Slashdot Mirror
Spam Slows AT&T Email
jonerik writes: "MSNBC has this article about AT&T's frustration with the increasing quantity and sophistication of spam traffic. As has been noted here already, much of it these days is originating from Asia and, according to the article, 'now represents 20 percent of all e-mail floating around the Internet.'"
Yes !
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html
Fuck you AT&T.
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html
I regularly have nasal intercouse with the fat, lecherous cretins who populate this site. They stick of felching cat shit and like to masturbate frequently over dead mentally handicapped people.
Ha! AC wins!
Or maybe not.
_)_
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html
I kick ass... I have the fp.. you all wish you had it.. This is a call to arms of all loyal AC's! We must band together and overthrow those who would mod us down!! Fighting crime, trying to save the world.. Here they come just in time.. The Powerpuff Girls... POWERPUFF!!
why was that post moderated down ? wtf
seems rather reasonable to me.. FUCK YOU MODERATORS, damn you cock smoking, goatse.cx masturbating pieces of rat dung, jump OFF a bridge > FUCK YOU
Wow! I am most impressed to receive a response from a master troller. Keep up the excellent work! And BTW, I am not an American...
All your demands are based on the assumption that nation states are somehow natural when, in fact, they are not. If they were natural, why would we need to have armed guards on our borders?
This leads us to the fact that a completely free and unhindered movement of people is the only natural way for happy and peaceful societies to form. Thus all states and borders should be abolished and a world government established instead.
The owls are not what they seem
The "Spam" that I get from MS ("Windows Update" notification) is killing me. In the past two weeks I had to "update" my W2K TWICE.
And when ever I try to update, the process would break halfway because M$'s server can't keep up with the demand.
In my view, not only has M$ taken over 95% of the desktop, they will soon take over internet traffic with their daily "update".
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
Spam belongs in a can!
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
No Globalisation
by Paul Treanor
Logically, there can be no process of globalisation in a world order of nation states. A world order is already global, by definition. The logic of 'globalisation' is false, but the idea has become an ideology. For different reasons, different people claim that there is globalisation. The word "globalisation" started as an academic and media hype. Just when it was going out of fashion, the 1999 Seattle summit revived media attention for the issue. Pro-globalisation and anti-globalisation ideologies (and movements) have emerged. That fact remains, that the underlying 'globalisation' process simply does not exist. People are often talking about something else - about neoliberalism or about normative globalism, for instance.
Is there globalisation? Nation states still dominate the social and economic structures of this planet. But nation states are themselves a global order - a specific arrangement of a specific type of state. Globalisation only appears logical, if you see nation states as isolated islands, but that is not the historical reality.
Supporters of the globalisation thesis claim, that a world of isolated nation states existed in the recent past. Perhaps before 1989, or more approximately, before 1950. They claim that these isolated nation states are now being eroded, in a global process. This thesis is often presented as a absolute truth, which globalisation researchers have discovered. Academic snobbism is important in sustaining globalisation research, especially since the thesis appeals to both the right and the left. People are considered stupid, if they question globalisation.
Saskia Sassen, who uses globalisation as a "negative future" to promote a global civil society, summarises the logic. (In: Losing Control: Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization, Columbia University Press 1996).
Economic globalization represents a major transformation in the territorial organization of economic activity and politico-economic power....The sovereignty of the modern state was concentrated in mutually exclusive territories and the concentration of sovereignty in nations...economic globalization has contributed to a denationalizing of national territory... But nations are not mutually exclusive. Every existing nation state, supports the division of the world into nation states. Even a total surrender of national sovereignty to another nation, does not de-nationalise territory. When nations re-unite, for instance, states can completely disappear. At some future date, Moldova (Moldavia) might accede to Romania. That would mean the state Moldova completely ceased to exist: but that would not mean the end of nations. In fact it would be a victory for the nationalistic 'Greater Romania' ideal. Another example: the Republic of Ireland has abandoned its claim to sovereignty over Northern Ireland. However, a future majority in Northern Ireland might wants to accede to the Republic of Ireland. In those circumstances, the United Kingdom has said it will abandon its claim to the territory. Yet, either way, there are still two nation states in the British Isles. The border might shift, but the nation state as such does not disappear in such cases.
