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Walid Jumblat

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Posts posted by Walid Jumblat

    While yall was hating on Jose for coming here to wash dishes...

    in Channel Zero

    Posted

    ^I only read a few sentences, but the answer is corporate greed.

    I don't see a 15 hour work week paying the bills anywhere in the near future.

    Or at least not in a capitalist country.

     

    "I only read about 0.01% of that article and I already have the answer".

     

    lol

     

     

    Anyway, you prob should read it because it addresses the exact same issue you were talking about and even goes down the path of 'controlling the masses" and shit like that.

     

    Lastly, the author comes from an eminently better school than the backwater shithole like George Mason.....

     

     

     

     

     

    The modern phenomenon of nonsense jobs

     

     

     

    In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century's end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour working week. There's every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn't happen. Instead, technology has been marshalled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people in the Western world spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.

     

    Why did Keynes's promised utopia - still being eagerly awaited in the 1960s - never materialise? The standard line is he didn't predict the massive increase in consumerism. Given the choice between less hours and more toys and pleasures, we've collectively chosen the latter. This presents a nice morality tale, but even a moment's reflection shows it can't really be true. Yes, we have witnessed the creation of an endless variety of new jobs and industries since the 1920s, but very few have anything to do with the production and distribution of sushi, iPhones or fancy sneakers.

     

    Huge swathes of people in the Western world spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed.

     

    So what are these new jobs, precisely? A recent report comparing employment in the US between 1910 and 2000 gives us a clear picture. Over the course of the last century, the number of workers employed as domestic servants, in industry, and in the farm sector has collapsed dramatically. At the same time, ''professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers'' tripled, growing ''from one-quarter to three-quarters of total employment''. In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away (even if you count industrial workers globally, including the toiling masses in India and China, such workers are still not nearly so large a percentage of the world population as they used to be).

     

     

    But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world's population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the ''service'' sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries such as financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors such as corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza-delivery drivers) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones.

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    These are what I propose to call ''bullshit jobs''.

     

    It's as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is precisely what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient socialist states, such as the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as it had to (this is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat). But, of course, this is the sort of very problem that market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking business is going to do is shell out money to workers they don't really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.

     

    While corporations may engage in ruthless downsizing, the lay-offs and speed-ups invariably fall on that class of people who are actually making, moving, fixing and maintaining things; through some strange alchemy no one can quite explain, the number of salaried paper-pushers ultimately seems to expand, and more and more employees find themselves, not unlike Soviet workers actually, working 40 or even 50-hour weeks on paper, but effectively working 15 hours just as Keynes predicted, since the rest of their time is spent organising or attending motivational seminars, updating their Facebook profiles or downloading television series.

     

    The answer clearly isn't economic: it's moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on its hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the 1960s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.

     

    Once, when contemplating the apparently endless growth of administrative responsibilities in British academic departments, I came up with one possible vision of hell. Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don't like and are not especially good at. Say they were hired because they were excellent cabinetmakers, and then discover they are expected to spend a great deal of their time frying fish. Nor does the task really need to be done - at least, there's only a very limited number of fish that need to be fried. Yet somehow they all become so obsessed with resentment at the thought that some of their co-workers might be spending more time making cabinets, and not doing their fair share of the fish-frying responsibilities, that before long there's endless piles of useless, badly cooked fish piling up all over the workshop and it's all that anyone really does.

     

    I think this is actually a pretty accurate description of the moral dynamics of our own economy.

     

    —————

     

    Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: ''Who are you to say what jobs are really 'necessary'? What's necessary anyway? You're an anthropology professor, what's the 'need' for that?'' (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And, on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.

     

    I would not presume to tell someone who is convinced they are making a meaningful contribution to the world that, really, they are not. But what about those people who are themselves convinced their jobs are meaningless? Not long ago, I got back in touch with a school friend whom I hadn't seen since I was 12. I was amazed to discover that, in the interim, he had become first a poet, then the frontman in an indie rock band. I'd heard some of his songs on the radio having no idea the singer was someone I actually knew. He was obviously brilliant, innovative, and his work had unquestionably brightened and improved the lives of people all over the world. Yet, after a couple of unsuccessful albums, he'd lost his contract and, plagued with debts and a newborn daughter, ended up, as he put it, ''taking the default choice of so many directionless folk: law school''. Now he's a corporate lawyer working in a prominent New York firm. He was the first to admit that his job was utterly meaningless, contributed nothing to the world, and, in his own estimation, should not really exist.

