Worth dying for

[nomadologist]

I could definitely get behind some sort of relaxation.

If only pop culture would stop using pedophile baiting to make money. ! It really is the latest surefire way to get pathetic old pervs to buy a product--slap a girl in a catholic school girl uniform into one.

 

[noel emits]

You added this later, so I'll extend and say that, you know, things can be resistive without being positive.

I do know, yes. That was the point really - I don't consider it positive, but wondered if it could be seen as a way of avoiding normalisation, albeit a rather drastic and unsatisfactory way to say the least.

On D&G in particular, I think it's important to realize that they've picked the schizophrenic because he/she engages in a particular function, not merely because they've chosen mental illness (they don't privilege the neurotic or sociopath).

OK, I see that. Like randomising, becoming unpredictable, unusable, unassimilable. A useful symptom, but a symptom nonetheless.

 

[noel emits]

In "The Invasion Of Compulsory Sex Morality" Wilhelm Reich introduces some pretty radical examples of divergent attitudes to sexuality from anthropological studies of certain tribes that have had little contact with the wider world - initially to demonstrate what he sees as the arbitrary status of our own attitudes - he was writing this in the 30s. He then goes on to discuss the beginnings of his ideas about how healthy sexuality naturally proceeds from the correct movement of energy flows in the body. He believed that you need to get past ALL ideas about sexuality to arrive at it's foundation in the body. In fact he makes this non-dualistic case for all psychological issues - it is based in and/or reflected by the body and in particular muscle tension and breath.

That's what I remember from the book and other bits of Reich I've read at least. I think it's dead interesting.

I think he died an extremely bitter but not entirely disillusioned man when he discovered that people were not really capable of getting to that point in our society. Because of what he termed the Emotional Plague - a contagion that we could see here as perhaps more than analogously related to 'capitalism'.?

Anyway that's enough from my home brewed Wilhelm Reich primer


Fighting fascism is all about getting laid properly.

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

"He [Reich] believed that you need to get past ALL ideas about sexuality to arrive at it's foundation in the body"

Which is why the 'human potential' essentialist movement of the 1960s, especially the hippies, revived his 'ideas'. They are now the (consumerist) norm.

[All 'ideas about sexuality' having been replaced with ... yet more 'ideas'].

 

[nomadologist]

A similar mistake to the one the post-structuralists made: the idea that the world changes according to politics and political maneuvering that occur on a *cultural* level.

Ideas, what are they good for?

 

[Gavin]

Ideas, what are they good for?

New products:

Burial's advice: get back to the "old skool ways"...

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

Also, he literally tried to make a connection between pharmaceuticals and Nazism

He's the expert

No coke, just Scientology, Oprah!

RE: Laing ... his main contribution was to question the false 'medical model' of conventional pharma-psychiatry, of confusing symptoms with causes. Though The Divided Self was one of the first books I read on psychiatry, it is fundamentally new-ageist in its prescriptions, seeing the split subject not as the unavoidable real of the human condition but as a 'pathology' to be overcome by 're-unifying' the person ('self-actualization' etc, ie ego-psychology).

 

[nomadologist]

Between you and Tom Cruise, it's a wonder the world hasn't been saved yet *hiccup* from all of the terrible gliberals who aren't as dedicated as you are to cut-and-pasting links to other people's writing on the internet!

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

Between you and Tom Cruise, it's a wonder the world hasn't been saved yet *hiccup* from all of the terrible gliberals who aren't as dedicated as you are to cut-and-pasting links to other people's writing on the internet!

Yor're in danger of becoming a Mr Tea clone.

 

[nomadologist]

Yes, I'm just terrified of that happening.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yor're in danger of becoming a Mr Tea clone.

What an uncommonly charitable thing to say, Lifetimes!

