When He's Right, He's Right!

[Barbara Branden]

See Lindsay Perigo's article, "The Great Election ebate - Epilogue."

http://www.solopassion.com/node/1877

Barbara

[Chris Grieb]

I hate to say it but Lindsay's right. The fallout should be interesting.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Let me indulge in a small lapse of intrinsicism and subjectivism combined, if I may.

Even if this guy is right on a particular point, he should be wrong and considered as such.

So there.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I think Linz's right because he doesn't have an Objectivist frame of reference. He's some kind of a libertarian. Not taking Peikoff's side is what everyone who is not an Objectivist is doing. Peikoff seems to want to refine Objectivism down to him alone. I'm sure he'll continue to find issues to help make this happen. He won't succeed but he'll die pure and at the top of the philosophy, just like Rand. This is idealism gone to muck. In his case, secondhand muck.

--Brant

Edited November 10, 2006 by Brant Gaede

[Rich Engle]

Well, I'm sure he's capable of being right about things.

As far as I've ever seen, his moves always include social metaphysics as a driver.

He embraces Hsieh, he attacks Hsieh, then says he's angry at her but supports her in a way, but right on the heels of coining his Hsiehkovian phrase or whatever that was.

He just floats, based on how he's working whatever that social hierarchy thing he's got going on. How the players look on his weird little chessboard. One of the ways hard core modernity is described, rather, what the mindset often is, involves the view of players on a chessboard. Never liked that a bit, but there's no doubt that some remain entranced with it.

I just play chess on a board, with little pieces. It's fun.

[Victor Pross]

He just floats, based on how he's working whatever that social hierarchy thing he's got going on. How the players look on his weird little chessboard. One of the ways hard core modernity is described, rather, what the mindset often is, involves the view of players on a chessboard. Never liked that a bit, but there's no doubt that some remain entranced with it.

Yes, I agree with you, Rich. Perigo plays for stage effect, and actual conviction has little to do with him. Now he’s playing the “I’m-a-rugged-individualist-who-has-the-balls-to-criticize-the-likes-of-Peikoff—behold my big balls” stance. It’s the Lindsay Perigo show!

[Rich Engle]

Well, even I became tired of outing his weird brand of kung fu, and I really thought there would never be an end to it.

It's like entropy is starting to get involved. I've only been observing him in the field for a couple of years now, but that should still be a reasonably good sample.

If you're along the narcissist/social metaphysician line (I consider those two terms to be basically the same), one thing that happens is eventually you bang off of your circle too many times. I think that's why he's having to do so much rapid alliance-shifting, spin, etc... remember, he's working in a small circle (O-world) in the first place. Ever play chess on one of those little plastic travel sets? It really does change your game, if you're not mindful of basic principles.

And it doesn't leave anything out of the question for him, tactically. He could easily find himself in a place where he might consider it advantageous to start positive spin on just about anyone-- BB, NB, who knows?

That's where that kind of gameplay forces you. It's a misuse of the "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" thing... eventually, idle spectators can't distinguish who is whom, other than whatever flavor-of-the-month is there, along with usually with the complementary/mirror whipping boy (or girl).

And that's how I am with him now. At first I kind of felt like Hunter Thompson following Nixon around on the press junket. At least an enemy is an enemy. With him, I can't even muster that.

Edited November 10, 2006 by Rich Engle

[Victor Pross]

If you're along the narcissist/social metaphysician line...

Narcissism, Rich? Yes. Observe many of Perigo’s post titles include his own name! Linz this-or-that. What the hell is that? What’s next, referring to himself in the third person? “Linz don’t abide the bellicose banter of the pomo-wankers!”

[Rich Engle]

I guess that's just part of the gig, Victor... some people think they're more of a personality than a person.

The thing is, the man does have some talent (speaking of). I just can't handle the theater and impressario dog-and-pony stuff.

I'm not saying go in the DSM IV and notice that he very well might be meeting at least 5 of the required criteria for NPD, but holy-moly, sometimes...

I'm more in just head-shaking mode with him anymore... the thrill of skewering him has left me. Plus, I think he can feed off things like that.

--Mr. Engels, A Unitarian :sick:

[Brant Gaede]

Linz: "Sick Hsiekovians"

"I hope you sick, mindless, treasonous bastards who slavishly followed Leonard's depraved orders are reading this. In case I haven't already made it clear, you make me fucking sick."

