Reading Hegel

Reading Hegel: The Introductions
G.W.F. Hegel (Edited and introduced by Aakash Singh and Rimina Mohapatra)

Price: $35.00 AUD, $25.00 USD, £16.00 GBP
(check Book Depository and Amazon for good discounts of 20-40% off)

This book is available OA from re.press (www.re-press.org)

ISBN-13: 978-0-9805440-1-5 (paper)

Description
Bringing together for the first time all of G.W.F. Hegel¹s major
Introductions in one place, this book ambitiously attempts to present
readers with Hegel¹s systematic thought through his Introductions alone. The
Editors articulate to what extent, precisely, Hegel¹s Introductions truly
reflect his philosophic thought as a whole. Certainly each of Hegel¹s
Introductions can stand alone, capturing a facet of his overarching idea of
truth. But compiled all together, they serve to lay out the intricate
tapestry of Hegel¹s thought, woven with a dialectic that progresses from one
book to another, one philosophical moment to another.

Hegel¹s reflections on philosophy, religion, aesthetics, history, and
law‹all included here‹have profoundly influenced many subsequent thinkers,
from post-Hegelian idealists or materialists like Karl Marx, to the
existentialism of Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre; from the
phenomenological tradition of Edmund Husserl to Martin Heidegger, Jacques
Derrida and other post-moderns, to thinkers farther afield, like Japan¹s
famous Kyoto School or India¹s Aurobindo. This book provides the opportunity
to discern how the ideas of these later thinkers may have originally
germinated in Hegel¹s writings, as well as to penetrate Hegel¹s worldview in
his own words, his grand architecture of the journey of the Spirit.

Contents
Editors¹ Introduction: The Circle of Knowledge
Chapter 1: Phenomenology of Spirit
Chapter 2: Science of Logic
Chapter 3: Philosophy of Right
Chapter 4: Philosophy of History
Chapter 5: Philosophy of Fine Art
Chapter 6: Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 7: History of Philosophy
Editors¹ Epilogue: The End of Introductions
Further Readings
Index

Adorno's Gesammelte Schriften

Don't believe it, but some one has put it here.

Boumediene v. Bush

Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal in Civilian Courts - NYTimes.com

Didn't Hegel or Marx write somewhere that the law is shibboleth against which false friends of democracy prove themselves such? The formative principle of modern democratic history sustained by a one-vote majority...

For Postertity, Just in Case

I had been increasingly convinced that the regime in power would not attack Iran before it left the palace. But, alas, this report, seems to indicate the only stumbling block now is Robert Gates. There are no sources cited and so it might just be another attempt to rile up the right for an attack. But, we know what happens to stumbling blocks.

Here's the entire text, posted on May 9th by Philip Giraldi:

There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action. The decision to go ahead with plans to attack Iran is the direct result of concerns being expressed over the deteriorating situation in Lebanon, where Iranian ally Hezbollah appears to have gained the upper hand against government forces and might be able to dominate the fractious political situation. The White House contacted the Iranian government directly yesterday through a channel provided by the leadership of the Kurdish region in Iraq, which has traditionally had close ties to Tehran. The US demanded that Iran admit that it has been interfering in Iraq and also commit itself to taking steps to end the support of various militant groups. There was also a warning about interfering in Lebanon. The Iranian government reportedly responded quickly, restating its position that it would not discuss the matter until the US ceases its own meddling employing Iranian dissident groups. The perceived Iranian intransigence coupled with the Lebanese situation convinced the White House that some sort of unambiguous signal has to be sent to the Iranian leadership, presumably in the form of cruise missiles. It is to be presumed that the attack will be as “pinpoint” and limited as possible, intended to target only al-Qods and avoid civilian casualties. The decision to proceed with plans for an attack is not final. The President will still have to give the order to launch after all preparations are made.

Hopefully this is just some guy on the internet talking out of his ass. But just in case, here's another report that debunks the "Made in Iran" claims.

"US confession: Weapons were not made in Iran after all"

In a sharp reversal of its longstanding accusations against Iran arming militants in Iraq , the US military has made an unprecedented albeit quiet confession: the weapons they had recently found in Iraq were not made in Iran at all.

According to a report by the LA Times correspondent Tina Susman in Baghdad: “A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin. When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all.”

The US , which until two weeks ago had never provided any proof for its allegations, finally handed over its “evidence” of the Iranian origin of these weapons to the Iraqi government. Last week, an Iraqi delegation to Iran presented the US “evidence” to Iranian officials. According to Al-Abadi, a parliament member from the ruling United Iraqi Alliance who was on the delegation, the Iranian officials totally refuted “training, financing and arming” militant groups in Iraq . Consequently the Iraqi government announced that there is no hard evidence against Iran.

In another extraordinary event this week, the US spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, for the first time did not blame Iran for the violence in Iraq and in fact did not make any reference to Iran at all in his introductory remarks to the world media on Wednesday when he described the large arsenal of weapons found by Iraqi forces in Karbala.

In contrast, the Pentagon in August 2007 admitted that it had lost track of a third of the weapons distributed to the Iraqi security forces in 2004/2005. The 190,000 assault rifles and pistols roam free in Iraqi streets today.

In the past year, the US leaders have been relentless in propagating their charges of Iranian meddling and fomenting violence in Iraq and since the release of the key judgments of the US National Intelligence Estimate in December that Iran does not have a nuclear weaponisation programme, these accusations have sharply intensified.

