04.28.11
New Song of Egypt’s Elite
Nawal El Saadawi: New Song of Egypt’s Elite
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/27-6
Wall Street Tames Washington
Jim Hightower: Wall Street Tames Washington
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/27-2
Michigan’s “Emergency” Financial Regime
Glen Ford: Michigan’s “Emergency” Financial Regime: What Fascism Looks Like
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/27-7
WikiLeaks’ Guantánamo File
Andy Worthington: The Hidden Horrors of WikiLeaks’ Guantánamo File
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/27
BP Expects to Resume Drilling
BP Expects to Resume Drilling in Gulf of Mexico within Months
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/27-6
Detainees Fed to Afghan Torture System
Why US and NATO Fed Detainees to Afghan Torture System
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/27-2
Spreading risk
In Nuclear Accident, Risks Extend Beyond Evacuation Zone
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/27-4
Vermont health plan
Health Care for All Takes Big Stride in Vermont
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/27-5
Health Care Privatization
Margaret Flowers: GOP and Dem Push for Health Care Privatization Will Accelerate Costs and Deaths
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/27-8
04.27.11
Out of Africa
Out of Africa: How the Fruit Fly Made Its Way in the WorldScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2011) — The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster used to be found only in sub-Saharan Africa but about 10,000 years ago it began to colonize Asia and Europe. This period saw the start of human agriculture and the domestication of cats and oxen but we have no evidence to suggest that early agricultural practices were associated with significant global warming, so the fly’s northerly spread is thought to relate to genetic factors rather than to environmental changes.
Theoretical agnosticism
We fail to realize that rightly observing evolution, that is its mechanism, is very difficult, probably impossible, and therefore all debates over theory should modulate to a kind of agnoticism over theory, even as we can see the fact of evolution and its chronicle in its fuzzy glory.
Modernity, transition and divide
The Great Divide
The realization that modernity is evidentiary data showing an historical/dynamical system at work
can help to see why the debate over its triumphs, failures, and content are so vexed.
The system in question leaves its signature in the way that the Enlightenment, and all that came with it, from capitalism/socialism to revolution and the rest, peaked a the endpoint of a classic ‘transition’ in an intermittent series. It makes no sense til we study its relation to a larger whole, the evolution of civilization itself. And it was here that the dialectic emerged, as reminder that the outcome of this system was a play of opposities, not an ideology, a theatre of potential, and that was secularism, which isn’t a brand of scientism, new atheism, or postivistic dogmas of the Iron Cage.
Theism/atheism, dialectic, and–’the rest is silence’
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/618232-message-to-american-atheists
Hitchens sounds eloquent here, but to a larger perspective I think he is worried there is something missing in the New Atheism. We have been saying that all along, and there was a lot of commentary here on Hitchens’ book, from several years ago. I am sorry in one way since all of that feeds Xtianity and its traditionalism, but to challenge monotheism requires more than a brittle atheist screed.
I think Hegel, who I have critiqued enough times to have earned the right to cite, was at the real crux of the emergent atheism, as a strain of the Enlightenment. Within a generation of Holback the atheist perspective was challenged, and in many ways transcended, but by what? a comeback by theism, Feuerbachian atheism?
As Hamlet said, ‘the rest is silence’, and atheism was one of the non-survivors falling over dead on the corpse of theism.
Hegel spoiled many of his best ideas, driving Schopenhauer to a frenzy of contemptuous denunciatioon, but his sense of a ‘dialectic’ here is helpful, as long as you stay away from what he said about it. But the dialectic really points, not to the outcome of a debate, but to the history of a debate, and then all debates, which is the history of philosophy itself. The only refuge is therefore the moment of philosophy which is not yet science, forever, and beyond theology, which is eroding in the tide of modernity. That was why ‘philosophy’ became the king for a day in the tide of German classical philosophy, followed, significantly, by the coversion to positivistic scientism in the generation of, guess who, Marx and Engels. They tried to advance beyond, yet remained inside that earlier generation’s outlook, and we already have a fairly good experiment in the ‘new atheism’ leading nowhere in the development of the left. The sad outcome was that the left lost the ability to understand the exploitation of religion. The atheistic was an equal or worse exploitation, and the massacre of millions ceased to have meaning in the Stalinist phase.
The New Atheists should realize they are a curious replay, probably with conservative crypto tendencies, and no reall social program, save to produce the vulgar utiliarianism visible in Sam Harris’ junk ethics.
We can see the value of Hr
How is it that the New Atheists could have learned nothing from this immense experiement of the left in ‘atheism’.
I think the left should learn here. I am not saying the left should become ‘accomodationist’, but perhaps that it stand above the dialectic, the history of the debate, with something close to dynamic agnosticism with respect to theism/atheism.
If you embrace theism, you will be set up to disbelieve, and if you embrace atheism, you will equally be set up to disbelieve. I thiink that the ”rest is silence’ implies that silence with respect to the exhausted ‘god’ term is inevitable.
I think that the New Atheists should predict their own failure some time soon, and move to something related to what they are doing, but more intelligent. And the left should move to something better than their current stale post-Hegelianism.
