Those who do not recognize democrats as Trump enablers, are themselves, Trump enablers. Trump supporters, twice removed.

... not until he has sacrificed himself like all genuine heroes do. — 180 Proof

Sorry, I don't believe he owes you the fulfilment of your teenage/religious-Christological fantasies. Having exposed American murder and callousness at great determent to himself is quite enough. But if you want Hollywood or the Bible, you can always go the cinema and watch something as stupid as your Christian sacrificial fantasies.

Your anti-"Pax Americana" jeremiads from the suburbs of the globe are as historically well-sourced as they are ideologically myopic and luxuriously lacking of skin in the game. — 180 Proof

This is stupid and wrong. I live in what is effectively an American army base - as do you - whose effect is nothing but detrimental and tax-base sucking - funding your fucking oligarchs, while your stupid fucking wars get my - and your - neighbours killed. Take your recycled Taleb-derivitive advertising slogans and stick 'em in the thought-void cliche bin where they belong.

Sounds like an irrational leap: the US has done some bad things, therefore it only does bad things.. — Relativist

The US is unique and incomparable in the scale of death and suffering it metes out. No other country, or set of countries combined, even comes close. It is a singularly murderous state. Any and all that can be done to undermine its presence on the world stage is a Platonic Good. Assange is a hero who has worked to do this, and should be celebrated accordingly.

Here's a few important ones:Russia, China, North Korea, Iran. — Relativist

I did not ask who the enemies are. I asked who the 'our' is. Because the US works neither in my interest, nor yours.

Those are two things. — magritte

No, they aren't. And it takes living in a state as fed by blood as the US to think they are. Look, none of this is very thread relevant, so I'll leave you to it.

--

Anyway, it's adorable that the response to "the US is willing to starve and destroy global livelihoods for the sake of it's hegemony" is "yeah buutttt what you youuuu do"? Brain rot.

It's much less interesting who than how. The US is nothing other than a bunch of corporations in a trench coat, and one little local improvement you can make is to eliminate the power of those corporations and in turn do away with incessant drive for war and global genocide which otherwise sustains the US and all who live in it.

Our enemies/rivals — Relativist

I don't know who this 'our' is. US foreign policy is positively genocidal, and anything that undermines it is for the betterment of the Earth - including most American people, whose living standards are asphyxiated in service of US Empire.

But it's naive to suggest that espionage against the US, and computer security intrusions, should be legal. — Relativist

Espionage against the US should be rewarded. Especially since that 'espionage' apparently simply equates to: exposing US war crimes and international murder. Yes, I absolutely want more of that, and if you gave one single damn about the US, you would too.

Absolutely, we learned some nasty crap about the DNC from the emails that were obtained criminally. I hope the revelations lead to improvements. Aside from criminality, it's also one-sided: do you seriously think the RNC is saintly? Imagine what Republican leaders say about Trump in private! — Relativist

The differences between the RNC and DNC are aesthetic, and amount to which colors you like to dress up in. If anything I despise the DNC even more for pretending to be an opposition to the RNC, while in fact its only job - literally its only function - is to stave off any actual change, while acting as seat-warmers in the meantime. When in comes to Assange - or foreign policy for that matter - they walk in lockstep. The mountains of dead who they are equally responsible for overseas do not care if the bombs which ripped them to shreds were marked with Elephants or Donkeys, and neither do I. There has not been a single US president since WWII who has not been a war criminal deserving of hanging at the Hague.

May a thousand Assanges bloom, and may each of them have the same courage in showing the American state to be the cowardly, murderous piece of shit it is - along with its worthless apologists:

Assange’s willingness to resist Washington’s extradition attempts benefit us all, from his taking political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012 until British police forcibly dragged him out in 2019, to his fighting US prosecutors in the courtroom tooth and claw during his incarceration in Belmarsh Prison. Assange’s fight against US extradition benefits us not just because the empire’s war against truth harms our entire species and not just because he cannot receive a fair trial under the Espionage Act, but because his refusal to bow down and submit forces the empire to overextend itself into the light and show us all what it’s really made of.

Washington, London and Canberra are colluding to imprison a journalist for telling the truth: the first with its active extradition attempts, the second with its loyal facilitation of those attempts, and the third with its silent complicity in allowing an Australian journalist to be locked up and persecuted for engaging in the practice of journalism. By refusing to lie down and forcing them to come after him, Assange has exposed some harsh realities of which the public has largely been kept unaware.

