Urban Legends

Debtonation: how globalisation dies:
”when the financial sector faced meltdown it had to rely on the state - in the form of central banks in United States, Europe and Japan alike - to intervene in order to restore a semblance of stability. In the real world, citizens and taxpayers are once again obliged to bear responsibility, and pay the costs incurred by the reckless and unrestrained greed of the world of high finance.”

Your Tax Dollars at work – their real duties...

The end of gentlemanly capitalism:
”Over the past week, we - the rich-world voter and taxpayer - have bailed out the hedge-funds, their bankers and their counterparts caught in the global squeeze on credit. Again. It happened in 2001 and in 1998. The financial system has once more fallen into the soft, bouncy, but ultimately comfortable safety-net (trampoline?) that we - all of us together, through our central banks and the losses we are prepared to underwrite as taxpayers - extend to troubled financiers.”

To repeat:

have bailed out the hedge-funds, their bankers and their counterparts caught in the global squeeze on credit. Again.

So much for “Winners” and “the Strong” – all the hot air about free market, about risks and benefits is just their way of freedom to get everything they want while risking nothing personally, to take the benefits and let us (and the so much blamed state) bear the risks...

Noam Chomsky is right – about the modern “convenient myth”...

Urban Legends, created by the HaveMores to silence the stupid masses (sorry, Bill and Melinda, but you know, you are exceptional), to make them pay and suffer for the Aristocracy.

Pharao told his people he would be god – and Rockefeller tells his people he would be good...

A Shadow of Itself II

... is the American Constitutional Legality...

found that:

Congress Works To Give NSA Some Leeway on FISA Taps:
”"I think they want to monitor all foreign to U.S. e-mails and phone calls without limitation and without distinguishing whether someone has any relation to terror or not. You boil it down, that is it," a senior legislative counsel at the ACLU, Tim Sparapani, said in an interview yesterday.”

the War on Terror...

with all that evil enemies! Those suspect Americans, talking with all those dangerous aliens like the Brits, the French, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Germans, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Latvians,.....

btw: Who asked the foreigners? Who asked their judges, their legislative? Who cared for their rights?

At least the foreign providers, security specialists and software producers are happy now – good marketing argument not to touch American products or providers and to buy as much as you can to defend yourself against the spying...

Chinese...

A Shadow of Itself

... is the American Wealth ...

and everyone knows:

Q&A: World stock market falls:
”The value of the world's major companies has taken a tumble as the world's stock markets have plunged in recent days - one of several such sharp declines in the past few months.”

They all wait for the Final Countdown – it’s something like the “Money Chicken Game”: on the one hand no one wants to start the avalanche, on the other hand no one wants to miss this start all know it will come...

Noam Chomsky:
”Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of our industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic formulation. Now it's long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering and injustice it entails, as long as it's possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can.”

(Emphasis Mine)

Money versus Miners

Rescuers resume Utah miner search:
”US federal mining inspectors have issued 325 citations for alleged safety violations at the mine since January 2004. Of those, 116 were considered "significant and substantial" and likely to cause injury.”

No comment.

Bridges, Steam Pipes and Taxes

Taxes – in a democracy – are for things like monitoring bridges, steam pipes and other civil infrastructure.

Your (lack of) tax dollars at work...

Daily Life or The Way The World Goes

Some days ago i had to visit the bathroom of very good friends of mine...

and there happened what sometimes happens – little yellow spots on the floor and i instinctively thought: “What a slut!” Of course, i immediately apologized to her, even though it occurred only inside my head...

but you know: actions depend on decisions, decisions depend on description – our actions and decisions are based on our description of the world outside. What we think determines what we do. So, since i respect that woman, i could never allow myself to think like that, especially because i know that she wasn’t the “causer”. And before i could say “Jack Robinson”, i was pondering about the spots, the right to produce ugly things, the duty to clear them away, Mr. Bush and the Iraq War,the meaning of life and the way, the world goes...

i always do that. I even mulled over the Major and the Minor Arcades and came to the conclusion that the latter must be much younger than the first. Anyway...

of course, i remembered the fierce struggle about toilet seats and the first time i heard of it and that i simply thought: “ridiculous”...

again...