     

    There's a lot of questions one could ask here, starting with: what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1 per cent of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call ''the market'' reflects what those people think is useful or important, not anyone else.) But even more it shows that most people in these jobs are ultimately aware of it. In fact, I'm unsure I've ever met a corporate lawyer who didn't think their job was bullshit. The same goes for almost all the new industries outlined above. There is a whole class of salaried professionals who, should you meet them at parties and admit that you do something that might be considered interesting (an anthropologist, for example), will want to avoid even discussing their line of work entirely. Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their jobs really are.

     

    This is a profound psychological violence. How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one's job should not exist? How can it not create a sense of deep rage and resentment? Yet it is the peculiar genius of our society that its rulers have figured out a way, as in the case of the fish-fryers, to ensure that rage is directed precisely against those who actually do get to do meaningful work. For instance: in our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one's work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Again, an objective measure is hard to find, but one easy way to get a sense is to ask: what would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear? Say what you like about nurses, rubbish collectors or mechanics, it's obvious that, were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or stevedores would soon be in trouble, and even one without science-fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It's not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity chief executives, lobbyists, public relations researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.) Yet, apart from a handful of well-touted exceptions (doctors), the rule holds surprisingly well.

     

    Even more perverse, there seems to be a broad sense that this is the way things should be. This is one of the secret strengths of right-wing populism. You can see it in Britain, when tabloids whip up resentment against transport workers for paralysing London during contract disputes: the very fact that the workers can paralyse London shows that their work is actually necessary, but this seems to be precisely what annoys people. It's even clearer in the US, where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilising resentment against schoolteachers or car workers (and not, significantly, against the school administrators or car industry managers who actually cause the problems) for their supposedly bloated wages and benefits. It's as if they are being told: ''But you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and healthcare?''

     

    If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it's hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc) - and particularly its financial avatars - but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value. Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error. But it is the only explanation for why, despite our technological capacities, we are not all working three to four-hour days.

     

    David Graeber is a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics. This article first appeared in Strike! Magazine, a radical British quarterly that covers politics, philosophy and art. The article has subsequently struck a chord worldwide and we thank Strike! and Professor Graeber for allowing the Informant to republish it.

     

    Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/the-modern-phenomenon-of-nonsense-jobs-20130831-2sy3j.html#ixzz2duCXB1cJ

    While yall was hating on Jose for coming here to wash dishes...

    in Channel Zero

    Posted

    yeah, that's the counterpoint to the counterpoint, that one machine creates two jobs but makes 3 redundant. Not sure if that's a fact, it's just the argument.

     

    It's also a pretty old argument that started back at the dawn of the industrial revolution:

     

    The Luddites were 19th-century English textile artisans who protested against newly developed labour-saving machinery from 1811 to 1817. The stocking frames, spinning frames and power looms introduced during the Industrial Revolution threatened to replace the artisans with less-skilled, low-wage labourers, leaving them without work.

     

    Although the origin of the name Luddite (/ˈlʌd.aɪt/) is uncertain, a popular theory is that the movement was named after Ned Ludd, a youth who allegedly smashed two stocking frames in 1779, and whose name had become emblematic of machine destroyers.[1][2][3] The name evolved into the imaginary General Ludd or King Ludd, a figure who, like Robin Hood, was reputed to live in Sherwood Forest.[4][a] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

     

    There were other instances of this in England and mainland Europe where people attacked machinery on farms after being put out of work, which I can't recall in detail now.

     

    I don't have an opinion either way about this shit because I know sweet fuck all about it. But it's clearly a hugely complex issue that's been around for around 300 years now.

    While yall was hating on Jose for coming here to wash dishes...

    in Channel Zero

    Posted

    Real talk, people are mad as fuck about illegal aliens supposedly "taking our jobs", but how many of these same people are trying to pick oranges or wash dishes for minimum wage?

    Mexican immigrants are the scapegoat tossed out to distract people from the fact that immigrants are often willing to work harder to succeed and if they get the job before you do then maybe you are the problem, not them.

     

    This, I will agree with, but I think we are talking different points. People over here complain about Indians, Chinese and so on taking jobs and it's not always the manual labor roles.

     

    Also, the old argument of mechanisation and computerisation also has a counterpoint that this industry also creates jobs in terms of design, instal, maintain, compete, leapfrog, etc. The article may have discussed that, I only skimmed it because I have a fucking headache.

    go fuck yourself, syria

    in News

    Posted

    INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW STATEMENT

    Syria Statement

     

    Assuming the U.S. Congress authorises them, Washington (together with some allies) soon will launch military strikes against Syrian regime targets. If so, it will have taken such action for reasons largely divorced from the interests of the Syrian people. The administration has cited the need to punish, deter and prevent use of chemical weapons - a defensible goal, though Syrians have suffered from far deadlier mass atrocities during the course of the conflict without this prompting much collective action in their defence. The administration also refers to the need, given President Obama's asserted "redline" against use of chemical weapons, to protect Washington's credibility - again an understandable objective though unlikely to resonate much with Syrians. Quite apart from talk of outrage, deterrence and restoring U.S. credibility, the priority must be the welfare of the Syrian people. Whether or not military strikes are ordered, this only can be achieved through imposition of a sustained ceasefire and widely accepted political transition.