I find it hard to believe that I once tolerated this kind of crap. The man is under the influence. I salute the fellow soldier, although even when he's right he makes it wrong.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

In this whole debate in Objectivism-land, there is a 3 ton gorilla setting in the living room that Objectivists, for some reason, refuse to see. Certainly both Perigo and Hsieh refuse to see it. (I mention them because they are at the base of the topic of this thread, but they are really small-fry.)

On one side there is Peikoff worrying about a growing theocracy taking over America and claiming that Democrats will be awful, but will stifle the growth plans of the religious right, and that Bush has fought the war against terrorism altruistically (apparently because of the influence of the theocracy).

Then on the other side are those who claim that Bush has been hamstrung by the collectivist and altruistic doctrine of the evil Democrats and their defenders.

(Circling around this debate is a smattering of libertarian-type folks splitting hairs on non-initiation of force.)

There happens to be a another possibility--one that has nothing to do with voting Republican or Democrat and makes me extremely proud to be an American. People simply stopped being fooled into having their children and friends in the military killed for the profit of a few powerful and well-connected people. They learned what that was all about from the Vietnam debacle and they voted against it, irrespective of party.

I hold that the "altruism" railed against by both sides of the Objectivist divide is nothing but a smokescreen used by those in power to satisfy the masses, and Objectivists are buying into this lie, hook, line and sinker in their zeal to fight a Randian intellectual war. I prefer the hard-nosed reporter's attitude: follow the money trail. See who benefits.

When I was in college, there was a popular phrase, Military-Industrial Establishment. I have some nostalgia for that term. I don't mean that capitalism per se is a Military-Industrial Establishment, as was the original meaning, but, for the life of me, I don't understand how Objectivists can look at the 3 ton gorilla supplying the military and "reconstruction" and ignore it as not being an essential issue.

One of the central tenets of Objectivism is separation of the government and the economy.

Well, supplying the military in products, preferably consumables, and being awarded humongous monopoly contracts for "reconstruction" paid for by the government during a protracted occupation of another country is certainly not capitalism--certainly not separation of government and the economy. It is a 3 ton gorilla in the living room for Objectivists and others moved by ideals to ignore while they bicker with each other about what the real problem is.

The simple truth is that these suppliers and monopoly holders don't want the occupations to end--they want them to string out forever, and they really like the local hostilities because these ensure that the occupations will continue. Let's put it another way: these suppliers are living high on the hog on unearned wealth paid for by American bodies and hidden under a publicity mantle of altruism.

Ah... There is another small detail. These suppliers, by definition, are friends of those in power in the USA government.

Isn't there some basic induction that needs to be done here? It isn't rocket science to know that a person owning a cash cow does not want that bovine creature to die and will take steps to see that this does not happen. I don't mind discussing philosophical details about war and terrorism, but what about--at the very least--mentioning a real obvious essential? What is the point to pretending it doesn't exist?

As an Objectivist, it is embarrassing to look at all the bickering in the subcommunity about the evil of this and that, then look over to the other side of the living room and see that 3 ton gorilla grinning up a storm while he keeps stuffing himself, crapping all over the place, getting fatter and fatter and knowing that nobody notices.

The American public, with all its lack of philosophical sophistication, made a resounding philosophical statement about essentials in this past election that Objectivists missed altogether. People didn't mind going off to war for a good cause. They jumped for joy at doing something about the bad guys. (I even think they would still jump for joy at neutralizing Iran's nuclear ambitions permanently.) But the two wars ended and both occupations started. Then they listened to all the lies the present administration has fed them over the years and saw these lies exposed in public one by one, saw that the local resistance problem wasn't being resolved in both occupations, saw the increasing body count of American soldiers, remembered Vietnam, and then took a good hard look at that gorilla.

They simply said, "Dinner is over."

Whew!

I love America.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; There is a problem with the military-industrial complex. I think there is a huge problem with Islam. Haliburton did not fly planes into the World Trade Center. I had great problems with the war in Iraq and I think it was a distraction but we have to get rid of Osama. It worth noting that Eisenhower's phase was his sticking it to John F. Kennedy.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Chris,

I have no problem with destroying the military capacity and even infrastructure of a hostile country to bring it to its knees.

I do have a problem with the hypocrisy of sticking around a country like Iraq (or Vietnam) for years on end and making soldiers do the work of business and construction companies in order to use up military supplies and provide fat USA government contracts to a small mafia of American companies to rebuild the hostile country.

