Carl Schmitt/Bill Barr

Tue Jan 21 02:04:04 UTC 2020

I loved Obama, but he was a wimp in this existential fight.  He was too
polite. That's why I don't want Biden.

On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 7:55 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>