“ridiculous” – especially the women, of course...

because in that struggle they are the losers, the ones who react with outrage...

while the winners scoff at them...

yes, that’s it and i guess, everyone knows that. It is not about sitting or standing, it is not about “the pride of man” and the “nagging wife”...

it is about Mr. Bush mocking the begging death-row inmate...

it is about power creating contempt, about dominance and humiliation, about masters and slaves...

i’ve heard that the French Aristocracy dropped their biological waste also wherever and whenever they wanted. It’s all about the rights without the duties, the right to produce ugly things while others have the duty to clear them away...

even at the core of society, the family, the parents, there has to be a master and a slave...

that is what the toilet seats are all about – and be honest, my dear males, it is not your “freedom” you defend, you do not fear the “dominance” of the women by demanding to “mark your territory” however you want. They just reject the humiliation of duties without rights, they just defend themselves using the principle of reversibility, because (again, be honest, my dear males) if the women would do the ugly things, YOU would never clear them away, wouldn’t you?

And so i shook my head in despair…

to survive, humankind has to learn to live democratically, to reach the state of justice as the optimum for efficiency, because since we act as a whole to kill our Earth, we simply have to act as a whole to learn to safeguard our natural resources. It is all about the fact, that each information processing system, be it cell or society, has an apex of intelligence, a level, where further increase of intelligence would no longer be “economical”, no longer results in a sufficient increase of “profit” = improvement of prognosis and decisions (Gain cost function of intelligence). Our brains, our individual “systems” reached that point once – and invented language to overcome it, showing the way the world goes – towards dense communication among brains, among individuals to create a stable network.

But in a physical world of conservation of energy, resource awareness is a Must to survive, which means, that information processing systems have to care for efficiency, for “load-balancing” of the network of interactions.

For humankind – that simply means: justice.

I know, there is only a small probability, that you can accept this fact: justice as a physical state of a dynamical, interacting system marking the state of the highest efficiency.

But i guess, you may believe the stock market?

Just think of the conclusions of justice as the optimum of efficiency: What does that mean, what happens, when a system moves towards or away from the optimum? What happens with more justice or less justice (given the same resources)? More justice leads to more effectivity, less justice leads to less effectivity. That’s it.

And we, in our “pseudo-democracies”, reached a state where the loss of justice is already so remarkable, that the loss of effectivity becomes...

measurable…

measurable at the stock market level:

Employee Satisfaction and Equity Prices

and it goes on...

Distrust – The Hidden Cost of Control

Work Life Balance, and Productivity

Labor Unrest and the Quality of Production

Strikes, Scabs and Tread Separation

Sure, these studies are fare more sophisticated and scientific than just: “increase of justice => increase of effectivity”…

but i guess, you’ll see what i mean.

We urgently have to overcome the power games in our lifes, because how can we live in democracies without all those Mr. Bushs mocking about others begging for mercies, be it death-row inmates, mothers of KIA soldiers or Iraqi children, if we aren’t even able to live in democracy as parents, as husbands and wives?

Husbands and wives – do you know, that the Afghans not even have a word for “wive”? AFAIK they call them “possession”…

how should people like that be able to reach a state of more dense communications? When half of the population treats the other like goods, not souls? Do you really believe, that masters will ever listen to slaves? No, you don’t – and me too. That’s the reason why i think that the next step of evolution (towards a more dense communication, a more intertwined network of intelligent individuals, creating a body out of disparate parts) will not be done by humankind, but maybe by the successors of the crows.

How should the future look for a species, where the dominant part claims to base his dominance on his ability to dispose his biological waste however he wants? Waste as basis of manly pride? Wouldn’t that mean that every boy’s dream would be to become a garbage man?

Or is it about the “causer” of the waste – the duality of the reproduction organ? So is it about telling the women, that they themselves decide what to do with their body – and never care about the wishes of the women – neither in reproduction nor in hygiene? Wouldn’t that shed an interesting light on the discussion about abortion, where the men also claim to have the right to decide and the women as the “working body” only have the duties? Wouldn’t that shed an interesting light on societies with forced marriages and laws, where rape is the right of the husband upon his wife?

All about power, about masters and slaves…

even at the heart of our lifes, where fathers and mothers, where love and respect should be…

Ask and Embla, Philemon and Baucis…

just a fairy tale of synergy?

Husband and wifes – only rapers and toilet attendants?

how should we be able to survive when our world goes like that?

And so i shake my head in despair...

Varus – Or: To Each Rome Its Own Teutoburg

If you know Rome, you know the name “Varus” and the “Germanic Tribes”, signifying the end of Rome, and you certainly know the famous words “Quinctili Vare, legiones redde!”. You know the “Battle of Teutoburg Forest” and maybe “Kalkriese”, but do you know “Waldgirmes”?

