Monday, May 13, 2013

on reading

Thoughts on Reading Němci,  by Jakuba Katalpa

There are so many sad stories to tell.
Why?
Do we feel better afterwards?
Do we live better afterwards?

Every mother and every son,
Every lover and every daughter,
has a sad story to tell.

What else can we do?
To relive what we have lost,
And save what we did not understand,
while we were living it.

Every father,
and every son,
has a sad story to tell.

14 May 2013

Note:  I purchased this book after reading a review.  The reviewer remarked that because the book was long and had so many different characters, probably no one would read it-- these days we don't have that sort of time.
I am sure the reviewer meant no harm by the remark; but he might as well have said that today we've not got time to admit our ignorance of the most important things, or that we've not got time to understand more than we do.  A sad sort of testament.

the ugliness of technology

I trudge down the stairs to the basement to retrieve my wet laundry.
I drag it up two flights of stairs to the elevators.
Once the elevator arrives at the stairs just below (but not exactly at)
my floor, the elevator stops, and a nasty, ugly buzzer sounds.
Why?  Do I need to be told to get out?  Why must I be assaulted by that sound?
Does it help me?  Could some intelligence imagine that I need to hear that sound?
Or else what?  I would not understand that it's time to get out? Can someone be that stupid?

I take the bus.  It is high off the ground.  Sometimes when I leave it,
I feel that I am falling out of it to the hard pavement below.

As I leave the bus, again a nasty,ugly buzzing noise occurs. I can imagine some
clever -wannabe engineer designing that obnoxious sound---to warn deaf
people that the doors are about to close.  After all, he's helping the elderly avoid injury!
Or, is he?  Or is he helping the bus company make cheap, shabby, junky buses?
Why not make doors that close more gently? Rather than doors that slam shut.

Not to mention the obnoxious advertising everywhere---the worst of it in the windows or covering the windows from the outside.---And abuse, an assault, a sign of contempt and disrespect which no one seems to notice.

Someone is about to leave the bus. They press their plastic card against the reader and an
ugly mechanical voice sounds.  Again ugly.  Again obnoxious.

Someone enters the bus.  Again that ugly voice.  And for each person entering or leaving, my ears are tortured by obnoxious sounds.

And the buses are crowded, cheap, creaky......austerity, austerity, austerity..... and stupidity ....half-thought out so-called inventions assault us everywhere.

The Grouch Reads

The Grouch Reads......The Endless Crisis; How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China, by John Bellamy Foster and Roert W. McChesney

Last night I was reading TEC. I was surprised to learn that there are a significant numer of economists who clearly recognized the tendency toward an increasingly small number of companies running things.

It's not exactly monopoly, but it's enough of an "uncompetitive" market to matter.

Two or three large companies can, in effect, set the prices.  The larger company sets the trend by high pricing.  The other companies won't  offer their goods at lower prices because companies have learned that such warfare is bad for profits.  (There are interesting details which I will omit for now.)

But the students I meet seem to believe in some sort of perfect competition, andol the idea of monopolies or oligopoly is nowhere in sight.  (Incidentally, economists who use those terms should send a check to Greece to cover the intellectual property right rental fee.)

So as BF and M tell the story, economics has, consequently moved further and further from the real world.

As, I said, I'm leaving things out---like an interesting quote from Buffett saying that the ability to control prices is more important than any sort of managerial talent.

Here, in Central Europe, the Unreality Principle reigns supreme.  I've heard countless times that the Crisis is not serious locally.  And students have never heard the word "austerity"

Yeah, right.

That's  why the public services are so very generous!---Buses and trains are never, never crowded.  The toilets in the trains are always clean and........You get the idea.

And the local government did not axe fifty or so government agencies, and they did not gloat about it when they did so. Nor did the local financial newspaper nod its head, sharing in the gloating....