The fact that London and Canberra are complying so obsequiously with Washington’s agendas, even while their own mainstream media outlets decry the extradition and even while all major human rights and press freedom watchdog groups in the western world say Assange must go free, shows that these are not separate sovereign nations but member states of a single globe-spanning empire centralized around the US government. Because Assange stood his ground and fought them, more attention is being brought to this reality.

His very life casts light on all the areas where it is most sorely needed. We all owe this man a tremendous debt. The least we can do is try our best to get him free.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/06/18/assange-is-doing-his-most-important-work-yet/

Imagine being so small-minded that one is willing to indulge in the destruction of white-blowing against the most vicious empire on Earth because the whistle-blower didn't follow the right decorum.

Imagine from what infinite space of privilege and ivory tower safety it takes to think that those who expose the criminalities of the most blood-thirsty nation of Earth ought to perform just-so, as demanded by some bourgeois fetishization of ritual and aesthetics.\

It would have been better for Assange to have colluded with more foreign nations, all the better to maximize his impact. His mistake was in not having done more damage to the US, incapacitating enough.

e crimes Assange is charged with are things like: espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, theft of property belonging to the US government, general conspiracy, and violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. These are real crimes, and it appears he's guilty of committing at least some of them. — Relativist

Then those laws are bad laws. Might pay to remember that the holocaust was perfectly legal too, and that people who are not fucking morons can usually make moral judgements independently of law.

He also exposed the names of people who were working intelligence, effectively removing these assets. He put some people's lives in danger, such as Afghans and Iraqi civilians who were passing information to the US military). — Relativist

This is a lie.

He also exposed some US espionage tactics, thus hurting the US ability to gather intelligence. — Relativist

This is good.

And as others noted, he helped get Donald Trump elected by publishing illegally obtained DNC emails. — Relativist

The US helped get Donald Trump getting elected by electing Donald Trump, and if you find yourself going to bat for a piece of shit organization like the DNC, then you deserve whatever piece of shit politicians you get. Ordinary American people enjoy fascism of their own independent volition, and there's really no need to excuse them for their embrace of it.

If he isn't prosecuted, then other people might get away with also exposing the US for being the fucking murderous piece of shit state that it is. — Relativist

Fixed it for you.

The 'stakes' being US hegemony, which is worth as much global death and suffering as required for its maintenance.

Murderers, torturers and war criminals will be toasting the British home secretary, Priti Patel, tonight. Her decision to approve the extradition of Julian Assange turns investigative journalism into a criminal act, and licenses the United States to mercilessly hunt down offenders wherever they can be found, bring them to justice and punish them with maximum severity.

Julian Assange’s supposed crime was to expose atrocities committed by the US and its allies, primarily in Afghanistan and Iraq, during the war on terror. He shone a light on the systematic abuse dealt out to prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. He revealed the fact that more than 150 entirely innocent inmates were held for years without even being charged. He published a video of helicopter gunmen laughing as they casually massacred unarmed Iraqi civilians in an attack that killed around 15 people, including a Reuters photographer and his assistant.

The US declined to discipline the perpetrators of that atrocity. But they are pursuing Assange to the ends of the earth for revealing it took place. Once safely in US hands, it’s all but certain that Assange will spend the remainder of his life in jail. That’s because the US is determined to show that terrible reprisals lie in store for any reporter who runs a story based on US government documents.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/17/britain-julian-assange-extradition-priti-patel-us

It's so cute how Americans like to romaticise 'dissidents' when they belong to other murderous regimes, but when it comes to the dissidents who belong to their own murderous regime they close ranks and start get mad because war criminals like Clinton have their "reputation" tarnished. Anyone who knows anything about anything already knows that American 'democracy' is a sham, but because Americans need to maintain their fantasies, they need to offshore blame onto a bloke who deserves a medal.

"Compromising American agendas" is the work of heroes.

Maybe if it is so terrible that a piece of shit like Clinton is shown to be a piece of shit, any minimal self-reflection ought to lead to the conclusion that a piece of shit probably shouldn't be the front-runner to lead American empire, instead of getting mad at the person who showed said piece of shit to be a piece of shit.

When did @Frank swap accounts anyway?

Lol they had a public discussion about it so it's OK that we murdered those civilians in cold blood and have now spent years torturing the bloke who exposed us.

Lol OK buddy.

A side benefit of being able to get revenge upon the dude who exposed the US to be a bunch of murderous fucks. Oh and to ensure that no one ever can do that again.

Your point?

That said, the US very clearly cares about war crimes because otherwise they wouldn't throw every resource they have at trying to torture the dude who exposed the US for having committed them over and over again.

Albanese's response. — Banno

Labour have never not been anything but committed lapdogs of US power. If Albanese does anything, it would be an enormous surprise.

