Post modernism-Marxism

Here we go, an uber super duper short briefing on post modernism, so that we can all become better persons.
Everything post but cereal.

Post modernism is often mistakenly thought of as one big theory, however in reality, it is a large collection of various 20th century theories dealing with identity and power. The theories to be briefed today include marxism, post-structuralism, feminism, post-colonialism, and queer/gender theories. Another large theory not to be covered is race theories but those tend to be loaded guns and full of dense/diverse info.

Foundations of post modernism
A. Dialectical idealism. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (could you imagine having that name?!?) wrote the Phenomenology of Spirit, Science of Logic, Philosophy of Right. Basically, the dialectical idealism is the idea that the world is governed by ideas and naturally moving towards the Truth. Capital T. An thus, thesis leads to antithesis which leads to synthesis.

B. MARXISM. My favorite. Karl Marx -dialectal materialism; breaking down capitalism. He thought the world and ideals are governed by the means of production. He believed that production was the product of a system consisting of two parts: Substructure, and superstructure. Substructure was the means of production. Superstructure was religion, politics, ethics, and human nature (the opiate of the people). The substructure was the inner core, and it dictated the superstructure to trick people into working the capitalistic system. While the real engine was the substructure, people followed the rules of society and behaved as they did because of the superstructure. The superstructure is like a veil to the capitalistic system i suppose. Thesis=ruling class (status quo)>antihesis = working class>synthesis = progress.

Marx thought that history was the record of class struggle and naturally moved toward a communist utopia. His historical example included lords and serfs of feudal society, where the serfs rebeled to change the feudal system to mercantilism. His criticism of capitalism was of profit; he had a labor-added theory of value. Normally, material + labor = value. However, in capitalism, material + labor + profit = price. Profit, was an artificial ingredient that further benefitted the bourgeois; profit had no inherent value.

The definition of bourgeois owned the means of production while the proletariet sold their labor to the bourgeois. Thus the class society. David Ricardo's Iron Law of Wages stated that factory owners should only pay their workers enough to get them to come back the next day. Any more payment would be a waste and result only in proletariat unnecessary luxuries such as warm bread and blankets. Bastard.
Anyways, the boom and bust cycles of capitalism are pretty consistent. WHen in the boom cycle, proletariat live on their wages, and during the bust cycles, they live on nothing. The bourgeois have savings during bust periods. The Law of Increased Misery thus states: After enough bust cycles the proletariat will see part the superstructure and realize that is problems are caused by the capitalist system. After a revolt, the a communist utopia would be worked towards.

A government would then control the transition to utopia but then wither away. From then on: To each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.

And that, is Marxism in a nutshell.

The main critics of marxism complain about how human nature would prevent people from living by the mandate stated two lines above. Really , though, I think the checks on that are sufficient. First off, human nature is malleable. It really is, you can teach someone communitarian values through childhood and they'd growup perfect for this utopianism. Another critic is that people wouldn't work hard for nothing when they can not work for something. However, think about societal norms. Even if your human nature wasn't reared to be communitarian, a glutton who doesnt work in in this utopia and takes 10 ferraris would look pretty stupid. He can only drive 1 ferrari at a time and if all his neighbors also have ferarris, he just sticks out as the dumbass. Hence he is shamed and has a deterrant from taking advantage of this utopia. While most insist its still too idealistic, i think there's hope.

Well, that concludes this first part. I shall continuing posting more later. If anybody wants a particular order or to skip any topics, please say so! if not, I shall write to my whim.

Bolton, as promised.

Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution:

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Everybody has been buzzing about it for a while, but even so... I was SHOCKED when the top story from the Washington Post reported Bush's installation of John Bolton as the U.S. representative to the United Nations.

Basically, the idiot in this fiasco has been Bolton himself. HE should have stepped down, seeing that 1. he simply won't be confirmed by the Senate 2. he's still the worst man for the job, and 3. the people at UN already hate him.

Let's look at these step by step:

1. He couldn't be confirmed by the Senate.

I ABHOR the fact that the White House is making Bolton the "victim" of unfair partisan hackery. It is true that if a vote was to be held, Bolton would pass... barely. I can IMAGINE the pressure they put on Voinovich and other moderates who wanted to vote against him in the committee. Also, it's the WHITE HOUSE that wouldn't turn over the documents. Refusing to do so only made the Senate Dems think, "So, what have they got to hide about Bolton that is so potentially bad?" It's not a conspiracy-theory... It's a logical response to the overwhelming use of secrecy by the White House. The WaPost article quoted Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA):

"The abuse of power and the cloak of secrecy from the White House continues," Kennedy said. "It's bad enough that the administration stonewalled the Senate by refusing to disclose documents highly relevant to the Bolton nomination. It's even worse for the administration to abuse the recess appointment power by making the appointment while Congress is in this five-week recess."

