#Alex Hochuli

[hoerbahnblog]

Literaturkritik.de: „Das Ende des Endes der Geschichte“ Alex Hochuli, George Hoare, Philip Cunliffe

Literaturkritik.de: „Das Ende des Endes der Geschichte“ Alex Hochuli, George Hoare, Philip Cunliffe Hördauer ca. 16 Minuten) https://literaturradiohoerbahn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Literaturkritik-de-George-Hoare-ende-der-Geschichte-upload.mp3 1989 verbreitete der US-amerikanische Politikwissenschaftler Francis Fukujamas erstmals seine These vom „Ende der Geschichte“ in der Zeitschrift…

[gnatswatting]

• How much possibility an age contained is as important as the actuality of what it delivered. We must look not just to the accumulation of material -- and, indeed, moral -- progress but also to how germinative an age is, what paths it holds open for different futures. —Alex Hochuli

The New Statesman The New Statesman (captured at archive.today)

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil election: A Lula victory could pull country back from the abyss

Bolsonaro performed better than expected in the first round of voting, despite a disastrous first term - and the stakes have never been higher

In the first round of Brazil’s election this month, former president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, won 48 percent of the vote while far-right President Jair Bolsonaro trailed with 43 percent.

Lula won more than 57 million votes, exceeding Bolsonaro’s total by more than six million. Yet while it was a clear victory, the left has not been in a celebratory mood. The near-existential stakes have never been more apparent, as the country faces a tense wait for the second round of voting on 30 October.

Bolsonaro, who was threatening a coup even before he took office, performed significantly better than polls had suggested. Despite presiding over a government that has turned Brazil into a semi-pariah state, Bolsonaro won 51 million votes, around two million more than he received during the first round in 2018. It is difficult to understand how a president responsible for what is widely regarded as among the world’s worst public health responses to Covid-19, along with environmental disaster and widespread hunger, managed such a feat.

After nearly a decade of economic and political crisis, Brazil’s New Republic, established in 1985 after 21 years of military dictatorship, is hanging by a thread. The second round, even more so than the first, is what analyst Alex Hochuli terms a plebiscite on democracy itself: a vote for Lula is a vote for the New Republic, and a vote for Bolsonaro is one against it.

Continue reading.

[antoine-roquentin]

Everybody understands that the military, as well as economic pressure and covert operations, are central pillars of American hegemony. It’s also fairly well understood that Hollywood is an important vehicle for projecting American “soft power.” But in the last ten to fifteen years, the internet has done far more to make the world think like Americans than Marvel movies.

At one level, this is because of the way the online experience is structured: the built environment of the internet, if you will. It used to be there were millions of different internet pages. But the logic of capital accumulation, within the U.S. regulatory and cultural contexts, has whittled them down to two basic models. Type one relies on you to supply content, then manipulates your subconscious desires, keeping you scrolling through other user-generated content, for as long as possible—all in the service of selling your attention to advertisers. It is by now quite obvious how the monstrously wealthy companies behind this trick have warped and reshaped how the world is represented, and the way we see each other.

The other major type of website requires you pay a subscription to watch some kind of television show. With a curated streaming service like Netflix (responsible for over 10 percent of global internet traffic during the pandemic), subsidiaries in India or Nigeria have local teams in place. But they were still hired by an American company, to maximize its profit. In order for streaming services to be profoundly American, you don’t need Americans running day-to-day operations on the ground throughout the world, just like the British Empire didn’t rely on persons with white English identities to do the same. Dynamics of dominance and cultural diffusion also happened through the selection of local vassals.

Of course, there are also “online marketplaces” where you can purchase goods. But you don’t spend any time there; you just lose money. And since I am a journalist, I should probably acknowledge that there are still media web pages, where you can read a newspaper or magazine. But in truth, for a majority of people, those are just sites where you click away four to five pop-ups before giving up and returning to scrolling through the news on social media. Mainstream media sites these days get all their money from guilty liberals.

Then there is the content. Both major types of websites started out overwhelmingly populated by American users, and this shaped their cultures. American voices remain primary on most social media platforms, speaking through the biggest YouTube and Instagram accounts. In Indonesia, social media influencers make sure to use English, even if their audience is entirely local. As importantly, whether in Chile or the Philippines, conversations tend to be governed by American concepts and discursive practices. Even if the conversation is about Brazilian politics, a huge amount of internet-cultural capital is associated with fluency in American terminology and meme language. The South American far right has obviously been influenced by right-wing U.S. YouTube culture. There are  German Q Anon accounts.

People from countries without our history of overt racial hierarchy get into labyrinthine conversations based on U.S. designations. Are Palestinians white? Are Filipinos the “Mexicans of Asia”? But the United States is not normal. We have a very particular history—beginning with the genocide of Native Americans, followed by a reliance on slave labor for development, and then de facto apartheid at least until the 1960s—which shapes our concepts for things like race and politics. There are many reasons you would not want the whole planet to normalize our cultural superstructure.

This summer’s worldwide Black Lives Matter protests illuminated the degree to which American culture is now universal. In an essay that I don’t agree with in its entirety, Alex Hochuli pointed out something remarkable about BLM marches in places like Finland and Serbia. Some people, it seems, weren’t marching in solidarity with the people of the richest nation on earth. They were marching as if they were themselves Americans. But this makes a lot of sense, because (with some major exceptions), when you are on the internet, you are basically in the United States.

