FKN Newz: Work then die suckers

Romulus, Remus, Stimulus: A brief history of monetary madness

By Bill Bonner - The Daily Reckoning
24 Jul, 2009

Those whom the gods would destroy are first granted stimulus. When a man wins the lottery, for example, it has a stimulating effect on everyone around him. He usually spends the money quickly – often even before he gets it. But no matter how much he wins, he is usually broke within a few years…often, even broker than he was before he bought the winning ticket.

A recent example from the British press: One of the first lottery millionaires punched a plumber and ended up in court, says The Telegraph. Michael Antonucci won 2.8 million pounds in 1995. But he “blew his entire fortune,” reported the paper last month. Now he’s reduced to stiffing tradesmen. The amount in dispute was just 400 pounds, what he was billed for a “gigantic ceiling mirror fitted above a whirlpool Jacuzzi.” He had the mirror installed when he was still flush. Now that he’s broke, he can’t pay…hence the altercation.

The phenomenon is little different when it happens on a national or even imperial scale. Any money that you don’t earn is stimulus. Without the sweat of honest toil on it, money seems to play a pernicious role in history. There are no examples – none – where it produced genuine prosperity. Instead, when a nation suddenly runs into some easy cash, it is soon spending more than it can afford…and getting into trouble.

The Roman Empire is in some measure a stimulus story. It conquered. It grew. Each conquest brought more booty…gold, silver, land and slaves. And each led to more conquests, which brought forth more booty. But the stimulus of this booty stimulated only the need for more stimulus. It did not stimulate real prosperity. Instead, it undermined it. First, slaves bought by rich landowners destroyed the free labor market and ruined small farmers. And then, imported wheat from the provinces – paid as tribute – put the large-scale farmers out of business too. Italy was then dependent on foreigners for its food.

In the first century AD, Roman conquests reached the point of diminishing returns; the stimulus came to an end. But borders still had to be protected. And Roman mobs, made up of displaced small landowners and out-of-work laborers, needed bread and circuses which drained the Treasury.

The first financial crisis of the imperial period came early. Caesar Augustus tried to solve it…with more stimulus. Neither paper money nor the printing press had yet been invented. So, Augustus increased the money supply in the only way he could; he ordered slaves in the silver mines in Spain and France to work around the clock! This extra money did not bring prosperity; it caused price inflation. In a period of about three decades, Rome’s consumer price index almost doubled. Then, when output from the mines could be increased no further, Augustus’s great nephew, Nero, found a new source of stimulus; he reduced the silver content of the coins. This source of stimulus proved ineffective, but enduring. By the time barbarians took over, the silver denarius contained almost no silver at all. Of course, Rome itself was played out too.

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The Pervert's Guide To Cinema trailer (2009)

'Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn't give you what you desire - it tells you how to desire' - Slavoj Zizek

THE PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA takes the viewer on an exhilarating ride through some of the greatest movies ever made. Serving as presenter and guide is the charismatic Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst. With his engaging and passionate approach to thinking, Zizek delves into the hidden language of cinema, uncovering what movies can tell us about ourselves.

THE PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA offers an introduction into some of Zizek's most exciting ideas on fantasy, reality, sexuality, subjectivity, desire, materiality and cinematic form. Whether he is untangling the famously baffling films of David Lynch, or overturning everything you thought you knew about Hitchcock, Zizek illuminates the screen with his passion, intellect, and unfailing sense of humour. THE PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA applies Zizek's ideas to the cinematic canon, in what The Times calls 'an extraordinary reassessment of cinema.'

The film cuts its cloth from the very world of the movies it discusses; by shooting at original locations and on replica sets, it creates the uncanny illusion that Zizek is speaking from within the films themselves. Described by The Times as 'the woman helming this Freudian inquest,' director Sophie Fiennes' collaboration with Slavoj Zizek illustrates the immediacy with which film and television can communicate genuinely complex ideas. Says Zizek: "My big obsession is to make things clear. I can really explain a line of thought if I can somehow illustrate it in a scene from a film. THE PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA is really about what psychoanalysis can tell us about cinema."