Let the vanquished rebuild their own lives and countries, not subject American soldiers and workers to being killed to do it. People who are rebuilding their lives don't even have time for terrorism. But those receiving generous gifts do. (And yes, I believe in taking out Iran's capacity to provide such gifts, if they are to be used for terrorism, and to manufacture nuclear arms. But I don't believe in hanging around afterward.)

On the problem with Islamic fundamentalism, this is a serious problem. However, each act by a terrorist is vastly magnified through 24 hour worldwide coverage by broadcast news. The actual figures are nowhere near aligned with the amount of fear people feel. The automobile is a far more dangerous threat to everyday life in terms of numbers of fatalities.

Also, there is the money thing. The Saudi brand of fundamentalism is not--by far--the Islam practiced by the vast majority of Muslims. Yet it is the version most heavily financed by an almost endless amount of oil money--gobs and gobs of oil money--all provided by the West. We are funding our enemies.

My biggest gripe about Objectivists on this point is that they have become so afraid to criticize big business that they find no fault at all (at least not in public) with formal government-protected monopolies backed by a military with all the corruption money and offshore accounts can buy. They are afraid of being called anti-capitalist.

Is that what Rand meant by capitalism? I seem to remember her coming down hard on big business running to the government for favors all the time...

Michael

[reason.on]

...even when he's right he makes it wrong.

--Brant

Indeed; 'tis the mark of true madman.

RCR

[Rich Engle]

It's the military-industrial-political complex. Or, to cut through it, dirty contractors getting sweet deals, which they often have not even just done shoddily, but in some cases not completely, while skimming the bucks.

Has anyone seen some of this fine work? One comes to mind. We were going to build a new student library over there, yay! It was to include workstations (as in good task chairs, and PCs). Amongst the other horrors, they got plastic lawn chairs, and NO EFFING PCs. That is but one example, there are others.

There is also the fact that when "temporary" control of Iraq oil fields went in place, more skimming... Blisteringly failed an audit, more bucks out in some twilight zone.

Mostly, this is about oil. Look what happened in Afghanistan...from what I can see we pulled out once we had the turf we needed to build the sought-after oil connection.

The Bush oil family. The Bin Ladin oil family. Every see pictures when they get together for birthdays and holidays? Touching.

Peikoff is not entirely off-mark about the power of fundamentalism in the U.S., but he is missing a key point, it appears. The religious right is not directly intertwined with conservative politics like it used to be. They are more like a nation of their own, more like a standalone. This was a conscious tactical decision on their part. They are a force to be reckoned with. They don't need to be in government-- in fact they do better as a large force that can mobilize blocks of voters.

[Robert Campbell]

In Vietnam, the big contractor was Brown and Root--one of whose founders had long been a buddy and patron of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

In Iraq, it's Halliburton, one of whose divisions is a direct descendant of Brown and Root.

Some things haven't changed.

Robert Campbell

[Rich Engle]

Robert's got it.

You want to see more of this kind of thing, seriously-- read Larry Flynt's book "Sex, Lies, and Politics: The Naked Truth"

Totally worth it, puts a lot of pieces into the puzzle. The man had to collect quality dirt for years, just to protect himself.

[Charles R. Anderson]

I believe a number of you are being too cynical. Are there companies and business managers and politicians who take advantage of public ignorance and apathy for the sake of monetary gain and power? Yes, there are many of them. There are plenty of businessmen who are eager to scoop up every subsidy they can and who will work long and hard to sell a new market or labor protection scheme or to have government provide a special interest subsidy or tax preference. Yes, we supposedly have farm subsidies to save the family farm, but most of the subsidy money goes to fairly wealthy farmers and ADM. There are many politicians who know that a minimum wage law is only destructive, but it is easily sold to the public, so they happily sell one. There are others who pretend to be very concerned with fundamentalist Christian morality in those parts of the country where that sells well, but live their own lives as hypocrits to the principles they publicly proclaim. These flaws are common in many politicians and businessmen, and they are common among many voters also.

But, I think that in most cases in which governments exercise power in the USA, the primary cause of the action is the result of an idea, which is held in substantial part by the politicians, the businessmen, and the voters of America. Special interests often have important impact on policy, but they usually get it by highjacking an idea that has already gained considerable momentum as such in our society. We should examine the money trails and try to figure out what effects that winds up having on policy. You would think that if the purpose of the farm subsidies was to save family farms and you find that the money goes to ADM and very wealthy farmers, that one should put an end to the farm subsidies as we know them. Similarly, where companies are having too much influence in keeping us in Iraq, we need to reduce that influence.

