Peaceful uses

[greenilex]

Netanyahu was clearly delighted by the success of Elon Musk’s launch containing the lander (among other things).

As I said, I am clearly having nightmares, and no-one need worry. But.

[kernelbogey]

What I think most intriguing about the story - and I know this is not new news - is that Elon Musk's company is not only providing rocket transport into space commercially, but that they have also found a way of recycling the launch rockets; which, as far as I know, NASA never has.

Also amazing is the Japanese success of landing a vehicle on an asteroid. As was the similar recent success (US or European? - can't remember) landing one on a comet. The logistics of these two feats is simply mind-boggling.

(I was galvanised as a boy in 1956 by Sputnik, and was able to pick its beeping signal up on one of the radios in our house.)

[Serial_Apologist]

We would not have had an Israel if we had not have had a Germany.

Nazism, yes, but... Germany???

There appears to have been no difficulty in separating out the German people from their past leadership. Nor should there have been. German voters were choosing to vote for anything but the past. But recently, this has not been so. As the percentages for Alternative for Deutschland have increased, no one in their right mind would seek to link its people with its politicians. Yet. That yet is likely to be pertinent when it comes to Israeli politicians and Israeli voters.

For one reason why it has been too easy for many people to synchronise those two in the way that they have done is the manner in which Israeli voters - some but not all - have voted. To maintain that position of synchronising is not merely dubious on prejudicial grounds. It is now to risk a development in which the new far right in Germany is linked in people's minds to German people per se. You can't have one without the other and for all our sakes it is therefore best to have neither. Those who feel strongly about Israel might bear this in mind.

The "trustability" of the German people, or rather the lack of it, was the prime motivating theme in the minds of many of my parent's generation. One thing which has to be emphasised about the German people is the abiding sense of shame with regards to the Nazi period. If there was one good thing (if.....) about the Communist regime in the GDR, it was to remind its children of this, in all its gory details, whereas postwar governments in W Germany, economically supported by the US, soft pedalled on details while rebulding from scratch a hi-tech nation, modernist (eg social democratic) in outlook and culture. Older generation Germans with lingering feelings Hitler had been right if one overlooked the concentration camps, or even in some cases it one didn't, advisedly kept schtum in the name of reputation re-building . If there had been anything innately or covertly authoritarian in the German cultural make-up that had contributed, if not led to Nazism - the insistent and absolutist Prussian emphasis on "efficiency" for instance, that had successfully cohered into nationhood - it would often be German Jewish intellectuals who, post-Holocaust notwithstanding, would jump to the defense of the culture as having produced key figures of the Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment such as Goethe and Schiller as counterweights to Luther, and later, dare one say, Marx and Engels... not to mention the Jewish composers whose outlooks and formal concerns were unthinkable without that solid German cultural background. So I'm not convinced that, let's say modern day Jews, those outside, or inside and loyal to Zionism, retain an inbuilt suspicion against Germany. Looking at it from the opposite pov, most of what antisemitism does exist in Germany originated from the former GDR, ironically - probably as a reaction, based on the discrediting of anything connected with the form of Communist ideology that had been forcibly implanted for four and more decades.

Next, Israel's regrettable position on Palestine is hardly new. The advent of widespread anti-semitism is very new. It was always around but it has risen in a way that I would never have expected to have seen. A significant part of this involves the yellow line syndrome. Bit by bit, prejudice and discrimination have been tackled with legislation on colour, creed, religion, race, nationality, disability, physical and mental, gender, sexual orientation and age. Many who support the new approaches to such things, rightly in my opinion, support them strongly.

But some behind their wish to be a combination of moral, right-on and law abiding have a human trait which they themselves cannot accept and hence see. That trait is an instinct to be prejudiced so with all of the areas I have mentioned yellow lined, that prejudice has simply transferred across to the Jewish street. Of course, some are prejudiced across the board and being anti-Semitic is a part of that phenomenon but that was the case in 1945 and 1979. It comes and it goes and is contained when it is in its own fringes by being so stereotypical.

I think there is a face-saving trait in almost anyone that refuses to admit to being in the wrong, especially if ones whole world view has been based on shaky presuppositions, the upholding of which is perceived (and may in some instances actually be) a matter of life or death. But why offload blame for this state of affairs onto Jews? For purposes of scapegoating, having gone through them, through blacks, gays, social workers, estate agents, the "politically correct" Muslims and the white working class, does runnning out of options really mean we have to tick our way through the list all over again once more? My own view is that "antisemitism" is largely overplayed, deliberately conflated for obvious political opportunist reasons with anti-Zionism which is something else entirely, and mostly restricted to unreconstructed fascists who will believe anything they want so as to find fault anywhere but where it really belongs because they've effectively been taught not to think, this being what stuck-up people waste their time doing, but to be strong and stand up for themselves and their tribal milieu in a world that offloads its contradictions onto those without the means or wherewithal to fight back.

