Re: [tied] Scientific Nationalism?

From: Patrick C. Ryan
Message: 8965
Date: 2001-09-02

Dear Max and Cybalisters:

 

 

----- Original Message -----
From: Max Dashu
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 3:10 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Scientific Nationalism?

>>  It may not surprise you to learn that many    Americans (US variety)
>>believe nationalism can be a positive force for    progress.

It probably won't surprise anybody. US nationalism has been an
embarrassment for years, whether we're cringing at the boorish displays at
the Olympics or horrified by the latest bombings, covert drug-dealing
operations, or president-by-decree. Makes upholding the honor of the native
sod a tough job.
[PCR]
I do not know from what country you originate, Max, but every country has social problems. In the US, civilian drug use is probably the major one you have identified. For whatever it may be worth, I favor legalization of all drugs. Let all who wish overdose cheaply and quickly! We are better off without them or their progeny. 
 
On your first point, US nationalism (like all true nationalism, which strives to protect the interests of a given ethnic group) is an embarrassment to the transnational globalist supercorporations, who wish to have a free playing field around the world to impose their rule. What is truly shameful is the few American politicians of either party who believe that the welfare of the American people is a higher value than the maximazation of profits for international corporations who fund both parties, and effectively rule the US. If you think that internationalism (and anti-nationalism) is a charitable outreach program, you are naif and poorly informed. This is only the sugar-coating which makes it irresistible to the hoi polloi. If morality had anything to do with US international relations, we would have withdrawn our support for Israel years ago when it became clear that Israel is a racist state, utilizing the *native* Palestinians as virtual slave-labor; and practicing state-sponsored "lynching" whenever the natives get restless.
 

>>     If one has a healthy attitude towards one's self,    it is only
natural and sane to primarily identify with those who    share the same
passions and prejudices.

Sane? That's what's had us teetering at the brink. Glen is right: we need
cooperation far more than competition. It has been in short supply.
[PCR]
Well, perhaps you are another "self-hater". For any individual, and any group, pursuing a policy of enlightened self-interest is the only rational method of ensuring individual and group survival. Thralldom to the international corporations has been presented to the masses as "cooperation" among peoples, and many have bought the argument since it is re-inforced throughout all public information sources in our society; however, cherchez le buck, and if you find it, you will see "why" cooperation is so very profitable.
 
In a time when the earth is being pushed into ecological catastrophe by the pressures of human occupation, we see the international corporations encouraging things like Mexican immigration (cheap and **tractable** labor), which will put additional strains on the environment in the US (increased social spending, short water and power supplies, increased prices for every commodity) --- not to even mention social pressures. Allowing human populations to balloon is a boon for the corporations, who acquire ever larger consumer bases, but a bane for *all* who must live on this earth.
 
 
 

<<and if we think that intelligence applied to societal    problems is
helpful, how can anyone of even moderate intelligence condemn the
mechanism of group selection as irrational.           Pat

Au contraire, nationalistic group Selekzion has been hugely destructive.
Nothing intelligent about wiping out indigenous peoples, or headbutting
that causes armies of hapless draftees to get pointlessly killed off.

Oh well. Back to linguistics?

[PCR]
Group selection has produced humans from one-celled organisms. Sorry you cannot accept the method that Nature has *always* used to achieve progress and complexity. Since the corporations have taken control, what progress has been observed?  
 
 
 
Pat
 

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE@...
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