The bolded phrase is key in refuting any right-wing argument on conniving Senate dems denying "competent" (note use of quotations to indicate questionable use of the word) nominees a fair confirmation vote.

Since then, the impasse focused on Democrats' demands to see two sets of documents related to Bolton's State Department work. One involved national security intercepts of conversations.

Democrats wanted to know whether Bolton was seeking secret information on rivals in the intelligence and foreign policy communities. The other documents involved Syria and questions of whether Bolton misled lawmakers about his role in compiling them.

I can go as far as saying that the Senate Democrats were BRAVE in holding back on Bolton for the good of the country. Without it, Bolton would've passed. But the VERY FACT that the administration's holding back facts might signal possibly disastrous information on Bolton that would make him an even more unsuitable candidate for the position.

2. He's the worst possible man for the job.

Then again, he fits the Bush administration's nomination strategy: identify and nominate the person who has been most effective in destroying a particular government branch or agency. This explains all the anti-environmental lobbyists being appointed to the Environmental Protection Agency, and now... the most undiplomatic man in the State Department to the United Nations, an international organization for diplomacy.

I won't even continue on WHY he's so bad. Montague preemptively announced my monster-attack on Bolton INSTALLATION (kind of like installing a devastating virus) because I haven't had a very favorable opinion of John Bolton since... oh, since he was first nominated in March.

Decaf- April 22, 2005
Xanga- May 10, 2005
Decaf- May 12, 2005
Decaf- June 20, 2005

Oh, and there's more now... On July 28, it was reported that Bolton had given the Senate committee INACURATE INFORMATION.

John Bolton, the nominee for U.N. ambassador, inaccurately told Congress he had not been interviewed or testified in any investigation over the past five years, the State Department said Thursday, responding to a Democratic critic.

Bolton was interviewed by the State Department inspector general as part of a joint investigation with the Central Intelligence Agency related to Iraqi attempts to buy nuclear materials from Niger, State Department spokesman Noel Clay said.

When Bolton filled out a Senate questionnaire in connection with his nomination, “he didn’t recall being interviewed by the State Department’s inspector general. Therefore, his form, as submitted, was inaccurate,” Clay said. “He will correct it.”

The response came after Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asserting Bolton had been interviewed and suggesting he had not been truthful in his questionnaire.

Oh, but it doesn't stop there. It gets even better:

A federal grand jury is investigating who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the news media. Biden’s initial request followed a report that Bolton was among State Department undersecretaries who “gave testimony” about a classified memo that has become an important piece of evidence in the leak investigation.

Ed Schulz was fuming about how Bolton didn't "remember". Who the hell doesn't remember a FEDERAL GRAND JURY TESTIMONY? Unless, of course, they've been investigated too many times and lost count. >.<

3. The people at UN hate him.

It doesn't matter what Kofi says... There's no way that ANYBODY working at the UN should be happy about this.

- United States was presumtuous, ARROGANT, and selfish in its "War on Terror"

- The current administration HATES the U.N. and nominated the guy who once said that knocking off ten floors of the UN building in New York City wouldn't make any difference and that the UN's only purpose in the world is to serve the United States foreign policy.

- If the next representative of an important member nation was one of the harshest critics of your organization, would you trust him?

- If other ambassadors in the UN don't trust the U.S. envoy, what can the U.S. accomplish? NOTHING.

Ah, so this presumtuous soundrel is nothing but TROUBLE:

Two months ago, while his confirmation was in trouble, Bolton began efforts to double the office space reserved within the State Department for the ambassador to the United Nations, according to three senior department officials who were involved in handling the request.

Previous ambassadors have kept a small staff in Washington in a modest suite. Bolton told several colleagues he needed more space and a larger staff in Washington because, if confirmed, he intended to spend more time here than his predecessors did. "Bolton isn't going to sit in New York while policy gets made in Washington"

Well, Mr. Bolton... We shall see just how PRODUCTIVE you are. How much State Department intelligence can you "fix" until your temporary term expires? How many diplomats can you scare away and offend with your unprofessional attitude? That's a lot of screwing-the-world to do before the fall of 2006. But I'm sure that your successor will very much enjoy the larger office space.

stay tued!

stay tuned kids, as i'm sure christie will put a monster post on boltons nomination.
also coming up, later tonight (around noon time for everyone in cali -_-) im gonna do a post on post modernism!
and now, a word from our sponsers.


this is nothing but a pre-emption of ms. cho's reaction.