That much we can agree on.

Lol, "believing the US government". Yeah sorry I don't believe genocidal blood-soaked pieces of shit.

:up:

Assange embarrassed the US by exposing their being a bunch of fucking war criminal fucks, so naturally, the US and their war criminal lapdogs need to throw him in jail forever.

Anyone who think the Assange story is about Clinton, or Fox, or whatever other irrelevant bullshit, and not the fact that the US is a bunch of civilian-murdering thugs, is just another propagandized moron repeating the lines fed to them by the US war machine.

Hey like I always say, I'm all for antinatalists. The faster you people drop dead without reproducing, the better.

It's not murder it'd just be delayed antinatalism.

I also don't need to resort to conspiracizing to recognize that there are plenty of people who are happy to independently spew NATO propaganda. And just to be clear, your efforts to justify Russian aggression are equally shit and no less trash.

I wonder if the constant train of insults and snide remarks from the anti NATO camp is indicative of something, some fragility, a fear. Otherwise, why the constant put down? It's symptomatic of something. Perhaps just an attempt to protect the banal nihilism or whataboutism of our times against the return of the seemingly clearcut. — Olivier5

What is pathetic is instead the pre-pathologization of anyone who is critical of NATO, as if one could not, except by dint of moral failure, be critical of an organization that has been responsible for mass murder on an inter-continental scale. This is dangerous, dogmatic bullshit pretending to pass itself off as patronizing concern.

It's also pretty funny coming from someone whose post history in this thread is littered with jeers made for infants.

If it boggles your mind why a Marxist would simply accept the impossibility of change, then you require a new mind.

I suppose it helps that antinatalism is just another capitalist bromide, an effort to individualize and moralize what are, in fact, systemic problems. After the capitalists, after the liberals, the antinatalists get the wall after the revolution. Alternatively we'll give them the pistol and they can do it themselves and fulfil their deathlong ambitions.

https://mronline.org/2022/06/14/u-s-president-confirms-deployment-of-troops-in-yemen/

So in addition to having sent troops to Somalia to protect their precious oil assets, the US now continues to deploy troops in Yemen to help the Saudis continue their genocide. I wonder - what will be the final ratio of countries invaded by the US compared to Russia by the time the war in Ukraine ends, if it does end? We're at - at least - 2:1 right now. Maybe 5:1 for the final tally?

I guess if we count US troops fucking around in Syria with their ISIS pals, we could call the ratio 2.5:1.

I wonder if the number of people these American troops will murder - that is all they exist for - will ever be reported for the sake of the kind of atrocity porn that Westerners so lavishly lap-up in the case of Ukraine.

Omg I can't believe that the White House is full of Putin propagandists omg

It's so interesting to me that people who cannot understand Derrida love to flag just how much they cannot understand Derrida.

Like, I don't understand fluid mechanics but I don't get mad about it and rant at physicsts about how I am not intelligent enough to understand fluid mechanics.

If anything I love Derrida for the fact that he makes insecure people consistantly want to exhibit their insecurity. It's awesome.

Interesting but also depressing thread. People need to realize that anti-trans culture warring is the bleeding edge of American fascism right now. Anyone who buys into, perpetuates, or stands by it is on the side of fascists, full stop. Or as Jason Stanley put it the other day - either one stands in solidarity with our trans friends, or one is complicit in end of what little there is of American democracy. That's the choice.

Are we at the "defending the SS" stage of discourse?

Just a bunch of guys, just doing their jobs...

I recall there was some kind of trial involving that.

Huh. I'm suprised that people find the Gasché passages tough. They're quite clear! Let's try:

Deconstruction starts with an interrogation of a variety of contradictions and aporias in the discourse of philosophy [Deconstruction looks for contradictions and jumbles in philosophy].

These are not contradictions and aporias proper, however, since the discourse of philosophy accommodates them without difficulty [Philosophy, for it's part, doesn't really seem to care about these contradictions and jumbles].

In addition to these contradictions and aporias, which pertain to the formation of concepts and to the development of philosophical arguments, deconstruction addresses many other discursive and conceptual inequalities that have never before been questioned by philosophy [But apart from the contradictions and jumbles, there's a bunch of other stuff too that philosophy doesn't really deal with].

All these aporias, differences of levels, inequalities of developments, and disparities characteristic of the discourse of philosophy, yet which do not seem to disturb the logic of philosophy, also contribute to the establishment of that logic [Although philosophy doesn't really deal with them, they are nonetheless vital to the functioning of philosophy].