That sounds too obvious to be relevant, but neither dogmatic theology nor scientific reductionism can accept this fate for the ‘god’ idea, and wish to go down fighting in another performance, I presume, of ‘the rest is silence’ dramatics. The resemblance of dogmatic theology and scientism is strikingd here: both wish to constrict the consciousness of their robots, in the name of soft (preferably invisible) totalitarian control, replacing self-knowledge the mono-focus of a mechanization of behavior. It is a sadomasochistic leather head cap, cutting off sensory awareness of larger realities, and attempting to make obedience total, the one through god submission, the other by submission to the absolutes, presumed, scientism dressed up as Science. It is this suspicious game in both cases, not the mechanical clash (dialectic) of science and religion, which is really a turf war by bullies.
Siberian Hot Springs
Can Siberian Hot Springs Reveal Ancient Ecology?ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2011) — Exotic bacteria that do not rely on oxygen may have played an important role in determining the composition of Earth’s early atmosphere, according to a theory that UChicago researcher Albert Colman is testing in the scalding hot springs of a volcanic crater in Siberia.
Plankton Fossils
Plankton Fossils Tell Tale of Evolution and ExtinctionScienceDaily (Apr. 26, 2011) — Scientists studying the fossils of tiny ocean-dwelling plankton, called foraminifera, have uncovered another piece in the puzzle of why species evolve or become extinct.
King Crabs Invade Antarctica
King Crabs Invade AntarcticaScienceDaily (Apr. 26, 2011) — It’s like a scene out of a sci-fi movie — thousands, possibly millions, of king crabs are marching through icy, deep-sea waters and up the Antarctic slope.
‘Soft Generators’
Replacing Batteries May Become a Thing of the Past, Thanks to ‘Soft Generators’ScienceDaily (Apr. 26, 2011) — Battery technology hasn’t kept pace with advancements in portable electronics, but the race is on to fix this. One revolutionary concept being pursued by a team of researchers in New Zealand involves creating “wearable energy harvesters” capable of converting movement from humans or found in nature into battery power.
Labor Is Not A Commodity!
Published on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 by In These Times
It’s Time to Revive an Old Rallying Cry: Labor Is Not A Commodity!
For America’s labor movement to survive, it must recommit to—and defend—the principles that once defined it
by Joe Burns
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/27-3
The Torture Mill
Why the US and NATO Fed Detainees to Brutal Afghan Security Service
The Torture Mill
By GARETH PORTER
http://www.counterpunch.org/porter04272011.html
Starting in late 2005, U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan began turning detainees over to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), despite its well-known reputation for torture.
C&C/apr26
CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM
An online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change, and the
ecosocialist alternative.
http://climateandcapitalism.com
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/CandC-FaceBook
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April 26, 2011 Read the rest of this entry »
Ralph Nader: Nuclear Disasters
Ralph Nader: Nuclear Disasters Should Be Met with Scientific Inquiry, Not Silence
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-10
Today Detroit – Tomorrow, Every City in America
Rania Khalek: Today Detroit – Tomorrow, Every City in America
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-3
War on Unions
The Right-Wing Network Behind the War on Unions
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/26-5
Gitmo Evidence
WikiLeaks: Just 8 at Gitmo Gave Evidence Against 255 Others
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/26
The Right-Wing Network Behind the War on Unions
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/26-5
and more…
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Video…
Chernobyl. Fukushima. Indian Point?
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2011/04/26-0
and more…
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Views…
Rania Khalek: Today Detroit – Tomorrow, Every City in America
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-3
Phil Rockstroh: Among Ciphers, Barn Burners and Confidence Artists: A Comb-Over Treatment for Declining Empire
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26
Karl Grossman: Nuclear Power Can Never Be Made Safe
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-2
Ira Chernus: Double Standard in U.S. Hurts Palestinians Most
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-5
Dean Baker: What We’re Not Being Told About Paul Ryan’s Medicare Plan
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-8
Ralph Nader: Nuclear Disasters Should Be Met with Scientific Inquiry, Not Silence
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-10
Shahin Cole and Juan Cole: An Arab Spring for Women: The Missing Story from the Middle East
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-4
Kay Tillow: America Needs a Single Payer Health Care System
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-7
Kymone Freeman: Power Shift 2011: Who Is Listening?
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-6
and more…
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Newswire…
Kucinich Plan to Lower Gas Prices: Windfall Profits Tax
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/04/26-9
Public Citizen: Twenty-Five Years After Chernobyl Disaster, History Repeats Itself
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/04/26-11
Witness Against Torture: Close Guantanamo with Justice Now
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/04/26-5
and more…
Western Water Woes
Report: Climate Change Worsens Western Water Woes
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/26-3
Vermont Single Payer Care
Vermont Senate Gives Initial Approval to Single Payer Care
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/26-7
Activists Occupy Oil Rig
Activists Occupy Oil Rig in Fight to Prevent Arctic Drilling
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/26-2
Banks Play Shell Game
Analysis: Banks Play Shell Game with Taxpayer Dollars
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/26-4
‘Bombshell’ Japan
Chernobyl Survivor Warns of ‘Bombshell’ Japan
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/26-0
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