A few links. posted by Richard Seymour

First, I'm joining the Googlebomb , because I'm so Proud of Britain . (When I hear that 'p-' word, I always remember the scene from the Rocky Horror Picture Show where Dr Frankenfurter says, of the bland all-American Brad, "You must be orfully pride of him, Janet!"

Second, I'm linking to a timely quote from Alisdair MacIntyre supplied by Chris Brooke :

The modern nation-state, in whatever guise, is a dangerous and unmanageable institution, presenting itself on the one hand as a bureaucratic supplier of goods and services, which is always about to, but never actually does, give its clients value for money, and on the other as a repository of sacred values, which from time to time invites one to lay down one's life on its behalf. As I have remarked elsewhere... it is like being asked to die for the telephone company.

Third, have a look at that Chomsky-Foucault debate if you haven't already. Chomsky defends, in his usual clear way, his rationalist view of human beings, the theory of 'innate ideas' which he developed in Syntactic Structures and which developed from, and formed the basis of, his theory of language. Foucault attempts to undermine the conceptual operations which underpin Chomsky's thought, (human nature, knowledge etc), and expounds his theory that human beings are constituted through and through by power, not merely its victims but also its bearers as it in a "closely linked grid of of disciplinary coercions". We are, according to Foucault, constructed by power as subjects fit to be ruled (see his treatment of the development of the modern soldier in pages 135-6 of Discipline & Punish: "By the late eighteenth century, the soldier has become something that can be made; out of a formless clay, an inapt body, the machine required can be constructed; posture is gradually corrected, a calculated constraint runs slowly through each part of the body..."). The things that Chomsky maintains are innate are, to a very large extent, artefacts of historical development according to Foucault. Foucault's view of power is, if you ask me, decidedly Weberian in orientation, albeit that he is not as outwardly concerned with rationalisation and bureacracy.

Whatever, just have a read.

Oh, yeah, one more thing: guess where submarines get to these days? Sidney Blumenthal does some behind the scenes mud-flinging on the Smoldering Bush, and also reports an exchange between Karl Rove and Bush:

"You're not such a scary guy," joked his guide. "Yes, I am," Rove replied. Walking away, he muttered deliberately and loudly: "I change constitutions, I put churches in schools ..."

Reminds me strangely of the conspiring Roy Cohn and his young protege in Tony Kushner's Angels in America. For ruthlessness, energy, dedication and ideological clarity in the last thirty years, few have matched the American Right.