem Fortbestand des Ausnahmezustands, der Fernhaltung der Gerechtigkeit, den
Begünstigungen einer bestimmten Gruppe von Verwandten und Gefolgsleuten Ghaddafis sowie dem Ausplündern der
libyschen Wirtschaft das Ziel der persönlichen Bereicherung verfolgt wird und damit das Land Stück für Stück ruiniert wird.

Ghaddafi erhält jährlich 37,5 Milliarden Dollar für Erdöl und genau soviel Milliarden für Erdgas. Er
besitzt genug Geld, so dass es dem Volk gut gehen könnte. Stattdessen missbraucht er das Volksvermögen für Terrormaßnahmen oder Besitz und Erwerb von Liegenschaften im Ausland für seine Söhne.

Ghaddafis Versuch der Einschüchterung der zivilgesellschaftlichen Kräfte und der Gewerkschaften mit dem Ziel der
Machterhaltung und der Vererbung der Macht an seine Söhne wird keinen Erfolg haben. Diese Politik wird die Lage in
Libyen komplizierter machen und einen unvermeidbaren Zusammenstoß herbeiführen.

Wir fordern die Aufhebung des Ausnahmezustands und der daraus resultierenden
Umstände sowie die sofortige Freilassung der noch in Haft sitzenden politischen
Gefangenen.

Wir fordern auch einen friedlichen Machtwechsel und soziale Gerechtigkeit.
Wir lehnen strikt den Staatsterror, die Korruption und Vetternwirtschaft ab.
Hände weg von den zivilgesellschaftlichen Institutionen, Parteien und Gewerkschaften!

Wir versammeln uns

am Montag, dem 21. 02. 2011, um 15:00 Uhr

vor der Libyschen Botschaft
Podbielskiallee 42, U-Bahnhof Podbielskiallee

______-

Liebe Alle,
Morgen, Montag den 21.02.2011 um 15 Uhr findet vor der libyschen Botschaft
eine Kundegebung statt!!!
Bitte bemüht Euch, zahlreich zu kommen. Qadhafi verübt ein Massaker, es
gibt bereits hunderte von Toten - und aus dem Westen scheint sich niemand dazu
äußern zu wollen (wir brauchen ihn ja, um die Flüchtlinge zurückzuhalten...)
Lasst uns bis Freitag Qadhafi loswerden, damit wir uns dann endlich Ali
Abdallah Salih, Bouteflika und Konsorten zuwenden zu können!
Liebe Grüße,
Firas Maraghy und Wiebke Diehl

father ted is not english, and other ignored obvious truths

It's intriguing how often we, as consumers, are willing to believe (without evidence) that something originates in our own country. Somehow, in the back of my head, I had the idea of Father Ted coming from England. I mean -- a more Irish setup would be hard to imagine. Yet somehow I choose to belive in the home-origin.

ETA: I'm doubly an idiot. Father Ted was, in fact, made for Channel 4

The Inefficient Everything Hypothesis

The Efficient Markets Hypothesis may be looking a bit shabby after the financial crisis. But it's still looking pretty damn good compared to any other area of public life. Where's the Efficient Media Hypothesis? The Efficient Academia Hypotheis? The Efficient Politics Hypothesis? The Efficient Courts Hypothesis? Anybody eve proposing them would be laughed out of the room.

bits of the constitution

The articles Mubarak is proposing to amend:

Article.76***:(Amended, Not present in the Constitution any longer) The People’s Assembly shall nominate the President of the Republic . The nomination shall be referred to the people for a plebiscite. The nomination for the President of the Republic shall be made in the People’ Assembly upon the proposal of at least one third of its members. The candidate who obtains two thirds of the votes of the members of the People’s Assembly shall be referred to the people for a plebiscite . If he does not obtain the said majority the nomination process shall be repeated two days after the first vote. The candidate obtaining an absolute majority of the votes of the Assembly members shall be referred to the citizens for a plebiscite. The candidate shall be considered President of the Republic when he obtains an absolute majority of votes cast in the plebiscite. If the candidate does not obtain this majority, the Assembly shall propose the nomination of another candidate and the same procedure shall follow concerning his candidature and election.

Article.77**: The term of the presidency shall be six Gregorian years starting from the date of the announcement of result of the plebiscite. The President of the Republic may be re-elected for other successive terms.

Article.88: The Law shall determine the conditions which members of the Assembly must fulfil as well as the rules of election and referendum, while the ballot shall be conducted under the supervision of the members of a judiciary organ.

