Carl Schmitt/Bill Barr

[David Morris]

Start with Moscow Mitch.  He horriblly corrupted the Senate before Trump
was elected (Garland).  We really REALLY need to flip the Senate.

David Morris

On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 7:47 PM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Howdy
>
> I wasnt so much concerned about the Schmitt angle but the danger Barr
> currently represents, this shining corrupt irrationality. That is what I
> find depressing
>
> rich
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 6:47 AM Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > Right, Carl Schmitt, whose importance for the Third Reich usually gets
> > exaggerated like it is the case in this article (we can, of course,
> discuss
> > the issue, but only if you know Schmitt's biography & work in detail,
> > otherwise I'm not interested), was an asshole & an antisemite.
> Doubtlessly
> > an unsympathetic human being. That said, he was also an important legal &
> > political theorist of the 20th century. Schmitt rarely gives good
> answers,
> > but he always asks the right questions. Furthermore, his books are, as
> > Heiner Müller once put it in an interview, "stage productions":
> Thoroughly
> > composed & concisely unfolded. Actually there are a lot of authors in the
> > wide field of social theory I "spen(t) altogether too much time" with,
> but
> > Schmitt is definitely not among them ...
> >
> > + ... Just as Carl Schmitt’s identification of parliamentary democracy’s
> > weaknesses in the 1920s (...) had a basis that was quite independent of
> the
> > cult of Hitler ... +
> >
> > THIS is correct. Have a look! Or don't ...
> >
> > The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (orig. 1923):
> >
> > "Great political and economic decisions on which the fate of mankind
> rests
> > no longer result today (if they ever did) from balancing opinions in
> public
> > debate and counterdebate. Such decisions are no longer the outcome of
> > parliamentary debate. The participation of popular representatives in the
> > government - parliamentary government - has proven the most effective
> means
> > of abolishing the division of powers, and with it the old concept of
> > parliamentarism. As things stand today, it is of course practically
> > impossible not to work with committees, and increasingly smaller
> > committees; in this way the parliamentary plenum gradually drifts away
> from
> > its purpose (that is, from its public), and as a result it necessarily
> > becomes a mere facade. It may be that there is no other practical
> > alternative. But one must then have at least enough awareness of the
> > historical situation to see that parliamentarism thus abandons its
> > intellectual foundation and that the whole system of freedom of speech,
> > assembly, and the press, of public meetings, parliamentary immunities and
> > privileges, is losing its rationale. Small and exclusive committees of
> > parties or of party coalitions make their decisions behind closed doors,
> > and what representatives of the big capitalist interest groups agree to
> in
> > the smallest committees is more important for the fate of millions of
> > people, perhaps, than any political decision. The idea of modern
> > parliamentarism, the demand for checks, and the believe in openness and
> > publicity were born in the struggle against the secret politics of
> absolute
> > princes. The popular sense of freedom and justice was outraged by arcane
> > practices that decided the fate of nations in secret resolutions. But how
> > harmless and idyllic are the objects of cabinet politics in the
> seventeenth
> > and eighteenth centuries compared with the fate that is at stake today
> and
> > which is the subject of all manner of secrets. In the face of this
> reality,
> > the belief in a discussing public must suffer a terrible disillusionment.
> > There are certainly not many people today who want to renounce the old
> > liberal freedoms, particularly freedom of speech and the press. But on
> the
> > European continent there are not many more who believe that these
> freedoms
> > still exist where they could actually endanger the real holders of power.
> > And the smallest number still believe that just laws and the right
> politics
> > can be achieved through newspaper articles, speeches at demonstrations,
> and
> > parliamentary debates. But that is the very belief in parliament. If in
> the
> > actual circumstances of parliamentary business, openness and discussion
> > have become an empty and trivial formality, then parliament, as it
> > developed in the nineteenth century, has also lost its previous
> foundation
> > and its meaning." (pp. 49-50)
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.untag-smd.ac.id/files/Perpustakaan_Digital_1/DEMOCRACY%20The%20Crisis%20of%20Paliamentary%20Democracy.pdf
> >
> >
> > Am 19.01.20 um 02:28 schrieb rich:
> >
> > makes for rather depressing reading
> >
> https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/01/15/william-barr-the-carl-schmitt-of-our-time/
> >
> > US Attorney General William Barr’s defense of unchecked executive
> authority
> > in his recent speech to the Federalist Society had an unpleasant
> > familiarity for me. It took me back to a time in my life—during the late
> > 1990s, as a graduate student in England, and the early 2000s, teaching
> > political theory in the politics department at Princeton University—when
> I
> > seemed to spend altogether too much time arguing over the ideas of a Nazi
> > legal theorist notorious as the “crown jurist” of the Third Reich.
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> >
> >
> --
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>