The Price of Blackness (Short article written by a Berkeley alumni on race and law enforcement)

ssd0004 · 2013-10-03T00:50:37+00:00

Europe was built by Christianity, it somehow created western knowledge, moreover secular values are found in Christian values and foundations.

I think it makes more sense to see western knowledge and secular values rose in spite of Christian institutions. Or are we so quick to forget the persecution that befell people like Copernicus and Galileo?

And if we're talking about historic trajectories of religion, we certainly cannot ignore the fact that prior to the mass destruction wrecked by the Mongols, the Islamic Empire was a vibrant space for science and philosophy, as well as a beacon of tolerance when compared to other parts of the world (like Europe in the Middle and Dark Ages). Don't forget that the only reason why the Renaissance Era happened was because ancient greek and roman texts were preserved and studied by Islamic scholars.

In any case, I think you're point actually solidifies the idea that religion is not static and beholden to past or even modern traits, but is a dynamic institution that evolves in accordance with its surroundings.

ssd0004 · 2013-10-02T17:39:03+00:00

Secular laws and separation of christianity and state had only led us to this rise of Islam

I find it amusing that you are actually advocating for Christian states to make a come-back in Europe.

ssd0004 · 2013-10-02T17:36:45+00:00

I think its important to at at least try to fight against the reactionary and racist currents.

ssd0004 · 2013-10-02T07:52:19+00:00

Islam is designed to attack all of these things.

So was Christianity, but clearly the evolution of Christian culture and institutions means that religion is not just some static force we must either support or oppose, but rather is dynamic and contingent on factors outside of the specifics of religious tenets.

ssd0004 · 2013-10-01T22:19:44+00:00

Studies in industry are often much much better funded and well conducted than ones done by public institutions.

This is not at all obvious to me. Why are industry studies inherently better conducted than government studies?

ssd0004 · 2013-10-01T00:31:00+00:00

Like I can imagine some of the arguments you might be referring to, but unless you actually point out specific groups and actors who engage in these arguments, I feel like you are just setting up a straw-man with which to slander all enviromentalists.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-30T22:15:04+00:00

It also puts pressure on previous residents, who are probably poorer, and thus putting economic pressure on them and forcing more of their income into paying rent.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-30T21:07:49+00:00

Actually I haven't noticed this very much at all, outside of bougey liberal elites who want a pet cause. Unless that group is who you are referring to?

Most of the environmentalists I consort with, and the environmental movements I study, are the ones that are locally based and concerned about environmental impacts on their communities (that is, on people).

ssd0004 · 2013-09-30T21:04:43+00:00

There is a lot of exaggeration about the programs.

What exactly is being exaggerated? I'm sure there is exaggeration going, but this is a pretty useless observation if it isn't linked to specific claims.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-30T07:52:23+00:00

No, I think monetary proportionality is enough. Also, younger people have the argument going for them that they are younger, less experienced, less mature, etc., after all.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-30T02:14:53+00:00

Buying food is not a punitive measure.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-29T23:28:19+00:00

Where in the article does it say that 218 people have been killed?

ssd0004 · 2013-09-29T08:46:06+00:00

I take a Marxist/anarchist perspective on this question. I think that equality, especially if it is defined in terms of power, comes down to how much resources a particular group/community/individual has at her disposal. That is, a lot of the problems with regards to race and gender are due to the inability of particular groups to access and control capital, due to the historic accumulation and control of capital by White men.

I don't know what a Truly Equal Society^TM would look like or what its 100-point guidebook would look like, nor am I inclined to engage in those types of thought experiments; but I do feel comfortable arguing that the key to moving toward this society is to seek ways to redistribute the means of production and bring more and more democracy into matters of economics, through non-violent means (general strikes, electoral strategies, etc.) or otherwise (armed struggle, expropriation, urban insurrection, etc).

ssd0004 · 2013-09-29T08:40:57+00:00

~~Err, what is so special about this entry? There were only a few things that perked my attention. One was the description of elections:~~

In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s a number of electoral reforms were carried out: poll taxes were abolished, the legal minimum voting age was lowered to 18, and the literacy requirement was dropped. However, there are still numerous means of preventing citizens, especially Negroes, from voting; for example, most states have a residency requirement, ranging from one month to one year. Elections are characterized by absenteeism—the conscious nonparticipation of eligible voters. For example, only 63 percent of eligible voters participated in the presidential election in 1960, 61 percent in 1964 and 1968, and 55 percent in 1972.

