Metal Reviews

Protectionist measures taken during the New Deal did prolong the depression a tad, but the rest of the New Deal is basically ironclad.

Hey, that rhymes.

She's just one example, but sure she is. Religion doesn't need anything to do with it. When Ted Kennedy dies from his brain tumour, no doubt she will be among the first on national tv saying how glad she is he's dead, much like Hitchens was with Jerry Falwell. I also remember her talking about how godawful FDR was.

She also, iirc, is frequently on about how great McCarthyism was, which is pretty iconoclastic given that we near-universally accept that it was a bad thing nowadays.

You're probably right that she doesn't single out people we consider sweet old ladies a la Hitchens and Mother Theresa, but all these polemicists are looking for people and concepts that they can present as being the "conventional wisdom", and then consciously place themselves outside of it. You might even say that was the entire basis of the modern conservative movement in the US. They depend on this image of the "liberal elite" that they can rail against, which turns them into iconoclasts, which is an attractive thing to be in politics.

Keynesianism it is quite easy to argue was deeply flawed. If it wasn't, why did it collapse? IMO Keynes tried to reconcile things which cannot be reconciled (i.e. labour and capital) But that's another topic.

You're making out like there is an objective answer to the situation in Iraq, if only we could work out what it is. But there really isn't, IMO. Look at the question of paramilitary attacks on coalition troops. There are plenty of rational people that support them. If your country was occupied by a foreign military power, wouldn't you condone or at least sympathise slightly with the use of violence against them? There are others that would no doubt want those people strung up for treason.

The question of whether you condone or support Iraqi resistance is not empirically understandable; it is a moral one depending not on utilitarian objectivity but moral interpretation. And surely ideology is morals translated into politics.

Hails.

We simply cannot know enough objectively or quantitatively to say for sure what caused, prolonged, or solved the Great Depression. Until we can, our own belief systems interpret what we do understand of it through our own lens.

Whilst Keynes was probably not an "ideologue" as we might call it, the people that implemented his ideas (i.e. the architects of the New Deal) were, IMO working to preserve capitalism rather than pragmatically improve it. Keynesian liberalism (the welfare state, joint regulation etc.) was the only way of defusing revolutionary/socialistic pressure from below (and yes, even the USA had this at the time) whilst preserving a paternalist, capitalist system.

Dammit, you win again. On Iraq.

As for Coulter, all I can say is "that's not iconoclasm, that's fucking retarded". She can't back up what she's being "iconoclastic" about. At least Hitchens can make a pretty good case against Mother Theresa on the angle he approaches it from. Coulter can't back up any of those positions.

What is his case against Mother Theresa, exactly, something about how she tried to convert the people in her care to Christianity?

woohoo hehe

Well, yeah, I agree with the second paragraph myself. But IMO the fact remains that presenting yourself as an "iconoclast" is relatively easily done, and a good vote winner/book seller. I don't necessarily think that it alone is something worthy of praise.

But yeah, sometimes Hitchens is very cool, sometimes he's an arse.

I haven't finished his book on her, but from as far as I got it's a) that she uses her moral superiority to promote her extremely harsh religion, b) that her programs aren't as good as her organization shows them to be, and c) that she's constantly fraternizing with cult figures and various "evil" figures

Hitchens is the more entertaining of the "new atheists", although I find Harris to be the better arguer. Probably his background in philosophy

tbh I forgot what 'iconoclast' meant exactly, thought it had to do explicitly with religion.

I like Nietzsche the best.

if there is one thing I detest about the black metal 'elites' and their shitty bands. Is how much they abuse his philosophy and claim it to be their own, when in reality they are the same very herd he spent his short time on earth hating. The man was something else we owe a lot to him in this day in age.
He is living proof that the mind has his limitations, I mean the questions he had to answer before his death and his revaluation of morality are something no mortal can possibly answer.

I might agree with you on that. Black metal rarely displays the true individualism it usually touts. WIITR, DsO, and Peste Noire might be examples of Nietzschean qualities, certainly.

I personally question his genealogical analysis yet I can definitely respect it. When you look at the re-evaluation not simply about ethics but about shifting phil. from finding truth to who controls or posits truth, Nietzsche quickly appears as one of the top 5 alongside Plato, Kant and Hume easily. [/quote]

Utter bellends.

PETA have just asked Pet Shop Boys to change their name

Fuck Peta. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0exLa6saV9o

Oh man... That holocaust bit was horrible.

Rest of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqlF2rvc ... re=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsMjgnLx ... re=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgZ0dSiT ... re=channel

i don't agree with PETA but that video didn't really give any good arguments against them.

That they're hypocrites, sponsor terrorist organizations, decrease the value of human life, and mistreat the animals they claim to save anyway, and that the claim of being "ethical" is entirely relative and complete bullshit.