Jonathan Brun

Crazy Spider Web in TX

Coming of the apocalypse? Perhaps these are G.W.’s secret weapon, part of his arsenal of dark arts and devil worshiping.

Original Post

Fire and Thunder

I love TED Talks because the people are so insanely passionate about what they are doing. As stated by Erin McKean, “The internet is made up of words and enthusiasm.”

And Keroac’s famous (unaltered) musing: “the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing … but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night.”

Forget complacency, waiting in line or doing what you’re told. Burn baby burn.

Anarchy Today

Building on the debate in the previous post. Chomsky’s dream of a “free” society is actually emerging via the internet. Just read the book Wikinomics in which the authors argue that mass collaboration is the way of the future. Some of that collaboration is free and other is paid. The point is that people are being liberated from their life commitment to a company.

With increased education, increased access to information and amazing communication tools – the socialist anarchy that Chomsky’s dream is coming true. It will take a few more years to see what really happens, but the trend towards open-source is growing exponentially.

Also, the self-regulating online communities (second life, wikipedia, linux…) are proving that humans do have an ingrained idea of right and wrong. They do not need to be taught by institutions what to do – contrary to Foucault’s assertion that the judicial system is a class control mechanism.

We have a natural desire to learn and work.

Debates as they were

Intellectual debates (at least in North America), no longer resemble anything like this. Sound-bite interviews on the major networks make more time for the host than the guest.

The closest thing I see to the attached video are the debates on www.edge.org or posts with comments on 3 quarks daily. TED talks and Slate’s www.meaningoflife.tv offer interesting points of view, but are not interactive debates.

Anyways, I picked up Foucault’s ‘Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique” at a local bookstore. Despite my initial enthusiasm, French philosophy always seems magical on the bookshelf, daunting on the night-table and eventually heavy in the hands. I also think that Foucault is wrong regarding the basis of the judicial system and Chomsky is right (see clip Part II – linked on Youtube).

The brief mention of rising multi-nationals is noteworthy. Here’s to the dreamers:

Part II:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXBfOxfmSDw]

Herzog @ the UN

Came across an interested exchange regarding the non-contreversial israel-palestine debate. Thought this might substantiate my Birthright writings.

Here is extracts from Herzog’s plea to the United Nations in 1975:

Complete Exchange Here

“Mr. President,

It is symbolic that this debate, which may well prove to be a turning point in the fortunes of the United Nations and a decisive factor in the possible continued existence of this organization, should take place on November 10. Tonight, thirty-seven years ago, has gone down in history as Kristallnacht, the Night of the Crystals. This was the night in 1938 when Hitler’s Nazi storm-troopers launched a coordinated attack on the Jewish community in Germany, burned the synagogues in all its cities and made bonfires in the streets of the Holy Books and the Scrolls of the Holy Law and Bible.
….
It is sobering to consider to what level this body has been dragged down if we are obliged today to contemplate an attack on Zionism. For this attack constitutes not only an anti-Israeli attack of the foulest type, but also an assault in the United Nations on Judaism — one of the oldest established religions in the world, a religion which has given the world the human values of the Bible, and from which two other great religions, Christianity and Islam, sprang. Is it not tragic to consider that we here at this meeting in the year 1975 are contemplating what is a scurrilous attack on a great and established religion which has given to the world the Bible with its Ten Commandments, the great prophets of old, Moses, Isaiah, Amos; the great thinkers of history, Maimonides, Spinoza, Marx, Einstein, many of the masters of the arts and as high a percentage of the Nobel Prize-winners in the world, in the sciences, in the arts and in the humanities as has been achieved by any people on earth? . . .

….
I come here to denounce the two great evils which menace society in general and a society of nations in particular. These two evils are hatred and ignorance.
….
The key to understanding Zionism is in its name. The easternmost of the two hills of ancient Jerusalem during the tenth century B.C.E. was called Zion. In fact, the name Zion, referring to Jerusalem, appears 152 times in the Old Testament. The name is overwhelmingly a poetic and prophetic designation. The religious and emotional qualities of the name arise from the importance of Jerusalem as the Royal City and the City of the Temple. “Mount Zion” is the place where God dwells. Jerusalem, or Zion, is a place where the Lord is King, and where He has installed His king, David….

Zionism is our attempt to build a society, imperfect though it may be, in which the visions of the prophets of Israel will be realized. I know that we have problems. I know that many disagree with our government’s policies. Many in Israel too disagree from time to time with the government’s policies … and are free to do so because Zionism has created the first and only real democratic state in a part of the world that never really knew democracy and freedom of speech.

And on….Came across an interested exchange regarding the non-contreversial israel-palestine debate. Thought this might substantiate my Birthright writings.

Here is extracts from Herzog’s plea to the United Nations in 1975:Complete Exchange Here

“Mr. President,

It is symbolic that this debate, which may well prove to be a turning point in the fortunes of the United Nations and a decisive factor in the possible continued existence of this organization, should take place on November 10. Tonight, thirty-seven years ago, has gone down in history as Kristallnacht, the Night of the Crystals. This was the night in 1938 when Hitler’s Nazi storm-troopers launched a coordinated attack on the Jewish community in Germany, burned the synagogues in all its cities and made bonfires in the streets of the Holy Books and the Scrolls of the Holy Law and Bible.
….
It is sobering to consider to what level this body has been dragged down if we are obliged today to contemplate an attack on Zionism. For this attack constitutes not only an anti-Israeli attack of the foulest type, but also an assault in the United Nations on Judaism — one of the oldest established religions in the world, a religion which has given the world the human values of the Bible, and from which two other great religions, Christianity and Islam, sprang. Is it not tragic to consider that we here at this meeting in the year 1975 are contemplating what is a scurrilous attack on a great and established religion which has given to the world the Bible with its Ten Commandments, the great prophets of old, Moses, Isaiah, Amos; the great thinkers of history, Maimonides, Spinoza, Marx, Einstein, many of the masters of the arts and as high a percentage of the Nobel Prize-winners in the world, in the sciences, in the arts and in the humanities as has been achieved by any people on earth? . . .

….
I come here to denounce the two great evils which menace society in general and a society of nations in particular. These two evils are hatred and ignorance.
….
The key to understanding Zionism is in its name. The easternmost of the two hills of ancient Jerusalem during the tenth century B.C.E. was called Zion. In fact, the name Zion, referring to Jerusalem, appears 152 times in the Old Testament. The name is overwhelmingly a poetic and prophetic designation. The religious and emotional qualities of the name arise from the importance of Jerusalem as the Royal City and the City of the Temple. “Mount Zion” is the place where God dwells. Jerusalem, or Zion, is a place where the Lord is King, and where He has installed His king, David….

Zionism is our attempt to build a society, imperfect though it may be, in which the visions of the prophets of Israel will be realized. I know that we have problems. I know that many disagree with our government’s policies. Many in Israel too disagree from time to time with the government’s policies … and are free to do so because Zionism has created the first and only real democratic state in a part of the world that never really knew democracy and freedom of speech.

And on….