The relevant question, at global level, is whether the global order of nation states is disappearing - anywhere. And there is no collapse of the nation state, in the face of globalisation. Nation states have not suffered anything comparable to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman empires. All that remains of these empires, are oversized palaces in Vienna and Istanbul. The rest of their institutions have completely disappeared: there is not a square millimetre of Habsburg or Ottoman territory left in Europe. There is no longer an Austro-Hungarian imperial army, or police, or courts, of universities. The nation states succeeded the multi-ethnic empires, and seized all their territory. The replacement was total.
But where is the so-called 'collapse' of the nation state visible? There are very few places on earth where there are no institutions of a nation state - perhaps in Somalia, but that is not the result of globalization. If the world was truly 'globalised' then it would be full of disused national parliament buildings - and not a national army in sight. The world is not like that, and will not be like that, in the immediate future. In other words, 'globalisation' remains a hype - pure hype and not reality.
Anti-nationalists know this, better than anyone else. So people who claim that 'globalisation' is eroding nations are in any case not anti-nationalists. At worst, the opposite: they are simply nationalists. The globalisation hype can be a form of nationalist propaganda.
The popular globalisation myth
A popular version of the globalisation myth has existed for about 10 years. It claims that until 1989, the world consisted of separate, sovereign, autonomous nation states, with separate histories. Then, borders collapsed, the internet appeared, but also the international Mafia. So now it is a dangerous world, but also perhaps full of opportunities.
You can find this version, almost literally, in Ruud Lubbers' article The Globalization of Economy and Society (now offline):
The term "globalization" implies that the becoming and making worldwide of various phenomena has accelerated at such a pace that it is giving rise to a variety of new phenomena. Globalization entails a quantitative shift of several autonomous national economies to a global marketplace for production, distribution, and technology. All this has resulted in the emergence of a worldwide confrontation of political, societal, and ethical insights...
Lubbers was a former Netherlands premier, and is now UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He filled the time between these posts as a Professor of Globalization Studies at Tilburg University. Lubbers explains what caused the 'quantitative shift'...
The far-reaching integration of electronics and computers on the one hand, and communication technology, on the other, led to what Toffler christened "the third wave." And thus today's world came into being....People everywhere were confronted with the effects of the emergence of modern communication technologies and the Sputnik, Soyuz, and Apollo heralded the birth of a new world. CNN and the Internet, global sourcing, electronic capital flows signalled the emergence of the information and communication age. It has been said that the bits provoke one world, accomplishing the globalization of information/communication and technology.
The language of globalisation claims
The globalisation myth has developed its own slang, related to themes in globalisation research...
turmoil, chaos, breakdown, instability, disorder
global, globalised, planetary, planetary order, global governance, world consciousness
trans-state, transnational, cross-border, borderlands, transgression, boundary erosion, inter-cultural, transcultural
multiple actors, multiplicity, multi-voiced, fragmented, break-up, splitting up
flow, space of flows, trade volume, stream, link, network, linked by flows
Here is an example of globalisation-speak from Global Cyberculture Reconsidered: Cyberspace, Identity, and the Global Informational City
There are two forces at work in globalization: the spread of the Net internationally follows urban infrastructures, and nations around the world are cooperating in the creation of a global network economy by creating networks of globalized informational cities that require liberalized financial and trade policies.
And the Globalization and World Cities research group declares:
Our mission is to promote a different metageographical image of the world, a space of flows held together by a network of cities. There are a myriad of networks which make up our contemporary world, the Internet, for example, to which you are currently linked to, is an important example. We have chosen to focus upon the network of world cities because it is the most obvious concrete manifestation of a contemporary space of flows which can challenge traditional metageographies.
This language is self-referential: it exists within the world of globalisation research. That is how they talk to one another. Like all slang, it establishes membership of a social group. It is not a guide to the real world.