None of that ever happened.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Crisis Denial

Crisis Denial--It's all the rage in the Czech Republic---at least among the wise.
And, here again, there's a word in Czech that one needs to properly describe the trend:  bagatelizovat, to play down, or trivialize---And, while I know nothing of the etymology, I can't help imagining that what's happening is that a bagatele is being played to the tune of human suffering.....

Recently, I spoke with two pleasant Czech economists.  As is my wont, I could not resist raising the topic of the Crisis.  One of them responded with an allusion to the words of their President (also an Economist):  There is not a global crisis.  It only affects parts of Europe and America.

Well, errr, it afflicts the most advanced capitalist economies.  So, there's something of significance in that.  I also suspect that a detailed examination of what's going on in Germany or China would show that their economies (and the well-being of many people) have been affected.  That is, however, a controversial claim.

But, what I'd really like to say is:  You say there is no world crisis.  So, what is it?  A merely regional matter?  Tell that to the new suicides in the USA, or Greece, or Spain, or their survivors.  I don't think that they'd find much solace in the thought that the economic collapse is merely a regional matter.

A recent report in the USA points out that the suicide rate in the USA has increased.  Experts hesitate to blame the crisis; but  I do not.

Here's a link to a short BBC story about suicide in the USA:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22391293





"Panic of 1873": A Black Friday in Vienna triggered the first of the - so far! - three Great Depressions of world capitalism. When will we have the last one?"--Picture and commentary courtesy of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung/NYC

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=643913352289938&set=pb.515346938479914.-2207520000.1368351150.&type=3&theater




Saturday, May 11, 2013

shameless self-promotion

If RP Wolff, can do it why not me?

http://www.amazon.com/Neurotic-Exotic-Land-ebook/dp/B007AVZVW4/ref=la_B007CFCEXW_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368263867&sr=1-1

The book is largely set in Bratislava, and is (sort of ) an action-adventure story.
Perhaps:  WoodyAllen meets James Bond......

(RPW donates any funds his publications generate; I won't do that.  I've got two elderly parents who could use help.)

Thursday, May 9, 2013

woolly

Recently I heard someone above me in the local chain-of-command speak dismissively, almost contemptuously about "anarchism".

Perhaps they had in mind the style---black clothes and a dog on a string....

Nonetheless, I was thinking about what I saw recently on "DemocracyNow"....
Generals and other important persons talking about sexual abuse in the military...

And, you could see:  they just don't get it.

But the emotions are interesting and complex:  frustration, wounded pride, etc.

And today I thought to myself:  The army always being one of the least democratic institutions in the world, the most hierarchical, that sort of reaction is just what an anarchist would predict.

I wanted to say:  That's just what anarchist theory would predict, but I know that the collection of views associated with the term are a bit woolly, hence maybe "theory" would be inaccurate.
Nonetheless, if you think self-government, autonomy, and human creativity go together, then
you wouldn't be surprised by what's going on today in the USA with the military.......Hierarchical structures inevitably produce a sort of stupidity and blindness, with a corresponding set of emotions.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

The Down-Side of Spring

Spring has many disadvantages.  Mostly Noise!!

If I were dictator, I would immediately make two laws:

1.  Anyone who leaves their dog tied up outside a grocery store, would be fined, and the dog would be taken away from them, if they left it outside barking and whining for more than sixty seconds.

2.  No motorcycles would be permitted within city limits, especially not in my neighborhood.  Anyone caught driving their noisy motorcycle within five miles of my residence would be locked for two days in a room with a whining dog.

profit and anti-culture

My mother recently was explaining that she feels as though she is being absolutely harassed by doctors!

First, there is the case of the doctor who implanted a chip in her breast--without informing her in advance, let alone getting prior consent!

And, then, more recently, there is the case of the doctor's administrative assistant who keeps calling to"remind" my mother that she needs a mammogram.

My mother is eighty-six, almost eighty-seven years old.  And a couple of years ago, a doctor who was an expert told her----after an especially painful mammogram---that she didn't really need to have them anymore.

My mother's diagnosis is that this has got more to do with money than health.  They want access to the dollars available through her Medicare Insurance.

