My pleasure. “Truthiness” is bipartisan.

Hmm. I think that’s exactly what Bush et al. did in getting us into Iraq. Actual information doesn’t matter, because the objective first principle (for jc, class struggle, for Bush, freedom) has already decided upon.

I would worry about jc except his continual alienation of everybody pretty much assures he’ll never have any power. (Woody too.)

Thanks Randy!

I did point you in a direction to prove my point but since my point – I repeat – is based on analysis and how it is possible to read the activitiy of neutral liberal ngos.

Actually, you dropped some names. As for empiricism being vulgar, it is only so in the sense of being common, but it is the basis for science, medicine and the law among other disciplines. Somehow I don’t think that is a negative.

I did point you in a direction to prove my point but since my point – I repeat – is based on analysis and how it is possible to read the activitiy of neutral liberal ngos.

Shorter cummings: I’m going to pretend like I have an answer, but in fact, I really don’t I’ll just hurl an insult your way and go on pretending that I don’t have to prove anything, but you have to prove a negative.

Don’t flatter yourself. You’ve proven nothing.

The show is clearly based on Tom Frank’s great book the Conquest of Cool…check it out.

1) Um, no.

2) See #1.

There are not communist countries. Non-capitalist countries during the cold war had a variety of standards of living – and it certainly was higher in the GDR than in Burundi. That said, it is impossible to prove whether or not a post-capitalist system can work since capital is totalizing – i.e. the Soviets still had to sell their diamonds on the international market dictated by capitalist values. I’m not a Trotskyist, but I think he was right when he asserted that you can’t have socialism in one country. Socialism must be international.

Social Democracies, on the other hand, have a far higher standard of living than laissez faire countries like the U.S. And China sucked no matter what economic system they’ve had since the cultural revolution, but there’s more poverty now than in mao’s time.

RP….I really think that people who demand I prove my points here in a fucking blog comments area feel threatened by me. I have no evidence otherwise, and I’m fine by applying the same callous attitiude towards you as you do to me. I had a 12 hour day of serious inquiry and political organizing. Whatever can be said about my beliefs, I actually implement them, both theoretically and practically.

I respect Human Rights Watch. I think most of what they do is good. That being said, they are simply able, by own analysis, and by that of Jean Bricmont, Samir Amin and others who have written on the issue, that the focus of their work enables them to command more resources and or media attention and or fundraising by virtue of their work highlighting human rights abuses in regimes – despicable as they may be – that oppose US policy than in regimes that don’t. My evidence is not based on vulgar empiricism but on a close reading of their 2007 report, as well as commentary by Jean Bricmont, Amin, Michael Mandel (one of the most respect human rights lawyers in the world) and others. I’d be glad, if you are really interested to send you a variety of analyses that support my contention, but it comes down to an ontological difference, in that empiricist that you are, you demand “quantifiable” social scientific data, while I look at the balance of forces, looking at more how information is used and controlled than the information itself. So by the numbers, by your liberal logic, yes, you can’t prove what I’m saying . But by coming from a specific standpoint different than the dominant western cartesian liberal logic, i.e. a standpoint of class struggle, of opposing your system, then my analyses- which are indeed objective given the first principle of history being that of class struggle, historical materialism, as it were – will go straight over your liberal cartesian dualist head.

RP….I really think that people who demand I prove my points here in a fucking blog comments area feel threatened by me. I have no evidence otherwise, and I’m fine by applying the same callous attitiude towards you as you do to me. I had a 12 hour day of serious inquiry and political organizing. Whatever can be said about my beliefs, I actually implement them, both theoretically and practically.

I respect Human Rights Watch. I think most of what they do is good. That being said, they are simply able, by own analysis, and by that of Jean Bricmont, Samir Amin and others who have written on the issue, that the focus of their work enables them to command more resources and or media attention and or fundraising by virtue of their work highlighting human rights abuses in regimes – despicable as they may be – that oppose US policy than in regimes that don’t. My evidence is not based on vulgar empiricism but on a close reading of their 2007 report, as well as commentary by Jean Bricmont, Amin, Michael Mandel (one of the most respect human rights lawyers in the world) and others. I’d be glad, if you are really interested to send you a variety of analyses that support my contention, but it comes down to an ontological difference, in that empiricist that you are, you demand “quantifiable” social scientific data, while I look at the balance of forces, looking at more how information is used and controlled than the information itself. So by the numbers, by your liberal logic, yes, you can’t prove what I’m saying . But by coming from a specific standpoint different than the dominant western cartesian liberal logic, i.e. a standpoint of class struggle, of opposing your system, then my analyses- which are indeed objective given the first principle of history being that of class struggle, historical materialism, as it were – will go straight over your liberal cartesian dualist head.