Donald Trump & devolution

I like how Johann Hari frames conservatism in his Huff Post article on Donald Trump's rise to fame in the Republican party:

"They have long claimed that evolution is a myth believed in only by whiny liberals -- and it turns out they were on to something. Every six months, the Republican Party venerates a new hero, and each time it is somebody further back on the evolutionary scale."

For those of you out there enthralled with evolution take note. Some more excerpts:

More on Eco Transitions

Following are more excerpts of posts from the blog Eco Transitions with my comments interspersed, all available at the IPS thread on the topic.

From the blog post "why transition, part 2":

"I want to argue here that the responses to the crisis...rely on, and presuppose the continuation of, the same logic as the one which brought about that crisis....There isn't so much a conspiracy at work (although some segments of the economic world are clearly pushing intentionally for measures which are designed to prevent deeper questioning and/or change) as there is a lack of vision.

Eco Transitions

Christian Arnsperger started a new blog this April called Eco-Transitions: The Next Step Economy. Also check out our IPS discussion on the blog. Here's an excerpt from the 2nd post of 4/16/11 called “Why transition? A first look at concepts”:

"The transition model tries, in a sense, to steer a middle way between revolution and collapse. Transition can be compared to getting an airplane to fall from the sky in a fully controlled fashion -- an accomplishment known nowadays as "landing," utterly baffling and yet totally trivialized. The jet airplane neither falls abruptly from the sky, nor does it remain in flight while mutating into a completely different machine. Transition is intentional, just like revolution. It involves deliberating, tracing out possible scenarios, and then making decisions as to which one we think we can pursue. Transition also has a collapse-like flavor, in the sense that it consists in readjusting many crucial parameters of the incumbent system -- and that readjustment will usually have a "downward" feel to it. Some things need to be done without, in the short and medium run, and sometimes also forever more, but this can be turned into subsequent opportunities for a positive outcome -- namely, a safe landing after a downward-sloping path...

Feminine space

I referenced the book Shadow of Spirit in another thread. I here want to emphasize chapter 19: "Woman and space according to Kristeva and Irigaray" by Phillipa Berry. A few excerpts with comments following.

"One way in which Heidegger’s emphasis upon openness and the clearing has left its mark in the work of Kristeva and Irigaray is through their shared interest in a highly ambiguous spatial category which was used by Plato, but which also has evident affinities with the pre-Socratic thought that so fascinated Heidegger: the category of chora" (255).

The People's Budget

Building on the last post, instead of splitting the difference between the two bad budget plans of Obama and Ryan, which is not the middle but way right of center, how about the budget plan proposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus called The People's Budget? Rachel Maddow asks why is this not even being reported in the media? Why is it that it's either the Ryan or Obama plan, or somewhere "in the middle?" She shows that the myth of a liberal media is just that, a myth, because only the real liberal media, like her (and Huff Post or Daily Kos) are even reporting on this proposal. It's being completely ignored and it's the most sensible budget plan out there, one that doesn't cut Medicare but rather military spending, one that doesn't give tax breaks to the rich and corporations but makes them pay their fair share. And one that actually balances the budget in 10 years, unlike either the Ryan or Obama plans.This is where the middle is and what our budget should be, not a starting point for negotiation. This is the end point in real middle America.

This is from the Executive Summary of The People's Budget:

Where is the political middle?

Robert Reich makes clear that in the current US budget debate the middle is not between the Obama and the Ryan plans. Progressives know this is a fallacy but it seems the  other liberals, including Obama, think that negotiation and compromise means finding a middle ground between the two positions, and that this middle represents the independently-minded middle Americans. It does not and it is a grave mistake to engage this type of nonsense.

Who wants big govenment?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The New Universe and The Human Future

Balder started an IPS thread on this book by Ellen Abrams and Joel Primack. He kicks off the thread with a review by Matthew Fox, who says:

"I have often said that the most important things in life are metaphors, whether we are speaking of life or death, spirit or sex, love or body. And the universe too is metaphor and accessible by metaphor. All the prophets knew these things. Metaphor carries us on wings larger than despair, self-pity, talk of 'selfish genes,' and pessimism — all of which is so often a cover-up and escape from responsibility.

"Here is one metaphor that they put forth for our understanding:

Struggling with Zizek's Ideology

Jan Jagodzinski has an interesting article in the International Journal of Zizek Studies (4:1, 2010) called "Struggling with Zizek's Ideology." This excerpt addresses some of the issues I've been addressing in the IPS TOE & TFA thread from another angle, or is that (folding, rotating) vesica piscis? Herein we find the embodied and khoronic imagine schemas which require a differential mathematics:

Let's get graphic

A picture is worth  how many words? This looks more like how holons interact to me, which includes but transcends nests and displays multiple venn relations. Funny how its mapped on a 4-quadrant diagram.