Talk Elections

Today I was watching the Thai news, which was focused on the floods, and then switching over to BBC for the Greek debt blather.

I remarked to my Thai friend 'which one seems like a real crisis? Look at Greece, the weather looks beautiful, nothing wrong with the streets or buildings, and yet after all the world considers the Greek situation far worse than the Thai one.'

Think about it folks - Greece and the Eurozone have the same real physical circumstances as before the capitalist crisis, as does the rest of the EU, and the US, and the whole world.  This is all just a matter relative position in a societal project.  The Thai crisis by contrast is a real one - having a real effect upon physical capacity.

The face that the rebuilding efforts in Thailand will be no problem, and the fact that these struggles over 'moral hazard' and relative position inherent in the Greek crisis should reveal all you need to know about capitalism, gentlemen.

Greece not even close!

Actually, Greece does have a physical problem: its balance of payments deficit, which is being funded through backchannel ECB loans to Greek banks which no-one ever talks about but is possibly one of the most important 'bailouts' Greece has received (?)

Zizek talks about this in contrasting the '08 financial crisis with the world food crisis.  when the banks collapsed, the state apparatus was thrust into action immediately, no questions asked.  the scale of the crisis was "absolute".  meanwhile a billion or two can be without food or water but no action is taken or needed.

Precisely, Boss. What is the 'problem' is always related to and defined by the power hierarchy.  The fact is that we have no problem with scarcity (one evidence of this is just how easy it is for even a middle-income country to deal with and bounce back from a natural disaster), but rather with a system of control.  The enemy is other people, not any 'conditions' or 'events'.

the environmental crisis throws a bit of a wrench in this but for now the logic still holds: 'other people' are future generations.

What the heck do future generations have to do with it?  The rich are the enemy, BT.

you misread my post.

Opebo reveals a very, very shallow understanding of the world and the global market. Business as usual, that is.

Then Tweed manages to actually dumb down an Opebo thread (!) by introducing Zizek. The state apparatus in countries that have starvation isn't "thrust into action" because the state apparatus in those countries suck. That's why they have starvation in the first place.

Gustaf then enters and jerks himself off in a most predictable and, well, masturbatory fashion, and leaves in the famed post-orgasmic afterglow.

That's nice and offensive and all, but since I know I can actually win on substance (since I actually  care about people in the real world, rather than my image as a cool revolutionary) that's fine. I'm going to leave you to your insane rantings if it makes you feel better about having stupid opinions.

^^^

You two don't get along, do you?

Well, MiamiU actually went out of his way to make a post with no purpose but to state his dislike of me. So him not getting along with me seems uncontroversial. ;)

I find him a bit too cliched to seriously hate. I knew people as intellectually dishonest existed before I read his posts, but they are still quite distasteful. They display just the right balance of selfrighteousness, indifference and evil that makes one a useful idiot for any totalitarian regime.

(while, of course, it's all a game preparing one for law school, anyway. Supporting dictators is all you really have to do for workers before moving into the elite and start exploiting them)

we're Facebook friends.  what more of a bond could two men have?

We are?

since April 2008.

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Thais do have a way of making everything look beautiful, don't they?