Article.93: The People’s Assembly shall be competent to decide upon the validity of the membership of its members. The Court of Cassation shall be competent to investigate the validity of contestations on membership presented to the Assembly after referring them to the Court by the Speaker of the Assembly. The contestation shall be referred to the Court of Cassation within fifteen days as from the date on which the Assembly has been informed thereof while the investigation shall be completed within ninety days from the date on which the contestation is referred to the Court of Cassation. The result of the investigation and the decision reached by the Court shall be submitted to the Assembly to decide upon the validity of the contestation within sixty days from the date of submission of the result of the investigation to the Assembly. Memberships shall not be deemed invalid expect by a decision taken by a majority of two-thirds of the Assembly members

Article.178: The judgments issued by the Supreme Constitutional Court in constitutional cases, and its decisions concerning the interpretation of legislative texts shall be published in the Official Gazette. The law shall organize the effects subsequent to a decision concerning the unconstitutionality of a legislative text.


Article.189: The President of the Republic as well as the People’s Assembly may request the amendment of one or more of the articles of the Constitution. The articles to be amended and the reasons justifying such amendments shall be mentioned in the request for amendment . If the request emanates from the People’s Assembly, it should be signed by at least one third of the Assembly members . In all cases, the Assembly shall discuss the amendment in principle, and the decision in this respect shall be taken by the majority of its members. If the request is rejected, the amendment of the same particular articles may not be requested again before the expiration of one year from the date of such rejection. If the People’s Assembly approves an amendment, in principle, the articles requested to be amended shall be discussed two months after the date of the said approval. If the amendment is approved by two thirds of the members of the Assembly, it shall be referred to the people for a plebiscite. If it is approved by the people it shall be considered in force from the date of the announcement of the result of the plebiscite.

Source: Wikisource

Buxton Index

Dijkstra:

The Buxton Index of an entity, i.e. person or organization, is defined as the length of the period, measured in years, over which the entity makes its plans. For the little grocery shop around the corner it is about 1/2,for the true Christian it is infinity, and for most other entities it is in between: about 4 for the average politician who aims at his re-election, slightly more for most industries, but much less for the managers who have to write quarterly reports. The Buxton Index is an important concept because close co-operation between entities with very different Buxton Indices invariably fails and leads to moral complaints about the partner. The party with the smaller Buxton Index is accused of being superficial and short-sighted, while the party with the larger Buxton Index is accused of neglect of duty, of backing out of its responsibility, of freewheeling, etc.. In addition, each party accuses the other one of being stupid. The great advantage of the Buxton Index is that, as a simple numerical notion, it is morally neutral and lifts the difference above the plane of moral concerns.

Egypt: getaway plans

Issandr El Amrani on managing protest:

My own experience is that elite Egyptians tend to think in terms of getaway plans, because they are either deeply in bed with the regime or because they expect an uprising to become a class war

[doh: it'd be interesting to map the world in terms of how much consideration elites give to escape plans. You'd come out with some combination of physical insecurity, political insecurity, and paranoia. Who in Europe has a second passport 'just in case'? Or realy, really wants one? Almost nobody. But in Egypt? In Israel? In China?]

There has been a dramatic state failure to maintain basic health services and deliver good education. This is perhaps Egypt's biggest failure. And as in all Arab countries, autocratic political systems have de-intermediated citizens from their rulers. What I mean by this is that the channels to relay popular grievances to governments have been deeply eroded by money and power. This is dangerous, because in the end it blindsides the regimes to the popular mood, and means there are people at the local level who have the moral authority to calm the situation should there be an outburst of anger.

Egypt link-dump

I know nothing about Egypt. Or Tunisia. Or Sudan. Or Lebanon. Or Albania. Or -- there's a lot of news happening at the moment, isn't there?

But here are some of the articles I've found about Egypt that get beyond "woo! riots!":

Al-ahram on the significance of the date:

Police Day [Jan 25] is meant to mark the day when the police forces took to the street in Ismailia to fight the British Occupation.
...
"The decision may be controversial but I think it was a good choice," says Essam El Erian, the media spokesperson of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group. "Six decades ago the police did their patriotic duty and fought the British occupation, now we ask them to also fight against a corrupt government that has rigged the elections."