Additionally, the new anti-semitism emerges from concerns about terrorism from so-called Islamists. One way that some try to resolve the tension between absolute condemnation of that terrorism and the fear of being beastly towards normal Muslim people is to over-compensate. That involves additional emphasis on the need not to upset normal Muslims combined with a spinning off of fury somewhere else. Normality is stretched to the limit. It can apply to a woman with a hobby of watching beheadings so that she isn't evil but just vulnerable.

The poor little thing. She wasn't that different to any other girl. It was all our fault anyway. And Israel's. And then there is the additional hatred of the corporate world which has done so many people so much harm while equally everyone has bought into it, not always through choice. Someone has to be blamed for that contradiction. It is fairly easy to go backwards into old nonsenses about "The Jews" running everything when it can't be criticised for being too black or too white. It has some lineage too. It is seen wrongly as a "safe" prejudicial space.

But again, one has to look at who is perpetuating this "lineage" (lineage being one person's historical truths as against another's), and for what ends.

Are the Jewish people being singled out? From what has been said one would assume so. However, in that assumption one would be wrong. Clearly, the direct parallel is Russia which is permitted to be attacked at every turn. While in that process it is Putin rather than the Russian people who is mostly under fire, the latter are attacked, actually, by being presented as absolute nobodies under fixed elections which may or may not be wholly true. It is as if they don't exist and for some peculiar reason this is not considered to be a terrible attitude at all.

I don't think much commentary in the West has actually been devoted to "the Russian peoples" as opposed to Putin - at least, none that I'm aware of - quite possibly (though I would admit that this is suppositional on my part) because "The West", as the commentariat still persist in describing our "side" of the post-Communist/Capitalist world order, still harbours eventually bringing "Russia" back into line. What reactions did Pussy Riot provoke, beyond a few Western smiles? They seemed to be the sole representatives of opposition as we of the post-Punk era West would appreciate it. When western commentators report on Russian society, it is mostly in terms of criminal gangs, poor deluded nostalgic elderly Communists annually unfurling banners in Red Square, and nationalist youth movements we're so glad we don't have over here. By default everyone seems to be waiting for something promising to somehow emerge from the top: we never hear of grass roots movements to clean up the environmental legacy, or even possibly viable top-down solutions to the latter. Capitalism works best when starting or re-starting from scratch. After all, there are all those raw material resources there for the eventual taking, just as in Africa or "Arabia", not to mention a downtrodden disillusioned workforce "waiting" to be re-shaped into good producer-consumers, and the role a Russia reintroduced into "the fold" could play acting as a bastion alongside Israel against a nuclear Iran, (the Western powers were remarkably schtum over Chechnya), not to mention looming worries about the methane waiting to be released from a de-frozen tundra, much of it in Russia, and the emergence of an over-powerful China. All these things are hedgeable bets to the "West".

[Lat-Literal]

Nazism, yes, but... Germany???

The "trustability" of the German people, or rather the lack of it, was the prime motivating theme in the minds of many of my parent's generation. One thing which has to be emphasised about the German people is the abiding sense of shame with regards to the Nazi period. If there was one good thing (if.....) about the Communist regime in the GDR, it was to remind its children of this, in all its gory details, whereas postwar governments in W Germany, economically supported by the US, soft pedalled on details while rebulding from scratch a hi-tech nation, modernist (eg social democratic) in outlook and culture. Older generation Germans with lingering feelings Hitler had been right if one overlooked the concentration camps, or even in some cases it one didn't, advisedly kept schtum in the name of reputation re-building . If there had been anything innately or covertly authoritarian in the German cultural make-up that had contributed, if not led to Nazism - the insistent and absolutist Prussian emphasis on "efficiency" for instance, that had successfully cohered into nationhood - it would often be German Jewish intellectuals who, post-Holocaust notwithstanding, would jump to the defense of the culture as having produced key figures of the Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment such as Goethe and Schiller as counterweights to Luther, and later, dare one say, Marx and Engels... not to mention the Jewish composers whose outlooks and formal concerns were unthinkable without that solid German cultural background. So I'm not convinced that, let's say modern day Jews, those outside, or inside and loyal to Zionism, retain an inbuilt suspicion against Germany. Looking at it from the opposite pov, most of what antisemitism does exist in Germany originated from the former GDR, ironically - probably as a reaction, based on the discrediting of anything connected with the form of Communist ideology that had been forcibly implanted for four and more decades.



