Merry Christmas for a friend

Merry Christmas!Nollaig Shona Dhuit!Kellemes Karácsonyi Ünnepeket!Joyeux Noël!Feliz Navidad!Buone Feste Natalizie!Fröhliche Weihnachten!Ajmel altehani bemonasebt almīlad wa helol alseneh aljedīdah!I’d Miilad Said Oua Sana Saida!Krismas ki subhkamna!

Though we do not travel the same path
May those warm and bright lights
Guide us all along our journey home
To the same old house of our greater soul
(X-mas day, 2007)

On the ideology of neoliberalism

Like communism, neoliberalism too, promotes its own utopia, an idealized classless society where every human being has equivalent capacity to become enterpreneur , and where there is a level playing field on which individuals compete in line with the logic of market rationality. Neoliberalism -- which market fundamentalists such as Margaret Thacher, and the late Daniel Singer, among others, memorialized as TINA, There Is No Alternative (to "market dictatorship") -- conceals a moral standard which is inherently tainted by victim-blaming ideology; its social compassion (if any) for the poverty-related human suffering is never free from smug questions such as: Why don't they try hard enough to participate in the market? Why wouldn't they learn the logic of the free market ? Why should we be expected to pay for their failures and suffering? (December, 23, 2007)

Jakarta under neoliberalism

Excerpt from Paul Treanor http://web.inter.nl.net/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism
. . . as you would expect from a complete philosophy, neoliberalism has answers to stereotypical philosophical questions such as "Why are we here" and "What should I do": We are here for the market, and you should compete. Neo-liberals tend to believe that human exist for the market -- not the other way around: certainly in the sense that it is good to participate in the market, anf that those who do not participate have failed in some ways.

In personal ethics, the general neo-liberal vision is that every human being is an entrepreneur managing their own life, and should act as such

. . . then a world will come into existence in which not just goods and services, but all human and social life, is the product of conformiy to market forces . . .

http://picasaweb.google.com/dedynhidayat

On God and Jokes

God is a comedian artist who sits back after the day of creation. All God does now is "paring his fingernails" (thanks to James Joyce), watch us, and kill us when we stop joking. For that very reason, we must never, ever stop joking, everyday, even on holidays too, till the day we die. Yet, do not ever run nor hide from God, and become atheists -- 'cause atheists have less holidays ... (December 1, 2007)

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh (Voltaire)

On Presidential Candidate

Today is an era in which every Presidential candidate declares unconditional war against the greatest of evils and the the worst of crimes: poverty.

Yet, make peace with neoliberalism seems to be high on the agenda of every newly elected President during the first days in the office.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dedynhidayat/TheFutureInBlackWhite

On Political Jokes

Breaking News:

SBY Postpones Thinking about Economic Development until 2009.

Unofficial Borrowitz Report, Nov. 27, 2007: Saying that it was too early to assess whether the nation's economic condition is improving, President SBY said today he and all of his economic team would postpone thinking about economic development until 2009 after his reelection.

Political jokes is society protecting itself against the insanity of politics and politicians

On Trusting

Never trust
any philosophy which is too grave to laugh,
any ideology which is too proud to weep,
any religious faith which does not bow before humanity
( . . . with an apology to James Joyce)

On Remembering the Past

Let today embrace the past
with remembrance,
for the struggle of society against the evil of power
is the struggle of memory against forgetting . . .

On Market Fundamentalism

Market fundamentalists believe that "the market" is the best guiding instrument by which society should allocate its scarce economic resources and organize their economic lives to achieve a state of never-ending economic growth. "Market is God and economic growth is gospel . . . therefore leave things to the market"
Those fundamentalists always argue that "the market" is simply out there -- outside society, outside history, neutral in front of any power interests`. It's a natural and inevitable social fact which can be called as objective mechanism to allocate society's economic resources

The question is: Where did "the market" come from?

Market fundamentalists simply ignore the fact that "market" is socially constructed.
Yes, "market" is always a social construction, in the sense that its construction involves interactions and interplay among various social groupings which is characterized by assymetris of power and resources distribution. As long as they do not have equal power or economic footings, their interaction and interplay will take place in an "unlevel playing field", and the socially constructed market will represent the interest of the dominant group.

. . .

Market fundamentalists fail to see any correlation between neoliberal free market
and poverty, human misery, and "natural" disasters.
If they acknowledge the link between neoliberal market and poverty, they tend
to explain that it's because we are "not free market enough".