<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>Most Jewish people I know who go through the ceremonial Brit Milah (circumcision) at 8 days after the birth of a son understand it as the first covenant with God. Even when doing such a thing to your son would significantly increase the likelihood of him being murdered, as in during the Holocaust, parents continued to do that for their children as part of their fundamental beliefs in this world. I have more nuanced notions and struggle with the meaning of it, as I do with most things, but that's besides the point.</div><div><br></div><div>Suggesting that (from the first person accounts you've heard from ...) it is an intentional part of a world-historical plan to unwillingly dupe modern governments, and incidentally doctors who point to a lot of evidence about health benefits - that takes some balls (pun intended). It is that same kind of rhetoric that made it easier for some of your European ancestry to systematically murder 80% of the two generations before me. According to most accounts in the world (outside the US), anti-semitism has increased dramatically, especially since the myth that Jews orchestrated 9/11 as 'an inside job' has been openly perpetuated in too many places.</div><div><br></div><div>So I know you well enough to know that you struggle hard against the discriminations prevalent in the world to respect you. But those nonsense two paragraphs scribbled below is vile horseshit (no offense to people who love horses). </div><div><br></div><div>I know you're not personally responsible for the comprehensive dehumanization, murder, and theft of all my great-aunts and great-uncles and all their parents and friends. But I've stood at the site where 15,000 Jews were killed over a matter of two days right outside the town of Vilkaviski, Lithuania - and I will never know who and how many we're of my family (my grandparents had escaped to the British colony of Palestine).</div><div><br></div><div>I also know you're half-Jewish, and I'm sorry if I've outed you. I didn't see you at last years World Jewish Conspiracy meeting (there's no such thing, by the way). I just wanted to demonstrate what I meant by the trump card notion, which is different for me than how you understood it. What you described sounds more like solipsism to me. I can trump you in terms of horrible and violent and insensitive things that have been done to my ancestors and in terms of things my immediate family has experienced. </div><div><br></div><div>But that's precisely why I think a battle to identify with who's been more oppressed and the identity politics that ensue, are not helpful to present-day, you and me, and all the other Sudo folk I know. I think we should all try to be respectful of each other. And that no one has any special rights to offend any other of us. And I do care if I've offended you, whether or not I am part of the designated oppressor class for that particular scenario. I'm sorry to see you say that you don't care if you offend me.<br><br>With great respect to my friend Rachel.</div><div>-Eddan</div><div><br><br></div><div><br>On May 4, 2013, at 11:04 AM, rachel lyra hospodar <<a href="mailto:rachelyra@gmail.com">rachelyra@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><p>One of the ways Jews maintained cultural cohesion is through a systematic mutilation of their children that, while overtly hidden, marked them as separate from the culture around them.</p>
<p>In this context it is interesting that the US has mainstreamed circumcision, and based on first person reports I have heard, in some ways this does contribute to a global drop in anti-semitism, which increases cultural diffusion.</p>
<p>Re gender assumptions, 'someday' we 'might' move beyond... feel free to stop making them at any time. That is something you can do that would help with our cultural evolution. People often keep their name, for all the other reasons elucidated here, even when some of its markers are outdated or overtly misfit. I know female-bodied people who go by male-marked names. Move past your assumptions.</p>
<p>Further discussion of names might be informed through reference to neuroscience, as our name is encoded pretty deeply in the brain, and we respond to it with a unique signature even in sleep.</p>
<p>R.</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On May 4, 2013 10:28 AM, "GtwoG PublicOhOne" <<a href="mailto:g2g-public01@att.net">g2g-public01@att.net</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<br>
<br>
Steve & Yo's-<br>
<br>
Yes and yes. Similarly in a range of ethnicities:
name-constructions such as "Peterson" implying or directly meaning
"Peter's son" (and in some parts of Northern Europe at least,
similarly for "daughter") or a geographic origin (last name prefixes
that mean "from" or "of" referring to a city or a family or clan:
common all over Europe), or including both the mother's family name
and the father's family name (common in Central America).<br>
<br>
All of these are deeply meaningful in establishing that one is
related to others and connected to a wider web. But today those
social relations are strung across countries, continents, and the
globe, where solidarity and mutual support can be difficult at
best. <br>
<br>
To be clear: I don't want to throw away all of those babies with
the surveillance-dystopia bathwater. In many ways I'm very square
and very traditional. But the future we face is one where we are
f-o-o-d for the oligarchy, and social relations are subordinated to
economic relations, unless we make a concerted effort to overturn
the economic relations and assert the primacy of the social
relations. <br>
<br>
Now something just occurred to me, and the following may be in the
"not even wrong" category, but none the less I'd be interested in
what you have to say about this: <br>
<br>
The Jewish people were until recently a complete diaspora, "strung
across countries, continents, and the globe" at times when there
were effectively no rapid communications as there are today. Yet
somehow the Jewish community on a global scale managed a degree of
resilience that is truly amazing, including during the Holocaust. <br>
<br>
We can learn from that. <br>
<br>
Somewhere in that history are important lessons that we can apply in
our present struggle with an oligarchy that is downright benign in
comparison to the types and degrees of oppression and existential
threats faced by the Jews throughout history. <br>
<br>
Is this something that can be taught and learned, or is it only
something that can be inherited over the course of generations of
history? And if the former, then how can we begin to understand the
lessons?<br>
<br>
I'll be AFK until this evening but I'll pick up the thread then.<br>
<br>
-G.<br>
<br>
<br>
=====<br>
<br>
<br>
<div>On 13-05-04-Sat 10:04 AM, Steve Berl
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Seems to me that traditional Jewish convey family
connections, and geography. So until very recent times in
history, to my Jewish ancestors, I would be Steve, son of Lou
(and Benay added in more modern times), from New York. It helps
to identify just which Steve you are talking about when
gossiping about Steve, and just what social connections there
might be between Steve and other people. So the name evokes
questions like, Oh, your from New York, do you know xxxx? Or Lou
is your father. Are you related to my 3rd cousin Fred, who has a
brother name Lou?