There's lots to be said here.  However, it is clear that the medical system is, at this point, not serving my mother well.

A related, but different point.

Recently a food expert appeared on Democracy Now.  His remarks about the adulteration of flour could have been taken right out of Marx's 'Capital', Volume One.

Moreover, he said quite clearly that the reason we ever got white flour is the profit motive.  He wasn't the sort to push the political implications of this.  However, I am.  Here's our health, at the most basic level, under attack by capitalism.........

Did you say "change"?  "Time for a change?"  I think I heard someone say that...............

Class

The Economist Richard D. Wolff  explains class:

http://rdwolff.com/content/how-class-works-0



Sunday, May 5, 2013

Happiness

"Who are You?" she barks.

Smartly attired, with her reading glasses perched upon her nose,
the woman gazes at me sternly.

Once I have identified myself, producing the requisite official identification,
she proceeds to begin the process which will allow me to wash my clothes.

You see, locally, washing machines are strictly rationed to foreign visitors.

And, we must, upon each visit to the Custodians of the Washing Machines,
produce proof of identity prior to payment.

And I, for my part, am most grateful that my identity has been established, and confirmed,
and re-established so frequently.  No crises of identity for me!

But, at any rate, as she scribbles in her book, with great focus and diligence,
as if she were recording my victories in the war against ignorance,
she seems to be totally absorbed in her task, and, even, self-satisfied.

And, I said to myself:  "Now, that's happiness!"

Well, perhaps--the happiness of a bureaucrat who has learned to enjoy their  meaningless work.

And, this, in short, is also the problem I have with the final pages of Keith Oatley's impressive and immensely valuable little book on Emotion.  If we can focus our minds so as to "enjoy" the "flow" of trivial activities, is that really happiness---or, merely professional deformation of character?

Note:  I have been told by a student that I have entirely the wrong impression.  After all, every family in these parts owns a washing machine.  Well, in that case, why is it that visiting foreigners live below the local standard?  Why must I go through a laborious and idiotic process of identity-verification (as if I were crossing a border) and painfully time-wasting paper generation to record my payment, as well as the details of my washing routine (one machine or two?  For how many hours?)
Sorry, but it all strikes me as pure idiocy.  I don't care if local families have one or two or four or twenty washing machines.  What I care about is the complicated system which needlessly enlarges the time that I must spend in order to merely wash my clothes---and pay my employer to do so.  Over the course of six months, the time I waste in these negotiations with the custodians of the washing machines is not trivial.




Wednesday, May 1, 2013

The Same Conversation

For as many years as I can now remember,
I seem to have the same conversation over and over again with Europeans.

It goes something like this:
He or she alludes to communism,
but does not provide details.
And that allusion is enough to tilt the conversation.
I must acknowledge the allusion and shut up.
We don't describe or analyze.
We shift.

And if I happen to say something about the USA,
about wealth inequality,
or racism,
or anything less than the Hollywood Stereotype,
somehow it's not given equal weight,
or it sits there in the conversation not moving things one way
or another.

Or, even,
often,
there are the doubts:
Could that be true?
I don't believe it!
You must be exagerrating!

Because de facto censorship,
and propaganda have done their job.

why the computer revolution is a lie

In the USA you need a car to get to work.  But, if you haven't got much money, you've got to buy a used car.  And, so, if you've got an older car, it's more likely to break down.

So, it's a vicious circle.  Not enough money to buy a new car.  Not enough money to keep up with repairs.  And, so problems at work.  Which means, once again, problems with getting money.

Likewise, today, with computers.

I need my computer for my job. 

But, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was forced
to purchase a computer at short notice, in a country I don't know,
in a city I don't know, and I didn't want to throw all of my resources into the purchase.

So, I ended up with a very low quality computer, whose most basic features are problematic.

Problematic?  A mouse-pad that takes me to places I don't go.
A "Bluetooth" accessory that doesn't work.
ETC.

In short, I am screwed.
And now I haven't got the money to buy a better computer.

That's not progress.