A Looking-Glass Self: Reflections on Religion, Current Events, and Other Subjects

Buddhist thinkers of the Dignaga school, however, advanced a theory called "apoha" which is somewhat similar to the Western view of nominalism. Apoha literally means "differentiation" or "exclusion." Words are the result of mental conceptualization, and therefore they refer to mental images and cannot be directly associated with external realities. Meaning, thus, denotes the referend, the instrument of an act of reference, as distinct from the referent, the object toward which the act of reference is directed.[5] The Buddhist regards it as only a logical concept, not an external entity inherently residing in the individuals. In other words, meaninq means the relation of the word and the image of the object, The word cannot directly be associated with external objects; it cannot, therefore, denote the object. The word has an a priori existence, independent of external objects.
http://www.indology.net/article17.html

The Revolution Has Already Started

IMO, the signs are all around us, and yet most people, at least in the U.S., continue to be blinded by the old categories: liberal ("progressive") and conservative.

In the U.S., the "sign" was given in the recent presidential campaign. Despite having "the most liberal voting record in the Senate," Senator Kerry, like Pres. Bush, supported the Iraq War, the socially constructed War on Terror, the Patriot Act (with some "revisions," whatever they might have been), Zionism, neoliberalism, and the global corporatocracy.

In Britain, PM Blair, in spite of being a member of the Labour Party, one of the more liberal parties in that country, became the so-called lapdog to George Bush. Had Mr. Kerry been elected instead, I suspect he would have basically continued most of Pres. Bush's policies, and Mr. Blair would have had no problem fetching for a Democrat (as he had previously worked amicably with Pres. Clinton).

The difference, IMO, is between those who support global and domestic domination, including neoliberalism and it euphemism, *freedom,* and those, including the far leftists (Marxists, anarchists, and greens) and the paleoconservatives (e.g., Patrick Buchanan and Robert Novak), who oppose it. As much as I dislike much of what Buchanan and Novak stand for respecting other issues of concern to me, on neoconservative empire building, they have more in common with the left than most so-called liberals or progressives.

The revolution against the bourgeoisie has already begun. However, it has, so far, taken the form of a battle of hegemonies (the West vs. the radical Islamists). It isn't exactly what Marx expected, but I think it is a revolution nonetheless.

posted at 06:57:36 PM by Dr. Mark A. Foster

I have one foot in a blue state and another in a red state. Although I was born and raised in New York City, and take at least 3 or 4 trips there per year, I have not lived in New York since 1976. Since that time, I have spent 17 years in the South (Mississippi, Georgia, and Southwestern Virginia) and the last 12 years in Kansas - all "red" states.

I had been predicting for months that Bush would win. Watching the polls was a part of it. (I am a sociology professor.) However, based simply on my living experiences in these different regions, I had no difficulty figuring it out. I am not tooting my own horn either. I know other people, with a similar background, who came to the same conclusion.

Simply said, Kerry was a bad candidate. He could not relate, at least not visibly, to the so-called average person. Second, he was from New England, Massachusetts no less, a part of the country which many people in the Midwest, especially here in middle America, and in the South find to be alien to their core values. Even if Bush had not *reminded* them of Kerry's pedigree and geography, I cannot conceive of any way how, in the present political climate, Kerry could have won the election.

Honestly, what surprised me was not that Kerry lost, but that he performed as well as he did. I attribute that, not to Kerry, but to the level of outright hatred many people have for George W. Bush and/or his policies. On the other hand, however much I might have tried, if someone asked me to distinguish between the programs of Bush and Kerry, I would have faltered.

Now let me switch gears. I did not support either Bush or Kerry. I voted for Walt Brown, the socialist. Although I am not particularly a fan of Ralph Nader, I agreed with him that, on the issues that really *should* matter to Americans, there were few differences between the two so-called major party candidates.

All polls indicate that the U.S. has, especially since 9/11 (the nauseating mantra of most Amurekins), moved further to the right. Unless there is another Watergate-type scandal (or worse) or the GOP puts up a completely offensive candidate, I cannot imagine how a Democrat can win.

In any event, why should the left care about the Democratic Party? I am a Marxist, with increasing anarcho-communist leanings, and I regard the Democratic Party to be the party of Republican appeasement. Indeed, if the Dems take another shot at it in 2008, and they are politically savvy, they will likely move even further to the right.

