A friend in Berlin completed his PhD on Hannah Arendt - I am forwarding this J'accuse essay to him. Interestingly just last night there were two brief mentions of what Julian is facing just now - on Australia's ANC 7.00pm News (here in NSW at any rate) and on the following program 7.30 with Leigh Sales and a brief interview with one of Julian's long-term legal team - Jennifer Robinson. The latter though brief not distracting - the former (News item) perfunctory and bland! I have written both to the PM Scott Morrison (with his plane now in Italy en rout to Glasgow) suggesting he extract Julian from the Brits and under the noses of the US and bring him back to Australia - with his family as well. As I have also written to the Foreign Minister Marise Payne suggesting she finally actually do something to protect our heroic Australian and award-winning journalist!
It would seem the rejection of extradition, based on potential conditions in US prisons, is part of the show as well, given the conditions wouldn't be, couldn't be much worse, or he would be dead and released from torture. So it seems unlikely he will be released, but why would they send him to the US, if they really don't want the trial? Time will tell on that shortly.
Given this essay goes into historical precedence, why not dig down further? Often people ruminate over effects, without properly exploring causes.
Under the political power and social control are necessarily basic physical processes.
The two elemental dynamics are synchronization and harmonization. What doesn't seem to be recognized, even by the sciences, is that synchronization is inherently centripetal, while harmonization is centrifugal. So we have nodes and networks, organisms and ecosystems, particles and fields. Energy radiating out, as order coalesces in. Order is when a lot of energy can be defined by the least information, while chaos is when it requires enormous information to describe what the energy is doing. So one large wave is a synchronization of energy, while lots of little waves are harmonized by the fact the energy is fairly evenly distributed.
Now this might seem like it is wandering very far from the topic, but the description of the political dynamics should be visible.
Societies, cultures, communities require a fairly high level of synchronization, ie, common laws, habits, measurements, etc. in order to function collectively. Yet when they get too wrapped in themselves and tear away from the larger world, losing that larger connection, it creates an increasingly irreversible process, since there are less connections to maintain perspective and everything within the orbit gets sucked in, willingly or not.
The problem this creates for most people is that all the social and cultural markers that give their lives definition and structure, such as culture, religion, politics, economic and financial support structures, are pulled apart and into this maelstrom.
The opportunity this will create is to really test and explore these structures. Some will stand and some will fall. At the start of this process, few are willing to even think such changes are possible, but afterward, they seem evident.
I think there are two essential paradigms of society that need consideration; God and money.
By God, I mean the whole Western focus on creating a monolithic sensibility, from religion to the sciences.
There is the cultural assumption of good and bad as some cosmic conflict between righteousness and evil, but they are the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. The 1/0 of sentience. What's good for the fox, is bad for the chicken. Trying to find an ideal good is like asking what is the ideal yes. When we assume good to be an ideal, the only alternative is bad, so all the higher order complexity, nuance and subjectivity is lost in the race to the bottom of simple us versus them conflicts.
Any society that ever existed has had conservative and liberal elements. Those sustaining and enforcing norms and customs, versus those pushing the boundaries. It's as elemental as the energies of youth and the experiences of age. So when it becomes a cultural conflict, they end up speaking different languages and society comes apart.
Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. To the ancients, gods were simply the animating concepts of life, youth, age, wine, fear, death, etc. Politically monotheism equated with monoculture. One people, one rule, one god. Democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures, as exemplars of multiculturalism. The Romans adopted and co-opted gnostic Christianity to be the Catholic church, as the Empire solidified and remnants of the Republic were being erased. Which was the peak of the wave, that was Rome. When the West went back to less centralized forms of governance, it required the separation of church and state, culture and civics.
As for money, it functions as a social contract and accounting device, enabling large societies and economies, but we treat it as a commodity to mine from society. The medium has become the message. Since the asset is backed by the debt, storing the asset requires generating debt.
Besides the centripetal effect of positive feedback drawing the asset to the center and negative feedback pushing the debt to the edges, it should be noted the capital markets could not function, without the government siphoning up trillions in surplus investment money. The secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth.
Given there isn't sufficient investment potential for everyone to save enough individually, but we do save for many of the same reasons, the commons will have to be resurrected and updated.
Yet in order for that to happen and function, we need to recognize rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. Otherwise, "Tragedy of the Commons."
Given our current society is all about rights and responsibilities are someone else's problem, this seems a long way off.
I could go on, but the essential point is that yes, our society is breaking down and those with the most power are trying to control the demolition. While that can't be stopped, there are ways to break their hold, by the time the dust starts to settle.