The logic and evidence of globalisation claims Suppose there was a global state. Suppose the 'Global Self-Sufficient Villages Party' won the global elections. It would implement its policies: it would make the world self-sufficient at local level. In the end, there would be a world of self-sufficient villages, with no inter-local trade - let alone inter-continental trade.
Is this globalisation? Is this global? The answer must be yes, it is at least global. A global state implementing a global policy is global. It is perfectly logical for a global state or society to exist, without the conventional indicators of globalisation. A fully globalised, homogenous, world can be a world of autarkic communities - if that is the global political culture. That applies to any intermediate between autarky and full interaction. If the global norm is to trade 10% of gross National Product, then a fully globalised planet could exist where all states traded 10% of GNP. If the norm is 90%, then it would be 90%. There is no way to infer from the statistic alone, whether the planet is 'globalised' or not. Indicators such as trade volume and trade policy can even be used in logically contradictory ways.
For example, if I discover that nation states are abandoning protectionist polices, is that evidence of globalisation? Supporters of the globalisation thesis will say, that nation states increasingly compete with all other nation states. Trade increases, and protectionism will be abandoned. So, they will say, the trend is evidence of globalisation. But I could equally claim, that protectionism is caused by increasing competition among nation states. So, I could say, that the abandonment of protectionism shows that globalisation has ended.
But what if I discover a trend to protectionist polices? This time the globalisation fans will say, "logical, increasing competition means more protectionism." The conclusion will be reversed to suit the evidence. But I can do that as well. I could say, that protectionism is a symptom of the end of globalisation - after all, it limits trade.
This is just one example of a large class of paradoxes. Many apparently solid statistical indicators of globalisation, can be used as evidence either way. And other evidence may point to the opposite conclusion. International air traffic is growing - but so are regional airlines. Cultural evidence is equally double-sided. The first books published were all in one language, Latin: since then publishing has become increasingly 'local', not global. The number of published languages has increased, not decreased. In the end, there is no point in detailed argument, about trade volumes, capital flows, and information flows. They will never conclusively establish globalisation.
However, supporters of the globalisation thesis continue to quote fabricated and illogical 'evidence'. Any social or economic phenomenon is treated as possible 'evidence' of globalisation. If there is a Chinese restaurant in a town, it shows global culture. If these is no Chinese restaurant, it shows the town is lagging behind in the globalisation process.
Global processes is deliberately confused with global erosion of borders. Trade among nations may be global: that does not mean nations are dissolving in trade. Recent trade flows are used as evidence of recent globalisation, but inter-continental trade has existed for thousands of years. Even the present pattern of all-continent trade is 200 years old. The supporters of the globalisation thesis use nominalist arguments: the label "globalisation" is attached to any cross-border phenomenon. If you call all animals 'Martians', then every day you will see evidence that the Martians have landed.
The claim that there is a globalisation process is endlessly repeated, ignoring historical context. The claimed 'instrument of globalisation' varies from one decade to the next. Some people said the hot air balloon would end borders. But people said the same thing about the telegraph, the railway, the steam ship, wireless telegraphy, the airship, radio, air travel, television, pictures of the world from space, satellite television, CNN, and the Internet. Borders are still here: there are probably more border guards, than at any previous time in history.
So belief in globalisation is like any other belief system. Facts are not necessarily relevant. Some adherents of globalisation share the characteristics of religious cults, especially cults which believe in the end of the world. These apocalyptic cults sometimes announce a date for the end of the world. When the world does not end, their members are not disillusioned: often their belief is reinforced. For the 'true believers' of globalisation, any event can reinforce the belief in globalisation - and nothing can contradict it. Those who do not believe in globalisation, are seen as inferior. Several times people called me "blind", for not believing in globalisation.
The belief / myth / hype of globalisation is probably here for a long time. Belief systems disappear only slowly. As political legitimation, 'globalisation' is useful to many groups: its factual existence is certainly irrelevant in politics.