As a result, a lot of leftists (not "liberals") I know, myself included, no longer consider the United States to be their country. For what it's worth, I am not a gradualist, and I am not optimistic about communism, or even socialism, being established through reform; and, unfortunately or not, there is not a sufficient leftist base in the United States at this time to have a successful revolution.

What many Amurikens do not seem to accept is that there is no such thing as "terrorism," "a terrorist," or "the war on terror." They are social constructions. Knowingly or not, most Amurikens have, in this regard, accepted the constructions of the neoconservatives and the Christian right.

In other places, including in much of the Arab world, it is the United States, Britain, and Israel who are the terrorists. Many of them see the Palestinian suicide bombings as a part of their own war on terror (and have openly said so).

Words are just accidental names for universals or constructions. And, contrary to the essentialist nonsense spouted by Bush and Blair, we must reject the notion that there is some ideal form of freedom which is divinely intended for all of the world.

Terms are not "real." If we can, once and for all, overcome all this ontological realist and idealist nonsense, whether Platonic or moderate, we can, relatively and contextually, deal with the problems which confront the world order, including U.S. global hegemony, without lapsing into language games.

posted at 08:19:44 AM by Dr. Mark A. Foster

Lost city of Atlantis found?

Researcher claims ruins are in the Mediterranean

Sunday, November 14, 2004 Posted: 5:12 PM EST (2212 GMT)

LIMASSOL, Cyprus (AP) -- An American researcher claimed Sunday to have discovered the remains of the legendary lost city of Atlantis on the bottom of the east Mediterranean Sea. But Cyprus' chief government archaeologist was skeptical.

Robert Sarmast said sonar scanning of the seabed between east Cyprus and Syria revealed man-made walls, one as long as 3 kilometers (2 miles), and trenches at a depth of 1,500 meters (1,640 yards).

"It is a miracle we found these walls as their location, and lengths match exactly the description of the acropolis of Atlantis provided by Plato in his writings," Sarmast said, referring to the ancient Greek philosopher.

"We have definitely found the Acropolis of Atlantis," he affirmed, adding the site was 80 kilometers (50 miles) southeast of Cyprus.

The chief government archaeologist of Cyprus, Pavlos Flourentzos, reacted with skepticism, telling The Associated Press: "More proof is necessary."

Sarmast, 38, is an architect by training from Los Angeles. He has devoted the past two-and-a-half years to trying to locate the lost city described by Plato in his dialogues, the Timaeous and the Critias. He spoke to reporters on the "Flying Enterprise," his expeditionary ship, after six days of taking highly sophisticated "side scan" sonars of the seabed.

He said he had chosen the area from data provided by two earlier sonar scans of the east Mediterranean by Russian and French expeditions. His own expedition used more sophisticated equipment, he said.

"We found more than 60-70 points that are a perfect match with Plato's detailed description of the general layout of the acropolis hill of Atlantis. The match of the dimensions and the coordinates provided by our sonar with Plato's description are so accurate that, if this is not indeed the acropolis of Atlantis, then this is the world's greatest coincidence," he said.

Tests of that part of the seabed showed it had once been above sea level, he said.

"We cannot yet provide tangible proof in the form of bricks and mortar as the artifacts are still buried under several meters of sediment at a depth of 1,500 meters (1,640 yards), but the evidence is now irrefutable," he added.

Asked if the ruins could not be that of another city that sank beneath the waves, Sarmast said the remains match Plato's description of Atlantis so closely that they could not be anything else.

"If you compare it with Plato, you will be astonished," he said. "We hope that future expeditions will be able to uncover the sediment and bring back physical proof."

Plato wrote of Atlantis as an island in the western sea, which has been widely interpreted to mean the Atlantic Ocean. An earthquake undermined the island and it was submerged. But societies dedicated to finding Atlantis remain.

For its time, Atlantis was a highly civilized nation and in legend it has become associated with utopia. The English philosopher Francis Bacon called his 1627 book on the ideal state The New Atlantis.

Flourentzos said it was possible that Atlantis was near Cyprus.

"The myth of Atlantis has been around for ages and it is generally believed that, if it ever existed, it was somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean -- hence its name. But ancient cities and civilizations in the Mediterranean region, such as the Minoan civilization of Crete, have disappeared as a result of major volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. For all we know, Atlantis may well have existed in our region."

Sarmast said his expedition had cost about $250,000. The funds came from public donations to his US-based company "First Source Enterprise," which is devoted to the project, sales of his book "The Discovery of Atlantis," and the Cypriot Tourist Organization, which donated $60,000.