I think there is a face-saving trait in almost anyone that refuses to admit to being in the wrong, especially if ones whole world view has been based on shaky presuppositions, the upholding of which is perceived (and may in some instances actually be) a matter of life or death. But why offload blame for this state of affairs onto Jews? For purposes of scapegoating, having gone through them, through blacks, gays, social workers, estate agents, the "politically correct" Muslims and the white working class, does runnning out of options really mean we have to tick our way through the list all over again once more? My own view is that "antisemitism" is largely overplayed, deliberately conflated for obvious political opportunist reasons with anti-Zionism which is something else entirely, and mostly restricted to unreconstructed fascists who will believe anything they want so as to find fault anywhere but where it really belongs because they've effectively been taught not to think, this being what stuck-up people waste their time doing, but to be strong and stand up for themselves and their tribal milieu in a world that offloads its contradictions onto those without the means or wherewithal to fight back.



But again, one has to look at who is perpetuating this "lineage" (lineage being one person's historical truths as against another's), and for what ends.



I don't think much commentary in the West has actually been devoted to "the Russian peoples" as opposed to Putin - at least, none that I'm aware of - quite possibly (though I would admit that this is suppositional on my part) because "The West", as the commentariat still persist in describing our "side" of the post-Communist/Capitalist world order, still harbours eventually bringing "Russia" back into line. What reactions did Pussy Riot provoke, beyond a few Western smiles? They seemed to be the sole representatives of opposition as we of the post-Punk era West would appreciate it. When western commentators report on Russian society, it is mostly in terms of criminal gangs, poor deluded nostalgic elderly Communists annually unfurling banners in Red Square, and nationalist youth movements we're so glad we don't have over here. By default everyone seems to be waiting for something promising to somehow emerge from the top: we never hear of grass roots movements to clean up the environmental legacy, or even possibly viable top-down solutions to the latter. Capitalism works best when starting or re-starting from scratch. After all, there are all those raw material resources there for the eventual taking, just as in Africa or "Arabia", not to mention a downtrodden disillusioned workforce "waiting" to be re-shaped into good producer-consumers, and the role a Russia reintroduced into "the fold" could play acting as a bastion alongside Israel against a nuclear Iran, (the Western powers were remarkably schtum over Chechnya), not to mention looming worries about the methane waiting to be released from a de-frozen tundra, much of it in Russia, and the emergence of an over-powerful China. All these things are hedgeable bets to the "West".

Well, after securing representation in 14 of the 16 German state parliaments by October 2017 - that's pretty wide-sweeping - the AfD became the third-largest party in Germany after the 2017 federal election. They almost became the formal opposition until some sort of mainstream coalition was agreed after many months. One of several people among its members who stands out horridly is Beatrix von Storch. Being the Duchess of Oldenburg she is officially part royalty with her roots in the House of Oldenburg going about as far back as it is possible to go. Not just Nazism. However, that deep history doesn't mean that her grandfather wasn't Hitler's Finance Minister because he was and he was directly involved in the persecution of Jewish people across Germany and Europe, including stealing their property and laundering money. If you or I were one of Hitler's grandchildren, and self-respecting, what would be the last profession on earth we would choose? Yep, that's right. Politics. But here she is and a leading light, popular, and one gets this kind of thing wherever one looks.

So many of these figures in the EU have more than a few grey areas in their family backgrounds. Juncker. Tusk. Selmayr. One can debate the whys and wherefors and which side are they on given their later attachments to the CIA but I'd rather that they had gone into medicine or science or law. In that way, it would have been beyond all suspicion that 2019 is closer to 1939 than it is to 1984. I was not implying that only Jewish people might have concerns. I was saying that many people would at the very least be beginning to wonder. And that ideally such politicians would be seen as distinct from voters including - and this may well require gritted teeth - those who voted for them. To not have such a distinction in Israel is to risk a carrying across of that absence to other scenarios as I outline. Wires are too easily and frequently crossed. It has long been the case that British BNP types have failed to see the irony of being both anti-German because of the Nazis and anti-Jew. There is at least a double illogicality there but it does go with that terrain of limited intelligence. That Labour MEPs sit happily in a chamber with fascists while elements of their party have evident issues with aspects of Jewishness is somewhat less easy to accommodate with objective critique.