But, I seriously doubt that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld took us into Iraq to provide easy money for some American companies. I do not find that plausible. I do think that they recognized the fundamental importance that oil has for the US and world economies. I do think that they wanted to try to secure open access to that oil. I also think they were tired of letting Saddam take pot-shots at American pilots and of him declaring war on us with no response from us. They saw this as encouraging Islamic fanatics, as it certainly did. They saw the need to be strong and to act with certainty. They simply did not see just how much of a primitive mess Iraq and its people were. As is common, the Iraqis were viewed as more like us than they are. That was the big miscalculation, but it is one that we can learn a lot from as we continue through the next several decades to deal with Islamic fanatics and terrorists.

For those who believe that there was a calculation that we would take over the Iraqi oil fields or have a few American companies with connections to Bush and Cheney do it, I would point out that we have actually put surprisingly little effort into getting the oil to flow again out of Iraq. Actually, we have done much too little. If we had made a much greater effort there, we could then readily use the oil money that would result to buy off most of the unrest in Iraq. The thugs and the tribal and religious factions could very likely be pacified. But, I suspect that this was not done because our government wanted to make sure that no one could readily claim we invaded Iraq only for oil. Perhaps, given even the above tendency to explain all things in terms of conspiracy, they did not have that option. Well, without it, there is no solution to Iraq, except to partition it or get out. Perhaps it is just that they should stew in their own juices. There are too few who want a civil mode of government, though there are a tragic number who no doubt do. They will wind up with rule either by a religious theocracy, or a warlord, or several of each. We did give them their choice and they seem to have made the general direction of their choice clear.

Unfortunately for us and the future of the war with Islamic fanatics, they will feel successful and will push their agenda harder. We will retreat and recoil from any strong action as we did from Vietnam until the Reagan presidency and we will be badly pushed around for a long while into the future. I expect more Americans to die in America due to Islamist bombings and other terrorist acts than have in Iraq to date over the next 10 years. I sure hope that I am wrong about this. But, when we criticize a policy, it is commonly wise to think out the alternative.

In that light, I believe all we can do is a quick partition of Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite parts and then leave. What will happen will happen. We will say we gave you a chance for a better future as a unified Iraq and you proved too parochial for that. We will leave you with one last chance with three separate countries, each of which will make its own choices and may have to survive wars with the others. It is your destiny and you will decide it. We wish you the best of luck.

[Barbara Branden]

Charles, I am in substantial agreement with your post, especially "I seriously doubt that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld took us into Iraq to provide easy money for some American companies. I do not find that plausible" -- and I was about to say something quite similar. Although I'm not certain about your last paragraph -- dividing Iraq into three separate territories.

Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I suppose I am a bit more jaded. I have a huge difficulty with attributing a single cause to something as complicated as invading and occupying another country.

If anyone wants a single cause for the Iraq war, it would be the will of our elected Commander in Chief. He wanted it to happen, so he made it happen. If he didn't want it to happen, it would not have. But that would be a gross oversimplification. There are other factors at work.

Like Charles and Barbara, I also find it implausible that a country would go to war solely to provide easy money for cronies of those in power. But I find it equally implausible that such reality (the easy money) is not a consideration at all in the halls of power.

I think there is a mix of motives operating, not just one.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; There is always a mix of motives to almost any human endervour. On contracts I have heard that the present procedure was began under the Clinton administration. Someone can correct me if I am wrong.

[John Dailey]

Chris:

~ I suspect you're correct, but, Bush and Cheney seem to have exponentialized the use of 'outsourcing' for pvt-'army' mercs (operating NOT under the military), if a latest book I've just caught ref'd on C-SPAN's any indication. The book is Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Poweful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill. The author writes for The Nation which he shows little prob with noting that it's read by many 'Progressives'. Ok, there's an obvious bias here for an 'agenda', ntl, the hour interview on AfterWords was creepy re his arguments.

~ Supposedly many 'Blackwater' mercs have already operated...overtly...under Home Security in New Orleans post-Katrina for taking care of law-and-order. And, besides that group, there are several others. A Faluja incident only recently brought Congress' attention to the whole new procedure.

~ "I've got a bad feeling about this..."

LLAP

J:D