States are symbolic, people are real.
The collective of people creates a symbolic entity (Not Real) called the State, which may or may not represent the entire collective. The people within the collective agree that they are to assume the obligation or burden of Rights for the members. Individuals will implement the Rights when required. That agreement between the members of the collective sustains the State or so it appears. At other times it seems fear drives the state into cohesion with variable results. Homogeneous beliefs seem to be required, hence all the effort into reeducating the masses(In fact most states are created by a small group and the rest of the collective has been duped or forced into agreement, hence the symbolic "People's Affirmation") ( Nevertheless, the lie was there at the very birth of the state. Now we inheritors of the duped are going to claim to have been partners in the experiment. Which deceit will stand "that the usurpers were speaking for all" , or "that the duped really knew what was happening to them") The state being purely symbolic has no arms legs or appetites of its own. States have no power by themselves. Yet the creators of the state have been transformed into mere objects enthralled enslaved by the state.(Citizens, Voters, Clients, Soldiers, but never the creators of the state.) Even the creators are becoming symbolic and we individuals are demoted continually as institutions need more authority to treat us as objects (TSA). We as individuals are the inheritors of the original collective agreement not some other worldly heroes of distant pasts. At this moment every citizen has inherited the same obligations and commitments as the original collective. But many accept the role assigned as an object to avoid bearing the burden of those ancient obligations. Willful self enslavement. We still expect the Rights to be delivered but are unwilling to act on the obligations. So we are turning ourselves into objects and everywhere we have others helping us metamorphose into simulacrums of real people. Perhaps what has happened lately is that the state apparatus (a minor collective of real people) has suborned the Symbol and has replaced the original mandates with its own (Violence is not required, the symbol remains unchanged but the meaning or contract is altered through design). Hence the need for the minor collective to preserve secrecy but rationalized as a need of the State. The major collective is unaware of the usurpation of the symbol for other purposes. Therefore democracy as with justice has become purely symbolic and no amount of revolution in the symbolic realm can change the real structure behind the symbols. Which is protected by secrecy. All the provisions within the original collective agreement have evolved away from reality into symbolic states. Money for instance. ( It has benefits but also detrimental affects as in the case of Health Care or Justice) This seems to be what some have called the Post Political era. The consequence of PoMo which annihilated the distinguishing features of symbolism and reality. Populism is a reaction to the hollowing out of the contract, however anger is not a plan. Rage does not build schools. Rather than play in a symbolic sandbox called democracy we need to find a means to renegotiate our collective agreements and stop accepting empty rhetoric as substance. We need a real democracy not a symbolic fabrication. It has been years since I have seen a legitimate election; Haiti and Ivory Coast are farces. No wonder many in the developing world mock the American initiative to support symbolic democracy. This situation can be reversed with no need for blood shed. We only need to re-establish our presence as real people, Human beings. We must Our innate gullibility makes us all victims of others. They have become so reliant on secrecy that they themselves have forgotten the truth and that results in serious errors for everyone (2008 Crash) We need to abandon scapegoats and symbolic realities. The entire structure of our institutions are based on deceits going back centuries in some cases. The foundation of many states is based on some historic atrocity. The symbolic state requires the peculiar amnesia about that crime and the question may arise that the original secret reality is the cause of the state's own collapse. As far as I am aware only one current state acknowledges the crimes of the past and that is Germany. I may be wrong here but for some reason we have never attempted using honesty historically and the result seems to be a legacy of turmoil. On another related note, Assange's charges are the most peculiar renditions of rape I have ever heard described. A broken prophylactic seems to be the sole supporting claim. There was consent, no violence, no coercion, the act was agreeable to both parties and only in retrospect was the charge of rape adopted almost as a reprisal for an obvious accident. I was always under the impression that rape as defined by law must be based on one party taking away the other party's freedom of choice by some means(Drugs, threats , force, deception?). Oh in the second case it appears that both parties were in a state of sleep when it happened!. Additionally both women were in communication for some period before making formal charges(Appears as collusion or conspiracy) ( I can see why the charges were dropped the first time, accidents, stupidity and unconsciousness are slim bases for charges) Perhaps a charge of negligence ( or stupidity, public mischief) could be leveled at all parties and we be done with the matter. Heaven forbid we start filling jails with stupid people. Please add any legal opinions on such a situation. Both women invited Assange into their homes and later had regrets which they needed to parade before the world as they sincerely claimed to be victims not in any way responsible for their own decisions. I have a philosophical problem with this scenario, as a pro-feminist, equality always implied that responsibility was equal as well. How can two entities be equal under the law if one is never responsible for its actions and decisions? (Hence we accept that children are not equal to adults) ( ( Is this symbolic Justice or Greek Comedy ?) End the stupidity of secrecy, let us start acting like grown ups for a change. It seems conclusive to me that most conspiracy theories can be attributed to Gross Stupidity and the Secrecy imparts an air of reasoning where none exists. ( We refuse to believe some affairs are complete and utter nonsense, hence all the sightings of Jesus in concrete stains. Our brains impart patterns where none exists) How much effort is expended to reveal that some agency was incompetent or stupid (Air India, Lockerbie Bombing). The agents within our states depend upon the delusion that we believe they are smarter than us (They are professionals we are the helots). Let us begin by cleaning the house. Most men would prefer to dispense with all the nonsense given a choice. Housecleaning as a populist revolutionary political movement just requires some PR work. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the states but the unelected rats have to controlled. Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky Ph.D.(Civil Eng.), M.Sc.(Mech.Eng.), M.Sc.(Biology) 120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd. Winnipeg, Manitoba CANADA R2J 3R2 (204) 2548321 Phone/Fax <mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca> vbur...@shaw.ca -----Original Message----- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of James Steiner Sent: December 7, 2010 8:21 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Privacy, Individual vs. Collective It's my belief that individual privacy is entirely NOT the same as government classification (as secret, top secret, etc) of information. Governments do NOT have a "right of privacy". Our government is supposed to be "by, of, and for" the people. It's use of secrecy is appropriate (and should be protected) when that secrecy serves to protect those people, not when it serves to protect the individuals who do the classifying (or those they serve) from embarrassment or legal prosecution. Such uses are (and I'm pretty sure this is not just my opinion), illegal. We all kind of "knew" that classification has been used this way. We all hear or see or read anecdotes. Well, the Irag war papers proved it. As have all the subsequent leaks. I think that until the government and all its agents demonstrate that they can use the tool of keeping secrets correctly, that they should not be allowed to keep secrets. Wikileaks has done the American People a great service. Now I hope that they (we) are smart enough, and outraged enough, to move to fix what's broken. (IMHO, that's congress / campaign finance / influence peddling). ~~James www.turtlezero.com On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 4:41 PM, Jochen Fromm <j...@cas-group.net> wrote: In the age of social media and social networks privacy has become an issue of intense debate. Privacy means an individual has the right to be secure from unauthorized disclosure of information about oneself. Now if a state has "state secrets", is this fundamentally different from privacy issues for the individual (only for the state)? Should a state in a democracy have any real secrets at all? And if the state has the right to prevent invasion of privacy, shouldn't the individual have the same right, too? It is clearly evil what Wikileaks has done recently, they went to far this time. But too much censorship and secrecy is not a good idea, either (as the "top secret america" investigation from the Washington Post showed). What do you think? -J.
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