Marc Lynch on the Arabic media:

During the key period when the protests were picking up steam, Al Jazeera aired a documentary cultural program on a very nice seeming Egyptian novelist and musical groups, and then to sports. Now (10:30am EST) it is finally covering the protests in depth, but its early lack of coverage may hurt its credibility. I can't remember another case of Al Jazeera simply punting on a major story in a political space which it has owned.

Simon Tisdall in the Guardian

Egyptians have been here before. The so-called Cairo spring of 2005 briefly lifted hopes of peaceful reform and open elections
....
But Tuesday's large-scale protests were different in significant ways, sending unsettling signals to a regime that has made complacency a way of life. "Day of Rage" demonstrators in Cairo did not merely stand and shout in small groups, as is usual. They did not remain in one place. They joined together – and they marched. And in some cases, the police could not, or would not, stop them.
....
an ad hoc coalition of students, unemployed youths, industrial workers, intellectuals, football fans and women, connected by social media such as Twitter and Facebook, instigated a series of fast-moving, rapidly shifting demos across half a dozen or more Egyptian cities. The police could not keep up – and predictably, resorted to violence. an ad hoc coalition of students, unemployed youths, industrial workers, intellectuals, football fans and women, connected by social media such as Twitter and Facebook, instigated a series of fast-moving, rapidly shifting demos across half a dozen or more Egyptian cities. The police could not keep up – and predictably, resorted to violence.

Obligatory riot porn: Stopping a water cannon, Tiananmen-style. And something less violent

And, since they seem to be mentioned almost nowhere else, Global voices lists the demonstrators' demands

• To raise the minimum wage limit to LE 1200 and to get an unemployment aid.


• To cancel the emergency status in the country , to dismiss Habib El-Adly and to release all detainees without court orders.


• Disbanding the current parliament , to have a new free election and to amend the constitution in order to have two presidential limits only.

Also, Anonymous are in the thick of it. Again. They've apparently turned LOIC on Egyptian government websites. This is after Tunisia, where they were about the first outside group to get involved. Meanwhile in Spain, having contributed to the December protests which prevented passage of an anti-download law, they're back at it as the government takes another shot at it.

It's like the gang of bored teenagers on the street corner has turned into a politicised mob.

Women, Men, and Music: the XY Factor, Part 1 | Bad Reputation

Rhian @ bad reputation:

I intellectually analyse the music I love, scouring its lyrical content and its social and cultural context for meaning to enhance my enjoyment of it, but not necessarily to justify my enjoying it in the first place. I am equally interested simply in experiencing its rhythm, its flow, its grind, its melody, the way it makes me want to move as well as the mechanics of how it achieves that, its impact on my body as well as my brain. I attach as much weight to a physical and emotional response as to a cerebral anatomising of music.

Yes, yes, yes! Probably I place far more weight on interpretation compared to Rhian, but the way she phrases things:)

Palin schoss mit!

Reading about the connection of the Bild to Rudi Dutschke's shooting, I can't help thinking about the parallels to the Gifford shooting in the US. The anti-Springer slogan in '68 was "Bild schoss mit!". Perhaps now we need 'Palin schoss mit'?

origin of the fourth estate

Where the term Fourth Estate comes from:

The idea of the press as a "Fourth Estate" came to prominence during the nineteenth century. In 1837 Robert Carlyle referred to "A Fourth Estate of Noble Editors" in The French Revolution: A History, and in On Heroes and Hero Worship (1841) stated that "Burke said there were Three Estates in parliament; but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all". Carlyle continued: "Literature is our Parliament too. Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy. Invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable."

Informational Hygiene

'Informational Hygiene' is a concept dreamt up by Neal Stephenson in his classic cyberpunk novel 'Snow Crash'. Stephenson riffs on the idea of memes as mind viruses; his conceit is that memes exist with the power not only to propagate themselves and convey ideology as a side-effect, but to destroy the minds which play host to them. Ancient cultures, plagued by these mind viruses, developed forms of cultural protection against them:

Monocultures, like a field of corn, are susceptible to infections, but genetically diverse cultures, like a prairie, are extremely robust. After a few thousand years, one new language developed - Hebrew - that possessed exceptional flexibility and power. The deuteronomists, a group of radical monotheists in the sixth and seventh centuries B.C., were the first to take advantage of it. They lived in a time of extreme nationalism and xenophobia, which made it easier for them to reject foreign ideas like Asherah worship. They formalized their old stories into the Torah and implanted within it a law that insured its propagation throughout history - a law that said, in effect, 'make an exact copy of me and read it every day.' And they encouraged a sort of informational hygiene, a belief in copying things strictly and taking great care with information, which as they understood, is potentially dangerous. They made data a controlled substance.