[brotheralyosha]

In Odd Arne Westad’s magisterial volume The Global Cold War, the Yale historian reaches one conclusion that has received insufficient attention. Westad (who is Norwegian) asserts that “globalization” is the wrong word for the rapid expansion of a specific type of capitalist order in the late twentieth century. A better word, he says, is “Americanization.” In the early twentieth century, an aggressive and militaristic Western European settler colony was ascendant, and it became the world’s predominant power in 1945. With the accidental suicide of Soviet communism, the system that the United States had been imposing on its lessers in this or that territory became globalized—even if you might operate according to different rules domestically. From 1990 on—and now this is my contention, not Westad’s—Americanization was so profound that it became hard to even notice it. Invisible, that is, until it begins to fall apart, or is contested.

Everybody understands that the military, as well as economic pressure and covert operations, are central pillars of American hegemony. It’s also fairly well understood that Hollywood is an important vehicle for projecting American “soft power.” But in the last ten to fifteen years, the internet has done far more to make the world think like Americans than Marvel movies.

At one level, this is because of the way the online experience is structured: the built environment of the internet, if you will. It used to be there were millions of different internet pages. But the logic of capital accumulation, within the U.S. regulatory and cultural contexts, has whittled them down to two basic models. Type one relies on you to supply content, then manipulates your subconscious desires, keeping you scrolling through other user-generated content, for as long as possible—all in the service of selling your attention to advertisers. It is by now quite obvious how the monstrously wealthy companies behind this trick have warped and reshaped how the world is represented, and the way we see each other.

The other major type of website requires you pay a subscription to watch some kind of television show. With a curated streaming service like Netflix (responsible for over 10 percent of global internet traffic during the pandemic), subsidiaries in India or Nigeria have local teams in place. But they were still hired by an American company, to maximize its profit. In order for streaming services to be profoundly American, you don’t need Americans running day-to-day operations on the ground throughout the world, just like the British Empire didn’t rely on persons with white English identities to do the same. Dynamics of dominance and cultural diffusion also happened through the selection of local vassals.

Of course, there are also “online marketplaces” where you can purchase goods. But you don’t spend any time there; you just lose money. And since I am a journalist, I should probably acknowledge that there are still media web pages, where you can read a newspaper or magazine. But in truth, for a majority of people, those are just sites where you click away four to five pop-ups before giving up and returning to scrolling through the news on social media. Mainstream media sites these days get all their money from guilty liberals.

Then there is the content. Both major types of websites started out overwhelmingly populated by American users, and this shaped their cultures. American voices remain primary on most social media platforms, speaking through the biggest YouTube and Instagram accounts. In Indonesia, social media influencers make sure to use English, even if their audience is entirely local. As importantly, whether in Chile or the Philippines, conversations tend to be governed by American concepts and discursive practices. Even if the conversation is about Brazilian politics, a huge amount of internet-cultural capital is associated with fluency in American terminology and meme language. The South American far right has obviously been influenced by right-wing U.S. YouTube culture. There are  German Q Anon accounts.

People from countries without our history of overt racial hierarchy get into labyrinthine conversations based on U.S. designations. Are Palestinians white? Are Filipinos the “Mexicans of Asia”? But the United States is not normal. We have a very particular history—beginning with the genocide of Native Americans, followed by a reliance on slave labor for development, and then de facto apartheid at least until the 1960s—which shapes our concepts for things like race and politics. There are many reasons you would not want the whole planet to normalize our cultural superstructure.

This summer’s worldwide Black Lives Matter protests illuminated the degree to which American culture is now universal. In an essay that I don’t agree with in its entirety, Alex Hochuli pointed out something remarkable about BLM marches in places like Finland and Serbia. Some people, it seems, weren’t marching in solidarity with the people of the richest nation on earth. They were marching as if they were themselves Americans. But this makes a lot of sense, because (with some major exceptions), when you are on the internet, you are basically in the United States.

[cucamonga-springs]

The Brazilianization of the World

We now find ourselves at the End of the End of History. Unlike in the 1990s and 2000s, today many are keenly aware that things aren’t well. We are weighed down, as the late cultural theorist Mark Fisher wrote, by “the slow cancellation of the future,” of a future promised but not delivered, of involution in the place of progression. The West’s involution finds its mirror image in the original coun­try of the future, the nation doomed forever to remain the country of the future, the one that never reaches its destination: Brazil. The Brazilianization of the world is our encounter with a future denied, and in which this frustration has become constitutive of our social reality. While the closing of historical horizons has often been a leftist, indeed Marxist, concern, the sense that things don’t work as they should is now widely shared across the political spectrum. Welcome to Brazil. Here the only people satisfied with their situation are financial elites and venal politicians. Everyone complains, but everyone shrugs their shoulders. This slow degradation of society is not so much a runaway train, but more of a jittery rollercoaster, occasionally holding out promise of ascent, yet never break­ing free from the tracks. We always come back to where we started, shaken and disoriented, haunted by what might have been. Most often, “Brazil” has been a byword for gaping inequality, with favelas perched on hillsides overlooking millionaire high-rises. In his 1991 novel Generation X, Douglas Coupland referred to Brazilianization as “the widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the accompanying disappearance of the middle classes.” Later that decade, Brazilianization was deployed by German sociologist Ulrich Beck to mean the cycling in and out of formal and informal employment, with work becoming flexible, casual, precarious, and decentered. Elsewhere, the process of becoming Brazilian refers to its urban geography, with the growth of favelas or shantytowns, the gentrification of city centers with poverty pushed to the outskirts. For others, Brazil connotes a new ethnic stalemate between a racially mixed working class and a white elite. This mix-and-match portrait of Brazilianization is superficially compelling, as growing inequality and precarity fractures cities across Europe and North America. But why Brazil? Brazil is a middle-in­come country—developed, modern, industrialized. But Brazil is also burdened by mass poverty, backwardness, and a political class that seems to have advanced little since its days as a slaveholding landed elite. It is a cipher for the past, for an earlier stage of development that the Global North passed through—and thought it left behind...

