I am not a huge fan of hard science. It has its goods, but it also has its bads, and has become, within the last couple centuries, a religion of its own, where people swear by it. The scientific method has become a paradigm which discounts things which cannot be quantifiable, for example, thoughts, feelings and opinions. It has made people seek to present their opinions as if they were fact (just so they can appear to others to be considered “legitimate”), rather than allowing them to remain merely opinion, and allowing their readers to read them as such. And this is problematic, when people try to play a game for which they are not fit, or more likely, which is not fit for what they are trying to do. Empiricism defeats metaphysics, and this taken out to its extreme is problematic for a complex organism like a human, who can question, but more importantly, doubt.

But, that said, allow me to present a small obituary of a great scientist, one of the few that have existed in my lifetime. The man’s name was Albert Hoffman. An article about his death from the AP can be found by following this link. He was a Swiss scientist who died at 102. He worked for European pharmaceutical giant Sandoz. And by the way, he was also the inventor of LSD. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is the contest in the state of Pennsylvania. It is therefore apropos that the Wizard of S make a comment on it.

First the prediction: Clinton by 6 points, give or take 3.

What is behind the prediction? Well, let’s just call it a gut feeling. Clinton has been doing well in the state, though not as well today as a month ago. Obama has not been able to erode her support in the state to the point where he can win, so he will have to accept a single digit loss there. The cities are important for Obama, but the majority of the state is not city, and those areas tend to vote for Hillary. The “scandals” have not hurt Obama, but they also haven’t helped Clinton. So Clinton wins, as expected, and if I am wrong, I will issue a retraction.

Now to the accompanying analysis. Long have the political junkies in this country waited for another contest. SIX WEEKS! Over this time, we have seen the slugfest on television, but the one thing we haven’t seen is the effects that the hard campaign has had on the attitudes among not only the people in Pennsylvania, but also in the country. About a week or so ago, news reports began talking about Obama in terms of “When” not “if” he takes on McCain in the fall. Now Pundits say things like “What is Clinton doing?”, as if she had no reason to continue the process, and should have dropped out.

But these last few weeks demonstrate clearly why she stayed in the race after March. She has been able to continue promoting her agenda, even though she now faces an overwhelming tide of support for Obama in the country, on the television, and in people’s mind. She is now running the classic protest campaign, and I say good for her. The Socialist Party would do well to take at least this lesson from her: when you know you aren’t going to win, you stop trying to win and start saying what you really mean. She is in a position to put her real agenda out there, because it is very unlikely that she will have to implement any of it, OR defend it for very long. She knows she will probably not get the nomination, nor will she be considered for VP, so she has the latitude that Obama does not have, and that is the freedom to use the “kitchen sink” and whatnot.

Some seem to think that Clinton’s continued participation in the primaries is damaging the Democratic Party. Many television commentators discuss this ad infinitum. I think that Obama accurately stated it on the Daily Show last night when he said that by October, this will be old news, but not for the reason he said. He said that eventually voters will see that there is a real difference between what McCain proposes and what generic Democrat, probably Obama proposes, and they will forget the bickering. Yeah, but this is not why they will vote Democrat.

First consider this Hypothetical Distribution of votes in the US electorate this year. This is on the standard left-right spectrum, and everything is clearly labeled. Read the rest of this entry »

The following post was written by Shaun Richman, and was posted on his blog entitled “Why did Shaun Richman Create this Blog?” The entry is called “This is a Shamelessly Factional Button,” and lays out a brief history of factional buttons in the Socialist Party at the turn of the Century.

This Is a Shamelessly Factional Button
[by Shaun Richman. Republished with Permission]
December 7th, 2007

Shannon Hammock just mailed me a parcel of the past: silly factional buttons from the Socialist Party’s 2001 national convention. It was the first time in many years that an organized caucus was formed to compete for seats on the party’s national committee. Although they called themselves “the Issues Caucus,” their focus seemed to be on personalities. They lumped a bunch of comrades with wildly different politics that didn’t necessarily even like each other into a cabal, the “us vs. them” that they had to “get.” Read the rest of this entry »

I know I promised some time ago to post my paper on Plan Colombia And US intervention. Well, I had to polish it a bit, and re-organize it. This is probably not the final draft, but it is good enough for government work, so here youn’s go. This paper is on US involvement in the Colombian Civil War, and how US involvement in foreign internal conflicts only makes things worse. Ref; Iraq. “Enjoy” if that is what you all do with these papers.

The Colombian Civil War: US Intervention as a Negative Force

For all of those of you who tie your hopes to the possibility of a minor party winning an election in the United States, I have something for you to read: This paper Entitled American Exceptionalism and the Minor Party will definitely open your eyes.

Over my time in the MA program, I have been forced to abandon the idealism of my youth and take a more pragmatic approach. I think this paper is the apex of that approach.

I would like to make one disclaimer here. The conclusions of the paper are that in the United States so many things are arrayed as to make the minor party an unworkable alternative, if one’s objective is to play by the rules and try to get elected. Does that mean we shouldn’t form minor parties? No, it sure don’t. We need to form political organizations specifically to demonstrate, concretely for people that there really is no “political frontier” where they can go to if they get fed up with the major parties. In other words, we need to concretely demonstrate for people that they will not achieve political reform the way things are through minor parties. Principle will always be trumped by rationality, except in the case of those who were not too rational to begin with (that is, those who actively support a minor party fervently, and think it will actually make a difference.)