About Slavoj Zizek:
Slavoj Zizek is a professor at the Institute for Sociology, Ljubljana and at the European Graduate School EGS who uses popular culture to explain the theory of Jacques Lacan and the theory of Jacques Lacan to explain politics and popular culture. He was born in 1949 in Ljubljana, Slovenia where he lives to this day but he has lectured at universities around the world. He was analysed by Jacques Alain Miller, Jacques Lacan's son in law, and is probably the most successful and prolific post-Lacanian having published over fifty books including translations into a dozen languages. He is a leftist and, aside from Lacan he was strongly influenced by Marx, Hegel and Schelling. In temperament, he resembles a revolutionist more than a theoretician. He was politically active in Slovenia during the 80s, a candidate for the presidency of the Republic of Slovenia in 1990; most of his works are moral and political rather than purely theoretical. He has considerable energy and charisma and is a spellbinding lecturer in the tradition of Lacan and Kojeve.

Zizek has cast a very long shadow in what can only be termed "cultural studies" (though he would despise the characterization). He is an effective purveyor of Lacanian mischief, and, as a follower of the French "liberator" of Freud, Zizek's Lacan is almost exclusively transcribed in mesmerizing language games or intellectual parables. That he has an encyclopedic grasp of political, philosophical, literary, artistic, cinematic, and pop cultural currents — and that he has no qualms about throwing all of them into the stockpot of his imagination — is the prime reason he has dazzled his peers and confounded his critics for over ten years.

Zizek was a visiting professor at the Department of Psychoanalysis, Universite Paris-VIII in 1982-3 and 1985-6, at the Centre for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Art, SUNY Buffalo, 1991-2, at the Department of Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1992, at the Tulane University, New Orleans, 1993, at the Cardozo Law School, New York, 1994, at the Columbia University, New York, 1995, at the Princeton University (1996), at the New School for Social Research, New York, 1997, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1998, and at the Georgetown University, Washington, 1999. He is a returning faculty member of the European Graduate School. In the last 20 years Zizek has participated in over 350 international philosophical, psychoanalytical and cultural-criticism symposiums in USA, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Netherland, Island, Austria, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Brasil, Mexico, Israel, Romania, Hungary and Japan. He is the founder and president of the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis, Ljubljana.

From the European Graduate School Biography

The Mystical 7 Secret Society: A history

The beginnings of the Mystical 7, and most American college fraternities, can be traced to the influence of Freemasonry in early American society.

Freemasonic influence had peeked directly after the revolution, and a few Greek Letter societies, including Phi Beta Kappa at William and Mary in 1776, and Kappa Alpha at Union College in 1825, were formed in rough emulation of the Masonic structure.

Mystical 7: A History

by Benjamin Wyatt-Greene

The definitive “Cyclopaedia of Fraternities,” first published by Albert C. Stevens in 1907 contains a short, two-line entry: “The Mystical 7, which is now thought to be dead, was in some respects one of the most remarkable and most ambitious college societies in the country.”1 Confusion over whether the Mystical Seven Society is dead has continued for well over a century and controversy still exists as to what present-day organization represents its legitimate philosophical heir, with histories occasionally being re-interpreted and re-written to support competing claims. However the relevant fact that emerges from research is that the Mystical 7 played an active part in a number of the major philosophical and educational movements of the 19th century and spawned and influenced a number of organizations and societies, some of which continue to exist today. Records exist detailing the correspondences and inner workings of the society, but its larger historical and philosophical progression has never been objectively catalogued in any detail. It is this wider scope which I am trying to explore and I would therefore refer readers to my end notes, my bibliography, and the Wesleyan University Archives if they wish to research specific traditions and symbols within the normal functionings of the society.