- The Brazilianization of the World, Alex Hochuli

[lookwhatilost]

The likely consequence of this stuff at the capitol will probably be using it as a pretext to justify further police-surveillance state expansion and crackdowns, against "political extremism" and "illiberalism", ie - stifling dissent and resistance in general. This will go down well with many liberal democrats, who share the general middle-class preoccupation with security and status/national-prestige, and who, if not faced with their own precarity, tend to respond to crisis with Anti-Politics: "Simply end the noise & conflict plz."

Remember "If Hillary won we'd be at Brunch"? Many libs hate Trump because he foments political conflict and strife, in addition to bringing national embarassment. This is the Anti-Political authoritarian impulse that can easily line up behind what Alex Hochuli calls Ceaserism.

The MAGA middle-class and the ImWithHer middle-class essentially want the same thing (end to disruption and political strife, feeling of nAtIoNaL gReAtNeSs), just their constellation of symbols and brand-affiliations that represent these impulses are too contradictory. The biggest threat is if some person or group comes along (like say the military) that can present a symbolic facade that is amenable to both segments of the american middle class, that unifies their shared desires/impulses transcending the gop/dem brand loyalty and culture war.

In the mean-time, we can expect that now Democrats are in power, the far-right will take precedence over ms13, antifa and islamic terrorists as the justification for the ever-expanding system of policing, surveillance and censorship.

[theodoretsekos]

"Τι είναι η Κλασσική Αριστερή ατζέντα; Ανάπτυξη με οικονομική και πολιτική ισότητα."

του Μπράνκο Μιλάνοβιτς

[Ο Σερβικής καταγωγής Καθηγητής του City University of New York και τ. Επικεφαλής οικονομολόγος του ερευνητικού τμήματος της Παγκόσμιας Τράπεζας υπενθυμίζει ότι η 'ταυτοτική' και 'δικαιωματιστική' αριστερά αφήνοντας σε μεγάλο βαθμό έξω από τον προβληματισμό της την σφαίρα του οικονομικού απεμπολεί την ουσία του ιστορικού της ρόλου.

Το ίδιο ισχύει και για μερίδα της "πράσινης αριστεράς" που τοποθετείται απέναντι στην ίδια την έννοια της περαιτέρω οικονομικής μεγέθυνσης μιλώντας για "αποανάπτυξη".

Ασκεί τέλος κριτική στην αντίλη��η, που αφορά κυρίως το Δημοκρατικό κόμμα, περί "εξαγωγής της δημοκρατίας" μέσω κρατικής πολιτικής και στρατιωτικής επιρροής.

Η πολύπλευρη αυτή κριτική τον οδηγεί στην "επανα-ανακάλυψη" και αναδιατύπωση μερικών σταθερών αξιών της κλασσικής προοδευτικής πολιτικής, της "παλιάς καλής σκέψης" της (δημοκρατικής και σοσιαλιστικής) αριστεράς.

Όλα τα παραπάνω είναι τμήματα μιας ευρύτερης συζήτησης που διεξάγεται κυρίως στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες αλλά αφορά και την Ευρώπη. Το άρθρο δημοσιεύθηκε στο blog του 'Global inequality and More 3.0' στις 7/9/22]

" Είχα μια συζήτηση με τους Alex Hochuli και Philip Cunliffe οι οποίοι αναφέρθηκαν σε αυτό που έχω αποκαλέσει “κλασσική αριστερά” [*] και νομίζω ότι ίσως είναι χρήσιμο να τα ξαναγράψω για αυτήν ελπίζοντας να δείξω ότι τα χαρακτηριστικά της μπορούν εύκολα να γίνουν εφαρμόσιμες πολιτικές και δεν είναι απλώς ένα σύνολο ωραίων ιδεών.

[ * Ο Μιλάνοβιτς χρησιμοποιεί τον όρο “paleo-left”. Άν και ελληνικής ρίζας η απόδοσή της ως ”παλαιο-αριστερά”, έχοντας μάλλον αρνητική χροιά, δεν θα απέδιδε το πνεύμα του συγγραφέα]

Η κλασσική αριστερά, κατά τη γνώμη μου, ορίζεται από τέσσερις βασικούς άξονες: είναι υπέρ της ανάπτυξης, ��πέρ της ισότητας, υπέρ της ελευθερίας του λόγου και του συνεταιρίζεσθαι και υπερ της διεθνούς ισότητας. Επιτρέψτε μου να εξηγήσω το καθένα από αυτά.

Όντας κάποιος υπέρ της ανάπτυξης σημαίνει ότι αναγνωρίζει πως το εισόδημα και ο πλούτος είναι απαραίτητες προϋποθέσεις για την ανθρώπινη αυτοπραγμάτωση και ελευθερία. Δεν μπορούμε να επιτύχουμε τις πλήρεις δυνατότητές μας, ούτε να απολαύσουμε άλλες μη βιοποριστικές δραστηριότητες αν δεν έχουμε αρκετό εισόδημα για να μην ανησυχούμε πού θα βρεθει το επόμενο γεύμα μας ή πού θα κοιμηθούμε το επόμενο βράδυ.