     

    To precisely gauge in advance the impact of a U.S. military attack, regardless of its scope and of efforts to carefully calibrate it, by definition is a fool's errand. In a conflict that has settled into a deadly if familiar pattern - and in a region close to boiling point - it inevitably will introduce a powerful element of uncertainty. Consequences almost certainly will be unpredictable. Still, several observations can be made about what it might and might not do:

     

    A military attack will not, nor can it, be met with even minimal international consensus; in this sense, the attempt to come up with solid evidence of regime use of chemical weapons, however necessary, also is futile. Given the false pretenses that informed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and, since then, regional and international polarisation coupled with the dynamics of the Syrian conflict itself, proof put forward by the U.S. will be insufficient to sway disbelievers and skepticism will be widespread.

     

    It might discourage future use of chemical weapons by signaling even harsher punishment in the event of recidivism - an important achievement in and of itself. Should the regime find itself fighting for its survival, however, that consideration might not weigh heavily. Elements within the opposition also might be tempted to use such weapons and then blame the regime, precisely in order to provoke further U.S. intervention.

     

    It could trigger violent escalation within Syria as the regime might exact revenge on rebels and rebel-held areas, while the opposition seeks to seize the opportunity to make its own gains.

     

    Major regional or international escalation (such as retaliatory actions by the regime, Iran or Hizbollah, notably against Israel) is possible but probably not likely given the risks involved, though this could depend on the scope of the strikes.

     

    Military action, which the U.S. has stated will not aim at provoking the regime's collapse, might not even have an enduring effect on the balance of power on the ground. Indeed, the regime could register a propaganda victory, claiming it had stood fast against the U.S. and rallying domestic and regional opinion around an anti-Western, anti-imperialist mantra.

     

    Ultimately, the principal question regarding a possible military strike is whether diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict can be reenergized in its aftermath. Smart money says they will not: in the wake of an attack they condemn as illegal and illegitimate, the regime and its allies arguably will not be in a mood to negotiate with the U.S. Carefully calibrating the strike to hurt enough to change their calculations but not enough to prompt retaliation or impede diplomacy is appealing in theory. In practice, it almost certainly is not feasible.

     

    Whether or not the U.S. chooses to launch a military offensive, its responsibility should be to try to optimize chances of a diplomatic breakthrough. This requires a two-fold effort lacking to date: developing a realistic compromise political offer as well as genuinely reaching out to both Russia and Iran in a manner capable of eliciting their interest - rather than investing in a prolonged conflict that has a seemingly bottomless capacity to escalate.

     

    In this spirit, the U.S. should present - and Syria's allies should seriously and constructively consider - a proposal based on the following elements:

     

    It is imperative to end this war. The escalation, regional instability and international entanglement its persistence unavoidably stimulates serve nobody's interest.

    The only exit is political. That requires far-reaching concessions and a lowering of demands from all parties. The sole viable outcome is a compromise that protects the interests of all Syrian constituencies and reflects rather than alters the regional strategic balance;

    The Syrian crisis presents an important opportunity to test whether the U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran can work together on regional issues to restore stability;

    A viable political outcome in Syria cannot be one in which the current leadership remains indefinitely in power but, beyond that, the U.S. can be flexible with regards to timing and specific modalities;

    The U.S. is keen to avoid collapse of the Syrian state and the resulting political vacuum. The goal should thus be a transition that builds on existing institutions rather than replaces them. This is true notably with respect to the army;

    Priority must be given to ensuring that no component of Syrian society is targeted for retaliation, discrimination or marginalisation in the context of a negotiated settlement.

     

    Such a proposal should then form the basis for renewed efforts by Lakhdar Brahimi, the joint United Nations/Arab League envoy, and lead to rapid convening of a Geneva II conference.

     

    Debate over a possible strike - its wisdom, preferred scope and legitimacy in the absence of UN Security Council approval - has obscured and distracted from what ought to be the overriding international preoccupation: how to revitalise the search for a political settlement. Discussions about its legality aside, any contemplated military action should be judged based on whether it advances that goal or further postpones it.

    go fuck yourself, syria

    in News

    Posted

    That's the one that really matters^^^

     

    Obama drew the red line and is now backed in to a corner. He'd much prefer to GTFO of the Mid East right now and shift to the Indo-Pacific but if he doesn't back his words with action then US words/threats mean very little and the US loses some ability to shape the actions of other nations.