The US charges of Iranian interference in Iraq too have now collapsed. Any threat of military strike against Iran is in violation of the UN charter and the IAEA's continued supervision on Iran's uranium enrichment facilities means there is no justification for sanctions.

CASMII calls on the US to change course and enter into comprehensive and unconditional negotiations with Iran.

Pentagon’s TV Analyst Propaganda Program - New York Times

Reposited for posterity's sake


Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand - New York Times

Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

Shit Hitting the Fan?

A nice and gloomy description of the last few months from Sharon Astyk's blog.

A couple of excerpts:

When climate change and peak oil thinkers run out of other things to worry about, there’s always the endless, inevitable debates about whether we are facing a “fast crash” or a “slow grind.” And I admit, I’m worried about my fellow environmentalists - because I think they are about to lose their favorite distraction. When no one was looking, we got an answer. Fast crash wins. And we’re in it now....
So here we are - the “We regret to inform you that what you have imagined to be “civilization” is now falling apart” post. See if it strikes you the way it struck me.

snip

In early 2008, the world’s food and energy train came off the rails. What was startling was that it didn’t happen either gradually or in a linear way - instead, things simply fell apart at an astounding rate, faster than anyone could have predicted without being accused of lunacy.

It started with biofuels and growing meat consumption rates. They drove the price of staple grains up at astounding rates. In 2007, overall inflation for food was at 18%, which created a new class of hungry, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. In 2008, the month to month inflation was higher than 2007’s annual inflation. At that rate, the price of food overall was set to double every other year. Rice, the staple of almost half the world’s population rose 147%, while wheat grew 25% in just one day. Price rises were inequitable (as was everything else) so while rice prices rose 30% in rich world nations like the US, Haitian rice prices rose 300%.

And she doesn't even mention the new stem rust variant, Ug99 that right now threatens 1/4 of the world's wheat crop.

Is Feith Thrasymachus or just a douche bag?

From Phillipe Sands new article at Vanity Fair on the development of US post-911 interrogation policy, Dougie Feith waxes nostaglic:

Feith’s argument prevailed. On February 7, 2002, President Bush signed a memorandum that turned Guantánamo into a Geneva-free zone. As a matter of policy, the detainees would be handled humanely, but only to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity. “The president said ‘humane treatment,’ ” Feith told me, inflecting the term sourly, “and I thought that was O.K. Perfectly fine phrase that needs to be fleshed out, but it’s a fine phrase—‘humane treatment.’ ” The Common Article 3 restrictions on torture or “outrages upon personal dignity” were gone.

“This year I was really a player,” Feith said, thinking back on 2002 and relishing the memory. I asked him whether, in the end, he was at all concerned that the Geneva decision might have diminished America’s moral authority. He was not. “The problem with moral authority,” he said, was “people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the assholes, to put it crudely.”

Time magazine finally catches on to the Scam that is Biofuels

Time March 27, 2008.

Must read article

Abu Ghraib

The woman behind the camera at Abu Ghraib.

by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris

I had almost forgotten this day...

4 charged in 1999 arson fire at Michigan State University:

"EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Federal authorities say four people have been charged in a 1999 arson fire at Michigan State University and were working on behalf of a radical environmental group.

The government said Tuesday that the four named were affiliated with the Earth Liberation Front, an underground organization that has been listed among the FBI's top domestic terrorism targets.

The Dec. 31, 1999, fire caused $1 million in damage and destroyed the fourth floor of the East Lansing university's historic Agriculture Hall.

The Earth Liberation Front claimed responsibility, saying Michigan State was targeted because of genetic engineering research related to crops."

Gitmo Chief Prosecutor and Defense Dept General Counsel Resign

In case you missed this -- Maj. Col. Davis resigned as chief prosecutor of the Gitmo tribunals. He recently had this to say to THE NATION about his Department of Defense General Counsel William Haynes.

Think Progress » Top Gitmo lawyer: ‘We can’t have acquittals.’:

DAVIS: "I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,” Davis continued. “At which point, [Haynes’s] eyes got wide and he said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions."

Today, Haynes announced that he would be returning to the private sector.

GITMO lawyers on Zubaydah's Treatment and Mental State

Washington Post

Yet Zubaydah's mind may be beyond our reach. Regardless of whether he was "insane" to begin with, he has gone through quite an ordeal since his arrest in Pakistan in March 2002. Shuttled through CIA "black sites" around the world, he was subjected to a sustained course of interrogation designed to instill what a CIA training manual euphemistically calls "debility, dependence and dread." Zubaydah's world became freezing rooms alternating with sweltering cells. Screaming noise replaced by endless silence. Blinding light followed by dark, underground chambers. Hours confined in contorted positions. And, as we recently learned, Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding. We do not know what remains of his mind, and we will probably never know what he experienced.

Anti-war veterans' group: War crimes are 'encouraged'

The Raw Story | Anti-war veterans' group: War crimes are 'encouraged':

"The killing of innocent civilians is policy,' said veteran Mike Blake. 'It's unit policy and it's Army policy. It's not official policy, but it's what's happens on the ground everyday. It's what unit commanders individually encourage.'

Veteran Matt Howard concurred: 'These decisions are coming from the top down,' Howard said. 'The tactics that we use, the policies that the military engages, will create situations, create dynamics, create -- ultimately -- atrocity."