Η κλασσική αριστερά είναι ενάντια στη συνεχή υποβάθμιση της σημασίας της ανάπτυξης γιατί αναγνωρίζει ότι για έναν απλό άνθρωπο μόνο οι βελτιωμένες υλικές συνθήκες ζωής ανοίγουν το «βασίλειο της ελευθερίας»: δεν θέλουμε νοικοκυριά όπου οι μητέρες πρέπει να πλένουν ρούχα στο κοντινό ποτάμι ή στην μπανιέρα. Θέλουμε νοικοκυριά με πλυντήρια. (Φυσικά, για άτομα που έχουν ήδη πλυντήρια ρούχων, αυτό μπορεί να φαίνεται σαν μια ασήμαντη απαίτηση. Αλλά για τον μισό παγκόσμιο πληθυσμό που δεν έχει, δεν είναι καθόλου ασήμαντο.)

Ωστόσο μια ανάπτυξη-αυτοσκοπός χωρίς να λαμβάνεται υπόψη ποιος ωφελείται από αυτήν δεν είναι ούτε ηθικά αποδεκτή ούτε πολιτικά βιώσιμη. Εδώ έρχεται η δεύτερη παράμετρος: η οικονομική ισότητα. Η ανάπτυξη δεν μπορεί να είναι τυφλή, ούτε μπορεί να είναι τέτοια ώστε το μεγαλύτερο μέρος της, όπως στις ΗΠΑ την περίοδο 1986-2007, να ιδιοποιείται από τους πλούσιους. Η ανάπτυξη πρέπει να αποβαίνει υπέρ των φτωχών, πράγμα που σημαίνει ότι τα εισοδήματα των κατώτερων ομάδων πρέπει να αυξάνονται, σε ποσοστιαία βάση, τουλάχιστον όσο τα εισοδήματα των πλουσιότερων ομάδων.

Πώς θα το πετύχουμε αυτό; Όχι μόνο μέσω της άμεσης ή της έμμεσης φορολογίας των δραστηριοτήτων αλλά και των πολυτελών αγαθών που καταναλώνουν οι πλούσιοι (ο τελευταίος είναι ένας πόρος που, κατά τη γνώμη μου, δεν αξιοποιείται όσο θα έπρεπε). Μπορεί επίσης να επιτευχθεί και μέσω υψηλών φόρων κληρονομιάς που θα εξασφάλιζαν σε όλους εύλογα ισότιμη θέση εκκίνησης ανεξαρτήτως γονικού πλούτου, με σχεδόν ή πλήρως δωρεάν δημόσια εκπαίδευση και δημόσια υγεία και με ειδική στήριξη στους νέους, για την εξεύρεση της πρώτης τους εργασίας. Οι νέοι στις ανεπτυγμένες δυτικές κοινωνίες αποτελούν μια ομάδα που χρειάζεται αντίστοιχη στήριξη με αυτην που κατάφεραν να διασφαλίσουν πολιτικά οι άνθρωποι, που είναι σήμερα ηλικιωμένοι, στις δεκαετίες του 1960 και του 1970.

Η μείωση των ανισοτήτων εισοδήματος και πλούτου είναι ταυτόχρονα στόχος και εργαλείο για την επίτευξη κάτι άλλου: της σχετικής πολιτικής ισότητας. Αυτή η ισότητα υπονομεύεται στις σημερινές προηγμένες κοινωνίες, όχι, όπως υποστηρίζεται, από έναν -ανεπαρκώς οριζόμενο- «λαϊκισμό», αλλά από έναν τελειως αντίστροφο κίνδυνο: αυτόν της πλουτοκρατίας. Το ότι οι πλούσιοι χρηματοδοτούν τις εκστρατείες, των πολιτικών (γεγονός που συνιστά απλώς μια ελαφρά μορφή δωροδοκίας) και ελέγχουν τα περισσότερα από τα κυρίαρχα μέσα ενημέρωσης, υποσκάπτει την πολιτική ισότητα.

Η κλασσική αριστερά θα έπρεπε, κατά την άποψή μου, να αποφεύγει όρους τους οποίους ο νεοφιλελεύθερος λόγος έχει δεσμεύσει και έχει καταστήσει χωρίς νόημα, όπως ο όρος «δημοκρατία». Πρέπει να αποδεχτούμε ότι ο όρος «δημοκρατία» έχει δεσμευθεί από τη νεοφιλελεύθερη πλουτοκρατία με τον ίδιο τρόπο που ο όρος «λαός» ιδιοποιήθηκε από τα κομμουνιστικά καθεστώτα στην Ανατολική Ευρώπη. Και οι δύο όροι χρησιμοποιούνται για να καλύψουν μιά διαφορετική πραγματικότητα.

Αντίθετα, η κλασσική αριστερά θα πρέπει να επικεντρωθεί σε κάτι πολύ πιο πραγματικό και μετρήσιμο: την σχετική πολιτική ισότητα. Η επίτευξή της συνεπάγεται δημόσια χρηματοδότηση των πολιτικών εκστρατειών, όρια (ή απαγορεύσεις) στον έλεγχο των μέσων μαζικής ενημέρωσης από τους πλούσιους (πχ όχι ιδιοκτησία της «Washington Post» από τον Τζεφ Μπέζος) και ισότιμη συμμετοχή στην εκλογική διαδικασία που σημαίνει διευκόλυνση συμμετοχής στις εκλογές για τους σκληρά εργαζόμενους. Οι εκλογές στις ΗΠΑ έχουν προγραμματιστεί σκόπιμα μια εργάσιμη ημέρα και δεν αποτελεί έκπληξη, ούτε διαφήμιση για τη «δημοκρατία», το γεγονός ότι ακόμη και στις πιο σημαντικές εκλογές το μισό του εκλογικού σώματος απλώς δεν συμμετέχει.

