The Curious Mission of "Disorder Control"

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Tuesday December 06, 2011 · 4:37 PM PST

2011/12/06 · 16:37

This document from the NYPD (apparently taken from a paddy wagon by an arrested protester on the day Zuccotti was razed and pillaged) explains a lot about the psychological dynamics of the Bloomberg Police State (referred to as BPS from here on). I'll go through some of the prominent bullet points and offer some commentary.

dailyrev

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Saturday October 31, 2009 · 12:11 PM PDT

2009/10/31 · 12:11

A few closing thoughts on the James Arthur Ray story are in order, because he is likely to disappear amid the 24 hour news cycle and the ADHD mindset of our mass media. There are some crucial lessons to be learned from this tragedy; I think that if we overlook those lessons, the next James Arthur Ray will be among the public all the sooner.

Ray might have had some marginal talent for connecting with troubled people, with the kind of folks who become psycho-spiritual seekers and are ready to pay $9,000 to go to Sedona or some other New Age Mecca to "re-birth" themselves. But Ray's primary gift was as a salesman, a self-promoter. He shilled himself and his vapid ideology until it was picked up in the superstar channels of the New Age movement, and finally by the great Oprah herself. Incidentally: when will someone in the media call Oprah out for her utter idiocy in sponsoring plagiarist, crooked authors and corrupt, demonic spiritual teachers? She's certainly got the money and the organization to do some close background checking on these people before she places the crown of wealth and fame upon them -- what's her excuse, then?

dailyrev

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Wednesday June 03, 2009 · 10:19 PM PDT

2009/06/03 · 22:19

In good economic times, corporations rob the markets; in bad times, they rob the workforce.

The last part of that axiom is brought home to me every single day now, as I enter my fourth month of unemployment. I have humbly applied for jobs paying less than half my usual rate: so long as it pays a dollar more than unemployment benefits, just show me where the grindstone is, and my nose will follow.

dailyrev

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Sunday September 14, 2008 · 2:00 PM PDT

2008/09/14 · 14:00

As Mr. Obama has pointed out, words mean something, so some clarification is in order on behalf of the Palin-McCain team (oops, sorry, I meant McCain-Palin, of course). They are running on the Reform ticket, as opposed to the Obama Change ticket (see the graphic below, from the respective candidates' websites). Reform v. Change: WTF is the difference, you ask? Let me explain...

dailyrev

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Monday February 11, 2008 · 8:52 PM PST

2008/02/11 · 20:52

What could a nearly 140-year-old, 1,400 page novel have to tell us about our own time and its people? Follow me, literary pilgrim, as Count Leo Tolstoy describes a well-know tyrant of history. My question is, couldn't he have been writing yesterday in Salon?

dailyrev

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Wednesday October 10, 2007 · 1:00 PM PDT

2007/10/10 · 13:00

One year ago, some people came to a little country cemetery to mourn one among them. Nothing strange or newsworthy about that, except that the man they came to pay final respects to had murdered five of their town's children, before turning the gun on himself.

Then, in perhaps an equally astonishing act of wisdom, they tore down the little schoolhouse where it all happened, and returned the site to the earth, an open piece of countryside. If you've forgotten it, you can refresh your memory here.

dailyrev

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Friday June 01, 2007 · 4:55 AM PDT

2007/06/01 · 04:55

Cindy Sheehan is leaving the anti-war movement to which she gave so much life, energy, and focus. She will be back, no doubt, in some form. I wish her well in restoring herself and renewing her own life. But I firmly disagree (and this is a blue-moon moment) with William R. Pitt that "Anyone glad for her departure from activism is celebrating a disaster."

While I doubt I'd use the word "glad" to describe my own feelings, certainly "relieved" qualifies. At any rate, in no way does "disaster" describe this moment. Quite the contrary: this woman endured everything from divorce to death threats to arrest to public taunting and ridicule from the mass media; it is time she retreated and renewed.

dailyrev

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Saturday May 12, 2007 · 7:20 AM PDT

2007/05/12 · 07:20

Murder divides the soul against itself. This is the lesson of J.K. Rowling's story of the "horcruxes" in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. You can kill and kill and kill and kill, but you will only be driven farther from success, until you finally don't even know what it means.

Success is not the humiliation of an opponent or the destruction of an enemy. You can call out threats from the belly of an aircraft carrier until your apoplectic heart withers, but you will never have success.

dailyrev

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Saturday April 28, 2007 · 8:19 AM PDT

2007/04/28 · 08:19

This past Wednesday at the Daily rEvolution blog, we offered a recommendation for the Helium website. I thought then, and still think, that it's a generally good idea—an online portal of amateur punditry that allows for the free expression of opinion and insight on almost any topic. I have an update that may give some of you pause before you get involved in Helium.

On Thursday, while I was rating some articles at Helium, I found one that made me delete the bookmark, shut down the browser, and clear my history. This, conceivably, was an over-reaction on my part: the article in question was from some deluded jerk, cheerleading for Osama bin Laden.

dailyrev

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Thursday March 15, 2007 · 9:01 AM PDT

2007/03/15 · 09:01

While our mass media wet themselves in a grim hysteria over a "mastermind" who has "confessed" to every evil act conceived or committed over the past 20 years or so (and just at a time when the wraps are coming off one of the more impeachable offenses of this administration, the political firings of US attorneys ordered straight from the White House); we are preparing for another weekend of dissent to further the prospects for peace.

We should first remind ourselves of what we mean when we talk about peace; we should be very clear about what many of us will be marching for this weekend. Peace is not a negative: it is not the mere absence of war; nor is it the annihilation of one's enemies.

dailyrev

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Friday February 16, 2007 · 2:58 PM PST

2007/02/16 · 14:58

Now I'm betting that most of the readers of DK are politically smart and aware enough to answer the question, "what is "non-binding"? what does it mean?"

But imagine that you're a regular schlub like me, who doesn't understand half the stuff these guys on Capitol Hill talk about, but you want to know thoroughly, explicitly, what the hell is meant by the phrase "non-binding." The New York Times says that the measure passed in the House today re. Iraq is "non-binding but nevertheless important," so I wanted to know exactly what it means for something to be non-binding.

Since it's too cold here in the Northeast today to slog through the snow over the library, I decided to spend some time online, searching for an answer. Here's what I found...

dailyrev

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Saturday November 25, 2006 · 4:22 PM PST

2006/11/25 · 16:22

I recently saw Mark Achbar's outstanding film, The Corporation, and was particularly struck by the point about how corporate cultures will externalize vast areas of responsibility, such as public works, roads, and infrastructure, putting the bill for these extras at the feet of American taxpayers (remember the Jimmy Dean highway bill from last year, that featured a mega-million dollar road through Wal-Mart HQ in Arkansas?).

I was also struck by the psychiatric diagnosis that the film constructed as it proceeded to unmask various corporate attitudes and behaviors (the final Dx was psychopathy). It was a compelling exercise, especially since I had written about this a couple of years back, though with reference to the personal sphere of life. Here's an excerpt from my definition of neurosis:

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The Curious Mission of "Disorder Control"

James Arthur Ray, Bush, and the Bad Apple Delusion

Corporate America: Still Inside the Box

Procrast-i-Nation First

Tolstoy on the New Napoleon

The Heart-Teaching of the Amish

Cindy Sheehan's Starfish Moment

A Definition of Success

Is the Celebration of Murder "Free Speech"?

Returning to Peace

What is "Non-Binding"?

Neurosis and the Externalization Compulsion