Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 11:27:04 +1100
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: Fw: Films by Guy Debord


Thanks Eric,

A few comments at **

> I don't really agree with the ideas of Toffler and Friedman. I just
> mentioned them to show some of the things I was talking about weren't that
> unusual. I personally think both of them are very superficial. At one
time,
> Toffer let himself become Gingrich's boy and I recently read about someone
> who snuck into a class of Friedman's back in his glory days.

**In a TV interview, Toffler pointed out the fact that before the factory
system, children were educatee in the home.  A few years ago I met to a
young German
medical student on a train. Speaking of the USSR, I mentioned they had given
great opportunities to women to hold responsible jobs alongside men.  He
said the authorities wanted the women out of the home so they would have
more control over the children.

/The U.S. was slower in getting women out of the home, and authorities rant
on on and on about what happens to their children in school, but won't ante
up the taxes to patch leaky roofs and pay teachers decent salaries.

>
> The information about Yoga Inside came from a piece on NPR; the
information  about 'detourned' movies I think I read about in a Slate
article, but I
> really can't remember.  We move in the currents of swift and rushing
waters
> these days.

**I think I'd heard something about "Yoga Inside" but had forgotten it.

> I'm sorry you found Negri and Hardt such a negative experience. While I
> admit their analysis is far from perfect, I believe they were on the scene
> at the right moment and were able to put into words what some were feeling
> but couldn't yet express.  Now they can. The goal isn't to dispute or
> ignore Empire, but to find a way (or ways) that go beyond it.

**Yeah, but 490 pages for the 1 idea you endorse?

> Personally, I don't think it would require a dictatorship to realize the
> goals they express. I see it as merely the old idea of a democratic
welfare
> state extended to global scope.

**Is there a democratic welfare state?  Aren't welfare states operated the
way corporate  billionaires pay politicians to operate them.

> Of course, this is the very reason why many
> on the left criticize N&H for being reformist. Here is where I side with
> Lyotard. Beyond the metanarrative of revolution with its consoling ending,
> there remains the struggle which no longer dreams of finality, but simply
> keeps moving things forward and resisting what is wrong. I think what we
> are fighting for today is a real effort to deal with hunger and disease
and
> to create a global framework to deal with the bullies who sometimes have
> more tanks than sense. If we must be Hobbesian, can't we at least create a
> more friendly Leviathan?

**Who is the "We"?  There's no global authority. Six million Israelis
successfully defy the UN which represents 6 billion, but not Palestine,
since it isn't a State.  And also defy 280 million in the US, which dares
not cut off their $3 billion welfare check, or refuse them heavy weapons,
spare parts, or munitions.

The UN has an appearance of unity and performs some useful services.  But it
was carefully designed to minimize interference with nation-state
prerogatives.  So when push comes to shove, tanks and aerial bombardments
win.

A friendly Leviathan would prevent the multitude from sacrificing themselves
in holy wars, whether conducted with or without suicide bombers, high or low
technology.  It would allow global multitudes  to own and operate their own
farms, mines, factories; consume what they produce, and  avoid complex
technology that builds a 110 story structure which is destroyed in one hour
after a hit by one suicidal terrorist plane.

Of course H-bomb or bio-terrorism would be much worse.

Hugh


>
> eric
>
>
>