Η κλασσική αριστερά αναγνωρίζει επίσης ότι οι ελευθερίες του λόγου και του συνεταιρίζεσθαι καθίστανται σε μεγάλο βαθμό άνευ νοήματος εφόσον δεν διασφαλίζεται ένας ελάχιστος βαθμός πολιτικής ισότητας. Άτομα με μικρή ή και μηδενική ισχύ μπορούν να περνούν ώρες και μέρες στο Twitter, αλλά θα έχουν μηδενική πολιτική επιρροή σε σύγκριση με καλά αμειβόμενα και οργανωμένα think-tanks και άλλους θεσμούς που στόχος τους είναι να επηρεάσουν άμεσα την πολιτική. Είναι σε αυτόν τον τομέα που μια αόριστη χρήση του όρου «δημοκρατία» στην πραγματικότητα κρύβει τεράστια ανισότητα στην πρόσβαση στην πολιτική εξουσία.

Ο τελευταίος άξονας είναι ο διεθνισμός. Αυτό είναι, φυσικά, ένα παλιό αριστερό σύνθημα αλλά δεν πρέπει να θεωρηθεί ως κάτι που απλώς προσκολλάται στην υπόλοιπη εγχώρια ατζέντα. Αποτελεί συστατικό μέρος μιας συνολικής ατζέντας. Η κλασσική αριστερά αποδέχεται ότι διαφορετικές χώρες και πολιτισμοί μπορεί να έχουν διαφορετικούς τρόπους με τους οποίους επιλέγουν τις κυβερνήσεις τους ή με τους οποίους ορίζουν την πολιτική νομιμότητα. Η κλασσική αριστερά δεν είναι ιδεολογικά ηγεμονική.

Η κλασσική αριστερά μπορεί (και πρέπει) να πιστεύει ότι η δική της προσέγγιση είναι η καλύτερη, και είναι σωστό να την υποστηρίζει, αλλά το επιχείρημα πρέπει να παραμένει πάντα στο επίπεδο των ιδεών : πρέπει να αποφεύγονται οι χονδροειδείς παρεμβάσεις στις εσωτερικές υποθέσεις άλλων χωρών και προφανώς δεν πρέπει ποτέ να χρησιμοποιεί βία.

Η κλασσική αριστερά πρέπει τέλος να απαλλαγεί από τη βλαβερή ιδέα μιας «φιλελεύθερης παγκόσμιας τάξης», η οποία είτε δεν έχει νόημα (καθώς αλλάζει ανάλογα με το τι είναι πολιτικά βολικό για τους υποστηρικτές της) είτε είναι μια καθαρή πρόσκληση για τη διεξαγωγή πολέμων. Πρέπει να αντικατασταθεί από τον σεβασμό του διεθνούς δικαίου όπως ορίζεται από τα Ηνωμένα Έθνη και από άλλους θεσμούς που περιλαμβάνουν όλους τους λαούς.

Η διάδοση των ιδεών της αριστεράς πρέπει να γίνεται αποκλειστικά και μόνο με μη βίαια μέσα και με σεβασμό σε άλλους πολιτισμούς και κράτη, και χωρίς κανενός είδους εξαναγκασμό.

Υπάρχουν πολλά άλλα ζητήματα που δεν μπορούν να καλυφθούν άμεσα από αυτούς τους απλούς κανόνες. Αφορούν τη μετανάστευση, την ισότητα των φύλων και των φυλών, τις σχέσεις μεταξύ εκκλησίας και κράτους κ.λπ. αλλά μπορούν, πιστεύω, να συναχθούν σχετικά εύκολα από αυτές τις τέσσερις γενικές αρχές ".

[garudabluffs]

billionaires represent policy failures

War at the end of history

“If it was once sensible to think of war as the extension of policy by other means, historical development had closed that chapter. Both the main questions of policy and the repertoire of sensible policy tools have changed. With the passing of that epoch, war belonged to the past. Skepticism about war was not, first and foremost, a matter of moral values, it was a matter of realism, of understanding what actually made the modern world tick.

From this point of view, if major powers did “still” engage in war - as many regrettably did - it was either a sign that they were regressing to an earlier stage of statecraft, under the malign influence of reactionary elites. Or the elites in question had fundamentally miscalculated, not grasping the real stakes, or the proper means with which to pursue their best interest. Or the war in question was simply not very important, less a historic turning point than an atavistic indulgence. “Wars of choice” are an occasion to show off the raw power of the state without facing serious resistance.”

“...on Tuesday 22nd February when I had the pleasure of discussing the daring new book by Alex Hochuli,  George Hoare and Philip Cunliffe, The End of the End of History, with one of its authors, Alex Hochuli.“

https://www.youtube.com/c/AufhebungaBunga

So if the Ukraine war marks a a break, to put the emphasis on Putin may be misguided. If the honor of rekindling history, of “returning us to the 19th century” belongs to anyone, it is not to Bunga-Putin. That honor belongs to the Ukrainians.

“_ _the universality of freedom within the modern world that had been unleashed by the French Revolution. In Hegel’s view, the specific historic gain of the French Revolution was to reveal the universal character of human freedom, that is, the claim that freedom is in fact part of being human. Freedom was thus not merely an abstract philosophical proposition, but a political proposition that could be realized in concrete institutions. This was Hegel’s original meaning of the End of History – that whatever followed the French Revolution had to be based on the universal claims of human freedom. This in turn meant that no social or political order could ever be fully stable. The significance of this insight is that freedom cannot be limited or appended to one specific regime or order, as it is precisely the expansiveness and restlessness of human freedom that exceeds any one specific set of political and social institutions. It is this that explains how there can be a finality to the historic process – after the French Revolution, the irreversible and simultaneously contradictory character of human freedom serves as a backstop to history … Hegel’s real insight is that no order founded on human freedom can be ossified; all ends of history end, all modern political orders are eventually remade.”