All the gestures of philosophy - reflection and transcendentalization, all the themes of philosophy, but primarily those of subjectivity, transcendentality, freedom, origin, truth, presence, and the proper - are impossible without the differences and discrepancies that permeate philosophical texts [In fact, all of the really important concepts in philosophy, like subjectivity, freedom, origins, truth and so on, depend on these contradictions and jumbles].

Yet these same disparities also limit the scope of these gestures and of the purity and coherence of the philosophical concepts or themes [But just as philosophy depends on those contradictions, and jumbles those contradictions and jumbles also limit what philosophy can do and lay claim to].

And so on. Come on class, read slowly and with purpose!

There are people for whom philosophy is not appropriate. That's OK.

The classic statement of deconstruction - what it is and does - and how it relates to philosophy remains Rodolphe Gasché, from his The Tain of the Mirror:

Deconstruction starts with an interrogation of a variety of contradictions and aporias in the discourse of philosophy. These are not contradictions and aporias proper, however, since the discourse of philosophy accommodates them without difficulty. In addition to these contradictions and aporias, which pertain to the formation of concepts and to the development of philosophical arguments, deconstruction addresses many other discursive and conceptual inequalities that have never before been questioned by philosophy. All these aporias, differences of levels, inequalities of developments, and disparities characteristic of the discourse of philosophy, yet which do not seem to disturb the logic of philosophy, also contribute to the establishment of that logic. All the gestures of philosophy - reflection and transcendentalization, all the themes of philosophy, but primarily those of subjectivity, transcendentality, freedom, origin, truth, presence, and the proper - are impossible without the differences and discrepancies that permeate philosophical texts. Yet these same disparities also limit the scope of these gestures and of the purity and coherence of the philosophical concepts or themes.

Deconstruction is an attempt to account for these various and essentially heterogenous aporias and discursive inequalities with what I have called infrastructures. These minimal structures are both the grounds of possibilities of the canonical philosophical gestures and themes and their ungrounds, that is, that which makes them impossible. These structures limit what they make possible by rendering its rigor and purity impossible. The infrastructures are the internal limit from which classical philosophical concepts and themes take their force and necessity. Deconstruction does not merely destroy metaphysical concepts; it shows how these concepts and themes draw their possibility from that which ultimately makes them impossible. The infrastructures achieve this double task.

Extending the requirement of philosophy that a ground must be different from what it grounds, deconstruction exhibits such an absolute other ground as “constitutive” of the canonical philosophical problems. As a solution of sorts to traditional philosophical problems, such as, for instance, the problem of how something absolute can possibly have a generating, engendering, or constituting function, deconstruction both conserves he immanence of philosophical argumentation and concept formation while simultaneously opening it up to that which structurally disorganizes it.... Deconstruction traces the inner limits of the project of a philosophy of philosophy. Yet without in the least trying to do away with philosophy, its style of argumentation, with the rigor of classical logic and without ever dreaming the empiricist - that is, the symmetrical - dream of a final impossibility of accounting and founding, deconstruction pursues the formulation of problems that, although apparently more easily accommodated by the discourse of literature and critical stylistics, are nonetheless not of that order. Deconstruction opens philosophy to its Others.

I'm sorry that you continue being unable to substantiate your claims which are otherwise baseless.

Claims which I will continue to ask you to substantiate if you continue to make them, regardless of weather you feel like talking to me or not.

See Miller quote. — L'éléphant

Deconstruction as a mode of interpretation works by a careful and circumspect entering of each textual labyrinth. The [deconstruction] critic feels his way from figure to figure, from concept to concept, from mythical motif to mythical motif, in a repetition which is in no sense a parody. It employs nevertheless, the subversive power present in even the most exact and ironical doubling. The deconstructive critic seeks to find, by this process of retracing, the element in the system studied which is alogical, the thread in the text in question which will unravel it all, or the loose stone which will pull down the whole building.

The deconstruction, rather, annihilates the ground on which the building stands by showing that the text has already annihilated that ground, knowingly and unknowingly. Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of the text but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently solid ground is no rock but thin air.

The uncanny moment in Derrida’s criticism, the vacant place around which all his work is organized, is the formulation of this non-existence of the ground out of which the whole textual structure seems to rise… — Miller

Where does this quote speak of external sources of truth, or their lackthereof?

Why do you continue to make things up?

Are you a skeptic?

Deconstruction demonstrates there is no external source of the truth of our claims, rather — L'éléphant

Citation please.

deconstruction critic says that there is no objective, external support. — L'éléphant

Citation please.

What proof can you provide that you are worth one moment of my effort?

Oh I'm sorry did the big words I use go over your head?

Says the dude calling for a ban after being asked to substantiate his claims. Uh huh.