No, it is not that we need to alter our means to accomplish the goal. It is that we need to alter our immediate goals: why we participate in minor parties. We need to use minor parties first to generally agitate for political reform. We need to use political parties to show what is screwed up with liberal democracy. And we need to use political parties to identify and associate with other radicals. The “revolution” won’t come from a radical democratic socialist Party. However, while it is still on the horizon, we can use the organization to hasten its approach: that is to help create the objective conditions whereby revolution CAN develop in this country of ours. This role for the minor Party is not laid out by the Paper, but you can read this as a prologue.

Enjoy.

Doc

There is bit of an urban legend concerning becoming an ordained minister by filling out a form and sending it in.

Well, I am here to report that it is not an urban legend. As of this morning, February 6, I have become an ordained minister with the power to marry people, baptize kids (or adults) and absolve sins. You heard it: I am not a reverend of the Universal Life Church. And I did it for free.

The Universal Life Church apparently has ordained millions of folks since 1959. It’s theology is relatively simple, something we can all pretty much get down with: “Do only that which is right.”

While they charge money for a lot of bells and whistles, they will ordain you for free. You have to visit their site and agree to “do what is right”, (but they say that you are free to determine this for yourself). It is so post-modern it is silly. But nonetheless, they will then ordain you a minister, and you can get to starting your own church, marry people, do legit baptisms, and absolve every last one of the sins of every person you know. You can conceivably walk down the street absolving sins. There are articles online to let you know how to do all this officiating.

The website is here. Feel free to join, and get to the God’s, god’s, or gods’ work here on Earth.

Serenely,
Reverend William “Doc” Stodden

I had intended to vow to not do another show until Pinochet died. Well, he’s dead. I don’t have much more of a eulogy for him than to say this: The nicest thing anyone could say about this fellow is that he was a devoted father and he lived a long life. But now, he’s worm food. Good riddance.

W Doc

Ladies and Gentlemen: Posted below is a comment from a recent email exchange between myself and an ardent Marxist. Pretty succinctly, it describes my position on Marxism, and I think it does a pretty good job poking holes in Marxist methods. While it is not as polished as most of my writing, remember it is from an email exchange, and was not “for a grade” so to speak.

To protect the innocent, the other side will not be named. Just know that everything except the innitial sentence fragment was written by me.

so long as we rely upon anyone but your own personal gurus, Morales and Chavez (there are probably others),

These are not my personal “gurus”. I don’t follow Chavismo like you follow Marx. I am sorry if you misunderstand. Hopefully I can compose this without too much condescension: I have only always said that these two individuals provide AN example (not THE example, I have NEVER argued this) of what course we could consider for our country. I have never claimed to support a chavista programme for the United States, but I sure support it for Venezuela. The things Chavez does in Venezuela would not work in the United States.

His methods, however, could work and are something we should explore, because we should want to look at ALL options available to us. Similarly, I have always said that where Marx works in the United States, we should utilize his method. Where he does not fit,
just like where Chavez does not fit, we should not use them. I have said it before and will probably say it a hundred times more until you feel the need to stop attacking me because I think seizure of political power (in WHATEVER way possible) before economic power is dealt with is a good idea.
Read the rest of this entry »

Author’s Note: This paper was written for a class concerning the structure of the English Language. While I dont have a date on it precisely, I think it was written in the Spring of 2003. Regardless, with all the mis- and dis-information that has been going on for the last few years, it is hard for us to remember what was really going on just a few years ago. History has been written and re-written so often, that it often helps to go back and look at subjective commentaries from back in the day just to square one’s self with how confused we are as a society. This article is pretty much my own opinion, so read it liberally. - Thank you, William Stodden

Jacques Ellul and the Development of Modern Propaganda
By William Stodden

Section 1- Introduction and Thesis
The United States is at war against “evil doers” once again. This time, the evildoers that occupy the government’s thoughts to the point of obsession are not communists as they have been in the past. They are not the drug smugglers of the 1980’s or 1990’s. They are not the domestic civil rights or peace activists, though these “un-patriotic” individuals are rapidly becoming the new bane of all existence. They are not Libyans, though Libya may have something to do with them. These evildoers are terrorists, and specifically the “terrorist states” or Iraq and Afghanistan, who are according to the government, plotting to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States solely because they hate our freedom.

The above is of course an example of modern propaganda at work which is spread throughout the corporate media by both the government and the executives at corporate media stations for the purpose of getting Americans who would otherwise be disinterested to be in support of the current war against the people of Iraq. The propaganda employed by the government in support and justification of its war is based on a play of fear and hatred of the American people for the people responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center, even though we all know that event and Iraq have nothing to do with one another. The type of propaganda at work here is modern propaganda, as defined by French social scientist Jacques Ellul. This type of propaganda is the common language of both the government and advertisers in selling consumers products, and has nothing to do with the truth about the given product, whether it be the quality of an item or the justness of a war. Read the rest of this entry »