READ MORE https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-109-war-at-the-end-of-history?s=r

21 Comments

War at the end of history   6 April 2022   By Adam Tooze       

 Will Putin’s invasion of Ukraine lead to a new world order, or an era of grinding compromise?

“If anyone has taken us back in time to the dramas of 19th- and 20th-century history, it is not Putin but Zelensky and his people. They are enacting a drama of heroic resistance, sovereignty and self-determination, worthy of their neighbour Poland, the locus classicus of romantic, and often doomed, bids for self-determination.“

“Ukraine, of course, has every interest in using the momentum of its early successes to widen the conflict. Its people know that they have upset the expected course of events. They know that their resistance has prised open a historic opportunity. Their fear must be that history will close over them, that the weight of Russian power will impose itself and that the West will stick to its commitments to stand clear. Kyiv counters this by insisting that its struggle is “everyone’s struggle”. Like it or not, they insist, we are all already engaged in a Third World War. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is just the beginning.“

“The flow of weapons delivered to Ukraine has been dramatic and it may ultimately defeat Russia. But those weapons are carefully selected. They equip the Ukrainians to repel Russia; they don’t put Ukraine in a position to attack Russia.”

“However, if the war does not escalate to a Third World War and Putin’s regime does not collapse, there will be no option but to face the difficult business of diplomacy and peace-making. It will be a bitter task for both sides. Like the Brest-Litovsk Treaty of March 1918, which first gave international recognition to a sovereign Ukrainian state, it will likely involve harsh and divisive compromises. In light of the crimes perpetrated by the Russian invaders, it will be a supreme test of Ukraine’s political system. But it will be precisely in those compromises and the vision for the future that they imply – for Ukraine and Russia, for Europe and Nato – that the meaning of this war will ultimately be defined. It will be in that process that history is truly made.”

[See also: Francis Fukuyama: We could be facing the end of “the end of history”]

READ MORE https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2022/04/war-at-the-end-of-history

[occupyirtheory]

Episode 37: Ukraine, NOBS, and the End of the End of History (w/ George Hoare)

Episode 37: Ukraine, NOBS, and the End of the End of History (w/ George Hoare)

Hello listeners! This is a rebroadcast of Episode 2 of Transmissions, a new podcast I’ve been involved lately. Transmissions is the official podcast of the Class Unity Caucus of the DSA, and I want to thank them for their permission to use this episode. Our guest for this episode is George Hoare, co-host of the Bungacast (neé Aufebunga Bunga) podcast, and co-author along with Alex Hochuli and…

[auntboldire]

Don’t miss this!

[public-new-yahoopartner-blog]

Public Royalty : Ernst August de Hanovre désobéit à son père et épouse la femme de sa vie !

Ce 6 juillet, à Hanovre, en Allemagne, l'amour a triomphé sur la raison. Le mari de Caroline de Monaco, Ernst-Auguste de Hanovre s'était opposé au mariage de son fils de 33 ans, avec la créatrice russe Ekaterina Malysheva... Il a finalement eu lieu ! Le conte de fée ne commence pas sous les meilleurs auspices pour ces deux amoureux. Ernst-Auguste de Hanovre vient d'épouser civilement sa chérie, Ekaterina Malysheva, sans l'accord de son célèbre papa , qui n'est autre que le mari de Caroline de Monaco. Ce 6 juillet, Ernst-Auguste de Hanovre (sénior) brillait par son absence.Opposé à cette unionPour rappel, dans les colonnes du quotidien économique allemand Handelsblatt, le père du marié avait expliqué ce lundi 3 juillet pourquoi il s'opposait à cette union. Une sortie pas très jojo, où il disait : "La décision n’a pour moi pas été facile à prendre car cela concerne mon fils, mais je m’y vois contraint afin de préserver les intérêts de la maison des Hanovre et des biens, y compris culturels, qui sont sa propriété depuis des siècles". L'amour lui aura donné tort...Le mariage de l'année en AllemagneSur place, les mariés étaient heureusement entourés de leurs proches pour ce jour si spécial. Le maire de la ville, Stefan Schostock, a dirigé la cérémonie, en présence du Prince Christian de Hanovre, frère du marié et témoin, Dina Amer, la demoiselle d'honneur, mais aussi la mère du marié, Chan­tal Hochuli et sa soeur la prin­cesse Alex... Retrouvez cet article sur Public

Public Royalty : Une femme est à la tête de la garde de Buckingham Palace pour la première fois !

Public Royalty : Ed Sheeran : sa plus grande fan s'appelle... Elizabeth II !

Public Royalty : Caroline de Monaco : ce mariage que son mari a du mal à accepter...

Public Royalty : Comment le Prince Harry a retrouvé son âme d'enfant !

Public Royalty : Le Prince William a 35 ans ! Revivez sa folle année en images !