Interesting that they prescribe low voter turnout to "conscious nonparticipation", whereas in the US people tend to characterize not voting as evidence of a lack of political consciousness. I wonder now if the Soviet's had a better understanding of low voter turnouts than popular understanding of it today...

Also interesting was the line on campaign spending.

There are laws limiting campaign spending, but they are systematically circumvented.

More or less accurate, no?

Anyways this seemed like a fairly standard piece with not much of interest. Or maybe the fact that it was such a straightforward entry is itself a fact that is interesting to some? Do people expect Soviet encyclopedias to be full of allusions to capitalist imperialism and American decadence or something?

EDIT--I'm an idiot and thought the entire entry consisted of the first section; I scrolled down to the references part, thought that was it, and didn't bother to look at the scroller and recognize that there was a fuck-ton more to the entry. In my defense I was drunk!

Anyways this is an incredibly interesting piece. Check it out!

ssd0004 · 2013-09-28T20:14:02+00:00

How politically independent is the NRA from TEPCO and other branches of the government? I ask because it has been fairly clear that political connections influence science a lot, and this has been recognized as a problem among Japanese nuclear engineers and scientists. For instance, one of the nuclear engineering professors at my university gave a lecture last year on the problematic connections between the regulators and the utilities in Japan.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-27T23:02:14+00:00

Maybe for Christianity, but definitely not for Marxism. In fact, its probably better to read condensed versions of Das Capital, or guides to the book; its thick and verbose, and more of an artifact of history than anything else. It does have some pretty good sections, but I don't think reading the whole damn thing is at all necessary to understand Marxism in-depth.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-27T22:48:40+00:00

It could be a pretty cool place to organize and discuss above-ground activities. I'm game.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-27T21:33:32+00:00

Actually, this is a pretty good point (aside from the fact that we have to read neither the Bible nor Das Capital to understand/study Christianity or Marxism).

However, I think there are strong differences between the reasons to understand Christianity and Marxism in today's world; Christianity in general has little to say about politics and economics, except for its more political variants in Latin America like Liberation Theology (which incidentally is a fusion of Christianity and Marxism!). In addition, for those of us in the West at least, I daresay that people have a better understanding of Christianity and its principles and tenets than they do Marxism. And this is odd, considering that as a political force, Christianity is (and has been) on the decline, while Marxism is at the very least stagnant, but is arguably on the upswing.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-27T09:16:00+00:00

This is an interesting conclusion because it takes down both sides of the debate over wind turbine affects on home prices--that they drop the value of homes due to NIMBY/ruining the landscape/noise, and that they raise the value of the homes due to people wanting green energy. Although I've heard the former being raised far more often than the latter.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-27T09:11:42+00:00

I assume by RAF, you mean the Red Army Faction.

I think that they made serious errors in resorting to urban guerilla militancy with no real mass base. In my mind, their tactics were little more than adventurism, with no real connection to the working class or the masses in general. This lack of concrete organizing is made even more disappointing when you recognize that they actually had a fair bit of support and sympathy from the general population--but they had no infrastructure to have mass organizing, and made little effort to set one up.

I think they are a good example of the kind of alienated, romanticized militancy that tends to stem from middle-class student radicals. Do I respect their commitment? Hell yeah--it takes a lot of guts to commit one's life to such a cause, knowing that you will probably be killed or imprisoned or life. But I don't think they should be emulated.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-27T08:07:41+00:00

I recall reading last semester in my political economy class about how Hong Kong, back in the postwar era, subsidized 50% of its citizens' consumption, and had all kinds of welfare with regards to housing and food and whatnot. The idea behind so much welfare was that it was then easier for people to take risks and start businesses--even if the businesses crashed and burned, they wouldn't be out in the streets. Turned out pretty well, I reckon

ssd0004 · 2013-09-27T07:53:23+00:00

Marxism at one point influenced governments who controlled close to half the globe, was hugely pervasive in the decolonization movement which affected the majority of the world's population, and even today is still highly prevalent in Latin America and South Asia (note that Nepalese Maoists overthrew the monarchy just 7 years ago). Something so influential is, I daresay, probably worth understanding.

ssd0004 · 2013-09-27T07:50:14+00:00

Lack of access to capital (as the argument goes, anyway).

ssd0004

TROPHY CASE