 

[vimothy]

ILLEGAL POETRY presumably does not incriminate the Daily Mail or those who "download such material on to their computers"

Presumably writing poetry is not illegal, no matter how bad, but possessing terrorist hand-books and manuals and membership of al-Muhajiroun / Hizb ut-Tahrir is. (From the same article):

Malik, who worked as a shop assistant airside in a branch of WHSmith at the airport, also owned an Al Qaeda encyclopaedia of Jihad, a Mujahideen poison handbook and a 'terrorist handbook' which explained how to make bombs.

On the hard drive of her computer police found a copy of a sniper rifle manual, a firearms manual, anti-tank weaponry, a document entitled How To Win Hand To Hand Fighting, and pictures of weapons.

Outside the court, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said: "Malik held violent extremist views which she shared with other like-minded people over the internet.

"She also tried to donate money to a terrorist group. She had the ideology, ability and determination to access and download material which could have been useful to terrorists.

"Merely possessing this material is a serious criminal offence."​

 

[noel emits]

"He [Reich] believed that you need to get past ALL ideas about sexuality to arrive at it's foundation in the body"

Which is why the 'human potential' essentialist movement of the 1960s, especially the hippies, revived his 'ideas'. They are now the (consumerist) norm.

Is this sarcasm or just a logical fallacy?

Christians do not kill people because their bible says 'Thou Shalt Not Kill.'

People regularly misinterpret what others have said in viewing them through their own psychological lens and political beliefs.

We know that the capitalist machine attempts to ingest and co-opt everything that opposes it, so why blame seekers of truths when their words are twisted by liars and salesmen?

Why have such a blanket and blinkered (unexamined) prejudice towards 'human potential' and hippies? Many people involved in those movements were and are genuinely forward thinking and striving to improve humanity's lot.

Also it would be naive not to expect that any visible and effective progressive movement will become the subject of disinformation and discrediting campaigns.

 

[vimothy]

Yes actually I would, and there's no shortage of white supremacist writing all over the internet -- they don't wind up in court and slimed by right wing rags though. The ACLU defends the KKK is cases like this all the time which I support -- you don't fight ideas by censoring them. I posted this case because things this woman "did" (thought?) were done by people on this very thread.

That poetry inciting violence, hah... we should ban de Sade too I suppose...

Yeah, but:

Malik was not prosecuted for writing poetry.

White supremacists are regularly jailed for hate speech (though Malik was not).

If Malik was a white supremacist, I seriously doubt that you would describe her as being "slimed" by the Mail, though perhaps your scrupulous fairness extends this far. I also seriously doubt that you would have mentioned her at all, if she was a white supremacist. It would be interesting to be proved wrong, however.

Given your own interest in this case, why do you attack the Mail for its coverage?

 

[Gavin]

Yeah, but:

Malik was not prosecuted for writing poetry.

White supremacists are regularly jailed for hate speech (though Malik was not).

If Malik was a white supremacist, I seriously doubt that you would describe her as being "slimed" by the Mail, though perhaps your scrupulous fairness extends this far. I also seriously doubt that you would have mentioned her at all, if she was a white supremacist. It would be interesting to be proved wrong, however.

Given your own interest in this case, why do you attack the Mail for its coverage?

As I explained to Tea, I brought her up in this thread because posters herein were engaging in similar activities to the ones that caught the cops' attention: expressing solidarity with those dubbed terrorists, fantasizing about terrorist violence, wishing for the grisly death of world leaders... If this were a story on white supremacists (of which I understand the UK has a good amount -- does the Mail write about their arrests? does Drudge link to those stories?) I would have no reason to post since no one was calling for racial genocide, segregation, racist violence, bad Nazi tattoos, or the like -- if that were the case I wouldn't post here.