The nation state
Nation states are one of many possible forms of state. The very existence of a world of nation states, indicates some form of global order of nation states. What these nation states do - trade or no trade, flows or no flows - is irrelevant to that issue. What is already global can not logically be globalised: therefore there is no globalisation. The 'false premise' in the globalisation thesis is the nationalist claim, that nations are separate and particular entities. In fact they are a global and universalist structure: the functional equivalent of a nationalist world state.
The world functions as if a nationalist world government had seized power in the last century, led by Mazzini and Garibaldi and friends. Most existing states were indeed established by nationalist groups. The idea presented in Structures of Nationalism is simple. Nationalists are not competing. They co-operate to maintain one (nationalist) world order and exclude others. The nation state is not a particularity, existing by itself in isolation, but part of a global design.
Consider the issue of sovereignty and multinational corporations (TNC's). A world run by 180 global corporations would mean: no national sovereignty, no national parliaments, no national laws, no national armies. But equally, a world run by 180 nation states means: no women's sovereignty, no women's parliaments, no women's laws, no women's armies. A world run by global corporations is alternative to the world order of nation states. But that order itself is alternative, to a possible world order of gender states. A national parliament could be closed - just as the Austro-Hungarian imperial parliament closed - and replaced by gender parliaments.
Of course, that idea is offensive to nationalists. For them not gender, but the nation, is the fundamental human social order. Therefore, they claim, it should be the unit of state formation: "one people, one government". This claim has no inherent validity - the slogan "one gender, one government" would be equally valid, in logical terms. But historically, nation states were established by logic anyway. Usually, they were a reaction against a former imperial or colonial order. A reaction against globalisation, real or imagined, might sustain the nation state for several more generations.
The 'threat of globalisation' confers no existence rights on a nation state. It does not give national parliaments any more right to exist, than gender parliaments. A person A has no valid claims against person B, simply on the basis of threats from entity C. If the nation state was inherently good, there might be a moral obligation to support it. But no-one is obliged to support the nation state, simply because it is threatened by globalisation, or anything else. In any case, this comparison with a possible alternative world order only emphasises, that nation states have not been 'eroded'. No completely different world order has emerged - as different from the present world, as a world of gender states would be.
If you ignore all these possible worlds, and just look at existing nations, then it is true that cross-border interaction seems important. If you close your eyes to everything except France and Germany, then all you see is France, Germany and Franco-German interaction. The whole universe shrinks to one issue: how much Franco-German interaction? Similarly, if you see the present order of 180 nation states as the only multi-state world order, then you see only two alternative worlds. You see either 180 nation states, or some form of global entity. The supporters of the globalisation thesis have shrunk their field of view in this way. They see 180 nation states, and the interactions among the 180 nation states, and conclude there is globalisation. It is a weak and false logic.
Say globalisation, mean neoliberalism
Most of the confusion about globalisation occurs when nation states pursue neoliberal policies. This is what Tony Blair means, when he talks about the "opportunities" of globalisation - his reaction to the Genoa summit protests. The neoliberal attitude to the national economy is more accurately described as neo-mercantilist. Neoliberals see the nation as an economic unit, competing with other similar units: they often compare the nation to a business firm. Neoliberal economic policies, within the nation state, are designed to meet the needs of this imaginary business - 'Great Britain Limited', 'Deutschland GmbH', 'BV Nederland'.
This does not mean that the nation state is a business firm. That would be impossible within a liberal democracy anyway - it would require a totalitarian level of economic planning. Businesses are not run like nation states, for good reasons - and nation states can probably not be run like a business. Neoliberals also contradict themselves, by insisting that regions and cities should also compete with each other, like business firms. This would make a national economic policy impossible.
What neoliberals promote is a set of social goals, a model of a society arranged for the benefit of the entrepreneur. This is usually called 'competitiveness', a favourite word for Tony Blair and other neoliberal politicians. Economists compile league tables, in which nations are ranked by competitiveness. But this does not mean that nation states are forced to be 'competitive' by some all-powerful global organisation. They are not even forced in a metaphorical sense, by the global market. The 'competitiveness' is an internal policy, a neoliberal social policy. It may not even be competitive. (If it was taken to the extremes suggested by some neoliberals, it would probably cause economic collapse).