“Waldgirmes” is the modern name of a Roman “starting city”, abandoned after the disaster in Teutoburg.

After Teutoburg, anything was different for Rome. History was changed:

Roman Empire:
”Being cautious, Augustus secured all territories west of Rhine and contented himself with retaliatory raids. The rivers Rhine and Danube became the permanent borders of the Roman empire in the North.”

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest:
”The battle abruptly ended the period of triumphant and exuberant Roman expansion that had followed the end of the Civil Wars 40 years earlier. Augustus' stepson Tiberius took effective control, and prepared for the continuation of the war. Rome gradually slid into a period of tyranny and oppression lasting much of the rest of the first century.”

Each Empire, like each other Schoolyard Bully, needs the Smell of Death around it, needs the fear instilled even by its name, needs the aura of invincibility – and exactly that Arminius took away. It wasn’t only the fact, that the other people noticed that Rome was defeatable...

Publius Quinctilius Varus:
”So great was the shame, and the ill luck thought to adhere to the numbers of the Legions, that XVII, XVIII and XIX never again appear in the Roman Army's order of battle.”

Rome never forgot Teutoburg and the “Bello Variano” – never was able again to believe its own fairy tale of invincibility.

Teutoburg taught the Romans, that no one ever can forever create an Empire based on believings. And don’t think that Varus was an idiot – he just has to pay the price for ignorance, because ignorance is not always a bliss. Empires are based on power and power is based on control, but to control systems, intelligence and knowledge is much more important than force.

Rome did know that – Rome perfectly, maybe intuitively knew, that brute force isn’t a tool for politics, isn’t a working strategy for society, because you always don’t have to control the direct impact but the consequences, and the consequences of the consequences and the....

and the more force you push into a system, the more interactions and consequences you have to control. To get in power, brute force might work – as long as destruction is your goal, the destruction of the power of the "enemy", but to stay in power, destruction is only counterproductive, because the destruction might easily be the destruction of YOUR power. Remember Croesus, Pythia and the river Halys?

Enters “Waldgirmes”...

The starting city, proving “Phase II”. After the conquest and suppression of the “new land” by brute force and overwhelming destruction, the “redevelopment plan” comes into focus. And this simply means: Build “Second Romes” everywhere, buy the people with luxury and goods and marketplaces, while demanding taxes and compensation for all the fine things – and especially demanding obeisance and slavish obedience.

You surely know “Life of Brian”? Remember the “What have the Romans ever done for us?” sketch?

Doesn’t that sound very familiar? Very modern?

First kill, than cash?

Doesn’t remind you “Waldgirmes” of the plans to get the Iraq oil? First maim their children, then buy their souls with the American Way of Life?

Doesn’t that shed a new light on the comparisons of America with Rome? Rome as “role model” for the “PNAC”...

But for each Rome there is an Arminius – because the more power, the more to control and after a while it is impossible to know enough to control the system, so you become dependent...

dependent on your underlings...

dependent on their input...

Varus wasn’t an idiot, he just couldn’t learn everything about the new provinces he had to “civilize”. He had successfully subdued Syria and so got order to do the same with Provincia Germania. And he did his job, but never had the time to get to know the country and its people...

and he never learnt the language, the portal to the soul...

(reminds you also of Iraq?)

so he simply was dependent on someone who speaks the language and knows the culture...

as the Americans now need today...

and – think of the stories of “Mash” – needed translators and fraternizers since quite a while.

You see what i think? I think that Vietnam is the American Teutoburg, because it was the first time, America suffered “great shame” and for a while, power seemed to have lost its “power”.

But i guess the men of PNAC understood clearly, that invincibility is the foundation of an Empire – and that Augustinus acceptance of the fact, that Provincia Germania couldn’t be annexed by the Roman Way of Life, was the beginning of the end.

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest:
”Augustus' stepson Tiberius took effective control, and prepared for the continuation of the war. Rome gradually slid into a period of tyranny and oppression lasting much of the rest of the first century.”

I guess, Iraq might have had to serve a dual purpose: not only to make somebody money, but to get back invincibility.

But the men of PNAC forgot something very important – the belief in your invincibility cannot be restored by killing more human souls, the knowledge of the defeat will always be stronger.

So i guess, the men of PNAC will maybe learn, what Augustus had gained from cautiousness:

Time.

Time to recover, time to conquer others, time to stay in power – because Augustus knew that Rome could never stand a second Teutoburg.

And looking at the Green Zone, i guess, the men of PNAC now learn, how wise Augustus was.