He said the book, published in September 2003, said Atlantis was in the east Mediterranean and his latest sonars confirmed it.

posted at 05:01:09 AM by Dr. Mark A. Foster

A further reflection on the re-election of Dubya: The problem is not the Democratic Party, although it has always been too far to the right for my tastes. The problem is not even the Republican Party, as symptomatic as it is of the deep spiritual problems pervading this society. The problem is America.

Only revolutionary change will be sufficient. From the standpoint of intensifying the contradictions in the American-dominated corporatocracy, etc., who could be better than Bush?

When Republicans say that "our side win," my response is, "Yes, they did. Down with the American Empire!"

Kerry Won. . .

Greg Palast

November 04, 2004

Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided�known as �spoilage� in election jargon�because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Drawing on what happened in Florida and studies of elections past, Palast argues that if Ohio�s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots. So far there's no indication that Palast's hypothesis will be tested because only the provisional ballots are being counted.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .

Kerry won. Here's the facts.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

Whose Votes Are Discarded?

And not all votes spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African-American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely�leaving a 'hanging chad,'�or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here .)

And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz). Nor are they demanding we look at the "overvotes" where voter intent may be discerned.

Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, �the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state�s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.�

But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year's Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it's efforts landed her a seat in Congress.

Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell's office, notably, won't say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss�that's 110,000 votes�overwhelmingly Democratic.

The Impact Of Challenges

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws�almost never used�allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots�a kind of voting placebo�which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.

Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote

Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality�if all votes are counted�is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."

How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.

CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.

New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts�Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.

Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Now, let's add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.

"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?

Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter's identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.

Your Kerry Victory Party

So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry�if we count all the votes.

But that won't happen. Despite the Democratic Party's pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio's Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris' political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.

What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.

I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure�a second time�to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php

posted at 08:46:01 AM by Dr. Mark A. Foster

Do I "support the troops"? No. I feel sorry for many of them. They come from poor or working class backgrounds and often have few opportunities. But do I support them? No more than I would a criminal who was driven to crime by a poor background.

Walt Brown, the socialist, lost. So did David Cobb, the Green. Therefore, does it really matter who won? Let's consider that question.

Well, if it wasn't obvious already, the U.S. is the laughing-stock of most of the world. Of course, Americans do not, by and large, appear to see the obvious.

I do not literally accept the premillennial fundamentalist meme of the anti-Christ and the false prophet. However, if one takes these as recurring types, I will suggest that they are now represented by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. How could the anti-Christ and the false prophet be voted out of office in the Great Satan?

The results of this election have made me give serious thought to the idea of, once and for all, leaving this country. Actually, I doubt I will go through with it. However, it is not because I have any great love for this country. I really do not. It is purely for pragmatic reasons. If I want to continue to work in my field, it does not seem likely that I would be able to immediately find an academic position in some other country.

The United States is certainly an unsatisfactory fit for a leftist like myself, and it seems as though the drift to the far right will likely continue. I mean, if people can vote a pathetic scoundrel like Bush back into office, what other conclusion can I draw?

Aside from the presidency, the Republicans also had gains in Congress. Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, was defeated in his own bid for re-election. It is the first time a Senate leader has been defeated since 1952.

In any event, even if Kerry had won and the Democrats had Congressional gains, not much would likely have changed. Kerry, like most incumbent Democrats in Congress, voted for the Iraq War and favors capitalist globalization. He is far from being on the left, in spite of what the fascist elites of the United States claim. However, a Kerry win would at least have sent a signal of disapproval for Bush's policy. Well, it did not happen, and so we are where we are.

The erroneous construction of the war on terror will also remain official policy (as it most certainly would have under a Kerry presidency). Furthermore, the Democratic Party will probably continue to move to the right. They will likely (and correctly) perceive further appeasement as the only way to make inroads in a sea of red states. For all intents and purposes, will there even be a Democratic Party in four years?

If I am correct, considerable danger now hangs over the United States. Only time will tell whether these dangers manifest themselves.

On the positive side, the oppressive, hegemonic American empire might collapse sooner under a Bush regime than a Kerry administration. Additionally, economic and other problems over the next four years can only be blamed on Bush and the Republican-dominated Congress, not on Kerry and the Democrats. Perhaps it is karmic debt.

posted at 08:33:31 AM by Dr. Mark A. Foster