Information hygiene has developed a life beyond the pages of this book. [it's not the only concept to do so -- Snow Crash is also the book that inspired Google Earth]. It has a slighty creepy feel, but the principle is sound. The processes inside your head depend on what you put into it. So you should be careful about what you read, for example -- an idea, even one you consciously disagree with, will have mental side-effects.

You could take informational hygiene as an injunction not to read, say, racist or sexist rants. I'm not so bothered about that side of things; I believe you can reject such ideas more-or-less consciously.

Informational hygiene is more interesting to me in the context of the attention economy. Political, social and cultural developments are dictated not just by what people believe, but by how much time they spend talking and thinking about it.

If a European spends all her time reading about politics in America, for example, she'll end up feeling alienated and disempowered. She has few levers with which to change policy in another country, so learning in detail about it is a waste of intellectual and emotional effort. Better to learn about a topic she can affect, and the ways she can affect it.

Depressive hedonia: blast from (450 years in) the past

On depth of pleasure...something not all that apposite, but which has been rocking around in my mind, and so which I may as well expunge by copying here.

Here's Roger Ascham on Jane Grey, Anglicanism's favourite geeky teenage quasi-martyr:

I came to Brodegate in Lecetershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady JaneGrey, to whom I was exceeding much beholding. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess, with all the household Gentlemen and Gentlewomen were hunting in the Park: I found her in her Chamber, reading Phædon Platonis in Greek, and that with as much delight as some gentleman would read a merry tale in Bocase. After salutation, and duty done, with some other talk, I asked her why she would carry out such pastime in the Park? smiling she answered me: I know all their sport in the Park is but a shadow to that pleasure that I find in Plato: Alas good folk, they never felt what true pleasure meant.

More on depressive hedonia

Ian Bogost and his commentators have some interesting reactions to K-Punk's argument on 'depressive hedonia'. First, Ian connects it to the never-ending debate over 'hard' theory:

Yet, as Fisher points out, when students "want Nietzsche in the same way that they want a hamburger" they miss the fact that "the indigestibility is Nietzsche."

My answer here is probably to say that nothing is inherently worthwhile /because/ it is hard. It can perhaps, though, be good in spite of hardness, and the hardness (if measured in the depth of attention possible/required) can open a door oto stronger feeling/understanding.

Then there is an interesting comment about distraction as a defence mechanism. Of a student wearing headphones in class:

What if the student needed the headphones primarily as a type of anxiety management against the classroom, placing a symbolic barrier of sorts between himself and the room in which he was expected to participate with a degree of fluency, articulateness and incisiveness that, in this society, it's just as likely he would feel eminently unequal to. To me, the headphones seem much more a way to insulate one from the angst of socio-academic participation in than it is "to be denied, for a moment, the constant flow of sugary gratification on demand."

This, IMO, is also true as a much more general rule. The cycle of seeking new things, seeking short-term gratification or acceptance -- it's the result of insecurity. If you have the confidence of being surrounded by love and acceptance, you don't need by-the-minute demonstration thereof.

Incidentally, for reference, this is the post which formed the basis for that section of Capitalist Realism.

Zizek on capitalist realism

What I love about Zizek's blurb for Capitalist Realism is that you can so easiy imagine him exclaiming it vocally, complete with excited hand-gestures:

Let's not beat around the bush: Fisher's compulsively readable book is simply the best diagnosis of our predicament that we have! Through examples from daily life and popular culture, but without sacrificing theoretical stringency, he provides a ruthless portrait of our ideological misery. Although the book is written from a radically Left perspective, Fisher offers no easy solutions. Capitalist Realism is a sobering call for patient theoretical and political work. It enables us to breathe freely in our sticky atmosphere.

Love in a time of acceleration

Is love more powerful when it is harder to obtain? Rob Horning thinks so:

as dating (or ersatz love) has migrated to the internet, it has undergone the same changes as everything else that has moved online: it has been remade by the ethic of convenience into something more solipsistic and disposable.

But what online dating does terrifyingly well is to help people find partners who perfectly embody some desired template of personality. The end result is that you can find scarily close lovers.

Or that's my hunch, and one which I'm sure could be demonstrated in some quantitative way. Couldn't two lovers who are database-certified as perfect for one another attain a deeper level of intensity, compared to old-school partners, who have some reasons to love one another, but were mostly just in the same place at the right time?