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>Humans are social animals and our social
connections are important. You are you because of some
combination of what you do, who you know, and who you are
related to. Encoding some of that information in the name has
been a convenience developed over the past 10,000 or so years,
and we should consider carefully whether you are ready to
throw it away.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>-steve</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 6:07 AM, GtwoG
PublicOhOne <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:g2g-public01@att.net" target="_blank">g2g-public01@att.net</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> <br>
<br>
Aestetix & Yo's-<br>
<br>
Names are nouns, but I puzzle over the term "proper noun,"
because a name is an arbitrary character-string that only
appears noun-like because we say so. A "proper" type of
noun should be one with some degree of linguistic meaning,
for example through etymology ("bike" is a contraction of
"bicycle", that has "two things that rotate", from which
we also derive "motorcycle" that is also colloquially a
"bike"), and names should be "improper nouns" because they
don't follow that rule.<br>
<br>
The linguistic meaning of "given names" is limited, though
perhaps sufficient for their historic purposes.
Conventionally they convey gender, which is only useful in
remotely assessing whether someone is a potential
sex-partner. By geographic origin they often convey
ethnicity, though this is starting to break down through
cultural mixing (most of us are mutts, with two or more
ethnicities in our families). Sometimes they convey
religion, usually by inference from geographic origin or
resemblance to historic names identified with specific
religions. At one time they conveyed occupation, as with
"Baker" and "Smith," though thankfully we have overcome
mandatory hereditary assignment of jobs. <br>
<br>
There was a time when we could infer, for example, that
"John Smith" was almost certainly male, probably Christian
("John" as Biblical name), and probably an ironworker
("blacksmith"). Bluntly put, this would tell you whether
John Smith was someone you could mate with, someone with
whom that mating would be approved by your own church, and
where he stood in the socio-economic hierarchy. The use
of "Miss" and "Mrs." for women ("Miss Jane Smith") further
emphasized that in a patriarchial culture, males had a
prerogative of ascertaining the eligibility of females as
mating partners. <br>
<br>
Today all we can be reasonably sure of is that John Smith
is male. He might be a Buddhist or an atheist by his own
choice, and he probably works at a desk rather than a
forge, and his ethnicity might be a combination of
English, French, Kenyan, and Chinese for all we know. <br>
<br>
Some day perhaps we'll have to guess at John Smith's
gender. That would be progress. <br>
<br>
-G. <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 13-05-03-Fri 11:30 PM, aestetix wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">You've opened a can of worms here
:)<br>
<br>
Since elucidated discussion seems to be the modus
operandi lately, I<br>
have a few thoughts on this matter that are worth
contributing. Feel<br>
free to ignore at your pleasure (free listening is just
as important<br>
as free speech).<br>
<br>
I think that the two key elements of your essays, food
and power, are<br>
rather interchangeable depending on the contexts. It's
(hopefully)<br>
obvious why we need food. Power in a more abstract sense
is<br>
fascinating to me, though. Other words that come to mind
are drive,<br>
charisma, persuasion, but also intellect, and most
important, control.<br>
<br>
IMHO, one of the most fundamental elements of control is
language, as<br>
shared patterns are effectively a way to communicate and
attain<br>
various levels of self-mastery. An easy way to
experience this is to<br>
try to understand a foreign language: there might be
some hints of<br>
familiarity within the chaos, and as we find them, it's
a bit like<br>
setting markers around, and using the markers to control
the direction<br>
of your ultimate understanding. You can extend that to
vocabulary and<br>
concepts as well. One of the hallmarks of a good
education is the<br>
ability to curse someone out without using the generic
"fuck shit<br>
damn" slurs.<br>
<br>
Language is composed of words, symbols which point to
meanings, and<br>
one of the most interesting set of words is our names.