Russia is too big a topic to comment on here. Some of what you say - for example, on environmentalism - is true. While Pussy Riot no doubt had a strong enough case, it was possibly the punkish element that didn't especially endear them to me. I am all for punk as art but have a preference for dignity in protest. As soon as I see placards in the centre of London which say f this and f that I am inclined to take the opposite side whether I agree with it or not. With liberalism there are inevitably gains and also losses. I would like to see better rights for minorities there and greater scope for protest but I would be quite content if such things were introduced with very heavy fines for wanton public vulgarity. There is an aspect of the country's small c conservatism which very much appeals to me. That people can soldier on in the wilds with no central heating and only an old battered car yet still be content with their lot is a wonderful, old American, thing. It is not least because they have a sense of dignity. That is how we used to be. Our lives were richer for it. I envy them in many ways.

And now to support the small c conservative but anti big business credentials I have outlined - I do not wish to speak of the main news story here as it is far too horrific - it just so happens that I signed a petition to Parliament yesterday along the following lines - "Launch an inquiry into the possible link between cannabis and violence : Cannabis is a common factor in an alarming number of violent crimes, including murder, rape and child abuse, as well as suicide. As calls for the legalisation of cannabis grow ever louder, we demand the government first investigate the possible link between cannabis and violence". It currently has fewer than 13,000 signatures which is a pity as they are aiming for 100,000 before May. Again, I could support limited cannabis use in the field of genuine art and music but nothing else. I suppose once again this is proof that I am not a modern liberal. So it must be.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, after securing representation in 14 of the 16 German state parliaments by October 2017 - that's pretty wide-sweeping - the AfD became the third-largest party in Germany after the 2017 federal election. They almost became the formal opposition until some sort of mainstream coalition was agreed after many months. One of several people among its members who stands out horridly is Beatrix von Storch. Being the Duchess of Oldenburg she is officially part royalty with her roots in the House of Oldenburg going about as far back as it is possible to go. Not just Nazism. However, that deep history doesn't mean that her grandfather wasn't Hitler's Finance Minister because he was and he was directly involved in the persecution of Jewish people across Germany and Europe, including stealing their property and laundering money. If you or I were one of Hitler's grandchildren, and self-respecting, what would be the last profession on earth we would choose? Yep, that's right. Politics. But here she is and a leading light, popular, and one gets this kind of thing wherever one looks.

OK I defer to your good self when it comes to knowledge of the present status of the far right in Germany, Lat. A lot of the latter's popularity probably can be ascribed to Merkel's act of generosity towards refugees being rejected by neighbouring states, notwithstanding her plummet in support coming after the numbers had reduced greatly. That's one thing - another is to ascribe questionability by association to Juncker et al. in what follows. Whatever you mean by attachments to the CIA sounds like a clutching at straws, as I read you, assuming you're not going to "do a Beef Oven" on me on the comeback! Their political involvements could as equally be seen as voluntary retributions as being suspect for whatever past is being implicated.

So many of these figures in the EU have more than a few grey areas in their family backgrounds. Juncker. Tusk. Selmayr. One can debate the whys and wherefors and which side are they on given their later attachments to the CIA but I'd rather that they had gone into medicine or science or law. In that way, it would have been beyond all suspicion that 2019 is closer to 1939 than it is to 1984. I was not implying that only Jewish people might have concerns. I was saying that many people would at the very least be beginning to wonder. And that ideally such politicians would be seen as distinct from voters including - and this may well require gritted teeth - those who voted for them. To not have such a distinction in Israel is to risk a carrying across of that absence to other scenarios as I outline. Wires are too easily and frequently crossed. It has long been the case that British BNP types have failed to see the irony of being both anti-German because of the Nazis and anti-Jew. There is at least a double illogicality there but it does go with that terrain of limited intelligence. That Labour MEPs sit happily in a chamber with fascists while elements of their party have evident issues with aspects of Jewishness is somewhat less easy to accommodate with objective critique.

Elements... evident issues... aspects of Jewishness. All circumlocutions I'm afraid, Lat.

Russia is too big a topic to comment on here. Some of what you say - for example, on environmentalism - is true. While Pussy Riot no doubt had a strong enough case, it was possibly the punkish element that didn't especially endear them to me. I am all for punk as art but have a preference for dignity in protest. As soon as I see placards in the centre of London which say f this and f that I am inclined to take the opposite side whether I agree with it or not. With liberalism there are inevitably gains and also losses. I would like to see better rights for minorities there and greater scope for protest but I would be quite content if such things were introduced with very heavy fines for wanton public vulgarity.