Le conte de fée ne commence pas sous les meilleurs auspices pour ces deux amoureux. Ernst-Auguste de Hanovre vient d'épouser civilement sa chérie, Ekaterina Malysheva, sans l'accord de son célèbre papa , qui n'est autre que le mari de Caroline de Monaco. Ce 6 juillet, Ernst-Auguste de Hanovre (sénior) brillait par son absence.Opposé à cette unionPour rappel, dans les colonnes du quotidien économique allemand Handelsblatt, le père du marié avait expliqué ce lundi 3 juillet pourquoi il s'opposait à cette union. Une sortie pas très jojo, où il disait : "La décision n’a pour moi pas été facile à prendre car cela concerne mon fils, mais je m’y vois contraint afin de préserver les intérêts de la maison des Hanovre et des biens, y compris culturels, qui sont sa propriété depuis des siècles". L'amour lui aura donné tort...Le mariage de l'année en AllemagneSur place, les mariés étaient heureusement entourés de leurs proches pour ce jour si spécial. Le maire de la ville, Stefan Schostock, a dirigé la cérémonie, en présence du Prince Christian de Hanovre, frère du marié et témoin, Dina Amer, la demoiselle d'honneur, mais aussi la mère du marié, Chan­tal Hochuli et sa soeur la prin­cesse Alex Plus d'images sur Public.fr !

Source: Public

Ce 6 juillet, à Hanovre, en Allemagne, l'amour a triomphé sur la raison. Le mari de Caroline de Monaco, Ernst-Auguste de Hanovre s'était opposé au mariage de son fils de 33 ans, avec la créatrice russe Ekaterina Malysheva... Il a finalement eu lieu ! Plus d'images sur Public.fr !

Source: Public

Source: Public

Source: Public

Source: Public

Source: Public

Source: Public

[savetopnow]

2018-03-07 12 SPORTS now

SPORTS

Barstool Sports

Girl Scouts Change Their Rules And Make It Okay To Sell Girl Scout Cookies In Front Of Weed Dispensaries

College Baseball Announcer Becomes Befuddled While Reading A Pitcher’s Bio Filled With Always Sunny Quotes

Rory McIlroy Announces Tiger Woods Is The Undisputed Greatest Player Of All Time

Is It Acceptable For Some Strange Lady To Take A Selfie With My Dogs Without Permission?

Michael Rapaport gives an inspirational Slam Dunk contest speech and his NBA mid-season awards

Deadspin

Kevin Love Shares His Experience With Panic Attacks: "People Don't Talk About Mental Health Enough"

The Oilers Should Probably Stop Sending Guys To New Jersey

Allen Iverson On The Sixers: “I Love My Little Dudes, They’re My Little Guys, I Love Them”

Christian McCaffrey And Friends Helped Save A Hiker's Life

Alex Ovechkin Has A Painting Of Himself Riding A Horse While Playing The Mandolin

ESPN

Report: Memphis may fire Tubby, bring in Penny

Lincecum changes number, honors late brother

Bulls, league discuss lineup amid tanking talk

McCaffrey credited with helping save man's life

Money can't buy PSG the Champions League

FiveThirtyEight Sports

The Raptors’ Bench Is Destroying The NBA

PSG And Real Madrid Weren’t Supposed To Have This Many Problems

Are The Trail Blazers For Real?

We Talk Curling And Stats With The Guys Who Won The Gold

Beside The Points For Monday, March 5, 2018

Reddit Sports

Damn. Slick

My alma mater, Southwestern High School, Somerset Kentucky. Buzzer beater for region championship.

Incredible Kickboxing knockout

What happens when you try to get into a kicking competition with a kickboxer

To celebrate the career of Ed Hochuli on the day of his retirement... Let's admit, "I want to be Ed Hochuli".

SB Nation

College of Charleston makes NCAA Tournament for the first time in 19 years

Rockets vs. Thunder: Live updates, highlights, and analysis

ACC Tournament 2018: Bracket, schedule, scores, teams, and more

Memphis is reportedly considering Penny Hardaway as its next head coach

Every team that has punched its ticket to the 2018 NCAA tournament

Sports Illustrated

A Potential Star WR Heads to the Market

Carmelo Anthony Passes Jerry West to Move to 20th All-Time in Scoring

Report: Portland Signing Georgios Papagiannis to a 10-Day Contract

Report: NBA Gives Bulls Warning on Resting Healthy Players

Bonzie's Back and Feeling Fine, but Notre Dame May Still Be Short on Fuel for At-Large Consideration

The Ringer

A Comprehensive Guide to All of Reese Witherspoon’s Projects

How Do You Know When It’s Dame Time?

Reliving the 2018 Oscars With Jimmy Kimmel and Cousin Sal

Blazing-hot Blazers, the Lakers’ Latest Run, and March Madness Prospects

Le’Veon Bell Is Trying to Single-Handedly Repair the Running Back Market

Yahoo! Sports

2018 NFL Mock Draft: Browns draft Saquon Barkley No. 1 and here's the domino effect

Forde Minutes: Conference tournament predictions for rest of college basketball

The quarterbacks won't like this mock draft

Tee times, pairings, TV info: 2018 Valspar Championship, Rounds 1-2

Ranking all 32 NFL teams by cap space heading into free agency

[okaytakes]

Anti-maskers and hermeneutic injustice

Were we to appreciate mistrust as an inclination, a cognitive tendency, or a structured disposition (in other words, habitus) towards eluding depredation - not simply as a rational calculation based on 'misinformation' - then its capacity as a mediator in a determinative web of human rights abuses that stretch back in time and link the DRC to distant continents could rise to the level of common sense.

—Eugene Richardon, "On the coloniality of global public health"

There is a powerful and unpleasant lesson for the present moment that can be drawn from Richardson's analysis of local attitudes toward "aid" during the Ebola crisis. This is not to cheapen the murderous and exploitative history of (neo)colonialism in Africa—the parallel I wish to draw is not in degree, but in mechanism.