Retreat

On a similar topic, the need for retreat:

I believe that teaching today, in all and any context, must involve the strategies of the psychoanalyst. That's how traumatizing our pleasure-culture has become, not by being pleasurable but by denying our ability to rest. I’m reminded of Zizek’s remarks on Lenin who withdrew to Switzerland in the dire times of 1915 to a kind of inner repose in which he read Hegel. When he re-emerged, it was with the refined capacity to strike at the heart of the matter.

[source]

I'd put this in the same context as Malcolm X's experience of studying in prison. In fact it's true of many revolutionary leaders, that they move from being jailed on political grounds, straight to leading a mass movement. I'd taken it as an impressive sign of strength of character -- but perhaps even the isolation of jail can provide something of value*.

See also this HN discussion of doing nothing for 2 minutes. And this is discussion from a high-energy technophile crowd, appreciating the value of stepping back from the cycle.


* to be clear, not trying to be rosy about this -- being locked up is a soul-destroying experience for most, even if there is occasionally a small silver lining.

depresive hedonia

I have a pretty decent idea of what kind of grumpy old man I'll become, should I live that long. Like some kind of postmodern atheist puritan, I'll start to becme vocally opposed to Fun. Or opposed to short-term pleasure, at least -- opposed to the capitalist agenda of momentary hedonism.

This kind of addictively shallow pleasure-seeking is closely linked to the constant availability of short-term stimulus. Here's how K-Punk describes it in Capitalist Realism:

"Many of the teenage students I encoutnered seemed to be in a state of what I would call depressive hedonia. Depression is usually characterized as a state of anhedonia, but the condition I'm referring to is constituted not by an inability to get pleasure so much as it is by an inability to do anything else _except_ pursue pleasure. There is a sense that 'something is missing' -- but no appreciation that this mysterious, missing enjoyment can only be accessed _beyond_ the pleasure principle"

This is a general social trend, but massively exacerbated by instantaneous new media and mobile communication, and in particular by the commercial interests built around them. In a world of constant, instant news, the economy of attention is built around addiction.

It's barely a stretch to claim that this is taking its place alongside the better-known socio-cultural distortions which have shaped the world up to now. Planned obsolescence, advertising-fuelled inflation of gigantist consumerist desires -- these continue, but news-addiction takes its place alongside them as a market distortion of desire.

It's a particular problem when combined with 'walled gardens', which give one corporation control over the mechanisms of communication, and power to unilaterally change the terms of conversation. We need some kind of 'escape gardening', a set of technical innovations and social practices which would let us engage with communities in such closed platforms, while building ways to guide people out of them into the open web, or into interpersonal relationships not mediated by blinkenlights.

Addiction-seeking mechanisms and walled gardens can exist independently, of course, but the latter provides a strong commercial incentive to generate the former.

There are ways out of this situation. But they all require consciously stepping off the hedonic treadmill, and accepting stress and misery on the path towards doing something. There's no shortage of models for this. Any number of classical philsophical schools, many religious teachings. Walden, and other forms of intentional simplicity. Romanticism, emphasising the intensity of feeling over its quantity or pleasantness. The Aesthetic movement, and the idea of the Lebenskunstler.

But to reach them we need, not necessarily a deceleration, but a willingness to exist in the absence of stimulation.

As you may guess, much of this post comes from my personal frustration at a work-style which requires me to be constantly plugged in, but which hasn't yet helped me achieve any human closeness or intensity of feeling

tw :yes

Nostalgia, atemporality and music blogging

Simon Reynolds: how do you write about music when the volume of creation is unmanageably large? You give up on criticism, give up on finding something Significant. Instead, you just churn out excited brief notes on whatever track has dropped into your feed in the last 5 minutes.

That's what Pitchfork are doing with their offshoot Altered Zones. 15 bloggers post prolifically "with a sensibility that could be fairly described as post-critical". Because, says Reynolds, "there's just too much [music], and that filtering doesn't seem to be quite the thing to do with it"

So far, so typically net/ADHD/affect-driven. More interesting is the implied link between this cultural surplus and a culture of nostalgia.

"Everybody knows" that we're drowning in nostalgia. But our nostalgia has two distinct patterns, one transitional, the other here to stay. The first is our parent's nostalgia -- the mainstream, modernist-nationalist TV nostalgia of "remember the 80s" shows. This variant functions as a stand-in for the mass culture of the past, a nicotine patch for modernism. It conjures up a feeling of experiencing the same media alongside your neighbours, friends and enemies. Since that shared culture no longer exists in the present, it's transposed into the past.