So when western political leaders speak positively of globalisation, this is usually what they are talking about. This is usually what the media are talking about, when they use the word 'globalisation'. It has nothing to do with the erosion of the nation state. It also has very little to do with classic market liberalism, which advocates unlimited competition between every single entrepreneur. Classic market liberals would call 'Great Britain Limited' a cartel.
The ideology of 'competitiveness' has everything to do with nationalism. It is a modern version of the old nationalist insistence, that the whole nation should work together. It is a new form of jingoism, chauvinism, flag-waving and foreigner-bashing (particularly suited for Tony Blair). It is not in any way an indicator that a new global order has superseded the order of nation states, or that they have been colonised by global financial institutions.
Who else says there is globalisation?
Three groups have an interest in claiming that globalisation is a reality. Firstly, all kinds of nationalists: globalisation provides a clear enemy, to unite the national group.
The western media image of globalisation is derived largely from anti-globalisation activists. Many are clearly economic nationalists. The opposition of North American labour unions (trade unions) to new free trade zones is an example. In the European Union this is less of an issue, partly because the present EU members have comparable economies, and partly because the EU is long established anyway. (In the EU, economic nationalism takes the form of opposition to EU enlargement, rather than opposition to the EU).
Walden Bello, an anti-globalisation activist from the Philippines, has a comprehensive national alternative to globalisation, which he calls 'de-globalization':
I am not talking about withdrawing from the international economy. I am speaking about reorienting our economies from production for export to the local market....
- about creating a new production and exchange complex that includes community cooperatives, private enterprises, and state enterprises, and excludes transnational corporations (TNCs);
- about enshrining the principle of subsidiarity in economic life by encouraging production of goods to take place at the community and national level...
The Struggle for the Future
This is more than simple protectionism. It implies that the State, business, and community organisations should coordinate their policies, in some form of corporatist society. Economic nationalism and corporatism are often associated: they appeal to business in vulnerable sectors of the economy. It is not true that business is uniformly pro-globalisation - any more than Turkish business uniformly supports EU membership. Even in advanced economies, entrepreneurs often have an interest in presenting globalisation as a threat.
In western Europe, fear of globalisation is used to claim government aid for 'national industries'. Business likes subsidies, and appeals to national pride were a traditional way of getting them, long before the term 'globalisation' was used. Recently the approach has become more sophisticated: the subsidies go not just to one firm, but to whole sectors, or to a large part of the 'national economy'. The businessmen demand the subsidies, but say they are protecting the national standard of living.
However, even the living standards of Britons or Germans are no reason to support the nation state Britain, or the nation state Germany. Activists often claim, that transnational corporations "erode the ability of nation states to regulate their own economies". That does not oblige anyone to support any nation state either. Remember: the nation states themselves eroded the former multi-ethnic empires. That does not oblige anyone to restore these empires.
Nationalists have a long history of appealing to external threats, to enforce national unity. The nation must unite and work together, they said - to defeat the Hun, or the Bolshevik threat, or the Yellow Peril, or the enemy within the gates, or the Cali cartel, or Osama bin Ladin. Appeals to unite in the face of 'globalisation' are in the same dishonourable category. Economic-nationalist propaganda is in the worst nationalist traditions.
A second group claims, that there are good and bad forms of globalisation. They then cast themselves in the role of the 'good globalisers'. Advocates of a global civil society claim it provides the opposition to global neoliberalism. In reality, 'global civil society' is a loose coalition of western (and western-funded) NGO's, who dream of being subsidised by global taxes.
The third group are the normative globalists: the people who want a global society. Usually they want a global state, although they may not call it that. They have an interest in presenting globalisation as an inevitable historical development. This is historicism - political demands based on historical process, real or imagined.
Any global state would have the basic structure of a nation state: unified constitution, laws, parliament, administration, and executive powers. This normative globalism is simply a form of pan-nationalism. For now, the exact form of world government remains a hobby for International Relations theorists: but the claimed process of globalisation can be used to legitimise the idea.