Jon Stewart - Rachel Maddow

Watching Jon Stewart interview a Republican politician a couple of weeks ago I was struck by his grasp of political detail. It occurred to me that if Congress were a place where the American people were taken care of these days that he might be considering running for congress one day like Al Franken did. What's notable about this discussion is how grown up it is compared to the dribble being peddled by the so called professionals.

Rachel and Jon both disagree a fair amount in this interview, in a way that highlights the soft balls thrown to interview subjects on the right by Fox News.Some time back I caught an American philosophy lecturer point out that for real news go to The Daily Show or The Onion which says to me that there's a problem in the way that news media works in the States. I don't think Jon Stewart realises his remit for satire doesn't include the idea that his viewing audience may have changed since those black and white days of comedy and news as distinctly separate. Either way it's reassuring knowing that discussion of this caliber still exists and that fine people engage in it. Stewart's comments at the end are both gracious and human.

I was initially going to post this to my tumblr as it's easy to get sucked into political discourse and start becoming irrelevant, but as I had a few things to say on the matter I've posted it here.

If that hasn't tempted you to watch this than I should point out that Stewart takes a wholly contextual view of waterboarding and war crimes that may or may not be wrong but is interesting as an example of a mind not interested in binary thinking. It may not be correct but it is evolved.

Disavowal - Zizek On Intolerance of Tolerance & Only Foreigners Should Vote

Al Jazeera has to be the only media outlet giving people like Slavoj Zizek (who can talk for hours, his friends call him Castro) at least half an hour to discuss some of the most important challenges of our times. Zizek's deconstruction of tolerance is why I'm leaning towards his somewhat humorous reframing of a Stalinist mandate to fix things. 

This is a topic I've been straddling the fence on since I first challenged it in a theoretical sense with Sandrine in Hong Kong. It's not as if the answers are easy, but at least Zizek makes the point that there's an imperative for all of us to be philosophers here.

Update: Zizek on only foreigners should vote is kind of the big thinking I'm attracted to.

Sam Ismail

sam ismail

View more documents from Sick Sam.

More on the background for this document over at Agency Spy and here, here, here, here, here and Sam's side here not to forget George over here.

Chris Hedges - Death Of The Liberal Class

Chris Hedges connects more powerful political punches then I've come across from any other American commentator. Liberal limpness, the power of permanent war, propaganda to Madison avenue, evils of objectivity, Foxes pursuit of emotional consistency against truth, hedonism of power, complicity in one's enslavement, distinction between revolution and rebellion, price of virtue, hope, intellectual ghettos, the rise of fascism and the new deal in the 1930's, moral nihilism, digital tribalism and more. 

His last words in this 20 minute interview in response to the tough nature of this interview: "Why not go down swinging? What's the point of letting them wipe their feet all over our faces?".

Shoulder to shoulder Chris.

Class Struggle

Throw them all into first.

Random Access Memory

If Fox news are airing this I'm inclined to believe as I blogged earlier, that the tipping point is approaching. However it's unlikely to change the most important achievement of 911 which as Zizek points out is a domestically satisfying sense of victimhood. 

It's hard for me to guess with respect to large swathes of the American electorate, if anything changes when one is still a victim even as the perpetrator changes masks? I mean, what chance does history have when memory so often barely stretches from one tweet to the next?

Asia's First Lady - Aung San Suu Kyi

I was cynically optimistic when I read that Gordon Brown's last correspondence as Prime Minister was a hand written letter to Aung San Suu Kyi. I suspect that this didn't happen without some smoke filled corridor meetings attended by the United States and China. Principally with trade deals as the sacrificial lamb whereby everyone benefits but the environment. Thailand most notably signed a reported 8 Billion dollar deal just recently with Burma so clearly they were privy to yesterdays news.

Burma is the place I've explored the most by backpack and skull bustingly long (24 hours +) dilapidated bus journeys outside of Thailand. I spent an idyllic week or so a few years back on one of the most beautiful and peaceful beaches off the bay of Bengal in Burma and took this favourite picture of cattle used by the fishermen to haul in the catch while immersed in the water. It's here and across the country that I got to know a little more of the people. Most importantly that the ethnic tribes of Burma are another Yugoslavia or Balkanisation of S.E Asia waiting to happen.

I'm extraordinarily happy that an historical olive branch as been extended. It's by no means going to be any easier from now on. Indeed it will be harder to avoid bloodshed, but this first difficult step has been taken by the military junta. Which means somewhere inside the General's clique, the story of evolution continues to gather speed with what is to employ  metaphorical adumbrations; a race against extinction.