So that form of mass-culture nostalgia is a transition phenomenon: it'll vanish as there are no longer generations growing up with mass-culture upbringing. "Remember the 90s" is already strugging; "Remember the noughties" perhaps won't function at all.

But the 'nostalgia' currently riding high in music is something else entirely. It's "ahistorical omnivorousness":

I don't think [it] really has much to do with all the '80s ghosts haunting this music. From YouTube to sharity blogs, the Internet is an ever-expanding data sea, and these young musicians are really explorers, voyaging into the past and diving for pearls.

Bruce Sterling covered this last year in a speech at the Transmediale digital art festival in Berlin:

So how do we just — like — sound out our new scene? What can we do to liven things up, especially as creative artists?

Well, the immediate impulse is going to be the ‘Frankenstein Mashup.’ Because that’s the native expression of network culture. The “Frankenstein mashup” is to just take elements of past, present, and future and just collide ‘em together, in sort of a collage. More or less semi-randomly, like a Surrealist “exquisite corpse.”

tw: yes

bp

Afghanistan. Still a war there, y'know.
And every time you look away for a while, the news gets steadily worse.

Here is a horrifying story of bombing a village into oblivion. But the writer is in total sympathy with the military, and doesn't understand how anybody could dislike their home being destroyed::

Mohammad [one of the villagers]...in a fit of theatrics had accused Flynn of ruining his life after the demolition
...
clearing operations are a necessary evil to weed out the Taliban, and they often leave devastating destruction in the wake. But [critics overlook] the tremendous effort some units, like 1-320th, have made to rebuild his country

There's been entirely justified outrage at wired and at Central Asia blog Registan

what is happening right now in Southern Afghanistan is inexcusable. There were rumors of this policy of collective punishment in the Arghandab before (see this overwrought Daily Mail story that stops right before the village actually was destroyed for an idea of what is going on), and I’m really struggling to see how such behavior does not violate Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention—that is, how this behavior is not a war crime, especially given the explicit admission that such behavior is merely for the convenience of the soldier and not any grander strategy or purpose.

I cannot comprehend why the deliberate destruction of villages seems to be an official, sanctioned ISAF policy in the South. Is is abhorrent, an atrocity, and there is no excuse for it (nor are there words for the anger it’s stirred in me, reading about it from afar; I suspect Broadwell would sniff at me to stop whining as well, were we to discuss it in person). This should outrage and infuriate everyone who reads about it. But, and this is where I move from rage to despair: how could we ever possibly hope to stop it?

Extra horror: read the comments on any of the posts above. They're all full of people defending the policy of blowing up villages for the good of the inhabitants.

Unsorted notes on

Robert Fisk

The Arabs used to say that two-thirds of the entire Tunisian population – seven million out of 10 million, virtually the whole adult population – worked in one way or another for Mr Ben Ali's secret police

[doh: so what kind of recrimination can they look forward to? Truth and reconciliation? Look at how stasi files are still and issue in Germany, 20 years on]

More Fisk

the "unity" government is to be formed by Mohamed Ghannouchi, a satrap of Mr Ben Ali's for almost 20 years, a safe pair of hands who will have our interests – rather than his people's interests – at heart.

Also: Amelia Andersdotter on the internet aspects. She also raises the prospect of Tunisia becoming a francophone outsourcing destination (not that there's a shortage of those

Justified boosterism

John Samson

John Samson, a mostly-ignored documentary-maker active in the 70s:

In 1977 Samson made Dressing For Pleasure, a documentary about ordinary people who enjoyed dressing in rubber and who approached their fetish with a matter of factness that seems almost quaint. The film was an immediate sensation among British fashion designers and within the London punk scene and was promptly banned as a video nasty. It ended becoming one of the most ripped off British films of the 1970s.

weakness of EU response to Tunisia

Criticism

Left-wing, liberal and Green MEPs however have expressed their dismay at a "delayed" and "weak" response to the killings by foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton.

Emelie Doromzee, of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, told EUobserver that the EU should suspend its talks with the government and more strongly condemn the regime's actions: "Until now, the language has been so far from what one would expect and sees elsewhere. The EU has put out a very weak statement. It's past the stage of written statements. It's almost a month now that these protests have been going on. We need concrete actions from the EU."

dictatorship air miles

The Guardian on the wife of the ousted president:

The former hairdresser and her extended family had a grip on business, construction and foreign investment, living a lifestyle so lavish they would fly in food from other continents for parties.