A friend in Berlin completed his PhD on Hannah Arendt - I am forwarding this J'accuse essay to him. Interestingly just last night there were two brief mentions of what Julian is facing just now - on Australia's ANC 7.00pm News (here in NSW at any rate) and on the following program 7.30 with Leigh Sales and a brief interview with one of Julian's long-term legal team - Jennifer Robinson. The latter though brief not distracting - the former (News item) perfunctory and bland! I have written both to the PM Scott Morrison (with his plane now in Italy en rout to Glasgow) suggesting he extract Julian from the Brits and under the noses of the US and bring him back to Australia - with his family as well. As I have also written to the Foreign Minister Marise Payne suggesting she finally actually do something to protect our heroic Australian and award-winning journalist!
It would seem the rejection of extradition, based on potential conditions in US prisons, is part of the show as well, given the conditions wouldn't be, couldn't be much worse, or he would be dead and released from torture. So it seems unlikely he will be released, but why would they send him to the US, if they really don't want the trial? Time will tell on that shortly.
Given this essay goes into historical precedence, why not dig down further? Often people ruminate over effects, without properly exploring causes.
Under the political power and social control are necessarily basic physical processes.
The two elemental dynamics are synchronization and harmonization. What doesn't seem to be recognized, even by the sciences, is that synchronization is inherently centripetal, while harmonization is centrifugal. So we have nodes and networks, organisms and ecosystems, particles and fields. Energy radiating out, as order coalesces in. Order is when a lot of energy can be defined by the least information, while chaos is when it requires enormous information to describe what the energy is doing. So one large wave is a synchronization of energy, while lots of little waves are harmonized by the fact the energy is fairly evenly distributed.
Now this might seem like it is wandering very far from the topic, but the description of the political dynamics should be visible.
Societies, cultures, communities require a fairly high level of synchronization, ie, common laws, habits, measurements, etc. in order to function collectively. Yet when they get too wrapped in themselves and tear away from the larger world, losing that larger connection, it creates an increasingly irreversible process, since there are less connections to maintain perspective and everything within the orbit gets sucked in, willingly or not.
The problem this creates for most people is that all the social and cultural markers that give their lives definition and structure, such as culture, religion, politics, economic and financial support structures, are pulled apart and into this maelstrom.
The opportunity this will create is to really test and explore these structures. Some will stand and some will fall. At the start of this process, few are willing to even think such changes are possible, but afterward, they seem evident.
I think there are two essential paradigms of society that need consideration; God and money.
By God, I mean the whole Western focus on creating a monolithic sensibility, from religion to the sciences.
There is the cultural assumption of good and bad as some cosmic conflict between righteousness and evil, but they are the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. The 1/0 of sentience. What's good for the fox, is bad for the chicken. Trying to find an ideal good is like asking what is the ideal yes. When we assume good to be an ideal, the only alternative is bad, so all the higher order complexity, nuance and subjectivity is lost in the race to the bottom of simple us versus them conflicts.
Any society that ever existed has had conservative and liberal elements. Those sustaining and enforcing norms and customs, versus those pushing the boundaries. It's as elemental as the energies of youth and the experiences of age. So when it becomes a cultural conflict, they end up speaking different languages and society comes apart.
Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. To the ancients, gods were simply the animating concepts of life, youth, age, wine, fear, death, etc. Politically monotheism equated with monoculture. One people, one rule, one god. Democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures, as exemplars of multiculturalism. The Romans adopted and co-opted gnostic Christianity to be the Catholic church, as the Empire solidified and remnants of the Republic were being erased. Which was the peak of the wave, that was Rome. When the West went back to less centralized forms of governance, it required the separation of church and state, culture and civics.
As for money, it functions as a social contract and accounting device, enabling large societies and economies, but we treat it as a commodity to mine from society. The medium has become the message. Since the asset is backed by the debt, storing the asset requires generating debt.
Besides the centripetal effect of positive feedback drawing the asset to the center and negative feedback pushing the debt to the edges, it should be noted the capital markets could not function, without the government siphoning up trillions in surplus investment money. The secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth.
Given there isn't sufficient investment potential for everyone to save enough individually, but we do save for many of the same reasons, the commons will have to be resurrected and updated.
Yet in order for that to happen and function, we need to recognize rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. Otherwise, "Tragedy of the Commons."
Given our current society is all about rights and responsibilities are someone else's problem, this seems a long way off.
I could go on, but the essential point is that yes, our society is breaking down and those with the most power are trying to control the demolition. While that can't be stopped, there are ways to break their hold, by the time the dust starts to settle.