So that's what appealed about punk - the "non-protesting" side of it you manage to isolate as somehow extrinsic? Sheeesh!

There is an aspect of the country's small c conservatism which very much appeals to me. That that people can battle on in the wilds with no central heating and only an old battered car yet still be content with their lot is a wonderful, old American, thing. It is not least because they have a sense of dignity. That is how we used to be. Our lives were richer for it. I envy them in many ways.

There speaks the voice of protestant conscience! Making do is fine and admirable when it is temporary and unavoidable, as in disasters and catastrophies; but to laud it as a permanent proposition sounds like masochism of the most supine kind when the means of alleviation have been long invented and guaranteed the enjoyment of those of privilege. If you are right, there's little point in arguing because there's little point in seeking betterment.

[Lat-Literal]

OK I defer to your good self when it comes to knowledge of the present status of the far right in Germany, Lat. A lot of the latter's popularity probably can be ascribed to Merkel's act of generosity towards refugees being rejected by neighbouring states, notwithstanding her plummet in support coming after the numbers had reduced greatly. That's one thing - another is to ascribe questionability by association to Juncker et al. in what follows. Whatever you mean by attachments to the CIA sounds like a clutching at straws, as I read you, assuming you're not going to "do a Beef Oven" on me on the comeback! Their political involvements could as equally be seen as voluntary retributions as being suspect for whatever past is being implicated.



Elements... evident issues... aspects of Jewishness. All circumlocutions I'm afraid, Lat.



So that's what appealed about punk - the "non-protesting" side of it you manage to isolate as somehow extrinsic? Sheeesh!



There speaks the voice of protestant conscience! Making do is fine and admirable when it is temporary and unavoidable, as in disasters and catastrophies; but to laud it as a permanent proposition sounds like masochism of the most supine kind when the means of alleviation have been long invented and guaranteed the enjoyment of those of privilege. If you are right, there's little point in arguing because there's little point in seeking betterment.

Oh yes, unashamedly a protestant conscience in the not especially religious sense. But it is more subtle than you suggest. The punk thing. My favourite punk band by far - one of my favourite bands of all time - is the band that was definitely punk but also not punk if that makes sense. The Clash which was steeped in the mainstream of rock and crucially was bookish and filmic as well as being a political, historical and global commentary. I doubt it was protest in anything other than a Will Self sense. The rest of punk. I would agree with Lydon that it was vaudeville and not a terrible thing for being so. Post 1980s American so-called punk is actually cartoonish but then the Dickies were too. I like cartoons. Donald Duck is great art.

Mrs Merkel was not so generous. Her country and the same is true of France and many others including the now controversial Hungary has a demographic problem. Not enough births to provide enough tax payers of the future to maintain service provision. We don't have that problem. That is a statistical fact. Had they been in our position, the EU would have ditched freedom of movement long ago. The background questions I referred to previously concern relatives who may or may not have been willing participants when working for the Nazis but in several cases after the war they went into special intelligence for the Americans. That sort of thing, I think, is passed down the generations much as with the Masons. May thinks she is negotiating with European bureaucrats but, Barnier and Verhoefstadt aside, she is actually negotiating with European members of the US secret services. All men obviously. All white.

As for sacrifice and/or betterment, I have as many books on my shelves now as I could ever want but my £250 mini van with the door that kept falling off gave me much better stories.

Killer Klowns From Outer Space

Magoomba

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-QQnpmw_W4

[greenilex]

“Battling on in the wilds” does assume that there are liveable wild places still uncolonised by the naked ape.

We are rapidly degrading most of them. Think fracking, mineral extraction and desertification caused by global warming, combined with runaway population growth.

One of my favourite films is called Dersu Uzala. That was wild if you like.

[Lat-Literal]

“Battling on in the wilds” does assume that there are liveable wild places still uncolonised by the naked ape.

We are rapidly degrading most of them. Think fracking, mineral extraction and desertification caused by global warming, combined with runaway population growth.

One of my favourite films is called Dersu Uzala. That was wild if you like.

Yes, quite.

I am on the e-mail lists of both CPRE and Greenpeace and always respond to their requests for me to write to my MP opposing fracking.

At one point, I went into the subject in such detail that Shasha Khan, perhaps the leading Green in Croydon, asked me to give a speech to party members. I said to him that the pages I had produced were based on painstaking research but actually I wasn't a scientist. Furthermore, not to be fooled by the writing. In person, I vary from reasonably strong to a quivering chump and it is totally impossible to predict which one will turn up on the night. It all sort of went quiet at that point but I do like to think he is still referring to my "book" even today.