What's hilarious is how this excess is something the supermarkets achieve constantly for European consumers. Just with much greater efficiency.

Government consultants working for free

City firms are doing government work for free in the hope of getting future contracts when times are easier and the public aren't looking:

On one recent government contract five contractors all bid to undertake the work for £1, he said. But Downey also acknowledged that there was a degree of self-interest on the part of firms, which are expecting a resurgence of consultancy in government in the near future.

It's like medieval nobles showering the king with gifts, knowing he'll repay them ten times over with other people's possessions.

Catherine Ashton's attendance record

I never liked the idea of Baroness Ashton running EU foreign policy.

Now blogger and Telegraph journalist Bruno Waterfield is gunning for over her invisibility during her first year in place:

Lady Ashton does not possess the political nous or commitment of an elected politician. Apart from one or two months last year, she has shown herself to be unwilling to travel or work over weekends. Working Monday to Friday might be fine for a jobsworth public official or serial quango/Lords appointee but it’s not good enough for an EU foreign minister. People who want to change the world have to give up prosaic ideas like the work/life balance.

And here's Ronny Patz:

when you are in Brussels, a lot of people complain about the way EU “foreign minister” Ashton works....
I doubt that with her limited amount of involvement into the core Commission work (represented through her participation record) she really was having her voice heard

Spider jerusalem confronts death

Spider Jerusalem, faced with impending death:

Posting from vim

A while ago, I got excited about posting to this blog from vim. Then I upgraded things, got distracted, forgot about it, and it seems now _not to work_

easiest way I can find is to save the text into a new file, then do:

google blogger post --title "Posting from vim" --tags "technology, vim,google,howto" %

Mating: curious love

I'm loving Mating, albeit in a slightly guilty way -- it tweaks a few of my traits a bit too precisely, with not enough outside-world to make it seem harmless. p. 261-2:

A thing that corrupts N's worldview is his own demonic energy, whyich is what socalled greatness may in fact reduce to. He's unnatural. He can work six hours flagstoning or paving, scabs of cement stuck all over hi body, a bite to eat, into the bathing engine, and he's all set to work late into the night reading and writing and using his abacus.

Maybe Maimed: prejudice is the media equivalent of pollution. I agree with this, and it goes far beyond porn:

Porn companies are companies, and they have a product. What makes their product different from, say, a steel mill or a coal mine is that their product is largely cultural, not material. They operate in a completely different arena; they do not have to deal with resource scarcity or distribution in the same way, for example. But this does not mean they do not pollute. They do. Kink, Inc. is a massive polluter.

Historical rhetoric of the left is, as a rule, a thousand times better than the current stuff. Even when it's basically content-free. Jim Cannon, via Ken MacLeod

That is the realistic perspective of our great movement. We ourselves are not privileged to live in the socialist society of the future, which Jack London, in his far-reaching aspiration, called the Golden Future. It is our destiny, here and now, to live in the time of the decay and death agony of capitalism. It is our task to wade through the blood and filth of this outmoded, dying system. Our mission is to clear it away. That is our struggle, our law of life.

Here is a potential project for the weekend:

If you subscribe to the NYT's RSS feeds, you can actually watch the headlines evolve as the story is updated throughout the day. It's really quite interesting, though I've never seen one specifically de-sexualized.

Cibelle

I'm not entirely convinced by Bruce Sterling's love of Cibelle. He says of the 'Abravanista' movement around her:

So the Abravanista crowd are a kind of "oh fuck off" counterculture who have gone into a vibrant, post-traumatic creative scene. It's this air of surreal nihilism that puts some iron in their bones. It's why I take them seriously and consider them global-scale trend-setters as an art movement.

Also entertaining is that she's very firm about being based in Dalston -- in the same way as artists of other generations might emphasise being in the Castro, or the Greenwich Village, or the Left Bank. Queue laughter from all my father's generation

Have been reading posts by/about refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants. There's some great stuff out there; the one constant seems to be black humour

Mo says when we can finally work his friend can get me a job in McDonald’s. I’ll remember to wear a suit for the interview. Why don’t you go for the job, I say. It’ll take your mind off the goat. He looks at me angrily and leaves.

