1848+: Last and First Men

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/press-freedom-occupy-wall-street-us-arrests_n_1230825.html: Press Freedom Index: Occupy Wall Street Journalist Arrests Cost U.S. Dearly In Latest Survey
The targeting of journalists covering the Occupy Wall Street movement has caused the United States to drop precipitously in a leading survey of press freedom.

Reporters Without Borders’ latest Press Freedom Index was released on Wednesday, and the list reflected some of the tumult that took place in the world in 2011, as well as the impact that those events had on journalists across the globe. Reporters became targets over and over again throughout the year, both in the Middle East and on the streets of New York.

Some examples of the change wrought by the Arab Spring could be found in Tunisia, which the compilers moved up 30 places on the list in the wake of that country’s democratic revolution. Not so lucky were Bahrain and Egypt, both of which cracked down on journalists and on the popular movements pressing for further change in their countries. They fell 29 and 39 places, respectively, on the scale.

But the U.S. tumbled almost as far as Bahrain did in the wake of the repeated crackdowns on journalists covering Occupy movements. Reporters Without Borders was explicit in its summary of its report, saying that “the United States (47th) also owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests.”

The treatment of journalists by police was well documented throughout 2011. Reporters were beaten, arrested and prevented from covering police action against Occupy protesters. Tensions heightened so much that the New York Police Department had to meet with journalists and remind its officers not to mistreat them.

Prisons and profits. Is there any greater disconnect between public good and private interests than the rise of corporate-owned jails?… The Caging of America
Why do we lock up so many people?

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120130crat_atlarge_gopnik#ixzz1kUiVXsbq

Reposted from Darwiniana: Readers here, please note, that this blog was/is named Last and First Men (with th 1848 reference), and echoes this issue of Nietzsche, in the context of his ‘last man’ confusions, and Olaf Stapleton’s classic sci-fin novel
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/01/24/fulford-carving-a-nietzche/
I hope to read this book, American Nietzsche, but I am already a critic of that philosopher here: he was a very brilliant fellow, and generates a mystique that disguises the flaws in his thinking. In fact, the New Atheists give themselves away as falling into his lineage, and the flaws there. Nietzsche got science wrong, was, despite the appearance of critique, confused by Darwinism, and the result vitiates his views on history.
But, as long as reductionist scientism, and Darwinism, are unchallenged, Nietzsche will continue to confuse secularists.
The question of the last man is thus a botched job: the rise of democratic man from the modern enlightenment is not as Nietzsche thought. It is a core evolutionary advance on a species level. And Nietzschean fantasies of some ‘overman’ who stands beyond the masses is, as we can see from its dread legacy, not much of a much, beyond the superman comics versions.

From Darwiniana:
How Right-Wing Libertarians, John Birchers and Conspiracy Freaks Are Trying to Hijack the Occupy Movement

This is an important article, but on one point I think a clarification is needed: the post notes that ‘conspiracy theories’ were banned at an OWS forum.

While I think that dealing with the Tea Party libertarians in the OWS, and their conspiracy theories, can be maddening, the issue of conspiracies, as such, should remain on the table for the left, and the OWS. The left has been completely negligent in dealing with the 9/11 research, and the attempt to close the lid on this has backfired. Why let the libertarian right take over this issue? Suppression here is dangerous, and open to the charge of deception, further damaging the credibility of leftist groups, whose job should be to bring some discipline to the question.
It is important to deprive the right of this issue by making it a leftist issue, and doing it right. It is impossible to read leftist attacks on 9/11 conspiracy literature with a straight face.

There is no going back here: denial is no longer an option, save for Washington politicians steeped in the lies that made their power. The OWS needs to find a middle way between wide theories, and the fact suppression now required to not challenge the official accounts.
Note that theories can be bypassed here, as the stance needed focuses on the minimum: the holes in the official account. The OWS doesn’t have much of a choice here: so make the 9/11 challenges a simple refusal to buy the official account, without necessarily speculating about the governments’ covert actions. It is not possible to take government claims on 9/11 seriously. And the OWS is now a global movement: they cannot seriously hope to adopt the government’s propaganda on 9/11. It is hard for the old left to get clear on this, and the OWS is likely to succumb to the same syndrome. NOT!

How Right-Wing Libertarians, John Birchers and Conspiracy Freaks Are Trying to Hijack the Occupy Movement
The Occupy movement’s evolving agenda is in danger of being sullied by association with neo-Nazi David Duke and antigovernment crusader Ron Paul.

January 24, 2012 |
“End the Fed” signs, and other Ron Paul-inspired sloganeering have been a staple of Occupy encampments from the birth of the movement. To an extent, that reflects the Occupiers’ diversity of ideas. But Paul, who wrote a book called End the Fed in 2009, has a spotty reputation among champions of social justice, which was made worse this week with the release of another round of racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic comments excerpted from a newsletter he published throughout the 1980s.

At many Occupy encampments, “End the Fed” signs are everywhere, and Paul supporters are becoming more and more vocal — using the language of the Occupy movement in service of their extremist anti-government agenda.
[Read more →]

Published on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 by Common Dreams
Occupy Davos: Attendees Confront a New Wave of AngerPlus: George Soros on the Coming US Class War

Published on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 by RobertReich.org
The State of Our Disunion: A Globalizing Private Sector, A Government Overwhelmed by Corporate Money
by Robert Reich
Who should have the primary strategic responsibility for making American workers globally competitive – the private sector or government? This will be a defining issue in the 2012 campaign.
American business won’t and can’t lead the way to more and better jobs in the United States. First, the private sector is increasingly global, with less and less stake in America. Second, it’s driven by the necessity of creating profits, not better jobs. [Read more →]

Published on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 by Common Dreams
Occupying Libido: Negotiating a Landscape of Hypocrisy and Hungry Ghosts
by Phil Rockstroh
When Bill Clinton and his scary, scary libido stalked the public realm, Republicans warned his presence was so anathema to all things holy that his hot breath served to salt the wings of choirs of angels.
[Read more →]

The Jirga Medal of Honor
In the Age of Robotic Weapons
by RALPH NADER

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/25/in-the-age-of-robotic-weapons/

The U.S. war in Afghanistan is testing so much futuristic detect and destroy weaponry that it can be called the most advanced all-seeing invasion in military history. From blanket satellite surveillance to soldiers’ infra-red vision to the remotely guided photographing, killer drones to the latest fused ground-based imagery and electronic signal intercepts, the age of robotic land, sea, and air weaponry is at hand. [Read more →]