The beginnings of the Mystical 7, and most American college fraternities, can be traced to the influence of Freemasonry in early American society. Freemasonic influence had peeked directly after the revolution, and a few Greek Letter societies, including Phi Beta Kappa at William and Mary in 1776, and Kappa Alpha at Union College in 1825, were formed in rough emulation of the Masonic structure.2 The pivotal Morgan incident of 1826, where a group of Freemasons were suspected of killing a member of their lodge who threatened to publish society secrets, lead to an outbreak of antimasonic propaganda and heralded in a decade of widespread suppression of masonic lodges. One of the results of this suppression was that many of the condemned masonic secrets, rituals, and structures were published for the first time in the mainstream press.3 The unintended consequence of this informational watershed was that a number of otherwise ignorant citizens became educated in and interested in exploring the traditions of Freemasonry. Chief among these interested parties were groups of students in the young and burgeoning American college system.4 The antimasonic suppression and exposition had been strongest in New York and New England, and it was accordingly in these areas that the first neo-masonic orders were founded once the ferocity of the antimasonic rhetoric began to cool in the mid 1830s.

The Mystical 7 was the first major college secret society to be formed after the Morgan Incident. It is nearly indisputable that the dearth of masonic information influenced the early formation of the Mystical 7. The writings of the early mystics make occasional reference to their “new form of masonry” and many of the early cauldron covers can be specifically matched to ritual etchings in published masonic texts.5 It is likely that the very idea of natural symbolism within the Mystic Star is derivative from masonic sources. Furthermore, it can be speculated that one major reason why Hebrew, as opposed to the more prevalent Greek, was used as the emblematic language of the society was the prevalence of Hebrew script in the higher rites of the masonic order. The masonic framework was undoubtedly a structure to which the mystics melded their philosophical and literary interests.

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Twitterers paid to spread Israeli propaganda

By Jonathan Cook - ZMag
21 Jul, 2009

Nazareth. The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitters and Facebook may not be all that it seems.

Israel's foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel.

Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government's line on the Middle East conflict.

"To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose," said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project.

The existence of an "internet warfare team" came to light when it was included in this year's foreign ministry budget. About $150,000 has been set aside for the first stage of development, with increased funding expected next year.

The team will fall under the authority of a large department already dealing with what Israelis term "hasbara", officially translated as "public explanation" but more usually meaning propaganda. That includes not only government public relations work but more secretive dealings the ministry has with a battery of private organisations and initiatives that promote Israel's image in print, on TV and online.

In an interview this month with the Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper, Mr Shturman, the deputy director of the ministry's hasbara department, admitted his team would be working undercover.

"Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.' Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis," he said. "They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed."

Rona Kuperboim, a columnist for Ynet, Israel's most popular news website, denounced the initiative, saying it indicated that Israel had become a "thought-police state".

She added that "good PR cannot make the reality in the occupied territories prettier. Children are being killed, homes are being bombed, and families are starved."

Her column was greeted by several talkbackers asking how they could apply for a job with the foreign ministry's team.

The project is a formalisation of public relations practices the ministry developed specifically for Israel's assault on Gaza in December and January.

"During Operation Cast Lead we appealed to Jewish communities abroad and with their help we recruited a few thousand volunteers, who were joined by Israeli volunteers," Mr Shturman said.

"We gave them background material and hasbara material, and we sent them to represent the Israeli point of view on news websites and in polls on the internet."

The Israeli army also had one of the most popular sites on the video-sharing site YouTube and regularly uploaded clips, although it was criticised by human rights groups for misleading viewers about what was shown in its footage.

Mr Shturman said that during the war the ministry had concentrated its activities on European websites where audiences were more hostile to Israeli policy. High on its list of target sites for the new project would be BBC Online and Arabic websites, he added.

Elon Gilad, who heads the internet team, told Calcalist that many people had contacted the ministry offering their services during the Gaza attack. "People just asked for information, and afterwards we saw that the information was distributed all over the internet."

He suggested that there had been widespread government cooperation, with the ministry of absorption handing over contact details for hundreds of recent immigrants to Israel, who wrote pro-Israel material for websites in their native languages.

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