4:30 p.m. It turns out the goat was a decoy for worse news. Apparently Mo’s great aunt has testicular cancer. An incorrect translation, I hope.

5 p.m. Back in the room I try to cheer Mo up by reminding him he is twenty years younger than me and has a great future. But I am not sure he appreciated me as a gauge for his achievements. After all, the boy has dreams. Maybe one day he’ll make it to Hollywood. They are always looking to fill those crowd scenes.

Charming introduction to Theodore Zeldin's books of French history:

Zeldin's approach can be understood as a kind of historical ethnography, while Todd's approach emphasizes processes and structures of nation formation.

What's striking is how out-of-place Zeldin's work must be in contemporary academic history -- but equally, how it's the kind of history people really want to write, and to read. I'm becoming increasingly sympathetic to the idea of some kind of revival of 19th century humanities, with the diligence and the emotional involvement. I'm not sure if you can manage that without the racism and shallowness -- though is it really better to have your prejudices concealed behind dull prose and academic walls?

Create harder, or the sunspots will get you

The Sekhmet Hypothesis is the idea that pop-culture upheavals follow sunspot patterns. Every 11 years the sunspots hit a peak, and so there's a culture shift. If you squint really hard you can kind of see it. Warren Ellis:

1955 -- the dawn of rock'n'roll. 1966 00 is when the Sixties happened. 1977 --- punk epxlodes. 1988 -- aciiiid. 1999 -- fucking nothing.

So, we're now in a cultural rut which even bizarre sunspot theories can't extricate us from. Ellis again:

here in the Zero Years of the 21, even those most reliable engines of creation of the last half of C20, Britain and Japan (both islands, both post-imperialist, both post-major and incredibly damaged economic shell games, both finding their stations as makers of art) are coming up empty. Coldplay and Fruits Basket? Give me strength.

It's a chilling thought, but maybe worth considering, even only as a Threat Condition to be armed against: maybe we're stuck here.

[compare: the post-temporality Bruce Sterling has been turning into a theme, e.g. in his transmediale keynote last year]

Adam Curtis, Behaviorism and Behavioral Economics

Adam Curtis has a blog

Curtis is IMO the most interesting documentary-maker currently active, by a healthy margin. He spends months or years closeted in the BBC archives, intermittently emerging with documentaries like The Trap or The Power of Nightmares.

Most of his documentaries fit into a coherent project, an intellectual history of the 20th century. What continually fascinates him is the interaction between emotions and politics, how ideas about human nature shape how we see ourselves, and so form the background assumptions which justify political movements. As he told Charlie Brooker:

"What I'm hoping they'll do is pull back like in a helicopter and look at themselves and think about how they're a product of history, and of power, and politics, as much as a product of their own little inner desires. We're all part of a big historical age. That's just what we are. And, sometimes, we forget."

The blog extends these themes, often accompanied by decades-old clips which might otherwise never have found there way online.

Here is a typically fascinating post. Curtis takes Behavioural Economics -- popularised in 'Nudge' and by Dan Ariely, now being politically weaponized by Cameron's Behavioural Insight Unit -- and ties it to Behavoiurism. This is the psychological apporoach* of treating the mind as a black box, not trying to understand it internally but just tracking how it responds to certain stimuli. Curtis:

Drawing on... behaviourist ideas [Nudge author] Thaler wrote a paper in 1981 with a great title - An Economic Theory of Self-Control.

This is what lies behind the Downing Street unit's plans to find mechanisms to manipulate people so they will do "good" things - like save more for retirement or eat less bad food.

Skinner himself was acutely aware that modifying human behaviour in these ways raises serious political questions. Not just about individual freedom, but about who decides what is "good" behaviour, and what happens when others decide it is bad.

These are questions that the Nudge enthusiasts seem to be blithely unaware of.

The whole blog is fascinating, and is at the very least full of arguements to interestingly disagree with. I'm a fan.

* 'approach' because it hovers uneasily between being a methodological practice of conducting experiments and a theory of how the mind works. It's comparable to the 'homo economicus' model of rational self-interest in economics. Both are trivially true, but only if you sideline some of the most important causes of behaviour. Both function very well in narrow circumstances which make for good journal articles, tempting researchers to focus on those circumstances and ignore the rest. Both thus had a similar academic trajectory -- innumerable grad students applying the theories in ways that were clever, internally consistent, and applied to the real world only if you ignored the footnotes -- attacked continually by outsiders determined to blame the theory for the shortcomings of its application.