     

    That's pretty much what it's all about here, clearly the chem weapons attack means very little, it's just the line that they chose to draw. It's the line that actually matters.

    go fuck yourself, syria

    in News

    Posted

    However, there hasn't actually been any military action yet. Y'all are acting like it's already occurred.

     

    Actually, the Iraq debacle is probably as great an influence on this situation as Vietnam was from the 80s to the 2000s. That's why the UK parliament voted against a strike, that's why hardly any countries at all are backing a strike and that's why Obama is taking this to Congress than going ahead himself.

     

    I'm pretty confident in saying that unless there is a major shift, such as another large scale chem attack (or credible accusation of) or similar, there will be no US led military attack on Syria.

     

    Look how badly everyone is backing off now. There is no coalition of the willing, the UK has basically ruled out participating and Obama is throwing it to Congress so he can delay and diffuse his responsibility. If it was going to happen it would have taken place already.

    go fuck yourself, syria

    in News

    Posted

    "British parliament calling out war propaganda" ..., ah, no, that's not what they did at all.

     

    "Imperialist war hawk faction", "Complicit corporate dinosaur mainstream media", "concerted Zionist agenda" well, that sounds like dispassionate, objective analysis!

     

    Cites some document from a private org that talks about the Mid East dividing up in to ethnic states, as opposed to the artificial borders drawn up by European colonial powers and somehow that is a peace that supports Israeli purposes. Ah, yeah, certainly sounds like a kind of peace the Arabs of the Mid East would be pretty keen on as well. But this dude only seems to want to look at things from a Zionist conspiracy perspective.

     

    Iran/Iraq/Syria pipeline to Europe. Really? That's more of a threat to Russia than anyone else. Look in to Nabucco and South Stream, for a very clear and easy to understand example of Russian energy politics in Europe. Basically, Russia is the major energy supplier to Europe and uses this to leverage its foreign policy agenda there. If they are displaced by another provider Russia's national interests are massively undermined. So why would the US want to stop that and why would Russia support Syria in this conflict? That's against basic and very clear geopolitics.

     

    The US would like to see Syria pulled from Iranian alignment because after the US fucked up in Iraq and handed it to Iran, there existed a Shiite crescent from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. Of course Iran's competitors, US, KSA, Turkey, Qatar, Egypt, Etc., do not want to see Iran in such a controlling position, of course they are going to act to break Syria away from Iran. I don't think that's surprising or secret in anyway, it's basic geopolitics, the same way states, tribes and kingdoms have acted since time immemorial.

     

     

    No Shia being forced on the Sunnis by Bashar and his father? WTF?! Hafez al Assad killed 10,000 Sunnis in Hama province using artillery and tanks only a few decades back, all on film, which no one in the world disputes!??! You've got to be kidding me, this is ridiculous and I'm not wasting my time with this anymore.

     

    there are some really blatant and simple historical facts and current issues that these blokes are completely ignorant of and I find it very difficult to see this shit as even slightly credible.

     

    McLovin, here's nothing wrong with alternative media at all and it's very, very healthy to be cynical and critical of the MSM. However make sure that you have a strong understanding of history and geopolitics (geography, economy, technology, demographics) yourself before you start forming strong opinions of very complex issues. If you don't have that foundation of your own it's difficult to have a well calibrated bullshit detector.

     

    Remember, alternative media can and often is full of shit just as much as the mainstream media is.

    go fuck yourself, syria

    in News

    Posted

    @ Watson - If I was able to I'd bet whatever you were willing to put up that that^^^^ is not the way it will/would have gone down.

     

    I mean look at the assets they have deployed in the region right now - keeping in mind that they were basically planning to launch right about now if everything had gone to plan.

     

    The have a bunch of Arleigh Burkes and more than likely an attack sub. These vessels carry guided missiles, not marines. There are no carriers deployed in range of the fighters prepped and ready to launch and there are no support assets (food, medical, fuel, etc.) setting up for a deployment.

     

    Can't deploy troops when they or their logistics are not there to be deployed. Lastly, the White House was speaking and leaking very, very clearly about a punitive strike, which the assets in the region are configured for, not a decapitative strike or any kind of operation to take out/contain the chems Syria retains.

     

    Mobilising and putting troops on the ground would take a deployment of tens of thousands of troops in terms of they guys on the ground and the logistics to support them and shit like that isn't something you can miss. It's simply not even being prepared for, let alone taking place right now.

    go fuck yourself, syria

    in News

    Posted

    Ah..., I think you should check the news, mate.

     

    Don't think you'll be going in any time soon and not sure the US would have lost any troops in there when all it was ever really going to be was a few cruise missiles and maybe a bunker buster or two.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    ..... and you really think Russia ever stopped hating you?

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