In popular discourse there exists a category of "liberal elites." These are the people for whom the economy has worked the last 40 years. They live in cities because they can afford to. Many of them are "technocrats," in the sense that they exercise decision-making power that impacts others and that sees itself as unbiased, professional, and technical. Many of them are intellectual workers, who produce justifications for the decisions of the technocrats. Since they live in cities, they share the liberal cultural dispositions that are particular to cities.

The cracks in the technocratic hegemony machine have only gotten wider. In the 90s, economists sold the US on international free trade deals, and everyone who worked in manufacturing got screwed. In the 00s, climate change experts urged action while neglecting to offer anything but the vaguest possible ideas about what to do with coal miners when their industry ceased to exist. In 2008 Americans were assured that, for reasons inscrutiably technical, their own survival depended on a mass transfer of wealth to the handful of people that had crashed the economy. And now in 2020, another gang of professionals is calling the shots, and suggesting that everyone simply make peace with the inevitable collapse of the economy.

As an employee of a global health organization, I am a member of that gang. We are a class of people who hardly noticed the crash of 2008. We therefore lack the experience to know that, in this age where Capital enjoys absolute dominance over Labor, the burden of a crashing economy is borne entirely by the most precaratized.

As Alex Hochuli tweets,

No one is going to be held to account for their disastrous handling of Covid, because the only options presented are [1.] obey the govt while it destroys the economy or  [2.] big shrug and other people die... I think it's natural that people default to the latter, given the options. Certain economic ruin or possibility of illness? No brainer for all but the comfortably-off.

To remix Richardson, then, we might write—

Were we to appreciate mistrust as an inclination, a cognitive tendency, or a structured disposition (in other words, habitus) towards eluding depredation - not simply as a rational calculation based on 'misinformation' - then its capacity as a mediator in a determinative web of economic exploitation that stretches back in time and links the extraurban US to distant metropoles could rise to the level of common sense.

What might we learn from this experience? Perhaps that a healthy popular response to a pandemic depends on the existence of popular economic solidarity. For this time though, our colleagues across campus have foreclosed on that possibility.

from Brandon Blogs

[footballtips-3]

Seven rookie officials added for upcoming season

Seven rookie officials added for upcoming season

The NFL will have seven rookies among the 121 officials on its roster this season. The league also promoted Shawn Hochuli, Alex Kemp, Clay Martin and Shawn Smith to referee.

[buddyrabrahams]

Twitter reacts to Ed Hochuli and his legendary biceps retiring

Social media is saluting NFL referee Ed Hochuli (and his muscles) on an unforgettable 28-year career.

The league announced on Tuesday that Hochuli, the NFL’s longest-tenured official, is retiring along with 22-year veteran Jeff Triplette. Hochuli will be replaced by his son Shawn, a former back judge, and Triplette will be replaced by former side judge Alex Kemp.

Hochuli’s retirement in particular resonated on Twitter, as he became a fan favorite over the years with his famously buff figure and his long explanations. Here were some of the best reactions and tributes that came Hochules’ way.

The NFL announced that longtime referee Ed Hochuli is retiring. Penalty explanations will never be the same.

— Field Yates (@FieldYates) March 6, 2018

NFL referee Ed Hochuli is retiring, ending his 27-year reign of making middle-aged men quietly ashamed of their upper-body strength. pic.twitter.com/srjTDfdxZM

— Justin Taylor (@between2worlds) March 6, 2018

Ed Hochuli retires. Goodnight Sweet Prince. pic.twitter.com/YnQchj6LV7

— Trainwreck Sports (@TrainwreckSprts) March 6, 2018

Farewell, Ed Hochuli. No longer will we have to feel bad about our biceps while watching you call a penalty. pic.twitter.com/0Vb9526liX

— The Ringer (@ringer) March 6, 2018

Hochuli's retirement announcement will run 12 hours, 57 minutes

— Drew Magary (@drewmagary) March 6, 2018

Did Ed Hochuli’s biceps retire too though

— Damien Woody (@damienwoody) March 6, 2018

Ed Hochuli is retiring from NFL officiating, no word yet on if he's retiring from the preacher curls. pic.twitter.com/JyLRnBUr3g

— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 6, 2018

[hour 3 of Ed Hochuli's retirement speech at the NFL offices] HOCHULI: Therefore, having completed the process of my employment, I am permitted to engage in various other activities look Ed, most people just send a letter HOCHULI: These activities include, but are not limited to:

— Rodger Sherman (@rodger_sherman) March 6, 2018

EXCLUSIVE: Ed Hochuli retirement letter he sent to @NFL pic.twitter.com/I7e6GZSKSE

— Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) March 6, 2018

Long-time NFL referee Ed Hochuli is retiring. No word yet on if previously purchased tickets to the “Gun Show” will be refunded at this time. pic.twitter.com/2nSYr96fND

— Old Row Sports (@OldRowSports) March 6, 2018

Hold on, Ed Hochuli is still explaining why he’s retiring.

— Holy Elle (@Holy_Elle) March 6, 2018

With Ed Hochuli retired, the NFL referees have lost roughly 50% of their collective muscle mass

— Noncoverage Sports (@noncoverage) March 6, 2018

Indeed, the 67-year-old Hochuli provided us with some truly classic moments in his reffing career, and the recognition is all very well-deserved (but don’t keep it up too long because Ed has to be up at 5 AM tomorrow to hit the gym).

from Larry Brown Sports http://ift.tt/2tlt9xE