And you all can<br>
guess where I'm going with this one ;)<br>
<br>
Hail Eris,<br>
aestetix<br>
<br>
PS: it might be worth doing another cryptoparty soon.<br>
<br>
On 5/3/13 7:58 PM, GtwoG PublicOhOne wrote:<br>
<br>
<br>
> 2) Where the power is, and where it isn't.<br>
<br>
> Now we come to the proletariat and the
lumpenproletariat.<br>
<br>
> For this, credit also goes to a good friend of mine
who I won't<br>
> name here, but who's welcome to name him/herself if
s/he so<br>
> chooses: s/he got me thinking down this trail a few
months ago.<br>
<br>
> The proletariat is the working class: basically
defined as people<br>
> who have full-time jobs or at least jobs that
provide sufficient<br>
> income for the core necessities (shelter, clothing,
food,<br>
> transportation, sanitation, communication), but who
have little or<br>
> no ownership stake. This includes people who are in
business for<br>
> themselves, but earning a working class income:
they own their<br>
> employment, but their economic wellbeing is at the
same level as<br>
> that of a wage-worker.<br>
<br>
> The lumpenproletariat is the level below that:
basically defined<br>
> as people whose employment is marginal at best, and
whose access to<br>
> the basic necessities is frequently interrupted in
some way. The<br>
> unemployed, homeless, couch-surfers (another form
of<br>
> homelessness), people who live at the margins of
the law in order<br>
> to survive, and people who earn their livings on
criminal activity.<br>
> This also includes wage-workers whose wage income
is not sufficient<br>
> to provide their basic necessities from month to
month: they have<br>
> jobs, but their economic wellbeing is at the same
level as that of<br>
> someone who's marginally employed at best.<br>
<br>
> Decades ago, the Bay Area left/radical community
made the deadly<br>
> strategic error of embracing the (essentially
Maoist) analysis that<br>
> the lumpenproletariat is the revolutionary class.
This error<br>
> continues to this day, in the ideology of Black
Block tactics,<br>
> which are founded on the idea that expressing rage
and provoking<br>
> police over-reaction will somehow spark The
Revolution.<br>
<br>
> The very same tactic in more obviously violent form
pops up in the<br>
> ideology of the extreme right: such as the Hutaree,
a group that<br>
> was busted by the FBI for planning to shoot a bunch
of cops and<br>
> then set off bombs at their funerals, in the
attempt to provoke<br>
> martial law and thereby set off a "revolution" from
the extreme<br>
> right.<br>
<br>
> But here's the nexus of the problem:<br>
<br>
> To the oligarchy, the lumpenproletariat is
disposable: their roles<br>
> in production and consumption are so minimal that
they can be<br>
> totally disregarded. They have NO power. N-O
power. As<br>
> individuals or as any kind of collectivity or
class.<br>
<br>
> When a social movement identifies with the
lumpenproletariat<br>
> and/or attempts to organize the lumpenproletariat,
the movement<br>
> effectively short-circuits its efforts into
something that is<br>
> inherently doomed to failure. They may as well be
trying to<br>
> organize the squirrels on the Cal Berkeley campus
to strike for<br>
> better teaching-assistant salaries. How seriously
do you think the<br>
> UC Regents would take the threat of a squirrel
strike?<br>
<br>
> The proletariat is where the power is: the power to
produce and<br>
> consume at the level that drives the engine of
oligarchy, is also<br>
> the power to refuse consent in a meaningful way.<br>
<br>
> The power of the proletariat takes two forms:<br>
<br>
> One, the power to remove themselves from the
oligarch's engines of<br>
> production: by going on strike (which translates to
the power of<br>
> collective bargaining), by going into business for
themselves, and<br>
> by developing alternatives to conventional
capitalism such as<br>
> cooperatives and other forms of production that
subordinate capital<br>
> to labor.<br>
<br>
> Two, the power to remove themselves from the
oligarch's<br>
> consumption matrix: by boycotts (consumer strikes),
by<br>
> anti-materialist or "simple living" principles that
reduce<br>
> consumption levels (the equivalent of consumer
general strikes), by<br>
> shifting their consumption to alternative
institutions such as<br>
> coops, credit unions, and small local producers
(e.g. buying<br>
> veggies at the farmers' market rather than
Safeway), and very<br>
> importantly for _us_ as hackers/makers/etc., the
power to build<br>
> for our own use.<br>
<br>
> This is real power. It's the power that makes the
oligarchs quake<br>
> in their boots and have nightmares. And it's the
power that gives<br>
> the oligarchs strong incentive to keep us
distracted, digressed,<br>
> and disempowered by wasting our time trying to
organize a squirrel<br>
> strike.<br>
<br>
> -G.<br>
<br>
> _______________________________________________
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<br clear="all">
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
-steve
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
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