As for the sliming, I bolded some of the egregious parts ("British-born Muslim," maybe this is typical journalistic terminology, but it seems to classify her as insufficiently British)... Additionally Noel pointed out the obvious sensationalism of this piece as well as its functions. I understand the U.K. does not have free speech protections as strong as the U.S., so much the pity for you. Apparently in the UK you can be prosecuted for the books you read (sorry, "possess," you apparently can be arrested for just HAVING books -- what about writing them?) and internet posts (oh and having a picture of a gun on her computer -- what sorts of weapons jpgs are filling up your cache I wonder? txt files that tell you how to make a pipe bomb? never looked at those ever?), but don't worry, I'm sure the U.S. won't be far behind. I have supported the ACLU practically categorically, including defense of speech I detest, since I was a teenager, for the reasons I've already stated.

 

[Mr. Tea]

It's perfectly reasonable to call her a 'British-born Muslim', because there are plenty of British Muslims - or at least Muslims living in Britain, whether they consider themselves British or not - who were not born here.

And what Vimothy is pointing out is that she had specific materials on how to commit terrorists acts: manuals on bomb-making, firearms, poisons and so on. You have to ask, why would someone have such material if they weren't planning to make use of it, or at least make it available to someone who was? What does a non-terrorist need with a book on how to make bombs? It's not exactly standard coffee-table stuff.

Edit: although, taken literally, the article seems to suggest 'anti-tank weaponry' was found on her hard disk. The wonders of miniaturisation, eh?

 

[Gavin]

And what Vimothy is pointing out is that she had specific materials on how to commit terrorists acts: manuals on bomb-making, firearms, poisons and so on. You have to ask, why would someone have such material if they weren't planning to make use of it, or at least make it available to someone who was? What does a non-terrorist need with a book on how to make bombs? It's not exactly standard coffee-table stuff.

Yes, I know what the books were for. Was she arrested for committing crimes or HAVING BOOKS that tell you how to commit crimes? Do you not see a difference here?

I guarantee THOUSANDS of people have literature in their homes on how to make bombs, and most of them never blow anyone up, facilitate bombmaking or even try to. You are saying, "Why would anyone have a book unless they would do exactly what the book said?" This is silly, I can think of many reasons. Fight Club tells you how to make bombs. Millions of people read it.

I am saying books should not be made illegal because of content deemed "dangerous" or "only of use to terrorists." Books should not be made illegal period.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yes, I agree that it's a very dangerous road to go down and as I said above, I'm not sure where I stand on this whole issue. But you said she was facing criminal charges for writing poetry and "sharing views", whereas it was the actual technical bomb-making-type material she was prosecuted for having. Fair enough if you disagree with that too, but that is nonetheless very different frrom nicking someone for "illegal poetry".

Edit: and I still think your argument is pretty shaky. It can very easily be extended to "how can you possibly prosecute someone for stockpiling lots of bomb-making materials when they haven't even made a bomb yet?" or even "how can you prosecute someone for having a bomb when they haven't set it off yet?". That's why we have laws (in the UK) against people owning guns without good reason - of course there's no harm in people merely having guns, per se; harm comes when people use them. And once again, why have one if you're not going to use it? Why stockpile information on how to commit terrorist acts, unless you plan to do it or help someone else do it? Heh, maybe she was doing 'research' like all those celebrity non-peadophiles.

 

[Gavin]

Do you not see the difference between having a weapon and having information about a weapon? Sure, she may not have been doing academic research. Maybe she was indulging in fantasies about violence, not that different from racist war nerds learning everything they can about Howitzers and stealth bombers.

What about suicide? It's illegal and deadly, should they ban literature on it? Could there be reasons why someone would read about methods of suicide besides wanting to use one?

"Why would he have works of Lenin unless he were going to start a violent revolution? Throw him in Guantanamo."

Should the UK government have access to information about bombs? After all, they very well might use them on civilians!

 

[nomadologist]

It's always the same sort of people who make these arguments Mr. Tea is making. These people, if you were to advocate banning prayer or the Bible from schools and cite the vocal minority of thumping KKK strict creationist types as a reason why, they would have a fit and cry "PC witchhunt!!" But if it's muslim-related speech, it's fine to ban anything Islamic because a very vocal minority happens to use these ideas as ideological justifications for violence. That's just fine.